National Grid Wireless

U.K. Provider of Mobile Infrastructure Calls on Sun to Monitor and Manage Critical Servers

National Grid Wireless is the leading provider of infrastructure to mobile telecommunications operators in the United Kingdom, with about 14,500 sites. Customers include the BBC, Vodafone, T-Mobile, O2, Orange, BSkyB and ITV. National Grid Wireless is a subsidiary of National Grid, the U.K.’s electrical distribution utility and manages a range of electricity transmission operations for utilities in the Northeast and Midwest regions of the U.S.

Customer Challenges

Extend IT support from normal business hours to 24x7
Keep staffing costs low and predictable
Increase level of proficiency of in-house staff

Solution

Sun Managed Operations monitors the health of business-critical Sun servers, alerts the National Grid Wireless' IT team proactively and fixes server problems on request, within four hours.

Business Results

Achieved high availability to meet four-hour SLA for fixing malfunctioning servers
Avoided annual costs of $500K to hire staff for around-the-clock support
Reduced support costs by shifting responsibilities from internal staff to Sun
Built trust and confidence with senior management

Products and Services

Story Details

Employees at National Grid Wireless were working long hours and weekends, but the company’s IT department only provided support during normal business hours. When a critical server went down, key applications might be unavailable for hours or days, impacting productivity. IT staffers were doing double-duty, working regular shifts and handling after-hours emergencies

In 2001, the company decided to extend IT support to 24x7. Hiring the necessary full-time staff would be expensive: an estimated $500,000 in salary, training and overhead costs per year. Sun offered a cost-effective and flexible alternative: Sun Managed Services. National Grid Wireless signed on and has extended the agreement each year since.

" I've worked with other vendors whose philosophy on managed services is, 'This is the way we do it, take it or leave it.' Sun is much more flexible, willing to accommodate our unique needs and situation. That’s why we stick with Sun Managed Services. "

— Simon Horne, UNIX and Networks Manager, National Grid Wireless

Sun remotely monitors National Grid Wireless' most business-critical platforms running Solaris 8 and Solaris 9. The managed operations service is nominally in place for nights and weekends, but can be invoked at other times as needed.

Though the high reliability of the Sun servers makes their failure unlikely, if a server’s performance begins to degrade or a hardware failure is detected, Sun notifies National Grid Wireless within 15 minutes. The company handles many problems internally, saving support costs. For others, National Grid Wireless turns to Sun. Sun repairs faulty servers within four hours, its service-level agreement with National Grid Wireless.

Sun provides a Web-based portal to monitor the health of all monitored Sun servers. Beyond being a valuable IT management tool, the portal allows corporate management to get a quick read on the status of the company’s infrastructure. This visibility has boosted the IT staff’s credibility with senior management.

National Grid Wireless especially values Sun’s willingness to adapt the agreement to changes in the IT team. The company aims to develop internal skills and take on more support duties themselves, relying less on Sun and other vendors. National Grid Wireless has reduced paid Oracle support from 270 hours to 45 hours in two years, and wants to see similar reductions across the board.

Sun Managed Services can adapt to this need. For example, when a staffer is up to speed on a particular server, National Grid Wireless can designate that machine to be 'monitored' rather than 'managed', which reduces Sun's fee for that server. The company is counting on this kind of flexibility to accommodate growth at National Grid Wireless without overtaxing its IT budget.