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News Newsletters 2007 Newsletter for September 2007
Filled with relevant information about the rapidly evolving IT landscape, the Simpler-Webb newsletter is a must-read.
Newsletter for September 2007
Release date: 9/1/2007
WELCOME LETTER
Hello Partners in Technology
It’s conference season! That’s right. This is the time of year that many of us pack our bags and head off to a fancy resort for three days of learning, networking, and hopefully, visiting with the Simpler-Webb staff. We’ll be attending two major conferences, Symitar Users Conference & Harland Connections conferences in San Diego at the Manchester Grand.
Our theme for this year’s conferences is "Reach New IT Heights". More than ever before, we’re being inundated with newer, faster, smarter, needier technologies that promise to change our lives. It’s great! But, it can leave your organization feeling overwhelmed. How do you pick what technologies are right for you? How do you integrate new technologies into your existing infrastructure? And how do you make your new technology implementation scalable? That’s what "reaching new IT heights" with Simpler-Webb is all about. We’re here to help you get the latest and greatest technologies that help you stay competitive while providing insight into how to make them work in your environment now and in the future.
So, stop by and see us if you’re headed to San Diego this year. We’ll be demoing some of those newer, faster technologies at our booth. If you’re not able to make it to a conference this year, we’d love to set up some time to go over any projects you’re considering.
Symitar Users Conference, September 11-14th at the Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego
- Visit our booth (# 424 & 425) with our special guest EVault, Wii Sports, and giveaways
- Drinks, appetizers, and prizes at Harbor House (across from the Hyatt) from 7:00-Midnight on Wed. Sept. 12th
- Want to set up dedicated time to discuss a technology project at the conference? Send an email to jenna.stephenson@swinc.com to make an appointment!
Harland Connections Conference, September 19-21st a the Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego
- Visit our booth (#34 &35) with Wii Sports and giveaways
- Ultradata Credit Union Boat Trip, Thurs. Sept. 20th from 6:30-10:00 pm
- Want to set up dedicated time to discuss a technology project at the conference? Send an email to jenna.stephenson@swinc.com to make an appointment!
If you’re not able to make it to a conference this year, we’d love to set up some time to go over any projects you’re considering.
Warm Regards,
Jeff Simpler, CEO
Simpler-Webb, Inc.
SWINC NEWS & EVENTS ::
Simpler-Webb Partners with EVault
Simpler-Webb has partnered with EVault to provide customer data protection software and Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions from EVault, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Seagate Technology. EVault offers a suite of data protection software and SaaS solutions that are easy-to-use, reliable, and flexible. This allows Simpler-Webb’s customers to conform to industry-specific compliance and security regulations by addressing their backup, recovery, archiving, business continuity and e-discovery needs.
"Customers today are looking for partners, such as Simpler-Webb, that can truly understand their business and data protection requirements, and want to work with someone they can trust," said David A. Ferretti, Vice President of Channel Sales at EVault, Inc. "We look forward to leveraging the strengths of Simpler-Webb in the Austin and Central Texas region."
"Adding EVault’s products to our line of Managed Services and professional consulting enables us to offer our customers another proven technology to keep all of their business critical data secure, immediately accessible and compliant," said Jeff Simpler, CEO of Simpler-Webb, Inc.
Simpler-Webb Micro-Summit coming to a city near you!Jeff Simpler, CEO travelled to the Twin Cities in July and San Francisco in August to host a full day discussion of IT projects for local clients including Data Recovery and Business Continuity, Trends in Security, and the Future of Microsoft Technology.
If you would be interested in hosting a Simpler-Webb Micro-Summit in your area, contact jenna.stephenson@swinc.com
Simpler-Webb Sponsors Don’t Wait Charity Golf Tournament
We’ve all been touched by cancer. This year, Simpler-Webb is sponsoring the Don’t Wait Charity Golf Tournament, hosted by Allegacy FCU, on October 4, 2007 at the Bermuda Run Country Club in North Carolina to benefit Cancer Services, Inc. To register or donate, go to www.dwgolf.golfreg.com.
Simpler-Webb Releases Client Portal 2.9.5
The latest version of the Simpler-Webb Client Portal is now available to our managed services customers with new features such as:
- Simplified Mode Changes for Managed Server
- Viewable Manual Blocked IPs
- IDP and CSA Health Status Indicators
- Online Service Request Submission
We’re proud to bring you these new features in order to better serve your needs. Check them out! If you have any questions about the newest Client Portal release, please call (512-322-0071) or email us (info@simplerwebb.com).
TECHNOLOGY SPOTLIGHT ::
CASE STUDY: Streamlining data protection and recovery process for Top 50 U.S. Credit Union with EVault
For Charlie Roberts, vice president of IT at Travis Credit Union, managing technology processes "is about doing things better, cheaper and faster." Concerning the integrity and availability of customer and support staff data, it simply has to work. "I’m definitely a try-before-you-buy guy," Roberts says. The Vacaville, Calif.-based Travis Credit Union maintains more than $1.3 billion in assets for some 120,000 members, making it among the top-50 such institutions in the U.S.. Travis had two primary backup concerns: the customer-facing, core banking-processing system running on a proprietary mini-mainframe; and its back-office, Windows servers operating Microsoft Office applications including Microsoft Exchange. As its back-office applications capacity approached 300GB, Travis IT staff saw its tape-based backup process become increasingly cumbersome and unreliable, causing more staff to become involved, which consumed valuable manpower resources. Travis also deployed three additional backup utility programs, which took additional time to manage. As data volumes grew, backup times ran long, and into more peak-usage times, slowing network performance. The marching orders for the Travis IT staff were clear: streamline the data protection and recovery management process; improve the performance and reliability of backups and restores; and ensure information availability by assigning a second backup task to a redundant storage array at an offsite data center. "We had too many resources dedicated to backups and they weren’t reliable enough, so that’s when we decided to look at disk-based backup," Roberts recalls.
