Selling the FlexPod Data

Center Solution
The opportunity is clear
Your customers need to reduce their overall operating expenses while
increasing their agility and ability to respond to changing market conditions.

The solution is compelling

The FlexPod Data Center Solution combines the computing, storage, and
networking expertise from NetApp and Cisco to deliver the cost, performance, and
management improvements your customers need.

Avnet can help!

Fast configuration and ordering processes
Pre-assembled and tested solutions delivered to your customer
Vertical industry expertise to help drive new and incremental revenue
Ongoing support to help you and your customers maximize ROI

Selling the FlexPod Data

Center Solution
Selling the FlexPod Data Center Solution..................................................4
The Avnet Advantage...................................................................................5
Know Your Prospect.....................................................................................7
Qualifying Questions....................................................................................8
Solving Common Business Problems with FlexPod.................................9
Streamlining your Sales Process................................................................10
Handling Objections.....................................................................................13
Tools and Resources....................................................................................14

The Market is Primed

for a New Data Center
Solution
In response to growing needs for a flexible, cost-effective IT solution that will fit into current
infrastructures, many organizations are moving away from silos of servers, storage, and networking
resources toward higher levels of virtualization and the cloud. The FlexPod Data Center Solution
from Cisco and NetApp directly addresses these needs via a validated, shared infrastructure that
scales vertically or horizontally across many different application workloads and environments.
And though youre well aware of this revolutionary new data center architecture and have
certainly had success selling FlexPod whats kept you from truly capitalizing on the potential
of this breakthrough solution and maximizing your FlexPod sales?
If youre like many resellers we work with, the answer comes down to a simple concept: When
budgets are tight and resources are slim, you only have so much time and energy to dedicate
to identifying and nurturing potential FlexPod sales. But, because the solution holds immense
potential both in terms of serving existing customers and acquiring new ones its important
to do what you can to make the most of your FlexPod business.

FlexPod meets the needs of customers who have the

following requirements:
Migration to a shared infrastructure with many applications
Improved agility to meet growth and key business initiatives
Lower cost per user without sacrificing scalability
Need to improve operational agility, processes, and costs
Evolution to operations that align with ITIL-based standards
Deployment of dedicated applications that support software as a service (SaaS),
VDI, and other cloud environments

Selling the FlexPod Data Center Solution

FlexPod is a pre-designed, pre-validated infrastructure building block Built On Cisco UCS, Cisco
Nexus data center switches, NetApp FAS storage components, and a range of software partners
that can be easily customized to address a variety of requirements.
The FlexPod definition and value proposition are clear and compelling:
What is FlexPod?

FlexPod is a pretested, pre-validated, scalable data center solution that

leverages best-of-breed technologies from NetApp and Cisco to increase
business agility while lowering deployment risks, accelerate application
deployment by compressing project timelines, and reduce TCO by leveraging
the efficiencies of a shared infrastructure.

What does it do?

We do this by combining validated technologies from industry leaders in

storage, networking, and server virtualization to create a single, integrated
platform that can scale both vertically and horizontally and incorporate
third-party infrastructure management solutions.

What this means to your

customer?

With this architecture, youll be able to lower capital and operating expenses,
enhance IT agility, and realize faster cloud deployments that are driven by
simplified, standardized, repeatable processes.

Oftentimes, however, just relaying the value prop is not enough you need prove it in terms
the prospect will understand.
Avnet can help you in this regard by giving you the option to have our technical experts
accompany your staff to any site visits at your prospects location. Theyll work closely with you to:
Quickly and effectively asses the prospects needs
Scope the solution
Illustrate how your solution will deliver the benefits described in the value proposition

The Avnet Advantage

At Avnet, we understand the challenges you face, and we recognize the potential benefits the
FlexPod architecture can bring to your business. And, with our proven solutions distribution
expertise and strong relationships with NetApp and Ciscoas well as other complementary
solution providers we are uniquely qualified to help you take advantage of your FlexPod
opportunities and maximize the effectiveness of your sales efforts.
To help you achieve these goals, you can leverage FlexPod Services by Avnet FSA a single
source for the products, assembly, testing, technical expertise, and pre-sales support you need
to quickly and successfully close high-profit FlexPod sales.
FSA provides the end-to-end resources required to help you understand your prospects needs,
customize the FlexPod architecture to fit these requirements, and quickly deliver a finished
product and support and enhance it throughout every step of the data center lifecycle.
Best of all, you can engage with Avnet for support at any point in the sales cycle to help drive the
deal to a rapid, successful close either via your dedicated FlexPod Services team or by calling
1-855-GO-FLEXPOD (463-5397) so you can identify more prospects, pitch more solutions,
and pump more dollars to your bottom line.

