Standard Builds

Standard builds (a key component of ‘Standard Platforms’) have two basic advantages:

• Stability
• Reduced Support Cost

Microsoft environments can be regarded as ‘unstable’ – with blue screens occurring at inopportune moments and requiring extensive support teams at all locations.

Our view is different. Machines are destabilised because users play with them – sometimes inadvertently by installing new applications that change the underlying configuration. Would you expect your car to work perfectly if you started adjusting bits of the engine by hand? We provide a layered approach and an application deployment methodology that allows us to add new things to your box without breaking it.

The high support costs are a consequence of the variety of machines and configurations. If you can approach a standard build then the support costs go down.

Stability

The ‘base’ build is known to work. The stability is maintained by being careful when installing applications (often machines are de-stabilised because a new application has been introduced that changes some of the base operating system components).

The ‘rules’ of COM were designed to allow incremental updates to shared components in the operating system. However, not all applications developers understood or respected the rules. Historically, the installation process simply installed the components it required using packages such as InstallShield, SMS and MSI (Microsoft Installer - Microsoft's latest attempt to address the application installation issue).

A standard platform does not require all machines to be identical – simply that the base operating systems and the applications layered on top are consistent.

Reduced Support Cost

If you begin to get problems on a machine then you should (in theory) get the same problem with all machines of that build. There’s no need to have elite (and expensive) support teams at all locations. A single team at head office can replicate and fix problems arising from any location.

A Standard Platform often includes an ‘unattended install’ process. Once the build is started there’s no reason to have an expensive support resource sitting in front of the machine answering questions or inserting CD ROMs for the rest of the afternoon. Typically Standard Build are significantly quicker to install than hand built machines.

If a machine suffers hardware failure then rebuild it. The user can be up and running again within the hour.