Arraya Insights

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Arraya’s Managed and Cloud Services have received their share of customer praise, vendor acknowledgement and industry recognition over the years. Despite all of that positivity, we believe there’s always room to grow and improve our services. In order to learn where we were succeeding and where we could do better, we put together our first annual Managed Services Survey.

The results are in and overall we’re extremely pleased. Most of what our customers told us was very favorable, although we were still able to glean a couple of areas to improve upon.

First a note on the makeup of those who took part in the survey. Respondents came from a number of different industries, including healthcare, finance, real estate and legal and represented companies ranging from smaller organizations with a single location to enterprises with a global reach. In addition to our Managed Services customers, we also included in the survey those who utilize ALERT, our enterprise monitoring and support service, and/or PROTECT, our cloud-based backup service.

According to the survey:

  • 100% see their relationship with Arraya growing as a result of Managed Services
  • 100% see Arraya support as highly available
  • 90% say their productivity has increased as a result of Managed Services
  • 90% see Arraya’s support staff as highly knowledgeable
  • 90% see Arraya as an extension of their IT team

Two perfect scores and three that are right next door to it. Can’t ask for much more than that, right? Well, you can if you’re truly looking for ways to get even better. We see tremendous value in tapping in to what our customers think about our services. So we examined the raw data more closely to see what we could find.

How we plan to improve

We looked at the results we got for the question about the availability of our team. On that question, 100% said we are highly available and one respondent, an IT Director from a not-for-profit organization in the healthcare industry, told us in a survey follow-up call that: “We’ve tried other providers, however, we found that none of them were able to match the expertise and customer service of Arraya.”

That was great to hear, but we wanted to learn more. We broke down that 100% score and saw that 40% strongly agreed we are highly available and 60% gave us a somewhat less-enthusiastic “agreed.” It may sound like splitting hairs, but we want to earn a “strongly agreed” from all of our customers. Even before we received those results, we’d made expanding the size of our Managed Services team a priority. The survey confirmed for us the value in pursuing that objective.

Having 90% of respondents call our staff “highly knowledgeable” is a terrific compliment, as is hearing an IT Manager from a global software provider say: “I’m always amazed by the level of talent and the caliber of people Arraya has on staff.”

Again, we feel like we can still do better. That’s why we make sure the members of our Managed Services team have access to the latest industry certifications. They are able to keep their skills up to date and continue to excite our customers by delivering smart and effective solutions.

“We’re not a big company,” explained the Director of IT Infrastructure for a leasing and finance company, “but we have the same needs as a larger one, so the extra hands Managed Services provides really helps.” That quote dovetailed nicely with the 90% of respondents who agreed our staff has made them more productive.

Still, there’s another level we know we can reach. It’s in that spirit we developed the Technical Advocate role. This position is designed to act as a bridge between Arraya and the Customer by scheduling regular face time with on premises staff to find ways to improve the support we provide.

Unlocking IT’s potential

The Arraya Solutions Managed Services team has years of experience supporting on-premises and Cloud-based infrastructure and applications. The team complements existing IT personnel by being able to take responsibility for everything from infrastructure monitoring and daily administration tasks to being proactive in the event of a problem. Our Managed Services team is there to provide assistance and guidance any time the need should arise.

To learn more about Arraya’s Managed Services and how they can benefit your organization, check out: www.arrayasolutions.com/service/managed-services. Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter @ArrayaSolutions to keep up with all of the latest company and industry news.

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No IT pro worth his or her salt takes digital security lightly. Despite that, it’s still tempting to grow at least a little comfortable with the notion that: “Hackers aren’t going to bother with my company.safe_data We’re too small. They’re only interested in things like big companies with a lot of name recognition, popular data warehouses and Major League Baseball teams.”

However, hackers tend to be pretty opportunistic when it comes to their targets. If they spot a weakness, they’ll exploit it, regardless of the size of the company. As a result, attacks on small business have been becoming more common. That’s the case according to the results of a recent study conducted by the National Small Business Association (NSBA), which included input from roughly 675 small-business owners, representing multiple industries across all 50 states.

The study asked participants if their business had been the victim of a cyberattack, including computer viruses, hacking, malware, etc. The responses were split right down the middle. Half of respondents said yes, the other half said no. The thing is, in the previous year’s version of this study, only 44% said yes while 56% answered in the negative. It may not be a catastrophic change, but a 6% swing in the wrong direction is still a trend worth keeping a close eye on.

