Integrated Research
Case Study - Helping Vodacom keep over 40 million customers in constant contact
Systems Integrator Business Connexion and Prognosis enable Vodacom
to achieve the highest availability and performance through effective
management of their converged infrastructure environment.
Majority-owned by Vodafone, one of the world’s largest mobile
communications companies by revenue, Vodacom is an African mobile
communications company providing voice, messaging, data and
converged services to over 40 million customers.
Started as the first cellular network with roots in South Africa, over
the years it has grown its operations to include networks in Tanzania,
the Democratic Republic of Congo (‘DRC’), Mozambique and Lesotho.
Also providing carrier and business services to customers in over 70
countries, Vodacom today is a leading telecommunication company in
Achieve goals
•
•
•
•
•
Rapid deployment
99.999 percent up time
Remote systems management
Rapid identification and resolution of performance
issues
Reduced TCO via identification of inefficient system
resources
South Africa with an estimated market share of 58%.
Minimize risk, secure revenue
Mobile voice services are the largest contributors to Vodacom’s revenue,
so managing the performance and availability of the prepaid front-end
environment (PPFE) used by almost 84 percent of its 40 million customers
is vital.
Business Connexion, Vodacom’s systems integrator and facilities manager,
uses Prognosis performance management software to alert operators
to any system malfunction that threatens PPFE performance or service
delivery.
Prognosis provides:
• Improved system availability
• Real-time application availability monitoring
• Automatic tracking of up and down-time
• Historical in-depth availability reporting
• Reduced cost of ownership
Prognosis gives us a real-time
dashboard view of the extended PPFE
infrastructure. It provides a single point
of monitoring for our cross-platform
Windows and HP NonStop environment.
Brett Dismore, consultant on the Vodacom project for
Business Connexion.
The Role of Prognosis
With the rollout of cellular networks to the new locations, Business
Connexion installed Prognosis on Vodacom’s HP NonStop and
Windows servers to help plan capacity requirements, maximize
performance and availability of distributed applications and
proactively alert operators to any system malfunction that
threatened performance or service delivery.
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
Contact us
Maputo, Mozambique
The Prognosis deployment enabled Business Connexion to manage
the entire PPFE environment remotely from their Johannesburg
base in neighbouring South Africa.
“Although each country is managed individually, Prognosis gives us
a real time dashboard view of the extended PPFE infrastructure.
It provides a single point of monitoring for our cross-platform
twitter.com/powerminder
Windows and HP NonStop environment.” told Dismore.
e: [email protected]
Johannesburg, South Africa
Americas t: +1 (303) 390 8700 f: +1 (303) 390 8777 e: [email protected]
Asia Pacific/Middle East/Africa t: +61 (2) 9966 1066 f: +61 (2) 9966 1042
United Kingdom t: +44 (0) 1344 894 200 f: +44 (0) 1344 890 851 e: [email protected]
The Mozambiquefacebook.com/IntegratedResearch
cellular system was configured and went live
Germany t: +49 (69) 710 455 255 f: +49 (69) 710 455 450 e: [email protected]
within two months.
Within six months, more than 120,000 users had
in linkedin.com/companies/integrated-research
For more
information visit our
website at www.ir.com
Network
Management
Challenge
been signed up, and uptime of 99.999 percent was achieved.
A similar success story followed in Tanzania, which now services over
When Vodacom was selected to build new cellular networks in
1.5 million customers, of which over 99.999 percent use Vodacom’s
About Integrated Research (IR) - IR is a leading global provider of high-definition performance monitoring, diagnostics and reporting software. The creator of
Mozambique and Tanzania,
it contracted
integrator
PPFE. solutions designed to manage continuity-critical IT infrastructure, payments
award-winning
Prognosis®solutions
and PowerMinder®−
IR builds scalable, customizable
and communicati
ons ecosystems.
provides real time solutions that give customers the insight they need to run their business, reduce their operating costs,
Business Connexion to roll
out and manage
the IRPPFE.
minimize risk, and gain competitive advantage.
“Even as Vodacom’s pan-african networks expand and customer
Business Connexion faced the legacy of a country recovering
base grow, we will be able to proactively manage availability, loads
2012 Integrated
Research
is a registered
trademark supplies
of Integrated Research
brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
from©almost
20 years
ofLimited.
civil Prognosis
war, erratic
electricity
and a Limited. All otherand
quality of service to users” concluded Dismore.
shortage of basic construction materials when they were building.
Using Prognosis to achieve high availability, reliable performance
Any spare parts required for the network hardware also had to
and removing the need to micro manage the PPFE environment
be shipped in from South Africa. After a lot of hard work Business
have been integral to the success of Vodacom’s PPFE expansion.
Connexion co-ordinated diverse suppliers and built the entire
network infrastructure in 6 self-contained shipping containers,
Prognosis also helps the organizations to minimize expensive
with their own UPS, air conditioning and painted white to cope
outages and optimize IT operations and resources. Through a single
with the intense heat. However, the challenge of managing this
pane of glass you can manage cross-platform technologies including
infrastructure, located far from the headquarters, was concerning.
HP NonStop, Windows, Unix and Linux.
For more
on visit our website
at www.ir.com
“Although
Southinformati
Africa, Mozambique
and Tanzania
adjoin one
For more information about Prognosis solutions for infrastructure,
another along the eastern coast of Africa, the distances involved
visit www.prognosis.com/infrastructure
About Integrated Research (IR) - IR is a leading global provider of high-definition performance monitoring, diagnostics and reporting software. The creator of award-winning
are huge. We just could
not manage these systems efficiently
Prognosis® and PowerMinder®− IR builds scalable, customizable solutions designed to manage continuity-critical IT infrastructure, payments and communications ecosystems. IR
provides
real time
solutiwe
ons that
give customers
theissue.
insight they
need to run their business, reduce their operating costs, minimize risk, and gain competitive advantage.
by sending support staff
each
time
anticipated
an
Nor
could©we
be
purely
reactive
and
respond
to
service
issues
as
they
2012 Integrated Research Limited. Prognosis is a registered trademark of Integrated Research Limited. All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
occur,” said Brett Dismore, Business Connexion’s principal project
engineer and added, “ Tight management and the ability to
manage systems remotely were critical.”
Contact us
Americas t: +1 (303) 390 8700 f: +1 (303) 390 8777 e: [email protected]
Asia Pacific/Middle East/Africa t: +61 (2) 9966 1066 f: +61 (2) 9966 1042 e: [email protected]
United Kingdom t: +44 (0) 1344 894 200 f: +44 (0) 1344 890 851 e: [email protected]
Germany t: +49 (69) 710 455 255 f: +49 (69) 710 455 450 e: [email protected]
twitter.com/IRPrognosis
facebook.com/IntegratedResearch
in
linkedin.com/companies/integrated-research
For more information visit our website at www.ir.com
About Integrated Research (IR) - IR is a leading global provider of high-definition performance monitoring, diagnostics and reporting software. The creator of
award-winning Prognosis® − IR builds scalable, customizable solutions designed to manage continuity-critical IT infrastructure, payments and communications
ecosystems. IR provides real time solutions that give customers the insight they need to run their business, reduce their operating costs, minimize risk, and
gain competitive advantage.
HP0168-03
© 2012 Integrated Research Limited. All rights reserved. Prognosis is a registered trademark of Integrated Research Limited. All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.