Alchemy Group http://www.alchemygroupinc.com Accelerating Corporate Performance Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:05:00 +0000 en hourly 1 Having a tough time navigating customer conversations around being a reference for your products and services? http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2012/02/having-a-tough-time-navigating-customer-conversations-around-being-a-reference-for-your-products-and-services/ http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2012/02/having-a-tough-time-navigating-customer-conversations-around-being-a-reference-for-your-products-and-services/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:05:00 +0000 Skip King http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/?p=846 Hello again. I appreciate your continued interest in these subjects. This blog is focused on how to identify, qualify, develop and publish an economic benefit analysis and enhance your customer reference program in the process.

Many organizations that have participated in reference activity rarely see the benefit of sharing intimate information with suppliers, much less the public at large. Historically, content developed around the subject of business value lacks the forensic detail and independent validation to be relevant to existing or future customers. All too often, marketing organizations are far too quick to settle for a nice story, rather than providing research the customer can use internally to protect budgets and justify future expenditures.

We have learned the recipe for navigating these conversations and encouraging customers to participate is very straightforward — give them something credible they can use to promote internal success, protect existing budgets and secure future expenditures, and they just might let you share some of the information in a public format. Anything less and they may reluctantly comply with your request to use them as a poster child for your products and services. The former will enhance your relationships with your customers and be an added benefit to your customer reference program.

It is ultimately the customer’s decision as to how this forensic economic information is repurposed, both inside and outside their organization. In cases where budgets are under attack, the strategic decision may be to provide private research to give your customer the support required to secure funding for future expenditures. In this case, the strategic decision is to place the protection of future budgets above reference activity and product promotions.

This is sometimes the case, as not all research efforts have a positive outcome. As part of the initial qualification process, you should validate several key parameters before fully investing resources, including communication guidelines that may restrict the collection or distribution of this information. Alchemy Group normally secures a bonded non-disclosure agreement recognizing the potential risk of this information moving outside of the customer operating environment. Until the results are confirmed and validated by the customer, the use of this information is off limits for public distribution.

The economic benefit you provide is best defined by your customer and validated by an independent third party. Your customer will need to provide access to information that will provide insight and details, before and after the sale, that allow accurate financial calculations. These calculations should then be reviewed by a business analyst, financial analyst and an independent auditor to ensure the integrity of the research. Finally, you need the customer to sign off on the research.

It is not the voice of the market analyst that will enhance your customer reference program. There are many market analysts today who are quick to step in front of the customer to state what they think the benefit of your products were, as if their interpretation or translation is of more value than the unfiltered opinion of the customer.

Only with the voice of the customer (VOC) will you be able to capture the intimate details and accurately apply this information at sufficient depth. The definition of value does not get any clearer than using the VOC to validate not only the formulas to accurately assess the economic impact, but the operating scenarios that allow the entire story to be told on behalf of the stakeholders. Why would you or your customer settle for anything else?

Let us know the issues you are facing, what questions you may have and thoughts regarding this blog. You can email us at blog@alchemygroupinc.com.

]]> http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2012/02/having-a-tough-time-navigating-customer-conversations-around-being-a-reference-for-your-products-and-services/feed/ 0 Navigating rough seas is much easier knowing your Economic Value http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2012/01/navigating-rough-seas-is-much-easier-knowing-your-economic-value/ http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2012/01/navigating-rough-seas-is-much-easier-knowing-your-economic-value/#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 12:04:14 +0000 Skip King http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/?p=844 This blog is intended to provide insight on the issues that client-facing organizations are experiencing…on the edge of the storm. In this edition, we look at the sales and marketing organization.
Despite the current weather conditions, creating an organization to ensure the customer is being taken care of before and after the sale remains critical. Having the right sales and marketing organization to execute this plan and make the most of the market opportunity is top of mind for any executive who has revenue responsibility. With the winds howling outside and the waves getting higher, now may be the best time to consider a renewal and begin plotting new waypoints away from the storm track.

In a recent survey conducted by Alchemy Group, we learned that most buyers are making fundamental changes in the evaluation and selection process specifically as it relates to operational and economic benefits. This change will force many sales and marketing leaders to re-tool their organizations and develop tightly integrated sales and marketing best practices emphasizing the economic benefits available to customers.

