City of Carmel by the Sea

With a rich history in the arts, the California city of Carmel-by-the-Sea is known for its beaches, natural beauty, and the charm and history of its downtown.

120 miles south of San Francisco, and home to a population of 3,800, Carmel-by-the-Sea is a highly sought-after location for those looking for coast living or a unique holiday experience.

The IT department for the City of Carmel includes one full and one part-time employee. Together, they managed data centres located at the Police department and main library.

• 75 staff desktops at different locations throughout the City
• 20 desktops for public use at City libraries
• Several laptops made available for at-home work during Covid-19
• In total, there are over 140 devices to manage

Managing the dispersed environment with limited resources

Joel Staker, Carmel’s Information Systems and Network Manager, joined the City in 2015. His biggest challenge was managing the dispersed environment with limited resources. While computers were set to automatically download and install Windows updates for example, the updates weren’t always complete. This was especially the case where devices were used by multiple employees and no one person was responsible for a reboot.

Typical troubleshooting included scheduling meetings with remote employees to talk them through a DIY step-by- step solution. They introduced a solution to remote into devices, but even then, the process of figuring out what software was installed and updating it was a time consuming one. They often remoted into a device to find it with a very outdated system.

The simplicity and effectiveness of Deploy helped during Covid-19

Staker knew he needed a solution to help him manage and track updates and patches. He explored several options, but ultimately chose Deploy. Among the options he considered was Microsoft Operations Manager. He found the Microsoft solution to be overly complicated and required investment in additional servers, which was out of line with the size of their network.

Already familiar with Faronics after adopting Deep Freeze for their public access terminals, Staker appreciated the simplicity and effectiveness of Deploy.

Today, Staker can log into his Deploy dashboard and get a birds-eye-view of his entire network. He sees what is installed on each device and the status of that software. The dashboard clearly shows him what updates are pending, critical, and complete. Updates can be managed individually if necessary or installed together.

Staker also appreciates that Deploy gives him insight into device usage so he can install updates when it’s least likely to disrupt users. The Carmel IT team also uses Deploy to remote into devices when necessary, to resolve issues regardless of the platform. This has become especially important with employees working from home on a variety of devices during Covid-19.

Reduced vulnerabilities on the network

Security is a top priority for the City’s infrastructure. Prior to Deploy, Staker was faced with constant vulnerabilities from missed or incomplete critical updates. This was compounded by a lack of visibility into the dispersed network of devices. He struggled to track what was installed where and what its status was.

“Without the automated capabilities from Deploy it would be very hard to support a secure environment. We would not be operating on an up-to-date system,” says Staker.

By automating Windows and app updates, Staker knows his network is less vulnerable and that critical updates and patches are installed on schedule. Add to that the dashboard view into each device, and Staker is more confident in the security of their system.

Less time troubleshooting and updating

Deploy has made it easier and faster for the team to manage the entire update and patching process. What used to require remoting into devices one-by-one is now done entirely remotely from a single dashboard with a few clicks. This is a significant time savings, freeing up Staker and his colleague to focus on other priorities.

“We can now simply go into Deploy and only have to worry about small problems where a device or two wasn’t updated automatically.” Staker told us.

All-in-one inventory management

While the City was using tools to manage inventory previously, Staker finds huge benefits in having the inventory management as part of the overall management platform. They no longer need to move through different systems to fully understand the status of their network.