Business Challenge

A national retailer was concerned that the variety of network, server, and application management tools it employed had ceased to meet its requirements.  In particular, the company needed to be able to proactively monitor and manage its mission-critical databases of inventory and account information used in every retail transaction at its 150 locations and online store.  Overall, the company sought a solution that would provide comprehensive visibility into all areas of the enterprise to prevent potential problems from “falling through the cracks” between one management tool and another.

Solution

Forsythe met with the company’s IT management and staff a number of times to develop a detailed understanding of what levels of monitoring the company wanted, what their overall network infrastructure strategy was, and what kinds of issues and potential problems the company’s current monitoring tools had been reporting (or overlooking)—including any hardware failures, power failures, application failures, and even environmental indicators such as temperature and humidity. 

Based upon these specifics, Forsythe designed and implemented a solution enabling the company to proactively manage all the components of its enterprise—databases; network routers, switches, and hubs; servers (of varied platforms); and applications—in an integrated fashion, with easy visibility. Every piece of equipment being monitored was configured to communicate all potential problems to an enterprise management server.  This server correlates, interprets, and prioritizes all such “events.” It then communicates relevant information and action items to operators via monitors, e-mailing and paging individuals as appropriate.  Forsythe also configured the system to automate the more mundane, repetitive functions to free the IT staff to focus on important issues.  When everything was in place, Forsythe also provided skills and knowledge transfer to the company’s IT staff regarding how to use the system day-to-day and how to refine it over time to suit their environment’s ongoing needs.

Results

Forsythe’s proactive, comprehensive enterprise management solution has led to more continuous availability for all of the company’s business operations, including its online services.  This increased degree of control has also allowed the company to save time and money and derive better value from its existing IT resources—by shifting them from a reactive “emergency” mode to service-driven objectives.  Not only can the company’s IT staff trace back from service issues to root causes faster, but they can recognize and address potential problems before service is affected.