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About the Company

Success Story

Looking for an Integral View

Pitt Ohio Express’ main objective when they decided to implement Tango/04 solutions was to consolidate their disparate monitoring solutions into a single view and then be able to monitor critical processes and applications.

Dave Wunderley, Systems Specialist of Pitt Ohio Express, said: “Before Tango/04 we didn’t have a map for internal monitoring, how stuff was performing, what was up, we didn’t have a top-to-bottom view of the business services all the way down to our infrastructure. We had a couple of things here and there, some internal processes we did to check stuff, but we didn’t have an integral infrastructure monitoring tool, a unified vision, so we were really looking for some way to monitor everything, particularly the bottom levels. Then the idea was to find a way to roll that up to a service level, which would just give us great benefits.”

The first step was to replace the disparate solutions being used by various teams and to consolidate the monitoring activities into a single solution that would offer everyone at Pitt Ohio Express the possibility to understand the relationship between the technical elements and the applications. In other words, they would be able to understand how a technical incident affects business results. Therefore, Tango/04 immediately replaced the various different tools that were being used, including: Solarwinds, which could only provide alerts regarding a limited number of problems, such as routers being down; AceLive, which was used to examine Network details; and Edgesight, which also only provided very limited information.

“The problem was that internally, we didn’t have a good process where everything was mapped up. So, other than the people who had been working at Pitt Ohio Express for a while, who knew how the systems worked, nobody was able to really understand everything, since we didn’t have that on paper, we didn’t have any documentation, we didn’t have any database tracks… I think that was

Pitt Ohio Express is a service organization dedicated to consistently providing high-value transportation solutions to their customers. The company continues to grow every year and in 2009 their revenue was 231.5 million dollars. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Pitt Ohio Express began operations in 1979 and currently has more than 2,800 employees.

The ProblemPitt Ohio Express needed to consolidate their disparate monitoring solutions into a single view and therefore be able to monitor critical processes and applications.

The SolutionTango/04’s VISUAL Message Center

Pitt Ohio Express reduces the gap between IT and Business thanks to a ‘big eye opener’:

Tango/04 solutions

Industry Sector: SCM Solution Area: Technology

Pitt Ohio Express monitors their Windows Health with clear and easily understandable dashboards.

probably the biggest challenge, getting a view that actually made sense from top to bottom,” said Wunderley, and explained: “through this project we’ve already worked out (creating a high-level/low-level view system), how they lay out, and how they affect each other. So even in this early stage it definitely helps me to understand things. Seeing it mapped out in the SmartConsole and working through it, and creating a process of how we did it, tied everything together working with the other groups. This is going to roll up to other team members, and other groups, and business. So, once we get all the stuff here and see it from a top to low level, it’s going to help in many areas.”

Benefits

One of Pitt Ohio Express’ main objectives was to be able to have clear visibility of everything that was going on in the company. They have only implemented the first phase of the project (Technology), but have already successfully achieved their first goal: they now have a very clear picture of their whole infrastructure.

Regarding this, Wunderley said: “The biggest benefit for us is not just having a monitoring solution and being able to see what’s causing problems in real time. Before Tango/04 we didn’t have any order, any documentation, or any idea of what functionality we needed to do at a service level… this project kind of forced us to do that, and it was a great benefit for the company.” Then he added: “The fact is that we are forcing ourselves to actually look at the systems, how they interact with each other, how they tie together, what affects what, and it gives us a view, not just to us in Infrastructure, but to our Business Group, our Operations Group, all the way to our executives. So anyone can look at it without having to know IT, and they can get a good idea of what is the problem, if something is down, what isn’t working, what is the cause.”

It was a good way to reduce the gap between the areas.

All Pitt Ohio Express’ remote locations have connectivity back to corporate. A dashboard allows them to see at a glance if any of the

terminal locations are experiencing problems. With only a mouse click anyone can drill down to the specific location to pin point the problem.

Currently, everyone at Pitt Ohio Express can look in one place to see what is happening with their Infrastructure, and they will all get the same information. Wunderley didn’t hide his enthusiasm with the project: “I think in a year or two, it will really be a big eye opener for the company.”

He also explained the importance of the solution in terms of alignment of the different departments of the company: “Sometimes IT and Business don’t see eye to eye, the same with IT and Operations, or any other business group. But this project is a good way to reduce the gap that there is between the areas and it will help us put it all together.”

Some other benefits mentioned by Wunderley included the possibility to react quickly and act proactively in case of incidents: “Now I can see in my Blackberry if there are any problems right away, I don’t have to walk in the next day and find out just then. Since we are still working on a low level, not everyone can see this kind of benefits yet, but I’m sure that once we finish the project and anyone can view it, it’s going to be perfect. Speaking on a low level, the tool is really helpful already.”

