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

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.

Customersare asking for that environment to be optimized, says Stephen Tanaka, GMMicrosoft Partners, Microsoft Canada, speaking at CDW's BTEX 2020 virtual event.They have multiple software products doing the same thing, they haven't rolledout a programmatic way to manage their hardware, and there's huge opportunitiesfrom a market perspective for CDW, he says, noting CDW's focus on cloudservices, cloud security and cloud operations. Those three dimensions are keyfor servicing a customer end to end.

Optimize your workspace with WindowsAutopilot

Everybodyneeds a notebook, desktop or device to be able to work remotely. But what aboutbeing able to update software or hardware remotely?

WindowsAutopilot technology allows employees to take any device, log in to theirorganization and have it roll out the operating system with all theapplications they need. CDW has the expertise to help our customers in thatautomated state as they continue to work from home, says Tanaka.

3 ways to protect your data while workingfrom home

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

The nextthing to think about is the identity layer. Most people think of identity asentering a user ID and password, but you should employ an extra layer ofsecurity, such as two-factor authentication. Microsoft's technology reallyenables that, says Tanaka. Our two-factor authentication allows your phone tobecome that second authentication device.

The thirdelement is protecting your applications and data. That's where CDW's cloudsecurity experts can help, by offering end-to-end solutions for customers fromhardware to cloud software.

How CDW can help you manage yourpublic cloud environment

We've seencustomers 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 comesto cloud migrations, CDW has an Azure Expert MSP certification. Thisdesignation by Microsoft indicates that CDW has a certain level of credentialsthat allows us to architect, implement, operate and manage cloud solutions fromend to end.

Customersare saying I really want to stick with what I'm good at in my business, saysTanaka. Maybe I should have someone else manage this on a day-to-day basis forme.

The benefit of CDW and Microsoft asco-sellers

Customersreally want choice, and there's no single vendor that can provide that solutionfrom end to end.

CDW plays animportant role as this partner-to-partner aggregator, to bring that endsolution to the customer, says Tanaka. That's why the partner-to-partnerpiece is so important, so customers have that choice on what's right for theirbusiness.

Enterprisesgenerally have large IT organizations, and they could benefit from CDW'sexpertise as they rapidly transition to the cloud, particularly over the pastsix months. CDW has over 200 technical consultants focused on the cloud, whichcan 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.