OB10 SELECTS PREFIX IT TO MANAGE ITS EXPANDING GLOBAL NETWORK

OB10, the global e-Invoicing company, has chosen Prefix IT’s real time asset and network management tool to safeguard its rapidly expanding IT network. The decision was prompted by OB10’s dramatic growth in 2006 which resulted in a number of new employees and an increasingly complex and demanding network management role for the IT support team.

Headquartered in London with offices in San Francisco and Kuala Lumpur, OB10’s IT support team is headed up by David Stanley and supports remote users and ensures network availability around the clock. Stanley conducted research into the market’s offerings and quickly decided that PrefixNE offered all the required functionality in three key areas he wanted to address: real time remote management, security provision and asset management.

David Stanley, Internal Systems Manager, explains, “At times we needed to add 20 or 30 new users to the network in a single hit, provision them and ensure they had all the support and services required. Being able to manage this process effectively from a single, remote console in real time was just what we were looking for and PrefixNE provided it.”

Additionally, the influx of new employees highlighted the potential dangers of unmonitored employee usage of network resources to Stanley’s team. Using PrefixNE, OB10 now has real-time visibility of which programmes users are opening or downloading and is able to block those that are not allowed, or unlicensed, as well as preventing the introduction of malicious code or viruses.

Another security concern was data theft via the USB port which had previously not been monitored. Stanley comments: “We know this is a commonplace problem and although we were unaware of any incidents we were certainly vulnerable to data theft. Now we have PrefixNE we can eliminate the problem instantly without resorting to locking down the USB ports entirely.”

Licensing and asset management is an area in which Stanley expects to see big improvements. “This had typically been very time-consuming in the past. PrefixNE’s real-time reports showing us where we are over and under-licensed will be a big time saver as well as bringing peace of mind to the team,” Stanley says.

He continues: “From the start we were very impressed by Prefix’s approach and its people and I feel confident about the levels of service and support that it offers. The software has proved easy to install and run and although we are not yet using all of PrefixNE’s functionality we are very pleased about the benefits it has already delivered.”

Graeme Pitts-Drake, managing director of Prefix IT, says: “We’re delighted to be working with OB10 on a global implementation of PrefixNE. We look forward to helping them maximise use of the software across the organisation as it grows.