Benjamin Curry
 

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Ben is a Managing Consultant at Summit 7 Systems, Inc. He can be reached via Summit 7 Systems, Inc.
Ben Curry (CISSP, MCP, MCT, MCTS, CNE, CCNA)  is a Microsoft MVP and a highly respected enterprise architect specializing in knowledge management and collaboration technologies. As the Principal Architect at Summit 7 Systems, Ben is responsible for the Summit 7 Implementation methodology, based on his Best Practices work. Ben is the author or co-author of four books for SharePoint products and technologies, including Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Best Practices by Microsoft Press. Ben has over 18 years of experience designing, managing, implementing and securing data center IT solutions.
Current and Upcoming Publications by Ben Curry:
  • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Best Practices, Microsoft Press, ISBN 9780735625389, June 2008.
  • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Administrator's Companion, Microsoft Press, ISBN 0735622825, January 2007.
  • Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Administrator's Pocket Consultant, Microsoft Press, ISBN 0735623821, May 2007.
 
Summit 7 Systems
Summit 7 Systems approaches the Systems Engineering Lifecycle with an eye on what we call the “Seven Summits”. In addition to helping you achieve success in each one of these areas individually, we can also manage your project from concept through user acceptance.
IT Governance
A solid governance plan can provide an effective launching platform for organizational change while an absent or insufficient plan is likely to hasten failure. Collaboration systems, in particular, require strong leadership, development and operational governance plans to ensure proper policies, processes and decision based workflow. Summit 7 Systems will help you build a strong governance structure that will assist you in your planning and deployment.
Information Architecture and Taxonomies
Information Architecture and Taxonomies are two of the most over looked and least understood issues within IT as a whole and collaboration systems in specific. Successful collaboration systems depend on proper categorization and management of the organization’s data. Summit 7 Systems can assist any organization with the development of a proper IA and taxonomy that will help ensure a successful deployment.
Enterprise and Systems Architecture
Every business should have a solid Enterprise Architecture plan to ensure that the business goals of your organization are being supported by the information technology systems being planned and deployed. Summit 7 Systems can help you understand your current or “as is” architecture in as well as design your target or “to be” architecture. Summit 7 Systems consultants have years of experience designing worldwide implementations and can put that experience to work for you and your team.
Systems Deployment
After the planning, architecture and taxonomies are in place, it is time to start putting an environment on the ground. Systems deployment is the critical point where policy and process meet hardware and software. Summit 7 Systems can deploy environments from small single server installations to geographically dispersed and worldwide infrastructures. We rely on heavily on industry best practices and we work consistently with the Microsoft Product teams to ensure that we deploy systems in the most beneficial method for our clients.
Systems Integration
Today’s heterogeneous IT environment requires that systems integrate well with the other business and support systems. Collaboration and communication systems typically must integrate well to ensure that they are used to their full potential. Integrating systems can be a complex and complicated task when faced with dissimilar architectures or out dated environments. Summit 7 Systems can develop and execute a systems integration plan for your environment that will help ensure the continuity of your existing infrastructure or the migration to the new architecture.
Custom Development
Custom development is key to ensuring that you can take your collaboration environment beyond what is available out of the box. Summit 7 Systems has a strong background in custom development such as building custom workflows, webparts, site design and branding. These strengths allow us to transform a solid SharePoint installation into a valuable business asset.
User Acceptance
In many enterprise application deployments, the end users are either forgotten entirely or are on their own to understand and appropriately utilize the new tools provided to them. Summit 7 Systems focuses on the end user as an integral component of systems implementation and will develop a comprehensive end user marketing campaign and training plan. Summit 7 Systems integrates the world-class Mindsharp (www.mindsharp.com) training curriculum to ensure that your users are trained, eager and capable of using the new system to meet your business goals.