Professional Services

Systems Maintenance

• Does your Web application need to be available 99.9% of the time?
• Do you need to support multiple operating systems?
• Does the response time to repair a hardware issue jeopardize your business?
• Are you currently spending millions of dollars to different hardware vendors to support your heterogeneous systems?

We can help. Whether you have a Mission Critical application running on an HP AlphaServer in Los Angeles, an engineering package running on an IBM RS6000 in Cleveland, or your Email running on a SUN server in Boston, we will help you tailor a maintenance service package for you at a much better cost than you are currently paying.

Our Strengths

Our logistics methodology delivers system corrective solutions to the most demanding customers and gives us the best customer retention rate in the industry.

• Over twenty-five years of superior service to users of Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Dell, IBM RS6000 and Digital Classic (VAX and Alpha) systems.
• Quality references available from over 940 satisfied clients.
• Multiple service centers strategically located throughout the United States that give us nationwide coverage.
• Field engineers that are "system smart" and manufacturer trained. They combine hardware and software skills to troubleshoot problems quickly and maximize uptime. In addition most have earned a BSEE degree or equivalent.
• Our logistics methodology is based on having the highest spares-to-client equipment ratios in the industry. We replicate our client's hardware in our "live system" laboratories. Each service center reflects the hardware and software environments of our local clients. This provides our clientele with the utmost level of system continuity and the best Mean Time to Repair in our markets.
• Administrative flexibility and professional contract management make us easy to work with. Our "Fix It First" policy for major accounts expedites non-standard emergency work and avoids the "nickel and dime" charges that some vendors apply.

Scope of Coverage

We offer you a wide variety of service levels dependent on your needs. Our service offerings include:

• General Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm, 8-hour or Next Business Day response.
• Special Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm, 4-hour response. Please note that unlike the OEMs, we will respond to any call placed within your call window on the same day the call is placed, and be on-site within 4 hours.
• Extended Additional hours or weekends as specified up to 7 x 24, within a 4-hour call response.
• All Inclusive Protection for causes beyond normal wear and tear (i.e. power, vandalism etc.)

We will provide you with maintenance services on many manufacturers' products including, but not limited to Hewlett-Packard, HP/Compaq, SUN, Dell, IBM RS6000 and Digital Classic (VAX and Alpha) products.

Most manufacturer warranties do a great job of providing protection for your hardware, but do nothing about protecting your business. We can enhance the warranty, which is normally next day or best effort response, to whatever service level suits your business needs. Options from 9 x 5, 4 hour response to 7 x 24 x 365 are available.

We have locations throughout the United States that are staffed by Field Engineers with expertise in multiple operating systems, such as HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, Tru64 UNIX, etc. and hardware skills, which deliver a high level of service to our clients. We invest significant resources in training our engineers and supplements this training with our unmatched commitment to running replicated client hardware in support of our clients. This replicated client hardware insures that we will have the products needed to get you back on-line in the shortest amount of time.

A critical component of our support capabilities is our Corporate Support Group, or CSG. CSG is a high level technical support team that combines hardware, software, operating system, and network skills to resolve complex client problems. CSG provides telephone support to Field Engineers on-site and often field client inquiries normally related to issues beyond a standard hardware problem. Our CSG group has over 75 years of combined experience.

System Performance Analysis

We provide OpenVMS customers with a detailed report which examines the performance and overall throughput of VAX/Alpha systems and clusters. Each report contains an executive summary, detailed analysis with supporting data in graphical format and recommendations for Hardware/Software tuning. A consultation with a performance engineer is also included.

System performance issues are of growing concern to many users. Many users want to know if their computing resources are "tuned," and utilized in an efficient and effective manner. The Systems Performance Program analyzes the use of all locally attached devices and their effect on the total throughput of the system.

We have developed expert utilities which monitor and collect performance statistics. The analysis checks the collected data against a series of performance guidelines. We use a database of hardware specifications to reference a client's configuration against known benchmarks for response time. The Systems Performance Report identifies any sub-systems which are creating a bottleneck in overall systems throughput.

We perform real-time systems monitoring during customer specified, peak usage intervals. Data is collected via modem or customer tape and then analyzed by Performance Engineers.

Each report includes:

• Compute queue analysis and examination of each CPU mode
• Memory usage and efficiency
• Distributed lock and MSCP server activity
• Recommendations for system parameter tuning
• Impact of I/O sub-systems on kernel and interrupt modes
• Disk access and response times
• Ethernet and Cluster path utilization
• Hardware configuration analysis
• File fragmentation analysis
• Data caching analysis
• Security audit
• Page and Swap file size analysis

Major Clients

• ACS
• AP - Associated Press
• CA - Computer Associates
• Catholic Healthcare West - CHW
• CheckFree
• Chicago Tribune
• Comcast
• Hallmark
• Lifespan
• MBNA Corporation
• NEC
• Perot Systems
• PG&E Company
• Russell Stover
• SBC
• TRW