SERVICE FEATURE AND BENEFITS

Click here for a Functional Overview of ipClarity.

KEY FEATURES

Performance Reporting

Live
Live reporting allows users to view real-time operational and management information on devices, links and latency (delay). Devices include routers, switches, UPSs, servers and more. Information available includes: up/down, utilization, errors, discards, availability, CPU utilization, free memory and buffer utilization/hits and misses. Live reporting can range from the last 24 hours of live data out to a maximum of 1 year.

Scheduled
Scheduled reporting automates the above process and outputs the information to a PDF (Portable Document Format). The report can be view online or emailed directly to the intended recipient(s). Reports can be run at regular intervals, from daily through to annually.

Integrated
Integrated reports can contain a number of individual reports with a configurable report name and section headings for quick and easy analysis.

Reports can be customized to suit the intended audience. For example you may wish to report the CIO's target KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to the board, highly detailed technical information to the IT manager and problem port information straight to the engineer tasked with resolving potential infrastructure issues.

Filter Reporting
Filter reporting is invaluable in identifying problem areas in your infrastructure or even just highlighting bottlenecks. You may have thousands of ports within your network and filter reports could, for example, list the 10 ports producing the most errors in your network. It can even be emailed directly to the engineer who is tasked with fixing them. A report may identify the 5 most underutilized WAN links so you can reduce your speed and spend on one or more of them. They are highly configurable, one of the fastest ways to begin optimization of your infrastructure, and can be run live or in scheduled reports.

Threshold Reporting and Alarms
ipClarity can SMS, email, or log issues when thresholds are exceeded or if status is down. This feature has been designed to ensure alarms are meaningful by adding additional configuration options. For example you can specify the threshold and the period for which it must be sustained before alarming. You can also specify a period of time or counter for which you do not wish to receive the same alarm again, or alternatively you can request not to be notified again unless it drops back to a pre-determined level.

External network and site reporting
Report on the uptime, latency, and number of hops to any external device or web site over time. The destination is configured as either an IP or HTTP address.

Grouping of devices and ports
Ports and devices can be grouped to make reporting, threshold and alarm configuration, and other services easier to implement. Potential groupings are: core routers, core switches, branch routers, WAN links, the Internet and servers. Threshold levels and the severity of alarms are likely to be consistent within each of these groups, therefore it would be more relevant to report on them together.

Autodiscovery
When first installed, at regular intervals or if initiated manually, new network attached devices will be identified. Once identified you decide if you would like to poll the device including which specific components you would like to gather information on.

Data Export
Customers can export raw information from any individual device or port, any group of devices or ports, or all devices.

Scaleable Architecture
The ipClarity architecture has been designed to scale infinitely. If a customer's infrastructure contains too many devices or if enough services are added to exceed the processing power of a single DataSink (the network appliance on the customer premises) then another DataSink is simply added.

UNIQUE BENEFITS

It's simple
Other similar packages may require you to train staff, allocate resource, operate and maintain onsite systems and software. ipClarity removes all of this complexity and overhead because it is a fully managed service.

In addition, the ipClarity solution can be installed in just hours allowing quality and service optimization to begin immediately. By reducing downtime, optimizing infrastructure spend and improving employee productivity, real-time and scheduled reporting will deliver a return on investment in just weeks.

Centralized upgrades and maintenance
Upgrades have never been easier, as new features and versions become available they are implemented by ipClarity centrally. There is literally no work required by you - even the onsite DataSinks are upgraded by us remotely.

Centralized storage and backup
All of your data resides on redundant servers that are backed up in real time. Daily data is stored by ipClarity for your immediate access for 3 years or more. Again there are no manual processes to be performed by the customer, this occurs automatically as part of our service.

BENEFITS

Simple web based front end
Whether you are in the office, at home or on the road, from any browser you can access live reports, scheduled reports, alarm and threshold configuration information and much more.

Reports are in color PDF
Reports can be viewed via the web or emailed directly to the intended recipient as standard PDF documents. This means they can be viewed and printed in color by almost any PC.

Optimize Infrastructure and Hardware spend
Data circuits, routers, switches, Internet capacity and other infrastructure related expenses represent a significant capital and/or operational expense for most businesses. ipClarity will allow your organization to optimize it's spend in all of these areas based on real data. In addition, long term analysis and trending will allow you to forecast future costs more accurately.

Improve productivity of IT staff
IT staff will no longer have to manually generate reports, and infrastructure issues will be easier to identify and resolve. Issues that could take days and weeks to track down manually or using management systems will be identified in just minutes using live or scheduled reporting. A good example of this is filter reporting. Niggling errors or delays caused by cable issues, faulty ports, configuration errors or inappropriate use of technology will be highlighted on a filter report. It will even give you the order of priority in which they should be resolved, that is, most errors per port to least errors per port in a list of ports producing the most errors network wide.

Thresholds and alarms will enable IT staff to work on other projects alerting them only when required. This level of automation, reporting and alarming will allow you to make massive productivity gains in your IT area.

Improve overall staff productivity
The types of issues mentioned above are usually only highlighted when users have reached breaking point. Until that time, or the time it's resolved, an issue could be affecting the productivity of hundreds or even thousands of staff. If you were adversely affecting 100 staff by just 20 minutes a day due to slow performance on your network it could be costing you in excess of 730 man hours per month. In our experience poor performing infrastructure or systems are likely to contribute well in excess of these figures per user.

Fix potential issues before they affect your business
Often businesses rely heavily on the automation of processes and systems, Internet connectivity, communication to suppliers and customers, and many other areas reliant on infrastructure. Downtime and lack of performance could cost a lot more than just staff productivity. It could be affecting the very processes and systems that are the life-blood of your business. ipClarity will assist you in resolving these issues in the shortest possible timeframe, before they slow down your business or cause downtime.

Report on suppliers SLAs (Service Level Agreements)
The most important aspect of an SLA with a supplier is that you must be able to measure it. ipClarity can completely automate this process for you. You simply compare the report with the SLA each month and forward it directly to your supplier if they have failed. If continuous improvement is a goal you can report on the long-term trends associated with each supplier.

You can even report on external components. For example if your ISP guarantees you will reach any of their core routers in Europe within 300 milliseconds 99.9 percent of the time you can report on each of these parameters. Your report will inform you exactly what percentage of the time they have been above or below the 300 millisecond threshold. Improve customer service response times Whether your customer is internal or external, outage and threshold notifications can go straight to your helpdesk or IT team. When an issue arises you can let your customer know it's been logged, you've allocated resource or even resolved the issue before they were aware of it.