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There’s something really gratifying about stumbling upon a secret; something about conquering the unknown and unlocking “upgrades” and “hacks” that benefit you both in the here and now and in the long run. These secrets are 100% worth sharing.

That being said, there’s a secret I’d like to share with you. Something that I want every single user of IBM Developer for z Systems to know about and take advantage of. Three letters:

DPO

The Deployment Project Office within IBM is a program staffed by a team of all-stars tasked with guiding you on the journey of DevOps tooling rollout from start to finish. From “opening the box” to tuned, tested, and on the desktop, the DPO program has proven methods and protocol to ensure that your shop is informed and prepared for the successful rollout and usage of your new IBM development tools.

All of this is offered for the low price of $0. Yes, you read that correctly. Our DPO services are offered at no cost to you and your shop.

Interested? Let’s walk through what the process looks like from start to finish with DPO:

Onboarding

When a shop is starting their journey with DPO, it starts with a preliminary call with the IBM account team and DPO management to capture the specifics of your rollout plans. We find out what the timetable looks like for the rollout, and we assign personnel to the plan so that not only the stakeholders are in place, but when questions are asked and tasks come up, everyone knows who to go to during the course of the project.

Having assisted hundreds of companies over the years, the DPO team knows what works and what doesn’t. To that end, the next step in onboarding is attending an IDz Rollout Best Practices seminar. This seminar outlines potential pitfalls, keys to success, and level-sets for the project. These seminars provide crucial insight based on our years of experience with end-to-end rollouts, what we’ve seen, and feedback that we’ve gotten from actual customers during the course of their rollouts.

Once these steps are completed, you are ready to begin your journey toward deployment of your new tooling. Here’s what that looks like.

Beginning the rollout

Once you’ve onboarded to the DPO program, your staff (the staff identified during the onboarding process) will work with our expert DPO subject matter experts over 12 weeks as the product is installed, configured and tuned specifically for your environment. This installation and tuning process includes both server and client-side configuration, ensuring that the installation is rock-solid, setting your shop up for success during the rest of the rollout.

On-demand help with web conferencing and phone calls is available to answer technical questions and assist with adoption-related questions. From IPL scripts to “how do I… ?” IDz Windows client-related questions, the DPO staff has a combined 50 years’ worth of IDz rollout and support experience.

And remember: this is all no-cost support. NO. COST.

Now that you know about this DevOps “Easter egg”, how can you not take advantage of it? If you’d like to start your DPO journey, contact Rocco Cocco (our DPO manager) at cocco@us.ibm.com and get started!

One last thing: there’s one more secret that I’d like to share with you – the Premium DPO program, which includes technical enablement, mentoring, and quarterly “Best Practices in Transitioning to and Leveraging DevOps” advisory sessions, which is still available at no cost to you and your shop. You’re going to have to reach out to the DPO staff to find out more about that though…

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