Implementation Plan for Business Core IT Services

Introduction

The aim of this report for WAI or Worldwide Advertising Firm is to present a detailed description of the implementation plan for their core IT services. The main focus of the report in the implementation of the Windows network infrastructure based on Windows 2012 server edition operating system. WAI operates from Ney York and Los Angeles. The business process is distributed over the business units at these two locations. A secure IPSec tunnel is there to connect the business units from NY to LA. All required network equipment are present and the cost is not a concern for the implantation plan. The main objective is to deliver the plan for the best possible Windows Network Infrastructure for WAI that can be deployed by their in-house IT staffs in future. The implementation and configuration plan will describe all of the core IT services of WAI, including the features of Windows Server 2012, locations of the servers for WAI, deployment plan for the servers over the business network, AD or Active Directory configuration plan, DNS and DHCP planning, plan for deployment of application servers, file and printer sharing. 

The core Windows Network Infrastructure in the backbone of the whole IT infrastructure of WAI. It has a significant effect on their business process, communication and daily business activities. The effectiveness of this infrastructure will help WAI to grow their business in future and running it efficiently (Microsoft, 2016).

The Windows 2012 Server Deployment Plan for WAI

Windows Server 2012 R2 will be deployed on the Windows network infrastructure of WAI. A number of new features of Windows 2012 R2 will help WAI to add more agility and flexibility to their business network and the IT infrastructure. It can use the features in the following ways,

• It supports server virtualization. WAI can effectively utilize the virtualization feature to maximize the utilization of the hardware resources. WAI can consolidate the servers as virtual machines connected to a single host. The Hype-V feature of the Windows 2012 R2 will help WAI to run multiple operating systems including Linux, Windows, and Solaris etc. on the single server (Microsoft, 2016). All these OSs will run in parallel. Hyper-V also will help to extend the IT infrastructure by extending the capability of memory and hosts.
• Windows server 2012 R2 supports SAN or Storage Area Network. WAI can use this feature to extend the storage capability of the servers. The SANs will help to deploy high-performance, scalable and available storage solution (Microsoft, 2016). It will help them to ensure business continuity. It also supports RAID and Virtual disks for storage.
• WAI can manage their entire network like a single server. It will help them to have better control over their distributed business process, more scalable and reliable networking solution for their business (Microsoft, 2016). The automatic rerouting feature will help to secure files from damages caused by network failures. It will also help to reduce the impact of network downtime. Overall it will improve business availability.
• Further, the infrastructure will be ready to move to cloud computing platform. It will support any deployment of cloud like private, public or hybrid.
• The standards server management framework and automation will help WAI to integrate and automate their routine tasks and have a simplified deployment. It will also ensure correct configuration of the components of data centers. The server manager offers a single dashboard for managing multiple servers (Microsoft, 2016).
• Windows Server R2 has an enriched application platform that has backward compatibility of existing applications and cloud applications.
• Enhanced security solutions of Windows Server R2 will help WAI to have better control over the security of its online resources and data. The staffs can seamlessly and securely collaborate over the network. It will be secured by Windows Server Remote Access and DirectAccess VPN (Microsoft, 2016). It also supports connections from mobile devices. It supports BYOD and data management if a BYOD device is lost or stolen. 
• The VDI or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure will help WAI to deliver and deploy virtual resources across their business network. Hence, the end users will be able to work in a virtualized Windows environment that will run on the data center. But the users can connect from anywhere and any device. The remote desktop services and Hyper –V are the two key technologies behind VDI. There are three possible VDI solutions, Remote desktop sessions, pooled desktop, and personal desktops (Krause, 2015).

The server deployment plan is given below. The physical and virtual servers will be located at the two business locations.

Server Name	Roles/Applications	Location	Edition
NY_Sever1_PH	Direct Access VPN	New York Office	Enterprise
NY_Sever2_PH	Hyper-V	New York Office	Enterprise
NY_Server3_VR	DNS DHCP AD Webserver IIS	New York Office	Enterprise
NY_Server4_VR	File and Sharing Applications SAN		Enterprise
LA_Sever5_PH	Direct Access VPN	Los Angeles Office	Enterprise
LA_Sever6_PH	Hyper-V	Los Angeles Office	Enterprise
LA_Server7_VR	DNS DHCP AD Webserver IIS	Los Angeles Office	Enterprise
LA_Server8_VR	File and Sharing Applications SAN		Enterprise

The virtual servers will be installed on the physical servers with Hyper-V. So, there will be total 4 physical servers that will work as 8 servers.

Windows 2012 R2 suppers automated server configuration. Hence, deployment will utilize the feature and will be automatically deployed. It will take around 2 days to complete the deployment.

Active Directory

WAI will need at least two domain controller for their two business locations. The backup of the main domain controller will be at the NY office. The read-only domain controller will be placed at the LA office. It will reduce the traffic load on the network. The scope of the domain controllers will be universal (Wright & Svidergol, 2015).

The parent domain will be WAI.local, it will have two children, NY.WAI.local and LA.WAI.local. Each department at these two business locations will have different organizational units. The end users will be distributed among these units (Krause, 2015).

Figure 1: AD Structure

The group policy will cover the scope of sharing of files and NTFS. It will restrict departmental data of finance department from others. The administrator will have full control and access to data of all department and can provide limited permission on request.

DNS and DHCP

The DHCP infrastructure will be a hybrid infrastructure. It will have multiple replay agents. A backup of the DHCP will be located at the NY office. The LA office will have multiple relay agents. It will help each department of both sites to support growing number of subnets in future.

DHCP will be fault tolerant and will have the 80/20 configuration. The configuration will help in scope splitting. The servers will have DHCP reservations from the address range from 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.1.200. The LA office departments can have booting configuration from the local server (Krause, 2015).

Application Services

Following application services will be deployment at WAI,

• Remote desktop services having a group policy.
• It will help in lowering the consumption of bandwidth
• Power saving
• No need of client backup.
• Microsoft SharePoint application server will be deployed
• Supporting collaboration and sharing of data
• VDI or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (Wright & Svidergol, 2015)
• End users will be able to access organizational resources from any location, any device and any time
• The end users no longer need stand-alone desktops.

File and Printer Sharing Services

The file services will be deployed through shared file. The file system will cover NY and LA servers. It will be updated automatically. DFS or Distributed File System will be deployed. Hence, the whole file system scattered over the network will seem to be a single and unified file system. Users will have their accounts and home on the file system.  Each user will get a fair share of storage but can scale up or down dynamically based on their requirements. Shared print servers will be available by sharing a printer attached to the network (Krause, 2015). 

FSRM or File Server Resource Manager will be deployed for managing the data stored on the file servers. It will help to (Wright & Svidergol, 2015), 

• Manage quota of storage space for each user or folders
• Screening of file system
• Reporting on usage of storage
• File management and classification tasks.

Conclusion

The implementation plan of Windows 2012 R2 for WAI Windows Infrastructure will help the business to get a cloud-ready, virtualized IT environment. It will help them to integrate their business units, sharing of data over the network, seamless collaboration, and sharing of files. Employees can work from anywhere. Hence, there will be an improvement in the productivity of the employees. That will help the business to grow faster.

References

• Krause, J. (2015). Windows Server 2012 R2 Administrator Cookbook. Birmingham: Packt Publishing Ltd.
• Microsoft. (2016, April 18). Windows Server 2012 R2. Retrieved from microsoft.com: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/windows-server-2012-r2/Features.aspx
• Wright, B., & Svidergol, B. (2015). Virtualizing Desktops and Apps with Windows Server 2012 R2. New York: Microsoft Press.