This trend is especially worth monitoring considering the sharp spike in what these attacks are costing small businesses. In the previous year’s study, the total cost sat at $8,699.48. In this year’s study, that price tag skyrocketed up to $20,751.97.

Lastly, it’s taking longer for companies to resolve the attacks. Based on the data in this year’s study, attacks were sorted out in:

  • Less than a day – 30% (down 8% from previous year’s study)
  • Between 1-3 days – 34% (down 6%)
  • Between 3-7 days – 14% (up 3%)
  • More than a week – 9% (up 2%)
  • More than two weeks – 13% (up 8%)

Stay secure, regardless of size

It seems like new hacks and security issues are making headlines almost daily. In this type of climate, businesses of all shapes and sizes can’t afford to let their guard down. If they do, they risk becoming a target.

Part of keeping your mission critical systems and infrastructure hardened against an attack is having the right security solutions deployed in your environment. The other part is ensuring those solutions are maintained and up to date. Those are both areas in which Arraya Solutions can help.

A free security architecture consultation from Arraya can help keep your systems safe from cyber threats. It can turn up any of the potential weak points that cyber criminals love to cash in on. Then, our experts can work with you to find the best solution or tool to turn those weak points into strengths.

If you’d like to learn more about this offer or to schedule your free consultation, contact your Arraya Solutions Account Executive or simply click here.  If you’d like to learn more about Arraya and the other ways we can engage and elevate your IT team, please visit us at www.ArrayaSolutions.com.

Be sure to follow us on Twitter, @ArrayaSolutions, to stay on top of all the latest tech industry and company news.

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This week, a strong set of storms ransacked the greater Philadelphia area. Many business owners woke up to a disaster in their data center and downtime for their company. Hours of lost end user productivity ensued and IT quickly got burned out trying to get systems back online as rapidly as possible. The simple fact is – unexpected outages and downtime cost money.

In transient cases, like a storm or extended power outages, businesses may not want to enact their entire Disaster Recovery plan due to the complexities involved and the potential further complications from failing back. With Microsoft’s cloud solutions though, there are ways to reduce or remove your building (and its power) from causing you grief.

Office 365

In a disaster, it can be a huge benefit to have your collaboration services hosted elsewhere. Nowhere does this make more sense than with Office 365. Even if your facility suffered a catastrophic outage, having your employees work remotely on Office 365 and collaborating on next steps can be beneficial for business continuity and ongoing communications. With Office 365, your building no longer matters.

Consider this scenario: Several years ago, I worked with a company that had on-premises Exchange servers located in Colorado Springs that served their US West Coast employees. Due to a massive wildfire, the facility had to be shut down and no one was allowed near it. The power was still on and emails were still accessible, thanks to a generator. However, the fire showed no signs of subsiding. We left Exchange up as long as we could and moved mailboxes out as quickly as we could to another office. Eventually, we had to shut Exchange down until power was restored, which took several days.

This scenario doesn’t happen with Office 365. Microsoft has invested a lot of money in their data centers, providing redundancy and resiliency. By moving to Office 365, you are offloading your Disaster Recovery strategy for those workloads to Microsoft. Microsoft has the ability to fail over your data to another one of their geographically dispersed data centers in case of a disaster. Microsoft also backs Office 365 with a 99.9% SLA, not to mention, several layers of redundancy and resiliency.

It is tempting to consider Office 365 when you think of all the workloads that can just keep running for anyone that has an internet connection – email, instant messaging, file storage, and more!

Azure

There are many ways Azure can help you maintain operations while your facility is down. Microsoft’s cloud platform can be your failover site, complete with runbooks written and automated for your specific workloads. Coming in Q3, Microsoft will have the ability to failover VMware and physical server workloads as well. With certain co-lo Disaster Recovery providers, you may end up getting in a queue to get your workloads back online, but with Azure the capacity is there.

Besides being a great target for Disaster Recovery failover, you could just run your business critical workloads in Azure, too! This can help reduce capital hardware costs and expensive storage (and network) replication technologies. Microsoft has several layers of redundancy that you can choose from, removing the worry from a geographic disaster. For example, if you are still running your website in your own data center, think about what it would mean to have that website up without interruption when all your competitors are offline!

