Quixtar

Web Retailer Improves Service, Streamlines Management with Platform Upgrade

Quixtar stays at the leading edge of technology so that it can provide outstanding service to its network of entrepreneurs. The company is upgrading to Windows Server® 2008 Standard to take advantage of new technologies in Internet Information Services 7.0 and the Active Directory® service. With the new platform, Quixtar expects to improve Web content delivery while reducing operating system maintenance by approximately 1,000 hours annually.

Business Needs

Quixtar, a subsidiary of Alticor, was created to give entrepreneurs the ability to have Web-based businesses of their own. The company’s network of thousands of Independent Business Owners (IBOs) sells Quixtar’s products in health, beauty, and other consumer categories. IBOs have generated more than U.S.$6.8 billion in sales since Quixtar was founded in 1999.

With IIS 7.0, we can customize servers for a particular role, which means that we can create a footprint that best serves specific content—no more, no less. Jonathan Jespersen Senior System Support Specialist, Web Operations, Quixtar

Quixtar counts on its Web site to provide a location for IBOs to purchase products; in fact, nearly 80 percent of the company’s sales come through the Web. The site also provides resources that IBOs need to run their businesses. Says Matt Behrens, Infrastructure Supervisor at Quixtar, “For many of our IBOs, Quixtar offers the opportunity for a second income, which means that they have limited time for squeezing in visits to our Web site. We need to help IBOs make the best use of their time by providing content to them as efficiently as possible.”

As a Web-based business, Quixtar has a strong focus on adopting leading-edge technologies. The company strives to provide IBOs with the best possible experience while maximizing the value of its technology investments. Since 1999, Quixtar has used Internet Information Services (IIS), part of the Windows Server® operating system, as its Web platform.

Says Steve Cole, Lead System Support Specialist, Web Operations, at Quixtar, “To capitalize on technology improvements and utilize new features, it’s important that we stay on top of current and emerging versions of IIS. With every major release, we have seen big benefits in multiple areas.”

Solution

In 2006, Quixtar took advantage of an opportunity to test a prerelease version of Windows Server 2008 with IIS 7.0. “We’re very careful about any technology that might affect our IBOs and their ability to do business,” says Jeremy Clore, Senior System Support Specialist in Server Technology for Quixtar. “Therefore, we undergo a great deal of testing before making any changes.”

After a thorough evaluation of IIS 7.0, Quixtar moved its first Web servers into production in June 2006, and has gradually upgraded more servers over the past 18 months. The company has also begun to upgrade some of its Active Directory® and Domain Name System (DNS) servers. As of January 2008, Quixtar has 26 computers running Windows Server 2008 Standard in production and 6 in pre-production using HP 385, 585, and BL25 hardware with AMD Opteron processors, McAfee virus protection software, and Symantec backup software. Shortly after the new operating system is released, Quixtar plans to upgrade all of its Web server computers.

In the same spirit of early technology adoption, Quixtar is upgrading its data warehouse environment to Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 database software. The company’s data warehouse currently supports reporting for approximately 2 terabytes of information. Quixtar hopes that the new database solution will provide even better performance and management capabilities than its current system, due to backup compression and to database mirroring, integration, and core engine enhancements.

Benefits

Quixtar expects that its infrastructure upgrades will help it provide enhanced service to its IBOs, while delivering savings in maintenance and support costs.

Increased flexibility for content delivery. With its operating system upgrade, Quixtar has been able to optimize servers for static content. “With IIS 7.0, we can customize servers for a particular role, which means that we can create a footprint that best serves specific content—no more, no less,” explains Jonathan Jespersen, Senior System Support Specialist, Web Operations, at Quixtar. “By ensuring that we’ve removed any potential lag time or latency, we can get information to our IBOs faster. We’re also using the improved caching capabilities to make more efficient use of our processing power.”

Reduced maintenance. Quixtar has found that its new operating system requires fewer updates than its previous system, which results in dramatic timesavings for the company. “We used to have to deal with updates about once a month, but so far we’ve only had about one every six months,” says Cole. “Each update required us to spend approximately 100 work hours and also to drop everything to respond. Now we’re able to stay focused on our strategic projects, while saving about 1,000 hours per year on maintenance.”

The company also saves time when it has to deploy new site configurations or make changes to existing sites. “It’ s so straightforward now for us to make changes,” says Cole. “It takes us about one-third of the 32 hours that it used to take, and we’re also avoiding the risk of error that comes with repeated manual changes.”

Greater directory password control. Thanks to its operating system upgrade, Quixtar will have more granular password policies and the ability to enforce them. “Our audit team told us that we weren’t strict enough with our password policies, but after we put Windows Server 2008 in native mode, our domain administrators will have the ability to enforce more restrictive passwords for Active Directory,” says Clore. “We’re excited about this opportunity to enhance our baseline security.”

Improved directory recoverability. The company also has optimized its directory replication capabilities with the operating system upgrade. “We don’t need to replicate often, but if we had had a catastrophic failure in our data center, we would have waited for up to seven days to regain that redundancy,” says Behrens. “With Windows Server 2008, we’d only need between three and six hours, and having that better recoverability brings us peace of mind.”

Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008, with built-in web and virtualization technologies, enables you to increase the reliability and flexibility of your server infrastructure. New virtualization tools, web resources, and security enhancements help you save time, reduce costs, and provide a platform for a dynamic and optimized datacenter. Powerful new tools like IIS 7.0, Server Manager, and Windows PowerShell, allow you to have more control over your servers and streamline web, configuration, and management tasks.  Advanced security and reliability enhancements like Network Access Protection and the Read-Only Domain Controller option for Active Directory Domain Services harden the operating system and protect your server environment to ensure you have a solid foundation on which to build your business.

For more information, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008