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Q - I only have some general database questions at this point, will your Remote Consulting specialist help me with them?
A - We would be happy to answer questions about database design, how to optimize access to files with traditional and SQL-based approaches, using new database functionality, etc.
Q - My problems seem to relate to the iSeries, should I still engage Remote Consulting?
A - There are quite a few areas we have expertise in. Please call with your questions or issues that relate to any of the following:
- Communication problem diagnosis
- Work management configuration
- Is there a better way to configure my system storage pools?
- I'm running queries and they eat my system up. What can I do about that?
- Is my subsystem set up properly?
- Performance tips/tricks
- How can I shorten the time of this batch job?
- Have I coded this SQL statement correctly to get the best performance?
- Java development relative to the iSeries
- How do I set up JDBC?
- Is it better to use the native JDBC driver or the one from the toolbox?
- Can I do database work in a thread?
Q - Is off-site consulting really feasible?
A - Yes it is very workable, and often is preferable to working on-site for several reasons. One is the obvious cost savings - no additional travel and living expenses are necessary. Another is speed. We often get calls when IT problems have reached a crisis point - systems and applications are down, users are furious, and executive management wants a fix yesterday. Scheduling travel around the full days of availability required, working through the engagement details, finding the available budget dollars - all this takes time, and in fact even more money. With our off-site availability and some of the analysis tools we can apply from any distance, we can respond to the problem quickly and find the root causes (often they aren't obvious) and get your strategic applications up and running. Crisis calls for quick response, and that's why we call this service off-site intervention.
Q - Is Centerfield's low cost database/ASSESSMENT less expensive than engaging consulting services?
A - Our low cost performance assessment yields a significant amount of useful information and is well worth the modest investment required. The results provided save time and money immediately, and lay the groundwork for important decisions and investments still to come like hardware and operating system upgrades, new versions of your enterprise software, staffing decisions, even major application vendor shifts. While it may not be appropriate for every business running strategic applications in an iSeries (AS/400) environment, it's usually is appropriate, and it is the best place - in fact the only way - to begin to see where your IT organization really is with respect to the many issues that will surround application performance near-term, mid-term, and long-term. As to cost, nothing compares to the ROI of our database/ASSESSMENT, and when circumstances dictate, the automated, tool-driven analysis process can be supplemented with increments of consulting support, or additional analytics can be added to the process for reasonable additional cost - data collection and analysis that focuses more on specific, known problems or on performance issues within particular application modules.
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