Project Log

Infrastructure management at Rolta India

For ISPs, network performance has a direct impact on availability. This makes an infrastructure management tool a crucial component in delivering 24x7 service, says Dr S R Bhot, director, business operations, e-solutions business group, Rolta India

In the late 1990s, the Internet changed the way businesses worked. Accordingly, we entered the ISP business. ISP operations are critical in nature, and have to operate 24x7 both from the personnel and infrastructure point of view. As we grew in scale, we realised that it would be very expensive to operate unless all the network management and security processes were automated. Surges in bandwidth, network problems and usage patterns had to be monitored minute-by-minute. We also realised that without the proper management tools to handle our IT resources, the chances of downtime or interruptions in service could prove to be disastrous. In addition, management of disparate platforms needed considerable time and the continuous availability of highly skilled manpower. Hence there was a need for centralised enterprise management with adequate security features.

We evaluated vendors who were among the best names in the infrastructure management space. We also evaluated different vendors for security, network monitoring, call centre and customer support. However, each of these products was a 'point' solution coming with its own user interface. After careful evaluation, we opted for Unicenter to monitor and manage our data centre. The reasoning was simple: Unicenter offered us a unified framework which could easily integrate with our network infrastructure. It now meets a majority of our network management requirements from a single source on a unified platform.

One console

By deploying Unicenter, we are looking at boosting the performance and availability of our data centres while improving operational efficiency and reducing the cost of technology ownership. Unicenter manages the network in the data centre including software and servers. It allows the system manager to log on and monitor every link on Rolta's network and pinpoint faulty junctions. A network manager can choose any RAS (Remote Access Server) or device at any of its POP (Points of Presence) and then drill down to individual components. If any of them has a fault it will show up on the screen, and the IT manager can then correct the system online from his workstation-based management console.

Using Unicenter, we are able to maintain our data centre resources with minimal support. We also have the ability to modify, evolve and increase resources in a flexible manner while still maintaining fully automated network management, security and help-desk operations.

The performance of servers, business-critical applications, databases and network equipment is constantly monitored so that proactive corrective action can be taken. In addition to improving the way that we monitor and manage our computing infrastructure, Unicenter lets us commit measurable performance objectives under the terms of service level agreements with internal groups as well as customers. Due to the software, we have also been able to quickly identify and resolve problems, thus ensuring quality of service. We can also analyse the health of our IT infrastructure from a single console.

We have terabytes of data on our servers and storage devices. Hence, database monitoring and management is very important. Unicenter's performance manager systematically monitors and tracks crucial database components such as data files and table spaces. Regular in-built alerts also help optimise resource management. These alerts have been instrumental in helping our IT team act proactively and avoid interruptions.

Manpower optimisation

As new software programmes including software updates and bug fixes are now remotely installed from a central location, there is tremendous saving of manpower because a single administrator can control multiple, disparate systems from a single console. The IT team can keep a complete inventory of desktops, servers and network equipment, along with their configurations.

With Unicenter increasing the level of automation across the organisation, we have experienced lower downtime and better resource management. An extra plus is that we can use its Software Delivery Option to update software and fix bugs remotely from a single central location, thus eliminating management hassles and the problem of multi-locational software administration. Moreover, there are tremendous cost savings as the unified administration console helps the team administer diverse networks without undergoing exhaustive training in individual systems. We are currently using Unicenter for monitoring the network, firewalls, anti-virus solutions and automated backups. Unicenter is thus a core enabler of our expanding IT hosting services business. With it, we will be able to achieve competitively superior service levels across our systems with the cost-efficiency necessary to achieve profitability at current market pricing.

As told to Venkatesh Ganesh