iTRACS >> Products & Solutions >> Distributed Network or Branch Location
Distributed Network or Branch Location
Challenge: Problems in a large distributed network were not being correctly resolved due to hardware connectivity issues, inaccurate documentation, and unreliable updates. A large amount of staff time was spent trying to correct issues.
Solution: Providing detailed documentation of corporate network infrastructure, fast recovery time and fault resolution, powerful service provisioning tool that indicates the availability of network resources for expansion. These save the company both time and money.
iTRACS Products: ITRACS Physical Layer Manager with iDiscover and intelligent hardware.
Details: Working with the IT Director of a corporate headquarters with branches across the Asia Pacific region, an IT helpdesk and provisioning team were responsible for overseeing the daily operations and providing support across the region. Due to their rapid business growth, they needed to plan and upgrade their processes to support a major expansion project.
On average, the helpdesk would resolve an application issue logged by a regional office in less than 30 minutes. But when problems occurred within the network, it could take up to a half-day to resolve a single issue. Problems were not resolved correctly due to hardware connectivity issues, inaccurate documentation, unreliable updates and staff time spent trying to correct the issue.
iTRACS was able to present a fully intelligent solution to identify connectivity from the individual user's cubical to the switch port that he/she is connected to, inclusive of all patch and horizontal cables. This enabled the helpdesk to resolve any connectivity issues quickly as end-to-end information can be found by calling a trace from the user's location.
With a virtual view into their wiring closet, users were able to view the contents of individual racks that are located at various offices and determine the available resources for user or network expansion.
The iTRACS software also offered a number of pre-defined and customizable reports that met the requirements for an internal audit, budgeting, provisioning planning, and in-house maintenance. A location feature provided the ability to import floor plans of various offices and easily locate a connection point or workstation with just a few clicks.
The change control/work order feature from the interface can link support staff to their respective assignments. They can log in with their ID and password to view the work orders that are issued to them. The detailed information contained in the work order enables support staff to visualize the total connectivity and thus greatly reduce the chances of unplugging a wrong cable. It also reduces the time that they need to spend on the phone since the work order has all the information required to complete the task and track the status of the work progress.
Planning for new expansion or upgrades can now be easily done by identifying the user location, services needed and the auto-routing function to identify the best route to be taken. This can be done without having to search through cables and panels at various patch zones, saving the company time and money.
