Michelin's Milan division keeps faith in 'network angel'; network built on "relationship of trust" between company and Italian software house - S.p.A Michelin Italia's Milan division's work with software publisher Siosistemi SRL - Global Software Supply Line special section - Cover Story

In Europe, a solid personal relationship between business partners is paramount. When the Milan division os S.p.A. Michelin Italia decided to build a network, the company put its trust in Siosistemi SRL, an Italian software hous located in Brescia. Guided by Siosistemi, Michelin Italia's commercial division based its 100-seat, nonstop network on ARCnet, rather than on Ethernet or Token Ring.

"This network was born from a relationship of trust between ourselves and Siosistemi," explained Roberto Oldani, manager of applications development and office automation for the Milan division. "We discovered Siosistemi toward the end of 1987 and they started the idea. Back then, we didn't even know what networking was."

At the time, Oldani and his colleagues attended a seminar at Siosistemi. It was there that they began to learn about networking.

By late that same year, Siosistemi had helped Michelin Milan install a 10-user ARCnet local-area network (LAN), from Datapoint Corp., San Antonio, Texas, running NetWare, from Novell, Inc., Provo, Utah. The goal was to try out office automation and electronic filing applications. "In late '87 and first quarter '88, the network was experimental and, as such, was available only periodically to users," said Filippo Caiolo, division manager at Michelin Italia.

Things changed when the system went live and nonstop in October 1988 with its first application--logging in and monitoring employee security badges. Shortly after Milan's network was up and running, Siosistemi-built ARCnet LANs were installed in five other Michelin sites throughout Italy--Torino, Alessandria, Cuneo, Fossano and Trento.

Although some system managers might have questioned the wisdom of choosing the 2.5M bit-per-second (bps) ARCnet topology, Siosistemi argues the contrary. "Every network topology has advantages and disadvantages. It's true that ARCnet's clock speed is low, but the speed of a LAN is a mix of many things--the quality of the workstations, the speed of the disks," said Giancarlo Cavallini, system analyst at Siosistemi. Even though Token Ring and Ethernet theoretically run at 16M bps and 10M bps, respectively, the speed at which information is pushed through the network is always much lower in reality, he added.

Another consideration in choosing a network was the Michelin building itself. Built in 1949, the floor plan necessitated a LAN that was easy to install. "In those squared-off buildings with several floors, ARCnet is child's play to install. It has simple rules, few instructions, is reliable and more economical [than its competitors]. It can be done in twisted-pair or fiber-optic cable, is flexible and easy to modify," said Cavallini.

Michelin also needed the ability to upgrade the network. This required a star topology which, in 1987, only ARCnet could provide. "[That topology is] another great advantage, in the sense that, when you don't know how the network will expand, you can just put on another hub and create another point in the star, endlessly," Cavallini explained.

Even though Michelin Milan is upgrading its LAN with an Ethernet backbone and NetWare Version 3.11, instead of adding another hub to ARCnet, it is keeping the ARCnet network for its users. Said Oldani, "[When I say I have ARCnet], sometimes [systems] people look at me as though I were a Martian, but I don't care. I've got a network that is reliable and that works. Our problem is more with [insufficient] disk space than slowness on the network."

All 100 PCs, which are largely 286s, work off of three Compaw 386/20s, two of which are equipped with 300Mb duplexed disks. The duplexed-disk systems serve users running standard applications as well as programmers. The third, without mirrored disks, serves less important applications.

To save disk space, Michelin ported its user applications onto the network instead of individual PCs. To provide users with more power on the network, it is replacing two of the three Compaq 386/20 servers with a more powerful Compaq SystemPro 486 with 1.2Gb duplexed disks.

"Our network is not particularly slow, but now that we're putting applications onto the network, we're obligated to make the network faster for [users] to access and more responsive," explained Oldani. "It also saves on disk space, because something like Symphony [from Lotus Development Corp., Cambridge, Mass.] takes only 2M bytes on the server and not 2M bytes on each user's PC."

Milan-based users will eventually be using dislikes PCs, Oldani noted. "Having chosen the route of the network, the last few PCs we've bought are diskless. We won't buy anymore PCs with hard disks, because the diskless ones cost less, and users can't copy data," he said.

The third Compaw 386/20 will remain for developers, but with four 300Mb disks instead of its current two duplexed disks. "Only 300Mb of that will be for backup, because disk duplexing is needed only during testing and implementation. When the program is finished, it's simply put onto one of the 300Mb disks," said Oldani. At press time, Michelin said it hoped to finish the upgrade by the end of October.

Putting all of the applications onto the network will also reduce the time required for Oldani to administrate software upgrades. "Instead of my having to go around to all of the 100 PCs in the company with a diskette, I can do it [all at] one time on the network and make it available to everybody," he explained.

The 100 users at Michelin in Milan can do three things on the network, said Caiolo--office automation, applications development, and remote connection to applications on the IBM 3090 in Torino.

DIRECTION IS TOWARD SERVICE

For the majority of staff, the business of selling tires and preparing Michelin's famed Red book guide to hotels and restaurants in Italy requires electronic filing, word processing and graphics applications. For those applications, most use Lotus' Symphony, which Michelin chose for its worldwide installations years ago. Users spend a considerable amount of time specifically with Symphony's "what-if" feature, said Oldani.

