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Follow UsImagine a bank that is always con-nected to its regional offices by a 24x7
online network. Transactions worth millions of rupees are carried out on a real
time basis. A single network failure could have disastrous consequences. Any
downtime would result in the loss of millions of rupees besides loss of customer
confidence. Maintaining connectivity is thus extremely critical with an almost
99.9% uptime needed in the case of a bank.
As more and more businesses get connected, network management software (NMS)
assumes greater significance. And today, it is not just the IT savvy companies
that are investing in IT infrastructure. Automation and networking have been
widely adopted by most forward- looking organizations. For most companies, NMS
is becoming a sheer necessity rather than a tool for the future. Issues like
continuous monitoring of the network and systems to avoid downtime, asset
information, and software management across remote locations are becoming
complex issues for CIOs.
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Enter NMS
A network management solution (NMS) is generally not out of the box. It
needs to be customized for discovery, reporting, and correction purposes as per
the network design of the customer and thus the customization levels are pretty
high in a complex and secure network environment.
Some of the customizable features offered by an NMS solution include
configuration, reports, troubleshooting, fault isolation, and bandwidth
monitoring. The benefits are clear and CIOs are ready to invest huge sums in NMS.
We look at a few companies that have successfully implemented NMS.
Case Studies
| a | Siemens India |
HDFC Bank |
Mastek |
| Company Background |
Part of the Germany-based Siemens AG, Siemens India has 10,000 employees, operates a nation-wide system of distributors as well as 17 sales offices, six manufacturing units and development centers across the country |
HDFC Bank was among the first private players in the Indian banking industry. The bank was included in the Forbes global list of "The 300 Best Small Companies" in the world. Euromoney magazine hailed it as the "Best Bank– India" and "Best Domestic Bank–India" in 1999 and 2000, respectively. The Bank offers a wide range of banking products and services in both the wholesale and retail segments. It has more than 150 locations spread across 60 cities in India and more than 250 ATMs servicing both the bank’s customers and major credit card companies. |
Established in 1982, Mastek provides software solutions to many Fortune 1000 companies. Mastek has over 7000 man-years of experience, achieved through the execution of more than 700 projects worldwide. The company has achieved software quality credentials like CMM level 5 and People-CMM level 3. |
| Problem | Due to its numerous business units and broad range of activities, Siemens India uses many different platforms running several special purpose and business-critical applications. Siemens India continues to integrate its business globally. It was felt that the management of this complex heterogeneous environment/network was the only way out for the company. |
Given the increasing importance of IT for the private bank and the heavy usage apart from a huge, complex computing and network infrastructure spread throughout India, the management realized that an efficient tool to manage the network was imperative. Since HDFC bank operates in a highly customer centric environment, there were also some specific challenges faced by the bank. To begin with system downtime is a strict no—no. For a bank providing online banking services to its customers, it is essential to minimize downtime of web resources and provide optimal performance for its web servers. Other issues like manual asset information collation across 60 cities and over 150 locations had become a painful affair for the company. |
Mastek’s predominantly manual help desk was not helping in proper filtering and analysis of data. Consequently, establishing patterns and trends relative to the problems were getting increasingly difficult to map, leading to user dissatisfaction in critical areas. |
| Implementation | The company implemented the Tivoli Enterprise solution. The main enterprise systems management Server is located at the Enterprise Management Center at Mumbai and all the locations are controlled from this management center. Each of the other locations has a Gateway machine. Some of the locations with large IT infrastructure have a local administrator with jurisdiction/control over the local infrastructure operating under the policies defined by the Management Center. |
The bank implemented CA’s Unicenter solution. Among the modules implemented were Web Management solutions for the Bank’s web servers, Unicenter Software Delivery, Unicenter Network and Systems Management solutions, and Unicenter Performance Management. |
HP Open View Service Desk 4.0 implemented. |
| Result | Today the company is geared to handle thousands of transactions per day across the country with dealers and sales offices. Also, the implementation has provided Siemens India with centralized, highly automated and consistent management of remote PC desktops. Also, IS staff were able to quickly look up inventory details of each desktop, invaluable in determining the software and budget required to bring all the PCs up to the standard configuration. It helps the IS staff to distribute updates of system software, application and utilities to multiple remote desktops simultaneously based on established policies. |
The advantage of the implementation started manifesting two months after completion. The implementation has shown distinct benefits resulting in lower downtime and higher productivity, and gave the IS staff the simplicity of a single window solution. The remote control capability was implemented on all desktops, enabling network engineers to configure or diagnose any problem from their control room. The company cut down substantially on the time consuming and expensive affair of traveling or handling problems for the remote sites. Also the software delivery people cut down time to implement/upgrade software. For example, the company had to upgrade an application for 45 locations. The process was started at night and by morning all 45 users started work with the new upgraded version of the application on their |
Mastek’s business operations spreading across multiple locations and various time zones were integrated under a unified service command. Also the Service Desk streamlined mission critical service delivery and support processes with a single workflow that seamlessly integrated processes. Today when a customer logs on to the Web (or the Intranet), calls are automatically assigned for action and deliverable results. Moreover the implementation has helped Mastek in increasing automation. The implementation facilitates the IS staff to understand shortcomings and take appropriate action. This has helped Mastek to achieve 99.9% uptime in service operations. |
Team DQ