Consultancy Methodology

Canonical's professional services cover you at every stage of your system's life cycle. Your challenges are met by our expertise and by technical consultants who know Ubuntu inside out and communicate in a language you understand.

Moving to new platforms and technologies can be challenging, but our consultants ensure smooth transitions and that you get maximum benefits from the changes you make.

Plan

If your organisation requires a more efficient and effective platform that gives you a higher return on investment, we will help you take the first steps towards achieving your goals.

Assessments

Our consultants work closely with your team to fully understand your IT environment and the demands you place on it. We assess your architecture and workloads while understanding the practicalities of your business operations, so the solutions we propose will be designed with your business, as well as your infrastructure, in mind.

Assessment benefits

Trusted expert advice. Canonical's consultants speak directly with you to determine solutions for secure, stable and robust enterprise-level solutions and also show you best practices.

Freedom to choose. Our consultants deliver complete open-source solutions. They help you design flexible and scalable systems free from vendor lock-in or expensive licensing requirements.

Proven cost savings. We help you determine the return on investment and total cost of ownership to not only implement, but also manage systems based on Ubuntu and other open-source software.

Assessment overview

Step 1 Gather information about your current environment, including staff interviews to understand systems as well as functional and business requirements.

Step 2 Compare your requirements with potential Ubuntu-based solutions, and determine potential cost savings and returns on investment from implementing suggested changes.

Step 3 Present findings from analysis and propose high-level solution and strategies for implementation.

Step 4 Deliver customer report and transfer knowledge to your teams.

Proof of concept

Seeing is believing. Ubuntu proofs of concept are short, fixed-term deployments that help you quickly integrate Ubuntu into your environment. Throughout the project, a Canonical consultant will be available to answer questions and help you use the software so you can experience the benefits of Ubuntu first-hand.

Proof of concept benefits

First-hand experience. You get to experience Ubuntu optimised for best performance in your environment.

Trusted expert advice. Canonical's consultants visit your site to demonstrate the optimum Ubuntu configuration for your needs, transfer knowledge and demonstrate best practices.

Comprehensive support. We include 9 x 5 support of the pilot so you will always have someone on-hand to help you make the most out of your trial.

Fully documented. Once the proof of concept is completed, we provide a report which fully documents the configuration of Ubuntu as it was optimised for your environment.

Proof of concept overview

Step 1 Initial consultation to gain understanding of expected functionality and requirements to be demonstrated during proof of concept.

Step 2 Site visit by technical consultant to install the agreed solution on your own isolated systems.

Step 3 Trial proof of concept for a set period.

Step 4 Consultant to debrief you on the trial and advise on how to successfully deploy into production.

Step 5 Deliver customer report documenting set-up of proof of concept installation and knowledge transfer to staff.

Deploy

Our consultants help you configure Ubuntu for optimum security and performance. They work with your team to mitigate deployment risks and transfer best practices knowledge throughout the deployment.

Engaging Canonical deployment services safeguards your production systems because we ensure that you deploy robust and reliable solutions that have been tried and tested.

Benefits

Fully documented. We provide you with a detailed blueprint of your system with guides to best practices.

Ubuntu, optimised. Our technical engineers will help you configure your systems for optimum performance.

Reduce project risks. Having an on-site Ubuntu expert helps you mitigate implementation risks and provides greater assurance of project success.

Tried-and-tested solutions. Implement software that has already been rigorously tested by Ubuntu industry experts. This helps you avoid unnecessary maintenance issues that may appear later due to implementing an unproven solution.

Training. Not only can your team informally learn from our consultant during deployment, we also include formal Ubuntu training after deployment, so your end users can take full advantage of your new systems.

Key areas of expertise

Canonical deployment services help you build and deploy Ubuntu solutions. Our main service areas are:

• Integration with existing identity and centralised user management systems
• Core-builds
• Common workloads
• Virtualised and cloud environments
• Clustered and high-availability environments
• Automated systems management
• Security configurations and lock-down

Systems optimisation and performance tuning

Ubuntu is lean, efficient and built for purpose, but after fine-tuning for your organisation by Canonical technicians, you can boost performance further and make the most of this versatile software.

Benefits

Reduced maintenance costs. Optimising and fine-tuning your systems reduces the need for unnecessary maintenance work.

Maximise resources. Make better use of your resources by optimising your systems.

Increase IT value. Give your end users a better experience and improve their level of satisfaction with your IT systems by refining your computing environment.

Enhance stability. Fine-tuning your systems for high performance also means less downtime and a more reliable system.

Optimisation and fine-tuning overview

Step 1 Kick-off session to understand your existing operations, IT infrastructure, platforms and systems.

Step 2 Audit and assessment of your current configurations compared with industry best practice.

Step 3 Report on recommendations and findings presented to you and discussed, including further advice on best practices.