People Power

Background

Just as the company was nearing the completion of its migration from Microsoft Windows XP to Windows 7, IT support services began to see a trend for users adopting tablet devices over traditional workstations and laptops. As many of these employees looked to move to these newer devices – whether IT services liked it or not – the IT team stepped up and set about building a mobility infrastructure that offered a robust and consistent user experience within a well-supported and secure environment. The end goal: reduce the cost of purchasing redundant devices, increase agility, and produce a preferable working platform for their personnel.

Solution

Driven to deliver an up-to-date, resilient and uniform user experience regardless of device and location, it chose to work with Sogeti to design an automated standard image for Windows 8.1 that could be deployed to any user-selected client device.
The top-line deliverable was to give operations teams the ability to provision and manage Windows 8.1-based tablets in all sites covered by their global deployment platform. The company also wanted to take advantage of new Microsoft features such as Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), Secure Boot, BitLocker and Work Folders.

Senior leadership at the company had concluded that Windows 8.1 tablets built on Intel® processors and architecture would be most able to satisfy the rigorous demands of researchers, developers and other professional staff. Furthermore, the company would be able to maintain a consistent user interface while also managing, securing and supporting the devices with the same system management and security tools already in place for desktops and laptops.

Results

The power and responsiveness of the Intel platform allows enterprises to get the most from Windows 8.1 security and remote manageability capabilities, further improving efficiencies and reducing the total cost of ownership of devices. Since the tablets in use are running full versions of Windows, the customer did not have to add new or different support tools to manage and secure its devices. From the staff’s point of view, they can now enjoy full-powered, mobile computers with extended battery life and fast startup/shutdown times.

A standard, automatic image for Windows 8.1 devices has made it quick and easy to deploy new devices across all user environments. And, by transitioning the vast majority of users to tablets that run full versions of Windows, the user experience was improved.

Furthermore, a significant reduction in costs has been achieved because tablets that can perform at the same level as laptops enable users to now only carry one device.

Finally, even though adding Windows 8.1 after the client had just completed migrating to Windows 7 increased support costs in the short term, they are confident that the long-term value will far exceed those costs.

Sogeti, Intel and Microsoft – a winnning combination!

The client’s own IT infrastructure architects collaborated with Sogeti to deliver this project. With the client team’s intricate knowledge of their organization and its practices, combined with the Sogeti team’s status as a Microsoft Gold Competent Partner that specializes in infrastructure services, there was synergy at every level. Sogeti will continue to work with the customer to develop tailored solutions to fully address their business needs, now and in the future.

Diving deeper, the Windows 8.1 and Intel ecosystem is vast, including many different device types and form factors, so Sogeti’s relationship with these two leaders in their fields also proved invaluable when it came to specifying a solution that could meet the client’s exact and demanding criteria.

The pinnacle of this three-way relationship is Sogeti’s “Workspaceas-a-Service” offering, which allows it to manage customer devices using Microsoft System Center and the management features embedded in the devices, such as Intel® vPro™ technology.