SITUATION: This company specializes in business-to-business marketing and advertising programs. They are a mixed platform shop with PC equipment used by the administrative staff and Macs used by their designers—a familiar scenario in this industry. They had begun looking for a new server and were concerned about their aging PCs when we became aware of their needs.

SOLUTION: After several meetings with their management, more needs were identified. A plan was developed to provide better file security and easier file sharing for the designers. This plan included:

• an assessment and certification of the network
• a new, upgraded firewall
• a 4 terabyte onsite backup server with offsite replication
• a file server for the designers
• a thin client system for the administrative staff
• an FTP site for their customers to use

RESULTS: The entire project was completed over a two month time period. The work was done with minimal interruption of the work in the office. Existing PCs were re-purposed as thin clients to avoid unnecessary purchases. Open source server software was installed and open source software was also used in place of MS Office. This saved thousands of dollars and the staff adapted easily.