National Ice Centre (NIC)

Entertainment Venue Increases Productivity and Security with Enhanced Operating System

The National Ice Centre (NIC) is a major sports and events venue in Nottingham, England. IT staff at NIC make it a priority to stay current with the latest version of the software and operating systems they use, so they began an aggressive deployment of the Windows Vista® operating system as soon as it was made available for business adoption. Initial deployment results have generated IT support savings, improved computer security, and increased productivity. With over 40 percent of its computers now running Windows Vista, NIC plans to complete Windows Vista standardization before the end of calendar year 2008.

 

Situation

The National Ice Centre (NIC), located in Nottingham, England, includes two Olympic-size ice rinks as well as a 10,000-seat event venue. The facility opened in April 2000 and is home to elite figure skaters, Olympic speed skaters, and the GMB Nottingham Panthers professional ice hockey team. The Trent FM Arena, which is part of the NIC complex, hosts popular music and sports events featuring a diverse range of internationally recognized performers, including Elton John, Green Day, and Usher.

NIC employs 260 individuals who conduct a range of business and operational activities. The employees include four IT staff members who manage and maintain an installed base of 100 computers. The end-user computing needs of NIC employees are role-specific, and they include sales, marketing, facilities planning and management, and box-office operation activities. The company has entirely standardized on the Windows® XP operating system, and users rely heavily on applications in the 2007 Microsoft® Office system.

The IT staff at NIC has made it a priority to stay current with the latest technology, so they were very interested in trying out the Windows Vista® operating system. “As soon as it was feasible, we wanted to acquaint ourselves with Windows Vista,” explains Rob Williams, IT Manager at NIC. “For both cost and functional reasons we have made a conscious decision to standardize on Microsoft technologies. Windows Vista is the latest and greatest iteration of a computer operating system that has proven to be immensely valuable to our workforce."

There were also practical reasons for becoming an early adopter of Windows Vista. NIC knew that in the coming years Windows Vista would receive the highest priority from Microsoft Corporation for security threat analysis and protection. “The policy here at NIC is to always run the latest version of the Windows operating system. We need to avoid a situation where an operating system in use at NIC becomes unsupported by the vendor,” says Williams.

In addition, NIC was impressed with the security-centric architecture of the new version of the operating system. “From the ground up, I was impressed with the level of security offered by Windows Vista,” says Williams. “Our initial evaluation confirmed that everything about Windows Vista was more secure and stable than earlier Windows operating systems.”

Solution

Microsoft released the first system test beta of Windows Vista in October 2006, and the IT team at NIC downloaded it within the first week of its availability and began experimenting with it. The team quickly identified benefits beyond the improved security it had been anticipating. Features such as Windows User Account Control and Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor showed potential to dramatically reduce time spent conducting routine support tasks.

From the ground up, I was impressed with the level of security offered by Windows Vista. Rob Williams IT Manager, National Ice Centre

Prior to a large-scale Windows Vista deployment, NIC conducted extensive application testing on the beta version. The team was able to port all of NIC’s custom-developed applications to Windows Vista without any problems; however, the team did identify some incompatibilities with several of the third-party applications they used.

In response, NIC contacted the relevant application vendors to report the issues. “Our software vendors were quite pleased to have product users conducting Windows Vista testing on their behalf and were quickly able to resolve the issues,” says Williams. By January 2007, only one application compatibility issue remained.

In February 2007, about one week after Windows Vista was publicly released for business adoption, NIC purchased its first five Windows Vista licenses through its Microsoft Open License agreement. NIC then began a pilot deployment to five Windows Vista users who represented different business lines at the company. This pilot deployment allowed the IT team to explore the interoperability between Windows Vista computers and various department needs, applications, and back-end systems. It also enabled the IT team to identify the level of training required for a large-scale deployment.

NIC found that the Windows Vista machines blended seamlessly with the rest of the organization’s computers. The pilot users enjoyed the new interface and were highly receptive to the migration. Based on these results, NIC established a new policy that all new computers would be deployed with Windows Vista. Throughout 2007, many of the new computers that NIC acquired came with the Windows XP operating system installed, and IT staff upgraded them to Windows Vista in accordance with the new policy.

In addition to the newly acquired computers running Windows Vista, NIC also upgraded 10 existing computers from Windows XP to Windows Vista. To conduct the upgrades, NIC staff employed Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007, a server-based, unified management solution designed for midsize companies. With System Center Essentials, the IT team was able to easily run a query across the computer installed base to identify Windows XP machines that possessed the hardware and graphics capabilities to support Windows Vista.

Upgrading the capable Windows XP computers to Windows Vista went very smoothly. “We upgraded our entire events team—a group of five of the most sophisticated computer users in our organization—in an afternoon,” says Williams. The events team now uses its top-of-the-line computer-aided design (CAD) system on Windows Vista–powered computers to manage the sound, lighting, stage, and seating layout for events.

