The NOREX Technology Group

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The NOREX Technology Group

• We help IT professionals avoid reinventing the
  wheel.
• www.norex.net

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About NOREX

• NOREX professionally manages an IT consortium
  made up of more than 1,300 organizations from
  across North America
• For 25 years, NOREX has provided an array of
  services aimed at helping IT professionals
  leverage the real-world knowledge and experiences
  of their peers
• NOREX is focused on providing effective tools for
  sharing technology related best practices and
  tactical advice
• NOREX is free of vendor influence, ensuring an
  open and objective exchange of information, with
  no hidden agenda

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NOREX Resources Services

• Networking Information Assistance
• Prearranged peer-to-peer IT project networking
• IT Documents
• Online repository of 1,900 real world examples
• TeleForums
• Professionally facilitated IT project networking
  calls
• IT Roundtables Forums
• Professionally facilitated national, regional and
  industry specific roundtable discussions

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Networking Information Assistance

• Peer-to-peer networking with IT professionals
• NOREX maintains a database comprised of
  technology profiles used to identify
  organizations with similar IT initiatives
• NOREX personnel coordinate peer-to-peer
  networking opportunities with mutual consent of
  participants
• Peers exchange insight and information, helping
  one another expedite projects and avoid costly
  mistakes

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IT Document Repository

• Online repository including over 1,900 real
  world documents
• Shorten development time by using tried and
  tested examples created and implemented by other
  organizations
• Repository contains policies, procedures,
  strategic plans, RFPs, product evaluations,
  SLAs, job descriptions, etc.
• NOREX personnel remove names, phone numbers and
  email addresses from the documents before posting
  them online
• Unlimited access to the entire online repository
• NOREX personnel fulfill requests for documents
  not found in the repository
• Sample documents at http//www.norex.net/Norcons/
  index.asp

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TeleForums

• Interactive conference calls addressing timely IT
  issues.
• Agendas comprised of questions submitted by
  participants.
• Participants receive topic specific feedback from
  a cross-section of peers without leaving the
  office
• NOREX organizes, promotes, moderates and
  transcribes the discussions
• TeleForum transcripts are available online and
  include a table of contents, poll results and
  resource links

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Upcoming TeleForums

• IT Issues Specific to Colleges
  Universities  Tuesday, May 02,
  2006  1000 AM Central Time
• IT Capacity Planning  Thursday, May 04,
  2006  300 PM Central Time
• Global IT Issues   Tuesday, May 09,
  2006  300 PM Central Time
• VoIP   Thursday, May 11, 2006  300 PM Central
  Time
• Enterprise Backup Strategies   Thursday, May 18,
  2006  300 PM Central Time
• Data Security   Thursday, May 25,
  2006  300 PM Central Time

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IT Roundtables Forums

• Professionally moderated peer-to-peer roundtable
  discussions
• Attendees drive the discussion agendas by
  submitting topics and questions in advance of the
  roundtables
• Vendor/consultant participation is not allowed,
  promoting candid discussion about product pricing
  and performance
• NOREX organizes, promotes and facilitates a
  three-day national technology conference,
  numerous full-day regional forums, and industry
  specific IT roundtables
• Upcoming regional forums will be held in New York
  City, Lansing, Minneapolis, and Toronto

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Example Roundtable Topics

• MANAGEMENT ISSUES
• How successful are your service level agreements?
  
• Has anyone implemented a service catalog. How did
  you go about doing it?
• What percentage of purchase price are others
  paying for annual maintenance agreements?
• How are others handling morale issues that result
  from increasing workloads?
• What tools are others using for portfolio
  management of IT projects?
• What document retention policies are in place?
  How long are you required to retain data?
• What are you archiving (e-mail, instant
  messaging, file servers, etc.) and what archiving
  product are you using?
• What infrastructure outsourcing sources are
  members using? Any recommendations?
•  
• NETWORKS AND COMMUNICATIONS
• Identity Management Dual authentication,
  biometrics/smart cards, single sign-on, etc.
• Experience with merging Active Directory domains
  over wide areas
• How tricky has the upgrade from Exchange 5.5 to
  Exchange 2003 been for others?
• What are your experiences with Exchange
  ActiveSync (EAS)?
• What are people seeing as typical cost for voice
  calls (switched services) - 3 cents, 2 cents,
  under 2 cents?

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Example Roundtable Topics (continued)

• SOFTWARE ISSUES
• What are your desktop application software
  direction and strategies?
• Windows 2000 server migration to Windows 20xx
  experiences
• Open systems experiences
• Linux Running Production Servers
• How many members are running Oracle on Linux?
  Are members satisfied with the I/O capacity?
• Are there any gotchas in moving from Unix to
  Linux?
• Who has implemented SharePoint Portal and in what
  capacity? Experiences?
• SECURITY DISASTER RECOVERY
• What experiences have people had with McAfee
  desktop firewall?  Any bad experiences?  
• What are some product recommendations for
  intrusion prevention systems and implementation
  experiences?
• Who is using co-location sites? Any problems,
  wishes or the like? Would you do it again?
• In-house disaster recovery success stories.
• How long do you retain disaster recovery plans as
  part of a formal retention policy?
• When do you activate your companys various BCPs?

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Sample the NOREX Resources

• CTA members may request up to three examples from
  the NOREX online document repository free of
  charge
• CTA members may participate in a NOREX TeleForum
  or a Regional Forum at no cost
• Please contact Zac Miller with document and/or
  event registration requests
• Zac Miller
• Manager, Government Services
• Email zacm_at_norex.net
• Phone [phone] ext. 233
• Web www.norex.net