AlphaMosaïk, Quebec leader in the information technology (IT) industry, is pleased to announce the recent rollout of the Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 solution at Transcontinental, where it will be responsible for the automated management of 400 servers in an IT environment with over 1 000 servers.
According to Martin Daniel, Director of Computer Services at Transcontinental, “We wanted to equip ourselves with the latest system monitoring tool in order to provide our internal clients with an optimal level of service while managing 400 servers functioning on various platforms.” He added, “One of the main deciding factors in choosing this solution was the maturity of the new SCOM 2007 R2 platform, which adequately satisfied this requirement. This solution meets the managerial need of being aware of the IT environment’s status at all times via a portal that provides performance indicators in real time as well as a technical aspect allowing our administrative teams to take action on the server cluster by means of the SCOM solution, in an automated manner.” Mr. Daniel concluded, “Since Transcontinental periodically conducts recovery tests in order to perfect its procedures in the event of a crash, the solution helps us quickly identify any potential problems, whether after switching over to the backup systems or upon reactivating the primary systems. The flexibility afforded by the Microsoft platform lets Transcontinental collect all of the information it needs to determine the success of such a test, while providing the assurance and security of knowing that all services are up and running again once these tests are completed.”
According to Alain Soussan, Senior Strategist at Microsoft, the company describes the System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 as a powerful computer monitoring solution. SCOM lets you easily monitor your computer services, evolve at the same speed as your company and environment and cover all knowledge in the Microsoft, Unix and Linux applications and operating systems needed to quickly fix functional problems. In addition to monitoring traditional servers, Operations Manager 2007 uses the System Definition Model (SDM) to monitor logical services and other network entities. This new administrative infrastructure helps Operations Manager include and monitor the global operation of the services and applications as a state machine, while providing directives on how to administer these state transitions. Thanks to this infrastructure, Operations Manager can conduct synthetic transactions and modelling with greater precision on the application services to be tested and the data to be collected, thus acting as a powerful tool in helping organizations make decisions in real time.
Christian Blier, Team Leader, System Infrastructures at Transcontinental said, “The main technical factors of importance to Transcontinental in the initial phase of this rollout were the possibility of monitoring several platforms (Microsoft, Unix, VMware, etc.), providing the management teams with dashboards, establishing and monitoring SLAs, consolidating several components in one service for monitoring (messaging, virtualization) and being able to monitor the performance of the different component via synthetic transactions.”
Martin Daniel, Computer Director, added, “In order to continue optimizing our systems, this solution’s planned upgrades will mainly involve centralized monitoring of the security logs (ACS), evaluation of the solution’s integration with System Center Opalis in order to increase the monitoring tool’s potential tenfold, ensuring the solution’s continual improvement and refinement and integrating new Management Packs to extend coverage of the monitored services.”
According to Sylvain Laliberté, Head of Infrastructure Practices at AlphaMosaïk: “In addition to being aware of the environment’s status in real time, Transcontinental can now rest assured that all services are running smoothly after the servers are updated. Before this solution was implemented, the entire cluster had to be checked manually to ensure that their systems were working properly. This task is now automatically performed by the System Center Operation Manager 2007 R2, allowing Transcontinental to significantly increase its productivity.” Sylvain Laliberté concluded: “Transcontinental’s team of technical administrators will be able to concentrate on other, value-added tasks rather than conduct the routine checks that were required after server updates.”
About Transcontinental
Transcontinental creates marketing products and services that help businesses attract, reach and build loyalty in their target publics. It is the largest printing company in Canada and Mexico and the fourth largest in North America. It is also one of the largest media companies in Canada as the leading editor of consumer magazines and French textbooks and the largest editor of local and regional newspapers in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. Its digital platform offers unique content via more than 150 Web sites. Transcontinental also offers interactive marketing products and services, using new communication platforms and drawing on marketing strategy and planning services, database analysis, premedia, electronic flyers, e-mail marketing, customized communications and mobile solutions.
Transcontinental (TSX: TCL.A, TCL.B, TCL.PR.D) has a workforce of over 10 500 in Canada, the United States and Mexico, reporting $2.1 billion CAD in revenues in 2010. For more information about the company, visit Transcontinental's Web site at www.transcontinental.com.
About Microsoft
For more information about Microsoft’s products and services, call the Sales and Information Centre: (800) 426-9400 in the United States and (877) 568-2495 in Canada. The hearing impaired can use Microsoft’s text telephone service (TTY/TDD) by dialling (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. If you are outside the United States or Canada, contact your local Microsoft branch. For more information online, visit www.microsoft.com
About AlphaMosaïk
A leader in the IT industry, founded in 1999, AlphaMosaïk’s mission is to find adapted technological solutions to unleash information’s full potential while respecting the organizations’ culture. Holder of Microsoft’s Gold certification, AlphaMosaïk offers the highest level of expertise when it comes to integrating Microsoft technologies. The company has several hundred client references in private businesses and government agencies of all sizes. www.alphamosaik.com
For more information, contact Marc-André Roy, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing at AlphaMosaïk by telephone at 514.931.3169 (ext. 144) or by e-mail at ma.roy@alphamosaik.com