>>ANDY: I'm Andy Lausch here with Troy Brick-Margelofsky and this is your Tech Forecast.
We're here to discuss converged infrastructure
reference architectures. What is converged
infrastructure?
>>TROY: Converged infrastructure is really
a game-changer for data center architectures.
It allows a stack of components, compute,
network and storage, to be grouped together
and, potentially, managed as one unit.
>>ANDY: What are the main differences between
a traditional converged infrastructure model
and a CI reference architecture model?
>>TROY: A traditional converged infrastructure
model is typically one part number for the
stack and all of the constraints that go with
that one solution.
A reference architecture-based converged infrastructure
allows for more flexibility and growth opportunities
within the same solution.
>>ANDY: How do reference architectures help
ensure that a CI solution helps meet an end goal?
>>TROY: When we're talking reference architecture-based CI models, like FlexPod, there are over 60
pre-validated designs that have been tested by our partners. They're designed and written
those blueprints specifically for virtualization
solutions or dedicated applications, like
Oracle or SAP.
>>ANDY: What type of organizations can see
the most benefit from a CI reference  architecture
model?
>>TROY: Small and medium businesses can really
identify with this market, and with this opportunity,
because they traditionally do not have the
IT staff of a large enterprise, so it allows
them to get their business needs to market
quicker and, actually, do what's best for
the business.
>>ANDY: How can an organization leverage a
CI reference architecture model to, perhaps,
gain a competitive advantage?
>>TROY: Well, CI reference architectures can
really help IT shops stop working with a day-to-day,
repetitive tasks and focus their resources
on how to grow their business. They can also
mitigate and reduce risk to their organization
because someone else has done all of the pre-validation
work on the infrastructure. And, finally,
if an organization is interested in public
cloud, a lot of the public cloud back-end
infrastructures are built on these same reference
architectures, so they marry together very
well.
>>ANDY: What advantages are there for an organization
to work with CDW on a CI reference architecture
model?
>>TROY: CDW is one of the leading solution
providers when it comes to the converged infrastructures.
It means we work with all of the partners
that are out there. It also gives customers,
some people say, "One throat to choke," to
come back to us. I like to say, "One back
to pat."
>>ANDY: Tell me a little about CDW's expertise
in this area.
>>TROY: Sure. CDW is very well-positioned
in this. Depending on the technology within
the converged infrastructure stack, we have
dedicated resources to go very deep in the
specific technology. We have cross-section
of engineers that go very wide across the
entire stack. And then for those areas where
we might be a little bit outside of our portfolio,
we have a very wide partner catalog that we
can go to fill the specific niche.
>>ANDY: What kind of services does CDW offer
around CI reference architectures?
>>TROY: CDW offers a complete portfolio of
services around converged infrastructure and
converged infrastructure reference architectures.
From professional services, the traditional
implementation, to our configuration center,
which will do all the configuration of the
stack in the background and roll the rack
off the truck at the customer's location.
Our Aggregated Services team provides public
cloud offerings to marry up and complement
these private clouds that are being built.
And then for complete infrastructure management,
we have our Managed Services team that will
manage the infrastructure, either at the customer
site or at one of our own hosting facilities.
>>ANDY: Who are some of the partners that
CDW works with around CI reference architectures?
>>TROY: Some of the partners that we work
with include NetApp, Cisco, VMware, Microsoft
and Citrix.
>>ANDY: Troy, thanks for your insights on
this interesting trend.
I'm Andy Lausch and this has been your Tech
Forecast.
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