Cool Geeky Software Tool
We're kicking it into high gear in preparation for the 2009 NCEMSF conference this coming weekend. As VP and Chief Technology Officer of the Foundation, I am responsible for the computing needs of the conference. Over the last year I've amassed a cache of hardware that should make this year's conference easier than ever to manage (we hope).
Two years ago we introduced the use of proximity RFID readers to keep track of attendance at the lectures. Each conference attendee was issued an RFID tag that uniquely identified them. Upon entering a lecture, the attendee "badged" in.
Last year we added LCD screens to the RFID readers to display the name of the current session. It also displayed the name of the person swiping in, but the updating of the LCD screens with the name was the slow step of the process. The process also relied upon a reliable connection back to the "mother ship" for verification of the name. As it turned out, the connection from some of the far workstations was not reliable. Additionally, the virtual serial port for the LCD screen in conjunction with the Visual Basic 6 code I wrote was just too slow.
This year we are using essentially the same RFID hardware, but each workstation will be standalone. No need to talk to the mother ship this year. Plus, instead of renting laptops and rushing to install the software the day of the conference, we have invested in a set of seven small form factor (SFF) PCs. These PCs will be solely dedicated to running the RFID stations, and will be operated without monitors.
So the challenge was setting up the seven SFF PCs identically. That's where the cool geeky software tool that I mentioned in the title of this article comes into place. I had initially evaluated Snap Deploy 3 from Acronis. It turned out to be a bit overkill for our situation even though the price was very reasonable at $19.99.
After scratching my head at the complexity of feature-rich Snap Deploy 3, I stumbled upon Clonezilla, which is free. It's produced by National Center for High-Performance Computing, which is located in Hsinchu, Taiwan. I opted for the "one at a time" copying method, but Clonezilla also offers a multicast mode that they claim can replicate a 5.6 GB disk image to 40 PCs simultaneously in about 10 minutes. My experience with the unicast version is similar: 4 GB disk image in about 7 minutes over a gigabit Ethernet switch.
Two years ago we introduced the use of proximity RFID readers to keep track of attendance at the lectures. Each conference attendee was issued an RFID tag that uniquely identified them. Upon entering a lecture, the attendee "badged" in.
Last year we added LCD screens to the RFID readers to display the name of the current session. It also displayed the name of the person swiping in, but the updating of the LCD screens with the name was the slow step of the process. The process also relied upon a reliable connection back to the "mother ship" for verification of the name. As it turned out, the connection from some of the far workstations was not reliable. Additionally, the virtual serial port for the LCD screen in conjunction with the Visual Basic 6 code I wrote was just too slow.
This year we are using essentially the same RFID hardware, but each workstation will be standalone. No need to talk to the mother ship this year. Plus, instead of renting laptops and rushing to install the software the day of the conference, we have invested in a set of seven small form factor (SFF) PCs. These PCs will be solely dedicated to running the RFID stations, and will be operated without monitors.
So the challenge was setting up the seven SFF PCs identically. That's where the cool geeky software tool that I mentioned in the title of this article comes into place. I had initially evaluated Snap Deploy 3 from Acronis. It turned out to be a bit overkill for our situation even though the price was very reasonable at $19.99.
After scratching my head at the complexity of feature-rich Snap Deploy 3, I stumbled upon Clonezilla, which is free. It's produced by National Center for High-Performance Computing, which is located in Hsinchu, Taiwan. I opted for the "one at a time" copying method, but Clonezilla also offers a multicast mode that they claim can replicate a 5.6 GB disk image to 40 PCs simultaneously in about 10 minutes. My experience with the unicast version is similar: 4 GB disk image in about 7 minutes over a gigabit Ethernet switch.
posted by Scott C. Savett at
9:27 PM
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