AMD has transitioned to open systems running off-the-shelf applications, giving its employees the freedom to choose an AMD technology-based client platform that lets them do their job effectively without sacrifi cing fl exibility and security.

By Margaret Bierman

The first thing most office workers do when they get to work in the morning is turn on their laptops or desktops. They don’t anticipate any problems; they just assume their machines will bootup and run smoothly.

AMD’s more than 16,000 employees are no different. They count on their PC’s performance and reliability to help them do their jobs every day. That’s why AMD chose to embrace technology based on open standards. Understanding that proprietary management hardware and software solutions can force an enterprise into a situation that demands every machine to be identical — and can leave a company at the mercy of a single vendor — AMD turned to its own open standards-based systems and industry applications. This enables the company’s IT department to deliver a manageable infrastructure that cangrow and adapt as business needs dictate.

Over the course of the last three years, AMD worked with HCL Technologies, a large IT outsourcer and PC manufacturer headquartered in India, to migrate nearly 7,500 of its tens of thousands of desktop and laptop systems to AMD technology. Today, every Fujitsu S2110 and S2210 laptop, as well as every Hewlett-Packard (HP) nx6325 notebook and HP dc5750 Microtower, deployed by HCL is powered by AMD processors and runs either the Microsoft® Windows® XP or the Windows Vista™ operating system— and Dell notebooks are being evaluated forpossible future deployment.

Each machine is delivered to an employee preloaded with the operating system and key business software, including Microsoft’s Office Professional and Office Communicator; several Adobe applications; Oracle database software; and a variety of other business applications and utility programs. In addition, all systems and data are protected by standard Symantec security solutions.

By adopting this strategy, AMD has given its employees greater freedom to select the right computer for the job — systems that perform fast and run cutting-edge software without hamstringing IT management processes.

AMD’s belief in the power of open systems and standards is so strong that the company spends considerable time and effort helping to develop new standards and technologies that enable AMD to deliver the depth and breadth of products that businesses need to succeed.

Improving Intereoperability

Today, AMD is a key member of the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF), an industry consortium focused on improving interoperability among hardware platform vendors through the creation of management standards. In fact, the new Desktop and mobile Architecture for System Hardware (DASH) initiative provides a suite of specifications that deliver standards-based Web services management for desktop and mobile client systems. Through the DASH initiative, the DMTF will provide the next generation of standards for secure out-of-band and remote management of desktop and mobile systems. (See “A Dashing Initiative” on page 36 for more details.)

With DMTF technologies and standards, hardware vendors like AMD can take advantage of consistent and open approaches in order to make products more manageable, track system components and exchange management information between networked systems. By deploying hardware that implements these standards and using industry applications that can utilize this valuable information, companies that use AMD systems are better able to understand what types of systems are in use and how they are performing.

In the AMD environment, help desk and remote desktop management support staff can access and query all incident and problem-resolution information in real time, evaluate the 100-plus customer surveys received each month, and track service-level goals and customer satisfaction through an online metrics dashboard. By using standard industry management applications such as Remedy, the HCL and AMD personnel can look at aggregate data to monitor and track trouble ticket resolution rates and customer service. On average, about 95 percent of desktop issues are resolved to service level agreements.

“Our ability to view performance characteristics at various levels in real time enables the infrastructure team to initiate corrective action before issues escalate into real problems,” says Terry Laber, vice president, IT Infrastructure. “That lets us make joint decisions that keep theenterprise operating at peak efficiency.”

Testimony to the strength of the open systems approach is AMD’s integration of ATI, which brings AMD’s technology leadership in processors together with ATI’s strengths in graphics, chipsets and consumer electronics. All ATI facilities — including more than 7,500 desktop and laptop computers, as well as corporate networks — are being integrated intothe AMD computing infrastructure.

