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R E V I E W

Teaming Up with the Right Management Service

July 24, 2003
By Bruce Boardman

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NetProactive Services Remote Infrastructure Management

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	In this article
	Introduction
	Calculations
	PerformanceIT Network Management Service
	iNOC IMonitor
	HCL Technologies Intelligent Network Operations Services
	NetProactive Services Remote Infrastructure Management
	Scenario
	Complete Responses to RFI
	Cost Comparison: Chewing the Fat
	Weblinks
	Report Card Explained
	Report Card

Simply put, NetProactive's response was the most expensive by a long margin at a little over $200,000 monthly (compared with the next highest, PerformanceIT's $128,000) and with a much lower personnel offset cost of only $47,000. Additionally, NetProactive didn't address as many of TacDoh's needs as the other MSPs. In its favor, reporting looked to be above average, providing good access and a decent selection of performance metrics.

NetProactive's response was brief and to the point. Unfortunately, this brevity was not limited to the RFI: The stated services provided were also brief. For example, NetProactive was unwilling to stand in for TacDoh with other service providers, putting TacDoh right back in the business of negotiating and managing WAN services.

NetProactive, which is based in Bangalore, India, will audit and configure as needed QoS on the network infrastructure to improve the chances that transactions will be serviced in a timely fashion. Alerts will also be set to allow for the notification of any network transit time that exceeds 2 seconds.

No monitoring of the PoS system was included in the price. No billing credit, just reporting on total device availability. Intervening with network devices and the availability of the store network systems are supported, but NetProactive voiced concern that since the back-end database systems were out of its control, it couldn't guarantee PoS availability and throughput.

Although NetProactive will provide reports to help manage our WAN providers, we were disappointed when it specifically indicated that TacDoh is on its own if WAN problems arise.

This company was short on SLA management details, like HCL was, but it did say it would have people on site at each warehouse ready to be dispatched to the stores, for an hourly fee. This helps explain the higher cost. Dispatch of these on-site personnel is immediate during business hours but next day during off hours. This does not compare well with the other outsourcers, which provide 2- and 4-hour response times. However, the price, $70 per hour, is less than everyone else's.

NetProactive recommended a takeover timeline of 33 days of work over about eight weeks. This includes a 30-day pilot and a week of tuning and improvement prior to going live. All in all, the timing and effort seemed reasonable, and the $13,200 price was one of the least expensive.

NetProactive said it would support the Adtran N-Form software, creating reports published on the portal. There is an additional charge of $1,100 per month to gather and report on this data. This cost is included in the MRCs listed in the pricing chart. The lack of SNMP support was not mentioned by NetProactive, leaving us to wonder how it plans to create the reports.

Remote Infrastructure Management, NetProactive Services, (877) GOIMARC, (949) 623-8312. www.bangalorelabs.com

Bruce Boardman is executive editor of Network Computing, testing and writing about network management and systems. He has 12 years' IT experience managing networks and distributed computing for a financial service provider. Write to him at boardman@nwc.com.

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