Consulting engineer increases connectivity to improve information flow

19th July 2013

By: Chantelle Kotze

  

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Cape Town-based managed services provider and Internet service provider SybaWeb added the Richards Bay branch of consulting engineering practice UWP Consult- ing to its connectivity backbone after it had approached the company last year with a turnkey information technology (IT) management solution for the IT infrastructure of its South African branches.

UWP Consulting MD Craig Northwood says there is a need in the engineering industry to align IT and business and, in UWP Consulting’s case, there was an increasing demand for standardised IT across all its office branches.

“Having successfully completed projects in several African countries, including Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Madagascar, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Namibia, and with an ever-increasing footprint in Africa, it is important that we facilitate constant connectivity and communication among all our branches to ensure direct communication when branches are working on the same project,” says Northwood.

He says SybaWeb has been instrumental in helping UWP Consulting achieve this level of connectivity, which has, in turn, improved the company’s project management.

SybaWeb Johannesburg and Durban branch manager Patrick Turner tells Engineering News that the solution provided by SybaWeb can resolve any IT-related challenge that UWP Consulting may have, while providing the full spectrum of IT services and solutions required by the company. SybaWeb also provides ongoing support for the company’s 13 countrywide branches and Tanzanian branch.

The roll-out of the UWP Consulting Internet service project was undertaken between September 10 and October 3 last year.

Turner explains that the fundamental services were imple- mented during this phase to set a solid platform for the rest of the solutions to be implemented.

This initial implementation and SybaWeb’s first objective entailed a two-pronged approach. Firstly, the company had to get all UWP Consulting’s branches onto SybaWeb’s connectivity, which consists of a primary asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) with automatic third-generation technology failover, or 3G failover, should the ADSL line go down. Secondly, it had to install the Kaseya software to enable SybaWeb to proactively monitor, manage and maintain UWP Consulting’s 13 branches.

Server virtualisation was also critical, says Turner, noting that the process entailed incorporating the UWP Consulting server into SybaWeb’s data centre. This virtualisation was undertaken over a weekend, outside UWP Consulting’s operating hours, to ensure the least disruption possible and to allow for testing.

“Network-attached storage (NAS) system devices were also employed to introduce a collaborative system that enables multiple parties to access the latest versions of documents or drawings simultaneously using real-time synchronisation.

Further services provided by SybaWeb include Web-hosting UWP Consulting’s website and the creation of a meshed virtual private network, which provides UWP Consulting’s mobile users with secure access to its server and accommodates direct communication among branches.

SybaWeb also provided data- centre hosting and support, which required UWP Consult- ing servers to be relocated to SybaWeb’s Cape Town- based data centre between September 15 and 16 to enhance the performance of the branches connected to the South African ADSL. This also reduced latency, which contributes to faster connec- tion speeds.

Turner says SybaWeb’s managed services focus on achieving the best results from UWP Consulting’s IT investment spend while enabling the company to focus on its core competency.

SybaWeb’s managed services have many benefits, including a single ‘port of call’ for all IT needs, the ability to scale the support up or down as required, the standardisation of IT across the entire network, a guaranteed fast turnaround time on IT support requests and enhanced data security.

The benefits also include disaster recovery and business continuity, which entail data backup for existing server infrastructure, centralised backup of the various offices’ file servers to SybaWeb’s data centre, cloud backup of end-user worksta- tions and proactive real-time monitoring of all workstations and servers. This enables SybaWeb to identify failures before they happen, thus, reducing downtime.

SybaWeb’s project management capability stems from its proactive approach to learn about its clients, their requirements and how to shape these requirements into effective and efficient systems. “Once we have achieved a customised solution based on a client’s requirements, we roll out a project that is focused on meeting deadlines and we ensure that every step of the project is successfully implemented and carefully monitored, explains Turner.

Since the commissioning of the Internet service in October last year, SybaWeb has been managing UWP Consulting’s network, while telecommunications group Telkom has performed upgrades to the ADSL line that SybaWeb uses. These upgrades entailed increasing the 384 Kb/s and 584 Kb/s line speeds to 1 Mb/s and increasing the 1 Mb/s lines to 2 Mb/s.

Meanwhile, Turner says, SybaWeb is also considering the implementation of a companywide active directory that will enable file permissions and authentications to be implemented at all UWP Consulting’s branches at a later stage.


This directory is a solution that provides standardised, centralised and auditable management for file permissions, service access and user privileges.


Using a companywide active directory will create a scalable, secure and manageable infrastructure for user and resource management, with which a company can provide support for directory-enabled applications, such as the NAS solution, notes Turner.

“UWP Consulting has five standalone active directory servers, with the rest being workgroups; therefore, there is no companywide mechanism for permissions, authentication and enforcement of policy,” he says.

Edited by Tracy Hancock
Creamer Media Contributing Editor

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