Situation - As a leading provider of credit card services and one of UK's top banks, this financial institution commands an enviable market position within a highly aggressive industry sector. In order to remain competitive this bank aims to provide a secure environment for its credit card transactions thus increasing its customer base and improving customer loyalty and satisfaction.
A financial institution relies upon a 24x7 availability of its networking infrastructure. One of the most important departments in any banking organisation is the fraud department. If, for example, the bank or Credit Card Company cannot put a stop to the use of a stolen card, due to network degradation, fraudsters would be free to spend thousands of pounds of other peoples money, costing the bank thousands of pounds per minute in lost revenue, and potential business.
Problem - During the migration of all user based floor switch power supplies to more resilient uninterruptible power supply, our leading financial institution had to power down, unplug the power supply from the standard socket, and then plug into a UPS unit. This process had to be carried out on all of the switches. Once completed the technical support staff began to power up the floor based switches, which lead to an unrecoverable network problem.
The technical support staff noticed that no connectivity was available from any point in the network. The technical support staff performed some first level connectivity tests provided by the 3net Ltd consultant during an earlier on-site engagement. On completion of these tests it became apparent that 3net Ltd was needed on-site to rectify the unrecoverable network problem and regain connectivity as soon as possible.
Implication - As with most mission critical environments every minute wasted can potentially cost the organisation thousands of pounds in lost revenue and business. These problems are compounded by the potential financial losses related to credit card fraud. Any degradation of service or network downtime exposes the business to risk and therefore needs to be rectified as soon as possible.
Need - Our leading financial client entrusted the services of 3net Ltd to seek out and identify the cause of the power failure and regain connectivity for the network.
Business Solution
Scope - The financial institution had previously purchased 3net’s Propac annual services contract, which is a proactive IT services management offering. This service allows customers to call upon specialist networking expertise to resolve time critical problems. The bank relies on 3net’s Propac contract for support of their network in areas like implementation, network management, change management, and troubleshooting.
Solution - After following a defined escalation procedure, the bank was required to contact its nominated 3net consultant. This occurred outside normal business hours and a 3net consultant was rapidly deployed on-site within an hour.
3net consultants began by analysing the cause of the problem and possible impact on other parts of the infrastructure. They then applied their structured approach to systematically troubleshoot the problem in a timely and thorough manner in order to return the network to its original fully functional state.
A complex mixture of networking components existed within the client environment such as Cisco Catalyst 5509’s in the core, a Token Ring based network of Cisco 3900 Token Ring Catalysts, and an Ethernet network of Cisco 2924XL switches. A thorough understanding of such networking environment was required in order to quickly seek out and fix the problem areas.
Deliverables - 3net consultants were able to identify the cause of the loss in connectivity and offer an immediate solution. Once the switches were made operational, they were continually analysed to see if the symptoms of the problem still existed. When confident that similar problems would not arise again, the 3net consultant assisted the on-site technical support staff in testing all connectivity throughout the building to make sure all previously available services were operational.
3net Ltd take great pride in their proficiency to troubleshoot and fix problems in the quickest time possible, whilst still maintaining that the customers network documentation stays up to date. 3net Ltd also documented the nature of the problem in order to thoroughly analyse the problem and deliver a permanent fix.
Business Benefit
3net industry recognised expertise and approach to troubleshooting delivered the time advantage to its client saving potential financial losses to the bank due to network downtime. Our proactive services had put into place escalation procedures for the client, which enabled the client to respond to faults quickly and engage 3net to deliver a fix.
The ability to respond quickly, act intelligently, and document
problem fixes thoroughly provides an essential support service to
mission critical environments for reducing risk, improving security
and assuring continuity of business.
