The EnFormer 1.2: Managed Services

(Back) | Intro | Rant of the Month | Breakthroughs

Intro--

By Gene Holmquist - President

What do power plants and IT infrastructure have in common?

A lot actually. For this issue of the Enformer, we discuss IT managed services. To better understand what exactly that we mean by “managed” services, consider this analogy - If you need electricity, you buy your power from the power company. They have built the infrastructure to deliver the service to you cost-effectively. If you need IT services, you buy them from an IT managed services provider, and you get reliability and productivity for a predictable monthly fee. Just like you trust that when you flip on the light switch the light turns on, you’ll trust in the reliability of IT services.

Growing companies are increasingly relying on experts to make their business more operationally efficient by offloading non-core services.

A few years ago big companies always built their own data centers and small companies just built bigger closets. But IT is being redefined as we know it. Accoring to Bill Gates, "The next sea change is upon us." Meaning, the turnkey managed services model is swiftly becoming a commonplace, reliable, and affordable choice for small to mid-size businesses. The results? More confidence and control. And we're seeing this trend among our clients-from the leading statewide courier service, to a well known comic book and collectibles firm, to a biometrics startup, to a global financial services company. Everyone is talking about IT managed services.

Ensynch’s EnDemand suite of managed services range from basic support for server colocation to a fully managed and supported, turnkey IT solution. New in 2006 we’ve increased our help desk and operations support to 24/7/365 to meet the needs of our growing customers. By providing highly available, cost-effective and fully redundant solutions, we believe we’re ahead of the curve in offering enterprise-level managed IT services to Arizona’s smaller (but growing) companies.

We hope you enjoy this informational newsletter, and as always we welcome your feedback at enformer@ensynch.com.

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Rant of the Month--

By Hunter Bennett - Director of Data Center Operations

Top Ten Data Center Myths

In my many years of data center design, construction and operation I’ve seen thousands of people take tours of data centers and I wonder…do they know what they’re looking for? Companies make important decisions about building vs. buying data centers or evaluating data center solution providers. Debunking the following myths should help clear a few things up.

MYTH #1: If you’ve seen one data center you’ve seen them all.

REALITY: Often, when I extend an offer to conduct a tour of the Ensynch Data Center I will receive a response similar to, “seen one data center, seen them all”. Granted, most data centers share many common features, and physical appearances may be similar, however the reality is that data centers are not all created equal. Take a good look under the hood and you will find important differences that separate the quality, value and substance of one data center from another. Most data centers do supply redundant power feeds, on-site generators, redundant environmental control (HVAC) systems, multiple network connectivity paths, etc. These features are obvious and easily demonstrated during tours. The differences between a high quality data center and a questionable data center are in the details. Be sure to ask about operational policies and procedures covering cabling plant management, physical facilities management, environment and system monitoring methodology, security control, and carrier neutrality. These are all ‘behind the scenes’ components to probe. Do not accept the data center at face value. Ask questions such as “How often does the generator get tested? What procedures are in place for emergencies? How do you manage the cabling plant? How is access restricted to the data center? What kind of network security is in place? What best-practices are in use for operational management?” The answers you receive are all very important in determining whether your systems will be in good hands.

MYTH #2: Data centers must be in huge buildings to be taken seriously.

REALITY: I can only imagine how exciting it must have been to spend tremendous amounts of money during the dotcom boom building data centers for large carriers and hosting providers. The mentality was simple: “if you build it, they will come”. The reality is that while data centers were vast spreads of glossy floor tiles, miles of cabling and countless racks built to accommodate an onslaught of new business, no one was really paying attention to the mountain of money being poured into the infrastructure that would later go dormant in what is now a failed business strategy. Large multi-acre data centers are certainly impressive to look at, but in the end it is wise to be more concerned with how data centers can consolidate the technology footprint and reduce costs while increasing their operational efficiency. It costs money to maintain unused or inefficiently used floor space in a data center and that cost is passed on to customers. Technology improvements including changes in high-density servers (i.e.: pizza box servers, blades, etc.), server virtualization and application consolidation are beginning to play a role in reducing the floor space required to run services within data centers. Ensynch has seen improvements in data center efficiency whereby we can run the same computing power in one rack today that previously occupied an entire row of racks.

MYTH #3: Physical security is the single highest priority.

