Lifecycle Management or LCM is a process for administering system software, hardware, and support over the life of a system. IT professionals, like yourself, deal with a number of common challenges on a daily basis. For example, recent studies have shown that BYO devices are projected to grow to 72% in 2017. With changes like these come a number of different business issues, as IT departments now need to think about how they can support devices through it’s entire lifecycle.
Here at Lanworks, we’ve had the privilege of implementing a number of LCM solutions over the years, so we thought we would share one such experience.
Recently, a Toronto based (Canada Wide) construction company needed to implement an enterprise wide application; namely, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software across their infrastructure. As with most of our customers, they needed it done with a “sense of urgency” (read: three weeks from the initial call).
To ensure that our client had a successful deployment, our assessment showed that all their hardware, such as desktops, laptops, and servers needed to be prepared and configured with pre-installed software, such as Adobe, Silverlight, Internet Explorer, and Java. Did we mention we only had three weeks?
Our Solution
After assessing their business needs, we decided to use Symantec’s Altiris platform, as the customer already had it and it would allow us to meet their requirements in a timely fashion.
Here’s how we successfully completed the project:
- We put together the project dream team, which consisted of 1 onsite SE from Lanworks and 4 Customer SE’s, as well as associated Project Managers
- We installed Symantec’s Altiris Symantec Management Platform Server and the Altiris agent was deployed to over 2000 clients
- We created the software packages and policies for delivering the software application to their end clients
- Using their inventory data;
- We analyzed hardware configurations for application requirements, and hardware upgrades were executed where necessary
- We analyzed software applications to determine compliancy and/or required software updates, and created custom policies to offset any gaps
- We performed testing on selected PC’s and upon successful confirmation we were able to proceed with the software deployment
The Outcome
At the end of the three weeks, we successfully deployed the Enterprise Resource Planning software, with minimal disruption to our customer’s employees and the network environment. Needless to say, our customer was incredibly satisfied, which confirmed our success.
For more information on lifecycle management and how Lanworks can meet your business’ needs, contact us.