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Effective Management of the IT infrastructure
IT DEPARTAMENT IS A VALUE ADDED ASSET IN GOAL REALISATION
By knowing and comprehending needs of your company, as well as indicating problems which hinder its effective operation, we offer solutions matching your expectations for valid IT management. Technology condensed in Wola Info services, will allow you to take full control over the IT infrastructure of your company. Change and configuration management will allow for optimal protection of applications critical for the strategy of your organization. When following the ITIL standards, you will quickly ascertain that your IT department, as your partner in goal realization, generates value added asset for your company.
Optimal use of intelligent technologies in form of Wola Info solutions
Discover possibilities that our high-quality components toolset offers and observe the increase of effectiveness at the whole organizational level. We offer efficient tools, which due to their unique functionality, will provide simple and centralized IT management. By merging HP technological potential with our own intellectual resources, we provide operation-optimization solutions for your company, which provides you and your staff with satisfaction.
ITSM
The transformation of IT Department into something of ITSM concept (IT Service Management) is undoubtedly the right move on your company’s development path. Well defined and efficient business processes operating on verge of business and IT are necessary for development and competitiveness of the company. By using, among other things, ITIL standards, we would like to propose IT services management via processes. IT services are an integral part of any business, which is reflected in commonly known saying: „IT is business and business is IT”. By specializing in defining of goals and rules of the process operating in your company, we describe exactly the scope of operations to be realized in the particular area. We shall present and analysis of potential risks, and at the same time give you ways to minimize those dangers. We use wide range of solutions from the biggest and experienced developers, as well as our own specialized software, in order to address IT management tasks.
Among solutions offered by Wola Info you can find:
- HP – HP Software product line, including OpenView and Mercury Software, OpsWare, SPI Dynamics
- IBM - Tivoli product line, including ex-Candle products, Netcool line from Micromuse, Maximo
- EMC –SMARTS products line for application recognition and detection and advanced monitoring of network-system incidents
- Microsoft –System Center product line for IT operation management
- TeamQuest – products for detailed analysis of Resource Management
- Cisco –CiscoWorks product line for management of network elements and services
Major Polish companies have successfully used our solutions, mainly those of the financial and telecommunication sector (Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa, BRE Bank, PKO Bank Polski, PEKAO SA, Polkomtel). We also provide services to industrial customers (PKN Orlen, Grupa Żywiec) as well as media (ITI Neovision). We also aim our offer at small and medium-sized companies, mainly because we:
- have our own range of products
- know how to match system manufacturer and particular needs of our customers
- know how to implement non-commercial solutions
Wola Info competences range
Technical knowledge and practice in business mechanisms common for many organizations gives us a lot of freedom in IT environment management area of competence. Our solutions shall help you to have your IT infrastructure under full control, due to equipping your company with a complete set of IT management tools. One of ITSM areas of competence is to manage IT at infrastructure level, starting with services and going up to the organization of the whole IT at business level. For our Customers, we use best practices of process management at each management level, with emphasis put on ITIL.
Infrastructure management
As far as infrastructure management is concerned we specialize in the following areas:
- Network, systems, data bases, application & services monitoring; fault anticipation and automated prevention
- Network Fault Management
- support for Distributed Job Scheduling
- Capacity Planning & Optimization
- centralized management of configurations, software distribution, inventory, remote control, licenses management
- Environment Discovery & Application Dependency Discovery
- Software & Hardware Inventory, Software Usage Tracking
IT services management
As far as IT services management area is concerned, we provide support for the whole life cycle of a service, starting with its planning, throughout its design phase, implementation, launch and final delivery.
