Case Studies
Building An Enterprise Class Solution
Aravo Solutions of San Francisco, California is the premier provider of supplier management software. Aravo fills the gap left by today's SCM/SRM systems by enabling strategic management of Global 2000 organizations' supply initiatives.
Aravo's Supply Management™ Suite helps overcome the supply management challenge by providing visibility and control across all supply management initiatives of Global companies. This set of seven seamlessly integrated applications dramatically reduces supply costs and increases profitability by providing visibility and control over the entire range of supply management initiatives across the organization, from supply strategy and supplier activation to performance management of your suppliers.
One of Aravo's clients, for example, the U.S. Navy, suffered a considerable reduction in staff and needed to find ways to dramatically increase productivity and quality of their services. Navy personnel contracted with Aravo to use the Supply Management Suite to help them automate their supplier enablement and management process. Using Aravo's software, the Navy was able to construct an accurate picture of who and what they had, rapidly activate suppliers and supplier catalog content, and recognize significant productivity savings.
Ntirety Selected as Preferred DBA Vendor
Early in Aravo's rollout of its hosted solution, Aravo experienced a database failure which highlighted a potential business risk. A call went out for a well–qualified DBA in Oracle with the ability to quickly and effectively respond to Aravo's emergency issues. Aravo's Oracle reseller recommended Ntirety.
Operating from their home base in Newton, Massachusetts, Ntirety answered the call quickly, resolved Aravo's production database issues and implemented several performance improvements in Aravo's development environment.
With their systems up and working and a health pipeline of new customers, Aravo immediately turned their attention to ensuring the data reliability and security of its hosted solution.
We identified all the typical preventive activities required of an enterprise–class application, Rodgers commented, and that actually became our selection criteria for the DBA company we would hire.
Aravo developed a set of criteria and identified a list of companies well–qualified to provide Oracle DBA services, including Ntirety. We then asked for proposals and interviewed the prospective companies
Their exercise in comparative analysis again put Ntirety Technologies at the top of their list and Aravo contracted with Ntirety for a preventative maintenance contract
Ntirety provides us with remote monitoring, said Brian Davidson, Aravo's COO, adding that the contract includes monitoring and notification of any system failures, fixing any database issues, performing preventative maintenance to minimize any unscheduled downtime, and jointly maintaining a disaster recovery plan in the event of a catastrophic failure.
Productivity is up
Aravo has recognized a number of advantages since contracting with Ntirety. One of the most significant of these, according to Davidson is the increase in Aravo's productivity. When there are problems with Aravo's database, Davidson said, there are highly qualified resources that the company can immediately assign to the issue. Rodgers agreed, adding, "When a problem occurs, I just make sure that Ntirety knows about it. I then turn my back on it from anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour and let them deal with it. I don't have to worry about it. I know that I will get a call back saying either that the problem is fixed or here is the course of action that we can follow to resolve it."
Access to a Skill Sets
Aravo also has been impressed with Ntirety's skill set, calling it one of the "distinguishing features" of their service.
"They have a depth of skill sets that we do not have and that we would either have to contract for or secure in some other way."
Brian Davidson – Chief Operating Officer
Though Aravo's contract with Ntirety is for the remote database monitoring and preventative maintenance, they have been able to consult Ntirety from time to time for their opinions on a number of issues, such as the best way to improve their database. For example, Rogers explained, We ran out of drive space last week on one of our development boxes. We emailed Ntirety and they took a look at it right away. I was impressed with how Ntirety was quick to respond. As it turns out, we were in the process of reviewing the database and we decided that we would probably want to set Ntirety on the issue for a few hours at another point in time and have them come up with a recommendation for how we might want to reconfigure that box.
Ntirety's Preventative Measures Are Both Pro–active and Prompt
Turning over the task of database monitoring and preventative maintenance to the Ntirety Technologies Team has freed up the Aravo staff who can use their resources in more productive ways, Davidson commented:
Ntirety actually identifies everything we need to do from a preventative standpoint to minimize unscheduled downtime occurrences. What's more, though, is that their management team has been both proactive in terms of calling us to find out if we are satisfied, but also when there are issues, Ntirety is very quick to address any issues we have identified. You couldn't ask for better in that regard. We all try to perform to perfection and that is impossible. The important thing is when you are not perfect that you are quick to fix it and they sure are.
Ntirety Offers a Team, Not Just an Individual
Like a lot of Ntirety's customers, Aravo prefers the team approach that Ntirety takes with its clients. There is never just one person assigned to a particular contract. Instead, a number of Ntirety employees are familiarized with and work with each client. This guarantees that no matter what time of day or night an issue arises, there will be someone at Ntirety who is familiar with that client's DBA system. Rodgers expressed his satisfaction with this aspect of Ntirety's service: "As you know we deal with a team there. I like the fact that Ntirety rotates leads so that we end up working with a number of Ntirety personnel. For our purposes, we have a team of three people who are dedicated to our database. That means that any one of them is familiar with our installation and environment and can pick up on any issues."
Ntirety's staff is also often commended for their congeniality as well as professionalism. "They demonstrate personal concern," said Rodgers. Davidson agreed, adding: "One of the best things about working with Ntirety is their attitude on a personal level. They are very pleasant on the phone. They maintain their composure. They don't get overly excited or lose it when things are down. Everyone is really easy to work with. That is what I want in a DBA firm."
Asked if they would recommend Ntirety Technologies to other companies, both Rodgers and Davidson responded: "Absolutely"!