Catapult Public Relations

DATAPIPE’S ED LACZYNSKI TO OUTLINE BEST PRACTICES FOR ENTERPRISE IT VIRTUALIZATION AT VMWARE PARTNER EXCHANGE

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:44:17 +0000

DATAPIPE'S ED LACZYNSKI TO OUTLINE BEST PRACTICES FOR ENTERPRISE IT VIRTUALIZATION AT VMWARE PARTNER EXCHANGE

WHO: Ed Laczynski, VP of Cloud Strategy and Architecture

Datapipe

(www.datapipe.com)

Laczynski is responsible for driving Datapipe's cloud computing strategy and architecting new cloud platforms and integrations. He joined Datapipe, a leading global managed IT, hosting and cloud services provider, after founding and serving as CTO for a cloud computing company that helped pioneer the delivery of software and infrastructure services to the enterprise. Laczynski has extensive experience in high-availability web infrastructure and development for media, financial services and telecommunications industries.

WHAT: Enabling Global Enterprise Virtualization

2011 is the year when industry giants from across the spectrum - including major financial institutions, pharmaceuticals and retailers - will migrate major internal and external IT systems to the cloud. At the VMware Partner Exchange, (http://communities.vmware.com/ community/partner-exchange/) an annual partner conference dedicated to educating and enabling partners for success with VMware, Laczynski will discuss emerging strategies and the best practices that Datapipe employs to enable global enterprise virtualization. His presentation will draw from direct customer deployments and provide attendees with practical information they can use to plan and implement cloud and virtualization initiatives.

WHERE: VMware Partner Exchange

Disney Coronado Springs Resort

Orlando, FL

(http://communities.vmware.com/community/partner-exchange/)

WHEN: Thursday, Feb 10 at 11:40 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Eastern

INFO:

For more information on enterprise cloud computing and virtualization, or to arrange an interview with Ed Laczynski, please contact Christie Denniston at 303-581-7760 or via email at cdenniston@catapultpr-ir.com

EMA OUTLINES 12 HOT IT MANAGEMENT TRENDS TO WATCH FOR 2009

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:01:15 +0000

Hot topics for 2009 include emerging developments in CMDB, IT governance, virtualization, cloud computing and green IT, among others

BOULDER, Colo., January 13, 2009 - Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, today announced its take on the IT management trends and technologies that will have the greatest impact on enterprise computing during the coming year. Overall, EMA expects a strong focus on IT management initiatives that deliver measurable cost savings in a tight economy, the continued deployment of technologies that enable IT to be managed as a business and new management challenges introduced by the growth of emerging technologies.

"While there are obvious concerns surrounding the global economy, we expect that IT management initiatives will continue to gain corporate support and have a positive impact on the business performance of the enterprise," said Dan Twing, COO at EMA. "Emerging technologies like virtualization and cloud computing will certainly mature during the coming year, but don't count out the importance and business value of tried-and-true IT stalwarts like the service desk, IT security and IT governance."

The following are 12 hot IT management trends that the EMA roster of analysts has identified for 2009:

CMDBs will mature into integrated systems with a heightened focus on federation, resulting in faster time-to-value - look for maturing "CMDB System" deployments that encompass application discovery, provide better metrics and closely link to related architectures like process automation. These federated CMDB Systems will consist of components targeted at unique constituencies (e.g. network managers, asset managers), increasing IT flexibility and speeding the realization of benefits from a core CMDB investment.
Widespread proliferation of virtualization will continue to present formidable management challenges - following exuberant and largely under-managed virtualization deployments, EMA predicts that comprehensive management of virtual systems will be the most important success factor for virtual environments in 2009.
Increased adoption of technologies that facilitate management of IT as a business - IT organizations are moving beyond technology management and expanding into the business of IT, including strategy, marketing, staffing, suppliers, service portfolio and investment. EMA expects an increase in application of service catalog, service portfolio, business service management (BSM) and other technologies that help companies manage the business of IT to deliver greater value at lower cost.
Role of the service desk to transform and gain importance - the pressure to run IT as a business will further move the help desk front-and-center as a key customer-facing discipline. EMA expects traditional help desks to evolve into modern service desks that will shoulder broader responsibilities and become part of companies' larger IT Service Management (ITSM) strategies.
Forecast for cloud computing calls for rough weather - perhaps the most hyped technology of 2008, cloud computing will undoubtedly continue its reach into the enterprise during the coming year. However, EMA predicts that savvy IT professionals will demand credible answers to growing concerns around reliability, security and compliance before adopting cloud computing as a viable approach for mission-critical applications.
Green IT investments will be fueled by cost savings vs. environmental altruism - although some won't admit it publicly, "Green IT" is not purely about environmental sustainability and corporate altruism. More so, employing Green practices and technologies will be driven by ROI and reductions in IT power consumption in both the data center and on the desktop. With spiking energy costs and a tight economy, EMA predicts that Green IT will be all about dollars in 2009.
IT governance initiatives will help enterprises weather the economic storm -IT is rightly seen by many as a potential savior for organizations trying to weather the economic storm. Along those lines, EMA predicts that organizations will increasingly turn to IT governance initiatives, such as project and portfolio management (PPM), resource management and financial control to create an edge in these tough economic times.
Significantly increased threats, new approaches to IT management and economic pressures will keep IT security in the forefront - an explosion in threats, organized cybercrime, unresolved questions about the security of virtualization and cloud computing and the global economic crisis will keep IT security front and center in 2009. EMA predicts that these factors will put new pressure on business executives to recognize IT risk management as a central aspect of IT governance, with new emphasis placed on improving the effectiveness of complementary IT management and security operations.
Solid state disk to emerge as new first tier of storage in the data center - with breakthroughs in nano-technology, Solid State Disk (SSD) solutions promise to deliver greater capacity at much less cost. In 2009, EMA predicts that SSD will emerge as the new first tier of storage in the data center.
Economic pressures to drive strategic (but quantifiable) investments in automation - with the economy facing challenges of historic proportion, IT organizations are under intense pressure to reduce expenses while continuing to improve the strategic value of IT by providing flexible, dynamic and efficient IT services that drive business success. EMA believes that organizations will increasingly turn to automation as a means of doing more with less - especially in the data center and storage arena .
Video growth will push unified communications management to the forefront - with several major industry players pushing video for operational cost savings with green upside, accelerating growth in video traffic will expose service delivery infrastructure issues that had only started to appear with prior deployments of VoIP, ICT and mobility. EMA expects that IT operations and planning professionals - especially those focused on the network - will need to re-tune and optimize their environments to handle this demand in 2009.
Changing organizational roles will escalate demand for new management technologies - as IT silos become more integrated along a service management model, the need for new technologies to support cross-domain collaboration and more cohesive views of infrastructure-to-service interdependencies will become paramount. The politics of collaboration will reach well beyond finger pointing to higher levels of automated diagnostics, process automation and shared access to information that will in turn reduce IT operational costs.

"The role of IT management continues to rise in value and importance within the enterprise as organizations turn to technology as a means of driving business success and competitive advantage," said Twing. "In 2009, EMA will continue to deliver in-depth research and actionable advice that IT professionals can rely on to keep abreast of all issues related to IT management."

NOTE TO EDITORS

For more information, or to arrange an interview on any of these topics, contact Guy Murrel at gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com at 303-581-7760 x17

About Enterprise Management Associates
Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst and consulting firm dedicated to the IT management market. The firm provides IT vendors and enterprise IT professionals with objective insight into the real-world business value of long-established and emerging technologies, ranging from security, storage and IT Service Management (ITSM) to the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), virtualization and service-oriented architecture (SOA). Even with its rapid growth, EMA has never lost sight of the client, and continues to offer personalized support and convenient access to its analysts. For more information on the firm's extensive library of IT management research, free online IT Management Solutions Center and IT consulting offerings, visit www.enterprisemanagement.com.

