| A Tour
of the Network Control Center
An Inside Look with Drake Software’s VP of Information
Technology
Someone driving through Franklin, North Carolina would probably
be amazed at the technology at work in this quaint, little
mountain town. The technology resources you find in Drake
Software’s Network Control Center certainly rival and
might even surpass those you’d see at other software
companies — no matter the company’s size or location.
When Bob Hubbs, Drake Enterprises’ vice president of
information systems, first took over the job in July 2004,
he knew his hands would be full due to the sheer volume of
equipment he inherited. Drake had been operating for over
25 years and had a long history of using technology to speed
up and improve its customers’ experiences. According
to Hubbs, “we needed to make sure we could continue
to support our rapidly increasing customer base. My initial
focus was to document the equipment we already had and assess
what we needed to do for the future.”
Upgrading, Labeling, Documenting And Recording
Over the past two years, Hubbs and his team of four
certified engineers and two technicians have documented, organized
and upgraded the equipment in what is now known as the Network
Control Center, or NCC. They have purchased new high-end equipment
to support continuing operations. In fact, one of Hubbs’
first tasks was to attend an auction where he purchased a
RAID array system from the Enron liquidators.
Keeping up with the ever-quickening pace of technology is
a challenge of its own. The RAID array system purchased from
Enron just two years ago consisted of a 6-foot-tall rack holding
48 hard drives, while the new Dell systems recently purchased
hold twice the storage space in just 6 inches.
Maintaining Smooth Operations
Much of Hubbs’ effort has been to implement a 24 hours
a day, seven days a week monitoring system for the control
center’s 161 different systems. His objective is to
“ensure that any problems we have are transparent to
our customers.” The current monitoring system, WhatsUp
Professional, makes an announcement in the control center
when it identifies a problem. The system then sends a text
message to each NCC staff member’s Blackberry.
Hubbs has also focused his budget and time on redundancy.
He explains how Phil Drake, chairman of Drake Software and
its chief technology officer, set forth the standard for him.
When he first started his job, Drake told him, “I refuse
to go down! We cannot operate as a company if we go down.
Stay operational — no matter what.” Hubbs has
attacked the problem by organizing hardware, documenting functions
and color-coding cables, while also duplicating hardware and
software. And all the hard work is paying off. According to
Hubbs, “if a server had failed two years ago, it might
have taken us days to restore that server and its data. Now,
we can replace everything in 30 to 45 minutes, and we can
continue our normal functions seamlessly while the maintenance
is happening.”
This seamless redundancy is extremely important with all the
information traveling through the NCC. Just as individuals
should back up their precious data files, Drake backs up its
critical files on a regular basis. It also creates mirror
copies of those files on separate machines that allow instant
replacement of files if a drive or server “crashes.”
Drake is in the process of going a step further, establishing
a complete duplication of critical hardware and software in
a facility several miles away. This “EF Hot Site”
will provide 100 percent redundancy of Drake’s most
important functions, such as electronic filing. Much of the
EF Hot Site is already up and running, with a goal of complete
implementation within two years.
Did You Know
- Drake software’s current network connection is 45MB,
and we are in the process of bringing in a 90MB connection
for this upcoming year (a T1 line is 1.2MB). some of our
readers may still have, or will at least remember, a dial-up
connection of 56KB.
- since electronic filing and bank products are so important
to many Drake customers, we have direct connectivity to
the various Irs eF Processing centers and several financial
institutions.
- We are preparing to join a 255-mile fiber optic ring
that connects western North carolina to Atlanta. This will
ensure that Drake software is always connected, even if
an Internet line is ever cut.
- Drake transmitted over 6.75 million accepted electronic
filing returns to the Irs in 2005, making us one of the
largest electronic filing transmitters in the country.
- Drake also owns Dnet, an Internet service Provider (IsP)
providing Internet service to people and businesses in western
North carolina and northern Georgia.
- Drake dedicates over 45 different servers just to electronically
file tax returns.
From January 2007
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