Managed Applications

Case Studies
- International Flavors and FragrancesFollowing an acquisition that dramatically increased data administration and monitoring needs, International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF) engaged Rolta TUSC Managed Services to monitor its Oracle environments and mentor its Oracle DBA. Today, IFF is able to maintain more than 40 databases in seven countries with one full-time DBA.
- Bemis Manufacturing CompanyBemis required production maintenance for its Oracle-based ERP system. By using Rolta TUSC for its infrastructure services, Bemis maintains focus on its core competency and spends half the cost of an on-staff database administrator (DBA) annually.
- Glenayre ElectronicsGlenayre needed to focus on core business functions. With Rolta TUSC services, Glenayre reduced its in-house support staff by 90 percent.
- Jernberg IndustriesJernberg Industries needed a cost-effective solution to support its Oracle E-Business Suite environment. Using Rolta TUSCs services, Jernberg reduced its Oracle support staff cost by 20 percent and improved operational efficiency.
- Silliker IncSilliker Inc. needed a more cost-effective solution for 24 x 7 Oracle Database support and monitoring. With Rolta TUSC services, Silliker Inc. reduced its Oracle in-house support staff costs by 39 percent.
- Village of NorthbrookNorthbrook needed a cost-effective solution for managing its Oracle system. Northbrook now receives world-class Oracle database administration at 75% less than the cost of a full-time DBA.
- Hammacher SchemmerHammacher Schlemmer needed Oracle support for much less than the cost of a full-time DBA. Hammacher's online store is now managed by Oracle experts for less than half the cost of a full time DBA.
- ManatronManatron needed to offer and support Oracle as a backend database for its Microsoft.Net-based packaged applications. Manatron saves time and offers world-class Oracle support without any on-staff Oracle personnel.
Insights Library
- Oracle High Availability (RAC, ASM, RMAN, Data Guard, Flashback Logs)White Paper - showing how to best implement high availability using Oracle technologies
- Managing your Oracle Database to Save Significant Time, Money and Headaches.flvWebinar - Presenting Oracle support processes that Rolta Managed Services uses to help reduce the cost and issues with running an Oracle RDBMS environment.
- Release 12 - Tackle Known Support Issues Head-onWebinar - highlighting areas that Rolta has found need special attention in an Oracle EBS R12 environment to help ensure better reliability and performance.
- Outsourcing Exchange Server: Choosing the Right Option for YouWebinar - showing how outsourcing of Oracle Exchange can help reduce IT support costs and increase reliability, and discussing pros and cons of four key support models.
- Tales from the "SAN" Box: Keys to Delivering Availability, Performance and FlexibilityWebinar - presenting special areas of focus that need to be followed while implementing a SAN to achieve more stable and scalable environments.

Executive View

Top Level Objectives

Managing mission-critical applications is particularly challenging in today’s marketplace. Application technologies are changing at a rapid pace, and business requirements are accelerating the need for additional ERP applications. Companies need to find ways to reduce total costs while managing increasing application complexity - and doing it on a 24x7 basis. Achieving these goals means managing employee skill sets, providing proactive monitoring tools to ensure reliability/stability of the applications, and transforming processes over time to make use of the latest application enhancements or to achieve system scalability.

To ensure reliable and effective operation of your mission-critical ERP applications, Rolta TUSC Managed Application Services provides comprehensive application support, enabling companies to focus on their core competencies with confidence that trained and experienced technicians are managing their business systems. Our Managed Application Services include technical and functional services for Oracle EBS, PeopleSoft, JDEdwards and SAP Business Suite. These services cover the full gamete from ensuring the applications are running as efficiently as possible to providing the functional expertise to help end users use the application more efficiently with fewer issues. We make sure that all application patches are applied, that system performance is optimized and that end-users are supported. By using our Managed Application Services, companies reduce costs in employee management and after-hours support, ensure more reliable systems and gain functional expertise that generates better end-user efficiencies.

We tailor our application support services to meet the individual needs of each client. We can support the entire application from software to functionality, or if retaining company resources provides a business advantage for the company, we can provide only the support that is needed - whether full time or on-demand. Our flexible approach allows our clients to excel at all aspects of ERP application support and achieve the best services for their end users at the lowest overall cost.

Solution - Innovation

Our Managed Applications Services offering provides system monitoring, administration and system customizations, all following industry best practices and 20 years of systems support experience. By using Rolta TUSC Managed Application services, you can expect to reduce costs while minimizing risk and improving system reliability.

Our services are tailored to meet each client’s individual needs with a customized approach to monitoring, mentoring and system administration. Our service includes proven Rolta TUSC tools for monitoring and reporting that we have developed and refined over the past 20 years. These tools are continually enhanced to meet the latest technology changes.

Advantage - Insight

Rolta TUSC has been and will continue to remain at the forefront of IT technology. Our consultants and technicians are active in many prominent user groups and work with the largest companies to implement the latest technology tools to achieve better efficiency and effectively better margins. With this wide breath of experience, we enhance our system tools and processes to ensure our application support exceeds client expectations.

To demonstrate our level of expertise in this area, it is important to note that Rolta TUSC is one of only 20 Oracle partners that has achieved Certified Advantage Partner status in both the Oracle Technology and Oracle EBS areas.