As happens in any merger or acquisition, AMD must contend with a wide mix of systems from multiple vendors. While infrastructure integration on this scale takes time and careful planning, the technologies, standards and practices used in the existing AMD environment are easing the migration of the ATI systems. “Taking an open standards and industry application approach has made our computing infrastructure more flexible and better able to adapt to change,” says Shane Dickinson,director, IT Core Services.

By supporting and using open standards in its systems and networks, AMD is able to easily support both previous and current generations of systems from AMD and other vendors. There’s no need to treat non-AMD systems any differently, and there is no requirement to upgrade all ATI staff to new systems and software in order to integrate them into the AMD enterprise.

Existing IT processes and tools are already working to merge ATI and AMD networks and migrate systems into the AMD domain. IT estimates that approximately 95 percent of all ATI systems will move easily into the AMD infrastructure through automated processes without impacting employee productivity. That leaves only about five percent to be handledon a case-by-case basis by technical staff.

Work Anywhere — Securely

The ubiquity of mobile computing and communication technologies has enabled AMD employees to work almost anywhere. While this has improved productivity, the use of systems that are constantly connected to outside resources poses a significant security risk. So robust security mechanisms and practices areessential.

AMD’s IT infrastructure meets stringent criteria for security, manageability and scalability. Industry standard servers running a hardened operating system and access control rules maintained by HCL provide the first line of defense to the enterprise network, with additional fortification provided by unified threat management appliances and virtual private network concentrators. In addition, vulnerability assessment enterprise software scans internal systems and performs network discovery tasks to help identify and remediatesecurity vulnerabilities.

All desktops and laptops in the company’s 50-plus sites in leading countries around the world — including Brazil, China, Germany, India and Russia — run industry-standard antivirus software to protect against malware. These systems are connected to highly available clustered AMD processor-based servers running Microsoft Windows Serverand services for Internet access.

With this defense-in-depth security ap-proach, AMD is able to ensure strict multi-leveled access control and maintain network and data integrity. According to Dickinson, “These best-of-breed security solutions are so easy to manage that we are better able to detect and respond to security breaches and help minimize downtime.”

With so much of AMD’s communication and collaboration taking place via e-mail, safeguarding messaging servers from spam and viruses is paramount. To help in this effort, all e-mail traffic is filtered for viruses, spam and e-mail policy violations by Microsoft Exchange Hosted Filtering services as it flows into and out of the AMD network. In addition, periodic network vulnerability scanning and e-mail filters allow HCL staff to analyze, manage and report on all e-mail traffic, thereby significantlyreducing AMD’s exposure to security risks.

If a security breach is identified, Microsoft System Center Essentials software is used to apply needed patches without user intervention.“Implementing sophisticated securityand malware prevention software and rapidpatch management capabilities has helpedaddress virus outbreaks and has kept our systems running 24 x 7 x 365,” says Laber.

As AMD sets its sights on new and innovative processor designs, graphics capabilities and consumer electronics, the company’s IT infrastructure will have to grow and adapt to changing business demands. “The adoption of systems and solutions based on open standards has positioned our IT infrastructure to deliver services with greater functionality and predictability without breaking budgets,” says Dickinson.“Most of all, the open standards, products, technologiesand best practices employed give usgreater insight into how well our infrastructureis supporting our business goals.

“We look forward to whatever challenges lie ahead with confidence that our enterprise desktop infrastructure will be capable ofadapting as new demands arise.”

Managing the Client Environment

AMD’s strategic technology partnership with HCL Technologies provides a fresh approach to client system management. The third largest IT outsourcer and India’s premier PC manufacturer, HCL is a US $4 billion enterprise that employs 44,000 people of diverse nationalities, who operate from 17 countries, including 360 points of presence in India. HCL has global partnerships with several leading Fortune 100 companies.

By transitioning AMD employees to Hewlett-Packard and Fujitsu systems running industry-standard software and using a set of tailored service offerings to manage many of AMD’s desktop and laptop systems, HCL has provided comprehensive management of the AMD client environment; low costs and low user downtime; an improved user experience; and enhanced security and privacy.