BTEX 2020: How CDW and Microsoft Help You Shift to the Cloud

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COVID-19 has had a major impact on IT departments over the past eight months, and its impact will continue to be felt for the near future. The transition to working from home means having to get hardware, software and systems all enabled for a work from home environment.

“Customers are asking for that environment to be optimized,” says Stephen Tanaka, GM Microsoft Partners, Microsoft Canada, speaking at CDW’s BTEX 2020 virtual event. “They have multiple software products doing the same thing, they haven’t rolled out a programmatic way to manage their hardware, and there’s huge opportunities from a market perspective for CDW,” he says, noting CDW’s focus on cloud services, cloud security and cloud operations. “Those three dimensions are key for servicing a customer end to end.”

Optimize your workspace with Windows Autopilot

Everybody needs a notebook, desktop or device to be able to work remotely. But what about being able to update software or hardware remotely?

Windows Autopilot technology allows employees to take any device, log in to their organization and have it roll out the operating system with all the applications they need. “CDW has the expertise to help our customers in that automated state as they continue to work from home,” says Tanaka.

3 ways to protect your data while working from home

With many employees working from home, the first step is securing physical devices, according to Tanaka. “You really need management software, such as Microsoft Intune, that allows you to prevent any unwanted breach of your hardware.”

The next thing to think about is the identity layer. Most people think of identity as entering a user ID and password, but you should employ an extra layer of security, such as two-factor authentication. “Microsoft’s technology really enables that,” says Tanaka. “Our two-factor authentication allows your phone to become that second authentication device.”

The third element is protecting your applications and data. That’s where CDW’s cloud security experts can help, by offering end-to-end solutions for customers from hardware to cloud software.

How CDW can help you manage your public cloud environment

“We’ve seen customers put net-new workloads, as well as augmenting workloads in the cloud,” says Tanaka. “No one is buying new hardware and putting it in a data centre.”

When it comes to cloud migrations, CDW has an Azure Expert MSP certification. This designation by Microsoft indicates that CDW has a certain level of credentials that allows us to architect, implement, operate and manage cloud solutions from end to end.

“Customers are saying I really want to stick with what I’m good at in my business,” says Tanaka. “Maybe I should have someone else manage this on a day-to-day basis for me.”

The benefit of CDW and Microsoft as co-sellers

Customers really want choice, and there’s no single vendor that can provide that solution from end to end.

“CDW plays an important role as this partner-to-partner aggregator, to bring that end solution to the customer,” says Tanaka. “That’s why the partner-to-partner piece is so important, so customers have that choice on what’s right for their business.”

Enterprises generally have large IT organizations, and they could benefit from CDW’s expertise as they rapidly transition to the cloud, particularly over the past six months. CDW has over 200 technical consultants focused on the cloud, which can help bring added cloud capability to your business.

“One of CDW’s strengths is the size of their services organization, which can really help our customers on that end-to-end journey,” says Tanaka. “CDW is the partner you can trust to help bring your organization to the cloud.”

To learn more about CDW’s cloud services, please visit CDW.ca/cloud. And be sure to bookmark this page for more coverage of BTEX.