Recently, Cisco made a pivotal announcement that marks a new direction in strategy. They announced the end-of-life of the HyperFlex Data Platform, a key product in the hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) market.

Cisco has set September 11, 2024, as the final order date, though renewals will be accepted for existing subscriptions until February 28, 2029. Cisco has stated that this move reflects their commitment to staying aligned with current market trends and ensuring that they continue to meet the evolving requirements of their customers. In a statement from Cisco, they further explained the decision. “Cisco made the decision to discontinue its Cisco HyperFlex HCI product family based on evolving customer needs and market dynamics. This decision has been timed to best support our customers, partners, and employees.”

Partnership with Nutanix

Following the decision to discontinue HyperFlex, Cisco has moved to partner with Nutanix. Nutanix, known for their cloud software and HCI solutions, complements Cisco’s offerings in the hyperconverged domain.

The collaboration aims to simplify hybrid multicloud operations. With this alliance, Nutanix’s software will be compatible with Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS) hardware, including the M5 and M6 generation servers. As a result, the “Cisco Compute Hyperconverged with Nutanix” solution has been introduced. This solution integrates Cisco’s compute and networking capabilities with Nutanix’s Cloud Platform, providing businesses with an option for multicloud environments.

By combining their respective strengths, Cisco and Nutanix aim to offer a solution that addresses the challenges of modern hyperconverged infrastructure. This partnership emphasizes both companies’ practical approach to address industry needs. As the industry adapts to these significant shifts, the role of experienced partners becomes even more crucial.

OneNeck – Your Partner for Both Cisco and Nutanix Solutions

OneNeck has built robust and longstanding partnerships with both Cisco and Nutanix. As a Gold Certified Cisco partner, our deep-rooted expertise in Cisco solutions is a testament to our dedication and commitment to excellence. Additionally, our commitment to Nutanix has not gone unnoticed. In early 2023, Nutanix spotlighted our partnership as we were honored with the Global and Americas Service Provider of the Year title. Beyond this, OneNeck holds the distinction of being both a Nutanix Champion Service Provider and a Champion Reseller.

This dual alliance places OneNeck in a unique position, especially during industry shifts like the one presented by this transition. We understand the intricacies of both the Cisco and Nutanix offerings, and this knowledge equips us to offer tailored guidance to businesses.

As companies grapple with multi-cloud decisions, OneNeck is poised to provide clarity, direction and solutions that harness the combined strengths of both Cisco and Nutanix. More than just understanding the technology, we grasp the broader business implications. This holistic context ensures that our clients navigate the change seamlessly and harness it for growth and innovation.

As the HCI landscape undergoes significant changes, OneNeck stands as a steadfast partner for businesses. Our goal is to ensure that companies navigate these transitions seamlessly, making the most of their infrastructure investments and positioning themselves effectively for future industry developments.

Navigating Hyperflex Changes with Expertise and Insight

The decision by Cisco to transition from HyperFlex and collaborate with Nutanix marks a notable change in the HCI market. With this collaboration, businesses can expect solutions that address the challenges of today’s multi-cloud environments.

OneNeck, with our deep-rooted partnerships and expertise, stands ready to guide businesses through this transition. Our tight alignment with Cisco and Nutanix equips us with the insights and knowledge to provide timely and effective solutions.

If your organization is navigating these changes or exploring a new HCI strategy, we’re here to help. Contact us today.

Instead of maintaining costly on-premises data centers, many organizations leverage colocation to house their servers and networking equipment. Colocation services have numerous benefits, including greater control over infrastructure costs and equipment, better security and increased bandwidth.

What Is the Difference Between a Data Center and Colocation?

A data center is a facility where organizations store and manage their computing resources, including servers and networking equipment. On the other hand, colocation is a rental service offered by third-party data center providers that allows organizations to house their servers and equipment in leased space.

Organizations that operate their own data centers are responsible for all aspects—infrastructure design, maintenance, security and power supply. However, organizations using colocation services outsource facility management to the colocation provider, while retaining ownership and control over their servers and data.

Some colocation providers deploy both cloud and colocation solutions.

Why Do Companies Invest in Colocation?

Colocation services provide organizations access to state-of-the-art infrastructure without any upfront costs. This results in significant cost savings—the primary reason 10% of organizations migrate to a colocation environment.

Here are some of the other key reasons why organizations invest in colocation:

• Scalability and flexibility – Organizations can easily expand or shrink their IT infrastructure based on their evolving needs. This allows organizations to adapt to growth, seasonal fluctuations or sudden spikes in demand more efficiently.
• Enhanced connectivity – Colocation facilities typically offer high-speed, redundant network connections that enable low-latency, high-bandwidth connectivity. This is crucial for industries that require uninterrupted data access.
• Expert support and management – Colocation services often include support from experienced technicians. Companies can free their IT teams from mundane tasks like monitoring, maintenance, security and backup management.
• Robust disaster recovery – Organizations gain access to redundant power supplies, backup generators and disaster mitigation measures. This ensures continuity of operations, even in the event of man-made or natural disasters.

Top 4 Use Cases for Colocation Services

Owning Infrastructure Without Any Upfront Costs

In regulated industries where compliance and data security are critical, owning your own infrastructure is a necessity. However, building and maintaining a data center can be complex, expensive and resource-intensive.

Colocation allows organizations to navigate regulatory challenges efficiently while ensuring the security, availability and integrity of their sensitive data. Colocation facilities offer stringent security measures, like physical security controls and video surveillance. They often also work with regulatory bodies to ensure that organizations meet the necessary compliance requirements effectively.

Scaling Infrastructure for M&A and Business Growth

Scaling IT infrastructure for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) or rapid business growth can be challenging. However, colocation services enable organizations to accommodate evolving demands.

During M&A, organizations can use a shared facility where equipment from different entities can be colocated to streamline the consolidation process and expedite system integration. Similarly, when experiencing rapid growth, organizations can quickly expand their infrastructure.

Renting space within a colocation facility gives organizations the flexibility to add servers, storage and networking equipment as needed.

Supporting High Bandwidth and Extremely Low Latency

Colocation services allow organizations to provide high-quality, uninterrupted experiences in bandwidth-intensive applications—crucial in industries like media, distribution and retail.

Colocation facilities are designed with robust network connectivity that supports high-speed data transfer and extremely low latency. Organizations using these facilities gain access to dedicated, high-bandwidth connections that result in optimal network performance and minimal latency-related issues.

Colocation providers often also have strategic partnerships with major network providers and close proximity to key network exchange points, which further reduce latency.

Operating in Hybrid Environments with Sensitive Data

With colocation services, organizations can operate in hybrid environments while maintaining stringent security and compliance standards for their sensitive data.

Colocation allows organizations to securely store and process sensitive data on-premises, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations and internal security policies. In addition, colocation providers offer robust physical and digital security measures that help organizations maintain control over their sensitive data.

Colocation facilities also enable seamless integration of hybrid environments, ensuring efficient data transfer, reduced latency and enhanced security for sensitive workloads.

Is Colocation Right for You?

Data center colocation is a viable option for organizations thinking of expanding their cloud or on-premise infrastructure or de-risking their operations. To determine whether your organization should follow suit, you may want to consider the following questions:

• Does your organization want to own and manage its computing infrastructure while cutting down the costs of a data center?
• Is your organization increasingly experiencing periods of growth, mergers or acquisitions?
• Are your organization’s revenue and reputation affected by regular data center outages?
• Are efficiency and sustainability critical to your organization’s competitive differentiation?

If you answered in the affirmative to most or all of these questions, then it’s time to consider colocation. OneNeck’s top-tier data centers provide organizations with cost savings, round-the-clock support and protection from unforeseen events. Learn more by reading about our Data Center Colocation Services.

5 IT Solutions to Automate Your Production Facility

The latest phase in manufacturing, known as Industry 4.0 or the Fourth Industrial Revolution, refers to the use of smart automation and connectivity in a production environment. By utilizing the Internet of Things (IoT) to connect computers to machines, facilities can automate production while leveraging data and analytics, enhancing human interaction with machines and improving efficiency and productivity.

What are Industry 4.0 Solutions for Manufacturing?

Industry 4.0 IT solutions for manufacturing are cutting-edge technologies that enable data sharing and automation by connecting machines and computers — leading to today’s “smart factories.”

Along with improved robotics and IoT connectivity, smart factories may employ additional digital solutions. These may include automated diagnostic tools, remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), and mobile and web apps.

Automation and connectivity in smart factories lead to improved production reliability and precision, and a more agile, flexible, and efficient production environment.

5 Foundational IT Solutions for Manufacturing

Implementing Industry 4.0 smart manufacturing processes can help companies achieve continuous improvement goals such as reducing downtime, improving supply chain traceability, and increasing speed to market. However, Industry 4.0 doesn’t just happen. Management must identify opportunities, choose from various technological and digital solutions, and implement the ones that address the highest priority functions.

Here are five foundational IT solutions for manufacturing to consider as your organization prepares to implement Industry 4.0 in your factory.

1. Cloud & Hybrid IT: Cloud computing enables manufacturers to store and access data and applications on remote servers. This internet-based solution eliminates the need for on-premises infrastructure, providing an affordable, flexible, and scalable solution. Combining cloud and on-premises systems results in a hybrid IT solution, allowing organizations to leverage the benefits of both.
2. Colocation: Manufacturers can rent servers and other hardware space at a third-party provider’s facility, allowing them to outsource physical infrastructure while retaining control over their IT systems. Colocation can also assist manufacturers by providing redundancy for disaster recovery.
3. Application Modernization: In manufacturing, application modernization is the process of updating or replacing legacy software and systems to ensure compatibility with modern technology. This can include migrating on-premises software to the cloud, implementing software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, and using technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Application modernization enhances the functionality and efficiency of equipment, frontline workers, and supply chain while optimizing processes.
4. Virtualization: Virtualization technology enables manufacturers to use a single physical server to run multiple virtual machines or operating systems. This reduces costs while improving hardware utilization and scalability. Virtualization also helps support flexible work arrangements by enabling the creation of virtualized desktops, allowing employees a secure way to remotely access applications and data.
5. Digital Transformation: Digital transformation is the integration of digital technologies across all aspects of a manufacturing organization, fundamentally changing how it operates. It can cover many different initiatives, such as adopting Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices for real-time data collection and predictive maintenance, leveraging analytics for informed decision-making, and implementing automation and robotics to streamline processes and increase productivity.

The Future of Manufacturing Starts with OneNeck

These foundational IT solutions for manufacturing are a starting point when planning for the digital transformation necessary to thrive in today’s technology-driven landscape. Moving to Industry 4.0 offers enticing long-term benefits including continuous improvement and cost savings.

Don’t walk this path without a partner that can guide you through the journey. At OneNeck, we have helped manufacturing companies like yours jump into action with innovative solutions.

• Migrations to cloud, multi-cloud, and hybrid environments
• Colocation for managing the cost of expanding data centers
• Cybersecurity products and services to reduce downtime and risk
• Digital transformation and application modernization
• Connected machines and devices

In today’s competitive, rapidly evolving manufacturing environment, organizations that embrace digital solutions are better able to weather any storm. Let OneNeck IT Solutions help you navigate your organization’s transition to Industry 4.0.

Read more about IT solutions for the manufacturing industry, and learn how OneNeck can help provide solutions right for your factory.

Just a decade ago, IT professionals were abuzz about “the cloud.” Today, more than 60% of corporate data is stored in the cloud, and by 2025, research suggests that more than 200 zettabytes of data will be stored in the cloud — roughly half of all the world’s data.

Managed cloud storage solutions can help organizations safely, securely, and efficiently house their data without requiring additional staff or expensive capital expenditures (CapEx).

In this blog post, we’ll explore what managed cloud storage is and provide some examples of how businesses can use it.

What is managed cloud storage?

Managed cloud storage is a service provided by a third-party organization in which the provider manages the entire storage infrastructure — including hardware, software, and data management responsibilities. Common cloud management operations include cloud migration, service optimization, and security monitoring that help companies offload the responsibility of installing and maintaining storage infrastructure so they can focus on core business activities.

What’s an example of managed cloud storage?

Many well-known companies offer managed cloud storage services on a subscription basis in which the provider charges a fee based on the amount of storage used. Popular managed cloud storage services include Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud.

These services enable an organization to conveniently and securely store important information such as data from their customer relationship management (CRM) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms off-site and managed by someone else.

