Are these part of your IT strategy?

Cloud

• No more hardware!  At each refresh cycle, dollars are shifting from CapEx to OpEx, relieving the need for constant equipment spend and enabling increased investment back into the business.  

• IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and DaaS are all making a huge impact.  Application performance and reliability at the best price drive deployment model decisions. Cloud spend is predicted to grow 25%, to $100 Billion in 2014, as an increasing number of providers with a widening array of products enter the marketplace.
• Emerging open source cloud platforms like OpenStack and Cloud Foundry allow IT organizations to enable business agility and technology innovation, while preventing vendor lock-in.

Data Center

• New data center green initiatives have improved energy efficiency and driven client cost savings – in the sub $200 per kW range (“all-in” price for space, power and cooling).  Negotiating an “all in” price is the new industry standard and best practice.
• Wholesale capacity + E (metered power) pricing models have moved into the enterprise space. Clients are now taking advantage of these new models to avoid over-paying on underutilized services.
• Selecting data center providers based on their established eco-system model (connectivity to Clouds, Hybrid enablement, and client to client connectivity) – to improve application delivery performance and increase business agility.

Network Connectivity

• As the rates for private lines have fallen, our clients no longer are relying on the Internet’s SLA for connectivity between data centers.  For example, a 1 Gig SEA – London for under $2500/month & 10G SEA-Tukwila under $2200/month.
• The arrival of global IP providers utilizing their peering agreements domestically has led to a further drop in IP pricing out of data centers – under $2.50/meg for a 1Gig commit.
• Clients with over 4 10Gig circuits have begun investigating 100G ports and dark fiber.

Compliance and Security

• Data center and Cloud service providers are adding regulatory core competencies, with practice areas in PCI, HIPAA and FedRAMP.  More of the compliance and audit burden is offloaded onto the provider, allowing the IT organization to focus on innovation and business success.
• Achieving compliance does not equate to impervious security.  As we have seen from the numerous data breaches that bring millions in fines and tarnished brand image, compliance and security best practices must be applied across the organization.
• DDoS mitigation, hosted firewall, managed security, and Cloud-based WAN optimization, bring new deployment options to address ongoing and emerging pain points.

How we can help? (at no cost to you)

• First step, we’ll conduct a Business and Technology Assessment – to understand your current environment, near-term goals and strategic objectives.  
• From this assessment, we develop a tailored solution document mapping your goals and objectives to “best in class” IT options and strategies.
• Next, we use our proven methodologies to execute the plan – using our extensive global provider network base, vendor selection best practice, weighted vendor scorecards, fiber mapping tools, contract redlining tips, special price negotiation strategies, and much more.
• Last, we can future proof your plans and network through our independent third party experts.  

As an IT consulting broker, StrataCore enables technology reliant organizations to buy smarter and optimize their business results.  We’ll be following up with you shortly to schedule time to explore how we can best help and share the experiences of your peers.

Thank you,
    
Josh Gay – Strategic Alliance Manager
[email protected]
desk 206.456.5814 / cell 206.963.7771