PC Mall Event: Secure Mobility Summit 2012

Howdy folks!  I'm fresh off of the end of the quarter, and after recovering from the 4th of July holiday (nothing like being around mortar rounds being fired off) I wanted to get this over to all of you.

PC Mall is holding their Secure Mobility Summit on August 24 at the Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles hotel.  This free event is loaded with seminars all day that will allow manufacturers to give you the information about Secure Mobility that you're going to need in the coming months.  As I've said many times before, the Consumerization of IT has hit us and it's time to get involved now before you start taking punches to the face that you aren't ready for.  We'll have Seminars being held by Cisco, Microsoft, Trend Micro, Apple, Symantec and VMWare for free.  All you have to do is register, and you can attend.

Now kicker #1.  We're also offering a special paid hands-on workshop on Apple - iOS deployment, being run by none other than Dr. Robert Kite, Director of Apple, Mobility & Consulting Services for PC Mall Services.  (some information:  Prior to joining PC Mall, Dr. Kite was a consulting engineer for Apple and he is the Author of the Xsan 2 Administration and the Mac OSX Security and Mobility V10.6 certification books.)  This training will be $99 until July 20, and after that it will be $229.  It will cover all aspects of deploying iOS into your environment from planning to installation & management.

Did I mention all attendees will receive a free Apple TV? :)

Interested in going?  Just click here, or you can contact your rep here at PC Mall to sign you up.

Now, as many of you know I'm going to be on vacation for some time over the next few weeks.  No worries...there will be posts going up from myself and Thaddeus as often as possible, and I"ll be having some things I've already written and are ready to go, pop up as well.

Take care and talk to you soon.  (If you're my client you're gonna hear from me today or tomorrow I promise!)

 

 

LG Cloud Displays provide shady rest on a blistering hot network...

Zero Client?  Why does that sound like a VERY bad sales month? ;)    If you’ve noticed, there’s a huge move towards VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) in which lighter end-clients run virtually through VMWare or Citrix solutions, take a lot of the workload off of a traditional desktop infrastructure and place it onto a virtual infrastructure.   The traditional way to utilize a VDI infrastructure, or a terminal-based one is through thin clients or zero clients.  The market on these right now is in flux as VDI is coming to the forefront, so expect prices to go up in the next 4-5 months as more and more companies look into this as a potential setup to decrease costs.

One of my most favorite partners, LG, has their own set of zero clients, and I wanted to show all of you what they’re able to do in a nutshell.  Their products utilize the same Teradici chip that other thin clients and zero clients us…and some of these units are PCoIP specific for users that have only VMWare.  What it breaks down to, is a virtual desktop setup built right into a 19” – 22” LG display.  Of course these have a minimum 3 year warranty that can be extendable further if necessary.

The three units to pay attention to are: N1910LZ, N2210WZ, and the N2311AZ.  Take a look at the video below for some more information.  Interested and want to talk to one of the BEST manufacturer reps ever?  Let me know and we can talk to my good friend Tiffany over at LG...she'll be able to get you on the road to Zero Client Cloud Monitors.  Take a look here for an informational PDF too.

Thanks! :)

Vcenter Operations from VMWare

Howdy folks!  Back again today with some information from our friends over at VMWare.  This is a 24 minute presentation on the Vcenter Operations product that they've put up on Youtube.  This product will now give end users a more comprehensive view of monitoring/reporting for their entire Vsphere environment of health, performance, and capacity...all from a single pane of glass!  (I'm not sure I like that term, but if you're in IT you know what that means.)

Take a look and if you have any questions...let us know! :)

Symantec Backup becomes even easier to manage...

First of All...Happy Holidays! :)

I know I've mentioned this product briefly before, but the Symantec Backup Exec 3600 appliance is a new product from the acclaimed security company.  Not only are they providing their great BE software for your backup needs, but this appliance also has the capability to store it FOR you.  Also, no longer would you have to allocate space on your servers or in your storage to push your backups to.  This device will help manage and control it for you.