Managed vs. Unmanaged Cloud Storage

Unlike managed cloud storage, unmanaged cloud storage is the sole responsibility of the company that owns the data. With unmanaged cloud storage, an organization is responsible for selecting a data center and deploying the storage array. The company is also responsible for increasing storage capacity, updating and upgrading infrastructure, and troubleshooting any issues that arise.

How to Choose the Best Cloud Storage Management Solution for You

As cloud storage continues to gain popularity, businesses have a wide range of cloud storage options available. Determining which is the best for your business frequently comes down to a handful of specific factors. Here are some steps to take when choosing a cloud storage management provider.

Determine the location of the data center

Cloud-based storage solutions require a data center to house the physical infrastructure upon which virtualized infrastructure can be run. Choosing the right data center is often a matter of its location.

A data center’s proximity to sufficient power and connectivity services is an important consideration when choosing a location. Having adequate power helps to ensure that storage systems can run uninterrupted as expected, while proximity to public cloud provider availability zones is necessary for maintaining a strong, stable connection to cloud resources.

Evaluate the provider’s security features

Data privacy and security are paramount in today’s high-risk, data-driven business landscape. Cyber attacks continue to increase in frequency and sophistication, causing an average of nearly $4.5 million worth of damage per incident, leading governments to impose regulations such as GDPR in Europe and CRPA in California to compel organizations to bolster their data security efforts.

For organizations using managed cloud storage, it’s important to evaluate the various security safeguards the provider has in place. These measures include physical security at the data center site to prevent unauthorized access to storage hardware, as well as software-enabled security like network intrusion detection, built-in firewalls, and advanced data encryption.

Look at performance data

Like other areas of a business, managed cloud storage should be evaluated with measurable performance data. Cloud storage systems are typically measured by the data transfer rate to and from storage media, which is an indication of the overall performance of the system.

It’s also important to look at broader performance metrics such as service availability (measured in “nines”) and how quickly the storage system comes back online following an outage or interruption, called recovery time objectives (RTOs).

Assess integrations and APIs

One of the biggest benefits of managed cloud storage is that it enables any user to access information from virtually anywhere. But for that to happen — accessing, adding, updating, or deleting data from cloud storage — applications must connect to the data store via an Application Programming Interface or API.

APIs typically come in either a REST (Representational State Transfer) or SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) architecture. Regardless of the design, it’s important that your managed cloud storage provider offer a wide variety of APIs, as each storage system must be connected by purpose-built APIs for that storage unit.

In general, a managed cloud storage service provider with a broader range of APIs will offer a more flexible and robust suite of solutions for your business.

Forward-thinking Infrastructure for Growing Organizations

Managed cloud storage is an excellent way for businesses to offload their storage infrastructure management tasks and focus on their core business activities. Managed cloud storage providers can help businesses reduce operating costs while improving scalability and data security that enable greater and more sustainable growth.

Download our Ultimate Buyer’s Guide to Managed IT Services to learn more about managed cloud storage and other essential solutions.

Cloud computing is an important business tool for companies that want to improve infrastructure flexibility and scalability. It allows them to easily share resources, such as servers, storage, applications, and services over a network.

In contrast to a public cloud, where multiple organizations share resources, a private cloud is one where resources are dedicated to a single organization. Businesses may choose the private cloud over the public cloud if they want more control over their hardware or need to meet strict security requirements. They may also want to avoid losing performance when another organization’s workload hogs the machine’s resources.

There are two main options when setting up a private cloud: setting up your own on-premise hardware or working with a provider to set up a hosted private cloud. Let’s consider the differences between each option.

Differences Between Hosted and On-Premise Private Cloud Solutions

The challenge with a private cloud is that the company using it is responsible for its hardware, security, and administration. Many businesses find this too much for their current team to handle but may still need the security and control that the private cloud offers. How can they gain control without infrastructure management?

A hosted private cloud is a private cloud that is maintained and operated by a third party. This third-party manages the infrastructure and ensures that the cloud meets the customer’s needs. Resources are isolated from other clients and dedicated to a single client — allowing for a private cloud experience.

Setting up the private cloud with a hosted service is a great solution for businesses who want to move away from on-premise hardware and software but still want some level of control over their data.

Benefits of a Hosted Private Cloud:

• Complete oversight of the network
• Hardware is managed by the provider who is more likely to keep pace with emerging technology
• Access to experienced system administrators
• Full control over security to maintain strict security standards for data protection like HIPAA and other government regulations
• Infrastructure that is ready to scale
• Controlled costs that are billed as an operating expense

On the other hand, on-premise private clouds offer more control over data and infrastructure but come with a higher upfront cost and require more maintenance. Additionally, businesses can get locked into using a particular hardware vendor’s technology if they choose this option. Lock-in can create compatibility and budget concerns during future upgrades. Choosing between an on-premise or hosted private cloud will typically come down to budget, control and future requirements.

Benefits of an On-Premise Cloud:

• Complete oversight of the network
• Full control over security to maintain strict security standards for data protection like HIPAA and other government regulations
• Ability to choose specific hardware based on computing workloads
• Authority to direct future hardware upgrades and management software decisions

Both on-premise and hosted private clouds offer isolated infrastructure that protects your data from the risks of shared hardware. However, by removing the burden of hardware management, hosted private clouds become much more accessible. How can you find the right private cloud partner?

Choosing a Hosted Private Cloud Partner

While choosing a hosted provider isn’t as permanent as on-premise equipment, making the right choice will speed up deployment and integration. There are a few key steps that can help you with your consideration.

1. Make sure that the provider has a solid track record in your industry and is able to meet your specific needs.
2. Ensure that the provider has the necessary resources and expertise to help you scale and help your organization leverage the available cloud tools.
3. Review the contract’s terms and conditions carefully to make sure that you are comfortable with them.

Hosting your private cloud with a reputable provider can offer many benefits, including support and guidance as you move to the cloud.

Leverage OneNeck to get access to ReliaCloud, a hosted private cloud that provides dedicated compute resources from a Nutanix hyperconverged (web-scale) architecture. These services run in OneNeck’s data centers, where you get a managed cluster solution containing common services like hardware, cluster software, network, AOS management, hypervisor management and more.

At OneNeck, our goal is to help you protect what’s working in your core infrastructure while helping you navigate your path to IT modernization. Talk to us today about how you can build a private cloud solution that meets the demands of your workload.

So, how can business owners decide on the best IT strategy? It comes down to three requirements: administrative control, security and hardware. For example, if your business is in the healthcare or finance industry, you’ll have to abide by regulations that dictate how you handle customer data.

Additionally, if you operate in Europe, you’ll be under GDPR regulations, which may not allow you to store data on cloud servers outside of the region. As we’ll see, choosing between data center colocation and cloud computing solutions has a lot to do with how much control you need.

Cloud Computing Solutions Simplify IT Management

Cloud computing is a service typically provided by a cloud provider, wherein they offer computing resources located in their own fully managed data centers. Customers use the cloud provider’s servers, network and storage to host their data and applications — eliminating the need for IT management.

The cloud provides a low entry cost for businesses, especially smaller companies. It also facilitates scaling hardware up and down based on consumption, allowing businesses to meet fluctuating demands more easily. Cloud computing makes it easier for businesses to get up and running since they only have to worry about application and data management and can leverage the cloud provider’s support staff.

The cloud can have downsides when it comes to long-term costs and compliance. As a company’s data usage increases, its associated costs will rise. Eventually, it can reach the point where its data needs are no longer cost-effective. Furthermore, since data is stored with a third party, they may face compliance challenges. Some of which may make cloud computing unfeasible.

Data Center Colocation Provides Unparalleled Flexibility

Colocation data centers are facilities that allow companies to rent secure space for their IT resources. The colocation facility provides power, space, network connections and sometimes physical security. But the client is responsible for its own hardware, as well as its management and maintenance.

Colocation data centers help businesses expand IT infrastructure without building their own data center. Thus, companies can place computing hardware closer to users, tapping into the latency benefits of edge computing. Since they are in full control of their hardware, they can maintain compliance with regulatory and industry requirements.

Additionally, since the hardware is not shared among different companies, businesses have a smaller attack surface — improving security. However, it’s not all positive. Companies must provide their own hardware, taking care of deployment, maintenance and support. This job can be challenging if the data center is in a different region and may necessitate the hiring of remote staff.

Side-by-Side Comparison of Colocation and Cloud Computing

Work With a Partner Who Understands Cloud Computing and Colocation Requirements

Cloud computing and colocation data centers have an important place in modern business. They provide needed options for the unique requirements of different organizations. Consider a financial institution based out of California that needs to equip its office in New York with private cloud resources.

Industry regulations may dictate specific requirements on how they transmit data. Using a colocation in New York would allow the company to provide local IT resources, improving performance while maintaining control over the data. However, less stringent requirements in a different industry may make a company favor cloud computing.

A prudent computing choice will take into consideration costs, performance and accessibility. At OneNeck, we help our customers deploy both cloud and colocation solutions in their operations, as well as a myriad of hybrid solutions that bridge the gap between. Contact us to learn more.

Scalability, flexibility and cost-efficiency are all hallmarks of a high-performing data center. However, with scale comes certain challenges. For example, organizations must decide which network architecture will best suit their business needs. Cloud computing offers many advantages for those who want to scale but can be expensive and fall short in the security department.

Traditional three-tier architectures offer the advantage of scaling resources based on actual needs. IT teams can choose to add on to their storage or computing power while leaving networking as is. However, these architectures are often vendor locked, which makes it expensive to upgrade. And vendors may require customers to purchase full racks for every upgrade, far exceeding their needs.

An alternative is hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). This architecture simplifies data center construction and streamlines purchasing. How does it accomplish this?

Explaining Hyperconverged Infrastructure

Hyperconverged infrastructure simplifies data centers by allowing businesses to use standard x86 servers for all of their computation needs. X86 servers are the industry standard and can be easily purchased when businesses need to extend their hardware’s capacity. How does HCI make this possible?

HCI uses software virtualization to abstract and pool resources dynamically. By leveraging compute, storage and networking virtualization, it’s possible to access resources across multiple servers as if from a single device — removing the constriction of what individual server racks can handle. For example, you could be using the processing power from two devices while using the storage capacity of 3, 10, or more servers. None of the computing power has to be located on the same rack.

Another advantage of hyperconverged infrastructure is administration. Previously, you may have needed separate teams to manage storage, compute and networking servers. Since HCI leverages the same devices for all of these functions, it’s possible to use the same team for everything. Simplified administration cuts costs and breaks down departmental silos.

Simplifying your infrastructure from the traditional three-tier architecture has additional benefits, such as the ability to connect to the cloud. Whether your organization aims to increase security, computing capacity or something else, HCI reduces the need to manage disparate systems when moving capacity to the cloud. HCI can streamline the following cloud adaptations:

• Private cloud. With hyperconverged infrastructure, your resources will be pooled together. This means that to achieve private cloud capabilities, all that’s needed is to ensure that compute resources are available to those who need them and establish processes that control resource allocation.
• Hybrid cloud. Traditional server architectures might require a web of connections to ensure all three components of your architecture match up with the cloud. In contrast, HCI simplifies this to relatively few connections, as your network is already pooling resources into a single repository.
• Public cloud. Simple infrastructure means that migration is also easier. Cloud providers will be more compatible with your hardware, and this will streamline connecting your business to the cloud.

More and more businesses are leveraging cloud resources to augment their private infrastructure. By implementing HCI in your business, you’ll be better prepared for the cloud.

Use HCI To Do More With Your Computing Hardware

Change for the sake of change isn’t progress. Businesses must ensure that upgrades, including moving to HCI, lead to improvement. Below are five ways hyperconverged infrastructure improves your business:

1. Reduce total cost of ownership. HCI lowers costs in several ways, including better resource allocation, simplified upgrading and extending of hardware and elimination of vendor lockdown.
2. Simplify deployment of hardware. HCI helps businesses unify the type of hardware they use since they only need x86 servers to run the infrastructure. This makes supply chain management and deployment easier.
3. Increase scalability and flexibility. Since HCI pools resources, when organizations need to scale, it becomes a simple matter of adding servers to their infrastructure pool. Additionally, teams can use as little or as much computing power as they need, leaving the rest available to whoever needs it.
4. Improve security. With HCI, organizations can gain cloud-like infrastructure while maintaining full control over their data.
5. Balance your usage. With traditional server infrastructure, IT must allocate resources according to projected usage. These projections aren’t always accurate, and as soon as teams exceed projections, upgrades are needed. HCI allows IT teams to allocate resources dynamically based on current needs.

The advantages of hyperconverged infrastructure are compelling enough to make any IT team want to act. However, converting your hardware is more involved than buying a few servers. Our team is experienced in helping businesses transition to HCI infrastructure. Contact us to learn more.

