Nterprise Branch Office
Overview and Futures

Bill Pray

NBO Product Manager

Novell, Inc

Today’s Enterprise Business Issues

Branch offices are expensive to support

Private WAN links

Local Backup

Directory services

Local IT staff

Disaster recovery

Branch offices are necessary for the business to function in order to be close to suppliers, customers and partners. However….

Branch office service levels hinder productivity

Service levels, response time, bandwidth, data location

IT administration limited and costly

The Nterprise Branch Office Solution

Reduce costs to support Branch Offices

Eliminates local backup

Simplifies directory management

Reduce network costs

Appliance model (ease of deployment and management)

GroupWise email

Desktop Management (ZEN)

Disaster recovery

Novell Nterprise Branch Office dramatically reduces the cost and complexity of delivering data-center class services, like file and print sharing, to branch offices

Increase productivity by raising service levels

Takes the “Remote” out of the Remote Office by delivering employees the same level of service regardless of location

Remote administration allows centralized IT support

Nterprise Branch Office Architecture

Central Office

Branch Office A

Branch Office B

LDAP Directory

Rsync Server

Central Backup

Nterprise Branch Office Central Office components

Enterprise Portal

Terminal Server

Others…

Supporting Branch Office Apps

LDAP and Rsync over SSL

Internet

Data replication to corporate

ZEN for Servers subscriber

GroupWise POA

DHCP Server

Software appliance

Multi-protocol file services

iPrint

User Access Provisioner

Nterprise Branch Office

NetWare Linux Windows

Key Features of
Nterprise Branch Office 2.0

Cross-platform at the central office, support for Windows, Linux, or NetWare

eDirectory or Active Directory support

GroupWise 6.5 SP1 Post Office Agent

Virtual Office for end user web access

ZEN for Desktops supported configuration

DHCP Server

Enhanced Password Management (The ability for end-users to self-administer passwords in Virtual Office or through the Novell client)

Enhanced Disaster Recovery (Central office maintains data and file system rights so users can connect to their data at central office for disaster-tolerance)

WebDAV support

Login Script Editing

Typical install in 10 to 15 minutes

The Appliance Advantage

Nterprise Branch Office is an Appliance

You choose your hardware

Installing software turns hardware into an appliance with a known environment

Appliance provides:

Reliability and Simplicity

Easy Deployment

Easy Disaster Recovery

“Servers require management, Appliances are monitored”

Eliminating Backup Challenges

Centralize your branch office backup, archive, and restore

Eliminate local backup in branch office

Data on branch office appliance replicated to corporate

Capital costs are typically reduced by $7,500/yr per branch through elimination of tape backup hardware

Manage users through a corporate LDAP Directory

Nterprise Branch Office uses corporate directory to provision users automatically

No directory management required on the Nterprise Branch Office appliance

Simplifying Directory Services

Simplifying Directory Services

User logs into local Nterprise Branch Office appliance

Nterprise Branch Office appliance performs a secure LDAP lookup to the central LDAP directory

Once user credentials are validated, user is automatically provisioned on Nterprise Branch Office appliance

User Caching

HTTP

CIFS

NCP

NFS

AFP

FTP

Login

Branch

Office

Central Office

Users

Internet

Secure LDAP

Lowering Network Connectivity Costs

Leverage the Internet for network connectivity to corporate

Allows you to replace expensive private WAN links with public Internet connections (DSL, T1, Cable Modem, etc)

All communication between NBO server and corporate is encrypted with SSL

Novell has experienced a 50% reduction in WAN costs by going to this model

Disaster tolerant solution that provides easy recovery

Local appliance is a disposable service cache

If it fails, throw it away

Until replacement hardware is found, services are available from central office

Local office down – no problem!

Central office down – no problem!

