Value to Users and IT

Perhaps the most important benefit of ASF is to the user – the overall service level provided to the user is improved, maximum system uptime is assured and, consequently, general workplace productivity can be expected to increase.

A wide variety of benefits is also realized by a company’s IT department. Alerting reduces overall TCO by:

Reducing support time and visits to the PC or user
Helping to protect assets
Simplifying the task of managing desktops and low-end servers
Increasing the productivity of IT support personnel
Enabling proactive cost avoidance (such as shutting down a system to avoid heat damage when a fan failure alert is received)
Allowing increased specialization in the IT department

This last benefit is especially important to understand because it can revolutionize the personnel profile in an IT department and provide consistent, long-term cost reductions. With ASF-enabled alerting in place, most troubleshooting can be performed remotely from the management console by the IT administrator, who typically has the most extensive training and experience. Specialized personnel who have less training, and are therefore less costly to staff, can be dispatched to handle on-site visits for system recovery instead of the more experienced (and costly) network/systems experts. For example, suppose that an administrator is remotely rebooting a system. Assume that as part of the process, specific ROMs must be run for video and SCSI add-in cards, in that order. The console shows that the video card has been brought up successfully, but then the system locks up in BIOS. Another reboot is tried and the same thing happens. The IT administrator watching the console can conclude from this information that the SCSI card is the problem. As a result, only the IT person specializing in this area needs to be sent on-site, taking far fewer tools than would have been needed for system troubleshooting. Not everyone on the IT staff needs to know everything. Only the top administrators require broad knowledge and training. This is a powerful and heretofore unavailable model for IT support which is directly enabled by alerting technologies.