Great Circle Consulting Services for Enterprise Networks

Consulting Services for Enterprise Networks

Introduction

Great Circle specializes in network-related consulting in the areas of architecture, automation, design, deployment, and security.

We are particularly adept at guiding a client through the difficulties surrounding major network reconfigurations such as network automation implementations, mergers and acquisitions, WAN upgrades, Internet connectivity upgrades, and service provider changes.

Network Automation

As described on our main consulting page, we're especially involved in the emerging field of network automation, which is focused on improving network reliability, maintainability, and cost effectiveness by automating the configuration and management of complex networks. By developing and applying automation principles and tools similar to those that have been developed in the system administration field, savvy startups can make their networks more efficient, easier to scale, more reliable, and easier to maintain. Great Circle can help you identify, design, develop, and deploy such network automation systems.

Network Architecture and Design

We provide expertise to help you design and implement the network that best fits your business needs, including technology evaluation, capacity planning, equipment and vendor selection, and carrier selection. We also help you develop effective strategies for issues such as automation, routing, redundancy, availability, supportability, and scalability.

Great Circle's consultants have broad experience in the key areas of network architecture, including network automation, topology, routing, performance analysis, naming and addressing issues, and basic network services (e-mail, the World Wide Web, file service, DNS, etc.), as well as a special expertise in DSL and network security.

For clients with an existing enterprise network, we are able to provide the knowledge base needed to cost-effectively upgrade or automate key portions of the network while maintaining support for existing business practices. This could include, for example, migrating portions of a corporate WAN to a high-speed technology such as ATM or MPLS while maintaining less performance-critical portions as frame relay links.

Network Security

We specialize in the analysis, design, and implementation of network security systems, especially external (Internet) and internal (intranet) firewalls and virtual private networks (VPNs). We can help you design and install your own firewall or VPN, or help you evaluate a proposal from someone else. In conjunction with network security consulting, we offer tailored presentations of the highly regarded Building Internet Firewalls tutorial, which will help your own staff understand firewall concepts in order to effectively, select, deploy, and support the appropriate technology for your situation.

Great Circle's principal consultant, Brent Chapman, is one of the first and best-known Internet firewall experts, and is the founder of the Firewalls mailing list and co-author of the popular Building Internet Firewalls book (O'Reilly & Associates, first edition 1995, second edition 2000).

Our focus is on clients and sites that need more sophisticated security and firewall systems than those provided by turnkey commercial firewall products. We help our clients figure out which commercial products are appropriate for their situation, and how best to use them. We emphasize security awareness and analysis as a component of all our network design and architecture consulting.

Mergers and Acquisitions

One of the largest, most critical, and most difficult parts of a business merger (including acquisitions and joint ventures) is the successful integration of the enterprise networks of the merger partners. In many cases, companies have widely differing philosophies and strategies for network architecture, topology, services, and security, even if they are in similar market segments. Great Circle has the expertise and skills to make your merger or acquisition a much smoother process.

A particularly difficult part of a merger is getting all of the parties to understand what each of the others are doing, how, and why. Our broad consulting experience enables us to quickly discover each partner's policies, procedures, and systems, and determine the assumptions, constraints, and considerations that drive them. Our extensive training experience enables us to effectively explain all of this to the merger partners, in their own terms and using their own frames of reference. Our technical expertise enables us to suggest, develop, or evaluate solutions to merger problems. We have a global perspective, and experience working with international subsidiaries and field offices in a number of countries.

Some of the merger issues and tasks that we have become familiar with -- and are able to offer assistance with -- include:

Overall project management, budgeting, and staffing
Building a cross-functional, cross-organizational project team
Harmonizing security policies
Harmonizing service and funding models
Analyzing and integrating support functions
Identifying and resolving protocol, standards, equipment, and vendor issues
Merging field offices and other remote sites
Addressing Internet connectivity and firewall issues
Handling naming, addressing, and routing issues
Preserving key business practices during a time of transition
Working with other teams and functional areas, such as voice, video, and desktop applications

Great Circle consultants are able to work effectively in communicating with -- and facilitating communications among -- all levels of the merger partners' enterprise, including executives, IS/IT management, and project implementation and support staff, as well as end-user management and staff that will be affected by the merger.

WWW: www.greatcircle.com
Email: info@greatcircle.com
USA Toll Free: 877 GRT CRCL
(877 478 2725)
International: +1 415 861 3588
Fax: +1 415 552 2982