|
|
KeyMark Success Story
KeyMark Proactively Monitors Service with Zenoss
The Challenge
As a Systems Integrator dedicated to simplifying customer business processes in regards to Document Management, Advanced Data Capture, Workflow, and Compliance issues, KeyMark, Inc. (KeyMark) understands the need for quality technology systems that work cooperatively without draining scarce resources.
To accomodate customer system development, testing, and support, KeyMark must operate a network and server infrastructure the size and complexity of that usually found in much larger enterprises. However, as a technology solution provider with several capable technologists on staff, the responsibility for maintaining and troubleshooting KeyMark’s own IT environment fell to multiple employees, none of whom were solely dedicated to interal IT tasks. Because management of internal systems was the shared responsibility of many people, no single entity was ultimately responsible for maintenance and uptime. Reactive fire fighting became the norm and it took too long to alert, diagnose, and fix issues that led to potential and real losses of productivity and billable time.
It became clear that KeyMark needed to match its internal IT management resources, personnel, and tools to the scope of its expanding technical environment and business needs. Thus in 2006, KeyMark appointed David Buttgereit as Director of Internal Operations and his responsibilities included internal IT. Buttgereit then hired experienced systems administrator David Nalley to manage the expanding internal IT infrastructure. Nalley quickly realized the company needed a monitoring solution that would allow him to proactively troubleshoot and fix issues before they turned into an unacceptable drain on time and resources. Moreover, KeyMark wanted a solution that would initially provide simple, basic monitoring of its IT infrastructure, yet also be capable of growing as quickly as KeyMark’s business.
The Solution
Nalley immediately began trialing several network and server monitoring and management tools in order to find the one that would work best with KeyMark’s infrastructure: Zenoss was the answer. As part of this process, KeyMark trialed other solutions with little success – one product required device agents and additional software be installed and maintained, while another product required more effort to implement and maintain than the strapped IT team was willing to take on.
Throughout each trial and the ensuing analysis, the team kept coming back to Zenoss because the free, open source Zenoss Core offering met all of the team’s criteria. Zenoss helped make the roll-out and initial implementation extraordinarily simple as there was no need to install additional agents or tiptoe around inherited software. Making monitoring and alerting changes proved far easier with Zenoss than the other products tested. Zenoss reports were simple, attractive, and useful, easily visualizing potential and real problems, thereby making the reports useful tools for both the Internal IT and Executive teams.
The Results
Immediately, KeyMark saw the results of implementing Zenoss as it began alerting the IT team to potential and real failures – such as with server fans and network ports – before they caused costly breakdowns in business productivity. Because Zenoss proactively alerts the IT team to problems, it allows them to be proactive in return, while also providing a substantial amount of quick insight that previously took hours of research by manually pouring over system logs to achieve. With Zenoss monitoring and capturing events it became far easier to see when something untoward happened or was about to happen, as well as highlighting the corresponding root-cause events or components.
KeyMark’s IT team now has the ability to comparatively defend the investment in and efficacy of its technical infrastructure – both internally and externally. When users complain that the network is running slow, the IT team can look at one pane of glass – the Zenoss console – to determine if this is a systemic or client issue. KeyMark has also used Zenoss to prove to its ISP when external networking outages and slowdowns have occurred in violation of their SLA. In summary, Zenoss enables the IT team to track, monitor, measure, and prove when service is, or isn’t, disrupted.
KeyMark notes that Zenoss and its rapidly growing community of users provide unparalleled support and troubleshooting of the Zenoss Core project, leading to a more robust product and ease of use not seen with competitors. Through the Zenoss community, Nalley and his team are able to discuss and brainstorm with other Zenoss users new and unique ways to solve complex problems. This allows KeyMark to cost-effectively evolve its Zenoss implementation to meet KeyMark's evolving needs. Additionally, Zenoss’ rapidly growing library of ZenPacks allows KeyMark to easily personalize its monitoring system to ensure greater success.
About KeyMark, Inc.
KeyMark is an award-winning document capture, management and workflow systems provider founded in 1996. They combine cutting-edge technology and innovative minds to create customized solutions that resolve today’s business issues and anticipate tomorrow’s. KeyMark has helped clients increase efficiencies and decrease operating costs in various industries including: healthcare, accounts payable, accounts receivable, government, insurance, lending and human resources. KeyMark is headquartered in Liberty, S.C. with offices and affiliates in: Columbia, SC; Indianapolis, IN; Lancaster, PA; and Twin Cities, MN.
|
