When one person says the network's down and another says it's up, who's right? Eccord Systems says it gives service providers an objective look at their network status.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Associate Editor [April 4, 2001]

Eccord Systems debuted its Eccord Enterprise system this week. The software is designed to provide ISPs with an objective Service Level Management System in support of Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

The Eccord Enterprise system allows help desk support, customer service representatives, or network administrators to review and monitor network performance levels.

Reports generated by Enterprise show the availability not just of individual machines but of entire networks and their services. Engineers program the software to recognize the elements that make up a specific service, so that the software can determine whether or not a connection or application is actually available to clients outside the network.

When a client calls in a problem, most service providers assign a trouble ticket to a technician on a relatively random basis. Because different support staff are responsible for different support functions for most ISP networks, the person that picked up the trouble ticket might have to pass the problem on to the a second or third staff member, which wastes valuable response time.

For example, a client may call in with a connectivity problem and ask for a credit to be applied to their account. A trouble ticket would be opened and assigned to a technician who may or may not solve the connectivity issue, and may or may not pass a resolution on to customer service support to issue the client a credit on their account. This method of service support management often fails all parties: technical and customer support staff and clients, and forces clients to keep calling in to get the entire problem resolved.

Enterprise promises a more rapid reaction time by prioritizing the assignment of staff to fix the most critical problems when they occur, and promises to make it easier to identify the cause of problems that occur. Enterprise also enables customer support representatives to issue a credit to fulfill a client's SLA.

Eccord across the platform
Eccord Enterprise is a cross-platform application. A similar application was previously released by Eccord, called Eccord Spectrum, but it only worked on systems running Aprisma's Spectrum software. Eccord has also developed Eccord OpenView for operating on Hewlett-Packard's HP OpenView systems.

Enterprise distributes information to a global IT network through a JDBC JAVA-based Service Management Console (SMC). The software's backend employs the InPrise (Borland) InterBase database which is compatible with a variety of platforms and software products. Interbase 6.0 is already certified to work with Linux, Solaris, and Windows platforms.

Tom Slykhouse, Eccord Systems president and chief executive officer, said that Eccord Enterprise augments applications like Tivoli, Netcool, CiscoWorks, Packeteer, HP OpenView, Aprisma, Riversoft, BMC Patrol, Clarify, Remedy, and Vantive.

"The versatility of the system in extracting information from existing investments in such management systems as HP OpenView, coupled with the executive-level service reports on real time activity, are unprecedented in the industry," Slykhouse said.

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A cord around the world Measuring the performance of a global network is difficult because such a network has many possible points of failure. To illustrate how Enterprise works, here's how you'd examine part of an SLA for such a global network.

Enterprise shows (above) what happens when London's e-mail application fails. Enterprise immediately determines that it's a software problem, not a hardware problem, and the IT manager can take the appropriate action.

Enterprise saves this information, and it shows up in the annual report (right).The year-to-date outage cost report automatically calculates the price of outages. Service providers that know they are providing inadequate service may not wish to purchase Eccord Enterprise.

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Slykhouse said that the company warns prospective purchasers that there is a liability issue here.

"If you really don't know how your network is doing, and it's doing poorly, Enterprise will give you that information," Slykhouse said.

If you're not happy with your network performance now, you probably won't like the view from Eccord Enterprise. But Eccord Enterprise could provide you with a useful handle if you're trying to get a grip on nagging network performance issues and streamline your customer service functions to boot.

Pricing and availability
Enterprise costs $15,000 per site per month. Free one-month demo available online.

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