A Cloud Gameplan for the Higher Education IT Service and Support Desk from NTRglobal
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Transcript of A Cloud Gameplan for the Higher Education IT Service and Support Desk from NTRglobal
8/8/2019 A Cloud Gameplan for the Higher Education IT Service and Support Desk from NTRglobal
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/a-cloud-gameplan-for-the-higher-education-it-service-and-support-desk-from 1/6
Cloud computing is a buzzword that covers a multitude of what may sound like sins
to many IT support professionals: more and more PCs and mobile devices logging
in to the network from the public Internet; a rising number of applications running on
external cloud platforms as software-as-a-service (SaaS); and an increasing reliance
on third-party providers for core services, with all the extra security and compliance
burdens that imposes.
These new challenges are especially unwelcome in today’s economic climate, when
IT support teams are somehow expected to deliver a more responsive service while
under constant pressure to reduce costs. To come out on the winning side, you are
probably seeking a new gameplan. The cloud may be a buzzword, but these trends are
here to stay – and they’re accompanied by more demanding expectations:
The global communities of higher education, comprised of teaching,
research, applied work and social service activities are moving to a real-
time infrastructure in which the IT service and support desk becomes the
operational linchpin of an ITIL-compliant service management strategy.
In this highly distributed community, IT must manage exceptions that arise
related to regional policy, security, compliance and funding issues.
Managers need to cope with powerful forces of change such as the impact
of the financial crisis, environmental constraints, the consumerization of
technology and a greater scrutiny on the cost-effective scalability of education.
The global higher education communities now want IT services that are in
tune with what they perceive as the always-on, real-time responsiveness
and ‘can-do’ collaboration of Web-based cloud computing.
A Cloud Gameplan for the Higher
Education IT Service and Support Desk
from NTRglobal
NTRglobalWhite Paper
8/8/2019 A Cloud Gameplan for the Higher Education IT Service and Support Desk from NTRglobal
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/a-cloud-gameplan-for-the-higher-education-it-service-and-support-desk-from 2/6
An effective gameplan doesn’t require a radicalshake-up
While cloud computing and SaaS delivery models and applications are touted as more-
efficient and more-cost-effective ways to deploy on-demand computing power and new
applications and IT services to students, faculty members and institution staff, do thebenefits outweigh the risks?
Fortunately, an effective gameplan doesn’t require a radical shake-up. It’s simply a
matter of adopting the tools and technologies that are now available and deploying
them to best effect. IT service management can now harness tools such as remote
support, IT automation and integrated reporting that are available as SaaS via the
cloud.
The cloud service model offers rapidly scalable IT resources that are delivered as
a service to users via Internet technologies. By scalable we mean that the IT can
automate resources or vitually extend live resources on demand. The model is, in
effect, the latest chapter in off-premises computing, somewhat similar the older modelfor application service provider (ASP) or third-party hosting service provisioning.
Colleges and universities are focusing on costcontainment. IT organizations are looking atcloud computing as a means to reduce costs.Will it?
We see two motivators that drive an organization to explore cloud computing. One iscost savings, but it has to be a significant savings — for example, 50% or more, which
underscores the interest in using SaaS for remote support and IT systems management.
Travel is eliminated, downtime for both IT and the enduser is significantly reduced
resulting in greater virtual productivity and uptime. The second reason is that cloud
computing allows users to do things that they otherwise couldn't do. For example,
professors and students can collaborate, get training and participate in peer review
using cloud-provided applications that would have been otherwise cost- or storage-
prohibitive.
Cloud computing and SaaS do not meanhuge expense and effort to install newinfrastructure
One of the best features of cloud computing is that there is no need for installing
traditional software or hardware. Internally, the basic technology of virtualization means
that you can get a lot more out of existing hardware by virtualizing things on top of it
and greatly increasing efficiency. The initial justification a virtualized environment often
centers on the savings of so-called "hard" dollar costs, such as hardware maintenance,
data center floor space, energy or heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning savings.
