Thoughtful Problem #5: Cloning or Imaging

You have been hired as a technology director for a school district that uses an operating system that is not your main area of expertise. Research the topic "imaging" or "cloning" to see how you might rapidly clone a new shipment of 500 laptops. Pay attention to cost, time and expertise. In three-to-five paragraphs, describe your options, why you chose the option you did, and what problems you may expect with that choice.

First I have to copy the complete hard drive as an image to one computer, then I can install it on as many other computers as necessary. To do so, I have to buy a cloning software. Ghost is a disk cloning software which enable to copy the image of hard Drive. Ghost verson 4 added multicust technology that allows sending a single image simultaneously to many machines without putting greater stress on the network than by sending a image by single machine. Standalone cloning takes much longer, I can clone one PC at a time. Multitask method is fast , it takes an hour to multicast 350M of data across the network. If I have Ethernet LAN, I can use one floppy disk for each computer that accepts cloned software.
One possible process can be, after shipment of new 500 laptops (for example Windows), I have to set up XP configuration for each computer. I have to install operating system for all computers first. Then one cloning software will clone end to end image of file system, hard disk of first computer and the whole process will take at least 10 hours for one computer. Cloning of remaining computer takes one hour for each computer at a time.
Otherwise, after shipment of new 500 laptops( for example Mac), by hiring some technology person from the company like Apple who can use cloning software like Norton Ghost to copy the image of operating system, application software of one computer, then clone the first disk or image to the remaining 499 computers. At least 20 computers can image at a time with the multicasting technology I guess. This processing can save more time than previous process. But if I have Ethernet LAN, using floppy disk to each computer can save more time than before, because many computers can clone at a time.