NOVELL: Grattan chooses NetWare 5 to deliver on time
OCT 23, 1998, M2 Communications - Grattan plc, part of the world's largest mail order company, the German-based retail multinational, Otto Versand, has chosen Novell Netware 5 to run its UK operations. Network technology plays a major role supporting the company's business and Grattan chose Novell solutions, over competitive products, to lay the foundations for growing their business into the future.
Anthony King, senior program analyst at Grattan plc, emphasised: "Information is of paramount importance at every stage of our business process. In any week we receive 380,000 calls from our customers and despatch 600,000 articles. Every one of these transactions involves the transfer of information, such as the processing of orders, accounting systems, stock monitoring and customer record keeping. Novell's SAA gives integration between mainframe and distributed network allowing MIS data from all parts of the company to be sent back to head office."
At Grattan plc, Novell products used on the network play a key part in the handling of company internal processes, such as human resources data and management information. Grattan is currently installing a suite of Novell network management solutions which includes NetWare 5, NDS for NT, Z.E.N.works and ManageWise both on NetWare and NT. The aim is to create a centralised management tool from which the IT department can control access privileges, desktop resources and information flow right across the enterprise Novell Directory Services (NDS) is at the heart of Grattan's networking solution, consolidating distributed, heterogeneous system resources and allowing the IT department to individually tailor access rights for every user and resource on the network. Using ManageWise and Z.E.N.works, day to day network management is more straight forward. The department will be able to diagnose and solve any system problems at its remote sites, reducing the time, cost and inconvenience of redeploying skilled staff.
Helping drive the Grattan success story, by delivering the right information to the relevant people, is only part of the information management responsibility borne by the IT department. "Obviously, security is a priority for us. We have to be sure about the integrity of our information and we have a duty to protect our customers' confidentiality. If we can't trust our information it becomes practically useless. Novell products integrate well into the mixed network environments and into our security systems."
A further question to consider is the availability of bandwidth. As Grattan's business grows, more and more information will need to cross the network, and this necessitates greater management of bandwidth resources. Facilitating the flow of huge volumes of business critical information around the company, while maintaining user confidence in that information's security and integrity, is a complex and ambitious management challenge. The IT department looked at the extent of the network, and the growing amount of data crossing it and made a decision.
Anthony explains, "our initial plan was to upgrade to NetWare 4.11 from NetWare 4.1 to become Year 2000 compliant and to standardise our Novell platforms. However, as we progressed the plan it seemed to make more sense to invest in a high value solution that could meet our management objectives while also preparing the company's information systems for future business growth.
"Manageability is very important for us. In the interests of simplicity and security we want to be able to control our network resources from a single point of access. We need a solution that can operate across our various platforms - and which will support the growth of our business into the future."
Anthony considers the IP (Internet Protocol) functionality of NetWare 5, Novell's flagship network software, to be an important advance. "NetWare 5's open Internet standards offer us several advantages. For one, we can make much more efficient use of our existing bandwidth, allowing us to accommodate growth without further expenditure while the DHPC/DNS tool gives ease of management and redundancy services for any IP network addressing.
"Above all," concludes Anthony, "NetWare 5 is helping us to build a springboard platform for the future, opening up new possibilities to conduct business electronically in a secure, cost effective and manageable environment," |