REALITY: No one will disagree that physical security in a data center is very important, but unless you are protecting the national military secrets in your bunker, you might want to divert some of the budget toward logical security. The threat from security breaches coming in over the wire are far more real than physical break-ins and unauthorized access. Continuous attacks against data center’s logical network borders are extremely pervasive, and putting effort towards protecting the logical border is of utmost importance in protecting intellectual property, customer privacy, and trade secrets. While Ensynch opted to skip laser beams on the data center roof and a moat with alligators to handle unwanted visitors, Ensynch did invest in a badge access system, digital camera system and 24 x 7 on-site personnel with multiple check-points prior to entering the data center. Proper policy also calls for the escorting of visitors during tours at all times. Security funds were more heavily allocated towards firewall and intrusion prevention technology, appropriate logical security policies and procedures, on-site network security experts, continuous network activity auditing and a true understanding of its customer’s business practices to build a tailored security policy to exceed each customer’s needs.

MYTH #4: 100% uptime is obtainable.

REALITY: I imagine 100% uptime is realistic if you round up. Or perhaps 100% uptime is achievable if the data center sets the metrics by which it is measured. The truth is that most service level commitments provided by data centers are limited to the facility itself and to Local Area Network delivery. Most data centers limit their responsibility to delivering the physical infrastructure and exclude the customer-provided hardware, operating systems and the applications themselves. Ensynch’s data center measures its service level commitments by how well applications are actually delivered to end users who use them. After all, end users don’t care if it is a network problem, an operating system problem or an application problem…they simply know the application doesn’t work and they want it resolved as quickly as possible. Ensynch doesn’t believe in 100% uptime because Ensynch measures uptime on delivery of services to end users and even the best applications require occasional maintenance and will experience unplanned service interruptions over time. Ensynch offers a competitive and realistic 99.9% and 99.99% uptime guaranty of application delivery in its Service Level Agreements to end users in writing with financial remediation for failures to deliver. Ensynch’s Operations Team is ultimately responsible for service level attainment, and actually compensated on the ability to meet the guaranteed commitments each month. This way, every administrator and technician has a vested interest in ensuring each customer’s hosted applications and infrastructure remain available.

MYTH #5: Building a data center is basically a large one time expense.

REALITY: It is expensive to build a quality data center, however it is more expensive to properly operate and manage one over time. Once you design the building’s space, power requirements, environmental systems and the miles of cabling plant and other gear, you may feel you have a handle on the costs of the data center. The truth is you’d be wrong. The real costs come from ongoing operational components including technical personnel, facility support contracts, power and cooling requirements, telecommunication services, repairs and preventive maintenance, hardware and software support contracts, monitoring systems, and many other recurring items to consider. Ensynch’s outsourced data center offering eliminates a customer having to pay high start-up costs and high operational costs to build and maintain a data center by leveraging its facility investment across many customer environments. Collocation providers have been doing this for many years and those who didn’t disappear when the dotcom bubble burst are sustaining their business today quite well. Ensynch’s value extends beyond the normal “ping, power and pipe” collocation offering by also offering completely managed IT services that encompass all aspects of application hosting and availability including hotfix/patch management, virus control, backup and recovery, monitoring, security services and OS/application maintenance and administration.

MYTH #6: Data centers can be built anywhere.

REALITY: Many years ago I built a small data center in a leased space within a high rise office building without fully understanding the terms of my lease. I later learned that my lease included many unfortunate limitations. Every time I needed to install a new telecommunications circuit into my leased space (which for data centers can be a weekly event), I needed to obtain the landlord’s permission. The approval delay this caused was very costly to my business and it was an important lesson I learned the hard way. Data center physical location planning is extremely important. Several factors need to be considered including geographical stability, disaster preparedness, personnel availability, year round climate, power capacity, telecommunication availability, state, county and local building restrictions, and lease restrictions. Ensynch selected Tempe, Arizona for the primary data center because the location’s unique characteristics addressed each and every one of these selection criteria.

MYTH #7: Network Operation Centers need to look like NASA mission control.

REALITY: Given the ongoing improvements to monitoring technology including proactive monitoring and remediation, remote administration, and mobile technology, the need for flashy network operations centers with lots of big screens and several technicians ‘watching’ for red lights is quickly becoming less necessary and in fact, less effective. Today’s best practice system administration and problem resolution is far more dependent on assembling the proper technology tools and coupling them with solid operational procedures. Heavily staffed NOCs with projectors displaying only a fraction of what is really occurring in the customer’s environments is no longer adequate. Ensynch invests its time, energy and money into carefully selected monitoring and administrative tools to allow a small highly skilled technical staff to manage and maintain a large number of customer systems and applications. This approach enables Ensynch to maintain the highest quality of service to our customers while remaining operationally and cost efficient.

