The winners are in for the MS Partner Windows Server 2000/2003 Best Practices for FY03,  moving customers from NT4.0 and replacing Novell. I received many excellent submissions. The final winners were chosen from those participating partners and services best practices for FY03. Consideration was given to the best practice’s impact on revenue, cost reduction, or customer/partner loyalty, as well as potential for widespread adoption and important consideration for the leverage of our SMB focused Windows Server GTM resources.
 
Special Congratulations to the following 1st Place winning Partner Team, who will receive a $3,000 cash award in total for the engineering/sales teams involved in the win.
 
Partner Name: Precision Computer Services, Inc.
 
Sales/Engineering Team involved in win: Jennifer Savoia - Engineering, Tommy Steeves - Sales
 

Partner Address: 175 Constitution Blvd. South, Shelton, CT 06484

 

Customer Deployment: Special Education Resources Center, Middletown, CT

Windows NT Server 4.0 to Windows Server 2003 Migration

 

Objective:

The Special Education Resource Center, (SERC) has a network that is built upon a Windows NT Server 4.0 operating system. While this solution provided a stable platform for their current environment, SERC realized that they needed to give their users access to more network applications. This was fast becoming a management and security maintenance issue. SERC currently has a small support staff that is capable of handling the day to day maintenance activities, but the need of having a centralized management solution as well as having a strategy for handling security, drives the need to utilize the more powerful operating system, features and tools found within Windows Server 2003.

 

Solution:

PCS implemented a Windows 2003 Server migration that provided a robust platform for SERC’s environment. Microsoft Terminal Services, part of the Windows Server 2003 operating system, builds on the foundation provided by the application server mode in Windows 2000 Terminal Services. PCS utilized this technology to host an array of applications through this platform, providing a uniform desktop throughout the enterprise. Utilizing additional features of Windows Server 2003 such as Group Policies, Roaming Profiles and enhanced Security Management, SERC’s staff was able to create a desktop template based on user roles that was easy to implement and manage. Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol, (RDP), provides the flexibility for SERC’s remote users to access Microsoft Office programs and a suite of Enterprise applications.

  

License Types: 

Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition and 100 User CALs

Microsoft Terminal Services CALs

 

Vertical Industry: Education

 

Results: PCS implemented a Windows Server 2003 solution that provided SERC an enterprise system that is highly manageable, reliable and scalable. This solution gave SERC all of the tools needed to deliver applications across their enterprise. PCS helped SERC’s support staff to develop roaming and mandatory profiles based on user roles and combine those with Group Policies that secured the working environment. With the use of user and group policy templates, SERC’s support staff can easily place new users in a secure working environment. Creating a Terminal Server Farm hosting all of the required applications allows reliable server uptime. In addition, adding new servers to the farm is easier than ever as the new server automatically adopts the Terminal Services settings of the entire farm.

 

Background Situation:

The Special Education Resource Center (SERC) has been in operation since 1969 through funding from the Connecticut State Department of Education. SERC has one main branch that hosts applications via Local Area Network as well as via a Remote Access solution.

 

Business Objectives:

SERC’s technological objectives are to serve as a centralized resource for professionals, families, and community members regarding education and early intervention/prevention for all of Connecticut's children and youth and their families, particularly children with special needs, at-risk learners, and diverse learners. Their remote access solution needs to be scalable to extend those capabilities to the community in which it serves.

 

Improved Partner Experience:

The ease of migrating from Windows Server NT 4.0 to Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition allowed this upgrade to take place with minimal downtime. SERC was well trained on NT but had little experience with Windows 2003. PCS and SERC worked together, creating new users, profiles and policies that left SERC with all of the tools necessary to maintain and manage their environment

 

GTM Resources leveraged: Precision Computer Services Team attended the WS2003 Sales/Technical training event's, leveraged the many of the available resources in the WS2003 GTM Kit materials, including Sales and Technical PPT's, whitepapers, technical resources, MS Press Books, WS2003 Launch Readiness, Custom Collateral Tool Server Mailers, and the resources available in WS2003, the product learning's enabled Precision Computer to leverage the features of Windows Server 2003 resources for design implementation guidance such as Group Policies, Roaming Profiles and enhanced Security Management to deliver a successful deployment.