NetOp helps leading player in Russian financial sector protect profits and increase operating efficiency

Aton Capital, a leading player in Russia’s booming financial sector chooses NetOp Remote Control to improve centralized administration and reduce IT support costs without limiting security.

Established in 1991, Aton Capital has played a significant role in the development of Russia’s financial industry since the the Soviet era. The company was a founding member of the Moscow Stock Exchange and of the Association of Russian Stock Market Participants (PAUFOR).

Aton Capital successfully weathered the 1998 financial crisis to emerge as Russia’s leading local broker and a market-maker in Russian ADRs, blue chips and second-tier stocks. Today the company provides a full range of investment banking services, and has consolidated its reputation as a pioneer in Russia’s rapidly expanding financial sector.

The company employs around 500 people. Aton is represented in more than 30 regions of Russia through the dealing centers network and subsidiaries. Nam Holdings, which represents Aton in Europe, is a member of the London and Frankfurt stock exchanges. Aton Securities Inc. has the NASD license to operate on the US stock market.

Information technology plays an important role in maintaining Aton’s competitive advantage, and today their service support department is made up of 6 people. Typically the department receives 50-100 calls from end-users every day. Around half of these involve routine operating system and software problems.

Previously Aton used pcAnywhere as a solution for remotely solving many of these problems. “The trouble with pcAnywhere was its lack of extensive security features,” explains Grigory Vasiliev, Aton’s IT-director. “In a dynamic business environment, this is clearly unsatisfactory.”

Convinced there must be a better solution to the challenges they faced, Aton’s IT department began studying the market for other remote control solutions. High on their list of priorities were security and the capability to reduce costs through centralized administration.

Impressed by the description of NetOp Remote Control and its reputation among reference customers in the financial sector, Aton initiated a rigorous 3-month evaluation program of the application.

“Security is essential for a financial institution like Aton,” says Grigory Vasiliev. “On the one hand we need to ensure that only authorized IT personnel can connect to a user’s PC. It is also critical that specific user groups can be assigned the right to confirm or block remote control access.”

Another important advantage offered by NetOp Remote Control is the Security Server module that makes truly centralized security administration possible.

“Instead of having to set up security on each host, we can define specific rights and policies for different IT people. Being able to do this quickly and easily from one central location increases our operating efficiency.”

NetOp Remote Control passed Aton’s evaluation program with flying colours. The solution has already been installed on most of the workstations used by Aton’s employees and junior management, and ultimately it is expected that NetOp Remote Control will be implemented throughout the company and its subsidiaries.

“The NetOp Deployment Utility has ensured a trouble free installation to the workstations that all run Windows NT4, 2000 and XP computers, and we are more than satisfied with the way the NetOp Security Server allows us to centrally manage the security,” confirms Grigory Vasiliev.

“Our primary reason for implementing a remote control solution was to minimize the time spent sending highly-paid IT experts around our offices to solve routine problems,” explains Grigory Vasiliev. ”Since installing NetOp Remote Control we can detect a significant decrease in the number of visits that our IT staff have to make to troubleshoot routine PC problems. Plus we now have a tool that offers us flexibility without compromising security.”

For more information about Aton Capital, please visit www.aton.ru