Building the IT - Business Relationship through...

IT Operations Management and Turnarounds

 It's all too common for established companies to have an "IT jungle" which seems to have grown organically into a jumbled plate of spaghetti.
  • Assessing points of pain for end users and management
  • Creating an action plan to improve systems uptime and response
  • Establishing and/or reviving communication channels with end users
  • Measuring and monitoring end user satisfaction
  • Training IT personnel to give them the tools they need to improve end user support
  • Ensuring that end users receive appropriate training to use the company's IT tools most effectively
A trusted expert can untangle and weed out the old growth, while planting the seeds for new systems that better meet the company's evolving needs. 

Virtualization

Most virtualization implementations never reach their promised potential.
  •   Documenting current systems
  •   Evaluating virtualization potential for existing and new systems
  •   Creating a complete virtualization blueprint for all applicable systems
  •   Designing networking and cabling models for virtualized systems
  • Conducting VMware Health Analyzer engagements, including interpreting the results for clients
  • Creating and implementing standards for labelling cables, ports, and servers to ensure all systems are "self-documenting"
  • Creating "build from" documentation in advance of implementation, rather than waiting for post-implementation "built-as", which is often incomplete or inaccurate
It's vital to understand the big picture when virtualizing systems, including making systems both reliable and comprehensible. 















Implementations & Migrations

Without a doubt, the ugliest part of IT is implementing, upgrading and migrating.

Such operations expose long-hidden flaws and scars in existing systems, and it's too easy to get discouraged looking at years of built-up patches and fixes made with virtual chewing gum and baling wire.

  • Evaluating need to upgrade or migrate outdated systems
  • Assisting customer in choice of appropriate destination systems
  • Planning out upgrade/migration in detail
  • Execution of upgrades and migrations in as non-disruptive a manner as possible
  • Initiating and maintaining end user communications at all times during the upgrade/migration to ensure end user comfort with the process, and to minimize business disruption and complaints

Each hour of planning and research prior to an upgrade or migration results in a direct savings of anywhere from eight to eighty hours...or more.

Systems Architecture and Restructuring

One of the great stressors of IT is realizing that an established system isn't doing what you need it to...or worse, that your long-established vendors won't support your old systems.
  • Surveying existing systems, noting challenges and impediments to business goals
  • Performing a needs assessment to determine if original goals are still applicable
  • Creating and executing a restructuring plan to meet current business goals
  • Working with internal and external resources (e.g., consultants) to get the job done
  •   Updating long-out-of-support shops to current, supportable systems
It's necessary to stop using what's not working, and start using what works.