CenterBeam

Overview

CenterBeam, Inc.
Sunnyvale, California
www.centerbeam.com

Solution components
● IBM Endpoint Manager, built on BigFix® technology

– IBM Endpoint Manager for Core Protection
– IBM Endpoint Manager for Lifecycle Management
– IBM Endpoint Manager for Patch Management
– IBM Endpoint Manager for Security and Compliance
– IBM Endpoint Manager for Mobile Devices

CenterBeam is a U.S.-based IT managed service provider (MSP), offering mid-sized businesses award-winning, enterprise-class IT management services and support.

The need

With the popularity of mobile devices soaring, CIOs are challenged to manage a broader array of IT endpoints at a time when their resources are stretched.

“The biggest trend today is the bring-your-own-device revolution—whether it’s a smartphone, laptop or remote office desktop—and this trend has IT people wondering how they’re going to manage all this complexity,” says Shahin Pirooz, executive vice president and chief technology officer for CenterBeam.

CenterBeam’s endpoint management services help mid-sized companies address this challenge. The company delivers its services using a utility-based computing model, in which clients pay per-node on a monthly basis. As a result, the more efficient and effective CenterBeam is in delivering its services, the more successful the company is.

“We manage 20,000 endpoints across 49 countries and six continents, supporting PCs, Macs, servers, and just about every flavor of mobile device,” says Pirooz. “Our model is built on automation and scale. Products that require less administrative overhead help our bottom line and enable us to deliver a better service.”

“Most companies are facing increasing complexity and diversity in their environments,” adds Karen Hayward, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for CenterBeam. “And with budgets already lean, the answer is not adding more people. The answer is leveraging a managed service model to enable them to focus on business value while having peace of mind that their endpoints are professionally managed and secure 24×7.”

The solution

In its early days, CenterBeam tried a number of endpoint management solutions. However, these products didn’t provide the level of protection or efficiency required.

“Early on, we went through an evolution of endpoint management products,” says Pirooz. “In 2003, we selected BigFix (now IBM Endpoint Manager) for patch management. Since then, we have implemented IBM Endpoint Manager for software distribution, asset inventory, anti-malware protection and, most recently, mobile device management (MDM) because it continues to be best-of-breed. With IBM Endpoint Manager, we have a unifying platform that helps businesses get their mobile devices, laptops, desktops and servers under control.”

CenterBeam uses a proprietary self-healing agent technology with IBM Endpoint Manager software to further automate processes. “We look at our product as a sentry,” explains Pirooz. “It makes sure that everything works the way it should and if not, it tries to fix the issue. For example, if an endpoint is not operating properly, it may communicate with IBM Endpoint Manager to push out a fix.”

The benefit

Through its endpoint management service, CenterBeam can confirm nearly 98 percent penetration of anti-virus updates and patches across its clients’ endpoints. “In our SLAs, we target 95 percent compliance but we have been hitting 98 percent consistently,” says Pirooz.

Using IBM Endpoint Manager software, the company can achieve this level of policy compliance—a 20 percent increase from before—with only one engineer. “With our old solution, we had two engineers managing 2,500 endpoints,” says Pirooz. “They spent 14 hours a day to get 80 percent of the machines to report in and updated. And forget about patching, because patching added another layer of problems. We were lucky if we got 80 percent of that 80 percent to be patched regularly. Now, with IBM Endpoint Manager, we have one engineer managing 20,000 endpoints and have 98 percent policy compliance.”

For more information

To learn more about IBM endpoint management solutions, please contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit the following website: ibm.com/tivoli/endpoint