United Airline Technogly
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United Airlines (UA) is a company whose carrier distance is the longest in the USA. Management of operations is automated and the main functions are operated at MOC (Maintenance Operations Center) at UAs headquarters. Management and maintenance of all aircrafts UA owns is also done at MOC. UA owns 546 aircrafts of 14 different kinds and all of them meet the specification standards as aircrafts and fulfill the regulations of corporate standards.
At the Engineering Department, transfer from paper documents to electronic documents began in 1989. The type of network is the Ethernet. More than 1000 Macintoshs have been purchased in last five years and e-mail and data sharing are already in use. Popular applications (Canvas, Excel, FileMakerPro, Word, etc) are also installed.
Now, the network consits of Washington DC, Indianapolis, Oakland, Denver, Honolulu, and Singapore offices and more than 1000 computers are accessing it. The cost to maintain and control so many computers and applications could be very large, but KeyServer which was integrated as a software to monitor use of software on the network (Metering software), greatly contributed to reduce the cost. Needless to say, reduction of cost is important for a corporation.
Issue of Administration of Software
We had to solve the following issues at hand:
To manage the headquarters of theorganization which spreads over vast locations, and all worldwide offices connected to the network.
To use only licensed software.
To control total cost of hardware and software upgrade.
To achieve easy and user friendly operations.
A group with twelve people within the IT system division supports three different levels. Also, people called “Area Coordinators” act as a bridge between support staff and end-users. However, since we dont want to put too much burden on the support staff, hardware maintenance is done by another division.
Solutions
– Decision Making Factors to Select Metering Software –
We came to the point to select a Metering Software to manage softwares. To solve our issues, the following factors were required:
The tool should be used instantly.
Because 2000 employees access more than 1000 computers (terminals), efforts by the administrators only are not enough. Users are also required to be involved.
It has to be cross platform.
Both Macintosh and Windows clients/servers should be easily used.
Work at end-users side should be minimal.
For normal use, it is ideal to be able to use software without paying attention to the Metering Software.
It should be reliable and reduce network troubles.
It should come with auditing and report functions.
We chose KeyServer as a tool to satisfy such factors. KeyServer clears all of our requirements and in addition it had a function called KeyCheckout.
KeyServers Functions
After integrating KeyServer, we realized the following important functions:
First of all, KeyServer can manage all Macintoshes from Power Macintoshes to 68K Macintoshes. We are successfully managing models such as IIcx, IIci, Centris, Quadra.
Secondly, KeyServer supports multiple network protocols. Our network uses AppleTalk, IPX, and TCP/IP, and the access to KeyServer by using any of the protocols is possible.
Finally, it comes with powerful a backup function called KeyShadow. In order to centralize the management of network spread worldwide, the network should have good durability, and the backup by KeyShadow can achieve it.
The most important point is that anyone can easily put a key to a software by using KeyConfigure. Because involvement of all employees is very important for successful software management, easy-to-use functions are one of the most important points.
Other Tools
KeyServer has more versatile tools such as:
KeyConfigure has a function to send a message to everyone on the network. It is very useful function for a company like ours who has worldwide network.
You can use Portable Key with PowerBook or Laptop computers. By using the Portable Key, key protected software can be used without connecting to the network. The use of the Portable Key is controlled by KeyCheckout so that the softwares license agreement is honored. Of course, unnecessary use of the Key should be prevented.
By using a function called Suite, it is possible to make several programs as a unit and manage them at once. Because it can link a single application used on multiple platforms, the use in cross platform environment works more effectively.
By using AppleTalk Remote Access software, it is possible to connect to the network by dial-in by telephone line from remote locations.
By installing KeySentry, alert messages are shown automatically. We can monitor it, pointing out the problem before the trouble can grow in large scale, and fix the problem.
The auditing tool called KeyAudit can inspect and report all softwares installed on each hard disks. The report can be stored and printed.
By installing a software called Census, action report of softwares even not under control of KeyServer can be written to a log file. This is very useful information for support staffs.
Integrating KeyServer
We did the following procedures to integrate KeyServer for our system:
(1) Testing
First we did the durability test. We tested one application on six Macintoshes