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City of Oslo on Compuware

Customer Profile - The City of Oslo is the largest employer in Norway. Thousands depend on the city to provide services, such as welfare, social security, healthcare and childcare. Outages in the applications that run the city’s services are extremely visible and often have life-or-death importance. The city takes a proactive approach to service management, aligning with its service providers to ensure the highest level of service. Vantage has become the framework of choice for guarantying service levels with the city mandating its use by service provider. Because both parties have the same frame of reference for the health and performance of the applications, they are working together to solve business problems, not debating over disparate metrics.

Vendor Profile - Compuware Corporation maximizes the value IT brings to the business by helping CIOs more effectively manage the business of IT. Compuware solutions accelerate the development, improve the quality and enhance the performance of critical business systems while enabling CIOs to align and govern the entire IT portfolio, increasing efficiency, cost control and employee productivity throughout the IT organization. Founded in 1973, Compuware serves the world's leading IT organizations, including more than 90 percent of the Fortune 100 companies. Compuware's 2006 sales was $1.2 billion.

Customer: Asmund Vikeness, City of Oslo

Situation: Deliver on service level agreements with end users.

Continue reading other LoveMyTool posts on Compuware Vantage »

EBSCO Publishing on Coradiant

“TrueSight is saving me a day a week, and I’m able to do extra tasks that are helping our business .”

-- Sandy Barry, Director of Database Services, EBSCO Publishing

Customer Profile - EBSCO Publishing is the worldwide leader in managing full text and bibliographic databases for libraries worldwide. By offering library users access to more than 300 unique reference sources – secondary databases, full-text databases and current journal subscriptions such as Business Week, New England Journal of Medicine, Consumer Reports and Harvard Business Review – the company enables publishers to receive high exposure for their content.


Vendor Profile - Coradiant is the leading provider of equipment used to manage, optimize and troubleshoot web applications. Coradiant's award-winning TrueSight™ products use customer metrics gathered from each web user visit as their primary data source for IT management. Coradiant products are deployed in hundreds of leading Fortune 500 companies including software as a service (SaaS), e-commerce, entertainment, finance, insurance, healthcare, and education. Coradiant is headquartered in San Diego.





CHALLENGE

EBSCO needed real-time visibility of all library users accessing EBSCOhost to speed up isolation and repair of performance errors.

WHY END-USER EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT?

EBSCO Publishing wanted to observe all its users across the globe instead of relying on guesswork to solve end-user performance issues.

SOLUTION

EBSCO selected Coradiant TrueSight IM, a solution that proactivly measures performance levels of every library user for faster problem diagnoses.

KEY BENEFITS

• Improved customer service levels by quickly identifying and solving performance problems.
• Saved thousands of dollars in ongoing infrastructure costs by eliminating ineffective system monitoring tools.
• Increased employee productivity through easy access to real-user performance data for accelerating problem resolution.

Mark Butler on Reconnex

“Reconnex was the first product to show inbound/outbound ‘full data coverage.’ With Reconnex’s risk discovery capabilities, you can recursively search historical data for new or interesting items and bring in the data you need from an investigation point of view. With other tools, you may or may not have the data you need, depending on whether the proper rules had been developed and implemented. Reconnex has a scalable, purpose-built hardware solution to provide full coverage visibility and awareness to address the insider threat.”

-- Mark Butler, Security and Compliance Services Manager


Customer Profile - Mark brings a balanced and diligent approach in providing relevant, usable and secure technology solutions. With over 17+ years of well-rounded IT experience with the last 10 years being focused on building and developing information privacy and security programs and related compliance oversight and monitoring services. Mark has a successful track record of building and establishing teams of well rounded, top-tier talent that are quality oriented and provide unique and relevant approaches to business and technical challenges.


Vendor Profile - Reconnex is the leader in information monitoring and protection appliances designed for any organization – including enterprises, government agencies or educational institutions – that wants to protect its brand, maintain compliance, or secure sensitive information. Reconnex’s simple-to-deploy appliance delivers accurate detection while protecting an enterprise before, during, and after any threat to corporate privacy or intellectual property. A privately held company based in Silicon Valley, Calif., Reconnex protects information for over one million users today.