VMware recently released an article titled Removal of SD card/USB as a standalone boot device option, where they announced a new stance on ESXi boot devices. The article states that starting with the next release of ESXi (soon to be announced), SD cards and USB devices will not be supported as boot devices. They will require another local persistent device with a minimum of 32GB, but 128GB is recommended, for boot devices.

The reasoning behind the change is moving forward they will require higher performance and endurance that SD cards and USB devices rarely meet.

While we at OneNeck know that this information is fresh and could change, we feel it in the best interest of our clients to make them aware of this announcement. So, if VMware does not change their stance, which they potentially could due to pressure, what does this mean for you?

If you are currently booting from a local hard drive, SSD, or booting from SAN, you are not affected by this change.

If you are currently booting ESXi from and SD card or USB device, it means you will need to retrofit those ESXi hosts with new boot devices that meet VMware’s criteria. The replacement drives can be anything from 2.5” drives, M.2 SSD drives, or even boot from SAN. While VMware does state that SD cards and USB devices that meet performance and endurance criteria can still be used, we would recommend it only be considered short-term.

Another consideration as you look to replace your boot drive, keep in mind there is no easy way to transfer the install. So, we would recommend a reinstall of the ESXi hypervisor on those servers.

If you think you are affected by this and would like some help replacing your boot drive, we are here to help. Please reach out to you OneNeck Account Executive to discuss your options.

The rise of data center colocation has added a third option for businesses thinking of expanding their cloud or on-premise infrastructure. Now organizations can expand their computing infrastructure without increasing their real estate.

Changing customer expectations have pushed businesses to support new application features and employ more personalization — accelerating the increase of their data usage. These organizations need to ensure that growing data requirements don’t slow down performance and therefore hurt user experience. Plus, much of the data contains sensitive customer information that businesses are required to house on physical servers they own.

Colocation (colo) provides a middle ground for businesses. They can still own and manage their computing infrastructure while cutting down on the costs of building, maintaining and supporting a data center. Let’s look at how colocation stacks up against on-premise infrastructure and the public cloud.

Enhance Your IT Infrastructure with Colocation

In business, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. Every organization must look at its IT needs and determine if colocation is the right fit. Considering the pros and cons can help you determine if your business would benefit from colocation or if you’d be better off with a fully managed cloud solution. Below are some of the most compelling advantages of data center colocation:

More control.

Colocation gives you more control over your infrastructure. Customers are essentially renting space in a shared data center, and they are responsible for purchasing and maintaining their own servers.

Simplify scaling.

When a company expands its on-premise infrastructure, it will likely need a new data center to house the equipment. Building a data center involves high upfront costs as well as the need for maintenance and security. By using colocations, all businesses need to do is rent the space for their equipment. This leaves them with additional resources to focus on expanding their business.

Better security.

Data center colocations come with heightened security, which can include active monitoring, fire detection and suppression, on-site technical personnel, security staff and more. Those building their own data centers must manage these costs.

Increased bandwidth.

Another benefit of sharing this purpose-built space is that networking equipment is typically more advanced than those found in your server rooms. This provides customers with excellent bandwidth, resulting in improved latency.

Connect with cloud providers.

Some colocations even work directly with cloud providers, giving businesses easy access to hybrid cloud setups. The cloud provider can easily integrate with your existing infrastructure since they already have a direct line through the colo provider.

Colo can give customers more flexibility, reliability and efficiency with their servers when compared to on-premise equipment. However, there are some downsides to using a shared facility.

Analyzing the cons of colocation allows businesses to understand the tradeoffs and minimize their impact. This knowledge will help you prepare so that you get a smoother colocation experience. Below are a few disadvantages of using a colocation:

Shared facility

Because colos are managed by another organization, customers don’t have control over how utilities, physical security, building maintenance and other physical aspects are overseen. When leveraging colocation in your business, it’s important to thoroughly research the partner you’ll be working with.

No control over location

You’ll be limited to the location of your provider’s data centers, which can present logistics challenges for servicing your hardware. Additionally, colocation expansion will be determined by demand and not your individual needs.

Managed by you

With the public cloud, your provider fully manages their data centers, including upgrades and servicing equipment. In a colocation, this job will likely fall upon your team’s shoulders. If your IT team is limited, this may force you to hire new people or be at risk of extended downtime when servers go down.

Despite the cons, in many circumstances, the benefits of colocation outweigh the challenges. The following questions can help you determine if data center colocation is the right choice:

• Do we have sensitive data that needs to be kept on internal servers?
• Do our data requirements make it costly to rely entirely on the cloud?
• How much security are we able to provide for on-premise equipment? Is it enough?
• How important is the ability to scale my computing infrastructure quickly?
• Is my business interested in the hybrid cloud?

Scale Your Computing Infrastructure Flexibly With OneNeck Colocation

Modern organizations can’t afford to keep static infrastructure. They need the flexibility and computing power to keep up with customer demand. OneNeck colocation services give you ample control over your services while providing unparalleled support. Are you interested in expanding your IT infrastructure with colocation services? Contact us.

For more information, check out our colocation provider checklist.

Containers are quickly becoming commonplace in workplace applications, even replacing virtual machines in some instances. But how do you know if containers are right for your IT environment? In this article we explore containers vs vms

What Is a Virtualized Container?

Tech giants like Google, Microsoft and IBM have all invested heavily in virtualized containers. At its most basic, a container is an OS-level virtualization method for executing and running applications. Containers eliminate the need to launch an entire virtual machine (VM) for every application. They run on an isolated system and single control host and access a single kernel.

You may have heard the name Docker, for example. Docker is the leading provider of enterprise-level containers. LXC, a Linux userspace interface that lets users create and manage containers, is another big name in virtual container provisioning.

What is a Virtual Machine (VM)?

A VM allows users to run an operating system in an app window on the desktop. The VM acts like a separate computer complete with its own virtualized hardware. This enables users to experiment with different operating systems, software and apps – all in a safe, sandboxed environment.

VMs run on a firmware, software or hardware manager called a hypervisor. The hypervisor itself runs on a physical computer – also known as a “host machine” – that provides the VM with resources like RAM and CPU. Multiple VMs can run on a single host machine with resources distributed as needed.

Containers vs VMs – Which is Better?

Containers are a newer concept, and many argue that they hold several advantages over VMs. The latter consumes more resources since it runs on a full copy of the operating system (OS) as well as a virtual copy of every hardware component running the OS. This eats up quite a bit of RAM and CPU.

Containers, on the other hand, can generally handle about two to three times the number of applications as a VM since they require only parts of an OS, like the libraries and other system resources necessary to run a specific program. Modern containers also run in the cloud, giving users a portable operating environment for deploying, developing and testing new systems.

So, containers are the clear winner then, right?

Well, not exactly. VMs do have certain advantages. They’re relatively easy to create, so developers can install whatever OS they need and get straight to work since there isn’t much of a learning curve. With easily-accessible software on the market, users can even return to an earlier iteration of an OS, or create/clone a new OS entirely.

For enterprises and small businesses, however, containers may still be preferable. Containers use considerably less hardware, making them ideal for running multiple instances of a single application, service or web server. Containers function like VMs but without a hypervisor, resulting in faster resource provisioning and speedier availability of new applications.

Finding Which Solution is Best for Your Business

Every organization’s business needs and infrastructure are different and each requires its own unique strategy. In the big scheme of things, containers in no way make VMs obsolete. Containers simply provide a new solution for improving overall IT efficiency in specific areas of operation. If you think you could benefit from a single service that can be clustered and deployed at scale, then containers may be the better option for your organization. Or, instead of a full transition to containers, the best solution for you may be a hybrid approach. By implementing containers alongside VMs, you’ll be able to capitalize on the respective advantages of each.

Unsure of what’s best for your organization? Contact us and we’ll help you figure it out.

In a recent statement, the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment recognized OneNeck IT Solutions, and its data center in Denver, Colorado, as an environmental leader in the state. On October 1, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Environmental Leadership Program recognized more than 170 businesses—including OneNeck—for their the voluntary and significant environmental achievements.

“Having our data center named an environmental leader is an important first step for our company,” said Michael Brunson, manager of Data Center Facilities for OneNeck in Denver, Colorado. “It’s an achievement we are very proud of, yet, we know there’s more we can do.”

How did OneNeck achieve status as an environmental leader?
The process began with determining areas of environmental achievement/improvement and completing the ELP application. OneNeck identified the following:

• Reducing energy use by reclaiming the heat exhaust from our cabinets and using that reclaimed hot air to heat our building.
• Solid and/or hazardous waste reductions involved changing the way our cabinets were delivered. In the beginning, each cabinet was packaged in lots of cardboard and layered on pallets. In order to dispose of the waste, a dumpster was rented, loaded up and then trucked away to be emptied in a landfill.

  Brunson asked for details on different cabinet packaging materials and learned the cabinets could be wrapped in two new packing blankets, without any cardboard. Today, that’s how all new cabinets are delivered. The best part, the packing blankets are donated to homeless and animal shelters, including Saint Francis Center and the Denver Animal Shelter.

  As for the pallets, after each cabinet delivery, they are listed on Craig’s List as free. Within a couple days all the pallets were usually gone and re-purposed [see sidebar].

• Land use improvements or protection improvement involved eliminating soil erosion. Following construction of the data center in 2015, the west field was bare soil. To prevent future soil erosion, OneNeck invested in planting, watering and growing vegetation. Now, there lies a beautiful field—and no more erosion.

“This is an outstanding achievement, and one that our team is very proud of,” said Hank Koch, SVP of Data Centers and Managed Services at OneNeck. “Ensuring that our environment is healthy and protected matters greatly to us all! We only have one Earth and it must sustain healthy life and growth. Making small changes really matters and we must all do our part.”

Although containers aren’t new (been built into Linux for 10+ years and been available in FreeBSD, AIX and Solaris), containers seem to be all the rage, and for good reason. The agility containers can bring to an IT team alone make them appealing, but add in the security benefits that the self-contained nature of containers brings, they seem like a no brainer. But even with numerous benefits, there is also a lot of confusion about what they really are and what is the best-fit scenario. So, we thought we’d break it down…

First and foremost, are containers and VMs the same thing?

Quite simply, no. It is a very common misconception that containers and virtual machines (VMs) are interchangeable, or at least similar, but they are not. So, let’s start by defining each…

VMs are:

• As server processing power and capacity has increased, applications could not take advantage of this, so virtualization technology was created to allow for multiple “virtual computers” to be run on a single piece of bare metal hardware.
• A “hypervisor” (or a VM) manager creates and runs VMs and sits between the hardware and the VM.
• A single server can host multiple VMs. A Windows Server VM and a Linux VM can run side by side on the same physical machine.
• Each VM has its own operating system, libraries and applications.
• VMs can be gigabytes in size.
• VMs can consolidate multiple applications onto a single system with heterogeneous operating systems.
• VMs primary goal is to increase the utilization of the underlying physical machine.

Containers are:

• Containers are pieces of software that sit on top of the physical server AND its host OS (Linux or Windows). The OS kernel is shared across containers. Containers may also share common frameworks and libraries (e.g. .NET, JVM). In other words, the container has the entire runtime environment, minus the host OS.
• Containers are light, usually megabytes in size, where VMs are often gigabytes in size.
• Containers are good for taking a monolithic application that would require purchase of new hardware or configuration of a new VM and allowing it to scale on existing deployed VMs.
• Containers allow software to run reliably with minimal changes when moved from one computing environment to another, such as moving a container from an on-premises environment into a public cloud.
• In this figure, App1, App2, App3 could be monolithic applications, 3-tier applications or microservices. Notice a single OS which is then shared across the containers. Containers primary goal is consistency of the software environment regardless of where it is physically residing.

What are the benefits of containers?

There are very clear benefits that come with the adoption of containers:

• Containers are only tens of megabytes in size verses a VM that would be gigabytes in size.
• VMs take minutes to boot up the operating system and then start an application, while containerized applications start almost instantly. At scale, this allows for “just-in-time” creation of multiple instances of an application.
• Containers are more modular. Applications can be split into modules and deployed as microservices (e.g. front end, business layer and data layer would each be their own modules)
• Containers allow enterprises to deploy and scale existing monolithic applications without the need to procure new hardware and/or new VMs. In many organizations, it takes weeks/months to purchase new hardware or deploy a new VM into their environment, where containers allow for a much shorter deployment/update cycle.
• Containers and Container Orchestrators allow for a smoother and more efficient DevOps Practice by helping to enforce consistent environments.
• Containers allow for less effort to break apart monolithic applications and convert them to a microservices architecture.
• Overall, containers enable a much more agile software development lifecycle.

