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Sep 15, 2008 8:05 AM
Tags: 12 | technologies | midmarket | customers

CRN showcases the 12 must-have technologies solution providers should be offering their midmarket customers..

Talk about pressure.

Typical midmarket CIOs stare down myriad challenges on a daily basis: Hackers are getting craftier, work forces are becoming more dispersed, globalization is becoming a reality, and economic and environmental trends are forcing businesses of every ilk to think green.

In short, they face the same struggles as their counterparts at large enterprises, and they're looking for creative IT solutions to help tackle them.

So with Everything Channel's Midsize Enterprise Summit taking place this week in Dallas, CRN set out to identify the 12 must-have technologies that solution providers should be putting in front of their midmarket customers as well as some of the key vendors that will help them get there.

VIRTUALIZATION
Five Key Vendors: Citrix Systems, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, VMware

Server virtualization has become one of the fastest-growing practice areas for solution providers as their midmarket customers look to cut servers and get more out of the ones they have left.

Less than 10 percent of all servers have already been virtualized, making this a wide-open opportunity for solution providers serving the midmarket.

And the best part is that a virtualized server infrastructure is only the start. While midmarket customers initially adopt server virtualization to consolidate physical servers and cut the resources required to run them, it poises midmarket customers to take advantage of broader solutions.

Low-cost virtual servers can usher in long-distance disaster recovery, eliminate the need for application-specific server appliances and ease first-time SAN deployment for customers who have not networked storage previously.

BLADE SERVERS
Five Key Vendors: Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Sun Microsystems

With virtualization coming on strong in the midmarket, blade server solutions have never been more attractive. But blades are a funny beast, according to Tom Beckman, director of technology at Tampa, Fla.-based Infinity Business Systems. When you need a blade solution, you really need it. When you don't, you really don't.

Some technologies are general-purpose, with applicability to a wide array of solution packages. Blade server solutions, on the other hand, are appropriate to specific midmarket customer needs, Beckman said.

"Where it's come in handy for us is when we're doing a virtualization project and where the client had a fairly limited amount of space for servers," he said.

Heat and airflow can become significant issues with blade installations, Beckman said. But the upside is well worth the effort.

UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS
Five Key Vendors: Avaya, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Mitel Networks, ShoreTel

VoIP has gotten a lot of attention in recent years, but savvy midmarket solution providers are already taking the next step: moving their customers to unified communications. The idea is to take the promise of VoIP—integrated voice and data networks—and build on it by bringing IP voice traffic together with other modes of communication. For midmarket customers, the ability to access e-mail, video, instant messaging, voicemail and the like via a single user interface means that employees are more accessible and better able to collaborate, making for a more nimble, proactive organization.

"The technology is a little ahead of the adoption of the users, but when you show folks that you can do continuous presence, the ability to communicate in myriad forms with any of your co-workers, your clients, suppliers and so on, that's what really seems to trip their trigger," said Dave Casey, president of Dallas-based VAR Westron Communications Inc.

Next: Videoconferencing

VIDEOCONFERENCING
Five Key Vendors: Cisco Systems, LifeSize Communications, Polycom, Sony, Tandberg

You know that old phrase, "I'll believe it when I see it?" Enter videoconferencing, one of those rare technologies with "cool" factor that can really help your business. That may explain why VARs said it will have the biggest growth potential for clients with 1,000 to 4,999 workers, according to the Everything Channel State of Technology: Networking survey.

Solution providers surveyed said, on average, that 19 percent of customers have adopted IP videoconferencing, and that nearly 5 percent have adopted HD videoconferencing. Meanwhile, on average, more than 28 percent of customers are planning to adopt IP videoconferencing this year, while more than 7 percent plan to adopt high-definition videoconferencing.

"From a midmarket customer perspective, it's important because the price of travel today continues to go up. Their productivity goes up [with videoconferencing] because of their ability to communicate and facilitate more efficiently," said Kenneth Dominguez, an integration specialist at Ocean Computer Group Inc., a Matawan, N.J.-based solution provider.

NETWORK MANAGEMENT
Five Key Vendors: Entuity, NetQoS, NetScout Systems, SolarWinds, Uplogix

With technologies such as VoIP, video and wireless gaining so much steam, it's no wonder network management has stepped into the spotlight for midmarket customers looking to get a handle on their infrastructure and the traffic that traverses it.

Whether it's through traditional management tools or more advanced monitoring systems, midmarket companies with smaller IT staffs can get peace of mind from network management solutions that offer reports and help them troubleshoot network performance issues as they arise, and sometimes before.

Network management uptake in the midmarket is growing, said Jeff Wolach, vice president and CTO of Sinnott Wolach Technology Group Inc., a Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., solution provider. "It's kind of like preventative medicine," he said.

MOBILE SECURITY
Five Key Vendors: Columbitech, Credant Technologies, McAfee, Research In Motion, Trend Micro

Whether it's mobile encryption, authentication or being able to wipe data from a smartphone that is lost or stolen, mobile security is becoming increasingly important in the midmarket.

