Nissan South Africa

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Connecting data for Altech Netstar’s new customer solution

<<< We were delighted with the service levels and since the implementation of the solution, it has worked with absolutely zero downtime.>>>

Tim Pillay, IT Infrastructure Manager, Altech Netstar

Leading vehicle tracking and recovery company, Altech Netstar, recently implemented a new solution to enhance its Netstar Fleet Management product suite. The solution, Vigil, is Altech Netstar’s mid-range fleet management system, which can be combined with the Altech Netstar stolen vehicle recovery system. It provides Fleet Management information through its GPS/GSM/GPRS platform.

Critical to the success and value of the product is its ability to provide a substantial depth of fleet management data in real-time. The solution is available with stand-alone software, or it can be operated through a web-based software system.

Altech Netstar

Vigil provides a substantial depth of data including time and speed overlaid on detailed street-level maps; vehicles tracking into no-go areas; harsh braking; harsh acceleration; excessive idling; diary and driver reminders and driver identification; and, of course Altech Netstar’s stolen vehicle recovery service – the service on which the company’s reputation was founded.

Uptime is key to the efficacy of the Vigil system as it is required to covert messages to locations to enable customers to pinpoint vehicle location in real-time. The IT solution underpinning Vigil requires substantial storage resources to retain historical data for fleet managers to review whenever required.

Fujitsu Select Partner GRSS recognized the complexity of the environment and called for input and assistance as Altech Netstar’s environment included a mix of hardware, software and services. The project provided a steep learning curve for all parties involved as there were several disparate systems that needed to be connected and communicating.

"At the core of the technology solution is a processing farm and we embarked on an upgrade that would allow us to provide near real-time reporting," says Tim Pillay. "Our old system had certain processing power constraints that prohibited this and we felt that the new architecture would give us a competitive edge."

At the heart of the solution lies Fujitsu’s x10sure high availability management solution, a vital component of Fujitsu’s Dynamic Infrastructure Strategy. x10sure monitors the server farm and automatically recovers any failed server. If a failure occurs, x10sure automatically reboots and restarts the same Windows image on a spare server. The administrator can view server status and, if necessary, manage the servers through a GUI interface. Normally x10sure runs as a lights-out appliance without on-going maintenance or operator intervention.

Altech Netstar wanted to avoid investing in additional hardware as it felt that its existing equipment (one x BX600 S3 and two x BX600 S2 blade enclosures with BX620 S4 servers installed in each chassis) was sufficient. The three Blade Chassis provides for Primary Processing, Secondary Processing and Hot Spare failover. The clustering of these chassis' results in a substantial level of complexity and, at the time of installation, was a first for Fujitsu.

Altech Netstar's intention was to install the Microsoft cluster on top of x10sure across the enclosureAs connected to a NetApp FAS3040 storage system. This gave Altech Netstar the peace of mind that it could lose an entire enclosure without suffering any loss of business. In addition, this configuration allows Altech Netstar to implement application updates in real-time.

The installation and implementation was undertaken with a vast deal of support from the product and services team in South Africa, working in close co-operation with a development and support team in Germany.

Due to the unique environment, many firmware and software updates were required in the installation and testing process. It was vital to get this solution working in conjunction with Altech Netstar's storage. GRSS and Fujitsu, contacted solution experts at Fujitsu in Germany, and between the parties, the solution was rendered workable. The system tested successfully for stress and performance with results being "outstanding" and with performance exceeding expectations.

"We were delighted with the service levels and since the implementation of the solution, it has worked with absolutely zero downtime," says Pillay. The deployment of this solution is of strategic importance to Altech Netstar and gives it a competitive advantage. It ensures reduced downtime and, with the system's high degree of reliability, an opportunity-cost related saving. An added benefit of this solution is that it has resulted in a reduction in energy-consumption, particularly in energy for controlling the climate environment, whilst giving substantially-improved performance.