Packaging Group Gains Visibility of Legacy Network Infrastructure
Accurate view of all hardware and software assets with integrated reporting
Packaging Group is a global player in the evolution of fresh food packaging, delivering lower levels of food waste, improved standards of hygiene and cleaner, more convenient solutions for all of their customers and their markets. The Packaging Group is a £1.1bn global business made up of four core divisions which together offer their customers tailored packaging and materials handling products and services. The organizations’ 9,000 employees are based out of 90 locations worldwide providing packaging and supply chain solutions across five continents.
The Challenge
Historically, the business has grown through acquisitions and mergers. IT is managed at the division level and each division and site often has its own supporting IT Infrastructure. There are multiple Active Directory Domains, multiple Forests, Workgroups and Netware File and Print Services. Each location is joined by site to site VPN connections.
There were a number of challenges that any asset and systems management solution would need to overcome:
- Multiple Domains, Forests and Workgroups
- Low bandwidth network connectivity and site-to-site VPN
- Multiple Firewalls
- Legacy NT4 computer systems
- Primarily Static IP addressing with some DHCP locations
- No global name resolution i.e. DNS and WINS
- Multiple languages and language versions of software
The Solution
The advanced IT Asset Management delivered by Certero for Enterprise SAM has provided:
- Advanced Discovery and Inventory of all hardware and software across all physical and virtual environments
- IT Asset Management that accommodated the complexities of the IT infrastructure
- A simple to install and simple to use solution that does not require expensive supporting infrastructure
- The ability to dynamically group and easily zone assets accordingly
- Specialist capability to manage software licensing (SAM)
- Low training overheads due to intuitive, logical user interface
- Ability to scale-up the solution to meet immediate and future needs in different areas without having to integrate disparate solutions
- A solution that could easily be removed in the event of a demerger or acquisition
- Full vendor support
“Certero for Enterprise SAM impressed us because of its functionally. It meets our requirements plus has many additional features which help automate our operation such as software delivery, dynamic groups and systems management integration…
Architecturally, the design of Certero for Enterprise SAM meant that there weren’t any legacy issues to worry about. This was important to us as we did not want to have different modules performing different functions that needed to be separately integrated…
The Certero for Enterprise SAM modules have been designed to be best-in-class at their particular function. Joined together, they really do add an extra dimension to its capability, which is great for us given our size and complexity…
We now have the added confidence to know that the assets are being managed to derive maximum benefit to the business and we can now easily identify waste, which can be proactively removed.”
VP of IT
The Outcome
Certero for Enterprise SAM has provided the company with:
- Accurate, holistic view of all hardware and software assets with integrated reporting
- The capability to ‘zone’ assets and manage individual business groups within a single, enterprise-wide deployment
- Simplified software delivery
- Easy implementation and little training required to draw value from the investment
- Cost avoidance through identification of unnecessary, unused or underutilized software
- Software Asset Management (SAM) – establish and maintain a real-time Effective License Position (ELP)
