All Blue Solutions - IBM Services 2013 Complete IBM solutions simplified FOR IBM INFORMATION MANAGEMENT, WEBSPHERE, COGNOS AND GUARDIUM
All Blue Solutions Services Book services for the 21st century AN ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS INC PUBLICATION
services introduction Business Analytics with IBM Cognos & DB2 Warehouse Page 05 Operational Databases Powered by DB2 & Informix Page 10 Complete System & Networking Administration Page 12 Simplified Warehousing with Netezza Page 14 High Availability Web Sites with WebSphere Page 16 Data Integration with DataStage and QualityStage Page 18 Software Development for WebSphere, 4GL, and EGL Page 20 Compliance through Guardium, Optim, and Q1 Labs Page 22 imprint 2013 All Blue Solutions, All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by no means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher. Page composition by All Blue Solutions Designed in the USA Good day from All Blue Solutions, Every company needs to be profitable but only some strive to offer innovative solutions to real business problems. We continue to come across projects in which companies have no internal communication between business and IT, have overspent on specific pieces of technology, or have received poor value for their project expenditures. This is one reason why I strive every day to make All Blue Solutions different from any other IBM business partner. All of our services engagements leverage PMP project methodology, as any new technology needs to fit into the culture of the organization it works for. Ensuring your team is fully engaged and has undergone a meaningful knowledge transfer guarantees that these solutions excel to their full potential. Each project has one of our project managers at the helm to work with you to ensure success. We continue to maintain our core focus on engineering; these are our roots. Every design is engineered according to carefully collected metrics and measurements and the ability to add capacity going forward. All Blue offers complimentary architecting of all solutions which you are implementing with a full project scope. We know this is rare, but we wouldn t feel right doing it any other way. Please, read through this brochure and learn about All Blue s philosophy towards business solutions. We know you will get a sense of our focus on excellence and service and how we can work with you to improve your business. After all, we are in the business of making sure you can focus on yours. Sandra Cayouette Chief Operating Officer PAGE 4 ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013
business analytics with IBM Cognos All Blue Solutions aligns itself exclusively with IBM as they have the resources and the global reach to either have best-of-breed solutions or a strong offering with a heavily integrated future. The strength of their solutions is evident when one evaluates IBM s Cognos; the leader in Gartner s Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence for vision. With Cognos BI 10 and its deep integration into DB2 Warehouse your users can leverage Web 2.0 interfaces to quickly access the data they need. Its new collaboration features help ensure data is leveraged to its fullest advantage. Cognos nearest competitor, SAP s Business Object, has been ranked at the bottom in customer experience for the past five consecutive years. All Blue offers a complimentary Proof of Concept, or PoC to prospective customers. Engage us to see how we can transform your company s information assets with IBM software and our reliable customer centric services. We let our solutions speak for themselves. ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013 PAGE 5
data warehousing with DB2 Ever since IBM introduced it s nothing shared partitioning feature in DB2 for Linux, Unix and Windows in the 1990 s it has been the leader in large data warehouses. The All Blue Services team have been working with DB2 as their primary database for customer projects for the last 13 years and are all Advanced Certified DB2 DBA s, Developers and DB2 Warehouse Developers. Before joining All Blue Solutions, our Technical Services Director was responsible for running a 45 TB warehouse for one of the largest banks in North America. Our experience is not only in large warehouses; we have also deployed warehouse solutions for teams with only five people. Our approach when training our technical staff is very different than many service companies as we invest heavily in training so that they are familiar with dimensional modeling, data integration tools, DB2 and project management. Instead of having the complexity of a large team to support deploying and creating warehouses, we typically work in very small groups with expert knowledge. This leads to speedier and steadier project completion, hence a lower cost of delivery. PAGE 6 ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013
