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Happy New Year!
It's a brand new year, and at UCG we've hit the ground running! For nearly 30 years, our focus has been on continued growth through innovation. We view change as yet another opportunity to serve our clients at the highest level of excellence. And we believe that in order to continue to excel, we can never be satisfied with the status quo.
2015: A year in review.
Existing clients are steadily upgrading to IBM Power8; adding cyber security training to their UCG cloud backup and disaster recovery solution; and in many cases, have undergone a complete technology refresh including the addition of S2K Enterprise Management Software (EMS).
Increasingly, companies are migrating from tape backup to UCG's secure cloud backup. In February, we entered into a partnership with Expedient Data Centers to meet our clients' growing needs. This is in addition to our existing partnership with BlueBridge Networks. UCG now has access to 19 secure data centers across the U.S. and Canada.
During numerous conversations with our clients, it became clear that we urgently needed to add an additional layer of security to protect their business critical data. Today, the risk of human error and the increasing odds that a company will be hacked cannot be denied.
We listened.
At the end of September we announced UCG's partnership with KnowBe4 to add cyber security training and employee phishing tests to our cloud backup and DR solution.
Scheduled simulated phishing attacks and monthly reports now provide executives the insight they need to maximize training ROI and track security compliance.
Year-end results: We rocked!
As we have added new product and service offerings and valuable business partnerships, the numbers speak for themselves! At year end, UCG's recurring revenue increased by 27%.
Looking ahead to the New Year.
In December, Carbonite announced that it had purchased Seagate's Evault. The hope for the industry and marketplace is that Carbonite takes a very legitimate suite of products, integrates it with a much better go-to-market strategy and continues to solve client backup and DR business issues and pains.
What does this mean to UCG clients?
UCG is being proactive on behalf of our clients to ensure a smooth transition. Rest assured that UCG will continue to serve our clients in the manner of excellence they have deserved and enjoyed for nearly 30 years.
James Kandrac, president & founder of UCG has published an industry response to the announcement.You can read the article here.
UCG is YOUR Strategic Service Provider (SSP).
Our business model is evolving as well. As a Strategic Service Provider (SSP), UCG has long been known as a trusted technology adviser. Indeed, our role becomes even more compelling with greater emphasis on cloud and managed services. This translates to helping our clients make complex technology decisions, and find the right path to the cloud to digitally transform their businesses and increase their competitive advantage.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
In Q3 2015, the decision was made to rebrand UCG in keeping with our philosophy of continuous innovation and evolution. In fact, since its founding in 1987, UCG has reinvented itself approximately every seven years.
Behind the scenes, design and development at our marketing firm, MoMo Companies, has begun on our new website, expected to launch at the end of Q1. The new site will be streamlined, easy to navigate, and will include all of UCG's products and services. The site is being developed with our clients at the forefront of our minds.
A preview of what's to come!
UCG will have a new name, logo, and URL! Upon launch of our new website, UCG will do business as UCG Technologies. The URL will be ucgtechnologies.com.
UCG's VAULT400 Baas will receive an updated name and logo as well. Our cloud backup and DR solution will be referred to on our website and in our marketing campaigns as UCG Technologies BaaS,UCG's BaaS and/or UCG's cloud backup and DR solution as applicable. A version of our new logo for our BaaS solution is in development now.
We are all very excited about this new chapter in UCG's history!
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As always, 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 UCG!
Please enjoy our newsletter and forward to colleagues within and outside your organization. Thank you for your friendship, your confidence, and your business.
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Atlantic Dominion Distributors
We are pleased to introduce Atlantic Dominion Distributors, a successful family owned business founded in 1875! They are located in Virginia Beach, VA and Hope Mills, NC.
Atlantic Dominion recently chose UCG’s BaaS cloud backup and DR solution to protect their business critical data. Atlantic Dominion currently supplies over 10,000 different products to all classes of the retail trade. They were referred to UCG by one of their valued business partners, Summit Business Associates of Richmond, Virginia. UCG specializes in cloud hosted hardware as well as cloud data backup and disaster recovery.
UCG’s BaaS was selected by Christopher M. Berry, Director of Information Technology for Atlantic Dominion, to backup mission-critical data on their IBM midrange system.
Berry stated, “Atlantic Dominion wanted to replace their daily tape drive backups with a cloud backup solution and also have a complete disaster recovery system in place. My IT staff and I thoroughly researched our options. It was clear that UCG’s BaaS would be a perfect fit for our operation.
We have received excellent training and setup assistance from their technical staff, specifically Lead Engineer, Vladimir Capitanov. I highly recommend UCG’s cloud backup and DR solution.”
UCG’s BaaS is currently backing up Atlantic Dominion’s data nightly, compressing it, encrypting the data, and sending it over the cloud to two secure HIPAA compliant data centers that can run for seven days without re-fueling.
They also have access to UCG’s Quick Ship program at no additional charge. UCG will send out a like system within 48 hours in the event of a system disaster, fire or flood. The backup system can be used up to 30 days if required.
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About Atlantic Dominion Distributors
Leroy W. Davis founded the Old Dominion Tobacco Company in 1875. The company began as a cigar manufacturing establishment, supplying retail tobacco stores with handmade cigars. Mr. Davis then acquired several local tobacco jobbers that led the company into the distribution of multiple tobacco products.
In 1902 Mr. Davis again bought out several other tobacco companies, and formed the L.W. Davis Tobacco Company. On May 27, 1904, the Old Dominion Tobacco Company was incorporated and was well established in the distribution business.
The company began adding lines of products other than tobacco, and currently supplies over 10,000 different products to all classes of the retail trade.
The company is now under the leadership of Robin Davis Ray, great granddaughter of the founder, doing business as Atlantic Dominion Distributors. In addition to the distribution services, Atlantic Dominion Distributors offers a Food Service Division, Vending Department, CO2 and Fixture Installation Department.
From its humble beginning the company has continued to grow and is now the 16th largest convenience store distributor in the United States. They have accomplished this by meeting and exceeding the needs of their retail customers for over 140 years.
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Visit Our Resource Libraries
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United Computer Group, Inc.
7100 E. Pleasant Valley Road, Suite #250
Independence, OH 44131-5556
Toll Free: 800.211.8798
Main: 216.520.1333
Email:info@ucgrp.comucgrp.com | vault400.com
James A. Kandrac, President
Michael D. Powall, Vice President
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Over the past several months, UCG has been in communication with our new and existing BaaS clients regarding the urgency to act now to shield their organizations from cyber attacks.
To protect their organizations, over the last few years, thousands of organizations in the U.S have started to phish their own users. IT pros have realized that doing this adds an essential security layer. Today, phishing your own users is just as important as having antivirus and a firewall.
Why? If you don't do it yourself, the bad guys will.
The bad guys are business people too and their time is money. They go after the low hanging fruit; your users. Traditional once-a-year security awareness training just does not cut it anymore. Is there a patch for ignorance? You'd be surprised.
Phishing your own employees and finding out who the culprits are is a logical course of action. It's a great assessment to find out the phish-prone percentage of your organization, and usually higher than you thought.
We have your data protected, but not from human error.
We feel it is imperative to ensure all employees are educated and up to speed on how to spot ransomware attacks BEFORE they click on a dangerous link.
Keep your team on their toes with security top of mind!
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Cybersecurity predictions for 2016
by Steve Weisman, Special for USA TODAY
Last year I quoted late, great sage and Hall of Fame baseball player Yogi Berra. Yogi once noted, "It's tough to make predictions especially about the future."
Fortunately, for me, mine for 2015 were accurate. And so I will venture out to again make predictions, many of which should be considered warnings, for 2016 — as I remain all the while cognizant of the words of the Chinese philosopher La Tzu that "those who have knowledge, don't predict. Those who predict don't have knowledge."
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In honor of our valued clients, employees, and vendors, UCG has made donations to the following charitable and educational organizations this holiday season.
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) is the largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding research, finding cures and ensuring access to treatments for blood cancer patients.
This unique non-profit, no-kill organization is dedicated to eliminating animal suffering and euthanasia.Their mission is to unite welfare organizations to fight pet overpopulation and save as many animal lives as possible.
Established nearly 50 years ago, Our Lady of the Wayside supports children and adults with developmental disabilities through a Family of Services.
Established in 2003, the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) began when several veterans and friends, moved by stories of the first wounded service members returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq, took action to help others in need.
The Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute (RIFI) is a non-profit educational organization devoted to fostering active minds, empowering each individual with the knowledge, reasoning skills, and independence to understand the world and build a life of adventure and creative achievement.
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Socially Connected
We make an effort to connect on social media with our clients, vendors, and business partners, so please reach out and let us know where we can find you.
Speaking of social media, where have you found the most success connecting with other technology companies/ technology-minded individuals?
Let us know what you think at info@ucgrp.com.
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