AT&T Solutions, the networking services arm of AT&T Corp., last month announced enhancements to its Global Enterprise Management System (GEMS) service, which will now provide server and application management assistance.
In the past, the five-year-old GEMS program offered software and services for monitoring and proactively changing network conditions for clients, while also dealing reactively with servers and applications, said Dick Anderson, chief technology officer for AT&T Solutions, in an interview. Proactive management capabilities will now be a reality for networks, servers and applications, he said.
The result is increased control of high-volume transaction processing and business delivery applications, plus access to information that allows better management of customer interaction. Furthermore, clients can monitor mission-critical applications through a Web portal that displays network and Web performance metrics in near real time.
“We are able to design for a customer an optimized environment,” Anderson said. “Also with our monitors, we can diagnose (problems). Wherever the problem occurs, we can pinpoint it and see what business transactions were affected.”
With the enhanced GEMS program-referred to as platinum-level options-clients can consult with AT&T officials on quality-of-service expectations (QoS) and developing customized service level agreements (SLAs) based on performance requirements for individually managed applications as well as total networks.
Approximately 1,000 clients utilize GEMS and are in the United States, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Singapore, India and China. It is a roughly US$3.5 billion business for AT&T annually.
AT&T Corp., in Basking Ridge, N.J., can be found on the Web at www.att.com.
– IDG News Service
