The Optimum Solution

Ensuring that your technology infrastructure is optimised for your business is a recipe for success

Gartner’s annual CIO survey reveals that almost two-thirds of IT budgets are still taken up ‘keeping the lights on’ and managing IT environments that are becoming increasingly complex due to business growth.

Similarly, silicon.com reports that 70 per cent or more of IT resources are spent just maintaining existing systems. That leaves a mere 30 per cent for new investments and added value activities.

While the cost of hardware and software has fallen, this has been countered by significant increases in support costs associated with managing complex IT environments. Today, keeping your business agile is a juggling act between managing the existing environment, and being able to respond to changes driven by business demands and challenges.

Supportive infrastructure
Organisations need a technology infrastructure that advances rather than impedes their business. In practical terms, this means technology that makes people more productive in their daily work — simplifying complex processes, protecting information and controlling access.

To make this happen, your organisation needs to move away from a reactive approach to IT. You need to focus on developing a vision of self-managing and self-healing systems and applications that support and enable your business objectives.

The process of Distributed Technology Optimisation (DTO) allows organisations to build a secure, well-managed and dynamic IT infrastructure. The benefits for organisations that implement the recommended improvements are cost reduction, better use of resources and an IT infrastructure that delivers increased value to the business.

The first step towards optimising your IT is to understand the maturity level of your current infrastructure. That means benchmarking your infrastructure to discover its strengths and weaknesses. This is a valuable process regardless of whether you are in a reactive stage where you are 'fighting fires', or are at a more proactive stage where you are able to plan in advance for business requirements.

There are well-defined standards and methodologies for this activity — IDC, for example, has created benchmarking criteria to assess and identify the key steps that your organisation can take to realise cost savings and deliver increased business value. These provide the foundation for Computacenter’s Discovery Assessment service. With the knowledge and insight this provides, you are then in a strong position to optimise your infrastructure appropriately.

Using its infrastructure experience with a large number of major clients, Computacenter has developed DTO solutions to help customers – such as EDF Energy and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority – realise the business value of an optimised infrastructure.

EDF Energy
More than five million customers rely on EDF Energy to supply their gas and electricity. As one of the UK’s largest energy suppliers, the company owns and manages the electricity distribution network covering London, the South and East of England. It also operates private contracts with the country’s major airports, London Underground and Canary Wharf.

Since it was created in 2003, the company has not only tripled in size but also tripled the number of customer connections. In the deregulated energy sector, ensuring the company remains competitive is essential.
As Keith Funnell, client computing manager for EDF Energy, explains: “Customer service is a key differentiator for us, which means we have to be able to help the business do things quicker, cheaper and to a higher standard of quality.”

With a fragmented IT infrastructure, meeting the company’s overriding goals would have been practically impossible. “EDF Energy has defined ambitions around customer service, staff satisfaction, employee satisfaction, shareholder value and social responsibility,” says Funnell. “IT is seen as a key enabler and we therefore needed to establish an optimised and highly available infrastructure, which could support core customer services, such as our call centres.”
Soon after its formation, EDF Energy embarked on an ambitious service improvement initiative, which would not only transform its existing disparate IT environment but also its IT services sourcing model. As well as signing up to a three-year managed service with Computacenter, EDF Energy tasked the company with unifying its infrastructure on to a standardised Microsoft platform.

“We needed to reduce our IT support costs and improve speed of delivery for new projects,” says Funnell. “Standardisation would not only enable us to achieve these objectives but also facilitate a continuous service improvement programme for the business.”

With more than 12,000 desktops/laptops and 900 servers involved in the roll-out, expert project management and technical skills were key to the success of the project.

To minimise the risks associated with the 12-month deployment, Computacenter used proven processes and best practices that have been developed by its Shared Services Factory.

Pierre Hall, Microsoft practice leader for Computacenter, commented: “As well as ensuring that the new technologies were rolled out with minimum disruption to the business, we also needed to ensure that the infrastructure was optimised for ongoing efficiency and cost-effective management.”

Since the project was completed in 2006, Computacenter has been supporting the infrastructure under its managed service agreement with EDF Energy. It is also continuing to help identify future initiatives that will maximise the business value of the new environment. This has already led to a pilot of Microsoft’s Office Communication Server 2007, which will enable EDF Energy to expand flexible working options for staff, thereby helping to reduce the company’s overall carbon footprint.
The new IT infrastructure is also supporting the company’s mission to drive customer and shareholder value. As Funnell explains: “We have been able to consolidate our server estate by 35 per cent and sweat our existing assets more effectively. This has reduced our need to buy new servers, resulting in cost avoidance savings of approximately £100,000.”

EDF Energy hopes to be able to further decrease its operational overheads by agreeing a new service model and extended contract with Computacenter.

The implementation has also enabled a step-change in IT management and operational efficiency at EDF Energy – for example desktop image configuration, the distribution of security patches and change management have all improved. As a result, the company has not only been able to reduce the number of malware outbreaks but also enhance IT performance.

