Video: Powering Patient Care, EchoStor and University Of Vermont Medical Center

hey Channel insiders welcome back to channel Insider partner POV your source for untapped opportunities and unfiltered opinions in the it Channel all to help you make Better Business decisions I'm your host Katie boso quick note before we get started today if you haven't checked out Channel Insider on YouTube yet head on over and subscribe to our page at Channel Insider news and Trends I'm introducing you to three guests today CEO Mike Johnson and Enterprise account manager Caleb Morgan of IT solutions provider Echo Store and they're joined by longtime client CC lner director of compute database and desktop Engineering Services at the University of Vermont Medical Center we'll hear how Echo store has been supporting CC and uvm's it infrastructure for more than a decade and why CCE knows she can call Echo Store anytime and they'll come running to the rescue no matter what outfits they have on welcome everybody and thank you for being here on this super New England podcast episode today kid I'm so excited about that how's everyone doing do happy to be here it's great to have you great to have you so for those listening and watching what's exciting about today is that we're not only welcoming Echo Store to to the series we're also welcoming CeCe who is a client directly of echo store so CeCe thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today oh thank you for having me it's my pleasure I'd like to start out by just very simply describing what Echo store is so Mike and Caleb I'm going to hand you to the Reigns at the moment why don't you walk us through a little bit about who you are as a company your Solutions and services and tell us a little bit about the clientele that you typically serve so Katie we're certainly happy to be here it's nice to uh to your point turning into the spring months here in New England with the birds jerp and sun coming through and the Darkness of the Winter Passing us especially with our beloved Patriots coming off a bad year and and uh back the draft season unlike CC was a big Chiefs fan but we won't we won't go down that path you know from an echos store perspective again I'm the CEO Mike Johnson M with the company uh for my 19th year now uh so been here since the early days uh we're headquartered in hopkington Massachusetts right on South Street uh which is kind of the tech capital of the world up here in Massachusetts we grew up in the really in the data center space so you know virtualization compute storage backup systems business continuity disaster recovery and I would say that was probably the first kind of half of our uh of our development as an organization um with the second half really looking to build a more Innovative organization and grow outside of the data center or complement the data center I would say so starting probably 67 years ago we started to go down the path of our digital business which was really built around uh the service now platform which is a very large platform in continuing to grow software engine out there in the market and then kind of emerge into networking and security and then uh recently over the last couple years uh rolled out a we call our our modern workplace business which is really built around Microsoft and Consulting there so if you look at our business really across those four pillars we call them NextGen data center networking and security modern workplace and the digital business and then around that surrounding that business with Enterprise class Professional Services and managed services so we take that to the field and to Market with our customers we're hitting a lot of different verticals not just Healthcare which is obviously near and dear to Echo Store we do a lot in the insurance space Financial Services higher education we have to have that same kind of Playbook but then customize those solutions to specific applications that are being deployed so what does that mean for the customer experience it means not being a vendor really being a partner or a trusted adviser rolling up our sleeves and really being an extension of the customers team again going back to CC here you know they're in the thick of it every single day right patient care is critically important you know to keeping the lights on protecting these environments making sure they're up 247 right so it's a different kind of game of high stakes than not to diminish some of the other verticals we work in but if I can't go online and buy a pair of Nikes it's tremendously different than you know interrupting patient care surgeries Cancer Treatments things of that sort so we take that very very seriously so be an extension of CC's team with our great Enterprise account managers like Caleb CC can have that experience of having 20 Direct reports but then maybe having another 30 people at Echo Store on the trusted advisor side that are working with her team to analyze some of the industry Trends and technologies that are out there how to again keep the lights on patch servers upgrade servers and kind of getting ahead of that and then most importantly mapping that to business outcomes and making sure that we're keeping an eye on budgeting you know from our perspective our organization is really built around customer first that's our culture everybody that comes into the organization that we recruit and ultimately hire and then comes on our team and supports our great customers have to kind of fit that same DNA which is they put the customer first at all times and before we move on to talking to Cece who truly is the star of the show today let's be honest I want to make sure I also include Caleb Caleb for for in particular in this question I really want to know you know we're going to get to know CC today we're going to get to know the needs of UVM but for you being an account manager and being on the ground every day with your customers can you tell us a little bit about what you're seeing a lot of people coming and asking help from you and from Echo store in 2024 what are the patterns that you're picking up on as somebody who is directly speaking to those customers every day sure sure I'll touch on the patters I'll add a little insight to about Echo store because I have a slightly different perspective I jumped over here four years ago and I came from one of those large manufacturer Partners in fact still a large partner of eore Deli MC and working with many partners then while at Deli MC I absolutely also noticed the different culture and the very unique relationship that EOS store had with their clients and frankly they just had a different type of business that they operated in a different type of culture to MJ's point that I saw with the other partners that I worked with so when the opportunity arose to to work with them directly and obviously to continue supporting CC in the health network I wanted to jump at that what I continue to see uh patterns wise in talking with clients it probably really hasn't changed