HELP!! Franchise-dictated workgroup/domain integration for new PMS system

[George]

I am the self-taught (ergo huge, gaping holes in my knowledge) network admin
for a hotel that is installing a new property management system (Opera) next
Thursday, August 5th. After three months and many unanswered requests for
information, our franchise IT department (Intercontinental Hotels Group -
we're a Holiday Inn) dropped the bomb on me yesterday that the "network
installer" they are sending out next Thursday is there only to "move
furniture," as it were - i.e., install the equipment with no configuration
or customization.

My heartache comes from the fact that we have a network (only 26 machines &
2 servers, but still critical for our day-to-day operations; DHCP, DNS, A/D,
SUS, and Group Policy) that needs to integrate with the new PMS system (11
new PCs, 11 of our PCs to connect to the Opera network) and I am not
convinced that the franchise IT department knows what they're doing.

What I have been told is that the new PMS works via workgroups (not domains)
and that joining those PCs to a domain will "break" the link to the Holidex
system; an integral part of the hotel reservations, which is what the PMS
was designed to communicate with, providing us with our room reservations &
other business. The Opera system is Oracle-based, and it was explained to
me (though I was somewhat doubtful) that their system will not recognize a
domain-based PC.

My initial response was "let's just add a PC or two and possibly the servers
to the domain and see if it breaks." Since we're still in training and not
yet live, this seemed reasonable to me. I was told that they have already
tried this and that it does not work, but I am of a strong belief that they
did not try this in any legitimate fashion with knowledgeable IT staff. The
fact that they blindly left the installation to me (a complete unknown, in
their eyes) points to that idea. Further, the feedback we have gotten from
other Holiday Inns is that the franchise IT staff has not provided a great
deal (if any) guidance in the past to others. I smell a con job and IT
management that is too lazy to do the extra work necessary to get us running
correctly.

My question to all of you is if their explanation sounds reasonable, and if
there is any way to integrate a network and a workgroup, while still
providing the workgroup members access to domain resources? Further, is
centralized authentication through my domain's A/D server still possible in
this kind of mixed environment?

Please help- I need answers by Sunday, as I have a conference call with
these guys on Monday morning. While I am bringing a tech support person on
site to help with the call, I realize that no one knows everything and maybe
you guys might point out something that none of us have considered?

Thanks in advance for the support.

 

[Phillip Windell]

What I have been told is that the new PMS works via workgroups (not domains)
and that joining those PCs to a domain will "break" the link to the Holidex
system;

Well PMS is always something best not experienced in groups <g>, but
anyway...

It could "break" in a domain. It is a bad programming/development design,
but certainly possible. If the Domain Name was the same as what they expect
the Workgroup name to be then it may fool the thing into working. If that
works, you could create a second dedicated Domain just for this stuff then
tie it to the original Domain via a Trust Relationship (something you
wouldn't be able to do with a WorkGroup).

The Opera system is Oracle-based, and it was explained to
me (though I was somewhat doubtful) that their system will not recognize a
domain-based PC.

It is "doubtful" for me too. They probably had some problem with a
domain-based pc that may have in fact been related to the domain membership,
*but* they probably didn't know why it was happening and couldn't find out
how to deal with it, so they just made the "broad" decision that it wouldn't
work on a domain member, instead of finding out what was really wrong.

My initial response was "let's just add a PC or two and possibly the servers
to the domain and see if it breaks." Since we're still in training and not
yet live, this seemed reasonable to me.

Reasonable to me too.

I was told that they have already
tried this and that it does not work, but I am of a strong belief that they
did not try this in any legitimate fashion with knowledgeable IT staff.

Exactly what I meant up above.

fact that they blindly left the installation to me (a complete unknown, in
their eyes) points to that idea.
Yep.

My question to all of you is if their explanation sounds reasonable, and if
there is any way to integrate a network and a workgroup, while still
providing the workgroup members access to domain resources? Further, is
centralized authentication through my domain's A/D server still possible in
this kind of mixed environment?

See my first paragraph. There may be other possibilities, but impossible to
say without physically being there and seeing how all this is designed.

Special purpose systems like this tend to do the *one* thing they are
designed to do just fine, but are horrible at anything else,...including
co-existing on an existing functioning system. They write these things as
if that is the only thing you run and that the only network you have is what
is the "byproduct" is after their system is installed.

As an example of somethings I've seen,...Client/Servers systems that require
mapped drive letters at the client is a huge "red-flag" of a poorly designed
system that wasn't written to run on a network in true fashion because the
whole purpose of a mapped drive in these cases is to "fool" the Client-side
App into thinking the whole thing is running locally.