business analytics Warehouse Design Designing models to address your business need Each of our designs begins identically; thoroughly gathering all requirements and documentation to establish a successful warehouse. All Blue offers either a leading or advisory role in designing your dimensional model. Our cross industry experience gives you many insights into the design of the model to address not only the questions business is asking now but also preparing for future questions. In addition we also leverage IBM s proven industry models when appropriate. Cognos Framework & Design Building the business interfaces to power business All Blue works with your business users to create a Cognos interface which not only performs well today but exceeds requirements in the future. Throughout this process, we will document requirements, create data dictionaries and train users on how to make modifications as needs change. In addition we can assist with financial reports and budgeting with Cognos. Our engineers are fully training dimensional modelers and how to leverage DB2 Cubing Services and IBM s Cognos 10.2 Dynamic Cubes ETL Development Bringing all your data together or syncing applications Our ETL experience involves leveraging IBM s DataStage and QualityStage, as well as DB2 Warehouse SQL Warehousing Tools. We will work with you to ensure your ETL implementation is designed with best practices, aligned with your MDM strategy, and has comprehensive documentation. Report Building As-needed report building assistance Cognos is an incredibly powerful and robust self-service report authoring tool, however, many business require very complex reports which can be dozens if not hundreds of pages long. All Blue provides remote and on-site expert Cognos report authors to assist you in your reporting requirements, training your team while crafting the most complex reports. ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013 PAGE 7
Warehouse Cloud Warehouse as a service taken to the next level Many organizations lack the engineering and architecture knowledge to build custom warehouses and appliances can by expensive. Individuals with some experience may be successful at the creation of a warehouse but are often unaware of the long-term implications of their design choices and may not apply all best practices. All Blue has invested our warehouse experience into building a complete end-toend warehouse as a service solution with IBM Cognos and DB2. You pay monthly for the users and storage, nothing more; we take care of the rest. Our SSAE-16, secure, scalable enterprise grade cloud located at 4 facilities through North America can be leveraged at a fraction of the cost of deploying it on your own. With geographic failovers, high speed 1Gbps connections and bank level security, your professional warehouse will get the 24x7 attention it needs from our team. PAGE 8 ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013
After Project Support Ensuring your project is sucessful for years to come No project is ever really complete and we never leave our customers after an engagement. We provide flexible options to our customers for quick questions or very short remote engagements to maintain your project s ability to deliver business value. No matter how long time has elapsed since an implementation was deemed successful, we are never far away; our ongoing customers reach out to us months, or in some cases, years, after their project is done. Additionally, 24x7 monitoring and support for your deployments is also possible to immediately correct any issues should they arise. ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013 PAGE 9
operational databases with DB2 & Informix For online transaction processing (OLTP) databases, All Blue Solutions offers professional services for IBM s DB2 and IBM s Informix. Depending upon your specific requirements, All Blue will assist you in selecting the best technology to meet your needs. Both of these databases are very mature products with over 25 years on the market and provide massive scalability. Each has a proven record of stability, scalability and allow for 24x7 operation without outages and integrated developer tools to allow for face development of applications. PAGE 10 ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013
operational databases Installation and Configuration All Blue works with your team to provide a fully documented installation, with performance tuning for your software and environment which can be secured to CIS standards. High Availability and Clustering Active-active, active-passive and geo-clusters are all options with either DB2 or Informix and All Blue has the experience to implement these for you. All Blue Database Review We provide a complete report on performance, indexing, storage, security, best practices, patching and problem determination documentation and procedures. Design Consulting/Training Hourly consulting for DB2 databases and applications as well as delivering IBM DB2 training courses are available with our in-house staff. Cloud Database Delivery We maintain enterprise grade hardware at sites throughout North America to host your database with no set up fees and a consistent monthly service price. Remote Database Administration We offer flexible options for remote database administration services, with everything from backup coverage for vacationing DBA s to more involved roles to thus allowing companies to reduce their staffing costs. ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013 PAGE 11
staffing solutions PAGE 12 ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013
