Hardware.com is pleased to announce the launch of its vendor-agnostic Customer Education Center out of its Minneapolis, MN office. Amid a wave of disruptive technologies and shorter product lifecycles, businesses are finding it more and more difficult to test new equipment and determine the best information technology (IT) solutions for their networks. This demo lab was built in response to the lack of education and support available for business leaders regarding emerging technologies. Estimated to contain more than $500,000 worth of equipment, the lab features router, switch, and security technologies from some of the industry’s leading technology manufacturers, including Cisco, HP, Juniper, and Dell.
There are only a handful of these types of labs in the entire U.S. and virtually none in the midwest. Hardware.com recognizes the need for a facility in which customers can gain critical hands-on experience with new technologies, so they can make better evaluation and purchasind decisions of network architecture.
By featuring equipment from many vendors, the lab allows customers to test, compare, and select IT solutions that reduce costs, complement their business, and maximize their hardware investment. The purpose of the lab was to provide customers with more clarity and choice regarding solutions for their network infrastructures. Hardware.com’s new education center lets customers more easily align the right solutions with their business so that they can control costs, maintain network performance, and ultimately stay ahead of the curve.
Hardware.com’s Customer Education Center was built to help network architects and administrators through every step of the IT process, from evaluation, planning and design, to procurement, implementation, and training support. By enabling customers to conduct hands-on, proof-of-concept (POC) testing for solutions from Cicso, Juniper, HP, and Dell, they can easily compare solutions against one another and validate interoperability between platforms. Once a solution is chosen, certified experts from Hardware.com will run a configuration of the new solution at the lab so that customers know what to expect before it’s implemented within their own environment. Other vendors included in the demo lab include Silver Peak and newly added A10 Networks.
This new demo lab is just one example of how Hardware.com is striving to provide more technology options to its customers—rather than focusing on just one or two vendors. In conjunction with the new lab, Hardware.com combines industry-leading technologies with cross-engineering expertise to simplify the purchasing and training process for customers.
