Steve, you say that GSX Monitor & Analyzer addresses significant Microsoft SharePoint risks and issues - how did these arise - is SharePoint a victim of its own success?

Steve Bystran, SVP for Global Sales & Business development at GSX Solutions: It is no secret that SharePoint has taken the world by storm - by early 2008, SharePoint sold about 100 million licenses and currently, in just the UK and Ireland alone, SharePoint is found in 78% of companies that use collaboration software! Obviously, there isn't anything inherently wrong with SharePoint from the standpoint of IT directors who purchase it, but its imposition on end users is causing resistance. It has been difficult for a number of companies to transition to SharePoint's new enterprise information management approach and for enterprises that had existing collaboration methodologies, the main issue was SharePoint's proper integration to the internal processes. There's simply a disconnect on what SharePoint is and its proper utilization.

What are the specific SharePoint risks and issues?

Bystran: As with any new system, enterprises can fall into a number of traps if the transition to SharePoint is mishandled. Enterprises may overlook the critical step of formal business planning or justification before purchasing the software. Many companies struggled with integrating their latest SharePoint purchase to previous versions they already had or to other pre-existing collaboration software tools. This poor transition leads to many underutilized features of SharePoint. In fact, a collaboration survey in 2011 showed that 40% of SharePoint sites are inactive, leaving IT departments unconvinced of SharePoint's value. When these problems do come to light, there are only a handful of well-trained SharePoint administrators, making it difficult and expensive to rectify elaborate issues.

How does GSX Monitor & Analyzer mitigate these risks and issues?

Bystran: GSX Monitor & Analyzer enables IT departments to proactively manage messaging and collaboration environments. It's what we do. It provides real-time monitoring of SharePoint events by constantly conducting a battery of tests and analyzing their results from the end-user perspective. These tests include accessing Workspace sites, creating alerts on list items, and initiating workforce processes, among others. Through this method, system deficiencies can easily be detected before they affect the entire organization. Consequently, GSX Analyzer compiles all monitoring data and predicts trends in software use as well as possible issues in the future.

Are these SharePoint capabilities new to the new release of GSX Monitor & Analyzer?

Bystran: No, the aforementioned features have been the core capabilities of GSX Monitor & Analyzer for years. GSX Monitor is also upgraded to work with the latest versions of all the collaboration platforms that we work with such as Exchange 2010 and BES.

There are so many SharePoint parameters to watch ... how does GSX help focus what's key?

Bystran: First of all, enterprises are able to customize thresholds for the different servers they want to monitor. This means that alert thresholds for servers with less priority can be set higher,in other words, you can tune your sensitivity to the business need. Secondly, the GSX dashboard aggregates all the SharePoint servers in the environment, providing a consistent visual reference of the current health of all the monitored servers. With a quick glance, administrators can easily see if there are any deficient servers and react accordingly to these potential issues.

Many organizations now have SharePoint team sites all over the place - can GSX help to make order out of chaos?

Bystran: We at GSX understand that when SharePoint takes off within an organization, it really takes off! Team sites are created for a gamut of project activities, documents of all sizes are uploaded and download and next thing you know, the servers are overworked and consequently crash! GSX Analyzer allows IT departments to keep track of all server activity and predict trends within the system. This in turn empowers them to make critical decisions on when to purchase SharePoint upgrades or when to regulate company activity.

How does GSX work with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) and other infrastructure management products such as HP OpenView and IBM Tivoli?

Bystran: GSX complements SCOM and other infrastructure management products. What these tools lack in the importance of focusing on the end-user perspective is more than mitigated by the inclusion of GSX Monitor. With GSX Monitor, SharePoint administrators get what they need to understand the end-user perspective. Due to its ability to submit alerts to the centralized system data, a more complete picture is aggregated at an infrastructure level.

GSX Monitor & Analyzer brings additional licensing, training, and maintenance costs to the SharePoint environment - what are the benefits vs. the costs?

Bystran: For every dollar spent on licensing fees, companies in general have spent $6-$9 on third-party add-on tools and additional services for SharePoint. It is these add-on tools that optimize and customize SharePoint to the enterprise's needs. GSX solutions ensure that further SharePoint costs are minimized by empowering IT departments to more efficiently resolve issues.. SharePoint can be a really powerful and cost-effective tool for enterprises if used correctly.

Does GSX help address the shortage of SharePoint administrators?

Bystran: Yes it does. GSX helps enterprises get far more out of their qualified high value staff by letting them have more control on their overall SharePoint environment.

Who are the ideal users of GSX?

Bystran: Enterprises that use collaborative software such as Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint, Lotus Domino and Blackberry Enterprise Server are ideal users of GSX.

Which aspects of SharePoint does GSX monitor?

Bystran: We focus on the SharePoint server and services availability and performance. While it is critical to ensure that your server is up and running, is it delivering the service that it is supposed to and to an agreed level of quality. We focus on the services (site availability, key features such as creating a site, deleting a site, blog posting, uploading an excel file etc … We generate automated scenarios that provide availability and performance metrics on the services delivered by your share point site. Because we perform this by simulating a user, this enables us to provide hard factual data on quality of service delivery.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Bystran: Yes come see us at the SharePoint Conference to get a demo or go to http://www.gsx.com/solutions/microsoft-shops/sharepoint/

For more information about GSX Solutions, or to download a free trial version please go to http://www.gsx.com/