MMM Group builds a better company

BY ROSIE LOMBARDI

Standardizing on a common system platform is an issue for many growing companies with offices in different cities. One engineering company facing this situation used various Microsoft enterprise products and services to get its house in order.

MMM Group is a planning, engineering, geomatics and project management firm that provides professional consulting services for sustainable community, building, transportation and infrastructure development throughout Canada and the rest of the world.

The MMM Group has grown from 500 to approximately 1700 people in the last 5 years both organically and through multiple acquisitions, the most recent being McCormick Ranking Corporation, adding roughly 400 people two years ago. The company now has 20 offices across Canada.

“We had a mix of technology in our offices – Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 98, and Windows NT. We wanted to create a standard image so we wouldn’t have to worry about servicing seven or eight images of PCs out in various offices,” says Mark Bryant, CIO at MMM, who was brought on board with a mandate to restructure the company’s technology. Imposing order on the hodge-podge of systems, equipping staff with the latest and greatest productivity tools and technology, and unifying all into one well-oiled engineering machine is an important next step that will allow MMM to stay ahead of the competition, says Bryant.

Due to the ailing economy, the government is already spending stimulus money on major public infrastructure projects – and there will likely be even more to come in the future.

“We’re already working on a number of these projects, but we wanted to position ourselves for the next wave of growth. We expect government infrastructure spend will continue, as the reality is that Canada’s public infrastructure is aging and will continue to require upgrades,” he says.

MMM’s technology upgrade
The restructuring was initially focused on upgrading and rebuilding the guts of the network from the ground up, before tackling the system’s back- and front-end.

“We needed to clean up the network infrastructure first so we would have a solid foundation for our move to a standard environment,” says Bryant. To modernize and integrate its systems, MMM made the decision last year to make one larger leap instead of several smaller leaps by skipping in-between versions such as Vista and going directly from Windows XP to Windows 7, and moving from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008 R2.

To facilitate this transition, MMM negotiated a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, a comprehensive volume licensing program.

“We wanted to centralize and consolidate administration in one central place and get economies of scale.”

The company also entered the early adopter program where Microsoft connects with various customers and users, giving them access to pre-release products. “We wanted to modernize much faster than a normal pass would have taken. The program allowed us to get a good look under the hood and see how Windows 7 would work with our applications.”

It also showed where MMM could realize some significant productivity gains, with improved performance across the enterprise, including with the company’s highly specialized engineering and design applications.

Last August, the company did an initial pilot to test with 100 users in different offices to see what issues came up before planning a full-blown rollout.

There were only a few minor hiccups during the pilot, says Palak Patel, enterprise architect at MMM.

“The biggest issue was some missing print drivers, and we also had to do some additional testing for legacy applications. The print driver problem is probably not an issue today, as hardware vendors hadn’t released their Windows 7 drivers yet at the time.”

MMM’s formal rollout will soon be in full swing, says Bryant. “We’ve just finalized the elements we want in our standard image. In March, we’ll start rolling out on a city-by-city basis by our travelling IT team. They’ll be upgrading 20 desktops daily, ensuring they’re OK, then doing the next wave. We expect the rollout will be completed in about four to six months.” Improved productivity is the key benefit of the upgrade, he says. User complaints about slow response times when working with memory-hogging GIS and CAD applications have been resolved. “Windows 7 is better and more stable than any other operating system I’ve used, including non-Microsoft ones,” says Patel.

The variety of embedded features such as enhanced search, sticky notes and recording pleases the budget-conscious IT department in addition to users, he adds. “There are cost savings when these utilities are part of the operating system instead of paying more to get them from separate vendors.”

Accommodating mobile users is critical, and the persistent wireless access built into Windows 7 is an area where significant improvements have been made over Windows XP, says Bryant. “I can walk around with my laptop and it’ll detect wireless networks easily. It shows everything in an area and tells me if it’s secured or unsecured with a right-click of the toolbar, and tells me if a new network is available if I’m in an area I’ve never been in before.”

This is largely due to the evolution of chipsets and Microsoft’s adoption of the new 802.11 standard for wireless networking, says Mark Tauschek, lead research analyst at the London, Ont.-based Info-Tech Research Group.

“Microsoft built a whole new underlying architecture for wireless in Windows 7. Its wireless security is excellent if it’s implemented with the WAP2 security standard. But the wireless LAN it connects to also has to be configured for WAP2, as the strong security comes from both Windows 7 and the network itself.”

Server combo features and issues
Concurrent with the Windows 7 rollout, MMM will also be moving to Microsoft Server 2008 R2, which supports various new features when the two work in concert – but aren’t available in Windows 7 alone.

MMM’s mobile users are eager for the DirectAccess feature for VPN connectivity to the corporate network. “A lot of our staff work from remote offices or are on the run at project locations, so we’re going to implement that very soon,” says Patel.

Users don’t need to know or worry about managing VPN credentials or connections with the feature. Instead, a certificate is stored on the PC that allows for completely seamless logon, using exactly the same logon authentication procedures users would use at the office without cumbersome extra steps.

This certificate-based approach is actually more secure than the traditional approach, he says. “The 1024-bit encryption key used in DirectAccess’ certificate is virtually uncrackable. Compared with the eight-character password typically used in other VPN software, it’s far more secure.”

Security for DirectAccess is very robust, agrees Tauschek. “Even traffic travelling over an unsecured wireless network will be secure due to the encryption used.”

Users can even install DirectAccess on a second computer at home or a BlackBerry and still authenticate through to the network, says Patel. “Some corporations only allow this on devices owned by the company, and IT can control which devices can access the network.”

MMM is getting very close to a single sign-on credential approach, without using third-party mechanisms such as an identity management server, he adds. “A single ID is a lot easier.

BranchCache is another Windows 7/Microsoft Server 2008 R2 combo feature which is designed to reduce bandwidth-gobbling downloads and speed up file-sharing across multiple office locations.

“So if one staff at a remote office downloads a 500 MB file from head office, and then someone else in the same office wants it too, BranchCache gets if from the local machine via the LAN instead of going across the WAN and the Internet to get it again from head office,” explains Bryant.