During IT service lifetime we monitor closely its three aspects:
- Operational Monitoring:
- IT-point-of-view service
- examination of influence of each infrastructure element on the correct operation of a service
- IT infrastructure alteration influence on a service and its quality for users and business
- The influence of alterations within a service on stability of IT infrastructure and possibility of providing other services
- End-user-level Monitoring:
- SLO (Service Level Objective) and SLA (Service Level Agreement) parameters examination
- SLM (Service Level Management), SQM (Service Quality Management)
- examination of service availability from various network points and for various types of users
- Proactive Monitoring (the emulation of end-users’ activities by reenactment of their typical behavior)
- Reactive Monitoring (monitoring of actual users’ behavior)
- Business Monitoring:
- examination of current state of a business process via IT-provided service
- Monitoring of Key Performance Indicator in on-line mode (KPI)
Process Management
ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) contains guidelines for the organization of processes of providing IT services within a company. It is a set of rules based on best practices developed by experts, consultants, IT solutions providers and end-users of tele-IT systems. ITIL is considered as the complete solution for IT services management and is a world-wide standard. It provides process-based approach towards IT services. It defines goals, main procedures and methods for launch and termination of a process.
It provides many guidelines for measurement, reports and audit of processes in order to verify and improve quality of provided services. It is fully scalable, i.e. suitable for different sized companies, as well as for those of different branches. Companies receive tangible benefits as a result of implementation of processes according to the ITIL indications. Below we have listed some of the benefits of ITIL implementation, to be tangible after the initiation of the chose model
- Improvement in quality of the services – they are more suited towards Customer’s needs
- Services concentrate on business needs
- Better perspective on current state of IT resources
- Better information on provided services - for instance information on the biggest benefits
- Increased flexibility of the business due to better understanding of IT support processes
- An increase in staff understanding of tasks and responsibility, better understanding of business needs, better motivation of workers
- An increase in Customer satisfaction - provider of the service knows exactly what is to be delivered
- Bigger possibility of adaptation of new processes for new requirements
- Improvements caused by system’s new capabilities, i.e. safety, access, reaction time for new requirements
- More efficient implementation of new changes, improved factors for successful changes
- Constant improvement of the processes
- Better relations with the Customer
IT processes management supported by Wola Info means more than just the scope defined in ITIL. It also means the holistic approach to IT operation, particularly in case of using IT according to business needs.
Processes we provide:
- Incident Management
- Problem Management
- Configuration Management
- Service Level Management
- Change Management
- Release Management
- Capacity Management
- Continuity Management
- Financial Management for IT
- Availability Management
IT Organization Management
IT processes management supported by Wola Info means more than just the scope defined in ITIL. It also means the holistic approach to IT operation, particularly in case of using IT according to business needs.
IT organization management consists of:
- Planning (enterprises being realized, adjustment towards Customers’, users’ and business needs)
- Administration (IT management)
- IT operation monitoring (monitoring of provided services and business processes as well as the quality of ITIL processes)
Processes we provide:
- Value Based Management
- Cost Management and Optimization
- IT Asset Management
- IT-realized Enterprise Management
- Project Budget Management
- Project Risk Management
- Project Realization Management
- Project Range Management
- Project HR Management
Optimization of our operation during the realization of projects is based on the idea of IT Governance. We propose a transfer of idea of business-oriented IT services into business-oriented realization of projects via activation of units necessary for correct and on-time termination of works as part of decision making level. Using this approach shall reduce the risk of failure, responsibilities shall be distributed more equally and there will an increase in motivation of people crucial for the success of the project.
WOLA INFO OFFERED SERVICES
Initiation
Wola Info implements mainly large systems based on commercial solutions of our partners (HP, IBM, EMC, Microsoft). However, in some cases, we advise using some less-widely known products, in order to address particular needs of our Customers more effectively. We can give an example of Capacity Planning (where we use TeamQuest software) or Network Efficient Management, where a market leader - NetScout - is our main partner. For small and medium business (SMB market) we offer cost-effective solutions by using OpenSource software along with our own SWAT brand.
