Cloud OSUK Customer References

Unlocks insightson any data

Empowers people-centric IT

Enables modern apps

Transforms the datacentre

Transformational trends

Modern platform for the world’s apps

What makes the Cloud OS unique

Modern platform for the world’s apps

The Internet of Your Things

IntroductionAt Microsoft, we have been hard at work delivering an amazing amount of innovation to help you succeed in this transformational time. What we are

seeing in the industry calls for a different approach. An approach that provides a comprehensive and modern platform for the worlds apps. This

booklet provides you with a list of our customer references for:

Redefines the server category, delivering hundreds of new features and enhancements spanning virtualization, networking, storage, user experience, cloud computing, automation, and much more

Provides a comprehensive and integrated

management platform for your desktops and

devices, sever infrastructure and private, public or

hybrid cloud, which delivers desktop,

infrastructure & application management and

service delivery & automation.

Helps organizations let their people use the

devices and applications they love while

configuring device settings to meet compliance

needs. Either completely from the cloud or

connected to an existing System Center

Configuration Manager infrastructure

The Internet of Your Things

The Internet of Things is happening

NOW. Microsoft and our partners have

the technology and the experience to

make it a reality.

Let’s work together to transform your

business with the Internet of Your Things.

Customers

Aeriandi

Aeriandi offers hosted services to leading high-street banks and major retailers in the UK.

It provides web services, voice over IP (VoIP), predictive dialling, interactive voice

response, and web-based line-of-business applications—serving thousands of clients

simultaneously 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Under Chief Executive Matthew

Bryars, the firm is making innovative use of cloud-based technology to help

stockbrokers, customers in retail banks, and private banks reduce costs while maintaining

optimal levels of service.

Problem

To underpin its business strategy, Aeriandi needed to design a reliable, scalable, and secure

platform that was easy to maintain and PCI accredited. Bryars says: “We needed to have

clearance from a compliance perspective to host PCI-sensitive data on behalf of our customers

in financial and retail services, where strict standards of security apply.”

However, given the economic climate, it also needed to improve customer service while

keeping operational costs as low as possible. Bryars says: “Our time to market for new systems

was running at up to two months. We also wanted to deploy software updates more quickly.

Our system works hard. We serve thousands of simultaneous users processing hundreds of web

requests and initiating tens of thousands of phone calls every second.”

www.aeriandi.com

“Microsoft System

Center 2012 SP1 helps

us to offer customers

much more complex

environments over

greater distances for

data centres and the

public and private

cloud, while

maintaining full PCI

compliance.”

Matthew Bryars,

Chief Executive

Aeriandi

Solution

Aeriandi implemented Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1, taking advantage of the

Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager components, as well as Hyper-V

virtualisation software. Aeriandi also deployed the Windows Server 2012 operating

system.

With System Center 2012 SP1, another advantage for Aeriandi was the ability to

pool its data-centre resources into a private cloud while using the IT assets it

already owned, including earlier versions of Microsoft software.

Robbie Roberts, IT and Infrastructure Manager, Aeriandi, says: “The new operations

platform needed to integrate with the automated deployment of services, both

software and hardware, to ensure software updates happen with no downtime to

hosted customers. System Center 2012 SP1 offered us a complete operations

management solution and with Hyper-V as part of the package at no extra cost it

was a more resilient solution than VMware.”

Aeriandi licensed the System Center 2012 SP1 software under a Microsoft Services

Provider License Agreement—the premium offering for service providers and

independent software vendors that charges a monthly fee.

Benefits

• Customer service boosted as time to market cut from two months to 48

• System Center 2012 SP1 improves customer service with no extra costs.

• Automation reduces time spent on manual processes

• Servers expand fivefold with only one extra technician required

• PCI DSS accreditation helps to win new customers

all3media

www.all3media.com

Leading independent TV studio all3media wanted to embrace new distribution channels and devices, delivering content direct to consumers through tablets, smart TVs, and gaming consoles. Through Easel TV’s multiscreen digital distribution platform, which is based on Windows Azure, all3media is now able to stream its content on-demand. This is cost-effectively opening up new platforms, providing opportunities for significant revenue growth.

Problemall3media is one of the UK’s leading creators of outstanding film and TV content, having produced hit TV series such as Inspector George Gently, Midsomer Murders, and The Only Way is Essex. The company is composed of 17 leading production companies and has won 33 Emmys and more than 30 BAFTAS for its programs. In addition to producing shows for major broadcasters, it also syndicates its content through online channels such as Netflix, YouTube, and iTunes.

The broadcast landscape is changing quickly, with consumers increasingly watching content through new devices, such as tablets and smartphones, and in new formats, such as video on-demand and catch-up TV. all3media is committed to responding to this shift in viewing patterns, and is investing heavily to innovate across the group.

In particular, the increase in the number of viewers consuming content through smart TVs and gaming devices such as Xbox presents a major opportunity for the company’s distribution arm, all3media International, to expand into new markets such as the United States—and to provide content directly to consumers rather than solely via broadcasters.

Solution

all3media researched the market, looking for a solution that would deliver the high-quality televisual experience it required and could scale to meet its future needs. After extensive analysis, it selected Microsoft partner Easel TV and its Suggested TV multiscreen platform.

Built on Windows Azure, the cloud-based solution delivers the same linear experience as conventional TV, but with on-demand access to a wide range of content across multiple devices. This is combined with powerful editorial technology that provides the most relevant content to the viewer.

Easel TV chose to work with Microsoft technologies as they provide complete solutions that grow to accommodate expanding needs. Through Windows Azure Media Services, all3media offers 350 hours of content from 15 program brands—content which can be quickly converted to multiple formats, allowing it be streamed to a wide range of devices, from Smart TVs and tablets to smartphones and Xbox.

Benefits

• Enables new business models.

• Provides a cost-effective solution.

• Establishes a platform for growth.

• Delivers to multiple devices.

• Enters new markets.

“Launching direct to US consumers across multiple devices would have been unaffordable, but ... Windows Azure helps unlock access to the vast American market without requiring high up-front funding.”

Gary Woolf, SVP Digital and Business Development, all3media International

Aston Martin

www.astonmartin.com

Behind every luxury sports car produced by Aston Martin is a sophisticated IT infrastructure. The goal of the Aston Martin IT team is to optimize that infrastructure so that it performs as efficiently as the production line it supports. To meet that goal, Aston Martin is standardizing on Microsoft technology. The IT team chose the Windows Server 2012 operating system, including Hyper-V technology to virtualize its data center and build four private clouds to dynamically allocate IT resources to the business as needed. For cloud and data center management, Aston Martin uses Microsoft System Center 2012. With a single viewpoint into the company’s entire infrastructure, the IT team can ensure that PCs in the company’s headquarters and production facility are running reliably at peak performance. Aston Martin is a more cohesive, productive organization as a result.

ProblemPreviously, business units made their own IT purchases for their projects. If a production engineering team wanted a new piece of machinery—and these machines all have an embedded PC with a UI that has to be monitored to ensure optimal production lines—the team would have to buy the machinery and then ask the IT team to install it on a server and connect it to a database and the network. “Sometimes, we would get a call saying the production line is about to go down because there’s a problem with a system, and we wouldn’t know about it because we hadn’t provisioned it,” says Roach-Rooke.

“The IT team’s purpose

is to enable Aston

Martin to build the

most beautiful sports

cars in the world. So,

from servers, to

desktops, to production

line PCs, Microsoft

technology is behind

everything we do.”

Daniel Roach-Rooke,

IT Infrastructure Manager,

Aston Martin

Solution

With the introduction of the Windows Server 2012 operating system, which includes the

latest version of Hyper-V virtualization technology, and the launch of Microsoft System

Center 2012 Service Pack 1, Aston Martin saw a solid IT foundation that aligned with its

goals of pushing the boundaries of contemporary sports car manufacturing.

“The 2012 iteration of Microsoft products is a very, very strong portfolio,” says Roach-

Rooke. “As a customer, the 2012 refresh year demonstrated Microsoft’s commitment to

building interoperable products that just work seamlessly together. It was an easy decision

to go with Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012.” System Center 2012 is a product

for managing data center resources, private clouds, and endpoint devices.

“Hyper-V is such a good product that we want to get everything moved over as soon as

possible,” says Roach-Rooke. “For example, we compared Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013

running on a physical Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 cluster with SharePoint Server 2013

running on a virtual SQL Server 2012 environment. Then we ran searches on SharePoint

Server 2013, a very intensive SQL operation, in both environments and saw performance

increases of between 20 to 30 percent with the virtual environment compared to the

physical SQL Server 2008 R2 cluster.”

Benefits

• Improved production efficiency

• Increased flexibility with hybrid cloud

• Simplified IT management

• Self-service software deployment

• Cohesive, efficient operations

AUTOLIB’ METROPOLE

www.autolibmetropole.fr

Autolib’ is an electric-car-sharing program established by the city of Paris, France, and 63 surrounding municipalities.

ProblemAutolib’, an electric-car-sharing program established by Paris, France, and 63 surrounding municipalities, wanted to relieve traffic congestions, reduce noise and air pollution, and provide more flexibility for the 8 million people living in the region.

SolutionAutolib’ teamed with IER to implement a solution based on Windows Embedded that connects 72 registration kiosks, 850 rental kiosks, 4,300 charging stations, and 2,300 in-car systems to a back-end based Microsoft SQL Server and Windows Server.

Benefits

• Reduces CO2 emissions by estimated 75 metric tons by 2023

• Cuts drivers’ transportation costs by 90 percent

• Enhances user experience with personalized settings

• Simplifies implementation with better connectivity

“Approximately 70 per cent of Parisians do not own cars, yet traffic congestion is huge. So the goal was to reduce car ownership and the pollution that comes with it.”

Vanessa Colombier, Communications manager, Autolib’

Calyx Managed Services

www.calyxgroup.com

To support growth and provide customers with more choice in how they consume their services, Calyx Managed Services deployed the Operations Manager component of Microsoft System Center 2012, the first in a phased roll out of the Microsoft System Center2012 suite. The solution has cut total cost of ownership through licensing, better resource allocation, and automation of critical monitoring and management tasks.

ProblemCalyx provides outsourced IT to customers across the United Kingdom (U.K.) and has offices in London, and Didsbury and Hyde in Manchester. The business is focused on medium-sized organisations, employs around 230 staff and supports more than 700 public and private sector customers from its three U.K. offices.

The firm’s business strategy requires a highly flexible IT platform, and a set up that ensures it can develop, deliver, and monitor a range of services efficiently and cost-effectively. To increase agility, Calyx wanted to replace its incumbent monitoring solution in Manchester. Tim Clegg, Head of Transformation, Calyx Managed Services says: “We had a variety of tools of varying effectiveness. We wanted a solution that could provide us with a range of functions and benefits—from development to monitoring and maintenance—and support us in expanding our managed service business.”

“We wanted a solution

that could provide us

with a range of

functions and

benefits—from

development to

monitoring and

maintenance—and

support us in

expanding our

managed service

business.”

