Digital Fortress, a privately held U.S. West Coast data center provider delivering carrier-neutral colocation services and managed cloud, has announced new managed services for customers’ hybrid IT infrastructure environments.
The company, which operates a pair of data centers in the Seattle area, is expanding beyond its roots as a colocation provider. The new managed services include access to Amazon Web Services (AWS Cloud) and Microsoft Azure, and are designed for mid-market companies using on-premise, colocation and/or public cloud hosting infrastructure.
Today’s most progressive companies are moving toward a software development model that emphasizes the rapid and continuous delivery of new solutions. But researching and architecting new solutions takes time, impeding IT’s ability to manage critical systems. Digital Fortress Hybrid Infrastructure Management services would address these challenges. Through best practices, standardization and automation, Digital Fortress monitors new and existing workloads across IT infrastructure, so internal staff can develop software and other technology services.
Digital Fortress Hybrid Infrastructure Management services include the following elements:
- Monitoring – Digital Fortress staff will provide round-the-clock support for operating system platforms, databases, storage, processors and networks in order to identify abnormalities or activity that could impact system health and performance.
- Resolution – Digital Fortress will address incidents and document solutions to continually reduce mean time to repair through repeatable processes and continuous improvements. Digital Fortress staff is certified in AWS and Azure and monitors clients’ IT environments 24×7. Staff is trained to detect and escalate issues quickly to expedite problem resolution.
- Optimization – Digital Fortress will optimize infrastructure and services through advanced reporting, including trend analysis, recommendations and capacity planning to assist in technical roadmaps and build strategies. Cloud assets are compared against new cloud technology releases to ensure optimal performance and cost.
Every Digital Fortress managed services engagement begins with a comprehensive review of a customer’s IT environment, including details on the infrastructure to be managed. That’s followed by the design, configuration and testing of runbooks and alarms, and the development of policies and procedures for day-to-day management.
Finally, Digital Fortress staff will review initial performance reports and make any necessary adjustments. The process is led by a Digital Fortress project manager, who serves as a customer’s single point of contact throughout.
“Every IT environment is unique, but a common problem is how best to utilize staff resources,” said Matt Gerber, CEO at Digital Fortress. “The emergence of Agile, DevOps and similar methodologies is accelerating software development but also sapping IT resources previously dedicated to monitoring and managing critical systems. With our new Hybrid Infrastructure Management services, customers gain visibility into the usage and health of their disparate infrastructure, while freeing internal staff to focus on development and customer experience. This best-of-both approach is necessary in today’s technology driven business world.”
Remote monitoring and management requires a highly connected network operations center (NOC) that is always on. Digital Fortress has redundant 24×7 NOCs that are located in two different secured data center buildings and locations. Its data centers have redundant, fault-tolerant dark fiber between facilities, and connections to carrier hotels and Internet exchange points. These densely networked data centers are nearby AWS Cloud and Microsoft Azure, and serve as the nerve center of Digital Fortress’s Hybrid Infrastructure Management services.
