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Reorganising a Municipal Infrastructure

Amend, standardise and secure an IT infrastructure

In response to a request by the Kuujjuaraapik mayor's office to amend, standardise and secure its IT systems and to put in place a reliable backup solution, Soleica undertook a technical assessment to analyse the needs of each client of the network and to come up with several proposals.

Each proposal was optimised for the specific needs of the customer, yet always meeting the overall requirements. The proposals also kept in mind different budget models from minimum expenses to higher end solutions.

Finally the Northern Village's mayor's office decided to go with a server/thin client solution.

Thin clients are terminals which connect to the central server via the local area network (LAN). You might look at a thin client as a simple monitor which is directly connected to the server, instead of a local computer.
Thus each user works on his thin client, with his personalised work space and secured access.

All resources (software, data files) are located on the fast, stable and reliable server. Daily backup copies are automatically copied on backup tapes. Tapes are known for their longterm reliability as a backup medium (more reliable than many CDs, DVDs or other media). This helps to reduce as much as possible the risk of data loss.

The new system was put in place during several weeks. Then the users were one by one "converted" to the thin clients.

Some difficulties could be resolved, especially with legacy USB printers which were not compatible to the new server's operating system. Fortunately we could connected the printers differently to resolve this issue.

And last but not least, this kind of infrastructure helps saving energy and desktop space: Only 7 watts power consumption and not bigger than 18 x 12 cm!