ITaaS Lewan FullService 360 offering aligns with SMB customer needs

As I talk to more and more SMB customers about their IT needs I’m finding a theme that drove us to look hard at how we can help our customers with IT support and infrastructure. For most of our customers, IT is a necessary element to their business but the business doesn’t know how to run or manage IT.

We developed a suite of services that enables our customers to enjoy a higher level of support, security, availability and predictability of SLAs and costs associated with their technology needs. It’s tough for smaller businesses to hire the right IT talent to support the technology, make technology choices and help align the business and IT. When our customers choose Lewan they get access to a large team of experts in the time slices they need. They can’t afford to hire a team of experts to cover each area.

In addition we provide IT “by the drink” to help customers scale their businesses whether its the talent or the technology itself. Its cost effective and predictable. How much time do businesses waste trying to determine what technology they need to support their businesses from an IT standpoint? Time researching, talking to vendors , comparing technologies, learning to implement something one time and will never do it again. It’s a waste of time, and with no economies of scale, they end up “guessing high” and over buying. They also waste a lot of time to learn how to implement and integrate a solution as a one time event.

We have developed a suite of services that address this challenge by applying the right expertise, tools and infrastructure as pooled resources for our customers to use while maintaining segregation and security. This way our customers can leverage the scale of our expertise, people, infrastructure and tools and only pay for what they need and use.

Our solution includes data protection, IT infrastructure, security, help desk, email, monitoring, print management and 24×7 support for day to day IT support and we also have teams of specialists to help advise and roll out new solutions to address particular business initiatives that are enabled by technology. We meet monthly with our customers to review what we’ve done, what we’ve seen and share information and suggestions to improve the IT experience and alignment with their business.

We also provide “account services” that are included with our relationship to help our customers save even more time and money by managing their maintenance contracts, telecommunications costs and any product or project procurement needs they have. We truly have a full service offering for supporting all business and IT technology needs with one phone number to call.

In addition to the services our customers utilize from us to build and support their IT environment they also don’t have to worry about the capital and operational costs of all the elements that comprise the IT environment. Our service is all-inclusive up to the business applications. Below is a list of some of the items that are included in the service that the customer doesn’t have to buy anymore yet making this approach more cost effective:

Data center
Power/cooling
Servers
Virtualization technology
Storage
Networking
Firewalls
Routers
Telecommunications
Maintenance contracts
Microsoft licensing
Citrix licensing
Anti-virus
Element management software
Monitoring software
Helpdesk software
Backup hardware and software
Offsite storage
DR site
Etc…

I could continue but you get the idea. In addition to all the “stuff” our customers no longer need to buy we include the support services to manage, report and react to issues within the environment and the proactive management to avoid issues and keep the environment up to date.

For more information on how we can help your business optimize your technology needs please email me at scott.pelletier@lewan.com

VMware PEX 2013 early highlights

Been drinking the VMware koolaid the past few days and there is a very consistent theme.

1. SDDC (software defined datacenter)
2. Hybrid Cloud
3. End User Computing

Other notable items I need to learn more about that fit into these buckets are:

-Software defined networking and storage
-Cloud credits
-Horizon Suite

More to come…

Dropbox for the Enterprise….Sharefile is a great choice

We have been discussing internally the need for a follow me data solution that has the ability to work in larger team environments. We found that several of us had Dropbox accounts and other such solutions and we also had a mix of iOS, OS X, Windows and Android platforms. The Dropbox thing was pretty convenient and we found our users were not using Sharepoint due to the lack of simplicity, mobility and multiple platform support. We are also into an implementation of Docushare to replace Sharepoint, but again, it didn’t solve the same problems that something like Dropbox might solve. We do see a need for both ECM and follow me data solutions as we see the ECM tool being used for company records especially when compliance is needed and also incorporates many other features like electronic document signing and workflow routing. We see the follow me data solution aimed more at unstructured data that is more transient in nature or aren’t considered formal company records. It also addresses the need for having mobile copies of data that may reside in the ECM, e.g., marketing slicks and presentations that its nice to have local for ease of presentation.