Disaster Recovery

File and Print

Improves the productivity of branch office employees through local file and print services

Access and share files on local appliance using any desktop OS - Windows, Mac, Linux/Unix

Print through local appliance using iPrint

Discover and install printers using Web browser

Provide local GroupWise email with centralized management

GroupWise 6.5 SP1 Post Office Office Agent

Managed through centralized GroupWise management tools

Backup of Post Office can be done centrally using the Data Replication technology in NBO

GroupWise Server

Internet or Wan

Central Office

Desktop Management
ZEN for Desktops

ZEN for Desktop services are provided by a centralized ZFD Middle-tier server that points to NBO for drive mappings needed for application distribution

PC logs into central office ZFD Mid Tier server

ZFD services delivered centrally

App files distributed locally on NBO server through mapped drive

ZENworks for Desktops 4.0 – Middle Tier Server

Branch Office

Nterprise Branch Office

ZFD Management Agent

App Files

ZFD Login

Login over HTTP

Policies

DLU

Inventory

Remote Control

Apps

Centrally distribute content to branch offices to give users the information they need

Uses ZENworks® for Servers to distribute data to branch offices

Provide users with the current content they need to be productive

One example of this would be to distribute a set of corporate presentations to all sales offices

Content Management
ZEN for Servers

Nterprise Branch Office
Deployment Requirements

Central Server

An LDAP-enabled eDirectory™ tree running DS 8.7.3 or later with universal or simple passwords assigned to all users

Either NetWare® 6.5, NetWare 6 SP4, SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 8, or Redhat Enterprise Linux Server 3.0, for backing up data to the central office using the branch office data replication

If using the Internet, open the necessary ports for Nterprise Branch Office appliance to communicate with Central Office

Branch Office

Server class PC with a a Pentium II or AMD K7 processor or better

1 GB of RAM minimum

9 GB hard disk storage minimum

Bootable CD-ROM drive and floppy drive

Mariner Health Care before NBO

Branch offices are Nursing Facilities with ZERO IT staffing

Private WAN links ( frame or DSL)

Local Backup of Netware 5 servers

Directory services with partitions and replicas of corporate tree

20 Workstations and up to 50 users per facility

Centralized web based applications to replace distributed applications

Initial goal to remove all servers from facility

Approach was from a “What cannot be centralized point of view”

One of the largest providers of long-term health care services in the U.S. with more than 290 Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) operating in 20 states and 35,000 licensed beds….

Mariner Health Care Environment with NBO

Centralized Manageability from Corporate Tree

User ID management in Facility Container

Zen Objects map drives on local NBO server

Zen policies applied via middle tier login

Windows XP userid management via ZFD Dynamic local user from central tree

Zen application objects control desktop applications

ZFS tiered distribution sends ZFS source files to NBO Servers

Rsync servers in central office for enterprise backups

Distributed Functionality by leveraging NBO in the field

Application distribution from local NBO G: drive

Zen Imaging now capable using NBO 2.0

iPrint queues from local server

Site level file sharing on NBO server

Mariner’s Nterprise Branch Office Deployment

Mariner NBO Standard build includes

Any special configuration parameters (directory rights etc.)

Specific default user Ids, groups and password

Base Zen application distribution files and structure

ZFS subscriber installation and configuration

Anti-Virus installation and configuration for auto updates

Rsync configuration

LDAP configuration and certificates

Next we create a ZFS PXE image of the ‘standard config’

Deployment

Image new server using standard NBO image (20min for 2gb)

Run Autoload diskette containing server config (ip,tree,name)

