Simalytic Solutions Consulting Services

The following consulting services are available on a hourly, daily or weekly basis. Please contact us to discuss specific needs. Consulting rates are based on the scope, location and length of the engagement.

• Technology Planning
• Capacity Planning
• Application Modeling
• Systems Modeling
• End-to-End Response Time Analysis
• Seminars and Training
• Custom Research

Since many companies have started using P-Cards instead of purchase orders for smaller purchases Simalytic Solutions offers standard Consulting Units which can be purchased on-line. Please contact us with the details of you project and we can discuss the services that will meet you needs. Once we have determined the number of Consulting Units needed for your project you can purchase them on-line with a corporate P-Card or any accepted credit card.

Technology Planning

The Technology Planning Consulting Service provides expertise to help a company understand how technology can be applied to business processes. New technologies are introduced into the marketplace faster than most companies can understand them, let alone absorb them. This service provides advice, information and research to show the impact, both positive and negative, of these new technologies on the business. By focusing on technologies, this service helps a business outline strategic directions that support business objectives without commitments to specific vendors or products.

Capacity Planning

The Capacity Planning Consulting Service provides expertise to help a company plan future acquisition of computing resources. Dr. Norton defines Capacity Planning as knowing the answer to the question "What do we have to buy and when do we have to buy it to make sure that the business applications perform at the level required to insure the business succeeds?" What makes this approach to capacity planning successful is the connection to the business results. Traditional capacity planning is often focused on the resource usage measurements as objectives, such as upgrading a server at a predefined utilization level, that do not take into account the value returned to the business. Buying additional hardware that does not improve the business, regardless of how cheap it is, diverts time, effort and money away from initiatives with the potential for greater return on investment. This service focuses planning efforts, at a level appropriate to the costs being considered, on the business results and the return on the investment.

Application Modeling

The Application Modeling Consulting Service provides the technical expertise to help your capacity planning and performance management staff make the transition from a system-centric view to an application-centric view but still take full advantage of the processes and tools experience already in place. Application models enable them to study the effects of changes on the application itself or of changes on the infrastructure that supports the application. Examples of this type of modeling include analysis of existing applications to predict the effects of increased business volume, or of server upgrades, on the application's response time. In addition, design level models can be used to predict the responsiveness of applications before they are developed or before major functional enhancements. Additional Application Modeling information is available.

Systems Modeling

The Systems Modeling Consulting Service provides the technical expertise to build system and infrastructure level models to explore the need for, and effect of, changes to the hardware environment. Examples of this type of modeling include analysis of existing hardware environments to determine the cause of performance bottlenecks, the changes required to eliminate such bottlenecks and the business value of such changes.

End-to-End Response Time Analysis

The End-to-End Response Time Analysis Consulting Service provides the technical expertise to combine capacity planning and application analysis with business process analysis to gain an objective understanding of environment changes on the response time seen by the end-users of the application. End-to-End (ETE) Response Time Analysis puts response time measurements into perspective based on the value to the end-users. This service can help all aspects of your organization understand what ETE measurement points are meaningful to the business regardless of the technique used (either intrusive or non-intrusive to the application).

Seminars and Training

The Seminars and Training Consulting Service provides technical expertise directly to a company’s staff with pre-developed seminars or custom developed training sessions. Dr. Norton has given his Tutorial Workshop "A Practical Approach to Capacity Modeling" at many national and international conferences. This workshop, as either a half day overview or a full days with exercises, provides practical techniques for addressing real business capacity analysis problems. In addition, Dr. Norton has taught several undergraduate and graduate level courses that can be adapted to address specific customer and business needs. He is also available for speaking engagements on a variety of performance related topics. Please see his publications and teaching pages for more information on available presentations and training classes.

Custom Research

The Custom Research Consulting Service provides custom research for use by a company as internal documentation, as marketing material or as revenue producing white papers. Dr. Norton has extensive experience, well developed research capabilities and cross-discipline exposure, all of which provide both depth of coverage and unique practical perspectives for a variety of topics. An example of a white paper developed for resale is Network Attached Storage Security: Issues and Exposures published by The Evaluator Group, publication WP-0011.

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