BA Sciences Journey from Distrust to Delight
Industries:
Life SciencesProducts:
WhatsUp GoldChallenge
After working with SolarWinds, BA Sciences sought a more streamlined, affordable network monitoring solution.
Solution
- Engage with the WhatsUp Gold Professional Services team to assist implementing a more straightforward network monitoring solution.
- Configure WhatsUp Gold to monitor over 100 servers, lab instruments and cover resources, disk space, URL monitoring and Windows services.
- Utilize the WhatsUp Gold dashboard to obtain a consolidated view of BA Sciences’ network assets.
Result
- Deployed a solution that aligned with BA Sciences’ business goals, while still being affordable and easy-to-use.
- Maintained a stable and secure monitoring environment that doesn’t require additional attention.
- Obtained a clear and robust view of their systems and infrastructure via the WhatsUp Gold dashboard.
Full Story
Challenge
BA Sciences offers a robust testing environment for companies in the life sciences sector to evaluate their products. Since BA Sciences assists major pharmaceutical and consumer product companies during a crucial stage, the New England-based company needs to adhere to strict regulatory standards. So, they need a top-notch IT infrastructure monitoring platform to maintain operations.
But, the results of this turned out to be less than stellar. It was a pricey product that wasn’t doing what the IT team expected. BA Sciences’ system administrators were unable to monitor Windows services, despite what was discussed earlier with the vendor. The complexity led to the team missing network alerts, such as connectivity issues, which led to IT’s reputation within the organization becoming damaged.
“The SolarWinds deployment was a nightmare,” recalled Tom Marshall, Senior Systems Engineer at BA Sciences. “We just wanted some basic monitoring, but almost every monitor was broken or they just weren’t working. Worst of all, we weren’t receiving any notifications and it became a constant fight.”
Despite this, Marshall and his team picked themselves up and sought out a new solution.
The SolarWinds deployment was a nightmare. We just wanted some basic monitoring, but almost every monitor was broken or they just weren’t working. Worst of all, we weren’t receiving any notifications and it became a constant fight.
Tom Marshall
Senior Systems Administrator at BA Sciences
Solution
BA Sciences partnered with Progress Professional Services to help implement a robust, but easy-to-use network monitoring solution. It was during these initial conversations when Marshall became aware of Progress WhatsUp Gold monitoring capabilities.
Before deploying, the Progress Professional Services team provided Marshall and his team with hands-on support, not just with deployment. The Professional Services team had guided BA Sciences with setting up the solution and how to use it for day-to-day tasks, such as expert knowledge transfers.
Marshall and his team were able to configure their WhatsUp Gold solution to monitor 300 systems across BA Science’s infrastructure, which includes servers and lab instruments. Directly out of the box, WhatsUp Gold provided the capabilities they were missing from SolarWinds. They also gained additional capabilities, such as easily being able to monitor any Windows service or URL.
Another WhatsUp Gold feature that stood out to Marshall was its dashboard. Since BA Sciences had numerous assets, it was challenging to monitor all of them. The dashboard provided his team with the ability to analyze all the devices connected to BA Services’ network in a consolidated view.
Result
And as a result, the life sciences company now has a stable and secure network monitoring environment that aligns with its needs. Marshall and his team are enabled to conduct all monitoring in a single spot. The WhatsUp Gold dashboard proved to be the most beneficial for Marshall. While being able to see the status of the servers is helpful, the team can easily pull up the status of a device, see what’s going on and proceed to go on with their workday. The intuitive dashboard frees them up to do so.
What’s next for the team at BA Sciences? They are eager to start using the other monitoring capabilities offered by the WhatsUp Gold solution. But, in the meantime, the team is satisfied with what the WhatsUp Gold network monitoring provides them with. Marshall summed up his company’s experience with the product in one sentence: “In hindsight, WhatsUp Gold is doing great, I wish we deployed it in the first place.”
I haven’t really had to think about the deployment that much since implementing, which is great. The dashboard is very good. You can go in and see everything at once.
Tom Marshall
Senior Systems Administrator at BA Sciences