Tim Clegg

Head of Transformation

Calyx Managed Services

Solution

Calyx evaluated a number of proposals to find the right solution for its managed

and development services strategy. “While we need a single view of network

operations, we also want to provide first, second, and third-line support teams with

access to the tools they need for their roles,” says Clegg. Calyx engaged with

specialist Microsoft System Center Partner Apajove to assist in evaluating the

Microsoft System Center 2012 product set. It worked with Apajove to support the

phased deployment of the suite once product selection was completed.

The Microsoft System Center 2012 suite brings together a range of modules with a

common thread built around Orchestrator, a tool that supports workflow and

process automation across data centres and end-user devices.

Calyx is now in the process of deploying Microsoft System Center 2012

Configuration Manager to support management of its customers’ devices from the

Manchester service operations centre.

Benefits

• Firm distributes resources cost-effectively.

• Calyx cuts total cost of ownership.

• Business responds rapidly to market demand.

• Operations centre supports all business lines.

• Staff develop their expertise.

Coventry

University

When the Coventry University IT team was asked to cut £1 million from its budget as

part of a strategic initiative, it re-evaluated virtualisation technologies. A previous foray

into virtualisation had proved to be expensive, with the team finding it a challenge to

make the most of the technology. After comparing several solutions, it chose to deploy

Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter because the licensing model immediately saved the

university £129,000. The IT team is now using Hyper-V technology—included in the

solution—to virtualise as many virtual machines onto one server as it needs, without

requiring licences for each virtual machine.

Problem

Several years ago, the university’s IT team purchased VMware licences and technology, with

the goal of reducing server sprawl and centralising IT management. Stephen Booth, Head of

Central Computing Services, Coventry University, says: “We’d looked at virtualisation to

improve control over the network and save money through optimising our existing

investments. But our VMware distribution was small scale and piecemeal, and we never fully

used the technology because of the high direct costs of licensing it, coupled with minimal use

of the extended feature capabilities of the product.”

But, in 2010, the university moved quickly forward with its strategic plan to improve university

services. As part of this, the executive management team requested that the IT department

make savings of £1 million across the campus. Booth says: “We revisited virtualisation and

cloud technologies because in just a few years they’d changed a lot, and there were different

options available to us.”

www.coventry.ac.uk

“With Windows

Server 2008 R2

Datacenter, we

gained precisely the

features we needed

to achieve savings,

standardisation, and

greater control over

the network.”

Steve Rogers

Server Team Leader

Coventry University

Solution

The team looked at Hyper-V, Citrix VirtualBox, and VMware, comparing each

solution and evaluating the best combination of price, performance, and tools.

Steve Rogers, Server Team Leader at Coventry University, says: “With Windows

Server 2008 R2 Datacenter, we gained precisely the features we needed to achieve

savings, standardisation, and greater control over the network.” The evaluation

resulted in the university choosing to deploy a virtualised infrastructure based on

Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter and Hyper-V. “There was no question that it

was the best total infrastructure solution for Coventry University,” says Booth. “Not

only is the licensing cost-effective, but we can also use Microsoft System Center

tools to manage the infrastructure efficiently from one location.”

Benefits

• University Saves £1 Million.

• IT Team Improves Business Services.

• University Reduces Ongoing Research Costs.

• End-Users Gain Better Experience.

• University Hits Carbon Savings Goal.

• IT Protects Valuable Data with Disaster Recovery Solution.

Cwm TafUniversity Health Boardwww.cwmtafuhb.wales.nhs.uk

The Cwm Taf University Health Board in South Wales replaced its VMware server virtualization software with Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V. The organization saw improved performance and ease of use, and the high reliability required of a virtualized environment that supports clinical systems and patient care. The move to Hyper-V is expected to deliver cost savings of approximately £42,000 (US$70,000) over five years in maintenance license payments.

ProblemAs a provider of health and social care services in South Wales, the Cwm Taf University Health Board serves a local population of 2,980,000. The organization employs more than 8,000 staff, delivering acute, intermediate, community, and mental health services through a network of community clinics, health centers, and community hospitals supported by two district general hospitals. Cwm Taf began virtualizing its environment with VMware server virtualization software. In 2013, the health board started looking for alternative options, seeking cost savings among other improvements.

“As a tax-payer funded organization, it’s important for us to find ways to better manage our costs,” says Palmer. “So when the time came to renew the maintenance license for our server virtualization software, we took the opportunity to see if another solution would help us reduce costs while giving us the reliability and high availability we required—and match or exceed the features provided by our current platform.”

The chosen solution also needed to support Cwm Taf’s plans for increasing the proportion of virtualized machines in its server portfolio.

SolutionCwm Taf’s experience of using VMware, and the XenServer server virtualization platform that it uses for a small number of Citrix servers, provided useful insights for evaluating new solutions. The IT team immediately saw potential when they attended a demonstration of Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V, a hypervisor-based server virtualization technology designed for workload consolidation and improved server utilization.

“The demo opened my eyes to the power and flexibility of Hyper-V,” says Ian Alden, Server Manager at Cwm Taf University Health Board. “I could see it was a robust, full-featured solution that matched our requirements. And it could do things that you would have to pay extra for with VMware.“ Alden was particularly impressed with disaster recovery capabilities in Hyper-V that enabled a virtual server to failover to another site anywhere in the world over an Internet connection.

Benefits

• Cost Savings

• High Performance and Reliability

• Improved Ease of Use and Convenience

“Performance and response times with Hyper-V have surpassed our previous VMware solution, exceeding our expectations.”

Matt Palmer, Head of Server Management, Cwm Taf University Health Board

EMI

Record company EMI Music wanted to integrate the large amount of information it uses—including massive consumer surveys, demographic, and partner data from companies such as iTunes—to gain a single global view for its artists. By deploying Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Fast Track Data Warehouse technology, EMI now has an accessible single source of country, consumer, and partner insight data to support decision making about the needs of consumers in 25 countries.

ProblemEMI Music is the world’s fourth-largest record company in terms of market share. It manages artists and distributes CDs, digital music, ringtones, and merchandise. The firm operates in 25 countries through three regional divisions, including the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The music company has a wealth of complex information from both internal and external sources, but, until recently, decision makers were unable to exploit the value of this “Big Data” store. David Boyle, Senior Vice President of Insight, EMI, was determined to launch a suite of projects to derive value from the data and generate insight in three key areas: County data, consumer data and partner data.

Boyle says: “The overall solution is split into the three key insight areas, but the primary objective was to unify all the information into one consistent subject area. We wanted it to be easily accessible to every EMI decision maker in 25 countries.”

www.emigroup.com

“In the early days, we

made great progress with

Excel Services. But to

meet the massive

demands of the business,

we had to shift focus.

With Microsoft SQL Server

2012 Fast Track Data

Warehouse, our users can

access the business data

they need using standard

Microsoft desktop tools.”

David Boyle

Senior Vice President of Insight

EMI

Solution

EMI deployed Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Fast Track Data Warehouse based on an

HP hardware platform. The solution presents users with data, visualisations, and

insights through Microsoft SharePoint technology and desktop business

intelligence (BI) tools. Microsoft Gold Partner for business intelligence Adatis

implemented the solution using SQL Server 2012 Fast Track Data Warehouse best

practice methodology.

EMI decided to process the data into Microsoft SQL Server 2012 data management

software using SQL Server Integration Services and SQL Server Analysis Services

cubes—both Multidimensional and Tabular, the new model introduced in SQL

Server 2012.

Sacha Tomey, Owner and Director, Adatis, says: “Adatis was the ideal Microsoft

Partner because of its role as an early adopter of SQL Server 2012 technology,

domain knowledge, and specialism in best practice BI methodologies.”

Benefits

• Firm gets global insight.

• EMI gains single source of information.

• Data warehouse unifies disparate information across the business.

• Partner helps improve performance and manageability.

• Company promotes global music industry through innovation.

East of England Collaborative Procurement Hubwww.eoecph.nhs.uk

When the East of England Collaborative Procurement Hub healthcare organization grew frustrated by the lack of control, flexibility, and mobility provided by its IT systems provider, it decided a move to the cloud was required. Advised by its partner Core, the Hub switched to Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Office 365, which has helped improve communication and collaboration among team members and led to a happier, more effective workforce.

ProblemBased in Cambridge in the United Kingdom, the East of England Collaborative Procurement Hub is an award-winning National Health Service (NHS) organization that manages procurement of both clinical and non-clinical supplies for various health organizations across the region. It’s a lean, not-for-profit organization of 25 staff members, including just three employees who are responsible for providing IT and business support. “Those who are responsible for IT also have other operational responsibilities, and given our time-pressured team, it is imperative to the smooth running of the Hub that our IT infrastructure works efficiently,” says Darren McVee, E-enablement Manager at East of England Collaborative Procurement Hub.

To augment its small IT staff, the Hub used a third party for certain IT services. Not only was this expensive, but Hub IT employees also became increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of control it afforded, which was hindering the organization’s ability to function. “The setup didn’t suit where we were as an organization, and mobile access presented a particular problem,” says McVee. Members of the Hub workforce are often on the road and when away from the office relied on a combination of virtual private networks (VPNs) and dongles, which was slow and cumbersome.

SolutionWith existing systems managed offsite by its third-party provider, the Hub initially considered buying its own infrastructure. “After looking at the capital outlay and ongoing management requirements, we concluded that it didn’t make sense for us to have our own infrastructure,” says McVee. “We needed IT systems that employees could access from anywhere and that our enablement team could control and change as necessary.”

So the Hub engaged with Core, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, to help it determine the best solution. Together, the organizations agreed that with mobility and scalability so important, a hybrid cloud model based on the Microsoft Azure platform would be most effective. So the Hub’s large shared drive, which needs to be maintained for seven years and accessed regularly, will still sit onsite but is also backed up to Azure.

McVee particularly valued that outcome: “IT solutions shouldn’t get in the way of people doing their work,” says McVee. “The maturity and flexibility of Microsoft Azure really works for our business.”

Benefits

• Increased Collaboration

• Better Control

• Cost Savings

“I feel that our data is more secure with Microsoft Azure than if it was stored in our own building, and all of our lives have been much easier since we made the move to Azure.”

Darren McVee, E-enablement Manager, East of England Collaborative Procurement Hub

Essex County Council

www.essex.gov.uk

Part of Essex County Council, Target Tracker develops software for schools. Its Primary Target Tracker application—which provides information to support learning—ran on Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software. To stay ahead of its competitors, Target Tracker rebuilt the solution using SQL Database in Windows Azure. The firm now has an application that scales to meet the needs of thousands of schools in England and overseas.

ProblemMore than 2,000 schools in the U.K. have adopted the Primary Target Tracker solution. This helps them to support each child’s learning with the right teaching, and identify issues or trends in the classroom. It provides access to critical information, such as teacher assessment and test results.

Schools are subject to regular and vigorous inspection by the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted). Green says: “Primary Target Tracker helps schools meet Ofsted requirements to understand children’s progress and quickly identify and resolve any gaps in learning.”

Darren Cole, Project Manager, Target Tracker, Essex County Council, says that the organisation has always sought to be highly innovative in its use of technology. This, and an increase in market competition, inspired it to re-develop Primary Target Tracker, which ran on Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software. Cole says: “Each school’s data was stored locally, so users needed to carry information on memory sticks if they wanted to access it outside the school. We wanted to update our application to reflect the very latest in IT—the use of the cloud to store data.”

