From The Expert Feature Article
December 18, 2012

Data Center MSP Datalink Adds Virtual Data Center Services to Managed Offerings


Datalink has expanded its managed services portfolio with unified monitoring and managed infrastructure services for virtual data centers (VDCs). The company, a provider of data center infrastructure and services, has added the solutions to help optimize data center operations and ensure customers' IT teams are free to focus on their core initiatives.

The expanded managed services will enable organizations to design and deploy next-generation VDC architectures to outsource 24x7 monitoring, reporting, operating and troubleshooting of all their components to Datalink's managed services staff. The expanded services catalog also features managed archiving, cloud backup and server offerings.

As more and more companies make the move to cloud and mobile services, having the proper support system in place on a 24x7 basis becomes crucial. Customers want to assure their applications are running at peak performance with the lowest operating cost and overhead, and they want the reliability of outsourced, monitoring, reporting and technical support.

Datalink's new offerings have been enabled through Datalink's October acquisition of Strategic Technologies, Inc., and are also a part of the managed service provider's (MSP) focus on delivering data center services that maximize the performance and availability of business critical computing resources.

Features include performance monitoring, problem identification, analysis and diagnosis. There are also a number of advanced options designed for converged environments like NetApp's FlexPod and EMC's (News - Alert) VSPEX reference architectures. These include synthetic transaction capabilities to simulate vMotion migration of virtual machines, end user connectivity to the VDC infrastructure and other system functions that proactively detect problems before they interfere with business operations.

Also included are multiple daily VM migration tests to ensure VMs may be migrated live, as well as vCheck day health reports for proactively identifying issues before they impact services. Unified dashboards for the VDC architecture as well as VMware guests and storage are also included to expedite problem resolution and improve time to repair.

"With the managed monitoring and backup services added earlier this year, as well as these new offerings, in the last eight months we have doubled the managed services we offer to keep customers' data center operations running smoothly," said Mike Parsons (News - Alert), vice president of support services, at Datalink. "We now have a robust suite of managed services that lessens the burden on an organization's IT staff, addresses a wide range of needs, and provides a depth and breadth of expertise not available in most in-house IT teams."

"Given our emphasis on architecting and implementing converged data center infrastructures to help customers drive business agility and efficiency, adding managed VDC services has been a priority on our services roadmap," said Paul Lidsky (News - Alert), Datalink president and CEO. "We can now provide end-to-end VDC solutions ranging from design and deployment to monitoring and managing the entire environment, dramatically simplifying our customers' VDC initiatives."

More and more companies are turning to MSPs to handle their data center needs, and they need a single company that can manage their storage, servers and networks. As the volume of data generated by companies grows, it becomes increasingly important to manage it securely and efficiently from the premise and end device through the cloud and back again. MSPs are in a unique position to offer that management and security, freeing up their customers to focus on their core business initiatives. Service providers like Datalink, which cater to the diverse needs and requirements of their clients, are becoming more and more popular driven by customer demand.




Edited by Rachel Ramsey


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