From November 2007

By D. Gail Fleenor

Managing a corporate computer network can be a labor-intensive process for any IT staff. But what if the networked computers aren’t owned by the company, but are spread out among hundreds or thousands of franchised locations?

Fremont, Calif.-based Everdream offers an integrated suite of web-based software and services that include consistently up-to-date security patches, anti-virus definitions, the latest software updates and visibility into each networked computer for faster troubleshooting.

UPS acquired Mail Boxes Etc. in 2001. The UPS Store brand was introduced in 2003, and about 3,000 MBE locations in the United States were rebranded.

MBE has an internal corporate network platform, but franchisees own their network computers. “Not all franchisees are tech-savvy, and since their focus was on managing and growing their business, many routine custodial tasks related to their computer equipment were going undone,” says Tim Davis, vice president of technology for the San Diego-based company. MBE also knew that many franchisees had installed software which MBE had not tested, which could affect computer performance.

MBE needed to deploy Windows XP Service Pack 2 to its franchisees in 2005, Davis says, and chose to field test the Everdream solution at that time, hoping this would be the way to deliver anti-virus definitions and software patches to franchisees in the future. UPS and MBE “employ industry best practices for security to protect our home office,” he says. “It made sense to look for ways to apply many of these practices to the stores in the field.”

With Everdream, MBE was “able to push out the SP 2 package to franchisees and control how it was deployed, where it was deployed and the rate of deployment,” Davis says. There were 6,500 machines in the deployment trial: “We were 99 percent successful in the initial deployment and 100 percent successful within two months,” he says.

Help desk help
Every franchisee computer is equipped with Everdream Client, a package that allows software and security updates to be downloaded and gives MBE’s IT department control over which franchisee locations are accessed, down to the individual computer. Everdream’s asset management “gives us the ability to do diagnostics remotely on a particular piece of hardware,” Davis says. “This was very advantageous to us from a help desk perspective.”

Another plus, he says, was Everdream’s anti-virus management: franchisees are no longer required to monitor systems as they were in the past, and MBE also has the ability to take all anti-virus licenses and definition updates in-house.

Since deployment of the Everdream solution, MBE has seen a substantial reduction in troubleshooting calls tied to viruses. Previously, when a franchisee’s computer went down due to virus or adware issues, MBE sent out hard disks for swaps – more than 1,200 in 2004 and 2006, an expensive and time-consuming manual process for both MBE and its franchisees.

“We’ve begun to see a definite return on investment for the network,” Davis says. “We’re basically taking best practices that we apply from a corporate standpoint and pushing them down to individually owned and operated stores that may have three to six employees. As a result, franchisees are going to experience more ‘up’ times when computer systems are running well and MBE will have fewer trouble calls to answer, which will translate directly or indirectly as a financial benefit.”

No changes needed
Everdream’s hosted platform “allows multiple customers and partners to use a single instance of our software,” says Jim Obsitnik, vice president of marketing for Everdream. Customers can choose which parts of the solution they want and pay a monthly fee based on what is used. No changes to the client’s network infrastructure – including firewalls – are required.

MBE currently uses Everdream’s compliance (asset management, software distribution) and uptime (patch management, antivirus management) software services; other available services include data encryption and online data backup. Using patch management, more than 209,000 patches were distributed to MBE franchisees in the first three months of Everdream’s implementation, and 248,000 patches were distributed in a subsequent three-month period. With the new infrastructure, MBE franchisees are now current on critical patches.

The solution also saves valuable labor hours by allowing technicians to view complete hardware and software information about each networked computer. “IT departments don’t have to ask the user questions about computer hardware and software,” Obsitnik says. “This speeds up time needed for troubleshooting and allows IT departments to be more pro-active.”