Contact: Tim Crall, 310.377.1543

Business: K-12 Private Educational Institution

Locations: Los Angeles

Issues: We were brought in to assist Chadwick's IT Department with some high-level projects. They had several issues including the following:

• Running out of space on their main file sever
• User files spread out over multiple servers/accounts
• Running multiple domains
• Too many services running on their main servers
• Inundated with spam and viruses

System: Windows 2003 & 2000 Server, Exchange 2003, Macintosh, Linux, Sonicwall Firewall, Campus-Wide Wireless

Solution: Chadwick purchased an Iomega NAS with 3/4 Terabyte storage and wanted all the users files consolidated onto it. They had user files on a Linux samba share, an Apple fileserver, and a secondary domain. So the first step was to flatten out their domains and stabilize their main domain with a main DC and a backup DC. Once this was done and DNS was correctly load-balanced, we installed the new NAS and joined the domain. Once permissions were setup correctly, we used Services for UNIX to get the files off of the Linux server and Services for Macintosh to migrate the files from the apple server. Lastly, we moved all the files from the old domain over to the new domain. We now had all users files on one server using one domain.

Next we helped deploy multiple Windows 2003 servers to serve as applications servers for their various vertical market applications. They were running all of these applications on two different servers and we were able to migrate them to a new set of servers to lighten the load.

From here, we addressed the spam problem and deployed a Barracuda Networks Spam Firewall. This device sits between the firewall and mail server and examines each piece of mail for spam and viruses. It offers a web-based GUI that makes it simple to tweak the settings and to view detailed reports. The IT Manager received many unsolicited phone calls within a day or two thanking him for fixing their spam problems. This device really works well and is rock-solid due to its Linux OS.

Summary: We have completed all projects for Chadwick School on budget and on time. They continually look to us to help with high-level projects to supplement their departmental workload.