Morningstar chooses BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management and ADDM to monitor their infrastructure and prevent issues. "The key for us has been the ability to see what's happening. ...because at the end of the day, it's not really about fixing issues - it's about preventing them." Read more from the interview with Andrew Watts, Director, Technology & Infrastructure for Morningstar.

1. What is Morningstar, and what is its
core business?
Morningstar is a leading provider of inde-pendent
investment research.
What were the challenges IT at Morning-star
faced a couple of years ago?
We were using a lot of ad hoc tools, includ-ing
some open source tools, that weren’t
meeting our needs. We were seeking a
partner who had a suite of tools, software,
or products that could help us solve some
of our problems, which included monitor-ing
systems that couldn’t deliver accurate
information in a timely manner. We also
had issues with our workflow and automa-tion
tools. Even just basic ticketing tools
were not functioning at the right level.
What business problems resulted from
these IT challenges?
We had times when our products became
impaired, and we had difficulty getting
them back up and running quickly. Most
of the time, our customers didn’t experi-ence
major difficulties, but we weren’t
happy. Our employees were spending too
much time putting out fires. We wanted
our team to be able to grow the business,
add new technology tools, and take on
value-adding projects rather than con-stantly
dealing with issues.
Why did you choose BMC?
[We chose BMC] because we sell most of
our software as a service, and because our
clients rely on those services for their day-to-
day operations 24/7, we needed a part-ner
who could help us monitor both our
infrastructure and our software. But we
didn’t want to be limited to just monitor-ing
products; we wanted something fully
integrative. We worked with a variety of
vendors and looked at different products.
In the end, we moved forward with BMC
because we resolved multiple issues with
their technology and we enjoyed working
with their team.
What solutions did you select?
Not long after we started working with
BMC, we had a proof of concept running,
and then we started using the monitoring
tools. We’re using the BMC ProactiveNet
Performance Management Suite. That
includes the Patrol TMART and BPPM
tools; to that, we added ADDM [Atrium
Discovery and Dependency Mapping] and
EUEM [End User Experience Manage-ment].
What results have you achieved?
The key for us has been the ability to see
what’s happening. We use the tools to run
some of the diagnostics and see what the
relationships are between the complex
pieces of the product. We’re also getting
systems back up and running quickly if
they’re impaired and diagnosing things
like capacity in advance of problems. This
proactive monitoring has had the biggest
impact, because at the end of the day, it’s
not really about fixing issues — it’s about
preventing them. ■
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Morningstar Transforms IT to
Enhance Customer Experience
VIEWPOINT CUSTOMER
Interview with:
Andrew Watts
DIRECTOR, TECHNOLOGY &
INFRASTRUCTURE
MORNINGSTAR
Virtually a household name
among investors of all stripes,
Morningstar provides indepen-dent
investment research and
data on some 456,000 invest-ment
offerings. As a data-driven
organization, Morning-star’s
real-time global market
data on more than 12 million
equities, indices, options, and
other investments is prized
for its insights and accuracy.
With a mission to create great
products that help investors
reach their financial goals,
Morningstar offers products
and services for individual in-vestors,
financial advisors, and
institutions. And at the heart
of these services is a determi-nation
to harness various IT
strategies and tactics to make
the client experience a truly
easy and wholly rewarding
one, with all the complexity
remaining behind the scenes.
[We chose BMC] because we sell most of our software
as a service, and because our clients rely on those
services for their day-to-day operations 24/7, we
needed a partner who could help us monitor both
our infrastructure and our software.