Tata Energy and Research Institute

Success Story

With Novell Net business solutions, Tata Energy and Research Institute maximizes technology investments, enhances network performance and communication functionality.

Overview

Tata Energy and Research Institute (TERI), a research institution in India, provides environment-friendly solutions to rural energy problems; helps shape the development of the Indian oil and gas sector; tackles global climate change issues; enhances forest conservation; addresses urban transport and air pollution problems; and promotes energy efficiency. Apart from its established regional centers throughout India, TERI has a presence in Japan, Russia, United Arab Emirates, and affiliate institutes in London, United Kingdom and Washington, DC.

Challenge

With a rapidly expanding operation and a dispersed user environment, TERI witnessed a swift growth in the number of computers and peripherals connected to its network. While trying to combat the demands of its infrastructure, the organization also wanted to offer its 500 employees application and file sharing, remote printing as well as remote access anytime, anywhere. To improve infrastructure performance, the organization needed a solution that would allow it to centrally manage hundreds of user accounts and resources across multiple platforms.

Given the nature of its activities, TERI was determined to provide its researchers and other staff the technological support and communication infrastructure that would enable them to work efficiently and productively in a collaborative environment. Moreover, effective and convenient internal and external communication was a prime concern, and therefore, appropriate communication and messaging tools were required. The institution wanted the ability to integrate its communication tool with existing technology, such as its knowledge management repository-used for recycling and processing research information.

Novell solution

"We swear by Novell products, solutions and support. Whatever the problem, Novell offers us an efficient and cost-effective solution. We will continue to leverage Novell to further enhance our environment and our overall business."

Satish Kumar
Fellow & Area Convenor, Centre of Information Technology
Tata Energy and Research Institute

To address its infrastructure challenges, TERI first selected NetWare, the networking tool from Novell, to provide employees continuous and secure access to the organization's network resources-files, directories, e-mail accounts, databases on a wide variety of networks, storage platforms and workstations. The institution also deploys NetWare Web server applications to combine its multi-server environment through the main intranet run on NetWare, providing unsurpassed reliability, stability and overall performance.

Leveraging the strength of Novell eDirectory, Novell GroupWise offers TERI unbeatable communication tools, including e-mail, calendaring, scheduling and document management. WebAccess functionality and GroupWise remote client server eliminates the need to maintain separate communication servers, allowing the company to create and manage user identities from a central location. Institute employees now have anywhere, anytime access to essential resources and communication.

"GroupWise is the official organizer for our company, it is even a part of our staff induction program," said Satish Kumar, TERI Fellow & Area Convenor, Centre of Information Technology. "This collaboration tool offers us unbeatable stability and reliability as well as the benefit of integrating with other systems."

The interoperability of GroupWise enables the organization to integrate with its custom-developed ERP solution. The system runs on a client-server environment, with GroupWise serving as the messaging backbone. TERI also integrates GroupWise with a fax application to allow users to send faxes directly from the network.

Novell BorderManager further enhances TERI's infrastructure performance and security by leveraging identity-based access control and forward proxies. Now with BorderManager, the firewall protects business resources against hackers by granting appropriate access based on profiles stored in the directory. With such powerful directory-integrated features, the organization can control, accelerate and monitor its users' Internet activities.

To further enhance its environment and provide additional functionality and services to its end-users, TERI plans to implement NetWare 6 and its Internet-enabled features including, iFolder and iPrint. iFolder will offer the organization remote access to personal files anytime, anywhere and will provide the ability to seamlessly synchronize any changes or updates. iPrint eliminates location and network barriers by allowing users to print to any remote location on the network.

Results

TERI has found an efficient ally in Novell solutions, which helps tackle all its network management and communication issues in an extremely cost-efficient manner. With NetWare as its primary server, the infrastructure is significantly more reliable, secure and expansive, enhancing the services and resources available to its users. GroupWise offers unmatched communication functionality and reduces institute costs by allowing the organization to leverage its existing technology.

"We swear by Novell products, solutions and support," said Kumar. "Whatever the problem, Novell offers us an efficient and cost-effective solution. We will continue to leverage Novell to further enhance our environment and our overall business."