FRAZER, Pa. -- Brookhaven National Laboratory, the multi-program national research laboratory for the United States Department of Energy (DOE), has signed an agreement with DecisionOne under which the company will be the single-source provider of information technology support services. DecisionOne, the largest independent provider of multivendor computer support services in North America, will provide a variety of services including administration support, help desk services, and desk side services (field services and software support) for Brookhaven's clients and users. As a multi-disciplinary research laboratory, Brookhaven generates massive amounts of data that require extensive, secure computer and networking capabilities to analyze, process and transmit the data to more than 400 staff scientists, over 4,000 visiting scientists, and thousands of collaborators around the world. "Networking and computing capabilities are absolutely critical to Brookhaven's science mission," explains Donald Fleming, Brookhaven's chief information officer and director of its information technology division. "Further, the collaborative nature of the science area creates equally critical challenges in the security area. "The openness of the collaborative process sometimes conflicts with the restrictive nature of security. Quite simply, our objective is to let the good guys in and keep the bad guys out. With that in mind, one of our initial key goals was to improve the systems administration function and develop a more formal process, and that's when we first turned to DecisionOne." Fleming notes that Brookhaven first began working with DecisionOne earlier this year when the company provided a team of system administrators to augment his division's experts in dealing with a host of remediation issues in preparation for a cyber security audit. "The original plan was to use DecisionOne as a one-time resource to fix the problems and then revert to using our internal staff," adds Fleming. "However, we discovered that we didn't have sufficient internal resources to sustain remediation, so we shifted from a single project plan to a long-term strategy. "Based on the initial excellent performance of DecisionOne, we decided to expand our relationship and to consolidate our outsourced business with the company to provide a stronger, permanent resource. What began as an ad hoc approach to administration evolved into a formal function of the Laboratory, thanks to the high quality, reliable support we are receiving from DecisionOne," said Fleming. A team of 24 DecisionOne help desk and system administrators are already in place, augmenting Fleming's 90-person division staff. "We are delighted to be working with Brookhaven Laboratories in this exciting challenge and to provide them with the full-service solution they require," says Christopher Larsen, executive vice president of sales and marketing for DecisionOne. "We are also honored to be part of a team whose performance is so critical to the important research and collaboration conducted at Brookhaven."