MYTH #8: My data center must be in my backyard.

REALITY: When customers outsource the hosting and management of their systems they often select data centers that are located near to them. While this is not necessarily a wrong decision, it shouldn’t be a primary criterion for data center selection. When selecting a data center, service level guarantees, technical competency, references, policies and procedures, and telecommunication flexibility should weigh far more heavily that physical location.

MYTH #9: Owning a data center is a strategic advantage to my business.

REALITY: Owning and operating a data center is expensive, and requires highly specialized skillsets gained from experience. Unless you’re in the data center business this will likely detract from investing in your core business. I notice that businesses are often very proud of their data center and make it a point to show it off to every visitor or passer-by. It may look cool, or make you feel more in control, but the reality is, you could have plugged into the Ensynch data center for a fraction of the cost. Data center solutions for information technology is our core competency. If you still want to show off your data center, send them to us…we will give them the royal treatment and show them the Ensynch data center in detail – you can even call it yours.

MYTH #10: Blades, server consolidation and virtualization will replace the need for dedicated data centers.

REALITY: Blades, server consolidation and virtualization advancements will force data centers to change, however it won’t eliminate them. Data centers may physically shrink over time as technology footprints decrease, however with increased dependency on server hosting technology, the need for a higher quantity of more efficient systems becomes apparent. Higher density technologies like blade servers introduce new challenges including power delivery and cooling infrastructure. This translates into significant restructuring and build-out costs for existing data centers not already built to support high-density server infrastructure. A more realistic approach for data centers is to invest into virtualization technologies. Virtualization is a framework or methodology of dividing the resources of a physical computer or server into multiple logical environments by applying technologies such as hardware and software partitioning.

IN SUMMARY: When it comes to data centers…the devil is in the details. Be critical… don’t be fooled by size or showiness that doesn’t matter…detailed process and procedures matter...ability to leverage technology matters…and most importantly, look for differentiation through experience and service.

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Business Process Breakthroughs

By Scott Johnson - Vice President, Partnerships & Alliances

Managed Services - Confidence and Control. Really?

Ted was being hit from all sides.  The company was experiencing double digit revenue growth, a constant influx of new hires, new locations, and more demand for enhancements to its current products and solutions and requests from its sales people and customers for new offerings.  On top of the growth, Ted was participating on the audit and compliance committee dealing with GLBA and OCC compliance and facing the challenges of auditors and an ever increasing number of controls he needed to put in place to meet compliance standards. 

What Ted wanted most was to have more control.  More control meant fewer issues and fewer opportunities for downtime in his infrastructure.  He wouldn’t have several hours of email and applications outages each month.  He wouldn’t have security breaches and he wouldn’t have users breathing down his neck.  He could focus on the real job he had been hired for.

At this point, Ted made the decision to change; to get more control of his environment.  He could have added more people, bringing more experience to his team.  Better tools?  That would help.  At least his team could monitor the issues in the environment and have the ability to troubleshoot them more effectively.  He could have spent a lot of time improving and documenting his IT operations and procedures.  On the infrastructure side alone, he could have added a generator in his main facility to help control and alleviate some of the power failures that had occurred.  He would have to add redundancy to his network and add a second provider.  He probably could have performed a much needed upgrade to his network and servers.  He could have implemented more security policies and measures purchasing more software and tightening controls within his IT team and end-user community.   He could have spent a lot of money doing this too, if he could justify the costs.   

But he didn’t.  Ted made a decision which at first, seemed like he was giving up control rather than increasing it.  Ted made the decision to go the route of managed services.  He would engage a managed services hosting provider for the management of his core infrastructure, network, and application platforms.  Ted decided that in the long run he could increase control by having a managed services provider help give him the controls he needed.  In order to gain control of his IT infrastructure and applications, he would have to redefine change the way he thinks about just that – control. 

Most IT organizations are under ever-increasing internal and external pressures to increase controls within their IT infrastructure.  Increased viruses and threats, security breaches, and compliance and regulatory changes make controls and imperative.  The business is seeking greater availability and access to the data critical to operating the business, to supporting customers, improving process efficiencies in the business and the information supply chain.  The IT department hears: I want more access, meet the regulatory and compliance standards (read-keep me out of hot water, or worse, the press or jail) and do all this without a budget increase, and sometimes, with a budget decrease. 

