NetStar enters Australia’s data centre market

Sydney, AUSTRALIA – 3 November 2009 – NetStar Australia today announced its entry into the data centre market with the establishment of a specialist consulting division and new partner certifications from Cisco, VMware and EMC.  It has already secured three new customers in the healthcare, property and transport industries who will be using its combined Cisco, VMware and EMC solution.

NetStar will offer consulting, professional services, support and managed services for virtualisation and data centre environments.  Its data centre solutions will focus on selective outsourcing for virtual infrastructures, which enables customers to reduce operating costs and enhance shareholder value. Its managed services offering has been built on NetStar’s existing base of over 300 management customers and combines unique visibility into a company’s virtual infrastructure with a Service Desk that takes ownership of all operational tasks. Using nVisage, NetStar’s Software-as-a-Service monitoring application, customers gain an integrated view of their storage, server and network environment at a price-point significantly below traditional management applications.

NetStar’s received new partner qualifications for:

• Cisco’s Advanced Data Centre Networking Infrastructure (DCNI) and Advanced Data Centre Networked Storage (DCNS):  This allows NetStar to offer Cisco’s “Unified Fabric” and network-embedded virtualised application networking services, which allows consolidation of IT assets and reduce date centre infrastructure
• VMware Enterprise Partner. This allows NetStar to offer VMware solutions including licences, assessment services and outsourced management of VMware infrastructure including Managed Virtual Infrastructure
• EMC Velocity Advantage Partner.  This allows NetStar to offer storage and back-up consulting, implementation and fully managed storage solutions.

Chris Meager, CEO of NetStar said, “NetStar has made a strategic decision to enter the data centre market based on our firm belief that there is a fundamental convergence of IP networking, storage and server infrastructure occurring in the corporate IT environment.  Unless IT solutions providers have a deep understanding of all three and how they work together, they won’t be able to deliver effective IT infrastructure solutions. NetStar is the only systems integrator and managed service provider in Australia to provide managed virtualisation infrastructure based only on the VMware/Cisco/EMC alliance.”

“In the long term, these capabilities will enable us to deliver on the vision of a private cloud, allowing businesses to be more agile.  In the short term, our solutions and services will help customers reduce the complexity and costs of managing their data centres.”

“Our investment in this strategy is already seeing a return and we are currently in discussions with several new and existing customers about these new services.”

John Growdon, Director of Marketing for Worldwide Channels at Cisco said, “As a Cisco Advanced DCNI Specialised Partner, NetStar’s investment in the training required to provide integrated, collaborative and adaptive data centre networking solutions ranks it among the industry’s most qualified.”

Fred King, Partner Director at VMware said, “We welcome NetStar as a partner and are anticipating strong uptake of the company’s managed virtualisation service as market demand for this tailored services offering continues to grow.”

David Henderson, EMC ANZ General Manager of Channel and Partners, also welcomed NetStar as a partner. “NetStar is welcomed into the EMC partner community and will add tremendous value, especially as it leverages its depth of expertise in the networking and converged environments. VMware, Cisco and EMC have formed a strategic alliance which helps our mutual customers become more efficient, with greater control and choice via virtual data centres. We look forward to working with NetStar and supporting its focus on a managed virtual infrastructure service, which brings together best of breed technology.”    

ABOUT NETSTAR

NetStar provides lifecycle IP networking solutions. With extensive expertise in deploying and supporting secure, converged networks NetStar enables companies to improve productivity and reduce support costs. In particular, NetStar offers market-leading network management offerings across voice, data and security infrastructures. NetStar’s unique Software as a Service approach to network management enables customers to reduce infrastructure support costs by 20-50%.

NetStar is a Cisco Gold partner and focuses on integrating and supporting Cisco Advanced technologies. NetStar has delivered solutions to more than 800 enterprise and government customers since 1995, and manages over 300 customers globally through our Global NetCentre (network support centre). Customers include Energy Australia, Swinburne University, Tyco and Wesfarmers.

See www.netstarnetworks.com.au for more information.

Media Contact:
Gabriel Wong
Max Australia
+ 61 2 9954 3492
gabriel.wong@maxaustralia.com.au