Merger with Mobitel

Customer Solution Case Study

Telecom Company Streamlines IP Management with

Overview “IPAM has significantly improved our IP address Country or Region: Slovenia Industry: Telecommunications management issues. I estimate that I’ll reduce the time I spend on IP address and network management by 75 Customer Profile Based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Telekom percent.” Slovenije provides high-end mobile, fixed David Koprivnikar, System Administrator, Telekom Slovenije and IP communications and services, and multimedia content to business and Telekom Slovenije is a major telecommunications company in residential customers. It employs more the Slovenian market. Following a merger with its mobile than 2,500 people. subsidiary Mobitel, IT staff faced extra work of administering the Business Situation additional IP addresses, which highlighted the drawbacks of the IT staff used a spreadsheet-based web application to track IP addresses manual, spreadsheet-based method that it used for tracking IP manually. Telekom Slovenije wanted to addresses. Telekom Slovenije deployed the IP Address save time and reduce the risk of IP address conflicts by automating IP Management (IPAM) feature that is part of the Windows Server address administration. 2012 operating system. To begin, it installed IPAM in a small Solution production environment; however, Telekom Slovenije plans to The company is deploying the IP Address use IPAM to cover all 4,000 IP addresses across the entire Management feature in the Windows Server 2012 operating system. enterprise by the end of 2012. By using IPAM to discover, monitor, and manage IP addresses, IT staff allocates addresses Benefits Improved insight into IP addresses 60 percent faster and reduces the risk of conflicts, which Reduced risk of IP address conflict contributes to an estimated 75 percent reduction in the time Lowered IP address management time by 75 percent that IT staff spends administering IP addresses. Situation Every computer or device connected to the Telekom Slovenije plays a major role in the Internet is given at least one IP address. telecommunications business in the highly The company also has four Domain Name competitive Slovenian market. Its 11 System (DNS) servers that translate domain subsidiaries operate in the fields of fixed names, such as ts.telekom.si, into IP and mobile telecommunications, system addresses. Because it is a integration, telecommunication networks telecommunications company, Telekom construction and maintenance, and Slovenije has more devices with IP multimedia and digital advertising. In July addresses than employees: its DNS servers 2011, Telekom Slovenije merged with contain a database of approximately 4,000 Mobitel, a mobile services provider, to network names and IP addresses at speed technological development and Telekom Slovenije. Within the database, 30 boost company responsiveness to market percent of the IP addresses are static, which conditions. Today, its Mobitel and SiOL means that they are manually configured, brands are synonymous with high-quality, and 70 percent are dynamic, which means fast, and reliable mobile and broadband that the IP address changes each time the services. device joins the network.

Merger with Mobitel Manual IP Address Management With the merger, 1,000 Mobitel employees, Until recently, the IT staff who managed IP 1,600 computers, and 500 servers were addresses used a manual process that added to the jurisdiction of an eight- required a custom-built web application. member network team that already Administrators used the application to managed the 2,000 employees, 3,500 enter scopes and manually search for and computers, and 500 servers at Telekom assign IP addresses that are recorded on a Slovenije. The majority of servers run the large spreadsheet. If an employee wanted Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise to install a new computer to the network, operating system. The company uses Active that person had to make a request to the Directory Domain Services, the directory network team. Then the team would service that is an integral feature of the forward the request to the IT department, Windows operating system, and maintains which would identify the device and search three forests: Telekom Slovenije and manually for an available IP address before Mobitel in two-way trust relationship and a making a reservation on the DHCP server. third, for partners, in a one-way domain trust with Mobitel. “Whenever you have an inefficient manual process, there is an increase in the Telekom Slovenije has three Dynamic Host likelihood of human error,” says David Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers that Koprivnikar, System Administrator at automatically provide computers, servers, Telekom Slovenije. “It was difficult to track and other network devices based on and search IP addresses to make sure that Transmission Control Protocol and Internet we didn’t cause an IP address conflict. Protocol (TCP/IP) that have valid IP Overall, we were spending 400 hours on addresses within 38 predefined scopes.

26 network management, including IP address potentially impact customer service and management, every year.” lose money.”

