Supporting a manufacturer, RZZ Rechenzentrum wanted to deliver specialized applications to mobile technicians efficiently while reducing software costs.
Reishauer is a leading provider of gear grinding technology. Its high-quality grinding machines and finishing tools are primarily used in the manufacture of motor vehicle transmissions in the automotive industry. The company operates sales and service branches across Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Australia.
With Reishauer’s operations spread across the globe, managing employees’ desktops and laptops poses a significant challenge for RZZ Rechenzentrum and its close partner Xetex Consulting.
Marco de Boer, Senior IT Consultant at Xetex Consulting, begins: “Reishauer employs around 600 people, and the staff rely on approximately 450 different applications in various languages. Highly specialized technicians will often travel to customer sites to install or service machinery. With many employees working remotely, we need to efficiently manage a growing number of laptops, with a wide range of software installed, in addition to traditional desktop PCs.”
RZZ Rechenzentrum AG is based in Wallisellen, Switzerland and is a subsidiary of Reishauer AG – a Swiss engineering company that produces high-precision gear grinding machines for use in the automotive, aerospace and robotics industries. RZZ Rechenzentrum is Reishauer’s IT service provider, managing the group’s IT applications, data center and network. RZZ Rechenzentrum also serves a number of other external clients.
RZZ Rechenzentrum has relied on Micro Focus ZENworks Configuration Management to centrally manage its desktops and laptops for decades. With a distributed architecture across three continents, the company can easily serve its increasingly mobile workforce, and provide all the applications staff need to do their jobs.
Marco de Boer explains: “At some point, we evaluated other options, but none met all of our requirements.”
Marco De Boer – SENIOR IT CONSULTANT
Xetex Consulting
The Micro Focus solution supports the extended lifecycles of desktops. Workstations that become too slow for advanced CAD tasks are repurposed to run less demanding workloads. Managing this transition with automated provisioning processes is key to maximizing the value of the investment in desktop infrastructure.
To make use of Micro Focus ZENworks Configuration Management’s newest features, RZZ Rechenzentrum worked closely with technology partner NEXPERT to upgrade to the latest release. The company seized this opportunity to optimize its historically grown configuration and align it with current best practices. The NEXPERT team was able improve the overall performance substantially.
“Working with NEXPERT was a great experience,” says Marco de Boer. “They analyzed our implementation in detail and provided very helpful guidance to improve our environment. They went above and beyond, and we really appreciate their support.”
With the latest release, Micro Focus ZENworks Configuration Management 2017, in place, RZZ Rechenzentrum can roll out applications and software updates to all desktops and laptops more quickly and easily. Together with NEXPERT, the company has simplified remote management and enabled key users in branch locations to better support local users. This empowers staff and enables faster, more flexible support – especially for users located in remote time zones using local language applications.
Using ZENworks Configuration Management, RZZ Rechenzentrum benefits from comprehensive automation. Marco de Boer notes: “We provision new laptops every day. Being able to set up new devices in just 45 minutes without manual intervention means we can deliver new clients flexibly as and when needed.”
In addition, RZZ Rechenzentrum takes advantage of the new release’s built-in reporting features and integrated the asset inventory with third-party tools. This enables the team to evaluate which users need access to which applications, and set up a rule that automatically uninstalls software that hasn’t been used for 30 days. Together with role-based deployment workflows based on primary users on each device, the company has cut licensing costs for software such as Adobe Professional by 60 percent.
RZZ Rechenzentrum also relies on the solution’s reporting and integration features to monitor processes managed by other tools and key metrics including disk space and memory utilization, enabling proactive improvements to the lifecycle management of desktops and laptops across the company.
Marco de Boer concludes:
Marco De Boer – SENIOR IT CONSULTANT
Xetex Consulting
