Surrey School District Uses Absolute Secure Endpoint to Automate Processes, Saving the IT Department Time and Money

Having effective endpoint security and management are tests no school system can afford to fail. The Surrey School District was no exception. The school system had three needs. One was an endpoint security solution that fully supported Apple’s Mac OS X. Two, it wanted to replace the manual process of physically touching every computer to perform inventory checks with an automated method. Finally, as a means to ensure software license compliance and avoid regulatory penalties, Surrey School District was looking for an endpoint security solution to perform regular and accurate checks of every device.

Dan Turner, Director of Information Technology for the Surrey School District, wanted a more efficient method to perform lifecycle management and execute the District’s annual ‘true up,’ which is essentially an inventory count of CPU levels, base bar, and licensing. “With over 100 schools in the District, the true up was an annual headache for my team of 55 in IT services,” he said.

Automate Annual Inventory Management Process

Rob Gill, Systems Application Specialist at Surrey School District, remembers first-hand the true up process of the past: “Before, 10 to 15 of my colleagues would spend a month and a half—from mid-May to late June—visiting each and every school in the district looking at all the computers to get inventory counts of hardware configurations and installed software titles,” Gill explained.

Now that Absolute Secure Endpoint has completely automated the true up process, Gill and his co-workers can dedicate more time to student and teacher issues rather than administrative.

Daily Reports Help Improve IT Efficiencies

“With Absolute Secure Endpoint, the manual true up has become a thing of the past,” explained Turner. “Each day a computer is booted up, Absolute Secure Endpoint sends any changes to the hardware and software data points. We find out exactly what each computer is running, how much hard drive space is available, whether memory cards are missing, and more. It’s a critical tool for lifecycle management because now, if we want to know if a piece of hardware can support more powerful software, we don’t have to visit the school and sit down at the computer to find out; we know automatically, every day.”

Maintain Compliance With Software License Regulations

Another benefit is helping the District stay onside with software compliance issues. At Surrey Schools, the majority of software licenses are purchased by the District, but some belong to individual schools. “Absolute Secure Endpoint has become a critical tool in allowing us to help the schools ensure they stay onside with software license compliance because we can look at our daily reports for verification,” said Turner.