Customer case
ADMINISTERING A 900-POSIT COMPUTER PARK WITH WAPT
COLLECTIVITY – SDIS 95
How do you administer a 900-station IT fleet?
Yann Corai, GSIC technician at SDIS 95 tells us about his daily life with WAPT.
Presentation
The SDIS 95 is 39 rescue centers throughout the department and 2,955 SDIS95 agents. In 2021, 83,886 interventions were carried out with an average of 230 interventions per day.
The SDIS 95 is made up of 39 rescue centers, 1 departmental school, 1 departmental workshop (technical center) and 3 group command centers.
Most of the workstations are Windows-based. Yann Corai is part of a 7-person team comprising: a logistician, a referent, a technical project manager and three IT correspondents. SDIS 95 has one server and two secondary WAPT repositories.
900 workstations managed
46 locations
7 IT team members
Problems encountered:
Lack of automation
Prior to WAPT, workstations were mastered using a technique based on copying the hard disk and transferring user data where possible. The team wanted to automate the deployment of a workstation without removing the hard disk, in order to go faster.
Users were autonomous in their updates and didn’t necessarily understand their importance. Going to users one by one and asking them to update made intervention sporadic. Another problem encountered was the trigger for changing their operating method: a few years ago, SDIS 95 switched to Windows 10. With this change came the need to completely overhaul previous practices. The first solution tested was WAPT, and it was validated in the process.
Testimony
I can better secure my IT assets thanks to WAPT. My CISO thanks me every day for that.
Understanding the mechanism
Like all software, WAPT is packed with features, and getting to grips with it can be complex depending on how it’s used. SDIS 95 has therefore decided to provide training and telephone support in order to gain a better understanding of the tool.
The team was able to understand the WAPT mechanism, such as the principle of dependencies, signatures and certificates, the composition of a package, updating on shutdown, agent creation and so on. The team is now autonomous when it comes to creating packages. It’s also important to understand that Yann Corai didn’t master Python, yet he knows how to create WAPT packages in Python. Today, he spends less and less time on WAPT as he has assimilated the way it works.
Estimated gains using WAPT
First and foremost, WAPT has made the company’s IT assets more reliable and secure. What’s more, the software enables them to update a workstation in just 5-10 minutes. They hardly use OCS Inventory any more. From the user’s point of view, Yann can send updates without the user even noticing, sometimes in the middle of the day.
For updates requiring a restart of the workstation (Windows Update for example), Yann can send a message to users from the console asking them to switch off their workstation during the lunch break. “There’s no comparison with the way we used to work,” he says. A fine way to conclude this interview!
Estimated gains using WAPT
Video feedback
Some of our customers have agreed to talk about their experience in pictures.
Find them in the dedicated Youtube playlist: