In order to meet the increasingly strict requirements of its users, who work in many different fields, the IT department of Thales Systèmes Aéroportés chose the technology and professionalism of Sysload Software to supervise the operation of the information systems at its four IT sites.

Thales is a large European group that ranks among the world leaders in professional electronics. They operate in three sectors: Defense, Aerospace and Information Technology and Services in more than 30 countries and currently employ 65,000 people around the world.

Its subsidiary, Thales Systèmes Aéroportés (TASFR - formerly Thomson-CSF DETEXIS) is the European leader in the field of airborne radars, electronic warfare systems, missile electronics and real-time information processing. In France , TASFR’s computer systems are distributed around four sites located at Elancourt, Trappes, Pessac and Brest .

The IT department's workforce consists of 200 engineers and technicians who ensure the smooth operation of the information systems, their maintenance and the development of new applications. The computer environment consists of Windows NT, UNIX and NetWare servers. It also includes Oracle applications. All the machines are connected to a protected network of several thousand workstations.

The complex configuration of installed servers, combined with the long distances between TASFR IT sites, leads to considerable technical and operational challenges.

Faced with such a wide variety of environments, the IT department could not resolve technical failures and ensure real-time monitoring of server activity. The maintenance tools supplied with the systems did not meet the firm's requirements in terms of supervision and reporting for each system.

The IT department faced a two-fold challenge:

• Finding a solution that could ensure optimal maintenance of the company’s widespread and heterogeneous systems
• Monitoring trends in system performance and anticipating technical failures

“We needed a single supervision tool that could cover all of our heterogeneous IT systems.” says Arnaud Martel, Systems Engineer at the Elancourt site.  “The IT department therefore looked for a software suite with the ability to provide a high-tech solution at an affordable cost.”