Mencap

Mencap, one of the UK's foremost charities for people with learning disabilities, has completed the revamp of its new centralised IT function with the deployment of ASG-TeVISTA network management software at its London head office. The software was deployed by ASG partner Teneo.

Mencap has traditionally used HP OpenView to monitor network performance but considered ASG-TeVISTA an affordable way of improving its network management capability and monitoring traffic over key servers following the IT centralisation. James Hall of Teneo comments, "Of the range of products we supply, the most obvious and appropriate one for SCH's requirement was ASG's TeVista Enterprise."

As Chris Champion, IT Networks and Communications Manager for Mencap, states, "When we centralised the Mencap IT function within the head office it was imperative that we had complete visibility of the network infrastructure. It was increasingly obvious that our current software could not meet the new demands that were placed upon it and so we had to look elsewhere. ASG-TeVISTA offers a fine balance of price and performance to deliver optimum value for money without compromising functionality."

ASG-TeVISTA can be installed onto any server or PC to monitor key segments of network activity and its agents can provide a detailed overview of data traffic. Problems can be identified as they develop, providing an early warning of potentially serious problems before they impact users, customers, or profitability. 

ASG-TeVISTA can also store historical information on the agent, which means that even if a problem occurred whilst there was no one around to see it, the administrator can go back to the point when the problem originated and solve it retrospectively.

Champion continues, "Our experience of ASG-TeVISTA is that it is simple to use with an intuitive interface, which allows us to concentrate on managing the network rather than negotiating the vagaries of the software. Furthermore, ASG-TeVISTA provides the network maintenance team with instant notification of faults enabling them to provide quick response to issues as they arise and remedy errors before users notice them. The software's online reporting capabilities also provide complete transparency of historical faults allowing us to exploit this data to improve network efficiency."

ASG-TeVISTA Performance Manager operates on an HTML platform and gathers information from synthetic probes placed at strategic points on the network. The software can alert the user when network performance dips below a certain threshold allowing for proactive server and switch maintenance.

Commenting on the relationship with ASG, Champion concludes, "We have been very impressed with the service provided by ASG. We have always had a fast response to any questions or queries we have had.  For instance, we are currently working with ASG to modify the reporting template, and their assistance so far in tailoring the software to suit our needs has been excellent. We are looking forward to a long-lasting business partnership."  

About ASG
Founded in 1986, ASG is a privately held global enterprise software and professional services firm that provides a full range of software solutions in the Metadata Management, Applications Management, Operations Management, Content Management, Performance Management, Security Management, and Infrastructure Management arenas. ASG is headquartered in Naples, Florida, USA, with more than 50 offices serving the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia/Pacific. For more information, visit ASG at www.asg.com.

About ASG-TeVISTA™
ASG TeVISTA™ is a secure distributed and comprehensive network management system that monitors the entire network infrastructure and enables you to visualise, monitor and pro-actively manage your network.
ASG-TeVISTA™ Performance Manager is an end-to-end network and application performance solution that emulates user activity to measure the performance of IT services comparing Infrastructure, server and application performance broken down by transaction. It uses unique "Synthetic User" probes, which can be distributed anywhere on the network, to emulate users accessing applications and services. Through actual transactions, ASG-TeVISTA Performance Manager tests the performance of applications (including Oracle®, SQL, Citrix®, Exchange, Lotus Notes®, file-sharing and print services, and VoIP) across the