Actebis Peacock GmbH
The Actebis Group is Europe's third-largest wholesaler of information and communication technology products, including computers, telecommunications equipment and consumer electronics. The company is headquartered in Soest, Germany, and its 1,800 employees work at locations across northern and western Europe, supplying a network of approximately 70,000 resellers. In 2007, the group achieved revenues of 3.6 billion Euros.
Challenge
Much of Actebis Peacock GmbH's day-to-day business is transacted by office-based employees, supported by core applications and databases that are accessed from desktop PCs running Windows XP. Without their PCs, most employees would be unable to work effectively–so the company's productivity depends on maintaining, managing and replacing these machines when necessary.
The company's German operations–located at two sites in Soest and one in Bad Wünneberg-Haaren–wanted a solution that would help the internal IT team centrally manage its estate of 1,200 desktop PCs, to reduce administrative workload and enhance auditing capabilities.
"Our existing software provisioning system was quite primitive, so each new PC needed about 1.5 hours of 'post-configuration' before it was ready for the user," said Bernd Humpert, System Engineer at Actebis Peacock GmbH. "With 1,200 machines, this was very time-consuming. Moreover, without a centralised asset management system, we had to manually audit every single machine to find out how many software licences we needed."
Novell Solution
Actebis was already using Novell ZENworks® Desktop Management, and was impressed with the quality of the software. When the company decided to introduce a new solution, the IT team was keen to evaluate two new Novell products: Novell ZENworks Configuration Management and Novell ZENworks Asset Management.
"Our previous experience with Novell solutions was very positive, and we were keen to take advantage of new features in Novell ZENworks Configuration Management," said Reinhard Kriehn, System Engineer at Actebis Peacock GmbH. "The user interface is simpler now, and there is Microsoft Windows Vista support, which would be important if we decide to upgrade from XP."
Actebis Peacock worked with Novell Consulting to deploy the software across both its sites in Germany.
"The teamwork between Novell and the Actebis Peacock GmbH team was excellent," said Bernd Humpert. "We worked with Novell consultants whose competence and dedication earned our respect. Support from experts like these helped us overcome all technical challenges to ensure a successful outcome."
Novell ZENworks Configuration Management provides centralised software provisioning for all 1,200 machines on the German network. When a new PC is added to the network, the IT team uses Novell ZENworks to send a preconfigured image file to the machine's hard disk, and the operating system and applications are installed automatically. Within 40 minutes, the PC is ready to use.
Novell ZENworks Asset Management scans all PCs and other equipment on the network, creating a full inventory of hardware and software. With a few mouse-clicks, the IT team can produce a report that tells them how many copies of an application are being used–so the company gets an accurate idea of how many licences it should buy.
Results
"From a day-to-day management perspective, the most important benefit of the Novell solution is the automation of software provisioning," said Reinhard Kriehn. "Using Novell ZENworks Configuration Management, a single staff member can now set up 10 or 20 machines at a time, so it's a massive improvement in terms of productivity for the IT service desk. If we ever decided to replace all 1,200 machines, we could now do it in approximately 30 days–with the previous solution, it would have taken 75 days!"
Another benefit is increased flexibility. If an employee moves to a different job within the company, there is no need to move his or her PC. Instead, the user's desktop is simply downloaded onto a machine in the new office.
"Aside from operational benefits, Novell ZENworks Asset Management also makes a major contribution to higher-level activities such as strategic planning and budgeting for our IT department," said Bernd Humpert. "With an accurate inventory of software and hardware assets, we can ensure that we only buy what we need–which minimises our costs. The ability to show good financial management in the IT department means we have more money to invest in IT projects that can really benefit the company."
Actebis Peacock Germany has already delivered a presentation about Novell ZENworks to colleagues in Denmark, and there is a plan to roll the solution out across the entire group in 2009.
"With Novell's help, Actebis Peacock is building a more efficient desktop management environment," said Bernd Humpert. "We look forward to the day when the whole group can benefit from Novell ZENworks."