Metia CEP Go Auto Dealerships jumpstarts enhanced IT ...



Microsoft Customer SolutionCustomer Solution Case Study00Go Auto Dealerships jumpstarts enhanced IT operations with Hyper-VOverviewCountry or Region: CanadaIndustry: AutomotiveCustomer ProfileGo Auto is an automotive dealership company based in Western Canada.Business SituationTo simplify management of its global IT environment, Go Auto standardized on Microsoft? technologies and deployed a virtualization solution based on Windows Server? 2008 Hyper-V?. SolutionGo Auto is using virtualization to drive IT optimization initiatives, boost business agility and control costs. BenefitsDriving business agilityReduced IT management costsImproved customer service“We don't have to have a huge data centre, we have one server rack and it contains everything that we need to grow today and in the future.”Ben Cochrane, Director of Information Technology at Go AutoGo Auto is an automotive dealership group based in Western Canada. To simplify management of its global IT environment, Go Auto standardized on Microsoft? technologies and deployed a virtualization solution using Windows Server? 2008 Hyper-V? that spans servers and desktops across the organization. Today, Go Auto is using virtualization to drive IT optimization initiatives, boost business agility and control costs. This in turn helps improve customer service and the bottom line.SituationFor the automotive dealerships industry, competition can be as fast and furious as the vehicles they sell. It’s a market with low margins and high customer expectations – meaning that delivering high quality services drives operations.For Edmonton-based Go Auto, being one of the top auto dealership companies in Western Canada is a testament to these principles. Today, Go Auto is comprised of 1,000 employees, 20 dealerships, two pre-owned liquidation centres and more than 3,500 vehicles in stock. The key to success for Go Auto, notes Ben Cochrane, Director of Information Technology at Go Auto, is around its streamlined operations. But when it came to IT, there were several challenges. With multiple locations – each with a distinctive IT environment – developing a standardized environment was a challenge from a logistics and cost perspective.“We have a small IT team, so with 700 computers across all locations, you can imagine the challenge. Something as simple as upgrading our dealer management software meant several hours and one IT guy going from desk to desk at each location. It wasn’t very efficient,” says Cochrane.To sharpen its competitive edge, Go Auto was looking for ways to simplify its decentralized, heterogeneous IT environment using Microsoft? technologies. This would help the company more efficiently allocate resources in response to dynamic business needs, while providing staff with high performance and application availability.SolutionWorking with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner TriCon Technical Services, Go Auto is taking advantage of a virtualization solution based on Windows Server? 2008 Hyper-V? to help comply with IT optimization initiatives, boost business agility and control operational costs.“We looked briefly at VMWare. It's great in that it’s free, but you end up paying a lot for maintenance and support. The Hyper-V solution is more flexible for our needs. It allows us to take full advantage of the latest Microsoft technologies such as SharePoint? 2010 and SQL Server? 2008 R2 to optimize our environment,” says Cochrane.“The goal here was to streamline operations and costs. The new environment consolidates Go Auto’s 22 locations into a single centralized body that features standardized networking, applications, Active Directory? and Microsoft Exchange 2010 for email services,” says Bradley Fox, Vice President, TriCon Technical Services. “This includes Dell hardware servers, clustered services for Hyper-V R2 and System Center Configuration Manager.” Hyper-V virtualization technology is an integrated feature of the Windows Server? 2008 operating system that Go Auto is using to increase the level of automation within its environment. The company also deployed Microsoft System Center data center solutions to help simplify server management. Staff members are using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 to manage the virtualization environment and unify the management of virtual machines and physical servers through a single view. The company particularly liked the fail-over cluster capability of Hyper-V, which helps ensure that staff can be assured of higher server and application availability.“We have a clustered Hyper-V installation on two hardware servers. The solution is flexible enough to allow us to make changes on the fly, or have things change without human intervention,” says Cochrane. BenefitsFrom the data centre to the desktop, Go Auto is taking advantage of Microsoft virtualization technology to benefit from a more dynamic IT environment.Driving business agilityGo Auto is using Hyper-V to improve its IT processes. For example, staff can provision a server in a matter of minutes rather than the 12-16 hours previously required. Since deploying Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Go Auto is benefiting from its newfound agility, responding rapidly to the constantly changing business opportunities within the dealership industry.“From the IT side, Hyper-V gives us the ability to better manage the infrastructure. With the implementation of virtualization, we could easily rollout multiple services at one time,” says Cochrane. “A lot of our applications are web-based, so we can now expand services without having to replace the entire physical server. This is simply huge, and the capacity to expand is almost limitless.” Reduced IT management costsGo Auto is also using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 which complements Hyper-V by centralizing management of virtual machines - accelerating, provisioning and improving server utilization. By virtualizing its Dell servers with Hyper-V, Go Auto was able to centralize file storage and is now running 20 virtual machines.“The new Hyper-V environment not only allows Go Auto to boost the level of automation, the company has been able to simplify the deployment of new applications without having to deploy new hardware servers. The environment is also designed to ensure stronger disaster recovery and application availability,” says Fox. Improved customer serviceStaff members at each Go Auto dealership are pleased with the new environment, notes Cochrane. When it comes to email, the virtualized environment enables Go Auto to ensure a more standardized IT infrastructure. Users all have access to highly available applications such as its web-based in-house tools, Outlook? Web Access for email services and SharePoint for a centralized repository for files and documents. This in turn helps improve customer service and the bottom line.“We don't have to have a huge data centre, we have one server rack and it contains everything that we need to grow today and in the future. This new environment is part of our goal to improve customer service in order to sell and deliver vehicles to customers faster,” says CochraneSoftware and ServicesHyper-VPartnersTriCon Technical ServicesThis case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published October 2010For 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:For more information about TriCon products and services, visit the website at: more information about Go Auto products and services, visit the website at: ................
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