Symantec Ghost Enterprise Edition is an disk imaging solution. It does, however, allow incremental backup of all your client computers' data, providing the ability to restore any networked computer that has crashed. This includes restoration of the operating system and settings, all applications that it was running and all data files.
Installation of the Ghost Console allows remote installation of the client software on all networked computers, cutting down the time visiting each workstation physically would take. If the worst should happen, recovery of all your networked machines could be accomplished quickly. Even sending out a new operating system across your entire network can be achieved with relative ease, and with Symantec Ghost an administrator can clone any hard drive to create an image file.
System requirements for the console include Windows NT, 2000 or XP with 48Mb of RAM, while the client requires Windows 95, 98, 2000, Me, XP or Windows NT, a single boot system and DOS drivers to the network card.
Having established that Sym-antec Ghost allows for cloning of any networked hard drive, it is important to note that it can also do manual and automated incremental backups of all networked machines so that an administrator can roll out both the OS and data if required. This ensures that no data is actually lost, although when setting your backup requirements it is important to set the deletion of backup files to the number of days that will suit your particular organization.
Backing up a computer after it has crashed is relatively easy. Clicking on Restore in the console will let you roll back to the incremental backup that you have chosen from the list provided. There is even the ability to restore only the user files leaving the registry and OS settings intact - handy if it is just data your user has lost.
Version 7.5 has provided a Ghost virtual partition as well as the Ghost boot partition seen previously. This is a much faster method of introducing a Ghost partition on the client as the virtual partition is created automatically when required, unlike the Ghost boot partition which has to be cloned on to the client after creation of a boot package and image file.