“With Primary Target

Tracker storing more

than 150 million

individual

assessments in the

cloud, teaching staff

can quickly and

securely access

critical data from any

location.”

David W ilde

Chief Information Officer

Essex County Council

Solution

The Target Tracker team considered a few different options, including Amazon Web

Services, but found they couldn’t meet the application’s exact needs. The organisation

turned to Windows Azure SQL Database, a cloud database service built on SQL Server

technologies. With it, companies can scale to multiple databases quickly and easily,

while paying only for what they use. Cole says: “We chose to develop Primary Target

Tracker on Windows Azure because it manages rapid changes in demand and we don’t

have to introduce expensive servers in-house that remain idle for long periods of time.”

Windows Azure is a managed service, saving Cole and his small team of 25 the time-

consuming tasks of installing, updating, or maintaining hardware and software.

Most schools using Primary Target Tracker now run the new SQL Database version. For

these schools, data is held in the cloud. The Microsoft .NET Framework 4 client

application offers an intuitive interface based on familiar Microsoft Office tools, and

information is presented graphically, making it easy for users to interpret, add to, or

share with colleagues.

Benefits

• Scalable system supports rapid growth.

• Cloud solution accelerates setup.

• Managed solution keeps costs down.

• Trusted technology drives new business.

• Data availability is assured.

FCO Services

www.fcoservices.gov.uk

FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) Services provides IT services, primarily to the UK Government. FCO Services upgraded to Windows Server 2012 R2 to gain better support for the Linux operating system with a plan to standardize on Hyper-V for both Windows and Linux workloads. FCO Services will be able to eliminate dual-hypervisor management and licensing costs and also reduce host-server memory costs by using Dynamic Memory for Linux workloads.

ProblemFCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) Services provides IT and other support services to the UK government and other international governments. The FCO Services cloud platform currently provides services for most major UK central government departments, offering infrastructure, platform, and software-as-a-service products. FCO Services also supports the Foreign and Commonwealth Office global network of embassies and consulates, which employs people in nearly 270 diplomatic offices.

FCO Services provided hosting and cloud services primarily on a VMware vSphere-based infrastructure, which ran workloads on both the Windows and Linux operating systems. However, because FCO Services also virtualized some Windows workloads by using Hyper-V virtualization technology in the Windows Server operating system, it had to maintain a dual-hypervisor environment, which was expensive. “We wanted to consolidate and standardize on just one hypervisor; however, we didn’t have good Linux support from Windows Server,” says Greg Bailey, Cloud Services Architect for FCO Services.

Another problem on the Linux side of its data center was the inability to back up running Linux workloads under VMware. To back up running servers, customers had to write workaround scripts to extract data to separate locations.

SolutionFCO Services participated in the Microsoft Rapid Deployment Program (RDP) for the Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system and Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 data center solutions. It was particularly interested in evaluating the enhanced support for Linux available in Windows Server 2012 R2. Bailey’s team worked with Microsoft Services Consulting to deploy Windows Server 2012 R2 on a two-node Hyper-V cluster (using HP ProLiant servers) and create five virtual machines running the SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 3 operating system.

Windows Server 2012 R2 features expanded Linux integration components, a set of drivers that Microsoft has contributed to the Linux kernel that improves performance and functionality of virtualized Linux instances running on Hyper-V. “Having this new functionality makes the deployment of Linux workloads a lot easier,” says Nic Fuller, Technical Architect for FCO Services.

Benefits

• Standardize on Single Hypervisor

• Eliminate Dual-Hypervisor Management and Licensing Costs

• Reduce Memory Costs and Improve Infrastructure Utilization

“Hyper-V and System Center 2012 R2 match if not exceed anything we get from our current virtualization solution. This will enable us to standardize on the Microsoft platform, which is where most of our IT investment is.”

Greg Bailey, Cloud Services Architect, FCO Services

Foxtons

www.foxtons.co.uk

Real estate agency Foxtons wanted to enhance employee mobility by deploying smartphones that run the Windows Phone 8 operating system and two productivity-boosting apps. But Foxtons needed to be able to remotely manage and secure the devices. To deliver this solution, Foxtons subscribed to the Windows Intune PC and mobile device management solution. Employees now use their smartphones to conduct business from anywhere, furthering their reputation for fast, attentive service.

ProblemFoxtons business style and responsive customer service is influenced by the frenetic pace of life in London. The real estate agency’s unique café-style offices are open until 8 P.M. on week days and until 5 P.M. on weekends and bank holidays with 38 percent of Foxtons viewings occurring during evenings and weekends.

“Our custom-designed MINI vehicles, used by estate agents to drive buyers and tenants around the city, exemplify the mobile nature of our business,” says Gurdip Kundi, Senior System Engineer at Foxtons. “But even as our estate agents are rushing around, they need to stay in contact with the office and colleagues. We wanted to give them connected mobility as one of the ways that we stay ahead of competitors.”

To reinforce its competitive advantage, Foxtons deployed approximately 900 Nokia Lumia 820 smartphones that run the Windows Phone 8 operating system in December 2012.

SolutionAfter researching possible solutions, Foxtons chose the Windows Intune PC and mobile device management service solution from Microsoft that provides both cloud-based and on-premises capabilities. IT employees use the cloud-based Windows Intune console to remotely run mobile device management tasks, including software distribution and self-service application delivery, and to handle remote support.

“We determined that Windows Intune was a more robust offering than its competitors,” says Kundi. “In early 2013 when we adopted it, we saw a comprehensive road map, and since then, we’ve been impressed with the rapid release cycles of Windows Intune. Plus, we felt that Microsoft was very supportive and keen to listen to our feedback.”

Today, four IT employees at Foxtons use Windows Intune to manage approximately 900 smartphones and a handful of iPads that are used by management staff. The corporate directory app is deployed to all mobile devices and the mBOS app is deployed to approximately 250 devices used by senior staff, branch managers, and key management.

Benefits

• Improved mobile productivity and service.

• Improved security.

• Reduced development time and IT management.

• Expedited remote support.

“By adding Windows Intune to our environment … we can deploy, secure, and manage mobile apps that staff use to move faster than the competition and drive business.”

Gurdip Kundi, Senior Systems Engineer, Foxtons

Great River Medical Health Systems www.greatrivermedical.org

Great River Health Systems, a regional provider of healthcare, sought a better solution for medication management. To improve efficiency and patient care, its hospital extended its existing platform with an intelligent system from Microsoft and Omnicell. Great River connected Windows Embedded-based devices including 2 anesthesia workstations, a pharmacy carousel, and 28 medication-dispensing cabinets, with a central server running Windows and a Microsoft SQL Server database. The result is a reduction in delivery time of patient medication from 1.5 hours to 30 minutes, a $400,000 reduction in inventory costs, rapid ROI and ongoing annual savings of $300,000.

ProblemGreat River Health Systems, a leading regional healthcare provider with a 378-bed hospital that admits 6,000 patients each year and performs180,000 outpatient procedures, wanted to improve medication distribution and management without adding employees.

Optimizing efficiency was a top priority for improving care and controlling costs, as well as satisfying regulatory compliance. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) stated that after medication is ordered, it must be administered within 30 minutes. However, with time-consuming manual processes, it could take up to 1.5 hours for patients to receive medication.

Great River knew that getting medication to patients faster and spending more time educating them on proper use would improve outcome and reduce the rate of readmission. Under CMS guidelines, Medicare could deny hospitals reimbursement if patients were readmitted within 30 days for the same condition. Manual processes not only slowed medication distribution, they also reduced the time nurses and pharmacists had available for patients.

SolutionGreat River connected Windows Embedded-based devices including 2 anesthesia workstations, a pharmacy carousel, and 28 medication-dispensing cabinets, with a central server running Windows and Microsoft SQL Server.

Benefits

• Reduces medication delivery time from

• 1.5 hours to 30 minutes

• Cuts pharmacy inventory costs by US$400,000

• Gains two-year ROI

• Achieves annual savings of $300,000

“We’ve cut the amount of medication we keep in stock by half, providing an initial inventory ROI of $400,000. The solution from Microsoft and Omnicell automatically … reduces the incidence of overstocks, outages, and waste from outdated drugs.”Darwin Cooley, Pharmacy Director, Great River Medical Center

Hogg Robinson Group

Hogg Robinson wanted to extend its core travel platform to work seamlessly on mobile devices. It created a mobile version of its application using Windows Azure—including Cloud Services, Service Bus, and SQL Database—to deliver travel information and booking services to mobile users. The company has already saved up to 80 per cent in start-up costs and improved the development team’s productivity by 25 per cent with Windows Azure.

ProblemBased in the UK, Hogg Robinson provides corporate travel booking services to customers worldwide. To deliver its services, Hogg Robinson integrates systems and data from third-party suppliers, customer business systems, and in-house software, using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Enterprise. The software creates a connection layer between the web, mobile, and desktop applications that comprise its core platform. Customer data is always protected behind either the company or customer firewalls.

With the increasing popularity of smartphones and tablet PCs, it was important for Hogg Robinson to extend its platform to mobile devices. Paul Saggar, Director of Technology and Product Development, Hogg Robinson, says: “Most customers need to access booking services while they’re travelling, so we wanted to develop a mobile version of our solution.” But to deliver its services on mobile devices, Hogg Robinson needed to address scalability, performance, and security challenges.

www.hrgworldwide.com

“The team has increased

productivity by about 25

per cent for projects

that use or are hosted

on Windows Azure, and

we’re already starting

on phase two of our

mobile strategy. This is

testimony to how

quickly we can develop

and extend services with

the cloud platform.”

Paul Saggar

Director of Technology and Product

Development, Hogg Robinson

Solution

Saggar and his team created the HRG i-Suite mobile application incorporating a

mobile gateway based on Windows Azure. No personally identifiable information is

stored on the device. The gateway uses Cloud Services, Service Bus, and SQL

Database to create a hybrid solution comprising cloud and on-premises services.

Some functionality is delivered directly from the cloud, while a reliable and secure

message and relay infrastructure connects information from the on-premises

booking platform to Cloud Services.

Jon Simpson, Technical Architect, Hogg Robinson, says: “Using Cloud Services and

delegating frequently accessed data to SQL Database helps us deliver excellent

performance through the HRG i-Suite mobile application, regardless of user

location.”

Several corporate customers are currently piloting the HRG i-Suite mobile solution,

and the development team is taking advantage of the scalability and flexibility of

Cloud Services to reduce the time and complexity of development.

Benefits

• Development lead time is 25 per cent faster.

• CAPEX is reduced by up to 80 per cent.

• Remote performance and security are increased.

• Service innovation is enhanced.

Kiddicare

www.kiddicare.com

Fast-growing retailer Kiddicare needed to move from a centralized IT infrastructure to support its increasingly mobile workforce with disparate devices. By moving to the cloud and deploying Windows Intune and Microsoft Office 365, it has enhanced support for multiple devices, improved productivity, and reduced costs, enabling IT to better meet changing business needs.

ProblemFounded in 1974, Kiddicare is dedicated to making life happier and easier for parents by providing a full range of baby products, combined with expert advice and excellent service. Since its 2011 acquisition by Morrisons, one of the largest food retailers in the United Kingdom, Kiddicare has been growing quickly. It has expanded from a single shop and website to 11 superstores across the United Kingdom and a procurement office in Hong Kong, China, increasing staff numbers to more than 1,000.

This rapid growth has changed the technology needs of the business and the role of the six-member IT services team. “We moved almost overnight from a centralized model to managing a nationwide infrastructure,” says Darren Parker, Enterprise Architect at Kiddicare. “At least half of our users are now mobile, either working from home, traveling between stores or working from our Hong Kong office. Many of these employees never visit our headquarters, so this hampered our ability to provide the support and software updates they needed and made it difficult to monitor and control the disparate types of devices used within Kiddicare.”

Increasingly, staff wanted to use their own devices, such as smartphones and tablets, within the business. This move to a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) model improved productivity, particularly for Kiddicare’s mobile workforce, but led to specific challenges around management, security, and support. With a small IT services team, meeting user needs required major changes, moving from on-premises to a cloud-based architecture.

SolutionHaving decided to embrace cloud computing, Kiddicare wanted to minimize risk and maximize the productivity of its IT team. It chose a combination of Windows Intune and Microsoft Office 365. Windows Intune is a cloud-based PC and mobile device management solution from Microsoft that enables companies to support devices across multiple operating systems, through a single solution. By using Windows Intune, Kiddicare can maintain a more secure environment while empowering users.

Kiddicare chose to work with its longtime Microsoft partner Active8IT to help deliver the project. Active8IT guided Kiddicare on the design of its Microsoft cloud environment, and provided technical assistance and expertise in the migration to Office 365 and Windows Intune.

“Office 365 and Windows Intune deliver the entire solution for our needs. We evaluated the market thoroughly and Windows Intune was by far the best enterprise package that we found, without the potential integration challenges of purchasing from multiple specialist vendors or having to learn different skills,” says Parker.

Benefits

• Enhanced support for multiple devices.

• Improved productivity.

• Increased cost savings.

• Greater security.

• More proactive IT support.

“With Windows Intune in place, we are positively encouraging staff to bring their own devices to work—increasing productivity and control while ensuring that data and security aren’t compromised.”

Darren Parker, Enterprise Architect, Kiddicare

Knight

Frank

Global property consultancy Knight Frank wanted to enhance client service by helping

its experts successfully combine geospatial data with other sources of information. In

2012, it upgraded its existing data management software to Microsoft SQL Server 2012,

and combined this with use of Bing Maps for Enterprise. The firm has already seen an

increase in productivity, with new application development time reduced from months

to weeks.

Problem

Knight Frank, which is headquartered in London, is a leading independent global property

consultancy, which relies on geospatial data to run its business. However, its London

residential development team found it difficult to share geospatial data with both internal and

external sources. Adam Siejka, Database Development Manager, Knight Frank, says:

“Geospatial support is a key concern for us because we deal with properties and use both

external and mobile applications.”

Until recently, the company’s knowledge about residential development opportunities was

gathered from local authorities’ town planning information, combined with the firm’s own

data. It used manual processes, which were often inconsistent. The needs of the London

residential development team corresponded with a review at Knight Frank of its existing data

management software. The firm wanted to improve mobile working, ease collaboration, and

guarantee always-on data availability.

Joseph Megkousoglou, Lead Software Architect, Knight Frank, considered several alternatives

to upgrading the existing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 deployments, including Oracle.

www.knightfrank.co.uk

“The new features

in Microsoft SQL

Server 2012 will

help us develop

external websites

and applications in

weeks rather than

months.”

Adam Siejka

Database Development Manager

Knight Frank

Solution

Working with Microsoft Partner itelligence, Knight Frank upgraded to Microsoft SQL

Server 2012. The advanced integration, reporting, and analysis capabilities—

combined with Bing Maps for Enterprise—provided the platform for building a

reporting and analysis tool for the London residential development team. Andy

Steer, Director—Business Analytics, intelligence, says: “The Knight Frank team

operates only within the M25, but the intention was to build a proof of concept

capable of reuse for other teams, applications, and websites. We produced a

solution based on Microsoft SQL Server 2012 within 15 days.”

The first step in this process was to develop an application based on Microsoft

SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise, to give access to rich data on residential

development opportunities in London. Steer says: “The interface for both internal

data capture and initial analysis within the solution is delivered by SharePoint Server

2010, with dynamic maps provided by Bing Maps for Enterprise.”

Benefits

• Development time for external websites cut from months to weeks.

• Speed, accuracy, and efficiency bolster service to customers.

• AlwaysOn feature in SQL Server 2012 ensures high availability.

• Microsoft Partner delivers knowledge transfer to in-house developers.

KUKA

www.kuka-systems.com

To handle continuous production for Chrysler Group’s Jeep® Wrangler, KUKA Systems Group needed an automated manufacturing solution that would meet the demands of a rigorous production schedule and have the flexibility to produce multiple car models on the same assembly line. In order to meet its goals, the company implemented an intelligent system anchored by Windows Embedded and Microsoft SQL Server that connects 259 assembly-line robots with a controller, over 60,000 device points, line-of-business applications, and back end systems. The new solution delivers continuous uptime and produces more than eight different car models and over 830 car bodies each day.

ProblemTo take advantage of a new opportunity, KUKA needed an automated manufacturing solution that could produce multiple car models on the same assembly line while meeting a rigorous production schedule.

The company had two years to design a manufacturing solution before production started in 2006. KTPO needed an intelligent system that could connect robots, line-of- business applications, back end systems, and multiple devices used in the manufacturing process. Above all, the system needed to include a networked controller with enough flexibility to handle fluctuating production requirements.

Solution

KUKA implemented an intelligent system anchored by Windows Embedded and Microsoft SQL Server that connects 259 assembly-line robots, a controller, more than 60,000 device points, and backend systems.

Benefits

• Produces a car body every 77 seconds

• Provides 24 hours of production per day for more than 8 years

• Improves efficiency and reduces training time with familiar interface

“We manufacture a complete car body every 77 seconds…. (using an) intelligent system built with Microsoft technology.”

Jake Ladouceur, Managing Director, KUKA Toledo Production Operations

LSB

LSB needed to improve support across its globally distributed IT infrastructure. It

selected Microsoft Partner Apajove to extend Microsoft System Center Configuration

Manager across all sites and devices, as well as implement a multilanguage Windows

7 Enterprise “zero-touch” installation solution. As a result, the firm has cut licensing

and antimalware costs, and enhanced standardisation, support, and performance.

Problem

LSB faced a number of challenges incorporating newly acquired businesses and

modernising its IT infrastructure. To do this, it required a new approach to support and the

provision of services—joining together disparate processes and tools, and standardising

on a single, global service desk.

Solution

Softcat is the European large account reseller for LSB, managing its Microsoft Enterprise

Agreement. And, as the Softcat preferred partner for Microsoft System Center, Apajove was

selected to design, plan, and implement the solution. LSB was already using System Center

Configuration Manager to provide inventory and software distribution to some of the

business. Apajove worked with LSB operations personnel in Germany to extend System

Center Configuration Manager across all sites and devices. Apajove also implemented a

multilanguage Windows 7 Enterprise zero-touch installation solution to accelerate the

adoption of the Windows 7 operating system and Forefront Endpoint Protection across the

estate.

www.laseda.es

“Standardising on

System Center has

allowed us to remove

many point-solution

products from the

environment driving

standardisation,

supportability,

performance and

availability”

Craig Dixon

Corporate IT Director

LSB

Solution

LSB had a Lotus Notes-based incident-management solution, which was no longer

considered fit for purpose, so Apajove implemented Microsoft System Center

Service Manager to provide incident and change management. System Center

Service Manager integrates tightly with other elements of the infrastructure. It

provides a seamless configuration management database experience for service-

desk staff and a significantly improved experience for end users. Previously, all

incidents were raised through email, resulting in compliance and accuracy issues.

This approach has been replaced with the System Center Service Manager Portal

rendered in Microsoft SharePoint 2010, through which users complete a form to

raise an incident.

Apajove deployed Microsoft System Center Operations Manager to provide

operational monitoring of the distributed LSB infrastructure. All servers at all LSB

sites across the world now submit telemetry and health status to a central console,

giving the operations and support teams insight into the performance and

availability of servers, services, and applications.

Benefits

• Existing service-desk licensing savings

• Existing malware solution savings.

• Deployment time improvements.

• Toolset rationalisation.

• Foundation for future.

Lido Stone Works

www.lidostone.com

Lido Stone Works, a custom manufacturer of stone products, wanted a more automated production environment. Lido turned to Breton, a well-known machinery manufacturer, to implement an intelligent system based on Microsoft technologies that connects Windows Embedded machines on the factory floor with back-end servers running Windows Server and Microsoft SQL Server.

The solution takes advantage of ASEM Ubiquity remote assistance software and Windows Azure to connect Lido machines and servers to a Breton control center for real time diagnosis and resolution of manufacturing problems. As a result, Lido has increased revenue by 70 percent and productivity by 30 percent, while Breton has cut travel costs by approximately €400,000 (US$524,000). Most importantly, the solution is helping Lido realize its potential for innovation.

ProblemLido Stone Works, a manufacturer of high-end stone installations fro architectural firms worldwide, wanted a more automated production environment so that it could improve efficiency, as well as remote assistance to reduce downtime.

SolutionLido implemented a solution that connects Windows Embedded machines on the factory floor, back-end servers running Windows Server and Microsoft SQL Server, Windows Azure, and a remote control center.

Benefits

• Boosts revenue by 70 percent and increases productivity by 30 percent with automated, streamlined solution

• Improves manageability and saves

• €400,000 (US$524,000) annually in travel costs

• Increases business volume and results in 67% growth in workforce

• Better connectivity empowers innovation

“Last year, we made $10 million dollars in revenue. This year, in just the first four months, we’re already at $8.5 million—that’s a 70 percent increase in revenue.”

Eliot Mazzocca, President, Lido Stone Works

London Borough of Newham

www.newham.gov.uk

Newham Council wanted to support staff working remotely and make efficiency savings by developing systems using cloud-based services. The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games presented an opportunity to use the Windows Server 2012 operating system and Microsoft System Center 2012 to give secure remote access to information for 1,400 employees. Home working resulted in staff becoming more productive, paving the way for further cloud services.

Problem

In 2011, Newham Council embarked on a project to share IT and support services with Havering, aiming to save £11 million (U.S.$16 million) by 2015. Driving down costs and increasing efficiency are challenges shared by all local authorities in the U.K., and Newham Council aims to do this through its focus on citizen-centric services.

In terms of innovation, Newham Council has made a substantial commitment to remote working, online self-service for citizens, shared services, and collective procurement—all with the aim of doing more with less. This strategy proved particularly successful during the 2012 Olympic Games, when home working relieved pressure on services and staff were more productive.

