Customer Support Sample Case Studies
Corporate World-Wide Help Desk
Customer Profile:
A financial and newsgathering/disseminating company operating a global network of multi-platform server systems.
Requirement:
The help desk operation employs a 'follow-the-sun' policy whereby the world network is separated into 3 geographical regions. Help desk services provide user account management in their own primary domain, and a stand-by service in the other 2. The requirement was for a common user-account management package that allows delegation of responsibilities with over-lapping domains.
Solution:
The User Account management functionality of the Sysgem Enterprise Manager (SEM) provides the close control of user access, accountability, and secure operations demanded by this environment, and does so with a non-technical and simple user interface. Help-desk users not only do not require a privileged account on the systems they are managing, but in fact do not need any account on the systems for which they are administering the user accounts.
Print Queue Management Safely Delegated To Non-Privileged Users
Customer Profile:
A small publishing company operating a large print-room facility based on an OpenVMS print server system, and manned by non-technical staff.
Requirement:
Print-room staff are responsible for controlling print queues; for switching print jobs requiring special pre-printed stationery between appropriate print devices; for re-scheduling print jobs to automatically start at pre-determined times; for accounting for special print jobs requiring special security paper, etc. This is a full time operation for a number of staff who spend the entire day moving paper between large print machines. They are non-technical people who have the need for the technical and privileged user interface of Queue Management in OpenVMS to be hidden from them.
Solution:
Sysgem Enterprise Manager (SEM) provides via its SSyM interface, a very simple graphical user interface which has been tailored using the SEM development system to exactly provide the level of functionality and style of UI needed to meet the specific needs of the customer. The scripts run transparently on the OpenVMS system - using the power and flexibility of the operating system services, but which interact with the operators in a simple and intuitive fashion.
System Manager Access to Network-Wide, Multi-Platform Systems.
Customer Profile:
A stock-exchange financial operator.
Requirement:
A multiplicity of machines operating OpenVMS needs to be monitored and maintained. System managers and programming staff are responsible for the continuing availability of these machines and have a legal requirement to cease trading if there is a serious loss of computer service for anything more than a few minutes. These system managers and programmers need instant access to the target machines, they need to be able to operate in a secure manner, and all actions have to be accountable.
Solution:
Without Sysgem Enterprise Manager (SEM) programmers and system managers had to have a privi-leged account on every machine, and had to remember passwords for accessing those machines. Numerous copies of diagnostic tools and command procedures had to be replicated and made available to each separate system. With the SSyM plug-in system managers are able to use a single interface on a central desktop system, and are able to run command procedures and enter interactive commands on any individual machine, or multiple collec-tion of machines. SSyM holds a central repository of favorite command procedures for individual managers, and has the ability to share common libraries of such procedures between individual manager and programmer staff.
Validation of User Account Authorisation with Personnel Database Entries
Customer Profile:
The user account registration desk in a large multi-national pharmaceutical research and manufacturing organization.
Requirement:
It is essential that user accounts are only created and managed by the registration desk team, and that all accounts are linked to a subscriber database of employee records. The requirement is not only for a comprehensive user-account management tool, but also for check and balance operation to be performed on all user accounts, network-wide, to ensure that each account was legitimately created, has the correct level of privi-leges and quotas, has a pointer to the owner employee record, and that the owner employee record has a corre-sponding pointer to each and every owned user account.
Solution:
Sysgem Enterprise Manager (SEM)! Pro-Active report scripts of SAcM patrol the network periodically and ensure that all user accounts conform to a set of standards, and are owned by employee records in the personnel subscriber database. Any exceptions are re-ported to the User Registration Desk team.
Multi-Platform User Account Management
Customer Profile:
A national PTT service organization running customer telephone accounting and billing services linked to real-time telephony systems.
Requirement:
to be able manage user accounts on multiple platform types with a single and consistent user interface. Varying degrees of access to be delegated together with close control over privilege level permissions.
Solution:
Sysgem Enterprise Manager (SEM) was implemented on a broad range of UNIX systems including: Sun Solaris, HP-UX, Digital UNIX; and also on OpenVMS and WindowsNT Servers. SEM access control profiles allow the safe delegation of security privileges. End-user accounts are linked to a personnel database so that long-term ownership of all objects is attributed to nominated employees. Now when an employee changes his details or status - it is clear what throughout the network is affected. For instance, all the accounts network and platform-wide belonging to a particular user can have its password changed in a single operation.
Integration with Hp OpenView for Monitoring of VMS
Customer Profile:
A multi-national clothing manufacturer with an international network of machines of various platforms.
Requirement:
The customer was wanting to implement HP OpenView, but also wanted monitoring of the OpenVMS machines in the network at the HP OpenView console.
Solution:
Sysgem Enterprise Manager (SEM) was implemented with servers on each of the OpenVMS machines. The central controlling of SEM system regularly monitors the server systems for CPU utilization, Disk I/O usage, and Disk capacity usage, batch queue/job status, and warns when threshold values are exceeded. The warnings created by SEM are alert messages being placed in the NT Event log, HP OpenView is able to instantly recognize when an event log has been updated, and cop-ies the alert message to the OpenView console operator for action.
Real-Time Collection of "Operational Status Information"
Customer Profile:
A large banking organization running financial packages on distributed OpenVMS mainframe systems, with end-users using WindowsNT workstations.
Requirement:
to collect data from a number of OpenVMS systems giving operational status of hardware and software components. The information includes hardware performance / loading information such as CPU loading, Disk I/O, Disk capacity and Network responsiveness, together with software package availability / transaction summaries / customer-specific application data / etc.
Solution:
Sysgem Enterprise Manager (SEM) running a monitoring script and making use of the ODBC interface to write extracts and summaries to standard database structures for subsequent presentation on operational panel-displays and operator workstations. The standard refresh-cycle features of SEM scripts, combined with the customizability of the product gave this solution a very reliable but speedy implementation, a very cost-effective but tailored solution, and incurred very little long-term cost of ownership.
Products
- Versatile, powerful IT management tools for monitoring and managing systems, administering user accounts and auditing security.
Sysgem Enterprise Manager
Sysgem Account Manager
Sysgem System Manager
Sysgem Development Manager
Sysgem VMS Monitor
Password Synchronizer
Password Policy Enforcer
Self-Service Password Reset
Logfile Concentrator