CASE STUDY
STREAMLINED SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT
SAINT-GOBAIN GROUP REDUCES EXPECTED BRANCH SERVER INVESTMENT BY 97% WITH NOMAD French multinational corporation uses WAN optimization solution to rapidly and efficiently distribute software deployments and patches to thousands of PCs using spare, available bandwidth.
Challenge Saint-Gobain needed an efficient way to deploy software patches and upgrades to 100,000 desktops across 6000 branch offices.
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Solution Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (ConfigMgr) in conjunction with Nomad.
Business benefits • 97% reduction in expected branch server investment • Saint-Gobain cuts number of necessary branch servers from 6000 to 200 • Efficient and rapid distribution of security patches and upgrades to the Group’s entire PC estate.
STREAMLINED SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT
Managing the network efficiently About Saint-Gobain Established in 1665, Saint-Gobain Group is the world leader in the habitat and construction markets. It designs, manufactures and distributes building material and provides innovative solutions to meet the growing demand for energy
Managing the IT network and architecture for a multinational organization of this magnitude is a sizeable task. The PC Solution Team is responsible for delivering all the tools to manage the company’s 100,000 workstations. In 2008 the team chose to implement Microsoft Systems Management Platform across the group to create better collaboration and improve productivity.
efficiency and environmental protection. Present in 64 countries around the world, Saint-Gobain has almost 190,000 employees. There are 1700 subsidiaries and it is present in more than 6000 distinct geographical locations.
maintaining at least 6000 servers. The PC team sought an alternative solution that would avoid having to put a server into each branch office.
The standard architecture for the Microsoft platform is for each geo-location to have a dedicated, or ‘branch’ server. For Saint-Gobain this would have meant investing in, and
“ It was impossible to imagine 6000 Distribution Points. We had to find a solution that would reduce the number of servers that we would need to install.” Guillaume Chuet, Desktop Solution Manager, Saint-Gobain Group The team decided to research the possibility of using SCCM and Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) GPO and found a considerable reduction of servers would be possible but that they would still require a 1,000-strong server farm. Mark Cochrane an independent consultant, who had contributed to the study, suggested that the team look at Nomad from 1E. Using spare network bandwidth, the tool delivers operating system upgrades, software deployments and patches safely and securely to thousands of PCs and servers day or night with zero disruption on the network. This solution removes the need for branch servers or desk-side visits – reducing existing server footprint and administrative overheads. The team immediately understood that this solution matched their requirements. During the evaluation period it soon became apparent that distribution of software, OS upgrades and deployments was working perfectly, “We had initial concerns about optimal distribution over a LAN using only one peer for multiple clients rather than having each client being a peer for other machines. We need not have worried, it worked as it should, distribution was quick and reliable,” affirms Guillaume.
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STREAMLINED SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT
Immediate benefits About Nomad Tightly integrates with SCCM 2007/ 2012 Reverse QoS™ uses spare capacity – autonomic throttling system to protect business data Single Site Download (SSD) flattens infrastructure App-V streaming support optimizes network usage for mobile clients Peer Backup Assistant preserves and restores user data and personal settings Multicast, WinPE support and enhanced OSD capabilities PXE Everywhere enables one machine to boot from any other on the network without any network configuration
Having only one peer distributing to multiple PCs is very effective and causes minimal impact on the network as well as reducing the bandwidth requirements. An additional benefit of Nomad is that it is able to identify and control the connection type and it manages device connections seamlessly as they move between wired and wireless LANs. The testing phase was over a period of four to six weeks. “Nomad has given us a new, more efficient way to distribute packages across our network. We quickly realized the positive impact this solution had on our business on a few early occasions when packages were sent in the old way. Without Nomad, significantly more bandwidth is required to push an image over the network. We were getting calls from Saint-Gobain Telecom (the team in charge of the company’s network) alerting us to instances of inefficient bandwidth usage and we made the connection when we spotted that the packages in question had not been sent via Nomad.” The tests were considered such a success that we’ve never really needed to measure the impact. The ROI is just so obvious,” comments Guillaume. “Today, we’re down to only 200 servers, of that total, 150 are dedicated distribution point servers. Using Nomad has saved us from unnecessarily investing in thousands of servers for the company, “We have thirty times less the amount of servers that we were told we could have at the start of our consolidation project.” Nomad has enabled Saint-Gobain to make significant cost savings, first, by avoiding investment in thousands of servers (and the associated energy, support and maintenance costs that they would have generated) and second through better systems management and reduced disruption to users’ working day. “Nomad is a solution that has responded to our requirements and works very successfully for us,” Guillaume concludes.
About 1E 1E’s suite of disruptive IT operations management tools save billions, solve problems and simplify the management of large, complex IT environments – in record time. Designed with a singular focus to help drive down costs, 1E’s solutions include tools for IT asset management, Windows systems management and BYOPC. Contact us UK (HQ): +44 20 8326 3880
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