So, what we did was a formal evaluation of some platforms that had team oriented features and also checked for enterprise class security features. We looked at ECM platforms and follow me data platforms. As noted earlier in this post we saw a need for ECM solutions but we couldn’t find one that addressed both the ECM and follow me data needs we had. After eliminating those solutions from the follow me data choices we narrowed the field to Dropbox and Sharefile. Being a Citrix Platinum partner some of our guys had been demoing Sharefile and most of us also had Dropbox accounts as well. Sharefile won hands down when considering auditing and security controls and the ease of use was on par. Sharefile also has the ability to create storage zones that can reside behind our firewalls in our datacenter if we so chose, so we gained more control as well.

Lewan Achieves Intel Platinum Status

Lewan has done it again! We are excited to reach the highest level of designation with Intel again for 2013. Check out the announcement below from Steve Dallman, Intel’s Vice President & General Manager of WW Reseller Channel Organization.

“Intel is pleased to confirm that Lewan is currently part of the Intel® Technology Provider Program at a Platinum Level membership – our most prestigious program for companies that provide Intel-based technology solutions.
 
Platinum Level members are accepted into the program after a careful review of their business and must renew their membership annually, based on meeting eligibility requirements. They are required to attend regular training events throughout the year, which allow them to keep their technical knowledge current. Additionally, Platinum Level members must maintain several industry certifications pertinent to their area of focus, and they must demonstrate an ongoing record of customer implementations.

By working with Lewan, you are engaging with a solution provider that has a strong affiliation with, and understanding of, the Intel brand. Members of the Intel Technology Provider Program with Platinum Status have access to proprietary information, engineering support, and accelerated technical support from Intel, giving them the capability to create winning solutions based on industry-leading Intel technologies. And, they have the resources to offer a superior level of customer service and support during and beyond deployment.”

Lewan Selected (again) for the CRN Tech Elite 250 List

The editors of CRN are pleased to inform you that Lewan & Associates, Inc. has been named to the third annual CRN Tech Elite 250 list. Congratulations on your achievement!

The CRN Tech Elite 250 is a definitive list of solution providers with deep technical expertise and premier certifications in the data center market. The list was developed by CRN editors and is based on the level and depth of technical certifications from EMC, IBM, Cisco, VMware, Citrix, Microsoft, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Symantec and NetApp.

Two Lewan Experts Chosen as Citrix Synergy Presenters

Citrix just announced the list of guest presenters for this year’s Citrix Synergy LA and two of our Lewan experts were chosen after going through a rigorous judging process. Only 22 topics were chosen so we are extremely proud and excited to be presenting two of those:

Dynamic user experience, presented by Dan Brinkman
User acceptance of virtual desktops, presented by Kenneth Fingerlos

Here are more details from the Citrix announcement:

“Citrix Synergy in Los Angeles, May 22-24, stands out as an open, inclusive conference where many different opinions are expressed – not just those of Citrix. In that spirit, we are proud to announce an awesome lineup of guest presenters for Synergy breakout sessions. These speakers – and their subjects – were selected through our Call for Topics program. Each made the cut after a rigorous independent judging process.

The chosen presenters include Citrix customers and partners, Citrix Technology Professionals (CTPs) and industry thought leaders such as analysts and consultants. They will share their unique viewpoints on the latest trends related to mobile workstyles, including enterprise mobility, mobile healthcare access and large-scale workplace transformation. They will focus on important technologies such as provisioning services, virtual desktop storage and cloud operations management.

A number of presenters will share their successes with mobility, cloud, virtualization and networking solutions that are delivering important benefits to their organizations. These real-world case studies are always among the most popular content at Synergy.”

See the full list of presenters

We’re Platinum! Lewan Earns Highest CommVault Partner Certification

Lewan is excited to announce the addition of a new and very notable certification to our arsenal of expertise—CommVault Platinum Partner Certification. Platinum status is CommVaults’s highest and most prestigious partner designation.

Lewan is the largest and only CommVault Platinum Partner in the Rocky Mountain region, and just one of two companies to earn this prestigious certification in the west. Our team is CommVault Certified for Administration and Engineering enabling our experts to guide your project from start to finish.

CommVault is recognized by the street and leading analysts as the best of the best in the Data management industry.