NEW EMA RESEARCH SHOWS GREEN IT INITIATIVES ARE THE NORM FOR MID- TO LARGE-SIZED BUSINESSES

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:47:28 +0000

Survey results show Green IT solutions reduce energy costs by an average of 19 percent

BOULDER, Colo. Oct. 6, 2008 -Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), (www.enterprisemanagement.com), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, today issued findings from new research focused on the advancement of "Green IT" initiatives. The study reveals an astounding 100 percent of surveyed IT professionals indicated plans for new Green IT deployments during the coming year. The complete results of the research are discussed by EMA study leader, Steve Brasen in the new report "The True Value of Green IT: Quantifying the ROI of Energy Efficiency."

"It's telling that 100 percent of our respondents have Green IT programs in the works or planned for the future, showing companies are looking to Green IT as a means of cutting expenses while increasing the energy efficiency in their IT departments," said Brasen. "The research that we've compiled shows not only are companies interested in the social and environmental benefits of Green IT, but that actual cost and power savings make good business sense."

EMA defines Green IT solutions as products, services and practices designed to improve the efficiency of computing resources in such a way as to reduce the environmental impact of IT utilization. Some of the more popular Green IT deployments include server consolidation, automated power management and virtualization. The study confirmed that benefits achieved by implementing Green IT solutions occur in four key areas:

Sustainability and social responsibility
Cost savings and revenue generation
Regulatory compliance and power availability

Marketing

According to the EMA survey, 57 percent of all organizations have already implemented a Green IT initiative. In addition, the organizations that have implemented Green IT solutions have seen, on average, a 19 percent decrease in energy costs. The research also indicates that the larger the organization, the greater likelihood it has implemented a Green IT solution. Results showed that of smaller companies with less than 2,500 employees, 39 percent have deployed Green IT solutions. On the other hand, 73 percent of companies with 10,000 or more employees have implemented Green IT solutions. In addition, the study found that companies with the largest annual revenue use, proportionally, the least amount of weekly desktop power consumption. For example, companies with revenues of $1 billion or more had an average weekly desktop power consumption of 25.61 KwH, while companies that had revenue of less than $100 million had an average weekly desktop power consumption of 34.04 KwH. This finding indicates a clear correlation between those who have implemented a Green IT solution and those who have lower weekly desktop power consumption.

An EPA study conducted in August 2007 indicated that within the last five years, the total amount of energy utilized by all domestic U.S. data centers has doubled. Power facilities are also over-burdened - by 2011 the increased demand for power could require the addition of 10 more baseload power plants. This increase in power usage comes with a price. When factoring in real-world workstation utilization practices, Enterprise Management Associates' research reveals that the average annual power cost of a single desktop is $149.10. With a company that uses 10,000 desktops, that puts desktop power expenses at over $1 million per year.

EMA analyst Brasen says many companies need to know where to look for energy cutting options. On average, desktops are kept powered on during non-work hours 43 percent of the time. Datacenter servers also are kept fully operational, on average, 88 percent of the time. The top reasons for keeping datacenters operational during weekends and evenings include: the business production environment is utilized 24-7, the need to perform data storage back-ups and the requirement to accommodate out-of-hours maintenance windows. Introducing Green IT solutions such as server consolidation, automated power management and virtualization can provide significant cost savings and achieve quantifiable return on investment.

Brasen will share highlights from the research study during a free 1-hour Webinar on Tuesday, October 7, 2008. To register, visit: http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=greenitwebpr1008&bs=greenitweb1008

To purchase a copy of the report, "The True Value of Green IT: Quantifying the ROI of Energy Efficiency," contact sales@enterprisemanagement.com or +1.303.543.9500.