This is the front edge of an unusual storm pattern that most client-facing organizations are not prepared to confront. In our opinion, this is a game changer. As the customer becomes more focused on the economic benefit and moves away from features and functions, sales and marketing functions will increase in complexity. It will require expert navigation skills to reach the economic buyers, along with an independent economic benefit analysis to develop credible financial arguments — most of them tailored for specific customer operating environments and vertical markets.
With the complexities inherent in most buying cycles, likely prerequisites to navigate this change include having repeatable sales processes to reduce the cost of sales and the business acumen to communicate effectively with financial buyers. A challenge for most organizations is educating the sales and marketing teams to compete on value instead of features and functions. The more adept your sales professionals are at being subject matter experts, the more success they will have at filling the pipeline with qualified prospects and improving the close ratios. The selling environment today demands an effective engagement process to capture new business revenues. The degree to which your sales organization is lacking these attributes is the same degree that your current engagement processes will require some changes.

The combination of a slowing economy, little economic research, lack of business acumen, low morale, atrophied time management skills and the lack of repeatable sales processes are not uncommon conditions for organizations just entering this storm pattern. It has been our experience that these attributes serve as a bellwether for a high degree of variability in the revenue forecast and an inability to meet quarterly revenue objectives.

We anticipate a fundamental transformation of most sales and marketing organizations in the next five years. Knowing what to do and in what sequence will largely define the outcome for these organizations. Alchemy Group acts as an independent and experienced resource to help these organizations navigate to safe harbor and identify the shortest time to benefit.
Let us know the issues you are facing, what questions you may have and thoughts regarding this blog. You can email us at blog@alchemygroupinc.com.

]]> http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2012/01/navigating-rough-seas-is-much-easier-knowing-your-economic-value/feed/ 0 Storage and Availability Management, Backup and Recovery, Endpoint Security, and Security Management http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/storage-and-availability-management-backup-and-recovery-endpoint-security-and-security-management/ http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/storage-and-availability-management-backup-and-recovery-endpoint-security-and-security-management/#comments Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:51:09 +0000 admin http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/?p=1299 Overview
Thai Airways International Public Company Limited (THAI) is the national carrier of the Kingdom of Thailand. Founded in 1960, the airline operates domestic, regional, and intercontinental flights from its home base in Bangkok. It transports passengers, cargo, and mail on regularly scheduled and chartered flights.
Barriers
To comply with the company’s strategic plan, the information technology (IT) organization was challenged to operate in a cost-efficient, productive manner, and to support the enterprise in its efforts to reduce operating expenses while maintaining customer safety and satisfaction. Specifically, it needed to be responsive to the dynamic needs of the business, adapt to rapid data growth, increase labor productivity, drive down costs, and reduce risks. Additionally, tools were required to support high application availability, server virtualization, streamlined backups and updates, and improved security reporting.
Solution
To meet these challenges, THAI consolidated on the following Symantec products between 2005 and 2011: Symantec NetBackup to expedite backup and recovery processes, improve backup success rates, and enable data deduplication; Veritas Cluster Server to resolve application availability issues; Veritas Storage Foundation HA to centralize and streamline storage management; Symantec Endpoint Protection to reduce exposure to security risks including viruses, malware, and intrusions; and Symantec Security Information Manager to prioritize and improve threat response.
Benefits
A Total Operational and Economic Impact (TOEI®) analysis by Alchemy Group, Inc. found that Symantec solutions delivered significant operational and economic benefits to THAI. By automating labor-intensive tasks and providing better analysis tools, the Symantec solutions and associated process improvements dramatically reduced the time that IT staff spent on system management and key security activities,
improved availability for end users, and reduced storage costs. Actual and projected savings of nearly $3.3 million are quantified for the period of January 2005 through December 2013 (all savings are expressed in U.S. dollars).

For more information or to download this document, go to http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/category/research/bva/

]]> http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/storage-and-availability-management-backup-and-recovery-endpoint-security-and-security-management/feed/ 0 The Operational and Economic Impact of Green IT http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/the-operational-and-economic-impact-of-green-it/ http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/the-operational-and-economic-impact-of-green-it/#comments Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:47:10 +0000 admin http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/?p=1294 Overview
Symantec is a global leader in infrastructure software, providing security, storage, and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world. The company enables its customers to protect their infrastructure, information, and interactions by delivering software and services that address risks to security, availability, compliance, and performance. Headquartered in Mountain View, California and operating in more than 40 countries, Symantec had revenues of $6.01 billion in fiscal year 2010.

