- Mike Parsons, Vice President of Support Services, Datalink, says:
Having witnessed first-hand the potential of emerging trends--like
server virtualization, consolidation and unified network/server/storage data
center infrastructures--many of our data center customers have since chosen to fully
embrace this new era. Several have already moved from less efficient, legacy IT
silos to more dynamic virtual data centers (VDCs). Many are even now moving to
early stage private cloud paradigms as well, and have begun to see the benefits
of these more agile architectures to boost IT efficiency and responsiveness.
Datalink has taken part in many such data center transformations,
assisting with readiness assessments, as well as designing and deploying
unified data center architectures. Throughout this period, data center customers
began asking us if we could also help them with the day-to-day management of
their VDCs and emerging private cloud environments. They asked us to help them
ensure optimal performance and availability of their converged IT resources.
Comprehensive End-to-End Support for VDC Environments
In response to such customer requests, we developed a variety
of managed services that help organizations
optimize the value derived from these transformations. By leveraging Datalink
for day-to-day management and monitoring of their environment, organizations
have achieved greater operational efficiency, while simultaneously freeing
their IT teams to focus more on strategic initiatives.
Building on prior services offerings announced early in 2012
surrounding managed archiving, cloud backup and server management, Datalink has
since recently announced another major expansion of its services portfolio.
We
believe these newly added services fulfill Datalink’s strategic goal: To offer
end-to-end support for VDC environments--from initial design and deployment to
monitoring, system administration and management, reporting, and single-source
problem troubleshooting and resolution.
Datalink’s expanded managed services for data centers include
performance monitoring, problem identification, analysis and diagnosis as well
as advanced services specifically designed for all converged and unified
architectures. These might include data centers that deploy NetApp FlexPod or
EMC VSPEX reference architectures, for instance.
Monitoring Services Unique to VDCs and Converged
Environments
A sampling of the new, advanced services now available for
VDCs and converged infrastructures include:
- Synthetic transaction capabilities that simulate vMotion migration of virtual machines, end user connectivity to the VDC infrastructure, and other system functions. These capabilities proactively detect problems before they interfere with business operations.
- Multiple daily VM migration tests to ensure that virtual
machines can be migrated live to optimize performance. These tests also
allow adjustment for potential host failure without service interruption.
- vCheck daily healthcheck reports to proactively identify
issues before they impact services.
- Unified dashboards for the VDC architecture, VMware guests and storage that expedite problem resolution to improve time to repair.
VDC customers can now use Datalink’s OneCall Unified Support
Service for single-source problem resolution. This means they don’t need to
call the individual network, server, and storage vendors who comprise the VDC
environment. The combination of Datalink’s VDC managed services and OneCallsm
Support Services will help our customers significantly decrease downtime in the
event of a problem.
Listening to Data Center IT Staff and Operations Teams
It’s our continued aim to deliver data center services that
offer real help in maximizing the performance and availability of our
customers’ business-critical computing resources. We have great expectations that
these services can aid data centers in running more smoothly as well.
We spent the better part of 2012 doubling the managed
services Datalink offers to data centers. These managed services now include a
dedicated managed services staff with more than 250 years of data center
technology experience, hundreds of best-practice certifications and the ability
to leverage the expertise of Datalink’s 160+ technical experts.
With this robust suite of managed services, we are doing
what we can to lessen the burden on data center IT staff, while providing a
depth and breadth of expertise not available in most in-house IT teams. As
readers involved in data center management and operations, we’d like to hear
from you. Let us know of other ways we can help make your data centers run
smoother.
About the author:
Mike Parsons is the VP of Support Services at
Datalink. He has been supplying managed services to enterprise customers for the past 12 years. He joined Datalink in 2010 and is
responsible for the day-to-day management of all aspects of the managed
services business, which includes product development, technology selection,
and 24x7x365 IT service operations. Previously, he president of
Presilient, a managed service supplier specializing in managed backup and
managed storage services. Before joining Presilient, he was the President of
PAC International, an international engineering company that designed,
installed, and certified specialized manufacturing plants in developing
countries Prior to PAC, he worked at Eastman Kodak Company for 12 years in
their Business Equipment Division, where he gained experience in all aspects of
product development, design and support. He has a B.S. in Mechanical
Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from the
University of Colorado, Denver.
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