MotoNovo Finance: Replaces Cron and Windows Scheduling Solution with Stonebranch

Background

MotoNovo Finance, a division of South African First Rand Bank, is a rapidly expanding finance firm headquartered in Cardiff, Wales.

Founded in the mid-1970s, MotoNovo has enjoyed substantial growth in sales and reputation as both a business and employer in recent years.

Because of its simple financing options, MotoNovo helps thousands of new customers each week buy their next car.

Challenges

To support its tremendous growth, MotoNovo’s IT team operates around 100 virtual Windows and Linux servers and various Oracle databases. Over time, delivering on business requirements and handling the existing Cron and Windows scheduling solution became increasingly difficult.

Therefore, the MotoNovo management team sought a solution that supported a fully centralized view of all relevant processes (e.g., time based, event based, etc.) and automated the control and management of all automation processes that need to be executed.

“For our purpose Stonebranch was the perfect match, both in delivering a scalable solution with a very attractive pricing policy, and in fulfillment of our specific requirements. As a growing business we need to have a centralized view of all of our processes. It is very important that all relevant IT staff has the ability to access and view every execution from anywhere at any time.”

ETIENNE ROOS
Infrastructure Architect, MotoNovo Finance

Solution

In addition to Universal Automation Center (UAC) from Stonebranch, MotoNovo evaluated BMC’s job scheduling solution, Control-M. Ultimately, MotoNovo selected Stonebranch for its ease of use and exceptional pricing policy.

“For our purpose, Stonebranch was the perfect match, both in delivering a scalable solution with a very attractive pricing policy, and in fulfillment of our specific requirements,” says Etienne Roos, Infrastructure Architect with MotoNovo Finance.

“As a growing business, we need to have a centralized view of all of our processes. It is very important that all relevant IT staff have the ability to access and view every execution from anywhere at any time,” says Mr. Roos.

With UAC, MotoNovo’s IT operations team has gained “single pane of glass” visibility into all IT workflows and tasks. Additionally, the migration of all existing Cron and Windows tasks was seamless thanks to the Xpress Conversion Tool. The Xpress Conversion Tool supports a fully self-service conversion (XML format) of existing Windows and Cron definitions to UAC—simply, independently and automatically.

“We made the right decision by selecting Stonebranch and we are expecting great value in the near future. Stonebranch Solutions enable a single view over the enterprise and agents can be added to new servers at a very competitive rate. A huge advantage for us as a rapidly growing company.”

ETIENNE ROOS
Infrastructure Architect, MotoNovo Finance

Results

MotoNovo now uses Stonebranch Universal Controller and Universal Agent as part of UAC to automate, integrate and manage all workflows and processes.

“Right from the start our impression was very positive. Stonebranch’s UAC and especially the Xpress Conversion Tool helped a lot while converting our very complex Cron jobs and creating clear workflows in Universal Controller,” says Mr. Roos.

“The migration was very easy and the software itself is very intuitive. The solution interacts with Windows, Linux and Solaris servers, as well as Oracle Databases. Even the online documentation is very clear. We made the right decision by selecting Stonebranch and we are expecting great value in the near future”, Mr. Roos added. “Stonebranch solutions enable a single view over the enterprise and agents can be added to new servers at a very competitive rate, which is a huge advantage for us as a rapidly growing company.”