Clients like what we do

Clients, such as Neurology & Neurosurgery Assoc. use us as an off-site IT department to administer their LAN/WAN systems.

When we started with them, they had 2 separate offices, Puyallup and Tacoma, connected by a dedicated circuit. Puyallup stations were running off of a server in Tacoma, some 20 miles away, along with other stations in Tacoma.The Puyallup office had only 3 stations due to limited bandwidth between offices. Service was slow, unreliable, expensive, and subject to unexpected disruptions.

We upgraded them to a high-speed DSL connection to the Internet and a VPN solution. We moved one of the 2 Tacoma servers to Puyallup. We upgraded both servers from NT4 to Windows 2000 including Terminal Services. They now have greater reliability and speed. Any station at either location can connect instantly to their application software. For growth, adding new stations is as simple as connecting another PC to an existing LAN.

This arrangement also allows us to VPN from our office to provide troubleshooting and Network Administration on a remote basis saving them the cost of an on-site network administrator.

Tacoma Orthopedic Surgeons, Inc.

This client hired us in 1999. When we began working for this client, they had 27 client systems running Windows 98 and an NT server running a DOS-based application. The clients depended on DOS printing and the remote site was connected via a dedicated 56 K. frame relay circuit and controlled by Qwest. At no given time could we guarantee the connection between the two offices. The satellite office located in Gig Harbor consisted of five computers running Windows 98 and running the same software application off of the server in Tacoma. Clients would log onto their computer and connect to the server located in Tacoma. This was very slow and cumbersome, due to the limited bandwidth possibilities at that time.

Since that time, the client upgraded to Dell systems running Windows 2000 Professional. We have completely replaced the network infrastructure including all cabling which allowed the client to run at 100 MBps. We also dropped the 56 K. frame relay connection to the satellite office. The client located in Tacoma switched to Click Networks cable Internet connection, giving them a 1.5 MBps per second connection to the Internet. In Gig harbor, we coordinated the installation of a high-speed DSL connection to get the client connected to the Internet. Through the use of a VPN solution and routers, we now have a virtual private tunnel running between the two offices. The connection between the two offices is now much faster than before. We installed a new server with the Windows 2000 Server running on it in the Gig Harbor office to handle security. With the active directory structure of a master domain and client domain, the clients in Gig Harbor now have immediate access to any of the documents and software residing on it. Since this client now uses electronic medical records (EMR), they have added three new servers in the Tacoma office. The servers are dedicated to the EMR system and it was imperative that we have high-speed connections from the satellite office in Gig Harbor and that security be handled internally on those servers. Since the advent of the new AD structure, clients in Gig Harbor are no longer required to log onto their personal PC, then onto the network, and then onto a server in Tacoma in order to access these documents. This provides for faster document searches and scanning of records and there is no longer a time lag in record-keeping.