EVault InfoStage proves worthy
During the evaluation, Roberts and his staff wanted a process that combined reliability and resiliency to recover data quickly and redundancy to ensure availability and help answer regulatory mandates. Not straying from Roberts’ "try-before-you-buy" mantra, the Travis IT group chose EVault InfoStage™ online data protection and recovery software after a careful, several-month evaluation period. Utilizing existing ATA disk arrays from Nexsan Technologies as their electronic storage vaults, Travis deployed and integrated the EVault InfoStage UltraRecovery software solution so no additional hardware purchases were needed. In addition, Roberts estimated that by installing a reliable, automated data protection process, he freed up approximately eight man-hours each day, by spending less time on activities such as media management and troubleshooting. Nightly backups were sent to both the primary vault at Travis’ Vacaville data center and to a secondary vault at a branch office for enhanced disaster recovery protection and long-term archive.
Complements, optimizes existing infrastructure
In addition to existing advantages of faster and more reliable backup and recovery, Travis represents a growing trend of companies recognizing the shrinking cost delta between backing up to disk using ATA drives versus tape. This cost-effectiveness also eliminated the need to buy expensive tape libraries, large quantities of tape media and fees for transporting and storing tapes offsite. Prior to deploying EVault InfoStage UltraRecovery, Travis IT staff spent significant manpower resources in managing tape media including tracking and moving it off-site. On the software side, EVault DeltaPro™, the company’s patent-pending encryption and data transport technology was crucial in shrinking the Travis backup window while providing full backups using less disk space. Once installed, InfoStage Agents scan each server for changed data. DeltaPro assembles a file of the data that has been created and changed since the last backup, compressed it by as much as 98 percent, then encrypted and transferred it to the primary electronic vault. Once the initial "seed" of the data is backed up to the primary vault, each scheduled backup using EVault DeltaPro is the equivalent of a complete backup, but only the changes are added to the seeded data. This delta processing, compression and encryption answered Travis’ requirement for faster backups and fulfilled the disaster recovery requirement to safely transport the data off-site.
Answering regulatory requirements
Travis is regulated by the National Credit Union Association, which mandates that data be accessible for up to seven years. "We routinely get subpoenaed for financial records from four or five years ago. So we frequently need to refer to older data. By using EVault InfoStage, it’s nice to not have to weed through and locate tapes that ultimately may not have the resiliency and reliability we need on the restore," says Roberts. Deploying EVault InfoStage gave the credit union the ability to provide a quick restore through its primary vault, while having a secondary UltraRecovery vault to ensure business continuity and to store important, yet less frequently accessed data.
Conclusion
In looking for a more efficient solution that answered requirements for faster, more reliable and easier-to-manage backup and recovery processes, Travis Credit Union successfully deployed EVault InfoStage technology to replace its cumbersome tape solution. By utilizing online data protection and recovery software and leveraging inexpensive and reliable disk arrays, Roberts and his staff realized tangible cost savings through a streamlined data protection process that required less maintenance and management resources. EVault, Inc – All rights reserved.
Simpler-Webb is now a Platinum Reseller of EVault technologies. Call today for a free estimate!
SERVICE OFFERING ::
Our experts, Jeff Simpler, CEO, and Andy Webb, CTO, got together to compile a list of the top ten technologies for implementation in 2008. Call today for a FREE budget estimation on any technology for your 2008 Budget!
Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity
System Consolidation & Virtualization
Storage Consolidation
Network & Data Security
Wireless Mobility
Unified Communications
Collaboration & Portals
Archiving & Compliance
Desktop, Device, & Server Management
Strategic Partnerships
EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT & NEWS ::
Employee Spotlight on Louis Mayor
Louis Mayor, Account Manager, manages the daily needs of Simpler-Webb’s existing customers. Prior to joining the Simpler-Webb team, Louis worked at Digital Defense, where he originally met CEO, Jeff Simpler.
When he’s not taking care of Simpler-Webb customers, this Colleyville, TX native enjoys cycling, cooking, reading, and going to baseball games. A fan of "The Sopranos", "Entourage", and "No Reservations" on the Travel Channel, Louis says his dream vacation would be "watching, and possibly participating in, the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. I would love to check out the festival and end the vacation on the Mediterranean drinking wine, eating good food, sailing, and turning off my cell phone."
A UT grad, Louis was a "band geek". He says, "I played the clarinet and sax in Longhorn Band when we marched in Bush 41’s inauguration in 1989." Louis just celebrated his 1st year with the Simpler-Webb family of "tech geeks" on July 31st. If you see him, buy him his favorite drink to celebrate: Bombay Sapphire martini with just a hint of vermouth and two olives. His favorite toast? "To all my friends!" Cheers, Louis!
Simpler Webb Grows!
Kim Haile joins us as an Account Executive.
Brian Watts teams up as a Microsoft Consultant.
Matthew Gose is welcomed as a Service Desk Technician.
Carlos Castillo is the newest member of our Service Desk Technician’s team.
USEFUL LINKS ::
Simpler-Webb: www.simplerwebb.com
Webinar Series: www.simplerwebb.com/webinar
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