Sesame Workshop - SUSE · PDF fileOverview Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit edu cational...
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Overview Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit edu- cational organization that changed tele- vision forever with the legendary Sesame Street. As the single largest informal edu- cator of young children, local Sesame Street programs are produced in countries as diverse as South Africa, Bangladesh and India, and are making a difference in over 120 nations. Challenge As a nonprofit organization, Sesame Work- shop leases most of its desktops, laptops and servers. Manually tracking its hardware and software inventory was time-consum- ing for a small IT staff. Sesame Workshop wanted to streamline inventory and asset management to free up its IT staff and properly manage its leasing contracts. Sesame Workshop hosts nearly 50 con- sumer websites, many with large volumes of media content, thousands of concurrent users and more than one million unique visitors per month. Facing increasing hard- ware and software licensing costs with Sun Solaris and Microsoft Windows, the company evaluated a move to Linux. Solution Sesame Workshop selected Novell ZEN- works Asset Management to streamline its inventory processes and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as the open platform for its web architecture. “Novell ZENworks Asset Management is a good fit for us because it works across our multiple platforms including UNIX, Win- dows, Linux and Macintosh,” said Noah Broadwater, vice president of Information Services at Sesame Workshop. “We tested several solutions and found that Novell ZEN- works Asset Management doesn’t place a big burden on our network like other solu- tions. We are getting great performance.” The IT staff used Novell ZENworks to install software based on the user’s identity and role within the organization. Novell ZEN- works Asset Management then tracks the software on each machine and alerts the IT staff if users try to install unauthorized software. Sesame Workshop Sesame Workshop is an educational television studio that produces Sesame Street. With a small IT staff and limited budget, Sesame Workshop needed innovative ways to manage its growing IT environment. The company implemented Novell® ZENworks® Asset Management to reduce inventory administration time by 70 percent and leveraged SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server to consolidate web servers by 80 percent. Success Story Enterprise Linux Servers Sesame Workshop at a glance: A nonprofit educational television organization Industry and Location Entertainment, United States Product and Services SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Novell ZENworks Asset Management NetIQ Access Manager NetIQ Identity Manager Results + Reduced inventory administration time by 70 percent + Moved to an open web infrastructure that costs 85 percent less than a proprietary solution + Consolidated web servers by 80 percent with Xen virtualization + Reduced hardware costs by 30 percent “Just as Sesame Workshop innovates in media and entertainment, we try to innovate in IT. SUSE gives us the tools to compete with our bigger competitors, but without the huge price tag.” NOAH BROADWATER Vice President of Information Services Sesame Workshop
Transcript of Sesame Workshop - SUSE · PDF fileOverview Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit edu cational...
OverviewSesame Workshop is the nonprofit educa tional organization that changed television forever with the legendary Sesame Street. As the single largest informal educator of young children, local Sesame Street programs are produced in countries as diverse as South Africa, Bangladesh and India, and are making a difference in over 120 nations.
ChallengeAs a nonprofit organization, Sesame Workshop leases most of its desktops, laptops and servers. Manually tracking its hardware and software inventory was timeconsuming for a small IT staff. Sesame Workshop wanted to streamline inventory and asset management to free up its IT staff and properly manage its leasing contracts.
Sesame Workshop hosts nearly 50 consumer websites, many with large volumes of media content, thousands of concurrent users and more than one million unique visitors per month. Facing increasing hardware and software licensing costs with Sun Solaris and Microsoft Windows, the company evaluated a move to Linux.
SolutionSesame Workshop selected Novell ZENworks Asset Management to streamline its inventory processes and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as the open platform for its web architecture.
“Novell ZENworks Asset Management is a good fit for us because it works across our multiple platforms including UNIX, Windows, Linux and Macintosh,” said Noah Broadwater, vice president of Information Services at Sesame Workshop. “We tested several solutions and found that Novell ZENworks Asset Management doesn’t place a big burden on our network like other so lutions. We are getting great performance.”
