Microsoft Office System, Windows Vista, and Exchange Server Customer Solution Case Study

Rental Car Company Upgrades IT Environment for Increased Security, User Productivity

Overview “SharePoint Server 2007, Windows Vista, and Country or Region: United States Exchange Server 2007 represent a great Industry: Retail combination for us—we’re giving users a Customer Profile predictable experience that helps them perform St. Louis, Missouri–based Enterprise Rent-A-Car rents cars, trucks, and other their jobs more efficiently.” vehicles and offers fleet management Rich Noonan, Department Manager, Infrastructure Group, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and used car sales. The company has With more than 64,500 employees worldwide, Enterprise Rent- more than 64,500 employees in 6,900 rental offices globally. A-Car always looks for new methods to keep its team supplied with tools that enhance efficiency and customer service. To that Business Situation Enterprise wanted to increase the end, the company is making adjustments to several portions of security and manageability of its its IT infrastructure—including the implementation of a new infrastructure as well as heighten user and IT staff member productivity by intranet portal based on Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server improving the usability of the company’s 2007, an operating system upgrade to Windows Vista™, and a intranet. messaging system upgrade to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Solution —to increase collaboration and the overall manageability of the The company is upgrading its environment to the Windows Vista™ knowledge-worker computing environment. These IT operating system and Microsoft® improvements add another layer of security and increase Exchange Server 2007, and deploying a proof of concept based on Microsoft system manageability while, at the same time, furthering the Office SharePoint® Server 2007. company’s service commitment to its employees and customers.

Benefits  Enhanced security  Reduced risk  Improved manageability  Greater operational efficiency  Better information quality and collaboration capabilities Situation needed to give our employees the ability to Over the last 50 years, St. Louis, Missouri– easily search for and find information,” says based Enterprise Rent-A-Car has grown Brad Dekoter, Director of Information from a single location in the basement of a Technology for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. “We car dealership to a thriving organization relied on the intranet’s basic navigation to with almost 7,000 offices in five countries try to find documents, but we thought that and more than 700,000 automobiles in there may be a more efficient way.” service. In addition to car rentals, the company also offers fleet management, Enterprise also looked to improve its used car sales, and commercial truck intranet’s usability, particularly with regard rental. Enterprise credits its success to the to uploading documents. Intranet 1.0 was strong values set forth by its founder and based on Active Server Pages (ASP) its original team: treat employees and technology, and the company determined customers like family and never that it needed a more flexible solution with compromise the commitment to superior interactive content that was easier to keep customer service. up-to-date.

To help fulfill that commitment, Enterprise “We wanted to build on our intranet’s value has incorporated numerous technology as a tool and, subsequently, further solutions over the years, changing its IT increase its adoption and usage rates,” environment to meet evolving needs and says Dekoter. “With the new document- take advantage of technology management and version-control advancements. For instance, when its use functionality available, we saw that we of shared files for collaboration and could move teams away from relying on information storage was making version shared file systems and avoid the risk of control and oversight a challenge, the having different versions of the same company found a solution. It implemented document posted in two different locations. an intranet portal as a document repository We wanted to incorporate controls to for sharing information at the document prevent out-of-date or unapproved level among different offices and documents from being posted.” departments. “Intranet 1.0” has been used by both corporate and field employees for As part of its ongoing efforts to improve publishing policy, reference, and project- productivity, Enterprise looked to make it related documentation. The documentation easier for employees to find information pertains to the company’s information and work together, as well as give them the systems, human resources, and marketing ability to retrieve shared documents that departments, among others. they accidentally deleted. “We feel that it’s important to take every opportunity to save Intranet 1.0 served its purpose well, but steps and prevent unnecessary rework,” with increased complexity and document says Rich Noonan, Department Manager, volume, the company’s requirements for its Infrastructure Group for Enterprise Rent-A- document management solutions have Car. evolved. “We realized that we really “In choosing Microsoft Security and manageability also represent sense because it could give us a lot more areas that the company targets for out-of-the-box functionality,” says Dekoter. technologies, we continuous improvement, from the security “In choosing Microsoft technologies, we receive effective portal of its environment as a whole, to rights on a receive effective portal and document per-document level. With more than 16,000 management tools that integrate tightly with and document desktop computers and 65,000 mailboxes each other and the Microsoft Office system management tools that in the corporate environment, Enterprise —all from one vendor.” wanted to move to technology that not only integrate tightly with prevented avoidable issues, but also The company began designing its each other and the provided advanced tools to help support SharePoint Server 2007 solution in July users. The company determined that 2006, with the initial objectives of proving Microsoft Office system minimizing its number of desktop that the new solution was scalable enough —all from one vendor.” configurations and upgrading its operating to meet the company’s document system would simplify deployment and management requirements. “We were able Brad Dekoter, Director of Information support efforts, boost security, and allow to prove a lot just by working with Technology, Enterprise Rent-A-Car employees to be more productive. “We SharePoint Server 2007 in our lab recognized an opportunity to standardize environment,” says Dekoter. “We also some of our systems and implement visited a Microsoft Technology Center for appropriate controls that could help shield several weeks, working with the experts our company without getting in the way of both to gain deeper insight into the new employees as they went about their daily product offering and to accelerate the work,” says Noonan. solution development process.”

