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CASE STUDY

Transportation Services Company Unites Facilities Using Branch Office IT Solution

AmeriQuest Transportation and Logistics Resources is a leading provider of comprehensive fleet management services. By leveraging the strength of more than 700,000 vehicles, AmeriQuest delivers savings, expertise, and opportunities to its private fleet, common carrier, and lease/rental members. The company also provides supply management services, asset management services, technology products, and outsourced transportation management services through its NationaLease network, including full service leasing, integrated logistics, and contract maintenance.

Part of the growth strategy for AmeriQuest has been mergers and acquisitions. In 2006, AmeriQuest went through the largest transformation in company history when it merged with NationaLease, another truck leasing company. The merger multiplied not only the size and competitive strength of AmeriQuest, but also the organization’s information technology challenges.

In particular, the IT department at AmeriQuest, which is headquartered in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, had to figure out an efficient, streamlined way to share and back up the hundreds of files generated by the NationaLease business unit, which is based in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois. The NationaLease facility was generating a large number of files—primarily Microsoft® Office documents and invoices that were scanned and turned into Adobe Acrobat PDF files.

“When we were in the merger talks, our IT department started thinking ahead about how to make the newly merged networks work together efficiently,” says Mike Rowbotham, IT Manager for AmeriQuest. “If left as is, we would wind up with competing accounting departments and accounting software. We also had to figure out a way to ensure the backup and availability of files generated by the two separate locations. We wanted to avoid the cost and overhead of maintaining backup solutions at two separate locations.”

What AmeriQuest needed was a secure, efficient, and cost-effective method for sharing and backing up its file data across a wide area network (WAN).

Solution

During the time period of the merger talks, AmeriQuest was already engaged with Clearpath Solutions Group, an IT solution provider, to develop a disaster recovery system. Recognizing that AmeriQuest was about to grow substantially as an organization—and that its file system would grow proportionally—Clearpath recommended that AmeriQuest implement a Microsoft® Branch Office solution based on the Windows Server® 2003 operating system. Microsoft Branch Office solutions help extended enterprises optimize and effectively manage information transfer and IT services for remote sites.

Clearpath also encouraged AmeriQuest to create its branch office solution using the Wide Area File Services (WAFS) solution from Brocade, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. The Brocade WAFS technology, which AmeriQuest deployed on Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition, provides fast access to shared files across WANs so that users experience performance similar to that of the local area network (LAN) in the building where they work.

Says Clearpath President, Gary Vaughan, “There are many technologies being positioned to solve the ‘branch office’ challenge; from Wide Area File Services (WAFS), to WAN optimization solutions, to replicated backup infrastructures. Clearpath has strategic manufacturer partnerships that address each of those technologies, but after our due diligence process with AmeriQuest, it was clear that their challenges would best be solved by Brocade’s Microsoft-based WAFS technology.”

The Brocade WAFS solution features a pair of appliances—the Brocade WAFS Core Appliance, which is located at the AmeriQuest headquarters in New Jersey, and a Brocade WAFS Edge Appliance, which is located at the facility in Illinois. The single edge appliance in Illinois replaced seven servers.

The Brocade WAFS appliances communicate through a proprietary Storage Caching-over-IP (SC-IP) protocol that is optimized for the performance and reliability characteristics of a WAN. The protocol enables highly efficient data caching, which eliminates multiple instances of single files; ensures file consistency; and facilitates easy and fast file sharing across the corporate WAN, which runs on a T1 connection. Approximately 70 gigabytes of files are cached at Oakbrook Terrace at any one time.

Beyond these caching capabilities, the Brocade WAFS appliances enable remote deployment of important Windows-based functions such as printing, a domain name system, Windows Server Update Services, and antivirus protection. These functions run on the Oakbrook Terrace WAFS appliance but are centrally configured in Cherry Hill using Windows-based management tools.

The company, which implemented the technology in November 2006, expects to extend the branch office solution for use with the company’s Microsoft Exchange Server messaging and collaboration server and Microsoft Office Outlook® messaging and collaboration client software.

Benefits

AmeriQuest is drawing a number of benefits since implementing the Microsoft Branch Office solution and Brocade WAFS appliances. The company was able to quickly and smoothly incorporate a new business unit into its corporate IT structure without incurring the high costs often associated with mergers. IT management tasks are now streamlined, with all major IT functions performed at AmeriQuest’s Cherry Hill headquarters. The solution, which gives users at the Illinois facility a high-performance experience when using files or applications, also provides technology that can support future company growth.