The company is experiencing steady business growth, both organically and through mergers and acquisitions. In particular, the growing interest in cloud computing and hosted IT services is escalating the demands on Symantec’s data center infrastructure to accommodate those services. Simultaneously, the company is inheriting the real estate holdings of acquired businesses as it continues to manage the impact of its carbon footprint on the environment. Symantec’s software-based approach to green IT offers organizations various tools for streamlining the IT infrastructure and driving energy efficiencies to reduce energy costs. In addition, the company’s longstanding commitment to environmental stewardship is spurring actions on other fronts including facilities consolidation and travel reduction to help Symantec achieve its green objectives.
Barriers
Symantec has endeavored to balance growth in its facilities, application hosting, and data storage services with the mission to contain its global energy consumption. Efforts to find the balance between corporate growth and reducing overall carbon dioxide emissions continue to evolve.
The Solution
Seeking operational efficiencies and lower costs, Symantec implemented a series of steps that leveraged a number of its own data management technologies. The company began consolidating its data centers worldwide to achieve significant savings in facilities and data center operations. The IT infrastructure team harnessed virtualization technologies to manage server growth and related energy consumption. To reduce its data storage footprint the company leveraged Symantec NetBackup and NetBackup PureDisk for data deduplication; Symantec Enterprise Vault for single-instance email archiving; and Veritas Storage Foundation and Veritas CommandCentral for optimal storage utilization. In addition, Symantec also deployed a custom power management profile on company PCs to eliminate energy waste from unused devices.
Benefits
As a result of its ongoing green IT efforts, Symantec is achieving substantial operational and economic benefit. Alchemy Group conducted a TOEI™ analysis and projected IT-related business value totaling more than $19.5 million between July 2007 and December 2012, in addition to $959,000 in facilities energy savings from fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2010 (Chart 1).

For more information or to download this document, go to http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/category/research/bva/

]]> http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/the-operational-and-economic-impact-of-green-it/feed/ 0 Information Security, Endpoint Protection, Threat Readiness, and Data Loss Prevention http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/information-security-endpoint-protection-threat-readiness-and-data-loss-prevention/ http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/information-security-endpoint-protection-threat-readiness-and-data-loss-prevention/#comments Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:42:43 +0000 admin http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/?p=1289 Overview
Barnabas Health is New Jersey’s largest integrated healthcare delivery system and the second largest private employer in the state. With more than 19,600 employees, 4,750 physicians (one-fourth of the state’s practicing physicians), and 450 medical residents in 19 approved residency programs, Barnabas Health provides treatment and services for more than two million patients each year. The award-winning Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey—one of 11 hospitals in the system—is the state’s oldest and largest nonprofit, nonsectarian hospital.
Barriers
Like other healthcare providers, Barnabas Health faced a significant challenge: the need to secure and manage large amounts of mission-critical and highly sensitive electronic data. With its medical staff focused on patient care at the front end, the Barnabas Health information technology (IT) security team had to ensure the organization’s health in the backend environment. The team needed to secure and
protect the healthcare system’s critical data while achieving regulatory compliance, eliminating risks to information, and reducing the time and cost of executing all of the institution’s day-to-day processes.
The Solution
With patient care as the mandate and the driver across the entire organization, the Barnabas Health IT security team undertook a series of software implementations to ensure that the healthcare system’s information security needs were met on an ongoing basis. The team deployed Symantec solutions to address endpoint security (Symantec Endpoint Protection), data loss prevention (Symantec Data Loss Prevention), and threat response and readiness (Symantec Security Information Manager and DeepSight Threat Management System). Barnabas Health also engaged Symantec Business Critical Services for a number of these software implementations.
Benefits
A Total Operational and Economic Impact (TOEI®) analysis by Alchemy Group, Inc. found that Symantec solutions delivered significant operational and economic benefits to Barnabas Health. By automating labor-intensive tasks and providing better analysis tools, the Symantec solutions and associated process improvements dramatically reduced the time that IT staff spent on security activities. Actual and projected
savings of more than $2.7 million are quantified for the period of January 2008 through December 2012.

