UIU Blog

Thank you for joining us for the conclusion to this 4-part series on Product Lifecycle Management. If you haven't read Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3, make sure to do so before reading this final piece.

End-of-Life Management (PLM Step 9)

End-of-Life management involves more than just disposing of old hardware. This phase also entails selling or reallocating equipment, re-imaging PCs and providing follow-on support for a different employee. If an existing PC is going to be reallocated, it must be completely scrubbed and re-imaged as it re-enters the beginning of another cycle.

At this stage, End-of-Life management mirrors Acquisition and Procurement in many ways. The outgoing hardware will often differ significantly. If not a physical OEM difference, then a component difference, all requiring a different PC image. All the disparities in hardware (Plug and Play IDs) require different drivers, invariably re-creating the same situation for IT that had been present at the Acquisition and Procurement phase.

Product Lifecycle Management Summary
There is a clear and concurrent theme when assessing the foundation of each phase of Product Lifecycle Management; the quality, maintenance, and deployment of PC images. During the first phase of Acquisition and Procurement, PC imaging difficulties can make purchasing new hardware frustrating, often creating a dependence on one manufacturer and concerns about the difficulty of future purchase and maintenance. Most importantly, setup and deployment of PC images causes countless hours of IT labor to address individual hardware and platform needs.

Operations and Maintenance presents support call and software/hardware upgrade issues often requiring re-imaging. Disaster Recovery is also a consideration within this phase. The requirement of new PC images, and how quickly and effectively they are deployed, determines how quickly an environment can be set up to allow expedited continuity of business.

Finally, End-of-Life management requires that old machines be sanitized or re-imaged for reallocation which mirrors Acquisition and Procurement in many ways. If PC Imaging was not properly done in the beginning of the PLM, the same problems will need to be addressed at the conclusion of the lifecycle.

Now, there are many steps of each particular section of Product Lifecycle Management that have not been addressed, and there are any extraneous facets of each section required for the successful  implementation and execution within an environment. But the basis of each fundamental step, and the foundation of any successful environment, is the quality, maintenance and deployment of a PC Image.

The function of a Windows PC image defines its importance-Operating System. If the foundation of the system on which you operate is not maximally efficient, then every individual step along your environment's Product Lifecycle will suffer. It may even, as illustrated previously, lead your IT department to expend countless hours fixing the same problem at multiple points along the way instead of addressing more proactive business initiatives.

The ONE Solution
The Universal Imaging Utility (UIU) makes the foundation of your environment rock-solid, allowing you to save countless hours of IT support in the most important aspects of PLM. You may now secure multiple quotes to purchase hardware from the manufacturer that most appropriately suits your current needs and budget. Purchasing machines from one manufacturer for the sake of imaging issues need no longer be a consideration. Upgrading hardware and software is a simple process with the UIU. All the individual business-class drivers are handled by the UIU allowing you to upgrade your workstations at any time.

The same holds true for security and compliance. Maintaining only one Universal Image allows you to have the most effective image ready to go whenever necessary, complete with all service packs, security, Anti-virus and business application updates from Microsoft. Enterprise and Corporate Policy, as well as industry or government (FDCC, ISO, HIPAA, etc.) compliance are easy to stay on top of with only one Universal Image.

Even Disaster Recovery is expedited with the UIU. You are able to have a fully functioning, Universal Image that can be easily deployed to your new or temporary environment, allowing you to maintain business continuity and reduce downtime. And finally, managing End-of-Lifecycle offers the same ease of reallocation as the initial Acquisition and Procurement.

The Universal Imaging Utility is the only software that allows you to create one hardware-independent Universal hard drive Image that can be easily deployed to any desktop or laptop machine in your environment. Used in conjunction with your existing cloning software (Symantec Ghost™, Altiris®, Acronis®), the UIU also automatically helps build the Microsoft® Sysprep answer file for you, and launches Sysprep to keep you compliant with Microsoft® disk imaging requirements. The UIU detects and installs the appropriate HAL after image deployment eliminating the problems associated with the differences between ACPI, UniProcessor and MultiProcessor PCs.

New to version 4.7 of the UIU is an advanced Discovery Tool allowing you to fully assess the individual components of your environment prior to image creation and deployment. In addition, the UIU contains a driver and plug and play ID catalogue of over 40,000 different components allowing automatic deployment regardless of machine or hardware type. With a newly designed user interface, the UIU is even easier to use than ever. The UIU is designed for one reason, to help IT departments around the world create solid, efficient foundations on which their companies can operate.

The proverbial phrase, Time is Money has never been more poignant than in the current economic climate. The Universal Imaging Utility is the only product of its kind to allow you to create, maintain and deploy one hardware-independent Universal Image to any machine across your entire environment. The UIU will save you time-the UIU will save you money, creating a fundamentally founded and efficient environment.