ANTICIPATE OR BACKFILL?

CLOUD IS TRANSFORMING THE DATA CENTER

AGE OF HYBRID CLOUD

TRANSFORMATION OF EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE

Resident Engineering helps your business keep up with growing IT demands

Businesses are increasing security and boosting productivity with the Cloud

The revolutionary single pane of glass approach to Cloud management

The Data Center is evolving. Are you ready for the future?

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From Data Center to Cloud - does your managedservice provider offer it all?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ANTICIPATE OR BACKFILL?

AGE OF HYBRID CLOUD

MANAGED SERVICE PROVIDERS

TRANSFORMATION OF EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE

HOW CLOUD IS TRANSFORMING THE DATA CENTER

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How the changing nature of end-user computing drives Resident Engineering

Protect your Hybrid Cloud with an industry-first Hybrid Cloud Manager

“PCM’s Lego block” approach to building the best Data Center solutions

Converged infrastructures are only the beginning of a hyper-converged future

CIOs can now consume Cloud as SaaS, PaaS and IaaS services

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This second edition of PCM’s Tech Journal aims to be your guide on the latest and greatest trends in Data Center solutions that are available to your business. For this issue, we’ve gathered insights, articles, and the most recent innovations to help you make better informed decisions regarding Hybrid Cloud infrastructure, future-proofing services, and management options for your Data Center.

As your business grows, it is important to adapt to the changing IT landscape. That is why PCM brings you information from the source— from field experts, engineers and technicians— who have years of experience helping customers transform their IT infrastructure into a sustainable environment that is optimized for efficiency.

This issue’s special features highlights PCM’s Managed Service expert, Stephen Moss, who has more than 20 years of experience working with top-brand partners on Data Center solutions that have revolutionized the IT industry. Moss highlights the importance of the high-density model and the cutting edge innovations in hybridization that are improving performance and boosting productivity for clients all over the nation.

A PCM COMPANY

Tom DucatelliExecutive Vice President, Inside Sales

Michael RappExecutive Vice President, Field Sales and President, En Pointe

Sincerely,

Explore new trends in the Data Center! Meet our Cubs Scholars

This year’s recipients are: 2016 Scholars (L to R) Jacqueline Escobar: Lake View High School, Malcolm Fox: Wendell Phillips Academy, Lamin Johnson: Mather High School, Kyle Larry: Kenwood Academy, Eva Martinez: Lake View High School

Paul Wander, District Vice President for PCM Enterprise in Chicago, awarded the iPads to the recipients at the Cubs Scholars break-fast along with Cubs Chairman, Tom Ricketts

Community Support, Delivered.As part of our motto “The Right Technology, Delivered,” PCM is proud to empower local communities by helping deliver technology to those in need. PCM, The Official IT Solutions provider for the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field, joined forces with the Cubs Scholar program this past summer to donate an iPad Pro, the next generation of iPad, to each Cubs Scholar recipient. Recipients also received a four-year college scholarship of $20,000 upon their enrollment in a four-year college or university.

On July 19th, the program welcomed its fourth class of five Cubs Scholars and the 2013 - 2015 classes of scholars who began their college and university experiences. Cubs College Prep programming and mentoring from Cubs associates helps each scholar continue toward college graduation and PCM is proud to equip these scholars with the technology for success.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE RECIPIENTS!

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PCM has the Data Center solutions and services designed to take your business to new heights. Our Data Center solutions help you reduce capital expenditures and will accelerate your rate of digital transformation through our on-demand offerings:

Converged Infrastructure Virtualization

Servers Power & Cooling

Storage Backup, Recovery & Archiving

DATA CENTERBUSINESS AGILITY BEGINS IN THE

Speak to a PCM Data Center Expert today to learn more.1-800-700-1000 I www.pcm.com

Transformation of Existing Infrastructure

DATA CENTER

When companies future-proof their Data Centers, they need to be careful which future they’re “proofing” against.

Extrapolating current trends five or ten years in advance may be tempting — faster blades, bigger storage, greater throughput — but careful IT forecasters don’t see these trends dominating in the years ahead.

This is why as existing IT infrastructure evolves (and in some cases radically transforms), companies want partners who are already adept to the changes that are coming.

According to Gartner, there are three phases for integrated systems over the decade to come:• Phase 1 is the peak period of blade systems

(2005 to 2015)• Phase 2 represents converged infrastructures and

the advent of hyper-converged systems for specific use cases (2010 to 2020). (“Hyper-converged systems” here stands for software-based technologies that integrate compute, storage, networking and virtualization in a commodity hardware box)

• Phase 3 represents continuous application and micro-services delivery on hyper-converged platforms (2016 to 2025)

The Data Center is evolving— are you ready for what’s to come?

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The IT world is in the thick of Phase 2 and on the cusp of Phase 3, in other words. And Phase 1, based around the old-fashioned blade server, is on its way out. Consider the following example: if the marketing team needs to crunch customer behavior with big data applications, they will submit a request to IT for a server or a virtual machine (VM). This request gets routed to the server team, then the storage team, then the network team, then the applications team, and then back to the marketing team. This whole process could take anywhere from 1 to 4 weeks. If the IT team has to procure hardware, this could take months. Such are the ways of a Phase 1 world. IT organizations today cannot keep up with their customer demands without transforming their existing architectures. As for the marketing team scenario, they will not wait 4 weeks for IT. They simply will drop a credit card with Amazon or Microsoft Azure and get their server in minutes, thus incurring more expenses to the bottom-line for the CIO.

