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Desktop Management Stratgies

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PCQ Bureau
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The clock had struck midnight in a chilly wintry night and Ajit Singh was

cursing his luck for having to stay back that late along with his team in

office. “12 in the night-two hrs past my usual sleeping time,” he thought. But

such is the bane of his profession. It was destined to be another of those long

weekends. Just a little over four hours ago, all hell had broken loose in his

department-the 1200 odd computers in the BPO, that he was the CIO of, were faced

with a massive virus threat. There was a patch available for the threat, but it

would take sometime before it were installed completely on all computers. And

God knows what havoc the virus might wreak on the systems till then. So there he

was, with his department of eight 'technicians,' painstakingly supervising the

installation of the patch.

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Such a scenario needs not introduction to a CIO. They are quite habituated to

working under such tight deadlines. As more and more people join an enterprise,

the number of desktops increase, and so does the demand for support, maintenance

and troubleshooting. So, the role of the IT team gradually gets reduced to

providing tech support instead of concentrating on implementing new strategies.

In today's world, even the slightest breach, the simplest of compromises in

IT security of an organization, can bring the entire IT infrastructure to a

complete halt. One of the important tasks before any IT manager is desktop

management. In a large organization, the management of desktops (and this

includes laptops, PDAs and smart phones) can be an uphill task. An updated

inventory is only the first step. What software is installed on each of them? Is

each desktop fitted with sufficient security tools? What is the state of

obsolescence in the systems? Has the latest version of a critical software been

installed? If yes, which of them are on the VPN?-all these are questions whose

answers need to be at fingertips of a CIO. And the only way to do this is

through efficient desktop management.

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At basic level, desktop management (DM) involves three components-asset

management (managing the inventory of the software and hardware), patch

management, and software distribution (including license compliance monitoring).

If you stretch this definition, it also includes spam filtering, virus scanning, detecting and eliminating spyware, IM security, wireless security, firewall configuration and, for remote workers, VPN management. Of course, there has been life before desktop management strategies evolved, and we dare say some organizations can do without it, but a CIO needs to take the call based on two considerations-is the existing IT strategy keeping up with changing technologies, new software revisions and user support issues? and secondly, will it continue to be scalable? If the answer to either of these is no, there is no

alternative but to deploy a Desktop Management (DM) strategy.

The case for Desktop Management



There are various ways in which you can implement Desktop Management. Some

of these may involve fundamental changes to your network structure and the way

it operates. Others might include a change in IT policies to bring them in tune

with various regulatory standards. Let's take a look:

1. Automation: According to IDC surveys, IT organizations (small or

large) that have IT asset discovery and inventory, have a way to enable other IT

solutions to begin automated, basic asset management to lower costs and improve

availability. Multiple endpoints are being considered: appliances,

virtualization, policy-based management, patch management, and so on. Entwined

within these technologies is a concern for overall system security, not just at

the level of the desktop but all the way to the data center. Protecting the

internal environment from outsiders while giving insiders access to specific

corporate applications is the key.

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2. Centralization: Most consultants say centralization is inevitable

with desktop management. It makes tasks such as patch installations on 5,000

desktops easier. Centralized application installation, monitoring application

usage, and keeping track of resources have also become less tedious. The amount

of time, effort, and cost saved when all the controls are in once place, is

immense. For instance, if the operating system has to be upgraded on 700

machines over seven locations, it would take at least a month to do the actual

installations, and another month to fix the various glitches. It would also

involve engineers travelling to various locations. If this entire process is

centralized, the installations would be done overnight, sitting in the head

office, and any glitches can be handled remotely over the coming week. That is

the kind of convenience and cost-saving it results in.

3. Outsourcing: There are definite advantages to outsourcing DM. It

frees up a company to focus on its core business. Keeping abreast of technology,

24/7 service, fluctuating demand cycles, varied levels of technology skills, and

quick deployment of experts in the eventuality of a security breach are all

convenient when an outside specialist agency, manages them. It also results in

cost-effectiveness and an overall ease of operation. The trend towards managed

services is now gaining pace around the world. Desktop management as an

individual component may not see too many contracts, but as part of an overall

managed services package, the component is seen to offer more economies of scale

and is being outsourced.