NOTE TO EDITORS:

For more information on this topic or to arrange an interview with Steve Brasen, please contact Guy Murrel at mailto:gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com or 303-581-7760 x17

ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES INTRODUCES ITIL TRAINING AND HANDS-ON IT MANAGEMENT WORKSHOPS

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:13:40 +0000

New training-focused offerings help organizations get ITIL V3 certified,
quickly up-to-speed on new IT disciplines

BOULDER, Colo., Aug. 19, 2008 - Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) (www.enterprisemanagement.com), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, today announced two new service offerings designed to educate enterprise IT professionals about ITIL V3, IT Service Management (ITSM) best practices, and emerging IT management disciplines like Data Center Automation, Virtualization, Service Catalog and the Configuration Management Database (CMDB). The new offerings include a full range of ITIL Training Courses and a variety of hands-on EMA^TM Workshops.

"Managing IT by service and not technology is the message of ITIL V3. Unfortunately, most IT professionals struggle with getting started. In fact, some 30 percent of ITSM projects are delayed by the inability to define a comprehensive plan," said Dan Twing, COO at EMA. "These new services provide both introductory knowledge and advanced training to help companies get their IT teams ITIL V3 certified, transition to ITSM and advance the maturity of their IT organizations."

The new EMA service offerings include:

EMA ITIL Training Courses
The new training courses are offered together with itSM Solutions - an accredited courseware and training provider (ACP/ATP). Courses are offered onsite or online with a live certified mentor to help participants internalize the concepts of ITSM and ITIL while preparing for the certification exam. Offerings include accredited ITIL V2 to ITIL V3 Bridge and ITIL V3 Foundation training courses to help organizations get certified on ITIL V3, as well as introductory ITSM orientation courses designed to help companies get on the road to a successful ITSM or ITIL initiative.

EMA Hands-On Workshops
These onsite workshops are designed to help enterprise IT teams tackle common challenges or quickly get up-to-speed on a new IT discipline. Led by a seasoned EMA analyst or consultant, each workshop uses a combination of interactive lectures, real-world case studies, and hands-on exercises to engage attendees in addressing the issues specific to their organization.

Available topics include:

How to Define Detailed Requirements for Your Enterprise CMDB Project
How to Effectively Jumpstart Your Service Catalog Project
Developing an Effective Change Management Strategy
Designing a World-Class Release Management Organization
Jumpstarting Your Data Center Automation (DCA) Strategy

Making the Most of Virtualization Technologies in the Enterprise

Contact sales@enterprisemanagement.com or +1.303.543.9500 to learn more about the full range of EMA ITIL training courses and hands-on workshops.

NOTE TO EDITORS

For more information, contact Guy Murrel at gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com at 303-581-7760 x17

EMA’S ANDI MANN TO DISCUSS BUSINESS DRIVERS FOR VIRTUALIZATION AT 2008 VIRTUALIZATION CONFERENCE EAST

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:28:00 +0000

Mann explores the keys to successful virtualization at New York conference

WHO: Andi Mann, Research Director, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA)

Mann has more than 20 years experience with large-scale enterprise systems software on mainframe, midrange, server and desktop systems. He has worked within the IT departments of various global corporations, and with several enterprise software vendors, leading diverse technical, sales and marketing teams. Andi has extensive industry and presentation experience.

EMA is a leading industry analyst and consulting firm dedicated to the IT management market. www.enterprisemanagement.com.

WHAT: Presentation - The Business Drivers for Virtualization

There is plenty of discussion about virtualization, but who does it really benefit? How can enterprises adopt virtualization technologies to address real business problems? Is virtualization just another consolidation technology? How are other businesses using virtualization? Is there more that it can do to drive competitive advantage, business efficiency, security and compliance? Drawing on the industry's most in-depth independent research into virtualization to date, Mann will explain what are the key business drivers for virtualization, where to expect significant benefits and how to make sure that virtualization delivers strategic advantages.

WHERE: Roosevelt City
New York, N.Y.

WHEN:           Tuesday, June 24, 2008
   Session 11 - Track 3
6:20 p.m. - 7:05 p.m.

CONTACT: For more information or to set up an interview with Andi Mann, please contact Guy Murrel at Catapult PR-IR (303) 581-7760, ext. 17 or at gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com
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EMA ANNOUNCES IT MANAGEMENT WEBINARS FOR MAY

Mon, 05 May 2008 20:49:27 +0000

Andi Mann, EMA research director and ASG CTO and SVP of business development, John Connor will discuss some of the key ways to manage business service performance in a virtual environment, avoid pitfalls and align virtualization with business needs.

