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CDW Offers Managed Services to Customers Implementing IT Services on Microsoft AzureIn support of its strategy for leadership in cloud services, CDW, a leading provider of technology solutions to business, government, education and healthcare, today announced that it is adding a suite of managed services to the planning, migration, integration and support capabilities it offers to customers implementing IT services on Microsoft Azure. “Cloud services continue to gain momentum as organizations seek to mitigate the financial and security risks associated with extending in-house IT to the cloud,” said Tom DeCoster, vice president, service solutions, CDW. “For more than 15 years, CDW has served as a trusted provider of hosted and remote managed services, and now we are extending the benefit of that core competency to the hybrid cloud. Bolstering our managed services with Azure, we provide customers with confidence that their infrastructure needs are met end to end – enabling them to focus on essential business functions.” CDW’s long-established remote managed services capabilities serve as the foundation of its managed services offerings on Azure. Every Azure implementation by CDW features a core set of managed cloud operations, including overall monitoring and management, monthly billing and case-based ticketing and escalation. CDW further enhances its managed services offering through progressive services that align with and support Azure-specific capabilities, such as: • Azure Compute – Virtual machine (VM) and Operating System Management • Azure Network – Networking and Connectivity • Azure Backup and Restore • Managed Database for SQL database installed on a VM • Managed Storage via the guest operating systems • Azure Monitoring and Management – CDW 24x7 operations, service level agreements (SLAs), and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices “Our market research and first-hand client discussions reveal that IT management values cloud services highly, but is challenged by their complexity and the time required to manage them,” said Stephen Braat, vice president, cloud and managed solutions, CDW. “Azure with CDW managed services offers customers full compatibility between on- and off-premise solutions, with tight integration and increased agility, but leaves orchestration and support to CDW’s managed services team under a flexible pricing structure based on consumption and service levels.” CDW’s SLAs and governance programs support customers’ business objectives and help secure communication between CDW’s managed services team and Azure. CDW maintains comprehensive SSAE 16, Payment Card Industry (PCI), HIPAA and ITIL validations and compliance verified by third parties – reinforcing its commitment to secure computing standards. “CDW’s expertise provides customers the managed services they need, allowing them to focus on their core business,” said Phil Sorgen, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp. “By helping our mutual customers on their journey to the cloud, CDW is enabling them to take full advantage of Microsoft Azure’s capabilities.” CDW and Microsoft have a longstanding relationship founded on regular engagement to ensure the quality delivery of technology solutions to customers. Microsoft recognized CDW’s cloud expertise at its 2014 Worldwide Partner Conference with awards including the HP and Microsoft Outstanding Frontline Partner for 2014 in Virtualization and Private Cloud, Microsoft Experience Center (MEC) Partner of the Year and Microsoft Office 365 Sales Achievement. CDW was also named a finalist for Microsoft’s Packaged Solutions Cloud Partner of the Year. Cloud and Managed Services at CDW CDW’s cloud computing strategy and portfolio of cloud offerings are closely integrated with its managed services capabilities. With more than 15 years in the custom professional services business, CDW’s service solutions team is recognized as an industry leader in hosting, infrastructure-as-a-service and managed services, providing the full life cycle of IT services from procurement to design, implementation and ongoing management. Most noted for managed cloud, managed hosting and remote managed services, CDW can provide the same level of managed services whether hardware is installed at the customer site or hosted in a third-party data center such as CDW’s own data center. CDW-owned management servers are installed on site, and an encrypted tunnel provides secured access to managed devices via the Internet. As a community-building service, TMCnet allows user submitted content which is not always proofed by TMCnet editors. If you feel this entry is of inferior quality or wish to report it for some reason, please forward the URL to "webedit [AT] tmcnet [DOT] com" with your comments. |