 “Simplify Lockdown and Printing have dramatically reduced the time and effort required for supporting our Citrix farm so we can concentrate on enhancing our claims and imaging systems. Working with triCerat has been one of the best customer service experiences I’ve had — on or off the job. Their products have been extremely reliable and beneficial to our company.” – Bill Conklin, Senior Lead Microcomputer Analyst, Grange Insurance |
A billion-dollar insurer supporting 23 remote offices and field personnel in 10 Midwestern states.
• Control user environment
• Ensure system reliability and performance
• Reduce support costs
• Increase productivity
• Users focus on their jobs
– not computing problems or unauthorized applications
• Time savings
– no serverside driver install, testing, updates, and maintenance
• Enhanced reliability
– dramatic reduction in support calls and user frustrations |
| |
|
Based in Columbus, Ohio, Grange Mutual Casualty Company was founded in 1935 as a hometown automobile insurance company. Today, Grange is a billion-dollar insurer offering a wide range of insurance products, not only for vehicles, but for home, business and life protection. The firm’s centralized data center supports 23 remote offices and field personnel in seven states, including Ohio, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. IT operations also support Grange’s affiliate relationship with Integrity Mutual Insurance of Appleton, Wisconsin, which operates in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
“Server Performance Was Deteriorating Over Time…”
To meet the demands of its growing operations, Grange began to roll out 13 new Citrix MetaFrame XPe servers in late 2002, early 2003. Bill Conklin, a Senior Lead Microcomputer Analyst at Grange who oversaw the deployment, was committed to avoiding mistakes of the past. Specifically, Grange personnel had been saving huge files to their desktops, creating massive profiles that hogged disk space and bandwidth. Users had also tried installing printers themselves, as well as unauthorized applications within Terminal Server sessions. Getting the new MetaFrame servers locked down was a priority.
Printing Problems Impact Productivity
Like many insurers, Grange has a sophisticated document management system for scanning, indexing and handling forms and documents. Even though they exist electronically, Grange personnel must regularly print documents. Between its 23 branch offices and remote personnel, such as claims adjusters and outside sales people, printing problems were generating significant help desk calls, creating headaches for administrators and a nightmare for end-users.
|