Benefit - Impact

Using Rolta TUSC’s Managed Applications Services improves companies’ application services through:

Increased reliability and performance- 24x7x365 monitoring and expert administration ensure you receive immediate response to events that threaten the availability of your mission-critical applications. In addition, based on our collective experience across multiple clients, we help you resolve issues - even before they become problems, minimizing downtime and stability issues. Once issues are identified, we proactively monitor your systems to prevent re-occurrence.
Better staffing efficiency - Eliminate time and effort spent searching for workarounds for issues that we have already resolved for other clients. Trust that experienced resources are always at your disposal; you no longer have to be concerned about employee turnover, vacations, and sick days.
Improved customer service - Issues are detected and addressed before they become end-user problems. If new issues are encountered, we are intimately familiar with Oracle processes and can leverage our long-term relationship to close Service Requests more quickly.
Lower cost of ownership - Only pay for resources on a fractional or as-needed basis. You’ll eliminate costs related to downtime and poor performance.
A flexible and scalable infrastructure - Senior-level resources are at your disposal as your technology needs change and as upgrades/migrations are required.

Management View

Business Objectives

One of the greatest challenges in managing an ERP application is ensuring that your team has the requisite skill sets to address ever-changing application technologies. In addition, you must ensure that these critical resources are available on a 24x7 basis to meet client application support expectations. Further complicating support, you must operate under a limited budget and over a long period of time.

Rolta TUSC Applications Services boasts employees that specialize in all aspects of Oracle EBS application support, maintenance and transformation. Although many companies need these services, they do not typically need them on a full-time basis. Rolta TUSC’s Application Services support model allocates a team of technicians specific to the needs of your applications that becomes part your support structure. Yet, because these employees are typically leveraged across multiple clients, you only pay for the fractional use of each of these resources. This model provides specialty technology expertise while dramatically reducing costs and providing employee redundancy.

Solution

Rolta TUSC Applications Support Services offering provides the experience, standards and processes to fully manage day-to-day ERP support, including full monitoring tools, service desk, 24x7 support staff, end-user helpdesk and customer reporting. Unique from the competition, our service offering also includes the more complex services of performance tuning, system architecture, new application improvements and system consolidation.

We provide a consultant that is familiar with your company’s environment to implement new features and/or perform the latest upgrades, enabling faster completion of projects at a lower cost. When we are providing support in a co-managed support model, we provide the training and mentoring to ensure client resources are up-to-date on technologies.

At Rolta TUSC, we recognize that different companies have different support requirements and business priorities. We do not simply provide a cookie-cutter approach to managing ERP systems. We evaluate the specific application modules and business processes used by each client and make sure that our support model meets that specific client’s needs.

Part of what enables us to provide a customized support model is the efficiency of our remote monitor software, which allows Rolta TUSC to collect and provide automated analysis of the ERP application statistics on a predetermined schedule or on an as-needed basis. All statistics are stored in our operational data store and are available via customized reports on the Rolta TUSC Internet Client Center Web site. This data also feeds our alert notification engine, which provides real-time alerts regarding current or potential problems.

Our skilled application specialists are not only experienced with E-Business Suite, they are also able to manage your operating systems, database and multi-vendor storage environment. This depth and breadth of knowledge enables us to make management decisions based on what is best for your entire architecture.

Approach

Rolta TUSC’s Applications Services support is focused on achieving high customer satisfaction by assigning specialized technicians for each of our client’s required application areas. These technicians employ the vast experience that we have gained by supporting many other complex environments to ensure that each of our client’s systems run as efficiently as possible. When additional technology needs are required, we can leverage our extensive team to solve immediate support issues.

There is a significant difference in the level of support that we provide compared to competitors. Most companies provide managed services support based around addressing alert-driven tasks. In contrast, addressing alert-driven tasks is just a small part of the offering that Rolta TUSC provides. Our model of support is based around primary assigned technicians for each support position of our client. Each of these technicians has vast experience in the area of support needed and works very closely with the client contact on a daily and weekly basis to better understand the client’s business and technical requirements and plans. This intimate knowledge of client environments and priorities gives us the ability to provide true consulting services on a daily basis to help our clients meet their goals.

Business Value

Because companies are able to eliminate or reduce the management of their ERP applications and/or support of their application software, we have seen client’s operational support costs reduced by as much as 75%. All clients will realize cost reductions in areas where their existing employees do not have the experience to efficiently run all aspects of the application or where they have hired for redundancy. Additionally, with expert-level insight into ERP functionality, clients may be able to take advantage of new features that improve business performance.

Technical View

Technical Issues

ERP applications are the heart of your business, but they aren’t always easy to support. With limited budgets and resources stretched too thin, it’s difficult to juggle user enhancement requests, make critical fixes to unforeseen bugs and stay current with patch application. Troubleshooting issues doesn’t simply require intimate knowledge of the applications. It also requires expertise with the operating systems, database and all associated tools. Smaller companies may not have an experienced Apps DBA at all, while larger companies may find that one is simply not enough as maintenance activities begin to fall through the cracks and requests accumulate.

Rolta TUSC Managed Applications Services provides expert-level support to ensure the availability and reliability of your E-Business Suite applications. Through proactive monitoring, administration and proposed modifications to your environment following industry best practices and years of field-proven support experience, we save you time and money. Our senior-level consultants work in partnership with you to ensure your applications are functioning optimally. We focus on:

Keeping your technology stack current
Resolving known bugs by applying workarounds and patches
Helping you capitalize on new features (for new releases)
Monitoring to prevent issues from re-occurring

When unexpected issues do arise, we leverage our long-term relationship and business clout with Oracle to rapidly resolve service requests (SRs).

Solution Components

What are the technical elements of the SSP?

Managed Application Services provide comprehensive support for industry leading ERP applications including Oracle EBS, Microsoft SQL Server, Hyperion, JD Edwards, Peoplesoft and more.

Implementation

How is the SSP implemented?

Managed Services offers a variety of service models including simple subscription-based wholly remote support for key technologies, fixed price support for mature systems, and an FTE-based model for larger engagements, with the capability to leverage our global sourcing capabilities.

How Does it Fit and Why is it Different?

What are the advantages that are a result of the SSP components and implementation that provide differentiated and tangible technical and business value?