Wednesday 8 February 2012

HP SSM Integration to CA OSIM/ITCM

I had a problem after the OSIM build where some HP drivers need to be installed manually due to them not being PnP. Coupled with the build process we need to find an easy way to integrate this into ITCM for a regular driver maintenance of drivers/BIOS upgrades/BIOS passwords and settings.
HP provide a free tool called SSM that is based on using a file share and running alongside SDM creates a usefull way to download the latest drivers.

A quick high level process would be:

1) Fire up SDM and download all the required drivers to a shared folder.
2) Update the database stored in the share to register the new drivers
3) From a client system run a script to map a drive and then run the SSM executable with relevant switches
4) Sit back have a pint and watch the missing drivers get installed along with any newer drivers.

The question was can this be added to 3rd party software such as ITCM
Some factors to take into account:

ITCM Software Delivery runs with the system account:
- No network access, so running a script will be tricky.
(Null session share may work)

We don't want to create individual packages for each driver file.
- Overheads on creating packages
- Maybe grouping drivers together and running it that way(?)

We don't want one humongous package with all the drivers.
- Increased build times
- Harder to manage.

(more info when complete)