Datalink (Nasdaq: DTLK), a leading provider of data center infrastructure and services, announced today that it has been designated a FlexPod Premium Partner by Cisco and NetApp to provide solutions and services supporting the FlexPod® data center solution. Datalink is the first North American channel partner to earn the new FlexPod Premium Partner designation and is recognized for its advanced competencies in helping organizations unify their data centers with the FlexPod solution. Datalink has designed and deployed 28 FlexPod-based architectures and is one of a few partners that offers a full suite of virtual data center consulting, analysis, design, deployment, support and management services.

FlexPod is a pretested and validated data center architecture that combines networking, computing and storage in a shared infrastructure to help organizations achieve greater data center agility and efficiency as well as accelerate and simplify the transition to the cloud. Components include the Cisco UCS® server, Cisco network switches, and NetApp® unified storage systems running on Data ONTAP® software.

“Building converged data center infrastructures like FlexPod requires cross-discipline capabilities spanning servers, storage, and networks that most resellers and service providers lack. The new FlexPod Premium Partner designation reflects Cisco’s and NetApp’s recognition that businesses need assistance in identifying partners that are not only qualified to design, deploy and support the individual infrastructure components, but also skilled in the critical process of integrating them,” said Datalink President and CEO Paul Lidsky. “We began developing our expertise on converged infrastructures two years before the FlexPod architecture was introduced, and that led directly to our ability to meet the stringent requirements of the program.”

As a company with a large unified data center practice, Datalink offers:

• A 160+ engineering staff with more than 1,000 technical certifications and cross-functional expertise, including engineers across the U.S. with converged data center experience.
• Consulting, assessment and design services to tailor each deployment to the customer’s needs.
• A proof-of-concept lab enabling customers to evaluate unified data center technologies and their application to the specific customer environment.
• OneCallSM Unified Support for converged data centers, enabling customers to contact the Datalink support team for issues with any component of the infrastructure from any vendor for faster resolution and one-stop accountability.
• Managed monitoring services enabling customers to maximize system performance and uptime by outsourcing monitoring and problem detection to Datalink’s managed services staff.

Use of the flexible, scalable and pretested FlexPod infrastructure enables Datalink to lower deployment risk, increase data center efficiencies, as well as create a flexible information technology (IT) environment that quickly scales to meet changing business needs. In addition, Datalink leverages FlexPod architectures as foundations for private clouds. Datalink’s recent FlexPod installations include deployments at Cook County Health and Hospitals System, consisting of nearly two dozen facilities across the Chicagoland area and Hughes Network Systems, a satellite and broadband service provider based in Germantown, Maryland.

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.

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