Intelitec Technical Consulting

Intelitec Pacific consulting services can help guide the organisation into growth through software systems avoiding many of the pitfalls synonymous with the implementation electronic information systems.

Decision Support
The software industry has no shortage of information.  Software vendors flood the market with product and service information, all of which will solve the problem in one way or another.  Intelitec can work with the organisation in requirements analysis, buy vs. build decision support and solution design.

IT Strategy Development
Many electronic support systems are implemented as piecemeal solutions to an immediate problem.  The implementation of a new software system or process must take into consideration its impact on other systems and processes, the focus and direction of the enterprise and longer term planned and unplanned change.  A piecemeal implementation can result in suboptimal processes prone to rework and error.  An IT strategy examines the short term and long term requirements for the electronic support of an organisations processes.  By taking some time in the early stages of process automation, many expensive mistakes - synonymous with software implementation can be avoided.

Project Management
Project management assistance and services include; stakeholder identification, requirements analysis and determination of the project management functions - scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communications, risk and procurement.  Intelitec Pacific exploits a number of automated and comprehensively reported control mechanisms to manage change during the project.   Our process helps maintain rigid links between project objectives and business objectives. Integration with our software engineering project management allows stakeholders to clearly and immediately identify external environmental influences on the project as well as conflicting requirements.  Review points are maintained throughout the project  and project progress is reported against established baselines.  The entire process is reviewed upon completion and the effectiveness of the project integration process is documented, feeding-back the lessons learnt.

Maintenance Strategy Development
An Intelitec Pacific maintenance strategy will identify maintenance and supporting processes to ensure the continuity of IT operations and core business functions.  The strategy analyses the hardware and software components that are to be maintained and develops service level agreements for suppliers and stakeholders.  Maintenance philosophy and service level requirements are analysed. Supporting processes, required resources are identified and compliance criteria are developed.  System maintenance practices and strategy can be formulated within the framework of the organisation's existing quality systems.

Disaster Recovery & Contingency Development
Intelitec Pacific can help the organisation work through a risk and impact analysis of system downtime, identify threats and develop contingency strategies.  A disaster recovery plan is developed that meets business needs within agreed cost constraints.  Our consultants take an in depth look at business critical functions, critical data and software, contingency options, threats to the system, security analysis, standby sites, backup methodologies, recovery and cutover procedures.  A prevention and recovery plan ensues detailing implementation plan, hardware and software requirements, business process required, prevention and recovery plan cutover criteria and review procedures.

Procurement Management
Intelitec Pacific consultants can help the organisation plan, setup and manage the IT related procurement process on an individual project basis or as a foundation for enterprise wide procurement..  On a project based procurement planning task, a procurement plan describes the procurement requirements, strategies and methods to be utilised. In setting up the process, many elements of the procurement are documented and aligned with the project plan;  a list of potential suppliers with description of the goods and services they supply; a written statement of the selection criteria and process; and in some cases written endorsement from the purchasing officer that the procurement process is correct.  Execution of  the procurement may vary depending on environmental and organisational constraints.  In general services are available for evaluating responses and selecting supplier or suppliers based on weighted criteria; negotiating supply contracts; variance analysis and implementation of agreed changes and resolution of contractual conflicts.

Implementation Services - Scoping requirements
System implementation is every bit as critical as requirements, development and product selection.  Intelitec implementation services are based on standardised project management methods.  A  review of the project plan and other documentation is carried out to determine installation requirements and issues.  Then a preliminary scope document is developed and distributed to identified parties. Implementation areas are identified and developed further with the project team.  Review/negotiate requests for revisions to scope are undertaken with client users and system developers.  Final documentation is prepared according to project standards and key dates or events are reviewed in terms of conflict with scheduled events.  Implementation is monitored and reported consistent with the project methodology.

Implementation Services - Post Implementation Review
Significant process improvement can ensue from a post-implementation review.  It must be consistent with organisational standards and success criteria.  The purpose of the review is clearly stated to define boundaries and scope, this purpose is expanded into specific criteria for outcomes, metrics describing outcomes and standards related to the implementation.  The review itself is scheduled and staffed appropriately where specialist systems are tested for conformance to requirements. 

