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Robert
W. Baird Needs Fail Safe Security
Established
in 1920 and headquartered in Milwaukee, WI, Robert
W. Baird, a leading mid-west securities brokerage
house had more than replacing its film and fiche system
in mind when it began searching for a Computer Output
to Laser Disk - COLD system. In addition to giving
many employees in its 65 offices in 10 states fast and
easy on-line access to the information in its report
output, the company required sophisticated security
within the COLD system that assured confidentiality
of its customer information. Baird’s vertical corporate
hierarchy required alternate security at the customer,
broker, office, region and corporate office levels.
To compound the requirements further, certain individuals,
regardless of where they worked, required access to
specific customer account information.
"Customer
confidentiality is paramount," said Baird’s Information
Technology Director, Jimmy Powell. "We needed a
vendor who would work with us in partnership to deliver
security layers that would meet our exact needs."
"There
are approximately 500 potential COLD users in Baird’s
main office and there will be at least one user in each
branch location, " said Joe Bosko, Baird’s Computer
Operations Manager. Security in the main office is generally
horizontal. If an employee works in that location, they
can generally access all customer information. At the
branch level, brokers are restricted solely to their
client information, branch mangers are restricted to
that branch’s clients, regional managers restricted
to that regions clients and so on. However, there are
also administrative assistants that require access to
selective accounts in random branches. "Our challenge
was to design a security system that was comprehensive
and flexible yet understandable and easily maintainable
from an administrative point of view," said Matt
Murphy, DataTrade’s
Software Development Manager. " I think we did
just that."
In
March 1997, Baird implemented DataTrade’s
Spoolview COLD. system. A Compaq 200Mhz
server running Windows NT 4.0, was installed and configured
for 50 concurrent Spoolview clients running Windows
95 plus access for 50, 5250 terminals. The server has
256MB of RAM and 81GB of RAID on-line storage.
Near line storage is accomplished using an
HP 600GB optical jukebox with twelve internal
drives using WORM media and driven by Pegasus-OFS
storage management software from Pegasus Disk Technologies.
The current monthly report volume exceeds 2 million
pages of continuous form and 1.3 million pages of client
statements. While most of the 1,480 different reports
being produced are continuous form, Baird will take
advantage of Spoolview’s capability of processing AFP
formatted statements in the very near future.
Reports
are transmitted overnight from Baird’s processor to
an IBM AS/400 in its corporate offices. Spoolview’s
automatic report collection module selects the reports
that are to be processed directly from the AS/400 report
out queues and transfers them via a TCP/IP token ring
connection to the NT server where indexing, compression
and archiving take place. Any reports that require printing
are sent to one of two Xerox 4635, 135 images per minute
printers. The Spoolview COLD job stream operates virtually
in "lights out" mode and is completed prior
to the arrival of Baird personnel the following morning.
"We
were pleased to work with such a progressive technology
user as Baird," said Colin McAllister, President
of DataTrade. "They gave us the real world opportunity
to work out all the technical and system issues surrounding
a really sophisticated security scheme."
DataTrade,
Inc is a leading document management software developer
with hundreds of installations worldwide. DataTrade’s
products are sold directly to end users and through
its worldwide network of resellers, integrators and
private labelers. Founded in 1990, the privately held
company is based in Springfield, Missouri. For further
information contact DataTrade, Inc., 1341 West Battlefield
Road, Springfield, MO 65807. Tel. 417-882-1576, Fax
417-882-8423, dti@datatrade.com
and http://www/datatrade.com
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