Problem: the ZCM published applications visible in the Application Launcher, in the Start menu, on the Desktop stop functioning while the Agent upgrade process starts. As the upgrade of the agents takes some time, my involve a reboot, or may even fail, then the user looses important functionality to start business critical applications at that time.
Solution:
I suggest as part of the agent upgrade process we put up a temporarily 'Simple Application Launcher' and/or replace the ZCM applications objects in Start/Desktop/Quick Launch (so far whatever is possible) and put a 'simple' .lnk file in place to those core applications a user needs to do its job. This simple NAL must be independent of the agents so it can easily be removed by the agent process after upgrade. After this we can hide the nor ZCM application object temp for the user and start upgrading the agent. In ZCC we could add a checkbox 'Available during maintenance' to an Application Bundle so we can provide an additional 'Simple path' to launch the application and an ability for the ZCMagent to create a cache upfront containing those .lnk objects. Like for the Application Launcher those .nlk files could just be all in the <zenworks path>\SimpleNAL folder structure and a NAL screen just shows the structure of this folder.
by: Sebastiaan V. | over a year ago | Application Mgmt
Comments
I don't know if this is already a feature of the new ZEUS?
If not I agree.
Regarding the NAL functioning while upgrading: it is just for -launching- applications like GroupWise, Office and others. So no fancy ZCM bundel stuff needed at this point.
What we most often do as part of putting the ZCM application object in the Start menu/NAL is remove the default application objects the installer had put in so we force users to use the ZCM objects. Of course those get unusable at the point of upgrade. To continue the user expirience the same way, I would unload the NAL on upgrade and put up a ‘Simple NAL’ at this point that just contains application links (Windows .lnk files) to start those applications. Same for the start menu, we have to create a folder structure with those .lnk files for the user to be able to start the applications. Result is for the user teh folder may look different, but has the same name with (near) the same applications.
We could show a short message in the NAL, like ‘an upgrade is in progress and the NAL function is limited at this point’.
Did some tests and I think what would work is:
My NAL/Start Menu structure for applications could be like
* General (For like Office, Mail, Explorer and Browser links)
* Support (For support and ICT applications)
* Install (For installations)
For the applications I have decided that still need to be available for the user while teh ZCM agent is running I/ZCM has to create Windows shorcuts (.lnk).
We could pu these in <ZENWORKS PATH>\SimpleNAL, so the structure would be like
<ZENWORKS PATH>\SimpleNAL\General (contianing .lnk files to Office, LibreOffice, IE, FireFox, etc
<ZENWORKS PATH>\SimpleNAL\Support (contianing .lnk files to my ict and support applications)
<ZENWORKS PATH>\SimpleNAL\.... (as 'Install' needs ZCM bundle complexity these are not available at this point)
Now just before the ZCMagent upgrade starts a Simple NAL is launched (which could basicly to Explorer window opening <ZENWORKS PATH>\SimpleNAL\) and the beneath folder structure with links is visible to the user. Also we could (optionally) copy/link <ZENWORKS PATH>\SimpleNAL\* entries to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\.
After the ZCMagent upgrade we remove the copied/linked enties to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\ and unload the SimpleNAL window. After this the normal ZCMagent bundles popup in the Start Menu and the Application Lauched is loaded.
The Folder objects in <ZENWORKS PATH>\SimpleNAL\ need to have the same icon as the normal ZCM folders so users do recognize those (point to .ico file).
Think ZEUS would need to provide this capability. If it as a start would be able to provide starting/stopping the Simple NAL concept (application browser if you like) from the path <ZENWORKS PATH>\SimpleNAL\
That would not need any enhancements to exiting bundle capabilities in ZCC as we can use exiting Office/GroupWise/ etc install bundles to put in a .lnk file in <ZENWORKS PATH>\SimpleNAL\General as part if the deployment to a device.
ZEUS would need and SimpleNAL.exe only showing the <ZENWORKS PATH>\SimpleNAL\ structure like the ZCMAgent NAL does.
I like this proposed idea better: https://www1.v1ideas.com/MFI/novell-zcm/Idea/Detail/673
Basically, ZCM continues to run. The new version is installed to a new location. Bundles continue to work. When the user reboots, the old agent is removed and user uses the new agent upon login.
While I love the idea of having a fully operating client at upgrade time suggested at https://www1.v1ideas.com/MFI/novell-zcm/Idea/Detail/673, this probably is a lot of work to implement. Sure the ZCM team has played with that idea but decided at the time not to do that. So, as a trade off to 'not having it all' my idea was to have a acceptable solution which is relatively easy to implement using the current code base.
Zen for desktops 4 had an option to make an icon available offline. Would be nice to add that back into 11 and use while the agent upgrade is taking place. We prohibit our users from accessing the regular start menu and creating .lnk files on their desktop.
We try to schedule our agent upgrades for after hours. Otherwise our users keep rebooting the computer during the upgrade. They just don't understand why they can't launch their icons. This is with us sending out notices ahead of time. So finding a way to make the upgrade process seamless for the end user would be ideal.
https://ideas.microfocus.com/MFI/novell-zcm/Idea/Detail/1173
Another proposed agent upgrade idea.