So, what are my options in containers and orchestrators?

Container Orchestrators (aka container management) provide tools to allow for deployment, scaling, availability and management of containers, both on-premises and in public/private clouds. They’re essentially a manager of your containers across multiple physical environments. The current most popular ones are:

• Docker – Open Source, most popular
• Apache Mesos – Open Source, includes orchestration
• Kubernetes – Open Source, most popular container orchestrator
• Red Hat Open Shift – On-premises private platform as a service for RHEL

All support the Open Container Initiative (OCI) under the Linux Foundation. This is important because all major providers are members of OCI/Linux Foundation.

In addition, Microsoft Azure has some excellent container service offerings:

• Azure Container Instances – Create a container instance by pointing to your Docker Image in Docker Container Registry. Essentially, containers on-demand.
• Azure Web App for Containers – Like Azure App Services, but instead of publishing your code directly into Azure you point the App Service to your Container in the Docker Container Registry
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) – Fully managed service for deploying and managing container applications. Provides a “serverless” experience, integrated CI/CD and enterprise grade security.
• Azure Service Fabric – Native Azure Microservices using container images for both Windows and Linux
• Azure Batch – High Performance/High Scale computing with containers including job scheduling
• Azure Container Registry – Store and manage container images across all types of Azure deployments

So, why don’t we move everything into containers?

Containers can run all sorts of applications, but because they are so different from VMs, a lot of the older software that many enterprises are still running won’t translate to this model. However, VMs can be used to move older applications into a cloud service. So even though containers have their benefits, VMs still do too. It really boils down to… it depends…

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Want to learn more? Download this informative eBook from our partner, HPE, and learn why container technology is a critical piece of IT modernization solutions that will drive digital transformation, hybrid environment adoption and hyper-convergence.

DOWNLOAD NOW

Topic: Containers vs vms

All businesses have to transform and adapt to do business in an increasingly digital world. But to transform, they must first address the foundation that their business sits on, making converged infrastructure (CI) and hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) a great fit that enables efficiency and scalability on validated infrastructure. 

Since 2012, HCI technology has offered even greater hardware and workload consolidation than its predecessor, CI. HCI has accelerated IT transformation through its software-defined infrastructure approach that does not require the level of storage and server management expertise needed to utilize CI.

Where is HCI now?

Over the last nine years, HCI has been leveraged by a number of large organizations looking to modernize their data centers and to build out public and private and cloud infrastructure.

In a recent survey conducted by ESG, more than 98% of transformed companies said they are using either converged infrastructure (CI) or HCI, and are running 35% of their applications on either platform. Moreover, the global HCI market size is expected to grow from USD 4.1 billion in 2018 to USD 17.1 billion by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 32.9% during the forecast period. (Source)

These growth projections likely come as no surprise to organizations already using HCI. That is because most are seeing firsthand how HCI is supporting transformation and driving meaningful business value for their organizations.

Time is Money
Unlike the legacy approach, HCI is already engineered and validated prior to installation, so teams do not have to worry about spending time integrating components. This saves a significant amount of effort from IT management and staff, and frees up their time to work on more strategic and higher value projects.

Similarly, thanks to HCI’s consolidated interface that provides a comprehensive look at all IT components and significantly smaller hardware footprint, IT staff spend much less time monitoring components and allow for more reliable and consistent operations overall. 

In fact, according to the ESG survey, organizations utilizing CI/HCI spent 31% less time on routine system management.

Not only is time saved, many of these organizations have seen significant cost savings. A smaller hardware footprint requires less levels of management thus translating into decreased operational costs like labor, power and cooling, and more. IT management in HCI/CI organizations reported a 21% to 30% reduction in operational expenditures.

Agility and speed lead to better service and competitive advantage
HCI technology accelerates IT transformation through faster application deployment and completion of integration tasks in a greater speed than ever before. This also increases the chances of getting to market faster than the competition. 

Organizations using HCI/CI reported they were seven and half times more likely to complete most app deployments ahead of schedule, and were two and a half times as likely to be significant ahead of their competitors in time to market.

Through allowing for greater IT agility, HCI also creates a more cloud-like environment, enabling teams to provide IT as a service (ITaaS) experience to its users. This opens the door to even greater flexibility and faster response to business priorities, helping the organization work toward their digital transformation objectives. (Source)

These are just a few of the many benefits of large organizations have experienced integrating HCI technology into their businesses. The significant impact it has on saving time and costs are allowing IT to focus more resources and efforts into digitally transforming their organizations, and to contribute to greater strategic imperatives to the business.

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Interested in learning more? Check out this informative report from ESG on the role of CI and HCI in IT transformation.

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT

Bandwidth needs are skyrocketing. To meet the growing demand, there is a transition underfoot to move away from traditional the wide area network (WAN) to the software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN). According to IDC, SD-WAN technology is projected to exceed $6 billion in revenue by 2020. SD-WAN promises great change, and adoption is gaining traction, but understanding how you can deploy it to benefit your organization is still evolving for many organizations.

Software-Defined WAN Explained

Using virtualization and network overlays to deliver better connectivity, reduce complexity and lower overall costs, SD-WAN is an alternative approach to designing and deploying enterprise WANs. In a traditional WAN, local and corporate networks are connected via proprietary hardware or fixed circuits. SD-WAN moves that network into the cloud, using a software approach, adopting a more application-centric model rather than relying on the traditional hop-by-hop routing.

The goal is to simplify the WAN setup so that an administrator only needs to plug in a cable for the appliance to contact the central controller and receive the configuration. The aim is to eliminate dependency on private WAN technologies like MPLS, which are notorious for long provisioning times and expensive contracts.

There is a growing interest in SD-WAN as users increasingly access applications via the cloud, diminishing reliance of dedicated pipes to on-premises data centers. Even with its rising popularity, many larger enterprises are still reluctant to fully adopt the solution and are expected to deploy a hybrid WAN architecture.

While SD-WAN is still evolving, it is gaining traction in the marketplace because of these emerging advantages:

• Improved Performance
  The latest SD-WAN technologies leverage end-to-end network visibility and feedback to improve transmission efficiency with minimal lag time. SD-WANs can identify the quickest path from source to destination in real time and re-route packets accordingly. Routing decisions are made based on data, such as latency and applied QoS policies.
• Hard and Soft Cost Savings
  In a traditional WAN, hard costs often include the hardware, such as the routers. SD-WAN runs in the cloud and relies significantly less on physical hardware. SD-WAN also reduces soft costs by cutting down on the number of engineer hours required by easing WAN management.
• Increased WAN Resilience
  SD-WAN increases WAN resilience; it proportionately aggregates capacity, making the bandwidth available to all applications. It’s also able to split traffic for a single application across multiple paths for improved throughput. This assures optimal packet delivery with multipathing and error correction.

Is SD-WAN Right for You?

SD-WAN’s most vital benefit is that its architecture is better suited for the demands of mobile and real-time applications, and most importantly, it’s often better at meeting the demands of the cloud. However, while SD-WAN can reduce the cost and complexity associated with the traditional WAN, enterprise IT departments will need to decide whether SD-WAN is an investment worth pursuing based on a variety of factors including:

• Is your organization spending increasingly more time and overhead on connectivity on a consistent basis?
• Is your WAN providing the desired resilience for anytime, anyplace computing?
• Are you experiencing difficulty getting good performance on demanding applications with your existing WAN?
• Is your WAN able to serve the needs of divergent applications from a performance, compliance and security standpoint?

If you answered in the affirmative to most or all of the above questions, then maybe it’s time to consider SD-WAN. If you are unsure if SD-WAN is the right fit for your organization, read our SD-WAN hype or reality eBook to gain more information.

The explosion of data and digital consumption in the last decade has dramatically increased the number of data centers, which have been described as the factories of the digital age. And just like traditional factories in their early days, data centers take their toll on the environment.

Environmental organizations and the media have been raising awareness of the problem. As a result, major industry players are taking steps toward better sustainability. Their customers —organizations like yours — need to become part of the solution. As you continue to rely more on data, you need to consider the sustainability of your data centers.

 Environmental Impacts of Data Centers

Based on current trend estimates, U.S. data centers are projected to consume approximately 73 billion kWh in 2020.

But while many data centers are becoming more energy efficient by switching to clean and renewable energy to lower their carbon footprint, they still take huge amounts of water to run.

 The Business Case for Data Center Sustainability

A sustainable data center is not just good for the planet. Businesses receive benefits as well, including:

• Reduced costs: A company that is environmentally responsible runs more efficiently. A lower use of resources such as water and electricity results in direct cost savings for capital expenditures and operations. Often times, there are also tax incentives for green initiatives.
• Improved brand reputation: Consumers are savvier about the companies they patronize. Social responsibility now ranks high among their priorities. And the increased scrutiny from regulators and media serve to enhance customers’ awareness even more. Sustainability is a matter of business competitiveness.

 Sustainable Data Center Practices

PUE, or power usage effectiveness, has been a focus metric in the industry for many years. Many companies see third-party certification such as LEED or ENERGY STAR as a starting point to help them implement green practices at their facilities.

But sustainability is not an all-or-nothing proposition, and there are a number of steps that can lead to a long-term goal of sustainability. These steps may include:

1. Committing to sustainable practices and determining the long-term objectives.
2. Striving to eliminate reliability on fossil fuels and supporting the local utilities’ efforts to switch to renewable energy.
3. Choosing colocation (multi-tenant) facilities that have the lowest PUE in the region.
4. Taking advantage of new cooling technology and utilizing “air-side” or “water-side” “free cooling” when available.

OneNeck is committed to operating efficiently and seeking innovative ways to reduce our environmental footprint. Sustainability is one of our key objectives when meeting the needs of our customers.

Our data center in Bend, Oregon; for example, has LEED Gold and ENERGY STAR certifications. We strive for all of our data centers to run as efficiently as possible and we’re continuously seeking new ways to reduce our environmental impact.

Interested in data center colocation?  Check out Colocation: An Ultimate Buyers’ Guide.

When it comes to our OneNeck data centers, they are extremely secure, symmetrical, automated, responsive and awesome, but practical for all use cases. They are purpose-built and designed for mission-critical IT operations and hosting. Optimized for performance and dependability, our data centers also deliver uninterrupted uptime along with security, physical asset protection and workflow separation — backed by clear and thorough 100% SLAs.

In addition, there is no better team of professionals than the employees in place at OneNeck’s data centers.

Of course it’s easy for me to tell our customers and prospects all of this! However, the best way to illustrate our commitment is to back it with a certification and a stamp of approval from the Uptime Institute. That’s precisely what we did at our facilities in Denver, Colorado and Bend, Oregon. Our efforts — and importance of these efforts — were highlighted in a new Uptime Institute Case Study.

READ THE CASE STUDY NOW

Intent-based networking is being called the “next big thing” in networking. Building on the power of machine learning, software-defined networking (SDN) and advanced automation, intent-based networking systems (IBNS) have the potential to improve the way administrators monitor and respond to network events and conditions.

“Traditionally, network administrators manually translate business policies into network device configurations, a time-intensive and error-prone activity,” Patrick Hubbard wrote in Cloud Expo Journal. With IBNS, Hubbard added, there are still all of the vital tenants of traditional systems, but now you have “the addition of observability, autonomous execution access, control policy, and a critical layer of machine-learning capabilities that allow automatic decision-making based on the analysis of observed network behavior.”

With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and an array of mobile devices with access to enterprise networks, the ability to have the full visibility and accountability of connected devices is a must to ensure the security of both the network and data.

Let’s Dig a Little Deeper into IBNS…

In a blog authored by Gartner analyst Andrew Lerner, IBNS is described as a “lifecycle management software” that “can improve network availability and agility.” Specifically, it allows administrators to design networks to behave in a prescribed way — including dictating what is and isn’t monitored.

With an IBNS platform, for example, administrators can see in real-time what devices are connected to the network and evaluate them for security — driving faster decisions about which devices should stay or go. In addition to improving security, IBNS also has the potential to increase efficiency by reducing time spent on tedious administrative tasks — freeing IT to focus on more innovative, business-impacting initiatives, while providing a more accurate view of network activity.

IBNS is Gaining Traction

While IBNS in concept has been part of the networking management discussion for a few years, big players like Cisco are now taking more proactive steps to lead the IBNS transformation with their intent-based networking strategy, which they’ve dubbed “The Network. Intuitive.”

