Bandwidth Monitoring Solution Helps Retailer Boost Customer Service

The Challenge

With its far-flung business and the need to supply many stores and distributors, the health of the company’s communications lines needed to be very good to protect its reputation for service excellence. Idras came to consider purchasing WhatsUp Gold after using telecommunications management software from another vendor. They were unable to monitor for performance with enough depth to foresee communications problems before they began to impact the many people doing business from within and without the company.

This made it difficult for the Idras IT staff to react until performance had already fallen and users began to complain. The staff was forced to drop what they were doing to concentrate on restoring normal network operation.

Fasternet provides the answer with WhatsUp Gold and Flow Monitor plugin

Continuing problems managing data transmission service levels and a need for central control of its lines and resources caused Idras to ask Fasternet, an Ipswitch partner, for assistance. “We were looking for optimal control and increased reliability,” says Emanuele Moreschi, Idras IT Manager. Fasternet suggested WhatsUp Gold Standard and integrated Flow Monitor software, which was ideally suited to monitor bandwidth inconsistencies. Based on the trust Moreschi had in Fasternet’s competency, Idras moved forward with a purchase.

Flow Monitor provided the key to improving Idras communication service levels. It gave IT personnel in-depth insight into how their network was performing in real time and analyzed, alerted and reported network and application traffic and bandwidth utilization.

Flow Monitor not only helped them understand the overall utilization of the LAN, WAN, specific device, or interface, but it also indicated which users, applications and protocols were consuming bandwidth. Real-time alerts informed the Idras staff of bottlenecks, network device saturation, even the presence of viruses, worms or other external attacks as they appeared.

Ipswitch software gives advance warning

The software was installed in Idras’ Castelmella facility late in 2012. It has worked as expected, delivering advance warnings of any deterioration of the company’s data transmission lines so it could be reversed before affecting customer access.

WhatsUp Gold and Flow Monitor offer better productivity and quick time to market, Moreschi explains. “Thanks to the product we have evidence of branch line deterioration before it is actually blocked. The monitoring in real-time is very effective.”

Idras S.P.A. is one of northern Italy’s most significant plumbing and bath furniture sellers, delivering product to civil, industrial and private sectors. Headquartered in Castelmella, near Milan, Idras bases its reputation on 40 years of positive customer experiences. It has six subsidiaries in Brescia and Bergamo. Now part of the Brescian group Afis, Idras reaches into 30 branches in Lombardy, Emilia Romagna and Trentino Alto Adige.