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 [...]

More than 300 employees just wrapped up Datalink’s Tech Summit event in Las Vegas last week. It was a grueling (albeit interesting) schedule. Three days were filled with a host of general sessions and more than 60 breakout sessions about data center trends, innovations, and best practices. Primarily led by practice managers (like me) and [...]

Greetings, Constant Reader. A short update on the Datalink Labs[1] equipment injections and build activities over the next month (to hopefully brighten your day): New gear on the floor: – EMC VNXe and Isilon X200 in Atlanta Ramping up and builds: – Refreshed Datalink V-Scape™ in Santa Clara and Chicago Other fourth quarter builds: – [...]

Today Datalink announced the acquisition of Midwave, a Minneapolis-based IT solutions and services company focused on optimizing data centers for enterprise customers. The specifics of the acquisition can be found here. This is great news for our customers, partners, and shareholders. Consolidation in the marketplace – like this – continues. And, also within the data center. [...]

(quick aside before we start) Thanks to my post I’m sure, Iceland is getting that data center. Thanks, Lambert. I’m not sure who the “little people” are that Engadget is referring to: I didn’t see any Icelandic natives under 5’10″ in my admittedly brief stay there. Perhaps they all live in the moon surface-like island [...]

When we talk about building an internal private cloud, we’re referring in the most pure sense as enabling IT as a Service. This will consist of a unified infrastructure that is provisioned into a pool that business owners can self-provision as business and application needs arise – implying that we need a layer of management to [...]

VMworld 2011 is winding down. While it’s a little late for a preview, I’ll share some initial observations. First VMworld 2011 is bigger than ever. Only hurricane Irene stopped VMworld from reaching a goal of 20,000 attendees, a 10% increase over 2010. There are tons of announcements, news events, and external feeds on what’s happening, [...]

And now you have it. With an announcement at VMworld, Datalink becomes the first FlexPod channel partner to assume ownership of and deliver FlexPod support services.

Two weeks ago, I shared insights on how organizations are migrating toward private and public cloud services as a guest blogger on the NetApp Community. Today, I continue the discussion in The Road to FlexPod. When built right, internal private cloud infrastructures can meet business objectives. This is where unified architectures, like FlexPod and Datalink’s [...]