MIUN relieves tech support headache with UIUSweden's Mittuniversitetet (MIUN) searched for a software solution to make computer cloning and hard drive refreshes simpler Overview Based across three different campuses in the northern towns of Härnösand, Sundsvall and Östersund, Mittuniversitetet (MIUN) is a modern university with over 16,000 students. The university offers a wide range of courses within the educational fields of social science, media, health care, IT, natural science, technology, as well as languages and other humanities subjects. Challenge Around 1,000 staff members at the university work on desktop computers. Even though most of these machines are the same model, the majority contain different hardware and software driver specifications. Stefan Eriksson, head of the technical support team at MIUN, said: "As a department we were spending far too much time creating different images and managing the installation processes for new desktops. We felt that the man hours we were spending on this task could be better spent elsewhere, so we began searching for a tool that could help us to take the pressure off." Solution The technical support department at MIUN needed to implement a tool that could run alongside its cloning software and simplify the imaging process so that its staff could spend time on other projects and less time installing new computers. The university decided to employ the Universal Imaging Utility (UIU), a hardware independent imaging tool, which runs alongside all the major popular cloning packages. UIU allows IT professionals to create a "one-shoe-fits-all" hardware independent image that can be deployed across any desktop and laptop within an organization. "With new hardware being released so frequently, creating updated images had become more time-consuming and resource intensive. We found that UIU gave us a significant advantage by letting us do more in less time," commented Stefan. He continued: "We found the whole concept of creating a master image that could be rolled out across all staff machines particularly appealing and we were soon able to standardize all these installations effectively and with simplicity. UIU became the tool to rely on to help save time, money and frustration by ensuring that images could work on any hardware set-up." Evaluation MIUN initially trialled UIU on a "try before you buy" basis, and then purchased 500 licenses for staff machines across the university. The tech support department immediately discovered the benefits that incorporating such a tool could bring and is soon to increase its licenses to 1,000. "Using UIU we can essentially turn what was once a tedious 20 work hour desktop installation into a quick and efficient one hour task. Staff machines are now fully operational almost immediately after they are taken out of the box and troubleshooting has become a lot easier as a result. We also discovered the possibility to push out the images using Microsoft's Image-X tool instead of more traditional tools, like Ghost for example," said Stefan. "UIU has proven to be an incredibly cost effective product for us and we will continue to invest in new licenses so that we can use it for future deployments," Stefan concluded. About the Universal Imaging Utility The UIU is developed by Big Bang LLC, a Milwaukee, WI-based software training, consulting and development company and pioneer of hardware-independent imaging. Big Bang has partnered with Binary Research International, Inc., of Glendale, WI and its English subsidiary - Binary Resource (UK) Ltd. (http://www.binaryresource.com). Binary, a developer and provider of IT Training and a Distributor of software, is best known as being part of the company that developed Ghost, the world's first software cloning utility.
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