These innovations—including the shared infrastructure with Havering Council and a self-service portal for citizens—have created a strong argument for developing cloud-based systems. Connell has predicted that within five years most Newham Council IT services will be cloud-based, which will involve close collaboration with Microsoft.

“Because we’re using

Hyper-V Replica,

which comes with

the Windows Server

2012 operating

system, there’s no

need for us to buy

more expensive

products, thereby

saving money.”

Andrew Woodgate

Principal System Support Analyst

London Borough of Newham

Solution

As a result of these policy changes, Newham Council is now using the Microsoft private

cloud solution to deliver further savings and efficiencies, while at the same time taking

advantage of its existing Microsoft-based estate. Cloud-optimised IT provided by

Microsoft supports the mobile and flexible work style first adopted by the council in 2012

for the Olympics.

In 2012, the council scaled up its remote access capability to 1,400 concurrent users and

tested it before the Olympics using the Microsoft private cloud. By upgrading to Windows

Server 2012 and Microsoft System Center 2012, Newham Council delivered a flexible, cost-

effective, cloud-based infrastructure using its existing technology.

Andrew Woodgate, Principal System Support Analyst, London Borough of Newham, says:

“The Service Manager component of System Center 2012 has replaced the third-party

software supporting our help desk, realising substantial savings. We’re also using other

components—Operations Manager for monitoring, Configuration Manager for the

desktop management, and the Orchestrator component for automating tasks previously

conducted manually.”

Benefits

• Council shifts services to the private cloud over five years

• Hyper-V helps council cut costs

• Microsoft private cloud paves the way to the public cloud

• System Center investment supports shared services agenda

Lucid Interactive

www.sellerexpress.com

www.repricerexpress.com

Fast-growing software company Lucid Interactive provides web-based solutions to help retailers manage multi-channel sales and operations. Based in the UK, it has more than 600 customers globally.

ProblemSoftware company Lucid Interactive wanted continued expansion but growth was slowed by a costly, inflexible hosting model. Their web-based solutions were hosted by a datacenter provider, but due to continuous expansion, Lucid continually had to rent new servers on long-term contracts. They found it very difficult to scale, as they were always either underusing or overusing the technology infrastructure. By moving its web-based retail applications to Microsoft Azure, it benefits from a cost-effective, scalable infrastructure that grows with business and improves performance for its customers. Higher conversion rates, up by 45 percent, and reduced churn have increased revenues by 25 percent and cut support time by 15 percent.

SolutionAs a web-based business, Lucid knew a lot about the public cloud platforms available. It investigated and tested the leading services, including Amazon Web Services, before selecting Microsoft Azure for a detailed pilot in January 2013, prior to eventual adoption, and migration in February 2014. “We knew we had to get the choice of provider completely right as the cloud platform is central to our business. While we tested all the major solutions available, Microsoft Azure stood out for its functionality, pricing, maturity, and close integration with our software, which is built on Microsoft .NET technology,” says Doherty.

Azure is an open and flexible cloud platform that enables companies to quickly build, deploy, and manage applications, all hosted in Microsoft datacenters. Lucid was impressed by the high throughput, low-latency caching, and the HDInsight Service data management platform that is part of Azure. HDInsightseamlessly processes data of all types, whether structured or unstructured, and of any size, making it possible for businesses to gain the full value of big data.

Benefits

• Scalability.

• Greater customer satisfaction.

• Increased revenues.

• Support for business expansion.

• Reduced support time.

“It is nice to know that that our costs depend on exactly what we use. The ability to scale has been hugely important, as previously we were held back by the inflexibility of the hosting model.”

Brendan Doherty,CEO,Lucid Interactive

Marks and Spencer

www.marksandspencer.com

December is the most important month of the year for UK retailer Marks and Spencer, and its advertising campaigns are the cornerstone of its holiday strategy. When its 2013 primetime holiday TV ad campaign encouraged people to visit a dedicated website, it was vital that it could cope with the spike in traffic. The retailer created a website using Microsoft Azure to support huge volumes of traffic while avoiding the expense of purchasing physical servers and relying on internal IT resources.

ProblemMarks and Spencer (M&S) was founded in 1884 and is regarded as one of the UK’s most popular retailers. It has a presence in more than 50 countries, employs around 82,000 people, and has 800 stores in the UK alone, in addition to a major e-commerce business. A key objective is to turn the M&S .com site into its flagship store and the retailer is also pursuing an omnichannel strategy. The IT support for this comes from the 80-person software engineering team in the .Com Development division. “We are aiming to provide our customers with the ability to purchase products at any time, wherever they are and using whatever device they choose,” says John Pillar, Head of Software Engineering for Mobile, Labs, Retail-IT and Digital Stores at Marks and Spencer.

SolutionWhen the M&S marketing director came to John in October and outlined the Magic & Sparkle campaign, the software engineering team had to move quickly. It was decided early in the process that a cloud platform was the only way forward. “The culture in my team is similar to that of a start-up in terms of speed, agility, and innovation, and we absolutely wanted a platform to reflect that,” says Pillar.

The Microsoft Services Premier Support team also played a major role in bringing the Magic & Sparkle campaign to life. “Testing was critical,” says Pillar. “We quickly engaged with Microsoft Services through the Microsoft Services Premier Support for Developers program, where the team helped us make sure that the technology could scale at the levels we required.”

A proof-of-concept site was set up and during testing, the volume of traffic led to a bottleneck. Microsoft Services allocated a section of a data center in Amsterdam and supplied beta load test software to ensure that the bottleneck was eliminated. “A lot of people worked tirelessly to help us prepare for the campaign; it really was a phenomenal effort from the Microsoft Services team,” says Pillar.

Benefits

• Saves Costs and Resources

• Supports Overall Business Goals

“We had a matter of weeks to get the Magic & Sparkle website up and running, and knew that Microsoft Azure would provide us with the speed, scale, and elasticity that such an important campaign required.”

John Pillar, Head of Software Engineering (Mobile, Labs, Retail-IT, and Digital Stores), Marks and Spencer

MenziesAviation

www.menziesaviation.com

Menzies Aviation is a global provider of passenger, ramp, and cargo handling services. Its rapid global expansion through business acquisitions contributed to an increasing number of employees and devices, a growing amount of data, and a complex network—complicating employee authentication, identity, and information access management. Menzies Aviation deployed Windows Server 2012 so that IT staff can use its centralized, flexible tools to build an easily managed employee identity framework. The company can easily control employee access to file data, enhance data security, and achieve compliance—all from its two, U.K.based data centers.

ProblemMenzies Aviation is now a major force in the international ground handling industry. Operating at more than 132 airports in 34 countries and supported by a global team of more than 17,000 people, Menzies Aviation serves more than 500 airline customers that handle more than 800,000 flights and 1.7 million tons of cargo annually.

Maintaining the flexible, reliable, and secure IT infrastructure that is necessary to support the company’s global operations is an ongoing challenge. Menzies Aviation worked with longtimepartner Dell, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, to complete the data center project in 2007 and improve business continuity and customer service level agreements. Together, there are 300 Dell PowerEdge 2950, R710, and R720 servers across the two data centers. Menzies Aviation uses a Cisco network and an EqualLogic storage solution. Menzies Aviation maintains a VMware-based virtualized environment that includes 350 virtual machines that run mission-critical business systems.

SolutionMenzies Aviation sought to centrally manage employee identity and access to information based on business and compliance needs. It chose the Identity and Access Management scenario in the RDP so that IT staff can benefit from improvements to Active Directory and the introduction of Dynamic Access Control, a file-system authorization mechanism.

“Why the RDP? There is always pressure to reduce costs,” says Apps. “At the same time, service quality, customer safety, and data security are all paramount. The RDP gives us the ability to test the latest operating system from Microsoft and see how we can use it to reduce costs without impacting service or safety. Dell has been our technology partner for 10 years now, so we were excited to participate. We were able to work closely with Microsoft, which has been a great experience.”

IT staff also like the simplified licensing that comes with a Microsoft solution. “The licensing is amazing,” says Apps. “It’s another reason that I can see us moving to Hyper-V across the infrastructure. We get more value out of every pound we spend on IT.”

Benefits

• Improves Identity and Access Management to Boost Security.• Increases Business Agility to Support Growth.• Simplifies IT Platform.

“We have a lot of data across the globe, but with Active Directory and Dynamic Access Control, we can make sure the right people get access to the right data and help keep our information secure.”

Alan YinSenior Engineer, Enterprise Systems Team Menzies Aviation

Mitchells & Butlers

www.mbplc.com

Mitchells & Butlers wanted to deploy mobile devices that run service-enhancing apps to its staff at 1,600 establishments. Before doing so, it needed a way to remotely manage the devices. The company subscribed to Windows Intune, a PC and mobile device management service solution, and will deploy its mobile devices throughout 2014. Using the devices and apps, it expects to improve customer service, increase site managers’ efficiency, and reduce costs.

ProblemEstablished in 1898, Mitchells & Butlers runs many of the United Kingdom’s most famous restaurant and pub brands. Behind the great food and memorable experiences served up daily at every Mitchells & Butlers establishment, technology plays a significant supporting role.

Mitchells & Butlers distributed iPod touch devices running iOS 6 for its wait staff and Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 tablets running the Android operating system for its front-of-house staff and site managers. “To enable our business strategies, we needed a mobile device management solution,” says Banham. ”In our restaurants and pubs, many employees share one mobile device, so we wanted a flexible management solution to accommodate that scenario.”

The company’s IT staff uses Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 datacenter solutions to manage Mitchells & Butlers corporate devices that operate behind its firewall. “Our biggest priority was to find a solution that interoperated with System Center 2012 R2 so that we could manage all our devices from one console,” says Andy Turner, Technical Lead, Infrastructure, at Mitchells & Butlers.“

SolutionMitchells & Butlers chose Windows Intune, the PC and mobile device management service solution from Microsoft that provides both cloud-based and on-premises capabilities. IT staff will use Windows Intune to remotely run mobile device management tasks, including software distribution and self-service application delivery.

“We looked at Air Watch and Mobile Iron, but Windows Intune required no infrastructure, is user-friendly, and connects with the Configuration Manager component of System Center 2012 R2 to offer a single console for both PCs and mobile devices,” says Banham. “We get the device management capabilities we need: we can deploy software to individual devices or collections of devices that we assign to a manager at each site. And Microsoft went out of its way to help us with extra resources, time, and expertise.”

In December 2013, Mitchells & Butlers subscribed to 8,500 Windows Intunelicenses for its mobile devices. Site visits to configure the iPods will commence in spring 2014. The iPods will run an app called iServe, which was developed for the company’s retail teams to take orders and send them to the kitchen. However, Mitchells & Butlers wants to upgrade the iPods to iOS 7.1.1 and is waiting for a version of the app that can run in that environment.

Benefits

• Improved guest experience

• Gained an extensible mobile device management platform.

• Reduced IT labor and operational costs

“By using the hybrid model of Windows Intune and Configuration Manager, we can remotely manage a total of 15,000 corporate and mobile devices with only a small team.”

