“With the implementation of System Center Essentials technologies and the assistance of our partner, Network Configurations, we anticipate that we can reduce our IT costs in the long term by 25 percent.”
Ian Losinsky, Financial Manager, ABX Turners Shipping
ABX Turners Shipping provides companies around the world with freight management and logistics services. To control rising IT costs associated with the company’s growth, ABX deployed Microsoft® System Center Essentials 2007. The result is a 25 percent reduction in IT management costs and an efficient, smoothly running IT system for ABX.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published June 2007
Business Needs
ABX Turners Shipping is a global freight management and logistics company providing shipping services, charters, and deliveries of oversize and restricted cargos. Based in Durban, South Africa, ABX has branch offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and approximately 120 employees across the company.
As the company has grown, its IT infrastructure has become increasingly complex. Today ABX operates seven servers, 110 desktop and portable computers, and eight network devices. The company runs a mix of Microsoft® software, including Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, the Windows Server® 2003 Standard Edition operating system, Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003, and the Windows® XP Professional operating system.
To manage its IT systems, ABX chose to partner with Network Configurations, a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner based in nearby Westville. Ian Losinsky, Financial Manager for ABX Turners Shipping, says Network Configurations became a valuable partner. However, the company wanted to control the amount of time that was needed for Network Configurations staff to actually be onsite.
“As the IT infrastructure became more important for business operations, it was necessary for Network Configurations to spend more and more time at our offices performing routine but essential IT administrative and maintenance tasks,” says Losinsky. “The growing cost of having technical people onsite became a concern.”
Network Configurations spent about 60 hours a month at ABX’s offices performing tasks such as managing servers, deploying and updating software, and performing critical security updates. These tasks were hampered by a lack of automation and heavy reliance on manual processes.
“When deploying or updating software, we had to physically walk around to the individual desktops, which included the headquarters and branch offices,” says Iain Emerson, Director of Network Configurations.
“With the ABX servers, we had no effective way of predicting potential problems and fixing them before they affected users,” Emerson says. “We needed to find a way of managing the ABX site on a 24/7 basis without having to constantly send engineers to their locations.”
Solution
In 2006, Network Configurations learned about Microsoft System Center Essentials 2007, a new management solution in the Microsoft System Center family of management products and solutions. System Center Essentials is a unified management solution that helps IT professionals in midsize organizations proactively manage their IT environments. The solution provides a unified systems -management console and supports automatic deployment of updates for operating systems, hardware, drivers, and software applications.
System Center Essentials was an ideal solution for ABX because it could address the company’s need for a cost-effective, unified IT management solution. Network Configurations became an early adopter of System Center Essentials, deploying it at ABX in early 2007. “The deployment of System Center Essentials went very, very smoothly,” says Emerson. “It is an easy solution to deploy and begin using quickly.”
Network Configurations views and manages the entire ABX IT system using the System Center Essentials management console, which engineers access using a virtual private network connection into ABX.
Network Configurations is integrating data collected in System Center Essentials at ABX into Microsoft System CenterOperations Manager 2007 at its office in Westville. Microsoft Operations Manager is an enterprise-scale event and performance management tool for the Microsoft server product portfolio.
Benefits
By deploying System Center Essentials, ABX has been able to cut costs while improving the overall value of its IT system. The amount of time that Network Configuration engineers spend at ABX has been reduced by up to 80 percent. Server management is both easier and more effective, software deployment can be done remotely, and the security of ABX IT assets has been improved.
“Now that System Center Essentials 2007 has been deployed within our organization, and Network Configurations can provide us with remote monitoring and management services, our onsite support costs have dropped dramatically while our network stability has increased. We anticipate that we can reduce our IT costs in the long term by 25 percent,” says Losinsky.
Network Configurations engineers are using System Center Essentials 2007 to continually—and remotely—monitor the health of the ABX servers. “We’ve eliminated the need to do a manual check list onsite because System Center Essentials displays all relevant server information at a single remote console. Now we can proactively monitor the health of the ABX servers and identify problems before they affect the ABX users,” says Emerson.
Efficient software deployment: “With System Center Essentials, tasks such as software and patch deployment are 100 times easier. We don’t have to manually install software on each machine,” Emerson says. “We now spend a total of about two hours a month for both software deployment and patch management, down from four. ABX also just purchased the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and we will use System Center Essentials to roll it out.”
Improved security: While ABX has not had serious problems with IT security, Emerson says that System Center Essentials is enabling even tighter controls over the ABX IT system. “We have set up a number of security alerts for both servers and computers. One of those is to warn us when users install any unauthorized applications onto their computers. We can see that instantly and determine if it might create a problem.”
Easy remote management: System Center Essentials 2007 makes it easy to remotely monitor IT assets. This feature has significantly reduced the amount of time that Network Configurations needs to spend at the ABX sites. “It is simple to monitor computers and servers and to see what configurations and software is being used by all of the ABX IT devices,” says Emerson.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published June 2007