Productos Superiores chooses Zentyal for its infrastructure, domain and file servers
“Zentyal has helped us reorganize and upgrade our network infrastructure at a very affordable cost. In addition, it has allowed us to significantly increase the security of our systems.”
Edgardo Montiel, Chief Technology Officer, Productos Superiores, S.A
Productos Superiores was looking for a secure and affordable server solution to upgrade their entire network infrastructure when they discovered Zentyal. Thanks to Zentyal, distributed among several servers, they provide the services necessary for the daily operation of the company and offer internet connectivity to their almost 300 users.
The challenge
The network infrastructure of Productos Superiores ran on Windows Servers that had already reached their end-of-life date. Due to the age of the Operating System (OS) they were using, the services were running slowly. It was also necessary to restart the servers almost under any circumstance. In addition, since the official support for the OS had already ended, the bugs that were being found no longer had any solution. Likewise, every year External Auditors would find vulnerabilities at the Operating System and Active Directory level.
Due to the high investment cost involved in implementing a new system based on Windows Servers, Productos Superior was interested in evaluating Linux alternatives. It was very important that the new server solution offered the same domain and directory services as their existing servers, including support for Windows clients. It also had to help them ensure the security of their systems and allow remote management by their trusted ICT provider.
After Productos Superiores discussed the requirements with their local provider, Redes & Sistemas, they were recommended to replace their current system with Zentyal Linux Server.
The solution
Once all initial tests were successfully completed, the local IT provider of Productos Superiores, Redes & Sistemas, carried out the deployment from scratch. The implementation consists of four Zentyal servers, serving about 300 users. The installation process, final testing and taking into production of each of the servers took about 5 days. Simultaneously, a remote Help Desk was established in order to carry out the management and maintenance of the system remotely. The standard server hardware chosen has a processor with 2 sockets and 4 cores, 32 GB of memory and a 500 GB HDD.
Zentyal is being used mainly to manage the network infrastructure, the domain and file server. Therefore, the most important modules are Network, DNS and Domain Controller and File Sharing. Thanks to the users and groups management options, it is possible to make group or policy level configurations to establish privileges or restrictions for greater network security. Additionally, modules such as NTP, Firewall and Logs are used. These help to complete the services required by Productos Superiores and increase the security of the system.
The experience
Zentyal Server has helped Productos Superiores to reorganize and upgrade their entire network infrastructure at a very affordable cost. At the same time, it has allowed them to increase the security of their systems. Thanks to all this and the support offered by their local IT provider and the Zentyal Team, Productos Superiores considers that the three main objectives they had when they chose to deploy Zentyal have been met: increase the security of their systems, reduce ICT management and maintenance costs and have high-quality technical support online.
About Planalto Social Action
Productos Superiores S.A. (Grupo SUPRO) is a private company, founded on June 18, 1949. With more than 70 years of experience as a local and regional distributor of prestigious brands, they have always focused on offering “superior” products, that is, products of excellent quality.
Over the course of time and growth of the market, the catalog of brands and products managed by Productos Superiores has split into six important divisions: Music, Sports, Electricity/Lighting, Hardware, Entertainment and Automotive. Each one of them has a wide and varied range of popular products.
Currently, the Supro Group is made up of the following allied companies: Supro (Panama City), Supro Mundial (Colon Free Zone), El Llantero, La Nota y El Deportista and Abernathy.