Andy Turner, Technical Lead, Infrastructure, Mitchells & Butlers

nideo

www.nideo.tv

UK media startup nideo had a powerful vision: enabling companies to engage with their business audiences by sharing video content. To turn this into reality, the company needed to quickly build a scalable, cost-effective, and easy-to-use web-based platform. By using Windows Azure and cloud computing, nideo has created the flexible infrastructure to run its business now while providing the future foundation to meet its ambitious growth targets.

ProblemBecause existing online video providers focused on consumers, UK startup nideo launched a service specifically tailored to the needs of businesses. By using nideo, companies can share content with their business networks through an easy-to-use fast service that supports their business objectives.

nideo’s video platform is central to its operations, so selecting technology was critical to success. nideo had three business needs that it had to meet: fast time-to-market, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. Speed is vital to a startup. nideo needed to develop its idea and launch as quickly as possible in order to grasp the business opportunity before the competition did. The company wanted to focus on developing its offering and getting it to market, rather than on building an IT infrastructure to support operations.

Finally, the solution had to match the company’s budget, delivering a cost-effective platform that minimized up-front capital investment.

SolutionWith speed and scalability vital, nideo knew that it required a cloud-based infrastructure, but one that met its specific needs for managing video content. It had to be easy to use and reliable, now and in the future. Through market research, nideo narrowed its choices to two options: Windows Azure or a hosted system involving multiple providers. The combination of the technology and infrastructure strength of Microsoft and the capabilities of Windows Azure made the final decision a simple one.

To build its solution, nideo chose to work with a Microsoft partner. Configuring and testing services in Windows Azure took just a day, compared with an estimated month for a system with multiple providers.

The nideo solution in Windows Azure provides the total infrastructure required to run the business. The scalable solution uses Windows Azure Media Services to upload, encode, convert, and stream video content to users across multiple devices, from PCs and laptops to smartphones and tablets. Built-in monitoring delivers insight into resource usage, enabling real-time capacity planning that optimizes the infrastructure and keeps operating costs under control.

BenefitsA cloud-based solutionA combination of high performance, scalability, and ease of ManagementSimple to manage

“Our whole business is based on Windows Azure and we have full confidence that it will scale with us. It … enables us to deliver on our mission to connect the global business community through video.”

James Hakesley, Chief Operating Officer, nideo

Outsourcery

www.outsourcery.co.uk

To help change its business model from a traditional web hosting company to a cloud services provider, Outsourcery is taking advantage of the latest improvements in the Windows Server 2012 operating system and Hyper-V virtualization technology. No longer hampered by a four-core-per-virtual-machine limit, Outsourcery can accommodate partners and customers that demand high-performance virtual machines. Data centeradministrators are running 67 percent more virtual machines per server. Administrators can build an eight-node Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V cluster in just a few hours instead of a week, and they can perform simultaneous live migrations 10 times faster than before. Outsourcery expects to save more than £50,000 a year in IT costs as well as growing its business.

ProblemOutsourcery provides a broad range of cloud offerings, including hosted software applications, virtualized infrastructure, and unified communications solutions. They are a member of the Microsoft Partner Network with four Gold competencies, and also a member of the Presidents Club, an elite group of strategic partners whose sales achievements rank them as the highest in the Microsoft Dynamics global partner network.

Recently, Outsourcery took a step forward in its strategic plans to expand its existing cloud services to include a larger portfolio of next-generation cloud products. From the perspective of a cloud service provider, public cloud computing incorporates the automated and on-demand delegation of compute, storage, and networking resources to partners and their customers as needed through a shared physical infrastructure maintained by the cloud provider.

Dan GermainDirector of Hosting Infrastructure Outsourcery

SolutionOutsourcery chose to focus on a specific scenario within the RDP that concentrated on Hyper-V density and scale. This scenario introduces enhancements in the Windows Server 2012 hypervisor that Outsourcery can use to increase the density of virtual machines per host server through an improved architecture and better support tools. Windows Server 2012 supports virtual machines with up to 64 virtual processors and 1 terabyte of memory and clusters with as many as 64 nodes.

“We joined the RDP because we are interested in new technology and in being on the leading-edge of IT developments. We love the feedback and involvement from Microsoft in learning about and shaping a new product,” says Germain. “The scenario made sense to us because it is aimed at service providers, and it focuses on increasing platform density. We want to reduce our capital outlay on hardware and gain more density from our platform, so it was perfect.”

Benefits

• Increases Density, Promotes Business Growth.• Lowers Costs.• Improves Agility, Customer Service.

“With Windows Server 2012, the list goes on as to how we can use it to increase our business.... We can't wait until we are fully deployed.”

PVH

www.pvh.com

In the fast-moving fashion market, PVH, the company behind brands such as Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, needed to gain deeper insight into its day-to-day operations. Through a single data warehouse based on Microsoft SQL Server 2012, managers are now able to quickly analyze large volumes of data using Microsoft Excel 2010, giving them the confidence to make business-critical decisions and embrace new opportunities.

ProblemWith iconic brands such as Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Van Heusen, and IZOD, PVH has grown to be one of the world’s largest fashion companies, creating, producing, and selling clothes around the globe. To succeed in this fast-moving industry, responding to changing trends and buying patterns is vital. Being able to track sales and stock levels across multiple time periods and down to individual garment sizes is central to making business-critical decisions on a daily basis.

PVH’s retail merchandising systems were creating a huge volume of data, but their built-in reporting was unable to deliver the level of granularity needed by the organization. To fill this knowledge gap and respond to constant user requests, the 15-member Merchandising Systems IT team had to create bespoke reports on an ad-hoc basis. This was inefficient in two ways; reports took time to generate, risking lost opportunities, and skilled IT staff were prevented from working on other, longer-term projects.

SolutionTo deliver the accessible insights that the business required, PVH knew that it needed to centralize information from multiple systems into a data warehouse and make it available to all 200 users in the Merchandising Groups through easy-to-use tools. After extensive market research, PVH chose to work with Infodepth, a Microsoft partner with Gold competency in Business Intelligence, due to its skills and market understanding. A specialist in data warehousing and business intelligence solutions for the retail and leisure sectors, Infodepthrecommended a solution based on Microsoft SQL Server 2012 data management software and Microsoft Excel 2010 spreadsheet software.

The project began in April 2012, with 3.5 terabytes of data covering sales, transactions, and stock ledger information from 16 separate systems integrated into the data warehouse.

With the success of the data warehouse in North America, PVH is rolling out the concept to its Asia-Pacific operations, again working with Infodepth. The regional version will provide 200 users in Hong Kong, Korea, and China with access to the same granular level of detail as their US colleagues.

Benefits

• Better insights.

• Complete, easy-to-manage platform.

• Faster performance.

“With SQL Server 2012, users can analyze all the data they need to make decisions and confidently identify areas for growth. It gives us all the information needed to successfully run the business.”

Jeff Lombardi, Group Vice President Merchandise Systems, PVH

Paul Smithwww.paulsmith.co.uk

British fashion designer Paul Smith wanted to expand its virtualized environment and embrace cloud computing to further increase efficiencies and contain costs. It used Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V to virtualize business-critical applications—and achieved a 10 percent improvement in their performance. Data center administrators can run almost triple the amount of virtual machines per server and provision new servers in a day, instead of four weeks. Paul Smith expects to virtualize 30 percent more of its servers by the end of 2012 and to save more than £840,000 (US$1.8 million) a year in IT costs.

ProblemThe Paul Smith IT department consists of 15 people who support the business on a global scale from the Nottingham head office. “Our core business has more than 1,200 employees and from an IT perspective our team is relatively small for the services we provide to the business,” says Lee Bingham, Head of IT at Paul Smith.

From its inception, Paul Smith has worked with Risual, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network with Gold competencies, to build a cost-effective, interoperable IT infrastructure that delivers real business value. To that end, the company has standardized on Microsoft technologies. “Aligning our business with Microsoft and working with Risual has been an extremely successful strategy,” says Bingham. “While we have made great progress with optimizing our data centers, and the level of service that IT delivers to the business is already high, we are always interested in the latest technologies to improve efficiency, lower costs, and better serve the business.”

Lee BinghamHead of IT, Paul Smith

SolutionIn March 2012, Paul Smith joined the Rapid Deployment Program (RDP) for the Windows Server 2012 operating system. The company wanted to use the more flexible and powerful virtualization technologies within Windows Server 2012 to improve IT service to the business, realize cost savings, and boost operational efficiencies. Paul Smith IT staff members worked with Risual to evaluate Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 and work out a strategy to transform the data centersinto a cloud platform capable of supporting large, high-performance virtual machines.

“The RDP was a perfect way for Paul Smith to see how the latest version of Windows Server could help them take their virtualization plans to the next level,” says Proud. “The new version of Hyper-V has capabilities and features that Paul Smith can use to increase the density and performance of virtual machines per server. It also has better memory management capabilities and efficient tools to further optimize their data centers and reduce administration overhead.”

Benefits

• Created Scalable Virtualization Platform.• Increased Performance by 10 Percent.• Increased Density by Almost 200 Percent.• Reduced Costs by $1.8 Million in First Year.• Improved Business Agility, Innovation.

“We are using Windows Server 2012 to gain a high-density, scalable environment that’s easier to manage. Now we can save time in the data center and focus on supporting strategic business goals.”

Principality Building Society

www.principality.co.uk

Founded in 1860, Principality Building Society, the largest building society in Wales, has 500,000 members and more than £6 billion (US$9 billion) in assets.

Principality believes in delivering maximum value for its members by providing a lean, agile IT environment to support its data centre operations and a wide range of third-party software.

ProblemMarc Jones, Technical Services Manager, Principality Building Society, says: “We wanted a single management system to reduce licensing costs, cut manual administration, and get a clear, centralised view of performance across our IT infrastructure.”

While satisfied with the original implementation, by 2012, Jones and his colleagues were interested in an environment refresh. He says: “We needed to automate repetitive, manual tasks that were subject to error. We wanted to handle server provisioning more effectively and track the automation through a web portal. There was also a need to monitor our web applications and VMware 5.0 deployment.”

SolutionMicrosoft Partner AK Computer Services—a long-term strategic IT adviser to Principality—handled the original design and architecture using the Microsoft System Center suite of products. Graham Davies, Senior Consultant, AK Computer Services, who was awarded the honour of Most Valued Professional by Microsoft in 2012, says: “As a trusted adviser to Principality for more than 10 years, we’re highly tuned to the refresh cycle for Microsoft servers, including Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft System Center 2012. As a result, we recommended our customer to Microsoft for the early Technology Adoption Programme for Microsoft System Center 2012.”

Principality has now implemented Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1 and Windows Server 2012, which includes new and improved features in areas such as virtualisation, networking storage, user experience, and scripting. Specifically, the building society is using several components of System Center 2012 that were previously separate products.

The Operations Manager component oversees performance and availability reporting. It integrates with System Center Global Service Monitor, a cloud service that provides a simple way to manage the availability of external web-based applications from multiple locations.