Your FlexPod Services Team

A dedicated solution sales and services team provided by Avnet and focused
exclusively on FlexPod, your FlexPod Services by Avnet team provides:
Pre-sales support for fully configured FlexPod solutions
Ordering and POS/benefit tracking
Assembly, pre-test, and shipment of fully configured FlexPod solutions
Demand generation and marketing for new FlexPod opportunities
Upgrades for FlexPod solutions sold through FSA
Service contract and asset tracking of all FlexPod components
Help identifying and driving post-sale demand generation activities
Roadmap for partners to successfully specialize in key high-growth vertical markets

Typical Configurations
Avnet has leveraged FlexPods flexibility and scalability to test and document several FlexPod
configurations that can address many customer requirements.
Use this configuration

to address either of these customer scenarios

VDI Users
Virtual Machines

VELFP200VDI75VM

200

75

VFP.500VDI.140VM.M3 (NetApp FAS3210A)

500

140

VFP.500VDI.140VM.M3 (NetApp FAS3240AE)

500

140

VFP.1000VDI.200VM.M3

1000

200

VFP.1500VDI.350VM.M3

1500

350

VFP.2000VDI.350VM.M3

2000

350

VFP.2500VDI.550VM.M3

2500

550

VFP.3000VDI.625VM.M3

3000

625

Configuration detailsincluding complete product listing, workload assumptions, and power

informationare fully presented in the final pages of this Selling the FlexPod Data Center
Solution guide.
Partnering with Avnet to sell and deliver FlexPod can mean several advantages to
your business, including:
Simplicity

Single, easy-to-understand quotes for the entire FlexPod solution

Single ordering process and invoice
Vartopia registration tool to register one FlexPod deal with multiple vendors
A FlexPod solution that is pre-assembled, pre-tested, and shipped complete
Sales processes that take costs out of your business, while helping you close
profitable sales and drive dollars to your bottom line

Standardization

Validated FlexPod designs ensure consistent results for both you and your
customers

Performance and
Configuration Excellence:

Configuration guidance and support from certified experts provides the

confidence that youll be delivering the best results to your customers
A dedicated FlexPod solutions sales and service team within Avnet
Support that helps you to add to the FlexPod brand integrity and benefit
from the reputations of the vendors behind the architecture

Know Your Prospect

When marketing FlexPod, its important to craft your messages so they will quickly resonate with
the different roles throughout your prospects organization. The following are the key individuals
you should be targeting, and the best ways to communicate the value of FlexPod to them:
CIO

Accelerate data center transformation through a flexible IT architecture

Reduce TCO with higher data center efficiency to:
Decrease the number of operational processes
Shorten deployment times
Reduce energy consumption
Maximize resources
Leverage existing infrastructure to new ends
Reduce risk with a pre-validated infrastructure stack
Benefit from cooperative support and ecosystem of industry-leading partners

VP Operations/
Director IT
Infrastructure:

One platform and set of operational skills and processes for all sites, applications,
and security zones
Proven, repeatable configuration approach
Right-sized components that deliver consistency via known power, floor space,
and capacity

Infrastructure
Architect

Infrastructure pools enable centralized management

Application integration and wide feature support
Extended management capabilities
Proven, validated architecture
Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs) and guides for deployment and optimization
Secure multi-tenancy features can be easily added as needed

Qualifying Questions
The following questions and follow-up statements will help you highlight the strengths of the
FlexPod architecture and the value of building a solution with the help of a knowledgeable,
experienced, and certified integrator.

Qualifying Questions

Follow-Up Questions

Many organizations have taken the first step

toward cloud computing by virtualizing parts
of their IT infrastructure. How familiar are
you with the concepts and benefits of cloud
computing or IT-as-a-Service?

What are the key factors that would likely drive your
need to transform your data center (cost, agility,
productivity, and so on)?
How would you rate your organizations desire to
support multiple business units, entities, or customers
within one shared, virtualized infrastructure?
Does a cloud environment offer your organization
enough advantages for you to consider it?
Are there partners you have looked to when
designing, implementing, and supporting your current
infrastructure?

How long does it take to provision test orders or

Dynamic cloud environments require
new applications?
flexible IT resources. Have you thought about
the improvements in business agility and time How long does it take you to provision or repurpose
virtual machine storage?
to market that you could gain by provisioning,
How does that impact your organization?
scaling, and resizing resources almost
Who else is affected?
instantaneously?
How do you establish QoS between virtual machines
and applications?
How important is time to market to your
operations? How would a customized,
pre-integrated solution thats ready to run
upon delivery help you better serve your
customers and execute new business
strategies?

