“The main function of Zentyal is Domain and Directory Server and File Server. Our favourite Zentyal feature is File Sharing. It provides us an easy and orderly manner to share one or several files to a group of users.”
Carlos Alberto Tames, Head of Telecommunications, Systems and Technologies, Boreal Cobertura de Salud
Boreal Cobertura de Salud chose to unify the management of its entire network infrastructure with Zentyal. Thanks to this, they can manage their more than 500 users spread in over 30 branches throughout the North, Center, Cuyo and Nea areas of the Argentine Republic simply and quickly.
The challenge
Boreal Cobertura de Salud is a private Argentine health insurance company. It is a fast growing company and as new employees join the team and new branches are opened, its Systems Department must be able to offer the necessary network infrastructure to the offices and, above all, have a simple way to manage users and their access permissions to the multiple network resources.
Boreal had always used a Linux solution to manage its directory service. However, as the company grew, they saw that they needed a solution that was not only open source, but also offered stability, security and, above all, ease of use. When they discovered the Zentyal Server, they saw that it responded to their needs and also allowed them to manage other basic network services through the same solution, so they decided to try it.
The solution
After a successful trial period Boreal made a clean install of their Zentyal Server. Thanks to the fact that more than 30 branches of the company located in the North, Center, Cuyo and NEA regions of the country are connected through an MPLS network with Core MikroTik infrastructure through VPN tunnels (IPSec), it was possible to deploy a single domain controller to provide services from the head office. A hardware with a 4-core processor, 16 GB of RAM and a 2 TB disk with Raid 5 was chosen.
As the main function of the Zentyal Server for Boreal is to provide easy and fast management of users, permissions and file sharing, the Domain & Directory and File Sharing modules were enabled. They also chose to use the DNS and NTP modules of the infrastructure server and the Network and Firewall modules of the gateway. Additionally, they activated the Logs module that allows to detect and analyze errors or possible problems, as well as anticipate and avoid them.
In a second phase, Boreal plans to deploy another Zentyal Server as an additional domain controller to ensure redundancy of its deployment. They are also interested in evaluating together with the Zentyal Support Team to take part of their infrastructure to the cloud.
The experience
From Boreal’s point of view, Zentyal Server shows excellent stability and reliability in production. For a company that is constantly growing both in number of users and in new branches, it is essential to have a solution like Zentyal to facilitate that growth.
Apart from the product itself, Boreal is very satisfied with its local partner and the official support received from the Zentyal Support Team during the implementation. “Although we already had experience in managing Linux servers in general and with Zentyal in particular, it was essential to be able to count on the support of the Zentyal Team itself during the implementation to guarantee uninterrupted service to our users.”
About Boreal Cobertura de Salud
Boreal Cobertura de Salud is a private health insurance company founded in 1999 in Tucumán (Argentina), with the goal of creating a model organization for financing and providing first-class medical services, characterized by a strong social commitment and spirit of solidarity.
Today, Boreal has more than 30 branches in the Northwest, North-east, Central and Cuyo regions of the country and offers coverage to more than 250,000 beneficiaries. Their commitment based on medical quality, new technologies and the care of their associates, who rely on them for their health care, has helped them grow and encouraged them to continue reaching new challenges.
Boreal has a wide network of doctors and health professionals, including clinics and medical facilities, equipped with the latest technology to provide excellent service and the best medical quality.