Vendor Case Studies

InfoSys Networks

With 9 branches and 250 full time employees, Maryland-based NASA Federal Credit Union’s IT Department has its hands full with daily local area network and wide area network monitoring and support duties. With tens of thousands of far flung NASA and other Select Employee Group employees as their membership base, NASA FCU can afford virtually no downtime in their operations, particularly given the fact that they host their core data processing system and Internet banking system at their headquarters. To assist them with maintaining their mission critical networking infrastructure, the credit union has enlisted the expertise and software solutions of InfoSys Networks, a highly experienced and service oriented IT solutions provider.

Tim Burch, Vice President of Technology Services at the credit union, recalls his first encounter with InfoSys Networks: “Back in 2003 we were experiencing ongoing router and wide area network issues with the large telecommunications provider that we had contracted with to maintain our network. They were generally unresponsive and had difficulty solving connectivity problems. We brought in InfoSys Networks and literally within one hour they had figured out the root causes and fixed them.” This positive initial experience led NASA FCU to sign a long term contract with InfoSys Networks to handle all of their LAN and WAN needs. Burch says that “they have a done a great job from the very beginning and we have really been pleased with their technical support.”

In addition to providing timely and knowledgeable data network design, implementation, and support, InfoSys Networks offers credit unions their 24x7 network monitoring service called Harbornet. In the spring of 2003, NASA FCU installed a Harbornet appliance in their data center that was capable of monitoring any device on the credit union’s network with an IP (Internet protocol) address. According to Burch, “we had looked at systems costing upwards of $100,000 that we would have had to manage ourselves, so Harbornet was a great alternative. Not only was it affordable, but the networking experts at InfoSys Networks can remotely and securely manage it for us.”

While routers, servers and switches are constantly being monitored for any issues that may crop up, the 15 IT employees can keep a close eye on their network operations via large flat screen monitors in their data center. Burch relates that “at a glance we can see what’s going on with our network.” His team likes the easy-to-use browser interface to Harbornet. “It is a great application,” says Burch, and “we can easily drill down and get detailed information on any device that is being monitored.” As for after hours, the Harbornet service generates alerts that can be sent out in various manners: email, pager, cell phone, Blackberry, etc. Burch adds that “it supports very flexible alerting and escalation procedures, and includes a complete history and audit trail.”

In addition to excellent alerting and reporting capabilities, the Harbornet service utilizes customized polling software dubbed "Smart Fault Isolation" that quickly identifies the sources of any failures and eliminates unnecessary trouble shooting steps, thereby minimizing downtime. Burch points out that “it saves our employees a tremendous amount of time – it really is an intelligent system that granularly narrows down issues in a short amount of time. Our IT employees are a lot happier and more productive now.” He concludes that “the Harbornet service is very impressive and it gives us peace of mind to be working with the highly credentialed and qualified technicians at InfoSys Networks.”