How do you respond to requests to accelerate time

to market and project delivery in order to improve
business agility?
How much time and resources could you conserve by
having a certified systems integrator configure your
solution before it arrives at your data center?

Solving Common Business Problems with FlexPod

Customers across many industries are facing similar challenges related to doing more with less:
Migrate to a shared infrastructure with many applications
Improve agility to meet growth and drive key business initiatives
Lower per-user costs without sacrificing scalability
Improve operational processes and agility
Evolve operations so they align with ITIL-based standards
Deploy dedicated applications that support Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), VDI,
and other cloud environments
The integrated approach to data center computing helps you address these customer challenges:
Business Problem

FlexPod Feature

FlexPod Benefit

Unable to effectively manage

and allocate infrastructure
resources to meet demand

Scalable Shared IT
infrastructure

Scale up within each layer of components, or

scale out to accommodate a variety of application
workloads and customer environments.

Difficulty integrating
multiple vendor solutions
and technologies

NetApp Unified
Architecture

The FlexPod reference architecture allows

the integration of existing IT purchases into the
FlexPod stack.

Increased costs of managing

multiple networks based on
platforms, protocols or remote
locations

Unified Fabric

A single unified 10GbE network, running SAN

and NAS protocols, including FCoE, removes the
need for separate networks.

Increased risk from siloed

technologies and resource
pools

Business Continuity/
Disaster Recovery

Maintain availability during planned and

unplanned downtime, while lowering the overall
cost of high availability and disaster recovery.

Increasingly restrictive
policies and regulations
regarding security and storage
of provide or sensitive data

Secure Multi-Tenancy
(SMT)

SMT offers the data separation and service-level

guarantees offered by application silos,
while leveraging the efficiencies of a shared
infrastructure.

Streamlining your Sales Process

Its clear that the FlexPod integrated data center approach can help you win bigger, more strategic
deals and sell into a higher, more executive level at your customer locations.
Avnet can help you close more profitable deals faster than before and help you deliver a higher
level of customer satisfaction!

Sales
Your customer recognizes the business and IT benefits the FlexPod architecture will deliver
and has worked with you to develop an agreed-upon configuration that is tailored to their specific
needs. So whats next? With the deal a few short steps from being closed, you can once again turn
to Avnet sales support resources to guide and assist you in the final phase of the sales cycle.
For example, we can help you draft the requisite proposals and statements of work and ensure
each contains the proper hardware and software components, services, etc. and manage the
ordering process from each vendor on behalf of you and your customer.
Because our solutions architects are well versed in the specific FlexPod technologies your
customers solution will contain, and speak the language of NetApp and Cisco as well as other
complementary solution providers they can help you streamline the ordering process and ensure
the right components are delivered in a timely manner.

Avnet can help you reach greater profitability on your FlexPod deals.
On a typical $250K deal at 15% margin:
Gross profit on product components: $37,500
Gross profit on Avnet Services: $10,000
Thats a net increase 26% additional gross profit
Plus time savings and profit improvements related to letting
Avnet do the quoting, confirmation, and SOW work!

10

Delivery/Integration
Before the FlexPod solution is deployed in your customers data center, it is first routed to our
228,000 square foot Global Solutions Center in Chandler, AZ, where our dedicated integration
specialists and solutions architects will prepare each component of the FlexPod architecture to
your customers exact specifications.
Theyll manage the required hardware integration and software configuration duties, including:
Custom cabling and racking
Application uploading
Configuration and testing
Virtualization partitioning
Operating system installation
Custom image loads
Database installation
Following these integration activities, you can turn to our world-class supply chain services to
assemble the sever, storage, and networking components of your customers FlexPod, pack it on a
skid, and manage and coordinate the shipping and delivery of the solution from our loading dock
to their doorstep.
And once delivered, we can aid the onsite installation process, coordinate support contracts
with NetApp and Ciscoas well as other complementary solution providersand manage the
knowledge transfer between our solutions architects and your customers IT personnel.
We have highly trained staff members who are dedicated to the initial unloading and unpacking
activities. Let us handle the hard labor involved in readying the solution for integration, so you
can free your high-value staff to focus more time and energy on their core responsibilities.

