Project Duration: 2nd April 2009 to 10th November 2009

Current Employer: Belmonte Business Equipment Ltd.

Description of Project:

During the start of 2009, I was informed by the Managing Director of my customer site that there was a potential merger of two companies and that merger would require a significant network redesign that would incorporate and accept both companies networks into one system.

April 2009, the MD confirmed that the merger was going ahead and I was asked to proceed with the auditing of the current system and planning of the new system.  The key factors that I had to keep in mind were:

. •The new system must be highly available 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week.

. •The current bespoke database system is to be replaced with a mainstream 3rdparty system called CareManager 3.

. •Data security is paramount as the database contains sensitive personal information.

. •Access to the new system must be available to 20 users at head office and 90 users across 6 remote sites.

. •The company expects to grow further in late 2009, early 2010 with extra sites and more users.

My Role:

My involvement on this project was to plan, prepare, implement and support the new system.

I would need to establish the current specifications of all computer equipment hardware and software by carrying out an audit. I would then need to establish the minimum spec required by the CareManager 3 and other applications such as Microsoft Office 2007 and determine which hardware and software would need to be replaced.  I would then have a clearer picture on how much money would need to be allocated to purchase new hardware.

The next stage would be to design a system that meets the customer’s requirements whilst keeping costs to a minimum. I would need to build some resilience into the new system and ensure that there are failover plans in the event of minor and major disaster recoveries. Although the company is merging with another company, the company is still a small business and over specification of a new system would not be accepted.

Once the costing was established and agreed, I would then purchase the equipment necessary and head a team of technicians to implement my design in a controlled manner, ensuring that absolutely minimal down time is always observed. The company that wrote the new CareManager 3 system will also be present to implement their system and we would assist in rolling out the database client software to all computers.

Remote sites would need to be visited and links established via broadband based VPN’s to head office. We would then be required to set up the remote clients to use encrypted connections to the CareManager 3 servers at all times to ensure data confidentiality.

The final task would be to document the new network configuration and also make sure backups are performed daily during the quieter hours of the morning. Remote diagnostics and monitoring would be set up on the servers so that we can remotely manage the system from our office. This would greatly help us to support the customer should any technical issues arise.

Technical Aspects:

I began the project by using our auditing tool, “AIDA” which gathered information from each computer in the organisation. It told me what hardware specification the computers were, what operating system they were running and also what software was installed on them. It even listed what printers are installed – it is very thorough. I found that approximately 35% of the computers at head office were not up to the task of running the CareManager 3 software and would need upgrades and in some cases, replacement PC’s to bring them in line with the requirements of CareManager 3. The software required 2Ghz Pentium 4 Processor or Dual Core processor, 1gb of RAM for the running of the modules with Windows XP Professional SP3 to be installed. The worst computers were only 128MB RAM and Windows 2000 with 800Mhz Processors. These would need to be replaced as a result.

The server was found to have enough memory and processing power to run Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard along with CareManager 3, but this server also carried out the task of Microsoft Exchange 2003, Active Directory, Terminal Services and was used for network shares. I felt this would be unwise to install anything further on this server with the projected amount of users that were to use it. I recommended a new server to be purchased for the purpose of running Microsoft SQL Server Standard with CareManager 3 and also become a schema master for the domain.

The remote site computers from the merged company network were badly neglected. I found computers that had Windows 95 and 98 Installed. The PC’s were built from parts and some were very unreliable. My recommendation was to replace all the PC’s that fell short of the minimum spec with Thin Clients instead. This would keep the hardware and support costs down and give us greater control over the user’s experience.

My next recommendation was to implement a new server to take over the role of Terminal Services with Citrix ZenApp server and also to have a Citrix Access Gateway to handle the secure VPN connections from the remote sites. This would provide the possibility of rolling out and managing applications from the central server at head office.

At the end of the planning phase, I had broken the new system down into two stages.

Stage 1:

The first stage was to implement the system at head office by upgrading the head office PC’s to the recommended specification, installing the new IBM SQL Server, and roll out CareManager 3 to all head office PC’s.

Stage 2:

Stage 2 saw the installation of the extra IBM Server with Citrix taking over as the Terminal Server. We would also link the remote sites one by one to the head office via Broadband with secure VPN to the Citrix Access Gateway and HP Thin Client terminals. The Active Directory was prepared and built accordingly to cater for the multiple sites and domains, ensuring that all DNS servers were in their appropriate zones and DHCP relays were used to cater for the management of IP addressing throughout the organisation.

We completed Stage 1: Care Managerin June 2009 and we have completed the implementation of Stage 2: Remote sitesin November 2009. I wrote the I.T. Manual for the installation and began supporting each site with our remote monitoring, using Hound Dog (www.hounddogiseasy.com) and we are also able to connect to any computer at Head office via remote desktop for support. The thin clients at the remote sites are very easy to look after as they do not require any configuration. When remote encounter problems, we can resolve them from the server at head office which makes our work easier.

I am quite pleased with the project as it has brought me up to date with Citrix. I have previously been trained in implementing Citrix Metaframe and ZenApp was a new product for me to learn. I also learnt that staggering the roll out of a new system is an effective way of implementing a system in a more methodical way that installs confidence from the customer from the outset. It also enabled me to break the cost down so that there was not a lump sum amount to pay for all the equipment, software and labour costs. It gave the customer the chance to budget and prepare over a longer period of time which the customer is bound to appreciate.