Meridian Group is an international IT solutions and leasing provider. Meridian IT provides complete and effective technology solutions to both large and small businesses, representing a wide variety of industries. Meridian’s innovative technology ensures the availability of business information so customers can increase productivity, reduce costs and satisfy service level and compliance requirements.
While expanding its data center to offer managed services for IBM i, Meridian IT needed an automated systems management software solution to efficiently deliver services to customers, manage multiple platforms, provide 24/7 monitoring without the need for staff on-site, and automate hardware and software management.
Monitoring and Reporting
After reviewing several systems monitoring and management solutions, Meridian IT chose to purchase Halcyon’s Systems Operations Suite (Level 2) to use within its data center. Systems Operations Suite provides comprehensive real-time automation of systems assurance, security auditing and alerting for the IBM i. Additionally, Meridian IT has also begun to resell Halcyon’s entire suite of software solutions to many of its customers.
“Based on the feedback from our technical team, we chose the Halcyon solution because it offered the key features and functionality we needed to assist our customers. In addition, their pricing model was right on target with our budget,” said Tom Horan, VP, Strategic Markets, Meridian IT Inc.
Joe Jones, Director of Services at Meridian IT Inc. added, “Halcyon is a good company to work with. They worked closely with us to make sure that the technology works correctly and they have been very responsive to our needs. Choosing the Halcyon product was an easy decision for us. We knew that it would provide us with the flexibility we needed to roll out new technologies and service our customers.”
Meridian IT was interested in Halcyon’s Enterprise Console graphical user interface (GUI), which provides a centralized dashboard view of the entire infrastructure to identify different servers and alerts. This feature enables Meridian IT to efficiently manage their high-level management reporting.
Additionally, Meridian IT was interested in the comprehensive SLA reporting and the Performance Analyzer tool to show system availability. “The Halcyon technology is much more mature than other competitive solutions. And I especially like that from an operations standpoint IT and senior management are able to use many aspects of the product,” noted Tom Aguado, IBM i consultant, Meridian IT Inc.
Easy Deployment and Accuracy
Using the spring-loaded monitoring templates included with the software, Meridian IT’s system management software solution was deployed very quickly; it was up and running in just a few days.
The software immediately identified system problems and provided a single environment to fix them, making the management of multiple system environments a simple task for administrators. In addition, the Windows-style Enterprise Console made the tasks even easier, even for non-IBM i staff, to quickly learn and navigate the new solution.
Meridian IT is now able to deliver monitoring and automation directly to new clients quickly and effectively. “Halcyon’s technology is great,” said Aguado. “We no longer worry about catastrophic problems. The Halcyon system addresses issues that might have gone unforeseen. Moreover, the system catches much more than a technician would.”