2 page Case Study - Posted 7/16/2007
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Conference Company Improves IT Management with New Tools
IT staff at conference manager Kenes International used a variety of tools and manual processes to maintain 18 servers and 150 computers. Working with Microsoft® Certified Partner Dario, it implemented Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007. This unified framework is saving the company an estimated 180 hours per month, so that IT staff can manage technology more proactively and do not need to travel as much to support a remote office.
Business Needs
Since 1965, Kenes International has organized conferences in Israel, Europe, and around the world. A medical market specialist, it holds around 100 events each year ranging from small conventions to blockbuster conferences with thousands of delegates.
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Overall, Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007 will save us more than 180 hours per month. |
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Erez Eini
IT Director, Kenes International |
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The company’s IT team of 12 supports 150 staff across offices in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Geneva, Switzerland. They administer 18 servers and 150 desktop computers and provide Web site management and application development services.
“We used a variety of tools and methods to manage different parts of our technology environment, which made life very hard and busy for us,” says Erez Eini, IT Director, Kenes International. “Our servers came with inbuilt management tools, but we found them very hard to install and configure, and they didn’t satisfy all our needs.”
Kenes International hosts dedicated Web sites for each conference it organizes. These Web sites must be available all the time, because delegates submit papers and conference materials online. Without adequate monitoring tools, the company would sometimes be unaware of a problem with a Web site until a customer called to complain that it was down.
“We occasionally had problems with e-mail, when our antivirus or spam filters would stop legitimate e-mails from coming in or going out,” says Eini. “And sometimes, even though the desktop operating system was running well, users had trouble accessing applications. We had no way of knowing this was happening until an employee or customer told us.”
To take full advantage of its recent installation of Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007, Kenes International decided to upgrade its entire desktop fleet to the 2007 Microsoft Office system. However, the results of a pilot installation indicated it would take at least 100 hours to deploy this new application manually across the company’s two offices.
Solution
After evaluating a range of tools, Kenes International joined the Rapid Deployment Program for System Center Essentials. Working with Microsoft Certified Partner Dario, the company implemented this powerful management framework in April 2007.
“Dario supported us throughout the implementation process,” says Eini. “After that, they worked with us to ensure we were using System Center Essentials to meet all our needs.”
Specifically designed to meet the needs of midsized and smaller businesses with up to 500 computers and 30 servers, Microsoft System Center Essentials provides a unified environment for IT professionals to proactively and efficiently manage their IT systems.
Amit Gatenyo, Infrastructure and Security Team Lead, Dario, says, “Initially, Kenes International planned to use System Center Essentials just to monitor servers, but we showed them how it could also manage client computers, and they decided to use it for their entire network. They saw how it could help them regain control of their environment and manage it proactively.”
Kenes International now uses System Center Essentials to manage all its servers, desktops and laptops through a single, unified interface. The software monitors the performance of servers and applications and keeps the team up-to-date with the status of available storage and other potential issues.
“System Center Essentials has dramatically reduced the complexity of managing our computers day to day,” says Eini. “Every morning we get an automatically generated e-mail that summarizes all the issues that are relevant for us and alerts us to anything that needs our attention.”
Kenes International uses System Center Essentials to deploy software updates and applications to its entire desktop fleet with the click of a button. The management package also maintains a real-time inventory of the company’s hardware and software assets.
Benefits
Since the company implemented System Center Essentials, it has streamlined basic management tasks, saving an estimated 180 hours per month and reducing the need for travel to its Geneva office. It can easily deploy applications and updates and stay on top of server performance issues.
- Simplified management tasks. Kenes International IT staff used to spend up to five hours a week monitoring and troubleshooting application problems, and this has been reduced to around one hour. Software update management and inventory maintenance used to take up 60 hours and 4 hours per month, respectively, but now happen automatically. “If there is a problem, the system helps us see the full picture—what has caused the problem and how it affects other systems,” says Eini. “Overall, System Center Essentials will save us more than 180 hours per month.”
- Streamlined application deployment. Kenes International is using System Center Essentials to streamline deployment of the 2007 Microsoft Office system while retaining users’ preferences. “We will create a package and just roll it out; this will take us about 3 hours, instead of 100 hours to do it manually,” says Eini.
- Improved data for informed decisions. Kenes International uses System Center Essentials to provide a single place from which it can proactively monitor applications, to help ensure that the IT department finds out about problems before users do—and can take steps to alleviate them. The IT team uses the automated hardware and software inventories to make informed and proactive plans for the company’s technology needs.
- Remote support. Kenes International’s IT team and end users have responded enthusiastically to the new system’s ability to provide support by taking control of users’ desktop computers remotely. “Now users can see what we’re doing, so next time they can solve the problem themselves,” says Eini. “This has halved the amount of time we spend doing technical support and eliminated the need to travel to our Geneva office for basic support and maintenance.”