With the emergence of the converged and hyper-converged infrastructures (a.k.a. Phase 2), CIOs will likely want to re-architect their entire Data Centers. Converged infrastructures integrate storage and compute on a unified platform. These platforms are dynamic, scalable and powerful for many of the applicable use cases. In addition, the concepts around software-defined technologies can be leveraged to integrate with

hypervisor technologies and services with the underlying physical architectures.

Consider, as a further example, virtual application delivery projects. If a CIO has a remote office branch office (ROBO), with about a hundred users that require locally accessible resources for virtual applications and some hosted desktops, a converged system would be ideal.

A multi-node converged system saves deployment time versus a traditional server and storage architecture, and it simplifies

Converged infrastructures integrate storage and compute on a unified, dynamic platform.

management with a unified platform, while lowering costs. With the concepts of software defined technologies, converged infrastructures are shaping the future of all Data Center needs and resources. Similar to converged systems, hyper-converged architectures focus around software.

The key difference is that with hyper-convergence, software-defined technologies control all resources that exist on top of the hypervisor. Through APIs and virtual machine translations, hyper-converged systems can be deployed on different hardware platforms on any kind of hypervisor.

With the advent of converged and hyper-converged infrastructures, CIOs now have many more options.

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This concept is powerful for a CIO that has many ROBO’s, running different hypervisors. The software is intelligent enough to translate the virtual machines from one hypervisor to the other. The CIO could even deploy hyper-converged systems on blades or rack-mount servers, depending on what the most effective use case is, as long as it has the appropriate underlying capacity requirements.

Software defined technologies can also integrate with public Cloud components and other hypervisors. This capability enables CIOs to extend their Data Center beyond a private architecture through APIs. In addition, CIOs can integrate automation and orchestration controls across different platforms to develop a truly powerful Data Center transformation and Cloud architecture. Software defined technologies

The future of the Data Center will require creativity in hardware and software technologies.

offer CIOs the capability to segment their entire workloads across multiple hypervisors, creating an agile environment for future growth.

The future of the Data Center will require creativity on hardware and software technologies. CIOs will continue to push for better integration of resources across platforms through powerful APIs. Their customers will expect interoperability and interconnectivity between Cloud components with public, private, and multi-tenant Cloud platforms. With the advent of converged and hyper-converged infrastructures, CIOs now have many more options than the traditional silo Data Center infrastructures with server, storage and networking.

CIOs can integrate automation and orchestration controls across platforms to develop a truly powerful Data Center transformation and Cloud architecture.

About the Author:Alex Vo, Director of Data Center

Practice, runs PCM’s national

engineering practice around

backup, compute, storage

and virtualizations.

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Intel Server Systems RELIABLE SOLUTIONS MADE EASIER

Today’s data centers require servers that run complex, business-critical workloads. Customers want Data Center products designed for outstanding performance and reliability that will address their unique needs. With Intel® Server Systems, you can count on trusted performance, quality, and reliability to help solve the most complex business challenges.

Get More with Intel® From product features and performance to solution strategy and problem resolution, you need complete confidence in your server. With Intel Server Systems, you have that confidence. Intel designs and builds to a high specification, delivering server products with maximum processing power, great flexibility, excellent manageability, and high reliability. Stringent design and manufacturing practices, rigorous validation and testing, and excellent warranty and technical support ensure you receive value that is difficult to find anywhere else.

Intel puts products to the test, so you don’t have toYears of experience are applied to every Intel® Server Board design. Thousands of hours of validation and testing of both the product and customer workloads ensure the delivery of quality products that address the most demanding customer requirements.

Sense problems before they impact your business More than 100 sensors monitor the critical functions of an Intel Server Board to ensure system stability and increased uptime. You will know how your boards are functioning at all times—and with Server Management provided via the Intel Baseboard Management Controller (BMC), problems are fagged long before they effect business operations.

Fast incident analysis for rapid resolutionsIntel Server Boards have system event logs that store the sensor data of critical events. If a problem does occur, these logs can be quickly downloaded and sent to Intel technicians

for analysis. Within two business days or less, customers receive an in depth report of incident data and resolution options so issues get fixed fast with the least amount of downtime. Lighting the way to quick.

Lighting the way to quick, easy diagnostics Every Intel Server Board includes advanced light-guided diagnostics—LED lights that use simple flash patterns to signal performance levels and/or issues. This value-add feature makes it easy for even non-technical personnel to monitor performance and more quickly remediate issues.

Intel Inside, Amazing Experiences Outside Intel partners know Intel Server Systems deliver value. They choose them for the expert design, high quality, and innovative features and benefits that are hard to find anywhere else. Plus, Intel partners have the backing of Intel with complete access to product expertise, solution knowledge, support, and more. Intel delivers value, expertise, and support that is hard to beat.

Contact your PCM Account Executive today at 1-800-700-1000 for more information or to request a quote.

HP t620 Flexible Thin ClientGet a powerful and seamless desktop experience, enhanced security features,and premium client virtualization from the HP t620 Flexible Series Thin Client.

