The puck stops here

The puck drops, the crowd roars, players zip across the ice - and the game is afoot.

But few fans realize there's a vast amount of work needed to produce their beloved game. There's plenty of IT action behind the scenes, as the business of hockey is surprisingly complex.

Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA) is smoothing IT operations for a hockey team that's nurtured some of the best players in history: the Edmonton Oilers.

About 120 full-time staff are employed by the Edmonton Oilers Hockey Club, but seasonal staff swell the ranks during peak periods, says Alfred Ng, director of IT.

Ng and his trio of staff manage IT for a diverse array of business operations. Ticketing generates most of the revenue with offerings in various forms: retail, season tickets, packages and so on. "We had a record year last year," says Ng. "We had sold-out arenas of about 15,200 seats for 100 consecutive games."

But there are many other operational areas to worry about. The corporate partnership area manages sponsorships by a number of national and international companies along with local businesses sponsoring the team, as well as the revenue generated from seat sales, promotional items, and commercials. The licensing side looks after providing rights to use the Oilers name/logo on various items including jerseys, hockey sticks, rink boards, printed media etc.

The Edmonton Oilers also have a Media Production department that manages the Web site and produces the Internet show "The Link", and the community foundation that manages charity events. "We have raised almost $250,000 for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation through the caps for cancer campaign," says Ng.

As well, video is becoming increasingly important to sports organizations. The Oilers produce real-time video streams for the Web site during games, and also manage broadcasting to TSN, Sportsnet and other channels.

"We're struggling to keep up as we produce lots of online video content, which takes up lots of space," says Ng. "So we need to grow storage." This demand will only increase as the hockey operations department, and in particular the coaching and scouting areas, use video for training and scouting.

The Oilers are expanding their operations in new areas, says Ng. "Last year, we started a new team, the Edmonton Oil Kings, who play in the Western Hockey League. It's structured the same as our National Hockey League team, but on a smaller scale, and we take care of IT for them as well."

Ng was brought on-board two years ago to revamp the Oilers' Information Technology Department.

"In talking to his peers, our CFO realized our organization and its technology was behind the times," Ng explains. "Trading decisions used to take weeks of sitting by a fax machine - now they need to be made in hours. Information needs to get to executives faster."

This year, another factor speeded up the pace of change for IT: In July, the Oilers were acquired for $200 million by a new owner, Daryl Katz, founder and chairman of the Katz Group of Companies, one of North America's leading drug store operators with over 1,800 drug stores in Canada and the United States.

Katz is keen to grow the business in new directions, says Ng. "We need to be able to grow the business without waiting to get licenses or other technology, and Microsoft's Enterprise Agreement (EA) gives us the opportunity to do that effectively."

Ng had his work cut out when he first joined. "I had to do a complete makeover, from the physical cabling of the building to replacements of equipment." New laptops, servers, storage and back-up systems were brought in. "We started with eight servers, and we now have 51 virtualized ones and another 14 slated to be brought online in the next 3 months, says Ng."

Ng replaced the e-mail system with Microsoft Exchange and the old Novell Netware with Microsoft Active Directory, and leapfrogged from Microsoft Office 97 to 2007 on the user side, skipping all the in-betweens.

To cover off all the new software, Ng initially chose Microsoft's Select licensing renewal last year. "Before that, we were purchasing software from retailers and paying full price." Tracking licensing compliance was a big headache. "I had no idea how many machines were licensed or not because of the inefficient way this had been tracked." At the time, he didn't have enough users to meet the 250-seat minimum needed for the EA option. "But we've since hired a lot of new staff, and it spurred us to think about all the new concepts we want to introduce like a paperless office, online media forms and collaboration."

The organization is eyeing technology tools such as SharePoint and CRM 4 to grow the business in new directions. Although the headcount only reaches a maximum of 200 today even with seasonal staff, Ng made the case to his CFO that EA was still a better deal than Select if extra features such as software assurance (SA) were factored in. "Even if we paid for a 250-user EA license, we would still be getting a 20 percent saving."

The CFO initially challenged Ng, asking him why EA was needed. "I explained that without EA we would not have the Software Assurance benefits, and in turn we would have to rebuy new versions of products we already had whenever they were upgraded. If we purchase them piecemeal with SA, it'll cost a lot." For example, the organization bought SQL Server 2005 last year, but Alfred already needs to move to the 2008 version next year.

What really sealed the deal was the idea of introducing predictability into the IT budget. "Select didn't cover all the additional software we're planning to get. Now we're covered with the EA blanket no matter how much new software we add, and we will be able to true-up annually making it easy to deploy software solutions."

The return on investment of the SA feature under EA compared to Select licensing depends on the culture of the organization and the technology environment, says Jennifer Colasanti, senior research consultant at the London, ON.-based Info-Tech Research Group.

"For companies that have a predictable upgrade path and tend to upgrade to every new version of a Microsoft product, SA under EA makes a lot of sense. The total cost of ownership (TCO) under Select will cost more for these companies - most of the cost of SA is for free upgrade rights. Some companies do a mix of Select and EA."

Ng says his people can now spend more time on actual solutions and less time on budgeting and other administrative chores.

Software deployments are also speedier. "If we need a new server, we can just pop it in, and then let Microsoft know during the true-up periods, instead of going through a business approval process."

When new technology is added to an organization, training becomes more important. The Oilers are taking advantage of the e-learning that comes with EA; the SA component also covers home-use programs and employee purchase plans. "So it provides access to software employees are used to using at the office, for their personal use. We can offer employees these things so they feel appreciated."

Entering an SA agreement requires careful planning for the future. "You need to know what you want. We listed all the products line by line, and the quantities we expected to use." This was submitted to Compugen, the Oilers' large account reseller (LAR), who in turn worked with Microsoft on the deal.

Eliminating administrative hassles is a boon to growing businesses as they don't necessarily add more IT staff, says Ng. "We definitely believe with the proper processes and technology, our IT staff can work as effectively as possible without the need to hire new people. It may not appear to be a direct result, but EA helps us automate our day."