“With the enhanced mobility features of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, such as push mail and Outlook Web Access, our staff can keep on top of all important matters.” - Ravindran Karupiah, General Manager, Information Technology Department, Indah Water

Indah Water Konsortium is a government-owned company that provides sewage services throughout Malaysia. The company relied on Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003 for its internal and public communications. Indah Water had also integrated Exchange Server with several workflow applications to send alerts through its e-mail system when needed. In its commitment to continued improvement, the company became among the first to upgrade to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, with its enhancements for unified messaging, mobility, and database backup and recovery. Through the upgrade, Indah Water increased the availability of its messaging system. It has also improved the productivity and decision-making of its managers, who can now retrieve e-mail messages from their mobile phones.


Situation

Indah Water Konsortium is entrusted with developing and maintaining a modern and efficient sewage system for Malaysia. In 1994, the Malaysian federal government awarded Indah Water the concession for nationwide sewage services, which had previously been managed by local authorities.

Since then, the company has risen to the challenge of ensuring that Malaysians are able to enjoy a clean and healthy environment through a proper and wellmaintained sewage system.

Indah Water operates and maintains more than 8,800 public sewage treatment plants and 15,000 kilometers (9,321 miles) of pipeline. The company, which has about 2,400 employees, works through 17 unit offices and a number of smaller satellite offices located across Malaysia.

With the scope of its operations, the company’s e-mail system is especially important to its internal communications. Indah Water has issued e-mail accounts for about 1,200 employees.

Because Indah Water is a prominent utility company, the messaging system also forms an important channel of communication with members of the public, who submit inquiries, complaints, and even job applications to Indah Water through its e-mail system.

The utility had used Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003 for its messaging system for several years. It had also introduced several workflow applications and had integrated them with the messaging system to automate work processes and improve customer service levels.

The workflow systems include processes such as leave applications, purchase requisition, and purchase orders. When tasks are not completed within a specified time, an escalation is triggered, sending alerts that are delivered through e-mail messages to the appropriate individuals. These workflow solutions have significantly accelerated processing and approvals.

“Our e-mail system is vital not only for efficient communication, it is also a crucial component of Indah Water’s business workflow systems,” says Ravindran Karupiah, General Manager, Information Technology Department, Indah Water.

As a company that continuously seeks to improve operational efficiencies and staff productivity, Indah Water was interested in upgrading to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 as soon as it was available. Managers believe they could further improve operational efficiency and business processes with the software’s focus on unified communications and collaboration.


Solution

Indah Water engaged Microsoft partner Mesiniaga Berhad to help it migrate to Exchange Server 2007. For the initial implementation, the Exchange Server 2007 system was installed on two HP ProLiant DL 380 G5 server computers using Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® 5160 processors. These combine to give best-in-class solutions, and created a more efficient and responsive enterprise messaging system that offers up to three times the performance of previous single-core based servers, giving new levels of price performance and an improved cost per mailbox.

The installation proceeded smoothly without any problems. “It was even easier and faster than installing Exchange Server 2003,” says Keu Lian Wei, Technology Specialist, Enterprise Solutions Division, Mesiniaga Berhad.

Indah Water deployed Exchange Server 2007, a native 64-bit application, on Windows Server x 64. The company uses Microsoft Office Outlook® as its messaging and collaboration client, along with Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access for remote e-mail access through a Web browser.


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Benefits
With its deployment of Exchange Server 2007, the employees at Indah Water have enjoyed better e-mail service and improvements in productivity and decision making as well. With its new messaging foundation, the utility also expressed its confidence that it would be easier to integrate additional workflow processes with its new messaging system than with a non- Microsoft solution.

Delivers High Availability
Indah Water especially welcomed the local continuous replication (LCR) feature of Exchange Server 2007. LCR supports the continuous replication of data across multiple disks on a single server. In the event of a disk failure or data corruption, switching over to the copy database makes recovery faster and easier.

“The LCR capability effectively eases the previous complexity in doing backups and restorations,” says Izali Sulaiman, Senior Manager, Information Technology Department at Indah Water. “Now if the main server is down, we can link up the replica database, and restore our data almost immediately, rather than restoring from a tape backup,” says Keu of Mesiniaga.

