Logicalis IDs Eight Things CIOs Should Know About VMware vSphere

Farmington Hills, MI, (PRWEB) March 27, 2012

Today, with CFOs keeping a watchful eye on every penny, its more important than ever to embrace the virtues of virtualization and the ways it can help stretch server capacity, decrease the total cost of ownership of existing server equipment and enable organizations to operate at cloud scale. While hypervisor technology itself isnt new, there are some new and incredibly important advantages that the VMware Cloud Infrastructure Suite and VMware vSphere

Logicalis IDs Eight Things CIOs Should Know About VMware vSphere

Logicalis Asks: Is Your Cloud Provider HIPAA-Ready?

Farmington Hills, MI (Vocus/PRWEB) March 29, 2011

If youre a Covered Entity under HIPAA, you may be torn between moving your data into the cloud or maintaining it the old-fashioned way in your own data center. Either way, you must be sure youre complying with HIPAA requirements. But according to Logicalis (http://www.us.logicalis.com), an international provider of integrated information and communications technology (ICT) solutions and services, theres no longer any reason to be concerned about moving healthcare data into the cloud if your cloud provider has addressed privacy and security.

For highly regulated industries like healthcare with strict compliance requirements, the cloud presents a particular challenge. When it comes to the cloud, privacy and security is a big deal for Covered Entities, says Von Williams, security analyst for Logicalis. While it remains the ultimate responsibility of the Covered Entity to comply with HIPAA, there are policies and procedures that a cloud provider can have in place to lift the burden of securing at-rest and in-transit data from the shoulders of the Covered Entity. The key, Williams says, is in knowing what to look for.

To help healthcare IT pros assess a potential cloud providers HIPAA readiness, Logicalis has developed a 10-point checklist addressing privacy and security of healthcare data.

Is Your Cloud Provider HIPAA-Ready?

Your cloud provider may be HIPAA-ready if it meets these 10 conditions. But, think of these as forming a STOP sign in your mind, Williams cautions. Dont proceed to Go until every one of these conditions is met.

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Logicalis Asks: Is Your Cloud Provider HIPAA-Ready?

Logicalis IDs Five Mistakes Companies Make in their Cloud Strategies

Farmington Hills, MI (PRWEB) August 23, 2011

The term cloud has become one of the most commonly used and most often misunderstood words in IT today. According to Logicalis, an international provider of integrated information and communications technology (ICT) solutions and services, when a company doesnt fully define what the cloud can do for it, it leads to a less-than-optimized strategy that underserves the organization. To help IT pros avoid common pitfalls, Logicalis has identified five mistakes companies make in their cloud strategies.

If you ask 10 people to define the cloud, youll get 30 answers, says Steve Pelletier, cloud solution architect at Logicalis. Cloud is a buzzword; you hear commercials and advertisements all saying Cloud, cloud, cloud. But its not a well-defined term and that leads to people not fully understanding the enormous opportunities that cloud computing can offer their businesses today. When businesspeople even the most experienced IT pros have a limited view of this nebulous term, the cloud, its hard for them to make the best decisions for their companies.

Companies that fail to explore all the options may be leaving valuable services untapped and potential savings unrealized. Pelletier says there are five significant ways businesses today are missing out on the full potential of the cloud. And identifying and understanding these potential pitfalls is the key to avoiding them.

Five Mistakes Companies Make in their Cloud Strategies

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Logicalis IDs Five Mistakes Companies Make in their Cloud Strategies

Logicalis Helps IT Pros RAMP Up Their Budgets for 2012

Farmington Hills, MI (PRWEB) December 20, 2011

The end of the year traditionally marks a time of planning for CIOs and other technology professionals who are waiting for the New Year before investing their IT budgets in upgrades and acquisitions. Planning takes an even more important role when those budgets are tight, so Logicalis, an international provider of integrated information and communications technology (ICT) solutions and services, has put together a 2012 IT Wish List based on what its customers IT pros are saying is going to be most important when 2012 gets underway.

You can sum it up in one word: RAMP reliability, accessibility, mobility and productivity, says Vince DeLuca, Logicalis COO. The technologies exist now to meet the demands of corporate users in each of these four critical areas and its going to be incumbent upon CIOs and their staffs to offer data to employees and customers in the way they want to access it. Thats the task for 2012 and anyone wearing an IT hat will need to plan ahead, use their budgets wisely, and deliver on the promise that todays technology has to offer.

Eight Technologies for CIOs 2012 IT Wish Lists

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Logicalis Helps IT Pros RAMP Up Their Budgets for 2012

Logicalis: Before Marrying that Cloud Provider, Be Sure it isnt a Bridezilla

(PRWEB) February 07, 2012

When it comes to the cloud, selecting the right cloud provider can be challenging at best and nightmarish at worst. The cloud includes a variety of ways to deliver technology services, from standalone software applications like hosted email or databases to very new and exciting uses that include disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), storage as a service, or platform as a service (PaaS) applications. While there are obvious advantages to entering into a cloud partnership including decreased IT costs, increased flexibility and a reduced focus on IT maintenance issues selecting the right cloud provider is a critical first step in realizing those benefits in a way that creates a synergistic, long-term and fulfilling relationship. Thats why Logicalis, an international solution provider (http://www.us.logicalis.com), has put together a list of the top questions IT pros should ask when theyre considering a cloud partner for the long haul.

