Case Study: Cisco achieves stable, high-performance global testing with Practical Computer Applications

PCA Helps Cisco Optimize Global Testing Operations — Big Gains in Efficiency, Business Capabilities and Customer Satisfaction

Cisco needed a better way to manage ongoing product testing as its custom MS Access system became slow, unstable, and difficult to maintain. As the number of test engineers and the amount of data grew, performance suffered—especially for users in India connecting over VPN—and Cisco turned to Practical Computer Applications (PCA) for help.

Practical Computer Applications (PCA) stabilized the environment by migrating the Access data structures to SQL Server, then replaced the Access front end with a Smart Client .NET application tailored to Cisco’s testing and reporting needs. The result was a more stable, high-performance global testing system that preserved Cisco’s existing investment, reduced support burden, improved usability, and cut ad hoc report requests from about 20 per week to nearly zero.

Cisco

Chuck Bodemann

Director Of Test Engineering