LogicMonitor > Case Studies > Loyola University of Maryland lowers administrative overhead with unified observability

Loyola University of Maryland lowers administrative overhead with unified observability

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

LM Envision
LM Logs

Tech Stack

SaaS-based platform
Cloud Infrastructure
Virtual Networks

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Cost Savings
Productivity Improvements

Technology Category

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Connectivity Platforms

Applicable Industries

Education

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Use Cases

Process Control & Optimization
Predictive Maintenance

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
Data Science Services

About The Customer

Loyola University of Maryland is a Jesuit Catholic university located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is home to 5,500 students across the main campus and three remote campuses. The Technology Services Department is the centralized provider of technology to the entire Loyola community, supporting applications, storage, security, connectivity, and all devices. The university has undergone a radical redeployment of its network, migrating from a simple hub-and-spoke topology to a flexible collection of virtual networks operating independently of each other to serve different constituents and functions. This major network change, along with an impending rollout of VoIP and the need to support new network-first facility safety devices, has led Loyola to search for an observability platform that can minimize administrative overhead and provide visibility into their environment.

The Challenge

Loyola University of Maryland, a Jesuit Catholic university located in Baltimore, Maryland, is home to 5,500 students across the main campus and three remote campuses. The Technology Services Department is the centralized provider of technology to the entire Loyola community, supporting applications, storage, security, connectivity, and all devices. The challenges of so many devices, combined with the importance of uptime and visibility, led Loyola to search for an observability platform after a radical redeployment of the university’s network. What started as a simple hub-and-spoke topology, where all services symmetrically overlaid the network elements themselves, was migrated to a flexible collection of virtual networks operating independently of each other to serve different constituents and functions. Because of this major network change, as well as an impending rollout of VoIP and the need to support new network-first facility safety devices, Loyola soon realized the mentality and capabilities of the native monitoring tools they had been using were not going to be enough. Loyola needed to minimize administrative overhead and day-to-day demands of an observability platform, as well as persistence in business continuity and disaster recovery type situations. Visibility was key to Loyola. If some or all of their services were disrupted, they didn’t want to waste precious time trying to bring those back up without any visibility into their environment. Loyola was also looking to the future when it came to its partnership with an observability platform. They were going to need to easily access not only their data but also their account team to make any changes to their evolving and growing landscape. Overall, Loyola needed a partner that would grow with them.

The Solution

Loyola found the solution they needed with LogicMonitor’s SaaS-based platform, out-of-the-box interoperability, flexible alerting, and notification delivery. LogicMonitor’s robust integrations have allowed simple and fast discovery, monitoring, and visibility of Loyola’s infrastructure, including Juniper, Palo Alto, and Aruba devices. Within minutes, Dieter and his team can see reports, metrics, and data points within their dashboards, with ease. Loyola has also leveraged LogicMonitor’s integration with third-party notification delivery mechanisms, giving peace of mind that when issues arise, the correct person will be alerted and provided the information they need to quickly resolve the problem. Loyola has partnered with LogicMonitor’s Account and Professional Services teams throughout their relationship. As their use case changes and evolves over time, they are able to add new features and functions quickly that align with their vision.

Operational Impact

Loyola was able to lower its overall administrative overhead with SaaS-based collectors, allowing the Technology Services Department to focus on data-driven decisions to advance their goals, rather than just trying to keep the lights on.
By partnering with LogicMonitor, Loyola has been able to provide and support connectivity across their community, with key insights and visibility into their growing virtualized environment.
In 2020, the University’s Azure deployment reached a critical mass and Loyola adopted LM Cloud, gaining side-by-side observability for both on-premises and cloud infrastructure.
In early 2022, the platform they were previously using for log collection no longer matched their use-case demands and was susceptible to a nascent security concern. The team was able to solve two problems at once with the adoption of LM Logs, which was not vulnerable to that security concern and provided the needed log visibility.
Tool consolidation produced consistency for Loyola, who no longer had to deal with having multiple alert mechanisms. They are now able to effectively administer who gets notified for what alerts and when saving many hours of administrative time.

Quantitative Benefit

Adoption of LM Logs, pulled 40 switches out of production, $5000 in cumulative electrical savings
Saved as much as $2000-$3000 a year by consolidating tools. The total of other alternatives would have been as much as $10,000 a year spent to keep the platform current and in production.