“All IT administrators want better access control, massive scalability, security and multi-vendor device management,” Will Townsend writes in Forbes. With IBNS, administrators will be able to manage networks more efficiently, especially at a time when hundreds of new devices are requesting access. Through artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, the job of the administrator will become faster and easier, even as networks and devices grow more complex.”

While the technology surrounding IBNS is still in its infancy, Cisco’s leadership in this space will have an impact in moving it in a forward direction. Andrew Lerner carefully asserts that it won’t be mainstream before 2020.

But if it is coming, the question becomes, should I be preparing for it?

IBNS builds on advantages driven by automation, SDN and orchestration. So, you can start by integrating more machine learning and data analytics into your network. Equally important is a commitment to focus on learning and understanding the intricacies of the approach, to ensure it can work reliably in your environment.

In addition, remember that you’re not in it alone. Partners like OneNeck are here to help guide you through these major technology transitions. Much like converged systems, next-gen security, cloud or even SDN have been evolving the way we operate and protect our infrastructures, so intent-based networking has the potential to be that next big disruptor. So, stay tuned, and we promise that when the time comes, our experts will be here to walk alongside you, guiding you through the “next big thing”…

Thanks to cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT) and the vast amounts of data being produced, backed up and stored, organizations are finding they need to rethink their data center strategies. The solution for many is outsourcing these operations to a colocation provider.

Trends Behind the Move

Colocation, the practice of renting or outsourcing space for servers and other hardware, has been used for years primarily as an approach to managing backup and data recovery. While colocation continues to serve these purposes, the addition of hundreds if not thousands of endpoints connecting to networks is making it more difficult to meet the peaks and valleys of access demand. In response, organizations are also adopting colocation as a means to scale to dynamic data needs.

Colocation also adds a level of security against outages or specific attacks like Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). By spreading data across colocation centers in different parts of the country or world decreases the risk of downtime.

Finally, growth in technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning require increased computing power. Colocation allows companies to gain that power at a more manageable cost.

Key Considerations

Before taking the jump into colocation, there are five important factors to consider. They include:

1. Management. What types of management services will the data center provide? How much technical and onsite support will your organization need? How does the experience of your internal IT staff mesh with the management offerings from the data center?
2. Location. How often will you need to visit the colocation site? What in-person tasks will be required? Do you want a site that is within easy distance or do you prefer sites in different regions?
3. Space. Do you know how much data center real estate you’ll need immediately? Will you be able to expand in that same location or are you locked into a specific amount of space? Will the amount of space available meet your computing needs?
4. Cost. Everything comes down to money, and your colocation site budget should include the number of server cabinets you’ll need, bandwidth, power usage charges, and IP addresses, as well as technical support charges.
5. Security. This includes both cybersecurity and physical security. Who has access to the servers outside of your organization? What does the building security look like and is the building open for staff and visitors around the clock? Is there security personnel on site at all times and what type of authentication methods are used to vet anyone with access to the facility? Who is responsible for securing the data itself and what happens if there is a breach?

Finding the Right Solution

As more data is collected and more devices connect to networks behind the firewall, having a colocation solution with purpose-built, concurrently maintainable data center facilities is a necessity. The right solution will be fortified for maximum performance, offer a single point of accountability and be tailored for individual companies.

The future of the data center is changing as organizations require more powerful computing and more modern data infrastructures. Far from a one-size-fits-all solution, colocation needs to be approached as a strategy aligned with your budget and security priorities.

Download our Ultimate Colocation Buyer’s Guide for additional guidance on key colocation decision considerations.

There’s a new buzzword making the rounds (like we needed another one). Move over Digital Transformation, and welcome Edge Computing. While it’s being credited with the power to deliver speed, security and cost-savings to organizations, is it really all that? Let’s break it down…

What Is Edge Computing?

Research firm IDC defines edge computing as a “mesh network of microdata centers that process or store critical data locally and push all received data to a central data center or cloud storage repository, in a footprint of less than 100 square feet.” In other words, it involves processing data at the edge of the network where it is created, instead of routing it through data centers or clouds.

Fog Computing vs. Edge Computing

Another term related to edge computing is fog computing. It’s important to understand the distinction.

“Fog” refers to the network of connections between edge devices and the cloud, while “edge” represents what happens near or on the edge devices (the endpoints). Fog computing includes edge but uses the network to get edge data where it’s going.

What’s Driving Edge Computing?

More organizations are adopting large-scale IoT deployments with Gartner estimating enterprise use of IoT devices will grow to 7.5 billion by 2020. Transporting data to the cloud from IoT devices for management and analysis is costly, inefficient and can impact latency.

Many organizations simply don’t have the connectivity to support sending large amounts of data to and from the cloud. With its on-device approach, edge computing addresses these limitations by performing the computing and analytics on the device itself — eliminating the need for data transport.

Edge Computing Advantages and Challenges

Edge computing gives applications that rely on machine learning an advantage by increasing data process efficiencies. By doing away with the need for device-to-cloud data trips, on-device machine learning makes applications more responsive and robust. Machine-learning-driven capabilities like facial profile recognition or voice recognition is quicker and more efficient when done on-device.

By maintaining sensitive data at the source rather than sending it to the cloud, edge computing also offers security advantages. The less data in various locations, the fewer the opportunities for cybercriminals to access it and compromise it. Countering this is the argument that the vulnerability of edge devices to compromise is a risk to data kept at the edge.

The takeaway here is that mitigating IoT security risks requires work, planning and vigilance. A good IoT strategy includes a robust plan for keeping your system secure.

According to the Hewlett Packard Enterprise study, The Internet of Things: Today and Tomorrow, eighty-four percent of IoT adopters say they have experienced at least one IoT security breach with malware, spyware and human error the most common culprits. Ninety-three percent of executives expect IoT security breaches to occur in the future.

How do you build an IoT strategy that drives the speed to market you desire but simultaneously keeps your data safe? Simple – an upfront strategy that takes into considerations the inherent risks is a must. At OneNeck, our security team is ready to help you assess your security risk and work with you to develop a realistic strategy to keep you secure and get the most from your data on the edge.

Robotic sensor created to measure temperature and humidity within data center cabinets.

The idea for a cabinet roaming robotic-sensor turns into an awarded US Patent for OneNeck^® IT Solutions! The Lewis, U.S. Patent No. 9,843,847 was issued for a “Temperature-Humidity Monitoring Assembly for Closed Server Cabinet.”

The self-contained device attaches to the inside of a client’s cabinet door in our data center — without any modification or drilling. Fully controlled from outside the cabinet, the motor and belt-driven rail assembly unit (as shown in this short video), slowly and incrementally, raises the sensor until it reaches the top of the cabinet, and then lowers it back to the base. Once complete, a heat-map (of either the incoming airstream or discharge airstream) is produced, revealing the temperature and relative humidity within all RU-levels of the cabinet (with its doors closed).

With pinpoint accuracy, the heat-map reveals any and all hot spots. It’s a game-changer. It’s innovative, non-intrusive and extremely effective. Most importantly, equipped with this information, our customers or our facilities technicians can quickly and efficiently make the necessary adjustments to improve overall air flow.

With top-tier, purpose-built data centers in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon and Wisconsin, the sensor can be used to diagnose and better protect client’s mission critical servers and IT-equipment within the cabinets. Bottom-line, this unique monitoring device can aid our clients in managing their internal rack, cable placement and airflows, thus preventing overheating, early burn-out or, even worse, downtime.

With input and assistance from parent company Telephone and Data Systems, OneNeck was provided the resources to secure this, our first patent. Now, with patent in-hand, the device can be leveraged for internal use and/or selling or licensing the invention.

The need for a robot sensor

When it gets hot within the cabinet, it’s impossible to know exactly where the heat build-up is occurring. If you open the cabinet door to get a better look inside, it instantly and completely changes the cabinet environment. Close the door and the climate profile returns to its normal, but unobservable state. You can try to guess where. However, being able to pinpoint it precisely would save time and money.

This robotic sensor changes all that, it’s a differentiator! Essentially, OneNeck is the only company helping customers maintain climate hygiene within their cabinet. It’s a very exciting position to be in!

The conventional wisdom has been that computer hardware should be retained for eight years, if not longer. Yet this eight-year lifecycle is no longer always tenable in today’s fast-changing technology environment. A May 2017 IDC study confirms this, reporting that businesses that upgrade their hardware more frequently save money on operations, earn more revenue and are better able to adapt on rapidly shifting technology landscapes.

With this in mind, here are four specific reasons to speed up server replacement cycles:

1. Old servers require more maintenance resources.
   Although purchasing new servers is expensive, maintaining old servers is even more so. IDC found that server operating costs in years 4-6 of a server’s lifecycle is more than ten times higher than the initial acquisition cost. By purchasing new servers, organizations save 59% over the first three years of operation. Another major advantage of new servers is that the IT team can spend less time on server maintenance. Instead, the team can devote more resources towards projects that contribute to innovation and add real value to the business.
2. After installing new servers, organizations enjoy performance improvements.
   Old servers aren’t just expensive. They also perform worse the longer they stay around, and maintenance can only do so much to stave off decline. By installing new servers more regularly, businesses enjoy the high performance offered by new hardware.

   This benefit trickles down to end users, who will, in turn, be more productive and experience fewer technological disruptions. IDC estimates that upgrading hardware can reduce unplanned application outages by 78% over the first three years. This has a significant effect, not only on your internal operations, but also your ability to service customers and generate revenue.

3. New servers enable organizations to better implement next-generation and cloud-native applications.
   Relying on old hardware seriously hinders your organization’s ability to utilize next-generation applications. With the migration to the cloud, more and more applications are becoming “cloud-native.” If your organization utilizes a private cloud, you need a modern infrastructure to support cloud-native applications. By installing cloud-native applications on modern hardware, organizations can enjoy the economic benefits of the public cloud within a private cloud infrastructure.
4. When supported by an up-to-date hardware infrastructure, businesses gain the agility to remain competitive in today’s marketplace.
   Agility is a must to remain competitive. A modern and agile infrastructure is essential for making real gains, whether that means improving internal operations, developing new products or optimizing the customer experience. New servers offer the agility that is necessary to innovate. With old hardware, you’re just treading water.

   The value of new servers goes beyond cost savings and greater efficiency. By upgrading infrastructure, organizations gain agility. Instead of spending precious time fixing problems with old hardware, the IT team can serve as the impetus for strategic innovations that contribute to business success.

Like It or Not, it’s a World Gone Hybrid.
At OneNeck, along with our top-notch partners like Dell EMC, we have extensive experience helping our customers navigate a hybrid world, a world that contains hardware-based infrastructures and multiple on-premises, public and private clouds. But we can help you to determine what kind of modern infrastructure best suits your business needs now and in the future. So, don’t go it alone.

Get Your Free IDC Report Sponsored by EMC

Download a complimentary copy of the 2017 IDC Report sponsored by Dell EMC: Accelerate Business Agility with Faster Server Refresh Cycles

I recently sat down with OneNeck’s Director of Business Development for Data Center Services, Karla Myers, to discuss what’s driving the shift to colocation, the key decision points one must consider when deciding to colocate and ways to recognize and avoid hidden colocation costs. Here’s what she had to say…

What are the most common reasons businesses are turning to colocation, and what IT challenges are they hoping to solve?

Much of the growth in colocation adoption is being driven by the financial and operational benefits associated with data center outsourcing, including:

• Cost Structure and Savings– Colocation offers a predictable OpEx model, with shared costs for state-of-the-art infrastructure and professional data center personnel.
• Extensibility to accommodate business growth– Many organizations have simply run out of space in their corporate data centers. They can no longer reasonably expand their technology footprint within their existing facilities. Outsourcing to a colocation provider eliminates any worries about growth. A colocation center is designed to grow with customers’ needs.
• Increased Uptime– Any business that relies on data for its operations has to be concerned with system uptime. The cost consequences of a data center outages continues to rise. Colocation aims to reduce risk to clients ensuring uptime – backed by a 100% SLAs.
• Meeting compliance and security requirements – For regulated businesses, compliance has become the centerpiece of data planning. Many of today’s businesses must comply with various government regulatory and industry standards. Without dedicated staff and compliance expertise, it is exceedingly difficult, not to mention expensive, to ensure that in-house data centers are compliant and auditable. A colocation provider can enable organizations to cost effectively comply with ever-changing federal regulations and industry standards such as HIPAA/HITECH, PCI, U.S.- EU Privacy Shield, FISMA, SSAE16, ISO and others.
• Expert Management – Internal operation of a data center consumes valuable financial and human resources at every level of an organization. Colocation allows you to maximize the potential in your business by delivering state of the art infrastructure combined with professional facilities management.

