Valencia Systems offers a broad range of Professional Services to support our customers, from the evaluation process through to final implementation. We believe that it is important to work with impartial third party services companies who maintain objectivity in supporting customer requirements. Our partners for professional services are independent companies who have no monetary, vested interest, in Valencia.

Valencia teams with strategic partners to provide our customers with independent Analysis throughout the business cycle:

Business Cycle	Current Analysis	Decision Analysis	Post Purchase
Services	IT Assessment	Vendor/Competitive Analysis	Integration
	Service Level Agreement	RFPs	Training
	SWOT Analysis	Independent Test Labs	Competency Testing
	Planning	Outsourcing Analysis
	Consolidation	Sizing Analysis
	Software Migration	ROI Analysis

Valencia Systems Key Strategic Partner for Professional Services is Enterprise Management Associates (EMA)

Why EMA?

Each EMA Analyst typically has more than fifteen years of in-depth experience in IT research and hands-on experience in the areas of organization, process and management technology. Because of this they can quickly understand and assess your infrastructure, prioritize areas in need of critical improvements, and make recommendations for IT improvements that will bring the greatest ROI. Clients routinely say that the EMA difference is as follows:

• Unlike competitors who may offer "packaged" services and assessments, EMA's offerings are highly customizable—tailored to meet a company's needs and budget. It is a small firm with proven methodologies. Both of these characteristics allow EMA to be flexible in how it delivers quality service.



• EMA is the only research and analyst firm specializing in the issues of management of technology—hardware, software and services. Competitors say that they have a practice in enterprise management, but none have the deep expertise of EMA. EMA literally "wrote the book" on Service Level Management.



• EMA works with nearly all vendors in the management space—evaluating and comparing product offerings—and sharing research and analysis with nearly 270,000 readers per month via industry and trade publications. This gives EMA considerable influence and insight into the management market.



• Unlike some competitors in the consulting arena, EMA does not partner with vendors—nor sell management solutions. Vendor independence is critical for suggesting solutions that best integrate with clients' existing systems—and that are best in class.

Summary of EMA Services

IT Advisory Services Practice

Management of IT infrastructure is a strategic initiative for executives in virtually all industries. CEOs, CFOs and other key stakeholders have challenged IT departments to align IT investment with business strategy. The typical IT operations department—burdened with never-ending IT cost reduction initiatives, a patchwork of both legacy and new systems, and focused day-to-day crisis management—may not understand the transformation that must take place to make this become a reality.

EMA helps IT organizations retool from managing individual IT components to managing end-to-end IT services that align with business needs. EMA built its practice on independently researching, analyzing and evaluating management trends, tools and technologies—bringing together the silos of networks, systems, applications, storage and security.

IT Strategy Services

In a value-driven approach to IT management, a company's goal often shifts from cost minimization to improving IT's impact on profitability. This results in developing a brand new IT spending profile. EMA helps companies reduce non-strategic IT spending, and advise on how to plan and invest in management technologies that have a positive ROI. EMA gives strategic advice on, and assistance with:

• Articulating management's IT vision for the Company
• Migrating to a top-down approach of IT management instead of a bottom up approach—allowing IT to map business process to underlying IT infrastructure
• Planning for IT growth and spending, including ROI analysis of management investments
• Assessing the impact of regulatory compliance in the areas of security and transaction processing
• Evaluating outsourcing options and impact, not only on ROI, but on user group satisfaction
• Planning for business transactions, including M&A, and related IT management integration.

IT Assessment Services

EMA's IT Assessments are designed to deliver key management metrics quickly and enable organizations to identify performance gaps and improvement opportunities. EMA's proprietary methodology evaluates the current IT infrastructure, comparing existing tool sets against the requirements that must be met for an optimal IT management program. Using a SWAT team approach, EMA can complete an IT assessment in as little as two weeks. This includes:

• Documenting existing IT architectures, current management toolsets and known evolving demands and objectives
• Identifying IT management gaps that exist with respect to desired service level and management standards
• Identifying where the environment is particularly vulnerable to failure, and recommending specific operational changes to avoid critical faults, including security breaches
• Identifying redundancies that may exist within a current management toolset, and potential savings through the elimination of those inefficiencies
• Proposing an action plan to achieve service level management objectives.

From high-level strategy reviews to complete infrastructure audits, EMA provides unbiased insight and objective information about a company's infrastructure to help make optimal investment decisions.

Product Evaluations & Comparisons

EMA works with more than 200 vendors covering all elements of IT Management. Through its extensive research, product analysis, and hands-on experience, EMA assists with evaluating vendor proposals for management solutions. EMA routinely helps clients with:

• Understanding the management solutions market as a whole
• Developing vendor RFPs and contract analysis
• Computing the potential ROI for various management solutions
• Performing a custom product evaluation in EMA's on-site Test Lab, given defined company objectives and evaluation criteria.

EMA deploys decision-modeling techniques to evaluate new management solutions given overall company objectives and end-user requirements. And, because EMA does not sell, nor implement, vendor solutions, the advice is objective—achieving the greatest return on investment for clients.

Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Without a true strategic vision incorporating management's expectations of IT, the shift to better align the IT functions with business priorities cannot happen. Based on extensive research, EMA helps companies define their key constituents—customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders—and how IT should effectively support, and be accountable, to its critical users.

EMA assists companies in creating, deploying and monitoring multi-tiered SLAs between IT departments and constituents at an enterprise, geographic, divisional, departmental and individual-user level. State of the art technology and automated processes for prioritization of trouble tickets, monitoring, and metrics are deployed in order for IT organizations to rapidly improve service levels.

Training & Competency Evaluations

Expecting IT to achieve business goals requires best in class IT skills and technology, and requires a new way of working. EMA helps companies identify the skills and competencies that IT departments must have from a technical, business, management and behavioral standpoint. EMA provides:

• Training for CIOs to provide an understanding of existing management technologies; and where, when and how to make the right IT investments
• Evaluation of IT personnel to identify where gaps exist between optimal skill sets and existing abilities
• Training of IT personnel on management infrastructure, compliance with SLAs, and other technical and process-oriented subjects

More Information

For further information on EMA's IT Advisory Services Practice, contact Terry Roper at troper@enterprisemanagement.com, 303-543-9500 x122.

EMA Brochures & supplemental information

   EMA IT Management    

   EMA's Product View for Aruba Suite — March 2007