Taking its responsibility to students, faculty, and staff seriously, Sacred Heart University wanted a highly effective emergency response plan—one that could be updated at any time, with information always available to first responders and other authorized users. For this lifesaving function, the university built a Web site based on Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007. The result is more detailed, up-to-date plans and better interagency coordination.

When researchers at Rutgers wanted to explore massive computing scenarios with real-world significance for fields such as financial services and pharmaceuticals, they turned to Windows® HPC Server 2008. In one research project, the software proved at least 30 percent faster than Linux. The Windows HPC Server cluster was deployed in one day and works like the Windows operating system with which users and administrators are already familiar.

RehabCare Group provides rehabilitation program management services for more than 1,200 facilities across the United States. The three IT staffers in the company’s Client Technology Services group found it challenging to efficiently manage its 150 applications and 2,500 desktop and laptop computers, while supporting a large mobile work force. By switching to virtualization using Microsoft® Application Virtualization and System Center Configuration Manager, RehabCare cut the time for large-scale deployments of new applications from weeks to less than one day, delivered application updates 80 percent faster for a savings of 1,200 IT staff hours per year, improved asset tracking, and enhanced reliability and service for widely dispersed employees. Just as important, it increased end-user productivity, freeing therapists to focus on patient care instead of software installations.

Klamath County, Oregon, faces information technology challenges typical in many local governments in the Western United States. They are home to an array of aging hardware and software infrastructure, face intense budget pressures, and must support an increasingly networked workforce for whom always-available computing resources are a mission necessity. The county’s mission is to continuously provide services, even in the face of snowstorms, earthquakes – or even terrorist events. This makes reliability and fault-tolerance a key requirement. The county implemented Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) messaging solution to address these challenges. The early results have been promising. In addition to increasing the reliability and responsiveness of the county’s IT infrastructure, the county is realizing administrative savings while delivering robust email services.

The mission of one of the top public universities in the United States is to provide the best possible educational experience for its students through excellence in teaching, research and creative activity, and service to the state and society. As a part of that mission, the school’s IT team strives to offer students, faculty, and staff a secure and reliable communication solution that enhances the everyday activities that comprise university life. To improve e-mail capabilities for faculty and students, the university deployed a pilot of Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010. With this upgrade, the university will be able to benefit from increased performance and redundancy, reduced storage and backup costs, reduced compliance costs, and the ability to grow the communications network as the university population demands it.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting medical research across the United States and in several foreign countries. With over 31,000 employees, NIH relies on e-mail as a primary communication tool, particularly for receiving, processing, and awarding grants to medical researchers around the world. NIH wanted to offer a high availability solution across its organization, as well as provide a more seamless e-mail experience for employees. NIH deployed a pilot of Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 and found that the architecture and service improvements in this latest version would help the organization improve employees’ e-mail experience, provide a more robust availability and disaster-recovery solution, and ease administration.

To explore options for reducing IT costs while enabling a mobile workforce, the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) has conducted field testing of a mobile command and control solution comprised of off- the-shelf components, including Microsoft® tools and technologies and phones powered by Windows Mobile. The exercise included Inca X’s Live Media GPS and enabled ONR to demonstrate innovative ways to leverage IT for collecting and analyzing operational data.

Hitachi Consulting, a global Systems Integrator and Microsoft partner, implemented a Microsoft-based business intelligence, collaboration and communications system for YES Prep Public Schools in Houston, TX. Providing real-time data to teachers and administrators, Hitachi’s “Project Navigation” solution helps YES Prep teachers get the information they need to do their job most effectively. Watch the video case study to see the results.

Monroe College IT staff members had struggled with the school’s security applications. The college’s first security software left its desktop and laptop computers vulnerable to Internet viruses and spyware, resulting in multiple outages and downtime. The second product reduced the number of outages, but it was difficult to maintain, and the Monroe IT group struggled to keep security updates current. Monroe College turned to Microsoft® Forefront™ Client Security and has not experienced a disruption due to a virus or malicious software in more than a year because of improved virus and spyware protection. Further, the IT staff appreciates having a simplified system administration process and the ability to easily deploy software updates.

Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) offers classroom and online education to over 100,000 students. KCTCS is using Microsoft® System Center data center solutions in conjunction with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Beta to improve e-mail availability and performance and to simplify e-mail management. KCTCS has reduced problem resolution times by 66 percent and can expand its messaging servers by 50 percent without increasing IT staff.