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THE POSSIBILITIES ARE INFINITE

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  3. SBMA taps FPI for hardware maintenance and software support services
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Industries:

  • Government

Offering Groups:

  • Technology Innovation

Solution Areas:

  • e-Business/e-Commerce

Regions:

  • Philippines

Challenges:

  • SBMA’s challenges included how to maintain all the software and hardware of SBMA, which were distributed sporadically within the sprawling 67,000-hectare facility at a limited manpower complement.

Benefits:

  • Fujitsu offered and implemented a 24 x 7 corrective and preventive maintenance support system for SBMA. Aside from the ensured two-hour response time to all escalations, the solution also included quarterly checks and troubleshooting that were carried out by skill-and-knowledge-rich Fujitsu field engineers. The solution also included performance monitoring and necessary upgrade recommendation.
  • The solution gave SBMA better cost control in maintaining its IT infrastructure. It also gave SBMA’s IT Group the essential focus and the strategic role in bringing the Subic Bay Freeport a step closer in becoming the next Information Technology Center of Asia.

Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority

SBMA taps FPI for hardware maintenance and software support services


SBMA

As the operating and implementing arm of the government in developing the 67,000 hectare area of Subic Bay Freeport (SBF), the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) is envisioning to become the next Information Technology Center in Asia. It aims to transform SBF as the country's Silicon Valley.

Hence, the Freeport's ICT infrastructure is now growing at a dynamic pace, from software development, computer hardware manufacturing to academic institutions, R&D, and e-commerce. Accordingly, it is setting the ICT foundation by developing a seamless integrated ICT culture and lifestyle among enterprises and residents within the Freeport.

Partnership with FPI

The SBMA likewise formed strategic partnerships with some of the world's leading Information Technology proponents, recognizing the importance of ICT as a competitive business tool today. In March 1, 2001, it entered into an agreement with Fujitsu Philippines, Inc. to provide SBMA hardware maintenance and software support services.

FPI covers preventive and corrective maintenance of all SBMA equipment, both hardware and software. The support set-up includes quarterly preventive maintenance, as well as troubleshooting of systems, which is properly carried out by Fujitsu field engineers. Aside from the preventive and corrective maintenance, FPI engineers also conduct performance monitoring of all the servers and plan hardware upgrade if necessary. Recommendations on system concerns are also submitted to improve over-all data center operation.

Service availability is 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Regular customer meetings are also conducted to ensure service level agreement is being achieved and any pending problem is being resolved at the soonest time acceptable by SBMA.

Since SBMA's requirements are 24 x 7-support availability and two-hour response time, FPI decided to assign field engineers on standby. At present, assignments are on one-month rotation basis. To provide a more effective and efficient support, spare parts are made available on stock.

Ca-ta P. Orellano, Information Technology Officer II at SBMA, said customer excellence was one thing she saw when FPI started its support services with SBMA. " I think the FPI engineers have more diversified skills. We don't need another third party supplier, FPI practically provides a one-stop shop service with fast response time. It was a good thing FPI established an office at Subic. The office becomes even more advantageous for us."

Data Center Resources

The SBMA Data Center is evolving into a world-class computing and IT resource center. This is initially being met through the Geographic Information System used in the 911 rescue operations, Investor Handling System, ID Badge System, Inter-office Computer Networking, Lotus Notes for e-mail application, and the SBMA web site.

The Data Center uses fiber optic cables to connect about 5,000 employees situated in eight buildings with approximate speed of 100mbps, and houses 20 powerful Sun servers operating 24 hours daily. Four buildings are connected through leased lines, while others are connected through remote dial up. The leased line system can accommodate 256 kbps, allowing Internet Connectivity for more than 300 users with unlimited access.

Within three years, Orellano claimed that SBMA planned to implement the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS), under development phase, and a series of network and server upgrades.

Challenges and Technology Plans

"IT manpower is definitely one because of the number of users that each Data Center staff will need to support," stressed Orellano. But we are trying to automate and integrate our critical applications like financial systems. With less work in supporting a lot of users, we can focus more on IT development to get more updates on ICT trends."

She hopes to implement a Disaster Recovery Plan alongside the IFMS development and network and server upgrades.

For his part, Jo Concepcion, system administrator at SBMA, added that network security tops his technology wish list.




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