Hello and welcome to the Q3 2015 UCG Newsletter!
If the first half of 2015 is any indication, it will continue to be a great year for UCG and our clients. To meet the growing demand for UCG’s VAULT400 BaaS, we've made a significant investment at Expedient Data Centers' Ohio facility. IBM Power8 Servers and SANs will be arriving soon to support UCG client LPARS for IBM i PROD, TEST, DEV and DR.
This 50TB+ expansion to support our continued growth is going live at UCG's / Expedient Data Center #152 in Garfield Heights, OH. Tim Prostor, UCG Senior Technical Engineer is pictured below at Expedient.
Learn more about IBM POWER8™ Processor Technology. (Page 6 is most relevant to 90% of IBM Power i Users).
We remain focused as we continue to evolve, innovate, and stay true to our nearly 30 year tradition of engaged client relationships. Thank you for your continued interest in United Computer Group.
Please enjoy this issue of the UCG newsletter and forward to colleagues within and outside your organization. Thank you for your friendship, your confidence, and your business.
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Hurricane season is upon us: Is your business prepared should disaster strike?
Although Tropical Storm Bill thankfully did not bring significant damage to the Houston area, it did bring a stark reminder that hurricane season has once again arrived. With nearly 59 million Americans living in coastline counties and millions more in neighboring counties, the importance of preparedness for worst-case scenarios grows as well.
Is your business prepared should disaster strike?
Putting together a business continuity plan should be a priority for all organizations. A company may rebuild brick and mortar, but protecting your data AND the reputation of your organization is another story.
UCG's VAULT400 BaaS backs up an entire organization’s business-critical data to secure data centers, ensuring financial, HIPAA, and legal compliance for their clients. Safe and off-site, the encrypted data is available online at all times for immediate, user-initiated recovery. VAULT400 works seamlessly within an organization’s existing infrastructure while supporting all platforms and databases.
In addition, UCG offers remote hardware disaster recovery. Select the required time for recovery of operations and we will present a complete offering to meet your needs.
Click here for a no-obligation risk assessment from United Computer Group.
WATCH PODCAST - IBM Engine of the Week: Colocation Solution Keeps Insurer Online Amid Hurricane Sandy's Wrath
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Client Testimonial: H-P Products
UCG is pleased to present our client testimonial ad featuring H-P Products. Allen Green, President, and Robert Arnold, MIS Director graciously welcomed us to their facility recently for a photo shoot.
H-P Products has been a valued client for nearly 30 years when we initially provided them with Memorex/Telex 2051 twinax terminals to connect to their IBM AS/400. Since then we've provided five+ IBM Mid-Range systems and upgrades, as well as leasing, system sizing, HMC, LPAR, and VAULT400 BaaS.
"Allen Green and Bob Arnold are quintessential clients to work with and for. As H-P's longtime IBM business partner, UCG and H-P enjoy an excellent relationship. UCG's number one goal has always been to put the client first, solve their IT problems, and provide and implement cost effective products, solutions and services.
We've been fortunate to have developed long term business and personal relationships with Allen, Bob, and their staffs.” - Jim Kandrac, Founder & President, UCG.
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For 70 years, H-P Products, Inc. has established an internationally recognized operation developed on the genuine principles of producing high-quality products, while servicing the needs of a wide customer base.
For nearly three decades, United Computer Group has ensured that our IT operations run smoothly by providing state-of-the-art IBM i Series equipment that scales with the needs of our organization. And, we have peace of mind knowing our business critical data is securely backed up with UCG’s VAULT400 BaaS.
The level of innovation, knowledge, and creative technology solutions provided by UCG is exceeded only by their exceptional customer service.
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Talking SMAC and Cyber Security
(Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud)
At some point, your organization will suffer a cyber-security breach. You may even have a breach at this current moment. Predictions in 2015 indicate that at least 60% of enterprises will discover a breach of sensitive data. Most breaches are not even discovered by the breached party. Inadequate incident response leads to financial, operational, and reputational losses. *
What do you do to protect your organization and/or recover from a data loss or security breach?
- Properly encrypted data protection in two remote data centers
- Phishing test(s) to determine your % of being susceptible
- Ongoing education and training for staff to reduce or eliminate cyber attacks
- Develop and test an incident response plan
- Disaster recovery test to gauge RTO and RPO
- Repeat steps 1 through 5 on a semi-annual basis
* Sources – BlueBridge Networks, Benesch, Jurrinov and BAE Systems
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UCG’s Top 10 ways to work smarter, faster, and reclaim your time with VAULT400 BaaS
United Computer Group, Inc.’s VAULT400 hybrid (local and cloud-based) backup and disaster recovery solutions have a number of ways to save you time and boost backup operations.
But, for iSeries environments, we’re focusing specifically on our own ‘Top 10’ ways use of VAULT400 can help iSeries users work smarter, work faster, and reclaim their time.
A few things to ponder while you wait for your next backup window to finish...
1. Fast, ‘over the wire’ backup/restore that leaves tape in the dust. (Hint: Our online backups even beat the backup speeds of many TSM environments.) Compare us to traditional backup, whether full tape backup or disk-based backup solutions like VTLs. Even TSM. You’ll find it hard to beat VAULT400’s fast performance. Our secret? It’s all in VAULT400’s efficient use of very small data blocks.
