Stellent Ltd: Office rollouts, maintenance, wireless networks The Profile: Stellent Ltd. (NASDAQ: STEL) (www.stellent.com) Stellent is a global provider of business content management solutions, providing browser-based web access to business content and content-supported e-business applications. Stellent has been ranked one of the top three content management vendors by industry analyst firms Gartner Dataquest, Giga Information Group and Aberdeen Group, and has more than 1,500 customers, including much of the Global 2000. Stellent is headquartered in Eden Prairie, MN and maintains offices throughout the United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The Situation: Stellent’s UK organization consisted of just 10 staff in several serviced offices but was expecting growth to 50 plus staff within the UK plus additional continental staff in the short term. Stellent acquired a new premise for build-out and wanted to combine the serviced offices into a single EU headquarters. The Plan: Stellent already had a strong IT group in the United States and did not want to incur the capital expense of IT staffing in the EU so they opted to outsource the local function. Their US IT group planned to administer much of the network environment, however, due to distance and requirements, Stellent’s UK office required a local solution as well. It was determined that CRASH would manage the rollout of the EU headquarters and then provide for ongoing local IT support while working with the Minneapolis office for overall WAN maintenance. With its complementary partner base, titled N-Act, CRASH was able to bring together groups to handle the spectrum of IT requirements involved in creating an office environment from scratch. Through N-Act’s wide range of expertise and resources, CRASH was able to design and integrate its various technology partners into a cohesive and cost-effective plan for Stellent’s office environment including base electrics, telecoms and IT cabling infrastructure, computer room construction and services, pabx and associated peripherals. Practical delivery of these solutions and services could only be effective through sound design and project management. CRASH and its partners were involved at every step of the way, from initial office selection, design, planning, telecoms infrastructure, liaising with ISPs, overseeing the installation telco lines and purchasing of everything from network equipment to arm chairs CRASH worked with the US IT group to set in place the WAN infrastructure, establishing the connectivity between offices per the US IT policies. The VPN connection (CheckPoint Firewall-1 / VPN-1) between the London and Minneapolis headquarters was the critical point in keeping domain controllers and the MS Exchange2000 mail systems synchronized to their US counterparts. The US IT group configured the local domain controllers and mail system as part of their overall world-wide domain while CRASH configured users for the new domain. Once the network met the US requirements, CRASH took over the maintenance of the local side of the network and workstations. The Result: Stellent works in a high availability, secure environment where IT fires are not a significant daily concern. CRASH provides the stable work environment where employees can focus on the task at hand. Due to the stability of the network, IT staff is required on a weekly basis only, thus reducing overall IT costs. CRASH provides on-going IT support on-site on a weekly basis; provides remote maintenance and monitoring as required and provides 8-hour response times for any required issues. In addition CRASH continues to work with Stellent’s directors and US IT staff on a project by project basis for Stellent’s EU offices. Additional Projects: Holland Office Rollout: Following the rollout of Stellent’s UK facility, CRASH and N-Act travelled to Nieuwegein, Holland for the creation of Stellent’s Dutch offices. N-Act liaised with local UK and Dutch telecoms groups for a telecoms systems and point-to-point leased lines connecting the UK and Holland offices. For simplicity and security, the network was created as a subnet of the UK environment for seamless access between sites. The plan reduced costs by eliminating expensive firewalls, domain controllers, mail servers and backup systems on the Holland network and removed the need for local support staff, which now came from the UK. Wireless / Mobile Training Facility: Stellent provides it's customers with the option of attending training courses not only at the Stellent HQ, but also at the customer's own offices. To provide this service, Stellent required a completely mobile training facility, including a domain controller and mail server. CRASH built up a mobile classroom with IBM laptops and Cisco wireless network components. The solution allowed the users to receive the full benefit of the course within their own environment. In addition, to facilitate the training process, a systematic approach of "re-imaging" each system after each course was set in place. Using Symantec’s Ghost imaging product, each PC could be quickly re-configured for the next class with minimal effort on the trainer's part.