“Anybody can create a recording without needing to know how to code.”

Neogrid provides supply chain management solutions that synchronize businesses to actual demand by always making product available to the consumer at the right place, time, and quantity. Neogrids' web applications help businesses of all sizes including manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers to get the most out of their inventory.

We spoke with Jeferson Marques, Global Operations Analyst GEO, to learn how Uptrends helps them maintain high availability for their extensive set of web application solutions. Neogrid takes advantage of Uptrends' Operator Groups to reflect their team structures, breaking down information silos, and giving every operator the tools they need to proactively oversee the daily operations of their complex system of 74 web applications.

The right solution for a global company

Neogrid’s research team evaluated several monitoring solutions before picking Uptrends. The research team evaluated the solutions based on whom had the best technology at the best price putting Uptrends into their list of the top three choices. So what was the difference maker that most influenced Neogrid’s choice? The individual attention and quality support made the difference.

“He really understood our needs, and helped us find the right package.”

“A few years ago we had an optical fiber link break that cut off communication altogether out of Brazil. The monitoring companies that didn’t have any checkpoints in Brazil were not aware of the problem. We chose Uptrends because of our relationship with our Uptrends monitoring consultant. He really understood our needs and worked with us to find the right package that will protect us in the event that something like the fiber link breaking happens again. Also, the customer support is amazing. So it is really the people."

Localized problems like the fiber link break that Jeferson mentions above may go unnoticed by monitoring solutions with small checkpoint networks. Uptrends has 233 worldwide checkpoints to help identify localized outages. Uptrends has 13 checkpoints in South and Central America alone.

When every user transaction matters

Neogrid has 74 web applications, and they want to make sure that their applications work for every user every time. Although they maintain multiple uptime monitors, relying on uptime alone is not enough. Neogrid uses more than 90 transaction monitors to make sure their services work.

“An HTTP check may tell us that a page is good, but how do we know it is working?”

“An SSO (Single Sign-On) login is used by our customers to access our applications, so we need to know precisely that it is working. An HTTP check may tell us that it is good, but how do we know it is working?” We have transaction monitors set up that log in. Once logged in, we have them do things like check on an invoice and then log off again. Transaction monitoring is the feature we use most."

Managing that many transaction monitors takes diligence, and simple application changes can have a ripple effect that affects the transaction monitors.

“We had some extensive changes to our product, and we had a lot of transaction monitors that had to change. We engaged Uptrends to make the changes. The Uptrends Transaction Recorder made this really fast and easy. It was amazing. It is a fantastic feature. Anybody can create a recording without needing to know how to code.”

Neogrid also can write, update, and manage their scripts themselves either through the application or Uptrends' API. The use of the scripting service or self-service scripting is always an option.

Managing KPIs and SLAs with Uptrends real-time reporting

With so many products supporting every aspect of the supply chain, gathering the data to support your KPIs and SLAs can be daunting, but with Uptrends' scheduled reports, Neogrid gets the job done quickly.

“We use Uptrends to generate our KPIs. We use Uptrends to generate uptime and downtime reports that are automatically sent to our coordinator. He generates an official report using the data from Uptrends and a few of our other data sources that we send to our board of directors and customers. Uptrends’ real-time reports allow us to keep a close eye on our SLAs, and if Uptrends indicates that we are getting close to not meeting our SLA, we know where we need to focus our attention.”