2. Affordable, complete cloud-based disaster recovery. What good is fast backup if you can’t recover fast? There’s a better way than struggling with tape to meet your organization’s RTOs. VAULT400’s Cloud Disaster Recovery (CDR) service lets you back up securely online to VAULT400’s iron-clad cloud environment. Then, if disaster strikes, we’ll fail over your iSeries environment from the cloud within just 24-48 hours. That includes restoring your connections, systems, associated servers, and more.
3. End-to-end encryption without the overhead. No need to buy costly encryption software. With VAULT400, you get built-in encryption whether your data is at rest or in-flight. In fact, you get VAULT400’s complete backup/recovery system with built-in encryption for less than most encryption solutions.
4. Uses less bandwidth and less storage for backup. VAULT400 architecture is designed to use as little bandwidth and storage as possible. That means faster backup/restore times. It also means less money spent to store your backup data. VAULT400 algorithms evaluate your data, offering unbelievable compression with very small footprints for sizable data sets. For IFS systems, that means 2:1 compression. For non-IFS systems? It’s common to see 10:1 compression—or significantly greater. Curious? Ask us to walk you through a concrete example based on an average 100GB database.
5. Extreme DB2 compression. DB2 environments are a perfect example of IFS backup savings. For DB2, we routinely see 10:1 compression with iSeries customers. We’ve also seen as high as 25:1 compression ratios! How much could that save you on bandwidth or storage? It could easily mean the difference of hundreds of gigabytes per database backup, per week.
6. Forget tape multiplexing. Shorten backup windows with concurrent LPAR backups. Many iSeries environments now manage multiple LPAR environments from the same system. VAULT400 helps you shrink backup windows further by streaming multiple LPAR backups at the same time.
7. Easy command interface, easy management. Anyone who’s ever waded through the intricacies of tape or VTL operations will appreciate how easy VAULT400 makes it to automate data protection.
8. Multiple platforms beyond iSeries? We’ve got you covered. You’ll find VAULT400 is one of the few solutions to offer robust, similar backup/restore operation across virtually any operating system.
9. DR testing that works like a charm. VAULT400 automation makes it easy to run routine tests of your iSeries DR procedures. We help companies perform over 400 successful DR tests each year.
10. Help that’s there when you need it most. Every vendor talks about how great their support is, but United Computer Group’s VAULT400 customers speak for themselves with a 98% customer satisfaction rating. Ever need answers? We’ve got ‘em and are happy to help!
UCG is dedicated to the swift, sure handling of your backup and restore data. With VAULT400 BaaS, you also know one thing: You always get your data back.
If you truly want to reclaim your time, contact us today at 800.211.8798 or email info@ucgrp.com. We’ll show you more ways VAULT400 BaaS can collapse your backup windows and streamline your DR.
Download this article as a PDF.
View Backup Options
Download White Paper: Five Key Questions for Assessing Backup & Recovery Solutions
Download Data Sheet: VAULT400 BaaS
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United Computer Group, Inc.
July 2015
Q3 Newsletter
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UCG are proud sponsors of the VAI Summit, golf outing, and putting contest!
Come join us for two days of fun, networking, and education. You will hear from VAI experts on how customers are using the latest S2K technologies to improve efficiencies, lowers costs, increase sales, and improve customer service.
REGISTER TODAY!
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The Executive Summit
An exclusive event filled with opportunities.
MORE INFO
The Golf Outing
Grab your clubs and hit the links, compliments of UCG.
MORE INFO
The Winery Tour
Food, fun, and spirits compliments of VAI.
MORE INFO |
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The Tally 4347 Printer: Don't just take OUR word for it - Listen to this!
Recently we've given you LOTS of reasons why we think the Tally 4347-i Series from DASCOM is the perfect printer in a lot of IBM/InfoPrint AS400 applications.
There are the connectivity options, the durability, the support, fast print speed, end user rebates, and sales spiffs for those selling our products.
But...we also think it's great for you to hear from our end-user customers about how we solved their problems or what they think of our printers.
Here's just one example from a happy customer, and for UCG it just doesn't get any better than that!
Read testimonial
For additional details, contact Gina Creager, Printer Specialist, at 216.520.1333 #170, or by email at gmc@ucgrp.com.
Download Tally 4347 spec sheet.
Thank you for making the Tally 4347-i Series a great choice for you and your customers!
United Computer Group, Inc. is an authorized DASCOM printer reseller.
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Refer a Friend...Then Go Shopping!
We often hear how pleased UCG clients are with our VAULT400 cloud backup and DR solutions. It's gratifying to know we are providing businesses with the technology tools they need for their success and growth, and the support excellence they deserve.
Our clients often come to us by way of referral from satisfied clients like yourself! To show our gratitude, UCG will send you a $100 VISA, iTunes, or Amazon gift card for every new client who subscribes to VAULT400 BaaS as a result of your referral!
Here's how it works:
Click on vault400.com/giftcard
Each referral will receive an introductory email mentioning your success with UCG's VAULT400.
You will be rewarded with a $100 gift card of your choice.
That's it! It's easy to do and there's no limit on how many people you may refer or how many $100 gift cards you can earn.
Send us an email or call with questions. Thank you!
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