1. CASE STUD Y
Bigfix simplifies it operations
and reduces costs for
chichester school district
Customer Overview
customer
Chichester School District
http://www.chichestersd.org/
vertical industry
State and Local Government
challenges
• Lack of visibility with previous
patching product
• Inefficient, complicated and
manual software distribution and
patching process
The Chichester School District is a regional school district in Delaware County,
PA whose mission is to educate students by wisely managing finite resources.
The IT staff supporting this mission manages approximately 2,000 Windows
desktops and close to 50 Windows servers across six school sites.
Challenges
The IT staff at Chichester School District manages over 2,000 machines
throughout the 6-school network. While their fiber-based network provides fast
and reliable connectivity, their previous patching vendor lacked the real-time
visibility and control to ensure that the proper patches were installed correctly.
In some cases, technicians would have to drive around to each school site
to execute manual installations and updates—introducing unacceptable
“exposure windows” to district computing resources and driving up labor costs.
“My business manager loves me for saving money.
BigFix has truly exceeded our expectations.”
—Tim McGrath
Senior Network Administrator
• Optimizing IT investments within
a tight budget
results
• Detailed, real-time information
on remote computers means
less onsite trouble-shooting time
and effort
• Simplified, efficient patch
processes—99% first pass
success rates across the district
• Automated power management
reduced annual energy costs by
nearly 70% per PC
Additionally, the IT team was also looking for ways to reduce energy usage and
computing costs. While individual educator efforts to turn off classroom PCs at
night and on weekends helped to slightly drive the energy usage down, a more
centralized program was necessary to truly deliver consistent savings. Finally,
the PC power management program needed to be integrated with the patch
management process in order to ensure that machines could be automatically
“woken up” remotely to apply patches overnight.
Solution Overview
Thanks to BigFix’s integrated patch and power management solution, Chichester School District is overcoming all of these challenges. BigFix Patch
Management provides real-time visibility into which patches are required on
which machines, and validates installation of these patches within minutes—
obviating the need for technicians to drive around to school sites doing tedious,
manual work. A recent Microsoft update was remotely distributed, installed
and validated on 1,000 machines within an hour or so compared to their previous tool which used to take a week to perform and validate a similar update.
bigfix simplifies it operations and reduces costs for chichester school district
1

2. CASE STUD Y
“BigFix’s software distribution
wizards make it so easy,
even a monkey could do it.”
—Tim McGrath
Senior Network Administrator
Additionally, the Chichester School District is able to implement energy
conservation as well thanks to BigFix Power Management. Specifically, BigFix’s
distributed “Wake-on-LAN” (WoL) functionality allows the IT team to distribute
and install patches to those machines that are turned off at night. This allows
for a reduction of energy resources while ensuring machines are securely
patched—without impacting employee productivity.
Results
These technology and process improvements have resulted in significant
benefits for the district. They can query their environment on virtually any
configuration detail and receive up-to-the-minute answers. According to Tim
McGrath, senior network administrator, “In terms of accurate asset inventory
and configuration information, BigFix blows every other tool out of the water. I
know immediately when a patch is installed or fails, so I can fix it in minutes. I
never had that capability with the other tool we used.”
With BigFix Patch Management, they’ve achieved a first pass success rate of
99%. This is a marked improvement over their previous patching tool, which
would only reach 50% of their environment—requiring technicians to manually
“touch” half of their environment to resolve missed installations and waste
time tracking down root causes of the errors.
BigFix Power Management has resulted in a 70% reduction in computing
energy costs. Using a single policy-based management console allows IT staff
to easily optimize power management profiles while ensuring machines are
patched during off-hours and then brought back up in time for students, faculty,
and administrative staff to get to work.
Why BigFix?
The ability to solve multiple problems with a single management framework
was the ultimate reason that Chichester School District chose BigFix.
Compared to a single tool that can only do patch management, Tim McGrath,
Senior Network Administrator, describes BigFix as “an all-in-one solution”—
where the problem-solving capabilities are truly unlimited. One key example is
the district’s recent re-provisioning of software licenses based on the real-time
usage statistics provided by BigFix’s asset inventory reporting. This level of visibility and control maximizes their existing software licensing investments and
enables the IT staff to deliver the specific software to those faculty members
and staff that need it, when they need it.
Finally, speed and ease-of-use were additional factors that led the team to
deploy BigFix. Tim McGrath’s hyperbolic endorsement says it all: “BigFix’s
software distribution wizards make it so easy, even a monkey could do it.”
©2010 BigFix, an IBM Company. BigFix and the BigFix Logo are registered trademarks of BigFix, an IBM
Company. Other trademarks, registered trademarks, and service marks are property of their respective owners.
20100824
4
2
bigfix simplifies it operations and reduces costs for chichester school district