Traxi Technologies, LLC IT Infrastructure Stack

Transcription

1 Traxi Technologies, LLC Copyrighted All Rights Reserved. Traxi Technologies, LLC IT Infrastructure Stack 474 Seventh Avenue, NY, NY T

2 About Traxi Technologies Traxi Technologies was founded in We are a Managed Services provider, as such, we use a managed services platform to deliver reliable, cost effective and consistent service. We have a focus on healthcare, servicing organizations such as Morris Heights, Urban Health Plans, Odyssey House. We are Microsoft Gold Certified, focusing on Infrastructure, VoIP and Unified Communications. PG. 1

3 Presentation Overview The Information Technology (IT) Infrastructure Stack refers to all the technology components, when taken as a whole, represent a single platform. All components of the IT Infrastructure Stack should be tightly integrated together to yield an easy to manage, highly reliable, scalable and secure computing environment. Once the stack is in place, adding applications and new technologies, such as Practice Management, EMR, VoIP, will be seamless. This presentation may educate, but it may also provide a baseline to help you determine how effectively your organization has/is planning on deploying technology. PG. 2

4 The IT Infrastructure Stack Be very selective when choosing technology and vendors. Mistakes can be crippling, waste time and money. Make sure all technology and vendors can interoperate. Have a strategy. Formulate a 3-4 year plan and ensure your infrastructure can scale to meet your growth. Don t consume all at once, add as you go. All technology vendors are offering an alternative service model where you pay a monthly fee for the services you use as opposed to owning outright. Always keep your warranty up to date so you can upgrade key components of your infrastructure and have access to vendor support. Don t reinvent the wheel, learn from each other, repeat successes, avoid mistakes. PG. 3

5 Components of the Stack WAN Edge Security (firewalls) LAN (network switches) Servers Desktops Anti-virus Messaging/Unified Communications Storage VoIP Backup Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Monitoring Help Desk PG. 4

6 WAN (Wide Area Network) Technology Uses Notes Dial Up Frame Relay MPLS (Multi Protocol Layer Switching) Out of band management Internet connectivity, Internet VPN for WAN, point to point for Wan, separate circuit for voice Internet, WAN, Voice through same connection No longer used in production Metro Ethernet Direct Ethernet Handoff Emerging Carriers Verizon, Paetec, AT&T, Broadview, Level 3, others Decreasing adoption Significant adoption Be careful when selecting your carrier, cheapest is not best! PG. 5

7 Edge Security A firewall should be in place at each location. Internet traffic can flow from each location or be routed through a single location. Edge device should do content filtering (spam, virus, content control). Third parties should be used to filter before it arrives at your site (Microsoft Hosted Exchange, SpamSoap, Postini). These provides can also store and forward , while allowing access to , while the site is down (more on this under DR/BC). Edge security can be managed by your provider, or internally. Solution includes equipment and proactive monitoring. Hardware manufacturers include Sonicwall, Cisco, Juniper, Checkpoint as well as others. PG. 6

8 LAN (Local Area Network) LAN switches provide Ethernet network to desktops and now phones. Design considerations should include backbone core and redundancy of core. End points connect to edge switches, which then uplink to the core. Consider 10/100 switches for end points and 10/100/1000 switches for servers. Backbone (uplink) speeds should be even higher. If VoIP is being considered, LAN switches should support Power Over Ethernet (POE). LAN switches should be setup to support VLAN s and QoS depending on the size of the organization and applications running. LAN switches should be constantly monitored for anomalies on the network. Cisco and HP are top tier, Netgear is cost-effective, but doesn t offer the same reliability. HP Procurve switches with lifetime warranty, offer the most value relative to price. PG. 7

9 Servers Standardize on one manufacturer. Ensure warranty is kept up to date. Always procure servers with BIOS level remote control (such as Dell DRAC s). Multihome server NIC s to multiple gigabit switches, Multihome power supplies to multiple UPS. If you are running a Windows network across multiple sites, deploy remote Windows servers at each location (Domain Controller, DHCP, Distributed Files, DNS, other support services). This will ensure processing is closest to the end user and won t have to traverse the Wan. Servers should be constantly monitored. Ensure a patch management/maintenance strategy is in place. Now is a good time to purchase Microsoft s Software Assurance with each license because new release is coming out in less than 2 years. PG. 8

10 Servers (con t) Servers should be constantly imaged for Backup and DR purposes (more on this in later slide). As the organization grows, moving storage outside of the server onto a san/nas will yield higher reliability and performance. Ensure a strong Windows Architecture is in place with good Active Directory Design. Latest release of Windows is 2003 R2, 2008 is coming, but wait until 2009 at least to deploy. Linux has it s uses, but Microsoft is neutralizing the biggest advantage cost savings. PG. 9

11 Desktops/Laptops Try to standardize on one manufacturer. Desktops should be thought of as throw away. At anytime, a desktop can be lost without any data loss. Redirect all user data (my documents) to the network. Be careful with the use of roaming profiles, use them sparingly. A standard desktop image should be made and new desktops will have this image deployed to it. Multiple images may need to be maintained based on functional group. If a PC becomes corrupted, simply redeploy the image instead of remediating problem (driver issue, virus, spyware, os corruption, etc). Symantec Ghost is a good imaging platform. Generations of user by user images can be taken so an image can be redeployed for a user as of a specific point in time. This adds a layer of complexity which isn t recommended. Desktops should be monitored for key events, such as viruses, hardware failures, etc. PG. 10

12 Anti-Virus Anti-virus and Anti-spyware should obviously be deployed on all desktops and servers. The market is changing. Symantec, for example, is consolidating all offerings under one end point security management platform. Protection should allow for protection from attack and malicious code, while simultaneously ensuring continual compliance with IT policies. End point security system should log and alert. Management interface should be in place to manage the system. PG. 11