Solution In September 2006, Enterprise configured To help enhance its security, several production servers running manageability, and operational efficiency, SharePoint Server 2007 in readiness for Enterprise Rent-A-Car decided to upgrade October 1, when it brought in its team of 50 its intranet, desktop operating system, and pilot users. The intranet currently has 10 messaging infrastructure. The company test sites, including sites for the company’s selected Microsoft® Office SharePoint® new IT mentoring program; project Server 2007, the Windows Vista™ updates; awards opportunities and operating system, and Microsoft Exchange recipients; internal initiatives; and a Server 2007. collection of IT governance topics, including standard processes, technology Migrating to a New Intranet Portal standards, and architectural issues. Enterprise considered many systems for its intranet, conducting rigorous analysis The company plans to provide access to before opting for a solution based on the new intranet solution to all 1,300 of its Microsoft SharePoint Products and IT department users for further testing in Technologies. When it was introduced to early 2007; by mid-2007, Enterprise plans Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, to expand the solution to 16,000 desktop Enterprise wanted to take advantage of the users. new capabilities. “The 2007 release made Upgrading the Client Operating System as the ability to have companywide Enterprise also is planning to upgrade its standardized disclaimer text on all outgoing desktop computers from the Windows® XP messages, enhanced [Microsoft Office] Professional operating system to the Outlook® Web Access capabilities, and the Windows Vista operating system. Says scalability and performance of the new, 64- Noonan, “We’ve wanted better control over bit version.” our desktop computers, so we were particularly excited about the new User In preparation for migrating its thousands of Account Control, which will provide an user mailboxes, Enterprise has several improved ability to more closely match our server computers running Exchange Server users’ access rights with those required for 2007 in production, including a multi-node them to perform their jobs.” Company mailbox cluster, client-access servers, and decision makers also were drawn to the hub transport servers. As of January 2007, integration with Network Access Protection, 190 mailboxes reside on Exchange Server which helps better shield company 2007; these mailboxes are used by communications, and the encryption members of the company’s IT department. capabilities of Windows BitLocker™ Drive By early 2007, the company will migrate Encryption. the remaining IT mailboxes, and it plans to have moved its entire messaging As of November 2006, Enterprise has infrastructure to Exchange Server 2007 by upgraded a cross-section of IT department the end of 2007. users to Windows Vista using Microsoft Windows Preinstallation Environment 2.0 Benefits and ImageX, a built-in disk-imaging tool. For Enterprise Rent-A-Car, upgrading its Upon the successful completion of its environment means moving to a more application-compatibility and deployment manageable and efficient way of supporting testing, Enterprise plans to continue to roll the business with enhanced security. Not out the new operating system as it only that, it also is expected to result in refreshes its desktop hardware. higher-quality information. “SharePoint Server 2007, Windows Vista, and Upgrading the Messaging Infrastructure Exchange Server 2007 represent a great The company’s efforts to improve its combination for us—we’re giving users a infrastructure extended beyond the intranet predictable experience that helps them and client operating system upgrades to perform their jobs more efficiently. At the include moving to Microsoft Exchange same time, our IT staff members enjoy a Server 2007. “We saw tremendous positive more supportable environment that lets changes when we upgraded to Exchange them tackle other important tasks and gives Server 2003 a few years ago, and we them more time to focus on supporting wanted to continue to stay current,” says business operations,” says Noonan. Sam Ghussain, Architect, Architecture Governance Group for Enterprise Rent-A- Enhanced Security and Reduced Risk Car. “Exchange Server 2007 offers new By moving to SharePoint Server 2007, functionality that caught our interest, such Windows Vista, and Exchange Server “Upgrading to 2007, Enterprise is finding ways to help maintain the confidentiality of the data on increase its level of security and mitigate portable computers.” Windows Vista is risks. “A big motivation for