President's Perspective

Does Your Virtualization System Need a Health Check?

Is a "Data-Center-in-a-Box" Solution the Answer to Your Virtualization Needs?

The Benefits of a Managed Services Agreement

President's Perspective

Does Your Virtualization System Need a Health Check?

By Warner Schlais, President, Technology Services Division

Virtualization is being rolled out by companies everywhere faster than any other IT initiative in recent years. Such fast-tracked projects sometimes fall victim to errors from assumptions, guesses and shortcuts.

Most company executives like to know that they are doing the right things...that their company is performing to its fullest capacity. But how do you really know this? How do you know there isn't some small problem in your virtualization project or environment just waiting to trip you up and cost you money? You don't...unless you have an audit done to identify the areas of deficiency and catch those small errors before they become big problems.

Datatrend's Virtual Infrastructure Health Check does exactly that. Our experienced VMware® consultants will analyze your infrastructure to see what you are doing and how you are doing it and compare that to industry best practices. We provide a full color-coded report that will show you exactly how well your virtualization program is working. Is it functioning as well as it should be? Are you optimizing utilization of your system? Have you explored all the features and capabilities of the software? Do you have sufficient redundancy and resilience?

The Virtual Infrastructure Health Check:

• Documents the inventory of systems analyzed
• Helps you gauge how well the virtual infrastructure is configured and being used relative to VMware best practices, and identify areas needing attention and/or remediation
• Serves as a reference to continue to review best practices and issues discussed during the onsite visit

A Health Check doesn't take long to do...often as little as one day...and we have yet to see an analysis that did not produce some information of value to the company. A Virtual Infrastructure Health Check can help you identify opportunities for improvement. Do you need training to improve the skills of your personnel? Have you kept up to date with the new capabilities provided by each new release of VMware? Do you recognize the value of these features and how to apply them? How can you take advantage of every opportunity VMware affords?

In these challenging times, everyone wants to know how to do things faster, more efficiently and more cost effectively. IT Health Check can help you maximize the potential of your virtualization system and rest assured that you are truly doing the best job you can do.

Click here to contact Datatrend directly, or to learn more about Datatrend's Health Checks, please click here.

Is a "Data-Center-in-a-Box" Solution the Answer to Your Virtualization Needs?

• Uses up to 50% less floor space and 35% less energy than competitive rack servers without compromising performance
• Built on IBM X-Architecture®, the industry-standard blade solution for running business-critical workloads
• Offer an all-in-one design with servers, storage, networking, I/O and management engineered into a single chassis
• Scalable to the growth and changing needs of your enterprise

We have integrated the IBM BladeCenter hardware with VMware® V13 Enterprise Edition or vSphere, a proven software that enables enterprise-class virtual machines to increase servers and other resource utilization and provide improved performance, increased security, minimal downtime, and reduced cost and complexity.

Virtualization-in-a-BOX provides a complete package with all the hardware, software and implementation services you need to get up and running, including three years of support and maintenance. It is easy to deploy and administer, with all components supplied by a single vendor, so help is just one phone call away. And all this is available at an affordable, all-inclusive price.

If you are considering virtualization but can't figure out how you can manage the resources needed for such a big project, Datatrend can help. See our website for more information on Virtualization-in-a-BOX as well as our many other services. You may be just one phone call away from the solution to your problems!

Click here to contact Datatrend directly, or to learn more about Virtualization-in-a-Box, please click here.

The Benefits of a Managed Services Agreement

By Bill Roberts, President, Network Services Division

Network changes, even something as minor as installing a new wireless router or moving an access point, can have a big impact on your budget. How much does it cost to send one of your staff to a location to make a minor change? Time, travel expense, and the cost of pulling someone away from more important projects...when you add that all together the total cost can be overwhelming. In today's technology-driven world, most companies focus on new technology investments, often short-cutting the budget and resources to maintain the infrastructure.

Why not consider leveraging a partner who has the right resources across the country and can dispatch those resources at a moment's notice to handle tactical changes/updates? A single maintenance contract covers the actual work - no travel expenses, no hotel bill and no per diem - and you pay for the provider only when they're actually working for you. A managed services agreement can be a significant asset to companies with multiple locations across the country or even around the globe.

The primary benefit, of course, is reduced costs. Rather than spend money on travel and accommodations to send a staff person around to multiple locations, you can make use of a vendor such as Datatrend that has a local presence in major cities across North and South America, the Caribbean Islands and even Europe. This is not only more cost effective, it also helps you more efficiently manage your budget, as you no longer have to deal with varying costs of airfare and hotels throughout the year.

In addition to the financial benefits, you have a single point of contact to deal with your needs. Besides being more efficient and saving you time, this method assures a greater level of compliance to your corporate standards. With a Datatrend managed service agreement, you can be sure that your needs are met by experienced field personnel who specialize in doing the job you need done and assuring that your standards are met. These professionals will not be distracted by being asked to do a number of other things...something that unfortunately often happens when your company IT staff arrives on the scene.

Datatrend maintains a knowledge base of information on every location we service. With a managed services agreement, you have access to this database. Some customers find it easier to access information on their sites through our system than their own. Also, management personnel may move around frequently from one location to another. The IT professionals from Datatrend may actually be more familiar with what has happened previously at a site than the current management at that site. Most customers would rather have their management tending to the needs of their store or location than spending time trying to get up to speed to handle an IT need. Why struggle with IT problems when professional help is just a phone call away?

Managed services agreements are growing in popularity, especially with many customers reducing staff and needing to carefully control costs. If you are faced with problems handling the workload after a layoff or if your needs are outpacing your ability to add staff to handle them, a managed services agreement may be the answer for you. Datatrend would be happy to help. Visit our website or contact us today at 800-367-7472.

Click here to contact Datatrend directly, or to learn more about Datatrend's Network Services, please click here.