Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services > 25. Case Study: A Large Multinational Enterprise > An Overview of the Organization |
An Overview of the OrganizationHugeCo is a very widely dispersed organization with 225,000 employees and contractors located in 34 countries around the world. Most employees live and work in countries where HugeCo's manufacturing facilities are located: the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and Australia. HugeCo has relationships with hundreds of other companies that serve as suppliers, dealers, and customers for the products it produces. HugeCo has a strong, well- funded central information services (IS) organization that operates out of the corporate headquarters site in Chicago, Illinois. There are four regional IS departments to serve the needs of HugeCo sites in North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. The primary role of the central IS organization is to design the network and applications architecture, run several central services (such as a corporate electronic mail hub), and coordinate the activities of HugeCo's regional IS departments. The regional IS departments are responsible for the installation and maintenance of all hardware and software within their regions . The information technology infrastructure at HugeCo includes a modern, high-speed TCP/IP network. Within each site, a combination of 10Base-T and 100Base-T twisted-pair Ethernets is used to connect desktop machines and servers. Larger sites also have an internal fiber optic backbone network that operates at 100Mbps. Most sites are connected with leased T1 (1.54Mbps) or T3 (45Mbps) lines to regional data centers that are connected to each other with leased T3 lines. Some of HugeCo's smallest sites are connected via the public Internet using virtual private network (VPN) technology and local Internet service providers (ISPs). An overview of the HugeCo network is shown in Figure 25.1. Figure 25.1 The HugeCo TCP/IP network.The central IS organization, along with the regional IS departments, provides a rich, robust set of electronic mail, discussion forum, group scheduling, and document publishing services to HugeCo's professional employees. Following is a list of the most important applications in use at HugeCo:
Most of the applications are hosted on Sun Enterprise servers that run the Solaris UNIX operating system. The notable exceptions are the servers for Lotus Notes, which are deployed on Dell PowerEdge servers that run Microsoft Windows NT Server. The central IS organization also employs several dozen software engineers who develop and maintain a variety of custom Web-based applications. These software engineers also assist employees in the regional IS departments and within HugeCo departments that are developing their own applications. HugeCo benefits from strong centralized leadership that makes it possible for the central IS organization to dictate which software and hardware are used throughout much of the company. Still, there is a high degree of independence within regions, especially with respect to how services and data are administered.
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Index terms contained in this sectionapplicationsHugeCo case study 2nd 3rd case studies HugeCo 2nd applications in use 2nd 3rd network specifications directories case studies HugeCo 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th Eudora HugeCo case study HugeCo case study 2nd applications in use 2nd 3rd network specifications imapd mail store software HugeCo case study Lotus Notes HugeCo case study Microsoft Outlook HugeCo case study Netscape Enterprise Server HugeCo case study Netscape Messaging Server HugeCo case study Netscape Messenger HugeCo case study Sun Enterprise servers HugeCo case study |
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