Applied Methodologies, Inc. (AMI) provides the following portfolio of services to our clientele.

 AMI can conduct an audit or health check of your existing network infrastructure to determine potential trouble spots or confirm your staff's findings. AMI conducts a high level analysis of existing enterprise and specialized networks to provide our clients with a current "state of affairs" regarding their networks. All aspects of the network are analyzed from traffic types/levels, protocols, data flows, applications, business processes and hardware components. Our results provide our clients with much needed strategic or tactical information about their network and business process in a detailed report with recommendations for direction and growth. Custom (smaller) network analysis reports, covering only a section of a larger network can also be provided to our clients outlining what was discovered with a set of recommendations (tactical and strategic) to redress issues.

Re-design of existing or legacy networks with emphasis on reducing latency and providing additional capacity at a lower cost. Our designs employ very creative measures to leverage the existing technology assets and still provide improvement. Our knowledge of infrastructure is second to none with a proven track record of re-architecting many networks from Local and campus based, Metro or Wide Area, to solve business or application needs. A very structured approach is used that applies application and traffic modeling as well as adherence to industry standards. We use such methodologies as the Markov or various Queuing models and modeling tools when applicable. Our unique approach of defining DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS and providing several designs that meet one or all of the considerations has been lauded by our clients. Our approach enables clients to easily "Pick and Choose" a high or low level design based on their most important considerations.

AMI provides tactical and strategic solutions to your network infrastructure. AMI has re-designed many networks  that involved such technologies from the lower levels of the OSI model such as Packet over SONET, Gigabit Ethernet and WDM, backbone upgrades, WAN restacks, campus or office building LAN segment horizontal plus vertical upgrades and restacks.   AMI has been engineering networks since pre 10BASE-T standards and knows how to help our clients leverage and migrate from legacy networks(Token-Ring etc.) to their fullest. Our knowledge and experience of data networking from the late 80s' helps us to help our clients with forklift migrations from 10Base-T to 100GB Ethernet.

AMI can analyze and upgrade your routing protocol and egress routing policies between organizations as well as tune your layer 2-7 infrastructure components for such services as QoS. AMI can help you upgrade your current network infrastructure from the physical to logical layers for upcoming technologies such as pervasive/unified computing, VoIP, Multimedia and QoS.

We also provide implementation and troubleshooting of networking components such as routers, switches, firewalls and servers. We work with your staff either as a day to day resource(staff augmentation) or as a resource for a specific network upgrade or clearout project.

AMI has many years of experience and a proven track record in network troubleshooting and protocol analysis. We provide our clients with the necessary tools such as protocol analyzers and application expert systems to help identify network or application related problems quickly. With the use of either our own protocol analyzers or the client's remote monitoring and network management tools, we can conduct an extensive traffic pattern and protocol usage baseline of all LAN and WAN segments. This information will determine the general health and capacity of a network. This service provides our clients much needed information about traffic utilization, bandwidth cost and QoS levels. This information can be used for future design data modeling, traffic management usage predictions, strategic and tactical direction or as a preventative check-up. Our clients receive a detailed report outlining the findings and recommendations plus graphs of statistical data for presentations.

What sets this service apart form the Forensic network troubleshooting service listed above is that the same approach and methodologies are applied but only for a specific application or application system. This service provides our clients with the details about the impact that a new application or application system may have on an existing network. AMI will analyze application systems such as an ERP, CRM from Oracle/PeopleSoft, SAP, home grown, or infrastructure related solutions such as cloud computing and virtualization from the network protocol and traffic behavioral perspective to determine if the application will disrupt other applications on the network and the network in general. AMI's application impact analysis will also help our clients determine if the application system or the network infrastructure in general needs to be tuned for optimal operation. AMI can also uncover application based issues such as inefficient use of two, three or multi tier client server or application services architecture. AMI can also analyze the most popular and critical transactions and determine if the mechanics of the transactions are sound before deployment over he network. AMI can work with your developers and are fluent in RDMBS back end technologies and SQL. We help ensure that our clients are not architecting the network around an application or an application around the network.

AMILABS, Applied Methodologies research arm and lab provides the general network and security community findings that are relevant to the operational behavior of such technologies. AMILABS has conducted and distributed to the security community various reports that have help fellow professionals gain a better understanding of a protocol, product, exploit or technology in general. Some of these findings are available in the Case Studies section of this site for your use.

As the need and use of networks grow, the amount of critical business information traversing such networks also grow. With this phenomenon happening the criminal element also grows. With companies competing in a global market and internet access providing additional avenues for commerce, corporations are at a higher risk of being "attacked" more than ever. By utilizing one of our analysis services, or having one of our consultants just focus in one area, an organization will have a detailed report of what security violations exist in and outside a corporation’s communications network. We can also assist in the definition and creation of an organization’s security policy. Our firm’s knowledge of protocols, security technologies and the exploits common technologies present, plus our methodical approach enables us to confidently narrow down potential or existing rouge activities. We can provide a network security audit and analysis to determine potential trouble spots for internal or external activities. AMI also provides security policy and procedures drafting for organizations with no such policies or to update an existing security policy.

