InterMapper Goes to College
Customer: Vicki Mendenhall, Network Management Specialist
Company: Nashville State Community College
Location: Tennessee
Business: Two-year community college serving over 7,000 students
InterMapper's Role: Monitors central campus network that connects to three satellite locations
Quote: “It was a no-brainer to get up and running.”
Vicki Mendenhall and the network team at Nashville State Community College have a big job. They service the technology used by faculty, staff, and students associated with the college. “If the college paid for the equipment, we service it,” explains Mendenhall. And, even though they aren't directly responsible for student-owned computers and software, they do provide advice on how to communicate with other college resources. In addition to keeping things up and running on the main college campus, the network group makes sure that connections to three satellite locations are functional.
Given the amount of research, writing, analysis, data management, and electronic communication that goes on at a college, a reliable network is essential and end-users demanding. A down network brings most activity to a halt. Monitoring the network for potential problems and fixing found problems quickly is a critical activity.
“Before we found InterMapper we were working on a wing and a prayer,” remembers Mendenhall. “We were using free tools but knew we had to find something more reliable. InterMapper looked simple and easy to use. We liked the quick network overview it provided so we evaluated it for a bit. It really was a no-brainer to get up and running.”
Nashville State Community College is only getting started with InterMapper but they've already gotten real help from its maps and diagnostic data. “We had a power outage. Afterwards, we could see that servers were up but not communicating well. We were able to get things back on track before calls started coming in.”
Help desk technicians also rely on InterMapper maps and reports. “When they get a phone call they can tell the user what's going on. Often they'll notice a problem with a router, for example, and get someone working on it before calls come in.”
Mendenhall and her group are working hard on expanding bandwidth to the NSCC community and, when that's done, they'll expand their use of InterMapper as well. “Our goal to be up and running 24x7 which is almost impossible to achieve. But InterMapper is going to be a big help.”