NEW YORK-To help companies extend performance monitoring and feedback beyond their internal technical departments, Managed Objects, McLean, Va., has released beta types of its formula Version 2 software.
Since Managed Objects’ establishment in 1997, WebLink Wireless Inc. has partnered with it, helping “develop the tools from a customer feedback standpoint,” said Thomas G. Saine, technical vice president of network operations for the Dallas-based messaging carrier.
Formula Version 1.3, the predecessor to the beta type announced Sept. 13, “keeps the communications center closely contained within the technical group, but you can’t do business that way anymore because you need to share information with other (in-house) departments and (external) partners,” he added.
The concept underlying Managed Objects’ formula Version software is to “lay a blanket over” complex and diverse element managers, which other companies have developed and installed in various parts of client corporations’ enterprise systems, Saine said. Formula Version then communicates with all these element managers, getting and sharing information among them in a common format that presents information from each in the same way.
“In our NOC (networks operations center), that means we only have to train our technicians for one system, regardless of whether it’s from Sun (Microsystems), Gateway or Motorola,” Saine said.
“The tool also allows our management team to prioritize alarming and response with different colored lights and sound bites.”
Before the formula Version 1.3 implementations, WebLink Wireless technicians had to determine themselves case by case which call was most important, he said.
The updated version adds to these capabilities by giving Managed Objects customers tools to develop portals that share the appropriate information on a need-to-know basis with different departments inside WebLink Wireless and with outside partners, like resellers of its messaging services.
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One way this information sharing will be useful is in cases when end users call a customer representative from WebLink Wireless or one of its resellers to report a service problem. The customer-relations staff would be able to determine immediately on their own personal computers that, say, a transmitter went down a half hour earlier in the area and is expected to be back in operation within a few hours. The customer-service representatives also would be able to learn instantly when the problem is rectified, obviating their need to check with the subscriber to see if service has been restored.
“All the transactions are logged in the element managers. In many cases, a failure is not just a case of it was working and then it just broke. Post-failure analysis will help in the learning curve for proactive prevention,” Saine said.
“It will help us in vendor component monitoring, and we can ask them to modify their design or improve their warranties if parts fail before they are supposed to. That is important in a very competitive business like messaging.”
WebLink Wireless is in the process of testing the beta release of formula Version 2.
“We installed and integrated all views in a few hours, not the few weeks it typically takes,” Saine said.
In its testing of formula Version 2, the messaging carrier also has tried it with operating systems from IBM Corp. and Microsoft Corp., and it plans a test in Linux later this month.
“You can mix and match the OS (operating system) because the software is fully interchangeable,” Saine said.
The Seattle-based Systems Management Group of Amazon.com also is testing formula Version 2, said Ravi Angadi, senior systems management architect for the Internet company. Implementation took about two months, as opposed to two years that is typical, he said.
“It’s really a pilot project that Managed Objects is helping us to implement, looking at the ease of deploying, ongoing maintenance, responsiveness of Managed Objects to problems,” he said.
Amazon.com’s goal is the maintenance of “coherent performance” in a “complex mix of networks, systems and applications in the U.K., Germany, France and the U.S.,” Angadi added.
Across that diverse universe, Amazon.com seeks to anticipate many problems before they occur, make problem resolution and resolution easier and develop an appropriate division of labor as to who in what departments are responsible for solving different kinds of problems.
