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August 25th, 2016 12:00

Ask the Expert: Enabling a Collaborative Converged Infrastructure Team

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Welcome to the Dell EMC Converged Platforms and Solution’s Division Ask the Experts conversation.


IT organizations are increasingly opting for converged and hyper-converged infrastructure to power their digital transformation. In order to maximize their investments, CIOs need to realign their teams in a way that will optimize the available skill sets while taking full advantage of an agile and  flexible IT infrastructure. 


The event will explore how customers can leverage a converged and hyper-converged infrastructure to create a collaborative IT environment and organizational and cultural changes that can be fostered for optimal results. The discussion will cover best practices and highlight how customers can get full value from their investment.


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We'd like to kick off this discussion with a video chat between Stu Miniman from theCUBE and Shelia Hartness of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center about how Wake Forest deployed converged infrastructure and adopted an IT culture that optimizes the benefits of converged infrastructure. After viewing the webcast, please scroll down and join the conversation!


This discussion takes place Oct 3rd - 14th. Get ready by bookmarking this page or signing up for e-mail notifications.



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Meet Your Experts:


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Shelia Hartness

Lead Software Systems Engineer, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

Shelia Hartness is a Lead Software Systems Engineer at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, a nationally recognized, fully integrated academic medical center and health system based in Winston-Salem, N. Carolina. Hartness describes how her organization aligned its IT team to get the best out of its converged infrastructure in this article from the Data Center Journal, Becoming a Converged Engineer.

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Brett Foy

General Manager, Data Center & Mobility Solutions, AHEAD

Brett Foy is the General Manager of AHEAD's Cloud Delivery Platform with focus on Cloud and Datacenter Infrastructure, End-User Mobility and delivery of AHEAD's consulting Innovation Framework. Through Brett's 6 year career at AHEAD, he has been focused on helping dozens of enterprise and mid-market companies formulate data center strategies and execute modernization plans, with focus on next-generation data center technologies around Converged Infrastructure, Virtualization, Computing, Networking, Storage, and Backup/ Recovery.

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Todd Pavone

COO, Dell EMC Converged Platforms and Solutions Division

Todd Pavone is the Chief Operating Officer of Dell EMC’s Converged Platforms and Solutions Division, responsible for its operations, product engineering, product management, product marketing and manufacturing.

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Nigel Moulton

EMEA CTO, Dell EMC Converged Platforms and Solutions Division

Nigel Moulton is the EMEA CTO and leader of the Global CTO team at the Converged Platforms and Solutions Division of Dell EMC. Moulton is responsible for the technology strategy of CPSD in EMEA, working with counterparts globally, to ensure that the benefits of infrastructure solutions are broadly understood by both customers and business partners alike. As a broad theme, Moulton shows how converged infrastructure drives greater efficiencies in the data center, and demonstrates how organizations are able to move to business models that derive huge value from cloud, big data and analytics, delivering a better business outcome more accurately and more quickly.

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Pat Grazioli

Senior Director, Professional Services, Dell EMC Converged Platforms and Solutions Division

Pat currently leads professional services for the Americas for Dell EMC’s Converged Platforms Solution Division (CPSD). Having served the last 25 years at companies including Dell EMC, VCE, EMC, Perot Systems, Raytheon, and Texas Instruments, he has an extensive and successful track record, building global professional services organizations, technical selling and developing strategies for cloud go-to-market organizations covering diverse industries and regions. He was responsible for building and managing one of the largest object-based public clouds.  Pat is passionate about providing a superior customer experience and continuous improvement.


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2 Intern

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718 Posts

October 3rd, 2016 06:00

Welcome to this Dell EMC Community Network Ask the Expert conversation. Our discussion is now open for interaction.

When formulating your question please consider the following:

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We’re delighted to know you’ve decided to join our debate and hope you receive the answers you’re eager to find. Thanks!

3 Posts

October 4th, 2016 10:00

Awareness of the benefits of converged infrastructure (CI) is increasing every day.  IT orgs are starting to understand the benefits of having a CI team.  Shelia and the team from Wake Forest have experienced the organization before and after their Vblock deployment. 

Shelia can you describe how the IT staff was organized before your CI deployment?

October 5th, 2016 07:00

Answering for Shelia,

Our IT organization before our Converged Infrastructure initiative was organized along the traditional lines of storage, networking, and servers with very little skill overlap between these areas.  With our new Converged Infrastructure initiative we are focusing on cross-training opportunities for our engineers and operations staff to develop skills outside their primary area of expertise. This also allows for a greater levels of collaboration between teams by understanding how other areas of our Converged Infrastructure function. It also helps our staff have greater opportunities for career development and opportunities to learn new and interesting technologies.

Will

32 Posts

October 5th, 2016 14:00

Thanks for the great info Will Robinson ! By chance, would you be able to share some of the "cross-training" opportunities that your team has leveraged to develop the skills needed to support the CI initiative? 

October 6th, 2016 10:00

Tamera,

Sure. One of the cross training opportunities that comes to mind was a training class we had on site for the CIsco UCS platform.  We encouraged people from both the networking and storage teams to attend the training to become familiar with the workings of the UCS platform.  After the class the participants had a better understanding of how the UCS Converged Infrastructure is deployed and managed.  Since Converged Infrastructure really blurs the lines of servers, networking and storage we are encouraging our staff to expand their skillset across multiple disciplines.  I know we have also had server administrators attend classes for MDS switches, networking administration classes, and load balancer training.  These cross-training opportunities have improved their skillsets to be able to better support our Converged Infrastructure initiatives.

Will

32 Posts

October 6th, 2016 11:00

Thanks Will, really appreciate the answer. 

2 Intern

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718 Posts

October 12th, 2016 07:00

Greetings folks, only two more days to post additional questions on this thread. Don't miss the chance to follow up, share your insights or engage our panelists with your commentary.

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