The process to replace and transition away from the “FTP script”, in favor of a less proprietary and more widely used and supportable solution offered by BMC (Control-M), was completed in 2013. Oasys reviewed the Control-M product and provided final recommendations as to its suitability as a replacement to the Oasys developed “FTP script” application. After some short initial technical consults with BMC, Oasys was able to
initiate and complete the migration process while simultaneously supporting the continual bringing online of new customers into the new Control-M deployment.
The new Control-M implementation runs on three dedicated virtual servers spanning multiple geographic areas and supports over 1000 daily
scheduled jobs. A fourth server will likely be implemented sometime during 2014 to better balance future processing loads.
In addition to everything the “FTP Script” application was doing, the full deployment of Control-M jobs also supports communications
between a new in-house EDI environment and back end WMS, Web Reporting Engine environment, and a newly deployed warehouse conveyor system (between the conveyor sort director servers and the back end Warehouse Management System).
The process to replace and transition away from the “FTP script”, in favor of a less proprietary and more widely used and supportable solution offered by BMC (Control-M), was completed in 2013. Oasys reviewed the Control-M product and provided final recommendations as to its suitability as a replacement to the Oasys developed “FTP script” application. After some short initial technical consults with BMC, Oasys was able to initiate and complete the migration process while simultaneously supporting the continual bringing online of new customers into the new Control-M deployment.
The new Control-M implementation runs on three dedicated virtual servers spanning multiple geographic areas and supports over 1000 daily scheduled jobs. A fourth server will likely be implemented sometime during 2014 to better balance future processing loads. In addition to everything the “FTP Script” application was doing, the full deployment of Control-M jobs also supports communications between a new in-house EDI environment and back end WMS, Web Reporting Engine environment, and a newly deployed warehouse conveyor system (between the conveyor sort director servers and the back end Warehouse Management System). Strong ongoing business relationship – valued client – valued resource Oasys strives to continue to provide value to this day and recognizes and strongly values the ongoing business relationship it has with Western Carriers. The number of ongoing projects and past projects that Oasys is and has been involved with for Western Carriers is far too numerous to go into with as much detail – but to just list them – some of these include: · Active directory upgrades/migrations (NT4à2000, 2000à2003, 2003à2008R2, pending 2008R2à2012 migration) · Microsoft Exchange upgrades/migrations (Exch5.5à2000, 2000à2003, pending 2003à2013 migration) · Continual build out of the LAN infrastructure (HP Procurve, Cisco Catalyst Switches, fiber/copper, multiple VLAN segments, multi-port Ether-channel trunks) · Prior and new building additions at East coast campus locations – using Cisco 1400 wireless bridges, ongoing support and maintenance of wireless infrastructure, including performance enhancements and maintenance via QoS policing and traffic shaping · Implementation and support of wireless APs (access points) to support warehouse inventory management wireless scanners/guns · Email content security solutions · Firewall design, implementation, migrations, upgrades, ongoing support and configuration · Site-to-Site VPN tunnels between major locations · Ongoing build-out, support, and maintenance of VMware infrastructure Through its embracing of technology to drive its business processes forward, Western Carriers has accomplished a tremendous number of efficiencies and unique business processes that set it apart as a unique and capable solution provider for its customers. Oasys has been there throughout the last several years of that process to help Western achieve these initiatives from the network infrastructure and systems side.
Western Carriers, Inc. is a leading storage and transportation provider for the wine and spirits industry. Though unquestionably a brick and mortar business, providing real tangible services and value to their customers, Western Carriers has continued to embrace and incorporate cutting edge technologies into their business processes - from secure web facing portals that provide customers with their very own dashboard like view into their inventory and transportation orders status, to internal logistics and process efficiencies insuring timely and cost effective execution of internal operations. These are no doubt some of the many reasons why Western Carriers has become a leader in its industry.
Oasys IT Consulting has been providing extensive and continuous IT services and support as a key solutions provider for Western Carriers for well over a decade. Below are just a few examples of the numerous projects that Oasys has accomplished for Western Carriers throughout this time.
RECENT PROJECTS:
Virtualization
By recognizing quite early the emerging trend towards virtualization and what it could mean for businesses in terms of systems portability, consolidation, ability to address growing resource requirements rapidly, and most importantly the flexibility and power it offered in the areas of disaster recovery and business continuity, Oasys was able to help Western Carriers become an early adopter and beneficiary of virtualization technologies.
Over time Oasys has helped Western Carriers grow its virtual infrastructure from the very first physical to virtual system conversion to the point where today it is now able to support up to 100 virtual servers on a small fraction of physical servers and power consumption – enabling Western to run lean, mean, and green!
Business Continuity
Oasys delivered a solution that included full mirroring of all virtual systems between the company’s primary and secondary datacenters over a high speed fiber network using a multi-site SAN solution and redundant switches – providing business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities.
Western Carriers was furnished with various options and decided on the recommended full mesh connectivity between all locations, which
offered increased bandwidth by 5 and 10 fold utilizing Frame Relay over fractional-T1 lines. “Site C” became the hub for Internet access for all three locations, with the firewall, Email server, and Web Server centrally located at this location. An additional domain controller was also deployed at this site to provide redundancy to their existing NT4.0 domain at that time.
