4-page Case Study - Posted 6/25/2008

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Telstra Business Systems

IT Integration Services Company Increases Network Performance While Reducing Costs

Telstra Business Systems, an Australian provider of IT integration and management solutions, needed to improve the performance of its own enterprise network. Because of increased business from new customers, government agencies, and business partners, the performance of the network was reduced. To resolve this, Telstra Business Systems upgraded its server software to Windows Server® 2008 and used features such as Read-Only Domain Controllers and Hyper-V™ server virtualization. Since the upgrade, the company has significantly improved network performance to continue its excellent customer service levels to customers. It has also reduced costs by consolidating servers. In addition, IT administrators spend less time on routine maintenance and more time improving the system and responding to customer calls.

From a manageability and job satisfaction standpoint, Windows Server 2008 has been pivotal for us in planning for needs of the next five years.  Mike Nichol System Architect Telstra Business Systems

Situation

Telstra Business Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Telstra Corporation, is one of the leading customer premise equipment (CPE) solutions providers in Australia. It delivers voice and converged voice and data solutions and applications, solutions for contact centers and mobility, and managed and maintenance services to organizations throughout Australia. The company’s scalable solutions combine a comprehensive portfolio of technology partners and are backed by reliable restoration and response times, national coverage, and exceptional customer service.

Telstra Business Systems has a large and growing customer base. Early in 2007, Telstra Business Systems foresaw that it might encounter difficulties in providing timely responses to its customers. This was largely due to an increase in the number of its branch offices, which grew along with the size of the customer base.

To increase its responsiveness to customers, Telstra Business Systems needed to upgrade its enterprise network infrastructure to accommodate the growing data traffic and the increased number of remote connections between headquarters and the branch offices. Mike Nichol, System Architect at Telstra Business Systems says, “Because we are a centralized organization with many branch offices, we always need to get large amounts of information from the branches to the central core very quickly.”

The company also needed to ensure the stability and security of communications links between branch offices, remote users, and corporate servers. Telstra Business Systems has many government clients, and being able to maintain its system in a way that complied with government security requirements was crucial. All of these business goals had to be achieved while keeping costs low and the need for additional IT support to a minimum.

Solution

Most of the servers on the Telstra Business Systems enterprise network ran the Windows Server® 2003 operating system, so upgrading to Windows Server 2008 was an obvious option. However, Telstra Business Systems considered using non-Microsoft® software to supplement or replace Windows Server functionality. For example, wide area network (WAN) acceleration hardware could increase the bandwidth of the intranet communications links. Eventually, Telstra Business Systems decided against buying third-party software and to exclusively use Windows Server 2008 technologies for several reasons. First, it believed that the cost of additional licenses for third-party software would outweigh the benefits gained. Second, maintaining a more complex enterprise network would increase costs in IT support. And third, training employees to use the new software would be costly and time-consuming. “Our company is already Microsoft-based, so for us Windows Server 2008 offered the best integration with our existing products,” Mr Nichol said.

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise has a number of new features and enhanced capabilities that Telstra Business Systems believed would benefit the company. These include the Read-Only Domain Controller (RODC) option for Active Directory® Domain Services, which would offer shorter logon times and make the directory services infrastructure more secure; and the many enhancements to Terminal Services, which would provide improved network communications and single sign-on functionality. Telstra Business Systems was also attracted to the possibility of using the new Hyper-V virtualization technology to help provision server workloads more quickly and easily, reducing IT management costs in the process.

There have been the usual minor hitches in the rollout, but nothing we haven’t expected and planned for. We are pleased with the success of the migration so far.  Mike Nichol System Architect Telstra Business Systems

Telstra Business Systems deployed the Hyper-V server virtualization features of Windows Server 2008 during the deployment. Active Directory servers configured as RODCs were deployed in each of the branch offices. Each RODC was configured and tested to ensure quick and reliable communication over the network with the main Active Directory servers in the Melbourne headquarters.