Customize your thin client with everything you need and nothing you don’t. Choose the configuration options and expansion capabilities that best fit your business and help ensure an ideal end user experience.

Help protect your thin client environment with integrated and optional hardware and software security solutions, including: HP BIOS implemented to NIST guidelines, a TPM chipset, Fiber NIC communications, and lockable covers and ports.

Reduce desktop service calls and product refreshes with a completely redesigned chassis that includes advanced passive cooling for fan-less support of quad-core processors.

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Configure your deployment to provide a powerful seamless desktop experience for your end users without exceeding your budget.

Get flexibility where you need it

Tailor your hardware and softwareperformance to your exact requirements

Customize security the way you want

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Integrated AMD Radeon HD 8330E Graphics

Key Features

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Contact your PCM Account Executive today at 1-800-700-1000 for more information.

How Cloud is Transforming the Data Center

DATA CENTER

The landscape of Information Technology (IT) has been evolving ever since the first rudimentary computers were introduced at the

turn of the century. Technological advances continue to occur at a breakneck pace allowing for faster processing and vast amounts of data storage, but it is the introduction of the Cloud computing model that has transformed the design and deployment of Data Centers in the last two decades. In simplest terms, Cloud is the delivery of on-demand applications and computing resources. Cloud solutions are typically delivered over the Internet by a third party, but it is also common to see the model applied within an organization’s Data Center as a private Cloud.

The Cloud model is a departure from previous Data Center strategies since the model provides a pool of resources that can be consumed by users as services as opposed to dedicating infrastructure to each individual application. In the case of public Cloud, these services can take the shape of End-User applications, back-office platforms, or virtual servers – all hosted over the Internet with simple billing models that charge the user for just what they use.

As we move throughout our day, we take for granted our personal interactions with the Cloud. The majority of the applications running on our mobile devices leverage the Cloud, and there is a general expectation that these services are always available 24 hours a day. The combination of “always-on, never fails” expectations, the ease of scalability, and the change in cost model that the Cloud provides has had a direct effect on the strategy that CIOs employ regarding how to leverage their Data Center and the delivery of IT within their company. CIOs look across their traditional IT landscape and see high cost and loss of efficiency with their multiple Data Centers, multiple storage solutions, and large deployment of servers and applications. As a result, organizations are increasingly leveraging public Cloud in order to augment traditional IT and take advantage of these benefits. Companies can convert capital expenses

The Cloud computing model has transformed the design and deployment of Data Centers in the last two decades.

originally allocated to their private Data Center into operational expenses associated with the Cloud, and can begin to shift to more of a self-service model for their end-users, which helps defray IT costs. When Cloud was first introduced, many CIOs took a “wait and see” approach as the model matured, but now Cloud adoption has drastically increased with Gartner estimating that 40% of IT budgets are being allocated to Cloud and Cloud-related services. Cloud’s transformative effect on the Data Center is evident in a commitment to “Cloud-first” policies across many organizations, including our own federal

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government and large enterprises like General Electric (GE) – who announced at Amazon’s AWS re:Invent user conference that the company will move 60% of its IT workloads out of the Data Center and into the public Cloud. Industry research indicates a major shift in thinking toward Cloud, but traditional Data Center models and Cloud are not mutually exclusive. The Data Center transformation will continue to evolve, and CIOs are encouraged to think about the Cloud not as an “or” strategy but rather an “and” strategy when compared to traditional Data Center hosting. So, what are some specific examples of how organizations are leveraging Cloud as part of their IT strategy today? What drives an organization to choose Cloud over building and maintaining the solution themselves? CIOs should first understand what applications are a good fit for the Cloud and what applications are not.

Applications that are a good fit for the Cloud typically have flexibility built into the application such that

there are no custom hard-coding of systems or security features. The application and the data can run in separate workspaces so that the application can take advantage of dynamic resource utilization. Spinning up additional resources, like the addition of web servers for a web app, should be part of a modular design. These features allow the IT organization

to run the application in the Cloud as opposed to deploying and maintaining the infrastructure in their own Data Center. It is also important, however, to recognize that reliance on the Internet goes up when moving an application to the public Cloud; so if the Internet goes down for your end-users then productivity stops.Applications that are not a good fit for the Cloud or are best suited for deployment in the organization’s Data Center typically have special requirements that preclude them from moving to the public

CIOs are encouraged to think about the Cloud not as an “or” strategy but rather an “and” strategy when compared to traditional Data Center hosting.

Cloud. These requirements could be regulatory in nature, infrastructure-dependent, or have latency issues. Compliance concerns are commonly found in healthcare and financial services which might limit where data resides and how it is accessed. While special security concerns were common in the early years of public Cloud, many Cloud

In simplest terms, Cloud is the delivery of on-demand applications and computing resources.

providers are providing security solutions that are on par or surpass some private Data Centers. Improved security technologies within the Cloud will accelerate adoption and further the transformation of the Data Center as the topic becomes less of a concern for CIOs.