For more information or to download this document, go to http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/category/research/bva/

]]> http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/information-security-endpoint-protection-threat-readiness-and-data-loss-prevention/feed/ 0 Centralized Security Management, Data Loss Prevention, and Endpoint Protection http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/centralized-security-management-data-loss-prevention-and-endpoint-protection/ http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/centralized-security-management-data-loss-prevention-and-endpoint-protection/#comments Mon, 05 Dec 2011 00:49:11 +0000 admin http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/?p=1282 Overview
Presbyterian Healthcare Services (PHS) is a system of nonprofit hospitals, which, along with the for-profit Presbyterian Healthcare Plan, creates an integrated healthcare system. For more than 100 years, PHS has been committed to a single purpose: improving the health of individuals, families, and communities throughout New Mexico. PHS reinvests the entire margin it earns into better healthcare for New Mexico, and it has reinvested more than $350 million into local healthcare since 2006. PHS employs nearly 10,000 doctors, nurses, and staff members in its numerous hospitals and clinics and insures more than 600,000 individuals—about one in three New Mexicans—every year. PHS is New Mexico’s largest employer.
Barriers
Due to the nature of its business, PHS requires faultless continuity of systems and strict adherence to industry standards for healthcare operations. In particular, PHS was subject to information security regulations for electronic records (including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA). Its information technology (IT) environment was broad and diverse, with multiple platforms and both physical and virtual servers. Its legacy security systems did not have the capabilities to identify the need for security patch updates nor could they detect or prevent incidents of improper use of patient
information. As a result, PHS needed to rely upon an honor system among its employees to stay within compliance, and this made it virtually impossible to document compliance for auditors. Finally, the lack of an integrated security solution meant that the IT department conducted reactive, high-touch incident response, requiring up to 10 days to analyze, confirm, and remediate a single incident. IT lacked the automated identification and remote management capabilities to handle an incident in a low-touch way.
The Solution
In July 2009, PHS underwent a 14-month migration to an integrated set of Symantec solutions for incident visibility, response, and management. This included Symantec Data Loss Prevention to monitor and enforce policies for the use of confidential information; the Arellia Application Control Solution on the Symantec Management Platform for secure application usage; Symantec Endpoint Protection to provide comprehensive security for servers, workstations, and laptops; Symantec Security Information Manager to correlate, prioritize, and manage security events; and Symantec Control Compliance Suite to automate compliance reporting and policy management. PHS IT specialists worked alongside Symantec Consulting Services during implementation, enabling rapid knowledge transfer with continuous operations of mission-critical systems.
Benefits
A TOEI® analysis by Alchemy Group found that Symantec solutions delivered significant operational and economic benefits by automating labor-intensive tasks and providing better analysis tools. The Symantec solutions and associated process improvements reduced the time that IT staff and end users spent on key security and compliance activities. The resources gained were redeployed to other IT business-critical areas. Actual and projected savings of more than $800,000 were identified for the period from January 2010 through December 2012.

For more information or to download this document, go to http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/category/research/bva/

]]> http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/centralized-security-management-data-loss-prevention-and-endpoint-protection/feed/ 0 Asset Management, Client Management, Endpoint Security, Service Desk, and Workflow Management http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/asset-management-client-management-endpoint-security-service-desk-and-workflow-management/ http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/asset-management-client-management-endpoint-security-service-desk-and-workflow-management/#comments Sun, 04 Dec 2011 23:08:41 +0000 admin http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/?p=1275 Overview
beCogent Ltd. provides call center and help desk services to a wide range of companies, including Virgin Media, JD Williams, John Lewis Direct, and House of Fraser. The company is headquartered in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, and has call centers in Glasgow, Erskine, and Kilmarnock.
Barriers
Rapid growth was straining beCogent’s infrastructure, forcing the company to consider upgrades. beCogent also set a goal of achieving Level 1 compliance with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard, which would be a first for a United Kingdom outsourcing company and touch on information technology (IT) in a number of ways. A primary need was to upgrade patches at 2,500 endpoints and 130 servers, a task made harder by the lack of an accurate inventory of software and hardware assets. In addition, since so many IT processes were manual, a major patching project threatened to consume substantial IT resources and negatively impact customer service.
The Solution
beCogent turned to Symantec software and Symantec services to drive the needed IT transformation. Altiris IT Management Suite allowed the IT staff to track assets, such as software licenses and equipment leases, and to maximize beCogent’s investments. Symantec ServiceDesk is driving new levels of customer service, enhancing the productivity of help desk staff, and providing timely information about service levels and staffing requirements. The combination of these software solutions has helped beCogent achieve its goal of PCI compliance.
Benefits
TOEI™ analysis by Alchemy Group found that Symantec software (Altiris Asset Management Suite, Altiris Client Management Suite, and Symantec Endpoint Protection) delivered actual and projected savings of $678,481 for the period from September 2009 through December 2011. This TOEI was jointly developed by senior beCogent IT staff and Alchemy Group. To ensure the integrity of this analysis, the assumptions and formulas were audited by an independent finance and accounting firm (all savings are expressed in U.S. dollars1).

For more information or to download this document, go to http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/category/research/bva/

]]> http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/asset-management-client-management-endpoint-security-service-desk-and-workflow-management/feed/ 0 What if you could find a simple answer to the question of how to drive greater revenues and margins? http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/what-if-you-could-find-a-simple-answer-to-the-question-of-how-to-drive-greater-revenues-and-margins/ http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/what-if-you-could-find-a-simple-answer-to-the-question-of-how-to-drive-greater-revenues-and-margins/#comments Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:00:57 +0000 Skip King http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/?p=458 Well, if we were selling “As Seen on TV” products, then that might be possible. Try our Ginsu Sales Consulting – it chops and dices, cuts and slices your sales problems away! Unfortunately, as we all know, revenue growth is not that simple. It requires bold strategic thinking, courageous leadership, talented people and the basic blocking and tackling of sales.

Hello, I am Skip King, CEO and founder of Alchemy Group, Inc. and I, along with my colleagues Greg Malacane, John Yeager and Roger Carlsen, will be providing our thoughts and opinions on these issues through our new blog, Alchemy Insights. Our goal is to create a place to have conversations about driving higher revenues and margins — resulting in accelerated corporate performance.

As a former global sales leader, I am acutely aware of the issues and problems you are facing in today’s market. Slow growth…fight for talent…more to do with fewer resources…shrinking margins…uncertain future. In other words, it is the Perfect Storm! These are the reasons why I founded Alchemy Group six years ago. I felt there was a need for an integrated delivery platform that would meet most of the needs of sales and marketing professionals. Why did I have to work with five or six different vendors, tell my dilemma each time, receive virtually no expertise in integrating the various programs…and in many cases, work with people who had never been in my position and had a very limited understanding of what it was like to be on the front line with customers and consistently hit the numbers?

Alchemy Group’s sole focus is on helping our clients drive higher revenues and margin. Through an integrated platform of C-level advisory services, strategic consulting, market research and education services, Alchemy acts as a sole source for the critical functions in most sales and marketing organizations.

One area of focus for many of our clients is in understanding the economic benefit they are providing their customers. It has been top of mind for buyers for years and the supplier community is taking notice. Approaching the marketplace from the perspective of economic benefit instead of features and functions is a major shift in culture for most sales and marketing organizations. It begins with a trusted relationship with your customer and defining the value in their terms. Do you know the measureable impact of your products or services from the perspective of your customer? Your customer does.

To provide structure to this conversation, we will be addressing specific issues facing the five executive groups that we work with on a regular basis. They include executives in the C-suite, sales, marketing, global learning and most importantly the IT executive. We will tackle this and other topics in regular editions of Alchemy Insights, starting with a more detailed discussion of the Perfect Economic Storm.

Let’s make this a two-way conversation. Let us know the issues you are facing, what questions you may have and thoughts regarding this blog. You can email us at blog@alchemygroupinc.com.

]]> http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2011/12/what-if-you-could-find-a-simple-answer-to-the-question-of-how-to-drive-greater-revenues-and-margins/feed/ 0 Content Archiving, Endpoint Security, Messaging Security http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2010/12/content-archiving-endpoint-security-messaging-security/ http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2010/12/content-archiving-endpoint-security-messaging-security/#comments Tue, 07 Dec 2010 05:38:14 +0000 admin http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/?p=1123 Overview
BDO Israel is a dynamic and performance-driven accounting and consulting firm. It is part of the BDO international network that reaches more than 110 countries. Ranked among the five leading industry firms in Israel, BDO Israel provides audit and accounting, tax, and business consulting services to industry and government. Established in 1983, the firm currently employs approximately 1,050 people spanning six branches in Israel, satellite offices in India and China, and an accounting office in the country of Georgia.

Barriers
The nature of BDO Israel’s business requires the highest level of security in its fixed and mobile environments, faultless business continuity, and efficient document storage and retrieval—all of which it achieved with information technology (IT) upgrades. Because of its lean IT operation, the firm needed to migrate from high-touch legacy systems to a single automated system that was unfailingly reliable. The system also had to drive down server space requirements to manage a mounting cache of structured documents and to contend with email usage that was growing by 20 percent annually. The company had about 25 terabytes of capacity across 75 servers, but free space was disappearing rapidly. BDO Israel recognized that highly efficient IT management was needed to avoid having to purchase new servers year after year.

The Solution
In 2006, BDO Israel began a four-year migration to an integrated suite of Symantec solutions that included Symantec Enterprise Vault as well as to several endpoint and security solutions, including Symantec Endpoint Protection, Symantec Brightmail Gateway appliances, and Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery. In 2010, it brought all of those endpoint and security solutions under the umbrella of Symantec Protection Suite Enterprise Edition.

BDO Israel also contracted with Symantec Consulting Services to assist with initial architecture design. Symantec Partners Virgonet Israel and GlassHouse Technologies provided implementation and integration support for Symantec Enterprise Vault. BDO Israel manages the IT infrastructure with a lean staff of outsourced employees who work under the direction of Chief Information Officer (CIO) Itzik Ben-Ezri.

Benefits
Alchemy Group conducted a Total Operational and Economic Impact (TOEI™) analysis of BDO Israel, and concluded that the company realized tangible business value using Symantec solutions. Actual and projected savings totaled nearly $1.12 million for the period from August 2006 through December 2012.
This TOEI™ was jointly developed by BDO Israel’s CIO and Alchemy Group. To ensure the integrity of this analysis, the assumptions and formulas were audited by an independent finance and accounting firm.

For more information or to download this document, go to  http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/category/research/bva/

]]> http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2010/12/content-archiving-endpoint-security-messaging-security/feed/ 0 Email Archiving and e-Discovery, Multi-tier Security Architecture, and Server Reimaging http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2010/12/email-archiving-and-e-discovery-multi-tier-security-architecture-and-server-reimaging/ http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2010/12/email-archiving-and-e-discovery-multi-tier-security-architecture-and-server-reimaging/#comments Mon, 06 Dec 2010 02:58:04 +0000 admin http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/?p=1119 Overview
Fulton County, formed in 1853 and merged with two other counties in 1932, encompasses 534 square miles and stretches 70 miles in length from its northern-most point to its southern-most point. It includes 11 cities, including the city of Atlanta. The county’s 7,000 employees deliver services that support a citizenry of approximately 915,000 residents. Since the arrival of CIO Robert Taylor in 2000, the Fulton County IT department has distinguished itself for technology innovation.

Challenges
In 2001, when the Nimda worm crippled Fulton County’s computing environment for nearly six months, costing the county approximately $1 million in remediation costs, Taylor and his team embarked on a search to design and implement a multi-tier security infrastructure. Then, when Fulton County lost more than four months of email in August 2003, Taylor and his team recognized the need to overhaul the county’s enterprise messaging infrastructure. A contributing factor was the need to reduce costs through email archiving and e-discovery to meet open records as well as email restore requests. The county also sought a way to provide archiving, search, and retrieval of fax and voicemail, both of which fall under the Georgia Open Records Act.

Concurrent with the security initiative, Taylor and his team rolled out a next-generation multi-tier storage infrastructure based on EMC storage systems. The business continuity solution provides a cost-effective, fully redundant infrastructure that has been acknowledged as a best-in-class solution by the National Association of Counties (NACo) and various other entities. As part of its larger business continuity initiative, Taylor and CTO Terry Gates determined that a reimaging solution for data center servers was needed; with 255 facilities spread across the county, the IT team needed the ability to perform remote server rebuilds.

Solution
Symantec AntiVirus Enterprise Edition is a core component of the multi-tier security infrastructure that Fulton County rolled out in December 2001. The solution includes Symantec LiveUpdate for automated patch updates. For enterprise messaging management, Fulton County, one of the first adopters of the technology, deployed Symantec Enterprise Vault (formerly KVS Enterprise Vault) in March 2004. Symantec Consulting Services provided implementation assistance (over one weekend). Seeking enhanced e-discovery functionality, Taylor and his team added the Discovery Accelerator option in October 2005. At the same time, Fulton County extended archiving and e-discovery for internet faxing and Voice over IP (VoIP). For server reimaging Fulton County rolled out Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery in December 2005.

Benefits
Fulton County is realizing significant business value in three areas: email, internet faxing, and VoIP archiving and e-discovery; security; and server reimaging. The archiving components—both for fulfilling open records requests and providing end users with self-restore capabilities—is producing $1,639,000 in cost savings and cost avoidance over a period of approximately 3 1⁄2 years. Cost avoidance associated with remediation of security breaches, with one intrusion annually, equates to $2,850,000 from January 2001 to December 2006. The business value extends to the server reimaging solution as well, with $37,000 in savings projected from April 2005 to December 2007.

For more information or to download this document, go to http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/category/research/bva/

]]> http://www.alchemygroupinc.com/2010/12/email-archiving-and-e-discovery-multi-tier-security-architecture-and-server-reimaging/feed/ 0