Significant Costs Avoided

AmeriQuest has incorporated a cost-effective solution at the Oakbrook Terrace facility that is keeping IT operating costs low and is reducing hardware and bandwidth expenses. Because only one physical device is needed in Oakbrook Terrace instead of the seven servers that previously resided there, the company is saving on power consumption and floor space. In addition, because all files are physically located in Cherry Hill and are only cached at Oakbrook Terrace for users, the company is saving money with the centralized storage and file backup infrastructure and administration.

“We estimate that the deployment of the branch office solution has helped us keep the IT operating costs at the Oakbrook Terrace site about 50 percent lower than if we had used some other option using standard servers and traditional tape backup systems,” says Rowbotham.

“By not having to back up any kind of server in Oakbrook Terrace, we estimate that we are saving thousands of dollars annually in hardware and software costs that would be required for tape backup devices and backup software,” he continues. “We’re also eliminating any recurring monthly maintenance costs needed to support this hardware or software. By consolidating files at Cherry Hill, the company gains a large measure of cost savings, business continuity, disaster recovery capability, and security, while saving money through the reduction of local servers and IT support.”

The branch office solution also helps keep bandwidth costs low. “Due to the file-caching functionality of the Brocade WAFS solution, we need only about one-third of the bandwidth that would typically be required to manage file and application access across the WAN,” Rowbotham says.

IT Management Tasks Streamlined

In addition to cost savings, the solution is simplifying and reducing workload for IT managers at AmeriQuest headquarters.

“AmeriQuest can remotely control network services from its data center, so we need only one IT person at the Oakbrook Terrace site to provide users with desktop and application support,” Rowbotham says. “Without the Brocade WAFS solution, this site would have required additional servers and IT support.”

Printer management, antivirus updates, and patch management are all smooth and efficient processes. These functions can be configured and managed from Cherry Hill and pushed to the Oakbrook Terrace WAFS appliance. Additionally, the remote management capabilities provided by the solution deliver another cost and time benefit—AmeriQuest can minimize the number of trips required by IT personnel to the Oakbrook Terrace site to perform maintenance, because most IT tasks can be handled remotely.

George Osborne, Network Administrator at AmeriQuest, says that because the solution is based on Windows Server and uses the Active Directory® directory service and Distributed File System (DFS), it is straightforward to establish a unified environment for the company. “When our users are on the network, they see the same master [disk] drive regardless of their location,” he says. “This enhances the ability of employees to move from one location to another without making any configuration changes. It saves the IT department a lot
of time.”

Corporate Growth Supported

The branch office solution is helping sustain the growth of AmeriQuest by giving employees at the Illinois site fast, efficient access to files and applications, which—along with data protection features—helps to foster corporate unity. “When all users can work quickly and easily from a single source file in a global file-sharing environment, we can achieve greater collaboration and productivity,” Osborne says.

Because the solution caches the files, employees in the Oakbrook Terrace facility experience almost the identical performance when opening, saving, and closing documents as their colleagues at the headquarters location.

“This is really important,” says Rowbotham. “If you open a one megabyte file over a typical WAN connection, for example, it might take several seconds just to open up. With our branch office solution, it takes just a fraction of that time.”

Changes are made as soon as a file is updated. Only the changed portion of the file—not the entire file—goes across the WAN. The system also provides file locking, so if a user in one location is working on a file, a user in another location can read the file but cannot make any changes until the first user is done.

Rowbotham says that the technology has helped fulfill the goal of the company’s top management, which was to accomplish the merger with the least amount of disruption.

“Everyone still works just as they used to before the merger,” he says. “That is a key factor to our business success. NationaLease is a well-run company, and it would have been detrimental to change roles and shift resources around. Using this technology, we’ve been able to keep the majority of staff at both locations intact. This technology will support our growth through the use of centralized file and network services for additional remote sites.”

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For more information about Brocade products and services, call  (408) 333-8000 or visit the Web site at:
www.brocade.com

For more information about Clearpath Solutions Group, call (866) 892-3154 or visit the Web site at:
www.clearpathsg.com

For more information about AmeriQuest Transportation Services products and services, call (800) 608-0809 or visit the Web site at:
www.ameriquestcorp.com