Benefits

• Firm gets cost-effective operations management solution

• IT team makes data centre efficiency gains

• Standardising on System Center 2012 SP1 reduces need for staff training

• Orchestrator component helps make significant time savings

“With Hyper-V as part of the offering at no extra cost, it was a more competitive solution than VMware. We’re saving tens of thousands of pounds, mainly through centralised management of VMware.”Marc Jones,Technical Services Manager,Principality Building Society

Royal Bank of Scotland

www.rbs.co.uk

The Royal Bank of Scotland—the leading UK provider of corporate banking services—needed a powerful analytics platform to improve performance and customer services. To handle multiple terabytes of data and an unprecedented level of query complexity more efficiently, the bank implemented Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analytics Platform System. As a result, it gained near-real-time insight into customers’ business needs as well as emerging economic trends, cut a typical four-hour query to less than 15 seconds, and simplified deployment.

ProblemBased in Edinburgh, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is a financial services group with a long tradition of supporting UK businesses. The bank provides personal and corporate banking services worldwide, and it is the largest lender to small and midsize enterprises in Great Britain. To help customers develop better business strategies, the bank needed more insight into the bigger macroeconomic picture and the behavior of its clients.

In 2013, the bank created the Customer Solutions Group (CSG), which relies heavily on Chief Analytics Officer Alan Grogan’s team. Tasked with providing insight to RBS executives and customer engagement teams, CSG has access to data from approximately 1.5 million business customers and sees more than £7 billion per day and £1.5 trillion (US$2.4 trillion) annual transactions.

The CSG team needed better flexibility and faster performance. Answering immediate questions was a big concern, but so was the ability to develop long-term strategies. Grogan concludes, “If you think about the volume of data—including billions of pounds in transactions and hundreds of products—we needed a platform that we could administer easily and that could handle all manner of business challenges.”

SolutionThe Customer Solutions Group at the Royal Bank of Scotland looked at leading database vendors before choosing the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analytics Platform System (APS). With hardware, software, and networking components preinstalled, the solution would be simple to manage and would improve performance while significantly cutting costs. Grogan says, “I knew that it would be easy for my team to transition from managing SQL Server databases to SQL Server 2012 APS, and the solution cost about 85 percent less than products from other vendors.”

The CSG team plans to consolidate data from daily account transactions and connect the solution with business software such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The team also shares data online with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and a variety of business intelligence tools. In addition, Grogan and his colleagues are exploring options for working with unstructured Hadoop data, including the solution’s built-in PolyBase functionality and interoperability with Microsoft cloud services. “The cloud will play some part of the solution, whether now or in years to come,” says Grogan. “This infrastructure is immediately scalable.”

Benefits

• Gains deeper economic insight

• Increases productivity by 40 percent and responds faster to business needs

• Simplifies implementation

“Using this SQL Server 2012 Analytics Platform System infrastructure, we’ll be able to move customer relationships into customer partnerships.”

Alan Grogan, Chief Analytics Officer, Royal Bank of Scotland

Royal Caribbean International

www.RoyalCaribbean.com

Royal Caribbean International is the second-largest cruise company in the world with 21 ships that sail to more than 270 destinations. The cruise line also operates land tours in multiple countries.

ProblemRoyal Caribbean introduced its two Oasis- class ships, Oasis of the Seas in 2009 and Allure of the Seas in 2010. In addition to offering new amenities, the cruise line planned to improve the systems that supported customer service. For example, Royal Caribbean sought a more connected system than the point-of-service (POS) solutions from IBM that it was using on other vessels. The company wanted to use an intelligent system where POS devices could do more than sell products and services—it also wanted to collect information that it could use to enhance them.

SolutionRoyal Caribbean deployed handheld devices to monitor food temperatures and an integrated POS solution based on Windows Embedded, Microsoft SQL Server and Windows Server.

Royal Caribbean’s new intelligent system connects hundreds of devices and combines new and existing data streams, enabling powerful new insights into what guests want—and where and when they want it. By vastly simplifying access to that data, and connecting people and infrastructure together, Royal Caribbean is changing the trajectory of its business in real time.

Benefits

• Integrates data from POS, tablets, signage, TV, photo gallery, and ticketing systems

• Automates alerts for cooler malfunction

• Reduces time to complete HACCP checklists and generate temperature compliance reports

• Cuts temperature check times by 60%

“The Windows powered technology on board ships just seems to complement the whole experience… From the photo gallery to the digital signage to the point-of-sale solutions, everything works together seamlessly.”

Bill Martin, Vice President and CIO, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd

Royal Holloway, University of Londonwww.royalholloway.ac.uk

Royal Holloway, University of London, saw the need to change how it provided IT to users in order to deliver the same experience and choice as consumer websites. By moving to a hybrid cloud architecture based on Microsoft technologies, it has been able to automate the provisioning and delivery of services, improving the user experience while saving £50,000 (US$85,000) per year, and reducing the time that IT staff spent on routine activities by 20 percent.

ProblemSince it was opened by Queen Victoria, Royal Holloway, University of London, has grown in size and status. It now has 19 academic departments spanning the arts and humanities, sciences, social sciences, management, and economics, with 9,000 students, 2,000 of whom are postgraduates.

Royal Holloway brings together talented students in departments where academic staff are working at the frontiers of their subjects—60 percent of its research is rated as world-leading or internationally excellent. With a beautiful, 135-acre campus in Egham, Surrey, close to London, it combines world-class research with a distinctive educational experience. Through top-class research and international networks and conferences, the university is advancing knowledge and serving society in many different ways.

Like many universities, Royal Holloway relies on cost-effective technology to underpin its teaching and research programs. It was an early adopter of virtualization, seeing the benefits of this technology when the university first implemented it in 2005. However, in 2013, Royal Holloway recognized that the IT landscape was changing, driven by greater user demands and the advent of cloud-based models.

SolutionRoyal Holloway is a long-standing Microsoft customer and has a Microsoft Campus Agreement for licensing. “Given the maturity of its technology and our existing relationship, Microsoft was the natural choice when we looked to move our datacenter services to the cloud,” says Michael. “When you add in the hybrid cloud possibilities that Microsoft offers, it was an obvious choice.”

The university decided to work with Infront Consulting, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, due to its expertise in creating cloud-based systems. To build its hybrid cloud architecture, Royal Holloway deployed Hyper-V virtualization technology and Microsoft System Center 2012, alongside its existing Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft Office 365 implementation. It also moved workloads to Microsoft Azure, the Microsoft public cloud environment.

The new infrastructure, which was completed in June 2014 by Infront Consulting, is built on System Center 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2012 R2, with Microsoft Azure providing public cloud workloads. Rather than having to contact the IT department to ask for new services, such as creating a Microsoft SharePoint site or building a new website in Azure, users simply visit the self-service portal, fill out an online form, and the site is automatically provisioned, without any manual intervention from IT.

Benefits

• Improve services to users..

• Time and cost savings

• Greater strategic focus.

• Future-proofed architecture.

“Through the hybrid cloud … we now have a user-driven, automated infrastructure that meets customer demands, frees up staff time, and is as effective, modern, and consumer-focused as any website.”

Huw Michael, Technical Architect, Royal Holloway, University of London

Royal Mail Group

www.royalmailgroup.com

Royal Mail Group wanted to upgrade its 27,000 computers to the Windows 7 operating system. However, the cost-conscious organization wanted a way to streamline and automate the mostly manual, time-consuming, and disruptive deployment process. Royal Mail Group worked with CSC, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, and implemented the Microsoft System Center 2012 family of products to automate system management tasks, including software updates, system monitoring, and virtual machine provisioning. In addition, Royal Mail Group implemented a private cloud storage solution for data backup, which is built on Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V. As a result, they expect to reduce desktop support costs by 20 percent while increasing IT efficiency, enhance IT security, and improve the user experience.

ProblemRoyal Mail Group has always been cost-conscious, facilitating some of the lowest postal rates in the UK; however, it wanted to be even more diligent about IT costs as it prepared to privatize the organization. Specifically, Royal Mail Group wanted to reduce software licensing costs, IT resource costs, and costs associated with technology impacts to its employees. To reduce costs and limit its dependency on physical hardware, Royal Mail Group implemented VMware to run several of its business-critical applications, such as SAP software. In 2010, after the release of the Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter operating system with Hyper-V technology, they also implemented the Microsoft virtualization platform. With more than 600 servers in the data center and three servers each at 116 remote sites, the organization knew that a more aggressive approach to virtualization could further increase its cost savings.

“We expect that, by using Configuration Manager combined with our private cloud storage solution, we will be able to save 15 to 20 percent annually in desktop support costs alone.”

SolutionIn May 2011, Royal Mail Group engaged technology partner CSC, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, to find a way to better manage its disparate IT environment and make IT business operations more efficient, particularly in preparation for the planned upgrade to Windows 7. Together, the companies decided to launch a large-scale project with the following technology goals:

• Implement Microsoft System Center 2012 as its system management solution, specifically to enable automated, unattended operating system deployment, manage desktops, provision virtual machines, monitor systems, and automate IT workflows.

• Build a private cloud storage solution that would help improve the user experience for data backup and enhance data security.

• Expand the Hyper-V virtualization environment at Royal Mail Group to better take advantage of the organization’s Microsoft Enterprise Agreement.

Benefits

• Reduces Desktop Support Costs up to 20 Percent.• Increases IT Efficiency.• Enhances IT Security—Desktops and Data.• Improves User Experience for Employees.

Karl SnowdenInfrastructure Manager, Desktop and NetworksRoyal Mail Group

Sage

www.sage.co.uk

Sage, a major business software solution provider, decided to create an add-on to its on-premises enterprise resource planning (ERP) product, Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate (formerly Sage Timberline Office). It decided to use Windows Azure to take advantage of its elastic capability. Since creating the Sage Construction Anywhere add-on in Windows Azure and implementing autoscaling, Sage has increased reliability, expanded access to data, and pared costs in half.

ProblemThe company had previously launched an on-premises enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate. It decided to create another product, Sage Construction Anywhere, as an add-on to Sage 300. Sage planned to build the new add-on to run in a cloud services environment. In addition to controlling costs and gaining cloud experience, the company wanted to provide its customers with increased data mobility, reduced costs, and expanded access to data.

“Customers today, especially on construction sites, are looking for ways to access the data that’s locked in their back office,” says Chad Busche, Principal Software Architect at Sage.

Employees at construction sites who needed information from Sage 300 would typically call their head office and ask for a report. Then, the person there generated the report from Sage 300 and sent it to the employee by email. This manual process was inefficient and subject to error.

SolutionSage decided to create the add-on for Sage 300 by using the autoscalingcapability in Windows Azure, the Microsoft cloud services development, hosting, and management environment. Windows Azure provides on-demand compute, storage, networking, and content delivery capabilities through Microsoft data centers around the world.

The team at Sage first created an application, called Sage Construction Anywhere, to run in Windows Azure and then integrated the autoscaling feature. Sage used the Autoscaling Application Block (part of Microsoft Enterprise Library) to proactively manage the number of role instances used by the Sage Construction Anywhere application. Development work was done using the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional development system. To test the way that autoscaling responded to spikes in demand, the team at Sage used Visual Studio Load Test to simulate different loads on the application. They used this information to create the initial set of reactive rules. Engineers designed the application to be stateless, which means that each user request can be handled by any one of the web role instances.

