Lenovo
We connected you to your PC.
An Overview
The Challenge
Lenovo needed a way for its Business Partner community to access all resources needed to do business with them. They wanted a solution that simplified the user experience and delivered resources through a common portal.
The Solution
We delivered a solution that allows users access to files, applications, and reports from any device with a single password and provides feedback and usage reports, allowing Lenovo to quickly respond to partners’ needs.
The Outcome
The 2nd Watch hosted webNetwork solution has improved Lenovo’s capability to deliver consolidated services and information to their Business Partner community in North America. In addition to the benefit for the end-users, the solution also delivers feedbacks and usage reports allowing Lenovo to quickly respond to Lenovo Business Partners’ needs.
01
About the Company
Lenovo is the world’s largest PC maker and an emerging PC Plus leader, serving customers in more than 160 countries. Lenovo is dedicated to exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile internet devices. Lenovo’s business is built on product innovation, a highly-efficient global supply chain, and strong strategic execution. Its product lines include legendary Think-branded commercial PCs and Idea-branded consumer PCs, as well as servers, workstations, and a family of mobile internet devices, including tablets and smartphones.
- Headquarters: Beijing and North Carolina
- Research centers: Yamato, Japan, China, and North Carolina.
- Locations: 160 countries
- Employees: 30,000
- Industry: Manufacturing
- Website: https://www.lenovo.com
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The Business Challenges
To simplify a complex and ever-changing business environment, Lenovo needed a solution that allowed their Business Partner community in North America to seamlessly get access to all resources needed to do business with Lenovo. The solution had to be secure and accessible for partners 24/7 as well as consolidate the resources into one location, be easily and quickly updated, and provide the single sign-on capability to all the partner resources. All this needed to be accomplished within the current budget, delivered with a high service level, and allow new functions and resources to be added quickly. Due to resource constraints, and to be able to maintain the business continuation, it needed to be accomplished without requiring changes to the backend systems as well as allow the partner access to the resources with a PC, Tablet, or Phone.
Lenovo also needed help deploying and monitoring its Smart Office application, designed to create a more collaborative workplace for end users. The environment needed to be multi-region and secure.
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The Solution
Lenovo partnered with 2nd Watch to deliver a hosted and highly available solution based on Stoneware’s Unified Cloud Solution called webNetwork. WebNetwork allows users access to files, applications, and reports from any device. WebNetwork simplifies the user experience by creating a Unified Cloud that delivers private data center, public cloud, and local device resources through a common webDesktop with a single password. 2nd Watch delivered the high availability webNetwork solution through Amazon Web Services™ (AWS) cloud and will manage the hosted environment.
“The Stoneware team is very excited to work with 2nd Watch to provide the enabling technology for Lenovo’s Partner Access solution. It will be a great showcase for our cloud technology. Lenovo partners will be able to experience the cloud solution first-hand while interacting with their Lenovo channel team. We see this as being a great way to start building new relationships with Lenovo’s channel partners,” says Rick German, Executive Director, Stoneware.
There are currently thousands of active users on the Lenovo Partner Access, and the user base is currently growing an average of 50 new users per day.
“It will be a great showcase for our cloud technology. Lenovo partners will be able to experience the cloud solution first-hand while interacting with their Lenovo channel team.”
In order to be able to quickly react and accommodate the need for growth, response times, and high availability, 2nd Watch delivered WebNetwork on a platform utilizing AWS EC2 inside a VPN, web nodes behind an ELB, MySQL database, AWS RDS and DNS.
For Lenovo’s Smart Office application, 2nd Watch implemented a Well-Architected Framework with multi-Availability Zones, Alert Logic’s Threat Manager for Intrusion Detection Systems, and vulnerability scans that are run weekly. 2nd Watch also provides ongoing management and maintenance of the environment, including patching when a vulnerability is found and actioning escalations from the Threat Manager for blocking malicious IPs.
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The Business Benefits
The 2nd Watch hosted webNetwork solution has improved Lenovo’s capability to deliver consolidated services and information to their Business Partner community in North America. End-users of Lenovo Partner Access are now able to access all of Lenovo’s sites from the webNetwork webDesktop and with Single Sign-On capabilities. In addition to the benefit for the end-users, the solution also delivers feedbacks and usage reports allowing Lenovo to quickly respond to Lenovo Business Partners’ needs.
“Lenovo Partner Access Portal and this is directly in line with our goals to enhance our Partner’s experience and simplify our processes. The single sign-on Stoneware solution that we are implementing will not only revolutionize the way we deliver IT services to our Partners in North America but will become the face to our cloud. Allowing our partners to share in this solution could enhance their customers’ experience as well,” stated Chris Frey, Vice President, North America Commercial Channels & SMB.
Currently, Lenovo Partner Access is available to North American customers. Lenovo plans to work with 2nd Watch to expand availability globally.
