In this leading energy company, the Services and Tooling Division supports IT Operations with a turnkey service portfolio that includes Centreon for infrastructure monitoring and IP Label Ekara for digital experience monitoring (DEM) (including application access and availability). Initially focused on infrastructure, the project now aims to provide better visibility on business services quality. Integrating Centreon and IP Label Ekara is part of efforts to implement a business-centric monitoring strategy.
“Monitoring these internal and external applications is strategic for our company. On the one hand, access to application services via intranet portals conditions the daily work of our employees. On the other hand, we need to guarantee the highest level of performance for public and authenticated web services, since their availability has a direct impact on the company’s revenues and brand image.”
Service and Tooling Division Manager
Monitoring project requirements
- Comply with SLAs.
- Guarantee all users the best level of service.
- Deliver an optimal customer experience.
Monitoring project objectives
- Streamline the monitoring toolbox.
- Optimize monitoring costs.
- Unify monitoring efforts for improved visibility.
- Implement business-centric monitoring.
The solution: Centreon Business Edition augmented by a Centreon – IP Label Ekara integration.
Project highlights:
- Implementation of a single monitoring platform to pool and streamline monitoring efforts (replacing 4 tools that were deployed based on different standards and naming rules).
- Monitoring added to the IT Department’s service portfolio.
- Correlated infrastructure monitoring (ITIM) and DEM data in a single pane of glass (through the Centreon-IP Label Ekara integration).
Overall monitoring benefits:
- Cost optimization through a streamlined toolbox (from 4 different solutions to a single unified platform).
- Better visibility on infrastructure availability and strategic application performance.
- Reduced incident detection time.
- Greater proactivity for operations teams, thanks to improved incident detection capabilities.
At this Energy sector company, the Services and Tooling Division provides IT Operations with a turnkey monitoring solution as part of a complete portfolio of IT services. The monitoring solution combines infrastructure monitoring (ITIM) with Centreon, and digital experience monitoring (DEM) with the Ekara IP Label DEM solution to manage service quality (including application access and availability). Initially focused on infrastructure, the project evolved to improve visibility over business service quality. The integration of Centreon and IP Label Ekara is part of this business-centric monitoring strategy, an objective for the broader monitoring project.
“We started the project with infrastructure-oriented monitoring, as IT Operations was our main customer. Centreon was the most significant, insightful, and cross-functional tool we could use. IT Operations needed to manage SLAs and gain better visibility over the quality of business services. So we had already set up a unified monitoring console correlating infrastructure monitoring data with user experience data application-side. As infrastructure supports applications, the two types of monitoring are complementary and of equal importance to us. By accessing a unified monitoring console, modeled using Centreon MAP, the IT Operations team now benefits from a fine-tuned correlation of Centreon and IP Label Ekara data, which makes them more efficient and proactive. With real-time alerts, IT Operations can detect incidents as early as possible, even before they occur and impact users or customer sites, which are strategic to our business,” says the Service and Tooling Division Manager.
Centreon & IP Label Ekara integration for a major player in the energy sector
Centreon + IP Label Ekara, a winning combination for business-centric monitoring.
Key objectives: Improve service for users
- Provide the highest visibility level on the availability of strategic applications and websites.
- Increase efficiency and proactivity.
- Guarantee all users the highest level of service.
- Deliver an optimized customer experience.
Key benefits: improved visibility on mission-critical applications and websites.
- Improved visibility on levels of digital performance and user experience.
- Faster service degradation and incident detection.
- Improved ability to anticipate incidents.
Requirement: Monitor the full scope of strategic applications to improve user experience
Within this leading energy company is the IT department’s Tooling Division. Its mission is to select and deliver solutions to internal customers through a turnkey services portfolio.
As part of efforts to manage SLAs and optimize the quality of services delivered, the IT Operations Division monitors the availability and performance of strategic business applications which employees access via intranet portals, and public, authenticated websites used by customers.
