The document also highlights and discusses the increasingly critical role of vendor-supplied support services in addressing these emerging complex data center environments. As these complex IT infrastructures expand, IDC contends it is increasingly important for enterprises to evaluate the support offerings and capabilities of each vendor beyond the normal hardware-specific assessment.
According to the paper's analysis, these considerations should include: options for supporting varying levels of workload criticality; breadth, depth, and personalization of expertise; use of online tools and automation; multi-vendor capabilities and geographic coverage; and the ability to support legacy systems.
