Proactive, trusted IT Support offers substantial time and cost savings
The University of Surrey has a long heritage of providing a distinctive blend of knowledge and research, offering more than 50 subjects to undergraduates from around the globe. With more than 14,000 students and 2,300 staff passing through their doors, it's vital that a robust IT infrastructure is in place to support the needs of its users.
In line with IT service management best practice, the University of Surrey were looking to build a strong, trusted relationship with a third party IT service provider that was able to compliment their existing team and provide proactive monitoring of the university's Sun/Oracle Solaris estate, 24/7, 365 days a year.
Recommended service
Hilary Sherlock, Networks & Operations Team Leader, explained that their previous maintainer's service was lacking and this meant that the team were wasting an increasing number of hours managing problems.
He said; "The service was diminishing and had become quite regimented in terms of what they would and would not support. It was also taking an awfully long time to resolve issues."
When the contract went out to tender, PSU Technology Group's service was recommended by one of the company's existing customers within the education sector.
PSU were able to offer the university a managed service solution with full proactive monitoring and hardware break/fix maintenance, supported by a service level agreement which exceeded expectations. Crucially, the contract also offered a 33% cost saving on the university's previous six-figure Solaris and hardware support costs.
Efficient delivery
The university brought PSU onboard in January 2011 and within a short period of time; the Solaris Estate was being securely monitored, with configured alerts notifying the team of system hardware and software incidents before they impacted on service.
Much of the support is provided remotely, while a PSU engineer spends time on-site at the university at least once a fortnight, consulting with the IT team as required on any issues which arise.
Hilary said; "The service we receive from the whole of PSU is very good. They do an excellent job, from logging a call through the Service Desk right through to fault resolution. It all gets dealt with very efficiently."
Practical, consultative approach delivers results
As well as the day to day management and monitoring of the university's Solaris estate, PSU also assists the university with IT strategy and advice, server consolidation, system builds, hardware and software reconfiguration as well as troubleshooting and fault resolution.
Hilary explained that there have been numerous situations where PSU has spotted and resolved problems before they have had any impact on the university's systems.
"We wanted to configure one of our Sun boxes with a particular protocol which would provide resiliency, but we weren't sure if it could be applied.
"PSU carried out the work, tested it and ensured it was a success. They are very proactive and the entire team is extremely happy with the support we receive."
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