Copy current desktop images to server for PXE imaging

Mail server to facility for installation

Old Method

Facility Novell 5 server failed

Mail server and tapes to Houston

Repair server and hope data on tapes current

Restore data from tape and repair replicas

Mail server to facility

Average 72 to 96 hour turnaround

New Method

Facility NBO 1.0 or 2.0 server failed

Image New server with Mariner NBO standard

Load auto configuration diskette

Copy Rsync data from central office server

Mail server to facility with return label

Average 24 hour turnaround

Disaster Recovery

Case Study

American Diabetes Association

Approach

2

Install appliances in each office to replace outdated servers

Provide Web-enabled file and print

Centralize storage to eliminate need for local backup

Move from T-1 to business-class DSL

Business results

3

Overall cost savings more than $1 million

Faster file access and printing in every office

Reduced server administration time by 95%

Reduced T-1 costs by 75% in some offices

Situation

1

140 offices, 70 with full-featured servers

Lack of IT resources in each facility

1,000 employees in all 50 states

Unreliable local backups

Case Study

Situation

22 locations

1,000 employees

Slow file and print resulted in hundreds of hours of lost productivity

Unreliable local backup

1

Approach

Install software appliances to replace full-featured servers

Use single directory to centralize user management

Centralized storage to eliminate need for local backup

2

Business results

File access in seconds, not minutes

Saved 40% in projected hardware costs

Reduced network administration by 25%

Saved $11,000 per office in backup costs

3

Griffin Industries

Best Competing Alternatives

Deploy 2 domain controllers at the branch

Deploy 2 domain controllers at a hub/data center to support the branch

Use private WAN links

Cost continues to escalate – complexity is high

Microsoft

Cheap SOHO Appliance

Deploy small form factor SOHO appliances at the branches

Toshiba $1,150 - $1,610

PowerElf $1,699 - $2,633

SUN Cobalt Qube $1,149 - $2,400

No centralized management – requires onsite management

Continue with your current architecture and systems

Keep private WAN connections between sites

Novell loyalists continue to manage a partition per site and 3 replicas per partition

Continue to send IT staff on site or staff IT resources locally

Cost continues to escalate – complexity remains high

Status Quo

Total Centralization

Consolidate the architecture and centralize all services

IT group saves money and resources

Take a productivity hit with the workforce at the satellite offices

Users rebel and start taking things into their own hands

Novell versus Microsoft

The Microsoft solution for distributed offices costs more than twice as much as the Novell Nterprise Branch Office solution!

25 Users in One Branch Office

Microsoft Recommended

2 Domain Controllers at Branch

$2,639

2,639 for 25 CALs

1 Terminal Server for the Branch

Server Maintenance

$25,000

TOTAL……. $55,139

Novell Nterprise Branch Office

1 Nterprise Branch Office Server

$6,000

TOTAL……. $20,000

2 Domain Controllers at Hub

covered by licenses above

covered by licenses above

Required Hardware

5 Servers at $3,000/server

$15,000

Server Licenses

5 Servers at $5,000/server

5 Servers at $500/server

$2,500

Required Hardware

2 Servers at $3,000/server

Server Maintenance

2 Servers at $5,000/server

$10,000

Backup

Central Backup Solution

$1,500

Backup

Local Tape Drive and Support

$10,000

$2,500 per server

$2,500

Quick ROI Tool

Nterprise Branch Office offers a remarkable Return on Investment (ROI) by solving branch office issues and delivering enhanced service to branch office users.

·	Reduction in support costs

·	Connectivity savings

·	Centralized management

·	Enhanced disaster tolerance

·	Increased productivity

Comprehensive ROI Tool

CIOview's ROInow! for Nterprise Branch Office is software that allows you to analyze the financial impact of deploying Nterprise Branch Office in your environment. Results include ROI and TCO figures, as well as a printable 35-page business case detailing all of your costs and benefits.

http://www.novell.com/products/branchoffice/nbo_roi.html

Return On Investment

Nterprise Branch Office 3.0

Zambezi

Based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9

ZEN integration for global health view and alerting

Architected for partner / 3rd party application integration into the appliance

Improved, robust Command Line Interface for easier management

ZENworks Patch Management integration for delivery of patches/support packs

Reliable, simple, disaster tolerant appliance

Authorized Beta Starting Soon!

Interested? Send Email to: wpray@novell.com

More Information...

TUT208 - Novell Nterprise Branch Office Installing and Configuring

Visit us in the Solutions Lab

Connection Article – Permission to Duplicate

http://www.novell.com/connectionmagazine/2005/01/tech_talk_4.html

Product Page: www.novell.com/branchoffice

I spend a ton of $$ to support branch offices

I want to consolidate servers, storage, and apps.

