by Shane Henson — December 21, 2011—The U.S. Department of State has announced that 1E, a global provider of efficient IT (information technology) solutions, has proved successful in helping the Department generate significant savings in energy, cost and time.
Federal mandates assess agencies on a variety of sustainability areas, including energy management. Historically, the Department mandated that all 88,986 desktops at 468 worldwide sites, comprised of domestic facilities, embassies, consulates, and passport agencies, be kept on 24/7 to ensure regular security scanning, maintenance, and patching. To comply with federal mandates and support its own Greening Diplomacy Initiative, the State Department launched an agency-wide initiative to eliminate power waste across 100 percent of its workstation computers.
Operating under a distributed deployment model, the Department needed a flexible tool that worked with its existing systems management platform to accommodate the specialized needs of each individual, while eliminating duplication of efforts. Since the initial deployment in November 2010, IE’s Efficient IT solutions have shown to be a wise investment and could be a boon to other large businesses needing PC (personal computer) power management capabilities as well.
With projected savings worldwide of several million dollars per year when fully implemented, the power management initiative now eliminates more than 21,000 metric tons of carbon emissions per year. The State Department also automates patch deployment and network scanning during off hours to save system administrator time.
NightWatchman Enterprise helped the Department automate the shutdown of unused workstations while maintaining security and minimizing disruption. Integrating seamlessly with the department’s Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) platform, it also offers robust reporting capabilities that accurately report power and carbon consumption savings through a highly customized dashboard.
In addition, WakeUp, the Wake-on-LAN feature of NightWatchman Enterprise, allows State Department site workstations to be powered on for patching, scanning, health checks and software installation. These tasks can now be performed during non-business hours, minimizing impact to normal day-to-day business operations.
The Department also needed an effective way to proactively maintain the security of desktops and laptops at remote sites. Based in sensitive locations globally with no IT staff, these sites faced tremendous network constraints. The remote sites relied on bandwidth-challenged 512Kbps satellite links to deliver 400+ MB packages to desktops, and deploying servers simply was not a feasible option. In the spring of 2011, the agency further expanded its initiative with 1E by deploying Nomad Enterprise.
Using spare network bandwidth, Nomad Enterprise securely delivers operating system upgrades, software deployments and patches safely and securely to thousands of PCs and servers day or night with zero disruption. This removes the need for branch servers or desk-side visits, reducing existing server footprint and administrative overhead.
