GTSI, Savvis forge managed services alliance

GTSI Corp. and Savvis Inc. have entered into a strategic alliance that makes Savvis the preferred provider of managed hosting and information technology infrastructure services for GTSI’s federal clients that outsource their IT services.

Savvis operates 29 data centers in the United States, Europe, and Asia, including three in the Washington, D.C., area. The St. Louis-based company provides a range of IT infrastructure services, including managed and co-location hosting, virtualized computing and storage services, managed networks, and managed security services.

As GTSI has transitioned from strictly a reseller to a solutions provider, the company has found increased opportunities to outsource government infrastructure, said Bill Weber, senior vice president of programs and services at GTSI.

Savvis offers more than just space, power and security within a data center, he said. “What they are trying to do is offer managed services for the things that are inside those data centers, which is more up-market and solutions-focused. And that’s really where GTSI is as well.”

“It’s infrastructure as a service, and that’s really our mantra,” Weber said, and added that agencies can use the service as they would a utility by paying based on usage.

“Savvis has that model inside the data center; we have that model in the solutions that we build outside of their data centers, so it works,” he said.

Savvis’ IT infrastructure-as-a-service model also closely aligns with GTSI’s Technology Lifecycle Management, a framework for government agencies seeking to meet business objectives and budgets, the two companies said in today’s announcement.

Government agencies are increasingly going outside to secure IT and hosting services, said Phil Koen, chief executive officer of Savvis, in the statement. “They will now benefit from the combination of GTSI expertise in government operations and our expertise in managed IT infrastructure services.”

Weber said civilian agencies and the defense and intelligence sector are interested in the offering and several government customers, which he declined to name, are already onboard. “We’ve closed some task orders and some programs where their computing is done inside the Savvis data center right now,” he said.

GTSI had been approached by other data center operators, Weber said. But it was Savvis’ managed services offerings that made the best match for a strategic alliance. In addition, the data-center host offers all the protection and security the government requires and Savvis has the capability of owning applications inside the data center.

Weber said the strategic alliance also works well for Savvis because the company does not have a significant marketing or sales force for the government sector. “They don’t have the infrastructure built out to cover the federal government, the way GTSI does,” he said. “GTSI is going to be the dominant player for Savvis bringing their service package to market. We like that tremendously.”

GTSI, of Herndon, Va., ranks No. 45 on Washington Technology’s 2008 Top 100 list of the largest federal government prime contractors.