13 Messaging/Unified Communications There are many messaging platforms on the market, ranging from POP, Notes, Microsoft Exchange. We focus on Exchange. Latest release of Exchange is 2007, but first major service pack has not yet been released. Buy Exchange through the open License program so you can purchase 2007, but have the downgrade right to install 2003, then upgrade to 2007 when you are ready. Exchange 2007 is role based (Client Access, Edge Transport, Hub Transport, Mailbox, Unified Messaging), each with layered security. Unified Messaging: Voice Messaging, Fax Messaging, Speech-Enabled Automated Attendant, Self-Service Voice Mail Support, Outlook Voice Access, Play on Phone PG. 12

14 Messaging/Unified Communications Voice Messaging System Fax Messaging System Speech-Enabled Automated Attendant Self-Service Voice Mail Support Outlook Voice Access Play on Phone Voice mail can now be stored in the mailbox and accessed from a unified inbox in Outlook, Outlook Web Access, on a mobile device, or from a standard telephone. This unification improves employee productivity by simplifying access to the most common types of communications. It also dramatically reduces cost by removing the need for a standalone voice mail system and by taking advantage of any existing investments in Active Directory. Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging can be connected with a legacy private branch exchange (PBX) infrastructure through an IP gateway, or can be directly connected with certain IP PBX installations. Faxes can now be stored in the mailbox and accessed from the user s unified inbox in Outlook, Outlook Web Access, or their mobile device. Unified Messaging centralizes the management of inbound fax services within the Exchange infrastructure. The Attendant answers calls using an automated operator, with customizable menus (e.g. press 1 for sales ), and global address list directory lookups (e.g. who would you like to contact? ). Callers can interact with the Automated Attendant through touch tone menus or their voice using speech recognition. Using Outlook Web Access, users can request a reset of their voice mail PIN, set their voice mail greeting, record their out-of-office voice message, and specify mailbox folders to access when calling in by phone to hear messages through text-to-speech translation. Users can access their Exchange mailbox using a standard telephone, available anywhere. Through touch tone or speech-enabled menus, they can hear and act on their calendar, listen to messages (translated from text to speech), listen to voice mail messages, call their contacts, or call users listed in the directory. Exchange Unified Messaging allows users to playback voice messages received in their Exchange inbox on a designated phone. This feature is useful when a user is in a public place and does not want to play the voice mail over their computer speakers. Play on Phone routes the voice mail to a cell phone, desk phone, or other number specified by the user. PG. 13

15 Storage For smaller organizations, storage can reside as RAID on the servers. Storage can also be centralized on Storage Area Networks (SANs) or Network Attached Storage (NAS). NAS relies on the network, but has the lowest cost. A SAN can be implemented using either iscsi or Fiber channel. Fiber channel requires expensive fiber switches and host bus adapters (HBA). A good migration path would be to start a SAN using iscsi then migrate into Fiber channel. Servers would boot from the SAN, they would not require any disks. This increases performance and reliability. StoreVault by NetApp can scale from 1TB to 6TB. EMC, Hitachi, Xiotech, etc manufacturer SANS with larger capacity. PG. 14

16 VoIP Unique distributed architecture with no single point of failure and seamless scale Best in class multi-site management reducing costs Easiest to use applications driving end user productivity IP WAN Voice Applications PSTN Branch Office Analog IP ShoreGear-60/12 Remote User ShoreGear-T1 Voice Applications -voice mail - AutoAttendant - Contact Center - Management IP PSTN ShoreGear-120/24 Analog ShoreTel Call Manager IP Headquarters Office Conference Bridge ShoreGear-T1 Legacy voice mail Legacy PBX PSTN Regional Office ShoreWare Director PG. 15

17 Backup/Disaster Recovery When thinking of Backup, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity, there are two key factors RPO (Recovery Point Objective), which indicates how far back you need to go in the event of a failure and RTO (Recovery Time Objective), how long it will take to recover. Traditionally, tapes have been used with backup software such as Veritas. The RPO for tape is as of the last good backup. The RTO for tape is hours. Full system restores should be performed against the tapes, in addition to file level restores. Tapes are not reliable, should be considered secondary or tertiary mechanisms for backup. Tape drives themselves have many moving parts that are prone to failure. PG. 16

18 Backup/Disaster Recovery Every system should be imaged to a local NAS at the block level (lowest level of data stored on a hard drive). A number of snapshots should be taken throughout the day and stored on the NAS so generations of the data exist. Frame based replication of the NAS should then be sent to an offsite data center. In the event of a failure, the image will be sent back to the production site and the server will boot from the NAS containing the image. This will allow for bare metal restores. Other solutions, such as Double Take and XoSoft create mirror images of servers and applications so a server is available on a hot standby basis. Third party filtering/store and forward services, such as Microsoft Hosted Exchange, Postini and Spam soap should be considered. Not only will these services filter s, but they will store them if the primary site goes down (backup mx) and even allow users to access the s. PG. 17

19 Monitoring All systems should constantly be monitored for reactive events, as well as proactive actions. Key monitoring includes disk space, viruses, security, etc. Event log filtering for key events. SNMP traps of key hardware. A console should exist so events can be cleared and status can be checked. Console should be monitored by a live person, can be done remotely, via , etc. PG. 18

20 Help Desk A good help desk yields outstanding end user support. End users are the most important asset of the computing environment. A help desk should be staffed and a trouble ticketing system should be implemented to track issues. User feedback (surveys) should be sought for closed tickets. Engineers should be segregated by function. Level 1 engineers should be the first line, Level 2 engineers will have additional skill sets and handle escalations. PG. 19

21 Contact Information TRAXI Technologies, LLC th Avenue, 5 th Floor New York, NY T F PG. 20