![]() Having a loadable image for all or part of the data involved makes disaster recovery easier. SmartDeploy takes a different approach, cloning to a virtual machine it creates on the target system, which allows a platform-independent ghosting process. Microsoft and Apple provide tools for creating clones that are a mixture of an image manager and a ghosting tool. Cloud imaging tools fulfill a similar function within a cloud's cluster, but are limited to the specific cloud type. In addition, OpenStack cloud software and major cloud service providers maintain image cloning tools and libraries. Open source tools such as Clonezilla, dd and Partimage.Acronis True Image, targeting the Windows market.Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 3.2, released in 2017, includes disk image capture and deployment Windows, Apple and Linux support a streamlined, no-cost database option for small environments and XFS file system support.Īlternatives to Symantec Ghost imaging software include: Examples of ghost imaging software and alternatives Ghost could either save the image as a file on another drive, or transfer the image to another hard drive, making the new drive an exact copy of the old drive. acquired the backup and disk cloning technology in 1998 and integrated it into its Norton product line, now called the Symantec Ghost Solution Suite.Īt the time, Ghost was the only easily available product that could take an image of an entire hard drive. New Zealand entrepreneur Murray Haszard developed "ghost," an acronym for "general hardware-oriented system transfer," in the mid-1990s. For example, Microsoft does not support image-based cloning of installed Windows systems. If an organization has many different target-system types, creating and managing images is difficult. Images are tied tightly to one hardware platform. ![]() When the new image replaces the OS on the destination, local user data or customization is lost. Ghosting can save hours of setup time compared with loading programs from scratch, and it reduces errors in the process. ![]() High-performance computing setups use ghosting to create images across hundreds or thousands of servers. A cloud cluster will likely only use the imaging tools that are part of the cloud software stack. For example, a data center supporting many mobile devices and desktops will need a tool focused on updating mobiles in batches, as well as individual restores. There are different types of ghost images, depending on use case. Ghost imaging is much faster than installing each machine separately, especially if it involves installing many applications. Then, all the other machines have that image applied, followed by a customization process that gives the installed OS its own identity. A master machine is built, and its hard disk is imaged to a file. Ghost imaging tools can make hundreds of PCs as exact copies. A typical cloning setup has a number of alternative images in a library. The ghost image is often compressed to save space and speed up transfers to the target system, and it may be encrypted for security. That image allows quick installation of a new copy. Ghost imaging usually creates a disk image of the software on a computer, including systems settings and details. It enables migration from one disk or PC to another, for example, to transfer from a hard disk to a solid-state drive. ![]() Ghost imaging is often used to quickly set up blocks of notebooks, tablets or servers. The purpose of the ghost image is to allow the cloning of the system onto other systems, or to enable a quick restore of a system. On personal computers (PCs), ghost imaging is used to back up everything on the hard disk, often while reinstalling an operating system (OS). The software also converts a ghost image back to its original form when needed. The ghost image copies the entire contents to another server or hard disk for storage, including configuration information and applications. Ghost imaging, often called cloning, is a software-driven data backup process that copies the contents of a computer hard disk in a single compressed file or set of files, referred to as an image.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |