When the pandemic hit, companies were forced to prioritize modernization. This mostly meant investing in cloud. But with limited budgets, these expenditures often meant skipping maintenance on existing data center infrastructure.

Now, as the pandemic dust settles, companies are faced with aging assets and supply chain delays. Add the lack of skilled employees, and it’s no surprise that the infrastructure-as-a-service market grew by over 40% in 2020.

“With our focus on managed services, we’re essentially allowing our customers to run and deploy things across every technology aspect,” said Dan O’Brien (pictured), senior vice president of technology solutions at Presidio Inc. “This is something that we used to have to drive across to our customers, and now we can’t get out of a conversation without them asking for it.”

O’Brien spoke with theCUBE industry analysts Dave Vellante and Lisa Martin at the Dell Technologies World event, during exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed Presidio’s partnership with Dell and how it’s helping companies across industries to modernize their infrastructure. (* Disclosure below.)

Hybrid, multicloud strategies are more efficient than just public cloud adoption

Presidio is a digital services and solutions provider with expertise in networking, cloud security, collaboration and modern technologies. It recently became a Dell Titanium Black partner and focuses on helping customers adopt hybrid, multicloud strategies to reduce technical debt and get the most out of their cloud investment.

“The answer to most of our customers is not the public cloud’ it’s not the private cloud. It’s that you need to do both of them really well and have the skills and expertise to leverage them for the right application or workload or use case,” O’Brien stated.

Balancing data accessibility with security is a priority for any cloud strategy, and the key to obtaining portability in a well-running cloud is getting the networking right, according to O’Brien. With “years and years” of network engineering in its DNA, Presidio is well-positioned to help customers to manage complex multicloud environments.

“It’s been a great synergy on us moving in that direction to help our cloud customers make sure that [they have] the right SLA, the right connectivity, and the right availability to make that world work,” he said.

Successful modernization also means companies have to realign departments to integrate information technology and business objectives. A recent Wall Street Journal article caused waves when it announced “It’s Time to Get Rid of the IT Department,” but rather than getting rid of IT, the premise was that IT and business need to integrate, according to O’Brien.

“You need both parties on board,” he said. “You’ve got a business stakeholder that clearly understands technology is the answer, but you need IT to be able to go make it work and be a true partner.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Dell Technologies World event.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Dell Technologies World. Neither Dell Technologies Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE