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Testimonial: 

Thoreau Institute

Bringing Walden to the World

Compaq Business Critical Services helps Thoreau Institute put 
collection online. At the end of a small private drive in 
Concord, Massachusetts, about a half-mile from Walden Pond, 
stands a new state-of-the-art archives and media center.  
Inside is the world's foremost collection of Henry David 
Thoreau writings and related materials.  

"Thoreau has such an incredible influence on people, it's 
critically important to us to be able to reach out to 
audiences worldwide, whether they are students, scholars, or 
just interested folks," says Kathi Anderson, Executive 
Director at the Thoreau Institute. "Technology has enabled us 
to open the doors of this institution to the world."

Today 400 to 500 people from countries all over the world 
visit the www.walden.org site every day - many more than 
could physically visit the center.  The idea of making the 
Institute's multi-million dollar collections accessible 
online came naturally to Dr. Brad Dean, Thoreau scholar and 
Director of the Institute's Media Center, who had long used 
the Internet to do his research. 

In search of the world's best data server. Dean knew creating 
the Web site he envisioned would require a very fast, robust 
and sophisticated database engine.  His own desktop computer 
held two gigabytes of Thoreau scholarship.  And digitizing 
the manuscripts and many images in the collection would 
require a database many times that size.  

"I set out to find the best database server in the world," 
says Dean. "I did quite a bit of research.  I called up 
friends in universities. I talked to people in different 
professions.  Almost uniformly, the answer was: "Get an Alpha 
server."

While choosing Alpha was fairly easy, Dean, a Macintosh user 
and scholar, not an IS professional, found the challenge of 
building and managing a very large Windows NT database and 
Web site daunting.  So he turned to Compaq Services for help.

Getting up to speed with Windows NT. Compaq Services 
responded with a team of database, Windows NT, and Internet 
experts - including an on-site engineer to work side-by-side 
with Dean to help determine, design, and deploy the best 
information technology solutions for the Institute.


Today the Institute relies on an Alpha Web server running 
Microsoft Internet Information Server and Microsoft Site 
Server to pull requested information from a 200 gigabyte SQL 
database server and display it through a browser for visitors 
to the site.  

In addition to the Alpha database and Web servers, Compaq 
Services helped the Institute to set up a redundant set of 
Intel-based Prioris servers running the site's Internet 
security and firewall.  It helped deploy a Microsoft Exchange 
based enterprise mail and messaging system which enables 
collaboration via the Internet News Service and supports 
dial-in capabilities for remote staff or scholars.  And it 
helped install a suite of Microsoft BackOffice applications.

"When I first started, I knew nothing at all about Windows 
NT," says Dean.  "Of course we had problems, we built the 
system from the ground up.  But when you're working with the 
kind of knowledgeable people that I've been working with, the 
problems are almost not problems.  All I do is call Compaq 
and say, we have this problem and they come in and iron it 
out very quickly."

Onsite support - and a world of expertise. "I've had the 
luxury of an onsite engineer, and behind her, all the 
resources of a worldwide organization that I can simply tap 
into," says Dean. "I've worked very, very closely with people 
in Compaq Services.  I've found them all uniformly helpful 
and friendly. They're astonishingly knowledgeable. They're 
certified.  And they're able to dig down into the 
complexities and fix problems."

In addition to helping develop and deploy Web-based Windows 
NT solutions, Compaq Services has helped the Institute 
address issues of long-term data integrity that arise with 
archival information expected to be accessible for hundreds 
of years.  

Compaq Services is also working on a project to combine 
database query and Web search into a new kind of hybrid data 
search engine that will help both scholars and other visitors 
to find information and share knowledge more quickly and 
easily.  

And Compaq Services has worked with the Institute to design 
and go live with a secure, high-performance e-store that 
enables visitors to shop for and purchase Thoreau memorabilia 
online. 

Virtually 100% uptime with Business Critical Services. In 
addition to making the vast amounts of data and images in the 
Thoreau collections available to the widest possible 
audience, the Institute felt it was important that the site 
be up and available around the world -- at any time of the 
day or night.

