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TierPoint is a leading national provider of information technology and data center services, including colocation, cloud computing, disaster recovery and managed IT services. Check out our event page for more information and to register for Learn And Links 2017 where you can engage with TierPoint and other technology experts.
Managed Security Service Providers can bring added resources and expertise to the job of defending your valuable corporate assets. And that’s essential as executive management and boards place greater scrutiny on security strategies.
Broadline will host the annual Learn and Links event on May 23, 2017 at Rush Creek Golf Course in Maple Grove, MN. More news to follow!
Analyst(s): David J. Cappuccio
CIOs and IT leaders should not be migrating everything toward cloud services, nor should they be sitting back and waiting for the market to settle. A prudent data center strategy incorporates the best of both worlds, for the right reasons, at the right time. Here’s how.
Strategic Planning Assumption
A multicloud strategy will become the common strategy for 70% of enterprises by 2019, up from less than 10% today.
With the proliferation of cloud services over the past three years, IT leaders have begun to ask Gartner a new set of questions regarding their data center strategy. Historically, data center strategies focused on keeping applications running, providing sustained and controlled growth, and doing it in a secure and fault-resilient manner. Long-term strategies were often developed in conjunction with aging data center assets and the need to find more floor space, to bring in more power and cooling, or to replace an aged facility.
The introduction of potentially low-cost cloud services, coupled with ever-tighter controls on capital spending within IT organizations, and the ever-increasing demands by business units for new services have driven IT leaders to rethink both short-term and long-term strategies. The question is no longer, “Should we use cloud services to support the business?” but “How and when can we use cloud services to empower the business?” By focusing on applications, workloads, risk and the short- and long-term needs of the business, a flexible data center strategy can emerge.
Gartner applies the term “pace layers” to the evolution of applications in an organization to mirror the concept of “shearing layers,” developed by Stewart Brand in his 1994 book, “How Buildings Learn” (see “How to Develop a Pace-Layered Application Strategy” ).
Architectural layers have different “paces” of change, but they must be designed to work together so that the building can function effectively. We believe this same idea of pace layers can be used to build a business application strategy that delivers a faster response and better ROI, without sacrificing integration, integrity or governance.
Gartner has defined three categories (or layers) to distinguish the various business capabilities (and the corresponding applications) that a company needs to effectively deliver its business strategy, and to help IT organizations develop more appropriate application strategies:
These layers or classifications can also be used as a baseline for determining application placement. Systems of record, for example, are those that are core to the success of the business and have been in place for many years. These systems are perceived to have immediate business impact if they fail (e.g., loss of revenue, critical process flow, risk of injury) or are highly regulated. In a high percentage of companies, these applications will continue to run on-premises or in a colocation or outsourced environment, with a focus on operational efficiency, high availability, standardization and compliance.
Systems of differentiation, on the other hand, provide competitive advantage, but could potentially be run either on-premises or hosted elsewhere (publicly or privately), depending on latency requirements, unique processes (e.g., data dependencies), service-level requirements, and upward and downward resource scalability. In fact, there may be no specific reason to run these applications on-premises, beyond “That’s what we’ve always done.”
Many newer systems of innovation could potentially be run in a public cloud environment, taking advantage of rapid deployments, processor and storage elasticity, and the financial benefits of right-provisioning. With many new mobile applications, customer adoption rates are unpredictable, and being able to rapidly provision new resources as needed (rather than prepurchasing them) is a huge benefit to capital-constrained IT organizations.
We also expect to see applications move among these layers as they mature, or as the business process shifts from experimental to well-established to industry standard. As an example, a highly successful cloud-based mobile application may become critical to customer satisfaction, which would require a more rigorous change process or performance guarantees, and might require that application to move toward a different layer, and possibly a different location.
Workload location is dependent more on latency and workflow than on physical location. Enterprises that have gone through data center consolidation projects have often found that solving the problem of too many sites may have reduced their operating expenses, but have also opened up severe performance issues around workloads and workflow. Creating regional sites for geospecific workloads or sharing workloads across multiple sites to create the perception of 100% service continuity is more important to long-term business health than consolidation for consolidation’s sake.