One of the most popular examples of Cloud transformation is Software as a Service (SaaS). IT organizations have been able to leverage a number of end-user productivity applications

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through a SaaS model instead of building and maintaining the solution themselves. A solution like Microsoft’s Office365 provides applications (Word, Excel, etc.) over the Internet, but still leverages authentication and security features configured by the IT organization. In this case, the organization adds and removes users on a monthly basis and pays for the Office365 entitlement as it is being used. The infrastructure that manages, patches, and runs these applications is delivered by the Cloud provider (Microsoft), which allows the IT organization to focus costs and effort on other initiatives.

Services delivered by the public Cloud can also take on other forms beyond just delivering an application to an end-user. Due to its remote and consumption-based nature, Cloud is transforming how CIOs view backup and replication solutions. Instead of deploying a secondary Data Center for offsite recovery, the IT organization is able to maintain production applications and data within their own primary Data Center while taking advantage of the remote Cloud for offsite backup, replication, and failover purposes. As a result, the IT organization does not have to maintain a secondary facility just for backup and recovery and can take advantage of the consumption-based cost model by paying for only what it uses.

In another common example, IT organizations may choose to deploy web or database services via the public Cloud by consuming the platform on a monthly basis and applying their configuration to that platform – also known as Platform as a Service (PaaS). The

applications and the end-users that use them do not know that the platform is hosted in the Cloud, but the solution provides scalability and the opportunity to operationalize some of the costs for the IT organization. This is a departure from traditional Data Center hosting models where the platform would have to be deployed and maintained by the IT organization – not just the application itself.And finally, it is quite common for IT organizations to leverage the Cloud for a variety of server workloads. These workloads might be dynamic in nature or might be part of a Test/Development environment, but in each case, computing resources (servers) are needed. Instead of deploying the servers as dedicated machines in the Data Center, the Cloud provides new options for companies to “self-serve” virtual servers that are elastic and scalable. This type of computing resource utilization is known as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and is the fastest growing segment of Cloud, according to Gartner. IaaS has completely changed how IT organizations

think about deploying new servers in the Data Center. As a result, the IaaS market is expected to grow by $6 billion in 2016 to a total of $22.43 billion with continued adoption into future years.

Whether it is delivering applications to end-users or deploying a dynamic web application, the Cloud provides IT organizations with the scalability, ease of management, and the operational cost model to deliver quality services to customers through an entirely different model than what was seen in traditional Data Center deployments. Cloud has reached a level of maturity that is now transforming the Data Centers of IT organizations, from large enterprises to small businesses, and is allowing companies to focus on their core business and consume IT as opposed to being in the IT delivery business.

Cloud can be consumed by users as services as opposed to dedicating infrastructure to each individual application.

About the Author:Patrick Lohmeyer, Associate Vice President, Offering Development at PCM

The applications and the end users that use them do not know that the platform is hosted in the Cloud.

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Contact your PCM Account Executive today at 1-800-700-1000 for more information.

We offer a wide range of solutions and services with personalized end-to-end support. Our experienced team of engineers leverages the right industry-leading technology to help accomplish your IT goals.

THE RIGHT

DELIVEREDSOLUTIONS & SERVICES

PCM SOLUTIONS

PCM SERVICES

Cloud solutions let you store and compute in our state-of-the-art virtual Cloud or an on-premise Cloud to boost efficiency.

We provide essential hosting infrastructure to support the ongoing development, testing and deployment of your business-critical applications.

Experience networking components including routers, switches, firewall, VPSNs and the support to keep all your devices securely connected.

Mobile devices are designed for ease and portability. Trust PCM with all of the top-tier devices, applications, and support you need.

We help you navigate the complexities of dealing with multiple software products and license agreements.

We take the hassles out of IT procurement and logistics with advanced

e-procurement, warehousing and integration of systems.

Contact your Account Executive at 1-800-700-1000 to learn more.

Our national team of certified engineers and technicians are experts in their field

with certifications and will consult with you on today’s best-in-class technologies.

Our technical specialists will manage, monitor and support your entire IT

environment, providing a single point of contact for your technology needs.

Our Security Solutions give you next-gen security hardware along with Antivirus and security software for your critical data.

On-Premise &Cloud Solutions

Data CenterSolutions

NetworkingSolutions

Endpoint & MobilitySolutions

SoftwareSolutions

Procurement & Logistics Services

Consultation & Implementation Services

Managed Services & Hosting Services

SecuritySolutions

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Managed Service Providers (MSP)

DATA CENTER

In the 21st century business world, IT infrastructure is increasingly becoming like electricity. Every company needs it, and almost

no one should have to generate it and manage it by themselves. In the case of electricity, the entity providing essential services for business is called the electric company. In the case of IT, it’s called the managed service provider (MSP).

PCM is a leading managed service provider, recognized by MSPmentor.net as one of the Top 100 managed service providers in the country. And from basic client workloads to fully outsourced IT, PCM offers its customers great flexibility in discovering and customizing the managed service package that works best for their business. For some PCM clients, PCM’s MSP solutions have enabled the client to reduce their software subscriptions. And in one case, detailed below, PCM’s MSP solution enabled new investments in security that increased protection for both the client and its customers.

A look into the breadth and depth of Data Center solutions the marketplace has to offer

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PCM takes a “Lego block” like approach to building solutions inside the Data Center.

PCM as an MSP: A case study in smart deployment of fractional resources.

