Datalink (Nasdaq: DTLK), a leading provider of data center infrastructure and services, today announced a major expansion of its managed services portfolio with the addition of unified monitoring and managed infrastructure services for virtual data centers (VDCs). The new services enable organizations that utilize Datalink to design and deploy next-generation VDC architectures to also outsource 24x7 monitoring, reporting, operating, and troubleshooting of all components to Datalink’s dedicated managed services staff. As a result, data center operations are optimized and customers’ IT teams are freed up to focus on strategic initiatives.

Datalink’s expanded services catalog also includes managed archiving, cloud backup, and server offerings. These broad new capabilities are a result of the October 2012 acquisition of Cary, North Carolina-based Strategic Technologies, Inc., (StraTech), as well as Datalink’s continued strategic focus on delivering data center services that help customers maximize the performance and availability of their business-critical computing resources.

The new managed services span performance monitoring, problem identification, analysis, and diagnosis, as well as advanced features designed specifically for converged environments such as NetApp’s FlexPod and EMC’s VSPEX reference architectures.

Those features include:

• Synthetic transaction capabilities that simulate vMotion migration of virtual machines, end user connectivity to the VDC infrastructure, and other system functions to proactively detect problems before they interfere with business operations.
• Multiple daily VM migration tests to ensure that virtual machines can be migrated live to optimize performance or adjust for host failure without service interruption.
• vCheck daily healthcheck reports to proactively identify issues before they impact services.
• Unified dashboards for the VDC architecture, VMware guests and storage that expedite problem resolution to improve time to repair.

VDC customers will use Datalink’s OneCall Unified Support Service for single-source problem resolution without the need to call the network, server, and storage vendors that comprise the VDC environment individually. The combination of Datalink’s VDC managed services and OneCall^sm Support Services can significantly decrease downtime in the event of a problem.

“With the managed monitoring and backup services added earlier this year, as well as these new offerings, in the last eight months we have doubled the managed services we offer to keep customers’ data center operations running smoothly,” said Mike Parsons, vice president of support services, at Datalink. “We now have a robust suite of managed services that lessens the burden on an organization’s IT staff, addresses a wide range of needs, and provides a depth and breadth of expertise not available in most in-house IT teams.”

“Given our emphasis on architecting and implementing converged data center infrastructures to help customers drive business agility and efficiency, adding managed VDC services has been a priority on our services roadmap,” said Datalink President and CEO Paul Lidsky. “We can now provide end-to-end VDC solutions ranging from design and deployment to monitoring and managing the entire environment, dramatically simplifying our customers’ VDC initiatives.”

Datalink's managed services leverage the expertise of the company’s 160+ technical experts, dedicated managed services staff, more than 25 years of experience with industry-leading data center technologies, and over 1,000 best-practice certifications from leading technology vendors.

About Datalink
A complete data center solutions and services provider for Fortune 500 and mid-tier enterprises, Datalink transforms data centers so they become more efficient, manageable and responsive to changing business needs. Datalink helps leverage and protect storage, server, and network investments with a focus on long-term value, offering a full lifecycle of services, from consulting and design to implementation, management and support. Datalink solutions span virtualization and consolidation, data storage and protection, advanced networks, and business continuity. Each delivers measurable performance gains and maximizes the business value of IT. For more information, call 800.448.6314 or visit www.datalink.com or www.datalink.com/cloud.

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