We’ve previously mentioned some great ways to get started in Azure. It might just be easier than you think!

The events of the past week have placed a lot of business owners and CIOs on edge about their data centers, but all considerations should be discussed before making the jump to any cloud platform. Arraya can help you make these decisions through our discovery processes and Cloud Assessment engagements, helping you to identify easy to move workloads to get you started. To learn more visit www.ArrayaSolutions.com.

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Ever feel like Tuesday is the longest day of your week? Well, Tuesday June 30 won’t just feel like the longest day of your week, it actually will be.  By one second. It may not sound like much, but that Leap Secondone measly little second could be the source of some sizeable headaches for IT teams – and time is running out for them to prepare.

Irregularities in the Earth’s rotation can cause a difference in astronomical and atomic time to occur. When that difference exceeds .9 of a second, the International Earth Rotation & Reference Systems Service will add or subtract a second to/from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to correct the alignment. These events, called “leap seconds,” don’t occur often but they’re not exceedingly rare either. The one scheduled to take place on June 30 is the 26th leap second to occur since 1972. The most recent leap seconds were added in 2008 and 2012.

Essentially, the UTC will look like this on June 30: 23h 59m 59s … 23h 59m 60s … July 1, 0h 0m 0s.

How could this create problems for IT? Computer systems and technology which rely on the UTC don’t always take the adjustment in stride. This could lead to anything from minor issues (time won’t update correctly) to more severe issues like crashes and reboots.

Breeze through the leap second

Here’s a look at how some of Arraya’s strategic partners could be affected by the leap second as well as what can be done to keep everything running smoothly at your organization.

Cisco

  • What could be affected: Nexus 1Kv, Nexus 5K, Nexus 7K, Unified Computing System, some ISR routers and some Unified Collaboration applications.
  • What to do: Cisco is providing system patches for all affected systems to customers with active and valid service contracts. Also, Cisco recommends ensuring appropriate deployment of Network Time Protocol (NTP) sources and strata, consistency of NTP versions within the network, and management of common time-driven alarms.
  • Click here to learn more or to see full list of affected Cisco products.

EMC

  • What could be affected: Avamar, VPLEX, VPLEX-VE, Celerra Barossa (6.x) releases, VNX1 (Unified), more.
  • What to do: Workarounds have been developed for both Avamar and VPLEX systems. For Celerra, EMC suggests disabling NTP before the Leap Second occurs and re-enabling it after the event has passed. For VNX1 there are two options: disable NTP on the Control Station prior to the Leap Second change and re-enable it after the change or upgrade to the latest VNX1 OE revision prior to June 30.
  • Click here to learn more or to see the full list of affected EMC products.

VMware

  • What could be affected: vCenter Server Appliance, vSphere Replication Appliance, VMware vCenter Operations Manager, vRealize Operations Manager Appliance, and more.
  • What to do: For vCenter Server Appliances, upgrade to 5.0 U2, 5.1 U1a or later. For vSphere Replication, upgrade to 6.0.0.1 or later. For VMware vCenter Operations Manager and vRealize Operations Manager Appliance, slew mode for NTP must be enabled.
  • Click here to learn more or see the full list of affected VMware products.

That’s a lot to consider, however the good news is you don’t need to take it on alone. Arraya’s team of experts is available to assist with the triage and remediation of your environment. Reach out to your Account Executive today to schedule an appointment so you will be covered well in advance of the June 30 leap second.

Visit us at www.ArrayaSolutions.com to learn more about our wealth of experience with multiple industry-leading vendors. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, @ArrayaSolutions, to keep up with all of the latest company and tech industry news and opinions.

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You just have to get to know Managed Services in order to love them. That’s one of the takeaways of CompTIA’s 4th Annual Trends in Managed Services study. The data shows companies have become increasingly familiar with Managed Services in recent years and overall adoption rates have followed suit. It also shows those who’ve gotten on board haven’t been disappointed.

In this year’s survey, a little more than half of respondents said they are “very familiar” with the idea of Managed Services while roughly 41% said they are “somewhat familiar.” Just under 10% claimed to have only “heard of” Managed Services or to be “totally unfamiliar” with them. Those numbers stack up positively when compared to CompTIA’s 2013 results. The 2013 survey found only 36% of respondents felt highly familiar with the idea of Managed Services.