performing these adding one more line upgrades is securing our environment and The antiphishing features and Internet making it as supportable as possible by Explorer protected mode also will help of defense for our taking advantage of all the back-end prevent malware and spyware from organization.” enhancements. We expect to see not only entering the company’s environment. efficiency and productivity gains for our Continues Noonan, “Upgrading to Windows Rich Noonan, Department Manager, internal staff, but overall compliance, risk Vista is adding one more line of defense for Infrastructure Group, Enterprise Rent-A-Car protection, and security improvements as our organization.” well,” says Noonan. “The advanced document management and workflow Improved Manageability capabilities, along with the flexibility with With such a large environment, the ability regard to document-level security in to standardize or simplify management and SharePoint Server 2007, were key areas support is a great deal of help. “The for us.” upgrades will make it far easier and more efficient for us to manage our environment The company is using document-level because of new features that allow us to security in SharePoint Server 2007 to keep desktops standard,” says Jay ensure that documents are viewed only by Bradshaw, Department Manager, those with rights to them. “We appreciate Infrastructure Group, Enterprise Rent-A- that we can control access to documents at Car. “We’ll also derive value from the such a granular level, without requiring a upgraded operating system’s ImageX tremendous amount of ongoing effort from feature and new deployment methods, the IT department,” says Dekoter. “Also, which enable us to better manage what the Recycle Bin feature in SharePoint gets installed on the workstations and Server 2007 reduces the risks associated where it’s installed from. We expect to with an employee accidentally deleting a achieve much faster turnaround times for file that’s needed by others in the changing images, and, as a result, could organization.” see considerable cost savings as well. Image maintenance costs should drop, and In addition to taking advantage of the our dependency on third-party imaging security advancements in Windows Internet software will be significantly reduced.” Explorer® 7 in Windows Vista, Enterprise plans to implement Windows BitLocker Currently, Enterprise is reviewing all the Drive Encryption to help safeguard its possible Group Policy settings and quickly mobile users. “Protecting our customer, implementing them where appropriate. vendor, and company data is of the utmost “Group Policies are far more importance to Enterprise,” says Noonan. comprehensive now, and we’re definitely “Today we have to specify which folders to looking to take advantage of the more encrypt, but BitLocker will help us encrypt granular level of control available with everything so that we can more efficiently Windows Vista,” says Ghussain. “For instance, we’re able to replace a number of our old Internet Explorer–related settings functionality includes e-mail messages is a that we had to create ourselves. We no particularly valuable time saver and longer have to develop our own Group productivity enhancement.” Policy templates, which saves us developer time and makes support a lot easier, too.” Additionally, Enterprise anticipates that the new intranet solution will have a positive For managing the messaging effect on the speed and ease with which infrastructure, the 64-bit nature of the employees manage documentation, upgraded solution will help Enterprise because answers to their questions will be make the most of existing hardware and easier to find. The company expects that add users without increasing the number of the new intranet solution will provide a far servers to manage. “The Exchange Server more comprehensive and smooth 2007 64-bit architecture is such that we mechanism that will support users from think that we’ll be able to have more users start to finish, making it easier for per server, scaling our hardware up rather employees to collaborate on and publish than out,” says Bradshaw. In fact, the information. company expects to need 25 percent fewer computers running Exchange Server than it “One of our overarching goals as a did before by moving to the 2007 release. company is to be as efficient as possible so that we can best serve our customers and Greater Operational Efficiency continue to offer them high-value rental Aside from increased manageability that cars,” says Dekoter. “The new intranet will makes work easier for the IT department, make it easier for Enterprise to find our the new solutions provide