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Evalueserve (EVS) began operations in 2000 with just 4 employees. In the last four years it has grown into a 650 people organization. With such growth it needed to consolidate and build its IT infrastructure quickly.
The company decided to implement a messaging infrastructure to meet is aggressive growth plans. It evaluated several solutions such as Lotus Notes and Linux based mail solutions. But the company finally decided to deploy Microsoft Exchange Server 2003.
The new messaging solution gives EVS better end-user experience, higher reliability and security. Not just this, the IT team has been able to improve its productivity significantly.
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| Situation |
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Evalueserve (EVS) began operations in 2000 with just four employees and a vision
of offering quality research services to its customers.
Over the last five years, EVS has established itself as a full service business
intelligence, market research and intellectual property services firm. Today, it
has over 650 employees servicing customers in North America, Europe and Asia.
With this growth comes the need to build a strong Information Technology
infrastructure. With global Fortune 1000 customers, EVS needs to meet customer
expectations in time, providing high quality content at all times.
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this view, the organizations decided to ramp up its messaging and collaboration
infrastructure. When the organization began operations, it used a POP based mail
server. This mail server stored all emails on a server and downloaded the
messages and distributed it to the mailboxes across the organization. "The POP
Server was becoming cumbersome and did not give us all the features that we were
looking for. Therefore, we decided to move to a new solution." explains Sachin
Jain, Head IT, Evalueserve. |
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Deploying Microsoft Exchange Server has given us peace of mind. We are sure that our emails are being delivered on time and that there are no unnecessary delays.
Sachin Jain
Head IT, Evalueserve
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| Solution |
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Evaluation process
During the evaluation stage, EVS tested several solutions to see if it would meet the organization’s needs. It evaluated Lotus Notes and Linux based solutions. During the evaluation process, Lotus Notes was rejected because it was not very easy to use from the end-user's perspective
The organization then tested Linux based messaging solutions. These were piloted at the EVS office in India for a period of 4 weeks. During the pilot, the IT team found several lacunae with the solution
The first issue faced
was on manageability. “To create each
mailbox had to be created individually. This was
not all, ease-of-manageability features were missing
and we had to find our own solution each time we
were faced any difficulty. This increased our time
of maintenance considerably.”
To resolve this problem, EVS looked for external support but found it difficult to get support on the mail application. Also, lack of in-house skills on the solution, made the organization realize that the cost of maintaining the Linux based solution would be much higher than it expected.
EVS finally decided
to use Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 to meet
its messaging and collaboration needs. “We
believed Microsoft Exchange would be easy to administer
and use, as well as would be more reliable than
any other solution available in the market,”
explains Sachin Jain, Head IT,
Evalueserve.
Implementation process
The implementation was carried out in two phases. In the first phase, EVS upgraded the server operating system from Windows 2000 to Windows 2003. This was done to take advantage of the improvements in Active Directory such as clustering, easier log on in remote offices and improved authentication and authorization. The central implementation of Active Directory ensures that a user can log in on any server. Moreover, the cluster has been created such that if a server fails the individual can log in from another server seamlessly.
EVS then implemented the Microsoft Exchange 2003 in three locations, two in the facilities in Gurgaon, one in US. A fourth server is clustered as a failover server in case any of the other servers fail. The implementations have been completed in just one week. EVS has built in redundancy into the solution by clustering the servers. The Exchange Servers in India are connected to the US servers using Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology.
In addition to the security built into Windows and Exchange Servers, the organization uses encryption technologies to secure the information it sends to its customers. "This is important, as we deal with high confidential information for our customers, especially in the intellectual property services segment." adds Ashish Gupta, Country Head & COO, Evalueserve.
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| Benefits |
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Access to emails from anywhere, anytime
The combination of Windows 2003 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 ensures that the mobile users can access their email from one URL, whether they are accessing emails using laptops such as Pocket PCs, Pocket PC Phone Editions, and Microsoft Windows Mobile-based Smartphones etc
Improved End-User Experience
With mobility come several issues, especially
access speeds. Exchange 2003 has given our management team to not
only access their emails from any device, but it also allows better
performance, thereby improving productivity. “The
intuitive user interface greatly improves the user experience,”
comments Yogita Wadhwa, Team Lead, Evalueserve.
Improves IT Team's productivity
The manageability features such as the Exchange Server Management Pack allow the IT team to proactively manage the implementations. Also, the stability, and easy back-up features along with the single seat administration save a huge amount time.
Heightened Security
With Windows 2003 and Exchange 2003, allows greater security with its improved
authentication and authorization process. But at the same time, the solution
brings greater flexibility which allows users to maintain only one user name and
password. Also, the end-user benefits from the improved junk mail features.
Software restriction policies let administrators prevent unwanted programs from
being installed on computers throughout the network, thereby saving it from
probable intruder or virus attacks.
Future Plans
EVS hopes in the next few months to learn and exploit all the features that
Microsoft Exchange 2003 offers. As it adds more and more employees in the
ramp-up planned for later this year, the Microsoft Server System will become the
IT backbone of the organization.
I.T. Solutions
I.T. solutions (ITS) is a total solutions company in the
field of Information Technology. It has formal alliances with leading technology
companies worldwide such as Adobe, Oracle, Microsoft, Macromedia, Symantec,
Quark, Intel and HP. This gives I. T. Solutions access to the knowledge base and
upcoming developments on products and technology to deliver user- friendly
solutions to its customers that enhance their productivity.
About Microsoft Windows Server System
Microsoft Windows Server System is the comprehensive, integrated, and
interoperable server infrastructure that helps reduce the complexity and costs
of building, deploying, connecting, and operating agile business solutions.
Windows Server System helps customers create new value for their business
through the strategic use of their IT assets. With the Windows Server platform
as the foundation, Windows Server System delivers dependable infrastructure for
data management and analysis; enterprise integration; customer, partner, and
employee portals; business process automation; communications and collaboration;
and core IT operations, including security, deployment, and systems management.
For more information about Windows Server System, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem
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