In addition, CompTIA’s research showed 37% of companies who use Managed Services have been doing so for five years or more. However, 55% have been Managed Services users for between two and five years, depicting an upward trend in adoption.

The study also investigated usage habits of adopters, relationships between existing IT teams and Managed Services providers, and cost – and in doing so, it toppled a few myths about Managed Services.

‘Managed Services are all hype’

Most organizations went in to their Managed Services agreements expecting to save on their bottom lines. In fact, a closer look reveals:

  • just 4% expected a cost increase
  • 12% didn’t believe they will see any financial benefit
  • 54% expected modest savings
  • 30% expected significant savings

And the majority of those companies weren’t disappointed. Almost seven in ten met their cost-savings expectations while just shy of a quarter were able to exceed their expectations. Only 6% fell short of their initial projections. This demonstrates the real-world benefits that can be achieved by partnering with a Managed Services provider.

‘That’s going to put me out of a job’

Perhaps the biggest reason why companies – and more accurately, some folks in IT – had been reluctant to embrace Managed Services in previous years had to do with the fear that they were designed to replace traditional, on-premises IT teams. That’s not the actual experience of customers using Managed Services according to CompTIA’s study.

The research shows six out of ten Managed Services customers see their engagement as a “collaborative arrangement” between the service provider and their internal IT team. On top of that, in 72% of companies with 100 or more employees, a Managed Services partnership had no impact on IT’s headcount. Existing staffers were simply reassigned to other, oftentimes more strategic, projects.

‘Managed Services don’t cover what we need’

There’s almost no limit on what a Managed Services partner can do for you. If you can envision it, there’s a pretty good chance your provider can handle it.

What are the leading ways in which business are utilizing Managed Services? (Key: multiple answers were accepted.)

  • Repair/troubleshoot IT- 70%
  • General consulting around IT- 51%
  • Deployment/installation/integration of IT- 48%
  • Cybersecurity-related- 47%
  • Web design- 47%

This shows the flexibility Managed Services partnerships can deliver to organizations. One Managed Services partnership can cover multiple projects and specialty areas, the relationship growing and changing along with the customer’s needs.

The time has come

If you’ve been considering making the transition to Managed Services, now’s the perfect time to do so. Arraya’s Managed Services offerings go beyond keeping the lights on. They’re designed to expand upon the capabilities of existing IT resources to provide a helping hand or guidance whenever the need should arise.

Arraya’s knowledgeable, experienced and personable team can handle anything from lower-level maintenance and update duties to more strategic roll outs and implementations. Whether you need help with infrastructure, help desk, cloud deployments or beyond, Arraya’s Managed Services team stands ready to help.

To learn more about Arraya’s Managed Services or to set up an appointment with an Arraya Account Executive, please visit www.ArrayaSolutions.com.

Are you currently weighing the pros and cons of a new hire vs. managed services? Here are 5 things to consider to help you make an informed decision.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, @ArrayaSolutions, for all of the latest company and tech industry updates.

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If one of your organization’s goals for the back nine of 2015 is to either embrace the cloud or expand your existing cloud environment, Microsoft’s Office 365 and Azure could be two of the products you end up exploring.

There’s no shortage of benefits you can get out of deploying these services. In terms of Office 365, you get the traditional, software-based Office set up (Word, Excel, etc.) and a cloud-based version. If mobility is a key concern, users will also have access to smartphone and tablet-accessible versions of those programs. For the times when you can’t get everyone in the same room, the unlimited online meetings with IM and HD video conferencing features can help to keep everyone on the same page. On top of that, you’ll also be able to off-load the responsibility for Exchange, Skype for Business and SharePoint software management, which is a main driver behind Office 365.

With Azure, you can run solutions on the same cloud infrastructure which supports Office 365, Skype, etc., and you’ll have access to its built-in software patching and network loading balancing, among other features.

All of that sounds pretty great, so what’s holding you back? For many organizations, the answer is simple: time. Supporting an Office 365 and Azure deployment takes time and energy. If the day-to-day administrative and maintenance tasks that go along with those solutions aren’t completed, companies could miss out on the full value of their new Cloud-based collaboration investment.

A partner like Arraya Solutions can ensure that doesn’t happen.

How we work with you

Arraya Managed Services provide remote support, monitoring, and tenant management for Microsoft Office 365 and Azure services, including Exchange and SharePoint Online, as well as supporting on-premises and Azure cloud-hosted workloads.

