Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council
Executive Summary
Customer Name: Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council
Industry: Local Government Authority
Location: Merthyr Tydfil, Wales
Devices Managed: Approximately 1,000
Customer Profile: Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council is a local government authority in Wales responsible for delivering public services supported by a complex network environment. Its infrastructure includes Cisco Catalyst switches, routers, servers, door access controllers, and Building Management Systems supporting day-to-day council operations.
Background
Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council supports a large and operationally diverse local government environment across Wales. The council’s infrastructure includes Cisco Catalyst switches, routers, servers, access control systems, and Building Management Systems supporting day-to-day public services.
The ICT team previously relied on an aging Castle Rock SNMPc monitoring environment that had become difficult to maintain, limited in functionality, and increasingly unable to meet modern operational and security requirements.
Seeking a more modern and cost-effective solution, the council evaluated several network monitoring and management platforms before selecting LogicVein ThirdEye for its integrated NMS and NCCM capabilities, ease of deployment, and operational visibility.
Challenge 1: Limited visibility and aging tooling
The council’s previous monitoring platform no longer provided the operational visibility required to effectively manage over 1,000 network-connected devices. Limited automation and fragmented oversight made it harder for the ICT team to quickly identify issues, maintain consistency across infrastructure, and respond efficiently during operational events.
Challenge 2: Manual operational overhead
Routine management tasks required significant manual effort, increasing operational workload and introducing unnecessary risk. The team needed the ability to automate configuration management, standardize device settings, and remotely manage infrastructure across the council environment.
Challenge 3: Configuration backup and recovery risk
The council’s previous TFTP-based backup workflows lacked reliability and operational confidence. Merthyr Tydfil required a dependable configuration backup and recovery platform capable of supporting both daily operational needs and broader disaster recovery objectives.
The Solution
Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council deployed LogicVein ThirdEye in June 2024. Deployment was completed smoothly with minimal operational disruption.
ThirdEye provided the council with a unified Network Monitoring System (NMS) and Network Configuration and Change Management (NCCM) platform, delivering centralized visibility, configuration management, compliance monitoring, and operational automation within a single interface.
The platform enabled the ICT team to automate routine operational tasks, remotely execute IOS XE configuration changes through compliance policies, improve configuration backup workflows, and strengthen operational visibility across the council network.
Results and Benefits
Following deployment, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council achieved immediate improvements in operational visibility, automation, and network management efficiency.
Key outcomes included:
- Centralized NMS and NCCM visibility from a single platform
- Automated configuration deployment across network infrastructure
- Improved remote manageability for Cisco IOS XE and other network devices
- Reliable configuration backup and recovery workflows
- Enhanced InfoSec visibility through inventory reporting and configuration comparison
- Compliance policy enforcement for standardized device settings
- Automated device discovery and smart operational workflows
- Improved task management and operational coordination through incident workflows
The council also identified opportunities to further expand automation capabilities across additional operational teams, including enhanced discovery workflows, scheduled operational tasks, and broader reporting customization.
Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council’s deployment demonstrates how local government organizations can modernize operational visibility and network management without the complexity and cost typically associated with large enterprise monitoring platforms.