Placement of these workloads does not have to mirror the sites they came from, either. Using hosting, colocation or cloud service providers are all viable strategies, depending on what problem you’re trying to solve. Many colocation providers are also hosting cloud providers at their sites, which can open up unique options for data center managers looking to leverage newer services. Implementing a platform as a service (PaaS) might have been considered higher risk in the past, but if that PaaS provider also resides at your colocation provider’s site, then contracting for a cross-connect to that PaaS provider from your suite can save significant network costs while providing a simple vehicle to begin implementing more cloud-based services over time.
While the industry as a whole talks about the value of new services, new delivery options and rapid change, many IT leaders are obligated to add a dose of reality to the pace of change and focus on practical matters. Yes, it’s important to enable the business through rapid adoption of new technologies and delivery models; but at the same time, it’s critical that IT leaders protect the business against actions that might unnecessarily impact the company’s reputation, expected service continuity or organizational efficiency.
Adding external services to your data center portfolio can be an effective means of mitigating risk, while at the same time moving toward a true enterprise-defined data center (EDDC) — one in which the physical location of assets is less important than the services delivered and service levels received (see Note 1). Different application types will reside where the delivery model best supports client expectations, risk, compliance, service continuity and regulatory issues.
This model moves IT away from the traditional, on-premises, full-control model toward a distributed computing model, which in turn changes the way IT must support those business applications. IT staff with skills to assess multiple interrelated technologies (versus vertical technology stacks) will become critical in determining performance and configuration, and tracking key costs and metrics. However, with this model, IT leaders who are a bit risk-averse can use the EDDC as a means to begin a managed migration toward external and internal IT service delivery over a time frame that fits their specific business needs.
DENVER, Colo. and MINNEAPOLIS, MN – (August 23, 2016) – Cologix, a leading North American network-neutral interconnection and data center company announced today that it has entered into a distribution partnership with Broadline Solutions, a master agency specializing in cloud, colocation and connectivity. The new partnership focuses on delivering Cologix’s colocation and interconnection services through Broadline’s extensive partner network.
Broadline partners will now be able to build and deploy complex business solutions built on top of Cologix’s best in class data centers around North America. The combination of Cologix data centers and Broadline’s expertise in networking services will provide end users with a unique solution set of cloud technologies, networking and data center services.
“Broadline collaborates with a wide range of clients including enterprise, retail & healthcare on strategic solutions to meet their business needs and we are pleased to add our robust interconnection and colocation platform to their comprehensive solution offering,” stated Stephen Callahan, Senior Vice President of Channel Sales. “We focus on key distribution relationships that complement and extend the reach of our data center solutions. We are excited to launch and support our partnership with Broadline and their best-in-class network for subagents.”
Through Cologix’s Channel Partner Program, Broadline can offer scalable interconnection and secure, reliable colocation services from one of nine unique markets in the United States and Canada. Cologix data centers, located in Columbus, Dallas, Jacksonville, Lakeland, Minneapolis, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, offer access to 450 unique network choices. Broadline helps businesses across the globe with their cloud, colocation and connectivity needs, acting as an advocate to manage pricing, contracts, product selection, network design consulting, post-sales support and business continuity.
“Our customers are sophisticated users of cloud, colocation and connectivity that understand the importance of choice and future-proofing their business,” stated Wade Acheson, Principal of Broadline. “Cologix not only offers the broadest access to networks in their Meet-Me-Rooms across their unique markets, but also enable customizable and scalable colocation solutions with access to a wide selection of cloud service providers that resonate with enterprises that need to future-proof their IT infrastructure. We look forward to leveraging Cologix’s data center platform to continue to offer best-in-class solutions and choice for our customers.”
