VIRTUAL DESKTOP STRATEGIES
OpsRamp | September 15, 2022
OpsRamp, the digital operations management company, has partnered with Virtual Service Operations (VSO), a leader in hybrid and multi-cloud managed services, to power VSO’s virtual Service Quality Operations Division (vSQOD) Managed Services offering. VSO is using OpsRamp’s digital operations management platform for monitoring and alerting of hybrid and multi-cloud workloads and patching-as-a-service across its customer accounts.
VSO manages a variety of technologies, both on-customer-premises and in public cloud environments, all unified in the OpsRamp platform. The OpsRamp multi-tier, multi-tenant SaaS-based platform allows VSO to monitor and manage Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, VMware, Kubernetes, and much more from a single pane of glass.
“The benefit of OpsRamp is that it goes across all of those different cloud environments and our on-premises footprint as well, We are able to monitor globally, by region, and by customer.”
Laura Richardson, Chief Technology Officer of VSO
VSO supports multiple environments 24/7 through its vSQOD service, using OpsRamp for alert handling, event correlation and escalation, integrated with Jira Service Management. Improved uptime, greater resiliency and security, and lower operational costs are all benefits customers have enjoyed from working with VSO, powered by OpsRamp.
“It all starts in OpsRamp,” said Richardson. “We use OpsRamp as a clearinghouse for alerts, then after event correlation it feeds Jira with actionable tickets. We can quiet the noise so the tickets that hit Jira get immediate focus.”
More than 60% of the vSQOD are veterans of the US Armed Forces. VSO founders Steve O’Keefe and John Birch launched the company at the start of 2018 with a veteran-centric mission propelled by their past experience working with highly-trained and adaptable service members. While some of vSQOD’s hires come to the firm with subject matter expertise in IT that they gained in the military, VSO offers transitioning service members with an interest in tech the opportunity to train with Skillbridge before separation from the armed forces. They can then advance their technical training through internal skill-mapping or partnership courses once in the field.
“We hire veterans, train them in teams and deploy them in teams,” said Richardson. “More than 200,000 people exit the military each year, after having spent years in one or more of the US military’s 4000 schools. It’s a great pool of talent to draw from. Veterans work well in teams, have excellent leadership qualities, and thrive as IT professionals. VSO’s Managed Services are outstanding because of them.”
“OpsRamp is honored to be the IT operations management platform of choice for VSO and support its mission of hiring and training veterans for careers in IT,” said Jim Lampert, vice president of global strategic accounts at OpsRamp. “OpsRamp helps MSPs to grow their business, improve customer outcomes and reduce operational costs.”
VSO is one of several recent customer success stories OpsRamp has announced in the MSP space including:
Liquid IT: Reduced alert noise by 95% resulting in lower mean time to detect and resolve incidents and increased service availability.
Pinnacle Technology Partners: Reduced alert floods so they now only have to respond to critical events, allowing them to reduce mean time to repair, and automate high-volume, time-consuming IT operations tasks.
WinWire: Reduced event noise by 90%, automated 70% of routine IT operations tasks and managed the same number of clients with 50% less staff effort.
About OpsRamp:
OpsRamp is a digital operations management software company whose SaaS platform is used by managed service providers and enterprise IT teams to monitor and manage their cloud and on-premises infrastructure. Key capabilities of the OpsRamp platform include hybrid infrastructure discovery and monitoring, event and incident management, and remediation and automation, all of which are powered by artificial intelligence.
About VSO:
Virtual Service Operations is a U.S.-based Managed Services and Engineering firm for infrastructure, cloud, and hybrid environments. Its military veteran workforce provides reliable, secure, and cost-effective solutions for companies in need of a flexible, affordable approach to hybrid architecture and data management.
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VIRTUAL SERVER INFRASTRUCTURE
Veeam Software | October 11, 2022
Veeam Software, the leader in backup, recovery and data management solutions that deliver Modern Data Protection, today announced that Insight Global, a premier staffing and services company headquartered in Atlanta, GA has replaced its legacy backup solutions with Veeam Availability Suite™ to protect against ransomware attacks.
Whether it’s finding the right candidate for a job or managing a project end to end, Insight Global’s commitment to clients runs deep. The company’s recruiters and account managers cover all employment sectors and skillsets. They identify talent, coordinate interviews and handle onboarding and payroll. “In order to place people in jobs and pay them, our systems and data must be backed up and protected,” said Dave Hudson, Chief Information Officer, Insight Global. “That’s a big responsibility, and we take it very seriously. We’re responsible for people being able to put food on their tables and pay their rent.”
Protecting systems and data is such a high priority that Insight Global created a full-time position focusing solely on backup and disaster recovery. Jordan Tazewell, Disaster Recovery Engineer, works to maintain business continuity as ransomware attacks escalate and cybercriminals show no sign of letting up.
In an independent survey of 3,000 business and IT leaders who were asked about their data protection strategies, 76% of them reported at least one ransomware attack in the previous year. Backup repositories were targeted in 94% of those attacks and 36% of their data was unrecoverable. “Our business can’t run if data is unrecoverable, so we made some changes to our backup strategy,” Tazewell said. “The first thing we did was ensure that the backup solutions we considered offered fundamental features: immutability to protect against ransomware.”
Hudson said a ransomware attack could lead to unplanned downtime, which could be detrimental to the business. “Downtime might delay a client’s start date for a new job, or it might delay their paycheck,” he explained. “We’re not willing to take that risk, so we upgraded the legacy solutions to Veeam. We know our backups are reliable, secure and that we can act quickly to recover them. Veeam has helped increase our confidence to sustain business operations.”
