| NCAR hired Applied Trust to evaluate the existing architecture and make recommendations for improvement. Applied Trust put together an interdisciplinary team of certified experts, including networking, Unix, and web hosting engineers, to perform the analysis. After analyzing NCAR's web architecture and configuration in detail, Applied Trust provided an actionable, prioritized set of recommendations for improvement. Because Applied Trust is not influenced by vendor commitments or alliances, it provides unbiased, fact-based recommendations. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is a research and development center that focuses on improving the understanding of the atmosphere and how it interacts with the sun, the oceans, the biosphere, and human society. The organization's web sites are a critical communication tool for the different programs within NCAR, as well as for NCAR's member universities. When NCAR's web sites experience downtime, organizations and universities across the country are negatively impacted. Because of this, NCAR hired Applied Trust to help improve its site stability. The first element of any analysis project is to gather information. Applied Trust gathered data about the current NCAR system and network architecture and its behavior. This information was condensed, and a combination of engineer experience and industry best practices was used to formulate a set of recommendations for NCAR. | Applied Trust made more than 30 recommendations; each recommendation included generic estimates of effort and total cost to implement. During the presentation of the data, Applied Trust additionally provided expert opinions on which changes would offer the most immediate and long-term performance improvements to the NCAR web environment. Within this set of recommendations was a suggestion that NCAR consider using a single hardware load balancing system rather than the existing architecture. It was Applied Trust's expert opinion that, given the current and projected web traffic demands and the requirements of NCAR, a change in hardware would reduce both complexity and downtime and improve overall manageability of the environment. NCAR agreed and commissioned Applied Trust with an additional project to test and evaluate load balancing appliances from multiple vendors to determine which would be best suited for NCAR's environment. First, Applied Trust worked with NCAR to develop a set of requirements that represented how the load balancer would need to perform. Next, the load balancing appliances were subjected to a series of performance, functionality, and manageability tests designed to assess their ability to meet NCAR's specific requirements. This produced both qualitative and quantitative results. | For NCAR, it was critical not only that the systems perform well, but also that they provide sufficient scalability and ease of management. Based on the measurements, analysis, and results, Applied Trust made a single recommendation for the most appropriate solution. "Applied Trust provided objective, vendor-neutral expertise that made it possible for us to see our current situation more clearly and to move toward a near-term, achievable solution. Applied Trust's ability to quickly grasp not only the technical requirements, but also the business and management needs, has been invaluable to us."
- Markus Stobbs, Director, NCAR's Web Engineering Group Applied Trust's engineers have a wide array of technical certifications, including CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, CCIE, and MCSE, and they are well-versed in helping organizations meet both business and technology needs through vendor-neutral, cost effective solutions. The National Center for Atmospheric Research is operated by UCAR under the sponsorship of the National Science Foundation and other agencies. Opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any of UCAR's sponsors. |