Thurs., May 15, 2008 - 2 p.m. Eastern
Virtualization and Management: New Research Highlights
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=virtwebpr0508&bs=virtweb0508

EMA research director and virtualization expert Andi Mann will discuss the findings from his most recent study. He will touch on virtualization market trends from 2006-2008, the future for virtualization and best-practice recommendations for IT professionals and vendors.

Wed., May 21, 2008 - 2 p.m. Eastern
How to Show Value for Your CMDB Deployment: Some Do's and Don'ts for Optimizing Your Investments
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=ni2webpr0508&bs=ni2web0508

During this 1-hour event, EMA vice president Dennis Drogseth and N(i)2 director of business solutions strategy Joseph Bondi will examine effective metrics for assessing Configuration Management Database (CMDB) deployments to optimize time-to-value.

Thurs., May 22, 2008 - 2 p.m. Eastern
Best Practices for Managing IP Telephony as a Service
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=prognosiswebpr0508&bs=prognosisweb0508

Larry Burton, EMA senior analyst, and PROGNOSIS global product manager, John Dunne, will lead this one-hour Webinar. They will discuss the unique service level management challenges posed by the use of IP telephony and the convergence of telephony, video and data into a single, unified communications backbone.

Wed, May 28, 2008 - 2 p.m. Eastern
Defining IT Governance, Risk and Compliance in the Real World: Issues, Challenges and Keys to High Performance
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=itgovwebpr0508&bs=itgovweb0508

EMA research director Scott Crawford will define what IT GRC means to real-world practitioners and share highlights from Enterprise Management Associates' extensive 2008 survey on IT GRC.

NOTE TO EDITORS:

For more information, contact Guy Murrel at gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com or 303-581-7760 x 17.

About Enterprise Management Associates

Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst and consulting firm dedicated to the IT management market. The firm provides IT vendors and enterprise IT professionals with objective insight into the real-world business value of long-established and emerging technologies, ranging from security, storage and IT Service Management (ITSM) to the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), virtualization and service-oriented architecture (SOA). Even with its rapid growth, EMA has never lost sight of the client, and continues to offer personalized support and convenient access to its analysts. For more information on the firm's extensive library of IT management research, free online IT Management Solutions Center and IT consulting offerings, visit www.enterprisemanagement.com.

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EMA IDENTIFIES HOT TOPICS FOR RSA 2008

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:12:47 +0000

Virtualization security joins other current trends in IT security
that will be bantered about at the conference

BOULDER, Colo., April 4, 2008 - With IT virtualization one of the hottest topics in technology it's not surprising that virtualization security will likely peg the "buzz meter" at the upcoming RSA 2008 conference. Scott Crawford, research director for the security and risk management practice at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) (www.enterprisemanagement.com), says virtualization security has quickly become one of the highest visibility concepts in IT, and that EMA will explore the new frontier of virtualization security in a new research study that will be initiated at RSA 2008.

"RSA is a great place to kick off our research on virtualization security," said Crawford. "As the use of virtualization continues to climb, so do questions about the security issues it raises. Virtualization security will definitely generate huge interest at this conference."

Currently, virtualization itself is at the top of many executives' agendas. As virtualization is adopted by more and more companies, security professionals have begun to integrate security methods into this new approach. Unfortunately, there is no real standard method for implementing virtualization, which makes it more difficult for security professionals to form a general consensus regarding the actual issues of security in virtualized environments. This has made virtualization security an elusive target.

In addition to virtualization security, EMA has identified several other hot topics for RSA 2008, including:

• Current trends highlight that there is a big difference between compliance and security. The Societe Generale case illustrates how an insider with knowledge of technical business risk controls in IT can perpetuate fraud on a massive scale. On the other hand, the recent Hannaford case shows how attackers can exploit exposures that are beyond the controls required by current regulatory mandates.

