The City of Espoo

The City of Espoo relies on HP Services to manage IT operations that serve 9,000 users at 400 sites. Under the three-year agreement with the government of Finland's second-largest city, an on-site HP Services team manages and supports the city's enterprise servers and its utility-based messaging environment for 8,000 Microsoft Exchange mailboxes; and, with HP partner Elisa Communications, a Finnish ISP, supports the city's network. While helping the city's IT organization to expand services and save money by tandardizing IT processes and platforms, the solutions also give the city the potential to develop Web-based municipal services and new business applications.

Finland's second-largest city serves growing population by outsourcing IT
Espoo, the second-largest city in Finland, is a showcase of this Nordic nation's strengths. Home to global giants such as Nokia and Orion as well as the Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo is a thriving business community and also a vibrant cultural hub.

Buoyed by its strong service economy, this coastal city of more than 213,000 people is one of the fastest-growing urban areas in Finland and its per-capita income is twice the national average. But burgeoning residential and commercial growth brings challenges as well as prosperity. The local government is striving to maintain the high level of service that is the standard in Espoo, a city renowned for its quality of life.

"We provide an extremely wide spectrum of services," says Eira Mononen, Information Technology (IT) director of the City Of Espoo , which employs 5,200 people in its four service sections: central administration; education,culture and recreation; social and health services; and environmental and technical services.

"We have a young, rapidly growing population," says Mrs. Mononen, "and their needs add to the demand for new services. To keep pace with our city's growth, we require more efficient service delivery, leaner administrative processes and new partnerships in service provisioning. "

"This is where information technology (IT) enters the picture," Mrs. Mononen continues. "We want to be in the forefront of digital service delivery and achieve a well-integrated IT infrastructure. If IT doesn't work, the city won't work."

In December 2001, the City of Espoo selected HP to provide a dedicated, on-site team to manage the city's IT infrastructure, including its 70 enterprise servers, network, and 8,000-seat messaging environment. The mixed-platform environment spans 400 sites, serves 9,000 users and supports 5,200 PCs.

"We no longer worry about systems and support," says Mrs. Mononen. "instead of focusing on day-to-day management, we concentrate on how to use our IT resources to improve services to our residents."

By standardizing IT processes and platforms and providing economies of scale and single-source control, the HP managed-services solution is helping the city's IT organization to cost-effectively expand services. While transforming the city's IT infrastructure into an integrated, business-driven operation, these initiatives also establish the foundation for the city to proceed with its e-services program, an initiative to make most municipal services available through the Web by 2005.

"HP is a strong partner," Mrs. Mononen continues. "Our HP Services team provides us with technology know-how, proven models and processes' and choice. We don't have to purchase more than we need. With its wealth of offerings as well as partners, we can buy what we require now. HP adapts its services to our evolving requirements."

First year: building foundation for transformation
Spanning a city that encompasses 206 square miles [528 km], Espoo's 400 IT sites vary from banks of servers in data centers to PCs in libraries and day-care facilities.

In this highly decentralized environment, many user groups once acquired and ran their own IT systems. The agreement with HP replaced this mix of user-driven procurement and support practices, providing one contract and one point of accountability for support of almost all resources.

An HP team leader heads the dedicated team of HP Services personnel, which includes 11 former members of the city's IT organization.

The city's IT staff worked with the HP Services team to establish a common framework for integrating and standardizing the city-wide IT infrastructure. As a result, the city is making better use of its IT resources, including people, processes and systems.

"We need structure and discipline to serve such a large environment with so many users and sites," says Mrs. Mononen. "Our HP Services team provides models and processes to standardize service procurement and management. We've established a good base for planning, buying and managing services that cost-effectively meet our required service level agreements (SLAs). "

"Working together," continues Mrs. Mononen, "we are developing service packages, contracts, documentation and reporting tools that serve our internal customers and service providers. Although we are still in the process of defining these offerings, users are accepting these structures and seeing the benefits."

The city can now align SLAs and budgets with the varying business needs of its diverse user groups.

Under the HP agreement, costs are transferred into monthly payments that are visible to each group of users, who now subscribe to their chosen level of service.

"Before, service was budgeted as a common expense," says Mrs. Mononen. "Now, every unit pays for its own support. Our objective is to offer service like a utility provides electricity: we connect them and it works. While providing users with better support, the city is already spending less to achieve its required service levels."

Collaboration replaces fire drills
HP IT Service Management (ITSM) provided a framework for aligning the city's IT processes with business goals. HP's best practices include processes, models and rules to standardize such activities as service provisioning, change management and equipment orders and approvals. HP ITSM also offers tools to track performance and end-user satisfaction such as SLAs and twice-yearly user satisfaction surveys.

The HP Services team and in-house IT staff engage users in IT decision-making through three steering committees that include employees who represent business units. They meet at least twice a month to identify the needs of groups and sites and plan solutions.

While helping to determine future IT investments, the collaborative process also yields immediate paybacks. The committees reallocated idle servers to user groups needing more capacity; and trimmed help-desk coverage during hours when few users require support. Responding to users' diverse requirements, the HP Services team expanded server support options from three levels to five.

