Avnet Launches Data Center Lifecycle Services

Lifecycle services such as asset disposal have largely been neglected by VARs, but in many cases are a vital part of a data center solution, especially one that has to meet certain compliance standards.

"This is a little bit of a neglected area from a channel perspective. Anybody that has IT assets should have a formal way of disposing them, said Steve Kedzior, Avnet Technology Solutions vice president and general manager of services. "A lot of times the customer is not doing it in a very compliant or environmentally friendly way and really needs a trusted advisor. It's a great opportunity for growth to educate the end user and to leverage Anet resources for remarketing, refurbishment, drive grinding, certifications of destruction, all the services that partners can offer to optimize end of life assets for customers."

Solution providers should look to integrate lifecycle services into their own data center portfolio or leverage them in conjunction with other Avnet-branded professional services, including managed services, cloud and professional services, Kedzior said.

"It creates an opportunity for partners to optomize their investment. Making a sales call costs money. If they can have a broader discussion and mitigate their own investment with our services, it's a great set of offerings to help them accelerate their services growth," Kedzior said.

In particular, solution providers should engage customers about lifecycle management if they are having conversations around cloud computing, Kedzior said.

"Cloud is a big animal with lot of tentacles and high growth. It's a very large phenomenon and to get it grounded, a part of it is optimizing the data center. Casting this umbrella around lifecycle, we feel is a winner for those partners to have a broader discussion."

Solution providers taking a holistic approach can also leverage Avnet resources such as service development managers or cloud services through the distributor's CloudReady initiative including cloud strategy workshops and cloud assessment services.

"This is data center-centric approach we feel is adjacent to the products our channel sells. At center of this service strategy is looking at it from a CIOs perspective. We feel strongly that for us to help partners, we need to understand our partners' customers and what being consumed and how," Kedzior said. "We're taking the CIO's view of the data center, focused on the end goal of data center optimization. We're aligning the services with the planning phase, which can be assessments or capacity planning. That's the front end to the area where our VARs have participated in, the acquisition of the assets for the data center. But those assets have to be integrated, deployed and managed through their lifecycle in terms of asset disposition."