National Institute of Agricultural Botany(NIAB)
Industry :
Agriculture - Seeds & Food Testing
Scenarios :
Infrastructure Upgrade
Introduction
NIAB charts an independent course thanks to Microsoft
NT. After decades of being closely associated with the Ministry of
Agriculture Fisheries and Foods (MAFF), the independent seeds and foods
testing company NIAB found itself in an unusual predicament. Its network and
IT infrastructure was very closely tied to MAFF. As such its communications
capabilities were restricted both by MAFF security policies and by the
limitations inherent in the MAFF infrastructure.
The Business Need
Yet as NIAB IT Manager Graham Pullen recalls, by 1997
NIAB’s MAFF related business had fallen from around 80% to less than 40%.
The company had acquired a substantial number of external clients and wanted
to take advantage of modern, Internet-based communications capabilities to
improve its range of services for these clients. However, for security
reasons no PC connected to MAFF’s Lan Manager based network was allowed to
access the Internet. This ruled out both Internet based email and any kind
of collaborative, extra-net project with non-MAFF clients.
The need for a change coincided with a Government policy decision to
increase the separation between NIAB and MAFF. "There were a number of
changes that emphasised our independence. Instead of MAFF owning our IT
infrastructure, we were given ownership of all the IT equipment and
solutions. We were given a formal contract with MAFF to carry out certain
specialist testing work on their behalf," Pullen explains.
However, this did not mean that NIAB was immediately free to develop its own
communications policy. A group of MAFF staff, known as the Plant Variety and
Seeds division (PVS), had long been permanently located at NIAB’s head
office. Staff at PVS accessed an Oracle database MAFF IT staff were
concerned to ensure that the integrity and security of MAFF scientists in
this division was not compromised by any communications solution developed
independently by NIAB.
"Our dilemma was that increasingly, our business demands closer links and
liaison with external companies and institutions, often in Europe. We
collaborate on a number of research projects with external companies and
institutions. The Internet has a vital role to play in this kind of
activity, so we had to find a way of both meeting MAFF’s security concerns
and of pressing ahead with a modern communications infrastructure for our
own requirements," Pullen comments.
At the time NIAB had already set up two web sites, one of which was a public
facing information site, while the other served as an access controlled site
through which NIAB delivered services to its customer base. However, the
site had to be maintained wholly outside NIAB’s own MAFF based network, and
as Pullen explains, updating and maintaining this valuable web site through
a dial up PC that was denied all access to NIAB’s own LAN was "exceedingly
difficult".
Another difficulty was that email could only go through the MAFF gateway,
and as Pullen points out, all NIAB email was inappropriately badged as MAFF
email, with a "MAFF.gov.uk" domain name. "The only thing that was accurate
about this badging was the UK part," he notes. "We wanted to show NIAB as an
organisation in its own right and this was definitely the wrong message."
Protracted discussions with MAFF’s IT department failed to solve the issue
or produce a more independent solution that would at the same time cater for
MAFF staff still located on NIAB’s premises.
Supplier Selection
Graham Pullen decided to call on the services of Anglia Business Solutions
UK Ltd., a Microsoft Solution Provider Partner.
Sales Manager Tony Rose, points out that the first contact from NIAB in
relation to the present contract came following a joint Solution Partner day
run by Anglia in conjunction with Microsoft. "NIAB attended and told us that
they liked what they saw of NT’s ability to be configured to deal with
complex requirements. They asked us to come and talk to them about their
difficulties," he says.
The Solution
The solution proposed by Anglia involved moving NIAB lock stock and barrel
across to its own NT Server based LAN, with Microsoft Exchange Server
providing Internet email for NIAB’s 250 staff, all during the course of a
single week-end. The aim was to have virtually no disruption to MAFF PVS
staff. A firewall, running on a Mitsubishi workstation with NT Workstation
and Firewall 1, provided secure email capabilities and internet access,
while filtering software and an appropriate domain structure effectively
insulated the MAFF staff on NIAB’s site from any access to the NIAB email
and internet.
"We provided NIAB with a leased line to the Internet Service Provider UUNET
Dial Pipex. Using Microsoft Point to Point Tunnelling Protocol (PPTP), which
is supported by Pipex. In this way, we were able to provide NIAB with a
virtual private network (VPN). This enabled NIAB staff travelling abroad to
have a secure link to their email," said Tony Rose of Anglia Business
Solutions. The same VPN structure allowed NIAB staff at 13 regional field
sites to have a secure connection to the NIAB communications server. A local
phone call to their local Pipex account established a PPTP connection and
established a secure access.
Solution Benefits
According to Pullen, NIAB now has exactly the kind of infrastructure it
needs to grow as an independent organisation. "It has been a very complex
installation, but we have been very ably and professionally assisted by
Anglia Business Solutions. My own image for what we have accomplished is
that it has been the equivalent of trying to replace the foundations of a
high rise building without disturbing the occupants. I am very pleased with
our new infrastructure," he says.
"We are now almost wholly a Microsoft NT 4.0 establishment and our remaining
Windows 3.11 clients are being steadily upgraded or replaced. Our telephone
bills have plummeted, thanks to the local dial facilities and our staff now
have far more functionality, thanks to Microsoft Exchange Server and Outlook
than they ever had before," he concludes.