Portfolio
Rendrag Networks (previously Adaptive Systems) has had a long and interesting Journey! Please see some of our projects below. You'll find an interesting spread between Web Design, Backend Development, and
- NSW Law & Justice Foundation
We host the 'FirstClass Law' service for the NSW L&JF, which is hosted on behalf of the National Association of Community Legal Centres, to provide secure email and conferencing services to some 1200+ lawyers and support staff from Community Legal Centres, Australia wide. Rendrag Networks staff have been involved in the Administration of FirstClass Groupware systems since 1994, and are the recognised leaders in FirstClass troubleshooting in Australia.
- Australian Federal Police Association
As well as serving as a public information portal for the AFPA, the site provides members of the AFP (and associated bodies) with merchandise, online discussion forums, membership management, contact with the AFPA, and a number of other secure online services.
- Inracing
Built over seven years ago, the Inracing website provides Online Formguides, books, software, and other information and for Horse racing punters Australia-wide. The site has recently beenexpanded to provide a similar service for stock market enthusiasts.
- Rachel Bird & Co
A Canberra-based Law firm, we were responsible for the intial Network, PABX, and ADSL configuration and installation, as well as providing purchasing support for all IT resources. We also host their website, and provide desing service for the firm.
- Rotary South Pacific
Rendrag Networks hosts the main Australian www.rotary.org.au entry point website. We are also responsible for managing subdomain delegations for other rotary districts and clubs.
- SmartStart
Rendrag Networks provided Smartstart with Network cabling and configuration support when Smartstart recently moved office, as well as supplying web development as required.
- Deeks Bakery
Providing network setup when the bakery first started, as well as ongoing IT Support, we also provided Website integration services, and built basic online Ordering functionality to allow both the public, and wholesale customers to order produce from the bakery, via their website.
- Expressions
A canberra print and website design firm, we provide Server administration and colocation services for Expressions' clients hosted websites, as well as Web development, integration, and maintenance services. We also provide them with ongoing IT Support as required
- LCM Healthcare
The largest Healthcare provider on the East Coast, we designed and host a plethora of websites for LCM and it's various daughter companies.
- Summernats
Who could forget Summernats! Turning Canberra into a city raging with testosterone for a weekend at the start of every year, Rendrag Networks is priveleged to maintain the Summernats website, as well as providing onsite, real-time web updates over the course of the weekend.. It's an experience, let us tell you!
- Adaptive Systems
A canberra-based Development Company, specialising in J2EE enterprise solutions, Adaptive Systems (Formerly Internet Solutions Australia/Natural Systems Intelligence) was liquidated in mid 2006. Prior to this time, Rendrag Networks provided Adaptive with ongoing Network and Systems Administration support for their in-house development systems, their clients' hosted systems, and on-site client technical support as required. As part of a contra-deal for managing the shut-down of the company, Rendrag Networks took over Adaptive's client base, as well as selected staff.
- National Heart Foundation
With their National IT centre housed in Melbourne, Rendrag Networks provides the NHF with Linux and Oracle DBA Consulting services as required.
World Youth Day, 2008
WYD08 was a huge project! One of our partners, eIntellego, was awarded the contract to supply Internet services to the Media Tribunes at Randwick and Barangaroo, and to the International Media Center at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre. Rendrag Networks was contracted to assist with the delivery network design, and building a web-based management tool to manage all delivery devices within the IMC and media tribunes.
The core network at each site consisted of dual Gigabit internet links from Telstra Internet, each terminating on a dedicated router, cross-linked to eIntellego-provided routers, running BGP sessions between each. This provided full failover should one link drop out, or a hardware error cause a router to drop out. The delivery network on the eIntellego side was running OSPF to allow for relatively simple network configuration, and allowing static IP ranges to be moved around the network as needed, without a noticeable lag time.
To allow for a 'simple' network model, we implemented a 'pod' model, where each physical area would be served by a 'pod', which had one or more physical interconnections back to the core of the delivery network (for physical-link failover). Each 'pod' would have one or more switches, served by one or more routers. The 'magic' here was that all allocation of switch/router pairing within the pods was managed dynamically by the 'Imperium' web-based management software.
Imperium
Imperium was a postgres/php5 web application, which allowed eIntellego network engineers to build a template for each switch and router. Each template would have a 'static', 'dynamic', 'enabled port' and 'disabled port' section. Once all templates were entered into the system, a 'pod' would be created, and switches and routers added to the 'pod'. IP Addressing and login details for each device are assigned, and then 'ports' are added. A 'port' is defined as a numbered port at a physical location. This allowed for a 'friendly' labelling convention to be crosslinked to switch ports and router-backed vlans.
Every switch port was assigned to a vlan, and set to one or more routers within the pod. Using vlans backed to routers, allowed us to provide each port with a set bandwidth limit (i.e. 256kbps/512kbps/1500kbps/4mbit/etc), and a choice of a whether each port was a standard NATted IP, a public static IP, or assigned to one of the set vlans (WYD Staff, AFP, ASIO, or one of the shared VLANS which a number of the larger media organisations required to easily spread their network acros their offices through the IMC).
Once all ports were defined by the network engineering staff, standard helpdesk staff were able to provide 24x7 support to media staff, able to add/edit/remove port allocations, without the need for any cisco or network engineering expertise. The Imperium software queued changes made by the helpdesk staff, and automatically connected to the pod switches and routers to apply the appropriate IOS and CatOS commands to enable the selected profiles.
In the event of a hardware failure, a full configuration dump could be generated by the software, to be loaded into a clean replacement device, ready for fast deployment into the affected pod.
On the whole, the event was a major sucess, with only one pod failure late at night, which the helpdesk staff were able to rectify within 5 minutes.
Summernats
Summernats was a fairly fun project for the Rendrag Networks team. 10 months of the year, it was your everyday managed website, with occasional news updates, updated booking information, etc. The month and a half leading up to Summernats, were a flurry of website updates, last-minute booking information changes, and logistics planning for staff. The fortnight around the summernats event is pretty insane! With our staff onsite for the week of the event, we'd be running in and out of the 'nats office, taking photos, collecting info from various stewards and officials, and soaking up the mega-charged atmosphere of the 'nats!
Taking photos of everything happening in the 70 hectares of grounds that summernats covers is pretty hectic by itself, with 3-4 events happening at any given time! Our photographic staff were flat out, taking some 10-15,0000 photos over the course of the week. Only a tiny percentage of that made it to the website, though everything went onto DVD's, for use by Street Machine in their publications and advertisting. We also supplied a number of national magazines with photos for their 'nats specials.
As if that wasn't hectic enough, our webmasters were flat out formatting competition results for real-time upload to the web to keep the media outlets up-to-date with the current information on the 'nats events. And then take the midnight-dawn photo shoots in the elite shed, getting the awards presentations for the following day ready!
A very 'interesting' experience, though one you can only maintain for a few years before you're well and truly exhausted! We really take our hats off to to Chic, Don, Ditch, and the rest of the permanent staff who are there all year round!
