Background:
ProseWare Corp is a temporary staffing agency that provides companies with temp employees. ProseWare employs 2,500 people nationwide.
Organization:
Headquarters:
Headquarters is located in Chicago, Illinois. Headquarters includes the
accounting, payroll, human resources, and IT departments. Headquarters employs
150 people.
Branch Offices:
ProseWare Corporation has branch offices in 200 locations nationwide. Each branch office employs from 5 to 20 people. Each branch office has a branch manager. One person in each branch office is a representative for the IT department. This person resets routers and helps the IT department troubleshoot technical problems that occur at the branch office.
Regions:
Several branch offices that are in the same geographic area make up a region. There are eight regions. One regional manager is assigned to each region. The regional managers submit information about branch offices, regions, and markets for posting on the Web page. Branch managers must approve the content before it is published on the company's Internet Web page.
On-Site Offices:
For ProseWare Corp largest customers, the company provides one to five employees from the sales department to work full time at the Customer offices. This helps ProseWare identify customer needs more efficiently.
Payroll Centers:
There are payroll centers in Dallas, Texas, San Francisco and California. Payroll centers process paychecks for all employees within their region.
Existing IT Environment:
Computers:
All headquarters employees, except employees within the IT department,
use Windows 98 desktop computers. The IT department uses Windows NT Workstation
4.0 desktop computers.
ProseWare Corporation has 28 Windows NT Server 4.0 computers at
headquarters. One of these computers is a certificate server that is not being
used, two are file servers that store company data, and 25 run Windows NT
Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition.
In addition, ProseWare Corporation has one Outlook Web Access (OWA)
server named OWA1, two domain controllers named DC1 and DC2, three Microsoft
Exchange Server 5.5 computers, four UNIX servers that contain Oracle databases,
and one remote access server named RAS1.
On-site employees use OWA1 to connect to headquarters. Anonymous users
can connect to OWA1 to post resumes to an Exchange public folder named Recruiting
and to fill out online applications. Each branch office has access to this
public folder. The IT representative maintains control of this folder.
The company also maintains an Intranet, which includes Web pages for
technical support, human resources information, and other company information.
Branch offices all have desktop terminals and one computer with a modem. The
branch offices connect to a Terminal server at headquarters. There are no
servers in the branch offices.
All headquarters employees are granted access to e-mail and the
Internet. Users in branch offices and on-site offices are granted access to
e-mail and the Internet from the computers. Users of desktop terminals are not
granted access to the Internet.
WAN Connectivity:
Branch offices are connected to headquarters by fractional T1 lines the
committed information rate is 128 Kbps.
ProseWare Corporation has a T1 line to the Internet. The company's
domain name is proseware.com. ProseWare Corporation maintains a web page under
this domain.
On-site offices are not connected to the WAN.
Network:
All servers have static IP addresses. All client computers use DHCP. Each branch office has its own subnet and a router.
Computers:
ProseWare Corporation wants to upgrade its network to Windows 2000 and
use one Active Directory tree. All servers will be upgraded to Windows 2000
Server. All Terminal servers will use the Terminal Services feature. All
desktop computers will be upgraded to Windows 2000 Professional.
ProseWare Corporation plans to add an additional remote access server,
which will be named RAS2. Both remote access servers will run 2000 with Routing
and Remote Access. In addition, the company will add an Internet Information
Services (IIS) server.
OWA1 will not be upgraded to windows 2000.
WAN Connectivity:
The WAN bandwidth will remain the same.
Network:
ProseWare Corporation wants to build a network that can easily accommodate future growth.
Security:
ProseWare Corporation has implemented digital certificates to communicate securely with customers. The company has implemented one enterprise root CA. ProseWare Corporation wants to set up a certificate server for internal use only. The company also wants to implement secure communications to the Human Resources shared folder to prevent theft of confidential data during transmission. The company might consider two-factor authentication methods for portable computers.
Network Roles and Usage:
Human Resources:
The human resources department maintains a folder that contains confidential employee data. This folder is located on one of the Windows NT 40 file servers.
IT:
IT department maintains the network. The Terminal servers provide complete centralized administration for ProseWare Corporation. This allows all IT employees to be located at headquarters. The IT department is composed of network administrators and help desk personnel.
Sales:
The sales department uses the network to send and receive information from potential temporary employees and to communicate with customers. Sales employees often send confidential information, such as personnel schedules, through e-mail.
Branch Offices:
Branch offices store confidential employee data, such as benefits information, in the Human Re-sources shared folder. The branch manager copies this information to the folder. Only the branch manager has access to this information. The IT representatives in the branch offices report network downtime and are allowed to create global groups on the network for their offices.
Payroll Centers:
Payroll centers connect to the Oracle databases at headquarters to obtain payroll data. This data is used to create paychecks.