User's Manual

Introduction 9
Introduction
The Dell™ OpenManage™ Deployment Toolkit (DTK) includes a set of utilities for configuring and
deploying Dell PowerEdge™ systems. The DTK is designed for customers who need to build
scripted installations to deploy large numbers of servers in a reliable fashion without having to
dramatically change their current deployment processes.
In addition to the command line utilities used to configure various system features, the DTK also
provides sample scripts and configuration files to perform common deployment tasks and
documentation. These files and scripts describe the use of DTK in Microsoft
®
Windows
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Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) and embedded Linux environments.
The benefits of the DTK:
• Provides the tools necessary to automate the pre-operating system configuration tasks and the
unattended operating system installation tasks when deploying PowerEdge systems.
• Scales to support from one to many system deployment efforts.
• Facilitates consistent system configurations across multiple systems.
• Provides diverse and useful deployment tools that can be utilized in many different ways.
Introduction to the DTK User’s Guide
While the DTK is designed to be flexible and expandable, this guide is limited to providing general,
best practices procedures that focus on the basic tasks for a successful deployment. Users might find
many alternative solutions to the best practices guidelines described in this guide and many
additional uses for the DTK utilities beyond what is covered in this guide or in the Dell OpenManage
Deployment Toolkit CLI Reference Guide.
NOTICE: The best practices guidelines described in this document were developed and tested on specific
systems with specific hardware and software configurations. As a result, the examples and instructions
described in this guide are not applicable to every environment. The open nature of the DTK utilities and
scripting methodology is designed to allow the flexibility to modify the examples, procedures, and suggestions
to best fit your specific environment. Using the DTK examples without first making modifications based on
your specific IT environment is likely to result in failed deployments.
Information in this guide is distinctly divided for Windows PE and embedded Linux. Even though
the nature of topics covered for both environments is similar, the contents are very different, and has
been organized into separate sections. This will enable the user to read only those sections that are
relevant. Content in this User’s Guide is organized as documented in Table 1-1.