Trace your Ancestors & Family Tree

Achievements is the leading international research organisation devoted to and specialising in all aspects of genealogy, family tree research, heraldry and associated artwork. Why not visit their website at http://www.Achievements.co.uk/ ?

Read the Ottersoft case study below. 



Ottersoft installed & currently maintains the network infrastructure for this busy company.

Achievements rely heavily on their network and internet services for their daily business functions. In 2004/2005 their system was becoming increasingly unreliable and difficult to maintain due both to the age of the equipment & software and to the unreliability of their existing CAT5 network installation. Constantly being attacked by computer viruses throughout the network mainly due to the inability to use an integrated anti-virus solution to protect email.

Ottersoft was asked to provide a new system. The building was completely re-cabled to CAT6 standard. An Ottersoft Xeon based rack-mount server with four RAID 10 configured hot-swappable SATA drives was installed along with new switches and interactive UPS. New Ottersoft AMD based workstations were installed where the old units were to old to upgrade effectively. All remaining original equipment was upgraded.

Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 was chosen for the companies server operating system. This solution provided an integrated email system, server-based desktop fax capability & a platform for a totally integrated anti-virus/anti-spyware solution capable of protecting the companies valuable data. Further protection of data is provided by tape backup for emergency use and scheduled off-site internet based daily backup.

It was decided that workstations would be set up based on the user's role in the company thereby eliminating the need to make costly changes to the system due to changes in staffing. All that needs to be done to set up a new member of staff is to change the user's personal email address within Exchange Server and to change the logon password. This gives the user instant access to all of the predecessors files and email. All system security remains intact as no new user has to be created or assigned to security or distribution groups.  

The result has been a system which has, for the past three years, required minimal maintenance and no significant virus attacks. Achievements are once again able to concentrate on their core business functions instead of their office infrastructure.