IT Solutions Blog

Is your IT Strategy "True Blue" or "Bloody Red?"

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of reading "Blue Ocean Strategy" by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne.  One quote from the book really hit home with me - “There is no such thing as a permanently great company, nor a permanently great industry.  But there are permanently great strategic moves.”

In today’s current economic environment we see this everyday.  We’ve all witnessed the bankruptcies of 100-year-old financial institutions, established high tech companies, the real estate market, the list goes on…

"Blue Ocean Strategy" does a great job analyzing the market universe and uses the term blue and red oceans to describe global markets, where we all play a role.  

Red oceans are highly competitive, established, and often commodity markets where everyone in that industry is competing and fighting for their fair share of the market demand.  The cut-throat competition in this type of market turns the ocean bloody red.

Blue oceans can be seen when companies adopt “the blue ocean strategy” and leave the past market boundaries behind, as well as the competition.

I think IT executives can also reap rewards from adopting a blue ocean strategy as well.  Because we all know “There is no such thing as a permanently great company (or IT department), nor a permanently great industry (or technology).  But there are permanently great strategic moves”.

When I read the definition of “Value Innovation” I realized that successful IT departments consistently provide this value innovation to their customers or the line of business they support.

Blue Ocean Strategy defines value innovation as follows:

Value Innovation is the strategic logic underpinning blue ocean strategy. Value innovation is the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost. Value innovation focuses on making the competition irrelevant by creating a leap of value for buyers and for the company, thereby opening up new and uncontested market space. Because value to buyers comes from the offering's utility minus its price, and because value to the company is generated from the offering's price minus its cost, value innovation is achieved only when the whole system of utility, price and cost is aligned.

In the Blue Ocean Strategy methodology, the Four Actions Framework and ERRC grid assist managers in breaking the value-cost trade-off by answering the following questions:

1) What factors can be eliminated that the industry has taken for granted?

2) What factors can be reduced well below the industry's standard?

3) What factors can be raised well above the industry's standard?

4) What factors can be created that the industry has never offered?

I’m interested in hearing from IT Executives who have considered these questions as it relates to their IT infrastructure and the line of business they support.

Disaster Recovery Planning Mistakes

A disaster recovery plan is only good if it can actually be implemented in the event of a disaster, and if it addresses the real concerns a business has when disaster strikes. Accordingly, there are some significant mistakes that have to be avoided when making your disaster recovery plan. What follows are some of the most often-repeated, yet most dangerous, disaster recovery planning mistakes.

Lack of proactive and evident senior management support
Having a tacit approval, or even a mandate from senior management doesn’t mean that, when the time comes, they’ll be willing to implement the disaster recovery plan. For a disaster recovery plan to be truly effective, senior management has to buy into the plan early and enthusiastically. This, of course, has a lot more to do with corporate culture than it does with anything else. Getting the company’s leadership to understand a disaster recovery plan and back it publically and thoroughly is one of the most challenging, yet most necessary aspects of an effective disaster recovery plan.

Lack of employee support
While management support is integral to getting a disaster recovery plan in place, you need to have employee support in order to carry out a disaster recovery plan effectively. At a minimum, you need to reduce or eliminate employee resistance to the disaster recovery plan.

Building employee support is often much more subtle than building management support. To build employee support, you need to involve each department in the disaster recovery process in such a way as to allow them to influence the planning process and, to some degree, take ownership of their own area’s disaster recovery.
Your disaster recovery plan is only effective if those tasked with its implementation are willing to execute it thoroughly and enthusiastically.

Delegating disaster recovery to a single person
While there is surely something to be said for the way a committee can slow down a process, when it comes to disaster recovery a senior committee is essential. Because disaster recovery tasks are mission-critical, no one person should be solely responsible or accountable for the process.

If nothing else, relying on a group of individuals during the disaster recovery process builds some redundancy into the plan and helps insure that a second or corollary disaster affecting one person doesn’t diminish the disaster recovery process altogether.

A lack of substance
There is always the danger, in disaster recovery planning, that you’ll wind up with a whole lot of generalizations about how important disaster recovery is, with very little real substance. Unfortunately, the majority of corporate disaster recovery plans seem to be ensconced in a beautiful yet shallow veneer of concern for the company with very little in the way of ability to preserve mission critical data and processes.

Accordingly, an effective disaster recovery plan has to be specific. While it doesn’t have to detail each and every procedure, it should at least acknowledge those procedures and indicate which are to be used and when.