AMI has several years or wireless network design, implementation and troubleshooting experience at its disposal to help our clients navigate the fluid wireless technology industry. The wireless industry has been changing at a rate much faster than the rate of most other technologies utilized at most corporations. AMI conducts continuous research and monitoring of wireless trends so our clients can receive the most up to date information before committing to a wireless solution. We focus mostly on 802.11x(WIFI), Free Space Optics(FSO), proprietary, 802.16x-WIMAX technologies. AMI has partnered with several wireless protocol and security IDS manufactures to provide quality testing and product enhancement consultation. AMI has also implemented PtP and PtmP wireless networks for clients that needed an innovative yet low cost solution.

AMI also conducts wireless troubleshooting for enterprise and campus WIFI based networks. AMI provides and utilizes spectrum analyzers, wireless protocol analyzers, commercial and shareware wireless applications, wireless routers and access points when conducting site surveys. AMI can conduct just site surveys for an existing wireless deployment or can provide the network, WDS and RF circuit architecture design and site survey reports. AMI conducts wireless security audits and is currently, via AMILABS, conducting VoIP over Wireless integration. You can review some of AMI's work with wireless technologies in the Case Studies section on this site. AMI is also part of the CWNP program and provides CWNP engineers.

Our consultants are all very skilled in the area of project management. By applying our proven methods we ensure that all projects have the proper requirements defined and expectations set. We do not accept or manage a project without a Statement of Work submitted and complied. Our Project Manager’s purpose is to identify and clarify the requirements of a project. The Project Manager is the main interface between the client’s business, our services and other service providers. We will define all phases, tasks resources and attributes of a project. Other tasks and roles our Project Managers provide are: delegating tasks, defining and maintaining schedules, managing budgets, managing vendors and relationships with vendors, setting client and vendor expectations and reviewing all contracts and legal forms pertaining to the project.

Our Project Managers provide documentation and Statements of Work. The Project Manager provides guidance to technical and non technical personnel. Definition and hiring of resources as well as addressing resource issues. Our managers all posses the ability to demonstrate project goals in writing and in presentations, identifying issues that arise that may impact the project or client’s business, escalate and follow though on all issues relating to the project to ensure the project’s integrity. Our Project Managers are also responsible for the level of quality that is required for each project and ensure that the level desired by the client is sustained. The approach and methodologies used to manage projects will remain consistent to reduce communication and human errors and increase overall Project Management efficiency. AMI is also a member of PMI (Project Management Institute) and utilizes the practices/methodologies outlined in the PMBOK guide.

AMI can work with your IT management team to help identify and provide a direction for the continued use of existing or future use of new technology assets.  Our experience provides our customers many views to glean from on how to and not approach a business goal or problem. AMI can provide tactical analysis and recommendations for a particular technical problem. AMI can also conduct a strategic analysis of your technology and business needs to determine if the direction you are taking is sound. Our understanding of the technology involved, client's internal goals and a history of methodologies used at numerous other clients provides you with an unbiased, direct and honest view of your direction. We work one on one with your management in the planning and operational stages of technology deployment. We can help you with CAPEX and OPEX analysis and technology adoption feasibility based on market trends and past customer case studies. AMI provides your IT management team the view from many companies not from the perspective of your organization.

Our consultants not only understand technology but also the business aspect of our client's needs. We work with your business and technology managers to better qualify and crystallize your requirements. We understand that not all solutions to a business problem require a technological solution. Our consultants provide years of experience and education for your management team to utilize. We will work with your managers to help determine if a business process can be better served with a technical solution or not. We can help streamline a business process to utilize a technical solution if it has not used one before or determine if one is needed. We have experience in outsourcing operations, project management practice standardization, NOC and support process organization. This experience helps our clients realize increased productivity from their existing business and technology processes or newfound productivity gains by incorporating or removing processes.

AMI can create and conduct custom in-depth network training curricula for Jr. and Sr. engineers in your organization. This training covers forensic protocol and traffic analysis techniques, advance application and protocol analysis, advance Cisco router and switch troubleshooting, Ethernet and TCP/IP protocol analysis. The training also covers advanced Sniffer usage including packet filters, triggers and offset pattern matches. Advanced analysis techniques such as identifying common application issues, protocol mechanics and relationship to application performance with a what, when, where and how approach to properly identify and trace an application based issue are covered in the curriculum. AMI can provide guidelines and templates for engineers to follow when analyzing application related issues. AMI uses application analysis tools and several protocols analyzers introduced to the client's support staff to help increase the productivity the engineers may obtain once they learned how to dissect an application issue from protocols analysis by raw Sniffer trace review. Our training has successfully increased  a major NYC utility's  Network Systems and NOC department's skill level, overall productivity and reduced the average outage occurrence time. AMI can also provide Cisco CCNA/CCDA and CCNP/CCDP level training from one of our certified engineers.