Security & Privacy Controls
With more and more organisations realising the benefits of doing business online, both security and privacy are becoming critical areas of review.  Development of a security policy for electronic systems is also becoming an essential requirement for doing business with many government agencies and some private organisations.  Intelitec Pacific can assist in the formulation of staff and published information policies that conform to national standards.  One of the cornerstone benefits of an e-commerce is that of pushing administrative burden out to external stakeholders.  Banks do this very well with online banking.  In doing so, often data must be stored relation to individuals and businesses outside the organisation and even individuals within the organisation.  Careful consideration must be given to the use and disclosure of such information.  The latest review of national privacy legislation has recommended some ten fundamental elements of information storage, security of the same and its disclosure.  Reviews of security and privacy relating to the electronic systems can be undertaken as part of a wider reaching IT strategy or individually.

Risk Management
IT systems today are intrinsic to the processes and operation of any organisation.  A risk relating to the successful design, development, procurement, operation or maintenance of electronic systems is a risk to business viability.  Often IT systems are ranked as one of the highest risk components in a process or project.   An IT and process risk assessment is carried out in any normal project planning task.  A risk assessment is also valuable at any organisational change point.  Development of a standardised risk management system often involves;  Identifying possible events, from both external and internal sources, that may affect success outcomes; Analysing and documenting the risks;  Selecting and modifying risk management tools and techniques to develop the preferred risk approaches; Developing risk management plans and strategies, for example, avoidance, mitigation, or acceptance;  Developing a risk management system to maintain effective management and communication of risk.  Managing project risk in accordance with the project and management plans.  Reviewing project progress and analyzing variances due to unplanned events. Responding to unplanned events with minimal disruption and conflict;  Ensuring stakeholders clearly understand project objectives, and are fully informed during the project; Monitoring potential internal and external risks, and take remedial action if required; and finally Reviewing the effectiveness of the risk management system.
 

 

Glossary Bytes - Software Design Enterprise Architecture

Classic software architecture refers to the manner in which presentation, business logic and data are partitioned physically or logically.  Its most widely referenced meaning is broken into categories of 2-tier, 3-tier and n-tier architectures.  A new category has emerged in recent times; 'enterprise architecture'.  2-tier architecture generally refers to classic client/server software, whereby the systems data resides on a server that may be shared among a number of workstations.  The meaning of '2-tier architecture' is sometimes divided even further into 'fat' and 'thin client'.  'Client/Server' generally refers to 'fat client' architecture in that most of the business logic, processing and presentation is performed at the workstation.  This design was seen as limiting due to perceived low capacity of workstation equipment and increased network load.  The term 'thin-client' is used very loosely and can refer to generic presentation services such as RDP, Terminal Services and Citrix.  It can refer to character based interfaces such as telnet.  It is also being widely used to describe browser based functionality, be it html only, light weight active elements or script. Either way, the advent of 'thin client' (re-invented as a technique better than 'fat-client' which of course was better than terminal based 'thin' clients) has prompted engineers to push the processing back onto the server or servers.  This gives rise to 3-tier, a classic break down of presentation on the workstation, processing that is at least logically (and sometimes physically) located on a remote server, and thirdly, a data tier which again  may be separated logically or physically. 'n-tier' architecture is then the natural extension to 3-tier giving the designer freedom to locate processing on any number of tiers and or servers.  This became very useful where integration of isolated systems required communication of logic and process at the middle tiers.  This is where we get the term middleware.  Proponents of the new 'enterprise architecture'  are citing disjointed and piecemeal development of middleware mixed with older architectures as good reason to re-think software architecture altogether.  The enterprise architecture model separates common services from problem-domain logic.  All middleware components are serviced by 'container services' and in general true distributed object models can be built which are location transparent.  The only problem now is, we have a few to choose from.  Intelitec Pacific has designed and developed distributed enterprise systems in both .NET and J2EE environments.