What Ted initially sought was control and what he got was a whole lot more.  By leveraging managed services, he was able to increase control in several areas:

• Physical infrastructure-Ted had more control of the basic environmental and power issues that had plagued him in the past because his managed service provider had ample power with battery and diesel generated backup. Additionally, all of his critical applications were housed in an environmentally controlled secure facility.  He immediately had access to multiple carriers and network redundancy.
• Service Levels-Through the engagement process, the managed services provider developed a custom service level agreement aligned to the company’s requirements that Ted could take to the business and end-users.  He was able to define the services provided and the availability guarantee required to support the needs of the business.  He was able to back that guarantee financially.
• Process- While change control and incident/problem management was evident before managed services, Ted was able to work with his team and the managed services organization to leverage their procedures and integrate them into the business and IT needs of his organization. 
• Security- Denial of service attacks, spam, virus, secure VPN-covered.  Ted’s new managed services provider worked with him to define security standards that would be incorporated into his service level agreement, managed 24x7.  A fully redundant firewall and intrusion detection system managed 24x7 would have even been a near impossibility for Ted without managed services.
• Visibility- Through the managed services provider, Ted was able to leverage the monitoring and management capabilities to gain improved insight into the performance and availability of his network, email, and application infrastructure.
• Cost Control- based on the defined catalog of services and the associated service levels, Ted was able to streamline and control his operational costs.  The managed service provider gave Ted a predictable monthly recurring cost for the three year contract he signed. 

Moreover, Ted tripled the size of his team with the help desk, system admins, network engineers, and support staff of his managed service provider without adding headcount.  Not to mention experience. Ted and his team were able to leverage the experience of his provider who had worked with many other organizations his size. 

More than increasing control, Ted was able to leverage what he had done through managed services to build confidence in him and his organization.  The prologue to this is that several months into his managed services agreement, I ran into Ted.  Ted asked me not to mention his real name so I changed it.  He told me that he was now taking the direct route to his office and meetings, not avoiding end-users.  Email was running at 99.9% availability and the network was solid.  They had no virus, spam, or security issues.  The applications used to support their customers were “always on.”  His internal team was thriving working on interesting projects around new technology and application development now that they had a platform on which they could deliver these solutions.

More importantly, he was working on technology initiatives that supported the business, product development, sales, finance, in helping them leverage technology, in some instances, helping his company gain a competitive advantage.  Ted was happy.  He was in control.

So, how are you doing?  Is your story somewhat like Ted’s?   I’m going to make some assumptions so the list goes something like this:

1. You have more than enough to keep you, your current IT organization, and perhaps a small army busy for the next 3 years and that’s just with what’s on your plate this year.

2. Your IT infrastructure and the applications you support have had to scale to meet your company’s growth demands and in some cases, keep your organization competitive.  Nimble? Agile?!

3. Because of the growth, more people…more users need access to information –and- both the users and the data are more dispersed across servers and physical locations.

4. More applications, more users, more data…but what about risk, regulatory and audit compliance, s-e-c-u-r-i-t-y?  This means that without adding any new capabilities or “services,” the complexity of the IT professional’s world has doubled?!  A few acronyms that weren’t around 4-5 years ago have certainly created a lot of additional considerations for IT and the business (SOX, HIPAA, GLBA.)

5. Your annual IT budget has not grown substantially, and, in some cases, may not have increased at all. 

6. However, expectations of providing a more resilient, robust, reliable infrastructure, increased availability, improved accessibility, and tighter security aren’t decreasing.  In fact, there is more proof that IT can provide a competitive advantage, can improve operational and process efficiency,

7. More of your resources are spent keeping the current IT environment up and running (I didn’t even say HEALTHY) leaving little time and resources to work on more strategic projects—helping the business understand how IT can improve the business.

Maybe the list is too general.  Perhaps it’s close to reality. Either way, let me add one more…

8. In order to keep your job, you need more control…more control of your internal  IT infrastructure and more control around those who have access to your organization’s data.  

Managed services is an option and more so today than ever.  Like Ted, take stock in what you are doing and what capabilities you need to first control your IT infrastructure, and then build upon that foundation brining IT’s strategic value to the business.  Assess, seek more information, make the right decision, have fun, be in control.

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