It's integrated deduplication, granular recovery and Virtual Machine protection (for VMWare and Hyper-V) does reduce your storage and use costs that come up over time with your backups.  Really, we all know that your backup procedures are always taxing on your time, and create a drag on your day that you could better utilize.

Why not take some time next week on December 14, and attend our Symantec 3600 webinar?  It's a free training on this product and it'll help you to better understand what the unit can do for you.

Before you ask...no, it does not make your teeth and laundry whiter, while doing your taxes and walking the dog...but all of those things could get done in the time you're fiddling with your Backup Solution, if you utilized the Symantec 3600.

(While some of you might think I'm shilling for this...I'm actually not.  I've been impressed with what I've seen, and if it can help make your lives easier, then I'm all for it.  Tell me I'm wrong and why. :) )

Symantec Smackdown

Tonight on Symantec Smackdown...in the red corner, weighing in at 150 lbs of dusty old server equipment...YOUR BACKUP SYSTEM!  And...in the Gold corner...weighing in at a sleek 29 lbs....the Symantec BE6300!

All kidding aside, I had a chance to learn a bit more about this new appliance from Symantec the other day.  What?  You didn't know that Symantec actually has a hardware solution for backup?  The BE 6300 is designed to take all that is good about your Symantec Backup System (easy to use software, quick backup process, etc) and sell it to you all in a box with the hardware to store it and manage it.  We all want something simple, and this is most assuredly that.

We all know the issues with backup really relate to the hardware that's available.  You have to add drives for more storage, you have to make sure your system is up to date and able to run it, and of course you have to buy agents to replicate & deduplicate.  Not so here.  Take a look at this list of what comes on the box, and what's optional...and all of those licenses are unlimited in scope.  AND...the box has a total of 5.5TB of storage for your backups.  That'll keep you not worrying for awhile right?

Want more information?  Let's get on the phone with my Symantec BDM expert, Walaa Al-Saadi, today! :)

Managing Your Systems, Pt. 2: FireScope

Howdy folks!  FireScope is an interesting product that is playing in the management space rather well.  Their primary goal as a company was to try and simplify the IT Infrastructure management issues that have cropped up over the years.  They reduced the need for a huge software architecture to manage a company's IT needs down to 4 pieces of software...and most of you would only need one of them!

FireScope Unify is designed to bring togetheer all of the key IT metrics into a  single pane of glass setup for any business size.  It will help IT Managers truly manage their environment by being able to put in queue things that need to be planned and done based on how those things will affect the company's bottom line.  To put it simply, it makes things easy to look at and understand.  My rep over there sent this note to me the other day about one of the Unify features:

FireScope's Data Center Visualization capability can be your always-accurate map to the maze, enabling faster remediation of issues and boost operational agility. The feature leverages the latest web technologies, including HTML5/Canvas and jQuery, to visualize your data center like no other solution on the planet. Start with an overhead view of each server room, with status indicator overlays that warn you about service-impacting events. From here, drill down to the aisle and rack level to view your hardware as if you were standing in front of it.

They have 3 other pieces of software that will be useful to some of you, but possibly not all...so I'm only going to briefly explain them:  Orchestrate - this allows you to pull all of your configuration information together; Analytics helps you look over information from your infrastructure and plan accordingly for outages/growth/etc.; Comply helps you to better control your environment and how it's used by aggressively helping you to monitor what is allowed in/on your network and equipment.

Sound like something that you want to use?  How's this for help...here's a free 28 day demo of Unify that you can download right now.

Amazing Free Stuff: Blade Chassis from IBM

by Thaddeus Dilday

There is no such thing as a free lunch. But you can get a free Blade chassis from IBM.  Many of my customers want to reduce cost by grouping their servers into a blade.  This can add cost to the price of upgrading servers.  If you are new to IBM or have not purchased in a year you can qualify for a complimentary chassis.  Your PC Mall rep will be happy to schedule a call with our IBM guru to answer all questions about this phenomenal program.

BladeCenter S Overview: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/chassis/blades/

BladeCenter E Overview:http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/chassis/bladee/

BladeCenter H Overview:http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/hardware/chassis/bladeh/