Services

Becoming an Azure Expert MSP required a companywide effort spanning multiple teams, bringing together expertise from across our global organization. We worked extremely hard to demonstrate to an independent third party that our experience in these solutions is best in class.

So what does this status mean for customers? That through our CDW Amplified™ Azure Managed Services, we provide consistent processes, tools, skills and technology to ensure successful delivery of repeatable, complex solutions based on Microsoft Azure. Learn more about our three-step approach.

I get many questions about Amazon Web Services (AWS). For instance, what should be the first step when starting the cloud journey? What sort of connectivity is required between the on-premises data center and the cloud?

Given the number of important considerations and the plethora of available services in the cloud, it’s important to have intricate cloud knowledge. Working with a trusted partner can help ensure your organization adopts the right strategy from the beginning.

Increasingly, the power of data analytics is within reach for small and midsized businesses, even if they lack the in-house expertise to launch these efforts on their own. Modern data platforms, coupled with expert guidance, enable SMBs to take advantage of data-driven insights.

The caveat? Implementing sophisticated analytics is a process. Here are some key considerations for SMBs as they work to derive customized, prescriptive insights.

There’s a growing awareness of the value of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) — the practice of provisioning and deploying infrastructure using DevOps processes and best practices — to decrease IT costs and management burdens. At the same time, more and more organizations have begun to recognize and take advantage of the value offered by cloud environments such as Amazon Web Services CloudFormation.

And yet, we haven’t seen a huge move on the part of enterprise IT departments to leverage the combination of IaC and AWS. Here are some of the benefits and use cases of IaC on AWS CloudFormation, and how organizations can get started.

In my last blog, 5 Disciplines of Cloud Governance for Azure, I talked about using the Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) for Governance and using the five disciplines. In this blog, I will share more detail of how to implement these disciplines. The disciplines are cost management, security baseline, resource consistency, identity baseline and deployment acceleration. Each one of these disciplines can be viewed as a category of governance and used in a way to provide focus on key areas.

It is important to note that although they are separate, they do intermingle. Though it is possible to implement some governance by selecting a subset of disciplines, it is recommended to use all five disciplines as part of a governance minimum viable product (MVP) strategy.

Startup founders sometimes view IT as a matter for mature companies — something to worry about down the road. In fact, technology should be part of strategic planning regardless of a company’s age or size.

The right solutions facilitate growth, increase agility and strengthen cybersecurity, all of which advance business development. Conversely, technology becomes a roadblock when startups lack the time, expertise or resources to reach the most critical milestones in a startup’s lifecycle: problem/solution fit, product/market fit, monetization and scale.

The social and economic upheaval related to the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of agility and the powerful ways in which it can be enabled by technology. Startups with a solid technology foundation are more likely to possess the resilience to ride out the storm and, perhaps, emerge even stronger.