Hello Everyone,

My name is Hameed Mohammed. I’m a Industry Solutions Manager in Microsoft’s Communications Sector, meaning I look after hosters. :)

In the web hosting world today, I see four roads that companies are choosing to go down:

  1. For some it is a great time to explore ways to increase efficiencies in the current economic environment.
  2. For businesses with fast growth, it is worth pausing to put flexible, resource savvy operations in place.
  3. For every business though, it is worth going back to see how they can tap emerging opportunities around cloud and managed services. Because these services are real now.
  4. You can choose to bury your head in the sand, do nothing and die a slow death.

The Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Hosters helps Microsoft hosting partners realize the top three things and prevents the fourth one.

That’s all great, right? But, what exactly IS the Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Hosters, you ask? The Toolkit is end-to-end prescriptive guidance for creating managed services and partner hosted Cloud offerings using the virtualization infrastructure of Windows Server 2008 / Hyper-V coupled with System Center. That means we give you the straightforward guidance to bring Windows Server 2008 and System Center together, overlaid with rich web services to integrate the underlining virtualization infrastructure into your existing environment. Once the virtualization infrastructure and web services have been combined, you’re now set to deliver a topnotch Cloud offering. Utilizing the toolkit, hosters can deploy on-demand virtual machine (VM) provisioning via customer facing portals that provide self-service visibility and management. That means fewer support calls and lower TCO for you, while providing your customers with a rich self-service portal. 

The momentum behind the Toolkit and the Dynamic Data Center Alliance is GREAT! We have at least 9 hosters utilizing the toolkit within 4 months of the launch. More adoption is in the works. Check it out at http://dynamicdatacentertoolkit.com/toolkit/.

What about ISVs and Solution Providers? Both can essentially create nimble virtualized data centers without the hassles of raising capital and running the operations.

  • As an ISV, you can manage the entire software lifecycle - design, development, test, production - for all your customers by stringing together highly available VMs, network and storage on-demand, in a ubiquitous cloud.
  • As a Solution Provider, you can instantiate each customer environment on-demand and you will be able to provide portals to your customers for a 360 degree view of their own infrastructure. This can be a solution you offer or it can be a part of your solution set. 

Isn’t it great to have your customers handling significant support activity, provisioning and monitoring, while you gain bandwidth of your support resources? Yes, it is :)

Thanks,

Hameed