The Challenge — An industry-wide slump

As the microbrew industry hit a revenue skid, Redhook Ale Brewery pushed a bold technology initiative to gain a competitive edge. Redhook sales representatives service 48 states, piggybacking atop the Anheuser-Busch distribution network. In the past, they received reports generated from their Oracle financials database via fax or mail. If field representatives could receive the reports faster, they could significantly speed customer service. The savings in administrative costs would be significant.

The Solution — Efficient and secure remote access

Redhook called on PWI Technologies to help implement an extranet/intranet solution with remote access. PWI came through with a customized solution, integrating Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Sun/Netscape Alliance, Check Point and IntraNetics technologies into a seamless system with the functionality Redhook needed.

PWI systems engineers spearheaded the implementation. Security was the first order of business. Working with Scott Giles, the IS Director for Redhook, they settled on Firewall-1, by Check Point Software Technologies, running atop a Sun Microsystems server. "I had been looking into firewalls for 18 months so I had done a pretty thorough investigation," said Giles.

For the functionality of the intranet/extranet, Redhook and PWI deployed Sun/Netscape’s Enterprise Server, Mail and Messaging Server, Certificate Server and Directory Server. "The Sun/Netscape server products are well-integrated, but autonomous," said Giles. "It’s nice to have the option to split the servers off onto different boxes — NT, Solaris, or even Linux."

Making it Work — Sophisticated integration and customer training

PWI deployed the Sun/Netscape Internet servers atop an NT platform. To power their intranet, Redhook and PWI chose IntraNetics, which runs atop a run-time Oracle database and resides on their Windows NT server. As interoperability experts, PWI handled the UNIX-NT connectivity seamlessly.

During the troubleshooting process, PWI involved Giles heavily, facilitating a powerful knowledge transfer from PWI to Redhook. "Our model for consulting is to openly share with the customer everything that we do," said LeBlanc. "The knowledge transfer was critical," said Giles. "PWI did a really great job of that and have been great about answering my questions."

Giles continues to develop the system, by writing custom CGI scripts to better tie the Oracle database to the Sun/Netscape servers. "There’s great enthusiasm from the field about this project. It makes good information a lot more accessible with a lot less paper shuffling," said Giles.

For more information, please call us at 425.828.4223 or e-mail pwitechinfo@pwi.com.

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