Gateway Rehabilitation Center

Success Story

Gateway Rehabilitation Center needed better desktop management tools to keep pace with rapid growth. By standardizing its environment with Novell® ZENworks®, the company increased user productivity and created a stable environment to support future growth.

Overview

Cited as one of the top 12 rehabilitation programs in the country by Forbes, Gateway Rehabilitation Center enables people affected by addictive diseases and other mental and emotional disorders to lead healthy and productive lives. Gateway employs approximately 550 employees in 20 different locations, which in the past year served more than 8,000 patients and in school-based prevention programs served more than 15,000 students

Challenge

As a pioneer and leader in its field, Gateway Rehabilitation Center has grown from a small non-profit organization into one of the top rehabilitation centers in the United States. This growth led to the addition of several new locations and a doubling of users, putting an enormous strain on its IT staff as well as creating a myriad of productivity issues.

Gateway's rapid growth created a significantly higher demand for access to network services from its user base. Unfortunately, its IT staff lacked the necessary desktop management tools and IT infrastructure to successfully deliver on that increased demand.

"We experienced a lot of productivity and connectivity issues," explains Sherry Winiarski, Executive Vice President of Finance at Gateway Rehabilitation Center. "People's systems were always going down and they had difficulty connecting to the network. We had a constant barrage of desktop problems. Productivity suffered significantly and everybody was frustrated. We had to find a way to resolve these issues."

Novell solution

"By using Novell ZENworks to standardize our desktops, we stabilized our environment, reduced the number of user incidences, and really cut down on the time technicians spent resolving problems."

Sherry Winiarski
Executive Vice President of Finance
Gateway Rehabilitation Center

To turn around its desktop management and IT infrastructure situation, Gateway engaged Novell Platinum Reseller, Carter-Mountain Affiliates, to deploy Novell ZENworks Desktop Management.

Gateway leveraged Novell ZENworks to create policies to lockdown workstations so users can no longer install software, change software or save files locally. In addition, the IT staff can now create a standard image and then automatically deploy it to each desktop throughout the organization.

"Standardization was critical to our success," Winiarski says. "If you have 350 computers with 350 different desktops, it's very difficult to manage. By using Novell ZENworks to standardize our desktops, we stabilized our environment, reduced the number of user incidences, and really cut down on the time technicians spent resolving problems."

In addition to standardization, the ability to remotely troubleshoot and repair user issues also significantly improved Gateway's problem resolution. "Novell ZENworks has definitely decreased downtime for our users," Winiarski says. "When a user calls the IT department, technicians no longer have to walk to another floor or drive to another location. They can instantly remote control the desktop with ZENworks, fix the problem, and get the user back up and working. This has really improved user productivity."

Novell ZENworks has also provided Gateway with a better view of its hardware and software inventory. From a planning standpoint, Gateway uses the inventory features to schedule workstation replacements so they don't occur at the same time. "Novell ZENworks has improved our expenditure planning and significantly enhanced our budgeting processes," said Winiarski.

Novell ZENworks also enables Gateway to better manage its software licenses and stay compliant. "As a not-for-profit, we have very high ethical standards," said Winiarski. "Novell ZENworks helps us keep our software licensing current and accurate. With desktop lockdown, we can avoid having any pirated software."

Novell ZENworks has also created a more positive and productive atmosphere as users' personal desktop environments follow them wherever they go in the organization, regardless of what machine they log into.

Carter-Mountain assisted Gateway with all aspects of the Novell ZENworks deployment. "It's very common in our industry to use consultants in different aspects of an organization," said Winiarski. "Working with Carter-Mountain was my first experience with a consultant who was not self-serving. Any benefit that was there to be had, they passed along to us. That speaks very highly of the integrity and commitment of their organization. I have a high regard for Carter-Mountain and their abilities."

Results

"We definitely would have required more IT support staff if we didn't have Novell ZENworks. Now we can use those resources in other ways, to continue our growth. ZENworks empowers us to grow at the pace we need to in order to stay ahead in our market."

Sherry Winiarski
Executive Vice President of Finance
Gateway Rehabilitation Center

By working with Carter-Mountain to implement Novell ZENworks, Gateway stabilized its IT environment and processes, improved user productivity and increased IT savings to foster even more business growth.

The combination of desktop standardization and remote troubleshooting has enabled Gateway's IT staff to support twice as many users with a higher level of service, and with fewer IT resources.

"We definitely would have required more IT support staff if we didn't have Novell ZENworks," Winiarski says. "Now we can use those resources in other ways, to continue our growth. ZENworks empowers us to grow at the pace we need to in order to stay ahead in our market."

As a result of its success with Novell ZENworks, Gateway is now looking at leveraging more solutions from Novell, including the conversion of UNIX* servers to Linux*, and the deployment of Novell ZENworks Asset Management, Novell GroupWise® Mobile Server, and Novell Teaming.