Network infrastructure management specialist, Space Age Technologies (SAT), has added weight to its SME service offering through the integration of SATAware with the Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) monitoring solution.
"SATAware is a managed 24/7 real-time monitoring service providing early warning insurance for mission-critical applications," says Andr'e Badenhorst, lead SATAware developer.
While SATAware was originally designed for the diverse needs of the smaller organisation, it soon became evident that medium-size businesses had the same requirements in terms of proactive and preventative monitoring.
"Even though some medium-size businesses have already deployed MOM to fulfil such a role, there are severe restrictions that can be overcome by combining SATAware with MOM."
One major limitation of MOM as a monitoring system, for instance, is its notification process. "Unless a technician examines every event collected in the system, problems may go unnoticed for a long period of time."
SATAware prevails through the introduction of the human element into the monitoring process by providing a live 24/7 monitoring service supported by technicians who assign criticality based on the type of MOM event and/or alert data. Besides the cost saving factor for small and medium organisations, in terms of internal IT personnel, this service greatly reduces the chance of false positives, one of the major reasons why most monitoring implementations only achieve marginal success.
In addition to the above, SAT also assumes responsibility for the ongoing maintenance of the monitoring infrastructure, freeing in-house technicians from this labour-intensive task that traditionally only big companies could afford. Monitoring of the notification infrastructure is furthermore done by SATAware.
"In the traditional MOM implementations for smaller environments no warning would be sent if the notification infrastructure collapses," Badenhorst continues.
As part of the SATAware Monitoring Service, a technician will conduct three monthly assessments of the monitored environment using information from both the MOM and SATAware databases. Critical management needs such as capacity planning, availability planning and SLA management will benefit greatly from this feedback.
SATAware is also configured to collect daily 'Event Summaries' for central storage in the SAT Data Centre, which greatly improves the historical research and troubleshooting ability of the technician attending to a problem. According to SAT, the identification of patterns in the received monitoring data furthermore contributes to the proactive and reactive measures employed to stabilise client systems.
Unlike MOM, SATAware also includes a change control mechanism, as well as an automated support request generator within the client's support system or that of their support provider.
"This, combined with the operator escalation procedures, ensures no error condition will slip through unnoticed and that problems receive prompt attention," comments Badenhorst.
Combined into one comprehensive service, SAT through SATAware, has raised the standard of IT services within the SME market.
Says Mark Geschke, Managing Director of SAT: "We are extremely excited about this technology advance, and will continue to extend our services to firmly establish ourselves as the leading provider of IT infrastructure services to the Cape Town-based SME market."
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Space Age Technologies (SAT) is an IT services and platform integration specialist and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. During the 12 years of its existence, SAT has become renowned for its pioneering role in the design of the first 24/7 remote monitoring and operations management service for the small and medium business. With its award-winning service and team of highly skilled Microsoft professionals, SAT is geared to become the leading provider of enterprise-class IT services for the SME market.
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