An IP address conflict occurs when two Manual IP address management had been computers on the local area network at a concern for network administrators for Telekom Slovenije have been assigned the years at Telekom Slovenije. The company same IP address. IP conflicts between two estimates that its four network computers normally render either one or administrators spend 400 hours a year on both of them unusable for network network management tasks, 25 percent of operations, which could potentially affect which is dedicated to IP address the business. With so many IP addresses to management. So when the company heard manage manually and more than one IT about an opportunity to remedy the employee working on the same situation by joining the Rapid Deployment spreadsheet, there was potential for Program (RDP) for the Windows Server miscommunications and IP conflicts. This 2012 operating system, it decided to was a risk that Telekom Slovenije wanted to investigate. avoid. Solution Risk of Service Disruption The opportunity to join the RDP came Another problem could arise with through one of the subsidiaries at Telekom mismanagement of fixed IP addresses and Slovenije, Avtenta. A member of the corresponding rules configured for the Microsoft Partner Network, Avtenta has company’s firewall; for example, a rule that several Gold competencies and provides only allows traffic from a specific IP address the help-desk services for Telekom outside of the network through the firewall Slovenije. When Microsoft Slovenia asked to a single IP address inside the network. Avtenta if it knew of any companies that “Our administrators check from time to would benefit from the RDP, Avtenta time to ensure that IP addresses and immediately thought of Telekom Slovenije firewall rules are still valid, but if they come and the IP Address Management (IPAM) across a rule that hasn’t been used for a feature in Windows Server 2012. “We knew long time, and they can’t find a that Telekom Slovenije used an internal corresponding reservation for the IP web application that lacked auto-discovery address, they might decide to disable that for IP addresses,” says Rok Nemec, rule on the firewall,” says Koprivnikar. “But Technical Support Engineer II at Avtenta. it could have been made for an “The new IPAM feature seemed like a administrator to access a server from home perfect fit.” in the unlikely event that there was an issue in the middle of the night. It has happened Telekom Slovenije can use IPAM to before that the administrator was unable to discover, administrate, and monitor the get to the server in question because the IP company’s DHCP and DNS servers, collect address and the rule had been disabled. If IP address data in one place, and build a we can’t find the server to fix it, we could historical survey of IP address usage and server configuration changes. Through the

36 IPAM user interface, network administrators however, Telekom Slovenije is planning to can manage the IP addresses that are used consolidate the Telekom and Mobitel on the corporate network. “We are always forests into one Telekom forest and will interested in the latest technologies from maintain a single IPAM Server to cover the Microsoft, as they help us stay at the entire enterprise after Windows Server forefront of innovation and improve our 2012 is released to manufacturing. customer service,” says Koprivnikar. “We wanted to make our IP address Telekom Slovenije will use IPAM to management less complicated. The IPAM streamline the process of adding a device scenario in the RDP would provide a quick to the network, enabling the automatic fix to a longstanding issue.” assignment of the next available IP address, with no intervention from IT staff. The In March 2012, Avtenta and Telekom company will use the same request form on Slovenije installed IPAM in the company’s the web portal, but now it will trigger lab. In June 2012, they upgraded to the automated actions in Microsoft System release candidate and installed IPAM in a Center 2012: look for a new available production environment on a Hyper-V host address in IPAM, add the registration to the in the company’s virtualized environment, IPAM database, register the IP address in which is based on Windows Server 2008 R2 the DHCP and DNS servers, and return the and Hyper-V virtualization technology. For newly registered IP address to the the production environment, the teams employee using that device. System Center used Server Manager, the management 2012 provides a complete data center and interface in Windows Server 2012. “Server desktop management solution. Manager gives more information about the new feature, which was very helpful,” says Telekom Slovenije chose an HP hardware Nemec. “However, this was a very easy platform for its Windows Server 2012 deployment—we just installed IPAM on a environment. HP provides its own Hyper-V host and started the auto- management solution and Telekom already discovery to locate the DHCP and DNS uses HP definitions for monitoring HP servers. More than 20 DHCP scopes were servers through System Center 2012. “HP is transferred to the IPAM, which covered an important Microsoft partner, and this approximately 1,000 computers and users platform is well tested and supported by and 200 servers.” Microsoft,” says Koprivnikar. “Our experience with HP servers running IPAM communicates with the managed Windows Server 2008 R2 has been very DHCP and DNS servers by using remote positive, so we decided to use it as a procedure call and provides automatic IP platform for Windows Server 2012.” address discovery, custom IP address display, tracking of IP address usage, Telekom Slovenije is also interested in reporting, and a history of server Windows Server 2012 for its improvements configuration changes—all in one easy-to- in failover clustering for file servers, which use interface. The scope of an IPAM is can be run in active-active mode with basic limited to a single Active Directory forest; load balancing. “To ensure data availability

