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Protect the Base: Network Support

Network Support by Quest

As cloud and managed services play a larger and larger role in your customers’ IT operations, the state of their network services, which underpin these more visible cloud and managed services, is likely to become an issue — if it hasn’t already.

After all, your customers’ networks must accommodate new business-essential demands like secure application delivery, mobile user access, and end user authentication. These demands on networks often designed for earlier eras with earlier technologies can trigger problems related to network performance, application workloads, security and compliance, monitoring and management, and, as always, cost.

And when that happens, your customers will be calling you seeking a right-now-hurry-up fix.

The data networking expertise you need

To respond, you need real network services expertise at your fingertips. And if you don’t have that expertise in your own shop, you need to find a technology services partner who can reliably provide it (without absconding with your hard-won customers).

Depending on the sorts of network services skills you require from a technology services partner, this can call for some finesse. You need a partner who can do three critically important things at once:

  1. Field a data networking expertise that’s deep, broad — and hands-on. This means a partner who operates cutting-edge network operations centers and datacenters, who offers a broad spectrum of cloud and managed services — including network performance monitoring and management —, and who maintains a successful professional services practice that wins technical certification awards.
  2. Provide the consulting skills and experience necessary to understand your customers’ business goals, assess the gaps between where their network is technologically and where it needs to be to achieve their goals, offer effective solution options they can afford, and
  3. Follow your lead as you deal with your customer and remain in a supporting role.
Beginning with a network and infrastructure assessment

One of the most effective ways a solid technology services partner can help you resolve your customers’ network hassles is with an assessment.

The right kind of network health and infrastructure check is easy to conduct. It’ll do a network inventory, map cloud dependencies, test performance, do traffic simulations, spot bottlenecks.

From there, your technology services partner can work with you to propose solution options that can be customized specifically to each customer’s requirements and budget.

Meet the Author
Adam Burke is Quest's Vice President of Sales and Partnerships.
Contact Quest Today  ˄
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