Virtela Announces Advanced Automation & Predictive Analytics for Virtualized Data Centers and Private Clouds

DENVER, March 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Virtela, the world's largest independent managed network, security and cloud services company, today announced that its award-winning automation and predictive analytics platforms have been extended to the company's managed IT infrastructure services for virtualized data centers and private clouds. The newly-integrated technologies enhance Virtela's full lifecycle of managed data center network and security services, giving enterprises faster provisioning for their virtualized infrastructure and proactive identification and resolution of 95 percent of data center network issues before they impact quality of service.

Enterprises are increasingly embracing data center virtualization and consolidation, injecting added complexity and instability into their underlying networks. These networks require highly sophisticated around-the-clock management by experts with the latest skills and tools to manage highly dynamic environments. These complications promise to compound the already staggering consequences of data center downtime.  According to a recent report by Emerson Network Power, the world's data centers log approximately 2.8 million hours of downtime per year, for an annual loss of $426 billion. 

Virtela's managed IT infrastructure services for virtualized data centers and private clouds alleviate complexity with the latest tools, technologies and expertise to accelerate data center optimization and transformation while avoiding downtime associated with operational issues.

Enterprises can select from a full suite of modular services ranging from transition strategy and deployment through "Day-2 support" and ongoing 24x7 service monitoring and/or management by Virtela's Global Operations Centers' engineers.  These engineers offer expertise in supporting multivendor IT solutions across global data center/private cloud environments. They also leverage Virtela-proprietary automation and analytics platforms that exploit emerging technologies to cut service configuration times by an average of 90 percent, reduce data center downtime by 5x, and deliver operational cost savings of up to 30 percent. 

Advanced Automation Speeds Service Configuration & Changes

As data center networking evolves with the next-generation data center environment, IT staffs must still contend with traditional network operations challenges – such as time-consuming manual processes and network moves, adds and changes – which dampen productivity and widen the gap between existing network infrastructure and dynamic data center requirements.

Virtela leverages its advanced automation platforms to ease this transition, enabling enterprises to benefit from rapid deployment or modification of virtual data center and private cloud services using best-practice processes and pre-defined policies for more accurate management of network and security services. These vendor-agnostic tools deliver the consistency and flexibility to dynamically scale and load balance resources to meet fluctuating demand while increasingpredictability of infrastructure performance to help avoid data center downtime. Enterprises reduce the risk of costly delays and configuration errors by exploiting Virtela's expertly engineered end-to-end virtualization design and delivery.

Cloud-based service delivery is enabled by the Virtela Enterprise Services Cloud (ESC), the only cloud platform purpose‐built for enterprise networking, security and mobility, featuring a highly distributed network of 50 Local Cloud Centers (LCCs) around the world.

Predictive Analytics Reduces Downtime and Costs

Customers of Virtela's managed data center/private cloud services now also benefit from predictive analytics technology – VirtelaPredict™-- which diagnoses more than 95% of potential data center network and security issues before they can impact operational performance. By speeding resolution of issues – or avoiding them altogether – the service enables enterprises to achieve a 5x reduction in data center downtime while cutting support and operating costs by an average of 30 percent.

Virtela serves as a single point of contact worldwide for proactive management of a wide array of data center IT infrastructure – including LAN, WAN, security, IP telephony, Web proxy and application acceleration devices – whether residing in traditional data centers, virtualized data centers or private clouds. Virtela's highly skilled technical staff performs predictive modeling, monitoring and management with hands-on expertise across best-in-class technologies and virtualization environments, continually optimizing data center performance on a global basis.

Beyond predictive analytics, Virtela's IT Infrastructure Management services encompass network discovery, compliance and other capabilities that drive IT efficiencies. These include VirtelaDiscover™, which automates network device and topology discovery, analysis and optimization, and VTerm™, which provides authentication, authorization and audit services to centrally control and regulate access to all network devices. 

Flexible Service Options and Personalized 24x7 Support

Enterprises have the flexibility to choose from Virtela's full lifecycle of design, delivery, and end-to-end monitoring and management, or monitoring-only service options. Full lifecycle services include service management, technical support, customer support, security, disaster recovery and transition strategy. Virtela supports an ecosystem of hundreds of technology vendors, spanning network devices such as routers, switches, load balancers, WAN optimizers, wireless access points and RFID systems, and security devices such as firewalls, IPS, SSL gateways, VPN gateways and URL filtering.

Virtela's IT operational management expertise continues to be recognized by numerous awards for outperforming industry standards and the company's own service guarantees. For example, Virtela sets an aggressive 4-hour global guarantee for Mean Time to Restore (MTTR) and bested this by more than half in 2011, averaging just 1.48 hours. Overall, 94% of customer satisfaction survey respondents in 2011 were highly satisfied or satisfied with Virtela's resolution of their issues. Virtela achieved these and other notable metrics – such as 99% of trouble tickets opened proactively -- even as the company nearly doubled the number of devices under management in the last year.

"Virtela's advanced systems and expertise help enterprises overcome a key inhibitor in the transition to next generation data centers – the daunting complexity associated with deploying and managing these virtualized or cloud environments," said Ron Haigh, Virtela's vice president of cloud architecture and services. "Virtela speeds and simplifies the ongoing operation of these highly scalable environments while protecting customers' current infrastructure investments. This not only drives costs out of the network but transforms networking into a catalyst for achieving next-gen data center strategies."

Today's announcement enhances Virtela's portfolio of end-to-end managed IT services, working with the broadest array of technologies, vendors and carriers to resolve IT issues through a single point of contact. Customers can also leverage the VirtelaView™ portal to easily view predictive, real-time and historical reports about their Virtela-managed IT infrastructure.

These managed data center/private cloud services are also available to Virtela's partner community – such as system integrators, consultants and value added resellers – for integration with their enterprise data center design and installation services to deliver full lifecycle solutions.

About Virtela

Virtela Technology Services Incorporated is the world's largest independent global managed services company. Virtela offers an award-winning suite of networking, security and mobility services in 190+ countries enabled by its intelligent multi-carrier overlay network and Virtela Enterprise Services Cloud (ESC) platform, with 50 Local Cloud Centers (LCCs) that dynamically deliver services closest to enterprise end-users for the highest performance and lowest cost of ownership. Recognized by more than 40 awards for outstanding service innovation and customer support in the last two years, Virtela's services suite includes proactively managed networks, security, application acceleration, IT infrastructure and mobile device management.

Virtela is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, with global support centers around the world. For more information, please call +1 (720) 475-4000 or visit www.virtela.net.

SOURCE Virtela