Challenge
i-LEVEL is a Managed Service Provider (MSP) located in the Dutch town of Veldhoven. Around 90 nearby small and medium-size enterprises turn to i-LEVEL for deployment and management of ICT infrastructure including networking and WiFi, cloud services, IP telephony, hardware, and software.
“We don’t tend to do much advertising,” said Robert Vergeer, Engineering Team Leader, i-LEVEL. “Most of our customers come to us through word of mouth.” The company has a knack for developing close relationships with its customers and delivering excellent service.
Over the past few years, i-LEVEL has actively advanced its capabilities to continue enhancing its customer service. It has switched from an in-house ticketing system to Autotask and has deployed Datto RMM for remote endpoint monitoring. Most recently, i-LEVEL replaced its ageing hardware monitoring product with the LogicMonitor platform.
Among the challenges the MSP faced with its previous monitoring product were lack of performance monitoring information, limited ability to monitor the latest generation of server hardware, and no options for configuration management.
“We considered upgrading to a later version, but the interface wasn’t at all intuitive,” explained Robert. “It was also an open-source product that required considerable management effort on our part — a burden we were keen to get rid of.”
Solution
Following a thorough evaluation of several alternative monitoring solutions, Robert and his colleagues selected the LogicMonitor platform. “LogicMonitor provides all of the functionality we needed and more. Its user interface is better than any other solution we tested,” he explained.
i-LEVEL completed its LogicMonitor implementation within three months, supported by LogicMonitor Professional Services.
“Engaging Professional Services gave us a formalised project plan with a defined end date, and regular progress checks that helped us stick to the schedule,” said Robert. “The consultants were on hand to answer any questions and supported us to ensure we implemented the platform in the right way to meet our needs.”
LogicMonitor provides all the functionality we needed and more, and its user interface is better than any other solution we tested. With LogicMonitor it’s easy to create, test, and deploy unlimited dashboards to meet our own needs and our customers’ needs.
Robert Vergeer Engineering Team Leader, i-LEVEL
Benefits
For Robert and his colleagues, one of the most compelling benefits of LogicMonitor is the intelligence that’s built into the platform, with extensive data collection sets, pre-set activity thresholds, and automated alerts.
“We can trust LogicMonitor to have the thresholds right, so we don’t have to do that work ourselves. If a threshold is exceeded, we receive an immediate alert with a suggested solution,” said Robert. “This is all new for us and it’s where the real power of LogicMonitor lies.”
With so much more insight into hardware performance than before, i-LEVEL can support its customers even more effectively. Robert cites the example of resolving one customer’s long-standing performance issue in a remote desktop environment. LogicMonitor’s detailed metrics showed it was related to an overly long CPU queue — something that couldn’t be identified before.
LogicMonitor is part of the server management offer for every i-LEVEL customer and is currently used to monitor around 1,000 devices. “Getting customers into service management is a much faster process with LogicMonitor than it was with our previous monitoring product,” said Robert.
The platform also allows him to keep an eye on ongoing implementations and ensure any identified errors are quickly remedied. This makes the implementation experience more efficient and seamless for both i-LEVEL and the customer.
LogicMonitor’s dashboard-based graphical presentation of information is popular with both the team leaders and with the i-LEVEL service desk. Robert can also create dashboards for other colleagues, for individual customers, and for application providers who want to monitor software performance in a customer’s environment.
“Before LogicMonitor, we couldn’t create dashboards like this,” said Robert. “Now it’s easy to create, test, and deploy unlimited dashboards to meet our own needs and our customers’ needs.”
Switching to LogicMonitor has removed the management burden of their previous open source monitoring product, releasing Robert and his colleagues to focus on other tasks. The fact that LogicMonitor is provided on a SaaS basis also means that i-LEVEL no longer has to use VPN connections to customers’ servers, which simplifies deployment and reduces risk.
“LogicMonitor is a good-value investment for us. It’s easier to use and gives us much more information compared with what we had before,” concluded Robert. “What’s also impressive is that the platform is constantly being worked on, with visible changes and improvements being made to it every day.”