Case Study: TXGlobal

Background

TXGlobal is an international manufacturing company with over 35,000 employees worldwide. The company currently uses Exchange 5.5 for messaging. You are responsible for the migration to Exchange 2000.

TXGlobal's corporate headquarters is in Tokyo, Japan.

In the Americas, TXGlobal's operations are organized into five regions. The Memphis, Tennessee, office serves as the headquarters for both the Americas and North America Region 1. The Newburgh, New York, office serves as the headquarters for North America Region 2. The San Diego, California, office serves as the headquarters for North America Region 3. In North America Region 1, TXGlobal maintains plants in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Rolling Meadows, Illinois. In North America Region 2, TXGlobal maintains a plant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a territorial sales office in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. In North America Region 3, TXGlobal maintains a plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and territorial sales offices in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Buenos Aires, Argentina, office serves as the South America Region 1 headquarters. The Caracas, Venezuela, office serves as the South America Region 2 headquarters. In South America Region 1, TXGlobal maintains a plant in Montevideo, Uruguay. In South America Region 2, the Caracas location also houses a plant, and TXGlobal maintains a territorial sales office in Salvador, Brazil.

Existing Network

Domain and Administrative Structure
TXGlobal's network is based upon Windows 2000. Although the Tokyo office is the corporate headquarters, the corporate data center is in Memphis, and the Memphis office is responsible for the corporate network. Local administrative authority has been delegated by Memphis to Tokyo and to each of the regional headquarters. However, the Information Technology (IT) department in Memphis still sets standards and policies for the entire network. The following exhibit shows the domain hierarchy for the TXGlobal network.

Physical Network
Within regions, each location is connected to the regional headquarters by a 45-Mbps link. The San Diego and Newburgh offices are each connected to the Memphis office by a 512-Kbps link. The Caracas office is connected to the Buenos Aires office by a 512-Kbps link. The Tokyo and Buenos Aires offices are each connected to the Memphis office by a 1.5-Mbps link. The Tokyo, Memphis and Buenos Aires offices each maintain a 1.5-Mbps link to the Internet. The TXGlobal wide area network (WAN) topology is shown in the following exhibit.

TXGlobal's operations are highly dependent on network communications. The links between regions average about 85-percent bandwidth utilization. Intra-region links average about 60-percent bandwidth utilization.

The Las Vegas, Flagstaff and Salvador offices maintain 16-Mbps Token Ring local area networks (LANs). All other offices maintain 100-Mbps Fast Ethernet LANs.

TXGlobal has registered several domain names but uses only txglobal.com for receiving e-mail messages. Although responsibility for administering Exchange follows the domain design, the Exchange 5.5 site structure follows the network topology. The Exchange 5.5 Internet Mail Service (IMS) is configured on a single server in each city that has an Internet connection. E-mail messages from the Internet are routed, by default, to Memphis; if the Memphis server is unavailable, then e-mail messages from the Internet are routed to either Tokyo or Buenos Aires.

User Distribution
Approximately 15,000 employees use messaging. User distribution for TXGlobal is as follows:

Network and Computer Usage
Mailboxes for locations with fewer than 300 users are hosted on a server at the parent location, unless the parent location is located in a different region from the child location. Otherwise, each location currently has at least one Exchange 5.5 mailbox server.

The Exchange Server 5.5 computers run a third-party anti-virus software package that integrates with Exchange 5.5. Because of TXGlobal's reliance on network infrastructure, availability and fault tolerance are high-priority issues.

Several vital business systems run on TXGlobal's IBM 3790 mainframe, which is located at the corporate data center in Memphis. Each office has at least one cluster control unit (CCU) and several mainframe terminals. Therefore, the Systems Network Architecture (SNA) protocol is bridged throughout the TXGlobal network. Professional Office Systems (PROFS) has been installed on the mainframe, and about 300 users throughout the company use PROFS for messaging instead of Exchange. Therefore, the Exchange 5.5 OfficeVision (OV) connector is used to transfer messages and directory updates between PROFS and the Exchange organization. The PROFS directory is highly static.

