Bridging IT Visibility Gaps for a 24/7 Water Utility with Progress Monitoring
Challenge
Sharkia Potable Water Company’s IT department was struggling with an information gap between three departments: infrastructure, software and applications and technical support. There was also a struggle to mitigate security incidents.
Solution
- Unify IT monitoring efforts across network, infrastructure and application departments with the Progress® WhatsUp® Gold solution
- Maintain system health and availability by pairing device monitoring with dynamic infrastructure mapping and automated alerts
- Enhance data security by deploying Progress® MOVEit® automated file transfer and Progress® Flowmon® network detection
Result
- Scale operations with more strategic impact by shifting teams to proactive, data-driven reporting for leadership
- Mitigate network and security events more efficiently and quickly with more precise traffic analysis
- Slashed MTTR times from hours to minutes by enabling more proactive network monitoring and rapid network diagnostics
Full Story
Challenge
Sharkia Potable Water Company has a critical role for the citizens living in the Sharkia Governorate in Egypt. The organization is supplying clean drinking water and providing wastewater disposal for nearly eight million people. And they need to do it continuously.
The organization’s IT department was struggling with an information gap between three departments: infrastructure, software and applications and technical support. The lack of insight between these directorates led to the IT team struggling to identify root causes of security incidents. For instance, if there was a service delay, the IT team wouldn’t know if it was caused by network issues, database errors or something else entirely. This guessing game would lead to slower response times or address an issue after it’s already impacted the systems.
The Need for Unification
Sharkia’s IT department needed a unified dashboard for monitoring their expansive infrastructure. Mohamed Marwad, Information Technology Manager at Sharkia Potable Water and Sanitation Company, shared that the organization manages numerous devices and components, such as Cisco network switches and Oracle/PostgreSQL databases.
Marwad’s team was seeking a solution that would provide additional network visibility for both the IT team and for general managers. It was crucial for management to have insights as there was an additional need to help meet and maintain specific cybersecurity compliance requirements.
My work has shifted from ‘firefighting’ to strategic leadership. I can now provide data-driven reports to the Board Chairman regarding our infrastructure health and security posture.
Mohamed Marwad
Information Technology Manager at Sharkia Potable Water and Sanitation Company
Solution
A Trifecta of Infrastructure Solutions
Initially, the organization was using Progress® WhatsUp® Gold network monitoring to give their network observability a boost.The WhatsUp Gold solution serves as a single source of truth for Marwad and the IT team. The solution consolidates monitoring across the three departments that needed it: network, infrastructure and applications. It introduced broad, in-depth coverage of Cisco core switches, FortiGate firewalls, Oracle databases and more. Along with more robust infrastructure visibility, Marwad and his team has been using what they describe as “invaluable”: WhatsUp Gold dynamic mapping abilities and automated, real-time alerts.
The organization has deployed Progress® MOVEit® automated file transfer alongside the WhatsUp Gold solution. The MOVEit solution enables the Sharkia IT team to send encrypted inter-departmental files, such as administrative data reports, more efficiently. Their usage of the MOVEit solution provides support for cybersecurity compliance and auditing standards.
In 2024, Sharkia introduced a third Progress product into their infrastructure tool arsenal: the Progress® Flowmon® solution. The Flowmon deployment adds network detection, traffic analysis and behavioral context to identify congestion and security threats beyond status-based alerts. And it works in tandem with the WhatsUp Gold solution as Flowmon detection capabilities provide behavioral context behind the alerts.
Result
Building the Bridge Between Departments While Solving Visibility Issues
The IT team at the Sharkia Potable Water Company accomplished their goal of bridging the information gap and now has been using more proactive monitoring strategies and greater insight than before.Proactive monitoring and rapid diagnostic capabilities significantly reduce downtime and accelerate issue resolution. The IT team can help prevent an outage before it impacts Sharkia’s business with a greatly reduced mean time to resolution (MTTR). Marwad and his team can identify and address problems in minutes rather than hours.
Enhanced visibility into network and security activity enables faster, more precise responses to emerging events. Flowmon traffic analysis helps the team mitigate issues swiftly as it pinpoints sources of congestion and potential threats, allowing for more accurate identification.
Lastly, automation and insight-driven tools help scale operations without requiring additional headcount. Acting as a force multiplier, these capabilities enable teams to shift away from, as Marwad puts it, “reactive firefighting” and toward proactive, data-driven reporting that delivers greater strategic value to leadership.
WhatsUp Gold’s real-time alerts and dynamic network mapping are invaluable. They allow us to monitor critical services and intervene before issues impact the end users.
Mohamed Marwad
Information Technology Manager at Sharkia Potable Water and Sanitation Company