PCM takes a “Lego block” like approach to building solutions inside the Data Center. In fact, customers don’t think of our Data Centers as outside-provided or colocation environments. They see them as an expansion of a company’s premises and of their third-party Cloud solutions.

At the lowest MSP tier, we reach densities of 100% in our rack space, giving impressive price/

performance value. At the highest MSP tier, we handle the entire hardware and software stack, including operation and support of applications, as well as disaster recovery. There are of course many more MSP solution levels in the middle, between lowest and highest tier.

At all tiers, PCM as a MSP represents a case study in smart deployment of fractional resources. For example, to run one’s Cisco networking hardware and software, ideally, a company would want a certified and experienced Cisco expert. Any element of your IT that demands attention ideally demands someone who’s handled a situation like yours fifty or one hundred times before. But not every company or customer will have the budget or resources to

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keep on staff a certified and experienced expert in whatever the IT issue may be. If it were available, the company would employ instead a fraction of a Cisco expert to have on hand whenever the networking infrastructure demanded it.

Then add to the fraction of an experienced Cisco expert the same company’s need for a fraction of a SQL expert, a fraction of a mobility expert, a fraction of a wireless expert, a fraction of a Microsoft Exchange expert, etc.

Although no company could ever employ such fractional expertise, PCM provides its own fractional resources through its Managed Services offerings. These offerings are comprised of instrumentation, process and certified resources – delivered to a service-level agreement (SLA).

PCM is one of the largest solution providers in the market, and we sell over $2 billion in product every year. PCM subject matter specialists, in other words, are already certified and experienced in

PCM is one of the most accredited North America solution providers.

large numbers of top five solutions in any category — whether hardware, software, application, industry-specific solutions, Cloud, etc.

Since PCM Data Centers, services and configuration centers also carry major OEM certifications, specializations and accreditations along with annual audits for SSAE16, SOC1/SOC2, PCI, HIPPA, ISO9001 and more inflight, PCM is one of the most accredited North American solution providers.

As a result, the breadth and depth of certified expertise that PCM offers its MSP customers is like few companies today. Moreover, PCM doesn’t just manage other people’s Data Centers and other people’s issues. PCM also has its own large Cloud Data Centers with workloads that run Linux, Windows, Unix and IBM Power (midrange systems).

Our Advanced Technologies Group designs and deploys solutions for our customers.

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So, customers running whatever software stack they may need in whatever operating system can likely also offload some of their workload to PCM’s Cloud. That said, PCM doesn’t isolate its sphere of influence to its Cloud Data Centers either. We often use engineering principles and solutions on behalf of our customers in their premise Data Centers. And, we extend our managed technologies approach and IT service management into competitive Data Centers and Clouds so our customers can “see” everything in a seamless interface.

One PCM customer, an international consulting firm, leverages fully functional SAP environments to showcase the functionality of SAP to potential customers. This complex platform requires high levels of availability and performance and must adhere to strict infrastructure standards from SAP.

PCM has been able to provide both flexibility and speed in support of these proof-of-concept scenarios leveraging our robust Data Center infrastructure and Cloud environments. PCM’s solutions have dramatically reduced provisioning times, taking them from months to hours.Additionally, PCM is able to offer a complete managed and hosted solution as workloads migrate from POC to full production.

PCM’s offering includes SAP Certified infrastructure, redundant Data Center facilities, and complete disaster recovery solutions all backed by our expert team of engineers and ITIL based processes. Of course, different customers have different requirements.

PCM is skilled at finding the IT infrastructure elements in a company that can be productively outsourced — and by contrast what could more productively be handled in-house or with a mix of PCM and in-house talent and resources.

For another PCM customer, an American bank, Our MSP halved its number of SQL instances within just 9 months.

We typically use our professional services arm (called the Advanced Technologies Group) to design and deploy solutions for our customer. That includes leading Cloud providers (mostly tier one) as well as PCM’s Cloud offerings.

Then, once a solution is in place, our managed services team (called the Managed Technologies Group) onboards a customer into the continuous support environment. We have three tiers of support: Essential, Advanced and Premier. Each builds on the prior, up the IT infrastructure library (ITIL) framework stack. At the highest level, we take

responsibility for every aspect of support including capacity management. This provides the flexibility for our customers to dial in both support level and price that fits their budget, team make-up and business priorities.Another PCM customer, an American

bank, came to PCM with a managed services contract that involved more thanjust a standard managed services offering.

The bank benefitted from PCM’s comprehensive realms of IT expertise — especially, in their case, its certified VMWare and SQL Server experts. Because of PCM’s deep bench, we were able to go in to that bank and retool their virtualization environment as well as their SQL instances. In the process, we streamlined their SQL environment, which reduced the bank’s SQL Server licensing fees, which also meant fewer servers the bank needed to manage.

Our Managed Technologies Group onboards a customer into the continuous support environment.

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PCM’s optimization and consolidation also led to an IT environment for the bank that was simpler, easier to manage and that reduced overall IT management cost. And because we integrated our own IT service management platform (ServiceNow) with the bank’s service management software, we also brought about seamless communication between PCM and the bank in continuing and extending its managed services.

As the IT marketplace rapidly evolves, PCM’s MSP offerings will continue to evolve to meet the marketplace’s changing demands.