With the old software and hardware model too often, institutions delay rolling out much-needed capabilities because it means upgrading a complete service management
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suite. Today tools are readily available from the cloud as SaaS. They can be deployed
rapidly while respecting the prevailing security and governance regime, and use open
APIs to integrate with the existing IT service management infrastructure. A further
advantage: the SaaS model stays up-to-date with continuing evolution in the cloud
environment.
A cornerstone of the fightback by IT support is easiermanagement of resources
Remote support, both live and automated, is crucial to helping support staff multiply
their productivity and for improving user satisfaction. Leveraging the Web’s capacity for
collapsing distance, remote support brings live agents into real-time conversations with
users and gives them the ability to instantly view and remotely control the user’s screen.
Unlike the isolating automation of mass-market Web support, this is a technique that
solves problems collaboratively. Resolution is achieved with a human touch but without
the delays and inefficiencies of conventional phone support or on-site call-outs.
Automated support is a new way to deliver results proactively
In the past, users have often experienced automation as a barrier that separates them
from support agents, for example when they can’t get past automated phone systems
or self-service web portals to get an unresolved problem fixed. Automated support tools
deploy pre-programmed scripted agents that perform remote troubleshooting or run
regular maintenance tasks without the need for user intervention or on-site call-outs by
systems administrators. Providing the same convenience that users are familiar with
from automated upgrades to smartphones and home computers, it frees support staff
from repetitive, time-consuming maintenance tasks and improves the quality of service
that users experience.
These tools are valuable within the network, but they’re even more relevant when
serving higher education’s dispersed user populations. More and more users work off
campus, whether from dorms nearby or across the continent, often using smartphones
and other mobile devices to access computing resources. A cloud-aware support
infrastructure has to be able to reach out across the firewall and beyond the LAN to
keep these users productive wherever they choose to work.
Ready to Run
The IT organization faces a stark choice: either invest in building an in-house
infrastructure that’s robust and versatile enough to support those external users and
their chosen clients; or rely on a cloud-native SaaS provider with an infrastructurethat’s built from the ground up to thrive in that environment. The SaaS option provides
a ready-to-run platform that’s constantly updated to counter the threats and harness
the opportunities emerging every day in the public cloud. For many organizations, it’s
the most cost-effective means of supporting a heterogenous family of clients, including
Windows PCs, Macs, Linux machines and a variety of smartphones and tablets.
The ability to work across the full spectrum of clients also makes it easier to bring
together consolidated reporting of support metrics and service level delivery. A vital
ingredient when providing services today is a keen awareness of performance against
expectations and being able to act on accurate information when something goes
awry.
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Each of these changes brings incremental improvements but aggregated together
they fundamentally reframe the IT support function to make it a more collaborative,
proactive operation that achieves a vastly improved user experience at the same time
as substantially lowering costs. Further benefits include improved compliance and a
contribution to green policies by reducing travel and the ability to remotely implement
power-saving practices.
By bringing the infrastructure into the cloud, higher education IT also positions itself
to integrate well not only with conventional on-premise IT service management tools
but also with SaaS and other cloud providers like Google and Microsoft. Adopting a
cloud-ready gameplan thus both modernizes the support infrastructure to meet the
expectations of today’s users and positions it to interoperate well with future iterations
of cloud computing.
The IT Service and Support CloudGameplan with NTRglobal
The increasing use of computers, laptops, wireless technology and smart phones
in highly distributed environments means IT managers, CIOs and other high level
administrators at colleges and universities need more-efficient and more cost-effective
ways to bring computing power, new cloud applications and on-demand IT services to
students, faculty members and staff.
Cloud solutions need to go beyond simply easing the burden of IT tasks, they need to
contribute to overall institutional efficiency and cost-savings.
Building on ten years of SaaS expertise with more than 15,000 education, government
and enterprise customers around the world, NTRglobal focuses on delivering secure
purpose-built solutions for IT to simplify management of assets and offer multi-access
support channels to mobile users in complex environments. Higher education customers
in the U.S. include Brown University, Cal State University, Grand Canyon University,
University of Texas, Vanderbilt University, Rutgers University, George Washington
University, University of Connecticut and George Washington University.
