Snap-on Incorporated is a leading global innovator, manufacturer and marketer of tools, diagnostics, equipment, software and service solutions for many industries. Its' clients include Ford, General Motors, Chrysler and thousands of independent automotive repair shops across North America. Found in 1920, Snap-on is a $2.8 billion, S&P 500 company headquartered in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Everyone is familiar with Car Manuals. They have given millions of mechanics the ability to dissemble and re-assemble automobiles. Modern car manuals have kept pace with the electronic era, as they too are now available in electronic form.
Enter Snap-On Business Solutions, a subsidiary of the famous Snap-on Tools. They have a systems integration division that pre-builds PC's & Servers and send them out to automobile manufactures and repair workshops all over North America. They also send out frequent CD/DVD updates to ensure that the manuals are kept up-to-date.
As mechanics require repair manuals, they go onto the Snap-on computers and get the information they need. In addition, they also email, join discussion groups and search for additional information. They also install (on occasion) “unapproved” software; inadvertently causing PC issues. The possibility of getting a virus, or having a OS conflict are high – and in such cases can bring these repair shops down on their knees.
Snap-on needed a solution that would allow them to easily fix these computers without having to dispatch support staff to the far ends of the country. Snap-on initially used Symantec’s GoBack. However, there were issues with GoBack - it uses a buffer space which, when fills up, starts to delete its previous checkpoints. This was a big issue as the CD/DVD updates that were sent monthly to their repair shops are quite large (in some cases over 3GB)... It was an outdated solution that was resource intensive and could not effectively restore systems quickly and easily.
Snap-on required a solution that could easily maintain thier PC's baseline state, regardless of the size of any updates made to the PC's. The end-users needed to have full access to all computing functions and the Roll-back protection needed to be invisible to the user.
Snap-on needed a customized configuration setup whereby snapshots had to be taken once daily and additional snapshots taken whenever an CD autorun or .exe was launched. This would enable Snap-on and its repair center clients to easily backout of any "botched" software or CD installations.
Snap-on chose RollBack Rx Pro. RollBack Rx allows Snap-on to setup a “pristine” configuration as a baseline, with snapshots taken whenever any new software was launched. When anything goes wrong, the system can be easily reset back to a previous snapshot with a simple restart. The process is so simple that the mechanics could generally perform this task by themselves. In certain instances, Snap-On can use the Rollback’s Remote Management Console to reset the machines via the Internet.
“One of the advantages of Rollback”, says Tim Leon, Director of Logistics & Fulfillment Operations at Snap-On Business Solutions, “is that we can set RollBack Rx on an automatic backup schedule. Backups are so fast that they are invisible to the user. It gives us a lot of flexibility when dealing with a site.”
Whenever Snap-on sends out a new workstation, RollBack Rx Pro is pre-installed with their master system image. If the client software needs to be updated, a CD/DVD goes out with a “new image” of the system and Rollback Rx Pro is pre-installed there as well. Snap-on has been delighted with the results. Says Leon, “Rollback RX Pro is a standard recovery tool included with our image on over 4000 PC’s deployed annually to Automotive Parts & Service centers.”
"Horizon DataSys has been a commendable technology partner through a lengthy qualification period." says Tim Leon. Snap-on looks forward to deploying between 16,000 and 20,000 additional licenses by 2012.
RollBack Rx™ is a robust system restore utility that enables home users and IT professionals to easily restore a PC to a time before certain events occurred. RollBack Rx makes it easy for users of all skill levels to quickly and easily repair PC issues - saving time, money and PC trouble.
Reverse any system crash (even if Windows can't startup)
Backout of any failed software installations, botched update etc.
Reverse user errors manually, or set Restore-on-Reboot or Log-off
Roll back minutes, hours, or even months.
Roll backwards and forwards to any system snapshot
Allows users to safely test any software. Fast, 100% clean uninstaller
Roll-back, yet recover files from your "future" snapshot(s)
Retrieve files from a crashed PC, even if Windows can not boot
Access control - prevent unauthorized users from access
Automatically schedule snapshots or hard drive restores
Day Zero Disaster Recovery with no data loss
Group Management and Enterprise Network Administration Control
For more information, please contact us.