much in the last decade but it continues to be a constant influx of Technology Innovation and new Solutions and more and more consultation that clients are looking for as they're trying to just wrap their heads around what to do next and where do I spend my money and even as a partner in the it space we're always trying to tackle that right there's a lot of different vendors and solutions and products out there so we know that our customers have to deal with that 10x what we do because of how often they're being reached out to and also because we have much more time in our day to study it all and to learn it all where they are also trying to keep their own lights on and operate their own businesses so there's just a lot of information out there and there's a lot of uh questions that our clients have about where do I spend my dollar and how best do I support my business and it's our job to help them weave through that um and ultimately make sure that they're making Investments wisely with that said I want to make sure that I bring in CeCe speaking of customers again CeCe it's so important to us that you're spending your time with us today because you work at UVM at University of Vermont Medical Center which is just such an important business we're talking about Healthcare we're talking about people's needs far beyond their business needs it's their health needs it's what gets them moving every day so why don't you tell me a bit about your job and what you do from the day-to-day and some of the challenges that you face there oh boy um my new job as director of this team and and still managing the server storage team is we provide patient care my job is to deliver patient care um my dayto day is it infrastructure so what systems are we going to put in place in the data center server storage hyper converge desktop you know how are we going to deliver our electronic health record to our clinicians so that they can be at the bedside and delivering that patient care so my job is patient care that's our mission and everything that Mike and Caleb just said is highlights why they're so good at their job and we have such a great partnership and you know is because they understand that because it's the patient it's Community that's why I come to work every day and well every day on Data Center and people and making sure that we're we're up and we're maintaining lights are on systems are running uh our focus is the patient and making sure that they're they're getting the highest quality care that they can um and highest reliability in care can you draw that connection for the average listener to say oh I understand how your job connects with the day-to-day of the the care and what the doctors do to be able to deliver that care to the patients just an examp example so for us uh rebooting a server so every month we have to do monthly updates we have to reboot servers we cannot just reboot a radiology server people are dependent on coming in for radiation therapy chemotherapy um scans emergency treatment so we have to coordinate with providers and different areas within the organization Radiology is one example where just a simple reboot which might be three minutes but three minutes when your life is on the line is critical those those three minutes could be the difference between life and death I suppose but we have to always have that in consideration any downtime we do and in order to maintain our systems we do have to do planned downtime and when we do upgrades where we're bringing in a new system we have to be very careful and thoughtful in how we Implement those systems because three minut is to us and to maybe the average person was like oh it's 3 minutes or 2 minutes or even 30 seconds but when you're a patient and you're being cared for those 30 seconds matter it's really important so that would be the connection we don't always see it in it because we we're not at the hospital a lot of us aren't I'm not at the hospital every day but I think what I love about my team our team that I work with is that they recognize it and that's what makes them so great and ecostore recognizes it and that's what makes them great Partners um but that's that's our priority and I think that's such an important way to point out how it directly impacts humans on a day-to-day basis because we often measure downtime in Revenue loss or efficiency loss and you can honestly measure it in human life and it's so important to consider that direct connection and this is such a great example to explain why it's so important to have the right team and partners behind you with that said CCE before we go into talking about your relationship with Echo Store can you tell me a bit about when it comes to choosing a partner for you why Outsource that it team extension why not go directly to say a vendor like Dell EMC and not calling out Dell in any way but why not go directly to a vendor just for audience explain a little bit to me of why it's important to go to Echo Store instead through the channel the relationship and like Mike said we've been working together for 15 years and it truly is a partnership in every sense of the word we are building trust over time they're they're involved with us from the beginning to the end but the partner they bring such a diverse set of expertise to us it's a different perspective uh we are in it every day in the thick like focusing on what we have and what we need to do that when we partner with Echo Store uh in my experience we get a whole breath of ideas and possibilities and the diverse expertise it just strengthens our team as a whole also they they do they do all the work with with the vendors like it's hard if I go to a specific vendor they're going to give me their story when we work with a partner um what I get from Echo Store is I get a candid um conversation I trust them I trust their experience their knowledge they work with many other Healthcare organizations I feel like we're the only ones I work with because they make you feel that way so they take a lot of that extra work off my plate and off our teams plate so it it really enhances our team my you know the team I work on um we trust them they're often in conversation we need to do something let's ask ask let's ask Echo Store that vendor management piece is important to me certainly as your account manager for Echo Store and as a prior vendor I also try to always have that in mind because I think operational stabilities you said for your organization is Paramount and sometimes many of these manufacturers and vendors they're worried about quarterly business some monthly some even weekly and oftentimes we try to set expectations with them that stability in your environment is most important right and it's not going to have an urgent go to market or a new solution that may not be fully vetted out yet those types of conversations we're trying to manage not to mention to your point making sure that you know the full story about all of those Technologies so that management of those