YorkTest

Based in York, YorkTest employs more than 40 people and is one of the ‘FAST 50’ growth companies in the region. In 2001/2002 it was ranked 281 in the fastest growing companies in Europe with a growth rate of 220%

This rapid growth had meant that their existing IT infrastructure running Novell Netware on old equipment with a LAN technology based on 10mbps Ethernet hubs was unable to meet the company’s needs.

IBIS designed, specified and installed a new solution using Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and its associated technologies including Exchange 2003 and SQL Server 2000

At the same time a network upgrade was performed replacing the existing network based on 10mpbs Hubs with new Cisco Catalyst switches. This deployment of a fully switched environment increased the capacity, resiliency and performance of the network overnight and was immediately noticeable to the users.

Two Dell 2650 rack mounted servers were installed with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and deployed on site.

The migration from GroupWise to Exchange was carried out using the Exchange Migration Wizard and creating a link between the two mail systems using the GroupWise API provided by Novell.

The mail data was transferred overnight to Exchange and successfully migrated the user mailboxes and calendar information into the Exchange Environment. Microsoft Outlook was installed and configured on each PC and the GroupWise Client removed.

The user data was then migrated and file counts were taken to ensure that all data had been received into the new environment. The Novell client was then removed from the client PC to ensure that all users were using the new data and servers.

Group Policies were applied to all users to control Password expiry and lockouts and deliver Roaming Profiles and Folder Redirection to improve logon times and to gain a central control of the PC’s configuration. Standard settings for screen savers, Internet Explorer and Network can now be controlled centrally and rolled out to all users in a single operation.

To enhance the security of the network and its systems Computer Associates -'Etrust' Anti Virus was installed to protect the servers and workstations and configured to check for virus updates and apply them to all relevant computers automatically. An E-Mail scanning engine was also added to the Exchange server to ensure that all e-mails are scanned as they are sent or received into the server, further protecting the users and external contacts from infection.

To protect the new environment from attack a Cisco PIX firewall was installed and configured to allow legitimate traffic only into specified servers (such as incoming e-mail) and to allow secure VPN access using the required client software. No other access is allowed into the network, automatically shutting off the possibility of infection from Worm viruses like Blaster. Together with Microsoft ISA server this provides two layers of external protection.

The whole process was completely Project Managed and implemented by IBIS Business Consultants Ltd’s team of support engineers.

IBIS Business Consultants continue to provide ongoing support to Yorktest under a Gold Star agreement