Backup and Recovery, Endpoint Management, and Endpoint Security

Executive Summary

Overview
Aspirus, Inc. is a community-guided health system based in Wausau, Wisconsin that provides leading heart, cancer, gastrointestinal, spine, and neurological care. It serves 14 Wisconsin counties and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan through Aspirus Wausau Hospital, more than 30 primary and specialty clinics, an affiliated hospital, and physician network, nursing home care, and regional home health and hospice services. From its origins as a community healthcare provider, Aspirus quickly evolved into a comprehensive health system through organic growth, acquisitions, and partnerships. In 2007, Aspirus recorded 14,659 admissions and 72,580 outpatient visits, and it is licensed for 321 beds.

Barriers
With the health system’s rapid expansion came significant growth in end users, technology devices, applications, and data. The Aspirus Information Technology (IT) Department needed to ensure 24×7 information system operation, support an increasingly mobile and decentralized workforce, and improve Aspirus’ information security posture with solutions that address heterogeneity in the IT environment. Specifically, it needed to reduce the cost and labor associated with backing up data, delivering software and servers, and managing device inventory. It sought to consolidate disparate and resource-intensive antivirus and anti-spyware solutions; establish firewall, intrusion detection, and device control capabilities; and enable real-time audit reporting.

Solution
In order to address the different challenges, the Aspirus team leveraged Symantec technologies on several fronts. First, in order to address backup-and-recovery issues, Aspirus chose to deploy Veritas NetBackup and an ExaGrid 5000x disk-based backup system. Second, for endpoint management, after consulting with Symantec strategic vendor ITS Partners, Aspirus deployed Altiris Client Management Suite, Altiris Server Management Suite, and Altiris Privilege Management Essentials Add-on for Client Management Suite. Finally, in regards to endpoint security, the Aspirus team consulted with ITS Partners on security configuration and then deployed Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0, including Symantec Endpoint Protection Integration Component Add-on for Altiris Client Management Suite.

Benefits
The different Symantec technologies are helping the Aspirus team to realize tangible business value. A Total Operational and Economic Impact (TOEI™) analysis by The Alchemy Group pinpointed realized and projected business value in the following areas:

• Backup Labor Cost Avoidance: $196,257 in IT labor cost avoidance through streamlined data backups despite growing data volume from January 2005 through December 2009
• Backup and Troubleshooting Labor Productivity Gains: $396,873 in IT labor productivity gains through reducing the amount of time spent managing and troubleshooting backups from January 2005 through December 2009
• Desktop Imaging Labor Productivity Gains: $17,896 in IT labor productivity improvements through streamlining server imaging from January 2005 to December 2009
• Software Delivery Labor Productivity Gains: $430,671 in IT labor productivity gains
attributed to expedited software delivery from January 2005 through December 2009
• PC Scanning Labor Productivity Gains: $967,915 in end-user labor productivity gains
attributed to faster PC virus and malware scans from May 2008 through December 2009