CDW: Developing VMware Solutions for Our Heroes in Healthcare

Jens Koegler Healthcare , , , , ,

CDW’s Healthcare Solutions Leads to the 2021 VMware Industry Partner Award

Originally published at VMware.com

Congratulations to CDW, the 2021 VMware Industry Partner Award winner for its work with healthcare organizations.

“With the pandemic, healthcare organizations and many other organizations had to quickly respond to pressing challenges around technology infrastructure and remote access,” Our experience at CDW developing solutions based on VMware technologies made it possible for us to enable our healthcare clients to make that shift.”

Mike Grisamore, Vice President of Healthcare Sales at CDW

This year, CDW won the 2021 VMware Industry Partner Award for demonstrating excellence in the U.S. Healthcare and State and Local Education Market (SLED) markets. CDW is a VMware partner based in the U.S. that sells technology and services that help clients realize value from their technology environment, whether on-premises, in a hybrid or multi-cloud environment, or in the cloud. The award is part of the annual VMware Partner Achievement Awards, which recognize outstanding partners globally for their achievements using VMware products and solutions to solve business challenges and address pressing needs in innovative ways.
 

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Meeting the Challenges of Healthcare Organizations

“I think that the award showed our strategic play with both VMware and our healthcare customers,” says Grisamore. “It really comes down to being able to demonstrate our ability to provide healthcare customers with solutions that address very dynamic challenges in their organizations.”

According to Grisamore, those challenges show up in two key areas: the need for remote access to end user applications and infrastructure management, and a need to consolidate data centers following mergers and acquisitions.

“Healthcare customers have to be able to dynamically create infrastructure and securely get applications to their end users on any device anywhere in the environment,” says Grisamore. “They are looking for our help to provide application security, while making sure their staff can still do the essential work of providing care.” With IT staff unable to work onsite, healthcare organizations were also seeking ways to remotely provision infrastructure and manage their infrastructure operations.

Another common challenge that CDW helps customers manage is the complexity that accompanies mergers and acquisitions. “Instead of running multiple data centers around the U.S., they want to consolidate down to a single data center to reduce operational costs,” Grisamore explains. With CDW’s proven experience helping healthcare customers, organizations can confidently navigate this transition, knowing that they’re receiving guidance from true industry experts.

Healthcare customers have to be able to dynamically create infrastructure and securely get applications to their end users on any device anywhere in the environment. They are looking for our help to provide application security, while making sure their staff can still do the essential work of providing care.”

Mike Grisamore, Vice President of Healthcare Sales at CDW

Adapting Quickly During a Pandemic

As the pandemic unfolded, CDW had to help clients rapidly shift to remote work while swiftly doing the same with their own processes. Grisamore recalls, “Although things slowed down when the pandemic first hit, we were able to do much of the in-person work that we traditionally did with customers, such as our workshops to evaluate business needs, by shifting to deliver them through videoconferencing. We made that change seamlessly.”

At the start of the pandemic, CDW’s healthcare customers moved employees who were not required to provide in-person care to a work-from-home model. Grisamore says, “That means that many of our customers couldn’t go into their data centers. They were looking for alternate ways to look at the data center stack. We figured out how to help them proactively leverage and manage their VMware stack using vRealize Operations and vRealize Automation.”

In one case, CDW was engaged by a healthcare organization to migrate to a new data center. The goal was to transform their infrastructure to offer better networking and security as well as higher application availability, and it all had to be completed in a very short timeframe. Grisamore says, “They needed doctors, nurses, and other staff at the hospital to securely access their applications from any device and at any time with no problems. That way they could focus on providing patient care rather than troubleshooting technology issues.”

CDW provided security through micro-segmentation with VMware NSX-T, application dependency mapping using VMware vRealize Network Insight, and migration using VMware HCX, an application mobility platform that simplifies application migration, workload rebalancing, and business continuity across data centers and clouds. The migration was a success, and to top it off, CDW finished the project ahead of schedule.

Partnering with VMware for Growth

CDW started off as a VMware technology reseller, but has since evolved to provide end-to-end client services. They’re now one of VMware’s largest partners.

Grisamore notes, “VMware has been a great enabler, helping us really hone our solutions-oriented approach toward working with customers.” In that approach, Grisamore adds, “We invest heavily at the frontend of the project, doing workshops and discovery to understand a client’s needs. Then we collaborate to develop a long-term solution that meets those needs based on VMware technologies.”

In addition, CDW has earned five VMware Master Services Competencies (MSCs), which are designed to help partners demonstrate proven success and expertise in specific VMware solution areas:

  • Cloud Management and Automation
  • Data Center Virtualization
  • Digital Workspace
  • Network Virtualization
  • VMware Cloud on AWS

Achieving MSCs requires a significant investment in mastering solution areas—each MSC requires passing an exam and having at least 20 customers vouch for the company. But the investment is worth it. Grisamore says, “The MSCs establish credibility with our customers—they know that we have done deployments, keep up to date, are constantly being accredited, and have the ability to deploy products in the VMware portfolio.”

Congratulations to CDW for developing exceptional solutions based on VMware technologies for their healthcare customers during such challenging times.

Stay tuned for more spotlights on our 2021 VMware Partner Achievement Award winners just like this one. Interested in becoming a VMware Partner? Learn about the VMware Partner Connect program. Looking for a VMware Partner like CDW? Find one using our Partner Locator. Then learn how VMware Principal Partners can help drive your business success.

Next Steps

Check out the VMware Partnership Perspectives podcast episode featuring Aletha Noonon, SVP of Product and Partner Management at CDW.

Jens Koegler

Jens Koegler is VMware's Healthcare Industry Director in EMEA. He is helping our healthcare customers develop and run modern applications to drive innovation and ensure better patient care through a digital foundation that includes data center, hybrid cloud, mobile, networking and security technologies. VMware plays a strategic role in the healthcare industry. Its leading innovations in enterprise software help ensure consistent patient care and reduce IT access time for healthcare professionals so they can spend more time with their patients. Jens plays a key role in helping customers understand how new applications, devices, the latest IT technologies and digital transformation are driving innovation in healthcare.