Each plant has several computers on the shop floor that are used for controlling critical manufacturing processes. These shop floor computers do not have e-mail clients or Web browsers. Each plant has several break areas where manufacturing personnel eat meals. A minimum of one Windows 2000 Professional computer is located in each break area. Internet Explorer (IE) 5 runs in kiosk mode on each of these Windows 2000 Professional computers. From these computers, manufacturing employees log on to a Windows-based intranet Web site in order to review Human Resources (HR) information, safety information and multimedia training materials. Each plant maintains its own safety information. Because union contracts are negotiated at the corporate level, the HR information is published on a Web server in Memphis. Group policies prevent users of the break area computers from accessing anything but the Web-based kiosk.

The company employs 300 field sales representatives. All field reps have been issued portable computers. The portable computers have been in use for almost three years; during this time, few of the portable computers have had any software upgrades. The portable computers are configured with a Web browser, POP3 e-mail software and proprietary software for managing contacts, entering orders and tracking sales. The field reps connect to the corporate network by using dial-up connections; this method has become very expensive. The company wants to eliminate the dial-up connections and enable the field reps to access their corporate mailboxes by using the Internet. The weekly territorial sales report is the only obstacle to moving to Internet-based access. Each week, the sales manager for every territory generates a sales report and distributes it to all of his field reps. The field reps revise their portion of the report to reflect last-minute changes, then they send it back to the sales manager. Currently, when field reps log on, the logon script maps a drive letter to a shared folder that contains the sales report for his or her territory. The field reps access the shared folder by using the mapped drive, then they edit the sales report.

Envisioned Network

Migration Plans
Administrative responsibility for Exchange will not change. TXGlobal will consolidate multiple mailbox servers where possible. However, TXGlobal will maintain the current policy of hosting mailboxes for locations with fewer than 300 users on a mailbox server at the parent location, unless the parent location is in another region.

Mailbox servers will use a fault-tolerant disk configuration, but performance should be optimized. TXGlobal has defined a new hardware standard for Exchange 2000 Server computers. Hardware testing has indicated that each of the new mailbox servers can support up to 2,000 users. Only the existing Exchange Server 5.5 computers in Memphis have been upgraded to the new standard. All other locations except Tulsa will require the new hardware; Tulsa will use the old hardware from Rolling Meadows. Installation of the new hardware in each location will be part of the Exchange 2000 deployment plan, as will the installation of the old Rolling Meadows hardware in Tulsa.

The Exchange 5.5 organization will be migrated to Exchange 2000, one domain at a time, in the following order: txglobal.com, asia.txglobal.com, sa.txglobal.com, na2.txglobal.com, then na3.txglobal.com. A small team of Exchange administrators from Memphis will travel to each location and remain on-site until all steps of the migration at that location are complete. Therefore, all of the migration steps for one location should be completed before any migration steps are taken in another location. When the migration is complete, the Exchange 2000 organization will be switched to native mode.

Routing groups should be established where needed. Bridgehead servers should be established as needed in order to be consistent with the network topology. Bridgehead server names will be EXB-city, where city is the first four letters of the city name. The bridgehead servers will also be used for all connections to external messaging systems. Inbound e-mail messages from the Internet will continue to be routed in the same manner as they were before the migration. New hardware must be acquired for the Memphis bridgehead server.

A group named All Employees will be used to send company-wide announcements. Only Executive-level management and corporate Human Resources should be allowed to send messages to this group.

After the migration, field reps should be able to access calendars, e-mail services and public folders.

The HR and safety information will be moved from Web servers to Exchange 2000 public folders.

Backup and Restore Requirements
An online backup of all mailbox stores should be performed each night. An offline backup of all public folder stores should be performed every 12 hours. Public folder backups should occur in the shortest time possible. The backup system used for public folders is file-based and not "Exchange-aware."

Mailbox stores should be recovered to the point of failure, but public folder stores should be recovered only to the last backup. Public folder data is not critical. HR and Safety information will be created and stored on other servers before being published by using public folders. Any public folder information that cannot be recovered from backup tape will be republished from the original storage location.