Over the past decade, there has been no greater shift in the industry than towards the “as-a-Service” model. PCM has Cloud offerings that unitize at

PCM tracks the leading trends and best practices in the field and updates its clients’ MSP offerings accordingly.

the SaaS level at, while supporting large-scale deployments based on capital projects at the same time — and sometimes as part of the same project.

For instance, consider a large-scale WiFi deployment. It is not unusual for the equipment and labor to be handled as a bill of materials/statement of work (BOM/SOW) transaction – while we are also enabling analytics and business reporting that may be in place for as little as a single event.

Over the years ahead, as companies continue to meet the increasing demand on their IT infrastructure from consumers and clients alike, PCM is keeping pace.

Our MSP solutions participate in the software defined and continuous code deployment environment in our own Cloud as a Service offering, as well as helping customers with these deployments in their own hybrid models. In the coming quarters, PCM will be further

Since 2007, PCM has been ahead of the pack with the best solutions and around-the-clock support.

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refining these offerings as they expand lifecycle management above the infrastructure layers, up into the highest levels of

application management. Moreover, IT infrastructure today also continues to integrate storage and virtualization computing (i.e. “hyper-convergence”). Hyper-convergence is not just for leading Cloud and service providers or large enterprises either. Hyper-converged infrastructure aided by orchestration software that is easy to use will revolutionize how some of the smallest businesses approach their infrastructure.

Some will even pull Cloud workloads back into colocation and premise models to gain the highest level of control. They will direct this newfound agility to impact their businesses like never before and at low and flexible cost per CPU/memory and storage element.

In all these instances of rapid industry development — Cloud, hyper-converged infrastructure, “as-a-Service” offerings, etc. — PCM tracks the leading trends and best practices in the field and updates its clients’ MSP offerings accordingly.

This is no small part of the reason companies outsource their IT infrastructure in the first place. They’re maxed out just keeping up with the trends and best practices in their own fields. They need to know their IT

infrastructure is being managed and upgraded with the same attention to detail.

Although the technological cutting edge has changed many times since then, the overall trend is no different today than it was when PCM first began offering service provider solutions in 2007: Get out ahead of the pack, keep ahead of the pack.

Today, we have the richest breadth and depth of infrastructure solutions in the marketplace, evidenced by the strongest ratio of solutions to product revenue. Our customers source solutions and have them implemented in common standards or customized delivery formats. They also consume technology as a service in an array of Cloud, premise and hybrid mediums – all supported around-the-clock.

All in all, customers today want IT infrastructure that’s running continuously with the absolute minimum of down-time. And the

“Always on, never fail” is ultimately the standard we hold ourselves to.

better we do that job, the less our MSP solution draws attention to itself. “Always on, never fail” is ultimately the standard we hold ourselves to. Just like the electric company.

About the Author:Stephen Moss is the President

of Services at PCM. He leads

some of the most talented IT

professionals in the country

in designing, implementing,

managing and supporting

technological solutions

for business.

Our customers know their IT infrastructure is being managed and upgraded with the utmost attention to detail.

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Converge and Conquer!Hyperconvergence is an emerging IT model for providing simpler, faster virtualization solutions while addressing multiple customer pain points.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Hyperconverged Systems:Your VM Vending Machine

Deploy VMs at Cloud Speed

Simplify IT Operations

Reduce Costs

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HPE ProLiant Servers offer a five-click deployment, continuous data availability, and two-node entry and linear scaling — ideal for any size business.

Contact your PCM Account Executive today at 1-800-700-1000 for more information

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Age of Hybrid CloudON-PREMISE & CLOUD

The origin of the term “Cloud” in IT can be traced back as far as the 1970’s. The term was used primarily to describe groups

of systems that provide some type of shared compute or network resource to a group of users, departments, or companies. The modern Cloud as we define it today includes attributes of on demand access to resources and has been around for about 10 years. For example, Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud was introduced in 2006 and Microsoft’s Azure was released in 2010. Clouds can be internal, private or public -- they can have many attributes that align with security

The Hybrid Cloud is really both an architecture and a strategy that leverages multiple Cloud environments.

or specific certifications that align with application workloads. Clouds can provide resources that take on the profile of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Software as a Service (SaaS). Financial models can be based on CapEx for internal Clouds as opposed to fixed price or consumption based OpEx for private and public Clouds. The choices are endless and the landscape is ever-changing.

PCM’s wholly-owned, purpose-built Data Center gives us enormous flexibility to build, host, and manage private Clouds for industries of all types.

Multiple environments hosted by multiple vendors could put your business’ IT infrastructure at risk for a potential Cloud outage or a Cloud security breach.

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The modern Cloud has paved the way to the age of the Hybrid Cloud. The Hybrid Cloud is really both an architecture and a strategy that leverages multiple Cloud environments and includes some layer of orchestration and data movement between the various environments.

One example of this might be a web application that leverages public Cloud object-based storage to store images and files with backend processing systems running inside of an internal Cloud within the corporate Data Center. Another example would be a Disaster Recovery solution, implemented on a private Cloud IaaS solution that replicates data to a public Cloud platform to be used in the event of a disaster.