Full System Network Administration End-to-end Solutions on your Infrastructure Human resources costs dominate most project costs in the long term. Managing internal staff is time consuming and, depending upon location, it can be difficult to get skilled resources. All Blue provides a full remote staffing solution for Network Administrators, System Administrations and IBM solution experts at a fraction of in-house costs and hassles. 24x7 or Business Hours Support All Blue can customize its support hours and costs to meet your requirements and we provide a service level agreement depending upon the nature of your system. Serious security Most environments have a very relaxed approach to security. As All Blue is supporting critical international finance systems we have adopted a strict security approach which is compliant with ISO 27001 standards. In each of our managed environments we enforce a strict security patching schedule and ensure that the environment has been hardened to CIS standards. For traceability we have a change control process and we enable auditing both at the OS and application levels. Finally, we also have separation of duties and secure VMware images for each client. Your Dedicated Team We are not fond of call center style system administration as situations have to be explained repeatedly and everyone finds it frustrat-ing. Each client is assigned a primary and secondary administrator whom you can call, e-mail, chat and work with on all of your projects. In the rare event that both are unavailable during an outage another team member will assist you. Certified Experts As All Blue stays true to its core engineering principles all members of the team assigned to your account will be trained and certified for your complete solution. Our staff regularly attends training and recertifies on major releases. ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013 PAGE 13
simplified warehousing with Netezza IBM s acquisition of Netezza in 2010 demonstrates a deep commitment to provide best-of-breed warehousing solutions to every customer. Netezza is a powerful warehouse solution for companies which lack in-house warehousing expertise but have extensive data and a small department of analysts. Netezza s dedicated hardware delivers intense power with minimal administration and design, especially when compared to more customizable solutions, such as DB2. PAGE 14 ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013
netezza services Design Advice and Upgrades Netezza requires minimal regular administration Should you have a question regarding how best to analyse complicated data or if you want to upgrade to the next release of Netezza we are here for you, every step of the way. POC Evaluation The simplicity of a Netezza solution will shine To help you evaluate your Netezza purchase we will assign you a data warehouse expert and ship you a Netezza appliance. In a matter of days you will have a high performance warehouse environment available for your analysts to test. This will showcase the power and simplicity of the appliance as compared to other solutions and we will introduce your staff to certain features as they explore it. Implementations We provide an end-to-end solution from MDM to reporting When you decide that Netezza is the best solution for your organization, All Blue will assist in ensuring your business needs are met and all of your data is available in the Netezza appliance. We can develop the design, ETL, security, and reporting for your perfect Netezza solution. ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013 PAGE 15
e-commerce & applications powered by IBM WebSphere IBM s commitment to complete end-to-end solutions with best of breed gives customers the peace of mind that their technology will never hold them back. Gartner s Magic Quadrant names IBM s B2B and B2C solutions based on WebSphere Application Server and WebSphere Commerce as the leader in E-Commerce. WebSphere Cloud Reducing the complexity in deploying IBM solutions. All Blue offers 24x7 fully managed cloud deployments for WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere MQ, WebSphere MB and WebSphere Commerce. Release your team to focus on delievering business value and allow our economies of scale to deliever infrastructure and high availability. Rapid Development IBM development done right and on-time Do you need developers for your J2EE/Java, WebSphere Commerce or Web 2.0 application? All Blue s deeply technical staff implements your complete solution from design to development. We provide hourly, fixed price and monthly structures for your application development needs. PAGE 16 ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013
Installation & Review Kickoff your WebSphere project right When undertaking a new web based application or solution All Blue Solutions can help you start it off with best practices. We can install, tune, and secure your environment or assist with a review of your existing environment to ensure best practices are being followed. Remote Administration 24x7 monitoring and administration Our remote administration for WebSphere platforms range from assisting in application development, maintaining security, deploying upgrades, and application troubleshooting and is easily combined with 24x7 monitoring of your environments. ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013 PAGE 17
DataStage & QualityStage
