Our proposed solution
With the aim of solving the problems, we at bitpack.io proposed a solution combining Univention Corporate Server and Ubuntu. This proposal ultimately found approval with the customer and we began with its implementation in June 2016.
First of all, we ordered two new, identical Supermicro Silent Servers from Thomas Krenn AG for the SchwuZ. These machines have a 4-core CPU and 32 GB each. RAID 6 controllers ensure failsafe performance for the SSD volumes (four each with 240 GB) for virtual machines and the SATA volumes (four each with 1 TB) for the data store.
We equipped the servers with the requisite properties based on the planning documentation. The KVM hypervisor was installed on each machine. Then the DC master domain controller and a DC slave file and print server were set up as dedicated virtual machines. The hypervisor at the main site also provides a Linux firewall with an OpenVPN server and the groupware Zimbra in a virtualized form. We set all of this up correspondingly in advance.
All the system components on the server side are sourced from the Univention repositories. The advantage for the customer in this approach is that he can cover the requisite software components with standard subscriptions on the one hand and, on the other, the web-based Univention Management Console allows him to administrate the complete system of servers and virtual machines right up to desktops and user identities and rights centrally.
We then set up the machines at their respective locations and connected them via OpenVPN in such a way that the existing FreePBX VoIP servers and Snom telephones could continue to be used with just minor adjustments. The next step was the setting up of the network drives, the users and groups as well as the network printers plus migration of the business data to the new platform.
All desktops were equipped with Ubuntu desktop version 16.04 LTS and joined in the domain. They are updated remotely at the times of the customer’s choice. All desktops are equipped with Open Source applications such as LibreOffice, rdesktop, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, etc. A Zimbra web client allows the users access to e-mails, contacts, appointments, meeting rooms, and chat functions.
We were able to implement all of the milestones of the project, we took four months all told, successfully without interrupting business at SchwuZ.
Outlooks
The next project is already in the pipeline:
At present, the users can still run old and to a large extent undocumented but important legacy applications from the separate Windows Terminal Server from their desktops. These programs should be replaced by a project management software in future, which will also run in a virtualized form in the UCS environment.
I hope that you have enjoyed my contribution and that maybe you can even take something away from it for your own organization. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to use the comments field or contact me directly via our website.