Engineers India Limited (EIL) is among India's largest consulting engineering companies with established expertise in providing design, engineering and related technical services for petroleum refineries and other industrial projects. EIL has thousands of assignments to its credit, including services to almost all prominent Indian petroleum-related companies.

At EIL, different groups work like a relay team, where one group does its work and then hands it over to another. It is important that as one group completes its deliverables, it can easily pass along the project data to a subsequent team. Information sharing is critical to ensure that each group can prepare in advance to perform its work on the project. The teams also needed to be able to work together on concurrent engineering of projects, rather than waiting for each group to finish. With the need to provide network access to service providers and contractors, EIL needed to tackle its security issues. A secure network would ensure that the right people have access to the right resources and information. Finally, one of the most time-consuming IT activities at EIL was the installation and configuration of customized in-house applications for 2,000 workstations in the company. The IT staff often spent 30 minutes per desktop and even more to install updates and provide support. The company needed a way to quickly configure and update its workstations, regardless of location.

	"Novell's robust technology has brought immense value to EIL as all project deliverables can be immediately handed over from one group to another. We have significantly reduced rework, minimized duplication of efforts, and can take on multiple projects. Users are also more productive, which has greatly improved the overall quality of services offered by EIL." —Mr. HMM Swamy, General Manager of IT Services Engineers India Limited

EIL has been using Novell® NetWare® since version 2.1 and is currently running NetWare 5 throughout its offices. EIL also selected Novell BorderManager® as its corporate firewall and Novell ZENworks® for desktop management.

Novell servers run most of the company's critical applications for project monitoring, procurement monitoring and material take-off. NetWare provides a stable platform for managing files, printers, folders and a large amount of data that can easily be shared among many departments. Using NetWare, the company has significantly reduced the amount of rework and made its users more productive while working on multiple projects.

"Flexible information sharing has also greatly improved the overall speed of our services to our clients," said Mr. HMM Swamy, general manager of IT services at EIL. "With Novell solutions, we can easily share projects data and information from one group to another."

EIL experienced problems with its previous firewall. To create a secure network, EIL selected BorderManager to control its incoming and outgoing network traffic. The company now has a secure channel with its authorized contractors and service providers, providing quick communication and protecting its confidential information.

"EIL operates in a highly competitive area of engineering consultancy and it is essential to protect the knowledge base stored on the network from outside attacks," said Mr. Narendra Kumar, deputy general manager of IT at EIL. "BorderManager provides us a secure environment and has met our security requirements."

EIL relies on ZENworks for the desktop management of 2,000 workstations throughout the company. Instead of travelling to each location to load in-house developed applications on each machine, EIL can do this from a central location. The IT staff has reduced the time to carry it out on a workstation from 30 minutes to five minutes, added Mr. Swamy.

EIL has been using Novell solutions for more than a decade to provide a real business advantage. NetWare has greatly improved information sharing among engineering teams. BorderManager provides a secure firewall to facilitate communication with partners and safeguard confidential projects and information. With ZENworks, EIL has reduced the time to configure workstations by more than 80 percent.

"Novell's robust technology has brought immense value to EIL as all project deliverables can be immediately handed over from one group to another," said Mr. Swamy. "We have significantly reduced rework, minimized duplication of efforts, and can take on multiple projects. Users are also more productive, which has greatly improved the overall quality of services offered by EIL." .