Guest post from Dan Swart

Dan Swart is a Senior Manager in Cisco Technical Services Product Management, leading the team responsible for Enterprise and Data Center Solution Support services. Along with that, Dan has    been heavily involved in Data Center Alliance programs and Converged Infrastructures. Dan has Bachelor of Science Degrees in Zoology and Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University.

In my last blog post, Complexity and Control in the Cloud, I covered some basic considerations as you navigate vendors and solutions when planning your enterprise cloud.

Unsurprisingly, when Cisco is talking to customers about their private cloud needs and our data center solutions, customers very quickly sound this panic button ...

"Which of you expert vendors is going to support this? I'm counting xx of you inside this 'best for me' solution!" 

Our advice is whatever the skill level of your cloud administration staff, it is a really good idea-and may even help you avoid career limiting situations-to:

• Have a strong primary plan to manage your cloud technology, and THEN
• Build a backup to your primary plan that can provide cloud expertise and an ability to coordinate as rapid a resolution as possible for issues that pose a challenge to your primary administration staff

Where do you find this "team?" With Cisco and our partners.

First, our partners: normally they have significant expertise in the solutions they deploy.  Some of our partners have the ability to configure a cloud infrastructure and deliver their own brand of service on many elements of the infrastructure and the Cisco products used in the solution. These partners can provide coverage for the products they used to build your cloud infrastructure as well as the multivendor cloud infrastructure itself.  Working with these partners can really help you build and operate a successful cloud strategy.

However, while some partners may help configure and sell the products needed to build your cloud infrastructure, they may or may not have the ability to provide post sale implementation and solution support services. They resell supplier brand services and you go directly to Cisco for support of the Cisco products you deploy, and other suppliers for support for their products.  When you buy your cloud infrastructure from those Cisco Brand Service partners, you may still want to have a single point of contact for the multivendor cloud infrastructure.

Here is where Cisco Services steps in with our family of Solution Support Services. Specifically for cloud solutions, we offer Solution Support for Critical Infrastructure (SSPT for CI).

SSPT for CI delivers cloud expertise and truly centralized, coordinated issue management to resolve any issue within a cloud infrastructure. Customers who choose this service can open a case with Cisco, whether they think they know where the problem lies or only suspect there's one, even if it's with a third party product. Simply call Cisco, and we'll provide holistic cloud infrastructure expertise and coordinate issue resolution with any relevant product support teams-Cisco's or those at third party vendors. And we stay with your case until your issue is resolved.

Solution Support Services streamline and simplify the process for getting expert support for even the most complex, multi-vendor issues that may arise.

 

 

 

With Cisco Solution Support, you gain Cisco as an administration partner in your cloud deployment.  So if you ever run into those potential "career limiting" situations-meaning a major issue surfaces in a solution you recommended and in an area where your team may have limited/no experience-you can rely on Cisco to back you up by mitigating and resolving issues in the most expedited manner possible.

• Read this short SSPT for CI At-a-Glance to learn more about coordinated, solution-level support, and at Cisco Solution Support at cisco.com.
• Take the leap to new cloud technologies. Innovate more, with confidence AND control. Cisco has you covered with Solution Support.