Marketing Campaign
In six months, the Marketing department will unveil a new advertising campaign to promote recognition of its NuTex brand name. As part of the campaign, nutex.com e-mail addresses will be included in television, radio and print advertisements. Messages sent to the nutex.com addresses should be directed to the mailbox of an existing user in the Marketing department.

Security Requirements
SMTP relay should not be permitted.

Interviews

Network Manager
"I'm not concerned about directory synchronization with the PROFS system. The PROFS directory is extremely static, and most messages that pass between systems are sent from HR users, who are on Exchange, to the PROFS users."

Director of Sales
"If we can move the field reps to Internet-based access, it will save a lot of money, but I don't know what to do about the weekly sales report. We used to fax it around, but that became too cumbersome as the size of the field team grew. We tried e-mailing it for a little while, but it was hard to keep track of so many copies of the same file. We piloted an FTP solution, but it didn't work for us; these reps can understand e-mail, folders and Web browsing, but only a few of them could get the hang of using FTP. Whatever we do, it has to be simple enough that all the field reps can understand it.

"Also, there's something else I've wanted to do for some time. Every field rep has a counterpart on the inside sales team. The inside reps never get to meet our customers face-to-face. A couple of the more computer-savvy field reps have those little serial-port Web cams; they have recorded and e-mailed short video clips introducing their customers to the inside rep. At the last sales conference, the reps with the cameras tried to explain the process to the other field reps; unfortunately, most of them didn't understand. I'd like to get cameras for everybody, but only if there is an easy way for the field reps to record and e-mail video clips."

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Questions

1. Which of the following factors affect the Exchange 2000 design?

a. administrative strategy
b. available bandwidth
c. existing hardware
d. number of additional domain names
e. plant floor systems
f. PROFS/OV
g. SNA protocol
h. Token Ring segments

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2. How many mailbox servers should be deployed throughout the TXGlobal network?

a. 8
b. 13
c. 14
d. 15
e. 17

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3. How should routing groups be established?

a. one routing group for North America
one routing group for South America
one routing group for Asia
b. three routing groups for North America
two routing groups for South America
one routing group for Asia
c. three routing groups for North America
one routing group for South America
one routing group for Asia
d. one routing group for each physical location

4. How should administrative responsibility be delegated?

a. Delegate authority for each location to local administrators.
b. Delegate authority for Asia to Tokyo.
Delegate authority for South America to Buenos Aires.
c. Delegate authority for Asia to Tokyo.
Delegate authority for South America Region 1 to Buenos Aires.
Delegate authority for South America Region 2 to Caracas.
d. Delegate authority for Asia to Tokyo.
Delegate authority for South America to Buenos Aires.
Delegate authority for North America Region 2 to Newburgh.
Delegate authority for North America Region 3 to San Diego.

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5. How should manufacturing personnel access e-mail services and public folders?

a. Outlook 2000 should be installed on the manufacturing computers.
b. Outlook 2000 should be installed on the break area computers.
c. OWA should be accessed from the break area computers.
d. New computers with Outlook 2000 should be installed in the break areas.

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6. What e-mail references should be configured in DNS for domain names other than txglobal.com and nutex.com?

a. No e-mail references should be configured for the domain names other than txglobal.com and nutex.com.
b. In each domain's primary zone, EXB-Memp should be listed as the primary mail exchanger.
c. In each domain's primary zone, EXB-Memp should be listed as the primary mail exchanger, and EXB-Buen and EXB-Toky should be listed as backup mail exchangers.
d. In each domain's SOA, a reference to txglobal.com should exist.

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7. How should circular logging be configured?

a. Circular logging should be disabled for mailbox and public folder storage groups.
b. Circular logging should be disabled for mailbox storage groups and enabled for public folder storage.
c. Circular logging should be enabled for mailbox storage groups and disabled for public folder storage groups.
d. Circular logging should be enabled for mailbox and public folder storage.

