4-page Case Study - Posted 10/28/2006
Views: 163
Rate This Evidence:
Poste Italiane Group Takes Advantage of 64-Bit Computing with Messaging Upgrade
Poste Italiane Group offers its customers throughout Italy a variety of services, from postal products and delivery to e-Business solutions. Poste Italiane wanted to further develop the business-critical areas of its technology infrastructure. One major component of this project was the consolidation of its messaging systems and a migration to 64-bit computing. To this end, Poste Italiane deployed Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 on a cluster of 64-bit server computers. The new messaging environment simplifies administration, reduces hardware costs, and meets the demands of a high-volume messaging environment.
Situation
Poste Italiane Group offers postal services and products as well as communications, logistics, and financial services to customers all over Italy. Its ability to manage complex outsourcing processes enables Poste Italiane to fulfill customer needs in the retail, business, and public administration segments. Poste Italiane offers a wide range of postal products, from express mail services to a broad selection of financial products. The company's products and services can be customized and integrated to meet the needs of customers.
The Poste Italiane Group includes:
- SDA Group, which provides express mail and logistics.
- Mototaxi, city bicycle couriers.
- Postecom, which studies, develops, and manages Internet services and e-Business projects.
- PosteVita and BancoPosta Fondi, which offer life insurance and investment solutions.
- Postel, a European leader in the field of hybrid electronic mail and document processing.
Poste Italiane realized that the physical and logical consolidation of the server computers in the company’s data center was a key factor in further developing the business-critical areas of its IT infrastructure. One of the pillars of this consolidation is an upgrade of the corporate e-mail system.
Solution
 |
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 can help us achieve a greater return on our hardware investments through centralizing our e-mail systems and collaboration software for tens of thousands of users.  |
|
|
Alessandro Saralli
Systems and Technologies office
Poste Italiane Group |
|
|
Poste Italiane migrated its mail systems to Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise Edition, recognizing that the product’s native 64-bit processor support could take immediate advantage of the memory and processing power of the company’s recently purchased servers and storage systems.
Working closely with the heads of the Poste Italiane technology governance organization, the competence center for defining and testing methods of operation on Microsoft products identified the key elements of the new messaging environment. From there, it defined an upgrade path for internal messages services and for deploying technology solutions to customers.
“The desire to improve communication throughout the organization across the country and our satisfaction with Microsoft Exchange Server over the years led us to the rapid deployment of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007,” says Alessandro Saralli of the Systems and Technologies office at Poste Italiane. “Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 can help us achieve a greater return on our hardware investments through centralizing our e-mail systems and collaboration software for tens of thousands of users.”
Massimo Fagiolo, head of the Microsoft Competence Center at Poste Italiane, says, “Our technology partners helped us to integrate Exchange Server 2007 with a highly reliable technology platform by deploying the e-mail system immediately on new 64-bit hardware.” The implementation called for a rapid deployment test in a development environment in order to fully explore the system’s features in a working environment. Poste Italiane then began a gradual migration of mailboxes to Exchange Server 2007.
The choice for the Rapid Deployment Program has resulted in the use of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 within an organization that numbers 54,000 mailboxes and 11 sites. The team included several partners: Microsoft Services, Intel and HP (who helped to configure the new server computers), and EMC (who helped implement the storage area network and local redundancy disaster recovery systems).
Exchange Server 2007 is deployed at Poste Italiane on HP Dual Core servers with Intel Xeon Dual Core x64 processors, running the Windows Server® 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition operating system. The installation is supported by a storage area network based on EMC Symmetrix DMX3000 and CLARiiON CX300 systems. A cluster configuration helps to ensure service continuity. Technicians involved with the migration used the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 messaging and collaboration client to evaluate the new features resulting from the integration of the two products.
“By migrating to Exchange Server 2007, we’ve taken a step forward in our plan to consolidate and reorganize our data centers throughout Italy,” says Gilberto Paci, Project Head for the Operations unit at Poste Italiane. “The new environment’s scalability enables us to manage a great many users with a minimal use of hardware resources. We can thereby reduce the number of servers and take better advantage of the investments made in next-generation hardware systems.”
Benefits
Since deploying Exchange Server 2007, Poste Italiane has seen several benefits, including data center consolidation, simplified administration, a consistent user experience, and integrated solutions for a high-volume messaging environment.
Data Center Consolidation
The architectural model designed for the Exchange Server 2007 project makes it easier for Poste Italiane to centralize e-mail servers and management tools. With the architecture of the 64-bit Intel Xeon Dual Core servers and the significant reduction of I/O traffic to the storage area network, Poste Italiane can process data on fewer more scalable, more reliable server computers.
Simplified Administration
|
Our technology partners helped us to integrate Exchange Server 2007 with a highly reliable technology platform by deploying the e-mail system immediately on new 64-bit hardware. |
|
|
Massimo Fagiolo
head of the Microsoft Competence Center
Poste Italiane Group |
|
|
The IT department at Poste Italiane can allocate its personnel more effectively because the efficient administrative console and automated procedures make Exchange Server 2007 easy to manage. System technicians especially appreciate the easy-to-use graphical interface, the powerful Exchange Management Shell (built on Windows® PowerShell technology) for transactions with a high volume of mailboxes, and the new compliance application engine. Consistent User Experience
Thousands of employees at Poste Italiane had already used earlier versions of Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access. They see the version built into Exchange Server 2007 as being particularly efficient and offering fast response times, with a familiar look and user experience. Its close similarity to Microsoft Outlook, along with the presence of Microsoft Office Outlook Mobile on mobile devices powered by Windows Mobile® 5.0 software, gives users a unified interface for all collaborative activities.
“In addition to the benefits in systems management, the ease with which the new collaboration tools can be used and integrated, together with the gradual elimination of technological limitations of resource access, will result in better communication at all levels of our organization,” said Giuliano Bevacqua, Project Head for the Competence Center.
Integrated Solutions for High-Volume Messaging
The migration to Exchange Server 2007 was an important step forward for Poste Italiane along the path toward full integration of messaging and office automation tools. The company’s participation in the Rapid Deployment Program for Exchange Server 2007 and the Technology Adoption Program for the 2007 release of Microsoft Office and the Windows Vista™ operating system has made it possible to confirm the advantages of integration by providing architectures and methodologies that will aid in deployment throughout the organization, as well as to change the way e-mail services are used.
“The messaging and collaboration system based on Exchange Server 2007, together with Office 2007 and Windows Vista, provides precise solutions to business needs,” says Saralli. “The enhancement of system capacity, the integration of application services, and mobile access to resources are in ever-increasing demand by—to use just one example—people in our sales areas. With Exchange Server 2007, we can deliver those resources more quickly and efficiently than ever.”
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/
For more information about HP products and services, call (800) 752-0900 or visit the Web site at:
http://www.hp.com/
For more information about Intel products and services, call (408) 765-8080 or visit the Web site at:
http://www.intel.com/
For more information about EMC products and services, call (503) 435-1000 or visit the Web site at:
http://www.emc.com/
For more information about Poste Italiane products and services, visit the Web site at:
www.poste.it/en/
Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
For more information about the Microsoft server product portfolio, go to:
www.microsoft.com/servers/default.mspx
For more information about Microsoft Exchange Server, go to:
www.microsoft.com/exchange
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published October 2006
