Microsoft Office SystemCustomer Solution Case Study

Microsoft Solutions Accelerate Specialized Processes At German District Government

OverviewCountry or Region: GermanyIndustry: Government

Customer ProfileThe Mettmann District Administration (NRW) oversees the interests of approximately 504,000 residents. It provides services for all aspects of life: Social, schools, environment, and traffic.

Business SituationThe Mettmann District Administration IT systems used Novell/SUSE Linux Open xchange Server 4.0 in addition to Microsoft technologies. This heterogeneous IT landscape led to relatively high administrative overhead, and aging technologies made office communications cumbersome.

SolutionDistrict administrators decided to move to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Standard Edition, Windows Vista Business Edition, Microsoft Office 2007 Standard Edition, and Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition.

Benefits Reduce Future Administrative

Overhead Supports Collaboration

“Up-to-date technology makes collaborative tasks and meeting planning easier, and creates synergy.”

Hans-Jürgen Zieger, ME-BIT Manager, Kreis Mettmann

Mettmann District administrators in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia are responsible for more than half a million citizens. The district’s heterogeneous IT infrastructure, which was partially based on open-source products, led to relatively high administrative overhead. The fact that some of the communications solutions were not the most recent versions made it harder for employees to work together, especially when it came to planning appointments and tasks. Since support for some solutions was ending in 2009, administrators decided to move to update technology and make the IT landscape more homogenous. This means that nearly 1,200 employees will be able to more easily manage their group calendar, and the change will accelerate specialized processes.

SituationIf you think of dusty old offices when you think of government, you will be surprised by the Mettmann District Administration. The IT

set-up in the most densely populated part of Germany resembles that of a large corporation.

Applications for teamwork, project management and customer services are part of the everyday workflow.

Approximately 1,200 employees work to serve the interests of around 504,000 people living in the area bordered by Wuppertal, Essen, Cologne, and Dusseldorf in the western part of Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia.

Created in 2003, the Mettmann District’s in-house IT department (ME-BIT) is responsible for the District Administration’s IT.

“Our services include consulting, planning, acquisition, migration, and operating IT systems as well as telecommunications systems,” said Hans-Jürgen Zieger, ME-BIT Manager.

Zieger and his employees focus on the Mettmann District Administration and the district’s schools. The vocational college and the special education center, with about 2,500 IT systems, account for a large part of their work.

Updates Urgently Needed Zieger sensed trouble at the end of 2006, when the future IT security of systems that he was responsible for became an issue.

From the beginning of the PC era, Mettmann District has used Microsoft technology. Workplace systems were running Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP Professional. Microsoft Office 2000 Professional Edition, Office XP Professional Edition and Office 2003 Professional Edition were also standard business applications on its systems.

There were already updates available for all these products, and support for the earliest applications was expiring in 2009.

“District Administration needed to be equipped for the future; we needed to develop an approach for updating technology before 2008,” said Zieger.

In addition, the District Administration’s heterogeneous IT landscape was not working well.

“We had problems, especially in office communications,” said Zieger.

Team collaboration on shared documents worked well in Microsoft Office, but using the group calendar in Novell/SUSE Linux Open xchange 4.0 was more difficult.

“I had begun using paper and pencil again to manage my appointments myself,” said Zieger. This meant that improving the group software to support collaboration between employees was high on the list for ME-BIT.

Security For The Future

For Zieger and his team, deciding for or against an IT system was also influenced by politics.

He said: “Political bodies, like corporate boards, determine the general conditions for our work. So we also had to discuss whether we wanted to switch from Microsoft solutions to an open-source strategy for our future.”

ME-BIT drafted a risk assessment that took into account that most of the specialized processes in the District Administration were based on Microsoft operating systems and programs like Windows, Office Word, and Office Excel.

In terms of costs, Zieger saw a savings in acquisition but issued a warning at the same time.

“Open source solutions are usually free to use,” he said. “Updates and maintenance are not assured.”

In concrete terms, that meant that ME-BIT would be responsible for systems integration, support, porting legacy data and training.

Zieger estimated that eight to 10 new employees would be needed for this.

Referring to ME-BIT’s plan of action, Zieger said: “For groupware, we’ll be adopting Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Standard Edition, which will replace Open xchange Server.”

Exchange relies on the Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition operating system. At the same time, administrators will migrate their computers to Windows Vista Business Edition and update the Office package to Microsoft Office 2007 Standard Edition.

SolutionPhased Migration Together with Microsoft Services, Mettmann District administrators began planning.

“We had quite a few different systems, and we didn’t want to update them all overnight,” said Zieger.It was also quickly apparent that not all the computers in use would meet the system requirements for Windows Vista.

He added, “So we’ll upgrade those to Windows XP first, and then switch to the new operating system as we acquire new hardware.”

The same approach was chosen by the ME-BIT technicians for Office versions. Some will be migrated to Office 2007; some will continue to run Office 2003.

“We wanted to put Office 2007 on all the PCs with Vista; for groupware, we’re installing Outlook 2007 on all computers so we can optimize all the features in Exchange 2007,” said Zieger.

This gives employees more flexibility in planning appointments and more structure in assigning tasks.

BenefitsLower Administrative Overhead By updating computers to Windows Vista Business and the newest versions of Microsoft Office, ME-BIT continues to synchronize versions.

“Less heterongeny means less overhead for IT administration.”

Hans-Jürgen Zieger, ME-BIT Manager, Kreis Mettmann

“Less heterogeny means less overhead for IT administration,” said Zieger.

In addition, he’s convinced that introducing Office 2007 will also improve integration of individual programs. The new groupware should have an organizational effect, as group calendars will be easier to manage and compare in the future.

Unifying the infrastructure and using a central service will play an important role especially for schools, which is why they are included in the project specification.

By updating the technology, the IT administrators are creating synergy between the District and School administrations.

Up Next: Server Changeover After updating workstations and the groupware, the servers are next in line.

The 60 servers are still running under the Microsoft Windows 2000 Server and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition operating systems.

The goal is to set up 30 to 35 servers that will run Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition.

That is why the District Administration is currently testing its features with Hyper-V, which allows the server to be virtualized.

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For more information about ME-BIT IT Services Mettmann District products and services, call 49-02104 99-1129 or visit the Web site at: www.me-bit.de

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

Document published March 2010

Software and Services Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Windows Vista Microsoft Office− Microsoft Office Standard 2007