DIS develops new tool that creates one click access to network information
Tool increases response time and efficiency in pinpointing network issues for customers
LITTLE ROCK-A secure online interface created by a Department of Information Systems (DIS) development team merged several separate databases allowing one click access by authorized agency personnel to an all-inclusive overview of a customer’s network configuration.
The team collaborated to leverage data integration and business intelligence tools to unify and present information from databases associated with incident management, network monitoring, IP address management, network configuration management, customer billing, and master data management systems. Until recently, extensive research in each of these systems was required to pinpoint a network incident. DIS employees and customers alike are already benefitting from increased efficiency.
“In order to fully appreciate the system and how well it works, all one needs to do is try to do my job without it. This means digging for information in multiple locations to determine what circuits are affected by various outages. The main issue has been how fast we can understand and react to a particular telephone company outage. This system really helps in those situations and makes it faster to respond. I continue to have more and more customers comment on how fast we respond to outages”
--Bruce Lantz, DIS Network Implementation.
Known within DIS as an IP lookup button, support personnel such as Lantz can view up to date, real time data from network monitoring and security management assets giving them the ability to identify and troubleshoot network issues more expediently. The development team is also pleased with the positive impact of the tool should an outage occur after business hours or on weekends.
“In the past, our network support staff had to first contact the on call network technician after hours. The technician would then have to go through several steps to track down the correct information,” said Nancy Ray, a member of the development team. “That data is now a single mouse click away. This allows us to more quickly report outages to our vendors resulting in decreased downtime for our customers and reducing call volume for our network staff.”
The IP lookup button completed a major objective in a multi-phase master data management project. Future phases will be developed to support procurement, fiscal, human resources, and customer relationship management for agency needs such as cost recovery, rate status, employee training and to anticipate agency needs. This tool has the potential to be replicated and implemented by other state agencies interested in more effectively managing data.
The development team consisted of personnel representing Enterprise Network Services (Michael Bonds and Richard Stocks), Security (Greg Allison and Nolan Leatherwood), and Data Warehouse (Nishav Mainali, Amy Lo, Robert McGough, and Nancy Ray) with Lane Bailey serving as project manager.
DIS is the information technology solutions provider for the state of Arkansas providing services from telephony and data networking to technical consulting to the public entities that serve our citizens. Our mission is to provide technology leadership and solutions to assist our customers in their delivery of public services.