• As underground computer activity continues to mature, attacks have become more sophisticated, thus complicating the discovery and criminal prosecution of these attackers. This seedy environment has created a foundation for major investments into criminal activities.

• 2008 appears to be a year in which security strategies will focus on ground-up approaches to develop and deploy more secure systems and applications. As a result, many organizations are integrating new security processes into the pre-production phases of systems and applications.

• The number of websites with malicious codes is constantly on the rise. In addition, the exploitation of browsers and the plug-in applications that they integrate is continually growing. Vulnerable websites become a target for hackers to flip into major attackers. In addition, one of the most alarming trends is that attackers can leverage legitimate websites in a manner that even trained security professionals may not recognize as harmful.

• Information risk management continues to be a very complex challenge for many organizations. High-privilege user accounts wield a large amount of control over IT systems, but they are not necessarily well secured.

• As SaaS models and approaches to "security in the cloud" continue to mature, new product and service offerings have sprung from many security vendors. The implications for security strategy management in containing many of the risks and costs of maintaining in-house tools and expertise could lead to the outsourcing of security departments to third-party organizations.

RSA 2008 will be held April 7-11 in San Francisco, Calif. at the Moscone Center. If you would like EMA comment on virtualization security or any of these topics, please contact Guy Murrel at gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com or 303-581-7760.

About Enterprise Management Associates

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EMA ANNOUNCES IT MANAGEMENT WEBINARS FOR APRIL

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:41:00 +0000

Topics include virtualization management, enterprise service desk, ITIL ITSM in the federal government and workload automation

BOULDER, Colo., March 31, 2008 - Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) (www.enterprisemanagement.com), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, today announced it will host a number of free Webinars focused on IT management during the month of April 2008.

The EMA™ Webinars set for April include:

Tues., April 1, 2008 - 12 p.m. Eastern
Automating IT Processes to Ensure Virtualization Success
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=opaliswebpr0408&bs=opalisweb0408

EMA research director Andi Mann and Opalis President and CEO Todd DeLaughter will discuss how to efficiently manage the people and process changes virtualization requires, and will share a real world example of customer success in virtual management with IT Process Automation.

Thurs., April 3, 2008 - 2 p.m. Eastern
Reducing Customer Support Costs and Improving Service Quality with Remote Support
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=bomgar1webhl0408&bs=bomgar1web0408

Part one of a three part series. Listen to Lisa Erickson-Harris, EMA research director and Chris Watson, VP of strategic alliances at Bomgar explain how remote support has a direct impact on support cost structure and perceptions of IT service quality in the enterprise.

Fri., April 11, 2008 - 2 p.m. Eastern
How Federal CIOs can Leverage ITIL IT Service Management (ITSM) to Enhance Mission Effectiveness
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=itsmgovwebpr0408&bs=itsmgovweb0408

EMA director of IT service management consulting, Hank Marquis and federal IT expert Bob Haycock will explain how government CIOs can gain credibility by effectively implementing commercial ITSM best practices, such as ITIL.

Thurs., April 17, 2008 - 2 p.m. Eastern
Making Your Support Organization Part of the Solution: Protecting Sensitive Data Remotely
http://www.bomgar.com/wcemaprotectingdataregisterema.htm

Part two of a three part series. Chris Matney, EMA consulting director of IT services, will review trends in risk, compliance and security management in the enterprise service desk. In addition, Joel Bomgar, president of Bomgar Corporation, will give real-life examples of how Bomgar is leading the charge to address these issues.

Wed., April 23, 2008 - 1 p.m. Eastern
Solving Critical Application Management Issues with Workload Automation
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=uc4webpr0408&bs=uc4web0408

Join EMA research director Andi Mann and UC4 chief marketing officer Guenther Flamm as they discuss the critical challenges of managing applications to deliver key IT and business goals, with a focus on the best practices for application workload management and automation.

NOTE TO EDITORS:

For more information, contact Guy Murrel at gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com or 303-581-7760 x 17.

About Enterprise Management Associates

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