Telstra Business Systems also identified and implemented Microsoft products to help protect against spam and malware as an important part of its IT infrastructure. The high level of integration between the Microsoft Forefront™ Security suite and Windows Server 2008 ensured that the migrated security infrastructure would function more reliably.

The deployment of Windows Server 2008 continues, with plans to complete the consolidation and migration of all Telstra Business Systems servers within three years. With the assistance of Data#3, Telstra Business Systems also plans to enhance the Windows Server 2008 environment by introducing Network Access Protection (NAP) and consolidating the remainder of its physical servers into virtual server environments in 2008. Rollout of the first stage of the migration has met the business objectives of the project. “There have been the usual minor hitches in the rollout, but nothing we haven’t expected and planned for and we are pleased with the success of the migration so far,” Mr. Nichol said.

Benefits

Telstra Business Systems has significantly improved the performance of its enterprise network by upgrading to Windows Server 2008 and making full use of new and enhanced features in the server software. It has kept the costs of the upgrade low and increased system security and manageability.

Increased Network Performance

By upgrading its servers to Window Server 2008, consolidating its physical servers into virtual servers, and using Read-Only Domain Controllers in its branch offices, Telstra Business Systems has seen a dramatic improvement in the stability and speed of the network servers, the speed of network data transfers, and the reliability of connections between the company’s headquarters, branch offices, and remote locations.

The company has made good progress in realizing its business goal of providing “anywhere, anytime” network access. According to Mr. Nichol, “Telstra Business Systems was looking for these hard-core improvements in bandwidth reduction and network utilization. With Windows Server 2008, we got them.”

Disaster recovery capabilities weren’t originally a major issue for us in the redesign, but server virtualization provides our organization with an extra benefit in the area of high availability.  Mike Nichol System Architect Telstra Business Systems

Improved System Management

System tools that make routine administration tasks easier and more efficient are crucial business needs. “Even small gains in system manageability are huge to us,” says Mr. Nichol.

Telstra Business Systems IT administrators can use Microsoft System Center tools to remotely administer all the servers on the network from one location and get continuous and comprehensive information about all aspects of server operation. This gives administrators the ability to diagnose and correct network problems quickly, which translates to big wins in responsiveness to customers. It also gives IT staff more time to optimize and expand the network infrastructure.

Reduced IT Costs

By using the server virtualization technology included with Windows Server 2008, Telstra Business Systems has been able to reduce the total number of physical servers from 20 to 2. This eliminates the need to purchase more server hardware and reduces the overhead costs of server maintenance, floor space, and cooling. Using servers based on Intel® Xeon® processors with better performance and power-efficiency further contributes to cost savings.

By migrating to Microsoft server products, Telstra Business Systems can continue to use its existing Microsoft Office and security applications, avoiding the costs of additional software licenses and employee retraining. The interoperability of Microsoft applications and server products means that IT professionals do not have to spend time resolving software incompatibilities, which further reduces cost.
Enhanced System Recoverability and Reduced Downtime
Telstra Business Systems has reduced downtime by using server virtualization. The time it takes to recover a server has been reduced to minutes.

“Disaster recovery capabilities weren’t originally a major issue for us in the redesign, but server virtualization provides our organization with an extra benefit in the area of high availability,” says Mr. Nichol. Windows Server 2008 features coupled with the Intel Xeon processors improve recovery speed and reliability through hot-pluggable component support and simplified clustering. This dual layer of virtualization technologies offers a more optimized IT infrastructure and improved server availability. It also fortifies disaster recovery strategies by doubling performance and redundancy features.

According to Mr. Nichol, “From a manageability and job satisfaction standpoint, Windows Server 2008 has been pivotal for us in planning for our needs of the next five years.”

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:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about Data#3’s products and services, call 61-7-3371-8088 or visit the Web site at:
www.data3.com.au

For more information about Telstra Business Systems solutions and services, call 61-3-8617-3000 or visit the Web site at:
www.tbs.telstra.com

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 help 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/

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published March 2008