Induquímica Laboratorios
Streamlining the Business of Science
Induquímica now finds itself spending far less time and money on its information systems. “Just considering the web, file, and email servers, the switch to Mac OS X saves us around $18,000 per year in licensing fees,” Quintanilla estimates. “The Macs are a lot more reliable than the old system,” adds Barrón. “And now we’re much better positioned to scale up the computational power that the DNA end of our business will need.”
“Just considering the web, file, and email servers, the switch to Mac OS X saves us around $18,000 per year in licensing fees.”
Quintanilla and Barrón also point out the following cost savings, performance improvements, and productivity enhancements:
Full Data Redundancy and Quick Backups. Induquímica is currently using the software RAID included with Mac OS X Server, which provides drive striping and mirroring for improved performance and reliability of server storage. In addition, all data is backed up weekly to a high capacity external hard drive and stored in a secure remote location. Because IMAP email accounts and portable home directories are stored on servers rather than individual desktop machines, it now takes just two hours to perform a complete backup of all company data.
General manager of Induquímica Christian Quintanilla Aurich.
Full Support for Macs and PCs. Open Directory, the standards-based directory services and authentication architecture built into Mac OS X Server, provided a quick and easy migration path from the company’s earlier LDAP-based authentication system. And Apple made it easy to set up Mac OS X Server as a Primary Domain Controller (PDC) to provide login of Windows clients, who see shared folders hosted on Mac OS X Server in their Network Neighborhood.
Software Update Server Conserves Bandwidth. Internet access is at a premium in Peru. Mac OS X Server’s built-in software update server helps the company conserve Internet bandwidth by downloading each software update once over the Internet; users then download their software updates at gigabit speed from a server on the local network.
High Performance and Distributed Computing. Another advantage of a Mac IT infrastructure is Apple’s Xgrid technology, the first distributed computing architecture to be built into a desktop or server operating system. Xgrid allows Induquímica’s scientists to run a single large task across multiple machines at once. The built-in administration tools in Xgrid make it easy to manage multiple clients, submit jobs, monitor progress, and retrieve results. Xgrid technology is also designed for high availability and scalability with the ability to handle any number of portable computers, desktops, and servers — turning them into a single computational cluster. This configuration and optimization of resources plays well into Induquímica’s growth strategy.
“We can schedule compute-intensive jobs such as DNA sequencing to run during off-peak times,” explains Barrón. “By adding all of those otherwise idle desktop Macs to our grid, we effectively double or triple our Xserve cluster’s processing capacity for free.”
The Advantages of Portable Home Directories. Mac OS X Server gives every employee the convenience of accessing personal resources from any Mac on the network. No matter where a person logs on, his or her essential tools, data, and email are always available. And Barrón points out another advantage of portable home directories: “If your computer gets lost or destroyed, you just plug in a new one, boot it up, and you’re back in business. Your important data resides on redundant servers that are backed up daily — that’s about as safe as it gets.”
Fast Software Development with Xcode. Induquímica uses Xcode, the integrated development environment that’s part of the Mac OS X operating system, to port existing applications and develop new ones. One of the first applications ported to the Mac was the company’s Remote Sensor Recording Database. This critical application reads and logs the temperature and humidity of the manufacturing rooms and is now running on an Xserve.
“We found Xcode to be powerful and easy to use,” says Barrón. “It supports C, C++, Objective C, AppleScript, and Java — everything we need. And with AppleScript Studio, we can easily add a slick Aqua interface to system and application scripts, command-line utilities, and web applications to turn them into professional-looking productivity tools.”
Secure Instant Messaging and Video Conferencing with iChat AV. Instant messaging (IM) is rapidly becoming a primary communication medium for organizations of all sizes, and Induquímica is no exception. But instant messaging services are not encrypted by default, which means that text messages and files exchanged can be compromised. The iChat Server in Mac OS X Server allows companies to set up a secure IM service so team members can brainstorm solutions, make plans, exchange URLs, and transfer files without worrying about outsiders intercepting confidential information. Quintanilla finds the multi-way videoconferencing feature ideal for staying in touch with his team while he’s traveling. His sales and marketing managers consider it the most cost-effective way to build relationships with key customers between sales calls.
A Novel iCal Application Using .Mac
Every production machine in the Induquímica manufacturing facility is assigned its own user name and iCal schedule. The iCal schedules for all these “users” (production machines) is published to the company .Mac account that can be accessed from anywhere, usually from a Mac mini on the production floor.
A web page on the company intranet contains a map of the facility and of each production machine. To access the daily schedule for that machine in the iCal calendar on .Mac, you simply find that machine on the facility map and click on it.
The figures below show the advantage of viewing the aggregate iCal schedules from the .Mac account versus the local network.
When you access calendars from the local network (top picture), you get a separate window for each system, which is fine for a couple of people but confusing when there are lots of calendars for lots of production machines.
In .Mac, by contrast, the schedules for all the machines appear on a single page, from which any particular schedule detail can be viewed easily.
