Saving significant dollars on your next IT budget cycle does not mean you have to reduce head count or delay previously planned spending. More effective support management can result in improved system reliability and availability as well as reduced IT service costs—directly impacting your bottom line. One of Akibia's customers, a global telecommunications provider/xSP, was able to realize approximately $1.5 million in annual savings on their mission-critical Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard data center support services with "Service Partner," our innovative approach to self-maintenance that leverages Akibia's ability to customize a support solution to fit the customer's unique needs and IT environment.

“Service Partner” Can Save Your Team an Average 40%-60%

Service Partner is a cost-effective alternative to traditional on-site support service, enabling customers to leverage their own internal IT staff to perform the actual server maintenance while taking advantage of Akibia's economies of scale, best-in-class logistics operations, and multivendor hardware and software technical expertise as part of an efficient self-maintenance support solution. In general, Akibia's Service Partner customers have experienced 40%-60% in savings over standard on-site maintenance plans while ensuring high availability and uptime. This is largely due to the fact that Service Partner is an inherently lower cost, and more responsive, business model than traditional on-site maintenance plans.

According to Gartner Analyst Eric Rocco, roughly 40% of all outsourcing costs can be attributed to dispatched labor. Akibia simply removes labor from the equation, enabling you to consolidate vendors across multiple hardware types and operating systems. Specifically, Akibia's Service Partner solution provides:

• Problem diagnosis for multivendor hardware and software issues through our 24x7 technical support center;


• Delivery of replacement parts leveraging Akibia's best-in-class logistics operations, ensuring the right parts are available in the right place at the right time;


• Technical education to train your internal IT staff on how to effectively support Sun, IBM and HP hardware, as well as Solaris,HP-UX and Linux operating systems.

Customized Solutions Enhance ROI

In most cases, companies that contract with an OEM (or two, or three) for systems maintenance must select from a range of predetermined SLA packages and oftentimes may end up overpaying for aggressive SLAs on non-critical systems that do not require them. Conversely, it is Akibia's approach to gain a thorough understanding of the customer's needs and environment and then to customdesign a support solution tailored to their specific requirements—rather than offering prepackaged service plans. For many customers, we create a customized solution combining on-site service and “Service Partner,” with a variety of response times and coverage options, depending how critical the server is and the level of service required. Our tailored solutions also offer customer-specific call flows and escalation paths, remote diagnostic tools, consigned parts and dedicated on-site engineers. For instance, while certain mission-critical, revenue-generating systems may demand an on-site 2- hour response, other systems may not require such high availability service. And in many cases, the customer's own internal IT staff can be leveraged to perform the actual hardware maintenance when given the appropriate training—Akibia's Service Partner plan provides the complementary services that enable and empower your IT staff to efficiently support your systems.

Take Advantage of Every Cost-Saving Opportunity

Opportunities for significant cost savings are often overlooked when it comes to data center support management. Other potential areas for cost reduction include sourcing used and refurbished systems, ideal for non-production environments; leveraging remote database administration to avoid inefficient staffing and remote systems monitoring to proactively avert downtime and accelerate the repair process when failures do occur; and taking the time to formulate a comprehensive Linux strategy.

About Akibia, Inc.

Akibia provides innovative IT solutions that enable leading companies worldwide to optimize, secure, manage and support their mission-critical data center and security infrastructure. Combining expert consulting, integration and support services with world-class customer service, Akibia helps IT organizations maximize the value of their existing infrastructure, while mitigating risk and reducing complexity. Founded in 1988, Akibia is an independent IT services company with offices throughout the United States and Europe. For more information, please contact us at 1-866-4-AKIBIA (425-4242) or at info@akibia.com. To contact our European Headquarters, please call +31 (0) 318 581950.