TaskMaster: Sample Users
The following represent but a few of the hundreds of well known
organizations and thousands of sites which have entrusted
File Replication / Data Synchronization
and/or
Server Management / Task Automation
requirements to TaskMaster / TaskMaster Lite (TMLite):
-
U.S. Bureau of the Census
(500+ TaskMaster Server License)
-
Major U.S. East Coast Pharmaceutical Firm
(500+ TaskMaster Server License)
-
Hydro Quebec (CA)
(220 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Comerica Insurance
(200 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Dime Savings Banks
(164 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Navy Federal Credit Union
(125 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Raytheon Aircraft
(100 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Oracle, Inc.
(90 TaskMaster Server License)
-
University of Central Lancashire (UK)
(76 TaskMaster Server License)
-
BDO Visura (CH)
(67 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Air Canada (CA)
(65 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Industrial Design Corp.
(60 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Department of Transport [DTLR] (UK)
(60 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Major U.S. Northern Insurance Company
(54 TMLite Server License)
-
Fort Dodge Animal Health
(53 TaskMaster Server License)
-
PFPC
(42 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Ramboll Sverige AB (SE)
(40 TaskMaster Server License)
-
N.Y. State Dept. of Environmental Conservation
(40 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Telecare Corp.
(39 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Rockwell Automation
(39 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Government of Quebec (39)
(39 TaskMaster Server License)
-
World Wide Technology (WWT)
(36 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Milwaukee Area Technical College
(35 TaskMaster 35 Server License)
-
United Biscuits (UK)
(33 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Virginia Lottery
(31 - 21 TMLite + 10 TaskMaster - Server Licenses)
-
Cabot Public Schools
(30 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp.
(30 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Starkey Laboratories
(28 TaskMaster Server License)
-
S.C. Dept. Of Health & Human Services
(28 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Parnassia Psycho-Medisch Center (NL)
(27 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Fort Zumwalt School District
(26 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Red Systems / GEFCO (FR)
(25 TMLite Server License)
-
Georgia Gulf
(25 TaskMaster Server License)
-
DFS [Federal Air Traffic Ministry] (DE)
(25 TaskMaster Server License)
-
City of Karlstad (SE)
(25 TaskMaster Server License)
-
U.S. Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit - NY)
(22 TaskMaster Server License)
-
Domino's Pizza
(22 TaskMaster Server License)
-
ADVO, Inc.
(22 TMLite Server License)
-
And hundreds of more smaller installations...
TaskMaster: Sample Usage
The following, provided by TaskMaster Users, describe but a few
of the ways that organizations use TaskMaster for automating NetWare Server
management tasks:
-
TaskMaster Solves Disaster Recovery Dilemma
(TaskMaster 3 Server License)
(Editorial on IWantNetWare.com WEB Site)
- Duane Fish, Consultant
Networking Plus of IL
-
Major Newspaper Publisher
(TaskMaster 3 Server License)
Major newspaper publisher with over 40 Novell servers at 27 sites
across the country uses TaskMaster to synchronize data from two of
their corporate NetWare 6 servers to a NetWare 6 disaster recovery
server at an off site location.
Since very few utilities exist to perform direct server to server
files copies, TaskMaster provides the perfect solution.
The TaskMaster SYNC command is used to collect, distribute and
synchronize approximately 62 GB of critical files important to business
continuity to the disaster recovery server on a nightly basis.
TaskMaster has proven to be very stable and reliable and the product
is being given serious consideration for future disaster recovery
implementations with the other Novell servers.
- Novell Support Engineer, IT Systems
Major Newspaper Publisher
(Company/User Names withheld per corporate policy.)
-
Leading North American Energy Transportation & Distribution Company
(TaskMaster 5 Server License)
We've been using this (TaskMaster SYNC) to sync DR type data and
it's also a great alternative to Arcserve and Scorpion where we've
had on/off success for server upgrades/data moves
(particularly with extra long paths).
- Adrian Tung
Enbridge Gas Distribution, Inc.
-
Large Architectural/Engineering Firm
(TaskMaster 5 Server License)
Since purchasing TaskMaster, I have begun SYNCing GroupWise nightly.
A few minutes ago, one of the partners came over and told me he had
accidentally deleted the entire contents of one of his shared folders
in GroupWise - some 400 plus emails.
Prior to TaskMaster I would've been in big trouble.
But this was so simple.
I loaded the GW POA NLMs on my backup server, accessed his account
through the client, archived the contents of the folder,
unloaded the NLMs, opened the archive with his client while connected
to the production POA, unarchived the contents,
and he has all his email back again.
Took less than a half-hour and it would've gone faster except I was
stepping through it for the first time and wanted to make sure I did
everything correctly.
The partner is happy which makes me happy.
- Ken Etter
Large Architectural/Engineering Firm
(Company Name withheld pending corporate approval.)
-
Leading North American Energy Transportation & Distribution Company
(TaskMaster 12 Server License)
I utilize Task Master from (http://www.avanti-tech.com) to replicate
all my data to another server nightly.
(Got GroupWise? be sure to shutdown the Post Office's when you do this).
Since Task master is Delta/Block level replication with Trustee rights.
It's fast and right when it's replicated (I'm replicating 480 Gigs of
data, mostly from sites on Fractional T's and most take an hour to
finish)
. . .
For added safety I back the replication server up to tape during the
day, after the other servers have replicated to it.
(Multiple Backup copies anyone?)
(
More from 'Disaster Recovery: What are you using?' on Novell Cool Blogs
)
- Scott Graham
Semco Energy
-
Major European University
(TaskMaster 13 Server License)
Our network is used by all students (~15'000) and
most of the members (~4'500) of the Geneva University.
