It would be helpful if we had a tool inside the cloud where we could go and just see if we wanted to look at reserving additional resources, then what the cost would be. Just going in and having somewhere to say, "I want to add another VM with two disks like this," then they just could give me an estimate. This would help us know how to scale or structure the cloud resources that we need from them and how much it would cost.
They can maybe improve the scheduling. There have been times where I wanted to schedule something, and there was a conflict on their side as to who can do it and when and why, but other than that, they have been pretty stellar.
The infamous whiteboard still has some things to deploy from my standpoint and our primary business solution standpoint. So, there is always room to grow. There are a few security things that I would like to deploy, such as single sign-on so the email address and password are the login. From my professional standpoint, I would like an app to manage WorkSpaces from my phone. I don't believe there is one right now, and I have looked. For example, if somebody comes to me, and heaven forbid I'm not in the office, my solution is to log into my phone to the portal via web, then scroll down and restart their WorkSpaces. This is assuming that I have the data, because in places like rural Pennsylvania, you can't guarantee that. They have an app for managing the servers, but WorkSpaces is where most of my day-to-day stuff ends up. This is not really under CDW, but if CDW developed an app for that, I definitely would partake in it. If you take a dive through their websites, it feels like they were all put together by different teams. I know they are changing this because I am pretty sure that we have talked about this issue with the account reps. In the two years that we have used them, the websites have improved considerably. One used to be like an old SharePoint site that was Internet-facing, and I was very scared of it. They have actually gone to custom dashboards now, but I would love to see a single dashboard for my AWS, Office 365, and all of that stuff just laid out about three-tiers deep so I don't have to dig through websites.
CDW Managed Cloud Services has found pitfalls and various things in the infrastructure, e.g., in routes, IP ranges, and security loopholes, that didn't need to be there. They stripped it down and went to a very flat topography, making it less complicated. So, there are less things to trip over and go wrong, which means less downtime.
A lot of people see the cost, and they are like, "Well, that is a lot if we already have an internal IT person." It's like, "Well, you're not just getting that." You are getting access to resources and peace of mind, to say, "I don't have to worry about this server dying at 2:00 in the morning because these guys will handle it." I will wake up, and if there would have been a problem, it would have been addressed. It would have been notated and fixed.
Sr. Manager, IT Infrastructure & Security at a pharma/biotech company with 201-500 employees
Oct 19, 2021
It is a little more complex than I would like, but I think that's more AWS than CDW. CDW actually saves us money in regards to the way they handle things. We get support without a six-figure commitment from the AWS side, and that's appreciated.
It would be helpful if we had a tool inside the cloud where we could go and just see if we wanted to look at reserving additional resources, then what the cost would be. Just going in and having somewhere to say, "I want to add another VM with two disks like this," then they just could give me an estimate. This would help us know how to scale or structure the cloud resources that we need from them and how much it would cost.
They can maybe improve the scheduling. There have been times where I wanted to schedule something, and there was a conflict on their side as to who can do it and when and why, but other than that, they have been pretty stellar.
The infamous whiteboard still has some things to deploy from my standpoint and our primary business solution standpoint. So, there is always room to grow. There are a few security things that I would like to deploy, such as single sign-on so the email address and password are the login. From my professional standpoint, I would like an app to manage WorkSpaces from my phone. I don't believe there is one right now, and I have looked. For example, if somebody comes to me, and heaven forbid I'm not in the office, my solution is to log into my phone to the portal via web, then scroll down and restart their WorkSpaces. This is assuming that I have the data, because in places like rural Pennsylvania, you can't guarantee that. They have an app for managing the servers, but WorkSpaces is where most of my day-to-day stuff ends up. This is not really under CDW, but if CDW developed an app for that, I definitely would partake in it. If you take a dive through their websites, it feels like they were all put together by different teams. I know they are changing this because I am pretty sure that we have talked about this issue with the account reps. In the two years that we have used them, the websites have improved considerably. One used to be like an old SharePoint site that was Internet-facing, and I was very scared of it. They have actually gone to custom dashboards now, but I would love to see a single dashboard for my AWS, Office 365, and all of that stuff just laid out about three-tiers deep so I don't have to dig through websites.