do you recommend moving imaging from ghost to zenworks?

hi,

i recently moved to a new shop where the tech folks are using a ghost
imaging solution. they use the client configuration (with isolinux boot
disks) and batch files for the process. here is a brief outline of the
process:

- insert cd or floppy in the pc (no macs at all) and startup
- log in using isolinux and netware commandline client
- issue command to start batch file with the name of the image and the
number the station will end up with (example: batch file for library is
named library and station number is 12, so the command is library 12)
- batch file calls ghost command, gets library xx image, starts ghost,
and installs image
- after image is installed, return to batch file and call ghostwalker
command so the station can be renamed from library xx to library 12
(and new sid's generated)
- after ghostwalker finishes, pc restarts and is ready for use

we have ~350 computers online with about 20 different images maintained
for the computers. one clever item is that if two buildings have the
same computer (and same image), we just craft a different batch file
for each building (so the automatic ghostwalking doesn't change - just
the naming scheme).

okay, now here's the current issue: someone suggested that zenworks
would improve our imaging system by reducing the number of images we
must maintain, allowing us to add updates in realtime, and some other
fuzzier advantages not truly defined. i set up some zenworks imaging
using pxe boots (we have zenworks 7 installed on one of our suse linux
9 servers), and after a month of research and testing, i think
switching from ghost to zenworks imaging will result in an increased
workload for us. I haven't done a cost-benefit analysis yet, so before
I go ahead with the project, I was wondering if anyone else has made
this switch - and if so, did you life get better or worse? If you
haven't been involved in such a switch, do you believe this would be a
good thing to do or would we causing more trouble than we are solving -
and any details you can provide would be of great help to us.

Thanx, Mike


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jmor3