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UCG Technologies specializes in IBM Power Systems (IBM i) and protects all platforms from 10GB to in excess of 100TB. Products and services include UCG Enterprise Cloud Backup, Disaster Recovery, and High Availability; Enterprise Security Training; IBM POWER8 Systems; and Enterprise Management Software (EMS). An IBM Business Partner since 1987, UCG is one of the largest independent IBM i business partners and has been rated in the top 1% of IBM business partners globally.
Wednesday, January 06, 2016
Q1 2016 UCG Newsletter
Labels:
BlueBridge Networks,
Cleveland,
Cloud backup,
cyber security,
Disaster Recovery,
Expedient,
IBM i Cloud,
IBM Power8,
OH,
S2K Enterprise Management Software,
Search Engines Agree on VAULT400,
UCG,
UCG Technologies
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Happy Holidays from UCG!
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Thursday, December 17, 2015
Industry Reaction to Carbonite Purchase of Seagate’s Evault
By James A. Kandrac, President & Founder
United Computer Group, Inc.
During a 7:00 pm to midnight “binge watch” of Netflix’s “Son of Anarchy” series, I received the text alert, “Carbonite buys Seagate’s Evault for $14M.” My initial reaction was, “$14M…that MUST be a typo!
A brief seven years ago, Seagate purchased Evault for some $185M. Now it is being sold for $14M. Does anyone else find this astounding? Seagate just said goodbye to a net of $171,000,000 at a time when managed service companies are selling for multiples of revenue and Evault recently inked a coveted marketing agreement with IBM. Did this really just happen?
Did Seagate just say goodbye to $185M or in addition to the $14M, will Carbonite also pay Seagate a significant portion of recurring revenue for several years?
While the industry waits for the dust to settle, here is my initial reaction. It comes down to focus and execution or lack thereof. Seagate’s Evault had an outstanding product line with very few holes. They support virtually all platforms and databases and are said to control up to 40% of the cloud backup market, either directly or through over 500 partners.
What it appeared to lack is committed management, focus and execution.
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 all of this mean to our VAULT400 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. Thank you for your business!
About United Computer Group, Inc. and VAULT400 BaaS
ucgrp.com • vault400.com
UCG provides cost-effective technology solutions including IBM P8 Servers (PROD, TEST, DEV, BaaS , DR and H/A), storage, and managed services in addition to a wide range of related products and services, all customized to fit the needs of their clients’ current needs and future growth. Founded in 1987, UCG is an IBM Advanced Business Partner specializing in mid-market and enterprise clients. UCG has been rated in the top 1% of IBM Business Partners nationwide.
UCG’s VAULT400 BaaS is a premier managed risk mitigation and business continuity planning service for secure online backup and disaster recovery. VAULT400 backs up an entire organization’s business-critical data to UCG’s secure data centers. 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 with no additional hardware required.
Labels:
Carbonite,
Cleveland OH,
Cloud backup,
Disaster Recovery,
Evault,
IBM i Series,
James A. Kandrac,
Seagate,
Search Engines Agree on VAULT400,
UCG,
United Computer Group Inc.,
VAULT400 BaaS
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Happy Thanksgiving from UCG!
“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for." -Zig Zigler
Thank you for your business, your trust, and your friendship. From everyone at UCG, we wish you and yours a happy, healthy, wonderful Thanksgiving.
Jim Kandrac, Mike Powall, and the UCG team
Labels:
Cleveland OH,
IBMi,
Independence OH,
Thanksiving,
UCG,
VAULT400
Monday, November 23, 2015
UCG's CLIENTS HAVE IT ALL!
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Power Systems Tech Showcase: The Rising Cost of Security Breaches
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| by Margarette Burnette |
The recently released “Cost of Data Breach Study: Global Analysis,” sponsored by IBM, found that cyber attacks are also increasing in frequency."
Read article online here or download PDF.
What can you do to help protect your company from cybercrime?
The recent Ponemon Institute report states that "Malicious or criminal attacks continue to be the primary cause of data breach. Forty-nine percent of incidents involved a malicious or criminal attack, 19 percent concerned negligent employees, and 32 percent involved system glitches that includes both IT and business process failures."
The importance of a security-minded culture across your business cannot be overstated.
As the result of our recent partnership with KnowBe4, UCG’s VAULT400 BaaS will now include a turnkey managed solution version of their cybersecurity solution suite via remote implementation in less than 90 minutes. The KB4 team has built, deployed, and supported market leading e-learning applications and has deep roots in IT Security.
Scheduled simulated phishing attacks and monthly reports will provide executives the insight they need to maximize training ROI and track security compliance. As an added value, a base number of KB4 users will be included at no additional charge to current and new VAULT400 subscribers.
Free Phishing Security Test
Sign up for our complimentary Phishing Security Test to find out the level of risk to your business, and how security awareness training can lessen the chances that you'll be the victim of ransomware.
Visit ucgrp.com, call 800.211.8798, or email info@ucgrp.com to learn more.
Labels:
cyber attack,
cyber security training,
cybercrime,
cybersecurity,
data breach,
data loss,
IBM,
IBM Magazine,
KnowBe4,
Margarette Burnette,
phishing,
Ponemon Institute,
UCG,
United Computer Group,
VAULT400
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
UCG VAULT400 BaaS Clients Have it ALL!
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| See our latest ads in IT Jungle |
You can’t say your data protection is complete until you have a disaster recovery plan that is itself complete and tested.
HOW MUCH CONFIDENCE DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR CURRENT DATA BACKUP, DR AND CYBER SECURITY PROGRAMS?
