OREANDA-NEWS. October 28, 2011. I.T. Co. completed the upgrade of the directory service of Microsoft Active Directory in Implementation Center PROTEK. In the course of the project, there was deployed a stable and scalable system of the single corporate directory which integrated the central office and 41 regional branches of the company. This enabled to provide easy access to corporate information resources for three thousand users.

Implementation Center PROTEK is a top distributor of pharmaceuticals, beauty and health products in Russia. IC PROTEK operates in all subjects of the Russian Federation. The company has a geographically distributed structure consisting of the head office in Moscow and 41 branches throughout the country.

Currently, about 3 thousand employees use the company's IT resources. Directory service Microsoft Active Directory deployed in the company ensures efficient operation of all corporate information sites and resources, and is used for user authentication and isolation of access to resources, application of the corporate group policies, support of related infrastructure systems: e-mail system, instant communication system, and document management system.

By early 2011, the company needed an upgrade of the existing infrastructure and creation of a scalable and reliable system of the integrated corporate directory. Within the framework of the project, it was necessary to solve the problems of user authentication and data replication between directory service controllers on multiple sites of the company, to delete non-operating domain Active Directory, and to organize the use of Read Only Domain Controllers (RODC) on regional sites.

Based on the results of the tender, PROTEK chose I.T. Co. as contractor owing to its wide experience in the implementation of projects involving IT infrastructure management systems development for geographically dispersed organizations. I.T. Co. specialists were charged with the following tasks: update of the directory service version (upgrade to Active Directory 2008 R2 level), optimization of the directory service structure, integration of the directory service with expanded services Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and OCS, control of errors related to replication of the directory service databases, authentication and registration in the DNS areas.

The project was implemented in three months. During that period, the I.T. Co. experts carried out an audit of the IT infrastructure in IC PROTEK, and according to its results they developed a new architecture of the directory service with regard to optimization of the basic components: structure of organizational units, group policies, sites, and intersite links. First the upgraded directory service was implemented in the central office, and then the solution was replicated in all branches of the company.

As a result of the project for modernization of Microsoft Active Directory, Implementation Center PROTEK obtained a reliable and efficiently controlled directory service as a basis for the corporate information policy. The integrated directory service is developed on the hierarchical principle and provides centralized control of the infrastructure of dispersed departments. It enables to work with particular groups of users and computers, to install and update software using a standardized method, to customize users' working environments and specific server settings.

I.T. Co. has conducted training for the customer's IT-service specialists, and will provide technical support of the upgraded IT infrastructure during one year.

"The directory service has been deployed on all our sites, and the performance efficiency of the company's entire IT infrastructure depends on the quality of its implementation. To ensure the business continuity in the process of Microsoft Active Directory modernization was a principal condition of the project realization. I.T. Co. specialists successfully coped with this task", — comments Sergey V. Schadnykh, Head of Infrastructure Administration Group, IC PROTEK.