In a build versus buy
scenario, what are a few considerations CIOs must take into account?

Data centers require scalability and redundancy, and that requires investment. When you look at the expense of maintaining this kind of data center infrastructure, it simplifies build versus buy considerations. Here are a few key considerations:

• Cost– A financial analysis is critical to making a sound decision about building or upgrading a data center or outsourcing to a colocation provider. With an on-premises data center, the organization has to absorb all operating expenses, where a colocation provider has economies of scale and negotiating power that allows them to build and operate their data center for less (i.e. lower cost/watt to build, better electricity rates, better bandwidth rates, etc.).
• Build Time– How quickly will you need your facility to be fully operational? A typical data center build can take 12-18 months from planning to completion. If you require data center space in a shorter timeframe, colocating with a data center provider may be the most viable option.
• Regulatory Requirements and Compliance – Maintaining compliance with external regulatory requirements such as HIPAA, SOX, GLB, PCI-DSS and other industry requirements is a burden for even the largest IT departments. Colocation data centers provide control environments to meet your compliance requirements.
• Environmental – Will the data center be located in a geographically stable location? One with a low propensity for natural disasters such as earthquakes, tornadoes and floods. If not, your company could be at risk for potential data center outages due to environmental issues.
• Outage Risk– According to the Ponemon Institute, the average cost of a data center outage rose from $690,204 in 2013 to $740,357 in 2015. The costs of downtime can be detrimental to the health of your business. When your data center suffers any incident and your data is not accessible, the result is a disruption in your business operations. The reliability of your data center to prevent and recover from unforeseen incidents is critical to your organization’s success.
• Data Center Scalability – Under or over provisioning can cause any number of problems as you could end up with too much empty space in your facility or not enough power, cooling or connectivity. In contrast, leasing data center space oftentimes allows you to expand as your needs do.
• Operating a Data Center – Internal operation of a data center consumes valuable financial and human resources at every level of an organization. Colocation allows you to maximize the potential of your business by delivering state-of-the-art infrastructure combined with professional facilities management. This frees up internal resources that can be shifted to strategic business projects, shortening deployment time and improving revenue generation.

Security is top of mind, and due diligence is perhaps the most important piece of a data center security strategy. What are some qualifying questions business leaders can ask a potential data center colocation provider in terms of security?

Most colocation providers implement a variety of measures to help guarantee security and compliance within their colocation facility. However, never assume anything. Here are a few key questions to ask to ensure your valuable assets are protected.

• What measures are in place to ensure physical security? If physical security is top-of-mind for your organization, you’re not alone. With a growing number of potential threats, both digital and physical, it’s no wonder. Your valuable IT assets should be safeguarded against both man-made and natural disasters. Physical security measures should include video surveillance, mantraps and biometric readers.
• What measures are in place to ensure network security? The massive increase in malicious network traffic and the proliferation of SPAM have caused many businesses to be concerned about the security of their network. To safeguard your network, your colocation provider should provide IDS/IPS (intrusion detection services / intrusion prevention services) and basic firewall services. Additional optional services may include virtual firewall services, VPN services, content filtering, SPAM filtering, virus filtering, spyware removal, real-time traffic analysis using net flow reporting and real-time bandwidth reporting.
• Reliability, what’s your SLA? Uptime in a data center is non-negotiable. 100% uptime SLAs will provide you with the confidence in knowing that you’re most important resources and information will be available when you need them.
• What compliance standards can you help me meet? As if IT departments didn’t have enough to worry about these days, they also have to ensure that their organization is in compliance with various industry and federal regulations (PCI, HIPAA) which are designed to keep sensitive customer data safe. Your provider should provide as much assurance to their customers as possible, that their practices and methodologies are compliant with various compliance audit and certification requirements including SSAE 16 Type 2 SOC 1, HIPAA, PCI and ISO 27001.

Unanticipated fees can lock the business into an agreement that isn’t nearly as cost-effective as imagined. Are there ways to recognize and avoid hidden colocation costs?

When working with a reputable provider, there should be no surprises.  To avoid getting “nickel and dimed,” you will want to make sure the following items are spelled out:

• Power costs – Depending on the data center’s pricing model, utilities may be included or billed separately. Make sure you understand which model you are contracting under and ask for estimates so you know how the provider calculates and bills the power consumption.
• PUE – data center PUE (power utilization effectiveness) is an industry standard measurement of the efficiency of a data center and is a common component in the utility consumption invoicing. The lower the PUE, the more efficient the data center and the lower the power costs will be that are passed on to the clients.  Make sure you understand the PUE of the data center and whether or not the provider is willing to put a guaranteed PUE in the agreement.
• Power Overages – If you are under a contract that bills for a committed volume of power, make sure you know what the charges will be if you exceed the commitment. Many providers will charge double or triple the normal rate for overages.
• Cross Connects – Every data center client will need at least one cross connect to meet up with the carrier of their choice in the data center’s meet me room and many providers include some number of cross connects in the colocation agreement. Even if you aren’t ordering a cross connect right away, make sure you know the charges at varying volumes.
• Remote hands – Most providers have some level of remote hands services as a courtesy to clients so they can avoid trips to the data center for basic services. Make sure you understand what those charges are for both regular business hours and outside of regular business hours and know what increments of time will be billed.
• Internet Bandwidth – When purchasing a committed volume of internet bandwidth from your colocation provider, make sure you ask what the per Mb charges will be if you exceed the committed amount.
  

Why should businesses colocate with OneNeck?

OneNeck offers purpose-built, concurrently maintainable data center facilities fortified for maximum performance. We offer high-availability and high-reliability colocation services that go beyond mere infrastructure.

Our goal is to ensure our eight US-based data centers
have exceptional security, redundant connectivity and climate-controlled environments ideal for protecting your data. OneNeck data centers are designed around an extreme availability architecture, and in addition, are built in geographic areas that are safe, secure and have access to reliable, low-cost utilities. And if it’s validation you need, they’re certified by third-party commissioning engineers and agents, and independently tested and validated.

LEARN MORE: Reasons to Invest in Colocation Hosting

The past several years has seen immense evolution in the data center. Long gone are the days of the traditional, siloed infrastructure, where change processes were complex and time consuming. With the entrance of converged infrastructure, and then hyperconverged infrastructure, we’ve witnessed improved productivity and better ability to quickly respond to the needs of the business. From there, software-defined took the data center to an even more agile place, where storage and compute were software defined, allowing network administrators to centrally control traffic without having to touch a single piece of hardware.

So, what’s next in the data center? The definition of infrastructure through software. While software-defined storage and software-defined networking are great, they only deal with certain parts of the infrastructure. What if we could consider all parts of the infrastructure, together? Enter composable infrastructure.

How Does Composable Infrastructure Work?
It works like this… Instead of carving compute or storage instances out of certain systems, composable infrastructure uses software to discover and pool all data center resources, regardless of their location or underlying hardware. It then categorizes the pools into service tiers, which then deliver compute, storage and network instances as services. This has obvious benefits to IT administrators who can compose infrastructure on-demand from these resource pools to support workload demands. By treating hardware like software, composable infrastructure allows IT to manage infrastructure as code, allocating the right amount of infrastructure pools of resources (compute, storage, memory, I/O) needed to optimize application performance.

Sounds like music to any IT admin’s ears, but is it here or in the distant future? Let’s talk HPE Synergy…

HPE Synergy
The composable infrastructure market is new, with HPE leading the charge with the first platform architected from the ground up as composable infrastructure. According to Vikram K, Director, Data Center & Hybrid Cloud, HPE India, “HPE Synergy is a single infrastructure that is designed to reduce operational complexity for traditional workloads and increase operational velocity for the new breed of applications and services. Through a single user interface, this platform enables IT to deliver a new experience by maximizing the speed, agility and efficiency of operations. It is designed to precisely adjust fluid pools of resources, and reduce the cost of over provisioning with a single infrastructure that can run any application.”

HPE says the main customer benefits can be viewed through the composable infrastructure design principles: fluid resource pools, software-defined intelligence and a unified API.

Composable Infrastructure Architectural Design Principals

Wondering what HPE Synergy looks like? It’s a 10U box, called a frame, which has 12 half-height modular bays, which can also be configured as 6 full-height bays and can be populated with up to 12 servers. Up to 4 storage modules can be added within the frame as well, with up to 40 small form factor (SFF) drives per storage module.

Is HPE Synergy Right for Your Organization?
While composable infrastructure is still new, it’s gaining momentum as organizations are starting to see its impact in the data center. Its self-service, flexible approach to application provisioning is enabling IT to operate much like a cloud provider by maximizing the speed, agility and efficiency of core infrastructure and operations.

Moore Insights & Strategy recommends that “IT organizations begin evaluating vendor product roadmaps and consider proof-of-concept deployments for target applications. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the market is expected to dramatically ramp with additional new products, tighter integrations across vendors, and usability enhancements to make deploying and managing composable infrastructure easier for mainstream IT organizations to adopt more widely.”

Ready to Get Composable?
Get started today!

IT teams are often handed the task of migrating their on-premises data center and workloads to the cloud without much time to prepare. This is far from an ideal situation, as a successful data center migration requires time for IT to develop, oversee and follow-through with a precise plan.

Ideal Data Center Capabilities Checklist

Migrating to a managed data center starts by determining where your old data center fell short. Before making any major move to a new data center, determine your ideal data center migration checklist that will meet all existing — and future — infrastructure requirements.

• Note old data center shortfalls.
• Determine new, central, requirements.
• Calculate size and weight needs.
• Figure out transportation methods and modes.
• Check for security. Make sure new racks are regularly monitored. Ask about facility surveillance.
• Follow a list of best practice standards.

Data Center Migration Planning Checklist

Looking at a new data center from every angle will go far to mitigate risk, and it’s not a small task. Thorough planning is critical to your success and should be taken very seriously. Involve all your key players in the planning stage to ensure a comprehensive strategy.

• Create an interim plan to keep systems running amidst migration
• Analyze connectivity requirements
• Draft a configuration of the new space – include a complete racks grid.
• Create a solid backup plan
• Devise budgetary needs and account for emergency situations.

The Migration Dry Run Checklist

Some details will fall through the cracks. It happens, but it doesn’t have to happen on a large scale. A dry run will help eliminate possible flaws in any data migration plan. Before the big move, run through the following steps.

• Put your plan to the test. Go through all steps on paper.
• Work out the kinks. Recognize the problems. Find the solutions.
• Make sure everything is in place (racks, power circuits, backup systems).
• Backup all data!
• Hold a Scrum meeting, ask all team members to outline key tasks, fix any team issues.
• Know the types of equipment (cables, etc.) you will need to have on migration day.

The Data Center Migration Checklist

By this point in the planning process, you should have a solid foundation in place. Existing problems, possible issues, and best solutions should be clearly outlined. All IT team members should know their role for each step of the migration process. A new data center facility should be chosen with contracts signed, sealed, and delivered.

• Go through this final checklist.
• Consider hiring professional IT movers for highly sensitive equipment.
• Label everything – every wire, cord and cable.
• Install all cables
• Check that all connections are working properly
• Complete an application and network test
• Alert users of possible system issues
• Document, document, document. Write down every detail of the new setup and keep a copy inside the new data center.

The Follow-Up Checklist

Outsourcing your data center is an ongoing process that requires continuous evaluation. One of the most important post-migration steps is to monitor and evaluate your progress to ensure you are meeting the required standards and systems are running smoothly. It’s also vital to test security on a regular basis to ensure the safety of your sensitive assets.

The devil is truly in the details when it comes to your data center migration checklist. Missing steps or skipping the planning stage will leave your organization vulnerable and left to deal with expensive fixes. A thorough assessment of your current environment and a defined path for migration is essential to making your data center experience a successful one.

Our top-tier data centers and team of technology professionals can ensure your hybrid IT infrastructure is effectively managed for security, efficiency and competitive edge.

The demand for cloud services is exploding. IDC predicts that spending on public cloud services could double from almost $70 billion in 2015 to over $141 billion in 2019. That’s nearly six times the rate of overall IT spending growth.

Perhaps you’re sitting on the sidelines, contemplating a move to the cloud. Before jumping in, it’s important to weigh the benefits and costs, and keep in mind that it’s not an “all or nothing” proposition. Not all applications are suited for the cloud, and as such, your ideal cloud implementation may be a hybrid combination of public, private or colocated. Rightscale reports that 71% of respondents use a hybrid solution.

