Metia 2008 New Servers Provide Remote Support for Jungle Projects Sites in Borneo

New Servers Provide Remote Support for Jungle Projects Sites in Borneo

Overview “It’s amazing when you think that we can remotely Country or Region: Asia & Middle East and reliably support systems in the middle of Industry: Construction & Mining oceans and jungles, and not incur any significant drop in performance.” Customer Profile With 40,000 employees, Leighton Michael Clothier, Team Leader, Infrastructure and Windows, Infoplex International is a leading construction group that undertakes civil engineering, Leighton International is a subsidiary of the Australian Leighton building, mining and offshore projects in Asia and the Middle East. Group, managing over 30 infrastructure and mining projects across Asia. Reliance on low-bandwidth satellite links at highly Business Situation Leighton International’s operating sites remote and inhospitable sites meant that mail and file servers are can be remote and inhospitable, with had to be located onsite. This decentralised architecture communications often dependent on low bandwidth satellite links. File servers exposed Leighton International to several liabilities. If a server were locally set up, making them difficult became inoperable, technical staff could take days to reach the to monitor and back up. project site, during which time user access, mail and Solution documentation could be unavailable. In addition, the high- New functionality in Windows Server® 2008 enabled sites to centralise file latency network link inhibited effective offsite replication. In storage in Singapore without significantly 2009, Leighton International centralised IT infrastructure at a impacting network performance. Mail servers were centralised in Singapore data centre in Singapore using Windows Server 2008 using Exchange Server 2007. Distributed File System (DFS). As a result, staff in remote sites

Benefits have improved server availability, network security and back up  Higher availability for on-site servers performance.  Guaranteed enforcement of company back up policy  Improved security  Better overall system support  Reduction in management costs

“The low-bandwidth Situation “Because there were few, if any, offsite Leighton International is a subsidiary of backups, disaster recovery was a connections we had Australia’s largest project development potential minefield. However, the low- severely restricted and contracting company, Leighton bandwidth connections we had severely Group. Employing 40,000 staff, the restricted head office’s capacity to back head office’s capacity company manages and executes civil up files and mail without slowing or to back up files and engineering, infrastructure, building, interrupting site communications,” says mail without slowing or mining, offshore and rail projects in Clothier. Brunei, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, interrupting site Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lastly, local IT administration was Lanka and the United Arab Emirates. problematic. Finding qualified staff who communications.” Michael Clothier, Team Leader, Infrastructure and could be based on-site was difficult, and Windows, Infoplex. Many of Leighton International’s 30 those who were employed on-site operating sites are in remote and needed unconstrained file and domain inhospitable locations. Its mines on access to support the self-contained site Borneo are located in jungles that are IT infrastructure. This exposed the many hours’ drive from the nearest town company to potential liabilities. and its gas pipe-laying operations are conducted from offshore barges. Solution In June 2008, Infoplex staff working in As the company commenced new conjunction with Microsoft began to projects, it installed on-site file servers design a new IT infrastructure. Their that ran off generators. The more remote objectives were to find a way to regularly sites were dependent on low-bandwidth, and easily back up all files and mail, high latency, 512 kilobit per second simplify the mail domain structure, (Kb/s) satellite links to country-based reduce security risks and improve onsite wide area networks (WANs) with each server availability. country operating its own domain structure. Although this infrastructure “What we wanted was to establish a enabled Leighton International to set up centralised data repository where we new sites in hostile locations very could ensure backups were maintained quickly, the company’s technology and files archived in line with company support subsidiary, Infoplex, had to policy,” says Clothier. contend with numerous challenges. Staff worked out that they could take “Although it worked well at a site-level, at advantage of feature upgrades in an international level, this distributed Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 and infrastructure was difficult to manage,” Windows Server® 2008 on which it was says Michael Clothier, Team Leader, running. This would enable them to take Infrastructure and Windows, Infoplex. file backup off-site, despite the highly “Email routing across the business was constrained bandwidth. complex and the servers suffered from low availability. “The Distributed File System in Windows Server 2008 scans all the files on the In addition, low bandwidth and the primary server – in this case the site potential unavailability of servers made it servers – and compares them to see difficult for Leighton International to exactly where any changes have been enforce group-wide backup protocols made,” says Cooper. “Then when the and long-term document storage policy. files are replicated, the server only updates the part of the file that has changed rather than the whole file, so site mail servers. It replaced them with client applications that link via the WAN to a central Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 domain network in the company’s Singapore data centre. In addition, Infoplex commissioned Windows Server 2008 machines in Singapore that replicated all site information and provided a central repository of Leighton International files.