Insufficient or non-existent budget
Planning for a disaster takes money. However, it takes far less money to plan for disaster recovery than it does to reactively try to recover from a disaster.

A budget of both material and human resources is essential to effective disaster planning. In addition to systems and technological aids, a good disaster recovery plan will tap key employees throughout the organization and utilize their expertise, both in the planning and the execution of the plan.

Budgeting, of course, goes back to the first mistake of disaster recovery planning: management buy-in. By convincing management of the necessity of disaster recovery planning, you’re opening up channels through which the disaster recovery program can gain the assets it needs.

CIO Corner: Tips from a Turnaround CIO

As a CIO, I have been through 32 mergers, acquisitions, and dispositions and have thrown away countless other opportunities - I believe 68 of them. The following are tips from my years of experience:

1. KISS - Keep it Simple and Succinct. Yes I know the final "S" is usually something else. Stick to the basics and make sure your decisions are aligned with the business objectives.

2. Listen. Listen to the business. Listen to your peers and other members of the executive team. Listen to your staff. If new to the organization, send out a survey in the first week and understand the good, the bad, and the ugly. Perception is reality.

3. Communicate. Let everyone know realistically the costs, the timelines, and the expectations. Communicate often, openly, and in the language of the customer.

4. Stay close to and know your key employees. Identify them early. Nurture them. Grow them. Praise and celebrate the wins, no matter how small.

5. Inventory. Know what technology is in place and how it aligns to your key set of applications. Understand what monitoring systems are in place. Review the knowledge base of the help desk to see where there are the opportunities. I know this sounds simple with today's technology, but many organizations still do not do the basics.

6. Renegotiate licensing and maintenance terms with your vendors.

7. Get your applications under control. Understand what guidelines are already in place, adapt and communicate your standards and manage to that expectation.

8. Institute a sound governance model. Ensure that the demand funnel matches the capacity of the organization and is communicated in a standard format. Utilize strong project management principles.

9. Continually assess and evaluate. Don't sit still. Make appropriate changes along the way. Every challenge is different. But if you start with the standard guidance. You can easily adapt, so that you can Plan the Plan and Work the Plan.

Dan Webber is a CIO in Atlanta, GA.  He delivers his unique perspective as Chief Information Officer on technology, business, and the Atlanta IT industry. He is a recent recipient of Oracle's CIO of the quarter award.

 

Storage Management Infrastructure Challenges

The storage management needs of most enterprises have, in recent years, grown exponentially. The growth of the Internet coupled with unprecedented automation and the availability of business process applications have all contributed to this fast-growing need for access to data. When combined with legal requirements regarding the archival of historical data, it’s no wonder so many companies face constant storage management infrastructure challenges.

Yet, storage must be managed. The growing amount of data in the enterprise has to be kept, and it has to be kept in such a way that it can be accessed when it needs to be. To alleviate some of the challenges, the industry has moved away from a server-based model toward a network-based model of storage management. While this move has provided some solutions, it’s also created its own challenges.

Here are some of the biggest challenges businesses face in the area of storage management infrastructure:

Managing Data Growth
The first and biggest challenge to storage management infrastructure is, and has always been, dealing with this explosive growth of data. The enterprise must have the right hardware to handle it, and it has to have the right management strategy, too. Add to the mix the fact that you can’t always project how and when your need for data will grow, and you’ve got some serious difficulties in this area.

Interoperability Concerns
The nature of storage management infrastructure is such that not every product from every vendor operates cooperatively with other products, despite the claims. Some systems are proprietary. Sometimes, interoperability concerns rise out of legacy systems. Just trying to integrate diverse operating systems that are all part of the storage management infrastructure can be challenging, as well.

Changing Standards
The storage management industry has searched, in vain, for standards that will not only work properly but will be widely adopted. Newer standards, such as Bluefin and iSCSI, are wonderful technologies. Like older standards such as Fibre Channel, however, these new standards fail to capture a large enough percentage of the market so as to be considered prominent.

Distributed Storage and Architecture
Different users run different applications, but the data required is often the same data. This makes a distributed architecture a necessary evil. However, this architecture creates management challenges that can be difficult to address. At the very least, managing remote storage with the least amount of personnel involvement can be hard to do.

Budget Limitations
Even in the best of economic climates, IT budgets can be restrictive. CIOs and IT managers are cautious about spending money, and these limitations mean that very few companies have a storage management infrastructure solution that truly meets all of their needs.

