Superior Offshore
International
Client
Profile
Superior Offshore International, Inc. (SOI) is a leading provider
of subsea construction and commercial diving services to the
offshore oil and gas industry, serving operators internationally
and domestically in the outer continental shelf and deep waters of
the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Construction services include
installation, upgrading and decommissioning of pipelines and
production infrastructure. SOI operations include offices in
Houston, Lafayette, Dubai, Durban, Qatar and Trinidad plus a fleet
of 11 service vessels and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) for
deep water and harsh environment operations.
Executive
Summary
As part of SOI's strategy to outsource non-core areas of their
business, DYONYX was selected to provide an improved level of IT
service and reduce cost with a flexible approach to staffing as the
company continued its rapid growth and acquisition strategy. DYONYX
was able to reduce existing SOI head count by approximately 50% by
employing a shared services model for helpdesk and network
operations support, providing over $500,000 in first year savings.
Key personnel were retained for onsite support at major SOI
locations to address immediate escalation of Level II (desk top and
network) and Level III (server and applications) support, as well
as VIP end user support and training. The SOI datacenter was
migrated from Lafayette, LA to the DYONYX primary data center
facility in Houston, TX using a combination of virtualization to
leverage existing hardware and underutilized applications, and
co-location.
Remote monitoring and management of the server and network infrastructure is provided by the onsite network/telecom support staff and remotely utilizing the DYONYX Network Operations Command Center in Houston. Vessel and international support is provided by onsite DYONYX resources that were deployed to establish and document baseline support requirements and provide support to VIP end users. As part of our cost effective strategy, DYONYX established relationships with reputable and reference-able in country service providers to provide proactive management and break-fix support as required without the expense of dispatching stateside resources.
Additional savings were realized from DYONYX led negotiations to consolidate communications (voice/data/video) and work with HR and procurement to establish and socialize policies for international communications. DYONYX designed and sourced an MPLS network to incorporate improved communications between all SOI locations, and has been the lead on numerous other critical projects including satellite communications, streaming media to international locations and bandwidth compression strategies including Riverbed and Cisco WAAS.
End user
Support
DYONYX provides personal computer, laptop, PDA and Blackberry
support via the SOI 24x7 Service Desk using an Altiris ticketing
system. Primary end user applications include Microsoft Office and
Adobe Acrobat, and SQL database applications. VIP's for executive
and international production personnel are pre-identified for
immediate escalation of issues, though all users are treated as a
VIP using ITIL standards for escalation and resolution closure.
Service requests are made by phone, email or via the web. DYONYX
provided SOI end users with a concierge-like door hanger campaign
to notify them of the new process for getting end user support.
Deploying a dedicated resource to one of SOI's critical international production offices (Trinidad), provided immediate relief to the SOI project and administrative personnel working under high stress, high profile and high availability communications requirements. Service Desk calls originate all new employee "kit" requirements to procurement for tracking purposes and the network credentialing process with rights to applications as designated in the new hire process that DYONYX worked with HR to deploy. Hardware includes workstations, laptops, laser jet printers and fax machines.
Server
Management
DYONYX provides server monitoring and management services for all
SOI production servers, storage devices and backup/restoral
operations. Altiris is utilized to create queries and reports
containing all software and hardware located on the network. All
updates including security patches and service packs are managed by
the DYONYX server lead and team. Full data backup operations are
conducted every evening and tapes are rotated weekly and stored
offsite. A significant move into server virtualization on the
VMware platform was designed and delivered by DYONYX, providing
significant capital expenditure reductions and server disaster
recovery improvements.
Applications
Support
DYONYX provides support of end user applications including
Microsoft operating systems, Outlook and SQL based applications, as
well as Adobe Acrobat. SOI's four (4) main applications; Forefront,
NS5 (vessel support), Fast 100 and Highpoint are considered out of
scope and handled by internal SOI employees. However, DYONYX
project resources with expert SQL and Oracle skills have been
employed on an as needed basis to provide assessment and tuning of
the underlying databases to improve performance issues and fine
tune standard installs and associated improvements. Though not
FTE's on the contract, DYONYX provides the benefit of full
life-cycle support of all databases and associated applications
testing, troubleshooting, configuration, documentation and
administration as required, without the expense of a full time
outsource or employee.
Asset
Management
It was determined during our due diligence period that SOI wished
to retain the procurement and asset management performed by SOI
employees. Still, to further assist SOI and at no additional
charge, DYONYX resources conducted an analysis and renegotiation of
all underlying communication dollar spend, including local, long
distance, cellular and satellite communications, identifying over
$250,000 in additional savings. DYONYX worked with SOI personnel
and Governance staff to craft policy and training to end users to
embrace the new processes which has had an immediate impact.
Procurement is now well positioned to maintain controls and cost
for all communications expenditures and works together with the
DYONYX Service Desk to management the procurement of all other IT
device requests.
Security
In budget planning meetings, SOI has verbally agreed to add a .25
FTE position, starting 1Q08, to address basic IT security. This
DYONYX Shared Services Security team member will review Intrusion
Protection systems and system logs and provide CISSP level security
expertise. The DYONYX shared services model allows SOI to obtain
top-level security expertise without the full costs of hiring this
expertise directly.
Significant
Achievements/Awards
DYONYX was told by the SOI CIO that from the day we engaged
services, the complaints from the end user community (in
particular, critical international vessel operations) immediately
ceased. Within the first month of being engaged, the praise from
the end users began to make their way to senior management. And
now, because we have demonstrated that we can manage all of the
utility aspects of SOI's computing infrastructure, the CIO is free
to focus on more strategic initiatives that are critical to the
business.
To learn more, visit www.dyonyx.com
