Bare Metal Provisioning

Swimage perfects the process of provisioning new PCs. Whether it’s for a new employee or a PC replacement for an existing employee, Swimage ensures that the PC is fully provisioned for the employee at lighting speed and with no touches. Swimage provides a fully functional system, including a customized and patched OS, all apps, all customizations, and all data in minutes. This also includes PCs for the remote and hard-to-reach locations.

How Swimage Does It

Swimage is built on an intelligent, easy-to-use, and flexible design engine that enables the desktop technician to create a library of building blocks to be used for PC provisioning. The provisioning information is stored in the cloud and accessible the moment the PC is first powered on. With the provisioning information, the PC will build itself completely hands-free. The content, including the image, drivers, applications, and other components, are delivered based on what is most efficient. This can include delivery through the cloud, a local file share, SCCM DP, a flash drive, or the local PC itself.

The Swimage Experience

With Swimage, PCs can be shipped directly to the end-point. Then the PC is simply unboxed and powered on, and in 30 to 60 minutes the PC has everything it needs, including all applications, customization, and on the domain. The employee can log in and begin work immediately.  

If the PC is replacing an old PC, Swimage will communicate to the old PC over the network and also transfer all user profiles, including all data, settings, and personality.

Afterwards, Swimage remains active and ready to repair the PC at any time in the future. No matter the issue, including an OS failure, malware, or application failures, Swimage will repair or rebuild the PC with all known-good sources. Repairs with Swimage can be done automatically, by the employee with self-service, or from the Swimage web portal. The process is simple, reliable, and fast.

Swimage cloud

How Swimage Compares to Autopilot

Swimage can integrate with Autopilot to enhance the areas that Autopilot falls sort. However, Autopilot is not required to get the full Swimage experience. Some of the many enhancements that Swimage can provide over Autopilot include:

  • Setup and maintenance are significantly faster and easier
  • Manage applications and data with flexibility
  • Maintain all data and settings on the drive without forcing the data to be stored in the cloud
  • Install any type of application from any installation source
  • Join the traditional on-premise domain (even if remote), a hybrid domain, or Azure only
  • Rebuild and recover a PC without removing encryption (using Encryption Handler), even if the PC is encrypted by a software other than BitLocker
  • Run completely offline, if needed
  • Deploy any image, including a fully customized image
  • Conduct a full snapshot of the drive, in order to provide a failsafe and roll back to the snapshot if any problem is detected in a deployment
  • Lock system during the entire deployment and application installation process with Swimage Splashlock
  • Systems fully built and operational upon first login
  • Monitor PC health and compliance
  • Provision, build, and enforce a PC’s desired state with fully customizable templates, compliance rules, triggers, and actions with Swimage Compliance Enforcer
  • Integrate with security stack for automated responses
  • Enforce security compliance automatically
  • Meet zero trust security requirements

Read more and view a video at Autopilot Alternative