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Five Reasons why you need a VAR to implement your Cloud Strategy

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VAR will save time and money

Using a VAR or integrator to implement your company’s cloud strategy is a great way to save time and money while ensuring a more positive migration experience for end users.

Recently I spoke with a potential client who asked why his company would go through a VAR instead of buying directly from a vendor. Some vendors, like ShoreTel and Mitel, require customers to go through a VAR. Others like AT&T and Digital Realty use a collaborative approach to better handle larger customers with diverse needs driving their project that only a VAR can provide. For more from AT&T and Digital Realty contact us here.

For large companies, using a VAR or integrator to implement your company’s cloud strategy is a great way to save time and money while ensuring a more positive migration experience for end users. Here is a list of the five most common reasons CloudOgre is engaged as a VAR to assist in the implementation of a cloud strategy.

1. Companies with multiple locations in areas with different ILECs and MSOs

Designing a cost effective and high-performance Wide Area Network is the first step in moving to the cloud. Buying direct hurts your chances of getting the lowest pricing avaliable. A VAR will get pricing that a customer can’t get, similar to a mechanic who gets car parts at lower rates than consumers. You’ll also save countless hours using a VAR rather than having an employee try to obtain quotes from multiple vendors then hammering them on price. We have the inside scoop. Want in? Click here…

2. Non-Technical End-User impacting projects

When companies look to move from a traditional desktop environment to DaaS or VDI, cloud based email like O365 from an MS exchange server, or from an old PBX to a new cloud based UCaaS VoIP phone system, end user training is essential. Whether train the trainer or training the end-user, the success of the project lies here. Using CloudOgre to assist is a great way to save time and money. Vendors require VARs to have extensive training on their products, systems, and processes. More importantly, there are channels for additional support a VAR that escalates and resolves issues quickly.

3. End of life equipment replacement

Replacing old servers, phone systems, and desktops requires more than just decommissioning equipment. Sorting through vendors and the nuances to their products can take hours. Having a VAR to gather and arrange details from a technical, legal, and financial aspect as it pertains to your individual business case is the most effective way to comb through the details. CloudOgre is able to work across business units to provide detailed explanations addressing concerns. To learn more, click here.

4. Data Center footprint reduction & hybridization

The easiest way to obtain multiple competitive quotes is going through a VAR. For example, we partner with Digital Realty & AWS. Determining your need, whether cooling, space, bandwidth, storage, or processing it is a good idea consulting with a VAR with a process is most efficient. Combing through acceptable use policies, manufacturer’s suggested maintenance schedules, and other important details, simply put, is most efficiently done by a VAR.

5. Contract renegotiation and Office Moves

Allowing a contract to auto-renew can have heavy financial impacts for your company that a VAR can manage. Managing expenses includes managing SLAs, credits, overages, contract renewals, and more. During office moves or expansion a CloudOgre can be very helpful. Have you ever tried to move your home service? Now multiply that experience by 1,000! Check out our blog post on how we help with office moves here.

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Typically, CloudOgre is engaged by new clients as a VAR to manage projects with critical status and aggressive timelines. The additional support provided by the CloudOgre team provides a better end-user migration experience while giving time back to IT staff and money back to the budget. Contact us here for more information on how the Ogre can help your team move your company to the cloud.

Data Centers, Infrastructure Week, and Net Neutrality

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Coming off of the heels of last month’s Infrastructure Week we are looking at more and more consolidation in the industry. The core of today’s tech revolution and innovation is dependent upon telecommunications infrastructure and your data center. It remains obscure to many just how and how much of a role they’ll play. Data Center strategy allows companies to build their own cloud with closer proximity to core infrastructure.

Bandwidth and processing hogs like driverless cars will require more bandwidth, more data centers, and more connectivity in remote areas, whether wireless or wireline. That said, we’ll also need greater security woven into the fabric of the network.

Some of the largest acquisitions in the telecommunications and data center space include Digital Realty’s acquisition of TelX and DuPont Fabros, the purchase of Bight House and Time Warner Cable by Charter Communications, Windstream’s acquisition of Earthlink, Altice’s acquisition of Cablevision, and finally CenturyLink’s acquisition of Level3 who’d recently completed acquisitions of Global Crossing and TW Telecom. The above mergers all made sense by creating efficiencies in technology, human capital, and more.But what does that do for competition?

The telecommunications industry is tightly regulated but the move to ISP from Telco is a relatively immature move for regulators who have been at this since the 30’s. In 1984 when long haul and local traffic were broken up and even in ’96 when the RBOCs had to wholesale, regulations weren’t written to account for the architecture of the internet as a whole.

Net Neutrality was presented to the public by most media as stopping “the fast lane to the internet” but that’s not possible given the architecture of the world wide web.  The internet is like a series of highways and Telco providers pretty much control the flow of traffic via their toll booths, or IP routers, and highways or long haul fiber. The true “fast lane to the internet” is space in a data center sitting on top of a dedicated connection into a core IP router. The laws of physics govern the speed that light can travel through glass and a data packet can travel from point A to Z. That said, the data center gets you closer to the core, lowering your latency.

Lobbyist David Redl has recently been appointed to the NTIA National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Many are concluding that he, along with Ajit Pai the Chairman of the FCC, will continue along the road to increased mergers and acquisitions. Many were shocked when Comcast’s offer to buy Time Warner Cable was blocked by the FCC yet Charter’s offer was approved. Customers used to poor service were glad to see that it didn’t go through after having come off of winning Consumerist’s Golden Poo Award and having a viral YouTube video of a customer trying to cancel their service with a rogue Comcast rep.

Some critics say that the telecommunications industry is an inherent monopoly to be viewed in the same light as a utility company so consolidation is to be expected. Others think that less competition will lead to poor customer service and high prices like in the eighties and nineties. What is clear is that the acquisitions keep coming and network architecture is pretty static. Security being a concern that is hot right now really lends to the argument in favor of consolidation as a single network is not only easier to manage, it’s easier to secure and perhaps monitor.