Central control for Central Lancashire
Sally Whittle hears how NHS Central Lancashire’s IT team is saving time and money on software deployments – with Microsoft System Centre Configuration Manager (SCCM). The successor to Systems Management Server, SCCM brings extra functionality with a familiar interface.
NHS Central Lancashire is a busy primary care trust, with staff working over more than 100 physical sites and an increasing number of mobile and remote workers.
Providing technical support and access to up-to-date software to this diverse user population is a constant challenge for the IT team, says operations manager Lukas Twigger.
Rolling out new software was perhaps the biggest headache. Twigger says: “Today in the NHS, virtually every employee uses a computer as part of their job, so our user population has increased enormously. Deploying software by sending someone round with a CD just isn’t an option anymore.”
Innovation needs automation!
In February 2009, the PCT deployed Microsoft System Centre Configuration Manager (SCCM) to provide fast, automated deployment of new software applications. SCCM is the successor to Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS), and provides organisations with insight into, and control over, their complete IT infrastructure.
“We’re now able to package up a complete new application for the whole user base within a couple of weeks, whereas before it might take months for the whole process to be completed.”
The installation was planned and carried out by Microsoft Certified Solutions Partner, BDS Solutions, which also carried out some customisation of the application to fit the trust’s needs.
The company, which specialises in the management of Microsoft server and desktop infrastructure in the healthcare sector, has worked with Central Lancashire for more than ten years, and worked closely with the in-house IT team on the deployment of SCCM.
“There came a point when it simply wasn’t possible to manually control the infrastructure, and to keep sending engineers round to roll out new software,” explains Lee Ballinger, technical sales director at BDS Solutions.
“What SCCM does is enable the trust to automate all of those processes. Because of the NHS Enterprise Agreement [that Microsoft has signed with the health service], it is also able to leverage the investment that’s already been made by the NHS as a whole.”
Automation is becoming an increasingly important issue within the NHS as the number of centralised applications increases, says Ballinger.
“Central Lancashire is a typical example, in that it’s rolling out smart cards to provide staff with access to central, national applications, which often require mandated upgrades or changes,” he says. “With SCCM, that entire process can be automated, which I know has saved the trust a good deal of time and money.”
Script-driven deployment
Today, when Central Lancashire needs to deploy a new or updated IT application, Twigger and his team can create a script, which is loaded into SCCM.
“With SCCM, admin staff can simply get an image of the user’s PC on their own screen, as though they were sitting in front of it.”
“You install the script and SCCM guides you through various screens and options, and when it’s complete you just click a button,” he says. “The software update then advertises itself to the user’s client machines, and when the user next logs on, their computer will go and download the application.”
Twigger says that applications can now be rolled out or updated virtually instantaneously, although there is some time involved in creating the scripts used to control the deployment. “Even so, we’re now able to package up a complete new application for the whole user base within a couple of weeks, whereas before it might take months for the whole process to be completed,” he says.
Although Twigger considered using other software deployment tools, he says the trust opted for Microsoft SCCM because of its familiarity and value for money. “As an NHS organisation, the licensing terms were very favourable, and the team was also familiar with Microsoft SMS, so the whole SCCM environment was very familiar and really easy to use,” he says.
Remote support across the estate
The trust also relies on SCCM to provide remote technical support to employees. IT support staff can gain ‘remote control’ of an employee’s computer, to easily diagnose and resolve problems.
“While most of our users are quite IT literate, it can still be really time-consuming having to do telephone support, constantly asking someone what they can see on screen,” says Twigger. With SCCM, admin staff can simply get an image of the user’s PC on their own screen, as though they were sitting in front of it.
The benefit for the trust is that more support issues can be solved without the IT staff needing to physically attend to the machine, while users are more likely to have problems resolved the first time they contact the support team. “Undoubtedly it saves time and makes us more efficient, because we’re able to deal with things much more quickly,” Twigger says.
…And asset management
Finally, Central Lancashire is using SCCM to assist with hardware and software inventory. This is only being used in a limited way at present, but the software provides a useful back-up to existing paper-based inventories.
“We use it for things like checking minimum specifications of machines if we want to check our licensing is in order and we’re not spending more than we need,” Twigger says.
Getting SCCM deployment right
Overall, SCCM has saved Central Lancashire a good deal of time, but the key to getting the best out of the software is to put in the time upfront.
“With things like the software deployment, the rollout might take seconds, but you need to be sure to spend time upfront developing the script properly and testing thoroughly, because SCCM also means any mistake would be spread just as quickly,” Twigger points out.
In addition, Twigger advises organisations to allocate time after deploying SCCM for the software to fully discover the network nodes, and to ensure servers are positioned in the best possible point on the network, to minimise delays and network traffic.
“What happens with SCCM is it takes a few weeks to discover all the nodes on the network, and I’d suggest waiting until that’s complete before trying to use it to distribute applications,” he says. “This also gives you the opportunity to calculate the geographic positions of servers so that when client machines go to download updates, they can get them locally, and minimise traffic on the network.”
The trust is really still discovering what SCCM can do in many ways and the IT department is still exploring the configuration management and asset intelligence capabilities it offers. “It’s early days for us, but SCCM has definitely given us a real step up over SMS, which we have used since way back,” Twigger says.
More about SCCM
Find out more about how SCCM can help NHS IT teams. Or visit the official SCCM site on Microsoft.com
More about BDS Solutions: BDS Solutions delivers quality IT products and services to help organisations to fully harness the potential of today's technologies. Its main market focus is the public sector, especially the NHS. For more information, visit the BDS Solutions website.