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8. Before the na3.txglobal.com domain is migrated, you learn that there is a 40-percent chance that the Las Vegas location will become a part of North America Region 1. If that occurs, then the 45-Mbps link between Las Vegas and San Diego will be replaced with a 45-Mbps link between Las Vegas and Memphis.

Which of the following actions should you take?

a. Deploy Las Vegas Exchange 2000 Server computers as members of the North America Region 3 routing group.
b. Deploy Las Vegas Exchange 2000 Server computers as members of the North America Region 1 routing group.
c. Deploy Las Vegas Exchange 2000 Server computers as the only members of a new routing group.
d. Do not deploy Las Vegas Exchange 2000 Server computers until a final decision concerning Las Vegas' regional alignment has been reached.

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Answers:

1) Only choices a, b, c and f are correct. Administrative strategy, amount of available bandwidth, existing hardware and connection to the PROFS/OV system are factors that will affect the design of the Exchange 2000 system. Administrative strategy will determine how administrative groups are designed. The amount of available bandwidth will affect the design of routing groups and, perhaps, client software and protocol strategy. The capabilities of the existing hardware will influence the purchase of new hardware and upgrades, and will impact the deployment of servers and services. The need to connect to the PROFS system will affect the connectors that are used and whether coexistence with previous versions of Exchange is needed.

The number of additional domain names is not a factor in the Exchange 2000 design. Only txglobal.com and nutex.com will be used for receiving e-mail messages; the other domain names, regardless of the number, will not affect the Exchange 2000 design because they will not be used for messaging. The plant floor systems will not affect the Exchange 2000 design because they are used to control critical manufacturing processes and, therefore, should be left unchanged. Although the connection to PROFS/OV affects the Exchange 2000 design, the SNA protocol does not. The existing Exchange 5.5 organization communicates with the PROFS/OV system by using the Exchange 5.5 OfficeVision connector, which, by design, employs the services of SNA Server. Should the Exchange 5.5 OfficeVision connector be retained, the use of SNA Server will not change and the SNA protocol will not be a factor in the Exchange 2000 design. If another method of connecting to the PROFS/OV system is chosen, then the implementation of another protocol, such as TCP/IP, on the mainframe may be required. Although a decision to implement an additional protocol on the mainframe may impact the overall project in the larger sense, the use of the SNA protocol does not impact the Exchange 2000 design because Exchange 2000 does not use the SNA protocol. The existence of Token Ring segments within the TXGlobal network does not affect the Exchange 2000 design; Exchange 2000 can be deployed on Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Token Ring, Fiber Distributed Data Interchange (FDDI) and other networks, provided that a supported network protocol, such as TCP/IP, is used.

Reference: EX2KRK, Contents, "Enterprise Deployment Guide," "Part 1: Exchange 2000 Project Planning," "Chapter 1: What's New," "Connectivity to Other E-Mail Systems." EX2KRK, Contents, "Enterprise Deployment Guide," "Part 2: Planning for Exchange 2000 and Active Directory," "Chapter 3: The Exchange 2000 Environment," "Business Requirements." EX2KRK, Contents, "Enterprise Deployment Guide," "Part 2: Planning for Exchange 2000 and Active Directory," "Chapter 3: The Exchange 2000 Environment," "Current Network Infrastructure."

2) Choice c is correct. TXGlobal should deploy 14 mailbox servers throughout its network. The case information indicates that the hardware chosen for mailbox servers can support up to 2,000 users. Therefore, Tokyo and Memphis will require two servers each. The case information also indicates that the user mailboxes for locations with fewer than 300 users will be hosted by the parent location, unless the parent location is in another region. Therefore, Ottawa, Flagstaff and Las Vegas will not have their own mailbox servers, and San Diego will require two mailbox servers in order to support its 1,800 users and the combined 350 users from Flagstaff and Las Vegas. Buenos Aires, although only supporting 250 users, will require its own server because its parent location, Memphis, is in a different region. Each of the other seven locations will require one mailbox server. Therefore, a total of 14 mailbox servers should be deployed.

