Business Needs
Litzky Public Relations is a full-service agency specializing in consumer product publicity for the past 20 years. Litzky Public Relation’s clients range from international blue chip companies to small start-ups with a great story or unusual product. With 25 dedicated employees, Litzky Public Relations’ advantage lies in its size—it’s agile, flexible, innovative, and concentrates on hiring star talent. The firm needs similar qualities from its network infrastructure—flexibility, performance, efficiency, and scalability.
The firm’s aging network infrastructure (consisting of five core servers) were inadequate to process increasing volumes of information, and inconsistencies in hardware compatibility and performance only made matters worse. This less than optimal situation began to affect network users who couldn’t efficiently work from remote locations or effectively update essential productivity tools. Productivity was stifled as the staff could not work remotely with an expectation of dependable network performance. Ultimately, collaboration suffered because employees couldn’t share and revise documents with people who were traveling, working from home, at a client’s site, or at any other off-site location.
Litzky Public Relations needed a new, up-to-date network infrastructure that mirrored the qualities of the company, and they needed it fast.
Solution
Litzky Public Relations knew that its IT vendor, eMazzanti Technologies (a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and Microsoft Small Business Specialist), had all the Microsoft server product expertise and knowledge of the firm’s network that it needed to quickly and successfully deploy three servers running Windows Server® 2008. In addition, the firm wanted to upgrade its network hardware and maintain high-quality software support. The firm realized that the technology choice (for performance) and vendor selection (for skills) were equally important, so it decided to use Windows Server 2008.
Enabling more flexible network connectivity options for remote users was critical, so one of the core technologies that the firm uses in Windows Server 2008 is Terminal Services. Windows Server 2008 provides improvements and innovations to Terminal Services that go beyond facilitating remote access to applications. The user experience is further enhanced by enabling users to run remote applications on their own desktop side-by-side with local applications. With this tool, the employees can respond to their clients’ needs from anywhere, anytime.
With Terminal Services (TS) Web Access, employees can now visit a Web site and access a list of available applications. The new Web interface provides a centralized menu showing all the remote applications that are currently available. As a result, running a remote application is as simple as choosing a program from the menu. As programs are running on a terminal server and not on the client computer, the IT staff only needs to maintain and update a single instance of the application.
Benefits
By using Windows Server 2008, Litzky Public Relations can now do the following: * Provide employees with anywhere access to the firm’s business applications (Microsoft and custom applications) over the Internet * Remove the risk of data loss on laptops by providing more secure remote access to centrally located applications and data * Reduce administrative overhead by installing business applications in one centralized location and limiting access to particular applications * Provide more secure access to terminal services without needing to enable full network access through a virtual private network (VPN) or other mechanisms * Save time and money on administration and support by eliminating the need to remotely connect to the firm’s network using VPN * Consolidate existing terminal servers using x64 technology
Other significant benefits include: * Six-month reduction in application deployment time * Two-hour per week reduction in time spent managing servers * 50% increase in server performance * Security improvements and a reduction in remote management costs due to centralized file and application management * Reduction in help desk calls related to application support * Scalability improvements due to the ease with which the firm can now add users because of simplified desktop configurations * Increase in operational efficiency and reduction in costs due to efficient wide area network (WAN) use, improved end-user application experience, and faster deployment of applications
Employees can now easily access the firm’s network, revise press materials more efficiently, respond to clients, and deliver presentations on the road. These improvements in customer service and productivity translate directly to an increase in the firm’s revenue. That’s exactly the return on investment that Litzky Public Relations expected.
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008, with built-in Web and virtualization technologies, enables you to increase the reliability and flexibility of your server infrastructure. New virtualization tools, Web resources, and security enhancements help you save time, reduce costs, and provide a platform for a dynamic and optimized datacenter. Powerful new tools like IIS 7.0, Server Manager, and Windows® PowerShell, allow you to have more control over your servers and streamline Web, configuration, and management tasks. Advanced security and reliability enhancements like Network Access Protection and the Read-Only Domain Controller option for Active Directory Domain Services harden the operating system and help protect your server environment to ensure you have a solid foundation on which to build your business.
