Shoes for Crews unties its knotted IT estate with Patch Manager

Cloud-based system the right fit
Pro
Image: Shoes for Crews

12 October 2023

In association with Servaplex

Shoes for Crews designs and produces one of the largest and most comprehensive slip-resistant shoe product lines in the world, with over 280 styles for men/women in the athletic, casual, dress and safety categories. It’s products are sold in more than 40 countries worldwide and supplies workplaces with best-in-class slip-resistant footwear that is recognised industry wide for grip, comfort, durability, value and style.

“When we have needed support Servaplex have been on hand to advise or resolve any issues in a timely and friendly matter. They are easy and a pleasure to work with,” said Simon Goble, head of IT, Crews for Shoes.

 

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“We wanted to automate updates from a cloud-based solution to replace our old WSUS server, but also update all our software including non-Microsoft.

“We needed to update all of our laptops with all software solutions. We have laptops all over Europe and the cloud-based nature means we can update and monitor all of these without the need for VPNs, meaning the updates get done and we can quantify that.

“The ease of the software, the ease of navigation of the Web-based interface, the reporting and oversite, and the hosted solution option.”

The solution: Patch Manager Plus Cloud

Shoes for Crews chose Patch Manager Plus, an all-around patching solution, offers automated patch deployment for Windows, macOS, and Linux endpoints, along with patching support for more than 900 third party updates across more than 500 third party applications. It’s available both on-premises and on the cloud.

When shopping around Shoes for Crews looked at several alternatives including InTune, but none of them offered the breadth of updates Patch Manager Plus did.

“Prior to Shoes for Crews finding Patch Manager Plus Cloud, we had been asking all our staff in Europe to connect to the VPN to update Windows and other Microsoft solutions via our WSUS Server, which would mean lots of chasing staff to do so,” said Goble. “Then due to the nature of it, with laptops disconnecting to restart once the updates were done, the reporting was always out of date, so hours were spent having to chase to find out the state of the laptops. And as WSUS wouldn’t update non-Microsoft products such as Adobe Reader or Chrome, we would have no oversite as to what state these applications would be in, so we were very vulnerable to exploitations. Ensuring our estate is kept up to date and protected against vulnerabilities wherever they are in the world with relatively little input from the IT team.”

He continued: “We can release the updates now and get real time reporting as to the state of our laptops. The deployment configuration takes care of everything so we just need to test, and then approve and we can watch the reporting as laptops check in and receive their updates. It’s both time efficient and adds a level of security and assurance we could never have beforehand.

Goble concluded: “It’s great to just be able to release updates and watch the pie chart turn from red to green as the laptops pick up their updates, you always know exactly where your estate is in its update cycle. IT keeps everything going so essential to the operation of the company.”


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