Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Tobacco Company Gains Increased Efficiencies In Migration Monitoring
Overview
Country or Region: United Kingdom
Industry: Manufacturing and Distribution of Tobacco products
Customer Profile
Imperial Tobacco Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom, manufactures, markets, and sells cigarettes, tobaccos, rolling papers, and cigars in more than 130 countries.
Business Situation
The organisation needed to proactively manage, across Western Europe, its new messaging infrastructure, which consisted of Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003 communication and collaboration server.
Solution
Imperial Tobacco rolled out Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 across the 17 domains that migrated to Exchange Server 2003 communication and collaboration server.
Benefits
n Greater cost-effectiveness during migration
n More resourcing for strategic IT roles
n Maintains constant service delivery
n Improves problem identification
n Upgrades service level agreements with end-users / “The low TCO of MOM 2005 means that administrators working on individual domains can also focus more on the development of our network.”
Adel Al-Shehab, Global Design & Planning Manager, Imperial Tobacco
Imperial Tobacco Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom, planned to migrate its messaging infrastructure throughout Western Europe. Entitled Project Swift, the migration meant a transition from Microsoft® Exchange Sever version 5.5 to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 communication and collaboration server. The migration’s success depended on the reliable delivery of the new software to 3,000-plus personnel. But, the existing way of managing the network was insufficiently proactive to identify network issues early and help resolve them quickly. To address these shortfalls, Imperial Tobacco rolled out Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005, gaining a management tool offering industry-standard levels of network control with a low total cost of ownership (TCO). The infrastructure software helped ensure the transition was successful, delivering an effective and efficient way of monitoring.
Situation
Imperial Tobacco Group, which has its headquarters in Bristol, United Kingdom, is the world’s fourth largest international tobacco company. The organisation manufactures, markets, and sells cigarettes, tobaccos, rolling papers, and cigars in more than 130 countries.
The company’s main strategy is to increase shareholder value by organic growth and acquisition. This dynamic attitude to business development means Imperial Tobacco has a network user base that regularly expands and an IT infrastructure that is always under pressure. As a result, network systems are constantly assessed against a checklist covering reliability, security, ease and cost of management, and user functionality.
To ensure its messaging infrastructure delivered industry-leading standards against all these requirements, Imperial Tobacco launched Project Swift. The project, which covered 3,000 users across 17 domains and more than 80 servers in Western Europe, was to migrate the infrastructure from Microsoft® Exchange Server version 5.5 to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 communication and collaboration server.
Imperial Tobacco understood the success of the project depended on the reliable delivery of the new messaging software. To guarantee reliability required a management system that offered a simple method for identifying issues early and resolving them quickly.
Historically, Imperial Tobacco used small IT teams working at local sites to manage the network. But they tended to tackle day-to-day administration issues as they arose without any automated processes to identify network issues early and resolve them quickly.
Adel Al-Shehab, Global Design & Planning Manager, Imperial Tobacco, says: “We understood there was a need for a robust and reliable infrastructure management technology that ensured the consistent delivery of this business-critical collaboration server system. But, while it was important that the technology proactively tackled any issues affecting service, it also needed to deliver compelling reductions in network management costs.”
Solution
Imperial Tobacco began a search for appropriate technologies and partners in an extensive evaluation of management technologies. After careful consideration, the organisation contracted Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Lynx Technology to implement Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 for monitoring the delivery of Exchange Server 2003 communication and collaboration server, across the domains. MOM 2005 and Exchange Server 2003 are part of Microsoft Windows Server System™ integrated server software.
Al-Shehab says: “We began working with Lynx Technology more than six years ago, purchasing hardware and consultancy services in that time. We turned to the partner once more, because of its detailed knowledge of the Imperial Tobacco core infrastructure and its expertise in MOM 2005. In addition, the partner showed a firm commitment to completing the project on time and to budget.”
In the first stage of the MOM 2005 rollout, Imperial Tobacco created a MOM 2005 management group that monitored 80 servers delivering the communication and collaboration software. This group consisted of a MOM 2005 database, one or more MOM 2005 management servers, and four user interfaces. The interfaces included an administrator console, operator console, reporting console, and Web console.
