U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Saves Money and Protects Data With Absolute Secure Endpoint
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) aims to protect human health and the environment by ensuring that federal laws and policies consider environmental protection and limit risks to human health where people live, learn, and work. Headquartered in Washington, DC, the EPA also has ten regional offices in the United States.
Improve Asset Management to Ensure Compliance
With about one device (laptop, desktop, or tablet) per employee, the IT department of the EPA is responsible for overseeing software allocation, hardware health, access rights, and agency compliance for a fluctuating number of corporate devices, usually between 1,500 to 2,000.
Using an in-house product for asset management and tracking, the EPA IT team had to conduct software and hardware audits by hand and could not know if they were within or exceeding software license limits without surveying each user individually. This left them at risk of being non-compliant with software vendor contracts. This manual process also presented time-consuming issues with patch management.
Deployment was painless and I’ve been impressed by the exceptional customer service I’ve received. Our account manager went above and beyond in making sure we had products set up appropriately and installed correctly so we could use the functions we needed.
How They Did It
Easily Manage, Track, and Secure All Devices
In 2011 they sought a new solution, compared several, and chose Absolute Secure Endpoint. As a government agency, it is essential for the EPA to track, manage, and secure the computers, laptops, and tablets in their deployment—something they can now do easily and cost-effectively with Absolute.
Ensure Data Remains Safe, No Matter Where The Devices Is
“Absolute has provided peace of mind, now that we are allowing more of our data to leave the region more frequently in the hands of our users,” said Walter Williams, Desktop Technical Manager and Information Specialist, EPA. “That’s not saying that mobile devices will not go missing or even get lost from time to time. But that we have measures in place that ensures us that our data will not be compromised. When a device is protected by Absolute Secure Endpoint and has been reported missing, we have the choice of freezing the device remotely or wiping the hard drive; and we have a greater chance of recovery. We rely on Absolute Persistence™ technology to maintain an always-on connection with each device. Even if a perpetrator deletes everything on the hard drive, we know the Absolute Security agent will simply reactivate and reconnect.”
Satisfy Compliance Requirements With Automated Reports
The EPA has often made use of the geolocation features available from Absolute, allowing them to see the location of a device at any point in the workday. Furthermore, end-of-life certificates and software audit reports can be generated instantly to satisfy compliance requirements.
Absolute offers so many tools we find very valuable. We can now see which software is loaded on a machine to determine if we’re maxing out or underutilizing software licenses. We’ve been able to transfer unused software licenses to users who need them, saving the office or division from buying additional licenses, allowing those monies to be used on other expenditures.
Improved Asset Management = Time and Money Saved
Through Absolute Secure Endpoint, the EPA has unlocked ways to save time, save money, and become more secure and efficient.
For the EPA team. Absolute Secure Endpoint:
- Automates software and hardware audits, now taking minutes versus days, eliminating accidental oversights due to human error
- Allows underutilized software licenses to be redistributed versus buying additional licenses
- Remotely freezes or wipes misplaced laptops to avoid data breaches
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