Case Study

AndrewGroup Consulting is a privately held company based in Indianapolis, Indiana. AndrewGroup consults, installs and commissions Local Area Networks (LANs) for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME). A typical client profile for AndrewGroup has 5-20 seats with no full-time IT staff on hand and a very limited knowledge of Information Technology.

Challenge

AndrewGroup's natural progression was to simultaneously integrate broadband Internet access with the network architecture they were installing. A dedicated gateway and server with the ability to route high-speed Internet to workstations was needed. The required server features included:

Furthermore, since AndrewGroup's clients did not typically have the IT knowledge within their organizations to support a server, the solution i) required high reliability and ii) had to provide AndrewGroup's technical support staff the ability to remotely manage the system. This latter requirement inherited a new set of unique challenges:

• how to make the solution secure
• how to scale the solution
• how to automate the monitoring and maintenance of the server

AndrewGroup knew that providing a complete gateway solution would be invaluable to their clients' success, but the benefits would only be realized with a cost-effective managed solution.

Solution

"We needed a solution that was simple, yet secure. Secure, not only from the standpoint of firewall and service management at the gateway, but also during the automated remote access that would occur from the servers that make up the service delivery network" said Andrew Thomas, President of AndrewGroup Consulting. AndrewGroup found what they needed with Gateway Services -- a robust client/server architecture that provides DNS and managed services. The managed services let AndrewGroup's technical support know of problems before a client realized there even was one. They had confidence in the security of the Gateway Services solution -- it uses PKI-based authentication and encryption using United States government standards

"For reliability and cost of ownership, it is difficult to match the Linux platform. We had a variety of options in deciding what type of 'box' to go with for our client's gateway" said Andrew Thomas. AndrewGroup saw value in marketing a branded 'blackbox' solution and so chose to commercialize Point Clark Networks' ClarkConnect gateway solution. "The fact that Point Clark Networks also developed Gateway Services was immaterial" said Peter Baldwin, President of Point Clark Networks, "we would be more than happy with AndrewGroup using an E-smith or Red Hat product. Our Gateway Services system is able to communicate with any Linux distribution."

Once AndrewGroup had created an account on the secure Gateway Services web site, it was just a matter of installing the branded blackbox solution. The client-side software on server automatically contacts the Gateway Services system and appears in AndrewGroup's Gateway Services account. IT staff at AndrewGroup then enabled system monitoring, the security audit and MX backup services, as well as configured notification in the event something did go wrong on. Packaged with on-site service and support, AndrewGroup charges a monthly fee to their clients. The solution provides superb features and performance (not to mention profitability) that has made them a leader in their field.

Differentiator

"The Gateway Service's attention to security was the clincher," said Thomas. "That and the ability to choose which platform I wanted to work with, and customizing further still by working with the team at Point Clark Networks to get a solution that precisely fit my clients' needs."

Result

ClarkConnect and Gateway Services exceeded the technical requirements set forth by AndrewGroup upon embarking on their expansion. The service is successfully performing on-site monitoring of AndrewGroup's blackboxes at ten different client offices, with an additional box coming online every week or so. Said Thomas, "We've had nothing but positive feedback from each of our clients. The security and comfort our clients take from the fact that we often call them to report of a problem that was attended to by our IT staff is unparalleled in this environment. We are so confident of our current and future success that we've started talking to ISPs in order to bundle this solution with the broadband service itself".