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Embracing virtual desktop infrastructure through managed services

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Virtual desktop infrastructure was recently named as the No. 3 highest "low-risk/high-reward" technology in Computer Economics' "Technology Trends 2014" study. Given the predictable cost structure of the technology, as well as its maturity, companies have a strong incentive to embrace it. And the incentive is even stronger when VDI is delivered through a managed services cloud provider, cutting out the capital investments that can otherwise be an impediment.

"VDI can ease desktop support and shrink energy consumption, but the advantages come at a cost," FCW contributor John Moore wrote in a recent article. "Organizations might need to invest in data center infrastructure – servers, storage, software and networking – to make the technology work. They will also need to train or hire employees to maintain the virtual environment."

Given these up-front costs, many organizations are moving to a cloud-based VDI deployment model, Moore noted. By working with a third-party managed services partner, companies can not only outsource capital investments, they can simplify management and access state-of-the-art infrastructure subject to constant refresh cycles. A VDI solution delivered through a managed service provider's data center can dramatically improve the effectiveness and cost efficiency of the technology – already a remarkably effective tool.

Malware removal essential as new study shows 100 percent of companies have malware

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Malware infection has become effectively ubiquitous, according to Cisco's recently released 2014 Annual Security Report. In the study, 100 percent of companies surveyed were found to be hosting some kind of malware. Given the preponderance of malicious software, the need for malware removal services is high in today's business world.

According to the study, malicious exploits are finding their way into high-level resources such as web hosting servers, nameservers and data centers. Penetrations often go undetected for long periods of time. And more than nine out of 10 web exploits are tied to Java.

"Of all the web-based threats that undermine security, vulnerabilities in the Java programming language continue to be the most frequently exploited target by online criminals," the report stated. "[These] far outstrip those detected in Flash or Adobe PDF documents, which are also popular vectors for criminal activity."

The Java Runtime Environment has long been a favorite target of malware authors because it supports an enormous number of devices and offers a very broad range of functions, providing many possible attack vectors, a TechTarget article noted. Given the complexity of securing any device that may be run on Java, companies are also forced to handle malware reactively. By enlisting a malware removal provider, businesses can locate and address some of the malware that, statistically, is inevitably in their environment.

Tapping the virtualized data center for unified communications advantages

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Companies are increasingly abandoning traditional PBX phone systems in favor of unified communications solutions, which enable consolidated phone, email, fax, chat, video and collaboration services through a single online interface. As this approach has become predominant in the business environment, new, virtualized data center solutions have emerged to make service more reliable and easier to manage.

According to one recent study, 84 percent of companies that do not currently use UC features are considering adding such services in the next one to three years. At the same time, a majority of respondents said they were struggling to find the right vendor. This frustration could arise in part from the changes in the way UC services are offered. Traditionally, UC was primarily an on-premises offering hosted on dedicated servers, which could lead to reliability problems.

For companies looking for a reliable UC solution, the preferred model is increasingly trending toward a hosted approach, in which a managed services provider offers UC services that are hosted remotely in a large-scale, virtualized data center. Virtualization allows service providers to host a large number of clients simultaneously and use resources intelligently, cutting costs while also accessing state-of-the-art, reliable infrastructure, a recent TechTarget article noted.

“Virtualization can bring a level of reliability not available on dedicated servers, while lowering the overall costs of the platform,” Brian Riggs, research director for enterprise communications at Current Analysis, told TechTarget. He added, “Service providers … are seeing virtual environments as a cost effective way to deliver hosted communication solutions for a wide range of clients.”

The cost advantages are particularly notable for small and midsize companies, which may not be able to handle the capital investment of installing servers for unified communications services on their own. With a managed services approach, companies can choose the specific solutions they need without running up substantial hardware costs.

Actually meet enterprise security needs with managed services solutions

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Today’s businesses face a wide range of cybersecurity threats.  While many are confident in their approach to protecting sensitive information, the reality is that security solutions still remain largely inadequate. According to a recent study from the Ponemon Institute, managing security investments and policies is a C-suite concern at 66 percent of companies. However, the amount of information that is actually passed to the C-suite to make informed decisions is “disturbingly incomplete,” with IT staff actively omitting negatives in more than half of cases.

“What is most concerning is that it would seem security in many organizations is based on perception and ‘gut feel,’ versus hard data,” said study author Larry Ponemon. “The stakeholders with the highest responsibility seem to be the least informed: a view that is amplified externally.”

For businesses, this may mean working with managed service providers that actually have an interest in meeting security needs rather than simply attracting as many clients as possible. A recent TechRadar article noted that concerns over staying on top of security needs appear to be driving many companies to avoid large cloud providers in favor of smaller managed services and colocation firms, where businesses can be aware of where specifically their data resides even as they leverage the benefits of virtualization and cloud infrastructure.

How can companies improve the disaster resilience of their data center infrastructure?

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According to a recent benchmark survey by the Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council, nearly three quarters of companies worldwide are failing in terms of disaster readiness, with struggles in downtime for specific critical applications or even entire data center environments. Close to 20 percent of companies reported losses of over $50,000 stemming from outages. Companies can protect themselves against this possibility by investing in resilient data center solutions from a colocation provider focused on business continuity.

"Reliability starts with high industry standards in a checklist of requirements: climate-controlled environments, intelligent security structure and state-of-the-art equipment, technologies and design," BizTimes.com contributor Kevin Knuese wrote in a recent article.

He noted that companies should look for data center solutions with redundant networking and power supplies, as well as redundant cooling systems and all-around state-of-the-art technology. Additional data center features such as 24/7 monitoring and physical security safeguards meant to withstand both break-ins and natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes are important as well. A hosting provider based in the Midwest can be particularly reliable due to the reduced likelihood of certain natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes and mudslides that are more common on the coasts.

A provider that offers backup and business continuity services is also important, Knuese wrote. Executives can sometimes be skeptical of "disaster recovery," seeing it as an alarmist term and frustrating cost driver, according to industry expert Steve Kahan. However, the argument for a reliable data center and backup solution is more clear-cut, as such technology solves the problem of many IT headaches. As a result, a colocation provider with business continuity services can be key for maintaining brand credibility from an IT side.

"Some audiences are more responsive when the conversation is focused on the crucial role that IT plays in ensuring 'business continuity' or the operational costs triggered by an 'extended outage,'" Kahan wrote for DRBenchmark.org. "Here's one more suggestion: think of disaster preparedness as 'an investment in brand security,' a way to protect your company's reputation."

Moving toward the virtual data center

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Virtualization – the process of abstracting hardware functions to a software level – is one of the signature advancements of modern computing, allowing companies to consolidate their server footprints and increase the flexibility of their infrastructure. With virtualization, businesses can quickly create new virtual servers and move workloads from one physical location to another on a software level. As server virtualization becomes increasingly standard in the data center, companies are beginning to look at other forms of virtualization that can also be applied to increase flexibility, such as storage virtualization and network virtualization. With virtualization in all its forms becoming more important for managing a data center, companies are turning to managed services partners to help.

InformationWeek’s 2013 Virtualization Management Survey found that 72 percent of companies reported extensive use of server virtualization, and just 4 percent had no plans for use. In comparison, only 22 percent reported extensive use of storage virtualization, with 28 percent saying they had no plans for use, and a mere 11 percent reported extensive network virtualization, with 44 percent saying they had no plans for use. The main drivers for virtualization included operational flexibility and agility (56 percent) and business continuity (55 percent).

“Undoubtedly, a fully virtualized data operation offers many advantages,” ITBusinessEdge’s Arthur Cole wrote in a recent column. “Aside from the lower capital and operating costs, it will be much easier to support mobile communications, collaboration, social networking and many of the other trends that are driving the knowledge workforce to new levels of productivity.”

The evolving virtual data center
At the same time, Cole cautioned, much of the virtual technology that extends beyond server virtualization is still in its early phases. As a result, companies may encounter challenges as they look to enjoy the management benefits of abstracting elements of their data centers. A trusted data center partner can help businesses evaluate and implement emerging technologies, and even oversee transitions such as server virtualization and consolidation.

The standard for what counts as a virtualized data center is set to evolve in the coming years as more physical components are virtualized, and businesses will want to be at the cutting edge of whatever emerges. By outsourcing some infrastructure management tasks to a trusted third-party provider, they can ensure they are adopting these innovations even if they do not have the in-house technical expertise or capital to make the changes. To keep close tabs on the move toward the virtual data center, a managed services and IT consulting partnership is essential.

Data center construction increases, driven by demand for colocation services

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As more companies shift to an increasingly digital business model, the demand for colocation services is growing. In turn, data center construction is set to increase at a steady rate in the coming years, according to a recent study from Research and Markets. With new, state-of-the-art infrastructure coming online and the industry gravitating toward large-scale data center deployments, companies may want to reconsider how these trends can simplify their own IT strategies.

According to the Research and Markets study, the global data center construction market is set to grow at a compound annual rate of 21 percent through 2018. This trend is largely being driven by the increasing challenge of managing a data center as new demands in terms of efficient energy use, alternative power sources and industry regulations complicate the logistics of building and running an enterprise facility. Additionally, the growing complexity of network infrastructure is proving a challenge for many companies to handle internally, prompting them to look for outsourced solutions.

In addition to new construction, many existing facilities are also being forced to retrofit with new server, power and cooling equipment to absorb the challenges of the contemporary tech landscape, ITBusinessEdge's Arthur Cole noted in a recent column. The result is a change in the profile of the average data center.

