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Automation of Routine Maintenance, Health-Checking and Housekeeping Activities

All I.T. and network operations managers have a long list of maintenance tasks that should be performed at regular intervals, if only there were people willing and able to perform them.

Operational staff are usually in short supply and overworked. They have little time for maintenance actions, even if performing these would reduce their overall operational workload by identifying and correcting problems before they happen.

Pivetal's maintenance automation solutions bring true pro-active automation to your network. Our "virtual operator" automation allows complex tasks to be fully automated, performing any detailed interactions with the network, its elements and its software systems.

A centralised solution permits you to develop and test any maintenance checking automation without programming, and to ensure that you always use the same maintenance procedures, thus ensuring consistent results.
Routine testing or maintenance tasks can be scheduled to take place at the desired frequency for individual items or as a "batch" for a number of similar devices.
The tasks can perform any variety of diagnostic activities, and can take direct action in the event that a problem or a potential problem is identified.
Network personnel can be alerted as desired (mail, SMS, alarm browser tools etc.), and incident management systems can be updated automatically with trouble tickets - often opening tickets, resolving the problem and closing tickets automatically.
Network personnel can also request on-demand checking to take place as a "start and forget" action, with results being returned to the user's GUI or via e-mail.
We perform any desired integration with your other operational systems - for example inventory or incident management systems that are vital for proper routine maintenance automation.
Our connectivity solutions give you access to virtually anything - hardware and software over many common and custom interfaces and protocols. For maintenance-free extensibility, many customers choose not to deploy remote agents.

Examples of high-value maintenance tasks:

Website availability checking: regularly check that the company website is available and is both up to date and not being spoofed by any third party.
Network path and availability checking: verify that inter-office VPNs or any vital network paths are available, and if not, perform diagnosis of path and routing.
Billing file collection and verification: track the creation, growth and completion of billing files and copy these to other systems and/or individuals. Perform alarming if files are not being processed correctly.
Collection and automated analysis of VPN access logs: automatically collect VPN access logs and scan through them for attempted breeches. Integrate with user inventory to verify remote user access privileges. Raise a trouble ticket flag with details of all multiple failed logins
Logfile management: compress and archive away logfiles on remote servers so as to maintain disk space and file access speed. Notify in the event that storage space is starting to run out.
Datafill and configuration verification and download: for switches, routers and other network devices, remotely collect data and configuration: historise the configuration and compare it with configuration stored in inventory and provisioning systems. Produce deviation reports.
Restarting of a rogue process: a process on some remote hardware runs out of memory every few days and paralyses the system. Daily at midnight automatically restart the process and verify system stability.

The Value of Advanced Automated Maintenance

Revenue protection by identifying possible failures before they happen. Superior diagnosis of faults provides faster time to repair in the case where a site visit becomes necessary.
Revenue growth: the ability to rapidly place new services under advanced management means that you can bring these services to market faster and with reduced risk thanks for permanent pro-active management.
Reduced total cost of ownership: use the solution to incrementally add automation capability as the managed network grows. Automation consistently improves service availability and value, and reduces the growth of operational personnel.
Reduced operational team size: the solution will automate all of the most frequent and important maintenance tasks, providing a substantial reduction in operational personnel.
Increased efficiency and productivity of operational teams: extract real value from your operational team by allowing them to focus on issues that require their knowledge rather than their typing skills.
Use of lesser-skilled personnel: the powerful automation solution permits the complexity to be kept "under the hood" - abstracted away from the users: complex tasks requiring operator involvement can make use of personnel with lower skills and costs.

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