Logicalis Managed Services Clients Gain Advanced ITSM Features

    BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI, January 19, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ -- As companies across America reassess their financial positions for the new year, one of their most important considerations is how to handle the demands and costs of managing their enterprise data centers. One increasingly popular option is to outsource core IT monitoring and management functions to a managed services provider. The challenge is in knowing whom to trust with your company's data. To help its customers with this dilemma, Logicalis, an international solution provider with a deep expertise in managed services, has added a new IT Services Management (ITSM) ticketing system - Service-now.com - to its already strong managed services portfolio. The new ticketing system acts as a strategic portal, giving IT directors the ability to track workflow and management of their outsourced data center services in real-time.

"For an IT director, allowing someone else to manage your company's data center is like taking your heart out of your chest and handing it to a cardiologist," explains Wayne Kiphart, Logicalis' vice president, managed services. "You may know you have to do it, but how do you choose someone you can trust to do the job right?"

Window into Managed Services Workflow

According to Kiphart, it's easy ... just follow the money. "If a managed services provider is serious about providing best-in-class services and support to help its customers manage their data center, then that provider will continually invest in its own infrastructure in a significant and meaningful way. At Logicalis, the investment we've made in Service-now.com is proof positive that we take our commitment to our enterprise clients very seriously."

Learn more about Logicalis' managed service offerings by downloading a complimentary copy of "Efficiency on Demand ... Managed Services: The Good News Behind The Need To Cut Costs" at http://www.us.logicalis.com/ms.

Logicalis has also completed a conversion of its primary monitoring tool. Now, any issues with a customer's data center detected through Logicalis' monitoring capabilities will be routed through the company's new Service-now.com portal to enhance the customer's access and visibility to notifications and workflow. By combining the services available through Logicalis' growing and enhanced managed services offerings, client companies can truly have a 24x7 monitoring and service staff without the capital expense they would have trying to create the same efficiencies in house.

Logicalis has done more than implement new ITSM tools; instead the company has completely redesigned its offering - starting with the documentation that defines it. Logicalis used the ITIL v3 framework to completely revise its service offerings, customer contracts and service level agreements and used this as the foundation to customize and implement the ITSM tool. This approach ensures integration between what's being offered to customers, the systems to manage the offering, and the customer accountability through the online tools.

With Service-now.com, Logicalis' managed services customers can:

• Capture self-service tickets
• Monitor the status of all tickets via a dashboard with graphical analytics
• Communicate regarding tickets via the portal or directly via email, even from mobile devices
• View configuration item information
• Modify and filter list views in the portal
• View graphical incident maps showing the geographic locations of high-priority incidents
• Electronically approve change requests via mobile devices or standard email
• View all incidents, problems or changes by status
• Update notification preferences
• Directly view device statistics and alarms for any managed device

"Convincing the CIO/CTO that Logicalis' managed service offerings are the way to go is the easy part. Getting that decision approved by a typically non-technical CFO is often harder, but Logicalis can help there, too," explains Kiphart.

To help IT professionals strengthen communications with their financial counterparts, Logicalis has developed "Making IT Matter: Getting to Yes," a report that discusses the business motivators and strategies involved in receiving CFO-level approval for IT requests. The complimentary guide and an interactive calculator are available at http://www.us.logicalis.com/CFO.

About Logicalis
Logicalis is an international provider of integrated information and communications technology (ICT) solutions and services founded on a superior breadth of knowledge and expertise in communications and collaboration; data center optimization; application development and integration; and outsourcing and managed services.

With its international headquarters in the UK, Logicalis Group employs over 1,900 people worldwide, including highly trained service specialists who design, specify, deploy and manage complex ICT infrastructures to meet the needs of over 6,500 corporate and public sector customers. To achieve this, Logicalis maintains strong partnerships with technology leaders such as Cisco, HP, IBM and Microsoft.

The Logicalis Group has annualized revenues in excess of $1 billion, from operations in the UK, US, Germany, Latin America and Asia Pacific, and is fast establishing itself as one of the leading IT and Communications service providers, specializing in the areas of advanced technologies and services.

The Logicalis Group is a division of Datatec Limited, a $4.2 billion revenue business listed on the Johannesburg and London AIM Stock Exchanges (LSE/JSE: DTC).

For more information about Logicalis, visit www.us.logicalis.com.

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