Microsoft Infrastructure OptimizationCustomer Solution Case Study

Health Software Provider Reduces IT Costs by $25,000 a Year, Improves Productivity

OverviewCountry or Region: PortugalIndustry: Life sciences

Customer ProfileBased in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, Alert Life Sciences Computing develops solutions to help healthcare providers transition to paper-free business environments. It employs 485 people.

Business SituationAlert wanted to standardize its IT infrastructure on interoperable products to boost employee productivity and IT management.

SolutionAlert signed a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, choosing the Enterprise Client Access License to acquire tools that improve IT management and support flexible work styles.

Benefits Empowered IT to support the business Improved IT productivity Enhanced security Reduced IT costs by €19,000

(US$25,000) a year Transformed communication and work

styles

“Since signing the Enterprise CAL Suite, we have the tools we need to protect the network and provide better services to employees: the seven of us in IT are working 100 percent more efficiently!”

Filipe Pinto, IT Manager, Alert Life Sciences Computing

After years of growth, Alert Life Sciences Computing, a software solutions provider, needed to update its IT infrastructure. The company’s seven IT professionals required better tools to support the business, employees needed a way to collaborate and communicate, and management wanted to standardize software acquisition among the subsidiaries. After signing the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement with the Enterprise Client Access License Suite option, Alert eliminated redundant software purchases, streamlined the IT infrastructure, and gained management tools that the IT staff use to work an estimated 99 percent more efficiently, while saving US$25,000 annually by retiring third-party products. Employees use enterprise-grade communication and collaboration technologies, helping them to connect with colleagues around the world and to build a more professional, cohesive business.

SituationAlert Life Sciences Computing is a Portuguese software development company working in the healthcare field. Customers around the world turn to the company’s comprehensive suite of healthcare solutions, branded ALERT, to deliver patient-centric care and improve administrative efficiencies—while transitioning to a paper-free environment.

Founded in 1999, Alert grew rapidly for the next 10 years, adding subsidiaries in Brazil, Mexico, France, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Focused on developing new software and winning customers, Alert did not implement a corporate technology acquisition policy. The company’s head office and its subsidiaries acquired business productivity software or IT management tools on an as-needed basis. The lean IT staff of seven professionals, including one person on the help desk in Brazil, had only a few third-party management tools to support a global environment. “When I joined the company in 2005, there were 35 employees and one IT staff,” says Filipe Pinto, now IT Manager at Alert Life Sciences Computing. “We grew 100 percent a year until 2007, and by 2009, it was getting very challenging for the IT staff to manage and support the business.”

Today, Alert has more than 250 servers, 85 percent of which run the Windows operating system. It has 550 personal computers standardized on the Windows 7 Professional operating system and Microsoft Office 2010. Approximately 60 percent of these are desktop computers. The rest are laptops used by employees when they travel or visit customers. Mobile

employees connect to the office through a corporate virtual private network. “Our goal is to support our employees so that they can work productively, no matter where they are,” says Pinto.

Third-Party Management ToolsHowever, Pinto and his colleagues did not have the right tools to enable a flexible work style. The company used TeamViewer to support colleagues working outside of the office, but it was not very efficient. Support staff had to ask employees to download a client, which required an ID and passcode, and it didn’t have a voice over IP (VoIP) element. “It took 10 minutes just getting the session set up,” says Pinto.

To protect computers from malicious software, the IT department used the open source tool Anubis and deployed a Symantec antivirus solution in combination with a Linux-based firewall. This worked well until the employee count passed 400. ”Then the proxy server on the Linux-based firewall started overwhelming the system, and I had to reboot the system all the time,” says Pinto. “Our disc-cloning software from Symantec, called Ghost, also lost its effectiveness as the number of PCs grew into the hundreds. It was a manual process to deploy the image. To install just the basics—Windows, Windows Update, Microsoft Office, Skype, Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, the Internet browser—would take up to seven hours per computer. Then we would have to ship the CDs to the subsidiaries. It was becoming impossible to support the employees with these tools and manual processes.”

Poor Insight into Global Operations

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“We grew 100 percent a year until 2007, and by 2009, it was getting very challenging for the IT staff to manage and support the business.”

Filipe Pinto, IT Manager, Alert Life Sciences Computing

As the subsidiaries grew, it was increasingly difficult for the central IT team in Portugal to keep track of global hardware and software inventories. Each subsidiary purchased software on its own; some acquired Microsoft technology through an Open Value Subscription, while others had no licensing agreement at all. Subsidiaries also purchased hardware as needed. “This was an expensive way to acquire technology that resulted in multiple flavors of software and duplicate costs,” says Pinto. “And it impacted our ability to control the corporate IT environment. With all those different PCs and laptops and approximately 17 images to manage, I couldn’t be sure of our inventory at any one place or time.”