Personnel
Qualified storage management infrastructure personnel are hard to come by. In addition, many storage management solutions require a rather high server-to-administrator ratio, making it hard to find enough people who are good at what they do in order to do the job.

When you’re considering a storage management infrastructure solution, it’s important to address each of these challenges as thoroughly as possible.

There's a Blade for That

Blade Servers are one of the hottest trends in IT today, and no one does it better than HP. The HP BladeSystem is an excellent server solution, not just for large corporations, but for the enterprise and even for small businesses. Today’s blade server solutions are more capable and affordable than ever before.

What exactly is a blade server? A blade server system relies on blades. Blades are self-contained servers. They fit into an enclosure, like the HP BladeSystem. The enclosure provides all of the ancillary functions to the server, including power, cooling, management and even connectivity.

This leaves the blades to do the core tasks. A given blade will usually contain hot-pluggable hard drives, memory, I/O cards and remote management.

Your BladeSystem might include blades for a number of tasks. Some of the most common uses for blades in this kind of system are:

•    Database hosts
•    Virtual servers
•    Remote desktops
•    File sharing
•    Application hosts
•    Web serving
•    SSL encryption
•    Streaming audio and video
•    E-mail hosting

While that list is by no means exhaustive, it tells you one thing: a BladeSystem can do just about anything that a rack-and-stack server configuration can do, only better.

Here are some ways that a BladeSystem can help your business:

•    The HP BladeSystem reduces energy cost significantly. There are fewer fans and fewer server components sucking electricity. By consolidating multiple servers into a single enclosure, you can more effectively maintain your server temperatures, as well.

•    Cabling nightmares are a think of the past. You simply cable to the enclosure once and you’re done. You will save on cabling costs and frustrations. One study at SearchWinSystems.com suggests that you’ll actually reduce cabling by as much as 85%.

•   You will also save on network port space with BladeSystem. Whether you’re connecting to your LAN or a SAN, BladeSystem just requires fewer ports.

•    HP’s Virtual Connect lets you move applications and functions from one blade to another within your enclosure. This is helpful for doing things like troubleshooting, or for adding a new application.

•    The GUI interface for the HP BladeSystem eliminates KVM requirements. You can manage all of your servers through a browser-based GUI.

•    HP’s Insight software gives you management capabilities for all of your blade servers through a single management interface, increasing the efficiency of your IT staff. HP Insight extends your management capabilities, and lets you make group-based changes, saving time and resources.

•    You can configure the blades in an HP BladeSystem to support multiple applications, as well. Again, those application can be moved around at will. This lets you optimize your server resources based on business demands.

•    A blade-based solution requires a smaller footprint. This means less data center floor space, greater density, and much easier access when it comes to servicing and upgrading your servers.

If you want power, versatility, and an overall lower TCO, check into an HP BladeSystem solution today.

Oracle + Sun (not HP) = Exadata Version 2

On September 15, 2009 Oracle's Larry Ellison and Sun's John Fowler unveiled the world's fastest machine for both data warehousing and online transaction processing (OLTP). The  Exadata Warehouse Machine Version 2 features Oracle software running on Sun hardware including FlashFire technology and Oracle database 11g. The Exadata Version 2 is available in 4 models and can be purchased immediately.
    
So here we are, Oracle software running on Sun hardware just like Oracle has been advertising for the past few months. After all the talk about the $7.4 Billion takeover, rumors about Sun's fate and the continuous antitrust scrutiny something positive comes out of this unlikely acquisition. This new machine is said to be twice as fast as the previous generation model built by Oracle in collaboration with HP. Did I just say HP? Of course, it had to come up at some point. After all I did put HP in the title. Not only did Oracle choose Sun over HP to build Exadata Version 2, but it also snubbed HP in the process by confirming that it will no longer be making database machine with them.

Of course it is not hard to figure out why Oracle built the Exadata system with Sun and not HP. I mean, why not use the hardware you already own, it is just good business. However the seemingly obvious decision by Oracle goes a long way with those who still believe that Sun's hardware business is still going to be sold off to another hardware manufacturer such as IBM or Fujitsu.

Then there is also Sun's falling share of the server business. Ever since Oracle's announcement that it acquired Sun Microsystems, Sun has lost over 1% of its worldwide server marketshare to rivals such as IBM and HP. Then again, Sun's server business could never rival IBM's in the past, but now with the world's no. 1 database software company behind them the sky is the limit.

I know that the incorporation of Oracle and Sun technologies for one new product is not going to be enough to regain all of Sun's lost marketshare. However this small gesture of collaboration and stability may be worth more than any one product can ever be.

