debian automatic installation question

[Jin Zhao <jzhao@qcorps.com>]

Hi,

Recently I started converting my servers from Redhat to Debian. I was a
long time redhat user. and now find myself facing multiple ways of
automatic installation -- fai, replicator, systemimager, autoinstall.
Before deeply digging into these different beasts, I hope to hear
suggestions from people who know debian much better than me. Can anybody
introduce your own experiences with these methods and also your
preferences for them?

My server farm is composed of machines with relatively differrent
hardware setup -- different cpus (Intel, AMD), differrent disk
controllers (Adaptec U320 SCSI, Adaptec U160 SCSI, 3wares SATA), and
more servers are coming in weeks, most of which are 3wares SATA, Xeon
servers. From what I learned so far, auto-install and fai seem more
flexible than others. I am currently testing auto-install and will try
fai later.

Any ideas are welcome. Hopefully people won't just say 'compare it by
yourseself'. :)

Thanks,


Jin