4-page Case Study - Posted 11/3/2008

Views: 1969

Rate This Evidence:

Continental Airlines

Continental Airlines Bets on Operating System Upgrade for Reduced IT and Energy Costs

An early adopter of new technology, Continental Airlines uses the latest information technology to keep the company on the cutting edge. With the Windows Vista® operating system, Continental gives its employees and customers better access to information in order to increase employee productivity and promote workforce mobility with enhanced security. Because Continental is an intensive user of mobile devices, interoperability among all systems is a must.

Situation

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Continental Airlines posted revenues of U.S.$13.1 billion in 2007. In 2006, Continental won its sixth J.D. Power and Associates award in the last 10 years for customer satisfaction among traditional airline carriers in North America. For the third consecutive year, FORTUNE magazine named Continental the No. 1 airline on its 2006 list of Most Admired Global Companies.

Continental Airlines also has a long history of responsible corporate citizenship, and is committed to promoting environmental responsibility within its corporate culture through initiatives such as its Carbon Offset Program. The company is always striving to increase the impact of its “green” initiatives through technology, and reduce its carbon footprint.

Continental Airlines has 18,500 client PCs:

• 80 percent of its client systems are desktops; 20 percent are portable computers.
• 4 percent of its client systems run Windows® 2000; 73 percent run Windows XP®, and currently 22 percent run Windows Vista®.
• 57 core applications currently require 27 images.
• The company operates out of 192 locations, 7 percent of which have local dedicated IT support.

Continental Airlines prides itself as one of the leanest IT organizations in its industry. For example, the company’s highly efficient use of information technology allows it to require only three people for all operating system imaging. A centralized help desk offers IT support on a regional or per-company basis. Only 7 percent of its 192 sites have local IT support, including four reservation centers, hubs, and level 1 cities.
 
Passwords are used for security and for authentication only. A corporate security program with standardized policies and procedures enforced throughout the company is currently in place. Both desktops and portable computers are firewalled using the Windows operating system technology.

The company’s IT department provides a large number of images customized per business unit, and all images must be tested for complete functionality—a typically labor-intensive process.

Solution

Continental Airlines is upgrading to Windows Vista. For its initial deployment, the airline is targeting PCs for users who perform mission-critical functions, such as reservations and ticketing. By May 2008, 2,600 desktops were running Windows Vista, with plans to upgrade 3,400 more PCs by Spring of 2009.

IT management at Continental chose Windows Vista in part due to its hardware and language-independent imaging, self-healing capabilities, and security enhancements. With its deployment of Windows Vista, Continental Airlines is using Windows Defender, a free program that safeguards computers against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats.

Windows Vista will lower our [TCO] through improved manageability and easier deployment. It will also provide new functionality that our employees can use for better serving our customers. Eric Craig IT Manager Continental Airlines

In order to significantly reduce the overhead associated with creating and maintaining the large number of images required to support Continental Airlines on a daily basis, the company deployed Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager. With new capabilities built into both System Center Configuration Manager and Windows Vista Enterprise, Continental Airlines is able to consolidate the total number of workstation images to a single core image. Once the core image has been applied to the workstation, the IT department can install additional business applications as needed. This process is completely automated and can be run from a central location, saving Continental Airlines both time and money while helping it manage the configuration drift associated with manual installs.

Furthermore, in order to align with Continental’s vision of becoming a “green” airline, it is implementing Group Policy, enabled through Windows Vista to easily configure power management from a central location, including putting machines in sleep mode when not in use.

Benefits

As a result of deploying Windows Vista, Continental Airlines has already experienced significant improvements, including image consolidation, enhanced reliability and security, better PC virtualization, and tighter control of the user’s desktop experience.

