Novosco, an IT services provider based in Ireland, aimed to achieve ISO compliance in an effort to win more customers in the public sector; the company also wanted to enhance internal IT procedures. As a result of upgrading to the Windows 7 operating system, Novosco has earned ISO compliance through enhanced security,has enhanced even further support call response time, and has experienced improved system performance.

Situation

Novosco is a leading provider of virtual infrastructure services in Ireland. The Microsoft Gold Certified Partner specializes in helping its customers solve business challenges with emerging technologies and offers services across a broad range of areas: infrastructure optimization, disaster recovery, compliance and security, productivity and performance, and managed services.

To support the company's mobile employees, who are often on the road and working from customer locations, Novosco has 40 portable computers. Its office-based employees use desktop computers or small thin-client computers. On the portable and desktop computers, the company primarily runs a mix of 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Windows Vista Enterprise operating system. Its server environment is heterogeneous and includes Active Directory services in the Windows Server 2008 operating system, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 e-mail messaging and collaboration software, and Citrix servers.

With an already strong private-sector customer base, Novosco has increasingly been winning more customers in the public-sector. In order to work on government contracts, IT companies must achieve ISO compliance, which is a rigorous and industry-sought standard. After reviewing the company's internal processes and systems, Novosco decided to enhance even further its encryption for hard disks and removable media, such as USB thumb drives.

At the same time, the company wanted to 'practice what they preach' and improve system performance even further to expediate customer service levels. When customers experience performance issues, they call the IT support desk at Novosco; which depending on the support agreement, has to be responded to within 2 to 4 hours.

Because the support staff at Novosco resolves not only IT issues for external customers, but also for internal employees, the company wanted to enhance internal support porcedures to create timely and efficient inter-company support.

Solution

In December 2008, soon after the ISO auditor finished reviewing the internal processes and systems at Novosco, the beta version of the Windows 7 operating system became available. "The timing couldn’t have been more perfect," says Colin Rainey, Technical Manager at Novosco. "We knew immediately the benefits of implementing Windows 7 to aid us in achieving ISO compliance."

For its initial roll out, Novosco let its technically-savvy employees rebuild their own computers and manually install Windows 7. The company did not run any formal application compatibility because the company has a lean application footprint, including primarily Microsoft products such as the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Windows 7 applications are also compatible on Windows Vista. The company found one low-level compatibility issue with Citrix Password Manager, but is working with Citrix to deploy a software update.

For enhanced security and greater control of hard drives and removable media, and to meet ISO compliance requirements for encryption, the company implemented BitLocker To Go. It is also taking advantage of the Problem Steps Recorder to help IT support staff troubleshoot system issues for an even faster response time. Problem Steps Recorder is a feature in Windows 7 that records the steps users completed leading up to an error message or other IT support steps by documenting mouse clicks and key strokes.

The company has already installed Windows 7 on 35 of its 70 computers. It will continue the deployment with the next release candidate. Although Novosco performed manual, clean installations of the operating system for its initial deployment, it is evaluating deployment automation tools for Windows 7, including Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 and Microsoft System Center technologies.

The ISO auditor was very impressed with the security enhancements we were able to make with Windows 7. We’re now ISO-compliant, which is key to winning more business from the public sector. Colin Rainey, Technical Manager, Novosco

Benefits

As a result of deploying Windows 7, Novosco has high security procedures which aided ISO compliance and has improved support response times to an even higher standard. The company also enjoys a significant improvement in general system performance.

Achieved compliance with security enhancement

With BitLocker To Go, the company can extend its data security beyond the hard disk drive to external drives. As a result of implementing BitLocker To Go, Novosco achieved ISO compliance easily at the end of January 2009-just one month after its initial ISO audit. "The ISO auditor was very impressed with the security provisions in place using Windows 7," explains Rainey. "We’re now ISO-compliant, which is key to winning more business from the public sector."

Increased expediency for IT support calls

Novosco is taking advantage of the Problem Steps Recorder to help troubleshoot system issues. "When a user calls support with an issue, much of the troubleshooting time is devoted to users trying to explain the problem. Now, with the Problem Steps Recorder, support staff can quickly see the exact steps that resulted in the error and resolve the issue. It’s simple, but brilliant, and complements our customer service orientation.” says Rainey.

Improved system performance

As a result of implementing Windows 7 during its beta release, Maxima Ireland is able to gain expertise using the operating system prior to implementing it for customers. The company can evaluate features in Windows 7 and take the lessons-learned from its own internal deployment and pass along those key learnings and business value to customers.

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© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published May 2009