CASE STUDY

NOMAD FOR SCCM UPGRADE

NOMAD REDUCES
SCCM RUNNING
COSTS BY $9.8
MILLION
Worlds leading learning company chooses
Nomad to operate System Center 2012
Configuration Manager for its estate of 32,000
PCs in the most cost-effective manner, and in
the process reduces number of system
management servers to just six

Challenge

Solutions

Benefits

The company wanted to standardize

globally on the Microsoft System Center
2012 Configuration Manager (SCCM 2012)
platform. Until 2013 they had been using
SCCM 2007 to provide systems
management within its European and
Latin American operations for some time,
whilst other regions of the business such
as North America and parts of AsiaPac

The company identified how Nomad

significantly reduces the amount of
server infrastructure required to support
an SCCM 2012 environment whilst
actively maximizes reliability and
performance. It delivers further
efficiencies in managing software
distribution and updates, and Operating
System deployment tasks.

By standardizing on SCCM 2012, the

company has seen the following
benefits:

were either using a legacy Microsoft SMS

2003 infrastructure, or in some cases
other tactical solutions.

Share this

1E.COM

The SCCM 2012 design for included

integration of Nomad to deliver the full
breadth of systems management
capabilities to all Windows-based
Operating System clients across the
companys global desktop estate.

Removal of 10 Distribution Points, and

avoidance of having to invest in 75
Secondary Site servers.
Acceleration of Windows 7 Migration.
A standardized approach to inventory
management, software and OS
deployments.
Systems management and
maintenance has become faster and
easier to manage and control.
The SCCM 2012 deployment is part of the
companys greater strategy to enhance
its systems management and desktop
provisioning capabilities.

NOMAD FOR SCCM UPGRADE

Deploying SCCM 2012 Globally Ensures Robust

Foundation to Growth Plans
The introduction of SCCM 2012, and creating one global systems management
standard, would create the foundation for enabling the companys greater strategy to
enhance its systems management, software license efficiency, and desktop
provisioning capabilities to the My Cloud strategic environment. It will bring further
benefits towards a consumerization-based approach for delivering desktop services
to its workforce and desktop IT estate.
Until 2013 the company had been using SCCM 2007 to provide systems management
within its European and Latin American operations for some time, whilst other regions
of the business such as North America and parts of Asia-Pacific were either using a
legacy Microsoft SMS 2003 infrastructure, Symantecs Altiris, or in some cases other
tactical solutions.

Nomad ensures there is no disruption to the business when

applying patches or processing an OS deployment.
The company wanted an automated, resilient, agile and scalable tool that would
enhance SCCM 2012 to create efficiencies in managing software distribution, software
updates and Operating System deployment tasks. Therefore the company
approached 1E to see whether integrating Nomad into their systems management
architecture would achieve these goals.
In our existing environment we had some locations with very limited bandwidth,
some with legacy systems and some with no systems management at all, comments
the project manager, We wanted to ensure there would be no disruption to the
business to apply patches and have the ability to process an OS deployment in a
fail-safe and automated way.
1Es Professional Services team demonstrated to the internal architecture teams how
Nomad would work. Nomads seamless SCCM console integration, its ability to
remove secondary servers, the optimization of existing bandwidth, and speed of
software and OS image delivery were all key factors in it becoming the companys
clear choice as the most cost-effective and fastest way to distribute software across
its entire PC estate.
The demonstration led to a couple of validation workshops testing out the product in
an evaluation environment, first in the UK and then in the US. Everything was tracked,
tested and it all worked as expected. The project was therefore signed off in early July
2013 and just a few weeks later, the project plan was implemented and Nomad was
deployed in earnest.

1E.COM

NOMAD FOR SCCM UPGRADE

$3 Million Cost Avoidance of Buying and

Maintaining 85 Servers
About Nomad
Nomad is the fastest, most costeffective way to distribute software
across the enterprise. It enables
software to be distributed anywhere,
in the fastest way possible, easily and
at any time, while removing
complexity from the network and
drastically reducing the number of
servers needed.

