INOC recommended installing terminal servers at each store to provide analog modem access and out-of-band management. It was the only service provider making this good suggestion and estimated the cost at between $8,000 and $15,000 per warehouse, for a total cost between $24,000 and $45,000 to purchase the equipment. In addition, analog lines would run between $17 and $23 per site per month.
Metrics monitored were very complete, including utilization and errors on links, and CPU on servers and routers. Five-minute samples rolled up weekly, monthly and quarterly would be available as part of iNOC's default offering, providing good performance reporting; PerformanceIT required that TacDoh have a database for the trending that iNOC provides. Trouble ticketing was, like the other vendors, online and real-time, with monthly summary reports.
IMonitor, iNOC, (877) 510-4662, (847) 714-9909, (608) 663-4555. www.InternetNOC.com
HCL's response, at 100-plus pages, laid out the strongest operational and reporting response of all the vendors, but pricing was higher than iNOC's and PerformanceIT's, and HCL didn't specifically address some of TacDoh's service-level management concerns.
HCL, which has 25 offices in 14 countries and is based in India, was the only vendor that planned to continue to use the management applications TacDoh's in-house staff supports. This raised the overall TacDoh IT budget by missing a reduction the rest of the vendors took. It did, however, make for redundant and distributed data collection as HCL uses OpenView in its NOC, letting it leverage the existing hardware and software architecture.
The RFI contained a requirements analysis and solution overview, but we never got the feeling that HCL was particularly focused on TacDoh's needs. The requirements were nothing more than a reorganization of the RFI we submitted, and the solutions suggested missed the mark. The responses were very detailed, explaining what tools were to be used, the roles and behaviors governing the relationship and what metrics were to be gathered, but HCL didn't directly answer some requirements.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
