4-page Case Study - Posted 1/10/2007
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Automation Technology Supplier Redefines Its Communications Environment
Festo is a leading international supplier of automation technology. Its product range includes engineering technologies for the automotive, electronics, food and packaging, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical industries. The company also offers industrial training and education programs. Festo depends on innovative information systems, which help its people collaborate and communicate from anywhere in the world. These systems, which contribute substantially to the company’s competitiveness, are therefore under constant review. As part of this review process, Festo has started to roll out Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007, which simplifies administration and hardware consolidation.
Situation
Founded in 1925, Festo is a leading international supplier of automation technology for the factory and process automation industries. Its product range includes engineering solutions for the automotive, electronics, food and packaging, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical industries. The Germany-based company also provides industrial training and education programs. Festo reported more than €1.4 billion (U.S.$1.8 billion) in annual turnover for the fiscal year 2005 and employs more than 11,500 people worldwide.
Festo considers its employees the cornerstone of its success. It therefore continually reviews the information systems that help them collaborate and communicate in ways that improve the overall competitiveness of the company. Festo used a combination of technologies to support these goals, including Lotus Notes and the 2003 release of the Microsoft® Office System.
In addition to Microsoft technologies, employees used a SAP portal in their day-to-day activities. Marc Werner-Nietz, Project Manager, Festo, says: “For employees, it was difficult to be proficient in all three environments needed for their daily tasks. Festo had installed several business-enhancing applications to help improve worker efficiency, but their potential was not yet completely tapped.”
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Consolidation of our server infrastructure became a critical objective so we could simplify system administration. |
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Marc Werner-Nietz, Project Manager, Festo |
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Festo also wanted to improve support for employees that are regularly out of the office. Most of these people send and receive messages with mobile devices, but they tend to use a combination of voice, short message service (SMS), and e-mail, depending on the device and information conveyed. Festo needed to integrate all of these devices into a single holistic concept.
There were also technical issues to consider. Over the years, Festo has installed additional servers to cope with growth in mailboxes and e-mail. “Consolidation of our server infrastructure became a critical objective so we could simplify system administration,” Werner-Nietz says.
Solution
In early 2006, Microsoft invited Festo to take part in the test program for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Werner-Nietz and his team quickly recognized the potential for server consolidation and identified ways the company could develop a unified messaging strategy that coordinated and simplified its communications channels.
Migrating to Exchange Server 2007 will also help consolidate servers because Festo will be able to accommodate more users and mailboxes on each server, compared to the Lotus Notes server. “With this technology, we will reduce our mail servers by a factor of ten,” says Werner-Nietz. “There will be systems for Festo in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, in our national companies in the Americas, and for our employees in the Asia Pacific region.”
Benefits
With the rollout of Exchange Server 2007, Festo will reengineer its communications and collaboration environment. Employees will be more efficient and productive, while the company will benefit from server consolidation.
Simplified Collaboration and Messaging
The Scheduling Assistant not only displays the availability of project members, but automatically suggests the best date for a meeting according to deadlines. What’s more, the SAP portal can be fully integrated with Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007, so employees can access all their applications and communications tools from a single location online. The feature allows users to search for e-mails, attachments, calendar entries, contacts, and tasks, which makes it easier to find the required information. Finally, the company hopes to roll out Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005, which integrates presence and real-time communications to locate people and share information.
Reduced Hardware and Administration
Although Exchange Server 2007 comes with many new features and improved functionality, most organizations don’t need to expand their hardware to cope with more demanding applications. In fact, Festo is expecting its hardware needs to decrease and its messaging-system administration to become simpler.
Festo currently operates 100 mail servers running Lotus Notes on HP DL380 hardware. As it rolls out Exchange Server 2007, the company will gradually reduce that number by a factor of 10. Werner-Nietz says: “By implementing Exchange Server 2007, we will reduce our need for hardware and IT administration, freeing up capacity for other projects—something we have wanted to do for some time.”
From a technical perspective, there are several reasons for this increase in efficiency. Services and ports that aren’t needed, for example, are automatically closed, so there are no unnecessary processes running. Improved availability is guaranteed because cluster replicas for each mailbox are set up on separate storage disks.
Festo has approximately 7,000 mailboxes set up in its Lotus Notes environment. Restoration of a database can sometimes take more than an hour, which affects productivity. Once Festo switches fully to Exchange Server 2007, mailbox storage capacity will double. At the same time, restore time will be reduced to just 25 minutes.
Improved Access for Mobile Employees
Because Festo depends on mobile devices that use several operating systems in addition to the Windows Mobile® operating system, the company also needed a third-party synchronization application. With Exchange Server 2007, however, files are now sent to employees’ mobile devices automatically.
With “push” e-mail, employees receive e-mail messages on their mobile devices as soon as they arrive on the central server, with no action required from the receiver. “Push e-mail” reduces the time it takes to pick up messages and eliminates the need for synchronizing servers.
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Exchange Server 2007 comes with a whole new series of benefits that really improve the way we work on a daily basis |
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Marc Werner-Nietz, Project Manager, Festo |
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“Exchange Server 2007 comes with a whole new series of benefits that really improve the way we work on a daily basis,” says Werner-Nietz. “Our IT environment is now more user-friendly and easier to administrate, which helps us save time and increase our overall efficiency.”
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 Intellecom products and services, call (+49) 7031 81709-10 or visit the Web site at: http://www.intellecom.de/
For more information about Festo AG products and services, call (+49) 711 347 4515 or visit the Web site at: http://www.festo.com/
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
