1E Launches Nomad 6.1 with Unique Windows 10 Deployment Automation

1E Nomad has long provided invaluable assistance to customers with particular content requirements: major banks looking to regularly update tens of thousands of cash machines in a single swoop; oil companies that need to get critical data out to ships and rigs; airlines with far flung offices who want to be able to update their remote sites without having to send an IT employee to the other side of the world clutching a USB stick. With its power to supercharge Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, and ensure efficient, controlled content distribution without network disruption, Nomad is already a crucial tool for hundreds of renowned global companies.
1E, however, is convinced that the number of businesses that could get real, significant value out of Nomad is set to escalate in the coming years. To reflect this vision, the latest Nomad 6.1, is the most efficient, secure, user-friendly version yet.
We live and work in an age of data proliferation. What company today doesn’t find itself increasingly in the business of handling and distributing data, whether as a way to better understand and serve its customer base, or simply to ensure that all of its employees can access the most secure, up-to-date tools and services?
Take, as a familiar example, Windows 10. First of all, there is the issue of migration. We’ve covered this pretty extensively here, but it bears repeating that, if your business’s machines are currently running Windows 7, then your Windows 10 migration could yet prove expensive and time consuming. A secure Windows 10 environment requires your switching all those machines from BIOS mode to UEFI: Nomad 6.1 is the only solution that allows you to achieve this in a completely automated way.
Besides the conspicuous challenge of migrating to the new operating system, Windows 10 comes with a new servicing model that means most enterprises will be effectively embarking on OS upgrades on an annual and even biannual basis. Windows 10 patching alone presents a unique challenge to infrastructure.
“Microsoft is changing the patching model now,” explains 1E’s Simon Burbidge, Nomad product manager. “Whereas we could previously download individual patches that are relatively small now they’re going to be lumped together, and the way that management tools will request patches will be different.”
The challenges increasingly faced in modern retail are also significant. If we think about the technological dependency of shops today – from basic logistics to customer experience –  these stores are dependent on their IT systems. Rolling out operating systems, applications or critical updates to those in-store computers may require a server to act as a distribution point or other SCCM role. If that server goes down or needs a hardware or software update before deploying the important content then, at best, the whole process will be delayed.
Nomad, of course, already eliminates the need for remote servers. Its peer-to-peer technology makes them redundant. This also gives IT the added peace of mind of never having to worry about whether a server has sufficient disk space to receive the updates. Windows 10 just makes Nomad more relevant to more businesses than ever before.
Nomad 6.1, though, further underscores this peace of mind with new security features. Configuration Manager, when you think of it, is one of the most powerful pieces of equipment in an enterprise’s entire IT infrastructure. It can literally do – and distribute – anything it wants to your machines. And with increasing quantities of content being distributed across that network, businesses will want to know exactly what it is their machines are sending and downloading. Also, they will want to safeguard that data as it traverses the network.
Nomad 6.1 is the only product on the market that lets you compress, encrypt, and sign content sent out via Configuration Manager.
“What we wanted these new security features to do is to provide a lightweight solution in terms of encrypting sensitive data, so you can set it on a per package basis,” Burbridge explains. “There’s data proliferation going on continually. Large amounts of data that needs to get moved around organisations, from different types of sources, different operating systems, devices, managements platforms, different types of data sources. We’re positioning ourselves to being able to provide Nomad as a pluggable solution for that, and being able to do what Nomad does, which is be very efficient in terms of how you get the data and distribute that to your end points.”
Nomad 6.1 takes 1E closer than ever to this fulfilling this vision.
Click here to read the full list of new Nomad 6.1 features.