Microsoft Services
Customer Solution Case Study
Global Manufacturer Restores and Enhances
Directory Service with Remediation Strategy
Customer: British American Tobacco
Web Site: www.bat.com
Customer Size: 55,000 employees
Country or Region: India
Industry: Consumer Packaged Goods
Partner: ITC InfoTech
Customer Profile
British American Tobacco is one of the
world’s largest tobacco companies,
producing more than 300 brands. The
manufacturer employs more than 55,000
people and serves approximately 180
markets.
Software and Services
 Microsoft Services
− Active Directory Risk Assessment
Program
Partner Profile
ITC's wholly owned Information
Technology subsidiary, ITC InfoTech is
based in Bangalore, and provides end-toend IT solutions and services. ITC InfoTech
combines its experience across various
industry sectors with world-class
capabilities in technology to deliver
‘business-friendly solutions’ in four
verticals:
 Banking, Financial Services and
Insurance (BFSI)
 Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)
and Retail
 Manufacturing
 Travel, Hospitality and Transportation
For more information about other Microsoft
customer successes, please visit:
www.microsoft.com/casestudies
“Microsoft Services came up with a well-defined
remediation strategy to resolve our severe replication
issues. We were really impressed by the way they
undertook the task and executed the entire project
flawlessly.”
Darren Eastland, Global EUS Manager, British American Tobacco
Business Needs
Founded in 1902, British American Tobacco
(BAT) is one of the world’s largest cigarette
manufacturers. Its portfolio of more than
300 brands features some of the world’s
best-known brands, including Kent, Lucky
Strike, and Pall Mall. BAT employs more than
55,000 people worldwide.
The company’s global IT network system
incorporates 102 domains and 450 domain
controllers. To manage this “data forest,”
BAT has outsourced the Active Directory®
Service to ITC Infotech as part of Level 2 and
Level 3 Infrastructure support to BAT. At the
time of Services Migration to ITC Infotech ,
the health check showed that BAT’S vast
network was experiencing problem, with
employees unable to log on to applications
and access information. The replication
system was also unable to replicate data
across the entire system, which created
multiple views of the BAT network directory.
The primary issue was the site replication
topology, which did not align with BAT’s wide
area network and meet replication
requirements. A lack of network connectivity
to all sites from a central location made it
extremely difficult to devise a plan to
stabilize the environment and measure
progress. The absence of a proactive
monitoring system also added to the
problems facing BAT.
“Immediately after services commenced out
of ITC Infotech, a decision was taken to
engage with ITC Infotech’s technology
partner, Microsoft and form a task force of
BAT, ITC Infotech and Microsoft technical
managers to restore the health of the AD
forest and ensure that the services being
delivered achieves high levels of customer
satisfaction,” says V Sreenivasan, Vice
President , ITC Infotech.
To deal with the problem, ITC Infotech turned
to Microsoft® Services Premier Support. Lee
Oommen, Technology Architect with the
Windows Center of Excellence in Microsoft
Services, analyzed the environment and
immediately realized BAT was faced with a
serious situation—more than 400,000
outstanding replication queues.
“This was obviously a very serious issue faced
by BAT,” notes Oommen. “BAT had a database
that‘s logically split into hundreds of domains
distributed across the globe, and the changes
were not converging. The company needed to
have a well-defined site replication topology
and replication working so that changes would
converge. The system they had was broken to
the point where it was causing multiple
problems within the BAT environment.”
Solution
impacted. They defined their strategy in
different phases, each of which contained an
execution plan, a timeline, and a backup
plan.”
“All three parties—Microsoft Services, ITC
Infotech and BAT—worked like a single team
to fix all the critical issues,” says Piya Ray,
AGM, ITC Infotech. “BAT provided all the
relevant access and necessary timelines to
carry out the strategy. Microsoft Services
designed the solution, and ITC Infotech
implemented it successfully.”
Benefits
For all parties involved, the whole experience
was mutually beneficial. The solution
restored the Active Directory structure at BAT
to a healthy state, putting the company back
on the right track from an IT standpoint. At
the same time, Microsoft Services and ITC
Infotech garnered valuable information
about solving such complex problems.
Restore Directory Services
The solution from Microsoft Services
optimized the Active Directory site topology
at BAT. It eliminated the frequent delays in
replicating objects among the domain
controllers and in obtaining certificates from
the server—issues which prevented
employees from accessing the network. The
solution also increased bandwidth
availability and streamlined communication
channels, reducing overall Active Directory
replication connections from 12,000 to 640.
“Our employees were frustrated with the
slow connection times and problems
accessing AD,” says Darren Eastland. “The
To craft a solution, Microsoft Services chose
to deploy the Active Directory Risk
Assessment Program (ADRAP), delivered by
Tom Daniels of the Premier Field Engineering
organization. The ADRAP identified and
prioritized risks, recommended fixes and
defined success metrics. It also identified
various mitigation steps for the risks
associated with these fixes. With Oommen’s
guidance and expertise, the virtual team
comprising of ITC Infotech, Microsoft and
BAT created a solution—using various
remediation tools and processes—and
stabilized the BAT infrastructure in less than
three weeks. The dramatic results are shown
in Figure 1.
“Microsoft Services came up with a welldefined remediation strategy to resolve our
severe AD replication issues,” says Darren
Eastland of BAT. “We were really impressed by
the way they undertook the task and executed
the entire project flawlessly while ensuring
that directory services delivery was minimally
Figure 1. Results of Remediation followed by Active Directory
Risk Assessment Program (ADRAP)
strategy from Microsoft Services fixed these
issues and restored the network to maximum
performance.”
Patrick Huff, a Program Manager for the
Microsoft Services Industry Solutions group,
agrees. "The ADRAP program was built to
provide our customers with a solution to their
Active Directory problems, and this
environment is a testament to its
effectiveness when the remediation plan is
carried out by the customer."
Increase Operational Efficiency
The strategies that Microsoft Services
provided cut the number of pending
replication tasks from approximately 400,000
down to 22,000 in less than two weeks. With
this backlog reduced and replication
functionality restored, the IT staff could focus
on frontline network issues and provide
resolutions more quickly.
“We have experienced a large drop in the
rate of employee support incidents related to
Active Directory,” says Hariharan
Balasubramaniam, Operations Manager of
BAT. “This has made a big difference in our
business and productivity levels.”
Promote Operational Excellence
BAT wanted to make sure that this problem
would not recur, so Microsoft Services
trained the company’s staff to implement
process and procedure to diagnose
symptoms proactively and prevent them
from becoming problems. Oommen
explained this concept with the adage that
compares the long-term solution of teaching
someone how to fish with the short-term
benefit of giving them a fish.
“We taught the customer how to fish, which
was one of our main goals,” says Oommen.
“Now they have a proactive framework to
follow. There will be fewer problems, but if
any occur, they will be easy to troubleshoot.”
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published February 2008
“We have a comprehensive plan that lets us
stay on top of things and keep our queues to
manageable levels,” says Rishi Verma,
Operation Manager, ITC Infotech. “We’re
confident that if something goes wrong in
the future, we know how to fix it ourselves.”