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R E V I E W

Teaming Up with the Right Management Service

July 24, 2003
By Bruce Boardman

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PerformanceIT Network Management Service

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	In this article
	Introduction
	Calculations
	PerformanceIT Network Management Service
	iNOC IMonitor
	HCL Technologies Intelligent Network Operations Services
	NetProactive Services Remote Infrastructure Management
	Scenario
	Complete Responses to RFI
	Cost Comparison: Chewing the Fat
	Weblinks
	Report Card Explained
	Report Card

Atlanta-based PerformanceIT won us over with its no-nonsense RFI response, which addressed our requests, showed due diligence and offered the most aggressive cost offset, with a reduction of $163,000 per month from IT personnel budget. Initially, PerformanceIT's response didn't offer any reduction, and we had to prod the company to make some recommendations. It was clearly a touchy subject because the company wished to avoid the negative side of outsourcing--layoffs. But in the end, the MSP not only offered a near-term reduction of at least 20 FTEs (full-time employees), it also projected that an additional 20 workers could be cut within the first year. For our comparison we took them up only on the initial 20, wanting to remain conservative.

PerformanceIT also led the field in the one-time cost category by offering predictable and comparable costs and a no-fault contract termination: With 30 day's notice, and without any penalty, TacDoh could dump PerformanceIT. The company stated that it felt so sure TacDoh would be happy with its services that no penalties, buyouts or commitments were necessary, and it stated that this is standard for all customers.

PerformanceIT's service-level management stance was equally aggressive and unique. From the get-go, it made this simple statement: If the service fails, TacDoh gets a refund. The provider then went on to explain how each service would be monitored, and what constituted the service's success and failure. Provisos were reasonable, boiling down to factors beyond PerformanceIT's control, such as earthquakes. However, even in such a case, the RFI stated that PerformanceIT would respond. Like most of the vendors, it offered a simple weighted formula that became more severe as the outage lengthened. The SLA met the response times requested and offered warning and critical fault levels.

PerformanceIT was the only vendor to respond to all of our special incident situations, such as NTF. In each case, it took ownership, vowing to resolve the problem first and figure out the cause later. The recurring motif was that PerformanceIT would stay engaged until TacDoh was satisfied--no ifs, ands or buts.

PerformanceIT offers 24/7/365 monitoring via its SOC (Support Operations Center) team for responding to problems and performing proactive maintenance. But before we engaged its services we'd want to see an outline with a level of detail similar to that provided by HCL.

Although PerformanceIT didn't provide a targeted cost for WAN provisioning and audit, indicating that the service was outside its normal scope, it did provide the reports that would let TacDoh audit WAN usage. The rate of $150 per hour and $1,000 per day, on site, is its general quote for special work.

Operationally, full SNMP monitoring, including RMON where available, and performance and fault management were part of the service. The metrics collected include MIB II link utilization and error buckets. TCP and UDP port monitoring, along with syslogs and occasional data capture, were included.

PerformanceIT initially did not support TacDoh's Adtran N-Form management application, and we were impressed that the MSP contacted Adtran to determine the effort required. It found that the Adtran application doesn't support standard SNMP, but said that Adtran plans to add this capability by year's end, at which time PerformanceIT promised to support that application at no additional cost to TacDoh.

Cost Comparison

click to enlarge

PerformanceIT was the only vendor to place appliances at each warehouse location. Each appliance polled the network and mirrored our database, offering redundancy and data aggregation while maintaining the distributed computing model.

When it comes to reporting, PerformanceIT hit all the right notes, offering the right reports and the right publication model. For example, top users, errors and links by store, region and just about any other sort were available. Like the other vendors, PerformanceIT offered Web browser access with the capability to define as many as six roles. This would let us provide store-level access, though we would have liked to delegate authority at least to the regions; delegation would involve creating a regional partition, within which that region's administrator could create store roles, or even further partitions.

PerformanceIT Network Management Service, PerformanceIT, (888) 242-9365, (678) 323-1300. www.performanceit.com