Logical Strategies
- Make Faster Decisions by Accessing Enterprise Resources at any Location (Home, On the Road)
- Collaborate between Co-Workers More Effectively
- Leverage the Internet to Connect Remote Offices
- Cost Effectively Leverage Technical Resources in Remote Offices
- Secure the Enterprise from Unauthorized Users and Viruses
Opportunity
A research-based pharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures and markets products to improve the health and production of animals had an inefficient IT infrastructure and as a result was serving as a “disabler” for the company. The three operating locations within the organization had set up autonomous and disparate computer network systems causing a number of operational issues:
- Inability to share information (documents or databases) between offices
- Redundant IT equipment is purchased since assets cannot be leveraged between sites
- Technical support for remote offices is based on contracts with local IT contractors who can provide inconsistent support
- Strategy for addressing network threats (hackers or viruses) is duplicated between sites.
- Disaster recovery of disconnected sites with limited or no in-house IT resources is a challenge / risk that often goes unaddressed.
- Ability for employees to remotely perform work is limited.
ITLogica Delivers
The company partnered with ITLogica to develop and implement a plan to connect its distributed offices under a common centralized IT solution. The key was to provide flexibility to the various offices while at the same time implementing the structure necessary for more efficient operations. ITLogica implemented a 4-node VPN network for the company based on Microsoft Windows Server platform. Our network solution included:
- Upgrading of servers to Win2000/3
- Establishing an active directory between the sites
- Securing distributed network nodes via Cisco Pix firewalls
- Upgrading employee workstations
- Consolidating core business servers (e.g. ERP, Customer Management System) to a secure, hosted environment
- Implementing a disaster recovery strategy
The project achieved a number of key objectives for the Client:
- Enabled file and database sharing between offices
- Enabled integration of systems that were previously housed in remote offices
- Significantly reduced reliance and cost of remote office IT contractor support
- Increased reliability of IT infrastructure due to secure hosting environment
- Enabled cost-effective disaster recovery strategy
- Facilitated remote user support leveraging Windows remote control technologies (NetMeeting and Terminal Services)