Case Background

Masy Systems is a leading provider of validation and calibration services to the medical and pharmaceutical markets across North America. Of their twenty five staff members, less than half permanently reside in the corporate office, while the remainder service clients out in the field and can be gone for weeks at a time. Masy’s practitioners spend a considerable amount of time in front of clients as they ensure that customer equipment meets stringent federal standards. The availability and accuracy of IT systems and corresponding data are of vital importance. Since its field work directly relies on computers for testing and data storage, system availability is absolutely critical to the effectiveness of the company along with the maintenance of its professional appearance.

Masy is a typical small business environment, using multiple hardware vendors built up over time, running on various versions of Windows. What makes Masy’s environment slightly more complex is its distributed operating environment, consisting of both field and corporate office professionals. To manage this environment, Masy previously relied on a single systems engineer. As with most small businesses, this individual is responsible for all system operational issues, from availability to user support both inside the office and out. As a result of the importance of system availability, especially for field technicians who work in critical client environments, the systems administrator reports directly to the CEO.

Masy’s IT Challenges

Masy’s heterogeneous infrastructure has resulted in substantial IT challenges, especially for field professionals who spend most of their time at client locations. Intermittent system problems have led to substantial down time and productivity loss for key staff members. Field professionals and corporate office staff consequently have had to invest too much time trying to diagnose and replicate user issues in order to facilitate a resolution.

To remedy the system availability problems, Masy needed to find a single product that could help them identify potential problems proactively across all systems, from mobile users to desktops and servers, and enable them to remotely resolve productivity issues before they actually occur. Masy needed to move from the typical reactive management to proactive systems management. As with most small businesses resource restrictions were a major issue. A large, cumbersome systems management solution was not an option; they needed a single cost effective, simple to use solution that could streamline their system area management.

For systems management, Masy’s concerns were multi-fold. Of course, Masy needed to retain the ability to identify, diagnose, and resolve availability problems as they occur, however Masy needed to transition this role from being reactive toward a proactive solution as the IT administrator may be onsite or not immediately available. To facilitate this change, Masy required a systems management solution that would alert the system administrator to potential problems in the infrastructure, provide ample reporting, and enable trend analysis. Key decision points would be around the simplicity of the deployment, training and usage of the management software. Ultimately, Masy wanted to be able to forecast system availability and upgrade requirements through the use of a robust system area management solution.

SyAM Software’s Solution

SyAM Software’s systems area management solution addresses the problems inherent in heterogeneous infrastructure environments. Simples to deploy and use, SyAM Software is a platform-agnostic solution which collates the metrics for the IT infrastructure into a single view, eliminating the need for a cobbled-together monitoring environment consisting of hardware provided utilities from different vendors. SyAM Software facilitates the integration of system area management functionality with both its ability to monitor hardware and software and its capacity to integrate with any other monitoring solutions that have been deployed.

With SyAM Software, system administrators can use a browser to access SyAM Software information from any location. Users are not restricted by a client application that ties them to one computer or one desk. Consequently, SyAM Software enables the remote monitoring of systems that may well be located all over the world. Its ability to integrate is not limited to collating the data from multiple systems, thus enabling reporting; SyAM Software provides a single point of access for managing all systems, regardless of location.

SyAM Software streamlines the systems area management process by providing an integrated approach for monitoring the environment and analyzing trends pertaining to performance, capacity, and recurring problems. By providing a comprehensive monitoring solution, SyAM Software at once reduces the number of systems area management solutions and provides information about the environment that would otherwise be unattainable. With SyAM Software, it is possible to manage all of your systems from a single user interface and receive alerts through a common scheme when the software indicates that a problem is on the horizon.

A major benefit of SyAM software allowed Masy to gain the ability to real-time manage hardware and software assets. Traditional IT reporting often results in an asset management snapshot that is inaccurate, but still consumes extensive amounts of time and financial resources. In an environment with multiple monitoring systems, reporting processes become increasingly complex. System administrators must gather data from multiple sources, collate this data into a coherent format, and map data elements from different systems’ reports. This manual approach is fraught with inaccuracy, error, and the unavoidable bias of a system administrator’s personal judgments.

Through effective asset tracking, IT organizations can extend the useful lives of their equipment by monitoring opportunities for repair or optimization instead of having to replace the equipment entirely.

Masy selected SyAM Software because the solution is easy to use and can be deployed rapidly, resulting in the faster realization of ROI benefits. Unlike other solutions, SyAM Software does not require extensive requirements for gathering critical data, intricate installation procedures, or time-consuming tuning and validation processes. Masy’s Systems Engineer was able to install and configure SyAM Software in minutes, generating an almost instantaneous return on a small investment in IT availability and efficiency.

Getting started was easy. Masy accessed an interactive online demonstration of SyAM Software’s capabilities and reviewed the quick start guide. They downloaded and installed the software in just a couple of minutes. The installation was initially deployed to the problem systems; In fact, the installation did not disrupt the working ability of staff but quickly identified key problems that had been puzzling and frustrating staff members. Over time, the system administrator increased the deployment of SyAM Software to more systems and enabled additional functionality of the software. As a result, Masy will derive continued returns into the future.

Net Impact to Masy Systems

Masy derived a considerable return on its investment with SyAM Software. The System Engineer who is responsible for IT administration has now been able to extend his capabilities substantially without requiring more time, allowing him to take control and pro actively manage their IT infrastructure effectively and efficiently. Problems are identified and resolved before affecting the users. All of this is being done far more cost effectively than adding additional dedicated IT staff, or implementing a more complex and expensive enterprise management package.

“Before running SyAM software the system administration portion of my job resulted in assisting other employees reactively when they came to me in panic. After installing SyAM's monitoring software I have been able to identify problems that otherwise would have become critical issues down the road; such as hard drives failing or filling up and performance issues with new applications running on older machines. SyAM identified the root cause and provided me with the precise system configuration information needed to make the resolution. This not only saved me time but direct corporate money after finding that a solution required a simple memory upgrade instead of a complete new system.” Says Robert Prescott, Masy’s System Engineer responsible for IT administration.

With SyAM Software, Masy has greater visibility into its corporate technology assets, and the company can manage its environment remotely and proactively – anticipating problem situations before they occur and disrupt company’s operations. SyAM Software helped Masy address its most pressing technology challenges and with a minimal financial investment. More importantly it freed up the System Engineer to allocate more time toward his primary role due to the confidence that he now had a reliable assistant. “With SyAM I can now maintain an accurate database of assets, and be alerted upon issues so that I can plan my admin work rather than respond to it. Finally I have a diligent assistant; a second pair of eyes on each system that can be relied upon in today’s mobile environment.”
SyAM Software’s robust reporting and trend analysis capabilities enable Masy’s systems administration to provide the same world-class infrastructure management services to this small company that typically are available only to the upper echelon of the Fortune 500. Environmental trends signal the need for proactive management, and forecasting facilitates all aspects of environment management. Further, Masy can keep its financial asset registers current and complete, control maintenance and support costs while yielding significant cost reductions through the reduction of labor-intensive asset recording and system verification.