| |
When you invest in a business solution, you should ensure that
you work with technology providers and system integration
partners to help you plan, develop, and deploy your system.
Contoso is an interactive agency, technology consulting
firm, and system integrator that provides help through every
stage of the technology planning, deployment, and support
process. We specialize in combining management and technology to
provide real-life IT solutions: networks, crm, erp, ecommerce,
intranets and portals, and more. Our consultants have the
experience and expertise to align your IT vision and business
goals.
Assessment and Review Services
-
If your organization is in the early
planning stages for a major operational system, Assessment
and Review Services provide in-depth evaluation of business
requirements, plans, architectures, and designs of
operational systems and environments. This early state
service allows you to identify and mitigate risks and
realize benefits quickly.
Planning, Architecture, and Design Services
-
Do you need help building a solution from
the ground up? These services will help you create plans
for business solutions and technical architecture as well as
design infrastructure and mission-critical applications.
Based on a proven approach, this service includes assessment
and review documents that are developed in-house and extend
beyond the scope of Assessment and Review Services.
Proof-of-Concept Services
-
After you have finished the planning and
design stage of a solution, Proof-of-Concept Services will
deliver a prototype or pilot for a particular project. This
service empowers you to mitigate technical risks and
accelerate the formation of a project team prior to the
development or deployment of your IT solution.
Implementation Service
-
Your partnership should include agreement on
how much design, coding, and testing will be allocated to
each member of the partnership. No matter who you partner
with, you need assurances that the solutions partners are
experienced in designing this type of system, that their
coders are knowledgeable and experienced with this type of
business system and the tools and software needed to develop
it, and that the partners can test the code, not just on a
PC in a lab somewhere but on site or in simulation
environment that takes into account all the variables of
your system.
-
This should not be an "extra", or something
that is thrown into the discussion at the last minute;
instead it should be discussed when the project groundwork
is laid, and you should receive assurances that the partner
you are working with has top-of-the-line credentials. This
is your business, after all.
Deployment Services
-
Your partners should not just be "code
jockeys", but should also have experience with
enterprise-level systems and the supporting infrastructure.
They need to know how your systems interoperate and how to
work within any system constraints. This knowledge
contributes directly to planning for solution deployment;
your solution partner must understand how to plan for system
capacity (and its attendant scaling and availability
concerns), system and data security, network firewalls and
topology issues, and hardware and software infrastructure.
-
These factors all go beyond focusing just on
what needs to be built and go toward understanding how to
build it and how to minimize complexity or fragility. It
would not do to have the best content management system in
the world if you can handle only 100 subscribers or is
regularly unavailable because of system downtime or network
bandwidth issues. Make sure your partner has this knowledge
and familiarity with the entire network, not just the
server.
Operations Services
-
When you partner with solution providers,
they should be able to help you with operational services
for your solution that include training and guidance on how
the system is maintained on a daily basis as well as
long-term monitoring. You should discuss target goals for
system availability or uptime, baseline performance goals,
page views or transactions per minute, or other metrics that
can be built into the system or monitored by existing
services.
-
Operations planning must also include the
more mundane but equally important task of backup and
disaster recovery, ongoing system maintenance with software
upgrades or solution enhancements, and system expansion
recommendations for increasing capacity by scaling up,
scaling out, or increasing system availability through
redundancy and elimination of single-point-of failure
weaknesses. This type of system planning is done for the
long term, not the short term, and will be of continued
benefit long after the solution is up and running
Support Planning
-
Sometimes a solution partner will tell you
that once a system is installed and running, you're own your
own--the reasons cited usually include the idea that too
many things can happen, the systems are no longer under the
sole control of the provider, and so forth. However,
reputable solution providers don't send you a "thanks for
the memories" card at the end of the project; they are able
to provide you with support and planning for the life span
of the solution.
-
Support planning services start at the post
development phase and cover the system's overall health and
operational status. This includes providing guaranteed
response times on trouble calls or system alerts, problem
isolation, troubleshooting and preemptive maintenance, and
even ongoing system and software updates, service packs, and
patch installations. These services complement your
existing IT service and support staff with people
knowledgeable about the new business solution, and they
provide the added benefit of knowledge transfer from the
services staff to your own department. The most powerful
weapon you can have is the ability to bring in the experts
quickly. When a system hiccup means money lost, you don't
want to spend time on hold, waiting for the next available
front-line technician
Custom Solution Services
|
