Business Situation
Sonic Automotive required more centralized support and management of dealership systems due to their long history of acquisitions and minimal focus on integrating dealerships on a standard platform. Sonic purchased a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement as the common platform for the enterprise, addressing the need for enterprise deployments, improved support, and management of Sonic dealerships.

Solution
Avanade designed and deployed the new Microsoft infrastructure that included Active Directory as the enterprise directory. Each dealership housed a server that hosted Active Directory on Hyper-V, Data Protection Manager for end user data, Configuration Manager and Operations Manager for more effective support and management of the dealerships.

The Avanade team visited each dealership in the Sonic organization to complete the migration and provide day-after support for the migration activity to ensure minimal impact to Sonic dealerships. The solution provides Sonic with a centralized and managed platform for all Sonic end users and computing assets.

Technologies: 

• Active Directory 2008
• Windows Server 2008
• Hyper-V
• System Center Configuration Manager
• System Center Operations Manager
• System Center Data Protection Manager

Results
Sonic now has an integrated enterprise directory that encompasses all network assets so that it can provide efficient shared services to boost the Sonic brand and democratize IT support and services across all Sonic Automotive dealerships.