Operations Consulting

Operations Consulting

Working with the right operations consulting firm can help a business operate more efficiently, effectively, and profitably. Our supply chain consulting and other types of operations consulting have delivered billions of dollars in sustainable operations improvements for our clients, and our working capital management solutions have helped clients free up billions of dollars in improved cash flow. When making the important decision about which operations consulting agency to work with, here are a few criteria to consider:

Working with the right operations consulting firm can help a business operate more efficiently, effectively, and profitably. Our supply chain consulting and other types of operations consulting have delivered billions of dollars in sustainable operations improvements for our clients, and our working capital management solutions have helped clients free up billions of dollars in improved cash flow. When making the important decision about which operations consulting agency to work with, here are a few criteria to consider:

Experience:

:Length of experience of course, but also depth and diversity — has the operations consulting firm worked closely with a wide range of organizations, so that they can bring broad perspective to bear on your operational issues?

Evidence:

What is the empirical basis of the advice that the operations consulting group will be providing you? How will you know that their advice will be sound?

Measurable results:

Will the operations consulting firm deliver tangible, measurable results for your organization?

Global perspective:

Today’s business operations are global. Tomorrows will be even more so. To thrive in this environment, you’ll need an operations consulting partner with demonstrated global reach and expertise.

1. Cots Middleware solutions

• Middleware technologies consist of various components that form the infrastructure, or plumbing, of distributed applications. In effect this infrastructure provides a distributed environment, often called a container, for deploying application-level components that perform application-specific processing. These application components rely on the middleware infrastructure to manage their life cycles and execution, and to provide off-the- shelf services such as transactions and security. This means the two are tightly coupled: An application-level component cannot execute outside a suitable COTS middleware container. The application component behaviour-the business logic—depends completely on the infrastructure component behaviour.
• Distributed real-time embedded systems (DRE) increasingly rely on COTS middleware to meet their distribution needs. Yet, there is a technology gap between the design of COTS middleware and the high-integrity constraints of real-time engineering. This puts a limit on the adoption of middleware by system families such as space or avionics. In this paper, we present our current work on the “schizophrenic middleware architecture”, a highly tailorable middleware architecture, and its implementation PolyORB. We illustrate how it allows for support of real-time engineering guidelines, enforce determinism, allows for modeling and verification.
• COTS middleware speeds e-business application deployment but can be difficult to select. I-Mate provides a proven, structured software engineering process for COTS middleware acquisition. Using I-Mate in six major projects led to highly visible, accountable, and ultimately reliable selections of COTS middleware products in greatly compressed time scales. This significantly reduced the risks associated with inappropriate product selections and made these projects more likely to succeed.

Database administrator (DBA)

DBA is also an abbreviation for doing business as – a term sometimes used in business and legal writing. DBA is an abbreviation for A-weighted decibels.

A database administrator (DBA) directs or performs all activities related to maintaining a successful database environment. Responsibilities include designing, implementing, and maintaining the database system; establishing policies and procedures pertaining to the management, security, maintenance, and use of the database management system; and training employees in database management and use. A DBA is expected to stay abreast of emerging technologies and new design approaches. Typically, a DBA has either a degree in Computer Science and some on-the- job training with a particular database product or more extensive experience with a range of database products. A DBA is usually expected to have experience with one or more of the major database management products, such as Structured Query Language, SAP, and Oracle-based database management software.

The database administrator (DBA) is usually a dedicated role in the IT department for large organizations. However, many smaller companies that cannot afford a full-time DBA usually outsource or contract the role to a specialized vendor, or merge the role with another in the ICT department so that both are performed by one person.

The primary role of database administration is to ensure maximum up time for the database so that it is always available when needed. This will typically involve proactive periodic monitoring and troubleshooting. This in turn entails some technical skills on the part of the DBA. In addition to in-depth knowledge of the database in question, the DBA will also need knowledge and perhaps training in the platform (database engine and operating system) on which the database runs.

A DBA is typically also responsible for other secondary, but still critically important, tasks and roles. Some of these include:

Database Security:

Ensuring that only authorized users have access to the database and fortifying it against any external, unauthorized access.

Database Tuning:

Tweaking any of several parameters to optimize performance, such as server memory allocation, file fragmentation and disk usage.

Backup and Recovery:

It is a DBA’s role to ensure that the database has adequate backup and recovery procedures in place to recover from any accidental or deliberate loss of data.

Producing Reports from Queries:

DBAs are frequently called upon to generate reports by writing queries, which are then run against the database.