Staff training
After the realization of an implementation we offer staff training on the solution we’ve introduced. Training sessions cover not only the functionality of the products but the whole of the implemented system. Training is meant for both end-users and administrators. Advantages of our training, when compared with product trainings realized by software producers, are as follows:
- the content is closely related to functions used by the Customer
- trainings address the whole solution, not its individual elements
- during the training we concentrate on the specific case of a particular Customer by flexible adjustment of content
Consulting
As a part of our consulting services we offer:
- to perform an audit of the management system
- to prepare a conception for further development
- an upgrade, modernization and management system migration project
- an analysis of IT specific processes
- a recommendation of alterations improving IT operation
- an analysis of capacity together with planning of IT systems capacity (Capacity Planning)
- an analysis of IT-realized business services, particularly when operational and business monitoring is considered
Outsourcing
For Customers who need skills on management systems, we offer an additional cooperation mode based on outsourcing. Due to this solution our Customer can use the knowledge and experience of Wola Info consultants instead of costly and slow improvement in competencies among their own team. The most common area of such cooperation is outsourcing the administration of a management system. In such case our Wola Info consultants shall perform the following system management operations:
- they perform administration duties
- they take care of the stability of the solution
- they apply the patches and hot-fixes of the software
- they make small alterations and functional upgrades of the system
- they keep system documentation up to date
- they cooperate with the Customer on the basic concept of management system development
Support
ITSM-type Support Center is a single way of contact for the Customer in case of incorrect performance of the system. We provide care for the whole management system (as well as its individual components). In case of commercial systems it means that valid software producer support is required as well. The Support realized by Wola Info is proactive (regular maintenance visits) and reactive - activated by acknowledgement of abnormal operation of a management system. In many cases we solve the problems without external help from software providers. However, sometimes there shall be a need for this (for instance invalid operation of software which has not been properly updated). Our consultants cooperate then with support engineers of external companies, acting on behalf of the Customer. In case of some software providers, Wola Info can contact the II line of support due to a proper partnership status. It significantly reduces the time needed for the solving of the problem. In case of HP it is the SVI program - Wola Info is one of the two participants of this program in Poland.
Our customers are given three access channels:
- „TEL” – phone line support and acknowledgement system at Call Center Wola Info operational in a 24/7 mode
- „WICS” - (Wola Info Customer Support - Portal Serwisowy Wola Info) – a 24/7online WWW support service, a customer can use to monitor the current status of signalized problems
- „EMAIL” – e-mail petition system at Centrum Wsparcia Wola Info Wsparcie address provided by Wola Info. It may operate in a 5/8 or 24/7 modes, and reaction and repair times are suited towards Customer’s needs.
Our products (SWAT Software Family)
Wola Info-provided software, is a package of standard solutions, which main goal is to achieve:
- strict matching of products with users’ needs
- realization of integrating functions in heterogeneous environments of our Customers via successful merging of solutions provided by HP, IBM, Microsoft, EMC and others
- filling functional gaps in market-available products
- providing our customers with tools which are able to document continuously their management systems
SWAT Documenter
FUNCTIONALITY
Monitoring, following and recording of implemented management systems; preparation of ‘as-built’ documentation of the implementation of management systems based on HP Software and IBM Tivoli platforms;
- application access via Internet browser
- improvement of everyday management system administration
- creation of reports in PDF format
- access authorization mechanism based on user profiles
- online & offline configuration preview
- possibility of comparison of two saved configuration setups
- reports on the real state of purchased software licenses usage
SWAT Versatile Agent
FUNCTIONALITY
- maintaining the functionality of agent of management operating systems for platforms which are not provider-supported (FreeBSD)
- monitoring of CPU usage, memory, disk resources, log files content, processes, TCP/IP ports availability
- alarm generation via SNMP traps for external management systems
- integration with commercial management systems
SWAT Discovery
FUNCTIONALITY
- server inventory without agents (we currently support: Unix, Windows platforms)
- possibility of adjusting the application to one’s needs via dynamic list of supported parameters
- flexible application access via command line
- possibility of change management process support - export of data to external systems (i.e. of helpdesk class)