So what does that mean for you? Arraya will worry about the nuts and bolts tasks required to keep Office 365 and Azure up to date, secure and running efficiently. This includes the management of Active Directory, ADFS, Azure Directory Sync, ADFS Proxy and certificate management. Getting those items off of IT’s to-do lists – and onto Arraya’s – will free your team to focus on the objectives that matter most to your business.

Arraya can also help you on every step of your cloud journey, from deployment to growth and take responsibility for any moves, additions and changes which support end-user communication, connectivity and compliance. Your team can rest easy knowing that Arraya has the following activities covered:

  • Email and Calendars
  • Compliance & eDiscovery
  • Document and Email Access Control
  • Online Conferencing
  • Instant Messaging
  • File Storage and Sharing
  • Team Sites
  • Yammer Enterprise
  • Office Online

Partnering with Arraya to manage your Office 365 and Azure deployments is all about enhancing and furthering the benefits you’re already seeing from those services. Arraya Managed Services can provide the robust infrastructure required to ensure your company’s Microsoft communication tools are private, reliable and secure.

To learn more about our other Managed Services, as well as all of the different ways we can help your IT team achieve next-level success, visit www.ArrayaSolutions.com or reach out to your Account Executive.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @ArrayaSolutions.

 

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List Ranks North America’s Largest 500 Technology Integrators  logo-crn_sol_provider

Arraya Solutions announced today it has been named to The Channel Company’s 2015 CRN® Solution Provider 500. The annual list, spanning eight categories, from hardware and software sales to managed IT services, recognizes the top revenue-generating technology integrators, MSPs and IT consultants in North America. Solution providers are ranked based on revenue, determined by product and services sales during 2014. Arraya Solutions placed 369 in the annual ranking.

“We are excited and appreciative to be named for the fourth consecutive year to the SP500,” said Daniel Lifshutz, CEO, Arraya Solutions. “Our company’s success and growth is a result of our talented team of employees, our integral partnerships with the industry’s top manufacturers, and a focus and drive to consistently deliver the highest level of service to our customers. We would like to thank CRN for this recognition and look forward to continued growth for the company in the coming years.”

“The companies represented here are truly dedicated to the needs of customers today. With an evolving IT landscape, this prestigious list serves as a valuable industry resource to help vendors navigate the solution provider community and identify the best partners for their business,” said Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Company. “We congratulate the featured solution providers for their forward-thinking approach to solutions sales and look ahead to their continued success.”

A sample of the 2015 Solution Provider 500 list will be featured in the June issue of CRN, and online at www.CRN.com.

More Information:
Read the press release here

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Knowledge shared, technologies spotlighted at debut Tech SummitArraya Solutions Tech Summit

Attendees from a diverse cross-section of industries packed the hallways, conference rooms and ballroom of the Sheraton Valley Forge in King of Prussia last Thursday for the inaugural Arraya Solutions Tech Summit. The event, which was hailed as being “by techs, for techs,” was designed to give attendees the opportunity to learn about the latest and greatest technologies directly from Arraya’s industry-leading team of engineers. By day’s end, attendees had experienced a full slate of educational sessions, demonstrations and panel discussions on the tools and solutions that are changing the way they do their jobs.

Once attendees had signed in, they were treated to a full breakfast before heading in to one of the Sheraton’s ballrooms for a welcome address from Arraya’s CTO David Bakker. During his speech, Bakker briefly touched on the history of Arraya and its most recent successes, including being named to the 2015 Philly.com Top Workplace list, the CRN Tech Elite 250 list and the CRN Managed Service Provider 500 List. Bakker then walked attendees through what would be taking place during the day’s schedule.

At the conclusion of Bakker’s opening remarks, the first event of the day began: the CIO Panel. This discussion was moderated by Bakker and featured three of the area’s top technology executives: Perry Cozzone, President – North America of Colorcon, Chris Kohl, Vice President and CIO of Vertex and Ken Weirman, Vice President and CIO of AMETEK. The theme of the panel was “Bridging the Gap: Bringing the C-Suite and the Frontlines Together to Elevate IT and the Organization as a Whole.” Among the topics covered were the critical nature of Time to Value and developing and managing IT budgets – all geared towards showing IT personnel how they can add business value to their organizations.

