Network performance management is a critical task for every organization, but even more so for an IT outsourcing company that provides data center services to a wide range of clients worldwide.
Take Affiliated Computer Services (News - Alert) (ACS), a Xerox Company that manages data center outsourcing, remote infrastructure management, service desk support and other IT services for more than 160 clients, including several Fortune 1000 and Fortune 100 companies.
In early 2008, ACS's (News - Alert) network services group found itself with three disparate legacy management systems for its network service offerings and felt the need to replace them with one comprehensive tool capable of managing multiple client networks through a common infrastructure, according to a recent case study.
The company also sought a network performance management solution that offered a single management console and provided flexibility for future growth, as well as one that could scale and accommodate a wide range of networks that change frequently. In addition, ACS required a cost-effective solution for both itself and its client base.
After scouring the market and even creating a matrix to cross-match vendors on criteria like cost, flexibility and security, ACS reached out to network performance management specialist SevOne and demoed its comprehensive solution in house. The benefits were immediately recognizable.
ACS found the SevOne solution fit its flexibility and cost requirements perfectly. Another deciding factor was the distributed nature of the SevOne architecture, which enables ACS to manage thousands of networks across the United States, Asia and Europe, either centrally or from multiple locations, depending on factors like network topology and capacity.
With the SevOne PAS solution, ACS can place peer servers in strategic locations where polling and data collection can be performed most efficiently, rather than having to "home" client locations to the nearest ACS data center. And all this can be accomplished from a singular common interface.
ACS was particularly impressed with the wide array of functions that SevOne enables, including fault management, performance management and reporting, capacity planning and reporting, trend analysis, and NetFlow-based usage reporting for cost allocation purposes, among others.
SevOne's solution is also extremely flexible, allowing IT administrators to add or remove appliances as needed to compensate for network constraints or capacity issues. Another defining feature for ACS was SevOne's ability to enable the management of multiple clients on a single implementation while limiting client visibility to their own network environment.
Four years later, ACS is still enjoying the benefits provided by SevOne. ACS can get client servers up and running within two days of a SevOne implementation and can immediately begin turning up new customers.
Edited by Stefanie Mosca