The IT staff used Novell ZENworks to install software based on the user’s identity and role within the organization. Novell ZENworks Asset Management then tracks the software on each machine and alerts the IT staff if users try to install unauthorized software.
Sesame WorkshopSesame Workshop is an educational television studio that produces Sesame Street. With a small IT staff and limited budget, Sesame Workshop needed innovative ways to manage its growing IT environment. The company implemented Novell® ZENworks® Asset Management to reduce inventory administration time by 70 percent and leveraged SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server to consolidate web servers by 80 percent.
Success StoryEnterprise Linux Servers
Sesame Workshop at a glance:A nonprofit educational television organization
Industry and Location
Entertainment, United States
Product and Services
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Novell ZENworks Asset Management
NetIQ Access Manager
NetIQ Identity Manager
Results
+ Reduced inventory administration time by 70 percent
+ Moved to an open web infrastructure that costs 85 percent less than a proprietary solution
+ Consolidated web servers by 80 percent with Xen virtualization
+ Reduced hardware costs by 30 percent
“Just as Sesame Workshop innovates in media and entertainment, we try to innovate in IT. SUSE gives us the tools to compete with our bigger competitors, but without the huge price tag.”
NOAH BROADWATER
Vice President of Information Services Sesame Workshop
www.suse.com
“Moving to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server gives us the same reliability and performance as UNIX,
as well as the option to run whatever open source tools best fit our business. The cost savings from
Linux are incredible.”
NOAH BROADWATER
Vice President of Information ServicesSesame Workshop
To read more customer success stories, visit:www.suse.com/success
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“With ZENworks Asset Management, we know exactly what is installed and where,” said Broadwater. “Having a realtime inventory makes it easy for us to comply with software licensing requirements, as well as our leasing schedules.”
Sesame Workshop is currently relaunching many of its websites and is replacing its Sun Solaris, Microsoft Windows and Debian servers with SUSE Linux Enter prise Server. The company has already seen dramatic improvement in its web performance as its home page load time decreased by 130 percent.
“Instead of paying for proprietary hardware with UNIX, we can now get compe titive pricing from all the major x86 hard ware vendors,” said Broadwater. “Mov ing to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server gives us the same reliability and performance as UNIX, as well as the option to run whatever open source tools best fit our business. The cost savings from Linux are incredible.”
With an open platform, Sesame Workshop is taking advantage of a host of open source software. Using SUSE Linux Enter prise Server with builtin Xen virtualization, the company can easily configure virtual web servers to run multiple websites and no longer requires several physical servers per website.
“We estimate that we are doing with 12 servers what most companies do with 100,” said Broadwater. “We are huge advocates of open source which defies the industry adage that you can never get cheap, fast and good. As a nonprofit organization, we have to be innovative with a limited budget.”
Sesame Workshop also uses Novell iden tity and security management solutions to pro vide its 10,000 users with personalized access to its intranet. NetIQ® Access Manager™ authenticates employees and part ners to its portal, based on user information stored in NetIQ eDirectory™. NetIQ Identity Manager automatically synchronizes user information across disparate applications so users have single signon access to everything in the portal.
ResultsBy implementing Novell ZENworks Asset Management, Sesame Workshop reduced inventory administration time by 70 percent and can better comply with auditing requests and leasing contracts.
The company moved its web infrastructure to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for a cost 85 percent less than that of a proprie tary UNIX and Windows solution. Con soli dating web servers by 80 percent with Xen virtualization has reduced hardware costs by 30 percent. By leveraging open source software, the company has dramatically reduced its software costs, contributing to an overall IT budget reduction of 18 percent.
“Without Novell solutions, we would need to increase our IT budget every year by at least $1 million,” said Broadwater. “Just as Sesame Workshop innovates in media and entertainment, we try to innovate in IT. SUSE gives us the tools to compete with our bigger competitors, but without the huge price tag.”
