Situation Appraisal and Background
United Telephone Association, Inc. (United) is experiencing positive growing pains. In addition to operating as an Internet Service Provider, United launched wireless internet and digital PCS mobile phone services in November 2005. The new services overwhelmed an already understaffed Information Technology (IT) department. This lack of human resources led to a crudely implemented server infrastructure spread out over different buildings, ineffective system monitoring and backup, and poorly documented physical infrastructure. New equipment racks and power backup systems were purchased in June 2005, but had not been put into service due to a lack of time and resources within the IT department. The organization needed a re-designed and consolidated data center which would provide effective management, monitoring, backups, and physical documentation.
Objectives
Our objectives for this project included:
- Relocate all network equipment to a secure data center facility
- Reduce support costs by leveraging a single point of access to all essential network equipment
- Increase network scalability for future growth
- Increase remote manageability of servers
Value to the organization
The value to United includes:
- A reduction in support costs
- Easy network equipment access
- An organized cabling system
- Increased physical security
- Increased network uptime and availability
- Increased switching capacity