Dean Foods
Industry:
Consumer Goods
Environment:
40 production servers in two data centers, two AS/400 mainframes, Dell server environment and IBM laptop user environment.
Overview
Dean Foods is one of the leading food and beverage companies in the United States. The company processes products in more than 120 plants across the United States, as well as in Spain, Portugal and Great Britain.
The entire team is composed of approximately 29,000 employees dedicated to producing the best, healthiest, and most wholesome products available. There are four operating divisions: Dean Dairy Group, White Wave Foods, Dean Specialty Foods Group and International.
Situation
With an impressive number of network users requiring efficient support, Dean Foods required a tool that allows higher flexibility to IT staff and increases productivity without requiring people to stay in the office.
Organization Profile
Dean Foods is one of the leading food and beverage companies in the United States. They have a very complex infrastructure which grows every day as new servers and computers are added to the network.
Evaluating the Solution
Dean Foods downloaded the free trials of Mobile Admin and Mobile SSH and decided very quickly that these were the perfect tools for performing a full range of network management functions from a wireless handheld device.
The applications give IT Administrators a flexibility they never had before. Mobile Admin and Mobile SSH are frequently used during leisure times to perform urgent support tasks, creating a much smaller interruption for both the user and the IT Adminstrators. This means users from across Canada and US get excellent support without Dean Foods incurring extra costs. Implementation of these solutions paid off in the first weeks of use.
Some of Mobile Admin's immediate advantages include instant access to all IT resources of the company from a wireless device, significant cost-savings and more satisfied users.
Managing a Huge User Base
“With an impressive number of network users that have constant incidents, Dean Foods required a tool that allows higher flexibility to IT staff, and increases productivity without forcing them to stay in the office,” explains Mark Lenk from Dean Foods. “We selected Rove software because the products deliver ease-of-use, very intuitive interfaces and the price is affordable. The main advantage is that the solutions offer MS SQL Server support and unlimited Telnet and SSH when needed,” adds Mark.
Growing a Company
In December of 2001, the “new” Dean Foods was born when Suiza Foods Corporation’s acquisition of Dean Foods Company was completed. Suiza changed its name to Dean Foods Company and its “ticker symbol” on the NYSE changed from “SZA” to “DF”. The company’s headquarters are located in Dallas, Texas. The technical environment consists of 40 production servers in two data centers, two AS/400 mainframes, Dell server environment and IBM laptop user environment. Mobile Admin and Mobile SSH were perfect solutions for managing these systems from wireless devices.
The Benefits
Mobile Admin is used most commonly for frequently-occuring support issues, such as resetting user IDs and rebooting servers, but both Mobile Admin and Mobile SSH have proven to be useful on-the-fly troubleshooting tools for a wide range of support situations.
Results
Dean Foods’ experience with Mobile Admin was very positive immediately following implementation. Network users are happier and IT staff more free to do their work from anywhere
