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Network Operations Center
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Founded in 1992, AmeriCredit is a leading independent middle-market auto finance company. With more than one million customers and over $14 billion in managed auto receivables, AmeriCredit looks to innovative technology to provide best-in-class service to all its customers across the US and Canada.
AmeriCredit began operations with just one branch in Fort Worth, Texas in the early 1990s and now operates 90 branch offices throughout North America. The company’s growth and its commitment to innovation prompted the opening of a Network Operations Center in Texas to monitor its corporate data network.
The first control room they had was equipped with eight 27” computer monitors mounted on a wall. It was only able to accommodate four people and as the company grew more personnel were added in order to cover different aspects of the business, which required more space.
AmeriCredit then hired The Whitlock Group to build an innovative new Network Operations Center to better manage their business operations. The completed NOC is a mission-critical 24/7 operation with a distinctive “wow” factor.
The hallmark of the new NOC is a two-high by six-wide cube wall composed of twelve 50” diagonal DLP cubes from Christie, controlled by two Christie Display Wall controllers. This equipment is specifically designed for 24/7 mission critical environments. Arranged in a 2 x 6 array, the screens provide an overall image size of 60” in height and 240” in width when measured all together. Having a large display wall enables AmeriCredit to monitor the status of all of its remote servers and locations via graphic depictions on screen.
A short distance from the NOC is the nerve center of the corporation where 242 of the company’s servers reside in one room. All the information on AmeriCredit’s customers are stored on these servers. One of the primary responsibilities of the command center is to monitor that data center. If a problem occurs, the IT specialists will be able to pinpoint it and react quickly to restore service.
Using a Christie virtual display wall controller, operators are able to access and display any application that can typically be accessed on the AmeriCredit data network. Any number of applications can be opened and displayed on the wall at one time with the ability to layer, resize or move images on the screen based on the needs of the operators.
Redundancy and reliability were important issues to AmeriCredit in order to ensure consistent and uninterrupted system operation. The Christie display wall controller installed in the NOC provides numerous redundancy and automatic failover features to prevent system interruptions.
To monitor world broadcast events, The Whitlock Group installed a Crestron ST-TUNE integrated AM/FM/TV tuner, which provides full control of television tuning functions. There are also JBL powered studio reference monitor speakers that were chosen for their high fidelity sound quality. For presentation purposes and to review broadcast material a JVC videocassette recorder and a Sony DVD player are installed in the NOC along with two RCA satellite receivers.
Steps from the command center is a corporate boardroom. With a large window facing the control room there is an excellent view of the technology driving AmeriCredit. The boardroom is a standalone room and is used regularly for meetings and public tours. The Whitlock Group provided all of the audiovisual components for the boardroom, as well.
There’s a large oval table in the center of the room where people can watch the activity in the control room. Or they can watch a presentation projected onto a large 60 x 80 inch Da-Lite screen that is electrically retractable into the ceiling. The Christie projector is also mounted on an electrically retractable device so that when not in use it can also be hidden from view in the ceiling.
The boardroom and control room are considered marketing showpieces. Analysts, customers and investors are regularly brought in to see the impressive command center. It’s become a very valuable tool for AmeriCredit in terms of providing a more effective environment to monitor the status of their network and demonstrating that the company is on the leading edge of providing excellent customer service through technological innovation.
“The control room has had a positive impact on our operators being able to do their jobs,” said Jess Whitfield, manager of the NOC. “Instead of being bound into the system and only being able to view a limited amount of information at a time, the large screen gives them a high level overview of what’s going on. They now have more flexibility to resize and rearrange images based on problems that they’re working on. We’ve also had a lot of tours and everyone’s been very impressed with the control room. It’s definitely a “wow” factor.”
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