Allow copy step to restart while saving previous progress
Matt Cameron
I do a lot of deployments into low bandwidth - high latency locations. Some of the larger packages (100MB+) can take over 2 hours to upload. That is a long time and it is really easy for something to go wrong in that period. Any break in the copy process and PDQ will start over from the beginning.
I couldn't find anything pertinent in the preferences but is there some way that I can upload files and not have PDQ wipe the copied source data in the event of an issue? Preferably a way that is managed with the functionality of PDQ.
I am sure I could make a custom scripted step to try and mitigate this but this could get tedious.
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If there are particular actions you're worried about during the deployment period, you might be able to set up GPOs for them--for example, a policy to prevent end users from restarting or shutting down the computer.
Also make sure to set a custom timeout that's long enough to accommodate computers in the low bandwidth locations.
As for resuming the copy process when it fails, I don't think there's a functionality like that in PDQ Deploy.
You may also want to try pull deployments instead of push if you haven't already.
I didn't think pull would be much different in how it copies but I will test all the same. Thanks for the assist. Will try it out and see.
My first recommendation would be to setup DFS so you don't have to copy the same files over the link multiple times. It also allows you to copy the files during off-hours. You could also manually copy files to a server at each location, but then you would have to maintain multiple packages.
http://www.adminarsenal.com/videos/#-dfs
My first recommendation would be to setup DFS...could also manually copy files to a server at each location
That is a perfectly logical suggestion however....
These locations are in the Canadian Arctic and there is only one or two computers at these locations with no server infrastructure. I don't have that luxury in this case.
There is a File Copy step in PDQ as well now but I don't know how well that it handles failures yet.
If the File Copy step doesn't provide the tolerance you require then I suggest trying Start-BitsTransfer in PowerShell. Microsoft claims BITS can recover from temporary network interruptions.