"We work with HP to proactively recognize and solve problems," says Mrs. Mononen, "and we make more balanced and efficient use of IT assets. As a result, users receive better service and, at the same time, we save money."

IT infrastructure support: higher-level service at lower cost
The City of Espoo's 70 primary servers comprise a mix of different platforms, including HP ProLiant servers, HP NetServer models running the HP-UX operating system, HP OpenVMS-based AlphaServer systems and a few AIX-based IBM systems.

Replacing a third-party service provider, HP Services assumed management of these servers as well as the city's platform-independent HP StorageWorks storage area networks (SANs)

"Our systems receive good care, including timely upgrades," says Mrs. Mononen. "We are very pleased with HP support. With HP, we obtain a higher level of service at a lower price."

"During this past year, our PC base expanded from 4,000 to 5,200," continues Mrs. Mononen. "Meanwhile, we reduced our own on-site IT personnel. We couldn't have supported this growth on our own. With HP Services, we managed it with no gaps in service."

The HP team supports the city's LAN and firewalls in concert with HP partner Elisa Communications, a Finnish Internet service provider. "Working with HP and Elisa," says Mrs. Mononen, "we developed a service that provides comprehensive virus and spam protection. We've achieved very good results."

Messaging on Demand reliable, scalable support at predictable price
The HP contract extends to another major component of the city's infrastructure, its messaging environment. HP Services is providing an HP Microsoft Exchange 2000 on Demand solution that supports the city's 8,000 mailboxes.

Priced utility-style on a per-mailbox, per-month basis, the comprehensive HP managed-messaging solution includes: Microsoft Exchange 2000 installation, configuration, and management; performance monitoring; backup and recovery; and virus and security protection.

With the messaging-on-demand service, the city increases both financial and operational flexibility: messaging costs are predictable, simplifying budget planning. And as a managed service, the messaging infrastructure can easily expand with user growth.

The HP messaging solution also provides the city with industry-leading Microsoft support. As Microsoft's first and only prime integrator for Microsoft Windows and Exchange 2000, HP builds into its Microsoft Exchange 2000 on Demand solution a host of tools and best practices to enhance and streamline support. These resources include Web-based HP eSupport tools, which the city plans to take advantage of in the future.

Help desk becomes user resource of choice
Replacing in-house support, an HP-managed help desk now provides a single contact point to end users for all desktop hardware and software.

Before, when seeking support, users frequently faced delays and often turned to their colleagues for assistance, a practice that led to a highly inconsistent level of service.

The new, centralized HP help desk has quickly become the best channel for rapid resolution to user problems.

"Two years ago, when we ran our own help desk, we received a few hundred calls per month," says Mrs. Mononen. "Now, we handle more than 3,000 calls a month. Users have accepted this channel."

The city's first user survey showed that the HP help-desk team is rapidly approaching its user-satisfaction and performance targets, including the goal to solve 80 percent of users' problems during the first call.

Standardizing platforms: "a giant step forward in IT consolidation"
While integrating management of the city's existing IT resources, the HP Services team is helping the city to plan and implement its new platform for better and lower-cost service delivery.

HP Services consultants are migrating the city's Microsoft Windows-based systems to Microsoft Active Directory. Next, they will move the city's PCs to the Microsoft Windows XP operating system. The platform will enable the city to centrally manage distributed IT resources.

"This project is a giant step forward in IT consolidation," says Mrs. Mononen. "We'll be able to expand services while lowering costs because networked services require fewer on-site IT personnel.

"Working with HP Services, we've established a foundation for standardizing and streamlining service delivery," concludes Mrs. Mononen, "and we've obtained higher levels of support for a lower cost. HP Services is helping us to develop an IT infrastructure that meets the growing needs of our city."

Challenges

• Rapid commercial and residential growth increases demand for services
• IT staff reductions, decentralized processes and dated systems hinder efficiency
• PC base expands from 4,000 systems to 5,200
• Administrative strategy shifts from in-house service provision to partnerships
• City sets goal of making most services available through Web by 2005

Solution components:
HP Services

• Three-year HP Managed Services contract including
  • Maintenance of servers and storage
  • Microsoft Exchange 2000 on Demand for 8,000 mailboxes
  • On-site support and help-desk
  • Data security and virus protection
  • Enterprise network support jointly delivered with partner Elisa Communications
• Consulting
  
  • Migration of ProLiant servers from Microsoft Windows NT to Microsoft Active Directory
  • Migration of PCs from Microsoft Windows NT to Microsoft XP operating system

Hardware

• 26 HP ProLiant servers (models DL360, DL380, ML370, 6400R, ML580); 27 NetServer systems (models LC2000, LC2000r, LH3r,LH6000r, LH3000r, PL2000); 5 HP9000 servers; and 2 AlphaServer systems
• HP StorageWorks SAN based on HP EVA5000 system

Results/benefits:

• Higher-level IT services at lower cost
• Faster user support, with almost 80% of all user issues resolved on first call
• Consistent SLA performance while serving 1,200 more users
• Improved IT agility and payback with standards, single point of accountability
• IT expenditures and SLAs aligned with users' business needs and budgets

Additional information