Background

Byzak required a new messaging system as the capacity of the existing Exchange 2003 platform was too low and users found themselves having to archive off Email into PST files and store them locally. The main issue was that company correspondence was being moved from a secure backed up environment to single hard disk or external usb disk drive that could suffer from failure or loss at any time with no redundancy. This would inevitably result in the Emails being lost.

Byzak also had the requirement for a group collaboration system so that all Byzak employees could locate and work on files stored centrally from any computer attached to the Internet, safe in knowledge that the files were being stored altogether and being backed up.

The solution

An Exchange 2010 environment was setup to host mailboxes for 230 users. This had 10 times the capacity of the previous Email system meaning each mailbox user did not have to archive off their Email as often with the previous system. This made the storage of Email more secure and more efficient. Each user also benefited from the newer version of Outlook so that Integration with Microsoft Sharepoint websites was possible.

To host the group collaboration requirement, Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 was used. This was configured to host an Intranet site which allowed existing users of the Byzak domain infrastructure access. This not only integrated closely with Outlook but existing users were able to quickly use the new system having already being made familiar with Sharepoint Team Services on a previous group collaboration project.

The Intranet site was partitioned into key business areas and regional areas, allowing users from each region to quickly locate the information they required. A first class search facility was also available which allowed Internet Search Engine like text searches to be performed, displaying a list of possible results in the search screen.

Key areas of the site were able to be locked down to specific users or groups of users, allowing management information to be stored securely. This also allowed the creation of roles.  This gave Byzak the ability to nominate certain employees as being responsible for site content and user access within their nominated area of the site.