Bulgarian national IT company boosts security and efficiency with Microsoft

Information Services Jsc is a joint-stock company majority-owned by the Bulgarian Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications. Supporting state institutions projects across the country, the company places high value on the best data protection. That’s why it’s in the middle of a successful evolution to the latest and most secure Microsoft’s core product – Windows 10. A move which its IT team says will improve operational efficiency, and deliver multiple management benefits.

Unified desktop for maximum efficiency

With roots going back to 1970, Information Services Jsc acts as an IT partner for the Bulgarian state. It carries out important state institutions projects for central and local government, as well as Ministry of Finance, National Revenue Agency, Customs Agency, Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of education and science, Central election Commission, Municipalities, Courts, etc.

Much of that work involves handling of sensitive citizen data, like regional and local elections. That makes information security a major factor in everything Information Services Jsc does. And while a Microsoft customer since 2000, it’s the organization’s on-going phased transition to the company’s latest and most secure operating system, Windows 10, that has started to make that security as deeply embedded in its core processes and tools as its IT team really want.

“We’ve been Windows 7 and 8.1 users for some time, as we follow a unified desktop strategy for maximum efficiency,” states the Deputy IT head of the company’s System Integration and Innovations business unit, Lyudmil Dimitrov.

“But it’s really only since we decided to adopt Windows 10 as part of a structured program of enterprise-wide hardware replacement that we’ve been able to take advantage of the full range of Microsoft’s data protection and security functionality.” In particular, Dimitrov calls out Windows 10’s built-in enterprise data protection, device guard, support for machine-level biometrics and support for device encryption as especially useful in this regard.

Secure, highly-available and reliable

Dimitrov and the rest of his colleagues in System Integration and Innovations - which acts as internal IT for the 500-person, 27 branch company - don’t just see security as the main benefit of the upgrade from previous releases. “We also really like the user interface control we now have, which easily allows us to customize an individual piece of hardware to do just what we want for a specific task, while improved group policy management gives us much tighter control of not just our physical, but our virtual machines, too.”

Dimitrov says the benefits of the evolution to Windows 10 will be spread across the whole company soon, with a target of 75% of approved users on the new OS by year-end. “We are seeing real operation efficiency improvements here, with secure, highly-available and reliable IT for the whole company.”

"We are seeing real operation efficiency improvements, with secure, highly-available and reliable IT for the whole company."
Lyudmil Dimitrov: Deputy Director System Integration and Innovations
Information Services Jsc

Source: http://customers.microsoft.com/en-us/story/information-services-government-windows10-enterprise-agreement-en