Consider these best practices when evaluating data backup, DR, and cyber security options:
- Reliability. Up to 71% of restores from tape contain failures. Best Practice: Use disk-to-disk technology for backups. With disk-to-disk technology, your backup data resides on disk drives, proven to be far more reliable than tapes. When your backup completes, you know the data is secure and accessible on the disk drive. With tapes you never really know if your data is usable until you try to restore it, at which point it’s too late
- Breadth of Offering. Choice in product and service offerings meet your business’ needs. Best Practice: Don’t settle for less than what you need. Vendor offerings vary widely. Some are designed primarily for consumers and others for enterprise data centers. Choose a solution that scales (see scalability below), and offers the features you need to provide the level of service you expect. De-duplication and delta-block technologies will improve performance, reduce your data footprint and save you money. Find out if their de-duplication offering is at the file level or the block level. Make sure the solution can back up servers, PCs, and laptops as well your applications.
- Security. 60% of organizations using tapes don’t encrypt their backups. Best Practice: End-to-end encryption with no “back door.” Using encryption with tape makes backups run slowly and often takes too long to fit within a backup window. As a result, most people simply turn encryption off, creating a security risk. Even with the physical safety of disk-to-disk backup, encryption is essential. Look for 256-bit AES. Find a solution that encrypts your data during transmission and storage. Make certain there isn’t a “back door” that would let someone else view your data.
- Cyber Security. More than 80 percent of U.S. companies have been successfully hacked, according to a recent Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey. Best Practice: Regular cyber security training and phishing tests for all employees using company email are essential to your organization. Your end-users are the weak link in your network security. Today, your employees are frequently exposed to advanced phishing attacks. Trend Micro reported that 91% of successful data breaches started with a spear-phishing attack. Be sure your vendor of choice includes cyber security training as part of their backup and DR package.
- Accessibility. Companies waste thousands of hours waiting on tapes. Best Practice: Ensure that you can get your data back with minimal delay. You should have direct access to your backups, with no time spent on physical transport (no trucks, no warehouses). Your restores should take minutes, not hours or days. Set yourself up to work with your data, not wait for it. Make sure your solution provider can meet your Return-to-Operations (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) which determine how quickly you can recover your data and maintain business continuity. Inquire about onsite and offsite replication that provide both improved performance and a solid disaster recovery strategy.
- Scalability. Some backup systems can’t scale readily. Best Practice: Invest in a data protection architecture that can grow with your business. You should be able to back up your data no matter how large it grows. Starting small? Look for an option that handles your backups automatically. Then, as you grow, gives you tools to manage complex environments. Look for “changes-only” and compression technologies to speed backups and save space. And insist on bandwidth throttling to balance traffic and ensure network availability for your other business applications. Make sure that their solution offerings rely on common technology to scale easily as your business––and data––grow.
- Cost-effectiveness. Companies lose an average of $84,000 for every hour of lost activity. Best Practice: Calculate the true total cost of tape-based back up. When you do the math, the dollars make sense: Go with disk-to-disk. Unlike tape, there are close to zero handling costs—no rush deliveries, loading, accessing, locating, or repeated steps. And there’s one benefit you can’t factor directly: Reputation. Reliability and security can make an incalculable difference with just one avoided breach or failure.
- Compliance. Most companies have problems satisfying privacy, security, and data retention regulations. Best Practice: Choose a data protection partner who has deep know-how about compliance, and the technology to ensure it.
- Disaster Recovery. Most companies lack a comprehensive, tested plan for disasters. Best Practice: Find a vendor that delivers a complete DR solution. You can’t say your data protection is complete until you have a disaster recovery plan that is itself complete and tested. Your backup vendor should have both the product mix and professional services team to help you prepare for a worst-case scenario. Make sure they can help configure your backups so you rebound quickly. Best bet: A vendor who can train you to deal with disasters confidently, based on your company’s actual configuration.
- Ease-of-Use. Some companies don’t —or can’t—manage their backups from one place. Best Practice: Get control and reporting you can use anywhere, with ease. Managing your backup environment should be simple, and the software you use should eliminate any guesswork that could lead to lost data. You should know at all times if your data is protected across your entire network—including remote offices—by simply looking at a dashboard. The software should be simple to configure using wizards, yet powerful enough to meet your specific needs with customizable views, job propagation, and roles-based security.
- Operating System and Platform Support. Most backup vendors support a limited range of OS, server types, and applications. Best Practice: Look for broad and deep technology that supports your complete environment. Your backup solution should accommodate your environment, not vice versa. Demand a single solution to protect your laptops, desktops, and servers regardless of the platform and applications they’re running. Beyond the broad claims, check the fine print, and the level of protection offered for applications such as Exchange. For example, can they restore individual mail messages or contacts, and can they support Exchange running on a Microsoft Cluster?
- Customer Support. Backup vendors’ product support varies widely. Best Practice: Find a vendor whose support is passionate, maybe even slightly obsessed. Customer support should be one of your vendor’s main selling points. You shouldn’t have to wonder if they’ll be there to help when you need them most. Do they offer phone support or email only, and who exactly are you talking to when you call that 800 number? Find a vendor that will treat your data as if it were their own.
- Reputation. Does your backup vendor have a quality reputation and the financial resources to stay in business for the long haul? Best Practice: Find a vendor with strong financial backing and customer references. There are a lot of vendors that have come and gone. When you consider a service provider, look for one that has strong financial backing, a solid business plan and the ability to be in business as long as your data needs to be stored. Ask for customer references and case studies as their customers are the best validation you can get.
Labels:
Application Security,
Cloud backup,
cyber security,
Disaster Recovery,
HIPAA compliant,
IT Jungle,
UCG,
VAULT400,
VAULT400 BaaS
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