Benefits

• Reduced Costs• Gained Cloud Experience• Improved Product Performance

“Using autoscaling in Windows Azure means that we save money by only provisioning the resources that we actually need. It was very easy to add to our application—we didn’t need to make any significant changes.”

Chad BuschePrincipal Software ArchitectSage

SkiptonBuilding Society

www.skipton.co.uk

Skipton Building Society needed a self-service portal for development environments for its mortgage services division HML. Its IT Shared Service Centre was tasked with finding a solution that would allow HML to provision virtual machines to keep pace with its agile development requirement. By deploying Hyper-V virtualisation technology, along with the Microsoft System Center 2012 suite of products, the firm avoided a £42,000 expenditure on a proof of concept and licences from the incumbent vendor.

ProblemSkipton Building Society, the fourth-largest building society in the UK, was looking for ways to streamline and accelerate the deployment of new business services through cloud computing. David Miskell, Solutions Architect, Skipton IT Shared Service Centre, says: “With a mainly manual process, it would have taken our team three weeks to deploy new service requests, but HML needed a faster process.” Around 80 per cent of the server estate in the Skipton IT Shared Service Centre is virtualised. Miskell says there would have been an extra cost of around £42,000 for deploying the capability required by HML from the incumbent vendor’s technology. Ongoing costs would also have risen as the solution was scaled up.

The Skipton IT Shared Service Centre had established a strong working relationship with Microsoft and Microsoft Partner, Risual. Miskell says: “We took the view that with its latest releases of Microsoft System Center 2012, the Microsoft offering had matured significantly. But we still required peace of mind that the product would achieve the business goals we’d set out for the project.”

David MiskellSolutions ArchitectSkipton IT Shared Service Centre

“In addition to the technology aspect, we chose the Microsoft solution because it was cost-effective and presented a lower risk as there was no cost associated with delivering the proof of concept.”

SolutionThe Skipton IT Shared Service Centre decided to use Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V and the Microsoft System Center 2012 suite of products. Craig Hartwell, Commercial Sales Director, Risual, says: “We first engaged with the Skipton IT Shared Service Centre to assist the team with making savings and increasing automation in its data-centre environment. We then worked on providing a solution that would deliver the self-service portal project and reduce time to market to deliver new services.”

Risual made a high-level proposal to deliver a self-service capability using Hyper-V technology with the Virtual Machine Manager and App Controller components of Microsoft System Center 2012. Hartwell says: “A vital distinction was that Microsoft didn’t charge the customer for the proof of concept, whereas the incumbent supplier asked for £12,000.”

Benefits

• Skipton gains agility with virtualisation solution.• Firm saves £42,000.• High-level advice helps make best use of existing Microsoft licences.• Skipton looks forward to lower long-term management costs for the entire

virtualised server estate.

Telent

www.telent.com

Telent partnered with CGI to deliver a secure, real-time solution for London Underground, with the capability to scale to thousands of devices and sensors by taking advantage of the Microsoft Azure Intelligent Systems Service.

ProblemTelent manages the infrastructure for the iconic London Underground, which serves more 1 billion passengers each year. Telent wanted to help rail organizations like London Underground modernize the systems that monitor its critical assets, such as escalators, lifts, HVAC control systems, and CCTV and communication networks

SolutionTelent partnered with CGI to deliver a secure, real-time solution with the capability to scale to thousands of devices and sensors by taking advantage of the Microsoft Azure Intelligent Systems Service.

Meaningful data from sensors and intelligent edge devices – on everything from temperature, vibration and humidity, to fault warnings and system alerts – are all available securely in the cloud.

Benefits

• Reduces service delays with proactive response to real-time data

• Saves time and improves accuracy

• Integrates disparate systems and automates processes quickly and affordably

• Improves strategic decisions with new insights into asset performance

"When one system can connect thousands of devices and data streams across a rail network serving millions of people, that’s the Internet of Things"

Steve Pears, Managing Director, Telent.

Unilever

www.unilever.com

Unilever expects to double in size in 10 years and to ensure that its IT organization could support this growth, Unilever worked with Avanade to migrate from VMware to Hyper-V technology in Windows Server 2008 R2. It then used Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center2012 to create a private cloud environment that contains 3,175 virtual machines. With its private cloud, Unilever will deliver IT services 40 percent faster and be more agile in the marketplace. It also expects to achieve its growth goals with no increase in IT costs. By eliminating hundreds of servers, Unilever realized significant savings and became a better environmental citizen. It is upgrading to Windows Server 2012 to gain even more IT efficiency.

ProblemIn 2008, Unilever began virtualizing servers by using VMware ESX software and reduced its physical servers by 65 percent. However, VMware was too expensive to proceed with. Meanwhile, Unilever closely tracked the progress of Microsoft virtualization software, and in late 2009 engaged Avanade to create a proof of concept around migrating to the Hyper-V technology in the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. The business case for moving to Hyper-V focused on increasing data center consolidation, extending virtualization to remote office locations, and reducing management costs.

The proof of concept was a success, and between 2009 and 2011, Avanade used its Next Generation Datacenter model and Migration Factory methodology to migrate most Unilever VMware virtual machines to Hyper-V and converted hundreds of physical servers to Hyper-V virtual machines.

Mike RoyleDirector of Enterprise ComputingUnilever

SolutionIn January 2012, Unilever again engaged Avanade, this time to help it explore private cloud computing—a pool of virtualized server, storage, and networking resources that dynamically flex to accommodate ever-changing business needs, and is dedicated to the use of a single organization. “When you put Microsoft System Center 2012 and the Windows Server 2012 operating system together, you have a really good story to tell in terms of cloud management,” says Garry Meaburn, Operational Effectiveness and Tooling Manager, IT Infrastructure Services, at Unilever. “We suddenly saw a way to do rapid deployment, automation, and orchestration of IT services.”

Windows Server 2012 is a cloud-optimized operating system, and Microsoft System Center 2012 is a cloud management platform, with virtual server creation, monitoring, and management integrated in one tool set and console

Benefits

• Speed IT Service Delivery by 40 Percent, Move Faster in the Marketplace.• Double Company Size without Increasing IT Costs.• Reduce Server Costs and Environmental Consequences.• Deliver IT Resources as Needed with Hybrid Cloud Model.

“With a Microsoft private cloud infrastructure, we can provide IT at a lower cost and provide IT capacity faster. In short, we can react faster, which helps the business react faster.”

Volvo

www.volvocars.com

ProblemBy the time that Zhejiang Geely Holding Group completed its acquisition of Volvo Car Corporation in 2010, the IT environment at Volvo had become complex, difficult to manage, and expensive. Over the years, a variety of data management and business intelligence products had been deployed. Volvo wanted to reduce the number of these products to make the overall system easier to manage and to reduce licensing and other costs. “

Volvo also wanted to improve its business intelligence capabilities to achieve greater insights into such things as assembly and product development costs and to help employees produce reports more quickly and easily.

To ensure timeliness and accuracy and to foster collaboration, Volvo sought to improve data management. The company has relied on IT personnel to generate many data reports, which can be slow and inefficient. Also, there is no central location for storing reports, so information often is distributed by sending a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or other attachment in an email message.

When Volvo Car Corporation split off from Ford in 2010, it needed to develop its own stand-alone IT environment in some areas. At the same time, the company wanted to improve its business intelligence (BI) capabilities and operational efficiency. So Volvo decided to prototype a Microsoft data management solution that simplifies its IT environment, provides graphical self-service reporting capabilities, and improves collaboration.

Business AnalystVolvo

“With SQL Server 2012 and SharePoint Server 2010, we can use one technology and have one place to get information, so there’s a lot of time saved—and money.”

SolutionTo address these challenges, Volvo is deploying a pilot solution based on Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Business Intelligence data management software and related BI technologies, including Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010. One of the big reasons for choosing Microsoft is that Microsoft products are designed to work well together. “We strive to keep down the number of technologies, and since Microsoft ensures the interoperability of those applications, we don’t have to worry about that,” says a Volvo IT architect.

Volvo also is implementing the new Power View feature in SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services. Power View is a self-service reporting tool that helps data consumers visually explore their data themselves and answer ad-hoc questions with ease. The new system includes a SharePoint portal where people can access and use the tools and information they need and collaborate with fellow employees. Volvo expects that it will gradually implement the new system for up to 5,000 users, dramatically increasing the number of Volvo employees who will be able to make data-driven decisions.

Benefits

• Simpler IT and Reduced Costs• Better Business Intelligence • Richer Collaboration

Wiltshire Council wanted to upgrade its IT service delivery platform to Microsoft System Center 2012 to support its cloud technologies. Microsoft Gold Partner Silversands managed the upgrade, using Orchestrator—an automated workflow deployment tool—to migrate data from a customised line-of-business application to the new platform. The council is saving £2 million a year with its highly automated IT solution, while improving services for its internal clients.

Wiltshire Council

www.wiltshire.gov.uk

ProblemThe council’s long-term vision for ICT service delivery includes using both private and public cloud technologies to provide the best performance and service to its customers while obtaining optimum value for money. Integration and flexibility are key factors in the public–private network. For example, Microsoft Office 365 is currently used by 4,500 staff to access their Microsoft Office Outlook emails and calendars on computers and mobile devices, while Windows Azure hosts a range of public-facing applications and test facilities. Other line-of-business applications are hosted and managed in the council’s own data centre.

In late 2011, Wiltshire Council decided to upgrade its successful service-desk and integrated IT asset management solution to meet new business requirements. Andy Spurway, Head of Service Delivery, Wiltshire Council, says: “We wanted to make the most of the improvements available in Microsoft System Center 2012. For example, the latest version of Service Manager has enhanced the way incidents and changes can be managed. This function would help us to resolve incidents effectively and ensure we minimise the impact of service outages on our internal and external customers.”

SolutionIn 2012, Wiltshire Council again turned to Silversands to manage the deployment and upgrade to Microsoft System Center 2012 and the new version of the Provance IT Asset Management Pack. The software suite gives the council an integrated platform for managing applications and services across its public and private cloud infrastructures. Service Manager provides built-in processes for incident and problem resolution, and change control. Asset life-cycle management is provided by the process management pack from Microsoft Gold Partner Provance. As a result, users can now log on to Service Manager through a service-desk portal and log a change request.

As part of the upgrade, Silversands used Orchestrator, a component of System Center 2012, to create a bridge between the data held in the central management database—such as change records and Active Directory configuration details—and the new service desk. Workflow management solution Orchestrator provides the means to automate the creation, monitoring, and deployment of resources in the council’s ICT environment.

Mark Newton, System Center Consultant, Silversands, says: “With Orchestrator, we were able to carry out a complex migration cost effectively without causing any downtime for users.”

Benefits

• Solution helps save £2 million annually

• Council extends existing investments

• Tools support internal service-level reporting

• Council controls IT costs and increases service efficiency

“Bringing our ICT in-house has helped Wiltshire Council save more than £2 million a year. Service Manager is a major part of our solution, giving us the tools to automate routine processes.”

Glen Holmes,Head of Business Solutions, Wiltshire Council

© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.

The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on

the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

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