Everything you always wanted to know about your data connections but were afraid to ask your IT department.
If you are like us, then you care deeply about what is going on with your (expensive) network connection and you want to know if you are getting the service you require.
Satmarin has been working with many Satellite Owners, Teleports, Satellite ISPs, Mobile Data Providers and as we care for the well-being of our clients and our relationship with them, it has always been very important for us to monitor the quality of service our suppliers were delivering to our clients.
Technical data has however not always been readily available for the (end)user who wants to know what is going on. While ISPs can extract all kind of information from their HUBs, the average user will not have access to this information. And very often this is kept safely behind closed doors.
That being said there is a lot of data you can actually retrieve if you set your mind to it. A lot of devices offer SNMP (Simple Network Monitoring Protocol) which will return a bunch of periodic data, and even if SNMP is not available you might be able to get some interesting information using some lines of script code and an SSH connection.
As of Q1 2019 we are happy to announce the availability for all of our monitoring platform, part of Satmarin’s Hyper Managed Services. This platform will allow you to view the status of all your connections (fleet-wide or for a single vessel) and is free to use for all Satmarin’s active clients.
Furthermore the monitoring, alerting and reporting can be tailored to your needs and include non-communication related data that you would need to monitor.
Not just numbers and gauges
Most data will be delivered in a list of numbers or codes, or encoded numbers, … but unless you have only a few numbers to verify it can quickly become overwhelming or extremely labour intensive to make the correct assessment of a situation.
A typical monitoring sensor, as seen in the image above, will display a list of graphs and gauges. These so contain all necessary information and can, for the trained eye, immediately divulge what the status of a specific device is. But that is just one device, and what if you have tens … or hundreds
Okay, you probably would not have to look at this all day long (I hope) and you will surely have some alarms set up which are triggered when something is out of normal value ranges. But what if these value ranges like e.g. satellite location depending on your position? This is likely not available with a standard monitoring application, even though all the data is there.
Our phylosophy is to make the data visual and intuitive. EIther in 2D or 3D we can show the exact same data in a much more comprehensive way. A visualisation that will require only a glance to understand what is being monitored, displayed and reported.
The example above has been re-engineered to be displayed on any device (Desktop, Tablet and even smartphone) and still give you an instantaneous understanding of the situation
“All very nice, but I can’t have a screen open for each ship .. can I”
Well, you don’t need to. The platform comes with a global map that will immediately give you information on each vessel’s status and allow you to interact with it. Depending on your requirements you can have indicators pop up as soon as a glitch occurs in any of the data, while still keeping a global overview of your whole fleet’s communication.
The capabilities are endless and if it can be measured that we can monitor it and visualize it in an efficient and cost saving way.
Taking it a step further the monitoring system can be integrated with other services liek AIS or weather information to render an even more complete situation overview.
Standard vessel and fleet monitoring are included in all communication packages offered by Satmarin Exoflux, but they can also be implemented based on your own specifications to monitor your ISP, operator, or anything actually..
If you are serious about keeping an eye on your mission critical and expensive communication links and you like the idea above, then contact us to see how our service can help you.