Deutsche Annington

Success Story

Deutsche Annington is using Novell® ZENworks® and Novell Identity Manager to automate the distribution of software to its internal users. Distributing software based on user identity saves both time and money. Novell Consulting® designed and implemented the solution with Deutsche Annington Infomationssysteme GmbH (DAIS), ensuring a rapid, low-risk rollout.

Overview

Deutsche Annington Immobiliengesellschaft GmbH (DAIG) is a major player in the German real estate sector, with 138,000 rented properties under management. The company's strategy is to buy rented accommodation, enhance its value through efficient management, and then sell it at a profit. DAIG employs 1,600 people and generated €291 million profit during 2004.

Challenge

DAIG's internal IT function - named DAIS - is tasked with supporting users in different parts of the organization, and billing their departments accordingly. Managing different user profiles, each with a different mix of applications, was in itself a major challenge. The lack of automated reporting on application usage made the task even more onerous. It was a time-consuming process to set up new users and prepare application usage reports.

DAIG wanted to introduce "user self-service" for software - effectively giving users the power to set up and administer their own desktop computers. The business moves quickly, and expects new hires to be able to start work immediately, without waiting for a technician to set up their workstation. Equally, if existing users move office locations or change job functions, they should be able to work productively straight away.

In order to create a more responsive IT infrastructure, and to reduce maintenance and reporting, DAIG engaged Novell Consulting to design and deploy its user self-service environment based on the existing ZENworks software distribution infrastructure.

Novell solution

"Using Novell ZENworks, we can now control the entire PC lifecycle, from procurement through installation, inventory, reporting and accounting. The reporting on hardware and software inventory is largely automated."

Oliver Meier
Network Manager
Deutsche Annington Infomationssysteme GmbH

As the first step towards a solution, DAIS carried out a detailed analysis of the existing desktop management procedures.

"First, we were keen to build a goal-driven solution that would allow completely automated software installation with Novell ZENworks," said Oliver Meier, Network Manager at DAIS. "Second, we wanted to enable users to manage their own workstations, allowing them to independently install or repair software with a single click. Finally, we wanted to automate reporting, to support both internal accounting practices and ongoing implementations, moves, additions, and changes."

DAIS concluded that a tailored solution based on Novell ZENworks and Novell Identity Manager would fit the bill perfectly.

The new solution is based around a high-level architecture designed by Novell Consulting and DAIS, built on standard Novell software, with Deutsche Annington-specific customization on top. The key concept is integration: DAIG now has an identity-based desktop control solution, enabling automatic role-based management of its PCs throughout the full lifecycle.

"We can now enter a new employee into the system and simply assign a pre-defined set of software resources according to that person's role," said Meier. "The Novell solution ensures that users always have access to the right tools wherever they log on in the corporate network. Using ZENworks, we can now control the entire PC lifecycle, from procurement through installation, inventory, reporting, accounting and decommissioning. The reporting for inventory management and internal service charges accounting is mostly automated on the basis of the system data."

Novell Identity Manager is linked into DAIG's SAP environment, and uses information from SAP* Human Resources to build reports faster. Novell Consulting also built an automated report generation system using Oracle*, integrated with ZENworks and offering a simple Web-based front-end for reporting on application usage.

DAIG can now produce accurate daily information on the usage of IT resources at the press of a button; previously, reporting was a manual process.

The process of upgrading software or installing new applications is now largely automated, and employees can administer their own workstations, without needing to wait for assistance from the IT department. In addition to boosting their productivity, the solution has enabled DAIG to respond more rapidly to new requirements.

"With the old solution, it would take half a day to set up a new PC," said Meier. "With ZENworks it takes just minutes, freeing up valuable IT resources."

Results

"The quality of the work carried out by Novell Consulting was outstanding, and the results speak for themselves: easier administration, lower costs, faster response and greater flexibility."

Oliver Meier
Network Manager
Deutsche Annington Infomationssysteme GmbH

By enabling its employees to control and manage their own sets of applications, DAIG has significantly reduced routine administration by the IT team. Significantly, automation does not equal loss of control. The accurate, automated reporting of application usage has improved the transparency of management information.

Since rolling out the new identity and resource management solution, DAIG has performed operating system upgrades to Microsoft Windows* XP with new Microsoft Office installations for over 1000 desktop PCs, and handled an internal reorganization involving hundreds of people - all with the minimum of effort and intervention from IT staff.

"The quality of the work caried out by Novell Consulting was outstanding, and the results speak for themselves: easier administration, lower costs, faster response and greater flexibility," said Meier. "The Novell team demonstrated excellent know-how, and had access to impressive technical resources, helping us to iron out technology issues very rapidly."