The IDEAS4RETAIL company deployed a cloud mail solution

• Project:IDEAS4RE (Cisco Unified Communication Manager)
• Project:Ideas4retail (Hamleys World) (IT Grad Cloud (before LinxCloud))

In a public cloud of IT-GRAD service of e-mail on the basis of Microsoft Exchange for IDEAS4RETAIL is implemented, the press service of provider reported on April 5, 2013.

Requirements of opportunities

Within discussion of the forthcoming project on implementation of the corporate platform for message exchange, customer representatives made a number of demands:

• obtaining ample opportunities for work on management of e-mail, the calendar and tasks, voice mail from a uniform mailbox;
• preserving of the usual interface of work of users (Outlook program);
• the accessibility from mobile devices;
• the accessibility to all functionality from the devices which are out of corporate network;
• security, protection against viruses and spam;
• high scalability of the solution;
• reliability and fault tolerance of the solution.

A choice was made for benefit of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. An additional argument - most of employees of the company already had experience with the client of Outlook that allowed not to provide large-scale training of employees.

Availability - in DPC

Within ensuring required level of availability and the continuity of work of the implementable solution customer representatives visited the territory of data center of s10 where the equipment of IT-GRAD is placed. Compliance of the platform requirements of the Tier standard of level 3 became an additional argument of the choice for benefit of cloud computing. In the signed SLA the indicator of level of availability of the rendered service is defined it is not lower than 99.9%. This value allows the possible duration of idle time in rendering service less than 45 minutes a month. Within ensuring the above-stated availability of service and optimization of cost of the solution by technical specialists of IT-GRAD the scheme of the solution is developed.

The selected service

Taking into account plans for the organization of other IT services in "cloud", the decision to implement the scheme delivery of service on the dedicated SaaS model is made. The selected installation will allow to integrate rather easily the application with other systems. Besides, possibilities of flexible approach to functionality and setup under the customer open.

According to the scheme virtual servers in a cloud of IT-GRAD are created: domain controller Active Directory (DC1) integrated with the server of certificates (IssuingCA); server of mailboxes (MBX); server of client access (CAS) integrated with the server of the transport hub (HT); the check server on viruses and spam (SpamTitan); server of the root certificate (RootCA); boundary gateway (FTMG).

The cluster on which virtual infrastructure of VMware of IT-GRAD is unrolled provides rather high level of continuity of operation of servers. In this connection decided not to do a clustering by means of Microsoft applications.

As the system of protection against spam and the malware the boundary server (Edge) based on SpamTitan is used. Access to a control panel which allows to manage settings of filtering without the address to a support service is provided to the customer.

Protection of infrastructure is implemented using Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (FTMG), used as reverse proxy for access to Microsoft Exchange.

Scope

Access to e-mail from all devices — the PC, notebooks and mobile devices is provided to users. Employees had an opportunity not to be tied to a workplace, but at the same time always to stay in touch. An opportunity to respond quickly to letters allowed to increase company performance. Now each office employee of IDEAS4RETAIL has the smartphone with the configured mail.

Staff of the company got access to management of e-mail, the calendar, contacts and tasks from a uniform mailbox by means of the usual Outlook program. At the same time access to e-mail can be got under all possible protocols, including MAPI, IMAP4, POP3/SMTP, RPC over HTTPS, ActiveSync, including the web client of Exchange based on Outlook Web Access (OWA).

As a result of use of resources of a public cloud of IT-GRAD, IDEAS4RETAIL received highly available centralized IT infrastructure that is especially important, considering geographical distribution of shops across the territory of the Russian Federation. Existence of the round-the-clock support service (24×7×365) allows users to receive answers to the questions in the shortest possible time: at any time, in Russian, regardless of the time zone.

About superiority

Short terms of start, lack of costs for installation, administration and further support of operability of the solution became indisputable advantage to business at the time of a startup. The used SaaS model reduces not only costs for infrastructure, but also wage fund.

"At decision-making for benefit of Exchange in IT-GRAD we considered all options, counted costs and internal payback. Considering our wide geography, it was necessary to select the reliable partner with reliable infrastructure in which all communications will come down. Now I can note that for one and a half years the actual availability of the platform not strongly differs from a planned target of 99.9% We also hope to continue cooperation and in other projects, for example on Exchange infrastructure Office Communicator, etc. well lays down" — Alexey Krupyanko, the Chief information officer of IDEAS4RETAIL noted.

"IDEAS4RETAIL perfectly shows a portrait of our target client — high geographical distribution, serious requirements for fault tolerance of infrastructure, strict requirements on providing high-quality and first-line support. We are glad to an opportunity to show the qualification at the solution of important tasks of our customers" — Dmitry Gachko, the CEO of IT-GRAD emphasized.