LINCOLNSHIRE, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

CDW (NASDAQ: CDW), a leading provider of technology solutions to business, government, education and healthcare, today announced an extension of its cloud computing competencies, offering a comprehensive set of services that helps customers develop a customized plan for leveraging the cloud. Through CDW’s Cloud Planning Services, customers gain knowledge and a view into best practices to assess, design, deploy and manage cloud solutions in the context of a flexible and tailored cloud strategy, enabling them to achieve operational and financial goals.

CDW Cloud Planning Services enable organizations to select from an array of fee-based advisory services that produce insights and recommendations for developing a cloud strategy and can be fitted to meet each client’s unique needs. The offering combines consulting and diagnostic services to help customers determine which of their applications and workloads make the most sense to move to the cloud. Available services include four progressive levels of optional, pre-defined workshops that range from a one-day seminar to a seven-week engagement, with opportunity for customized projects tailored to customers’ needs.

“Transitioning from legacy infrastructure to cloud-based workloads is challenging; our market research and field experience show that organizations struggle with selecting and deploying workloads in the cloud as well as forecasting the financial and operational impact,” said Stephen Braat, vice president, cloud and managed solutions, CDW. “CDW Cloud Planning Services places valuable knowledge into the customers’ hands, giving them the insights to develop a cloud strategy that fits their business objectives.”

The most basic level of CDW’s Cloud Planning Services is Cloud 101 – a one-day workshop that outlines cloud market trends and evaluates an organization’s IT environments. Cloud 101 helps organizations understand the most compelling use cases for cloud and how centralized IT can regain control in a technology-as-a-service environment, identifying the challenges and key drivers for change in cloud deployment.

CDW’s Cloud 201 is a one-week, in-depth look into the customer’s IT environment to help them develop a cloud strategy, construct supporting business cases and identify data center transformations necessary for cloud adoption. From Cloud 201, CDW customers produce a tailored and prioritized list of cloud-candidate applications and services, a high-level roadmap for cloud optimization and an assessment of their current state cloud operations, infrastructure and processes.

Cloud 202 is a three-week process that includes the Cloud 201 consultation and additional focus on total cost of ownership (TCO) frameworks to identify cloud vendors that match the customer’s specific workload needs. It also provides an overview of cloud security and the compliance landscape with prospective vendors, plus an approach to data center cost reduction and key cost reduction drivers with cloud.

The most comprehensive CDW Cloud Planning Services engagement, Cloud 301, is a seven-week, process highlighting consideration and definition of the financial and non-financial benefits of cloud adoption at the customer organization. In Cloud 301, customers derive a prioritized list of applications/services whose TCO, business and security considerations indicate cloud is the best IT delivery model, plus an assessment of their current data center cost breakdown vs. industry standards and a validated as-a-service cloud operating model.

CDW’s Cloud Planning Services also include diagnostic tools and service options that can attach to and support any level of the planning engagements by providing specific information on the customer’s IT infrastructure, such as:

• Complete cloud lifecycle visibility and infrastructure cost data
• Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cost modeling
• Pre- and post-migration infrastructure performance testing and IaaS validation

“With more than 15 years of professional services experience, CDW is a distinguished leader in helping organizations get the most out of IT solutions, and now we’re expanding that core competency to cloud planning,” said Mitch Raskovich, senior manager of cloud client services, CDW. “Combined with our extensive cloud resources and solutions, CDW Cloud Planning Services provides customers with solutions that are quickly ramped with defined outcomes to drive planning and implementation.”

Cloud and Managed Services at CDW

CDW’s cloud computing strategy and portfolio of cloud offerings are closely integrated with its managed services capabilities. With more than 15 years in the managed and professional services business, CDW’s service solutions team is recognized as an industry leader in hosting, infrastructure-as-a-service and managed services, providing the full life cycle of IT services from procurement to design, implementation and ongoing management. Most noted for managed cloud, managed hosting and remote managed services, CDW can provide the same level of managed services whether the customer’s IT infrastructure is installed on the customer’s premises, hosted in third-party data centers or resides in the cloud.

For more information about CDW cloud services offerings, visit www.cdw.com/cloud.

About CDW

CDW is a leading multi-brand technology solutions provider to business, government, education and healthcare organizations in North America and the United Kingdom. A Fortune 500 company with multi-national capabilities, CDW was founded in 1984 and employs more than 8,700 coworkers. For the twelve months ended June 30, 2016, the company generated net sales of over $13 billion. For more information about CDW, please visit www.CDW.com.

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