Who we are and what we can do for YOU.
Introduction
Today, modern organizations typically spend between 40% to 60% of their IT budgets on operational support,
keeping existing systems running efficiently, ideally to appropriate service level commitments or SLAs.
Arcadia has been founded to address this space by a number of industry leading application support specialists
that used to run custom application support for Microsoft, Avanade and JP Morgan.
In combination with its Strategic Partner IPsoft, rated #1 by the Gartner Group for Remote Infrastructure
Support, which they provide to over 500 of the Global 2000 largest companies, Arcadia offers end to end SLAs
with financial penalties for non-compliance, saving customers an average 30% or more on IT Operational
Support costs, reductions of up to 50% in incidents over time, significant improvements in IT stability, and the
flexibility to easily deploy new technology seamlessly.
In contrast to some of our competitors, we achieve these results through the use of autonomic expert systems
that do the work of support engineers, rather than traditional outsourcing.
What IPsoft does
IPsoft is the recognized global market leader in IT Infrastructure Management. For the past 13 years, they have
built and refined an autonomic platform of interconnected expert systems that monitor IT infrastructure and
standard systems, and largely do the work previously done by support engineers. The system is the most
advanced of its kind in the world, and escalates incidents it cannot automatically solve to real engineers, then
learns the solutions to be able to automatically handle any reoccurrences.
It is this focus on having systems automatically do the work that helps IPsoft generate the substantial average
savings by their customers, not to mention the improvements in stability, speed of resolution, and reduction in
incident counts. Almost all of IPsoft’s competitors arbitrage labor costs, rather than use systems, which is a
fundamentally different approach, and anyone doing the same systemic approach has to catch up with the 13
years of continuous systems refinement already in place.
Gartner Group estimates that IPsoft is a least 5 years ahead of all of its competitors in this space.
What Arcadia does
Arcadia Support Group was founded by the Team that pioneered Internet application support as a formal
independent function at Microsoft from 1995-2005, and which was later released as Microsoft Operations
Framework, or MOF. We developed the methodologies and techniques for building Operations teams that
could take custom Applications developed by others, reverse-engineer them if necessary, document them,
and support them to business defined and driven SLAs.
Arcadia was founded specifically to address the other half of the IT Operations problem, how to support the
non-standard, custom applications that IPsoft doesn’t already have the answers for, because they are
unique to every customer. Working seamlessly with IPsoft, leveraging the same autonomic toolsets, as well
as several additional ones specific to the custom application landscape, Arcadia offers the customers endto-end SLAs for running IT Operations, Applications and Infrastructure, objectively monitored in realtime and
with financial penalties for non-compliance.
We provide world-class stability, transparency and performance in IT Operations, so CIOs can focus on
leadership, strategy, and where to add value for their businesses instead of fighting fires.
How we differentiate: Traditional IT Support Stack
IT Support Stack
FTE Requirement
Platform
Storage
Messaging
Database
Application
Network & Communications
Technology
Specialists
Level 2
Level 3
Leadership & Governance
Service & Support
Specialists
Level 1
Vendor Management
Change Management
Problem & Incident Management
Service Desk
Transforming IT Support Through Autonomics
IT Support Stack
FTE Requirement
Platform
Storage
Messaging
Database
Application
Network & Communications
Fewer Technology
Specialists
Level 2
Level 3
Leadership & Governance
Autonomic Assistance at Level 2/3
Autonomic
Support
Level 1
Full Autonomic Support at Level 1
Our Approach
•
Assessment - We begin by assessing the ICT Operations of our client holistically, to determine the relative
maturity and stability, and developing the business case for the improved service levels and cost savings that
can be achieved. The output of the Assessment will be a set of proposals to actually fix ICT Operations.
•
Stabilization and transition – Depending on the results of the Assessment, we will bring together a
combination of local resources, international experts, and strategic partners to address any serious pain
points or bottlenecks identified, then implement the new models, moving to improve the effectiveness and
efficiency of the support delivery.
•
Ongoing ICT Operations – In combination with the client’s local resources, we will enable a seamless,
streamlined, ITIL standards-based, IT Operations delivery. This should provide three major benefits:
–
Cost effectiveness and potential savings
–
Significantly improved Service Levels and transparency, with financial penalties for non-compliance
–
The flexibility to change rapidly to adopt new technologies without incurring large costs
Advantages inherent in the Hybrid Approach
•
Local Presence backed by Global Capability – In all phases, we marry the accountability and detailed client
knowledge with our world-class 24x7 coverage and expertise to deliver. Where it makes sense we will leverage our
deep experience and expert systems, or develop and train local resources to hit the required Service Levels. Each
solution is tailored to the specific and unique needs of the client.