I like directory services for central management but don’t like the price I pay when spanning the WAN

I spend more to backup servers and apps in the field than I spend for the servers and the apps themselves

Users need appropriate, real-time access to desktop applications and email

I don’t want IT staff in the field

I need disaster tolerance for the rural parts of my network without breaking the bank

I pay a lot for low bandwidth private WAN links

Reducing costs is critical

Everyone is expected to accomplish more with less

Disaster recovery is now a critical requirement for businesses

Focus on protecting corporate information and managing risk

Increase efficiency and productivity with existing resources

Regulatory policies (i.e. HIPAA, GLB) can be costly to comply with; especially in Finance, Government, and HealthCare businesses

Continued increase in emphasis on security

Corporations must protect sensitive information

Current technology trends include consolidation and portal implementation

These are some important business questions that are on the minds of many CIOs and IT managers.

With employees working from anywhere traveling between offices, how do they get the same experience from any location?

In a distributed enterprise, branch office data can be just as critical as that in the central office. What is being done to protect that data?

The more spread out your organization is, the directory becomes more complex. Why is this so and what can we do to simplify it and save money?

For each branch office, even small ones, it seems we need to staff IT professionals in each office. Maybe we have borrowed resources in some offices. This isn’t good use of IT services, what can we do?

The infrastructure seems to be getting more complex, what can we do to move in the other direction and consolidate?

Drive the cost out of branch office infrastructure.

The architecture for the Nterprise Branch Office solution is simple and easy to mange.

At the central office, all that is required is an LDAP directory for user management and a server or servers with the Ntreprise Branch Office central office Rsync server component loaded to function as the central backup server for multiple branch offices.

The branch office requires only a server for Nterprise Branch Office soft-appliance and connectivity. A soft-appliance is a term to simply mean that you pick your hardware or server, and the software, using imaging technology, installs the O.S. transparently and manages the services for you.

Nterprise Branch Office provides the data replication for centralized backup, integration with ZEN, a GroupWise Post Office Agent, DHCP server, iPrint and a user access provisioner.

While you can still backup your Nterprise Branch Office appliance locally, secure technology makes it possible to leverage the backup resources and expertise found in your central office. Some organizations may still chose to backup locally.

Nterprise Branch Office uses the data center for data replication so you can now centralize your archive, backup and restore.

Local backup equipment is often twice as much as the servers it is backing up. Now you no longer have to rely on a borrowed resource in the branch office to swap tapes and you can reduce the cost of expensive local backups. Also, you are now guaranteed that your can restore the data if needed.

Nterprise Branch Office uses Rsync, an open source technology, to replicate only the changes to the local file structure. This means you can optimize slower bandwidth connections to your branch offices.

Nterprise Branch Office simplifies the management of branch offices even more….

You used to have to manage multiple replicas of the directory and make sure they remained synchronized. Branch office employees needing access would have to call corporate to get access rights. Now you can manage the directly from the central office without the overhead of a distributed directory.

With a standard browser, IT staff in the central office can manage all components of the Nterprise Branch Office appliance.

Each Nterprise Branch Office appliance is a single server tree. There is no synchronization with corporate and the directory does not need to span the WAN. Users at the branch offices whether, stationary, mobile, visiting, or there as guests are automatically granted access to appropriate resources on demand. This patent-pending auto-provisioning technology is the key to simple management of branch offices.

Users can login to their Nterprise Branch Office appliance using any protocol. If the user does not exist in the local directory then the appliance will use secure LDAP to check the corporate LDAP server built on eDirectory. When the user is found, a copy of the user object is cached on the Nterprise Branch Office box. Additionally, a user directory is created, and access to shared folders and printers is granted. If the corporate LDAP server is unavailable, existing users on the appliance are authenticated locally. When a user is disabled in the corporate LDAP tree they are also disabled at the branch office.

This new patent-pending technology allows you to experience the central control, simplicity, and cost savings of a central directory without incurring the overhead involved when the directory spans the WAN.

Nterprise Branch Office provides you with a disaster tolerant solution.

The local appliance is simply a disposable service cache. If it fails, toss it. The data is backed up at the central office and can be easily restored. Because Nterprise Branch Office is a soft appliance, you can choose your own hardware and simply image it as a Nterprise Branch Office appliance. Just drop in a CD and in a matter of 20 minutes, you have a new appliance. You get to stick with your vendor of choice or you can redeploy existing hardware and save money.

If the local appliance fails and while you are working on a replacement, users still get what they need as the services are available from the central office.

If the local office is down – no problem, services are available from the central office.

