• Infrastructure Services
• Platform Services
• Risk Management
• Deployment/Project Management
• Quality Assurance Services
• Security Services
• Disaster Recovery & Business Continuation

Infrastructure Services

Has performance or reliability suddenly become questionable? Is the wiring closet a giant knot of wires, documentation lacking or non-existent? Were you ever in the situation where your 'other' consultants delivered servers to your data center only to find out that the respective rack needed dual NEMA-L30 receptacles off the UPS distribution panel? (And subsequently an electrician needed to be called in, throwing off the project schedule and project budget.)

You are not alone. We have seen all this before and understand why it happened or why is that way today. Applications change, strategies change, and the way you do business may have changed, but the core infrastructure likely has not changed.

Precision e-Consulting can help design and re-engineer your environment, whether the objective is adjusting to the current IT systems landscape, or building a new state-of-the-art data center. The key is to understand current situations with an eye on future needs and conditions.

Infrastructure incorporates both computing and non-computing systems. For example, a data center typically contains all of the enterprise's servers, but the actual infrastructure goes beyond just the computing platforms. It includes the physical center, electrical requirements, UPS services, wiring plants, HVAC, generators, fire suppression, monitoring equipment and software, etc. When Precision e-Consulting proposes an infrastructure analysis, we go far beyond just checking available disk space or memory requirements. We analyze all influencing components, including such areas as UPS capacity, port saturation, LAN back plane capacity, HVAC headroom, etc.

Precision e-Consultings' analysis, infrastructure design and comprehensive checklist assures our clients a smooth installation with minimum impact within the enterprise..

Infrastructure Service Offerings

• WAN/LAN strategy planning and development
• Data center design and build-out
• Network planning
• Environmental Planning
• Electrical planning
• Systems continuity planning
• Security planning
• Deployment strategies
• Systems support strategies and implementations
• Backup and Recovery planning and development
• Disaster/Recovery planning and development
• Business continuity planning and implementation
• Vendor & Contractor Management
• Patch and update management

Platform Services

Platform Service Offerings

• Systems strategy planning and development
• End-to-end system design
• Capacity planning
• Windows/Unix administration and services
• Vendor relationship management

Risk Management

Deployment/Project Management

Sometimes deploying new systems or upgrades seems like putting a square plug in a round hole. Are you asking yourself or your staff any of these questions:

•  "How are we going to integrate the new systems" 
•  "How are we going to extract data from our legacy systems without interrupting day-to-day business" 
•  "How do we assure that development does not affect our production environment" 
•  "How are we going to ensure that dependent tasks are coordinated"

Simple examples of detailed planning can easily prevent your entire project from going into a tailspin. (e.g. ensuring that the electrician has completed his or her portion of the job before the UPS is delivered, or avoiding that a doorway ends up being too narrow to accept a piece of equipment)

Precision e-Consulting can act, on your behalf, as the lead project manager, or in conjunction with your project manager to help create a delivery and installation schedule involving all vendors and resources. Configuration Management Services Most enterprise data centers contain various separate environments such as Development, Testing, Staging and Production. While the core application may live in each environment, the respective versions may (and should) be completely different. The natural life cycle of a new application release might look like this:

1. Configuration and coding in the Development environment .
2. Moving the new build to the Testing environment.  (for manual or automated testing) 
3. Upon completion of all QA and testing it will usually be pushed to a Staging environment.
4. Then it will be promoted to the Production environment as a new release. 
5. Concurrently, subsequent builds are in process within the Development environment, starting the life cycle over again.

Precision e-Consulting understands this model well. We can help our clients design and develop standard life cycle procedures, versioning controls, promotion criteria as well as back-out plans. Our methodologies assure maximum controls with minimum business disruptions. We will work in concert with the development team, QA team and production support teams to assure a smooth transition

Quality Assurance Services

Everything seems to be going smoothly, development is complete and you are certain that everything is working as specified. Or is it? How do you know? Will a seemingly simple change in one area have adverse effects somewhere else? Will performance go from acceptable to unworkable as soon as the code is pushed to production? Precision e-Consulting has seen time after time not quite 'ready-for-prime-time' code. We help enterprises create and maintain test plans and procedure to validate all aspects of the application, from functionality to performance, using a combination of manual and automated test tools and scripts.

Precision e-Consulting has experience and methodologies to help our clients design and develop a battery of regression test plans, test scripts with predictable outcomes, to pass or fail code changes. The QA department could execute these test plans, either manually or automatically. And by performing load and stress testing, we are able to foresee any performance issues before the end user will. The end result is a smooth transition from development to production with all the business requirements adhered to.

We can also assist in the early stages of QA planning, arrange for vendor demonstrations and provide the guidelines for evaluating automated QA software. We can assist in the development of baseline measurement and monitoring thresholds, as well as SLA development and reporting.

• Develop system test plans
• QA Test tool selection assistance
• Functional test and regression test plan development
• Baseline development and monitoring
• Performance tuning and management
• Performance Management
• IT SLA strategy and development
• QA Change management

Security Services

Security is on everyone's mind these days and it should be. From managing user access to preventing site hacks, security is an integral part of all IT endeavors. Security should cover everything from software control to hardware/system access to physical accessibility. Most security breeches occur from the inside, either from disgruntled employees or innocent users who are able to access data or execute functions that should have been secured. Having the most rigid firewall rules is nearly useless if the data center is physically secured properly. Blocking regular end users from performing system administration tasks is an appropriate measure, but quickly undermined if many people know the administrator passwords.

By applying a series of strict security measures, managed via elaborate checklists that address each system, application, transaction type, and user account, you will be able to tighten your overall level of security. Also, by identifying and loading the relevant vendors' security patches, and by offering proper education on the subject of security, you can get closer to the level of security your enterprise needs.

Precision e-Consulting can help you identify these measures and assist with implementation and change management.

Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity

'"What would happen if your data center blew up?"' was a frequently heard analogy a few years back. It doesn't seem very humorous these days. The likelihood of your data center blowing up is low, but the temporary loss of availability, and the possibility of your business coming to a halt could be quite real. Disasters can range from simple hardware failure to a complete loss of the data center due to fire, flood, structure damage, etc. The question is not if, but when.

When a disaster occurs, how will your business react, and how are you going to get your IT operations back on track? How much downtime can your business afford? In the case of a simple hardware failure, will you be able to quickly bring up a replacement server? Will the last backup tape work? Do you have off-site backups? You do not want to learn whether your disaster/recovery plans and business continuity procedures work is in the event of disaster.

Precision e-Consulting can help you create the procedures that need to be in place to constantly test and evaluate problems well before they occur. These plans address everything from using tape backup and restoration to using hot remote data centers with triple mirrors. Business continuity doesn't stop at the data center; it encompasses accessibility and operations. Having the remote data center come on line as planned would be useless if the core group of users can't get access.

Business continuity planning services from Precision e-Consulting include planning for employee work areas and housing arrangements, remote facility activation, re-routing of voice & data traffic, etc. We help you sleep at night by minimizing the effects of a disaster.