An alternative to creating custom AI manifests prior to client installation is to write a script that dynamically creates an AI manifest for each client at client installation time. The script can query environment variables and other client configuration information to create a custom AI manifest for each client. Because the manifest is based on attributes of each client discovered at installation time, the manifest is called a derived manifest.
A derived manifest is especially useful if you have a large number of systems that can be installed almost identically so that the AI manifests for these systems have relatively small differences. Create an AI manifest that specifies the installation parameters that are common to this group of systems. Using this common manifest as a base, create a derived manifest script that adds the parameters that are different for each client to the common manifest when each client is installed. For example, a derived manifest script can detect the number and size of disks attached to each client system and modify the AI manifest at client installation time to specify a custom disk layout for each client.