Use of software asset management tools has helped a Quebec-based ski resort dramatically increase its operational efficiency.
With a comprehensive and complete picture of its software assets, Ski Bromont has been able to determine which applications to keep and which to discard or update. The company has also put in place procedures for software access and management, and it created an effective plan to guide future purchases.
Together, these efficiencies have nearly halved Ski Bromont’s IT department’s service hours.
The situation was quite different just two years ago. While on the business side, the resort in Bromont, Quebec, was headed for a record-breaking season, on the IT side, it was a different story.
A bewildering mishmash of obsolete applications and unauthorized software downloads had snowballed over the years, causing frequent system crashes.
The facility’s decision, in 2003, to offer season passes online was just beginning to bear fruit. However, failure to implement a comprehensive software asset management (SAM) program at the very outset was threatening to send Ski Bromont off-trail.
During the peak holiday season in 2004, there were times when the resort’s Web site and ticket kiosks went down for days at a time. “It was disastrous. We would lose 1,000 customers, or roughly $20,000 ($17,300 U.S.) each day [due to] downtime,” says Guy Granger, vice president of finance at Ski Bromont, which is located 45 minutes from Montreal.
Then Ski Bromont asked Conamex International, a Microsoft-centric
“these capabilities help administrators to quickly determine which software they should upgrade, purchase or discard.”
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technology consulting and deployment firm in Montreal, to develop an asset management program that would make sense of and control the various applications on the resort’s network.
“Ski Bromont had no idea what software they had,” recalls Jean Leblanc, a Conamex technical evangelist. After doing of an inventory of the resort’s network, Leblanc found the system included an odd assortment of current and dated versions of applications, legitimate software, and programs downloaded without permission by various users over the years.
The resort’s membership grew from 3,000 to over 27,000 in 2005,
When done well, IT asset management provides the following:
Significant improvement in return on technology investment.
Maximum operational efficiency and end-user productivity.
a tight link between technology and corporate strategy.
but while the staff was able to handle the sudden surge of visitors, the IT environment wasn’t prepared for the good times, according to Granger.
The clutter of disparate programs added to the resort’s problems, says Leblanc. For instance, some of the 100 workstations still used Office 97, while others ran more current versions. The network was also unstable as a number of the arbitrarily downloaded programs were not secure.
“The previous outsourced IT service provider had not kept records for asset tracking and failed to complete all the software licensing transfers,” notes Leblanc.
This made it hard to separate the legitimate software assets from the rest and made it difficult for technicians to trace problems when glitches or crashes occurred.
To resolve some of these issues, Leblanc deployed products such as Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and Microsoft ISA Server 2004.
Server 2003 simplified and improved identity and access management capabilities, while SQL Server 2000, a relational database management tool, enabled the database to be maintained and administered. The ISA Server 2004 supported faster and secure access to various applications.
Before the migration, Leblanc implemented a SAM program to get a clearer picture of the resort’s IT assets. Using Microsoft Software Inventory Analyzer (MSIA), Conamex conducted a station-by-station inventory of all software and hardware assets. The next step involved gathering licensing documentation and matching this with appropriate software.
After consulting with Ski Bromont, Conamex determined which software to discard, keep or update. Policies and procedures were set up to regulate software access and management, and a plan was devised to guide future purchases.
A lot of companies share Ski Bromont’s woes, according to Diane Piquette, license compliance manager at Microsoft Corp.
“Company officials can tell you how many trucks they own or where these vehicles are,” Piquette says, “but won’t be able to tell you what
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