Given the advances in software, however, users now employ other programs as well, particularly when it comes to graphics. "In 1988, because of the limitation of Symphony, mostly in graphics, about three or four people started using Harvard Graphics [from Software Publishing Corp., Mountain View, Calif.], which has graphics that are indisputably superior to Symphony's," said Oldani. Oldani and his staff analyzed the package, found that it satisfied a need, and made Harvard Graphics part of the IS department's repertoire.

Oldani's department also provides some different word processing packages, namely WordPerfect, from WordPerfect Corp., Orem, Utah, ("which we don't give to everyone") and Lotus' Freelance. "We're still using Symphony, but hare in Milan we're also looking to benefit from the network with other software that exists in the market to serve users," Oldani said.

To further serve users, explained Caiolo, the Milan office is planning to hire another IS staff member next year to teach them the finer points of using the standard software applications. "Our direction is service; so far it has given us a good return [on the investment], and so we will continue on this route," he said.

USER INTERFACE UPGRADE PLANS

Such software training will not include Windows 3.0 for some time yet. Oldani said he tried the program early in its release from Microsoft Italia, but that it does not have a place at Michelin Milan right now. "When I look at new packages, I look at them through the eyes of those people who work here. Our users know DOS well, and for what they do and with the machines we use, we don't have an urgency to use Windows," Oldani explained.

For users who primarily use the Symphony software for clerical tasks, "having to use Windows to do a simple letter would be traumatic. Using a mouse also represents a psychological change," he said. To put Windows on each user's PC would also require beefing up the machines. "The [286s] are not the fastest, but they're not for throwing out, either. For a secretary doing word processing, even a 386 is, in the end, too much," Oldani said.

He plans, however, to upgrade the existing user interface to give it a more graphic feel. He built the existing interface with NetWare's Menu software, incorporating the blue and yellow of the Michelin logo, but, he said, it is "nothing special, there's no windowing."

The upgrade is needed to create an interface that will manage 3270 connections, which the NetWare menu will not do, he explained. To build the new interface, he is looking at Saber Menu, from Saber Software Corp., Dallas, Texas, which was recommended by a networking expert.

PROVIDING NETWORK SECURITY

All other applications programming for the network is written in Clipper, from Nantucket Corp., Los Angeles. However, said Caiolo, "We're moving toward standardizing on Clipper C for the programming division, for security on the network." Caiolo said the goal is to keep the network physically running and the software logic consistent.

Oldani and his staff use mainly two programs for diagnosing problems that could potentially bring the network down--the ARCmon graphic performance monitoring software from Brightwork Development Inc., Tinton Falls, N.J., which shows the volume of traffic each PC is generating on the network, and TXD, from Thomas Conrad Corp., Austin, Texas, which controls the network parameters.

With TXD, said Oldani, "The user can [theoretically] change the value of the network threshold. If its set at 300 packets/minute, maybe that's too high. You can personalize the network, sort of." Being able to change the parameter is important, he added, because it helps the user learn how to stabilize the network's "normal" traffic flow. "You send it out over the network and it reports back with a directory of the nodes that have gon above the standard of various parameters, such as efficiency or performance," he said.

Other security on the network is provided at several levels. First, the duplexed disks provide two disk interfaces to the storage drives instead of one, as is done with disk mirroring. Second is the use of CigaTape digital audio tapes (DATs) to back up the entire network every night. A partial daily backup of important files is done using a 60Mb tape from Emerald Systems Corp., San Diego, Calif.

The five 800Mb DAT tapes are reused each week, one for every working day. The backup, which is done automatically at about 8 p.m. every night, is initiated and managed by a software program called PowerSave, from Performance Technology Inc., San Antonio, Texas, which Michelin Milan has been using for over a year. Performance Technology is headed by Jonathan Schmidt and John Murphy, who were responsible for inventing ARCnet at Datapoint.

A third level of security, said Caiolo, occurs during certain times of the year. "In October and November, for example, the division creates data we don't want to lose, so we make copies of the [DAT] tapes and archive them," he said.

With the coming upgrade to the network, said Oldani, "all levels of backup will remain, but we will also look at putting in another level, such as optical disk."

RELYING ON "NETWORK ANGEL"

If all of the backup somehow fails, the bottom line of Michelin Milan's network support comes back to Siosistemi. Michelin signed a "complex technical service agreement" with Siosistemi for maintaing the network, said Oldani, which obliges them to keep in-house the same machines Michelin has, in case replacement is needed.

As with any partnership, Michelin's relationship with Siosistemi has weathered four years of technological ups and downs. A testament to its strength can be seen in the fact that Oldani still attends Siosistemi's technology seminars. "For me it's a chance to meet other people and follow all the new product introductions, learn what are the new things on the markets. Gigi [Tagliapietra, chief executive officer for Siosistemi] goes to the States three of four times a year and, when he comes back, he reports on all the new technologies.

"Siosistemi is still the network angel, even if our faith may have sometimes wavered," he said.

Johnston is a freelance journalist based in Paros, specializing in technology issues.

COPYRIGHT 1991 Wiesner Publications, Inc.
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