If the central office is down – no problem, local users still get access to core resources like file and print and can remain productive.

Nterprise Branch Office improves the productivity of branch office employees.

Users on all standard desktop platforms can access and share files on the local appliance using any protocol (NCP, CIFS, AFP, NFS, FTP, HTTP, HTTPS). This means you don’t have to manage distinct islands of storage to support these different platforms – they share the same resources.

Nterprise Branch Office includes iPrint, the amazing printing solution that allows users to discover and install printers using a Web browser. Just navigate to the printer using the buildings floor plan map and users can instantly install and print from local printers.

The local appliance is as an IPP print spool. No need to span the WAN to a central office for print spooling. Central office print spooling is always available as a backup, but only if needed.

ZENworks for Desktops can be integrated with Nterprise Branch Office 2.0 using a centralized architecture, which lets you manage ZENworks centrally while using the Nterprise Branch Office server as a repository for application files. In the centralized architecture, desktops in the branch office use the ZENworks for Desktops 4.0 Management Agent to connect to a centralized ZENworks for Desktops Middle Tier Server. The ZEN Middle Tier server processes all of the ZENworks functions. Application objects point to a mapped drive for the application files. The mapped drive is connected to the Nterprise Branch Office server. This allows lightweight ZENworks features to be processed centrally and data-intensive features to be processed locally on the Nterprise Branch Office server."

Nterprise Branch Office provides you with a disaster tolerant solution.

The local appliance is simply a disposable service cache. If it fails, toss it. The data is backed up at the central office and can be easily restored. Because Nterprise Branch Office is a soft appliance, you can choose your own hardware and simply image it as a Nterprise Branch Office appliance. Just drop in a CD and in a matter of 20 minutes, you have a new appliance. You get to stick with your vendor of choice or you can redeploys existing hardware and save money.

If the local appliance fails and while you are working on a replacement, users still get what they need as the services are available from the central office.

If the local office is down – no problem, services are available from the central office.

If the central office is down – no problem, local users still get access to core resources like file and print and can remain productive.

Novell – The perfect example of a distributed enterprise

Novell practices what it preaches. With 117 offices worldwide and over 5,000 employees, Novell is a perfect example of the distributed enterprise.

A large portion of the employees don’t work in traditional offices, over 171 different enterprise level applications needed to be supported and it was a bear to manage.

Novell took steps to simplify the IT infrastructure and at the same time improve services to end users. By deploying Nterprise Branch Office appliances to the branch offices, end users were assured that their critical resources such as file and print were readily available at all times.

Novell further consolidated corporate applications to the data center, removed cumbersome servers from branch offices and created a corporate portal to give users anywhere, anytime, secure access to the apps they need.

With Nterprise Branch Office in the branch office they were also able to reduce the number of

Novell – The perfect example of a distributed enterprise

Novell practices what it preaches. With 117 offices worldwide and over 5,000 employees, Novell is a perfect example of the distributed enterprise.

A large portion of the employees don’t work in traditional offices, over 171 different enterprise level applications needed to be supported and it was a bear to manage.

Novell took steps to simplify the IT infrastructure and at the same time improve services to end users. By deploying Nterprise Branch Office appliances to the branch offices, end users were assured that their critical resources such as file and print were readily available at all times.

Novell further consolidated corporate applications to the data center, removed cumbersome servers from branch offices and created a corporate portal to give users anywhere, anytime, secure access to the apps they need.

With Nterprise Branch Office in the branch office they were also able to reduce the number of

Backup Savings Example

Yearly Backup Costs Before Nterprise Branch Office

40/80 Tape Drive (high end $3,000	$1,000

Backup Software (Veritas enterprise edition $3,000.)	$1,000

Media	$3,000

Labor just for backups	$1,000

Operational Loss (someone in the branch office to do IT work)	$4,000

Total (does not include setup costs or maintenance on the software)$10,000

Yearly Backup Costs with Nterprise Branch Office

6 Gig of Data, 5 day rotation = 30Gig

Discount to charge $4 per Gig = $120 X12 = $1,440	$1,440

($4/Gig charge based on actual pricing of a Novell partner)

2004-03-18T16:29:52