The Occam Group-Independent Analysis and Management of IT Resources

Company Overview

Service Offerings

Assess, design, implement and operate:

• Enterprise Monitoring• Application Readiness• Application Architectural

Design & Validation• Application Forensics• Dashboard/Scorecard• ITSM / ITIL Solutions• High Availability Solutions• SOX Readiness

The Occam Group’s Industry Position

Large ConsultingGroup

Large ConsultingGroup

MicromuseMicromuse

What methodology and tools will lead to the greatest level

of client satisfaction?

What methodology and tools will lead to the greatest level

of client satisfaction?

The Occam GroupThe Occam Group

ResellerReseller

HPHP IBMIBM CACA

BMCBMC NetscoutNetscout

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ToolsTools

The Occam Group Model vs. Large Consulting Model

• Aligned with large scale projects.

• Strong project leads, commonly teamed with a body-shop delivery staff.

• Seek long-term client relationships based upon large scale, long-term projects.

• Generally high billing rates for skills delivered.

• Aligned with short-term project based success.

• Strong project leads with highly experienced delivery engineers.

• Seek long term client relationships based upon repeatable, short-term projects.

• Billing rates are targeted at delivering equivalent skills for up to $100 per hour less achieving much better value

Large Consulting Model The Occam Group Model

The Occam Group Model vs. Reseller Model

• Aligned with product sales.

• Strongly discouraged from presenting multi-vendor solutions thru vendor pressures.

• Product oriented deployments that minimize customization and maximize products.

• Profits from product sales and services. Creates loyalty to vendors often at the expense of the client.

• Aligned with client solutions.

• Develop best-of-breed solutions with multi-vendor technologies.

• Client oriented deployments to minimize products and maintenance.

• Profit from services only. Creates strong loyalty to customer. Long term successful solutions create repeat business.

Reseller Model The Occam Group Model

Level of Client ValueSolution quality and solution cost

Large Consulting

Reseller

The Occam Group

Low Average Exceptional

Satisfaction Driven By Methodology

To deliver IT solutions that maximize client satisfaction

Methodology - Planning

•The Occam Group remains focused on the business drivers throughout the analysis, design and implementation process.

•Take time to understand concerns, existing skills, existing products, and available budget to produce the best recommendation for true value & success.

•Project oriented focus - defining with a high level of detail the resource and task requirements needed for accurate expectations of time and budget.

•Perform the vital planning tasks in conjunction with product selection. We do not select products oblivious to the environment they will need to operate in.

Methodology – Our Process

•We bring an existing refined method to the planning that includes:

•Define requirements through an interview process

•Business (SLA/SLO) definitions that are measurable

•Identifying key technical product specifications

•Select products to best meet the requirements

•Develop an architectural component solution

•Develop a fully loaded project plan

•Implement in phases building organizational support and minimizing risk.

Methodology – Staff

•Implement with experienced IT professionals

•Average of 15 years experience.

•Our staff undergo rigorous interview/testing process to ensure technical ability and communications skills.

•Our primary focus is on the actual IT technologies not a specific software. We understand the complete IT resources to be analyzed & managed.

How well will you deploy a management tool if you do not understand how best to use it?

Methodology – Product Use

•Strategically select products to meet client requirements based on function, vendor stability & support, ease of adoption, etc.

•Extensive use of “open standards” technologies.

•We thoroughly evaluate each technology in-house to prove its capabilities before we recommend it to a client.

•Select multi-vendor technologies for best-of-breed solution.

•Limit number of different vendor products to reduce complexity and increase adoption and success.

•Bring existing work effort to dramatically increase the effectiveness of a tool at greatly reduced implementation time ($).

Methodology – Tool Creation

The Occam Group specializes in the creation of tools in situations where no tool or integration exists.

Examples of tools we have created include:

•Custom X.25 Packet Node Monitor to track status and configuration 7x24 for 10,000 nodes.

•Writing directly at the OVO product API level to construct a solution resolving overlap of private IP address spaces within the environment.

•Creation of an SNMP agent for a proprietary device where no standard monitoring method existed. Enabling access from many standard products.

The Occam Group Promise

To clearly say what we will do and …

Relentlessly deliver what we say we can do for our clients .