Customer service is a key differentiator for us, which means we have to be able to help the business do things quicker, cheaper and to a higher standard of quality.
– Keith Funnell, EDF Energy

UKAEA
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), which pioneered development of civil nuclear energy in the UK, is now restoring the environment of nuclear sites and leading research into fusion energy. The authority employs 2,300 people at five sites — Culham, Dounreay, Harwell, Windscale and Winfrith. It needed to replace its largely Novell-based infrastructure, which also included older versions of Windows, with a modern operating system.
“We were a 10-year Novell shop, but our more commercial business model, brought about by change in the industry, was driving us towards seeking better and more cost-effective IT solutions,” says Chris Broad, head of the Information Systems and Technology Department (ISaT) at the UKAEA Group IT Service provider. “IT is fundamental to our productivity and business continuity. But it was costing us too much. We needed to improve operations, stabilise IT costs, and reap benefits from new and emerging technologies.”

The climate for change has been helped by a reorganisation of the nuclear decommissioning industry under the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which is encouraging a more commercial outlook. Since the early 1990s, the UKAEA has completed more decommissioning work than any other organisation in Europe, and has had considerable success in regenerating former nuclear sites for commercial uses.

The UKAEA ISaT manages 3,500 Windows devices across 23 locations in the UK. One of its first requirements was to commission a full audit analysis of its existing assets from Computacenter, which has been working with the authority since 2002. Andrew Goddard, platforms and operations technology leader at Computacenter, says:
“It became clear that the UKAEA was spending a considerable amount of money using dual systems with some 287 physical servers. It was a major headache to manage. We concluded that there was a great deal to gain from standardisation and a complete migration to a single operating system.”

Two options emerged — the authority could either refresh the Novell estate onto the Novell Linux environment, or migrate to a single Microsoft environment. In making its decision, the authority followed Office of Government Commerce procurement rules. Computacenter brought in Microsoft to help the company build a business case for change, through a needs analysis based on the Microsoft Infrastructure Optimisation Model (IOM). The IOM is a self-assessment tool that helps customers understand and subsequently improve their IT infrastructure, and describes what that means in terms of cost, security risk, and operational agility.

In partnership with the UKAEA ISaT, Computacenter designed a new infrastructure based on Windows Server 2003 operating system and Active Directory for central authentication and authorisation of the new Windows-based computers. The migration also used virtualisation to reduce the number of servers.

Jonathan Clarke, Microsoft business manager, says: “We were able to build a roadmap that clearly showed that the Microsoft system was the most cost-effective and flexible solution. A Professional Desktop Enterprise Agreement with numerous other products then became the logical commercial vehicle, along with a Microsoft Services Premier Support Agreement, to support the great work being done by Computacenter and the UKAEA.”

The Discovery Assessment study benchmarked the total cost of ownership before and after the implementation, and demonstrated the potential savings to be made with the new solution. Broad says: “It was entirely logical, in theory, to share services between our sites and move to a single infrastructure, but we needed the confidence to do so. Through the business case, we saw that the infrastructure would be better and more cost effective to operate once we migrated to Active Directory and Microsoft technologies.”

The Microsoft technologies make it easier for administrators to add other third-party products, giving information workers greater access to new ways of working, remote access from any location, and collaboration technology. Broad says: “We are enjoying much better security with the new infrastructure and better protection against virus attacks. It also helps us better manage our estate, and deploy new applications in a more efficient manner. The reliability of our systems and the integration capabilities is a huge asset, especially for a business that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and cannot afford downtime.”

With a significant reduction in the number of physical servers and the potential for a number of virtual servers, it is now far easier and more cost effective to manage the estate using remote management with Systems Management Server 2003 and Operations Manager 2005. “It is too early to say how much we have saved so far,” says Broad, “but we expect the migration to reduce our base costs. Our business strategy for IT is to do selective outsourcing by projects. There was absolutely no point in our investing more resources in Novell as an authority when Active Directory could do a better job at a much lower cost.”

The new Microsoft Enterprise Agreement for the desktop estate includes Premier Support with a dedicated Microsoft technical account manager (TAM). This gives the UKAEA the best of both worlds because the TAM supplements the ongoing IT services support already provided by Computacenter. The TAM will also help the authority in its plans to migrate to the 2007 Office system.

“Computacenter quickly proved its credentials as a responsive and knowledgeable provider,” says Broad, “and we were happy to extend its role into the area of enterprise IT services. Our own IT staff worked very closely with the Computacenter team in the delivery of this project.”

We are enjoying much better security with the new infrastructure. It also helps us better manage our estate, and deploy new applications in a more efficient manner.
– Chris Broad, UKAEA Group IT Service

Strategic asset
The kinds of benefits enjoyed by EDF Energy and the UKAEA are available to most organisations. The cost savings and efficiency gains derive from moving away from an  infrastructure that is just seen as a cost centre towards a dynamic infrastructure where the business value of the technology is clearly understood and is viewed as a business growth enabler and a strategic business asset.

Related Services
In addition to its DTO solution, Computacenter offers a range of related and supporting services for infrastructure optimisation, including:

For more information, go to: www.computacenter.com/DTO

Computacenter’s DTO Solution
Distributed Technology Optimisation allows organisations to plan their investments for distributed IT, focusing on long-term goals of availability, manageability and cost effectiveness.

Computacenter is able to translate product roadmaps into reality, ensuring customers maximise the impact of their technology investments. The benefits include:

Computacenter works closely with the customer to:

Computacenter's Infrastructure Optimisation Service delivers a detailed business and cost justification document providing critical input into your IT strategy and an overview of future investments and the associated business benefits.

And Computacenter’s Shared Services Factory assists clients with ongoing best practice in deploying and migrating supporting technologies and can offer the following associated services:

For more information, go to: www.computacenter.com/DTO