IntroductionWhen desktop computers and local area networks (LANs) appeared in the 1980s, they were small scale and being quite complex required practical technical skills, so they were acquired in limited quantities. The low cash costs also meant they were often purchased without senior management approval. The popularity of computers and LANs grew to the point that some organizations recognized the need to account for the cost of resources and time spent on support. Industry analysts, using total cost of ownership (TCO) techniques, have studied the real costs and found that they are approximately 6-7 times the initial purchase price over the lifecycle of the technology. With uncontrolled purchasing, companies discover that their hardware estate consists of a wide range of devices from different manufacturers. Lack of knowledge about the age of equipment and the existence of support agreements are also commonplace. Operating systems (OS) have been produced in abundance by software vendors for many years. These platforms are typically installed by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM), i.e. pre-installed at the time of purchase, or by a technically competent person within the organization. From the wide choice of platforms available, companies find that there is more than one OS platform installed throughout the company. Even if there is only one operating system available, it is extremely unlikely that there will be a consistent base installation, due to changing business requirements, the release of service packs, hot fixes, and the multitude of available subcomponents. At a time when organizations have become reliant on technology poses a serious challenge to IT services, since consistent end-to-end services can rarely... half of paper......ler introduce or change a service providerDisadvantagesThe main disadvantage of creating an initial SOE, which adds advantages to a company, is the amount of time and effort required to produce. With the resources involved in the design and testing phases, and the amount of work required to produce a final image and delivery infrastructure, costs can soon escalate and become increasingly difficult to justify. There are many other issues with injecting an image; • If you have insufficient hardware, creating an automated SOE installation will not achieve a return on investment (ROI) within an acceptable time frame. Most image changes are caused by driver updates a hardware purchasing policy should be introduced, otherwise the effort associated with constantly changing the image will impact cost savings