Transitioning to the cloud isn’t a decision to be taken lightly. Organizations will have to relinquish some internal control, but thorough research and careful planning can help to avoid those migration speed bumps.

Why Migrate to the Cloud?

Some of the top reasons companies are turning to the cloud include:

• Lower costs. Many businesses can lower their overall spending by removing the expense of updated hardware and software from their budgets. Organizations can also save by not having to continually train employees in new technologies.
• Data security. There are security measures built into the cloud services through automated backups, integrated data protection and failsafe recovery. Patches are automatically updated to ensure your systems are not vulnerable.
• As organizational needs fluctuate, the cloud offers the ability to easily scale in or out with business requirements.
• Cloud providers will ease your burden to keep up with latest versions of operating software and applications, allowing your IT staff to focus on mission-critical projects, not routine maintenance.  

Cloud Migration Considerations

It’s essential to understand that all cloud providers and services are not equal. Here are some key thoughts to consider:

• Security: A data breach can have devastating effects on your organization. Before moving sensitive data to the cloud, find out how the provider provides protection. Do they provide full-stack protection? What are the policies and procedures in place for patching vulnerabilities? Pay attention to what physical protections are in place as well.
• SLA (service level agreement): Understand your SLAs, and spell out each and every detail. What uptime guarantees are there? Occasional outages are inevitable, and you need to understand the procedures that are in place with regards to the standards of reliability that could impact your data.
• Portability: Does your provider have the flexibility to adapt to new configurations as your business grows and changes down the road? The best cloud providers have multiple facilities and can accommodate expanding needs with public, private, hybrid and colocation options.
• Compliance: Does your cloud provider have the experience you need to meet the compliance regulations for your industry and ensure that you pass your audit? Never compromise with compliance.
• Disaster Recovery: Downtime and lost data are costly. Your SLAs should spell out how quickly your provider will get you back up and running after an outage. Understand where your data and backups live and what procedures are in place to recover before you lose business.

How OneNeck Can Help

Moving to the cloud requires careful planning, and many factors play a role in a successful cloud migration. From technical requirements to the human element, it takes a 360-degree approach to deliver a positive and productive outcome that increases your business’s bottom line. At OneNeck, we conduct a thorough Cloud Assessment that includes workload analysis, bandwidth analysis and end-user experience analysis, to ensure a successful migration to the cloud. Interested? Then contact us today to learn more.

Natural disasters, equipment failures and error-induced process interruptions have historically been the primary threats to infrastructure stability. Now, these threats are overshadowed by those originating from malicious intent and overloads on the global infrastructure. These threats to infrastructure stability, together with competitive pressures and market demands, have emphasized the need for effective and thorough risk-based continuity planning, because in most cases, when the information flow stops, so does business.

As such, disaster recovery (DR) planning continues to be a priority initiative for businesses of all types.  However, there are a variety of DR options for failing over workloads to an alternate location. It is imperative for IT professionals to understand their options and choose the one that is the best fit for their own organization.

Build Your Own

Building your own DR site is an option for many organizations.  By building your own site, you maintain complete control of your infrastructure and data. In addition, you will be able to create a site specific to your exact DR needs.

However, building your own data center is resource-intensive and requires experience. And that’s not all—once your data center is built, you also have to manage the upkeep, updating, administration and management of the data center, all of which can be incredibly complicated throughout the life of your data center. An important question to ask yourself is whether you want to be in the business of running a data center. Can you operate a data center facility as well as, or better than, a third-party provider?

Cloud for Disaster Recovery

Today, as the cloud continues to become more reliable and secure, many organizations are moving to Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS). DRaaS is designed to cater to businesses of every size and need. Organizations can subscribe to full-scale DRaaS, where the service provider manages everything from the replication of a customer’s production virtual machines (VMs), and in some cases physical machines, to full-service recovery once a disaster is declared. Others look for an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model offering in which they handle their own VM replication to the cloud and manage their own recovery. And some organizations simply want Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS), where the provider manages customer backups from the production site to the cloud.

As with any service, there are cons. Here are the most significant cons of backing up your data in the cloud:

• You can’t access your data if you don’t have Internet access.
• Bandwidth issues – You need the right amount of bandwidth to back up large chunks of data.
• Large data recovery jobs will use more resources, which could ultimately increase your cost for DRaaS.

Colocation for Disaster Recovery

Colocation is an attractive alternative for organizations who do not want build and maintain their own facility or just aren’t ready to place their data in the hands of a cloud provider.

Colocating your disaster recovery IT infrastructure gives you peace of mind in the event of a natural disaster, power outage or other unexpected event that impacts your primary place of business. Colocation can ensure that your offsite infrastructure and applications will remain available and operational if the unexpected happens.

In addition, with colocation, organizations can reduce overhead and increase operating efficiencies by moving their network, servers, data storage and other equipment to a remote location.  You’ll be paying only for space and, at the same time, maintaining complete control of your equipment.  Your valuable IT operations will be protected remotely in a secure data center.

Every business is unique and has its own needs when it comes to DR.  It’s important to determine what’s critical to your business and your customers to make sure you deliver on your commitments no matter what, then select the solution that best suits your particular situation.

OneNeck operates nine state-of-the-art data centers located throughout the US, all of which offer superior security, redundant connectivity and climate-controlled environments ideal for your colocation and DR needs. Our data centers are designed to give you options, help you lower your operating expenses, reduce capital expenditures, deploy solutions faster and scale your requirements as needed.

Read our white paper, “Why Colocation is a Great Fit for Your DR Strategy” by clicking below.

Data is a major part of our daily lives. Whether at work or at home, we expect seamless experiences across devices and expect immediate, fast response times for any interactions.

In order to deliver modern, seamless digital experiences for your customers and employees, data center reliability is critical. When your data center suffers any incident and your data is not accessible, the result is disruption to your business operations. Even if it’s only for a short period of time, a data outage or breach can cause irreparable damage to your business financials, not to mention your reputation.

According to the Ponemon Institute, the average cost of a data center outage rose from $690,204 in 2013 to $740,357 in 2016, representing a 7 percent increase with single incident losses reaching a high of $2.4 million. The overall cost of downtime has increased 38 percent since the first study in 2010.  When you consider the intrinsic and extrinsic costs, such as financial penalties for non-compliance, user productivity losses, lack of consumer confidence and lower customer retention, the losses can add up quickly.

No matter the reason – be it the increased risk of cybersecurity breaches or UPS system failure – it is imperative you ensure the reliability and availability of your data center infrastructure. If you are considering colocation, taking the time to understand why reliability is so important is crucial to a successful deployment.

How to Measure Colocation Reliability

A January 2016 Ponemon report put the average cost of data center downtime at nearly $9,000 per minute. Reliability is so intertwined with failing, it is measured by frequency of failure. For example, a bank of servers that go down once for ten minutes is considered much more reliable than one that goes down four times for one minute each.

A reliable colocation facility will focus on the following:

• A team of varied expertise. The majority of downtime and system failures are caused by humans. A colocation facility that employs a team with a deep level of knowledge enabling them to choose the right mix of components can help protect your infrastructure from failure. Building and operating a data center is a job for a team who knows how to prevent possible issues or troubleshoot any situation that arises.
• The equipment is state of the art. The servers your infrastructure runs on are the foundation of your data center and must meet today’s modern standards. With fully-redundant systems and proven processes, an experienced colocation provider can recover from power outages faster and more cost effectively than on-premises data centers.
• Reliable means being proactive and secure. Your data center needs to be constantly monitored for unusual activity, as well as provide the latest security protections. Colocation offers your organization with the ability to keep pace with the latest technology and security advancements, without the overhead capital expenditures or staffing costs.
• Finding partners who meet industry standards for reliability and availability. Service Level Agreements (SLA) are key to ensuring your provider will meet each and every one of your needs. Look for those providers who promise better than 100% uptime, who can meet your compliance and audit needs and follow your best practice mandates.

“Building and running data centers as well as managing IT assets at the edge can no longer be a part-time or occasional job.” – Forrester Research

Colocation offers many advantages, including a highly reliable data center environment that is also resource and cost efficient and allows your in-house IT team to focus on mission-critical initiatives.

OneNeck IT Solutions can help you make all the decisions you need to colocate your data center. Our mission-critical data centers are optimized for performance, reliability and dependability, and deliver uninterrupted uptime with secure access, physical asset protection and workflow separation. We back it all with detailed, 100% uptime SLAs.

Contact us today to schedule a tour.

Customers who are evaluating colocation facilities need to know that their equipment and sensitive information will be maintained in an environment that is resilient, safe and secure. Standards and compliance are of vital importance for any colocation facility who must have the right processes, controls and procedures in place to ensure that industry standards are met.

The colocation provider must demonstrate their commitment to meeting your colocation compliance needs.

• Are they familiar with your industry and the specific regulations you need to meet?
• Do they have policies in place to perform self-assessments to stay up to date with standards and prove compliance?
• Do they regularly train their staff, have a process for incident reporting, and a review board?
• Are they equipped to handle your audits?

The ability for a provider to satisfy your colocation compliance needs is more than just a checkbox. Any provider should prove to you how they educate their staff and follow specific policies and procedures to ensure you are protected.

What are the common colocation compliance standards?

Compliance with SSAE 16, PCI DSS, HIPPA and LEED standards is critical for any colocation facility.

• SSAE 16
  The SSAE 16 audit, issued by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, is a comprehensive, in-depth examination intended to provide a full description of operational processes, safety controls, systems and technical design for cloud services and data centers. Its purpose is to ensure that a colocation service’s appropriate internal controls are in place and constantly monitored.
• PCI DSS
  PCI DSS standards were designed to curb high-profile security breaches and protect the security of consumer credit card transactions. They consist of server hosting procedures and PCI hosting standards set forth in 12 core requirements that all compliant businesses must meet.
• HIPAA
  For a data center to be HIPAA compliant, they must follow the Code of Federal Regulation set by HIPAA inspectors and then pass a rigorous audit proving it. The inspectors confirm how data that includes protected health information (PHI) is stored, protected and encrypted and ensure that there is a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) between clients.
• LEED
  The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, developed by the US Green Building Council, certifies the construction, design, maintenance and operation of environmentally efficient, responsible buildings. Characteristics of a typical LEED-certified data center include: an advanced low energy consumption cooling system, a clean backup power system, improved cooling efficiency, renewable energy sourcing, reduced consumption of energy, intelligent design and green construction.

How We Ensure Compliance at OneNeck

Staying up-to-date on the latest industry and compliance standards is a critical requirement for all businesses. As data breaches are a more common occurrence and fines for noncompliance are hefty, your data center needs to be vigilant to ensure your requirements are being met with the proper controls, procedures and processes.  At OneNeck, we prioritize our commitment to protect your organization by meeting and exceeding expectations, our data centers are built with your critical data in mind.

• SSAE: Every OneNeck data center undergoes an SSAE 16 review to conform to compliance regulations on multiple fronts, such as:
• Maintain sufficient data and power redundancy
• Maintain appropriate physical security controls (person trap, security guards, biometric scanning and video cameras)
• Monitor for excessive temperature fluctuations
• Review alerts on a timely basis
• Provide appropriate fire/water detection and protection
• HIPAA: We can negotiate BAAs for colocation and provide a press release of successful examination.
• PCI DSS: We meet PCI standards and can provide customers with our Attestation of Compliance (AOC).
• ISO 27001:We can provide customers a link to our certificate.
• S.+– EU Safe Harbor: We can provide customers a link to the government website listing our certification as current.
• SOC:  As part of our service we can provide a SOC 1 Type 2 report with Management Responses.

Certainty is the Bottom Line

When deciding on a data center partner, don’t just compare racks, power and price. We encourage you to visit one of our purpose-built facilities and meet our staff — the real people responsible for managing and protecting your data. Let our team take you through our ITIL-based procedures, and see first-hand the engineering skills, knowledge and thought leadership that operates our highly-reliable facilities. Once you do, we’re sure you’ll be convinced OneNeck has everything you need to take the complexity out of colocation.

Today’s organizations are largely dependent on the quality and availability of their IT applications and data for day-to-day operations. Disruptions to IT services, even for a few minutes, can be very expensive, especially to a business highly dependent on systems and applications. To remain competitive, companies need absolute computing reliability, with a focus on core competencies and market differentiators, but with minimal overhead.

That’s why colocation services can be a smart idea. Third-party colocation hosting facilities are an excellent solution to augment data center space and eliminate the need for significant capital expenditures for IT infrastructure and additional sites.

