Source4 Unlocks Cloning Potential with the UIUConsultancy firm relies on the Universal Imaging Utility for help during imaging Overview Based in San Diego, California, Source4 Technical Consulting is a technology management company that provides IT infrastructure services for a number of clients, primarily in the restaurant and franchise sector. Working closely with its customers, the company manages IT rollouts - sourcing and implementing technology solutions incorporating Internet connection monitoring, database upkeep and management, gateway security and on-going support. Desktop rollout projects can be incredibly time consuming for IT consultants, who are often given tight deadlines and forced to work within a strict budget framework. Installing operating systems, patching them, and setting up the required software and settings are the most time consuming tasks in a rollout process, especially in environments where mixed and diverse hardware platforms exist. Greg May, managing partner at Source4, said: "When managing IT projects you find that multiple images need to be created and managed for users with specific application needs. This becomes a larger problem when you have to cater to a melting pot of hardware and software driver specifications across a network of assorted desktops and laptops. Our staff would spend a lot of valuable time developing multiple images to be rolled out across a company - time which could have been better utilised elsewhere." "We needed to find a way to work more efficiently and dramatically reduce the amount of man-hours spent on imaging, especially as so many projects required a speedy turnaround and implementation." Source4 needed to find a tool that could run alongside standard cloning software, boosting efficiency and helping to speed up the imaging process so that its consultants could invest their energy in other parts of a project. The company 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 organisation. Greg said: "With new hardware getting 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. "We started to use the product on a variety of projects, standardising images in mixed hardware environments to increase our effectiveness in deployments. When fully utilized, 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 first try." Evaluation Source4 originally purchased UIU to run a deployment for one of its restaurant clients and has since gone on to use the software to assist its staff with many other major IT projects. Greg commented: "UIU has helped us to become more efficient and streamlined allowing us to provide our customers with better value and service. Thanks to UIU, we can perform IT rollouts more effectively than ever before." "Where imaging used to require large amounts of our consultants' time and complicate the projects they worked on, UIU has greatly improved the whole process, by creating a simple solution that is much faster. UIU has proven to be a very cost effective product and we will continue to use it for future deployments," Greg 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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