Microsoft Infrastructure OptimizationCustomer Solution Case Study

Broadcaster Gains Continuous Service Improvements in Key IT, Broadcast Systems

OverviewCountry or Region: CroatiaIndustry: Media & entertainment—Broadcasting

Customer ProfileHrvatska Radiotelevizija (HRT) is a Croatian public radio and television broadcast company that broadcasts hundreds of shows to more than 1 million households in Croatia and beyond.

Business SituationHRT wanted more thorough and wide-ranging insight into the service of key IT and broadcast systems, to maintain performance and availability and to minimize interruptions.

SolutionHRT switched from a CA Technologies product to Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2010 to gain more comprehensive service management capabilities, easier use, and better pricing.

Benefits Continuous service improvements Better management of TV servers Anticipated productivity gains Licensing and support savings of 30

percent

“Being able to track incidents, infrastructure changes, and root-cause problems for all our systems through a single console will enable us to progressively improve our services.”

Marko Kudera, Systems Manager, IT Department, Hrvatska Radiotelevizija

Hrvatska Radiotelevizija (HRT), a Croatian public broadcast company, has to keep 1,500 PCs, dozens of infrastructure servers, and specialized broadcast servers and software available and performing well so that it can deliver radio and TV shows around the clock. To get a more holistic view of its computer systems, HRT deployed Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2010, which provides centralized management of PC incidents and infrastructure changes. HRT can now progressively improve IT services, from the desktop to the data center to the broadcast studio. IT technicians can better isolate and fix problems to create an increasingly stable and reliable infrastructure, and resolve PC problems faster so employees can be more productive. Also, HRT has reduced software and support costs 30 percent by eliminating licensing for an older program.

SituationHrvatska Radiotelevizija, translated as Croatian Radiotelevision and abbreviated as HRT, is a public radio and television broadcast company serving Croatia as well as Croatian listeners around the world. HRT TV and radio shows are enjoyed by more than 1 million households, mostly in Croatia but also in Croatian immigrant communities as far away as Australia and South America. HRT is headquartered in Zagreb, Croatia, and has 4,500 employees.

Keeping its 1,500 desktop computers, 50 infrastructure servers, and 20 broadcast servers and related applications available and performing well is critical in delivering its broadcast services. HRT used a service management solution from CA Technologies to manage the 20 to 30 PC help-desk incidents that employees submitted each day, but this program was not connected to the firm’s Active Directory Domain Services user directory, so help-desk technicians had to manually enter user credentials into the program every time they created an incident report. This introduced opportunities for errors and delayed problem resolution.

Also, the CA product had a web-based user interface that was difficult to customize and use. The standard incident reporting form, for example, contained many boxes that HRT did not need and were difficult to get rid of. The cluttered form was difficult to complete and later read. “Every minute that the help-desk staff spent resolving computer problems was time our employees could not use their computers to get work done,” says Marko Kudera, Systems Manager in the IT Department at Hrvatska Radiotelevizija.

With the CA Technologies solution, help-desk technicians had a central place where they could see all PC incidents coming in, but they saw the same incidents over and over. “We didn’t have the ability to do root-cause analysis, so we rarely got to the bottom of problems so we could purge them from our infrastructure once and for all,” Kudera says.

HRT had even more problems tracking service issues with its infrastructure servers and TV production systems. Keeping infrastructure servers healthy was a mostly manual and reactive process involving walking into server rooms to check server status and repairing or rebooting failed servers. For mission-critical TV production systems, HRT had backup systems so that programming would never be interrupted. But HRT lacked a centralized incident history that could help technicians resolve problems faster and identify root causes so that they could fix problems permanently. Management wanted better insight into these systems so HRT could make them progressively more reliable.

SolutionIn September 2010, HRT learned of Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2010, a software tool that helps organizations manage IT services. It provides automated workflows, based on industry best practices, for incident and problem resolution, change control, and asset lifecycle management. System Center Service Manager connects with other Microsoft System Center data center solutions to provide a desktop-to-data-center perspective for orchestrating IT services.

25

“We didn’t have the ability to do root-cause analysis, so we rarely got to the bottom of problems so we could purge them from our infrastructure once and for all.”

Marko Kudera, Systems Manager, IT Department, Hrvatska Radiotelevizija

“We liked the overall Service Manager package, because it was integrated with Active Directory and the other System Center programs we owned, and had a familiar interface,” Kudera says. “We could also customize it to our needs, to more closely match the way our staff worked. Last but not least, Service Manager was much more affordable than the CA Technologies solution, especially since it was included with our Microsoft Core Client Access License Suite license.”

First Step: PC Incident ManagementIn October 2010, Kudera and his staff installed System Center Service Manager 2010 on two servers running the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. HRT customized the standard incident management form in System Center Service Manager and set up automated workflows involved in reporting, resolving, and recording help-desk incidents. At various points in the process, HRT uses System Center Service Manager to bring various experts into the resolution process by using email notifications. By January 2011, HRT had completely customized System Center Service Manager to its needs and deployed the program in its production help-desk environment to manage the 895 PCs in its central business operations unit. The remaining PCs are currently managed by individual business units.

Today, when employees contact the help desk by phone, a help-desk worker opens an incident in System Center Service Manager. Using remote-access software, the technician accesses the user’s PC to investigate the problem and creates an

incident management form in System Center Service Manager. He copies the employee’s user credentials from Active Directory Domain Services. This eliminates the need to enter this data manually and enables HRT to maintain a unified authentication infrastructure. Furthermore, HRT is using Active Directory to build a configuration management database (CMDB), which it deems essential to future service management efforts.

