Since partnering with SolarWinds, Atlantic Digital has implemented the full suite of Solarwinds products in enterprise environments for civilian Federal agencies and Department of Defense Commands. In this case study presentation Gordon Jackson, CEO of Atlantic Digital, shares how the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is using SolarWinds to manage extensive portions of their enterprise network architecture providing: customized network insight to management and specialized consumers; real-time awareness of the status and health of the network and the devices that comprise it, enhanced performance tuning and increased security. He also shares “Lessons Learned” from his company’s ongoing involvement with Solarwinds implementations in several Department of Defense networks.
Learn More and Connect with SolarWinds Federal:
Federal website: http://www.solarwinds.com/federal
thwack Federal and Government group: http://thwack.solarwinds.com/groups/federal-and-government
Twitter: http://twitter.com/
2. 1997-2000-The Search for the Perfect NMS
HP Openview
IBM/Tivoli TME 10-Framework
CA Uni-center-Framework
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3. Expensive
Difficult and time consuming to implement
Every implementation is custom
Expensive to maintain
Requires manufacturer support for
implementation, modification, customization
Solution: procure acceptable autonomous
point products
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4. Priced right
Readily available on the web
Works out of the box
Straight forward implementation
Reasonable maintenance costs
Reasonable support costs for
implementation, modification, customization
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7. Engage stakeholders early-stay engaged
Identify/engage primary Decision Maker
Define/engage User Communities early
Define User Community requirements
Regularly review/update user community
requirements
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8. Gain/maintain cross-community
trust/confidence: everyone benefits from
cooperating
Centralized administration is key to
maintaining availability and peak
performance.
Detailed visibility that SolarWinds provides-
who wants it?
Red, Yellow, Green Up/Down versus details
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9. Get Your Host Environment right-your
SolarWinds performance depends on it
Stay current with SolarWinds patches
Federal Security Compliance Requirements
Locked Down/Secure OS’s create unique and
varying challenges
Specialized environments require special
knowledge/expertise
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10. Ability of all SolarWinds NMS modules to
operate independently or in concert with each
other allows for purchases in line with
budgetary constraints
Modules are function focused: you buy them
when you need the capability
Sufficient high performance storage is
essential to peak performance
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11. Centralized/centrally coordinated SolarWinds
maintenance and management is critical to
stability and peak performance
The virtualized environment, while not
required, has advantages
Backup
Disaster Recovery
Cloning/replication
Optimize use of Servers/storage devices
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Political implications of seeing “RED”Centralized administration is key to managing Solarwinds monitoring functions in order to maintain peak performance.Visibility that Solarwinds provides creates paranoia-don't want "others" seeing what I am doing/not doingRed, Yellow, Green Up/Down versus details-shooting the messenger/hiding the bad news
Get Host Environment right-believe Solarwinds recommendationsSecurity requirements: Federal Security Compliance Requirements- IA, DISA STIGS, FISMA, FIPS, local requirementsLocked Down/Secure OS’s create unique and varying challenges-every implementation has been unique.Specialized environments require special knowledge/expertise: Classified, IA/locked down OS’s etc, typically one SW instance per network: NIPR, SIPR, JWICS etc. Examples: Ports, User Access Controls (UAC) turned off completely during installation and upgrade process, Directory Permissions changed from default.