After completion of the State of Indiana's Consolidation, IOT began looking at how we could further reduce costs and improve service.  The first critical piece that was identified was to standardize our aging PC fleet.  The current PC's were a patchwork of aging systems from various vendors.  The first step in this was to choose a vendor through our RFP process to see who could deliver quality equipment and service to us for this best price.  Dell Computer was chosen after the completion of our rigorous selection process.  

Based on our budgeting projections and current environment we chose to begin the replacement of PC's on a 4 year cycle.  We would replace a quarter of our fleet every year.  We were also going to wrap in the packaging of agency applications as well as new security measures and lockdowns.  

This project would allow us to reduce service calls and increase user productivity with less downtime.  This more standardized environment would bring real fiscal savings to be had for the state.  As well as the tangible benefit that all agencies would be capable of running newer applications without the concern of whether their aging equipment could handle it.

When we were working on the specifications and model choice this is when Dell brought Intel to the table.  Our initial demonstration of vPro technology and its capabilities excited us as it would allow us to remotely manage PC's at the hardware level regardless of the OS state.  Thus giving us the capabilities to solve more problems remotely.  Technicians would not need to get in a car and drive to a remote site or have to walk across our central campus to resolve a software issue even if the OS was at a blue screen.  It also would allow us to have the added benefit of shutting down PC's after hours and then turning them back on as needed for patches and updates reliably.  Which provides real power cost savings.

Yes

Yes

Our project allows our techs to be more productive and efficiently use their time to resolve user issues more rapidly.  This provides the users the ability to be back up and running faster for any non-hardware related issues.  

It also allows the patching of machines even if they are powered off by providing for remote hardware power on in a reliable fashion.

The remote power off saves the state as a whole as it has allowed all agencies that have been refreshed to save considerable dollars on their power bills.

This is a relatively new technology in the desktop PC world that is a cost effective and reliable solution.  It has provided us with an opportunity to be ahead of the curve for new technology that provides cost savings.  So as more features are introduced, we have the talent and know-how to implement them in a quick effective fashion.

Technical issues with deployment across the multiple domains we support once one of the most challenging aspects.  We also were challenged with the relative maturity of the current management tools which led us to work with Intel on a developer level to improve and resolve these.  There are benefits derived from working to overcome these challenges, as we have direct knowledge of how many of these tools work and what we can do to leverage future capabilities as well as troubleshoot issues when they arise.

This project was low risk as it basically came down to the staff required to implement it.  I was able to implement with the help of Dell and Intel with a single part time resource working on it.

Achieved

The more widespread the user base, the greater the opportunity for cost savings due to the increased ability for remote support.  This saves money with travel, productivity, and tech time.

Users have become used to it.  It has not been a stretch for them to adapt to the new changes since we wrapped it with the delivery of a new PC.  Most were willing to accept the new environment and rules due to the added benefit of the new PC.