• Hardware- and language-independent PC imaging. Windows Imaging Format (WIM), a file-based imaging format, enables a single image to be deployed to different types of computer hardware with different language requirements. Additionally, Windows Vista is built with modular and interdependent components, which make it easier to customize Windows Vista to a customer’s specific needs. Together, Windows Vista modularization and WIM will significantly reduce the number of operating system images Continental Airlines needs to maintain.
• Self-healing operating system. Windows Vista includes noticeable reliability improvements to the New Technology File System (NTFS). When Windows Vista detects corrupted metadata on the file system, it automatically invokes NTFS’s self-healing capabilities to rebuild the metadata. Windows Vista is able to limit the damage and repair the problem without taking the entire system offline for time-consuming check and repair cycles.
• Enhanced security with Windows Defender. Windows Defender will help safeguard Continental Airlines computers against security threats caused by spyware and other unwanted software.
• Ability to lock the desktop. With Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption, Continental can safeguard sensitive information in the event of loss or theft of a computer. Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption prevents an unauthorized user who boots another operating system or runs a software hacking tool from breaking Windows Vista file and system protections or performing offline viewing of the files stored on the safeguarded drive. Continental Airlines also plans to use this Windows Vista feature to enhance the security of data through their PC recycling.
• Better integration with management tools and PC virtualization. Developers at Continental will use Virtual PC frequently. With Windows Vista Enterprise in place, Continental Airlines will not have to purchase another legacy operating system license. Virtual PC lets users create separate virtual machines on their Windows desktop, each of which virtualizes the hardware of a complete physical computer.
• Reduced costs through energy savings. Windows Vista gives more granular control of the desktop experience through newly added group policies, including the ability to configure power management settings, which helps reduce Continental’s electrical use and carbon footprint. In July 2008, Continental’s Utah office saved a total of 58,200 kilowatt (KW) hours of electricity—U.S.$2,368. “We estimate our annual energy savings from deploying to 18,500 PCs will be 33,264 megawatts,” says Craig. Taking into consideration variables such as energy prices in different regions, that energy savings translates to U.S.$1.5 million to U.S.$2 million each year.
• Lower TCO through easier deployment and manageability. While it already runs a very lean IT organization, Continental Airlines is experiencing help desk benefits with its current deployment of Windows Vista. Fewer calls need to be handled as a result of strengthened security as well as self-service features that allow users to quickly fix their own PCs in the case of simple problems. “Windows Vista will lower our total cost of ownership through improved manageability and easier deployment. It will also provide new functionality that our employees can use for better serving our customers,” says Eric Craig, IT Manager, Continental Airlines.

In addition to the benefits realized by the company’s IT department, Continental Airlines has witnessed several benefits for its users, including decreased number of reboots, improved document search features, and improved performance:

• Heightened reliability and security. With Windows Vista in place, Continental Airlines expects a decrease in the number of reboots and a lowered time per reboot. In addition, using full-volume encryption with Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption, Continental will be able to safeguard sensitive information on portable computers and recycle PCs with enhanced security.
• Improved document search and flexibility. With Windows Vista, Continental Airlines expects the average 15 searches per day per information worker to be markedly faster with a net gain of 1 minute per file search. Windows Vista offers users more flexibility with file search and organization compared to Windows XP. New controls, such as the Instant Search box and Enhanced Column Headers, make it simple for users to manage large amounts of on-screen data. Powerful, integrated desktop search capabilities help users find nearly anything on their computer quickly, without having to search for it by browsing through folders.
• Increased PC performance. When users compared Windows Vista to previous operating systems, they gave particularly high ratings to time savings achieved through the Windows SuperFetch™ memory management technology and the Windows ReadyBoost™ technology. Windows SuperFetch helps manage memory to get the most out of available RAM. Windows ReadyBoost makes PCs more responsive by using flash memory devices (like USB thumb drives) to boost performance.
  

Future Outlook

Continental is currently deploying Windows Vista for users of its flight reservation system. It will migrate to Windows Vista or purchase PCs with the new operating system within one year of availability.

Windows Vista
Windows Vista can help your organization use information technology to gain a competitive advantage in today’s new world of work. Your people will be able to find and use information more effectively. You will be able to support your mobile work force with better access to shared data and collaboration tools. And your IT staff will have better tools and technologies to enhance corporate IT security, data protection, and more efficient deployment and management.

For more information about Windows Vista, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsvista

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about Continental Airlines products and services, call 800-346-3133 or visit the Web site at:
www.continental.com