PROMATORY CASE HISTORY
Back to Case Studies Promatory Communications' internal network had grown into a complex and hard-to-manage
system. In the year since the company had been formed, multiple operating systems and diverse servers had been deployed in an attempt to address the needs of its 28 employees, most of them engineers who demanded
the computing and networking environment best suited to their particular disciplines. The result was two distinct networks: a Window NT network for administrative and hardware design staff, and a UNIX
network primarily for software engineers. An NT server was used for the company's intranet web service; a Linux server for e-mail, domain name server and firewall; and a separate UNIX e-mail server for UNIX
users. An outside Internet service provider hosted the company's Web site. System administration costs, drain on staff too much for small company To manage this array of equipment, Promatory, a startup
developing a multiservice DSL switching product for telephone central offices, used a part-time system administration contractor as well as an internal programmer who was made responsible for day-to-day network
operation (in addition to his regular programming job). Two additional employees also performed various system administration functions, including Internet and intranet publishing. "Our system
administration costs were out of control," recalled Promatory President and CEO Steve Eich. "Just adding a new employee to all the various systems was a major task involving four people. More important,
an internal programmer was spending 90 percent of his time on routine maintenance tasks and consequently not completing his own programming assignments. Our vice president of software development, naturally
unhappy with this, insisted that we hire a full-time in-house system administrator." All-in-one Internet device surprises hardened skeptics Prompted by a common investor, Eich contacted Jean
Gastinel, president of FreeGate Corporation, another startup which had recently introduced its Internet Edge Server, a device that combines in a single unit a router, Web server, firewall, e-mail server,
directory and other elements of secure Internet access. Hearing that the FreeGate product was designed specifically to build simple networks for smaller organizations without requiring any technical expertise on
the user's part, Eich arranged to have a FreeGate Internet Edge Server delivered in time for installation in the new building to which Promatory would soon be moving. FreeGate sent a systems engineer to meet
with Eich, his vice president of software and the part-time system administrator. "My staff really gave him a grilling on the capabilities of the unit," Eich said. "They are a highly skeptical
bunch who didn't believe the FreeGate box would really solve our system administration problem. And I think they resented the idea that I was pushing so hard for this solution." The changeover began on a
Friday afternoon in August. With the help of the same FreeGate systems engineer, Eich and his staff began dismantling all the existing servers; because of the move to a new location, new wiring and network
equipment (hubs, servers) had to be installed. Moving the functions of the old servers onto the FreeGate system was "a snap" because of the system's browser-based graphical user interface. When the
Promatory staff came to work on Monday morning, Eich said, "everything ran beautifully -- to the amazement of the skeptics. And the FreeGate box has continued to operate without a system failure since the
transfer." With the consolidation of services onto a single FreeGate system, the Linux server once used for firewall and DNS services was eliminated. The Windows NT intranet server is now an administration
server. The UNIX e-mail server has been turned over to the software development group. When occasional questions about the system cropped up, Eich personally called FreeGate's toll-free support number.
"These guys have a level of commitment and sense of urgency to even the most minor questions. Their knowledge of their product is something you don't often find in the typical customer support
organization." $70,000/year savings in system administration costs, expanded Internet services and flexibility For the first several months after the transition Promatory continued to have its Web
site externally hosted by its ISP. But in late November that function too was added to the FreeGate system's tasks. "I got sick of having to call the ISP every day because their FTP server was
crashing," said Eich. "It was a real pain to update our Web pages. Now that we host our own site, it's easy." Though a simplified network environment is a major benefit of the conversion, the
real objective was reducing overall administration costs. Eich is convinced that that goal has been achieved in spades. Promatory's reliance on the outside contractor has been dramatically reduced; an office
administrative assistant now handles Web site maintenance and installation of new employees. The former programmer-system administrator has gone back to being a full-time programmer, his removal from system
administration "so complete that he doesn't even have the administrative password to the FreeGate box," Eich said. The bottom line? "FreeGate literally saves us over $70,000 a year by eliminating
the need for a full-time systems administrator," Eich said. "It's the best 'out of the box' product I have ever used, and it will continue to be the key component of our intranet, Internet and overall
network solution. Even our most die-hard skeptics admit that the box has dramatically improved our network environment." |
