Expert Series: Large MSP Was First to Upgrade to DX UIM 20.4

This post is the first in a series featuring customers, partners, and Broadcom experienced DX Unified Infrastructure Management (DX UIM) users. We’ve asked these expert users to share their knowledge with the broader DX UIM community.

Today, our customer is a managed service provider (MSP) with a large footprint servicing large enterprise customers. Two infrastructure management experts with this MSP met with us to discuss the challenges of their jobs, how they use DX UIM, and share lessons learned.

What are the challenges you face in your job and as an organization?

During the height of COVID-19, one of our end customers was offering employment services. It was a once-in-a-lifetime load increase by 400% to 120,000 visits a day. With server monitoring from DX UIM, we were able to monitor and gain insight into where we needed to add capacity and most importantly, maintain a good customer experience.

Which DX UIM capabilities are your favorites? Which capabilities provide you with the biggest benefits?

It’s automatic probe deployment and bulk configuration in MCS (Monitoring Configuration Service). Once the server is registered, you can deploy whatever probe you want without intervention. You are in control and can configure what you want. It is drag-and-drop and easy to add and delete. You can do it all in the DX UIM user interface and don’t have to access the target machines. We have 4000 servers to manage and there is no way that can be done individually. We can group servers and set up the configuration for alarm thresholds, etc. by bulk.

How did the upgrade to DX UIM 20.4 go?

We were the first customer to upgrade to 20.4 after the beta. We had a few growing pains moving to 20.3 but the 20.4 upgrade was much smoother.

What benefits does DX UIM 20.4 provide to you and your end customers?

We like the custom dashboards for executives and role-based dashboards. It allows us to group all help desk servers together for developers and the application group so they can find issues fast. We are very happy PRD (Performance Report Designer) came back. It makes it a lot faster to develop reports and send user historical data.

How do you provide product feedback to the DX UIM product team?

Through the Broadcom Software customer design partnership, we have provided input on Alarm Console improvements, Office 365 probe improvements, and improvements on Azure monitoring.

What tips would you like to share with customers considering the upgrade to DX UIM 20.4?

Don’t stay on the old versions. Upgrade and always apply the latest hotfix. You will get a faster response from support when there is an issue.

Are there other best practices you would like to share with other DX UIM users?

Yes! If you have a problem, don’t open a ticket until you’ve checked the hotfix page and KB archive. Use the DX UIM community; I always read all the comments on posts.

If you are just getting started, begin with the basic probe. Understand what you are collecting. Don’t go crazy collecting everything. Identify the QoS (quality of service) metrics that you really want by getting requirements from your customers first.