AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together cloud infrastructure, intelligent operations, and modern applications, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation.
AHEAD was founded in 2007 and in 2019 merged with Sovereign Systems, and Data...
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AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together cloud infrastructure, intelligent operations, and modern applications, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation.
AHEAD was founded in 2007 and in 2019 merged with Sovereign Systems, and Data Blue. The services formerly available under those brands is now available from AHEAD, LLC.
AHEAD Videos
The Sovereign Systems’ Cloud Management Platform (CMP) improves IT agility by automating and managing deployment tasks. Our CMP integrates best-of-breed solutions that help IT teams become an automated, on-demand service provider to the business.
From optimizing IT resources to modernizing data center infrastructure, Sovereign partners with VCE to provide best-in-class Converged Infrastructure solutions that support and drive many components of an overall data center strategy.
Begin to modernize your infrastructure and better align IT with business with Sovereign's Next Generation Data Center. Whether you're building your cloud or supporting data produced by the Internet of Things, Sovereign and Cisco have your solution.
Project timeline/estimations should be more conservative. Where the customer is being overly aggressive, Sovereign should be sure to schedule touch points/project milestones to level set expectations.
Sovereign should provide engagement customers with a detailed summary of hours consumed. Tying hours to executed Invoices would be helpful. That would keep the customer from having to do so.
The provided pre-req documentation was thorough and well thought out, making it easy to jump into the project.
The design session to gather our requirements was very helpful, Sovereign's familiarity with the vRealize product line along with diagramming our desired layout confirmed our decision to bring in assistance with the project.
When we ran into some issues with Sovereign's custom code their development team was on top of it and solved the issue in a matter of a few days.
Our environment is unique and had some requirements that exceeded Sovereign's experience. While this was never a huge deal, it did bring about some bouts of trial and error.
If possible during engagements it is best to play to different resource's strengths, in some cases someone else may have been a better fit for the task at hand if availability permitted.
In the vRealize space, I don't think there is a company better suited to assist with implementation. They have several installations under their belt and will get things up and running in a timely fashion. They are still a smaller firm which allows for more agility and flexibility during engagements. For very large, complex environments there may be some advantages to sticking with the vendor.
We have found that Sovereign System complements our primary hardware vendor very well, adding a layer of value in the form of pre-sales technical support and specialists who can come in and talk with us about our specific technical challenges.
Because we often are rushing around at the last minute trying to nail down configurations, Sovereign Systems has proven that they can respond to our urgency.
I have only used Soverign Systems in regards to array storage, storage fabric, and miscellaneous software. However, I will say that for EMC, Brocade, and VMware related questions/support, they are typically where we turn to prior to even calling the product support team.
A mentioned previously in the survey, they are lacking in Citrix specialization, this forces us to use a different vendor for our licensing support. In addition to Citrix, we have used Dell Compute for legacy as well as our latest refresh of hardware, and Sovereign Systems has only recently (that I am aware of) started to specialize in the support and resell of Dell Compute with the recent Dell/EMC merger.
Sovereign Systems is well suited in scenarios where Information Technology decision makers need a solid project execution, starting with requirements gathering that dig deep into the root of the challenges, to then articulate an architecture and an implementation approach that will meet and exceed the technology and business needs around the opportunity.
Nimble solutions provider, quick turnaround on complex solutions.
Customer support. Very great post-sales support. I cannot think of a time I have approached Sovereign Systems for support and had to chase answers down. Knowledgeable staff.
Marketing material outlining Sovereigns full range of solutions.
Customer service portal would help manage open cases.
They bend over backwards to make sure that everything is done right and on time even when that is not their job.
Knowledgable support.
Sovereign systems is very tightly coupled with Turner Broadcasting in the purchasing and add tremendous value. I haven't seen anything that they need improvement on. Not to say that their isn't anything. Just at least in my experience there hasn't been anything.
Sovereign has a well rounded staff of technical people as well as technical sales people. They work tremendously well with Turner and their people bend over backwards for us. I needed a drive to help get a project done. Don went out of his way to make sure the drive was here when I needed it.
We leverage Sovereign Systems mainly for professional services in and around IT and service automation. Sovereign Systems has helped us with Puppet, VMware vRealize Automation, and ServiceNow.
Procurement of hardware. Getting the best rate for us instead of the best profit for them.
Services - by having an incredible team of experts they have a deep pool of people they can pull to bring the best possible solutions delivery.
Aftercare - they have been proactive in checking in to make sure that the projects they have worked on not only were successful on delivery but continue to deliver months after installation.
If I had to offer anything for an area of improvement I would ask that they offer more in the area of training services.
[For] SAN, server, backup and network from a hardware procurement install and service level they have been unmatched. We have used Sovereign Systems on several projects in the past 4 years and have been incredibly happy with the results and successful on the delivery. They have been incredibly efficient and accommodating with whatever outage schedules we have had along the way.
Sovereign Systems expertise in enterprise storage technologies and virtualization is unmatched by any vendor that I have worked with in the past.
Project management and the will to see projects through to the end is unmatched. We have been undergoing a large Epic implementation this year and Sovereign has assisted us every step of the way. They have even gone so far as to work along side vendors that are direct competitors to them to ensure the success of our project.
Sovereign Systems's engineers are extremely knowledgeable and competent. They do what it takes to get the job done and make sure that the job is done right while providing documentation of the work that they have done and making sure that we understand the technologies that we are implementing.
In the past when we have had issues and vendor support has been required, Sovereign Systems is quick to join in with helping us to get the issue resolved.
Sovereign is always pushing to be our "one stop shop" for everything that we may need. Our philosophy is to not have all of our eggs in one basket and to maintain relationships with multiple vendors. While one vendor may be capable of meeting all of our needs, we like to use the vendor that is the best fit for each individual need which is why we diversify the vendors that we use for each project use case.
Sovereign Systems is an indispensable partner in helping us to achieve goals. They help us to vet out solutions to our challenges and help us to wade through the details and choose the best technology to meet our needs. When it comes time to implement the solution that we have selected their implementation engineers always see things through to completion and make themselves available to answer questions and to assist if needed down the road.
Their team is well suited for projects that are related to cloud automation, converged environments, design and resource allocation. Most of the team members are very high caliber SMEs.
In my experience Sovereign Systems fits well into larger more technical IT shops, where the need is for competitive and accurate pricing and delivery, but not where a solution needs to be created from scratch. This may only be for NetApp solutions, but that's the limit of my work with them.
If you have an environment that has a large ESX environment, they will work well with you. They not only offer expertise and knowledge in the VMWare area, they also have great services to come onsite and work with you in whatever capacity is needed. If you are implementing new technology, they are a great resource for information and manpower.
Sovereign System has always worked hard to meet our budgetary limitation while delivering outstanding value.
Anytime I had a technical question I got an answer right away - often my account manager would call up an expert in the field of question and we would discuss.
Always a joy to negotiate pricing.... but they are much easier to work with than most vars.
Sovereign Systems is well versed in data center infrastructure - from the usual server, storage, switch configurations to a true hyper-converged solution.
Sovereign Systems and the SovLabs teams are a great option for anyone that's looking to get started or enhance their capabilities around automation, software defined data center, and virtualization technologies.
Knowledge of networking and storage systems has always been a strong point and while it continues I will go to them first to help guide decisions I make in the future. Continued expansion of their services that they provide will enable us to look at them for added resources that we need on new projects going forward. Always being there to assist and admit if mistakes are made by either side and help find the correct solution.
To be honest I tend to use Sovereign Systems for most of my IT equipment needs except for areas where our company has specific one on one vendor relationships that prevent using a VAR.