Virtualization is a relevant technology for promoting his business

Guy Hochman, CEO of Gini -
"Even a small business manager should understand that virtualization is a relevant technology to promote his business."
Virtualization is coming to the SMB arena and leveling the playing field.

Managers understand how to improve business results against competitors by making the best use of resources and moving to cloud services Indeed saves valuable time and money in purchasing hardware and licensing.

Genie: Virtualization is coming to SMBs and leveling the playing field.

"If I had to condense the message into the most essential insight that every business manager should assimilate in his attitude to corporate computing, it is that virtualization is a relevant technology for promoting his business, even if it is small or medium," says Guy Hochman, CEO of Genie Business Computing Services.

"For historical reasons, it was the large organizations and the Enterprise companies that were the first to be exposed to technical development and were the first to derive many competitive advantages from it. Starting with better utilization of equipment and software licenses, through the ability to respond quickly to changing needs and thus improve business agility, and ending with strengthening business survival and recovery from disasters - Virtualization has indeed brought about a historic transformation in the Datacenter. Many businesses have experienced a dramatic jump in the availability and alignment of IT systems to business goals and a corresponding improvement in the ROI for technology investments.

But the revolution for some reason stopped at the entrance to the SMB sector. For those who remained outside the renewal circle, this is an unforgivable missed business opportunity, because it has no technical justification. Virtualization should be embedded in all sectors and bring operational and economic benefits to small businesses as it brings to large ones. There is actually no alternative to virtualization that does not involve intolerable business risks. Virtualization is not the future, it is the present of corporate IT."

Experience speaks for the evidence in the field
Guy Hochman came to this conclusion not from theoretical considerations and a review of analyst reports and consultants' recommendations. He speaks from experience, 15 years of outsourcing projects and management of the information systems for hundreds of SMB companies, accumulated since genie was founded in 1998. "I founded the company to provide outsourced IT management services to industrial companies that do not want or are unable to deal with the technical side of infrastructure The information on an ongoing basis," he says. "Among our first clients was "Brit Piquh" one of the largest management and accounting services companies in Israel, which leads the issue in the settlement sector, kibbutzim and moshavim.

The business partnership between us began with the acceptance of responsibility for the management and maintenance of the computer center of "Brit Paukah" which was a bridgehead and a lever for carrying out a very wide variety of projects in all types of Brit Paukah's customers. From project to project we acquired unique knowledge and experience in the verticals that came to our service - including understanding the environment of the economic, financial and regulatory constraints of a variety of industries. From a technical arm we became a valuable asset of the Pico alliance and thus the alliance entered into a partnership with Genie in 2004."

The entry of a supervisory alliance that enabled Genie's rapid expansion (today the company employs over 80 first-rate IT professionals), came at a particularly successful moment, when awareness of virtualization began to spread in the business world. "We managed to gather a critical mass of talents and experts at a relatively early stage and thus establish an advantage by a large gap, which has not been closed, against the competitors," says Guy. "Thanks to a technological focus at a relatively early stage, we were able to bring Genie to a special status among integrators in Israel.

Roughly, the integration companies can be divided into two groups: the "big five", which are focused on the Enterprise sector and have difficulty understanding the limited world of small and medium-sized companies, and a large number of small companies, whose financial resources are at most sufficient to handle the IT needs of the smallest businesses . In the middle, falling between the chairs, it was possible in the past to find the "business center" companies, the Mainstream which makes up 70 or 80 percent of the manufacturing sector in Israel. Genie is specifically built to serve them. In terms of size, business focus, understanding the constraints and matching the needs, we are built to serve the Mid Range better than the two traditional groups. And the most effective way we can help is to take them from the old IT world configurations to the virtualization front."

Business growth engine
Says Tamar Shalem, CEO of Legin Industries: "We were looking for a state-of-the-art IT solution that would take us forward and grow together with us without shocks for at least five years. Our company has experienced rapid growth and we are not ready to accept that IT will become a restraining factor, instead of a business promoter. Genie consultants offered an advanced concept based on virtualization, as part of a turnkey project that includes planning, execution, implementation and running - this is what we got. A smooth transition, without interruption to the course of business, to a new system with excellent performance and critical reliability. The virtual system is ready for unlimited growth, simple maintenance and fast recovery from failures. When properly implemented, virtualization is, fundamentally, also a backup solution through redundancy (Redundancy) that does not crash in the event of a server crash - at most there is a certain decrease in performance."

Genie's experts willingly take "end-to-end" responsibility even for complex projects, including upgrading hardware and infrastructure, installing operating systems and security, and adapting business applications to specific needs. "For the typical customer, we provide a complete solution under unified control," says Guy Hochman. "He doesn't need to invite consultants, conduct negotiations with infrastructure contractors, haggle over the price of equipment and software licenses and in the end look for who is to blame when something doesn't work properly. We do everything, take responsibility for everything and guarantee that the bottom line is that the customer will receive optimal value for his money.

We can guarantee this because we work with all reputable vendors - IBM, HP, Dell, EMC, Cisco and NetApp. We are not "in the pocket" of any supplier and we are able to give each customer a "tailor-made" solution without the biases of foreign interests. Even in choosing the virtualization system, we are "open" to a VMware or Microsoft solution, as the case may be. And we think long term. Both in terms of our relationship with customers and in terms of total ownership costs, the TCO of the solution. Don't be blinded by price
Purchase "on occasion" or license "on sale". The goal is to minimize costs and maximize performance throughout the solution's life cycle - because we want to be the customer's preferred choice even when the time comes to move to the next platform."

Save money and time, every day
"Bottom line, we are measured by our ability to save the client money and improve the work processes for him," says Guy Hochman. "The technology we implement is aimed solely at achieving the goals defined by the client and that are appropriate to his business vision. From experience, it is easier to achieve a correct fit when the starting point is virtualization, because this way we can adjust the details of the solution while executing the project - even if there have been changes in the competitive environment or the client feels the need for an organizational change". In his opinion, Mike Penzir, from the Gesch Lighting Plant Manager, agrees: "The choice of Genie to carry out the project followed an in-depth examination of several proposals and competition between the integration companies.

The test revealed that Genie's proposal is excellent in terms of its fit with the organization's plans and reflects a deep understanding of the challenges we face. The virtualization solutions that Genie implemented in Gesch lighting factories created a very comfortable work environment, simple to upgrade and operate and easy to maintain regularly. When you take in the big picture - the significant improvement in the organization's response times to internal or external events, the decrease in maintenance costs at the same time as a drastic reduction in downtime and malfunctions, the high utilization of existing resources and the reduction of the need for upgrades and license additions - it is clear that this solution saves us money and time every day."

"Virtualization is not a goal, but a means," says Guy Hochman. "But in the case of the middle SMB this is categorical, an absolute necessity. It is a mistake to think that only large companies can afford the "luxury" of virtualization. On the contrary. It is neither a luxury nor out of the reach of SMB companies. You only need to pick up the phone and order a Genie consultant to To see that the way is open to everyone, to get much more IT for less money and nerve-racking."