About NuVista Energy
NuVista Energy is an independent Canadian oil and natural gas exploration, development and production company with its common shares trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "NVA".
Challenge
With employees and contractors spread across the Western Canadian Oil Patch, it was difficult for NuVista Energy to consistently keep workstations running smoothly. In addition, as the business grew, the company needed a more sophisticated approach to service desk call management. "We had no software in place to manage support requests," said Robert Cahoon, IT systems analyst for NuVista Energy Ltd. "To improve service to our users, we wanted greater visibility and accountability for problem resolution."
The company needed a solution that would accommodate its heterogeneous environment. "We have a combination of cutting-edge technology as well as antiquated systems that we need to support so it was important to find a solution that would run on any operating system," said Cahoon.
Novell Solution
NuVista Energy began using Novell ZENworks® Configuration Management to remotely manage its workstations, bringing greater consistency in application and patch distribution. If a user reports an issue, a technician simply remote controls into the device so they can quickly resolve the problem. "Some of our offices are a 12-hour trip away, so having a tool like Novell ZENworks Configuration Management to remotely fix workstation issues has been a huge advantage," said Cahoon.
As they began exploring service desk solutions, NuVista Energy turned to Adaris Technologies, a Novell Platinum Partner™. "After an extensive comparison of many of the industry's top offerings we decided on Novell Service Desk," said Cahoon. "Our team had several meetings to determine our 'needs' and 'wants' for a ticketing system. Novell Service Desk was the only one to fill all of our 'needs' and even our 'nice to have' wants in a ticket system. Not only did it do all that, but the price point was great! Installation and integration into our existing Active Directory and Novell ZENworks environments was very easy—we were up and running in no time."
ITIL support was another attractive feature. "We're looking to incorporate some ITIL-certified processes for our help desk, and Novell Service Desk will come in handy for that," said Cahoon. "We'll be able to easily generate outage tracking and other key reports for auditors."
Adaris played a key role in the project. "Adaris provided tremendous value," said Cahoon. "Not only did they help us get the most out of our Novell ZENworks deployment, they helped us get up and running quickly with Novell Service Desk."
"Support tickets are now managed through Novell Service Desk, providing greater accountability across the support organization," said Cahoon. "This really helps with speeding call resolution."
Results
Today, Novell ZENWorks Configuration Management allows NuVista Energy to remotely manage and update its workstations spread across the country. This enables the company to respond to critical needs much faster. "In the past, if one of our field offices needed a critical application, they would have had to ship the workstation to us," said Cahoon. "Now we can remotely install a new application in minutes."
The solution has also helped the company avoid significant IT support costs. "We recently patched 175 workstations at once in just an hour, with few issues," said Cahoon. "Prior to implementing Novell ZENworks, that just wouldn't have been possible. In fact without it, I would have had to double our staff. We're also saving thousands of dollars in travel costs."
NuVista Energy also plans to use the Novell solution to reduce the time and complexity of its Windows 7 migration. "It used to take six hours for a technician to build each new workstation and a lot of user profiles could get lost in the process," said Cahoon. "With Novell ZENworks, we can handle this in 30 minutes or less, and migrate user profiles to their new workstations."
Novell Service Desk has also provided significant benefits. "We've freed up about one quarter of our IT staff's time using Novell Service Desk," said Cahoon. "They're now able to spend more time focused on meeting the business needs of our users."
The solution has also helped build cooperation between end users and the IT team. "Novell Service Desk helped improve the perception of IT and let users know what we're doing to resolve their issues promptly," said Cahoon.