vendors that are out there to us is is very important and we want the right solution right not the quick solution not the easy one even sometimes we want the right solution and so working with Echo Store and helping to build that path is has been invaluable to me I would say also Katie I mean our Innovation team we call it um is a lot of former customers as well internally at Echo Store so a lot of the technologies that Cc or other customers are deploying generally they're meeting with the vendors far in advance bringing this technology into our lab or if it runs in the cloud for example and really beating on it right uh testing it out vetting it out as if they were the customer right and then providing that feedback to our leadership team and our field representation like Caleb to say Hey you know we had this in the lab this ran exceptionally well this is something that we should bring to CC and talk to her about it or hey XYZ vendor just released this new feature you know we rolled it out in the lab uh qu not quite there yet let's wait for the next you know code release or whatever to roll that out the other thing I would mention is why a partner right we're really putting all the plumbing together right so for cc to meet with again Cisco as a switching standard and Dell as a compute standard and as a another storage technology as a storage standard and then maybe they use a different technology to back up and protect this environment with some sort of security you know kind of wrapper around it and then they're bursting workloads or tearing workloads out to a cloud provider whether it's Microsoft or Amazon somebody's going to be in the thick of that to ensure that it's all put together properly to best you know practice right right and I think sometimes if you get too many cooks in the kitchen or too many vendors in the kitchen sometimes the passing of the of the torch doesn't go that smoothly you know so I think when you have the look and feel of an oem right where you have all these specialty practices that we do here at echos store and we can all collaboratively work together to pull that that that kind of endstate vision together I think it just works a lot better we often talk about a single pan of glass for supporting and managing systems Echo Store is our single pan of glass so when we need anything in the data center infrastructure Echo echostar how do you how can you help us can we expand on that point because I've heard some awesome stories prior to us hopping on this recording but what I want to hear is one of those stories right now CeCe Caleb Mike all of you will be involved in this but CeCe why don't you start us out with a success story that you can point to in which Echo Store came to the rescue so one of probably our biggest challenge in the past I guess it's been four years now um was we experienced a Cyber attack uh in the health network so um the University of M Medical Center is one partner within the larger um Health Network in Vermont Northern New York but uh at UVM we experienced a Cyber attack and osur was there at the beginning when we didn't know it was a Cyber attack yet and then um when we had to try to rebuilt our infrastructure from the bottom up and get our health record back to our uh providers our domain was gone our active directory domain was gone and so we had to rebuild that from scratch it was very we didn't know if we had good backups there was a lot going on at the time and then and we needed Hardware we needed servers I don't remember what time it was um and I'm not sure if this was the Halloween party call um but was it happened it was October 28th 2020 so we needed physical hardware and Mike and Caleb and team they got the hardware and they drove it up to us um so that we could start to build our infrastructure um we had nothing to to do that with they saw the need and no questions asked you know leaving a Halloween party in full costume showing up delivering physical servers and Hardware that we needed to bring back up our system so that we could provide patient care that was a huge huge uh success story there's others I'm thinking supply chain issues during covid when we couldn't get network switches we needed switches and we weren't going to get them for a while because of supply chain issues so Echo Store goes they get in their lab or their gear and they bring us switches Let's uh go back to that Halloween party real quick um they came in costume am I allowed to ask what you were dressed as yeah I I'd love to jump in there you know so that was right in the thick of 2020 when the big hit Tiger King was on Netflix uh somehow I was suggested that I dress up as Joe Exotic so you know the beard was shaved the handlebar mustache I was in fgo you know Costa mode Katie and uh I got the call I think it was about 12:30 in the morning it didn't have any drinks in me yet I was I was just getting to the party and the bonfire was starting and I got the call and again it was a no-brainer I dropped everything called one of my Engineers we met at hopkington got into the lab we removed I think about 12 or 14 servers had them wiped instantaneously put in the back of my SUV and I was off and running I think I arrived in Vermont about 4:35 in the morning I'm hoping there's no video surveillance outside of the data center or the Ling dock that caught me in costum uh pulling it all nighter dropping off servers but you know it was a tiger kinges performance where servers were dropped off rolled in I think they had the domain servers up and running that following morning and you know I think we somewhat saved the day there but again it just speaks to you know I think whether it was me that got the call or Caleb or any of our Engineers you know we knew the sensitivity of the situation we assembled a Seal Team Six of Engineers to be available around the clock with no a single point of failure right so we had I think three Engineers for every specialty area and we were just chewing through resources and just as much of a lack of sleep that that was for CC's team it was for our team as well but we got through it and you know I think we can uh all now laugh at the story and and look back to those crazy but uh hopefully again nobody saw that costume because it was uh it was going to get buried away for life we're just getting started in this conversation with Echo Store and UVM come back Tuesday for part two thank you so much to Mike Caleb and CeCe for joining me today and thank you as always for tuning in you can check out all episodes of Channel Insider partner POV on Channel insider.com or watch on our YouTube page at Channel inssider newws and Trends you can also listen to the podcast version of every episode on your favorite podcast listening platform like apple podcast and Spotify don't forget to like follow And subscribe wherever possible to never miss an episode we put out a new video and podcast every week once again I'm Katie boso and I'll see you next time n

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