The entire network was re-addressed from an IP standpoint and a 10.x.0.0/16 scheme was chosen at each of the three major geographic locations to account for the possibility of future growth and segmentation at each geographical site – while simultaneously providing route consolidation and
summarization. With some 20 LAN sub-nets now in existence at the “Site C” location alone, Western Carriers has been served well over time by these initial design considerations. Needless to say the company and its networks have grown tremendously in size and necessarily in complexity since the time of this initial project. Oasys IT
Consulting has been and remains a strategic solutions provider and close partner to Western Carriers - architecting, and implementing much of the company’s network infrastructure in the intervening period since 1999.
Helping companies address business challenges through the effective use of Information Technology.
Designs were worked up and recommendations and options presented for the Internet, Firewall, Email, and Wide Area Network topology. Western Carriers’ existing 56K point-to-point connections between their major US locations were expensive. The lack of routers at all locations provided limited network segmentation and a single broadcast domain. The design had suited them well to that point but they were starting to experience delays with file copy operations between workstations and their file servers at the remote sites.
They were receiving customer orders via a bank of dial up modems into their bulletin board system – a common solution for that time. They wanted to speed up network operations, and recognized immediately what transitioning to the web could mean for their business in terms of much improved customer experience, content offering, and communications. In addition, the introduction of an internal Email system would mean they could fully leverage their new Internet connectivity to enable those communications with their customers as well as their various offices. The new proposed WAN design had to also support the introduction of web surfing and interoffice Email traffic.
The solution allows for zero RPO (Recovery Point objective) and when used in conjunction with FT fault tolerance) option in VMware, near zero RTO (Recovery Time Objective) can be achieved as well for their operations. Though the FT option has been utilized on a very limited test basis as of this writing, it is in planning to deploy this capability in conjunction with ISP Multi-homing via BGP to add an extra measure of high-availability to Western Carriers’ web presence.
Western Carriers takes seriously the integrity and recoverability of their data and the data relevant to their customer’s products, and values the ability to nimbly continue to serve their customers without interruption. Oasys takes this commitment very seriously as well and has put a lot of thought into making this solution a reality for Western Carriers and its customers to benefit from.
FTP application-
EDI support, and Control-M migration
With the advent of the new connectivity to the web and its rapidly evolving web presence, Western Carriers was increasingly and aggressively
moving to provide new and more innovative solutions to add value and convenience for its existing and rapidly expanding base of new customers. They developed an in-house web programming expertise and quickly rolled out a customer facing web portal designed to
provide reporting and order submission capabilities.
With the rapidly increasing flow of order transmission files coming through their web site and FTP portal, the need to manage all of these files to insure reliable delivery, file queuing, overwrite protection, and receipt notifications by Email was of paramount importance and growing rapidly. Oasys stepped in and developed an FTP scripting application to help Western handle this process. The custom built application consisted of a three server deployment supporting a total of more than 500 different types of file operations, all within less than 30 seconds – near simultaneously - and capable of moving thousands of files per hour
individually between disparate systems located on and off Western’s network. It enabled heterogeneous systems and application environments to communicate and integrate with one another. Each job had its very own set
of rules, and (if necessary) customized means of file handling – such as multi-file batching/appending, sequencing, delayed processing, as well as handing off and picking up from subsystems in order to perform PDF file
conversions. The application served an important role in integrating Western Carriers internal and customer facing IT processes for nearly 12 years.
HISTORICAL PROJECTS:
Internet, Email, and WAN upgrade (1999)
One of the very first projects embarked upon for Western Carriers was helping the company establish its initial Internet presence - by helping contract with and connect with their first Internet service provider (ISP) back in 1999. In conjunction with connecting to the web, providing the needed security for this endeavor with the introduction of a firewall was also of paramount importance to the project.
As with all present day Oasys firewall implementations, the design called for a minimum of 3 interfaces on the firewall with the third being a DMZ (de-militarized zone) segment in addition to the usual outside (unprotected) and inside (protected) LAN segments characteristic of all firewall network designs. The DMZ segment is where the semi-public application servers are hosted – in this case (for this initial project) Western’s Web Server, but multiple DMZ appropriate systems such as FTP servers, multiple web portals, and SMTP content security systems would eventually occupy this semi-public network segment at one time or another throughout the history of Western’s network:
Strong ongoing business relationship – valued client – valued resource
Oasys strives to continue to provide value to this day and recognizes and strongly values the ongoing business relationship it has with Western Carriers. The number of ongoing projects and past projects that Oasys is and has been involved with for Western Carriers is far too numerous to go into with as much detail – but to just list them – some of these include:
- Active directory upgrades/migrations (NT4 to 2000, 2000 to 2003, 2003 to 2008R2, pending 2008R2 to 2012 migration)
- Microsoft Exchange upgrades/migrations (Exch5.5 to 2000, 2000 to 2003, pending 2000 to 2013 migration)
- Continual build out of the LAN infrastructure (HP Procurve, Cisco Catalyst Switches,
fiber/copper, multiple VLAN segments, multi-port Ether-channel trunks) - Prior and new building additions at East coast campus locations – using Cisco 1400
wireless bridges, ongoing support and maintenance of wireless infrastructure,
including performance enhancements and maintenance via QoS policing and traffic
shaping - Implementation and support of wireless APs (access points) to support warehouse inventory
management wireless scanners/guns - Email content security solutions
- Firewall design, implementation, migrations, upgrades, ongoing support and configuration
- Site-to-Site VPN tunnels between major locations
- Ongoing build-out, support, and maintenance of Virtual infrastructure
Through its embracing of technology to drive its business processes forward, Western Carriers has accomplished a tremendous number of efficiencies and unique business processes that set it apart as a unique and
capable solution provider for its customers. Oasys has been there throughout the last several years of that process
to help Western achieve these initiatives from the network infrastructure and systems side.