Modernising a council’s device fleet with automation
A local government council with over 700 employees, serving over 150,000 community members set out to achieve modern management.
Challenge
Council employees, including those at council-operated centres, were working on virtual machines. As part of the major overhaul, the IT team aimed to establish a new Standard Operating Environment (SOE). Implementing a traditional SOE project would have incurred substantial costs and kept the Council in an outdated technology framework, requiring continuous manual maintenance.
Solution
The Council elected to move to modern management in the Cloud, rather than starting a new SOE project for virtual machines. With modern management, 700+ council team members have their own devices managed by Devicie via Microsoft Intune. New devices can be deployed with zero touch provisioning and device management including application updates, operating system (OS) patching and controls such as local administration are regularly remediated automatically. The configuration can grow alongside their business needs and technology innovation, without the need for expensive SOE projects where every device needs to be re-imaged.
Devicie worked with the Council to understand the needs of their employees and any unique security and compliance requirements. A tailored Intune instance was designed, configured in Intune and tested. The Council’s devices were seamlessly transitioned to automated management by Devicie via Microsoft Intune.
Repetitive day-to-day device management tasks such as application updates and OS patching were eliminated. These tasks are automatically actioned by Devicie, freeing up the IT team to focus on other tasks and projects.
Decommissioning virtual machines
Moving to modern management enabled the Council to decommission its virtual desktop environment, and deploy 700+ devices to users across multiple locations. This instantly modernised their technology offerings, improving employee experience.
Stable standard operating environment
Devicie streamlined the Council’s standard operating environment, with clearly defined policies and controls to uplift security and compliance. Devicie ingests individual device data from Intune and analyses anomalies alongside new external factors. It proactively remediates devices to ensure controls are applied as intended and anomalies remediated.
Consistent, automated application updates
Applications updates are automatically packaged, tested, and deployed, ensuring consistency and minimising security risks. Automating these tasks saves the IT team significant time and ensures applications are updated regularly.
Regular automated OS patching
OS patching is automated, so patches can’t be missed. This saves the IT team time, reduces security vulnerabilities, supports compliance and improves user experience. New OS versions can be rolled out quickly and easily.
Zero touch provisioning
In the legacy technology framework, deploying 700 new devices would have been a resource-intensive task. With zero touch provisioning, the IT team can ship new devices directly to Council employees. Once a user logs in, Devicie automatically configures the device within 30 minutes. This not only improves IT team productivity, as they no longer need to set up virtual machines and access, but new starters can be productive from day one.
Enhanced visibility and reporting
The IT team have a comprehensive view of the Council’s device fleet through the Devicie dashboard. They can easily monitor which OS versions are in use, identify which applications are running on each device and view device warranty information. This level of visibility is crucial for managing a device lifecycle.
Results
Devicie delivered significant benefits for the Council, including:
Increased modernity and an uplift in device management maturity
Time savings as a result of repetitive tasks now automated by Devicie
Confidence application updates and OS patches are actioned and controls are applied consistently
Near real time reporting to understand the status of each device in its fleet
By moving to modern management and automating routine device management tasks, the Council has significantly improved their IT capabilities, compliance and security of its device fleet.