“Our new incident management form in System Center Service Manager is easier to read than our old form, because we’ve customized it to our needs,” Kudera says. “We removed all unnecessary data and added boxes to capture information that is useful for us—the room number where an employee works, for example. This speeds the technician’s work.”

If the technician is unsuccessful at solving the problem, he or she escalates the problem to consecutive levels, bringing in additional people to help. Throughout the process, all involved in the problem resolution can quickly view the System Center Service Manager incident log to see a history of the steps taken.

When the problem is ultimately resolved, HRT stores the incident form in the System Center Service Manager CMDB, which provides the IT department with a searchable knowledge base that it can consult in resolving future problems. (One of the two servers dedicated to System Center Service Manager stores the CMDB on a database that runs Microsoft SQL Server 2008 data management software.)

35

“Our new incident management form in System Center Service Manager is easier to read than our old form, because we’ve customized it to our needs.”

Marko Kudera, Systems Manager, IT Department, Hrvatska Radiotelevizija

Next Up: Problem and Change Management, Links to Other Management Tools To date, HRT is only using System Center Service Manager for incident management, but it plans to implement the program’s two additional modules—for problem and change management—by late 2011. With these modules implemented, HRT will have a way to identify root causes of problems and to document all changes made to the IT infrastructure.

By mid-2011, HRT plans to link System Center Service Manager to Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2, which it uses to deploy software to desktop computers. With this linkage, help-desk technicians will be able to access PC configuration information stored in System Center Configuration Manager from within System Center Service Manager. Also, System Center Configuration Manager will be able to detect PC configurations that are out of compliance and generate events that System Center Service Manager converts to a service-desk incident.

HRT also plans to implement the connector between System Center Service Manager and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, which HRT uses to monitor servers and applications. With this connection, System Center Operations Manager will generate an alert when an application or server stops or malfunctions, and Service Manager will automatically generate a service incident from that alert.

BenefitsBy deploying System Center Service Manager 2010, HRT finally has an enterprisewide service management

solution that it can use to document incidents, problems, and changes to all its IT and broadcast servers. This will help the broadcaster continuously improve service levels for all its equipment and applications, including mission-critical broadcast systems, and improve employee productivity by minimizing PC downtime. An additional benefit: HRT saves money by using the programs included in its Microsoft license.

Continuous Service ImprovementsHRT now has a service management tool that it can use to track and report on all IT and broadcast infrastructure changes. With trend reports, HRT can continuously improve its IT service levels. “Being able to track incidents, infrastructure changes, and root-cause problems for all our systems through a single console will enable us to progressively improve our services,” Kudera says. “We have a tool to help us recognize when the same problems are reappearing so we can eliminate them once and for all and quit expending effort on the same problems.”

Better Management of Critical TV SystemsHRT is also excited about the ability to extend incident management to its TV production equipment and manage those incidents through the same console used to manage core IT systems. With a centralized history of TV equipment incidents, HRT can resolve incidents faster and methodically eliminate problems. “Our CIO [chief information officer] is thrilled at the prospect of having more control over and better insight into this critical part of our business,” says Kudera.

45

“Once our staff is familiar with Service Manager, we expect that incident resolution times will be shorter. This will enable users to resume work faster and increase their productivity.”

Marko Kudera, Systems Manager, IT Department, Hrvatska Radiotelevizija

Anticipated Employee Productivity Gains from Faster Problem Resolution As of February 2011, the full implementation of the new solution has only been in place for a month, but help-desk staff members are quickly gaining greater familiarity with System Center Service Manager capabilities. “It’s easier to enter and read incident data in System Center Service Manager than it was in our previous system,” Kudera says. “Once our staff is familiar with Service Manager, we expect that incident resolution times will be shorter. This will enable users to resume work faster and increase their productivity.”

When HRT connects System Center Service Manager with System Center Operations Manager, it anticipates similar acceleration of server and application problem resolutions. If there is a problem with a server hard disk, for example, System Center Service Manager will automatically open an incident and assign it to the responsible department. ”We expect this to significantly reduce incident resolution time compared with the current practice, when technicians have to walk into server rooms weekly to check for hardware failures,” Kudera says.

Licensing and Support Savings of 30 PercentIn addition to gaining a better service management solution, HRT saved money by switching to System Center Service Manager. “Our licensing and support costs for System Center Service Manager are

about 30 percent lower than the cost of our previous CA solution,” Kudera says. “Plus, we can use System Center Service Manager for many other things than incident management, such as IT asset management and GRC [governance, risk, and compliance] reporting. Also, we can now leverage the entire System Center stack, with its integration capabilities, to fully manage our IT environment.”

Microsoft Infrastructure OptimizationWith infrastructure optimization, you can build a secure, well-managed, and dynamic core IT infrastructure that can reduce overall IT costs, make better use of resources, and become a strategic asset for the business. The Infrastructure Optimization model—with basic, standardized, rationalized, and dynamic levels—was developed by Microsoft using industry best practices and Microsoft’s own experiences with enterprise customers. The Infrastructure Optimization model provides a maturity framework that is flexible and easily used as a benchmark for technical capability and business value.

For more information about Microsoft infrastructure optimization, go to:www.microsoft.com/io

55

For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Hrvatska Radiotelevizija services, visit the website at: www.hrt.hr

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published April 2011

Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Windows Server 2008 R2− Microsoft System Center

Configuration Manager 2007 R2

− Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2

− Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2010