In a networking consulting organization the size of Getronics, company server resources are chiefly devoted to making sure that customers have access to the resources they need wherever they are in the global network. Superior system administration and management are crucial. Getronics is upgrading its servers to Windows® 2000 because Windows 2000 delivers superior remote administration, simplifies network management, and lowers network operating and support costs.
Company Profile
With over 34,000 employees, Getronics is a leading ICT services and solutions company, providing technology consulting to companies around the world.
Business Situation
Getronics recognized early on that Windows 2000, with its Active Directory services, would simplify the management of their global network and save money.
Benefits
With part of their network already running Windows 2000, Getronics is enjoying simplified management and increased security through the support of smart cards, saving Getronics money. Getronics also saves by being able to reduce its total number of servers from 700 to about 500.
Global Provider of Information Technology Solutions Saves Money with Windows 2000 Server
As one of the world's leading information and communication technology service and solution providers, Getronics is in business to help its customers maximize the value of their technology investment. Based in the Netherlands, the Getronics family consists of Getronics, GetronicsOlivetti (Italy and Japan), and GetronicsWang (U.S. and Canada), resulting from the acquisition of WangGlobal in 1999.
In a move to make the most of its own technology investment, Getronics is upgrading its Microsoft® Windows NT® servers to Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Servers and Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Servers.
"Our tests showed that Windows 2000 is a compelling solution that meets our requirements," says Spyros Sakellariadis, vice president of Future Technology Applications for Getronics.
The Windows 2000 solution includes the use of Windows 2000 Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) services, built-in smart card support for high security, and the use of Active Directory services for ease of management. The features of Active Directory will save Getronics money by allowing them to centrally manage users, applications, and devices throughout the network.
Says Sakellariadis, "With Windows 2000, we expect to manage the server infrastructure in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. We will also get better security on our desktops."
Windows 2000 will also save deployment costs by allowing Getronics to reduce its number of servers by 20 to 30 percent. Additionally, the Windows 2000 built-in deployment and migration tools have enabled Getronics to perform the first phase of its migration quickly, with very little impact on the day-to-day business of its employees. In fact, migrating most of their master domains took only a few hours.
Simplified Network Management and Lower Costs
Getronics Information Services (IS) professionals are enthusiastic advocates of the Microsoft Active Directory services in Windows 2000. Active Directory provides a single point of management for users, applications, and devices throughout the network.
Sakellariadis says, "The primary benefits of Active Directory for us are domain management and administration. We can assign privileges and rights to those who require them and manage the network worldwide with fewer administrators. We expect each of these features to enable us to reduce our computing costs significantly."
"The ability to delegate control of resource access and administration is a wonderful feature,&quto; Sakellariadis explains, "We can assign specific tasks to our administrators around the world. They in turn can delegate functions such as password resets to technical support staff without involving others."
Device Support and Security Enhancement
Windows 2000 offers extensive device support. Getronics is taking advantage of this support by using smart cards, adding an additional physical layer of security to normal networking.
Using smart cards initially and later incorporating other security devices where required, Getronics is also using the Windows 2000 Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) services. Getronics has implemented a Windows 2000 Certificate Authority (CA) hierarchy to issue X.509 certificates for systems and employees, enabling mutual authentication, authorization, and encrypted communications. This gives Getronics the ability to provide highly secure extranets for customers and partners, as well as enabling digital signatures and public/private key encryption for e-mail. Active Directory services are a key element in this architecture, storing the employee’s public certificates in the global directory.
Migration in an Hour Without a Hitch
Once Getronics made the decision to upgrade its servers from Windows NT to Windows 2000, the company decided to use a rapid deployment methodology for the actual migration.
"Migration is a very serious and complicated thing," says Cormac O’Reilly, CTO and CIO of Getronics. "We were redesigning the entire network of the corporation. The redesign affects every portion of our network. Our planning process pulled in representatives from every realm of our infrastructure."
Getronics spent several months planning the migration of its existing Windows NT Server infrastructure to Windows 2000 and Active Directory. "One big decision was about our domain structure and namespace. How were we going to organize it all?" recalls Mike Atalla, Architecture Development Manager for the Windows 2000 deployment. "We answered these and other questions based on our business requirements. We were confident in our method for upgrading to Windows 2000 and Active Directory Services."
Getronics decided on a geo-political model for its Active Directory namespace. This structure calls for creation of a namespace based on the physical locations of Getronics offices, providing a stable base on which to overlay the corporate business structures. As appropriate, the company will create Windows 2000 Organizational Units to separately manage IS policies for individual Getronics divisions and departments. The Active Directory forest is outlined in the diagram below.
As for the rapid deployment, each domain migration was scheduled to take just sixty minutes. Getronics decided to upgrade several of its master account domains and consolidate legacy domains. The goal was to arrive at four Windows 2000 domains: the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia. To improve security and reduce administration costs, Getronics is using Windows 2000 Terminal Services to manage the geographically distributed domain controllers in these domains from its main corporate data centers in Massachusetts and Brussels.