Following the CIO Panel, attendees divided up among six separate conference rooms, each of which hosted a breakout session on a different IT subject. These deep-dive sessions covered enterprise monitoring, next generation security, the cloud and more. Each was led by one or more of Arraya’s engineers, to ensure expert-level treatment of the subject matter. Two rounds of breakout sessions bookended a lunch break, giving attendees 24 courses to choose from during the day.

One of those sessions was a presentation on Business Continuity and Recovery put on by Einstein Healthcare Network and moderated by Arraya CEO Dan Lifshutz. It highlighted their efforts as well as their partnership with Arraya in that area.

After the final set of breakout sessions came the Arraya Tech Panel. This gave attendees access to the full scope of Arraya’s technological expertise – all on one stage. Seven of Arraya’s Team Leads, with dozens and dozens of years of combined experience, participated in a lively debate moderated by Thomas York, Arraya’s Director of Product Management, on hot button topics such as the cloud, collaboration, managed services, etc. Attendees were able to jump into the fray and pick the brains of the Team Leads on a range of other topics.

Throughout the day, attendees also could visit with event sponsors in the exhibit hall to learn more about the products and tools each has in the pipeline. The featured exhibitors included Cisco, EMC, Microsoft, VCE and VMware.

Following the Tech Panel, there was a cocktail reception and dinner in the ballroom, where attendees and engineers could talk in a more relaxed setting about the topics covered over the course of the day.

“We were thrilled with the enthusiastic response to the Tech Summit from our team and from customers,” said Bakker. “Sharing knowledge has always been something our techs have done internally and they really embraced doing the same with our customers. As a company, we’re looking forward to opening our doors and giving our customers that same level of access again in the future.”

To learn more about Arraya, visit us online at www.ArrayaSolutions.com or follow us on Twitter, @ArrayaSolutions.

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Have you registered yet for Arraya’s first annual Tech Summit? If not, you’re in danger of missing out on a full, completely free, day of classes on hot button IT topics presented by Arraya’s respected team of engineers. You’ll also miss a number of other exclusive features set to take place during the Summit, including the Arraya Technology Panel.

During this panel, attendees will have access to the full scope of Arraya’s technical expertise. Leaders with dozens and dozens of years of combined experience, from each of our subject areas, will take to the stage to participate in a lively debate and roundtable on topics such as the cloud, collaboration, managed services and IT security to name a few. The conversation will be solution-focused and product and vendor agnostic.

After the initial discussion, the floor will be opened up and attendees will have the chance to ask any IT questions of their own in order to hear our experts’ unfiltered answers and opinions.

“The motivation for this session was to give the audience an opportunity to pick the brains of our experts,” said Thomas York, Arraya’s Director of Product Management, who will be moderating the panel. “Our team is used to coming in and deploying solutions. Rarely are they offered the opportunity to share their knowledge and insight on trends.”

And the panelists are excited for that opportunity.

“It means a lot to be chosen to be on the Tech Panel,” Mark Nixon, Arraya’s Data Management Team Lead, said. “It’s a sign that the company not only trusts in my opinions but is willing to let me be a voice for Arraya. That level of trust in its employees is part of what makes this company such a great place to work.”

“It’s an honor to participate in the Tech Panel with other key delivery employees and discuss new technology trends and concepts,” Kevin Taggart, Arraya Solution’s Enterprise Networking Team Lead, told us.

Mark Marra, Arraya’s Microsoft Solutions Team Lead, noted that: “VMware competes with Microsoft Hyper-V, Cisco WebEx and Jabber compete with Skype for Business, etc. Despite that fact, the leaders of each of Arraya’s teams are still going to come together, on a single panel and talk solutions not products. That shows Arraya is committed to doing what’s best for the customer, not what’s best for a specific partner.

“Being part of an organization that puts the customer first is very important to me, and it’s humbling to be surrounded by peers who are so talented in their specific disciplines,” Marra added.

What will you walk away with?

What can audience members expect to gain by listening to and participating in the panel? We asked the panelists themselves to give their thoughts. Considering the wide range of insight and experience each panelist brings to the table, it was really no surprise that we received plenty of different responses.

“How to get your time back is going to be a big part of the conversation,” Trent Hewitt, Arraya’s Support Services Team Lead, said.

Raj Shanmugam, Arraya’s Cisco Collaboration Team Lead, pointed out: “Work from home is legacy now. Work from anywhere is the next big thing. You don’t need your workforce in the office every day. Our discussion at the Tech Summit will shed some light on how and where work will be done in the future.”

