Converged Technology Group Identifies Six-Point Pre-Flight Checklist for Virtualization

ISLANDIA, N.Y., June 3, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- In an age when doing more with less is the mantra in most corporate environments, virtualization is giving CIOs and other IT professionals a reason to take a step back and reassess their IT infrastructure.  With a virtualized environment, resources once considered single-purpose, dedicated pools of computing power can be redistributed to allow for a more efficient and cost-effective IT infrastructure as a whole.  To help customers visualize the impact of virtualization on their IT environment, Converged Technology Group (www.convergedtechgroup.com), an award-winning Managed Services Partner (MSP) serving clients throughout the Northeast, has identified a "pre-flight checklist" of six business-critical areas where a virtualized data center strategy can extend a company's IT functionality and reduce its technology costs.

In addition, on June 12^th, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., the company will host a morning of exploration at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, NY, where Converged Technology Group executives together with partners from Cisco, Citrix, Tegile Systems and Veeam will examine the importance of data center and desktop virtualization and the kinds of best practices needed to fully realize the benefits of a virtualized technology strategy.  Registration is required for this exclusive IT event.  For more information please call 631-468-5728.

"We're holding our event at the Cradle of Aviation to make a point:  Before a pilot readies his plane for takeoff, he consults a pre-flight checklist, examining and re-examining each system to be sure it is in peak condition before taking the next step.  We believe CIOs and other IT professionals can benefit from a similar strategy, putting together a pre-flight checklist for their company's IT infrastructure to be sure they're headed in the right direction, then re-examining it at regular intervals. This ensures their IT engine has access to the greatest amount of computing power available, allowing their organization to capitalize on the best their technology has to offer at the least possible cost," says Leo Galletta, President and CEO, Converged Technology Group.  "In short, IT departments that want to reach new heights in emerging technology areas like unified computing, advanced storage capabilities, and virtual desktop infrastructures must first start with the basics, and that means a virtualized data center environment."

Six Point Pre-Flight Checklist for Virtualization
Here are the top areas Converged Technology Group experts recommend IT professionals consider in order to ready their IT infrastructure for the power of virtualization:

1. Tower to Plane Communications – Converged infrastructure solutions combine server, network, storage and virtualized data center resources to lower total cost of ownership, streamline data center management and provisioning, and enable rapid scalability, thereby creating a computing platform designed for the data center of today – and tomorrow.
2. Baggage Handling Systems – Keeping up with explosive data growth is only the first requirement a storage solution needs to meet. By leveraging a high-performance, hybrid, unified storage infrastructure that is also reliable, available and scalable, organizations can see tangible results in application performance, data protection and IT staff productivity.
3. Air Traffic Control – The propagation of purpose-built networks within the data center has created a series of silos, from LANs and SANs to different protocols like Ethernet and Fibre Channel.  While once useful for their initial purpose, these networks' utilization, scalability and resiliency can hold back IT performance and add to the management burden of IT staff.  When data center networking relies on virtualized equipment, however, it can take advantage of new architectures for improved simplicity, scalability and flexibility while intelligently routing data and meeting workload demands.
4. Tuning the Engine – The leading reason for server virtualization is to take advantage of the cost savings made possible by cutting the number of physical servers required. By removing machines in the data center to save space, organizations can realize energy savings from not having to power and cool multiple racks of hardware. An expertly designed server virtualization strategy can better keep pace with a business' growth without incurring the high costs of traditional expansion. 
5. Managing the Instrument Panel - While virtualization in core data center areas such as servers, storage and networking has become more common, organizations often overlook the operational cost savings and management efficiencies available via virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI).  Today's VDI solutions offer unprecedented control of the desktop and laptop environment, and help to secure compute, network and data resources. New personalized virtual desktops can be deployed in seconds rather than weeks with consolidated and integrated management of virtual and physical infrastructures.
6. Stocking Emergency Parachutes – Data is the lifeblood of many organizations, and the loss of data or access to that data can be traumatic to the bottom line. Comprehensive data protection and availability solutions that cost-effectively back up, replicate and archive data, then restart services when outages occur can help IT pros meet their business continuity goals with minimal investment and maximum performance.

More Information:

• Explore the ways smart technology professionals are leveraging unified computing, storage and virtualization to solve complex IT challenges: http://ow.ly/tzf3X.
• Server virtualization can mean a significant return on investment from lower hardware, operating and energy costs; learn more here: http://ow.ly/tzfwd.
• What exactly is desktop virtualization and why are companies getting excited about it? Find out here: http://ow.ly/tzfCs.

About Converged Technology Group
Converged Technology Group is an award-winning advanced Managed Services Partner (MSP) focused on increasing IT performance and lowering the cost of technology support for growing businesses in healthcare, financial services, education, retail, legal and other cutting-edge industries. The company helps clients manage, maintain and optimize their IT infrastructure, computing and communication systems for the greatest return on their IT investments. Converged Technology Group provides business-critical uptime, all the time. Located in Islandia, NY, and New York City, Converged Technology Group provides network infrastructure, cloud solutions, unified communications, virtualized data center solutions and services, and advanced managed services to multinational enterprises. For more information on Converged Technology Group, please contact us at 631-468-5728 or [email protected], and visit our website at www.convergedtechgroup.com.

Media Contacts:

Anthony Malley
Director Business Development & Marketing
Converged Technology Group
631-468-5728
[email protected]

Lisa Hazen
Account Manager
Communication Strategy Group
631-239-6335
[email protected] 

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SOURCE Converged Technology Group