Dimension Data Launches Data Centre Assessment Service

Dimension Data Launches Data Centre Assessment Service

Data centres are at the beginning of the most important transition since the move away from mainframes

Singapore, 7 September 2011 –

Traditional network architectures and network technology will not deliver the performance and functionality needed to support the fully evolved and virtualised data centre. That’s according to specialist IT services and solutions provider, Dimension Data which announced today the availability of its Data Centre Networking (DCN) Assessment service that helps organisations implement a future-state data centre architected to support their future IT strategy and business objectives.

Gary Middleton, Business Development Manager, Network Integration at Dimension Data explains: “Data centres are at the beginning of the most important transition since the move away from mainframes. We’ve seen tremendous changes to data centres over the last few years. To cope with industry changes, network architectures and technology have had to evolve in order to enable the network to keep pace and provide organisations with optimum support.

“The mega trends of consolidation and virtualisation, data growth, more sophisticated and powerful computers, and the emergence of the network as the platform for organisational communications have placed networks under tremendous pressure. Indeed, this trend is set to increase as organisations look to move towards cloud computing models and utility pricing frameworks.

“With the network being the foundation of the data centre and carrying all traffic between users and applications, between applications and storage, and between applications themselves means that traditional network architectures and network technology will not be able deliver the performance and functionality required to efficiently support the evolved and virtualised data centre,” says Matthew Gyde, GM for Network Integration, Dimension Data Asia Pacific. He points out that Dimension Data experts designed the DCN Assessment to help clients review their existing network architecture in the data centre, along with their data centre strategy and business goals as they relate to the data centre.

“During the three phases of the assessment, we work closely with clients and discuss their operational and strategic competencies, their data centre strategy, and the network architecture that supports this strategy. We want to be sure our clients are provided with a pragmatic and practical roadmap on how to get to the most appropriate data centre network architecture,” concludes Gyde.

Benefits of the DCN Assessment service include improved business agility and performance, identify cost savings, and enhanced management and support of the network. The three assessment phases comprise:

The Discover phase uses three mechanisms to collect data from the client; a pre-workshop questionnaire, network and data centre layout diagrams from the client and a consultant led facilitated workshop.

The Construct and Recommend phases are conducted by a Dimension Data consultant who carefully examines the data collected and makes observations and recommendations on the findings. A maturity rating is applied to the existing data centre network architecture and strategy, while a future state DCN architecture that supports the clients future data centre and business objectives, along with recommendations and a roadmap on how to improve the maturity level.

-ENDS-

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