46 on our file servers, we duplicated a lot of According to Koprivnikar, the main benefit of data and maintained large servers,” says IPAM is that he can see everything in one place through a single user interface and management Koprivnikar. “Now we can set up file server platform for IP address administration on the clusters on virtual machines and use fibre network. Also, Telekom Slovenije channels [a gigabit-speed network administrators can customize how the IP technology primarily used for storage addresses are organized in hierarchical, logical groups that make sense for the company’s networking] and get rid of the big servers. organizational structure. With the Mobitel merger and the acquisition of even more data, this will be a “With the statistics gathered together and cost-effective way to ensure availability available in IPAM, I can immediately see what’s going on across the corporate network,” within a streamlined file services Koprivnikar says. “The information available environment.” will become more valuable as we accumulate more statistics over time. We will be able to Benefits audit server configuration changes and track IP address usage to refine our IP address Monitoring and managing the IP address management processes and better serve the infrastructure on a corporate network is a company. And if we have any more mergers, critical part of network administration. IPAM will greatly simplify IP address Telekom Slovenije used the IPAM feature in administration as we incorporate additional new servers, computers, and devices onto the Windows Server 2012 to solve its ongoing network.” challenges with IP address management, gaining unprecedented insight into the When an employee makes a request to install a more than 4,000 IP addresses that network new device on the network, IT staff can use IPAM to quickly find an available address and administrators must manage. The company assign it, and the network administrators do not expects to reduce IP address conflicts and have to be involved at all. “Now that we can see save significant time for IT staff. immediately which IP addresses are available, I Improved Insight into IP Addresses estimate that we could add a device to the network for an employee and assign a new IP address to that device 60 percent more quickly,” says Koprivnikar. “This is because, by using IPAM, we can automate processes that we are performing manually today.”

Reduced Risk of IP Address Conflict

56 Telekom Slovenije intends to retire its in-house value to organizations of all sizes in IP address management solution as soon as between. Building on this legacy, Windows Windows Server 2012 is released to manufacturing. When that happens and network Server 2012 redefines the category, administrators stop tracking IP address delivering hundreds of new features and allocation and utilization manually, the risk of enhancements that span virtualization, human error leading to IP address conflicts will networking, storage, user experience, cloud disappear. “IPAM will notify us if there is a potential conflict, so we can reduce the risk of computing, automation, and more. Simply server downtime that could affect our put, Windows Server 2012 helps you business,” says Koprivnikar. “With IPAM transform your IT operations to reduce maintaining up-to-date IP usage and tracking, costs and deliver a whole new level of we will always be able to find a server, business value. computer, or device on the network for troubleshooting, which reduces the risk of an outage that could affect customer service. This For more information, visit: is a comforting thought.” www.microsoft.com/en-us/server- cloud/windows-server/2012-default.aspx Lowered IP Address Management Time by 75 Percent With automatic IP address discovery and easy access to historical IP address usage data, Telekom Slovenije expects the amount of time that IT staff spends administering IP addresses will be significantly reduced.

“We can’t estimate for sure at this point, but I know that we won’t be spending 400 hours on network management anymore,” says Koprivnikar. “IPAM has significantly improved our IP address management issues. I estimate that I’ll reduce the time I spend on IP address and network management by 75 percent. And as we learn more about using Windows PowerShell scripts to automate processes for IPAM, such as importing DHCP reservations into IPAM or automating processes for allocating manual IP addresses, we expect even more productivity benefits for IT staff. We are looking forward to deploying it globally.” Windows Server 2012 Windows Server drives many of the world’s largest data centers, empowers small businesses around the world, and delivers