Case studies in network and systems management

Mitch Betts   Today’s Top Stories   or  Other Networking and Internet Stories  

The Secure Web Gateway. Mission Critical For Business Get a Grip on Storage Growth and Reduce Costs What's Next? Real Answers for Tough Times Infoblox IP Address Management Solutions Brief Next-Gen Load Balancing: 3 Keys to Successful Delivery of Advanced Web Apps Advanced Load Balancing: 8 Things You Need to Handle Today's Network Traffic Computerworld Report- Large Enterprises Pay More for IPAM Mobility @ the Speed of Business Computerworld Report- Large Enterprises Pay More for IPAM Sign up to receive Networking and Internet Resource Alerts

September 16, 2002 (Computerworld) -- These case studies exemplify how corporate IT departments are using new tools and approaches to managing their networks and servers.

Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, a unit of Mandarin Oriental International Ltd., Hong Kong

Mission: Owner and operator of 18 luxury hotels on three continents, in locations such as Hong Kong, London, Geneva, Bermuda, Bangkok and Singapore.

Challenge: As the hotel chain grew from its Asian base to other continents, it needed a way to manage its growing network, build its infrastructure quickly and remain agile -- with little capital investment, says Nick Price, director of technology (the equivalent of a CIO) at Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group in Hong Kong.

Technology: To meet those goals, the hotel group decided to outsource network management to InteQ Corp., a managed services provider in Bedford, Mass. The vendor's InfraService offering monitors the hotel group's servers, applications and network devices and remotely resolves problems. (The hotel group uses an Internet-based virtual private network because of the geographic dispersion.) The Web-based interface provides a window to how the network is doing, offers real-time alerts and demonstrates the value of the service to upper management.

Payoff: "InteQ did what would have taken us two years to do," says Geoff McClelland, vice president of technology for hotel development, based in Sydney, Australia. And it would be hard for the hotel group to maintain the high-caliber staff expertise that InteQ has, McClelland adds.

Intellinex LLC, an independent business unit launched by Ernst & Young International, Cleveland

Mission: Intellinex provides sophisticated online and multimedia educational programs for major corporate clients.

Challenge: An e-learning division that catered to 30,000 people within Ernst & Young was spun off into a company serving 175,000 people -- but its IT infrastructure couldn't handle that scale, says Mark Bockeloh, Intellinex's chief technology officer, who is based in Las Calinas, Texas. The training programs are full of multimedia content such as streaming video, and have complex, dynamic features like bookmarking the student's place in an online course and providing different paths through the course depending on how the student answers the questions. In addition, there are registration and scheduling chores.

Technology: Intellinex obtained San Mateo, Calif.-based MetiLinx Inc.'s iSystem Enterprise server optimization and management software. The suite determines the transaction mix on the servers and optimizes the traffic in real time, finding the best route and the best server to handle it, Bockeloh says. "It routes the work to the server with the greatest health, which might be Machine 10 in Miami, and then routes it to Miami," he says.

Payoff: The result of the optimization is "46% more throughput, and no downtime," Bockeloh says, "and that means I don't need 46% more hardware."

Sony Online Entertainment Inc., San Diego
Mission: This online gaming division of Sony Corp. runs "massively multiplayer" online games -- including the blockbuster EverQuest -- with more than 13 million registered users.

Challenge: Sony Online has more than 1,500 servers and 100,000 simultaneous players across three continents. The company needed a network monitoring tool that was inexpensive, easy to configure, easy to manage and easy to blend with custom applications that the gaming network uses, says Adam Joffe, vice president of IT. "Our custom applications wouldn't fit real well with any of the standard network-monitoring packages that are out there," he explains.

Technology: Sony Online selected NetVigil from Fidelia Inc. in Princeton, N.J. NetVigil is flexible and has open application programming interfaces "so we could plug in our own custom monitoring tools," Joffe says.

Payoff: NetVigil was a better choice than larger network management packages, Joffe says. "They would have been overkill, and we'd have paid an awful lot of money for only certain features. NetVigil gives us a broad view of all of our devices -- host and network devices. Other packages do either the network well or the host well, but not necessarily both," he says.