When to Recommend New Technology

For the last 17 plus years I have been representing technology products for vendors to potential customers.  During that time I have learned some valuable lessons.  As an account manager I feel a fiduciary responsibility to filter out the products that I represent.  The reason for doing that is selfish, I don’t want to stress over preventable situations. How I reconcile that in my own mind is a complicated process but worth a look.

What I do is ask questions, lots of questions.  My goal is to make sure there are no hidden catches that will make me or my customer look bad.  I ask for references.  I call references to see how that user likes the product and in what environment they are using it.  Then I think.  I do research of other products to see if there are others similar products that may work better.  I have found in the past that there are always second and third generations of products that are better than the first.  A better mouse trap!

As an account manager you need to know your customer and their tolerance for risk.  Similar to investing, the greater the risk the greater the reward. The down side to using that in information technology is that you risk more that just a few dollars, you risk their business and the relationship with the customer.  Neither I am willing to do without doing my research and checking with references first.  Knowing your customer’s attitude towards leading-edge technology is crucial to determining when to suggest some sort of new technology.  

The next time you hear from a sales representative about a new product, think to yourself:

• Have they done their research?
  
• Have they considered my risk level? 
  
• Are they looking out for my best interest?

If the answer is no to any of those questions, you need to steer clear.  You can always ask me to research a product for you.  I promise to give you a fair appraisal.

Mike Magee
Senior Account Manager
Unitiv, Inc.

CIO Corner: How to Purchase IT

I was thinking back to the practices that I have used for purchasing items for the business.   Here are some observations that have helped me purchase at the same level and many times better than larger IT organizations and companies.

1. Establish who is involved in the decision making process

Know ahead of time who has the signing authority for this level of expenditure.   As a CIO who has sat at the table, you have already discussed this expenditure with the Executive Team.  If it is of limited economic impact, we know our responsibilities and can communicate this internally and to the vendor. If the vendor is speaking to your reports, tell your reports to communicate that the ultimate decision is that of the CIO.

2. Develop a written specification for vendors to bid on

This does not need to be a complicated document. It does need to state the goals, functionality of what you are purchasing, any terms you need, when you want responses returned, ongoing maintenance costs, and the format you want the responses to be in. It is important that you hold vendors accountable to following your format, timing, content, and functionality.

3. Keep your decision open

Developing long-term relationships with your vendors is an admirable goal and works often.  You have to keep your vendors honest. They need to continually earn your business and should not be offended when you go out for bids. The bidding process should be fair and protect any trade secrets the vendor may have imparted to the purchaser while delivering their value added. It is ok to assign a premium to the current vendor over the bid received outside. All this being said, vendors have to earn the right to continue to do business.  

4. If it isn't broken, break it and then fix it

Sometime certain cost items should get removed, but don't. Sometimes technologies change and the vendors do not always offer the new more featured products to their current customers. Even if you do not go out for bid, ask every vendor, every year, if they have anything new you should be considering.

5.  Remember the tax man cometh

Ensure that you have taken into consideration the tax ramifications of what you are purchasing.  When a bid is received, especially in the telecommunications world, make sure you understand the tax ramifications and that you are comparing apples to apples.

6. Understand the costs to ship

Freight charges can often be negotiated like any other cost. In this time of rising fuel costs, vendors often add fuel surcharges where freight has already been negotiated.

7. Develop objective decision making criteria before reviewing responses

Spreadsheets are great for developing a side by side comparison of vendor responses with your requirements from the specification driving the list of information needed for comparison. You can also use a vendor's response for this and match all other responses to their format.

Always check references if you are serious about a new vendor. Read the vendor's terms and conditions. There can be some real surprises in the fine print. Be sure to document all issues discussed with each vendor and use this record to be sure vendors give you all the information you requested.  Ask your fellow CIO brethren, they are more than happy to share their experiences.

8. Make decisions based on your schedule but be aware of theirs

Take advantage of signing deadlines that work for you. Do not hesitate to ask for extensions!  Know your vendors end of quarter and end of the year.  They always have a fabulous deal with the catch that you need to sign up before you have done all your homework.

9. Keep a calendar of contract renewal dates and scheduling reviews

Vendor contracts often renew automatically unless you notify them by a specific date, usually 60 or 90 days prior to the end of the agreement. This results in many automatic renewals for the vendor at prices that are not competitively negotiated. Set up a process to review every contract every 3 years and stagger the reviews to spread the work out evenly. Get the person responsible for supervising the vendor involved in the contract review. Be sure to set this schedule up by notice date and to notify vendors on a timely basis. This leads to an orderly review process that keeps your costs in line, and probably more importantly, keeps your service levels up to date with the best available in the market.