You can find many informations (in French!) at the URL:
We are using TaskMaster to replicate two volumes of one main Server
with nine sub Servers every night.
We are also using TaskMaster to synchronize data such as drivers
(for NDPS), etc.
Since we use TaskMaster we don't have any problems, it's a great tool!
- Catherine Marti
University of Geneva (Switzerland)
-
Global Manufacturer of Hearing Assistance Devices
(TaskMaster 28 Server License)
Our current environment includes 28 Servers across 20 WAN links
of various speeds linking 8 different countries.
Primary usage includes several scripts that automate day to day
maintenance and monitoring tasks.
We make frequent use of the SYNC feature to replicate data to
each of these facilities during the day and overnight.
The data ranges from software application updates to live
production data and everything in between.
This is not a sales pitch when I say that this product is in a
league of its own when it comes to functionality and
Customer Support, both of which we have experienced first hand.
It has and continues to save us hundreds of man hours per year.
- Mike Coghlan, Network Engineer
Starkey Laboratories, Inc.
-
Large K-12 School District
(TaskMaster 30 Server License - initially started with 10)
I am beginning to centralize our current decentralized tape backup
solution.
In the end, I will have five servers, one for each day of the week,
with 1TB of space each, located in four different buildings,
connected via 1GB fiber.
Each server will have (for now) four 250GB SATA drives in a
RAID 0 array, with the ability to add two more drives per server
for future needs.
300/400GB and larger drives are also an option to increase the
capacity of the backup servers.
I will be using Avanti's TaskMaster software to synchronize the
file systems of all my servers (currently numbering 35, several
to be consolidated summer 2005) to the backup servers each night,
only copying the changed files.
Currently, most of these servers are across dedicated full T1 lines,
but the amount of changed data should be able to sync during the
planned backup window, 5pm to 6am.
The T1 lines are also (hopefully) going to be replaced with 100MB links.
After the Friday backup server receives its updates, I will be
backing it up to a tape autoloader (or two or three) during the weekend.
This will replace our current setup of 5 daily backups and 1 monthly
backup at each building (20) with individual "operators"
(1 per building).
- Matthew Shuter - Network Administrator
Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation
(Reprinted with permission from submission to Novell Cool Solutions Trench - The Pros and Cons of Tape Backup Solutions)
-
Leading European Manufacturer and Marketer of Biscuits and Snacks
(TaskMaster 33 Server License)
United Biscuits has used TaskMaster for a number of years.
We initially purchased it to replace the problematic NRS
(Novell Replication Services) which caused us immense grief.
We required a solution to distribute and synchronise changes
on a centrally managed volume of data (initially around 8Gb
but now over 30Gb) to around 20 different servers across WAN
links every night.
The centrally managed data was continually updated and these
changes needed to be replicated to the remote sites quickly and
efficiently.
TaskMaster was chosen for its versatility and most of all its
reliability.
You create your own scripts/tasks to perform functions limited
only by your imagination.
The script we use to synchronise the data is written in house
by technical staff (me) but non-programmers, the scripting is very
simple, however, even so, Avanti supply sample task which cover
many areas which you can freely use as is or customise for your
own company needs.
One of the biggest advantages over 'out of the box' solutions for
similar tasks is that you decide exactly what the script does,
and if you want it to do something extra, then you just simple
modify it.
Try getting an author for an 'out of the box' solution to make
major program changes just for you.
On a similar note, I have on numerous occasions requested new
features to the TaskMaster NLM (additional switches to existing
commands, etc) and Avanti have actually added the requested
features and emailed me the new version within 24 hours!!!!
(these features are the available to all TaskMaster users in the
next scheduled update of TaskMaster)
We have expanded our use of TaskMaster to performing daily health
checks of the servers, volume purges, historical volume usages per
volume per server for trend analysis and more recently to migrate
data from one server to another when performing hardware upgrades.
- Paul Ponting, Novell Technical Specialist
United Biscuits (England)
-
Census revs up 10,000 systems
Bureau spins IT web for 2000 count
Government Computer News
February 7, 2000 (Volume 19, Number 3)
Excerpts:
Each of the 520 local offices, opened over the past year, has one
Dell 2300 server...
....
Twelve regional Census centers supervise the local offices.
...
Each regional office has a Dell PowerEdge 6100 server running NetWare
for production processing, plus a PowerEdge 4200 failover server.
Another PowerEdge 2300 distributes software to the local offices.
....
A Novell NetWare 4.11 network connects the regional and local offices
to headquarters.
...
"It's a very large Novell installation," Doyle* said.
The bureau manages NetWare 4.11 with Novell ManageWise and
ZENworks 2.0 products.
TaskMaster 3.0 from Avanti Technology Inc. replicates the servers
every night and guards against unauthorized activity such as posting
games on the bureau's servers," Doyle* said.
- J. Gary Doyle, Census 2000's Manager for Systems Integration
U.S. Bureau of the Census
-
Major Direct Mail Marketing Services Company
(TaskMaster Lite 22 Server License)
First, I'd like to say that TMLITE has been perfect for some tasks
that we now do on NetWare that we never could have done before.
As an example, I've attached a file that basically looks for new
ZIP files with any filename, unzips them to an unzip folder (using
HRUNZIP) and then moves files to appropriate directories based on
file extensions.
This process has saved a lot of manual time to our operations team
running our Label Print Production.
It's pretty specific to our company so I don't think it could be
used in your examples but I wanted you to see how (my firm)
was using the scripting product.
- Senior Network & Services Engineer
Major Direct Mail Marketing Services Company
(Company/User Names withheld pending corporate approval.)
-
(Under construction - Added as submitted by Users)
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