Previously, it could take as much as eight hours to restore a single e-mail database. In addition, Indah Water no longer has to deal with the 4-gigabyte memory limitations of 32- bit server computers that restrict the ability to support larger inboxes and demands for storage, which, in turn, can have an effect on the e-mail system’s performance.

Additionally, the Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® processors give a boost in power efficiency of more than three times, with their 80-watt and below consumption lowering costs and increasing data-centre performance density.

Improves Productivity and Decision Making
The mobility features of Exchange Server 2007 have also improved the productivity of Indah Water managers. Because important information is always available, it is easier for them to make decisions when they are out of the office.

In particular, managers like the built-in Direct Push feature of Exchange Server 2007. With Direct Push technology—often referred to as push mail—users can receive e-mail messages, calendar details, contacts, and tasks from Windows Mobile® powered smartphones and devices. The managers receive this data as soon as it arrives on the server computer in the office.

“With push mail, we can receive e-mail messages wherever we are. We can be in constant contact with our colleagues, partners, and customers. The managers can make decisions and give approvals even when they are on the move,” says Ravindran. He comments that at a utility company, problems and issues can come up at any time. “When this happens, our employees need to be alerted,” says Ravindran. “With the enhanced mobility features of Exchange Server 2007, such as push mail and Outlook Web Access, our staff can keep on top of all important matters.”

Supports Additional Workflow Integrations
Because Indah Water plans to develop new workflow applications to automate more work processes, Exchange Server 2007 is proving to be an ideal solution. “Exchange Server 2007 is a powerful, robust, and unified messaging system that will serve as the foundation for the messaging component of our workflow applications,” says Ravindran.

Indah Water also plans to tap into the collaborative strengths of Exchange Server 2007 by integrating it with Microsoft Office SharePoint® Portal Server. “This integration will provide Indah Water employees with a convenient single point of access to applications such as e-mail and workflow systems,” says Ravindran.

With Outlook Web Access, employees who are out of the office will be able to easily and securely access their SharePoint files. Employees can access SharePoint documents without a VPN (virtual private network) or network tunnel, by using LinkAccess, a feature that retrieves and displays a document while providing a higher level of security than a VPN.

Offers a Reliable Messaging System
“As a utility company, we operate a critical service,” says Ravindran. “We need a reliable communications system to ensure efficient information flow both internally and externally. Although Exchange Server 2003 has served us well, the new release has significant enhancements that greatly improve our messaging system.”

Overview
Country or Region: Malaysia
Industry: Utilities



Customer Profile
Indah Water Konsortium provides sewage services throughout Malaysia, operating more than 8,800 public sewage treatment plants and 15,000 kilometers (9,321 miles) of pipeline.

Business Situation
Indah Water wanted to enhance its operational efficiency, business processes, and customer service.

Solution
Indah Water upgraded to Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 running on HP ProLiant DL 380 G5 server computers using Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® 5160 processors to take advantage of advanced features such as unified messaging, mobility enhancements, and database backup and recovery.

Benefits

• Delivers high availability
• Improves productivity and decision making
• Supports additional workflow integration
• Offers a reliable messaging system

“[Exchange Server 2007] was even easier and faster than installing Exchange Server 2003."
Keu Lian Wei, Technology Specialist, Enterprise Solutions Division, Mesiniaga Berhad


“Although Exchange Server 2003 has served us well, the new release has significant enhancements that greatly improve our messaging system.”
Ravindran Karupiah, General Manager, Information Technology Department, Indah Water


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/malaysia

For other case studies in this series, visit www.microsoft.com/malaysia/business/casestudies

For more information about HP products and services, call (650) 857-1501 or visit the Web site at: www.hp.com

For more information about Mesiniaga Berhad products and services, call (06) (03) 5635 8828 or visit the Web site at: www.mesiniaga.com.my

For more information about Indah Water products and services, call (06) (03) 2780 1100 or visit the Web site at: www.iwk.com.my