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Information Technology OverviewInformation Technology Overview

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InfrastructureInfrastructure• Current website code is the result of 4+ years of

accumulated band-aids, hurried projects, and various developers

• Resulted in a monolithic design with– No consolidation of identical functionality– Unused code that serves no current purpose– Inefficient code both in its load on systems and ease of routine

changes• A systematic re-write of each subsystem is needed

– User– Credit card– Subscriptions– Content management– Reports– Campaigns and Mail-outs– Products– Templates– Publishing.

Pg 3

Current DatabaseCurrent Database• Current structure consists of two databases

– Content • Naturally evolved form for the last 5 years• Suffers primarily from scalability• All content is stored in a single table with the body of features as a text

object field– Very large table - 100 megabytes and growing– Direct impact on content searches and building filtered lists of content

based on date or other criteria• Moving the content body into a separate table so that it is only touched

during full article viewings or full-text searches will have a definite performance impact

• Changing from Text BLOB field type to VarChar may have a similar impact – User Accounts and Subscription Information

• Developed by Austin Data Works• Database is much more complicated• Indexing is lacking on almost all tables; affects performance of most

common queries• Record keeping is shoddy or non-existent for tracking who and when

regarding last changes• Historical statistics such as subscription totals and account histories are

impossible or un-reliable• There is a distinct lack of granularity when attempting to define limits of

content access for different subscription types

Pg 4

Virtual Protocol NetworkingVirtual Protocol Networking

• Remote access to office network is currently limited to email, remote desktop access to accounting software, analyst forums, and production publishing system

• Some traffic is potential unencrypted to preserve functionality with clients

• Hotels and other Internet Service Providers often block ports that limit or block email connectivity

• A true end-to-end VPN is needed– Ensures encryption – Bypasses problems caused by ISPs and hotels

blocking connection types

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System Hardware and SoftwareSystem Hardware and Software

• Web Server – Static Content, production-site front-end– Hardware

• Dell Poweredge 6600• 2 Intel 2GHZ Xeon CPUs• 2 gigabytes RAM• 67 gigabyte cached RAID 5, 3 10k RPM drives

– Software• Operating System

– Linux – 2.6 series kernel• Web Server

– Apache web server 2.0.58• Web Site development language

– PHP 4.4.4-pl6 and PHP 5.1.6-pl6 ( migrating to PHP 5 )• Outgoing mail MTA for mail outs

– Postfix 2.2.10• PHP script caching

– Eacellerator 0.95

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System Hardware and SoftwareSystem Hardware and Software• Web Server

– Static Content, production-site front-end– Hardware

• Dell Poweredge 6600• 2 Intel 2GHZ Xeon CPUs• 2 gigabytes RAM• 67 gigabyte cached RAID 5, 3 10k RPM drives

– Software• Operating System

– Linux – 2.6 series kernel• Web Server

– Apache web server 2.0.58• Web Site development language

– PHP 4.4.4-pl6 and PHP 5.1.6-pl6 ( migrating to PHP 5 )• Outgoing mail MTA for mail outs

– Postfix 2.2.10• PHP script caching

– Eacellerator 0.95

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System Hardware and SoftwareSystem Hardware and Software• DB Server

– Customer user accounts, content database

– Hardware• Dell Poweredge 6600• 4 Intel 2GHZ Xeon CPUs• 4 Gigabytes RAM• 67 gigabyte cached RAID 5 , 3 10k RPM drives

– Software• Operating System

– Linux – 2.6 series kernel• Database Server

– MySQL 4.1.21 – MyISAM and InnoDB storage engines

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System Hardware and Software ContinuedSystem Hardware and Software Continued• Mail server• Corporate mail delivery, virus and spam handling, internal analyst

forums, web based email– Hardware

• Dell Poweredge 2600• 2 Intel Xeon 2.4 gigahertz CPUs• 2 Gigabytes RAM• 67 gig SCSI system drive, 136 gig OS based RAID 5 ( 4 SCSI 10K rpm drives )

– Software• Operating System

– Linux – 2.6 series kernel• Mail MTA

– Postfix 2.2.10• SPAM and virus

– Amavisd-new 2.4.1» Spamassassin 3.1.7» ClamAV 0.88.7» Razor 2.82» DCC 1.3.31

• Web Mail– Horde IMP 4.1.3

• IMAP and POP3– Courier IMAP 4.0.4

• Analyst forums– PHPbb

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System Hardware and Software ContinuedSystem Hardware and Software Continued

• IBM xSeries– PDC for 2003 domain and statistics

processing/ CIFS shared drives and home directories

– Hardware• IBM xSeries• 1 Intel 2.80 Ghz Xeon• 1 gigabyte RAM• 33 GIG scsi

– Software• MS Server 2003• Services for UNIX• NIS Server• Backup DNS Server

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System Hardware and Software ContinuedSystem Hardware and Software Continued

• Yorktown– DNS server, campaign mailouts– Hardware

• Dell Poweredge 2600• 2 Intel 2.4ghz CPUs• 1 gigabyte RAM• 67 gigabyte SCSI

– Software• Operating System

– Linux – 2.6 series kernel• Campaign mailout MTA

– Qmail – 1.0.3• Campaign mailout list management

– EZMLM 0.53/ EZMLM-IDX 0.40• DNS Server

– Bind 9.3.2

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System Hardware and Software ContinuedSystem Hardware and Software Continued

• Firewall– Low-end clone PC– Smoothwall 3.x

• BDC / Print Server– IBM Thinkcentre desktop– Windows Server 2003

• Quickbooks / CIFS Share– Dell Dimension desktop– Windows Server 2003

Pg 12

Other IT/System ShortfallsOther IT/System Shortfalls

• No System Management Server for Desktop Maintenance and Audit

• No Logging Server and Intrusion Detection system• No Exchange Server• Phone System near max capacity• Current Servers are older generation and heavily taxed• No Staging Servers• Filemaker DB Software is antiquated and labor intensive to

manipulate• No Client back-up system• Austin backbone needs more bandwidth• Virus protection is server and email based vs. enterprise

Pg 13

Business System NeedsBusiness System Needs• Marketing does not have ability to create custom emailing lists• Legacy campaign lists are maintained independently vs. a single

relational database• Need effective, real-time reporting tools• No method to effectively discern site visits by topic within specific

parameters• No ability to run credit authorization process prior to renewal

resulting in revenue disruption and manual intervention• Need user friendly interface to allow marketing to easily create

campaign• Customer account section needs improvements• Need Customer Service ticketing system; essentially a manual

process with no tracking• Legacy website content not archived; link simply removed

– Wastes storage space– Customers can access if they know URL creating potential content

issues• The Website is seven years old; functionality, user interface,

content and graphics need to be addressed• Others need to be defined