efficiencies for information, work together, and improve users, including the approximately 45,000 companywide efficiency.” branch employees who rely on Outlook Web Access for all their messaging. “The Better Information Quality and Collaboration new Outlook Web Access user interface is Capabilities not only more user friendly, it’s also a lot As a whole, the new environment will more like the full Outlook client,” says provide the basis for improved information Ghussain. “It has many of the same and is expected to improve collaboration at functions, such as the new ability to set Enterprise. “We anticipate that the new internal and external out-of-office status intranet will allow people to shift their and much-improved global access list look- mindsets from perceiving document up functionality.” management as a separate task,” says Dekoter. “SharePoint Server 2007 makes it The company expects that the easier to post data of various types, and we advancements and new user interface of believe that posting will be a natural Windows Vista will help employees byproduct of collaboration, with people improve their efficiency. “Search folder wanting to make the documents they work technology, live previews, and Integrated on available to their colleagues. It will Search functionality all improve efficiency,” enable greater knowledge sharing says Bradshaw. “The fact that the search throughout the company, especially since For More Information the new solution makes it easy to post and Microsoft Office System For more information about Microsoft share list-based data, pictures, and other The Microsoft Office system is the business products and services, call the Microsoft information—not just documents.” world’s chosen environment for information Sales Information Center at (800) 426- work, providing the programs, servers, and 9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft The information will be more timely as well services that help you succeed by Canada Information Centre at (877) 568- as higher quality because of the increased transforming information into impact. 2495. Customers who are deaf or hard- knowledge sharing. Enterprise plans to of-hearing can reach Microsoft text post updates to the intranet as they For more information about the Microsoft telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) happen, so employees never have to wait Office system, go to: 892-5234 in the United States or (905) for the quarterly newsletter to know about www.microsoft.com/office 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 company or department news. Says United States and Canada, please Dekoter, “We see our new intranet as a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. vehicle through which we can keep our For more information about the Microsoft To access information using the World workforce informed and up-to-date.” server product portfolio, go to: Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com www.microsoft.com/servers/default.mspx In addition to a future upgrade to the 2007 For more information about Enterprise Microsoft Office system, Enterprise also is For more information about Microsoft Rent-A-Car products and services, visit considering a new business intelligence Exchange Server, go to: the Web site at: solution that involves the components of its www.microsoft.com/exchange www.enterprise.com upgraded environment plus Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 Reporting Services and Windows Vista Analysis Services, and ProClarity. “Using a Windows Vista can help your organization Microsoft-based solution for business use information technology to gain a intelligence would provide insight into competitive advantage in today’s new world business opportunities and give us an of work. Your people will be able to find integrated environment that could serve as and use information more effectively. You a powerful foundation for all of our future will be able to support your mobile work business analysis needs,” says Dekoter. force with better access to shared data and collaboration tools. And your IT staff will have better tools and technologies to enhance corporate IT security, data protection, and more efficient deployment and management.

For more information about Windows Vista, go to: www.microsoft.com/windowsvista

Software and Services  Microsoft Server Product Portfolio  Microsoft Office − Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 − Microsoft Office SharePoint Server  Technologies 2007 − Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access  Windows Vista

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Document published January 2007