Case Studies

Nevada, MO & Ft Scott, KS: group consisting of a mid-size and small daily paper needed to move from mixed OS9 & OS X environments to all-OS X. More than half of the staff required new workstations, and server capacity had to be expanded. After a site survey, PC&D planned with the publisher for gear and software needed and a smooth transition. PC&D placed orders with JMC on client's behalf, then prebuilt, installed, updated, registered and configured system software on Mac workstations and new servers so they could ship to the site ready to integrate into the network. PC&D coordinated software upgrades with Quark, Adobe, and proprietary editorial software suppliers to pre-install, serialize, register, and update applications. During site survey, PC&D collected all fonts from workstations and then merged, diagnosed, repaired, and created a single unified font set for production users, with the appropriate subset for the newsroom - which was pre-installed on workstations and configured with Extensis Suitcase.

Once onsite, PC&D physically set up new workstations and held training sessions for users to introduce them to OS X and new versions of their applications; training sessions were scheduled to fit around production deadlines. Overnight in each location, PC&D transferred user data (email, bookmarks, documents, address books, etc) from existing workstations to new workstations to be ready for the first day of production with new gear, repurposed existing workstations for new roles, and also deployed the Mac file servers in both locations, implementing automated rotating backup, configuring users and groups, and transferring all existing data to new servers.

Routers were configured and servers set up to establish easy AFP and FTP file transfer between sites; ARD was configured to enable PC&D to support the sites remotely. (And a server was later rebuilt over the connection, saving client 16 hours of travel and bringing a server back on line in hours rather than days.)

Result: On first day of production cycle with new gear, PC&D provided support and production assistance to smooth the transition. The larger paper met their deadline on their first day of all-OS X production, with all new software; the smaller paper slipped two deadlines as PC&D chased down an undocumented bug in OS X Server. PC&D did not leave the site till the new server was stable.

Emporia, KS Gazette: a mid-size daily paper was moving from old proprietary editorial, advertising, and circulation management software to the latest versions of new software from another vendor. The Gazette was also transitioning from QuarkXpress to Adobe InDesign, and was in line for upgrades to all Creative Suite applications. Over 20 new workstations in Production, News, and Classified were in the plan, along with half a dozen laptops and four new servers to integrate with two existing ones (which needed rebuilt).

PC&D first met with the client a month before software vendors were scheduled to appear onsite for a month of installation and training. Again, after a site survey, PC&D coordinated placing hardware orders for shipment to PC&D's offices, then pre-built and pre-configured all workstations and servers, installing and upgrading system software, OS X Server, and applications. Pre-configured machines were shipped to the site.

Once onsite, PC&D managed the implementation of new workstations and servers, configuring users, groups, and appropriate access to share points on all servers. Automated rotating backup was configured on all servers, and all previous network data migrated to new locations. ARD was implemented for remote support access. Fonts were collected from all workstations and a healthy merged set created for Production users, with a subset going to the newsroom.

Both previous workstations systems (and Windows server) and new Mac workstations and servers were maintained in parallel as users continued to work the old systems as they were trained in groups by the new software integrators. PC&D stayed onsite for five days till complete functionality of the new servers, workstations, and all applications could be confirmed. Over the next three weeks, production was gradually transitioned from the old regime to the new.

Result: The Gazette made its transition as scheduled.