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simon ragg ICT


turnkey solutions incorporating technology, labour, reporting and accountability from either ‘out of the box’ or bespoke designed services.


Through our partner relationships we have access to the only tier4 data centre in the UK. As our cloud business develops into the future and the cost demand relationship dictates we will seriously need to consider building our own S3 data centre however at present when there is an abundance of unused data centre space around the UK this seems pretty pointless.


Q And how can the Channel remain relevant, or even benefit from, the many ICT sectors, from the telcos, MSPs, ISPs, ISVs,


systems integrators and the major vendors, all wanting a slice of the Cloud and services market?


A By remaining focussed on the customer and not the markets. The key point is to partner with all those mentioned at the same


time as becoming the customer’s trusted adviser.


Q And what are the opportunities and threats of this new ICT delivery model?


A As I said above the key opportunity is to partners with ISV’s etc and to become technically excellent. From my experience the


bigger vendors want to partner with small specialist resellers like S3 as it gives them the edge in complex and complicated deals and enables them to get a closer working relationship with the end user.


I suppose the threats are the same as ever – buying frameworks and corporate purchasing policies but these could also be seen as more of an opportunity......


Ultimately the key is to build strong relationships with the customer and end users.


Q For example, do you think you need to expand outside of your storage networking focus, either by taking on more technologies


yourself, or by partnering with companies in complementary sectors?


A No, as an organisation that specialises in data centre information management we have grown 20%+ year on year


for at least the last three years – continual growth is an obvious way to protect yourself in the market place. We have a proven track record of introducing new disruptive technologies to our customer base and partnering with other proven companies in S3’s non-core areas of focus. Certainly in response to customer demand we have developed a virtualisation practise focussed on vmware vsphere and VDI technologies.


Fundamental technologies like virtualisation and VDI are fantastic enablers but are inherently complex. It can be difficult for the end user to embark on such projects without first engaging a trusted partner such as S3. There are customers who want to simplify these approaches and that’s where the big shift will come. We have seen this happen with scale- out NAS with the likes of Isilon where storage, capacity and performance has been commoditised into blocks. An obvious development step is the packaging of server and storage together delivered in easy to understand modules of capability.


Q And do you anticipate that more and more customers will want solutions, backed up by services, from you, not just ‘boxes’ and


software?


A Yes, we are delivering more services than ever and have seen a market shift to be more accepting of services. This I believe has been


driven by the complexity and cost of the projects which warrants the use of external consultancy to ensure it meets its success criteria. As mentioned above the move to virtualisation and more recently VDI has resulted in more consultant driven ‘proof of concepts’ (POC). Due to the critical way these POC’s are viewed and sponsored by senior executives in moving their business forward and that they can affect every user in the organisation they must succeed – failure is not an option.


Q Other than cloud and services, what other new and/or disruptive technologies do end users need to understand into the future?


A Whilst it is important to note the trends that new and/or disruptive technologies currently provide I believe there are three major


drivers that make a disruptive technology important to a business. Each has its own priority or focus.


• Firstly, the user experience. Is the technology simple, does it pass the ‘no manual needed’ test? For it to be accepted it


must be intuitive and provide tremendous value to the user. Powerful platforms that are unfamiliar or uncomfortable to use can limit their disruptive advantage


Fitzpatrick


As a leading civil engineering and construction firm, Fitzpatrick can have as many as 40 different job sites where roads, bridges, airports, and other structures are being built throughout the U.K. This distributed workforce is also reflected in its information technology (IT) infrastructure. As part of this infrastructure, Fitzpatrick’s 12-person IT staff manages 15 Windows 2000 servers located at its main Hoddesdon, U.K. office, and 10-15 additional servers distributed across six regional offices and 40 or so job sites. To back up its servers, Fitzpatrick used Computer Associates ARCserve software. However, having a comprehensive and centralized backup management capability including the ability to recover data quickly was difficult, if not impossible, using traditional tape-based processes. Taking a vendor agnostic-approach, S3 engineers working with Fitzpatrick determined that disk- to-disk backup could lessen the amount of data moving over the network, and would alleviate the issues the firm had experienced and provide a more reliable and ‘cleaner’ solution. As a true, disk-to-disk backup solution, S3 engineers recognized that EVault InfoStage software would answer Fitzpatrick’s top concern of getting data over their network without having to add more infrastructure, incur more costs and create additional management responsibilities. Once backup agents are installed on the servers, EVault DeltaPro technology scans for and then backs up only new and altered files since the previous backup. This component of EVault InfoStage software takes those changes, compresses and then encrypts the data before sending over the network to a storage device. Because it’s only taking new and altered files and compressing the information, often less than five percent of the total data will be sent over the network each day.


October/November 2011 I www.snseurope.info 21


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