Avnet can help you consistently deliver valuable solutions while moving away
from managing tactical implementations. Together, we are able to:
Take the focus off low-value unboxing, cabling and installation
Reduce the risk of on-site integration challenges and delivery mistakes
Build perceived value in warehouse custom integration
Plus your customer relationship will transition away from systems and storage,
and focus on long-term business strategy!

11

Business development
After the solution is delivered, installed, and up and running, your customer can leverage our
lifecycle-based data center optimization services, which help them get the most from their
infrastructure investments by enabling them to:
Plan new purchases
Acquire the right solutions
Integrate new and existing technologies
Deploy solutions in production
Manage the new environment
Dispose of aging systems
Our goal in providing these services both during the integration phase and throughout the
sales cycle is to help you build trust with your customers and prove to them that you should
be regarded as their go-to solution provider. And by complementing your knowledge and skills
with Avnets proven services and expertise, youll be able to save time and repurpose your sales
resources to do what they do best identifying and nurturing prospects, filling your pipeline with
high-value FlexPod opportunities, kick-starting the next sales cycle, and driving more sales to a
successful close.
In addition, should you learn while defining the scope of the solution that your customer would
prefer a hosted deployment, we can work with you to determine if a full or partial hosting program
may be in their best interest. Avnet hosting services you can offer your customers include:
Remote Turnkey Hosting: The customer will keep the FlexPod hardware in house, but Avnet will
host some of the software components and perform key management processes.
Full Turnkey Hosting: The customers full FlexPod solution will reside in an Avnet data center and
be fully managed by qualified Avnet support personnel.
Moreover, Avnet solutions architects will also support your sales efforts by determining the best
ways to integrate the new FlexPod solution with your customers existing infrastructure, and how
this new data center architecture will help them further their IT and business strategies.

12

Handling Objections
Its only natural throughout the course of a FlexPod sale to encounter some push back to the
solution you are proposing. Below are some of the typical objections youll encounter, and the
best way to respond to each.

Objection

Response

We are not considering

any virtualization
initiatives at this time.

I understand. But you may be interested to know that the validated,

pre-integrated FlexPod architecture can help you significantly reduce IT
management costs, while providing a platform you can leverage to
accelerate your core business strategies.

We are already leveraging

virtualization and have
no plans to move to cloud
any time soon.

Many organizations are in your position, which is why FlexPod is designed

to easily accommodate a move to cloud when your organization is ready.
Plus, because all components are integrated ahead of time and delivered in
a single hardware stack, FlexPod can reduce the risk and cost of new virtual
infrastructure and cloud deployments, while providing important and unique
new features.

We are an [other vendor]

shop/are considering
a stack from another
vendor.

While the solution you are considering certainly has its strengths, FlexPod
is a much more flexible, scalable, and future-proof infrastructure solution
than offerings from other vendors and features several capabilities unique
to the FlexPod stack, such as Secure Multi-Tenancy, Single-Wire network
convergence, and long-distance V-Motion.

I have already invested

heavily in my current
infrastructure I cant
afford a rip and replace
at this time.

Then thats all the more reason to consider FlexPod. Because you can
incorporate much of your existing infrastructure into the FlexPod
architecture, youll be able to leverage your current capabilities to new ends.
This way, youll have the freedom to maximize the value of your IT
investments without building a new data center from scratch.

A shared infrastructure
doesnt have the security
my business-critical
applications demand.

Concerns such as yours are why we emphasized security and reliability when
building the FlexPod architecture. The solution offers reliable, automated
disaster recovery and data protection processes, provides high availability,
fault tolerance, and resource optimization, and delivers non-disruptive data
and application mobility even over extended distances.

I prefer to integrate my
hardware and software
components in-house.

I understand the desire to maintain control over your IT infrastructure, but

what other initiatives could you be executing if you didnt have to perform
these time-consuming tasks? When you leverage the expertise of a qualified
FlexPod systems integrator to build a FlexPod solution to your specifications,
your IT team will have more time and energy to dedicate toward delivering
on strategic business initiatives.

13

Tools and Resources

Programs
NetApp on Avnet ATS website
Quantum Leap
Avnet ProSeries
NetApp Field Portal
NetApp NOW Portal

Educational Resources
Avnet NetApp Training
Avnet NetApp Events
NetApp Tech on Tap
NetApp University

Typical Configurations
The final pages of this guide present the frameworks for eight tested FlexPod
configurations aligned to specific customer scenarios.

14

2012 Avnet, Inc. All rights reserved. NetApp, the NetApp logo, and FlexPod are trademarks or registered
trademarks of NetApp, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other products, brands,
and names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.