To meet these needs, Compaq delivers Business Critical 
support services that include 24x7 coverage, on-site 
engineering, proactive monitoring to predict and remedy 
problems before they can impact system performance, and a 
guaranteed rapid response from a dedicated off-site technical 
support team.

"Public awareness is key to getting people interested enough 
to give to a cause," explains Anderson.  "The more people we 
can reach obviously the greater the ability to achieve our 
fundraising goals. Compaq is critical to our ability to keep 
the media center up and running and function fully 24 hours a 
day, seven days a week." 

Compaq has been able to deliver virtually 100% uptime, says 
Dean.

"From my perspective the single biggest thing Compaq Services 
offers is peace of mind," says Dean.  "Because I'm sitting on 
some astonishing research.  And without this kind of support, 
I literally wouldn't be able to sleep at night.  For me, it's 
a quality of life issue."

Knowledge transfer and ongoing support. In addition to 
ensuring optimal uptime, Compaq's remote intelligent 
monitoring tools, which can identify potential problems, 
issue alerts, and initiate preventive and recovery 
procedures, also help manage the systems over time.
"One of my primary goals has been to ensure the environment 
can be easily maintained and managed with the help of offsite 
support services from Compaq when we're no longer onsite," 
says Frannie Hodge, the Compaq Services Software Systems 
Consultant who has been providing on-site support to the 
Thoreau Institute. In addition to hands-on knowledge transfer 
and proactive monitoring tools, the site is configured so 
that offsite Compaq support specialists can connect to 
systems via the Internet or dial up to check on tasks or help 
resolve issues.

"Compaq Services put the infrastructure in place that enables 
one person who's not an expert to run a large and 
sophisticated technological environment," says Dean.  Instead 
of having to go around and physically check all of the 
machines, for example, he relies on Compaq to monitor them 
remotely.

"I can have a little reminder come up on my window that says 
it's time to change my backup tapes, for instance," says Dean  
"That's a tremendous advantage for me." 

Smoothing the move to Windows 2000. Compaq Services is also 
helping the Institute manage change over time.  An onsite 
Compaq Service tool, for example, automatically tracks all 
changes Ð from a new version of software, to a new printer, 
to a new IP address.  Maintaining an accurate and up-to-date 
configuration of the site simplifies both system management 
and service. 

And Hodge and her team are working to ensure smooth migration 
to Windows 2000 with upgrade planning that examines every 
aspect - and the potential impact - of moving to the new 
software.

A cutting edge solution - quickly. "Thanks to Compaq 
Services, we have a cutting-edge research environment that's 
the envy of everybody who comes and takes a look around," 
says Dean.

"Every day I'm amazed at what we've achieved and how 
quickly," says Anderson.  "Compaq Services has been 
instrumental in helping us create this media center in a very 
short period of time."

Would Thoreau be pleased to see his works being broadcast 
worldwide, 24 hours a day, seven days a week to the world?
Dean believes so. 

"Thoreau used the best technology that was available during 
his lifetime to get his word out - the printing press, the 
book, the magazine. We're using the best of today's 
technology to bring his writings to a far, far larger number 
of people."

"Compaq is critical to our ability to keep the media center 
up and running and functioning fully 24 hours a day, seven 
days a week."

-Kathi Anderson, Executive Director, Thoreau Institute	

"Men are born to succeed, not fail."

-Henry David Thoreau	

"Compaq Services put the infrastructure in place that enables 
one person who's not an expert to run a large and 
sophisticated technological environment." 

-Brad Dean,  Media Center Director, Thoreau Institute

"Every day I'm amazed at what we've achieved and how quickly. 
Compaq Services has been instrumental in helping us create 
this media center in a very short period of time."

-Kathi Anderson, Executive Director, Thoreau Institute

©1999 Compaq Computer Corporation. 
All rights reserved. 
Printed in the U.S.A. 

EA-A9954-76 Rel.# 313/99 05 64 10.0