For the City of Stratford it's out with the old and in with the
new, as far as upgrading their IT infrastructure is concerned.
Stratford recently migrated from an almost decade-old Microsoft
Windows NT 4.0 Server to Windows Server 2003, in order to improve
security, long-term support and reduce operating costs.
The City worked with Mississauga-based Microsoft partner
Metafore IT Solutions to implement the upgrade, said Ron Roy,
manager of information technology services with the City of
Stratford.
"It's something that you do once, and you don't have to do it
again," Roy said. "We brought Metafore on to use their expertise in
that type of migration work, and they helped get us started on how
we could administer and work with the system."
Hilary Wittmann, product manager for Windows Server at Microsoft
Canada, said that about a year ago when discussions for the project
began Stratford wanted to optimize their existing servers, and they
wanted to know what their options were to ensure city residents
were being served by the best technology that wouldn't take as long
to manage.
"They were running legacy systems, meaning they were no longer
supported by Microsoft," said Wittmann. "They had a number of
servers and it was quite expensive."
"The number one reason why (Stratford) did the upgrade was the
fact that we were an old NT 4.0 shop and support had run out," said
Roy. "The concern about long-term support was part of what prompted
the upgrade, and one of the benefits resulting from the migration
will be cost-savings."
It's not something they have an absolute dollar figure on, but
because the municipality has a small support staff, going to a more
integrated solution means they don't have to worry about needing
additional staff, or even part-time assistance, according to
Roy.
"That's where we see a specific savings, with the upgrade as
well as going to the virtual server, we saw physical cash savings
of two servers basically," he said. "That's primarily where we saw
a return on investments, because the servers have been consolidated
from three to one, and nothing had to be replaced as they were able
to work within the existing infrastructure."
An additional benefit is the improvement to security, and
Wittmann said the key improvement was Active Directory, part of
Windows Server. "It enables a single directory for all their users
in their organization."
Wittmann anticipates the next wave of upgrades in the
municipality space will come in the form of a migration from
Windows 2000 and Exchange 2000 to Windows 2003.
"If you look at municipalities, budgets are really tight and
it's all about improving quality of service," she said.
"(Municipalities) should follow Stratford's lead and look at
Virtual Server as a way to have a backup and recovery strategy
without having to go out and purchase the expensive hardware and
equipment associated with it."
Virtual Server is included in the City of Stratford's upgrade,
and it essentially virtualizes their environment, and was part of
their disaster recovery strategy, she said.
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