The adoption of the Cloud and almost inevitably the Hybrid Cloud in the enterprise is moving at an unprecedented pace. According to Gartner, by 2020, a corporate “no-Cloud” policy will be as rare as a “no-Internet” policy is today. Although Cloud solutions offer organizations immense flexibility and scale, Hybrid Cloud architectures create management nightmares for IT leaders. Additionally, the “on demand” nature of the Cloud enables anyone with a credit card to turn up services without the need to engage IT in the normal process. End-users are simply not willing to wait. This does lead to major issues with control, visibility, and typically does not align with IT and corporate governance.

An example of this would be a project team that has a need to share files with a third party. The method to share files internally could be a Microsoft SharePoint

solution for instance. This system is maintained by IT and adheres to corporate policies for backup, recovery, and data retention. Although there may be a perfectly viable solution to extend that capability to a third party, the user simply swipes a credit card, turns on a file sharing service, and now pushes corporate data to another

It is now common to have multiple Cloud environments with multiple vendors which allows us to diversify our Cloud risk.

Cloud. Now IT has no visibility, no control, and additional costs may have been incurred that are simply not necessary. These examples highlight the need to have a strategy for incorporating Hybrid Cloud architectures into our IT landscapes.

It is now common to have multiple Cloud environments with multiple vendors which allow us to diversify our Cloud risk. The

Our vendor agnostic approach helps us find the best solution to fit your needs.

goal is to minimize and isolate the risks associated with any given Cloud infrastructure. Clouds of any kind ultimately rely on public and private networks, server and storage infrastructure and complex integrations of operating systems and applications. We see stories in the news almost daily of major Cloud outages

or even worse, Cloud security breaches. Diversification of Cloud risk should be a cornerstone of any well- thought-out Cloud strategy.

PCM’s approach is to lead with the assumption that IT organizations either have or will adopt a Hybrid Cloud strategy. Our vendor agnostic approach allows us to consult with our customers to determine the best

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solution which typically spans multiple vendors. Additionally, we have built our own Cloud and Managed Services offerings with Hybrid Cloud as the foundation. PCM has a unique position in the industry with the ability to consult on, sell, implement, host, and manage Cloud solutions of all types.

PCM’s wholly-owned purpose-built Data Centers give us enormous flexibility to build, host, and manage private Clouds for industries of all types.

A key component to PCM’s Hybrid Cloud strategy and related offerings is the PCM Hybrid Cloud Manager.

PCM’s Hybrid Cloud Manager is anindustry-first solution that offers a true single pane of glass experience.

PCM’s Hybrid Cloud Manager is an industry-first orchestration and operations solution that offers a true single pane of glass experience for managing your Hybrid Cloud. There are many tools on the market that seek to monitor, track, and provision Cloud assets, but most of these tools are simply data collectors that present consolidated views of these environments or workflow engines that orchestrate to public Clouds through a set of APIs. PCM’s Hybrid Cloud Manager includes orchestration with the addition of ITIL based IT Service Management within a single platform.

By combining these two typically separate functions into a single platform, PCM is able to offer Managed Cloud services in a unique way that pulls all managed systems into a single Configuration Management Database (CMDB). Additionally, through automated discovery, we are able to map Cloud assets and create business service views that offer our customers greater visibility and control.

PCM is ready to help! Our experts can:• Work with you to execute your existing

Hybrid Cloud strategy.• Consult with your teams to create a Hybrid

Cloud strategy.• Sell, implement, and manage solutions that

align with your Hybrid Cloud strategy.

Additionally, PCM has a complete set of mature solutions that leverage our platforms and Data Centers that can provide an enormous jump start for your organization on your journey to Hybrid Cloud.

PCM sells, implements, and manages Cloud solutions of all types.

About the Author:Steven Walters is the Associate Vice President

of Solution Architecture at PCM. Steven and

his team of experts specialize in enhancing

Data Center environments for customers and

implementing Data Center solutions to large-

scale and enterprise level businesses.

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29

HP Mobile Thin Client mt42Take your workload by the horns with the HP mt42 Mobile Thin Client, the world’s thinnest, lightest, and most powerful quad-core mobile thin client.

Work smart and make a great impression with a remarkably lightweight and stylish ID that includes a 14-inch diagonal Full HD display and a 150-degree extra-wide hinge range for increased viewing options.

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Work smart and make a great impression with a remarkably lightweight and stylish ID that includes a 14-inch diagonal Full HD display and a 150-degree extra-wide hinge range for increased viewing options.

Enjoy premium virtualization with top ISV partners, including Citrix®, VMware®, and Microsoft, plus features like an integrated browser for cloud connections, full enterprise receiver support, single sign-on support, and multimedia redirection.

Sophisticated portability

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Integrated software sweetens the deal

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Key Features

Contact your PCM Account Executive today at 1-800-700-1000 for more information or to request a quote.

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While this edition of PCM’s tech journal focuses on the Data Center and the modern trends impacting how we provide critical

applications to our businesses, we are seeing these changes drive evolution in the strategy elsewhere in IT. For several years, application platforms have been consolidating via virtualization, or have moved to private, hybrid and public multi-tenant cloud platforms.

The move of application centric processes and data from the end user to the Data Center is driving change through networking, wireless, client computing and the support mechanisms surrounding all of these platforms. This transformation has yielded a mobile-first end user computing environment where we are seeing wearable, mobile, and fixed devices become seamless as they share operating systems, apps, and user experiences cross platform.