10. Hold vendors accountable to what they quoted

Vendors often throw in surcharges and other costs that were not mentioned in the bidding process. Be sure your purchase order and their final bid are thorough and do not allow any other charges except for required taxes to be paid. Your purchase order is the last and most official document in the chain of communications between you and the vendor. Be sure to use it to repeat all the key terms and conditions related to this purchase.

Managing vendors is a lot of work. Vendors do require this level of scrutiny. Substantial sums of money can be saved while assuring the company a high level of service and support.

Dan Webber is a CIO in Atlanta, GA.  He delivers his unique perspective as Chief Information Officer on technology, business, and the Atlanta IT industry. He is a recent recipient of Oracle's CIO of the quarter award.

More about Unitiv's Technology Procurement 

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is a buzz-word that is being tossed around a lot lately, but what is it and what does it mean to your business? First, let’s take a look at what a cloud has to do with computing. The term goes back to the early days of the Internet when flow charts would use a cloud to represent anything that happened on the Internet. When network and computer systems designers were drawing flowcharts for hardware or software design, anything that happened on the Internet was considered outside the scope of the system and from that the metaphor of using a cloud to represent the Internet became commonplace.

Currently the term cloud computing is a methodology of computing where virtual, scalable resources are allocated as a service over the Internet. The most common use of the concept is Software as a Service (SaaS), but Platform as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service are similar ideas which fall under cloud computing. But what does this mean to the casual consumer? Microsoft provides us with an easy example. For years, people have bought and installed Microsoft Office on their computers and they can still do that. But with their Office Live products, users are opening and sharing these documents in a virtual space that allows live collaboration with anyone in the world with access to their documents. As their storage and application needs grow, the service grows with them without having to buy more hardware.

The next step is when the actual software is on a server and you are running it through your browser. The advantage to this is the ability to work with the application, save, retrieve, and share files from any Internet connected computer in the world. And as your business needs grow, the platform and infrastructure is grown by the provider without the direct cost to the consumer. And while this increased capacity comes with a price, it is much more affordable than upgrading your own hardware in house, plus it is completely scalable, meaning you only buy what you need, when you need it.

As this methodology grows and is adopted by more businesses, we are swiftly reaching the promise of the Internet made years ago when all the business user needs is a small ‘internet appliance,’ the most basic of lightweight laptop computers. This coupled with a wireless Internet connection and you are plugged in and ready to work anywhere and anytime. The computer you use rarely needs to be upgraded or replaced because all of the upgrades occur at the provider level. These services will be scaled to the needs of the business and can be charged on a utility level per use, or subscription level per time. In either case the company saves the capital expenditures of large desktop computers, servers, and expensive software applications that become swiftly obsolete.

Even companies that need to have their own presence on the Internet no longer need to buy and host their own web and email servers or expensive and redundant Internet connections. Infrastructure as a service is a form of cloud computing where virtual, shared, or co-hosted servers are provided on demand. Just like with the Software as a Service, this solution is scalable to the needs of the client and the business pays just for what it needs. The webmaster or administrator simply accesses the servers remotely via a web interface and manages all aspects of the sites and email configuration as if they were sitting in front of the servers. Add to these advantages the climate control, redundant power, and managed backups of these Infrastructure as a Service providers and the value increases.

Any business that is starting out or looking at new hardware, software or infrastructure should strongly consider cloud computing. It is not only the wave of the future, it is here now, and provides value, greater accessibility, and easy, affordable growth.

CIO Corner: A CIO's Perspective on Data Deduplication

I was chatting with fellow CIOs recently and discussing architecture design in the era of server virtualization and disaster recovery.  The one idea that I brought up was that data deduplication should be considered.  I noticed a few blank stares which made me realize this may be a new term or concept.

Data deduplication (often called "intelligent compression" or "single-instance storage") is a method of reducing storage needs by eliminating redundant data. Only one unique instance of the data is actually retained on storage media, such as disk or tape. Redundant data is replaced with a pointer to the unique data copy.

The absolute best example for practicality is email. In a typical email system, there might be 100 instances of the same one megabyte (MB) file attachment. If the email platform is backed up or archived, all 100 instances are saved, requiring 100 MB storage space. With data deduplication, only one instance of the attachment is actually stored.  Therefore each subsequent instance is just referenced back to the one saved copy. In this example, a 100 MB storage demand could be reduced to only one MB.

