East Texas A&M University (ETAMU) is the fifth oldest public university in Texas, offering degrees in education, engineering, business, and the liberal arts. The university is home to over 13,000 students and 2,000 staff. While ETAMU is a center of educational excellence, when Charles Gaskill joined in 2018 as desktop support supervisor, the university’s endpoint management environment was an IT tech’s nightmare. Not only was the university’s legacy endpoint management solution a huge expense on the P&L but the legacy tool was clunky, unreliable, and slow.
Gaskill and his team needed to be able to monitor, manage, and support over 4,000 endpoints across multiple campuses throughout the region and support hybrid learning as well. “Our previous solution was inefficient and impractical for our lean team. The tools were antiquated–we lacked control and visibility was poor. We had very substandard insight into our patching metrics and working with those conditions was unacceptable,” Gaskill shared.
Making the switch for savings and scale
By switching from their previous vendor to NinjaOne, ETAMU immediately cut $50,000 in annual licensing costs. The team also replaced two other tools for an additional $8,000 per year.
Ultimately, Gaskill’s goal was more than simply saving money, it was also about enabling operational scale. “I’d rather have a team of four doing the work of twelve than the other way around,” Gaskill said. “But we needed the right tools to make that possible.”
Rapid deployment and efficiency gains
Deploying NinjaOne across ETAMU’s multiple campuses was fast and seamless. Leveraging the university’s existing Active Directory infrastructure, Gaskill and his team rolled out the platform to all 4,000+ endpoints in just days. NinjaOne’s patching, automation capabilities, and remote access solutions continue to deliver.
- Monthly patch cadence closes vulnerabilities quickly and efficiently
- Automating routine tasks and critical workflows saves the team at least four hours per technician per day
- Improved compliance ensures confidence
- Remote access helps the team resolve issues in 30 – 60 seconds instead of 30 – 60 minutes – that’s 120X faster MTTR
- Warranty tracking speeds device repair and replacement processes
Everyone benefits from NinjaOne efficiency
The efficiency NinjaOne brings to ETAMU’s lean IT team has redefined what’s possible. Today, the team operates with only four full-time staff and one student worker, down from 12 – 13 with the previous tools. But fewer IT techs has not dampened end-user satisfaction. Gaskill’s lean team sets new expectations everyday thanks to the automations and efficiency gained with NinjaOne.
An additional benefit for both IT and end users is being able to provide self-serve installs for commonly requested apps. Gaskill’s team places the approved, popular apps in the system tray so users can install what they need without even calling IT. It’s one less ticket the IT team has to handle, and it empowers the end users to self-serve.
A modern blueprint for IT excellence
For ETAMU, NinjaOne has become more than just an endpoint management solution. It’s the foundation of a smarter and more agile IT operation. They have modernized endpoint management, automated key workflows, paved the way to over a million dollars in projected savings and at the same time, improved visibility, strengthened audit readiness, and enhanced the end-user experience.
Read the full story to learn how East Texas A&M is setting a new benchmark for It efficiency in higher education.