Finally, Infoplex deployed WAN accelerators to expedite regular WAN traffic and help ensure that routine communications did not clog the high- latency 512 Kb/s links.

Benefits The centralised file and mail One of Leighton International’s infrastructure has dramatically improved operating sites in the interior of Borneo. the performance and reliability of there is a dramatic reduction in Leighton International’s remote onsite bandwidth requirements.” systems. Windows Server 2008 also includes Microsoft-developed Server Message Hostile environments Block 2 (SMB2) network protocol With the servers centrally located in technology. By combining multiple server Singapore, systems staff can now requests into single actions, SMB2 support network access and file reduces client-server traffic and in effect availability in exceptionally hostile and adjusts the internet file size to optimise remote terrain. the WAN link. “We can monitor site servers for errors and Now that it was feasible to centralise file disc space, wherever they are,” says “We can monitor site storage and backup, staff looked at how Clothier. “Consequently, it’s very easy for servers for errors and they could reconfigure the mail system. us to forestall server breakdowns and disk space, wherever provision new servers so our sites suffer “Exchange Server 2007 has a Standby fewer server outages and our email is more they are. Continuous Replication (SCR) reliable.” Consequently, its very technology that combines high service and data availability with resilience,” Leighton international has installed the easy for us to forestall explains Clothier. “This is a disaster new infrastructure on two ocean barges server breakdowns recovery technology that means that that are laying oil pipelines in waters off data is automatically and efficiently the Indian coast. The barges have to and provision new replicated to a backup server, so that in support 30–40 users each on a standard servers, so our sites the event of a server failure, a 512Kb/s satellite link. replacement mail server can become suffer fewer servers operational almost immediately.” “It’s amazing when you think we can outages and our email remotely and reliably support systems in In August 2008, Infoplex began to the middle of oceans or jungles, and not is more reliable.” decommission Leighton International’s Michael Clothier, Team Leader, For More Information incur any drop in performance,” says For more information about Microsoft Clothier. products and services, call 132058 or visit our Website at: Assured backup www.microsoft.com/australia/business/bi/ By devising a way to systematically back up all mail and project files, Leighton For more information about Leighton International can conform to company Infoplex products and services, call data storage protocols. 1300 729 533 or visit the Web site at: “The Distributed File System (DFS) in www.infoplex.com.au Windows Server 2008 has cut replication time by approximately three quarters, Windows Server 2008 For more information about Leighton which helps support staff replicate all Windows Server 2008, with built-in International products and services, call onsite data without swamping the Web and virtualization technologies, +971 4 423 0300 or visit the Web site at: satellite link,” says Clothier. enables you to increase the reliability www.leightonint.com/v1/ and flexibility of your server “Instead of trying to replicate 100 infrastructure. New virtualisation tools, gigabytes of data at a time, we often only Web resources, and security need to replicate 3 or 4 gigabytes,” adds enhancements help you save time, Cooper. “Plus now we can do it when we reduce costs, and provide a platform want to, and do it off-site.” for a dynamic and optimized datacenter. Powerful new tools like IIS In addition all mail is carefully archived in 7.0, Server Manager, and Windows® Singapore, and staff have confidence PowerShell, allow you to have more that they can access historical emails control over your servers and whenever they need them. streamline Web, configuration, and management tasks. Advanced security “Project staff aren’t hitting storage limits and reliability enhancements like on their local mail server, so they don’t Network Access Protection and the store mail on their hard drives,” says Read-Only Domain Controller option Clothier. for Active Directory Domain Services harden the operating system and help Onsite security protect your server environment to Administration is now carefully delegated ensure you have a solid foundation on and local staff no longer need extensive which to build your business. privileges. For more information, go to: “Now our exchange server infrastructure www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008 has a multi-tiered firewall, with an audited login process. Only data centre staff have full access rights, and all the logins can be tracked,” says Clothier.

Software and Services  Products − Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 − Windows Server 2008

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published September 2009 This gives us a much higher degree of security.”