“ With NTRglobal, we’vegot an extremelypowerfuland cost-reducingsolution for extendingsecure remote support
procedures from the corenetwork all the way outto platforms used in ourdistributed computingenvironments both oncampus and off.
”Michael Joy, Esq.
Manager of Operational Architecture
Grand Canyon University.
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Sign up now for a free trial at
www.ntrglobal.com/service-desk
Always free on 2 computers!
See for
yourself!
Proactive On-Demand IT Reach, Automationand Support with NTR Service Desk
NTR Service Desk empowers IT to do things that they otherwise couldn't do: proactively
monitor and virtually manage computers and technical issues before they become
problems or as they arise on the network and in wireless environments. Its solutionsdelivers powerful capabilities for IT to simplify security and compliance “musts” like
timely security upgrades to workstations, servers and mobile devices wherever they
are located. This includes installation of patches, the repairing of networks and the
ability to mitigate the kind of security breaches that can occur with laptops and devices
that are lost or stolen.
Secure Remote Support forDecentralized Environments
NTRsupport offers a comprehensive IT help desk package featuring secure remote
support tools for optimal help and service desk interaction, collaboration and issue
resolution—from chat to engaging in a remote control and screen-sharing session, to
answering a voice call or viewing a solution with new video call capabilities. From the
initial connection, a quick evaluation of the problem or situation can begin, which caneither be resolved on demand or escalated to the appropriate type of communication
necessary to resolve the situation successfully -- all while staying within the same
platform and maintaining strong security.
Supporting thousands of students, most of which are multiplatform wireless users
roaming everywhere requires prioritization and planning but with NTRglobal it’s a
snap…or simply a click to be more precise. And because the technology offers a
proven SaaS implementation, NTRglobal SaaS is really easy to evaluate, test and
scale with no hassle to the budget as Opex. These are today’s tools. These require
no massive ripping and replacing. NTRglobal SaaS securely integrates easily with
existing systems within days. NTRglobal provides a Cloud Gameplan for the IT Service
and Support Desk that will help you cut costs, extend services, easily scale, enableenhance management by process and quickly report on ROI.
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NTRsupport Help Desk
Clientless multiplatform support
24/7 instant live chat from embeddable buttons
Multisession remote control with 6 modes
Embeddable click-for-help button from Windows apps
Self-service support portal for reduced call volumes
Centralized team management
Statistics & reporting for service accountability
Automatic call distribution
Post-session surveys for end-user experience assessment
Integrate with ticketing, CRM, other business systems
AES 256-bit encryption
NTR Service Desk
Scalable multiplatform enterprise solution
Easy SaaS implementation
Proactive asset management
Dynamic remote troubleshooting toolkit
Task automation with 50 predefined scripts
Support to unattended machines
Configuration managementRich Internet application designed for usability
Full visibility with monitoring and alerts
Integrate with existing business systems
Failsafe multilevel security
About NTRglobal
More than 300,000 IT managers and 15,000 education, government and enterprises
rely on NTRglobal to deliver enterprise-grade security and powerful integration withNTR Service Desk on-demand IT automation, system management and remote
access. and NTRsupport remote support for Windows PCs, Mac, Linux, iPhone, iPad,
BlackBerry, Symbian OS platforms on servers, smartphones and mobile devices.
NTRglobal ITsystem management SaaS helps businesses enhance service desk and
IT productivity via automation for rapid task management, reporting and scalability.
NTRglobal SaaS is hosted from multiple data centers with fail-over capabilities to
ensure robust performance and reliability.
For free trial of the software and more information visit www.ntrglobal.com
NTR North America
Tel. +1 (866) 459-2543 - [email protected]
NTR United Kingdom
Tel. +44 (0) 1483 734670 - [email protected]
NTRglobal HQ (Spain)
Tel. +34 93 445 07 00 - [email protected]