EsatBT makes extensive use of Concord E-Health, supplied by local distributor Data Edge, on all its Layer 2 networks. According to Rob Pleece, a systems manager in the telco’s engineering group, this covers a range of products and services including IP networks, ATM, Frame Relay, MPLS, DLI (a point to point Ethernet based service) and customised WAN and LAN services offered to customers. ‘Depending on the product the demarcation between us and the customer varies,’ says Pleece. ‘Part of the service may include management of their routers and switches.’
There are three main areas in which EsatBT is using the infrastructure management tool. For capacity planning it uses Concord to measure capacity on its core trunk network and the predictive elements of the tool allow it see when it will need to add bandwidth. ‘Previously it was a very involved process to work out the traffic throughputnow it’s very clear when we need to upgrade or if we have capacity that’s not being used,’ says Pleece. Concord also maps trends so EsatBT can tell the difference between a circuit that has been at 30 percent capacity for a year and one that is at 30 percent but has grown from 5 percent in two months and thus warrants further investigation.
The operations staff also use Concord for traditional problem diagnosis with graphing tools showing them exactly where any packets are being dropped or other problems that may occur.
The ‘value add’ from Concord according to Pleece is the ability to provide customised support to customers by giving them access to data from Concord. For the smaller customers this takes the form of a weekly e-mail with pre-defined reports while larger corporates can get access to a server so that they can drill down and see additional statistics about the performance of their network. Pleece says this can then act as leverage when trying to get a customer to upgrade as EsatBT is able to point to data that shows exactly how their bandwidth is being utilised. The downside for the telco is that potentially a customer can see if they have overbought but that’s ‘part of the give and take’ says Pleece.
‘We’ve definitely used it to increase sales,’ explains Pleece. ‘There’s direct revenue that you can that it has helped the after sales people to win. We’ve also saved on core planning because before we had it we would just have increased bandwidth but now it’s a much more scientific process.’
EsatBT began to use Concord as a result of its Postgem/IOL and EUNet acquisitions as both those companies were already using it. Pleece evaluated it to see if it was worth retaining and found it more than met their requirements which was why its usage was expanded to the core networks.
05/04/04
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