Utne Magazine Case Study

Utne Magazine is based in Minneapolis and has a readership of more than 500,000. This progressive lifestyle publication tells the "other side of the story" on issues ranging from the environment to the economy and from politics to pop culture.

To meet the demands of their production schedule Utne has a mixed platform office of Macs and PCs. Originally, for their file sharing, Utne was using an old Windows NT server, and a G4 tower as a server for the production staff.

This setup limited Utne's available network storage and speed, so they came to The Foundation to discuss a solution that would give them the capacity and speed they needed in a server while still being cross-platform compatible.

The project began with an Orange Book, a survey and analysis of Utne's current hardware and software. The core recommendations The Foundation made were to install a new Xserve and professional grade managed network switches. An Xserve G4 would have the storage and power to replace both the servers that Utne was currently using, while being cross-platform compatible. The new switches would also provide more efficient transfer of data across the network - essential due to the large number of clients and the faster speed of the Xserve. Additionally, a new Xserve would free up the G4 tower, formerly utilized as a server, and allow it to become a production workstation, and more in line with the manufacturer's design.

Utne's new Xserve G4 has two mirrored RAIDS; one 60GB for the operating system and one 180GB RAID for data storage. The Xserve runs on OS X Server version 10.3, which allows users running Mac OS 8, 9 and X or Windows 98, 2000 and XP to access the server.

Once the data was transferred to the new Xserve, The Foundation technicians verified the server connection on each workstation to make sure that each user could access and share the files they required.

After the new server install, Utne now enjoys quick and reliable file sharing.

We are very pleased with the results of our long overdue installation of new switches and OS X Server. We have stabilized our LAN infrastructure and have a cross-platform server that provides us with the benefits, cost savings, and peace of mind of utilizing current technology. With the help and planning from Chip [Pearson] and Patrick [McAvey] of The Foundation, the installations and follow up went very smoothly. Now it's on to the next phase of our technology projects, upgrading to OS X, and The Foundation will again be our partner. said Mark Hamburge, Director of Finance and Administration, Utne Magazine.