Virginia Tech Automates User State Management with Kaseya, Streamlining the Set-up of New Users and Workstations

Kaseya, a global provider of information technology (IT) automation software for IT solution providers and public and private sector IT organizations, announced today that Virginia Tech University’s Outreach Information Services (OIS) has deployed the Kaseya User State Management (KUSM) module, extending its use of the Kaseya IT automation framework to include the setting up and deployment of user profiles. Administrators can now remotely create, update, migrate and back up user settings and apply the images to any workstation through the integrated Kaseya interface, eliminating much of the repetition associated with setting up new users and new workstations.

For example, when OIS needs to upgrade a user to a newer, more powerful workstation, an administrator can use KUSM to capture existing user settings, mapped drives, power consumption policies and drivers and automatically restore the settings on the new machine in a matter of minutes. The process can be done remotely and doesn’t need to be monitored, dramatically speeding the upgrade process.

“We have a small, yet dedicated, IT staff responsible for the management of more than 300 distributed systems. Any time we can automate or eliminate repetition is greatly appreciated,” said Dr. Scott Farmer, director of OIS, Virginia Tech University. “Kaseya enables us to efficiently and reliably monitor, update, maintain, secure, back up and now deploy user settings and regulate power from a single, Web-based management console.”

OIS provides IT services and support to the university’s Outreach and International Affairs (OIA) office, an organization that matches student and university research resources with the business, government, non-profit communities. For years, the small IT staff has used Kaseya to efficiently ensure the availability and performance the network, relying on Kaseya’s remote and automated IT management features. By deploying KUSM, OIS further streamlines IT management, limiting the impact IT maintenance and configuration has on productivity and helping users get up and running on their PCs more quickly.

“Configuring user settings by hand can be tedious, time consuming, and there is a substantial risk of forgetting something,” said Farmer. “KUSM lets us automate the process of defining, updating, deploying and backing up user profiles, saving me from having to do it over and over and over again. It not only saves me time and resources; it helps make equipment upgrades more seamless and a more positive experience for the end user.”

By using KUSM to create and manage user settings and group profiles, OIS is able to maintain consistency across a department or zone and even throughout the entire organization, easing the deployment of new machines, upgrading equipment, setting up new users and enforcing access and security policies. KUSM also enables OIS to monitor and regulate power settings of remote workstations, helping to lower the electricity bill, lessen wear and tear and reduce the university’s carbon footprint. Power settings can be set for groups of machines and regulated against a set benchmark, identifying machines or users that are draining power. KUSM can then turn off PCs and monitors that are left on overnight or on the weekend.

“The faster administrators can complete basic maintenance like user configuration, mapping drives and setting up printers, end users can have greater access to the tools and information they need to be more productive,” said Jim Alves, executive vice president of product marketing, Kaseya.

About Kaseya

Kaseya is a global provider of IT automation software for IT Solution Providers and Public and Private Sector IT organizations. Kaseya’s IT Automation Framework allows IT Professionals to proactively monitor, manage and maintain distributed IT infrastructure remotely, easily and efficiently with one integrated Web based platform. Kaseya’s technology is licensed on over three million machines worldwide. For a free 30 day trial of the Kaseya solution, please visit http://www.kaseya.com/forms/download.php