Walling Data and AVG Restore Pyramid Healthcare’s Efficiency

Monday, 12 January 2009 19:00

Behavioral healthcare services company standardizes on AVG Network Edition

Pyramid Healthcare, founded in 1999, provides behavioral healthcare services for people dealing with alcohol abuse, drug addiction, mental health disorders, and behavioral problems. The company has 23 locations across Pennsylvania, with an IT infrastructure that includes five servers, 240 workstations, and, until recently, a distinctly disjointed approach to antivirus protection.

Kevin Oconis, IT Manager at Pyramid Healthcare, knew he needed to adopt a standardized antivirus solution for the company’s network to make it run more efficiently. “When I started, we had a patchwork network of anti-virus solutions including Symantec and ClamWin,” he said. “I started my campaign for standardization almost as soon as I joined the company.”

“Already Sold” on AVG

Oconis had for many years trusted the protection of his home system to AVG Free Edition. “I was already sold on the idea of using an AVG solution for Pyramid Healthcare because I’d had great experience with AVG’s Free Edition version at home,” he noted.

“I had tried other “brand name” solutions, but it seemed I always had to make a trade-off between effective security and acceptable system performance. Only AVG provided the protection and performance I was looking for.”

Making the Case for Change

Oconis had already made up his mind about AVG, but he knew he would have to spend time building a case for the change to his superiors. “The challenge was convincing senior management of the value of standardizing on a single solution,” Oconis recalled. “Because large sections of Pyramid’s networks had been running ClamWin, an open source product, I had to justify the additional expense of moving the whole infrastructure to a single protection standard.”

He spent several months building his argument in favor of a switch to AVG. First, he compiled a ‘hit list’ of the major anti-virus software products on the market, obtained trial versions of each, and analyzed each product in terms of protection against viruses, spyware, and other malware. Not surprisingly, all the “big names” passed the detection tests.

Then it was on to performance testing on Pyramid’s distributed network. “AVG had a remarkably small footprint on our servers,” Oconis said. “We don’t have many high-spec computers, so we needed an antivirus solution that wasn’t going to monopolize valuable system resources. When I installed AVG, we found that the machines performed faster than with either Symantec or ClamWin. This gave me the ammunition I needed to prove AVG was the right solution for our network.”





The final step was the return on investment. So Oconis came up with a “what-if” scenario that detailed the consequences and costs if a virus were to penetrate the company’s network – an event which would clearly be more likely to happen with the then-current patchwork solution.

“When I presented his case to senior management, the choice was clear,” said Oconis. “I quickly received approval to move ahead with the switch to AVG.”

Finding the Right Supplier

Armed with management approval, Oconis went in search of a solid supplier that could help him through the transition. After interviewing several Authorized AVG vendors, he settled on Walling Data.

“I chose them because of the company’s personalized service,” Oconis remembered. “I was impressed from the word “go”, when an actual person answered my call instead of a machine.”

Walling Data is the longest-standing and highest-volume distributor of AVG Technologies solutions in North America, and the only supplier to offer all its customers - resellers and end-users – free, unlimited, U.S-based pre- and post- sales support.

In addition to great customer service, Walling Data also delivered on price. “Their cost was more than competitive, particularly when I took into account the Free US support, and so I went ahead with the purchase of 250 two-year licenses of AVG Network Anti-Virus.

“Switching to AVG has saved me countless hours of time that I would otherwise have spent ensuring all our workstations and servers remained protected,” Oconis said.

For more information on how to purchase AVG Anti-Virus from Walling Data, resellers and end users can visit http://www.avgantivirus.com