Remote MonitoringVSA
Case Study

Jacobs Engineering Group Leverages Kaseya VSA to Automate IT Management

Overview

Jacobs Engineering Group is a world leader in design, engineering, construction and technical services, delivering end-to-end innovative solutions that provide superior value to its clients. One business unit in the company uses Kaseya for IT management. This group mostly works in the aeronautical field with NASA and the Department of Defense.

Travis Graef, Assistant System Administrator, is one of the six people in the organization’s IT Team. His areas of responsibility run the gamut of everyday IT operations tasks.

Customer

Jacobs Engineering Group
Dallas, Texas

About

Founded in 1947, Jacobs Engineering Group provides technical, professional and construction services, as well as scientific and specialty consulting for a broad range of clients globally.

“Kaseya VSA improves our business by freeing up our time for more challenging tasks. We can resolve issues faster and more easily so that we deliver higher quality services to our customers.” Travis GraefAssistant System Administrator

Challenges

  • Keeping systems up to date with the latest security patches
  • Time-consuming manual processes
  • Lack of remote management capabilities and the loss of productivity of our end users when we had to fix a problem

With the organization constantly growing at a very high rate, prior to using Kaseya VSA, the IT Team had been facing challenges with routine maintenance, and keeping systems secure and up to date. They had a very manual process for updating computers. A key concern was staying current with the latest security patches to remediate software vulnerabilities for both Windows and third-party applications.

“We did not really have a system to manage IT on a large scale; nothing other than just Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and group policy,” said Travis Graef.

Automation of Common IT Processes

With Kaseya VSA, now the team can automate software management, including patching, and auto-remediate issues with the use of scripts.

“In the past, we were getting reports saying that several of our computers were out of date and we didn’t have a good way to manage that. We would have to call the user and they would bring in their laptop to be updated manually by the IT team,” says Graef.

“With VSA, you aren’t bound by being at a physical location. When we were using WSUS, the computer had to be physically on the network to get Windows updates. If you had a laptop off-network, you were unable to do that. Kaseya doesn’t have those limitations. So, now we have users that take laptops on trips or have to work remotely and we’re still able to manage those computers and keep those computers up to date. We can make sure that the vulnerabilities are being remediated,” he stated.

“We’re also allowing users to be able to solve their own problems, such as adding their own printers or being able to run a cleanup tool on their computer. This frees up the IT team to spend time on other projects,” he said.

VSA allows the IT team at Jacobs Engineering to remotely manage end-user systems and fix problems right away.

Solutions

  • VSA’s automation capabilities have helped Jacobs Engineering to streamline IT operations and free up staff for more critical projects.
  • VSA automates software patch management to ensure that Jacob’s systems are up to date and secure
  • VSA enables the IT team to remotely manage systems which saves time for both end-users and IT technicians.
  • Jacobs is able to manage both on and off-network devices with VSA.

Security and Patch Management

As the IT team at Jacobs Engineering is working with government clients, security is a top priority.

Jacobs Engineering had serious concerns with patch management and updating software on a large scale.

“We have clients under government contracts and we needed to make sure the systems are patched and secure. We looked for a solution that could meet those needs and we selected Kaseya VSA,” said Graef.

With VSA, they are able to automate software updates and patch management, keeping systems secure.

Cost Savings with VSA

Using VSA has been highly cost-effective for Jacobs Engineering.

According to Travis Graef, “We’ve realized significant cost savings using VSA in that we no longer have to use multiple tools to manage our systems. Previously, we had to pay for Windows Server Update Services and other third-party software tools to try to push out software. With VSA, we were able to replace multiple, ineffective products with one very efficient solution, and at lower cost.”

VSA also saves many hours of IT technician time through automation and remote management. “Before, I would have to sit at a computer and make sure it was up to date. It would disrupt the user’s productivity and I would spend hours of my time on a single machine. Now, I can work on issues remotely and automate processes to keep systems up to date,” he said.

What's Next

Travis Graef’s experience with Kaseya has been very positive. He said, “I’ve spent multiple hours on the phone with Kaseya consultants and they’ve been able to answer every question that I’ve thrown at them. And, the Kaseya training materials and videos have been very helpful, too.”

“The next thing for our IT team is to continue automating more IT processes in VSA and getting rid of more tools that are no longer needed,” he concluded.