Partnership Effective: April 2007

Client Profile
Established over twenty-five years ago, Hebert Research is a recognized leader in applied statistics, marketing, economic and behavioral research. Hebert Research has guided the decision-making of over 3,000 organizations, large and small.

Located in Bellevue , Washington , Hebert Research employs over 90 researchers, including experts in marketing, economics, and the social sciences.

The multifaceted nature of the market research business means that Hebert Research's computer users have a wide range of requirements as to how they access the network's resources and which applications and services are delivered for employees with disparate job descriptions.

Business Challenge
Hebert Research's network was operating on a Microsoft Windows Server 2000 Active Directory platform, with two domains within the existing forest. Virtually all of the server-room hardware was beyond its serviceable life, and the decreased reliability of critical servers was resulting in loss of revenue from network downtime.

The growing number of users on the network was taking a toll on its performance, and an assortment of unmanaged switches was unable to adequately handle the amount of data traversing the network.

As the number of desktop systems used by Hebert Research grew along with the company's success, they were left with a combination of some relatively new computers along with a variety of older systems. While the performance of many of the older computers was not up to the task of efficiently running Hebert's newer applications, replacing all of the older systems would be prohibitively expensive. It was decided that changes to the network infrastructure would ideally address any existing shortcomings at the desktop level, so that desktop system replacement could be phased in over time.

Hebert Research was relying on their ISP for email services, and they were interested in the benefits of bringing that function in-house to achieve more centralized control of their working environment. Workplace collaboration was becoming increasingly difficult as a result of their growth, and t hey wanted to be able to more easily access shared resources such as internal address books, mailing lists, and calendars. A Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003 / Microsoft® Outlook® 2003 solution running on Windows Server 2003 would provide the productivity, security and reliability they required of a new e-mail system.

As often happens, Hebert Research's network had evolved gradually over a period of many years. The need for replacing most of the server room hardware would provide an opportunity to address another issue: the accumulation of free-standing servers and other network hardware was pushing the limits of the physical space available. Replacing their existing equipment with space-efficient rack-mounted hardware would help to minimize clutter while accommodating any expected future growth of the network.

How Unisoft Networks Helped
While Hebert Research has always retained its own IT staff, they had relied on Unisoft Networks in the past whenever they needed assistance with the occasional project or problem resolution. As a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, Unisoft Networks remained the best choice for this latest project. Unisoft Networks already had a good understanding of the company's business and IT needs, and they played a lead role in the planning, design, and implementation of this latest project, which turned out to be the most significant network upgrade ever undertaken at Hebert Research.

Unisoft Networks installed five new HP Proliant servers: two Domain Controllers, one Exchange Server, one File Server, and one Terminal Server. They deployed Office Outlook 2003 on the user desktops as the central information manager for e-mail, calendaring, and contact information. Terminal Services was implemented for a large group of users, providing efficient and reliable delivery of Office 2003 and other business applications to older workstations that otherwise would not have had the performance necessary to run them properly. All servers provided by Unisoft Networks were of rack-mount design, and were installed in a new four-post equipment rack. Two uninterruptible power supplies, two HP Procurve managed switches, and a new firewall / VPN appliance were installed in the same rack. The old two-domain environment was collapsed to a single domain.

• Reliability: First and foremost, reliability went up significantly. Network outages had been increasingly contributing to company-wide work disruption, in addition to putting extra workload on the IT staff. The stability of the new network was immediately apparent.
• Productivity and Efficiency: Already on the rise from the increased network up-time provided by new, reliable hardware, employees also found that they were working faster and smarter thanks to the many enhanced features offered by the new Microsoft Exchange / Outlook environment. New tools for calendaring, group scheduling, and remote access to email and other network resources mean that employees are getting more done in less time.
• Performance: New high-performance servers and switches, combined with Unisoft Networks’ efficient execution of Terminal Services, resulted in an across-the-board improvement in the overall user experience.
• Security: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 offers many security enhancements not available in previous versions. The addition of a new firewall, combined with the latest versions of Symantec’s Antivirus Enterprise Edition and Premium AntiSpam, means that Hebert Research’s network is no longer vulnerable to the types of attacks and intrusions that it may have been susceptible to prior to the upgrades.
• Savings: Hebert Research reports that their IT-related costs are down 50% as a result of the network upgrade, which will provide them with the quick ROI they were hoping for when they selected Unisoft Networks for this project.