According to 451 Research, the colocation market will reach $33.2 billion by 2018. While colocation still requires an enterprise investment, business is booming because of the great advantages colocation offers over traditional data centers, namely significant cost savings from buying rather than building.

Here are the top four ways companies benefit financially by leveraging the expertise and services of a colocation hosting provider:

CAPEX vs OpEX: Leasing space in a colocation facility is less expensive.

Building your own data center is expensive. The planning and designing phase alone can cost between 20 and 25% of the construction expenditures. Forrester estimates the costs to build the actual building, if you’re not using an existing structure, at $200 per square foot.

Additional setup costs include fire safety systems, building permits and local taxes, capital expenses like hardware and installation, and network connectivity. Once you are up and running costs are difficult to project and include power, maintenance and staffing on an ongoing basis. The cost of power alone, taking into account regional variations, generally accounts for 70-80% of total operation costs.

Colocation hosting providers lower your overall expense of running a data center by providing economies of scale and sharing the physical building expenses, such as climate control, and lowering the overall burden that comes with maintaining your own enterprise data center.

True scalability is easier to achieve.

When building a data center on-premise, organizations need to predict their future needs to determine what size to build. This may mean that you have hardware sitting around that is underutilized, or you don’t have enough capacity at peak times. Either way is costly. Colocation provides the ability to rightsize your data center to your needs today, and the ability to pay as you grow without idle or insufficient capacity.

Colocation is less complex to maintain.

Building and maintaining your own data center consumes a great deal of not only capital resources, but human resources as well. It is difficult and expensive to find the depth and breadth of IT expertise needed to operate your data center 24x7x365, provide business continuity, enhanced security, disaster recovery and optimize applications and systems. The colocation shared-resources model means that the expertise is always on hand to optimize your systems and offload core IT functions freeing up internal staff to devote more time to mission-critical initiatives

 
Organizations save money by reducing downtime.

The average cost of a critical application failure has been pegged at $500,000 to $1 million per hour, according to IDC. Reliability is a key evaluation criteria. To ensure optimal uptime, the best choice in a colocation hosting provider will have data centers in multiple locations for failover, business continuity and disaster recovery in the case of natural disaster, human error or equipment failure.

It is clear that colocation hosting offers clear cost savings.  However, before making the decision to colocate, organizations need to assess all the pros and cons of establishing an internal data center or finding a colocation facility to host data center operations, i.e. build versus buy, or some hybrid strategy that includes on-premises and colocation.

For organizations thinking about migrating their data to a third-party data center, there are many advantages to going the colocation route. Colocation offers you cost savings while retaining control and mitigating your risk, and allows your IT department to focus on your core competencies, not your power and cooling needs. With colocation, you can easily meet bandwidth and scalability needs and connect with businesses all over the world.

 When you weigh the benefits, it’s not surprising that colocation data centers are experiencing rapid growth. The colocation market was $25.7 billion in 2015, and it’s estimated to grow to $54.13 billion by 2020.

Once you’ve decided to make the move, how do you choose the right facility for you?

Data centers may appear to have only minor differences, but in reality, can differ widely in terms of physical location, connectivity, security and additional services provided. Determining which colocation provider to use can have a great impact on your ability to meet your goals and ultimately your organization’s success.

4 Critical Colocation Considerations for Your Unique Business Requirements

• Location: Where is the data center?

Location. Location. Location. If milliseconds matter, it’s best to select a data center that is close to where you do the most business. For example, if you are a financial services firm sending large volumes of data to the data center where every fraction of a second matters, distance can affect the transmission time. If your business can tolerate latency, you have more options for location and can look for the most competitive options.

Look for locations that are outside of flood zones and offer resilient power connectivity where in the event of an emergency your business will remain operational. Ensure the location is easily accessible from an airport or highway. You will also need to consider the physical facility itself. Have they been renovated in the last 5 years? What were the construction standards — windowless, hurricane resistant, how many pounds per square foot is the floor load?

• Connectivity: What options do we have?

When it comes to connectivity, you want a data center that provides you with options — including seamless connectivity to your on-premises data center and to your provider’s other colocated data centers. The colocated facility needs to provide a high level of reliability, offer high performance and allow you to control traffic prioritization, as well as meet all of your application needs and provide carrier diversity.

Items that should be on your checklist include:

• Carrier Neutral
• Carrier Agnostic
• Multi-home transit routing
• Multiple private connections to other data centers
• Enterprise-grade blended Internet bandwidth
• Full end-to-end network visibility
• Tier 1 connectivity and
• Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities  
• Advanced global IP-based MPLS network

• Security and compliance: How does the provider ensure security?

In this age of the data breach, securing sensitive data is a top priority for all organizations. When partnering with a colocation provider, they must view security as an essential element of the service they provide. It is critical for any outside provider to provide additional layers to your existing cybersecurity and physical security measures to mitigate your risk.

Another priority for a colocated data center is that they help you meet compliance regulations like HIPAA and PCI-DSS and back their claims with third-party audits. Physical security needs should include biometric authentication, video surveillance, on-site guards, alarm systems and reinforced physical structures.

• Additional services: Support, customer amenities and environmental controls?

Your colocation provider’s SLAs should go beyond the basics to make sure that your equipment is safe, your data is secure and your staff is comfortable.  Backup and recovery procedures need to be spelled out in detail and meet your unique specifications. Customer amenities should include private suites, conference rooms, Wi-Fi access and emergency services.  Engineer consultations need to be available 24x7x365 to ensure uptime and manage installations. Environmental controls that include fire detection and prevention, lightning protection, leak and leak detection and an energy efficiency environment are required to protect your organization’s investment.

At OneNeck, our top-tier data centers are as robust as any facility you will find. We offer eight data center facilities located throughout the United States, so we are sure to have a facility that will perfectly match your requirements. We also provide a range of services, including colocation, managed services, and cloud services that will meet your needs today and well into the future.

Contact us today to learn more or read our eBook, Considerations When Selecting a Data Center Provider.

IDC reports that the top pain points IT managers face when it comes to storage are reducing storage-related costs, ensuring data compliance and protecting virtual machine data, all while increasing capacity and performance. Easy enough, right?

With the choices between hard disk drive (HDD) and flash storage at an all-time high, decisions on how to store data are more difficult. In the past, flash was not at the top of everyone’s list. Today, flash storage is mainstream, in great part due to its affordability, agility, efficiency and speed. In many cases, flash can offer better performance than traditional HDD storage solutions. As a result, more businesses are moving towards an all-flash Storage solution or hybrid model. In 2016, flash storage sales are soaring.

Ten factors to consider when designing your flash storage solution:

1. Budget Considerations
   Historically, the higher cost of flash storage as compared to HDD took it out of the running, especially for small and mid-sized businesses. While this is no longer the case, businesses do need to design a flash storage system with a budget in mind. Your flash budget should be reflective of an overall reduction in the amount of storage space required.
2. Performance for Mission-critical Applications
   Flash storage can provide better performance for mission-critical applications, offering faster speeds and lower latency. When designing your storage system, identify the mission-critical applications that are your top priorities and consider that flash storage is ideal for intense I/O workloads.
3. Data Protection and Stability
   Protecting data and ensuring a high level of system reliability are among the most important considerations for establishing a flash storage solution. Look for a solution with built-in protections that offers consistent performance, even in the event of system failures or scheduled maintenance.
4. Simplicity of Use
   With the right storage architecture, even a less experienced user should be able to set up flash storage with ease. It is possible to deploy a solution that can be set up in less than an hour by plugging in cables, following instructions, and using pre-loaded software.
5. Efficiency in Storing Data and Applications
   As the volume of data your organization captures steadily increases, you will need to store that data more efficiently for faster access and to lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for storage. All-flash storage can offer improved efficiency over traditional HDD solutions.
6. Intelligent Tiering that Meets Business Needs
   With an intelligent tiering system, the most important applications and data are delegated to flash while others are stored in HDD. The system will determine which data is stored where at any moment in time, depending upon its importance.
7. Workload Requirements
   Determine your workload requirements before investing in a flash storage solution. Depending on your needs, it may be advantageous to take a hybrid approach and use flash for the most critical applications and HDD for others.
8. Maintenance and Future Innovation
   Flash storage is rapidly evolving. When purchasing a flash storage system, regular maintenance and upgrades are important to keep up with the technology as it continues to evolve.
9. Compatibility with Cloud Computing
   Your move to the cloud can be facilitated, in part, by flash storage. Select a flash storage architecture that is compatible with your overall cloud strategy now and in the future.
10. Enterprise-level Flash Storage Features
    In today’s marketplace, you don’t have to be a large enterprise to take advantage of enterprise-level flash storage features. Pay attention to whether a flash storage solution offers features such as automated tiering, replication, thin provisioning and others.

If you need guidance selecting the best storage option for your organization’s infrastructure, let’s set up a consult with one of our seasoned storage experts. They will help you determine how to make the transition to a flash storage solution or possibly another storage solution that fits your business needs.

The transition that’s taking place in today’s data center is happening at an unprecedented pace. In the past, IT only had to support environments with relatively static workloads in specific infrastructure silos, but no more. With the arrival of the cloud, data centers have had to evolve to support highly dynamic cloud environments where workloads are provisioned from anywhere and can scale on demand to meet constantly changing application needs. While this nimble approach is enabling developers to move at a much faster pace, it’s also placing new demands on the data center infrastructure, such as…  

• Infrastructure must become application aware and more agile to support dynamic application instantiation and removal
• The non-virtual nature of new emerging applications means that the infrastructure must support physical, virtual, and cloud integration with full visibility
• Infrastructure-independent applications treat the data center as a dynamic shared resource pool
• Scale-out models promote more east-west traffic, with a need for greater network performance and scalability
• Multi-cloud models require the infrastructure to be secure and multitenant aware 

These demands require a solution that simplifies operations while increasing application responsiveness, all while accommodating existing virtualized and non-virtualized environments. This is where Cisco® Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) shines, because it makes the application the focal point of the infrastructure.

ACI is a centralized policy-based automation solution that supports a business-relevant application policy language, provides greater scalability through a distributed enforcement system, and greater network visibility through the integration of both physical and virtual environments under one policy model for networks, servers, storage, services and security. It spans both the physical and virtual infrastructure while still providing deep visibility and real-time telemetry. Additionally, Cisco ACI was built for open APIs to allow integration with new and existing infrastructure components.

The ACI solution includes these key components: 

• Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC): The APIC appliance is the main architectural component in Cisco’s ACI solution. It is where automation and management for the ACI fabric, policy enforcement and health monitoring are centralized. This controller optimizes performance, supports application anywhere and unifies the operation of both the physical and virtual environments. 
• Application Network Profiles: An Application Network Profile within the fabric is composed of endpoint groups, their connections and the policies that define those connections. Application Network Profile is the logical representation of all components of the application and its interdependencies on the application fabric. This enables the configuration and enforcement of policies and connectivity to be managed through the APIC instead of an administrator. 
• Cisco ACI Fabric: Nexus Portfolio: Cisco expanded their switching portfolio with the addition of the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches, switches that offer the option of a traditional data center deployment, or an ACI data center deployment. When deployed in ACI mode, ACI application policy-based services and infrastructure automation features are active. So, even if customers aren’t quite ready to take the ACI leap, the functionality is there for the future when they’re ready.

At OneNeck, we are helping our customers transition to the modern data center through ACI, and in turn reducing their application deployment times from weeks to minutes while dramatically improving their IT alignment with business objectives and policy requirements. We can guide you in transforming your business, protect your existing Cisco Nexus infrastructure and adopt the Cisco ACI agile, open, and secure architecture.

To learn more about the Cisco ACI solution, check out this informative video.

The Difference Between a Virtualization Platform and Cloud Computing

Do you know the difference between virtualization and cloud computing? While these two topics are often used interchangeably, they are in fact two different things.

In very simple terms, cloud computing is distributing shared computing resources such as data or software using an on demand format through the Internet. Virtualization is what gives you the ability for cloud computing. Virtualization can happen whether you are in the cloud or not.  By virtualizing your servers, you are creating a virtual machine that acts like the physical machine, complete with an operating system, applications, and so on. Starting with a virtualization platform and then moving to cloud computing will give you more agility.

Creating a Successful Virtual Environment

Today’s business is fluid and dynamic, which means IT needs to deliver high performance and availability, while keeping costs down. A virtual environment is the perfect way to achieve these goals.

VMware vSphere® with Operations Management (vSOM) is a virtualization platform specifically designed for virtual environments and can deliver the critical operational capabilities your business needs.

A Virtualization platform can deliver the agility and ROI your business needs, make sure your solution has these five essential characteristics.