After creating the Windows 2000 forest and root domain, Getronics began the upgrade process of its Americas master domain by taking two backup domain controllers offline. If an unforeseen disaster were to occur along the way, one of those backups could be promoted to the Primary Domain Controller and placed back on the network. Getronics then upgraded the Americas' Windows NT Primary Domain Controller to Windows 2000. This step made Getronics the first company in the world to do an in-place upgrade of a production domain to Windows 2000. There was minimal impact on the production environment because users maintained their access to network resources.
An hour later, Getronics had Active Directory services in production in the Americas domain. This process included the migration of about three thousand user accounts. Getronics used the same method for two other accounts domains, bringing the total number of user accounts migrated to 13,000. Several of the other legacy account domains are being consolidated into these new Windows 2000 domains, using Managed MigrationsTM to Windows 2000 by Entevo. Within a few weeks, Getronics should have all of their primary domain controllers and backup domain controllers upgraded to Windows 2000, servicing a global total of about 30,000 accounts.
"It was a very positive experience," says Atalla. "The tools provided by Microsoft made the actual upgrading completely simple. Essentially, you can click on one executable and watch the Windows 2000 world unfold in front of your eyes."
What's more, Getronics performed the upgrade in the middle of the afternoon, while people were working. "If you want to play it safe, you generally perform your migration in the middle of the night," says Sue Hallihan, Director of Infrastructure Deployment. "If something goes wrong, you can recoup before people start work in the morning." So why risk performing the migration in the middle of the day? According to Atalla, "We had done enough tests in our offline labs. We were confident we could do this in the middle of the day and no one would notice a thing."
The outcome?: a completely seamless upgrade—Getronics was right.
Windows 2000 Saves Money by 20 Percent Reduction in Servers
There’s another big reason Getronics is moving its servers to Windows 2000. The new environment requires less hardware than its Windows NT environment. Windows 2000 performs better and supports larger hardware than Windows NT 4.0. It also allows users to take better advantage of their enterprise applications.
For example, Getronics expects to use Microsoft® Exchange 2000 Server on this implementation of Windows 2000. A key advantage of this combination is that "You can start housing a lot more mailboxes on one server," according to Sakellariadis. "Where before we may have decided to limit the mailboxes to some arbitrary number, now we’re tempted to say 'let's double or triple that.' Instead of needing a large quantity of smaller servers, we are looking into doing it with one or two large servers," he continues, predicting that the company will reduce its number of infrastructure servers by at least 20 percent within months.
Getronics will also reduce the number of file servers in their network, further reducing their total cost of ownership. "We have lots and lots of smaller file servers," says Bruce Lyons, Global Infrastructure Manager. "But Windows 2000 has the ability to handle a much more efficient directory structure, making it seamless and transparent throughout the company where the data actually resides. We are doing this by using the distributed file system, which is integrated with Active Directory and Windows 2000. This makes it possible to store all the data on several large servers and make a directory structure that the users can access without being aware of the underlying physical implementation."
Ultimately, if fewer servers do more work and do it more efficiently, you save money. Sakellariadis expects to see dramatic reductions in Getronics’ network operating costs. "There are a number of places where we realize we just won't need that box anymore if we're using a Windows 2000 server," he says, estimating that the company will pare down its number of servers from 700 to about 500.
A Case for Upgrading Client Desktops
Getronics also plans to take advantage of the administrative options of Windows 2000 Professional for its 33,000+ desktops. "We're pushing hard to get our desktops moved to Windows 2000 Professional because that finally gives us a desktop that we can manage remotely with SMS [Microsoft Systems Management Server], and lock down appropriately for the user," Sakellariadis said.
After the installation of Windows 2000 Professional, Getronics expects its desktop management and configuration to be much more efficient and automatic. Because all users will have Windows 2000 Professional on their computers, administrators will then be able to specify policies for particular groups of users. The Group Policy engine can enforce particularly granular policies, precisely because the desktops are running Windows 2000 Professional. The client computers operated by all users with a given group will have uniform application of that group's policies.
Moving Forward
Right now, Getronics is in production with Windows 2000 and Active Directory. The company is taking advantage of management and directory services to lower its cost of administration. Getronics is also using the enhanced device support in Windows 2000 to implement smart card technology for securing network resources, and they are implementing Exchange 2000 on the Windows 2000 infrastructure.
Overall, Getronics sees its new infrastructure as one that will save a significant amount of money as the company extends itself into the Windows 2000 world.
Software and Services
Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Server
Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Professional
Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Advanced Server
Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Datacenter Server
Microsoft® Windows® Exchange 2000 Server
Microsoft® Systems Management Server
For More Information
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