•
Flexibility– Backing the local support resources with the resources of the global organizations behind them allows ondemand ramping up and down of resources to meet changing needs, almost in real-time.
•
Accountability and Transparency – Once the new model is in place, it will be backed by Service Levels with financial
penalties for non-compliance, and detailed, objective tracking mechanisms, allowing the Client’s management to
really understand what is happening in service delivery.
•
Strategic positioning for the future – Once we have stabilized any operational problems, and transitioned operations
with the right service levels and right mix of global and local resources, new IT implementations, such as cloud
migrations become much easier, opening up the possibility to really innovate and achieve much more with ICT. We
have the resources to help in this space as well, but we believe in laying the right foundation first.
Case Study - Rompetrol
We undertook a similar project approach for Rompetrol, one of the largest oil and gas companies in Romania, and a
wholly owned subsidiary of KazMunaiGas.
Over the course of 4 months, we:
•
Created an internal IT department, and helped them recruit 27 headcount to manage the IT function, which had
been completely outsourced to a single-source vendor.
•
Built and trained a team of 40 resources to handle the required local onsite support
•
Transitioned the network, server, operating systems and database management.
•
Transitioned 90 mission critical applications to our management and support, in spite of receiving no
documentation or transition support from the incumbent vendor, including SAP and Oracle EBS for multiple
modules and business entities.
•
Negotiated and went live with formal SLAs, after the applications had been documented and stabilized.
Now that the basic ICT Operations are under control, we have begun, with other Strategic Partners, to analyze how to
improve the cost benefits and revenue recognition of Rompetrol’s SAP system… rendered much easier by the increase
in control and transparency.
Other reference Customers and Partners
Partners & Service Providers
Sample Customers
Millions of critical IT devices under management
What do we support
Sample Technologies Supported (not limited to)
Security
Check Point, Cisco, ArcSight, Juniper, Entrust, BlueCoat, ISS, RSA, nCircle, eEye, SafeNet, McAfee,
Symantec, Trend Micro, Sophos
Application
Business Logic
Oracle Financials, SAP, PeopleSoft, Lawson, JD Edwards, Custom Processes, ATG Commerce, Batch
Processes
Middleware
Tomcat, WebLogic, OAS, WebSphere, IIS, Jboss, ATG, MQ, Tibco
Database
Oracle, DB2, Sybase, MySQL, MS SQL, PostgreSQL, Teradata
OS &
Virtualization
Solaris, RedHat Linux, Windows, AIX, HP-UX, iSeries/AS400
Storage
EMC, Hitachi, NetApp, IBM, Dell EqualLogic, HP, Cisco Nexus & MDS
Network & Voice
Cisco, F5, Juniper, Riverbed, Blue Coat, Nortel, Avaya, Brocade, Motorola
Service Desk
MS Windows, MS Office, Exchange, Lotus Notes, Adobe, Productivity Suite
What are our key benefits
Cost Reduction
•Typical 30-35% reduction in operational support costs
•Additional benefits in cost avoidance of software license and support costs
•Flexible cost structure, delivery ‘as a service’
Availability, Stability & Predictability
•Significant (circa 60%) reductions in mean time to resolution
•Increases in application and service availability
•Availability and service level guarantees, compliancy standards secured
Scalability
•Global operation across three continents
•Ubiquitous shared knowledge management system
•Integrated toolset and support operation, full TIL V3 support
Flexibility
•Interoperability with current support structure /safeguard investments
•Flexible contract structure to allow growth & shrinkage
•Support processes configured to work with client and 3rd parties
In control of Continuity, Continuous Improvement
•End to End Orchestrated control of operations and processes
•6 Sigma processes / process governance and continuous improvement
•Adaptive learning with Bayesian Analysis and Predictive Analytics
Technical Overview of autonomics
IPcenter Service / SOA Bus
WAN / VPN
F
FW
IPautomata
Executioner
IPautomata
Matcher
IPcmdb
IPkm
IPpm
Problem
Mgt
IPmanager
CSI
Engineer
FW
Manual Problem Ticket Generation
Qualified
Engineer
Virtual
Engineer
IPautomata
Designer
F
IPmon
Manual Ticket Entry
IPim
tickets
IPautomata
Store
Customer
Infrastructure
IPmon
IPpc
Skill Based
Routing
Qualified
Engineer