Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Your DR Strategy Guide for IBM i Available for Download Now!

Download your DR Strategy Guide Here

Thank you for taking time to read the DR Strategy Guide for IBM i, brought to you by Maxava and United Computer Group. 

If you or your team are responsible for the ongoing health and protection of your IBM i systems and data, this guide is for you!

United Computer Group, Inc. (UCG) was founded in 1987 by James A. Kandrac. UCG has been an IBM Business Partner since 1989 and an IBM Advanced Business Partner since 1991. Customers have rated UCG in the top 1% of IBM Business Partners nationwide. 

UCG offers VAULT400 BaaS and IBM Power Systems, in addition to a wide range of related products and services.

United Computer Group, Inc. and Maxava have been business partners since 2008. Maxava HA is the solution of choice when UCG clients need RTO and RPO of less than 1 hour. As a result of this partnership, International Fidelity Insurance Company (IFIC) avoided nearly $2 million in lost revenues when Hurricane Sandy hit in October 2012. Though the IT team at Newark, NJ-based International Fidelity Insurance Company (IFIC) had rehearsed its disaster recovery scenario with precision, the team couldn't have anticipated an event that would take out power, roads and communications across a wide swath of the mid-Atlantic coast. When the hurricane hit, the disaster recovery team had to fail over to a co-location site with the clock ticking on its uninterruptible power supply and no phone service.

When disaster strikes

Watch this podcast "IBM Engine of the Week: Co-location Solution Keeps Insurer Online Amid Hurricane Sandy's Wrathto learn how with guidance from IBM partner United Computer Group, IFIC avoided disaster and and learned valuable lessons to help prepare for future incidents.

Both UCG and Maxava are passionate about data protection and disaster recovery and look forward to working with you to craft a custom solution.

The DR Strategy Guide for IBM i will be a valuable reference tool when working with a DR expert from UCG to create your business continuity planning solution. Whether your organization’s data is affected by human interruption or natural disaster, this comprehensive guide will help you understand and assess risk, plan accordingly, and should disaster occur, recover quickly.

Contact us

We trust that you will find this guide a useful tool to help you review your current DR strategy objectively. To discuss the contents further, or speak to us about your specific DR requirements, please contact United Computer Group, Inc. at 800.211.8798, email info@ucgrp.com or visit ucgrp.com or vault400.com.

Thursday, September 04, 2014

Congoleum Corporation Selects UCG’s VAULT400 BaaS as Backup and DR Solution

“We realized immediate benefits including reduced disaster recovery costs; the need to handle tapes on a daily basis has been eliminated; and we ensured our data was stored securely offsite from the server." 







United Computer Group, Inc. is pleased to announce that Congoleum Corporation has chosen UCG’s VAULT400 BaaS as its backup and DR solution.

David Cooper, Senior Manager of Information Technology, and Dan McCullough, Manager of Datacenter Operations for Congoleum, worked with UCG’s lead engineer Vladimir Capitanov to protect and backup their IBM Power 5 System. In addition to subscribing to UCG’s VAULT400 secure cloud backup, they've added Disaster Recovery with a return to operations in the event of a disaster in 12 hours or less.

Every night they set the backups and forget it. The data is compressed, encrypted and sent to secure HIPAA compliant data centers in Cleveland, Ohio and Atlanta, Georgia. Dan McCullough receives an email every morning to confirm that the backup took place and was successful. In the coming months, Congoleum will conduct a Disaster Recovery test to fine-tune in the event a disaster occurs.



“The installation and setup were quick and painless. Vladimir really knows the product and process very well, which made the setup seamless. The seeding went well, and progressed more quickly than expected. We realized immediate benefits including reduced disaster recovery costs; the need to handle tapes on a daily basis has been eliminated; and we ensured our data was stored securely offsite from the servers. Additionally, if I need to restore a file, I don’t need to retrieve a tape, load it, restore the file, and then reset the drive for the next save. So that makes my life a lot easier. Thanks for an excellent replacement for tape backups!” - Dan McCullough, Manager of Datacenter Operations, Congoleum Corporation, Mercerville, NJ


About Congoleum

Since 1886 Congoleum has been committed to developing innovative flooring products that push the industry forward. Congoleum holds numerous patents for novel creations over the years. Congoleum manufactures residential and commercial resilient products that are engineered with state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment. Throughout its history, Congoleum has held a pioneering role in the resilient flooring industry and has contributed substantially to the growth of the industry.  Congoleum has been a step ahead for over 125 years and continues its commitment to quality products, manufacturing and market innovations for the future.