Data deduplication offers other benefits. Lower storage space requirements will save money on buying more storage, i.e. disks. I realize that the cost of disks has continually gone down, but for those who rely on tape for offsite storage, it reduces the time for tape backups to run and may ensure a clean backup.

Data deduplication also reduces the amount of data that must be sent across a WAN for remote backups, replication, and disaster recovery.

In actual practice, data deduplication is often used in conjunction with other forms of data reduction such as conventional compression and delta differencing. The triad of techniques can be very effective at optimizing the use of storage space.

Again, If you do not know what you are doing in this space, back away, and hire experts to help you out.

Dan Webber is a CIO in Atlanta, GA.  He delivers his unique perspective as Chief Information Officer on technology, business, and the Atlanta IT industry. He is a recent recipient of Oracle's CIO of the quarter award. 

Are you looking to improve your disaster recovery (DR) capabilities or replace an aging tape library? 

ExaGrid offers the fastest and most scalable disk-based backup system with data deduplication—for the same cost as tape.

LEARN MORE. Register to join us for an individual web presentation and discover how ExaGrid best meets your backup needs.

Data Center Costs are Exploding: Time to Wake Up!

Recently we have been able to take advantage of many innovative technologies to reduce IT Capital Expenditures (CAPEX).  Server Virtualization, blade and shared storage architectures have dramatically cut costs. Staffs have been busy migrating the “distributed computing model” embraced in the 1980s (and implemented in the 1990s) to the newest cost saving virtualization and interconnect architectures mentioned above.  

So why are IT budgets destined to continue their increase almost unfettered?

Most IT executives know the answer; their future budget growth is based on two operating expenses (OPEX) items: energy costs and administration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If your vendors are not providing you solutions for these two paramount issues, but instead they base their relationship with you on commodity hardware sales, they are adding little value in your quest to achieve your business objectives.  An important point to remember here is that you must heavily discount the business impact of a hardware price concession, since acquisition costs are a small portion of your total IT budget and then this CAPEX must be depreciated over multiple years.  In other words you cannot buy enough discounted hardware to right the ship.  

So IT budgets will continue to rise until we wake up!

Your administrative and energy costs are OPEX and make up over 50% of a typical IT budget. Over the next few weeks we will explore some strategic solutions to these looming problems.

Transform your Data Center with Unitiv, HP, and Intel

Join Unitiv, HP, and Intel for a half-day seminar on Data Center Automation. "Transforming your Data Center" will take place in the following cities:
September 30, 2009 - Atlanta, GA
October 13, 2009 - Philadelphia, PA
October 14 - Florham Park, NJ
October 15 - New York City, NY
More details are available at www.unitiv.com/executive-seminar-series

NetApp announces deeper commitment to “The Cloud”

“The Cloud” is used as a metaphor for the Internet in cloud computing, based on how it is depicted in computer network diagrams and as an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals.

NetApp this week has announced a further commitment to cloud computing by highlighting its close relationships with other industry-leading Technology Based (IT) vendors and their respective Value Added Resellers.  This initiative is to assist in providing enterprise class clients with the solutions needed to build their respective cloud infrastructures.

NetApp stated further, that several Global Service Providers and Integrators are utilizing NetApp’s technology with their own clients, to enhance or create cloud service offerings.  These companies provide exceptional solutions, in particular with Virtualization, that are considered by many industry experts the “Best-of-Breed”.

While an actual technology-based list of “Best-of-Breed” does not officially exist, one cannot argue the quality and level of commitment behind the companies that NetApp considers a part of this list.  Some of the companies are:

BMC Software      
Brocade           
Cisco                   
Citrix                  
Microsoft            
VMWare       

“NetApp believes that because there are several elements that must come together to create a cloud infrastructure, no single vendor is able to adequately address each and every layer,” said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Solutions Marketing, NetApp. “It’s imperative that customers identify the right partners that can provide the services, technology, and integration necessary for their unique cloud needs. Today’s announcement not only spotlights the best-of-breed partners that NetApp has cultivated to help customers, but also helps validate our technology offering for the cloud thanks to the many service providers and system integrators who are leveraging NetApp solutions.”

About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that accelerate business breakthroughs and achieve outstanding cost efficiency. Discover our passion for helping companies around the world go further, faster at www.netapp.com.

J D Eller is a Senior Account Executive at Unitiv.