In February 2008, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) was released and NIC quickly deployed the update to end users. “There were a few quirks with the initial Windows Vista release that have now been resolved,” says Williams. “For instance, the speed of file transfers between folders was initially quite slow, but with [Windows Vista] Service Pack 1 they occur with speed and efficiency.”

NIC also noticed a general improvement in system stability and responsiveness with Windows Vista SP1. “With all of the improvements delivered in Windows Vista SP1 we now have a ‘green light’ to deploy the operating system to all of our computer users,” says Williams.

NIC currently has Windows Vista SP1 on 40 of its 100 computers, with Windows XP running on the remaining machines. “We are looking forward to fully standardizing on Windows Vista by the end of the calendar year,” states Williams.

Benefits

With Windows Vista, NIC has been able to improve the efficiency of IT support activities, enhance computer security, and accelerate the productivity of end users. “Now that we have a critical mass of computers running Windows Vista, we are approaching a tipping point where the impact of IT support and end-user benefits will expand at a rapid pace,” says Williams. “We are already seeing the IT support savings, security, and worker productivity benefits that accompany a Windows Vista deployment. When we completely standardize on Windows Vista later this year, we will enjoy these savings and enhancements on an even larger scale.”

IT Support Efficiency

NIC staff have found that a variety of Windows Vista features have combined to reduce the overall demand for help-desk and desk-side support at NIC. Both the improved overall stability of systems running Windows Vista SP1 and new features such as the Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor are contributing to IT support savings. So far, though, NIC has found that Windows User Account Control is the feature that has most significantly impacted computer support activities.

We are already seeing the IT support savings, security, and worker productivity benefits that accompany a Windows Vista deployment. Rob Williams IT Manager, National Ice Centre

NIC is careful to limit end-user rights for activities such as installing or uninstalling applications. Although restricting computer activities has many security benefits, it has impacted the time to resolve common operating system challenges when using Windows XP. For instance, to resolve a printer or network configuration issue, the desk-side support technician must log on and log off a computer multiple times to ensure the problem has been resolved.

User Account Control in Windows Vista has improved this situation for the NIC support team. “User Account Control has immensely sped up the time it takes our desk-side support team to resolve computer problems,” says Williams. “The days of logging off and logging back on to Windows as a regular user or administrator to determine if a problem [is fixed] have been made obsolete by Windows Vista. Our support guys rave about this new feature.”

NIC has reduced the average time to resolve desk-side support calls requiring elevated (administrator) privileges by more than 50 percent with User Account Control. NIC has accomplished this by taking advantage of User Account Control to grant temporary, elevated privileges through the use of passwords to execute activities previously requiring an administrator identity.

Enhanced PC Security

Enhanced PC security was one of the key reasons NIC chose to conduct its Windows Vista deployment. Features such as User Access Control, Windows Defender, Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, the re-designed Windows Firewall, and the Windows Internet Explorer® 7 internet browser provide a more robust and security-enhanced computing environment. “We deployed Windows Vista with an expectation that it would deliver a more robust and secure computing experience and these expectations have definitely been met,” says Williams.

On its computers running Windows XP, NIC runs third-party utilities to help prevent and detect instances of malware. The IT team is so confident in the security capabilities embedded directly into Windows Vista that it does not use the third-party tools on computers that have been upgraded to Windows Vista.

Although NIC is careful to restrict computer administrative rights, there are several employees, including a Web developer and the building manager, who require elevated permissions. “These power users regularly need to install and uninstall applications to do their jobs,” explains Williams. “Windows Defender makes me feel a lot safer about providing administrative rights to a select number of our end users.”

Accelerated End-User Productivity

Workers from a range of departments including Finance, Facilities Management, Human Resources, and Marketing have all reported that Windows Vista has improved their overall work productivity. Robert Sin, Financial Manager, says, “I estimate that the productivity features in Windows Vista make me about 10 percent more productive during my work day.”

Workers have noticed an increase in efficiency as a result of using the powerful search capabilities embedded directly into the Windows Vista operating system. “We have hundreds of network file folders dedicated to current and former employees, and I regularly need to comb through these folders to locate a particular document,” says Sian Roberts, Human Resources Assistant at NIC. “Windows Vista search has significantly reduced the time I spend searching for documents.”

NIC is also taking advantage of improved metadata tagging features included in Windows Vista. Users report they are tagging documents and images to improve the reliability and accuracy of searches. “Windows Vista search is so powerful that we are beginning to see the end of a need for file folders,” says Williams.

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/casestudies

For more information about The National Ice Centre products and services, call 0115 853 3000 or visit the Web site at:
www.national-ice-centre.com