Professional Services
The concept of centralizing applications in server farms demands a rethink of the design, architecture and operation of this infrastructure. The philosophy follows increasingly familiar procedures from the mainframe environment.
Together with its partners, visionapp uses a tried and tested project model to support you in the rapid, target-oriented and high-quality implementation of terminal server farm projects with best practises. This procedure shortens project duration, noticeably improves project quality and reduces project risks.
Design & Architecture
This has an even larger-scale effect during the necessary stages of design and planning. As a tailored architecture is developed and the correct sizing is determined for your server farm, you are supported by experts from visionapp and its partners.
The focal points in the design & architecture phase lie in the analysis of the application landscape, infrastructure and use cases. The aim of this is to balance the requests from the users with the requirements of the applications and the general conditions of your infrastructure. As a result, you receive a sophisticated plan for the configuration of your server farm and its smooth integration into the existing environments, the sizing of servers, applications and the user profiles as well as the use of automation tools for daily operations.
Implementation
The design and architecture phase is followed by the implementation in various steps of the server farms based on the developed planning assumptions. At this stage, our experts attach great importance to the following:
- Fully automated installation of servers and server farms
- Complete automatic integration of the servers into the infrastructure
- Integration of the server farm into the company-wide directory services
- Initial packet assembly and fully automatic installation of applications
- Integrated configuration of servers, server farm, applications and user profiles according to planning requirements without manual intervention or follow-up
- Test operation of the server farm including the applications, use of peripheral printers etc. by selected users
Packaging
Every server farm demands a high degree of flexibility in the application landscape, during implementation and operation, while the highest availability must also be secured. These conflicting demands can be met through the use of visionapp installation packages. At the same time, you can benefit from the extensive experience gained from a range of customer projects and the many years of expertise offered by visionapp and its partners.
The automatic installation and configuration of system software and applications offer considerable potential in these areas:
- Availability guarantee and installation quality for applications in the server farm.
- Standardization of identically installed applications over the whole server farm. This allows predictable application behaviour for users, unlike heterogeneous PC system landscapes.
- Standardization of policy-based user roles and secure access to applications.
- Compliance with service level agreements for applications and their traceability (SLAs)
We offer you support in the packaging of system software and applications in the following stages:
- Analysis and overview of the application landscape, compilation and evaluation of the applications in an application matrix. Selection of the appropriate package templates from the visionapp installation packages and, if necessary, adaptation of individual parts.
- Package compilation and global parameterization for the provision of software on the servers and customer-specific configuration of the software according to the requirements of the use case planning. Partial adaptation of machine-specific and user-specific configurations.
- Test and acceptance - standardized tests and acceptance procedure in a test environment. Clearance for use in the production environment.
- Documentation - built-in documentation within the packages. Explicit process documentation for the respective application or software package.
Operational Concept
The operation of a server farm is subject to very stringent demands with regard to:
- Highest availability of the systems and applications with full scalability of the server farm.
- Permanent standardization of system software and applications within the server farm.
- High procedure quality for different operating procedures such as reinstallation and post-installation of applications, updates, upgrades, patches etc.
- Extensive homogeneity in the procedures applied, to make the processes clearer and more integrated.
- Integrated process documentation with uniform documentation standards, to ensure full compliance at all times with the specifications and policies for IT operations.
- Unrestricted compliance with the quality specifications and indicator figures that arise from the internal and external service level agreements.
The experts at visionapp and its partners work together with you to determine all key aspects involved in the operation of server farms and to support you during the implementation process.