Avnet Adds Virtualization To Growing Services Portfolio

Virtualization offers tremendous benefits to companies looking to save money and resources around hardware, power and cooling, said Mike Hurst, vice president and general manager for Avnet Technology Solutions' Sun Solutions group.

"As the virtualization market continues to grow, it is critical that our partners can explain the business rationale behind their technology decisions," Hurst said in a statement. "Avnet's services help partners do just that by mapping virtualization solutions to company objectives and creating a formal business case around the investment."

Avnet made the announcement at its first New Frontiers Conference in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The virtualization services fall under Avnet's OneTech initiative, which includes server assessments, seminars, technical and financial support, partner training and enablement, business development, demand generation, continuing education, and solutions partnering and development. The assessments of end-user environments include a technical and architectural review geared toward the end-user's IT team, including utilization trends and a baseline for developing new architectural models. It also includes a financial review with the overall cost and savings of virtualization, including leasing, licensing, power, storage provisioning and hardware cost factors. There's also a "business leader presentation" that provides executives with a detailed explanation of the return on investment.

"Sun servers are ideal platforms for customers looking to virtualize their datacenter," said Lisa Sieker, vice president of marketing, Systems Group, Sun Microsystems, in a statement. "With Avnet's assessment services and other demand generating activities, our partners will be better positioned to help customers take advantage of Sun's virtualization capabilities."

Also on Wednesday, Avnet announced a distribution agreement to carry Reflex Security's Virtual Security Manager (VSM) solution.

"Adding a virtual security solution like Reflex VSM to our technology portfolio offers our partners further opportunities to deliver complete virtualized data center solutions that are more secure and at a lower total cost of ownership," said Tim FitzGerald, who leads Avnet Technology Solutions Americas' Virtualization and Consolidation solutions group, in a statement.

Reflex VSM monitors the dynamic environment and maintains a secure configuration for next generation data centers, said David de Valk, vice president of business development for Reflex Security, Atlanta. "As adoption of virtualization accelerates for next generation dynamic data centers, organizations understand the urgent need to visualize, secure, audit and control their virtual infrastructure," he said in a statement. The virtualization services comes a day after Avent announced another suite of services, around remote monitoring and management services that solution providers can integrate into their own offerings.