“I hope attendees gain a clearer understanding of the trends in our industry and the factors driving those trends,” Tadd Williams, Arraya’s Microsoft Collaboration Team Lead, said. “This insight can help them to make decisions in the 1-2 year timeframe that can better position their organizations’ IT assets 5-10 years from now.”

Halim Chtourou, Arraya’s Virtualization Team Lead, said: “Hopefully attendees gain a better understanding of what common industry buzzwords actually mean to them and how we can help them move their level of technology forward to reduce costs and increase operational efficiency and user satisfaction.”

Check out the Tech Panel, as well as a variety of in-depth courses and sessions, all presented by techs for techs at the inaugural Arraya Tech Summit. The day-long event will be held on June 4, from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Sheraton Valley Forge in King of Prussia. Even though the event is free, space is limited, so be sure to register now to secure your spot!

To learn more about Arraya, visit us online at www.ArrayaSolutions.com and follow us on Twitter, @ArrayaSolutions, for all of the latest Tech Summit, company and tech industry updates.

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Advanced data and analytics tools have become an almost essential part of making and sustaining any type of long-term improvement. It’s like the old saying goes: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” But despite the importance of those tools and the constant pressure on healthcare organizations to keep reaching another level in terms of quality, many aren’t using data and analytics to their fullest potential.

When asked to describe where their organizations stand with business and data analytics, only 10% of healthcare leaders confirmed they use advanced tools to collect, analyze and interpret data. The rest haven’t reached that point in their journey, including 21% who described themselves as still in the planning phase. That’s according to the results of a study of 270 healthcare professionals conducted by KPMG LLP, an audit, tax and advisory firm.

What’s getting in the way? The biggest obstacle keeping organizations from implementing data and analytics tools is siloed, non-standardized data. More than a third (37%) of organizations listed that as their top issue.

Also holding organizations back:

  • a lack of technology infrastructure- 17%
  • skill gaps with data and analytics- 15%
  • their company culture- 11%
  • an inability to electronically capture and exchange data- 5%
  • an unclear return on investment (ROI)- 4%

Get a clear, defined look at performance

Struggling to get out of the gate with data and analytics? Investigating ways to advance your capabilities? Look no further than Performance Analytics from ServiceNow. This application provides leaders with visualizations of the metrics, reports and key performance indicators (KPIs) they need to see exactly where things stand with their departments and teams. Leaders can use that info to ensure they meet their goals regularly and are fully-prepared to tackle improvements when they come up.

Performance Analytics addresses a number of the barriers healthcare organizations named in the study. Take for example, the number one issue on the list: non-standardized data. Performance Analytics breaks down organizational silos by establishing a lone, standardized record of truth across all facets of the service request management process.

In terms of the skills gap, culture issues and ROI, Performance Analytics is designed to deliver unmatched time-to-value. It comes complete with access to the world’s largest library of key performance indicators (KPIs) for IT and other business functions and pre-defined KPIs for all major IT processes. This allows organizations to get up and running and to start seeing value more quickly. Also, Performance Analytics doesn’t require any specialized coding skills to manage, making it accessible to techies and non-techies alike.

Additional features include:

  • mobile-enabled scorecards depicting up-to-date performance trends
  • a secure platform where data isn’t duplicated and never leaves the safety of the ServiceNow cloud environment
  • the ability to automate regularly occurring reports, which saves time and eliminates mistakes by taking error-prone manual processes out of the equation

If you want to learn more about some of the other leading Enterprise Service Management tools offered by providers such as ServiceNow, as well as the latest technologies in network/voice, storage, enterprise and Managed Services, sign up now for the 2015 Arraya Tech Summit. This day-long event will be held on June 4th at the Sheraton Valley Forge in King of Prussia and will feature deep dive sessions highlighting the topics and solutions that matter most to today’s IT professionals.

All courses will be led by members of Array’s team of subject matter experts. These are the folks who work day in and day out to implement, maintain and support those very technologies. The “by techs, for techs” format eliminates the fluff and ensures attendees walk away from the event with in-depth knowledge and insight they couldn’t get anywhere else.

Be sure to visit www.ArrayaSolutions.com or follow us on Twitter, @ArrayaSolutions, for all of the latest Tech Summit and Arraya updates.