Print this Story

Send Us Feedback

E-mail this Story

Digg this Story

Slashdot this Story

"As the economy heads south, there are plenty of boneheaded CEOs and clueless government officials to blame. Looking at the..." Read more... "This pilot fish works at a telco that provides DSL hardware access to ISPs. Total number of users: in the..." Read more... Read more Networking posts or See all Blogs

Obama's choice for DHS could flame tech visa battle BlackBerry Storm sales should be strong, Verizon says 10 great Bluetooth gadgets More top stories...

Microsoft to launch IE8 in '09; RC due out in Q1 Review: BlackBerry's Storm is awkward and disappointing Google shutters its Lively virtual world

2008 Salary Survey: IT pay takes tiny leaps If you're like our 7,000 survey respondents, your paycheck this year has been flattened and your bonus obliterated. We offer 12 ways to plump up your paycheck. Windows 7 in-depth review and video: This time Microsoft gets it right Microsoft's next OS might more accurately be called Windows 6.5: It's essentially a better version of Vista. Twitter for business: 5 ways to tap the power of the tweet Twitter can be a valuable business tool -- if you know what you're doing. Here's how to juice it for all it's worth. Microsoft's 'Vista Capable' changes outraged HP, insider e-mails show By helping Intel with loosened 'Vista Capable' requirements, Microsoft 'severely damaged' its credibility, said an HP exec in a newly unsealed Feb. 2006 e-mail. Windows 7 Get the latest news, reviews and more about Microsoft's newest desktop operating system More Continuing Coverage Windows 7 Voting Technology Google's Chrome browser Economy in turmoil: Latest news and tips iPhone 3G Bill Gates moves on Windows Vista A to Z Mac A to Z 2008 Salary Survey Find wage data for 50 IT job titles. More Special Reports 2008 Premier 100 IT Leaders 2007 Premier 100 IT Leaders 2008 Best Places to Work in IT 2007 Best Places to Work in IT 2008 Salary Survey 2007 Salary Survey 2006 Salary Survey 2008 IT Forecast 2007 IT Forecast 40 Years of Computerworld Top 12 Green-IT Users The FAQs About Going Green IT Schools to Watch iPhone: One Year Later Global Mobile Your Next Data Center Management: Reinventing IT Stop Data Leaks Web 2.0 Security Surviving Disasters Managing Storage Virtualization The Lean Storage Machine Storage on Trial Can Web 2.0 Save BI? Bypass These BI Potholes All Zones Business Continuity Zone The File Data Management Zone Security Management Zone The SAS Zone Business Intelligence and Analytics Zone The Enterprise Search Zone Software as a Service Zone The Security Zone See your link here

Advance your BlackBerry(R) solution management know-how this July Advance your BlackBerry(R) solution management know-how this July BlackBerry Technical Seminar, register today! Go to the webcast  Cut Data Center Energy Costs Get this white paper now! (Source: Liebert) Cooling accounts for 35% of data center energy consumption. Discover strategies that can reduce cooling energy costs by as much as 40%, including simple steps you can take to get more from your existing cooling system and emerging technologies that can increase cooling capacity and data center density. Download this white paper  Computerworld Executive Briefing: Automating Network Management Download this Executive Briefing now (a $195.00 value), compliments of ProCurve Networking by HP. (Source: Computerworld) This briefing looks at the basics of network management, which tend to get lost in the dizzying array of products and processes. It also examines new tools that are on the way to help IT executives deal with management in the new era of automation.Download this Executive Briefing now (a $195.00 value), compliments of ProCurve Networking by HP. Download this executive briefing  White Papers Read up on the latest ideas and technologies from companies that sell hardware, software and services. 2008 Internet Malware Trends Report Security Trends Overview: Targeted Phishing Attack Enterprise Findability Without the Complexity View more whitepapers

• Obama's choice for DHS could flame tech visa battle
• Microsoft to launch IE8 in '09; RC due out in Q1
• BlackBerry Storm sales should be strong, Verizon says
• More top stories 

Accelerate your pursuit of perfection For almost 80 years, Kodak has been helping banks, insurance companies, healthcare providers, government agencies and other businesses produce billions of document images. So Kodak is uniquely positioned to know and deliver–what customers want: easy-to-use scanners that output the best possible image quality. Download this white paper now!

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: 64-Bit Linux Adobe Flash Player: Surprisingly good When Adobe decided it was time to provide a 64-bit Flash Player, they released it on Linux and Solaris. Wow. [more]