For a CIO or IT manager, choosing a cloud provider can feel like choosing a spouse, says Tom Roberts, solution architect for Logicalis. Joking aside, the relationship between the client organization and the cloud provider they choose is a deep and meaningful one. The client trusts the cloud provider with what oftentimes amounts to mission-critical data and information and relies on that provider to keep that information secure and available in sometimes heavily regulated environments. Therefore, choosing the right provider is a serious decision that has to be made with the utmost care and concern.

Six Important Questions to Ask Before Selecting a Cloud Provider

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Logicalis: Before Marrying that Cloud Provider, Be Sure it isnt a Bridezilla

Logicalis Strengthens Award-Winning Cloud Consulting Practice

Farmington Hills, MI (PRWEB) September 11, 2012

Data storage, maintenance and access are critical components in every business today driving public and private cloud adoption. Logicalis, an international IT solutions and managed services provider, today announced enhancements to its cloud consulting and hosted services practice that will continue to help IT pros define individualized cloud paths that are tailored specifically to the needs of their businesses.

The adoption of cloud computing promises to help organizations lower IT operational complexity, reduce IT operational costs, increase speed of IT services deployment and help IT and, therefore, business agility. But this is a complex arena, according to Robert Mahowald, research vice president for SaaS and Cloud Services at IDC. “Data from IDC’s 2012 CloudTrack survey suggests that cloud providers need to work with their customers to design and plan thoroughly, and delineate all their underlying operational processes and systems via workshops, and then continue to provide them with guidance and consultancy as their business requirements change.

And that is exactly what Logicalis is doing. Logicalis offers detailed cloud readiness, cloud design, and data center assessments to help its clients define their individual paths to the cloud that will best augment their unique business strategies. At Logicalis, were introducing an IT cloud consulting practice, expanding our hosted cloud services, and adding private cloud solutions that feature technologies from industry-leading vendors, says Mike Martin, vice president, Cloud Solutions, for Logicalis.

Recent Enhancements to Logicalis Cloud Practice

1. The addition of VMwares VSphere 5, vCloud Director and Site Recovery Manager to Logicalis cloud platform expands clients virtualized data center strategies while simultaneously stretching CIOs computing budgets.

2. The recent addition of CA Technologies Automation Suite for Clouds enables clients to simplify the consumption and management of Logicalis IT and infrastructure cloud services.

3. An enhanced storage strategy that includes NetApp, in addition to IBM, and provides an expanded cloud reference platform supporting Logicalis own hosted cloud services the Logicalis Enterprise Cloud. The inclusion of NetApp provides integrated storage solutions that round out Logicalis FlexPod practice with Cisco.

4. Expanded storage services include EMC Data Domain for backup, archiving, and disaster recovery in Logicalis hosted cloud.

5. Logicalis is launching a new customer self-service IT cloud portal based on Cisco Intelligent Automation software.

6. Logicalis has earned the Cisco Cloud Builder designation within the Cisco Cloud Partner Program, a designation that recognizes Logicalis competencies to sell and implement Cisco end to-end cloud solutions for its customers.

7.Logicalis, an IBM Premier partner, is one of very few partners to have earned certification in both the Cloud Builder and Cloud Infrastructure solution areas of IBMs Cloud Specialty program.

8. To help customers visualize how any proposed cloud solution might impact their business, Logicalis has created two Cloud Centers of Excellence demo centers based on the HP CloudSystem Matrix one in Farmington Hills, Mich., and the other in Irvine, Calif.

We are continually enhancing our cloud consulting business to deliver meaningful data and storage services, says Bob Hankins, vice president, storage and data solutions, for Logicalis. From infrastructure as a service to disaster recovery as a service, we can help our clients assess what they need, and build the hosted, private or hybrid cloud solutions that will answer those needs in the most efficient and effective manner possible.

About Logicalis

Logicalis is an international IT solutions and managed services provider with a breadth of knowledge and expertise in communications and collaboration; data center and cloud services; and managed services.

Logicalis employs almost 3,000 people worldwide, including highly trained service specialists who design, specify, deploy and manage complex ICT infrastructures to meet the needs of over 6,000 corporate and public sector customers. To achieve this, Logicalis maintains strong partnerships with technology leaders such as Cisco, HP, IBM, CA Technologies, NetApp, VMware and ServiceNow.

The Logicalis Group has annualized revenues of over $ 1.2 billion, from operations in the UK, US, Germany, South America and Asia Pacific, and is fast establishing itself as one of the leading IT and Communications solution integrators, specializing in the areas of advanced technologies and services.

The Logicalis Group is a division of Datatec Limited, listed on the Johannesburg and London AIM Stock Exchanges, with revenues of over $ 5 billion.

Business and technology working as one.

Logicalis Strengthens Award-Winning Cloud Consulting Practice