Like many of Europes largest local government organisations, Dublin City Council has a critical requirement for high availability in its networking and security infrastructure. With so many vital activities and applications reliant on ICT - including financial systems, city councillor meetings, organisational e-mail, customer databases - DCC took the notable step of providing internal service-level agreements with its own users, guaranteeing service availability levels.

DCC was keen to find a managed network and security services partner who could not only guarantee maximum availability and rapid issue resolution, but who also fully grasped the business implications for DCC of downtime. Cost efficiency was another key deciding factor. DCC required its managed services partner to demonstrate that out-sourced delivery of network and security services would be more cost effective than in-house management by DCC, who needed their teams to be freed up to focus on strategic ICT projects.  Dublin City Council chose eircom to provide its managed network equipment and ICT security services.

"All the elements we required were there in the managed service eircom proposed," said Brian Curtis, Head of ICT for Dublin City Council."The relationship between our own team and eircom has proven very productive and we are continuing to realise the cost benefits of the managed services model."

Behind the scenes at DCCs Networking and Security Infrastructure
 
There are six key elements to the managed service provided by eircom to DCC which highlight the depth of collaboration between DCC and eircom and the high level of service and expertise available to DCC.

• Network monitoring and issue resolution: from eircoms Network Operations Center (NOC), its certified experts remotely and proactively monitor all DCC network devices around the city, including routers, switches, firewalls and VPN concentrators. Full visibility down to router level allows the rapid diagnosis and resolution of issues including software updates, performance analysis and assessment. This allows eircom to ensure that the DCC network is performing at the required levels to support its day-to-day business needs.
  
  
• Field engineers on standby: supplementing eircoms remote diagnostic and troubleshooting capabilities, eircom field engineers are on call for any on-site visits needed to repair nonperforming hardware. This extensive field service capability is the most comprehensive in the industry and offers rapid metropolitan coverage for DCC across its dispersed estate. 
  
  
• Dedicated service manager to maintain service quality: holding overall responsibility for meeting eircom's SLAs for Dublin City Council is its service manager, who analyses and reports to DCC on issues including network and device performance, incident handling, and recommendations for further improvements in eircom's service to DCC. Through regular meetings, eircom is proactive regarding advice on future issues and requirements such as upgrade of devices approaching maximum utilisation, which gives DCC greater forward visibility and control of its ICT investment.
  
  
• Comprehensive security solution tailored to DCC needs: eircoms extensive managed security service encompasses management and troubleshooting of firewalls, web content filters, and antivirus appliances, to protect DCC systems from internal and external threats.
  
  
• Proven methodologies to ensure a comprehensive handover: eircom experts used proven methodologies to ensure an effective switch to eircom of the managed services elements on the DCC network. Key steps in the eircom methodology include extensive discovery activities (both in software and in person) to allow full detection and documentation of all known and unknown elements of the customer's architecture. This allows the eircom team to quickly understand the business impact and priority of all architectural elements to correctly prioritise maintenance and repair activities.
  
  
• Leveraging the strengths of technology partnerships: as the longest established Cisco Gold partner, eircom has developed an in-depth understanding of the support processes of essential networking equipment vendors including Cisco. For all managed services customers, including DCC, eircom takes steps to ensure the fastest possible issue resolution and equipment replacement from vendors, to give maximum protection to the customer's uptime and business.

Following eircom's appointment as networking equipment and security managed services partner for DCC, the relationship between the two organisations is set to deepen further with eircom’s recent selection as preferred bidder for the delivery of DCCs wide-area network (WAN). This is evidence of the strong and productive partnership forged between the two organisations through a successful collaboration between the in-house DCC team and the eircom managed service division.

"An ICT estate like ours, which has grown over a number of years, has a scope and a complexity that make the task of providing a network equipment and security managed service challenging," said Brian Curtis. "We were extremely pleased with how smoothly and efficiently eircom assumed management of these services for us, and the service we receive on an ongoing basis has been excellent. We're looking forward to continuing the relationship."

Darren O'Sullivan, eircom Sector Director for Local Government, noted the importance of ongoing communication to the success of the partnership. "DCC has an extremely strong ICT team, and we keep in constant touch in regards to their needs. They see in our people the calibre of expertise they would expect from anyone on their own team, and they can draw on our resources as and when they need them. That's the kind of flexibility that the managed services relationship is all about."