Veeam backs up 100 TB across 100 VMware vSphere virtual machines from Pure Storage SafeMode™ snapshots on premises for immutability and sends backup copies to Wasabi cloud storage for additional immutability. “Having immutable backups is critical in the fight against ransomware — and having the ability to recover from them quickly is also critical,” Tazewell said. “That’s what separates Veeam from competitors.”
Tazewell said one of his favorite Veeam features is SureBackup because it verifies the recoverability of each backup. Other favorites include Storage Level Corruption Guard, which scans backups to identify and repair corrupt data blocks, and Instant VM Recovery and Veeam Explorer™ for Microsoft SQL Server, which recover data from Pure Storage snapshots quickly and easily.
“Recovery time has decreased significantly with Veeam because it integrates so well with Pure Storage,” Hudson said. “Veeam recovery has proven itself twice already: once during a system failure and a second time following user error. Each time we were able to get up and running in a very short time. Veeam is a dynamic enterprise solution for data protection.”
“Our goal is absolute confidence that the business will be able to recover from a ransomware attack or a disaster scenario in as short a time as possible. Veeam helps us achieve our goal because it gives us the ability to be resilient and maintain business continuity.”
About Veeam Software
Veeam® is the leader in backup, recovery and data management solutions that deliver Modern Data Protection. The company provides a single platform for Cloud, Virtual, Physical, SaaS and Kubernetes environments. Veeam customers are confident their apps and data are protected and always available with the most simple, flexible, reliable and powerful platform in the industry. Veeam protects 450,000 customers worldwide, including 82% of the Fortune 500 and 69% of the Global 2,000. Veeam’s global ecosystem includes 35,000+ technology partners, resellers and service providers, and alliance partners and has offices in more than 30 countries.
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VIRTUAL SERVER MANAGEMENT
Stratodesk | October 04, 2022
Stratodesk, the EUC endpoint OS innovator, today introduced its best-in-class Stratodesk Managed Service Provider (MSP) program for MSPs and system integrators. The new program enables partners to offer complete services to provision and manage endpoints for hybrid workplaces.
The program makes it easy for our partners to deliver a more comprehensive cloud service because of their ability to deliver the most innovative endpoint OS. The MSP program, which includes Stratodesk software – Stratodesk NoTouch OS and Stratodesk NoTouch Center – offers optional multi-tenancy services, and a predictable cost model that includes all-in-one licensing. In addition, the program is dynamically scalable when license needs change and deploys in minutes over the internet.
Organizations are actively looking to transition to the cloud but sometimes cost and complexity are major obstacles. Stratodesk MSP partners can now enable organizations to realize significant efficiencies in time to implement and related costs. Our joint customers can have an effective roadmap for their endpoints no matter where they are in their cloud journey, while allowing them to focus on their core business instead of IT.
“Businesses across industries are increasingly looking toward managed service providers for pay-as-you go solutions that are cost-effective, scalable, and easy to consume. This IT consumption model is a major opportunity for partners, and our new program allows them to manage endpoint costs predictably, gives them flexibility to scale their business up and down as required, and drive additional recurring revenue, Based on direct input from partners, we’re giving service providers and integrators access to the Stratodesk NoTouch OS features and tools enabling them to take an enhanced cloud workspace offering to market.”
Steve Thompson, Vice President of Global Channels at Stratodesk
Stratodesk’s new program unlocks new and differentiated offerings and services with an attractive subscription model that opportunities and helps to scale the business of partner providers. The Stratodesk NoTouch OS helps the partner’s customers easily execute their virtual desktop and thin client strategy in the way that best fits their business, knowing they can manage their entire fleet of endpoints from one console with best-in-class support from the MSP and Stratodesk. Among the first MSP partners signed to the new program is Centre Technologies.
Stratodesk MSP partners can scale easily based on growth or seasonality
Stratodesk can deliver centrally managed endpoints in minutes to end-users physically located anywhere in the world through cloud or on-premises deployment models. Stratodesk’s flexible approach to workforce productivity lets IT teams transform new or existing laptops, thin clients, desktop computers and hybrid devices into secure enterprise edge and cloud workspaces. Stratodesk NoTouch allows IT teams to convert a broad range of x86-, x64- and ARM-based hardware quickly into modern machines with the latest software and security capabilities for end-users, while giving IT complete control over the asset.
Additional benefits to partners include:
Cloud-ready Stratodesk software enables regional expansion with no capital investments
Ability to own and manage the customer relationship end-to-end
Accelerated time-to-market
Easily address seasonality demands and the need to expand user base periodically
Reduce MSP management costs with a single easy-to-manage and deploy OS instead of a variety of legacy systems
For more information, visit the Stratodesk Edge channel partner program web page, and inquire to become a partner today. Additional Stratodesk MSP resources include: Simplify Multi-Tenant Endpoint Management for MSPs and MSPs Use Stratodesk Software to Manage Multi-Tenant Deployments.
About Stratodesk
Founded in 2010, Stratodesk is the leading global EUC innovator of endpoint OS software. Stratodesk’s agile and customer-centric, Linux-based managed OS software, Stratodesk NoTouch, is defining end user computing with its freedom to transform any device into a cloud-ready and highly secure endpoint, enabling companies to cost-effectively manage their unified VDI endpoint deployments and secure digital perimeters. Stratodesk’s software works seamlessly across all x64, x86 and ARM/Raspberry Pi based hardware products, increases endpoint security, and simplifies user experience. Today, with nearly one million licenses deployed globally across multiple industries, Stratodesk prides itself on its authenticity and. dedication to delivering the most innovative software solution to its customers.
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