A leading provider of powerful data security
solutions produces a broad range of centrally
managed data security applications.
Key Problems
To satisfy the growing requirements for
enterprise networks security, the company
started to implement the idea of a centrally-managed
security system. To effectuate the system
in a reasonable time-frame, the company
would have had to expand its development
organization quickly. However, it was quite
difficult and expensive to hire suitable
staff in short time. So, the company offered
its long-term partner Arcadia,
Inc., well-known for its highly qualified
professionals, to develop this system in
collaboration.
Arcadia, Inc.
Solution
Having started with developing a system
for the central management of data security,
the experts soon arrived to a more general
management framework capable of managing
multiple applications running on multiple
operating systems and able to integrate
with different enterprise management systems.
This framework is based on the three-tier
architecture that consists of the agent
software, installed on the end-user machines,
management server, and the management console.
Policy-based management became the cornerstone
of the framework. Differing radically from
the traditional network management methods,
it essentially expanded the opportunities
of network administration. The policy-based
management framework provides for: remote
software distribution, remote configuration,
status viewing, and event handling. Remote
software distribution includes: first-time
installation, updates and upgrades either
from the management server or via the Internet.
Remote configuration includes: automatic
registration of new workstations with the
management console, monitoring of the products'
behavior, and launching different product-specific
operations. Status viewing allows viewing
the statistics reported by the products
and reviewing the product settings at the
workstations. Event handling includes logging
and alerting. The alerts can be routed to
the management console, pager, GSM SMS,
e-mail, fax, and SNMP-based monitoring systems.
The management system is fairly transparent
to the end-user.
The Arcadia, Inc.
team also performed internationalization
of the management framework in order to
enable its localization to Japanese and
Chinese.
Employed technologies: C++, cross-platform
development, internationalization, RPC,
TCP/IP, SMTP, SNMP, HTTP, Windows Networking,
ISAPI, Java. Duration: 34 months or 612
person/months. Location of work: St. Petersburg,
Russia.