Communication and Collaboration IssuesAs the company grew, employees needed more robust communication and collaboration tools to span global operations. Alert did not offer an enterprisewide collaboration platform or content management capabilities beyond shared files on the network. There was no way to collaborate on content, track document version history, or manage and run customer engagements. Employees used GoToMeeting from Citrix Online, but the company only had eight licenses and it was difficult to schedule web conferences, so people resorted to phone calls and email messages.

Alert needed to standardize on productivity-enhancing, cost-effective technologies while simplifying global software acquisition. The company began looking for an enterprisewide technology licensing policy.

SolutionIn 2009, after discussing different options with its Microsoft account representative, Alert Life Sciences Computing chose to update and standardize its IT infrastructure by signing a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement and opting for the Enterprise Client Access License (CAL) Suite. This licensing program includes the collaboration, security, communication, and infrastructure management capabilities the company needed. The Enterprise CAL Suite comes with Software Assurance for Volume Licensing, which provides automatic upgrades to new software versions.

“We could have purchased more disparate, third-party tools that would have forced us to learn different interfaces, but we liked the idea of standardizing on one vendor to simplify licensing and streamline IT management with a single tool set,” says Pinto. “When we took a closer look at the Enterprise CAL Suite from Microsoft, it became clear that it was the most cost-effective way of acquiring the technologies we needed.”

In addition to the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system, the company gained Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 email messaging and collaboration software. This means IT staff can offer employees access to voice mail, email, and calendars in their inbox. Alert acquired Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 to build a global collaboration and content management platform, and it replaced GoToMeeting with Microsoft Lync 2010 communications software, including Microsoft Lync Server 2010 and the Microsoft Lync 2010 client, which staff can use to establish presence status and initiate instant messaging (IM) conversations and

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“We could have purchased more disparate, third-party tools that would have forced us to learn different interfaces, but we liked the idea of standardizing on one vendor to simplify licensing and streamline IT management with a single tool set."

Filipe Pinto, IT Manager, Alert Life Sciences Computing

web and audio conferences. “Lync Server 2010 provides real-time desktop sharing plus VoIP capabilities, which we can use for providing remote support, so we can retire TeamViewer,” says Pinto.

The IT staff was most excited about the suite of infrastructure management tools that it could use to protect the network and keep employees up-to-date with the latest software. IT professionals use Microsoft Forefront client security solutions to enhance endpoint security. They retired Anubis in favor of Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for Exchange, an Internet-based service that protects inbound and outbound email from spam, viruses, phishing scams, and email policy violations. They replaced the old proxy server with Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010, a network security and protection solution. They replaced Symantec with Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 to help strengthen endpoint security. Forefront Endpoint Protection is built into Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager so that Alert IT staff can combine client management and security using a single console. IT staff had no software to manage its servers and desktops, but with System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, they can centrally monitor endpoints across the organization and take steps to quickly solve issues.

“Of the System Center products, the star for us is Configuration Manager,” says Pinto. “We can retire the Ghost software distribution product. There’s no comparison between the tools. Now we have automated software deployment,

both locally in Portugal and for the global subsidiaries.

Outside of the Enterprise CAL Suite agreement, Alert also upgraded to Microsoft Project Server 2010, which is used by 55 people on the operations team to manage customer engagements, and to Microsoft Visio Professional 2010 drawing and diagramming software. “We use Visio 2010 for designing unified modeling diagrams and for workflows and procedures,” says Luis Ribeiro, Systems Analyst at Alert Life Sciences Computing. “In other departments, we have hundreds of Visio diagrams used by Alert teams for their internal workflows.”

BenefitsWhen it entered into the Enterprise CAL Suite agreement, Alert Life Sciences Computing was a global company in need of enterprise-ready technologies. “The Enterprise CAL Suite agreement was the quickest, least-expensive way to acquire the Microsoft products and services that were necessary to support our rapidly growing business,” says Pinto. “Today, we have the technology we need to work more productively anywhere, to make connections across global subsidiaries, and to secure the enterprise.”

Increased Efficiency 100 PercentThe main incentive for Alert to enter the Enterprise CAL Suite agreement was to acquire a better set of tools for the IT staff to support the business. “Since signing the Enterprise CAL Suite, we have the tools we need to protect the network and provide better services to employees: the seven of us in IT are working 99 percent more efficiently!”

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Instead of manually deploying software to PCs, the IT staff use automated processes with System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. If employees want to upgrade to the latest version of Visio, all they have to do is open a ticket with the help desk, and the IT staff can fulfill the request in five minutes by using Configuration Manager to download the program to their PCs. It is just as easy to deploy operating systems and applications. “With Ghost, I would have to insert the CD, start the machine, install the image, and go to the next PC. By using Configuration Manager, I just start the machine from the network and install the image,” says Pinto. “When we upgraded to the Windows 7 operating system, it only took one hour to deploy the image, compared to the seven hours per computer it took before.”