Service CapabilitiesIndependent of Supply

Clients

• AAA of Michigan• BondDesk• Beaumont Hospitals• Buckeye Telephone• Chase Manhattan

Mortgage Corporation

• Cardinal Health• CheckFree• Cisco• Comerica• Corporate Express• Donnelly Automotive• DTE Energy• EDS• General Electric• General Motors• Great Lakes Gas

Transmission Co.• Henry Ford Health

Systems• Hewlett-Packard

Consulting• Holcim

• Inteq• IBM-Micromuse• Johnson Controls• Kellogg/Keebler• La-Z-Boy• Lexis Nexis• Life Line• MCI• Meijer• Ohio Department of Human Services• Ohio Department of Administrative

Services• OnStar• SBC• SmartPipes• Spectrum Health• State of Michigan• Sterling Commerce• The Limited Brands, Inc.• Trinity Health• UUNet• Washington State Dept. of Labor• WorldCom

The Occam Group

The Occam Group Methodology Details

The Occam Group Methodology Details

Enterprise Management Industry Perspective

Industry wide tool capability increasesIndustry wide tool capability increases

Co

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SecuritySecurity

Simple Simple components components are combined are combined

to create to create complex complex

enterprise enterprise servicesservices

Simple Simple components components are combined are combined

to create to create complex complex

enterprise enterprise servicesservices

WAN ElementsWAN Elements

Host HardwareHost Hardware

Vendor ServicesVendor Services

IT ServicesIT Services

ApplicationApplication

LAN ElementsLAN Elements

ConfigurationConfiguration AssetAsset PerformancePerformance FaultFault

Traditional management areas (FCAPS)Traditional management areas (FCAPS)

EnterpriseEnterprisemanagement management industry tool industry tool

maturitymaturityIncreasesIncreases

EnterpriseEnterprisemanagement management industry tool industry tool

maturitymaturityIncreasesIncreases

RareRare(lacking tools for complex components)(lacking tools for complex components)

RareRare(lacking tools for complex components)(lacking tools for complex components)

ModerateModerate(Emerging tools,(Emerging tools,

No common methods)No common methods)

ModerateModerate(Emerging tools,(Emerging tools,

No common methods)No common methods)

ModerateModerate(Emerging tools / low integration)(Emerging tools / low integration)

ModerateModerate(Emerging tools / low integration)(Emerging tools / low integration)

CommonCommon(Many tools,(Many tools,

Moderate to low integration)Moderate to low integration)

CommonCommon(Many tools,(Many tools,

Moderate to low integration)Moderate to low integration)

Va

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incr

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ses

Va

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incr

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Enterprise ComsoleHelpDesk

Enterprise Reporting

Collection Station Collection Station Collection Station

Layer Four: Element Management

Principals: Minimize or eliminate element managers. Support either an agent or standard SNMP trap. Must provide well defined internal monitoring

capability to ensure continuous operation.

Layer Three: Management Collection

Principals: Standardized format of management information. Collectors are deployed based on geography,

function or capacity.

Layer Two: Management Consolidation

Principals: Internal Network Device (In-House and protected) HelpDesk & Trouble Ticket Layer

Layer One : Service Support

Principals: Data is available from all areas for decision

support. Data is qualified and selected to serve a specific

purpose or report.

Layer One

Layer Two

Element Managerwith Agent

Layer Three

Layer Four

Data passes into layer 3 either asan ITO message, or an SNMPtrap. Data is filtered andsuppressed as required.

SNMP Trap

Proprietary

Standard Event CorrelationLevel 1

Event CorrelationLevel 2

ModelingTools

ExpertSystems

Msg. F

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Msg. Fwd.

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Backup Data

Collection

Backup Data

Collection

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Commonservices:Paging, NIS..

The Occam Group Methodology Details

Long-term strategy: Architectural Template

TemplateDevelopers

ManagedObjectOwner

VersionControlSystem

QualityControlGroup

ChangeManagementSystem

ChangeManagementSystem

UnitTest

Request

ManagementUnitTest

Request

Source code, Scripts, Template List file, Instruction textEvent

Information

SupportGroup Request updates

Mov

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Deliver required data

PerformUpdates

NotifyQC of

Completion

QCVerifiesUpdates

StagingComplete

Yes

No

Expert UsersDoGUI

Testing

The Occam Group Methodology Details

Product Life Cycle: Development to Production Workflow

The Occam Group Methodology Details

Operational Methods: Message Policy

• Operations Events (Production by definition)– Subset of all available events– Must be matched– Message must be fully defined

• All fields should be populated.• Instruction text should be developed

– Approved by operations• 2nd Tier Events (Production Events)

– Include all operations events in addition to events for 2nd level support.

– Must be matched– Fully defined

• Development– Development messages should be

converted to production messages, or suppressed on a regular basis. Typically performed by subject matter experts.

The Occam Group Methodology Details

Operational Methods: Message Policy (cont)

The Occam Group Methodology Details

Aligning Tools to the Methodology

• Implementation of formal message policies within operations console.– Grouping of messages that support ITIL concepts

for message classification (FCAPS) and routing.– Specialized layout of management templates:

• Allows for versioning of templates• Allows for dev/tst/prd version of templates• Allows for update of templates and distribution

by SME’s (subject matter experts)• External instruction text interface