Full monitoring of the entire IT system provides a true picture of IT availability

Let’s start from the beginning. The customer had a vast array of different monitoring systems in their IT infrastructure but lacked a consolidated view of their IT availability. Therefore, they sought a provider with a system that could offer better insights and integrate with both existing and future systems in their IT environment.

Additionally, the system needed to incorporate maps, such as Google Maps. These maps help identify the geographical locations of all healthcare centers, hospitals, and dental clinics connected to the same IT infrastructure.

– “An IT operations disruption complicates and delays access, sometimes making it impossible for healthcare providers to access medical records and booking systems. It’s crucial to quickly locate and resolve issues,” says Markus Carlsson.

The customer aimed to create a faster troubleshooting and incident management process, giving the Service Desk better oversight to proactively solve issues before they occur.

The customer’s goals were clear and included:

• Full monitoring capability for the customer’s entire IT infrastructure
• Increased proactivity within the management organization
• Faster feedback to operations in case of issues, along with reduced response times for incidents
• Simplified daily management of error patterns
• Minimizing manual handling of incidents by integrating with the current Incident Management System
• A single overarching tool for all IT-related monitoring alerts
• Easy management of reports and SLA tracking to follow up on IT availability

A solution that delivers

The implemented solution is the Compose Operation Platform (COP), based on IBM’s Netcool platform. Some of the services and applications included in the delivery are Dynamic Event Management and Dynamic Dashboard, both modules from the Compose Collection. Additionally, customer-specific application monitoring was implemented for a new system within the IT infrastructure.

When asked how Compose IT was chosen for the project, Markus responded, “On recommendation.”

– “The customer already had a preliminary study outlining suggestions for a suitable monitoring system. In that study, Netcool was recommended as the primary solution,” explains Markus.

Based on the study, two providers were shortlisted: a San Francisco-based IT company and Compose IT. After a demo of COP and Netcool, it became clear that the Swedish company Compose IT was the preferred choice. Markus highlighted some of the key criteria where COP excelled:

• Comprehensive view: Ensuring the “right person sees the right alert at the right time” through proper prioritization. COP displays only actionable information, avoiding “alert fatigue” often found in Network Operations Centers (NOC) or Service Desks, where critical alerts are overlooked amidst a flood of notifications.
• Alert classification: With the Compose Collection module Dynamic Event Management, incoming events are dynamically classified via a user-friendly GUI. This ensures the right alerts are prioritized and shown to the appropriate individual. The system also supports on-call groups with schedules and can automatically notify the right person via SMS.
• Visualization: Using predefined widgets in the Dynamic Dashboard, it’s easy to build dashboards tailored to user requirements, including GIS-based map widgets plotting alerts on Google Maps.
• Speed: A highly driven project manager on the customer’s side wanted a working monitoring system ready to demonstrate to key stakeholders by midsummer. Compose IT delivered a demo-ready system as early as May! This was achieved through agile methods with strategic sprints and methodical project steps.

Moreover, the customer now has a solution that can genuinely measure IT availability.

Visualization with IBM Agile Service Manager (ASM)

The customized solution includes a container-based application enabling visualization.

– “I’m primarily referring to the Agile Service Manager (ASM), which is integrated with the customer’s vCenter,” says Henric Fondelius, IT Consultant and part of the project team.

ASM offers a complete overview and control of a dynamic and complex infrastructure with continuously changing services.

– “ASM lets you select a server or network resource and then presents an overview of its connections to other devices, both in real-time and over specific time periods. This makes it easy to quickly locate and resolve issues,” explains Henric.

ASM comprises various applications working together in Docker containers, housed in a Server Farm. Examples of included applications are:

• Apache Kafka: A message bus that efficiently consolidates topology data from multiple sources
• Zookeeper: A fast, distributed, and scalable synchronization service
• Elasticsearch: A distributed search and analytics engine that is scalable and reliable

– “ASM is also an award-winner in the annual ‘Indigo Design Awards’ in 2019, which is a testament to IBM Agile Service Manager’s quality,” says Henric Fondelius.

Topology examples with ASM

It’s not just maps that are visualized for the customer’s Service Desk. Through the ASM GUI, system administrators can also gain a consolidated view of problems and relationships across the entire IT infrastructure.

Link to picture and more about ASM: IBM Agile Service Manager

– It has been a large and exciting project that we ran during the year with final deliveries this summer. For those customers who wish, there is also the option of signing an operation & management agreement with support and support from Compose IT, concludes Markus Carlsson.

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(*Source: ”Vården i Siffror” och ”TLV”)

Footnote: for contractual reasons, we do not name the customer