Challenges

• Protect customer information and the valuable brand
• Identify known and unknown threats
• Determine overall exposure to risk
• Comply with regulations

Solution

• Reconnex iGuard purpose-built appliance for information monitoring and protection

Benefits

• Safeguard brand and public reputation
• Provide full visibility to real-time andhistorical data
• Enforce policies
• Ensure regulatory compliance

OSTU - Quickstart Guide for Wireshark (by Tony Fortunato)

Instructor Profile - Tony Fortunato is a Senior Network Specialist with experience in design, implementation, and troubleshooting of LAN/WAN/Wireless networks, desktops and servers since 1989. His background in financial networks includes design and implementation of trading floor networks. Tony has taught at local high schools, Colleges/Universities, Networld/Interop and many onsite private classroom settings to thousands of analysts. Tony is an authorized and certified Fluke Networks and Wireshark Instructor. His Pine Mountain Group CNA Level I and II certification demonstrates his vendor neutral approach to network design, support and implementations. Tony has architected, installed and supported various types of Residential Wireless High Speed as well as hundreds of WIFI hotspots. Tony uses a variety of technologies from Powerline, Wireless and wired technologies to find the most cost-efficient and reliable solution for his customers. Tony combines custom programs, open source and commercial software to ensure a simple support infrastructure.

The following presentation can also be viewed on YouTube.

| View | Upload your own

Note: To view above presentation in full screen mode, click on "View" above which will take you to the Slideshare website, then click on "full" on lower right corner.

Continue viewing other LoveMyTool "Open Source Tools University (OSTU)" lectures »

Network Troubleshooting with Open Source Tools (by Mike Pennacchi)

Instructor Profile - Mike Pennacchi is one of the world's leading experts on pinpointing the causes of network and application performance issues. Unlike most companies that only identify the cause, Mike’s company, Network Protocol Specialists in Seattle, Washington, works with companies to solve performance issues. When Mike is not analyzing networks, he can be found lecturing or offering training on the topic for Server and Network Admins. During November 2007, Mike was appointed as the Lead Network Engineer for InteropNet which is the mission critical show network for Interop New York 2007, leading a team of networking professionals, volunteers and vendors support personnel.

"Improve your network monitoring and analysis success potential! This is a must for every serious network manager, VERY COOL!"

-- Oldcommguy

Interop is approaching rapidly and we are excited with the classes we will be presenting this year. In addition to our long running Ethernet and Application Analysis classes, we are teaching another class on how to use Open Source tools (GNU) that are free and readily available to help monitor, analyze and troubleshoot today’s complex networks.

This will be the second year that we are presenting this class in Las Vegas. Based on the success of last year, we have added a whole new dimension to help you take advantage of more powerful and dynamic tools.

“Don’t miss this class” says Oldcommguy!

The idea for a class on how to use Open Source Tools successfully came from our own consulting experiences where we find that many of the customers we have met are not employing any type of comprehensive network management solutions within their networks. Sadly, in many cases they are simply waiting for the users to notify them when problem occur.

While this reactive approach works, it does not help the credibility of the network department and their ability to detect problems and resolve them “before” they impact the business. We believe that it is possible to assemble a set of free tools that are readily available and could be easily deployed by anyone. In this year’s class, we will share our findings with you.

OSTU - Tutorial on SmokePing & Cacti (by Mike Pennacchi)

Instructor Profile - Mike Pennacchi is one of the world's leading experts on pinpointing the causes of network and application performance issues. Unlike most companies that only identify the cause, Mike’s company, Network Protocol Specialists in Seattle, Washington, works with companies to solve performance issues. When Mike is not analyzing networks, he can be found lecturing or offering training on the topic for Server and Network Admins. During November 2007, Mike was appointed as the Lead Network Engineer for InteropNet which is the mission critical show network for Interop New York 2007, leading a team of networking professionals, volunteers and vendors support personnel.

The following presentation can also be viewed on YouTube.

| View | Upload your own

Note: To view above presentation in full screen mode, click on "View" above which will take you to the Slideshare website, then click on "full" on lower right corner.

Continue viewing other LoveMyTool "Open Source Tools University (OSTU)" lectures »

Network Critical @ RSA 2008

Vendor Profile - Founded in 1997 by President and CEO Alastair Hartrup, Network Critical is a UK-based company that has grown into a global leader, developing premier network access solutions for the enterprise security and network management marketplace. A channel-friendly company, Network Critical operations continue to grow world-wide, with new offices in Buffalo, New York and Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Network Critical provides proper enterprise access wherever monitoring is critical—maximizing the value of customer monitoring investments, and giving customers the assurance that traffic is always seen and always available.

