Bringing a New Level of Service to IT Consulting

Consolidation and Standardization

Today, Mergers & Acquisitions are commonplace.  Information Technology (IT) consolidations are a specialty of ProTech.  Our consolidation clients are some of the biggest names in the business.  From feasibility studies to implementation, ProTech has the experience that will help insure the success of your IT consolidation efforts.

Have you already consolidated hardware and operations but are still running multiple "logical" IT centers?  Physical consolidation of IT operations is only the beginning step to cost savings and improvements in service.  Money and time can be wasted on non-standard software, techniques and controls.

Physical Consolidation Services

ProTech has developed a three phase proven approach to IT data center consolidation:

Feasibility Study — During this phase consolidation alternatives are analyzed to identify the optimal solutions based on savings, risk and costs.  The study will answer, at a minimum, the following questions:

What are the cost savings if we “physically” consolidate processing centers?  What net savings can we expect if we “logically” consolidate processes and software?  What is the one time cost and time needed to complete each project phase?  What are the risks and issues associated with each step in the consolidation?

Detailed Planning — Regardless of scope and complexity, IT consolidations consist of multiple, interrelated projects that must be comprehensively planned in order to be successful.  The detail plan, which also includes a project management plan, provides the foundation for controlling the consolidation.  While risks and change management issues are identified in the feasibility study, a detailed impact analysis of risks and issues is completed in this phase

Consolidation — This phase is the actual implementation of the step-by-step plans developed during the previous phase.  Detailed planned consolidations are those with responsibility for major physical and logical consolidation projects assigned to specific teams or individuals who are given the proper time to do the work effectively.

Consolidation Execution

Plans are only as good as their execution.  From fallback to trial runs our consolidation plans are as risk free as 300 years of combined staff experience can make them.

Our senior technical staff has planned and executed dozens of the largest consolidations ever undertaken.  Whether the move is international, or just across town, our ability to relocate major processing centers with little or no down time is unparalleled.

Logical Consolidation Services

Moving network "points of presence", multiple processors and entire data centers, is a picnic next to integrating two non-standard IT environments into one seamless smooth running technology center.

Many IT managers think that once the technology is relocated that they are "consolidated", not so.  Service can suffer, staff increases are needed and training on new processes is slow in coming if standardized operations are not achieved.

Technology alone is not enough.  Real service improvement will only come when the entire IT Technology Center is running from the same core standards and practices.

From naming conventions to common applications and control systems, ProTech can make the real dream of consolidation come true in a matter of months, rather than the years that some have taken to realize the benefits.  We employ programmatic tools and experience to make short work of daunting standardization problems.

Technical and Operational Training

We offer customized staff training for new products or techniques that will be used in the consolidated data center:

Console Management & Task Automation Storage Management (Tape, DASD, backup, recovery, etc.) Job Scheduling/Restart systems Security Systems Output Distribution Problem & Change Management

Service Level Measurement and Reporting