A publishing powerhouse

A publishing powerhouse with a media reach of millions of people on a daily basis produces more than a dozen newspapers in four languages and more than 100 magazine titles. Other media ventures include radio stations, television broadcasting, commercial real estate, and Internet publications.

Managing endpoints without disrupting operations

As with any publishing enterprise, the rapid pace of business never stops, with journalists, printing plants and distribution channels working around the clock. Although most editorial staff are concentrated in this publishing company’s headquarters, many correspondents located around the world need reliable access to IT resources. This makes it a true 24×7 enterprise, requiring that patching, software updates, real-time PC inventory and patching status reporting be performed without any disruption to existing business and newspaper operations—and with minimal impact to the wide area network (WAN).

Using IBM® Tivoli® Endpoint Manager, built on BigFix® technology, for lifecycle management helps the company remotely manage the 5,000 servers, desktops and laptops that comprise the distributed environment—and maintain 24×7 operations. The flexibility offered through the solution’s “opt-in” or “offers” feature allows systems administrators to choose when to schedule automated software updates and patches for their servers. End users are automatically patched on boot-up with real-time updates on patch status—even over bandwidth-constrained links—without impacting network performance. All server, desktop and software inventory are also kept up-to-date via the same endpoint manager agents. This is an important capability for a 24x7 enterprise. While other companies can schedule maintenance during non-working hours, and stop machines to install updates, software and patches, this publishing house can’t do that. End users notice when their machines slow down if a maintenance process is going on.

Field-proven technology paired with robust service

For its 250 Microsoft Windows servers, the publishing company takes advantage of the “offers” feature in IBM Tivoli Endpoint Manager that enables system administrators to install updates and patches when the business operations allow for a scheduled maintenance window.

This process works very well with the company’s system administrators, as the system helps them to keep track of the relevant updates and patches applicable to the infrastructure that they are responsible for. The publishing company has also used custom “IBM Fixlet messages” and policies to capture system configuration information relevant to their specific business requirements. This degree of customization and visibility enables the company to solve unforeseen problems—providing the administrator more control than existed before and delivering world-class customer service to the organization.

Field-proven technology paired with robust service made for a winning combination. The main factor in selecting Tivoli Endpoint Manager was IBM’s strong service and support capabilities including strong field engineering resources, and referrals to a local services company that could help implement the solution and create custom solution content.

Within just six months after implementing BigFix technology, now IBM Tivoli Endpoint Manager, across the publishing company, IT management expressed high levels of satisfaction with the solution. IT staff now have current configuration information on the company’s servers, PCs and mobile computers and are able to keep them compliant with internal security policies without interfering with the work or end users.

Solution components
Software

• IBM® Tivoli® Endpoint Manager, built on BigFix® technology