The organisation located the management group in Bristol. The group covered a number of Imperial Tobacco domains brought together under the heading Zone One. Subsequent stages of the MOM 2005 rollout saw the creation of further management groups covering the remaining domains divided up under the headings Zone Two, Three, and Four.
Zone One became the central repository for all MOM 2005 data collected from the Imperial Tobacco network. The data consists not only of management and technical reports on Exchange Server 2003, but also of reports on other aspects of the organisation’s infrastructure including the Active Directory®, directory service, the Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 operating system, and MOM 2005 itself. The management solution generates the reports daily, weekly, and monthly and these are accessible using the Web console.
The MOM 2005 rollout programme was a success. It helped ensure the reliability of Exchange Server 2003—a crucial factor if Project Swift was to meet its main objectives. In addition, it established an automated system for helping identify and resolve network issues, but with a low total cost of ownership (TCO).
Al-Shehab says: “We delivered the project within budget and within the timeframe allocated, which gave us until July 2005 to complete the migration. The successful rollout of MOM 2005 was achieved because of good project management and excellent teamwork between my own IT personnel and the Lynx Technology consultants.”
Benefits
Efficient Monitoring
By using MOM 2005, the efficiency of monitoring Project Swift was improved significantly. Before the rollout, the organisation believed that the complete Global Design & Planning Team, which consists of three personnel in the United Kingdom and one in the Netherlands, needed to monitor the transition. However, the reduction in time required to manage the changeover by using MOM 2005 meant Imperial Tobacco reallocated 50 per cent of the team to other more cost-effective network duties.
Al-Shehab says: “Introducing MOM 2005 has enabled me to reallocate two members of my Global Infrastructure Management Team to tasks focusing on the continued development of our network.”
More Strategic IT Management From Low TCO
Imperial Tobacco now uses an enterprise-class network management solution with a low TCO. By using MOM 2005, IT administrators supporting the 17 domains included in the Project Swift can automate core management tasks across the whole domain infrastructure, freeing up time to concentrate on more strategic tasks.
Al-Shehab believes this re-organisation of tasks ensures benefits that will increase over time. He says: “The low TCO of MOM 2005 means that administrators working on individual domains can also focus more on the development of our network.”
Ensuring 100 Per Cent Service Delivery
Imperial Tobacco has avoided any disruption in delivery of Exchange Server 2003 since the system went live. Furthermore, the organisation is experiencing improved service delivery for all its infrastructure software.
Al-Shehab explains that MOM 2005 prevented an infrastructure issue escalating and threatening a breakdown in network services. He says: “Discovering the many alerts gave us the opportunity to contact the local site immediately and respond before the issue escalates and impacts the service.”
Improving Processes For Problem Identification
By using the MOM 2005 user interfaces, network administrators are gaining a profound insight into the health of the network. The interfaces highlight problems and recommend solutions covering the server infrastructure delivering Exchange Server 2003 and the other aspects of Microsoft technology running across the network.
In the case of Imperial Tobacco, administrators use all four user interfaces including the Web Console. This console delivers less functionality than the main Operator Console, but, importantly, provides a remote view of the network using a Web browser.
Better Network Management Raises End-User Service Level Agreements
Not only are the IT administrators feeling the impact of MOM 2005, but so are Imperial Tobacco employees. Al-Shehab explains: “We can provide better SLAs [service level agreements] to the user community, because of MOM 2005. The solution establishes a foundation from which we can build an improved level of service between IT and the rest of the business.”
Microsoft Windows Server System
Microsoft Windows Server System is a comprehensive, integrated, and interoperable server infrastructure that helps reduce the complexity and costs of building, deploying, connecting, and operating agile business solutions. Windows Server System helps customers create new value for their business through the strategic use of their IT assets. With the Windows Server operating system as its foundation, Windows Server System delivers dependable infrastructure for data management and analysis; enterprise integration; customer, partner, and employee portals; business process automation; communications and collaboration; and core IT operations including security, deployment, and systems management.
For more information about Windows Server System, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem