The challenge
The East of England Ambulance Service (EEAST) covers 7,500 square miles from 130 sites, serving nearly 6 million residents across six counties. Three former ambulance services were merged to create it, and the infrastructure inherited from that merger was hard to see into. Nobody had a dependable count of the hardware and software in use.
Microsoft SCCM was in place for inventory, but teams argued about how accurate and complete its data was, particularly for remote and mobile systems — the machines least likely to be sitting on a desk when a scan ran. With no single system of record, EEAST could not reliably track devices and licences or head off non-compliance before a vendor asked. Manual work filled the gap, absorbing time that clinical operations needed and leaving security questions unanswered.
With previous experience of using Certero, I knew first-hand how effective the solution would be in meeting our requirements.
— Andy Marrs, IM&T Security & Resilience Manager
What went in
EEAST chose CerteroX ITAM and CerteroX SAM on internal recommendation and prior first-hand experience of the discovery, inventory, reporting and licence management the platform does.
Deployment ran in phases. CerteroX works alongside Microsoft SCCM rather than displacing it, then reaches past it to the devices SCCM struggled with — the Toughbooks fitted in ambulances, the laptops that live with mobile teams, everything that rarely touches a corporate network.
Emergency response systems could not be disturbed, so an endpoint server was implemented to collect hardware and software data from the emergency response network and feed it into CerteroX securely. Accuracy without interference was the condition of the project, and it was met.
What came of it
Compliance was the reason for buying. Operational safety turned out to be the bigger prize. With every device visible in one place, support teams could monitor proactively and spot machines missing antivirus software — and fix them before the gap turned into an incident. The same records make vendor audit preparation a report rather than a fire drill.
Since implementing Certero, we have acquired the visibility we were lacking and can now proactively manage our estate, improve efficiencies and reduce costs.
— Andy Marrs, IM&T Security & Resilience Manager
Business benefits
- Complete visibility across 130 sites and mobile teams
- Full licence compliance and simplified vendor audit preparation
- Centralised, automated asset management
- Improved cybersecurity through proactive device monitoring
- Reduced manual workload and improved operational efficiency
- Rapid implementation with minimal disruption to critical systems
Where EEAST is now
Within weeks the service had the full view it had been missing, across every site and every vehicle. Governance and compliance are handled from one place, security posture is stronger, licensing costs are lower, and the manual effort that used to hold it all together has largely gone — at one of the UK’s most critical emergency service organisations.