IBM Technology Expert Labs EXPERTISE CONNECT for Automation Brand Offerings

Our Expertise Connect for our Automation Brand of technologies is a monthly subscription based, fixed priced, part number offering which allows you to access a "just in time" technical consultant who is deep, product focused. Our subject matter experts (SMEs) can assess that your solution is designed, deployed correctly and securely the first time, so that the full features and functions of your IBM software/SaaS solution is effectively leveraged for your production and non-production workloads. Our SMEs bring their knowledge based derived from multiple, cross industry engagements so that you can adopt and scale your IBM Automation solution platform for the long term.

"Are you experiencing these situations and challenges?"*

• My team is new to this product – we need help building our expertise.
• We need day-to-day advice on best practices and any automation recommendations.
• Our environment has been unstable or has slow performance – we need someone to help us fix it and avoid future problems.
• We are releasing frequent application updates.
• We need help mitigating the risk of these deployments.
• Our application is crucial to the success of our business and integration with old and new systems is imperative.
• I want to do the upgrades with my own people, but we could use an expert to help us avoid pitfalls.

IBM Technology Expert Labs monthly subscription based Expertise Connect, allows for a designated Subject Matter Expert (SME) from IBM or a certified IBM Delivery Partner who will:

(i) Bring you their deep skills in the IBM Technology you are requesting Expertise Connect for these IBM Automation but not exclusive to: Cloud Pak for Integration, Event Automation, Sterling Order Management, MQ, etc.

(ii) Build a long-term relationship with you.

(iii) Customize technical advice, guidance and best practices specific to your environment.

(iv) Help your team stay proactive through planning, regular health reviews and optimization situations.

(v) Mitigate risks and improve performance and stability.

(vi) Help you grow proficiency (learning from our best practices) and accelerate business value.

Clients who purchase Expertise Connect for IBM Automation offerings can expect our consultants to:

• Help accelerate your technology adoption
• Mitigate your risks of costly mistakes
• Assist in validating and optimizing your configurations
• Advise on "how to?" for performance turning, scaling, hybrid cloud deployments, automating, monitoring, securing, etc.
• Provide documented best practices patterns and recommendations. etc., etc., and much more based on your needs

Expertise Connect subscription offerings are based on the selected and agreed scope of activities defined in the Service Description. Pricing is based on a monthly subscription basis for a minimum of a 6 month or 12 month term. Please see details in the Service Description for options beyond that of the normal 1/4 of a FTE time allocation.

Value Proposition:

Value Proposition: IDC's research highlights the value organizations achieve through IBM Expertise Connect engagements from having dedicated resources with a deep understanding of their IBM and IT environments. Key results reported by IDC: 341% ROI, 61% more time for proactive/strategic activities, and 77% fewer unplanned outages. Please see full IDC report for details.

Our global subject matter experts will assist you on how to optimize your IBM Automation solution implementation and framework on Azure and on-premises for a hybrid cloud deployment leveraging Red Hat OpenShift. Expertise Connect allows for our SMEs to work towards any integrations required for Azure cloud services such as DBaaS. Clients can discuss customized deployment scenarios via workshops that can be setup by our IBM Technology Expert Labs consultant.