If all of the mailbox servers were deployed in Memphis, for example, then it would be possible to deploy just eight mailbox servers based on total corporate user count. If the mailboxes for Buenos Aires users were hosted by Montevideo, a child location, then only 13 mailbox servers would be required. If each location had at least one mailbox server, but locations with more than 2,000 users had additional servers as needed, then 17 servers would be deployed. If each location had only a single mailbox server, despite user count, then 15 mailbox servers would be deployed. However, none of these deployment schemes are supported by the case requirements.

Reference: EX2KRK, Contents, "Enterprise Deployment Guide," "Part 2: Planning for Exchange 2000 and Active Directory," "Chapter 3: The Exchange 2000 Environment," "Server Configuration," "Hardware." EX2KRK, Contents, "Enterprise Deployment Guide," "Part 2: Planning for Exchange 2000 and Active Directory," "Chapter 3: The Exchange 2000 Environment," "Server Configuration," "Client Access."

3) Choice b is correct. Three routing groups should be established for North America, two routing groups should be established for South America, and one routing group should be established for Asia. A routing group is a collection of well-connected Exchange Server computers that communicate with each other continuously. Because the locations within each region are well-connected by 45-Mbps links, and because the links between regions are 1.5 Mbps or less, each region should be configured as a routing group.

Within well-connected areas, routing groups can also be configured in order to restrict or schedule communications. For example, if a single Exchange 2000 Server computer in Memphis were used exclusively by members of a particular department, then that server might not need to be in constant communication with the other servers in North America Region 1. That server could be isolated from the rest of the region through the creation of another routing group. Communication between that department's routing group and the routing group for the rest of the region could then be scheduled and controlled.

Reference: EX2KRK, Contents, "Enterprise Deployment Guide," "Part 4: Basic Deployment and Planning," "Chapter 16: Message Routing," "Exchange 2000 Routing Basics," "Administration Groups and Routing Groups."

4) Choice d is correct. Authority for Asia should be delegated to Tokyo, authority for South America should be delegated to Buenos Aires, authority for North America Region 2 should be delegated to Newburgh, and authority for North America Region 3 should be delegated to San Diego. The case material indicates that Exchange administrative responsibility will continue to follow the domain structure for the TXGlobal network. The domain structure is shown in the following exhibit.

One method of achieving the desired result would be to use one administrative group for each domain. Because an in-place upgrade will be performed on the Memphis servers, the Exchange 2000 organization will contain one administrative group and one routing group for each Exchange 5.5 site. If an in-place upgrade were performed on the remaining servers, then each server would be placed in the administrative group that corresponds with that server's original Exchange 5.5 site. However, all other locations, except for Tulsa, will receive new hardware, and Tulsa will receive Rolling Meadows' old hardware. Therefore, the remaining Exchange 2000 Server computers will be implemented as new installations rather than upgrades. Doing so permits the installation of each server into a specific administrative group. For instance, when Exchange 2000 Server is installed on the server computers in Newburgh, Ottawa and Philadelphia, the computers should be configured as members of the administrative group for North America Region 2.

Because Exchange authority follows the domain structure, it is not appropriate to delegate authority for South America Region 2 to Caracas or to delegate authority for only South America Region 1 to Buenos Aires. Likewise, it is also inappropriate to fail to delegate authority for North America Region 2 and North America Region 3 to Newburgh and San Diego, respectively, or to delegate responsibility for each location to local administrators.

Reference:EX2KRK, Contents, "Enterprise Deployment Guide," "Part 4: Basic Deployment Planning," "Chapter 11: Administration and Maintenance," "Recipient Management."

5) Choice c is correct. Manufacturing personnel should use the existing break room computers to access e-mail services and public folders through Outlook Web Access (OWA). OWA, which allows access to e-mail services, calendars and public folders from Web browsers, is automatically installed with Exchange 2000 Server. The break area computers already run IE 5, the preferred client for OWA, so no additional software is necessary. IE 5 runs in kiosk mode on the break area computers, but the intranet Web site that the kiosk browser accesses requires users to log on. Therefore, adding a link to an OWA server on the Web page that appears after a user logs on should be all that is required in order to permit manufacturing users to access their e-mail messages from the break area computers. Because manufacturing users are already familiar with IE from using the kiosk training system, use of the Web-based OWA interface should require less training than other solutions.