Currently, the solution is used by the Infrastructure team and one of Pitt Ohio Express’ Business Unit, the Business Servers Group. Wunderley explained: “Basically they are between our group the Infrastructure team, and Business. They are an Applications team, so they are the ones in charge of managing the applications. We haven’t expanded the solution to another level yet, that’s going to be in another phase.”

Next phases of the project

“Speaking for our Management, we are definitely looking forward to seeing the high level view, and right now we are actually working on other things, like an uptime for the internal Web location. We are basically working on a view for Operations Management, so if there’s a problem with the network, or something goes down they don’t have to wonder what’s going on or find out later on; instead, they’ll have a nice view where they can just see, they can pull up and look at all the terminals from one page and say all these terminals are up, they’re running, there’s no issues. So I’d say Tango/04 solutions help with the visibility, over all through the business, not just applications. That’s kind of our angle, that’s what we are trying to get,” said Wunderley.

Pitt Ohio Express is starting to monitor processes now and will be moving into applications monitoring after that. This project involves gaining the possibility to prove their application availability and know how to make real improvements to it; it is also the phase that will get them the greatest visibility.

“I expect the more we roll this out, the more alerts we use all the way up to the applications and the service levels, it’s only going to get better. In a while we’ll start seeing trending information, so if we see a problem with applications, we’ll be able to go back and see that maybe they are not performing how we’d like, or if there’s an issue

It will really be a big eye opener for the company.

Tango/04 solutions help with the visibility, over all through the business, not just applications.

Step by Step: A Sure Path Lead by the Customer himself

Pitt Ohio Express decided to make Tango/04 solutions part of their overall IT strategy for monitoring their complete technology platforms. In order to make this goal possible, they decided to take a phased approach to their implementation, so they started at the infrastructure level, following this with processes and applications.

Wunderley explained: “The initial project was to bring Tango/04 to the scenario, and start working from a low level to a high level. We started with low level of infrastructure, then applications, and services. Afterwards we wrapped up the first group of applications we selected, made sure everything was working, made sure there was all to be expected, and now we have to wait for the management and the other groups to view it. It is very important for us to get a solid foundation in place, start using it, and make sure it’s working as we expect.”

Pitt Ohio Express wanted to take ownership of the solution in their environment so that they could continue changing it, updating it, and making it evolve in order to always be able to take into account changes in their systems. With that purpose, they took special interest in learning how to use Tango/04 solutions: “After having an engineer on site for about a week installing the solution, we learnt how to use it and then decided to make it evolve by ourselves,” said Wunderley reinforcing the concept of the ease of use and agility of the product, and in order to explain the successful knowledge transfer that took place, he exemplified: “right now what we are doing is organizing and building up the processes so that we can add any application or system we want at any time. It doesn’t matter who’s on the team, or what the application is.”

Contact: www.tango04.com | info@tango04.net

Tango/04 Computing Group is one of the leading developers for monitoring software of Technology, Security/Compliance, and Business Service Management (BSM). The group operates around the world through its vast network of Business Partners and has more than 2,000 customers including companies such as: 3M, Alcampo, Arcelor, Banco Itaú, Bayer, BBVA, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bridgestone, Citigroup, Capgemini, CC&G (London Stock Exchange Group), Coca-Cola, Danone, DIA, Dolce & Gabbana, Dole Fresh Fruit, EDS, Euronet Worldwide, First Data, Fortis, GE Money, Gucci, Helvetia, Inditex, ING Nationale-Nederlanden, Liberty, L’Oréal, Luxottica, MAPFRE, Manpower, Miele, Nestlé, Nike, Nissan, Pierre Fabre Ibérica, Prada, Random House Mondadori, SEUR Geopost, Shell, Telmex, TNT, Tribunal Regional Do Trabalho, Yves Rocher, and Zurich, among many others.

that we can improve upon, or replace it, or whatever… we had never seen anything like that!,” said Wunderley excited.

Finally, he concluded: “It takes a while to learn how to use the solution, but if you try not to be overwhelmed, you learn, and I think it’s a great product, it’s very helpful. Maybe it’s different for other business, who have all the information already mapped up. For them it’s just running a monitoring solution and they’re done. We had all these processes that we had to create, everyone thinks differently, it was a pretty big challenge, but right now I think everything is going great. I would definitely recommend the solution. Besides, Tango/04’s team really worked with us, they were very helpful.”

Tango/04 Computing Group is one of the leading developers of corporate monitoring and control software for Technology, Security and Business (BSM). Tango/04 helps companies maintain the operating health of business processes, improve service levels, comply with security audits, increase productivity, and reduce operating costs aligning their IT departments with their business objectives.

Tango/04 North America, was founded in 2007 in Peterborough, New Hampshire after many years of success selling through a Partner Network. Tango/04 North American office has closed numerous deals with important companies such us: Nike, 3M, Dole, Henry Schein, Barnes&Noble, Luxottica, Citigroup, Cigna, Enterprise Bancorp, Rogers Media, and many more.