DataStage & QualityStage Data Quality With All Blue s strong foundation in data quality management and data management you re in good hands to ensure the decisions you make on your data are the right ones. Our data quality services focuses on both data profiling and data cleansing. With data profiling we use advanced techniques to verify that your data is accurate, we will quickly find outliers and also ensure that the data entering your system meets expected norms. With data cleansing we integrate and validate data with external and internal sources to enrich and supplement your existing data. ETL Development ETL development is time consuming and complex, relying on the developer s precise attention to details. Many vendor applications have zero documentation with their data model and information can be spread over hundreds of tables. All Blue streamlines this experience with data discovery tools. We work on integrating with your MDM strategy, creating robust and well documented ETL flows either on iseries or IBM z/os. Installation & Cloud For DataStage, QualityStage and InfoSphere SQL Warehousing Tool we provide local installation and flexible cloud delivery options. Our North American servers with 1 Gbps external internet connections allow for processing even the largest ETL jobs on our fully managed and secure cloud 24x7 Support & Monitoring Once they have deployed DataStage, QualityStage or Info- Sphere SQL Warehousing Tool, many businesses will have questions regarding how best to implement a change or use an explicit task. We provide support options for during business hours or 24x7 support and monitoring. ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013 PAGE 19
software development for WebSphere 4GL EGL IBM s Rational application development tools and IBM application server platform provide one of the most powerful rapid application development stacks in the IT industry. All Blue s laser like focus on our core product set has allowed our expert engineers to know how to develop WebSphere and 4GL applications inside and out making development time much shorter and applications more stable. Our team can handle application development with open source libraries using Java C++ 4GL EGL ASP PHP.net Cobol Web 2.0 Ruby on Rails PAGE 20 ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013
software development Application Development One stop shop for application development on your IBM middleware Ask us if your organization needs a new application developed no matter how small or large! Our data centric application developers leverage IBM Rational or WebSphere Application stacks to deliver complete solutions at an attractive price and even better timeline. Application Maintenance Legacy application maintenance giving you skills when you need them We provide application maintenance for WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere Commerce, 4GLand EGL. If you need assistance supporting your legacy applications, we can work for a few hours per month to a full time staff member so that your legacy application receives the support it needs. 4GL Modernization Don t throw away legacy code when modernization is cheaper With our strong knowledge in Informix 4GL and EGL we simplify 4GL modernization projects. Our expert guidance, project planning and implementation services will move your legacy system to meet today s requirements. 24x7 Application Support Don t throw away legacy code when modernization is cheaper Having technical experts available when your application encounters problem lets you sleep at night. All Blue provides engineers and developers to assist during outages and document your application. ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013 PAGE 21
infrastructure & data security All Blue Solutions leverages IBM s end-to-end security solutions to build regulation-specific compliant environments. InfoSphere Guardium allows you to track data access and create audit paths enterprise-wide and ensure attestation to data access. To ensure your test environments are secure we often leverage Optim Test Data management to create realistic test data while preventing critical data from leaking in your test environment. On systems we secure your infrastructure according to the CIS standard and track all of your enterprise logs and system access with IBM s Q1 Labs QRADAR. Additionally All Blue provides complete network and system security audits to ensure your organization is following security best practices. PAGE 22 ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013
security InfoSphere Guardium Securing your corporate data protecting everyone We provide Guardium installation assistance and Guardium as a service to customers. Leveraging our data management heritage and industry experience we simultaneously secure your databases. We use industry s best practices and leverage IBM s Guardium software to provide the highest level of security possible for your data. We can also assist in discovering data inside your organization. IBM s Q1 Labs SIEM Log management to ensure compliance and early detection All Blue takes a holistic enterprise approach to security. All Blue leverages IBM s Gartner-leading Q1 Labs software for complete audit log management. We assist in either deploying Q1 Labs server software in your environment or manage the security of your infrastructure from our cloud. Test Data Management Making sure data doesn t leak out in test and development Deploying InfoSphere Optim Test Data Management, building proper test data management procedures, discovering data and maintaining proper security in your test systems is a task best left to us. We reduce the staleness of your test data and automate refreshes of your test systems to ensure QA personnel are working with the latest data. Security Review Ensure security best practices are being followed All Blue security reviews look at all aspects of your organizations security from a data centric perspective. We ensure proper networking, access control, logging, seperation of duties, physical access controls, database access control, and patching is deploying in your environment. We provide a detailed report on how your organization is doing as well as any deficiencies to regulations you need to adhear to. ALL BLUE SOLUTIONS 2013 PAGE 23
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