Outlook 2000 should not be installed on the manufacturing computers. The manufacturing computers are responsible for critical processes and should be left unchanged. Outlook 2000 should not be installed on the break area computers. Running IE in kiosk mode does not prohibit the use of other applications, but the case indicates that system policies on the break area kiosk computers prohibit any other applications from being accessed. Installing new computers with Outlook 2000 in the break areas is unnecessary because OWA can be accessed from the kiosk Web browser as long as the proper link is added to the Web page.

Reference: EX2KRK, Contents, "Resource Guide," "Chapter 26: Exchange 2000 Architecture," "Outlook Web Access Architecture," "Accessing a Server."

6) Choice d is correct. In the Start of Authority (SOA) record for each of the additional domains, a reference to a valid e-mail address in the txglobal.com domain should exist. Every Domain Name System (DNS) SOA should contain a valid e-mail address for the entity responsible for the domain and DNS. An example of a valid SOA follows:

nutex.com. �����IN ������SOA(
����ns1.txglobal.com. �������; authoritative name server
����ns-admin.txglobal.com. ��; responsible person
����6513 ��������������������; zone update serial number
����14400 �������������������; refresh interval (in seconds)
����900 ���������������������; retry interval (in seconds)
����86400 �������������������; expiration interval (in seconds)
����300 ���������������������; minimum TTL (in seconds)
���)

Because only txglobal.com and nutex.com will be used for receiving e-mail messages, no mail exchanger (MX) records should be listed for the other domain names. Although the additional domain names will not receive e-mail messages, the SOA for each domain should include a valid e-mail address for the party responsible for the domain and its DNS.

Reference:EX2KRK, Contents, "Resource Guide," "Chapter 31: Optimizing Exchange 2000," "Optimizing Exchange 2000 Server," "Configuring DNS for a Unified Namespace." W2KSRK, Contents, "TCP/IP Core Networking Guide," "Address Allocation and Name Resolution," "Introduction to DNS," "Resource Records and Zones," "Resource Record Types."

7) Choice b is correct. Circular logging should be disabled for mailbox stores and enabled for public folder stores. Enabling circular logging allows log file storage space to be reused; however, the use of circular logging prevents a store from being recovered to the point of failure. The case information indicates that mailbox stores should be recovered to the point of failure, which requires that circular logging be disabled. The case information also indicates that public folder stores should be restored through the last backup, which permits the use of circular logging. Although disabling circular logging on public folder stores would still meet the restoration policy, the case information also indicates that the backup software used for public folder stores is not "Exchange-aware." This information suggests that the backups of the public folder stores will be file-based rather than Jet database-based and, therefore, Exchange log files will not be purged after backup. Thus, circular logging should be enabled for public folder stores in order to prevent the log file volume from filling up. The data published in public folders can be recovered from the original storage locations; therefore, recovery from backup tape and log files is not critical.

Reference: EX2KRK, Contents, "Resource Guide," "Chapter 28: Backup and Restore," "Exchange 2000 Database Technology," "Databases."

8) Choice a is correct. You should deploy Las Vegas Exchange 2000 Server computers as members of the North America Region 3 routing group. In Exchange 5.5, servers could not be easily moved from one site to another. In an Exchange 2000 native-mode organization, however, routing groups can be redesigned at any time. Because no final decision has been made concerning the possible realignment of the Las Vegas office from one region to another, you should continue with the current plan of deploying Las Vegas as part of the North America Region 3 routing group. Furthermore, even if the decision to realign the Las Vegas office to North America Region 1 has been finalized, you should configure the Las Vegas servers as part of the North America Region 3 routing group until the 45-Mbps link between Las Vegas and San Diego is replaced with the 45-Mbps link between Las Vegas and Memphis.

Reference: EX2KRK, Contents, "Resource Guide," "Chapter 31: Optimizing Exchange 2000," "Optimizing Message Transport," "Message Routing and Group Expansion."

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