Hi, I’m Phil O’Konski. I’m the director of managed services integration at Datalink. I’ll be joining my counterparts in this blog space and will be offering data center monitoring insights from time to time. Most often, my posts will reflect key considerations and best practices, as well as related conversations with IT organizations about data [...]
EMC recently launched (with the support of technology partners and distributors) VSPEX, a reference architecture that will initially include 14 validated designs comprising EMC VNX or VNXe storage and EMC backup solutions, as well as virtualization management, servers, and networking. We see this as a great announcement and move on EMC’s part. VSPEX allows customers [...]
Cook County Health and Hospital System (CCHHS) in Cook County, Illinois, wanted to boost the efficiency of their data center, but more importantly, they wanted their physicians to be able to quickly access patient data. We were excited to design, deploy, and support their new $3M unified virtual data center, which I’m pleased to announce [...]
Many businesses have net utilization rates of less than 30-percent. But that’s not the only problem they face… unstructured data, inefficient reporting tools, aging systems, disparate protocols. I could go on. The question is, “How do you fix your storage system to handle current data loads?” I answer this in “Salvage Your Storage,” an article [...]
Kudos to Datalink for achieving the Cisco Cloud Infrastructure designation within the Cisco Cloud Partner Program. By earning this designation, Datalink has demonstrated that we have the required competencies to sell and implement cloud-ready infrastructure across security, networking, compute, storage, and virtualization solutions from Cisco and approved third-party technology partners. This certification along with our [...]
From nursery rhymes (The Three Little Pigs), to multiple Biblical references, to modern day architects, there are numerous references to building a solid foundation before building a solid and sturdy structure, which should be build on a rock, not on sand. One can take these concepts and apply them to disaster recovery (DR) in today’s [...]
Hi, I’m Patrick Dunn, a new member of Datalink and a recruit to the blogging team. Here at Datalink, my primary focus is on helping companies develop and implement disaster recovery and business continuity strategies. For my first post, I’d like to explore suggestions that will help you determine whether your data center is prepared to [...]
Our field engineers get asked some tough questions. A common one is: “how do I change my backup product from vendor X to vendor Y?” This is a surprisingly rich topic of discussion. It turns out that making this change is definitely possible, but it’s not easy. There are a few reasons why: We tend [...]
Congrats to Datalink for being the first NetApp partner to achieve its Data Center – FlexPod specialization. This was no small feat for field and corporate-based teams that are beyond busy doing their normal gigs. The press release has the full details. But in a nutshell, we’re the first of NetApp’s top partners to meet [...]
I spend the bulk of my days talking to mid- and large-size enterprises about the virtues of data center virtualization. Migration paths often vary from company to company. Like anything that is transformational, barriers exist. Internal barriers fall into two groups: politics and culture, and new ways to think about IT. Virtualization also requires new [...]