FAQs
FAQs
Self-heal is a patented technology which allows help-desk engineers to recover a machine to its last known working condition, or repair point, in less than 40 seconds. Self-heal eliminates the need to troubleshoot the problem for hours while the user is being unproductive until the issue is resolved. It can work on or off the network, and regardless of whether or not the machine is joined to a domain or part of a workgroup. Self-heal increases productivity and eliminates having to re-image a machine!
Self-heal can be initiated on-demand or every time a machine restarts. In most cases, on-demand self-heal is used when a user experiences an issue and the help-desk will schedule self-heal on that machine. Self-heal can also be initiated by the user based on policy without having a need to contact the help-desk. In the education environment, the machines can be set to self-heal automatically upon restart.
A repair point is a set of files and folders that are OS and Application specific of a machine at a given time. By default, all OS and Application files will be captured in the repair point automatically. You can specify and include files or folders that are not automatically captured in the repair point on the Persystent Web Console.
A repair point size is typically, about 1/3 of the size of the used space on the OS partition. For example, if the OS partition has 30 GB of used space, then the repair point would be about 10 GB. Persystent Suite compresses the files and stores them in a single instance repository on the Persystent Server, as well as the local machine. Using single instance repository allows us to capture repair points quickly and minimize the storage requirement since all the repair points are incremental.
The first repair point of a machine will take the most amount of time since the local repository on the machine is blank. A typical machine will take anywhere from 5 minutes to 15 minutes to create the first repair point. Each additional repair point will take anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes depending on the amount of change that has occurred on the machine since the last repair point.
It is recommended that the repair point should be created on a weekly basis, if not bi-weekly. The frequency of the repair point creation can be set by the administrator and it can be different for each type of user. Persystent can create a new repair point when integration with Windows update is enabled. A repair point can be created using REST APIs or command-lines as well.
By default, Persystent Suite manages 5 repair points per machine. This is policy driven and can be changed to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 15, 20 or unlimited.
Repair points can be uploaded to the Persystent Server using policy, and if enabled, the Persystent Client Service will upload the repair point. Since we operate through the single instance repository, the machine will only be uploading files that the Persystent Server doesn’t already have.
Once the first machine uploads a repair point to the server, then every other machine will only upload a small amount of data. This reduces the network load and requires the machines to only upload a small amount of data taking only a few seconds to a couple minutes to upload subsequent repair point information.
There are three different repair levels: Low, Medium and High. A computer will repair on every boot if it is assigned a Low/Medium/High level repair policy. If you do not want to repair a computer on every boot, then you can assign a “No Repair” policy to that computer.
Low Level Repair
- Repairs any operating system or application files that are either modified or deleted back to the repair point state.
- Deletes any new files/folders that are added in operating system and application folders.
- User profiles are left intact. All change in the user’s profile are preserved and not repaired.
- Any new files/folders created at the root of C:\ will be left intact.
Medium Level Repair
- Repairs any operating system and application files that are either modified or deleted back to the repair point state.
- Deletes any new files/folders that are added in operating system or application folders.
- User profiles are left intact. All change in the user’s profile are preserved and not repaired.
- Any new files/folders created at the root of C:\ are deleted.
High Level Repair
- Repairs any operating system or application files that are either modified or deleted back to the repair point state.
- Deletes any new files/folders that are added in operating system or application folders.
- User profiles are deleted so that new user profiles will be created when a user log on.
- Any new files/folders created at the root of C:\ will be deleted.
Self-heal does not require a connection to the server in order to repair the machine. Users can initiate Self-heal locally from the machine using the Persystent Notifier Agent or using Command-Lines. Also, in the event the OS is not bootable, then self-heal can be launched directly from Windows Recovery automatically.
Yes, a machine which is experiencing a blue screen can be self-healed back to last know state. Administrators can schedule a repair task and have the machine boot to PXE or bootable media such as CD/DVD or USB. If the machine is remote and not connected to the server, then self-heal can be launched directly from Windows Recovery automatically.
- Self-Heal
- Hardware Independent Imaging
- Disaster Recovery
- Secure Hard-drive Wipe
- Application Deployment
- Bitlocker Management
- OS Migration
- Driver Management
- Location Tracking
- Asset Inventory (Hardware Inventory, Software Inventory, Windows Update, BitLocker, Location)
Persystent Suite has direct integration with SCCM. Administrators will be able to self-heal machines and perform any tasks from the SCCM console directly.
Persystent Suite integrates with Active Directory so any users that are part of a specific Active Directory group will be able to logon to the Persystent Web Console and image new machines.
- Bitlocker Disk Encryption
- Symantec Disk Encryption
- PGP
- McAfee Disk Encryption
Persystent Suite does provide a way to backup user profiles, data and settings separately from repair points. These backups are stored separately and not stored in the single instance repository. This is typically used for OS Migration or machine replacement use cases.
Persystent Suite allows the administrator to manage BitLocker in the environment. Persystent Suite will enforce Bitlocker policy on all the machines in the environment and report on all the machines with their encryption status. Persystent Suite can also be used to manage recovery keys for Bitlocker where administrator can easily access recovery key of a machine on-demand to recover the machine. Persystent Suite will allow administrator to enable Bitlocker encryption on the existing deployed machines and any new machines that will be deployed using imaging process.
Persystent Suite supports Windows 7, Windows 10, Windows Server 2012 and above with .Net Framework 4.5 or above.
- Windows 2012 Server and above.
- IIS
- SQL Server 2012 and above (SQL Express for less than 400 machines)
- Windows Deployment Role
- Windows 10 ADK
- Crystal Report Plugin
- 8 GB or above depending on number of machines in the environment.
- 250 GB or above depending on number of machines in the environment.
- Windows 7
- Windows 10
- Windows 2012 Server and above
- Windows 2012 Server and above
Persystent Suite supports REST APIs which can be used to integrate Persystent Suite with any other management tools such as SCCM, ServiceNow, LANDesk, Ivanti, etc. You will be able to perform any Persystent Suite Tasks using these REST APIs and retrieve updates.
Persystent Suite offers an OS Migration process which is fully automated and zero-touch. It will backup existing user profiles, data and settings, then restore them after putting a newer OS on the machine. Then it installs the new base image, applies drivers, changes computer name and joins the machine to the domain automatically. Persystent Suite can also be used to deploy applications and execute scripts to complete configuring the user’s machines. Persystent Suite also allows administrators to go back to the previous state for any reason.
Persystent Suite does support virtual environments such as VMware or Hyper-V. As long as the virtual environment has a hard-drive, then Persystent Suite will work just fine.
Persystent Suite supports secure communication (HTTPS) using a certificate. It will use whatever encryption method is configured on the server.
Multiple Persystent Suite Servers can be managed with one management console.
The Persystent Suite is licensed based on the number of machines in an annual subscription format.
We do provide proof of concepts where you can try the software for a limited time on up to 5 machines in your environment. We will assist with the POC process and go over the most common use cases. Please contact sales@utopicsoftware.com to schedule your POC!
Yes, we do! Please contact our sales team for more information at sales@utopicsoftware.com.