Anne McKenna is the Marketing Manager for Network Critical.

Continue reading other LoveMyTool “It's Show Time” posts »

Net Optics @ RSA 2008

Vendor Profile - Net Optics is the global leader in building monitoring access devices for use with security and network management tools across the entire network. Their family of taps and monitoring filter devices enables companies to easily deploy the latest intrusion detection and prevention systems, protocol analyzers, forensics appliances and network probes before a threat or network issue arises.

Dan McCarthy is the Reseller Channel Manager of Net Optics.

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Interview: Bob Shaw of Net Optics (by Denny K Miu)

Executive Profile - Bob Shaw is the President and CEO of Net Optics. Since March of 2001, Bob has been implementing the company vision and strategy, motivating the executive team to stay focused on helping Net Optics customers win in their markets. Under his leadership, Net Optics has achieved consistent double-digit growth, launching more than 25 new products, acquiring over 700 new customers, and expanding Net Optics' global presence.

Bob brings both Fortune 200 management and start-up experience to Net Optics. Prior to joining Net Optics, Bob Shaw was Sr. Vice President of Sales for Noosh, a market leader in collaborative enterprise communication for the Fortune 500. In addition, Bob has held Senior Vice President leadership positions within sales, marketing, and operations for the $1 billion business unit at RR Donnelley & Sons Company. During his years at Donnelley, he also served as a general manager at one of their state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities, where he guided 300 employees to reach new performance benchmarks for the company. Bob holds both a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business and a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Geneva College in Pennsylvania.

Q: Bob, thank you for spending time with me today and for being the first CEO to be interviewed for LoveMyTool’s “Executive Corner.” I have been looking forward to this opportunity to speak with you and learn more about your thoughts regarding the test access space. First of all, tell our readers a little about Net Optics, your history, your products, and your customers.

A: Thank you, Denny. First I want to say that I really respect the educational approach you’ve taken with your portal. It’s a great asset for the industry, which Net Optics has been part of for 12 years now. More than 6,000 customers have deployed Net Optics products, and continue to do so. With a “Customer First!” attitude, our mission is helping network and security professionals manage the health and integrity of their networks more efficiently. We do this by providing products that enable them to “Tap into the Network” for 100 percent visibility of the network traffic, using the monitoring, security, and forensics tools of their choice. The simple fiber and copper test access points, or Taps, that we started with have evolved into a complete family of passive access products that extend from the network’s edge to its core. It has been fun building this market space from something that really didn’t exist at all into a successful and growing business.

What Will They TAX Next? (by Scott Turkow)

Author Profile - Scott Turkow has 8 years of experience in the Enterprise Software space, primarily in Operations and Sales Ops roles. Scott is the Senior Operations Manager at Integrien Corporation, the leading intelligent systems management company that enables the predictable operation of mission critical applications. Prior to Integrien, Scott was with the Resource Management Software Group of EMC, which focused on the development and sale of automated network management products. A tri-athlete in training, Scott tries to be outdoors when he’s unshackled from his computer.

What Will They TAX Next?

Is “The Man” sticking it to you again this year? More often then not, when it comes to taxes, we stick it to ourselves. Which reminds me, do I still have time to itemize the building of a fallout shelter as a preventive medicine deduction?

For years, many organizations have been over-investing in IT assets and then wondering where the biggest chunk of the budget goes? I’m an IT tax professional (Suze Orman has nothing on me), so here’s a free tax tip that falls into the “overlooked deduction” department – it’s the “labor tax”, silly. And not necessarily in terms of headcount, but the manual effort tied to tasks that can, and should, be automated.

IDC says Management and Administrative costs will grow by 10% a year through 2010[1]. The largest component (30%) of overall IT spend is labor. Of this, the vast majority (77%) is just keeping the lights on (system & network management, HW & SW support and maintenance). And just to be clear, human costs for “running technology” will continue to increase as a percentage of overall costs unless you take a new approach. But unlike your relationship with the IRS, you have a choice. You can opt to pay much less of your “lights on” taxes. The key to this particular reduction is automation - the only long term answer to reducing management costs.

So why automation?