As a result, from its initial, almost experimental, purchase of a used Xserve all the way to today’s multi-platform, multi-location environment, the story of Tayco’s IT infrastructure hinges on efficiency, economy and productivity. It’s IT infrastructure and capacity has grown tremendously, but IT department has not — reflecting the cost savings realized through reduced maintenance, configuration and network security costs.
That strong underpinning serves Tayco well for a bright future. The company launched a 12-month promotional campaign early this year, called Look no further. But Up.
Up is the direction to look for Tayco’s future, and for its IT infrastructure: both Tayco locations are completely Wi-Fi covered, using Apple AirPort Extreme base stations (many of which are mounted on the office ceiling).
AirPort Extreme is backwards-compatible, so again, existing investment and infrastructure can be leveraged successfully. It supports not only previous versions or AirPort, but other 802.11b-compliant products as well — be they Mac or Windows.
Przemek says the administrative software controls allow him to plan, set up, maintain and monitor the networks easily and conveniently. Access control lists can be updated quickly, with the RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) feature, and even stored on a remote server. This is all part of an upgrade path coming in Apple’s next generation server operating system, 10.5 (currently known as Leopard).
Sitting at his workstation, Przemek glances at his widescreen display, quickly noting and monitoring his network’s status on screen. The entire Tayco net is monitored with LANSurveyor, a powerful network management program from Neon Software. It’s running on a Mac mini!
With tools for network mapping, asset reporting, remote managing and monitoring as well as planning a backup strategy and capacity requirements, he’s able to head off any network issues long before users are affected.
LANsurveyor polls TCP/IP and AppleTalk network devices and computers, sending and receiving alerts as needed, while enabling Mac, Windows and Linux computers to be managed from a single app.
The list may sound demanding and complex, but don’t forget — the IT guy and the company president are happy, smiling people. The reason itself is simple — a back end IT infrastructure that’s ideal for the requirements of the company.
All-important back-ups are managed by the Xserves, together with BRU software and an Exabyte library. The Xserves back up every server, Przemek notes, with the exception of iSeries servers (which need their own dedicated backup).
In the midst of his company’s ambitious plans for the future, with all its current demands for complete access and functionality from any location, Przemek still says the keeping it simple is the way to go.
“Everything we do needs to be platform independent, and completely transparent to end users. We need to be in a position where we can run either Windows clients, Mac clients or Linux clients, all our services must be available to all these people.”
“All the hardware needs to be remotely configurable and we demand a 99.99% uptime for all core systems.”
The list may sound demanding and complex, but don’t forget — the IT guy and the company president are happy, smiling people. The reason itself is simple — a back end IT infrastructure that’s ideal for the requirements of the company.
Using Apple hardware and software, with the assistance of an Authorized Consultant, a local area network with dozens of nodes is in place, with access to file and print services for user on the network, all connected to the Internet with solid firewall security.
Incoming and outgoing email services, including spam filtering and mailing-list management are easily managed and configured. A secure VPN is in place with connections to another remote LAN, and automated data backups are scheduled.
Tayco’s success is no longer a secret in the industry: recently, the company was honoured with an industry-leading Silver NeoCon Best of Show award for its newly-launched designer post-and-beam system, Up.
And the successes in the IT department didn’t even have to be considered.
More than 110 employees log onto the company’s IT system and internal Website from their office desktop machines — about 90 per cent of which are Windows machines — with little or no idea that behind it all is Apple.
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