South American Web Hosting Provider Improves Its Network Management and Control with Visionael NRM

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As Brazil’s largest provider of complex Web hosting services, more than 200 enterprise companies across Latin America rely on this South American Service Provider, including Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank, Ford, Globo, and the Brazilian Mercantile and Futures Exchange. To help its customers reduce costs and enjoy high levels of service and application/content availability, the Service Provider offers a wide range of Web hosting services including enterprise applications hosting, connectivity services, managed services and professional services.

Prior to implementing Visionael^® Network Resource Manager (NRM), the Service Provider used Visio and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to perform all aspects of network management. With this static, manual method there was no central repository for network data, so identifying relationships between network elements was difficult. Records needed to be updated manually, a notoriously lengthy and inaccurate process. Also, there was no software supporting the Service Provider’s customer acquisition and customer support workflows and best practices. Furthermore, with no centralized repository, the Provider was unable to use inventory to underpin fault diagnosis and fault recovery process.

Visionael NRM improves customer acquisition and support processes
With Visionael NRM, the Service Provider brought inventory and configuration data into the OSS, using the NRM solution to manage the network resources of its four data centers in Latin America—located in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and Mexico City. Visionael Service Affiliate Global Management Systems Incorporated (GMSI) deployed the Visionael solution in less than three months, rolling the product out to all four data centers simultaneously.

The Service Provider now uses NRM to significantly improve the acquisition and support of customers. The process starts with network designs that are presented to the customer and, upon acceptance, are used for physical network builds. Ultimately, the builds are committed to the as-built view of the network, allowing the customer to be supported on an ongoing basis. Visionael NRM is used to support network design, configuration, change, fault and trouble management through its centralized, real-time views of network inventory. NRM has also been integrated with HP OpenView (HPOV) to support network discovery and network configuration validation.

The benefit of NRM: A ripple effect
With Visionael NRM as its network management foundation, the Service Provider now benefits from more efficient network management and better control of network assets, driving down the time and manpower requirements associated with these processes. All network configuration data is held in one central repository and is available to all those who support the customer at any point in the lifecycle. In gathering this information, Visionael NRM dramatically reduces redundant data entry and manual site audits in order to ascertain current configuration status. The result—a complete and accurate knowledge of all network elements has helped poise the Service Provider for additional growth.

After its initial NRM deployment, the Service Provider subsequently implemented the solution’s Spares Management functionality to track the commissioning and decommissioning of devices from the network. This has helped the Provider to better manage the repair and replacement process, optimizing the value derived from network equipment from purchase through retirement.

Industry/market:
Web hosting service provider

The Network Environment:
A complex and dynamic network managed at four data centers in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and Mexico City.

The Challenge:
To improve the inefficient manual methods of network management the Provider had relied on, using Visio and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

The Solution:
The Service Provider chose the Visionael NRM product, a comprehensive software solution that allowed it to automate the discovery, documentation, design, deployment and provisioning of critical network resources.

The Benefits:
The Service Provider uses NRM to significantly improve the acquisition and support of customers, starting with the presentation of network designs that are used for physical network builds. The builds are committed to the as-built view of the network, allowing the customer to be supported on an ongoing basis. Visionael NRM is also used to support network design, configuration, change, fault and trouble management, and has also been integrated with HPOV to support network discovery and network configuration validation.

Epilogue:
With Visionael NRM as its network management foundation, the Service Provider now benefits from more efficient network management and better control of network assets, driving down the time and manpower requirements associated with these processes. After its initial NRM deployment, the Service Provider subsequently implemented the solution’s Spares Management functionality to track the commissioning and decommissioning of devices from the network.

Customer Profile:
Brazil’s largest provider of complex Web hosting services, with more than 200 enterprise companies across Latin America including Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank, Ford, Globo, and the Brazilian Mercantile and Futures Exchange.

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