Case Studies

Houston, Texas–based Stewart Information Services Corporation is an expanding global company committed to delivering state-of-the-art real estate information services to its clients and shareholder value to its investors. In keeping with these goals, Stewart identified two areas for improvement: audit compliance and server management. Using System Center Operations Manager 2007, Stewart reduced the amount of time needed to generate security reports from days to minutes, increased the scalability of servers by consolidating management groups from 7 to 1, and trimmed infrastructure management time by 20 hours per week.

Carnival Cruise Lines needs to deploy software and updates as effectively as possible to ships and offices worldwide, so it’s adopting Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007. The solution cuts update distribution time by 80 percent while boosting the effectiveness of distributions by 20 percent and increasing availability by up to 10 percent. And System Center Configuration Manager is crucial to Carnival’s planned deployment of Windows Vista.

In 2007, Continental Airlines was quickly running out of capacity in its Houston, Texas data center. During that same year, Continental had less than eight weeks to redeploy over 100 front-end Web servers to meet the Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards for financial data protection. The company’s IT department transitioned to a virtual infrastructure using Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007. With this solution, Continental consolidated servers and deployed and migrated to a new virtual environment. Not only did Continental meet its PCI deadline, it also created the foundation for a unified, centrally-managed virtual data center that will handle future growth, provisions servers in two hours instead of four weeks, enhances the IT department’s ability to adhere to build standards, and saves more than U.S.$2 million.

With a worldwide IT infrastructure consisting of approximately 100,000 Windows-based computers and 13,500 servers, Dell needs scalable IT management solutions to keep its global business running smoothly. To meet that need, the company chose Microsoft System Center solutions, enabling Dell to manage its extensive IT infrastructure with minimal time and expense. Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 facilitates the deployment of new software and updates to desktop and laptop computers and servers, as well as their inventorying and support, thereby streamlining IT operations while increasing reliability and security. With Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, Dell can closely monitor its thousands of enterprise systems, including hardware and software, helping the company ensure that its mission-critical supply chain and manufacturing solutions remain continually up and running.

With more than 3 million Windows-based systems under management worldwide, technology services provider EDS is using Microsoft System Center IT solutions to standardize and automate its IT operations. Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 facilitates centralized software deployment and user support, which helps the company to keep its 90,000 computers around the globe secure and running smoothly, while Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 provides the detailed monitoring capabilities EDS needs to ensure that the servers supporting mission-critical systems such as e-mail remain up and running. Just as important, EDS is using System Center solutions to provide standardized service offerings to the clients whose IT infrastructures it manages and to deliver the high levels of reliability, security, and scalability that EDS itself enjoys.

In 2004, financial group HSBC launched an initiative to reduce the cost of supporting 300,000 desktop computers by 20 percent through rigorous standardization. To help achieve this goal, the company deployed Microsoft System Center solutions as an integral part of its new environment. Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 facilitates centralized software deployment, roaming user desktops, and the ability to track software usage to the individual user, while Operations Manager 2005 provides the granular monitoring capabilities needed to ensure that the globally distributed server computers supporting the new desktop environment remain up and running smoothly. To date, HSBC has realized an estimated U.S.$50 million to $75 million reduction in annual costs—expected to increase to $100 million by the time deployment of the new desktop standard is finished at the end of 2007.

When Nissan needed to improve desktop management and server monitoring, the global automaker turned to Microsoft System Center IT management solutions. Nissan is using Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 to automate the deployment of software and remotely support end users, thereby reducing the time and effort required to maintain user desktops and help employees remain productive. The company uses Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 to closely monitor its messaging infrastructure and help keep such mission-critical Windows-based systems up and running smoothly. During a six-month period ending March 31, 2006, Nissan saved 40,000 hours in labor costs, putting the company well on its way toward realizing its goal of a 14 percent reduction in IT spending.