|
Jefferson County Public Library |
|
Jefferson County Public Library: Network Efficiency Across Many Miles Separation of Traffic
Each of the Jefferson County public libraries has a mix of staff and public computers, all of which need to access different sets of online resources. The Library IT staff looked to Applied Trust, which recommended a combination of VLANs and 802.1Q trunks to achieve the desired network control. Applied Trust worked with library IT staff on the first step of the migration to a VLAN architecture, configuring and installing routers and switches using 802.1Q trunking. This allowed the Library to put any switch port into any VLAN it wished. After the network topology conversion, the public terminals were permitted access to the Internet and to needed library resources -- both in the library and the service center. The staff terminals were given more access than the public terminals, but not unlimited access. Flexibility
After the library networks were separated into staff and public VLANs, the desire to offer Express Public Access Catalogs (express PACs) arose. Again, the Library IT staff looked to Applied Trust for assistance. With the VLAN infrastructure already in place, it was simple to create rules for groups of PACs to allow access only to the library catalog and not to the Internet or other locations. This change ensures that library patrons interested in checking out library materials will always have speedy access to perform their necessary research. The flexibility of the network architecture that Applied Trust recommended and implemented allowed this enhanced functionality to be provisioned with a minimal amount of cost and effort. | "Applied Trust has been an invaluable extension to our IT staff over the years. Their expertise in network infrastructure and security has helped the Jefferson County Library network become a model for other county libraries across Colorado and beyond."
- John Zacrep, Director of Information Services, Jefferson County Public Library
Capacity Planning
Library managers needed easy access to bandwidth statistics on the WAN connections to each library as well as to the Internet, in order to stay on top of bandwidth requirements for each link. MRTG was selected as the tool to measure and graph bandwidth statistics, and Applied Trust helped with its implementation. Shortly after its installation, the MRTG data indicated that during certain periods of the day some network connections were being saturated. Looking more closely at the traffic statistics for each of the library connections, Applied Trust determined how much additional capacity was required to handle the peak traffic loads. After the additional bandwidth was obtained, the peak traffic levels were handled easily and did not exceed the set thresholds, proving that the quantitative measurement and analysis performed by Applied Trust resulted in the acquisition of the correct amount of additional bandwidth. | BIND 9 Active Directory Integration
The Library wanted to move to Microsoft Active Directory and wanted the ability to register Microsoft resources with the nameserver. The version of BIND installed on the Unix nameservers didn't support Active Directory registrations. Once again, the Library IT staff called on Applied Trust networking expertise for help with this task. The first step in the process was to upgrade BIND on each of the Unix servers. The zone information was held over from the previous BIND installation so all that really changed was the version and features of the nameserver. The second step was to configure a nameserver running identical BIND code and install it on the Active Directory test LAN. Library staff performed extensive testing in the test environment before cutting the production environment over to the Active Directory implementation. Expanding Organizations' IT Reach
Applied Trust has internationally renowned infrastructure and security skills that can augment any organization's IT staff at a fraction of the cost of adding full-time staff members, providing a high-quality, cost-effective way to help companies manage their IT demands. |
|