Cologix Inc. is a network-neutral interconnection and colocation data center company headquartered in Denver. Cologix provides scalable interconnection services and secure, reliable colocation services. Cologix operates densely connected, strategically located facilities in Columbus, Dallas, Jacksonville, Lakeland, Minneapolis, Montreal, Northern New Jersey, Toronto and Vancouver. With more than 450+ network choices and 24 prime interconnection locations, Cologix currently serves over 1,600 carrier, managed services, cloud, media, content, financial services and enterprise customers. The company’s experienced local service teams are committed to providing its customers the highest standard of local customer support. To arrange a tour of the center closest to you, contact us at sales@cologix.com. Follow Cologix on LinkedIn and Twitter.
About Broadline Solutions
Founded in 2002, Broadline Solutions is a master agency focused on helping businesses across the U.S. with their cloud, colocation and connectivity needs. With clients in enterprise, retail, healthcare and a range of other industries, Broadline acts as an advocate to manage pricing, contracts, product selection, network design consulting, post-sales support and business continuity. For more information, call 763.235.2000 or visit http://broadlinesolutions.com/
Media Contacts:
Cologix
Julia Kendall
VP, Marketing
Julia.kendall@cologix.com
720.940.2559
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News flash: According to a recent report from SDxCentral, titled “SDxCentral and NFV Market Size Report 2015 Edition,” software-defined networking (SDN) revenue (combined with that of NFV) will exceed $105 billion per annum by 2020. Your customers will soon expect you to advise them on the ins and outs of advanced SDN solutions, i.e., SD-WAN, as time passes and they become more mainstream. If you’re not up-to-speed, now is the time to get your head in the game and learn all that you can about selling SD solutions.
To help you get your bearings, we asked our vendor Aryaka to provide us with actionable insights and advice on how to prepare yourself for this fast-growing market. Let’s break this down a bit …
The last major WAN breakthrough was with MPLS over a decade ago. While MPLS provides enterprises with a private global network, which mitigated performance problems inherent in public Internet and IP SEC WAN solutions, it was still not a perfect answer to multi location connectivity.
Today, SD-WANs offer a direct resolution of MPLS drawbacks in that, depending on the sophistication of the provider, they can be launched immediately (whereas MPLS takes months) and reduce congestion and packet-loss associated with the public Internet. With SD-WAN, enterprises gain access to Internet links with points of presence all over the globe that directly connect international offices, bypassing the congested middle-mile. As such, businesses can send mission-critical applications over this sped-up intelligent pathway, reducing packet loss and latency, while using the higher-latency public Internet for low-priority / effort traffic.
There are three primary drivers for SD-WAN adoption, as told to us by our friends at Aryaka. You must understand these business challenges before you begin selling SD-WAN solutions to your customers. Then you will be better-positioned to explain the benefits of a robust SD-WAN solution.
Now that we’ve covered a bit of history and some key drivers of SD-WAN adoption, let’s discuss how you as a partner can apply this knowledge to your sales strategy.
An ideal SD-WAN provider should boast Internet link functionality, a private core network and a private global network. Why? Because, in order for your customers to gain the most from their global connectivity solution, they need a fool-proof network that delivers best-in-class performance that bypasses the public Internet, reducing the likelihood of traffic congestion and packet loss.
What’s more, the SD-WAN provider you recommend to your customers should offer white-glove customer service so that they receive the support they need when handing off the management of their mission-critical applications to a third-party vendor. In other words, your SD-WAN vendor of choice should provide a fully integrated service so that your customers gain the performance, maintenance, management and security of an entire IT staff—all through a cloud-based platform.
When it comes to global networking connectivity, no two customers are alike. As such, you must understand your customers’ unique use-cases and networking challenges. From there, you can select the SD-WAN vendor and specific solutions that match their needs. Some questions you might ask to better understand your customers’ challenges are:
Tactical questions such as these will help you to understand your customers’ individualized needs.
Here’s the truth: You’re not going to learn selling SD-WAN from reading a single article. The real key to your success is working side by side with a sales enablement strategist that can offer you the resources and education you need to succeed. Broadline is one such organization that is here to give a lending hand to partners looking to emerge in new markets, like SD-WAN.
Click here to request more about our partner program and how to connect with best-in-class vendors such as Aryaka.