"Going forward, infrastructure will be leaner and meaner, but the individual pieces will be more powerful and flexible," Cole wrote. "And the [data centers themselves] will be fewer in number, but much, much bigger."

Rather than try to weather these changes themselves, companies may find it expedient to embrace the trend toward colocation and instead look for a trusted third-party data center provider. With the right partner, companies can position themselves to transition smoothly into the future.

Recognize the business advantages of data colocation

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For many companies, it can be tempting to approach data storage in a fairly insular manner, keeping files on-premise so they can be easily accessed and IT can maintain absolute control. But businesses are increasingly jettisoning their expensive storage and server infrastructure in favor of switching to an outsourced colocation model. By making IT a fixed operational expenditure rather than a massive capital expenditure, companies can remain more flexible. Colocation data centers also provide numerous IT benefits in terms of disaster resilience and collaboration.

"Hosting your own infrastructure can require significant capital investment in real estate," IT executive James Carnie told ComputerWeekly in a recent feature about the merits of different spending models.

In addition to real estate costs, companies investing in their own infrastructure face massive hardware expenses, and they also must accurately anticipate future expansion to know how much equipment to buy during purchase cycles. Additionally, ownership includes the need to pay for their own ongoing maintenance, which leads to unexpected costs as companies deal with issues that arise. In contrast, a colocation model shifts businesses to a planning approach built around fixed monthly costs, IT executive Akshay Kalle wrote in a recent column for the Globe & Mail.

"Managed services models reduce the considerable costs of storage, upgrades, data recovery, converting big capital outlays and unpredictable maintenance costs in time and materials, into predictable monthly fees with clear expectations and guarantees," Kalle explained.

Colocation also simplifies the challenge of dealing with disasters by moving data off-site to a resilient facility, and, by centralizing business information, it enables easier audits, Kalle added. Centralization and virtualization also foster collaboration: By moving data to shared resources in a data center rather than letting it languish on desktops, companies can simplify file sharing and other collaborative processes among their employees.

Make sure disaster recovery is done the right way

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The threat of natural disasters or other business interruptions such as power outages and viruses means that companies need robust backup and disaster recovery solutions for their data environment. Often, however, backup and disaster recovery services are conflated, and businesses end up with solutions that don't necessarily offer all the functionality they actually need. To ensure the enterprise IT environment is fully recoverable in the wake of a disaster, companies can benefit from working with a managed services provider to develop a customized plan that fits their needs.

One common misconception about disaster recovery is that it offers nothing appreciably different from a backup or cloud storage solution, a recent MSP Mentor article explained. Most companies already have some form of backup solution, perhaps hosted in the cloud, which may make a separate recovery service seem superfluous.

However, simply relying on backup storage doesn't take the need for getting key applications running again into account, and it can quickly become expensive or difficult to manage as the volume of data increases, Sundar Raman, CTO of Perpetuuiti Technosoft Services, noted in a recent interview with CIOL. This complexity can make shortcuts even more tempting.

"CIOs tasked with addressing business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery issues are keen to achieve quick wins, and the 'tick box' audit approach, which tries to copy successful strategies used elsewhere, is often adopted without consideration of the suitability," Raman explained.

To combat this problem, companies can benefit from working with a dedicated managed service provider to craft a customized solution that fits their specific needs. By determining the best plan to meet recovery time objectives for various applications and data while also working within a manageable budget, companies can establish a disaster recovery plan that gives them more than basic backup without overextending themselves.

Achieve IT savings with better data center management

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IT departments face a wide variety of budgetary pressures, which means that finding more efficient ways to deliver the same services is always a goal for technology staff. One of the biggest sources of inefficiency for many companies is the corporate data center, which can create substantial costs that have nothing to do with actual IT in the form of power and cooling needs. Companies are increasingly looking for ways to make these operations more efficient and turning to data center infrastructure management solutions as a result. Additionally, many businesses have found that by switching to a managed services provider for their data center, they are able to access the gains of instituting such technology without the upfront costs and complexity.

A recent Navigant Research study found that the market for data center infrastructure management technology is expected to grow more than sixfold in the next six years as data center operators take advantage of new solutions that offer visibility into both key facilities metrics and server management variables. A separate study of one DCIM solution conducted by Forrester found that the return on investment in terms of power and space planning was 93 percent, while the ROI in terms of energy monitoring was 216 percent.

“DCIM – the software, systems, and services that monitor, measure, and help control data centers’ IT and facilities infrastructure – is quickly becoming a must-have technology for managers of modern data centers,” said Eric Woods, research director at Navigant Research.

Given the substantial savings companies can achieve by using state-of-the-art monitoring and management tools, they should look to leverage data center solutions that incorporate these technologies. Managed services providers should have granular insight over their facilities that enables them to create tangible operational savings and, in turn, pass those savings along to clients.