Without Nomad in our SCCM architecture we would have expected to buy 85 systems
management servers, says the project manager, However we have now been able to
remove the need for all secondary sites and have just six servers in our Data Centers:
one Central Administration Site (CAS) in New Jersey, then one primary server per
region in North America, South America, Europe, Australia and India.

Without Nomad in our SCCM architecture we would have

expected to buy 85 systems management servers. We have now
have just six servers to deploy patches and OS images to all
32,000 PCs across the world.
I cant speak highly enough of 1Es professional services consultants who did a
fantastic job on helping us determine the new architecture. We worked really well
together and, as one of the key challenges we had was being agile, they proved to be
very flexible as well as being extremely methodical and were instrumental in helping
us meet our project deadlines, the project manager comments.
Nomad, in removing the need for 85 servers in all, delivered transformative cost
savings. The investment avoided in buying these 85 new servers accounts for
$856,800 in hardware, software and installation and, when operating and
maintenance costs are considered, there is another saving of $264,960 a year so that
for a five-year period the total cost avoidance saves the company a total $3,038,400
(assuming a hardware refresh every three years).
Another key benefit is the WakeUp functionality. Out-of-hours business updates and
patches were not available before the Nomad deployment and there was quite an
overhead to coordinate desk-side visits. With WakeUps ability to schedule computers
to wake up remotely for software and patching updates, the company is able to make
substantial savings of $644,448 annually.
Significant savings are also realized from Nomads automated patch and OS image
distribution. With the company migrating off Windows XP to Windows 7, theres a
one-off saving of $492,891 and, using Nomads PXE Everywhere capability, there is an
on-going annual saving of $536,360 through PXE remote bare metal builds, completely
eliminating the need for couriers or desk-side visits.

1E.COM

NOMAD FOR SCCM UPGRADE

Standardized approach to content delivery

About 1E Professional Services
The global team of 1E products and
systems management experts have
extensive knowledge, experience
and consulting expertise.
1E consultants, who on average, have
more than six years experience
working with systems management
technologies - with a specific focus
on Microsoft System Center
Configuration Management - provide
knowledge and shared insight and
best practices on complex Operating
System Deployments, implementing
SCCM upgrades and rationalizing
software, hardware and information
architectures for clients large and
small.

The project manager is delighted: By deploying all the infrastructure to our Data
Centers has enabled us to have greater coverage and standardize systems
management globally. It is a step change from the previous inefficient and nonstandardized state that we can have a standardized approach to inventory
management, software and OS deployments across all regions.
He continues, Now it is way easier for us to manage and control, and manageability is
a key benefit giving us governance all the way through, not to mention the substantial
savings that Nomad brings. The intelligent bandwidth throttling and usage
management enables IT to distribute patches and upgrades during the day, rather
than having to wait until end-of-day which helps keep the networks health and
security up-to-date.
With Nomad fully deployed, the company is set to make savings total of $9.8 million in
capital and operating costs over course of the next five years.
By fully integrating Nomad into the SCCM 2012 design, the company gains further
benefits by ensuring a rapid deployment of the full solution to the global desktop
estate. The project was completed in within an aggressive time line of just a few
months. The SCCM 2012 infrastructure was designed and implemented in three
months (from July to October 2013), and, by accelerating the SCCM 2012 rollout the
company is able to further accelerate its Windows 7 migration and achieve full
adoption of the Windows 7 OS in a much shorter time than had been currently possible
with existing systems.

About 1E
1Es suite of disruptive IT operations management tools save billions, solve problems
and simplify the management of large, complex IT environments in record time.
Designed with a singular focus to help drive down costs, 1Es solutions include tools for
IT asset management, Windows systems management and BYOPC.
Contact us
UK (HQ): +44 20 8326 3880

US: +1 866 592 4214

India: +91 120 402 4000

info@1e.com

Share this
For more information, please visit: 1E.COM/NOMAD or 1E.COM/SCCM-2012-MIGRATION
Copyright 2014 1E. All rights reserved. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
1E shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
20140602

1E.COM