December 1999

KEEPING THE TRAIN ON TRACK

BY CHARLES LAFORGE

Software Solutions, a software consulting firm, was founded in early 1998 by Brian Cook. Having spent the previous 20 years in Hawaii as an air controller and radar navigation officer in the U.S. Navy, Cook alone now owns and operates Software Solutions from his Ft. Worth, Texas home.

THE PROBLEM
Among Software Solutions' clients is one of the largest railway networks in the United States, with 38,000 miles of track running throughout 28 states. While the railroad's own IS department maintains much of the corporate WAN, it is up to Cook to maintain over 100 workstations on the railroad's Windows NT-based dispatching network 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

For a railroad, any amount of network downtime is unacceptable. Cook explains: "Train delays multiply the cost factor dramatically, and that gets offset to the customer. Reducing train delays and keeping operating efficiency above the 90th percentile or higher is the goal. Keeping the software up to date on the railroad's dispatching systems, which improves overall operations, increases productivity as well as profit margins both for the customer and for the railroad itself." But how can one person take on responsibility for such a widespread area without working on the road day and night?

THE SOLUTION
Cook's work with the railroad is somewhat similar to his previous work with the military. When on military deployments, Cook used Symantec's pcAnywhere to connect to his home PCs via the Internet and transfer critical files between his Hawaii-based system and his ever-changing remote locations. "For example, when I was in Japan for three months training ship personnel, I frequently used pcAnywhere to access training files that were on my home PC," he says. "It was very reliable."

Cook turned again to pcAnywhere to remotely access and control the railroad's many dispatching workstations on the company WAN, including PCs in Mexico and Canada. "With pcAnywhere, I can troubleshoot, repair, and maintain these systems and deploy and integrate new software without having to travel to each site," he says. "This helps ensure the continued health of the network as well as of the individual workstations that are monitoring dispatching center activities in that region."

Cook easily installed pcAnywhere on his home PC; however, installing it on the more than 100 railroad workstations he maintains presented another obstacle. While several workstations were set up as clients of a popular management server solution, most were not. "I didn't want to extend that particular management solution to all of the dispatching workstations," he explains. "Instead, I wanted a product that was less expensive, more intuitive, and used fewer resources."

Norton HelpDesk Assistant proved to be a viable alternative. This integrated set of tools includes remote troubleshooting, repair, and disaster recovery technology as well as centralized administration. Norton HelpDesk Assistant supports centralized distribution, configuration, and updates, and it installs to multiple machines automatically. With it, Cook was able to set up pcAnywhere on the applicable workstations without any end-user intervention.

"With Norton HelpDesk Assistant, I installed pcAnywhere to Windows 95/98 machines using a simple script file. End users weren't involved at all. Norton HelpDesk Assistant gave me the functionality of a more expensive management server solution while optimizing system resources."

Now that pcAnywhere is installed on every dispatch workstation, Cook avoids long-distance fees and quickly logs onto the railroad's Windows NT network to remotely monitor, repair, and upgrade systems as needed. When Cook wants to upgrade pcAnywhere or other Symantec software installed throughout the dispatching network, he can update all workstations simultaneously. "I use the Host Administrator feature in version 9.0 to remotely update pcAnywhere as well as other Symantec software, such as Norton AntiVirus," he says.

Version 9.0 of pcAnywhere also supports multiple monitors — which is a good thing. "We consistently use Windows NT systems that have between four and eight monitors tied to them so they produce one large display," Cook says. "The hardware to electronically cover one dispatching region can take up an entire desk area; consequently, your viewing area can be up to eight feet wide. When I remotely access those PCs using pcAnywhere, I can see everything on the host monitors from my single remote monitor using the scrollbar. I don't miss a thing."

"If I didn't have pcAnywhere, I could still do my job," Cook concludes. "However, it would take quite a while longer, it wouldn't be as cost-effective, and it would keep me on the road all the time. pcAnywhere is a more intelligent solution."

Charles LaForge is product manager of Symantec’s pcAnywhere. Symantec is a world leader in Internet security technology and technology solutions that help companies manage and support workforces that use laptop computers and other mobile devices. For more information, please visit their Web site at www.symantec.com.