Shoppers needed a more accurate way to manage the installation of security patches and software upgrades across its Microsoft® Windows® environment, especially to the 350 laptops used by its mobile workers.
Microsoft Certified Gold Partner Navantis and the Shoppers IT team installed SMS to help streamline the software update deployment process, and proactively control IT assets and improve software management in preparation for the company’s upgrade to Exchange Server 2003 and MOM 2005.
"The whole idea was to migrate from using the distributed file system in Active Directory to publish applications, to using SMS to set up a distributed repository for those applications."
David MacMillan
Manager of Office Network Services, Shoppers Drug Mart
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 CUSTOMER PROFILE |
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Shoppers Drug Mart Corporation (Shoppers) is one of the most recognized and trusted names in Canadian retailing. The Toronto-based company is the licensor of over 900 full-service retail drug stores operating under the name Shoppers Drug Mart, or Pharmaprix in Québec. With fiscal 2003 sales of nearly $6.1 billion, the company is the leading player in Canada’s retail drugstore marketplace and is the No. 1 provider of pharmacy products and services. Licensed Shoppers/Pharmaprix stores are found in prime locations in each province and two territories, making them among the most convenient retail outlets in Canada.
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BENEFITS |
Microsoft® Systems Management Server is helping Shoppers reduce the time its IT team spends repackaging and testing software updates before deployment. MacMillan estimates that his staff is now able to pilot and deploy updates in two or three days with SMS, whereas before, the process took over a week.
The integration of SMS with Active Directory® also facilitates bandwidth-sensitive software downloads to mobile workers – important for an organization like Shoppers, which has locations across a wide geographic area and a large number of mobile workers
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