The Occam Group-Independent Analysis and Management of IT Resources

1. The Occam Group-Independent Analysis and Management of IT Resources Company Overview

2. 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

3. The Occam Group’s Industry Position What methodology and tools will lead to the greatest level of client satisfaction? Methodology The Occam Group Large Consulting Group Reseller Tools HP IBM CA Micromuse BMC Netscout

4. 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. Large Consulting Model The Occam Group Model • 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

5. 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. Reseller Model The Occam Group Model • 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.

6. Level of Client ValueSolution quality and solution cost The Occam Group Large Consulting Reseller Average Low Exceptional

7. Planning Process / Staff Tools Satisfaction Driven By Methodology To deliver IT solutions that maximize client satisfaction

8. Planning 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.

9. Process / Staff 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.

10. Process / Staff 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?

11. Tools 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 ($).

12. Tools 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.

13. The Occam Group Promise To clearly say what we will do and … Relentlessly deliver what we say we can do for our clients .

14. Service CapabilitiesIndependent of Supply

15. 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 Clients

16. The Occam Group The Occam Group Methodology Details

17. Traditional management areas (FCAPS) The Occam Group Methodology DetailsEnterprise Management Industry Perspective Industry wide tool capability increases Enterprise management industry tool maturity Increases Security Configuration Asset Performance Fault Complexity increases Value increases IT Services Rare (lacking tools for complex components) Moderate (Emerging tools, No common methods) Vendor Services Application Host Hardware Moderate (Emerging tools / low integration) Common (Many tools, Moderate to low integration) WAN Elements Simple components are combined to create complex enterprise services LAN Elements

18. The Occam Group Methodology DetailsLong-term strategy:Architectural Template

19. The Occam Group Methodology DetailsProduct Life Cycle:Development to Production Workflow

20. 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 The Occam Group Methodology DetailsOperational Methods: Message Policy

21. The Occam Group Methodology DetailsOperational Methods: Message Policy (cont) • Development • Development messages should be converted to production messages, or suppressed on a regular basis. Typically performed by subject matter experts.

22. 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