SAS automates asset management with Peregrine from MGX

SAS Institute South Africa has implemented Peregrine InfraCenter for Workgroups from JSE Securities Exchanges-listed MGX to automate its asset management for over 500 IT assets, and to streamline its helpdesk facilities.

The company is currently experiencing rapid growth and realised last year that the manual asset management and e-mail-based ticket system for helpdesk support would become inadequate under increased pressure from additional equipment and users. The growth stems from the fact that the current economic climate is forcing companies to maximise their return on investment more than ever before. And because SAS is a market leader in business intelligence it focuses on maximising the use of a company`s data, and helping it to derive more benefit from existing systems.

"Although we had good procedures in place for both helpdesk and asset management, they were manual," says Edgar Gaiao, IT manager at SAS Institute South Africa. "The problem with that is the spreadsheets we used to view information would sometimes be slightly out of date, while on the helpdesk problem resolution would sometimes take slightly longer."

InfraCenter for Workgroups is designed for midrange organisations as a complete infrastructure management solution that supports IT assets through their entire lifecycle, from purchasing through helpdesk support to retirement.

The product has also allowed SAS to move first-line support to non-IT support staff in the organisation. SAS calls this the Customer Knowledge Zone and it is designed to smooth the support process and free IT skills to focus on strategic development.

"Because Peregrine comes with a knowledge base it allows a less IT-literate person to perform first line support. The result of using this system is that we have cut the rate of support calls to IT skills by about 40%. Support is also no longer reactive but proactive," says Gaiao. Because SAS needed InfraCenter to go live at the beginning of this year, MGX was given four weeks from the end of November 2001 to implement the solution.

Preceding the implementation SAS attended a workshop to prepare for the project and, unlike any other client, it had all the answers about its systems that the implementation team needed.

"MGX couldn`t understand why we had the answers. But because we had just completed this exercise with another company we had the proper processes in place. We also had very tight control of our systems because our physical size, in terms of users and infrastructure, was still relatively small," says Gaiao.

At the beginning of the year SAS went through a huge recruitment phase, bringing onboard a significant number of new staff. At the same time it ran an upgrade programme for the desktops and laptops in the business. SAS has a policy of buying top-end systems and assigning those to power users in the organisation, in turn passing their old equipment along the line.

"We had to know exactly what assets we had and where they were so that we could phase in our laptops and roll the less powerful equipment down. We bought 20 new laptops, which is a significant roll-down when each one has about three phases. We also had to ensure that the rolled down machines were upgraded where necessary. Peregrine allowed us to quickly look at the chart and decide how to perform the roll-down, and because it attaches assets to users it made our job a lot easier," says Gaiao.

"Peregrine`s InfraCenter for Workgroups enables companies like SAS to know what assets they have and where they are in the organisation, how much they cost the company and whether or not effective and efficient support is provided," says Julie Schofield, sales executive, Enterprise Solutions at MGX.