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The Background

An international health agency employing 2000 people in over 30 countries.

The Challenge

In early 2000 this international agency deployed Windows Active Directory. As a result, they had 35 domains; one in each location. As time went on, several challenges became apparent with this particular installation.

Synchronization issues quickly became a major problem. With Exchange servers installed in each office, the agency had to rely heavily on local support. This presented a level of complexity that did not make sense. In addition, issues of compliancy were inevitable. And, while each location had their own in-house IT support, there were considerable variances in skill sets and capabilities. The agency’s Board realized that it needed to move away from its reliance on local support and it was mandated that the organization centralize its operations as much as possible.

Ultimately, it was decided to outsource this complex project to Nortec.

The Solution

At the time, Nortec was involved in another project at the agency and already had a good understanding of its infrastructure. Since the agency was impressed with the work Nortec had completed for them, it made sense that Nortec participate in the competitive bidding process for the project at hand. The goal was to collapse all of the domains into one single domain which was especially important to the agency when it came to e-mail. Nortec won the bid, the contract was awarded, and work began.

Nortec started with a pilot in 5 locations. The pilot was useful in making people aware of potential issues resulting from a full migration. For example, it was discovered that each site had its own mail security program which would cause problems down the road. In order to avoid this, it was decided that e-mail would run through IronPort; a valuable solution that came about as a result of the pilot.

The Benefits

After the pilot, the remaining locations were notified about the migration through web collaboration. A schedule was created and migration continues as all of the domains are collapsed into one.

Nortec continues to provide mentoring, high level support, and design support. As each location presents its own unique challenges through the migration, Nortec lends its expertise to ensure the overall success of the project.