Case Studies
SharePoint = A Corporate Productivity Application
Migrating to MOSS2007 addressed multiple issues with minimal development/capital costs.
Issues:
The "original" Intranet was a completely static website and thus had to be updated via HTML code; it also had no widgets to alert users to new postings so any announcements were sent out with attachments included, placing an unnecessary burden on the company mail server. And the Help Desk was not keeping any history of work being done - thereby having no way to report on staff activities or the ability to report service metrics to management.
Resolution:
SharePoint 2007 is a revolutionary application that did over a billion in sales in 2008. As an Internet/Intranet, document management and application solution it has no peer. With SP2007 I was able to quickly implement:
A new Intranet site complete with a slick, dynamic interface. The "latest news" section has a subscription feature where a user can receive e-mail alerts whenever a new article is posted - with the article embedded via HTML. This was a quantum leap from the "old" method of communicating via huge PDF's - a system admin's nightmare.
A Help Desk application that allowed for a complete audit trail of Service Requests, e-mail notifications to the staff and IT Director, along with granular control for reporting on Help Desk activity.
A "file depot" for Marketing to use for versioning of marketing collateral... this could also be extended to business partners and drastically reduce the data being transmitted back-and-forth. SP2007's "library" also comes with a "check-in/check-out" feature so overwrites of any collateral is avoided.
HA/Failover Server Architecture
SLA's were met and exceeded via the use of a hardware-based solution.
Issue:
Increased demand for ASP services was straining the company's website resources; in addition, SLA's requested by a primary customer (Best Buy) would seek 99.99% uptimes - any outages woudl result in financial penalties.
Resolution:
Through the utilization of F5's Big/IP load-balance device (and some prrogramming changes to the site's code), I was able to add mulitple webservers and establish a highly-available/failover server farm. The site's uptimes increased and the company then had the ability to do code/server maintenance during production time - with Big/IP a server could be brought offline and updated while users never experiencing any service interruptions. With this solution it would be possible to expand the farm as needed - adding servers and being able to "rotate" servers out for routine & emergency maintenance.
Reporting On IT Activity
Measuring and reporting on IT metrics - view into what your network is doing...
Issues:
The old adage "if it's not broke don't fix it" need not apply to the present-day infrastucture. Without knowing how often (or seldom) your critical services suffer outages, you cannot answer questions about meeting internal/external SLA's.
Resolution:
Many services offered today include offer reporting tolls that your company may not be taking advanage of. I can review the various in-sourced or outsourced apps/tools and collate them into an easy-to-read, complete weekly/monthly summary that can report on network uptimes, mail/spam activity, Help Desk history and practically anthing else that can be mesured.
LAN/WAN Streamlining & Optimization
Analysis & migration resulted in substantial savings and exponential bandwidth.
Issue:
An antiquated, cumbersome and slow LAN/WAN architecture that was locked into long-term "mom & pop" ISP agreements costing $7200/mo. Internet access was clocked at less than 800Kbps and interoffice connectivity was less than 1Mbps. There were 20+ devices involved in providing web access - adding additional cost in the form of support contracts and IT overhead. And for a small company there were multiple subnets deployed, another headache that could be corrected.
Resolution:
I proposed a complete overhaul of the infrastructure via a single Tier-1 ISP & Verizon's Metro Ethernet that would increase connectivity by 75 to 90 times faster for both Internet & interoffice while costing $1,100 less per month. This simplified architecture would also result in a decrease of the "edge network" devices from 20+ to 5, eliminate the locked-in contracts and flatten the network to a single subnet. The proposal was accepted.
After several weeks of planning, waiting for Verizon to drop the Metro Ethernet and Cogent to do the same for Intenet, the changeover was tested in parallel with the existing production network. After determining the new architecture was stable and configured properly, the decision to migrate was given. The changeover from the old, slow LAN/WAN to the new 100Mbps ISP/METH took all of five seconds after-hours.
The exponential increase in speed was met was tremendous enthusiasm as it eliminated any bottlenecks users were experiencing. And a few thousand was saved by retiring 15 edge network devices, along with a much more streamlined, easy to administer network for the IT staff.
Spam, Virus & Malware Remediation
Worker productivity improves while eliminating tandem annoyances - spam/virus.
Issue:
Users were receiving dozens of spam & virus-infected messages, resulting in computer/server problems and lost productivity. The company was using a Barracuda device but it was not updated often enough and lacked the "horsepower" to keep up with the onslaught of virus/spam circulating on the web.
Resolution:
MessageLabs was implemented to act as the gateway for all e-mail; using their mulit-pronged attack to combat spam, virus & malware, nearly 2 million messages were blocked in the next 12 months. The users were ecstatic and were spared at least 4500 spam/virus e-mails. Not only did this result in productivity gains but saved several gigabytes of drive space on the company mailserver - all at an easily justifiable cost.
Green Computing, Reduced CAPEX With Virtualization MSFT Virtual Server = cost-effective, resource/eco-friendly, DR/BCP foundation.
Issue:
"Server Sprawl" is an issue even at small to mid-sized companies. Due to fear of overcomplicating IT's lives many applications are isolated to a single server - or more. This has historically resulted in under-utilization of resources, significant capital expenditure and high electric/HVAC costs to keep things running.
Resolution:
A "latest and greatest" in technololgy is virtualization, a method of partitioning a physical server computer into multiple servers such that each has the appearance and capabilities of running on its own dedicated machine. Each virtual server can run its own full-fledged operating system, and each server can be independently rebooted.
The two major vendors, VMWare and Microsoft, were evaluated and priced out. In this case the dollars won out (VMWare is around 4x more expensive) and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 was selected. An additional bonus was significant cost savings on the operating system - a single physical "host" server running Windows 2003 Enterprise can run 4 virtual servers for free.
The end result? Savings of $6,000 a year in reduced electric/HVAC and a reduced footprint from 18 to three servers.
Hardware & Software Migration "Cookie-cutter" process = adherence to strict computer standard & rapid deployment.
Issue:
150 users with non-standard computers and the headaches involved in migrating user's desktops.
Resolution:
In the spirit of Henry Ford's "assembly line" I employed a cookie-cutter process:
Standard desktop - Dell Vostro 200's were chosen for their price point and RAM/HD config.
Acronis was used to create a simple to deploy images - a new PC could be built in 30 minutes.
Microsoft's File & Settings Transfer Wizard was used to move user profiles over.
The process resulted in zero complaints from users. Every single computer was delivered on time and with all user profile/settings intact.