The Profile: DNA Consulting Ltd. (www.dna.co.uk) Founded in 1998, DNA Consulting is a 4 Star Sky Developer of IDTV, Internet and Mobile solutions. DNA is headquartered in London with approximately 20 employees. The Situation: DNA’s in-house IT staff had been working in reactive mode on daily IT problems for years and was never able to get on top of the problems which plagued them. They suffered from a number of common issues, from simple daily PC fires to network instability and inefficiency problems to severe network security concerns. These fires affected company efficiency, productivity, and subsequently, company profits. DNA wanted a more stable environment where they could focus on improving their IT environment rather than constantly putting out fires. At the same time, DNA did not want a large investment or a complex environment. The Solution: The first thing done was to reduce the number of daily PC fires. We wanted uniformity in operating systems and applications to ease maintenance. Workstations were running various operating systems with inconsistent versions of normally used applications and were generally in disrepair. We began by upgrading all the office PCs to Windows2000 to improve stability and scalability and uniformity since some systems were already running Win2k. This also allowed us to lock down the PCs to remove the ability of users to install random applications, another source of IT pains. We then standardized on applications, versions and particularly on an internet browser. Lastly, we added antivirus protection to all systems to reduce the high number of viruses which plagued the network. Once we gained time away from the PC fires, the next step was to tackle the network. There had been a breach in the network, allowing one of the development servers to be used as an MP3 warehouse to the outside world. The first thing which had to be done was to put in a firewall to secure the network. We installed a cost-effective Sonic Wall firewall with VPN connections for remote users. Once the warehouse drain was off the network, we immediately saw a dramatic improvement in network performance. To improve network stability, security and efficiency, we then upgraded each of the servers from NT4.0 to Windows2000 and changed from a workgroup model to a single domain network environment. This greatly enhanced the ability to share resources and enhanced our network security. This also improved our network management ability over the workgroup model by the allowing the use of Windows2000’s Active Directory. Terminal Services was also employed for secure remote network management. There was no formal disaster recovery plan in place, so we created a backup solution to secure data on a daily basis and a plan of action in the event of catastrophic failure. To reduce the virus problems, antivirus software was added to all the servers and email was set up to filter via a 3rd party vender. Lastly, we set up network monitors to watch over all the systems in place. For the first time, this allowed DNA to use a proactive approach to issues rather than the traditional reactive management of the network. Additional projects: DNA hosted a number of websites in-house and via 2 separate vendors using a variety of operating systems and web servers. They did not have the infrastructure to properly host the sites in-house in the stable, secure and high-speed manner they wanted. CRASH worked with DNA to select the appropriate vender to host the sites off-site and to set up a proper, secure environment for the sites. Once the environment was in place, we migrated the sites from the old areas to the new environment with little to no site down-time. This was a tremendous time and money saving move for DNA as it allowed them greater ease of management of the sites, reduced the cost of paying multiple vendors and reduced site down-time with a more controlled environment. Although the stability of the network required DNA to only have a part-time IT presence, they still preferred having an in-house IT Manager on site on a full time basis. To reduce that cost, it was determined that a new hire would be ‘trained’ into the role rather than paying for more experienced staff. CRASH worked with corporate recruiters, interviewed candidates and finally trained the incoming IT Manger, thereby reducing DNA’s dependence on outside assistance. CRASH continues to work with DNA’s IT Director and IT Manager on a project by project basis such as upgrading their mail server from MS Exchange5.5 to Exchange2000 and implementing MS Commerce Server and also as 2nd tier support for their staff. The Result: Network stability is no longer a major concern for DNA. Their network speed increased dramatically along with general system performance, user productivity increased in proportion and in the end, the costs of proactive maintenance will greatly reduce their IT costs.