Logicalis Australia helps customers manage Dell and Cisco switching

With marketing and alliances director Oliver Descoeudres.

What network product and services do you specialise in?

We work mainly with Cisco and Dell. We see customers looking for a ‘hybrid’ strategy such as Cisco core and Dell switching, which can be cost-
effective. Our value is in helping customers develop architecture and manage infrastructure.

When did your company first get involved in this area?

About the same time Cisco entered the Australian market, maybe even a year or two before that! We’ve worked in the LAN/WAN space for more than 20 years since we were part of Anixter.

What are your networking credentials?

A very long list of acronyms, especially when it comes to Cisco. We have CCIE (and even a PhD in wireless) consultants and support staff, and more than 50 different certifications in the networking space. Traditionally we’ve focused on getting the highest certifications in our pre-sales team, but we’ve also seen the value of having them within our managed services team.

Heard about any cool networking developments recently?

There are emergent technologies that extend the orchestration capabilities we have seen in the data centre network to the wider enterprise. SD-WAN is the first cab off the rank, but platforms such as Cisco-Meraki are starting to show edge-to-edge integration including policy and security support via a single portal.

Can you tell us about a recent networking deployment?

A customer has been working with us to refresh their ANZ networks. As well as critical manufacturing and logistics sites, it has a retail network of more than 20 stores. Logicalis worked with the customer to provide incremental capabilities that pay for themselves with each new function deployed. There is a three-stage program that lets them demonstrate value to the business at each stage while keeping a coherent, executable roadmap.

What is driving customers’ networking projects?

Enablement of line-of-business. Momentum is being driven by digital transformation, with some organisations going from zero footprint at some sites to wireless, security and collaboration services for multiple business units (finance, marketing, logistics etc). Here service quality, reliability and ease of use are critical.

Networking is...?

Networking is the underlying foundation of all IT.