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4. Standards-based approach: Because of IT security concerns, the need

to enhance system availability while at the same time meeting compliance

requirements; enterprises are moving toward a more standards-based approach to

manage workflows. This means implementing documented, repeatable approaches for

tasks such as creating and updating images, rolling out patches, and undertaking

a program to improve conducting these tasks over time.

Advantages of deploying DM



Increased efficiency and productivity is one of the main advantages. With a

more organized approach to managing desktops, the systems become more reliable,

and when there is a problem, tech support is much faster. For the staff working

on these systems, this means a huge reduction in downtime and therefore

increased productivity and efficiency.

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Another benefit of having DM in place is that IT managers can spare a lot

more time from routine tasks for more meaningful activities such as planning IT

strategies. IT departments move through the PC lifecycle of purchasing,

deploying, maintaining, upgrading, and retiring systems. However, it's the

middle of the cycle-deploying, maintaining, and upgrading-where IT managers

spend most of their time. With DM in place, this time can come down drastically;

freeing the IT staff for contemplating and implementing more strategic IT tools

for the organization.

There is also a two-fold reduction in costs with DM-in support and

administration. With DM, the rising cost of technical support can be contained

by efficient management of resources. Also, the cost of rolling out new

software, upgrading existing software, capacity planning and asset tracking,

which are mostly administrative tasks, can be brought down. Enterprises with

many legacy systems, diverse hardware or remote users may have a hard time

keeping track of their desktops, and DM can help target specific computers based

on inventory data.

There are studies to support DM's RoI. Gartner's 'Desktop TCO Update, 2003'

says that total cost of ownership for an unmanaged Windows XP desktop for three

years is $5,309. If the same desktop is managed-which is defined by Gartner as

implementing a slew of best practices combined with tools, processes and

policies, in other words, DM-it comes down to $3,335.

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Having a DM policy also leads to a more secure network infrastructure. When

working in a networked environment, it is vital for a system administrator to

see what is running on machines. From a security standpoint, this is of primary

importance. Today's threats can cripple the integrity and credibility of a

company, so it is important that the administrator quickly gets warnings about

unusual activity, as well as be able to update all machines on the network with

new security protection efficiently and effectively. This is one of the biggest

drivers of DM. With better patch and firewall management and monitoring of

software installs and updates, vulnerabilities and security breaches come to

light much quicker and can be thwarted quite easily and in time too. Access

control also becomes a key issue.

Last but not the least comes the issue of compliance. With global compliance

in processes becoming critical for enterprises in various verticals, DM has

become a really handy tool.

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The path to Desktop Management



The path to DM is not as easy as one would hope. There are many challenges

to meet on the way. The least of these is dealing with increasing number of

users in a growing enterprise. These users operate in a distributed environment

in various locations, and each has individual requirements from the desktop.

Managing the increasing and disparate needs can be an uphill task.

Then, there is the challenge of a rapidly changing technology to deal with.

To begin with, this effects the very definition of the desktop, because

increasingly, employees are using quite diverse devices such as desktops,

laptops, PDAs, and smart phones. This makes DM that much more challenging.

Another change that DM has to contend with is the increasing instances of

malicious attacks. Connected desktops (and other user end-points) expose the

various applications and repositories of information in the enterprise to these

attacks and managing newer and more potent malware is a constant challenge.

Desktop management is increasingly becoming a must-implement strategy in

organizations that rely on desktops and similar devices. It's not so much about

the advantages of deploying it as it is about the dangers of not doing so. As

spam and virus attacks reach alarming levels, an enterprise is vulnerable all

the time. And unless the CIO knows exactly what each desktop is up to, he is

asking for trouble. Even if we remove security from the picture, the sheer scale of hardware and software deployments in a large enterprise can be quite

unmanageable, and keeping each of them up to date in order to ultimately keep

the efficiency levels of the employees high is a critical task. Ultimately, it

is about the CIO taking proactive measures and making his own job more do-able.

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