IT staff use Lync Server 2010 to expedite remote support for employees in the head office, on the road, or at a subsidiary on the other side of the world. Sharing desktops and initiating an audio conference is a click away, and employees can rely on IT staff to keep their PCs and laptops working so that they can be productive anywhere. “Lync Server makes remote support seamless because everyone has the Lync 2010 client on their desktop,” says Pinto. “Since we began using this tool, we’ve eliminated at least 10 minutes at the beginning of each support call. At an average of 32 calls a day, that adds up to approximately 5 hours a day saved.”

Simplified IT EnvironmentSince Alert implemented a corporatewide software licensing agreement, it has standardized software acquisitions among

the subsidiaries, reducing the number of images it maintains from 17 to five. “Before, we had to manage multiple desktops and images,” says Pinto. “Now there is a lot less complexity in our environment. And thanks to Configuration Manager, what we do have, we know about, right down to the serial number on every machine.”

Enhanced SecurityIncreased visibility has empowered the IT staff to “take control of the park” according to Pinto. And where there is control, there is enhanced security. For example, Alert developers, all of whom have administrative rights on their PCs, were uninstalling the antivirus software to improve PC performance, so the IT staff needed to address the problem. “We can easily see when this happens and, in minutes, re-install the software,” says Pinto. “And when Operations Manager reports that employees are surfing unprotected websites, I can take steps to address the issue. With these tools, we can enhance our network security and provide more professional service to the business.”

Reduced IT Costs by €19,000 a YearWith a single licensing agreement that covers the entire company, Alert is no longer wasting IT budgets on duplicate software purchases among the subsidiaries. Because it simplified the IT environment and the IT staff work more efficiently with interoperable management tools, Alert saves money on IT labor costs. “We are also saving money by retiring third-party products,” says Pinto. “So far, we will be able to retire five products, saving at least €19,000 [US$25,000] a year.”

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“We are also saving money by retiring third-party products. So far, we will be able to retire five products, saving at least €19,000 [US$25,000] a year.”

Filipe Pinto, IT Manager, Alert Life Sciences Computing

Transformed Communication and Work Styles Alert employees use presence information in Lync 2010 to see where their colleagues are and to choose the most appropriate communication option to reach them: PC-to-PC calls, IM, audio, or videoconferences—communication options that were not readily available before. At the head office, most desks are shared by six people and there is just one desk phone, but with Lync 2010, everyone can make PC-to-PC calls and use their headsets. “We don’t have to pay for a license to have a soft phone because it comes with the Enterprise CAL Suite agreement,” says Pinto. “People like to IM instead of sending an email, especially knowing that there will be a record of the IM conversation stored for future referral. I’m frequently out of the office, but people can reach me on my mobile phone using Lync forwarding. I’m working harder and producing more.”

While Alert is only just beginning to build up a collaboration platform where

employees can take advantage of document management capabilities within SharePoint Server 2010, the company has begun to automate workflows so that staff can save time on administrative details. “Now, instead of filling out multiple paper forms and taking them around to get signed, staff can submit and process vacation requests through a SharePoint workflow,” says Pinto. “This is the beginning of a new way of working at Alert: before the Enterprise CAL Suite, we had to work twice as hard to get half of what we wanted done: now we have all the technology we need to accomplish our goals, and we are doing it more professionally.”

Microsoft Infrastructure OptimizationWith infrastructure optimization, you can build a secure, well-managed, and dynamic core IT infrastructure that can reduce overall IT costs, make better use of resources, and become a strategic asset for the business. The Infrastructure Optimization model—with basic, standardized, rationalized, and dynamic

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Alert Life Sciences Computing products and services, call (351) (22) 832 89 80 or visit the website at: www.alert-online.com

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published July 2012

Software and Services Microsoft Enterprise Client Access

License Suite− Windows Server 2008 R2− Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

Enterprise− Microsoft Forefront Protection Suite− Microsoft Forefront Endpoint

Protection− Microsoft Forefront Online Protection

for Exchange− Microsoft Forefront Threat

Management Gateway− Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Enterprise

Edition− Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

Enterprise CAL

− Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager

− Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft Project Server 2010

Microsoft Visio Professional 2010

Hardware Server: Dell PE R805, Dell PE R805, Dell

PE 1950, Dell PE 2950, Dell PE 400, HP ProLiant DL360, HP ProLiant BL460

Desktop: HP, Dell and Toshiba

levels—was developed by Microsoft using industry best practices and Microsoft’s own experiences with enterprise customers. The Infrastructure Optimization model provides a maturity framework that is flexible and easily used as a benchmark for technical capability and business value.

For more information about Microsoft infrastructure optimization, go to:www.microsoft.com/io

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