Empowered Networks

Overview

Virtualization is a journey, and you may be experiencing some growing pains.  Robust management tools are needed for service level agreement (SLA) management, but managing in a virtualized environment presents some unique challenges including: Visibility and Control, Scalability – “VM Sprawl”, Shortage of the “right” skills. Managing when virtualized and physical environment coexist and/or multiple virtual machine vendors are in play adds even more complexity.

These problems often culminate in “VM Stall”, with virtualization deployments grinding to a halt while IT figures out how to deal with them.  IT organizations need new and better ways to break down these barriers to realize the full IT and business potential of virtualization.

• We can help you understand where you are today in terms of Virtualization Maturity and how to accelerate your journey towards becoming truly a truly virtual data center using our Virtualization Assessment  
• Recommend, Source, Install and Support the right Tools for managing Virtualization (CA Technologies 3 new products)  plus  
• Improve your processes to make your Virtualization more efficient (virtual automation including chargebacks, user self service )
• Bring Specialty skills (Tools Experts, Operations Process Experts, Automation experts) to accelerate your success when you can’t find a particular skill, when you have a short term need, when it’s a non core function you’d rather outsource

Tools

Managing virtualization is a new area with new products coming onto the market almost daily.  We test new offering in our in-house lab before recommending anything to our customers.  We have tested and recommended the following products:

• Virtual Assurance from CA Technologies - a virtual server performance management solution that lets you see all the virtual servers running in the data center and monitor them for faults and performance related issues. We like that it comes as an appliance so installations are simple. A second key benefit is that it requires much less licensing than traditional monitoring tools because agents are only required on a few real servers as opposed to all virtual servers that are being monitored. The graphical interface is really nice and reports can be exported. This product will be of value to customers who want better visibility into their Virtual Server Farm.
• Virtual Automation from CA Technologies - a slick new virtual server reservation software application that allows departments to build out their own virtual servers through a self-reservation portal. We like the ease of use: users login, lease computer time in the data center, run the application they need. When the lease expires the computing resources are automatically returned to the data center users can be charged by IT for the amount of resources consumed, and/or for the time period those resources were used. A great way to manage computing costs and charge-backs.
• Netuitive - a self-learning analytics engine that supercharges your performance management systems.  It recognizes that managing systems, business services or virtual infrastructures with conventional rule and script-based monitoring tools is humanly impossible. We like how Netuitive replaces the labour-intensive and error-prone manual setting of performance baselines and thresholds with self-learning and continuously adaptive automated mathematics and analysis. We also see how it’s self-learning of your environment’s normal operating characteristics can help forecasts issues before they impact performance, and isolate root causes wherever problems occur which can result in reduced mean time to repair.
• Netutive for VMware is a VMware virtual server performance management system that takes the guesswork out of managing virtual environments by discovering all ESX servers, and then continuously analyzes and correlates live streaming data from both physical and virtual resources to forecast performance issues and pinpoint their root causes. With Netuitives certified integration with VMWare’s Virtual Center,  performance management becomes automated, freeing staff to focus on the more complex issues and/or on meeting new performance requirements.

Services

• Empowered Care 24/7 local support – A support system that duplicates your system in our lab so you can make one phone call any time day or night, when things aren’t working perfectly.

E4 Methodology

Our E4 methodology is a straightforward, customer-centric framework that will bring you from ground zero to a completely installed and supported solution, or it can be used to solve any part of the process. We use E4 to customize a solution to meet your individual needs.

The four components of E4 are:

Explore – and assess your current environment
Envision – the solution to your problem
Execute – the recommended solution
Enhance – your environment

Explore: Take your first step to improvement by understanding where you are. Our assessments include a professional and unbiased review of your operations, processes and people, to serve as a solid foundation upon which to build recommendations for change. Get a clear sense of where you are today, learn what changes will have the most impact.

Envision: See your way clear to a solution. We make recommendations for hardware, software, processes and skills -- all with one aim -- to ensure you meet your goals. Our recommendations are pragmatic, because we’ve been in your shoes. We understand they must fit within your budget, meet your timing, leverage your team’s strengths, and deliver a positive return on your investment.

Execute: Make the solution real. We know that a major deployment is one of the largest, most expensive and most complex challenges a company can face. We can reduce your risks and maximize your returns. We don’t stop until you say you’re happy. We’ll sell you the right product, install and configure it for maximum application in your environment, train your team on its use, and then support you 24/7 from our Technical Assistance Centre.

Enhance: People make the difference between good and great. We have talent in so many areas and it is available to you. Whether it’s providing EmpoweredCare support on a system we’ve installed for you, or joining your team to solve a particularly challenging problem, or bringing in a specialized skill, we are here for you 24/7. Employ us to eliminate any worry about hiring, firing or dealing with sick leave. We are accountable to you and we’ll make sure there’s never a gap.