As midsize companies look toward mobility solutions—in-building or campuswide Wi-Fi or broader mobility solutions tying together smartphones and mobile applications—sensitive data is becoming more portable. And with that portability, security gets called into question. Protecting data, devices and applications from compromise, wherever they may roam, has become imperative, especially in the midmarket, where many users and executives are unaware of exactly what type of information is being sent on the go.

"A lot of mobile information is about as private as a postcard," said Steve Beauregard, president of Regard Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Santa Monica, Calif.

Next: Data Loss Prevention

DATA LOSS PREVENTION
Five Key Vendors: CA, IronPort Systems, McAfee, Trend Micro, Tumbleweed Communications

As data breaches continue to grace the headlines on an almost weekly basis, data loss prevention (DLP) will increasingly play a bigger role in the midmarket space, solution providers said.

Lee Rudick, director of professional services for Incentra Solutions Inc., Boulder, Colo., said, "Although [people] are reading about other organizations, they are subject to these [security] concerns as well. The press is good about shedding light on the fact that this happens to everyone."

And solution providers say that it's no coincidence that the midmarket is increasingly adopting DLP solutions to meet regulatory compliance standards and protect intellectual property and other sensitive internal data. According to Everything Channel's recent State of Technology: Security survey, solution providers identified data loss as the biggest security threat to midsize customers over the next 12 to 18 months.

PERIMETER SECURITY
Five Key Vendors: Fortinet, SonicWall, Sophos, Symantec, WatchGuard Technologies

Perimeter security offerings are still going strong in the midtier space. According to Everything Channel's State of Technology: Security survey, solution providers identified perimeter security as the No. 1 security technology they are currently selling to midsize customers.

One reason is midmarket customers are still very attached to traditional security solutions while being cautious about adopting more comprehensive technologies to protect their networks.

Some midmarket customers are not sophisticated enough to understand that security is more than just putting in a firewall and IDS system, said John Menezes, president and CEO of Cyberklix Inc., Mississauga, Ontario. "Hard on the outside and soft on the inside—this was typical of enterprises six or seven years ago," he said.

However, channel partners said they see perimeter security evolving as more midtier businesses implement a firewall as part of an all-in-one UTM device that also provides antivirus, antispam, antimalware and intrusion detection.

DATA CENTER COOLING
Five Key Vendors: American Power Conversion, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Liebert, Raritan

It's been said before, but it bears repeating: Data center cooling is hot. As CIOs have taken more control over data centers from facility managers, having fans cooling midmarket data centers just doesn't cut it anymore. Fault tolerance for the data center is a 24/7 job, and with blade servers turning up the heat in the data center and green IT on nearly every CIO's mind, cooling is even more important for VARs to offer customers—and both parties are seeing the benefits. "The good news for VARs is that there are profits to be made. Data center cooling isn't commoditized," said Rick Tashman, critical infrastructure consultant with Syscom Technologies, Marietta, Ga. "For the client, an in-row [cooling] unit draws less electricity with a more efficient method. That reduces utility bills."

Next: Deduplication

DEDUPLICATION
Five Key Vendors: Data Domain, FalconStor Software, NetApp, Sepaton, Symantec

Data deduplication, or dedupe, has, over the last couple of years, become one of the fastest growing segments of the storage market.

Its popularity among end users and their solution providers stems from the way that dedupe helps solve one of the most pressing issues in the storage industry: how to handle the burgeoning growth in corporate data without investing in more storage capacity or the people needed to manage it.
Dedupe removes duplicate information as data is backed up or archived. It can be done at the file level, where duplicate files are replaced with a marker pointing to one copy of the file, and/or at the subfile or byte level, where duplicate bytes of data are removed and replaced by pointers, resulting in a significant decrease in storage capacity requirements.

VARs said that dedupe is a must-offer technology since more customers are now aware of its importance in decreasing the amount of data to be stored by a significant amount.

SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE
Five Key Vendors: Microsoft, NetSuite, Sage Software, Salesforce.com, SAP

Software-as-a-Service is putting powerful applications within the reach of companies that previously couldn't even dream of affording or deploying them. SaaS burst onto the scene as one of the most hyped technologies to come along in recent years, but that has led to confusion in the market about what it can and can't do.

One thing that's clear is that the current economic situation is driving adoption of SaaS as more companies seek to avoid major capital expenditures on data centers.

"The flexible pricing that SaaS offers is very attractive to businesses, and even when the economy rebounds, it's likely that people are going to stick with it," said Adam Smith, director of marketing at Phase 2 International, a Honolulu-based solution provider.

BUSINESS APPLICATIONS
Five Key Vendors: Epicor Software, Microsoft, Oracle, Sage Software, SAP

Virtually every large corporation today has bought and installed ERP and CRM systems, so application vendors like Oracle Corp. and SAP AG have been turning their sights on midsize companies to find new customers. And they are increasingly calling on solution providers for help.

Consider this: The Everything Channel 2008 End User Spending Survey found nearly 43 percent of midsize businesses are making enterprise business software suites a spending priority.

All vendors, but especially ones whose forte has been selling to big companies, need solution providers' midmarket expertise and now are aggressively recruiting channel partners.

See original article on CRN.com