Ubisoft Entertainment (Ubisoft) is one of the leading developers, publishers and distributors of interactive entertainment. The Montréal, Québec, based Canadian office of Ubisoft is the company’s biggest subsidiary and the second largest games development studio in the world. In order to allow its staff to produce the best possible games in the shortest amount of time, the company is required to maintain a cutting edge IT environment. When its aging desktop environment was no longer able to support the demands of Ubisoft’s users, the company worked with ESI Information Technologies to standardize its desktops on Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional. “With the exception of a few desktops running other versions of Windows software to ensure our games are compatible, we decided to upgrade our desktops to Windows XP Professional because of its reputation as a stable and reliable operating system,” said Patrick Fillion, Technical Support Manager at Ubisoft Montréal. “We were looking for a desktop solution which would prevent even a small amount of downtime, something our developers were demanding, and we were confident that with Windows XP we would not have performance issues at all.”
Customer Profile
The largest subsidiary of Ubisoft Entertainment, Ubisoft Montréal is the world’s second largest games development studio
Business Situation
With an aging desktop environment unable to support user demands, Ubisoft experienced reliability and performance challenges, limiting staff productivity and efficiency
Solution
To create a stable, reliable and secure IT environment, Ubisoft implemented Windows XP Professional Edition
Benefits
• Increased stability and reliability of systems
• Reduced support demands on IT staff
• More manageable and secure desktop infrastructure
Software and Services
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Partners
• ESI Technologies
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Known to gaming enthusiasts around the world as the team behind such multi-million selling games as Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six and Prince of Persia The Sands of Time, Ubisoft Entertainment (Ubisoft) is one of the leading developers, publishers and distributors of interactive entertainment. Its worldwide team of 2,350 collaborators working in Barcelona, Casablanca, Paris, Shanghai and other locations has created more than 1,000 game titles since the company’s founding in 1986. The Montréal, Québec, based Canadian office of Ubisoft is the company’s biggest subsidiary and the second largest games development studio in the world.
In the highly competitive interactive entertainment industry, it is critical for Ubisoft to ensure games move from the concept to release stage as quickly as possible, while meeting high technical requirements. In order to stand the test of time, games must be complex enough to continually challenge their fans, requiring developers to write complex and intricate programs and to spend significant amounts of time on creating real characters, background animation and action.
To help its staff produce the best possible games in the shortest amount of time, the company is required to maintain a cutting edge IT environment. This means frequent upgrades to both Ubisoft’s hardware and software.
As Ubisoft was working on a host of increasingly sophisticated games, the company was looking to ensure its developers had a stable desktop environment that provided consistent performance, so that the IT department would spend less time on desktop support.
Experiencing rapid growth, thanks to its successful position within the gaming industry, Ubisoft wanted to ensure that its infrastructure could properly support the games development team as the organization grew. Ubisoft decided that an upgrade to its desktop environment would help solve its performance challenges, and provide the stable desktop environment its developers needed.
“In an organization like ours, the role of the IT department is to ensure that the technical tools we provide our team do not create obstacles for the developers and do not stifle their creativity,” said Gabriel Le, IT Director at Ubisoft Montréal. “So it was critical for us to deliver a stable and reliable desktop experience.”
As the vast majority of the company’s product lives on its desktops and servers, Ubisoft also wanted to ensure a level of security. The organization needed to introduce a solution that would not only give its users the flexibility to carry out their jobs, but would still offer the IT department security tools powerful enough to safeguard sensitive and proprietary data.
Ubisoft decided to upgrade 95 per cent of its desktops to Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition, choosing it as its standard desktop environment. The company worked with ESI Information Technologies, a Montréal, Québec, based developer and integrator of critical infrastructure solutions to best manage its IT infrastructure.
Our users are thrilled because a more stable desktop means that they can spend more time creating games. It’s a huge benefit for our developers to be able to work on Windows XP.
Patrick Fillion
Technical Support Manager
Ubisoft Montréal |
Windows XP helps to provide a dependable computing experience for all of Ubisoft’s users. The operating system has been designed to be the most stable version of Windows to date, delivering a desktop experience Ubisoft’s game developers can rely on. The Windows File Protection feature safeguards system files and reduces the probability of a system failure, while Windows Installer minimizes user downtime and increases system stability by helping users install, configure, track, upgrade, and remove software programs correctly. These features help Ubisoft ensure a stable and reliable desktop experience for its user community.
With fewer desktop performance interruptions, Ubisoft’s IT department is now free to focus on security, leveraging tools within Windows XP such as improved code protection. Since applications are restricted from affecting other applications, Ubisoft’s system now has higher stability. And since all device driver code is read-only and page protected, rogue applications cannot adversely affect core operating system areas. Enhanced software restriction policies also allow the Ubisoft IT staff to better identify software running in their environment, and to safeguard the system from security threats.
“Windows XP has been a big hit with our organization,” said Le. “Even within a complex environment like ours, where we are limited in what security measures and restrictions we can implement by the highly technical work carried out by game developers, the system still provides the IT department with a host of tools to help increase security and ease desktop management.”
With Windows XP, Ubisoft has been able to meet its strategic goal of creating a more stable desktop environment for its games developers, while being able to secure the company’s intellectual property and prepare for future growth. Thanks to the remote management tools Windows XP offers, Ubisoft’s IT staff has also seen a significant drop in the time they spend supporting desktops, allowing them to focus on other critical tasks.
Since introducing Windows XP to the organization, Ubisoft has reported a drop in system crash issues.
“Our users are thrilled because a more stable desktop means that they can spend more time creating games. It’s a huge benefit for our developers to be able to work on Windows XP,” said Patrick Fillion., Technical Support Manager, Ubisoft Montréal.
With Windows XP functions like System Restore and a host of remote support and troubleshooting tools, Ubisoft’s IT staff no longer has to work on each individual station to address an issue or install new components, driving up productivity levels.
“The ability to support desktops remotely is a huge time and financial savings for us,” said Le. “Not having access to those remote tools in the past, meant we had to spend a tremendous amount of time maintaining each individual desktop. Now, with over 1,000 employees, it’s fair to say that without access to the administrative tools within Windows XP, we could not feasibly support our current growth pace.”
Ubisoft has seen such great improvements in its ability to safeguard its IT assets that the team is now preparing to add new security tools to its environment. Ubisoft is currently preparing to deploy Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), confident it will help to add crucial new tools to its security arsenal.
“When we moved to Windows XP, we discovered that there was a lot more security capability than we thought within the operating system,” said Le. “But as new security threats emerge, it is important for us to be proactively working to secure our intellectual property. We’re excited to be able to introduce Windows XP Service Pack 2 to our organization because it will help us do exactly that.”
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