Vanguard Introduces New Services, Channel Program

Vanguard

The services, called Careguard, includes professional consulting for network evaluations, network design including network audits and transition planning, network integration and implementation and monitoring and management of the network.

The managed services offer "four nines" network availability, which translates into 53 minutes of downtime per year, for mission-critical environments and "three nines" network availability, or 8 hours and 50 minutes of downtime per year, for less critical environments.

Partners said Careguard's predictive network management capability helps Vanguard, based here, stand apart from its peers. Real-time fault monitoring identifies degradation in services with troubleshooting conducted every 20 seconds. The service finds the root cause of a problem and automates a trouble ticket to Vanguard or the partner.

"Their [Careguard service isn't about fixing things when they are already broken, but finding potential problems before they become one," said Chip Sulser, executive vice president of data and networking communications solution provider DataMart, Wellesley, Mass. "They're taking us to the next level by adding more and more preventative layers."

Careguard significantly cuts down on costs associated with field dispatches, said Laura Whitcher, director of services marketing for Vanguard.

Only 2 percent of problem-detection cases result in a field technician dispatch when customers use Vanguard's managed services vs. having to dispatch a field technician in 27 percent of the cases when customers don't use their managed services. Vanguard has customers that use their multiservice network access product and nonmanaged services such as network design.

Until September 2001, Vanguard was a network design/management company within Motorola.

"Customers began asking us to do more than network design, but also maintain the network," said Whitcher.

Vanguard now manages networks for 150 clients with 35,000 nodes worldwide. "We still have the Vanguard products, but are focusing more and more on service."

As a result, Vanguard is seeking new partnerships. The company works with 80 partners, most of which sell its products, but is seeking those more interested in selling its managed services.

Vanguard expects to unveil partnerships with two Cisco Gold partners in the near future, with these partners reselling Careguard. Over time Vanguard expects to have 20 "key" partners selling both its consulting and managed services, said Whitcher.