Harbor Wholesale Grocery Inc.

Wholesale Grocer Increases Security and Productivity with Latest Operating System

Harbor Wholesale Grocery, a grocery distributor for convenience stores, wanted better control of its PCs to prevent employees from installing software that could jeopardize the IT infrastructure. By using new deployment tools, Harbor deployed the Windows Vista® operating system faster than previous operating systems. The solution’s security features have helped protect the company’s IT systems and increase productivity.

Business Needs

Harbor Wholesale Grocery, Inc., specializes in providing food and other groceries to convenience stores, coffee stands, and restaurants throughout the U.S. Northwest. Since its beginning in 1923 in rural Washington, the family-owned business has expanded its reach to four other states and has more than 300 employees.

Creative food-service initiatives and innovative customer-service programs have helped Harbor flourish through four generations. When computer technology came along, the company embraced it, implementing an electronic ordering system and category management software to enhance customer service and increase operational efficiency. “The number-one thing that differentiates Harbor from our competitors is our added-value service,” says Tony Caufield, Information Systems Manager at Harbor. “We try to engage operationally and technologically to help our customers.”

Windows Vista had everything we wanted in an operating system and the additional security functionality that we needed.  Tony Caufield Information Systems Manager Harbor Wholesale Grocery

By 2005, Harbor was using the Windows® XP operating system on more than 180 PCs used by management, sales, IT, and warehouse staff, and in the order entry and accounting departments. The system was running smoothly, but users were downloading and installing unauthorized software, which often created problems. “We had to give users administrator rights in order for them to do their jobs. But because they were administrators of their machines, they were installing all kinds of software, and that opened up security holes,” says Caufield. “We were constantly having machines corrupted with viruses or other malicious software.”

According to Caufield, the six-person IT department had to deal with at least one corruption issue per week. As a result, IT was spending valuable time cleaning or rebuilding corrupted PCs—“anywhere from one to three hours per issue,” says Caufield. The problem also affected user productivity. “Downtime could be anywhere from two to four hours a week, and that was lost time for the user,” he notes.

The IT department wanted the ability to lock down desktops without making them unusable and needed better security to protect the company from malicious software (also called malware).

Solution

Harbor Wholesale Grocery decided that upgrading to a combination of the Windows Vista® Business and Enterprise operating systems would provide the ideal solution for the company’s business needs. “Windows Vista had everything we wanted in an operating system and the additional security functionality that we needed,” says Caufield.

With the Windows User Account Control feature, IT departments have the option of restricting users from having administrator rights, while still letting most applications run. If an application does require administrator credentials, Windows Vista prompts the user for the proper credentials before allowing it to run. In addition, Windows Vista incorporates an advanced security firewall and features that can detect and clean many malware applications, including spyware and other unwanted software.

In January 2006, the Harbor IT team began the preplanning phase with a compatibility check to determine which PCs could support the upgrade. Harbor enlisted Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Northwest Computer Support (NWCS) to deploy the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit, which helps evaluate and mitigate application compatibility issues, and speed the deployment of Windows Vista.

NWCS next configured a single computer to run Windows Vista and captured a snapshot of the settings using Windows Imaging (WIM), a file-based disk imaging format. The image was distributed to a test user group within the IT department and checked for any bugs or abnormalities. Once testing and necessary adjustments were completed, the Harbor IT team began the deployment of Windows Vista, using Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment 2007 to help expedite the process.

By December 2006, 36 users had received Windows Vista Business, and four executives were using Windows Vista Enterprise. Users attended a one-hour training session provided by New Horizons Training Center.

The IT department has continued upgrades since then—in some cases waiting for older computers to reach the end of their useful life and be replaced. So far the reception has been good. “I have users coming to me wanting to know when they’re going to get Windows Vista,” says Caufield. “I’ve never had people that eager to get a new operating system.”

Benefits

By upgrading to the latest operating system, Harbor Wholesale Grocery increased user productivity and enhanced the security of its PC environment. Deployment tools accelerated the process, helping save valuable IT time and providing quicker results.
Benefits include the following:

• Increased productivity. With the deployment of Windows Vista, the IT department gains an additional three to four hours each week to spend on its other responsibilities, which include installing the complete computing infrastructure for a new facility. “The actual solution time for each corruption issue might have been only three hours, but we spent additional time backtracking to the task we were working on before the disruption,” says Caufield. “Now we have more time for other projects.” Users also have more time to spend on core business issues. “Before, users were losing productivity time due to self-inflicted problems that caused downtime,” explains Caufield. “Windows Vista has helped them increase their productivity.”
• Enhanced security. Harbor now has the security functionality it was looking for. “The User Account Control feature has limited the users’ ability to install potentially malicious software on their computers and keeps them from opening the door to spyware or creating back doors into the system,” Caufield says. “Windows Vista has increased malware detection, and its built-in firewall features help protect the integrity of our system.”
• Accelerated deployment. The imaging features of Windows Vista, along with the Application Compatibility Toolkit and the Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment, helped Harbor get the new operating system to desktops quickly. “By adding in the imaging features and providing deployment tools, Microsoft has made Windows Vista faster to deploy than any other release I’ve done to date,” notes Caufield. “It basically cut the time in half.”

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Document published July 2008