Organizations that are on top of this trend can prepare now while ones that aren’t will be playing a costly game of, “catch-up.” As of December 2015, according to Gartner IT Key Metrics data, 15% of the computing

DATA CENTER

devices in the workplace are tablets and thin clients. While that number may not seem large at first glance, just four years earlier the same metric was only 2%. In just three more years, more than 50% of enterprises anticipate providing corporate-liable tablets for running mobile applications. And by 2020, more than 63% of enterprises expect their desktops to be replaced by mobile devices. Beyond this, current and planned offerings from Microsoft, Google and Apple all share similar characteristics in providing a seamless user experience across multiple, and ever-more portable, platforms that are more compact while increasing in complexity. Managing this complexity is the role of the new breed of Resident Engineers. Ten years ago, Resident Engineering was one portion of the broader field called

Anticipate or Backfill?

PCM offers an alternative to companies directly providing IT resources to their employees and customers.

Businesses demand better Resident Engineering to keep up with new IT trends.

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IT outsourcing. Today, Resident Engineering (contrasted with managed service provider (MSP) offerings, discussed elsewhere in this issue of PCM Tech Journal) is the workspace of trained professionals who manage the mission critical technologies that link end users to the Data Center.Just as the technologies both in

Providers such as PCM are trained and skilled in Data Center technologies.

About the Author:Brian York is the SVP of the End Point Technologies Group at PCM, providing strategic direction for PCM’s client computing, mobile technology, print productivity and software sectors. Brian and his team provide IT solutions to businesses of all sizes.

Whether it’s called Resident Engineering or IT outsourcing, it’s simply the smart choice in today’s rapidly changing IT world.

the Data Center and beyond it are changing, so is the nature of these engineering roles. The pressure on these resources to be trained in multi-platform support, while being skilled in wireless and related networking disciplines, is increasing.

These resources need to be conversant in multiple applications across a variety of device types. As a result, these trends are redefining the role of the Resident Engineer from a desk-side support tech to an end user computing consultant that is not only able to provide support but advice to end users on how they can get the most out of these devices. With the current Windows 10, OS X, and Chrome/Android products in the marketplace, the manufacturers have opted to focus research and development into creating mobile and flexible devices that fit to the users’ chosen experience. This is done with an increasing emphasis on the concept of mobile-first, wireless connected and highly personable devices, designed to go with us anywhere. While these qualities greatly enhance the end user experience, they do so at the expense of being field serviceable

where mishaps are a given. When the unforeseen occurs and there is physical damage to a device, in nearly every case a Resident Engineer has only a few options before needing to send the device to be serviced off-site. Therefore, the traditional support models for our end user clients must evolve. Ideally, IT support should evolve to being multi-modal: call/chat/self-service support complemented by walk-up service (akin to the Apple “Genius Bar”) combined with service depots (because field repair is not possible). This multi-modal support is more complex than previous desk-side support and is now more important than ever in order to support the wide range of devices that populate the current IT landscape. Organizations of today have such a broad range of technologies that command their time and investment that keeping pace with the rapidly changing world of endpoint technologies proves nearly impossible. As a result many of these devices and platforms become underutilized leaving users either frustrated with the available support or the complexity of their use. By partnering with

experienced Resident Engineering providers like PCM, organizations can concentrate on their core business. Providers such as PCM are trained and skilled in these technologies and have superior access to manufacturer experts to support them and their clients with the added benefit of seeing and learning across many clients instead of a single company environment. Whether it’s called Resident Engineering or IT outsourcing, it’s simply the smart choice in today’s rapidly changing IT world.

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Scale smarter. Manage easier. Innovate faster.Dell PowerEdge servers can be configuratedup to 99 percent faster2 and boost IOPS by up to 10 times.1

The next generation of

Meet the next generation of PowerEdge servers from Dell. There’s never been a better time than now to invest in data and IT. Learn how you can accelerate application and workload performance, simply manage, and incrementally fine-tune your data center into computer, store and network efficiency — all without overprovisioning.

Reduce server configuration time by up to 99 percent with new zero-touch automation1

Accelerate time to production with express local deployment

using iDRAC Direct

Manage, monitor, update and deploy with a smartphone or

tablet, at the server

Based on Principled Technologies Report, “Simplifying systems management with Dell OpenManage on Dell 13G servers.” September 2014 commissioned by Dell, testing Dell’s 13th generation R730 PowerEdge servers with Enterprise level Dell systems management as compared to manual configuration.

Unmatched system management capabilities

Innovate Faster ›

Visit www.pcm.com/dell for more information

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PowerEdge servers delivers

Take advantage of up to 50 percent larger Exchange mailboxes with

Dell PowerEdge R730xd2

Based on product specifications for Intel S3700 SATA SSD and Express Flash results from the Storage Networking Industry Association 2012

Based on September 2014 Dell Testing comparing a 13G R730xd 16x3.5” to a 12G R720xd 12x3.5” server both running Windows Server

Optimize Hadoop performance with a 100TB archive node

in a compact 2U

Experience up to 10 times greater IOPs

performance3

Optimize storage for a wide variety of applications and workloads

Contact your PCM Account Executive today at 1-800-700-1000

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Vol. PC265

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