Why TERI opted for NetWare

To enhance its network performance and communication functionality, the Tata Energy and Research Institute opted for Novell Net business solutions. Gaurav Patra reports on the implementation

The Tata Energy and Research Institute (TERI), one of the leading research organisations in India, provides environment-friendly solutions to rural energy problems. It helps in shaping the development of the Indian oil and gas sector, tackles global climate change issues, enhances forest conservation, addresses urban transport and air pollution problems, and promotes energy efficiency. Headquartered in New Delhi, the institute has centres in Gurgaon, Bangalore, Goa and Guwahati. TERI also has a presence in Japan, Russia and the UAE, and affiliate institutes in the US and UK.

IT infrastructure

With NetWare as a primary server, the infrastructure is significantly more reliable and secure, enhancing the services and resources available to TERI’s users, says Sangeeta Gupta

Since the organisation is into research activities, information technology is considered to be an integral part of the organisation. “IT is the backbone for everything at TERI; the whole of TERI depends on IT to a great extent, especially the research wings,” says Sangeeta Gupta, associate director, information technology & services division, TERI. Apart from facilitating research work, the IT infrastructure at TERI is also helping in internal and external communication. The organisation has some customised applications for its project-related work. Gupta informs that other than research work, these applications are also used for file sharing, printing and other basic day-to-day functionalities. TERI has implemented applications like ERP, intranet, knowledge management (KM), GIS and SPSS (for statistical analysis). The ERP system at TERI was developed and implemented by the in-house IT team, and the KM solution is running on Lotus Domino.

To connect all its regional centres with the head office, the organisation has a wide area network (WAN) in place. Different WAN technologies have been used for different centres, depending on the size and importance of the centres. Thus, the Bangalore centre is connected through a point-to-point 64 Kbps leased line, but Goa and Guwahati, being smaller centres, have been started off on a dial-up ISDN line. However, Gupta says that in future all the centres will be connected through a VPN network, and TERI has already started evaluating different options available in the market. Basically, all these centres use the WAN to access applications like ERP, intranet and KM. TERI has 16 Compaq servers and 500 PCs across the country. As far as networking hardware is concerned, all switches and routers are from Cisco. The IT team at TERI consists of 20 people.

The need

With rapidly expanding operations and a dispersed user environment, TERI witnessed swift growth in the number of computers and peripherals connected to its network, as also in the number of users. While wanting to meet the demands on its infrastructure, the organisation also wanted to offer its employees (500 users) applications and file sharing, remote printing as well as anytime-anywhere remote access facility. “To improve infrastructure performance, we needed a solution that would allow us to centrally manage hundreds of user accounts and resources across multiple platforms,” says Gupta.

In the mid-eighties TERI was allotted a small piece of land in Delhi for converging its research activities, which were then taking place in bits and pieces at various locations, mainly rented. The need for a network and communication infrastructure for a collaborative working environment was felt when the entire office moved into its own building, known as the Darbari Seth Block in the India Habitat Centre in 1994. Given the nature of its activities, TERI was determined to provide its researchers and other staff the technological support and communication infrastructure that would enable them to work efficiently and productively in a collaborative environment. Moreover, effective and convenient internal and external communication was a prime concern, and therefore appropriate communication and messaging tools were required. The institute also wanted the ability to integrate its communication tool with existing technology such as its KM repository, which is used for recycling and processing research information.

The evaluation process for a network operating system and messaging system was started, and after rigorous assessment, Novell NetWare and GroupWise were chosen over other products. Gupta says that since NetWare was more stable, robust and highly secured, they decided to go in for it. Besides, they also found it to be very easy to operate.

The solution

To address its infrastructure challenges, TERI first selected NetWare to provide employees continuous and secure access to the organisation’s network resources—files, directories, e-mail accounts, databases on a wide variety of networks, storage platforms and workstations. The institute also deployed NetWare Web server applications to combine its multi-server environment through the main intranet on NetWare, providing unsurpassed reliability, stability and overall performance. Leveraging the strength of Novell eDirectory, Novell GroupWise offers TERI effective communications tools, including e-mail, calendaring, scheduling and document management. “WebAccess functionality and GroupWise remote client/server eliminates the need to maintain separate communication servers, allowing us to create and manage user identities from a central location,” says Gupta. Institute employees now have anytime-anywhere access to essential resources. “GroupWise is the official organiser for our organisation…it is even a part of our staff induction programme,” says Gupta. She also says that this collaboration tool offers them unbeatable stability and reliability, as well as the benefit of integration with other systems.

In addition, Gupta points out that the interoperability of GroupWise enables an organisation like TERI to integrate with its custom-developed ERP solution. The system runs on a client/server environment, with GroupWise serving as the messaging backbone. TERI also integrates GroupWise with a fax application to allow users to send faxes directly from the network. Novell BorderManager further enhances TERI’s infrastructure performance and security by leveraging identity-based access control and forward proxies. With BorderManager, the firewall protects business resources against hackers by granting appropriate access based on profiles stored in the directory. Using such powerful directory-integrated features, the organisation is now in a position to control, accelerate and monitor users’ Internet activities.

To further enhance its environment and provide additional functionality and services to its end-users, TERI plans to implement NetWare 6 and its Internet-enabled features, including iFolder and iPrint. “Considering the way technology is moving, we are looking at creating a single interface, and NetWare 6 will help us in creating that,” says Gupta. iFolder will offer the organisation remote access to personal files anytime, anywhere, and will provide the ability to seamlessly synchronise any changes or updates. iPrint eliminates location and network barriers by allowing users to print to any remote location on the network, which Gupta thinks will be of great value for a organisation like TERI.

Gains

Gupta feels that TERI has found an efficient ally in Novell solutions, which help tackle all its network management and communication issues in an extremely cost-efficient manner. “With NetWare as a primary server, the infrastructure is significantly more reliable and secure, enhancing the services and resources available

to our users,” she says. Simultaneously, GroupWise offers good communication functionality and also reduces costs by allowing TERI to leverage its existing technology.

In the days to come TERI is planning to upgrade its existing IT set-up and increase the bandwidth of the LANs on different floors at the corporate office. Apart from this, the organisation is also planning to upgrade its ERP and KM applications. The ERP system at TERI is on client/server architecture with Novell as its messaging backbone. However, TERI is planning to move towards a Web-based environment. “By doing this our mobile workforce can also access required information from the ERP system,” explains Gupta. And as far as KM is concerned, they are looking at making it more thematic, subject-wise.

gaurav@expresscomputeronline.com