In the highly competitive world of professional football, every advantage counts. Professional football teams strive to gain an edge over their opponents through fastidious preparation and grueling training regimens. In this digital age, the analysis of game footage has become an indispensable aspect, offering invaluable insights and data that can mean the difference between win and loss. Recognizing the significance of every detail in this high-stakes environment, the Minnesota Vikings have chosen LogicMonitor as a trusted ally to provide a competitive edge by guaranteeing uninterrupted access to this vital video footage.
An unexpected foe
The Minnesota Vikings are a storied franchise and a respected, formidable force in the league. They’ve achieved remarkable success, earning numerous division titles, making multiple playoff appearances and reaching the Super Bowl four times. The team’s success can be attributed to its rich tradition of talented players, dedicated coaching staff, steady ownership and passionate fan base. In years past, however, they were hindered by limited server storage. As free space became scarce, video replay and application stability issues became a reality.
As Matt Freshwater, Information Technology Manager for the Minnesota Vikings, described, “Our coaching staff relies on internal systems for watching film, sharing files and accessing network resources. Footage must be readily available at all times. This footage is the lifeblood of competitive advantage, so it’s extremely important.”
But, prior to LogicMonitor, the Information Technology team was suffering from the inability to access or load files amidst an environment where every minute matters. Freshwater continued, “You don’t want people waiting. Not having access to video or having an outage lit a fire under everyone involved. We don’t want to be in a position where we were scrambling to get things back up. My IT department sits right next to the video department for this very reason, because, when there’s a problem, we have an obligation to stop everything and resolve it.”
LogicMonitor just fit the need we had – from customizable dashboards and a wonderful UI to predictive failures, text message alerts and the ability to dive into any kind of anomalies that can be seen from historic data. LogicMonitor was a great package solution.”
Matt Freshwater Information Technology Manager, Minnesota Vikings
Teaming up with LogicMonitor
The Minnesota Vikings tested out at least a dozen different monitoring systems before deciding on LogicMonitor. According to Freshwater, “Each of them were good at something. None of them were good at everything. LogicMonitor just fit the need we had – from customizable dashboards and a wonderful UI to predictive failures, text message alerts and the ability to dive into any kind of anomalies that can be seen from historic data. LogicMonitor was a great package solution.”
Now, the Minnesota Vikings can take a proactive stance. They can adjust drive space in advance as needed, and coaches can continue working with the players. As Freshwater described, “With LogicMonitor, all of our applications, our servers and our network are up and running and monitored. If we receive an alert, it’s acted upon quickly so that it doesn’t impact business or football. We’ve cut down on our troubleshooting calls, and we’ve saved a lot of time and money.”
The Minnesota Vikings staff has also appreciated the customizable dashboards from LogicMonitor. They have a dedicated display in their office. It’s up 24/7 and rotates through different dashboards, serving as a single pane of glass on the infrastructure. Anything in red can be immediately acted upon. All green means that everything’s okay.
When alerts occur, the Minnesota Vikings can conduct an in-depth analysis. As Freshwater explained, “If a server is being alerted due to a SQL server error, for instance, LogicMonitor does a really good job of providing a description of what that error is, where to look and even providing links for articles that could help us resolve it. So, getting that deep analysis into alerting has been fantastic.”
Additionally, the clean web interface allows flexible access from various devices, allowing the staff easy access from different locations. And, due to the increased efficiency and improved visibility that the staff now has into the health of the infrastructure, they can focus on other projects that have been on the back burner.
As Freshwater described, “Prior to LogicMonitor, we lacked good insights into infrastructure statistics and would tend to be reactive to users’ annoyances regarding application issues. Now that we have implemented LogicMonitor, application dashboards allow us to be much more proactive about our monitoring. Combined with custom alerting we have set it up where our users’ struggles have been reduced by 90% since we are able to proactively handle issues before they impact user performance.”
Setting sights on victory
The IT department’s role in this goal is to ensure that their coaches and business staff have the resources available to succeed day in and day out throughout the season. As Freshwater said, “There’s a lot of pressure to make sure everything is running right, but I know now that I have a platform that I can rely on. I know what LogicMonitor has done for me and my team, and we’re incredibly grateful for the position that we’re in. We’re pleased with the positive impact on our business, and we look forward to continued use in the future.”