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Nick
Varley, Performance and Capacity Specialist
at Capgemini was responsible for preparing
the business case that resulted in the selection
of Athene. He joined the UK Outsourcing
operation in 1998 with more than twenty
years experience of systems programming
in a mainframe environment. “Having
worked with IBM mainframes for so many
years, I was very familiar with the role
which Capacity Planning and performance
management tools can play. I was keen to
introduce this capability for Unix and
Windows-based systems.”
The
Technical Governance team in the Outsourcing
Group at Capgemini, has
a brief to identify new technologies and
best of breed solutions that will enable
the company and its clients to work more
efficiently and more cost effectively. The
ability to deploy ‘capacity on demand’ is
an example of one such area that is
currently being explored.
According to Nick Varley, “Our Service
Delivery teams, who provide the day to day
interface with our clients, were keen to
have better visibility on what was happening
on clients’ systems. Armed with up
to the minute systems performance data
and the ability to access trending information,
they would be able to proactively manage
these systems on behalf of our clients.
We would be able to help avoid unnecessary
expenditure and to size systems correctly
based on their actual workload, rather
than perceived requirements.
The need to find a Performance Management
and Capacity Planning tool that covered
as many platforms as possible, at a reasonable
cost and requiring realistic levels of
effort to maintain it, was vital to Capgemini.”
After reviewing
a number of products in the market against
requirements a short-list of vendors
was drawn up. Following on from discussions
with the vendors, products were evaluated
and analyzed for costs, whenever possible
drawing upon practical experience of
the use of the tools. In the case of
Metron a small pilot system was set up
to demonstrate Athene and the product
received a positive response from people
within Capgemini.
It was easy to install, easy to use,
had an uncomplicated architecture and
was succinctly packaged.
Following a period of intense analysis
and evaluation, it was determined that
Athene was the most appropriate solution
for Capgemini.
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Much of the time since September 2002 has
been spent in implementing the product,
as well as educating Service Delivery and
technical teams within Capgemini in the
UK on the use of Athene, and the benefits
it can deliver when compared with previously
or currently used tools. All new outsourcing
projects now include an option of performance
management, and Athene is automatically
considered to fulfil this role.
The
move to Athene is slower where alternative
approaches have been used for some considerable
time, but Capgemini are confident in the choice of
Athene. “As with any large organization,
the move to adopt a new approach or process
can sometimes be slower than one might
hope for, but I believe that over time,
many of our outsourcing projects will be
utilizing Athene.
The
automated approach to report production
and their availability on-line via the
Capgemini intranet, for
example, is quite a culture change for
those used to producing lengthy typewritten
reports. The benefits, however, are incontrovertible.”
Capgemini now has a
number of employees trained in the use of
Athene who are actively deploying it on
behalf of clients. Nick Varley: “We
have a small number of people trained in
using Athene, and it is easy to manage and
administer. We use it 24/7 to collect performance
data on our clients’ systems, and
in many instances it is fully automated.”
“We are already seeing significant
cost savings and these savings will continue
as we automate more of the process of Performance Management.
“In
addition, we also plan to extend the
use of Athene to include Capacity Planning.
Thus, with Athene we will be able to
apply the same well-established methodology
and discipline that is used in the mainframe
environment for the myriad of Unix, Linux
and Windows based machines. We will be
able to model changes in technology,
carry out server consolidation projects
and assist clients to identify the correct
timing for upgrades.
“We are already well on the way with
many of our clients to providing better
visibility on what is currently happening with their systems. The next logical
step, using Athene, is to be able to tell them
what will happen next. This will prove
to be, I am sure, a very valuable additional
service for us to offer our clients.”
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