“IT Operations is the Services and Tooling Division’s main customer. We had to deliver a solution that met four key objectives for IT Operations: to increase visibility on the availability and performance of strategic applications and websites, to improve efficiency and proactivity, to guarantee the best possible level of service for all users, and to deliver an optimized customer experience,” recalls the head of the Service and Tooling Division.
Employees at this leading energy company access business applications via intranet portals. Among them are IT teams, support services teams such as human resources, and technical teams (core energy business). Concurrently, the company’s customers and partners access public and authenticated websites that not only need to be accessible 24/7, but also work at top performance to guarantee the best possible customer experience.
“Monitoring these internal and external applications is strategic for our company. On the one hand, access to application services via intranet portals conditions the daily work of our employees. On the other hand, we need to guarantee the highest level of performance for public and authenticated web services, since their availability has a direct impact on the company’s revenues and brand image,” emphasizes the Service and Tooling Division Manager.
The implemented solution: Centreon and IP Label Ekara seamless integration for improved visibility
The Services and Tooling Division opted for a solution integrating Centreon and IP Label Ekara, as a way to guarantee the highest level of visibility and service quality.
“The fact that both the Centreon and IP Label vendors are French was an important factor for us, and a decisive motivation in our choice. The two solutions complement each other naturally, covering the need for extensive monitoring, from infrastructure up to the digital experience. This Centreon and IP Label combination naturally fits with our business-centric monitoring—and strategic– project,” commented the head of the Service and Tooling Division.
To meet the needs of the IT Operations team, the Service and Tooling Division delivered a unified and centralized console, modeled within Centreon. It gathers all the indicators needed to monitor the availability and performance of strategic business applications, whether used by employees through intranet portals or used by customers, through authenticated web sites.
The data supplied by the monitoring connector developed by Centreon and IP Label retrieves and consolidates the most relevant metrics and collects the necessary data. Correlated data is then displayed in a central, graphical console modeled with Centreon.
To date, the Services and Tooling Division has delivered over 150 IP Label scenarios (simple tests on urls, API tests, heavy duty Citrix client tests, for example), which are used and correlated with Centreon data.
“We have set up rules to define logical scenarios, from the simplest to the most sophisticated – access, browsing, use of authenticated applications – but the most important remains in the area of connection and application access controls,” explains the head of the Services and Tooling Division.
By combining Centreon and IP Label indicators within a single console, the Operations team gains a high level of visibility, and benefits from an optimal alert level. This data is also shared in real time with Application teams, who can play their part when an issue concerns them. Availability, performance, and response time indicators enable teams to be more effective and proactive in managing digital performance.
Benefits: improved digital experience through better issue anticipation
For the head of the Services and Tooling Division, Centreon and IP Label are equally important in ensuring that the Operations and Applications teams have the same global vision, benefiting from an enhanced correlation that improves root cause analysis and considerably reduces the time needed to detect service degradations or potential incidents.
“Thanks to the integration of Centreon and IP Label, and the IP Label indicators that are fed back into Centreon, we are able to anticipate incidents. We can detect early weaknesses, alert the right teams, all of this before service degradations or incidents become visible and impact users or customers,” explains the head of the Service and Tooling Division.
Beyond infrastructure monitoring, the addition of a user experience monitoring layer provides better visibility over business service quality, which was the goal for this monitoring project.
“By being more proactive, we are in a position to deliver enhanced digital experiences, a critical aspect for the company’s ability to operate, as we monitor internal-facing digital assets, or the company’s reputation, as we monitor public-facing digital assets,” concludes the head of the Services and Tooling division.
To go Further
- Download our ebook “Extended visibility, unlock superior digital performance“. This ebook reveals how to stay on track by extending your IT visibility to 3 essential dimensions: beyond traditional cloud and on-premises infrastructure, to every business process, to the experience of every user, customer and employee.
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