Big Data came with a Big Bang & scared CFO’s of the Big Costs it brings.  Heed the challenge of addressing the explosive growth of data through breakthrough technologies whilst keeping stakeholders happy by reducing spend.

Premier Cloud computing provider Frontier Technology & the Leader* in Backup/Recovery Software CommVault invite you to a Breakfast Forum to discuss everything Data Management.

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Seats are limited.  Register now to avoid disappointment.

Locate the Venue here.

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Key Learnings

* Learn how you can virtualise fearlessly with scalable virtual protection

* Understand the difference between archiving and backup, howeach of them can create different impacts in your infrastructure and how they should work together

* Find out how a data management solution can improve your Disaster Recovery capabilities.

* Share Best Practices in Data Management with your peers

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Agenda

9:00 – 9:30      Breakfast & Registration

9:30 – 9:45      Introduction

9:45 – 10:30    Tips on Increasing ROI on Backup & Recovery Investment

10:30 – 11:00  How to Reduce IT Spend by utilising Archiving technology

11:00 – 11:20  Saving Cost & Modernising Backup & Recovery: A City Financial Firm Case Study

11:20 – 11:30  Closing / Q & A

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For more details about the event, please contact Divina Tumlos at  (0845) 603 6552 or send her an email at divina.tumlos@frontiertechnology.co.uk

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This event is in partnership with

DataCore VDS addresses unfulfilled SMB market demand for cost-effective solutions

Small and medium businesses want to adopt desktop virtualisation for the same reasons large enterprises do – to reduce desktop management costs, improve productivity and increase business agility.  However, they often find enterprise-class solutions overkill for smaller environments.

Unlike VDI offerings aimed at ‘Big Companies’ on the market which are complex and require many thousands of desktops to justify the high costs involved, DataCore VDS dramatically lowers the complexity and significantly reduces the cost per VDI instance. The solution is priced and sized for small, medium size businesses and departmental users. DataCore VDS addresses this unfulfilled market demand with cost-effective and simple to use solutions specifically designed to meet the budgets and needs of 50 to 200 virtual desktop deployments. Most importantly, DataCore VDS makes it economically possible to not sacrifice performance and have a ‘true’ desktop user experience.

The Ultimate Objective: A Great User Experience

Other VDI approaches tend to be complex, costly and inefficient. Also, they are difficult to install and manage. Whilst the ultimate objective is to provide users with a virtual desktop that performs and works as well or better than a physical computer, this objective is the first to be sacrificed due to the high costs needed to achieve the ‘true’ desktop experience and responsiveness that end-users expect.  Storage has been the major barrier and cost factor; current VDI approaches have had to use expensive storage networks, enterprise storage arrays, fast disks, SSDs and shared storage to achieve needed performance. However the economics do not make sense.  The cost of storage has limited VDI deployments only to large companies with big budgets.  All the above arguments together dictate the need for a new approach to address the storage cost and performance challenges.

DataCore VDS Compelling Benefits

DataCore VDS is the easy and affordable virtual desktop solution designed for SMBs. It deploys on a single server, and includes the tools Windows® administrators need to rapidly deliver centrally-managed virtual desktops to any user for less than the cost of new PCs.

►    Simple and Fast to Install, Administer and Use

• Runs on off-the-shelf servers; any storage
• Intuitive and easy for administrators to use

►    Affordable and Super Storage Efficient

• Uses a fraction of storage compared to other VDI architectures

►    A High Performance Optimized Architecture

• Delivers ‘Best in Class’ price performance
• Optimally manages I/O traffic and caches to achieve high performance

►    A Powerful ‘Stateful’ Virtual Desktop Computing Solution

• True Desktop computing. What users expect!

Call Divina Tumlos at 0845 603 6552 or send her an email for pricing and other enquiries.  Alternatively, please download the brochure for more information.

With 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created in a day¹, CIOs are preparing to cope with the challenge of capturing, storing, sharing, analysing and managing data that is within, and even outside, the realms of their organisation.

Below is a summary of the discussions with access to the presentations.

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Data Management vs Big Data

Are your virtual machines getting fat?  Is Big Data making them chunky, eating up all the free spaces and forcing organisations to procure storage solutions endlessly?

If the answer is yes, it is about time to exorcise these virtual machines and get them slim.  Slimmer and scalable servers mean savings on storage and backup.  But just how can organisations turn big data into a smaller footprint? Archiving.

Archiving, not be confused with backup, should be for all data, not just mails.  It should be seamless and offsite but not necessarily on tape.

Find out more and download Frontier Technology’s presentation here.

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Virtualize Fearlessly with Scalable Virtual Server Protection

The adoption of a virtual server infrastructure introduces incredible efficiencies. But it can also introduce new challenges driven by consolidated datastores, dynamic workloads, and scalable infrastructures. It’s these changing dynamics that are forcing organizations to rethink their data protection strategy so that it is optimized with the functionality that’s needed in a virtual server world.²

With virtualisation maturing, the next step would be to eliminate data protection roadblocks.

Find out more and download CommVault’s presentation here.

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Storage Clinic

Accessible, cost effective, flexible and fast.  These are the major factors to be considered when diagnosing storage conditions to be healthy.  However, organisations that are currently tackling the effects of big data often find this state difficult to attain.

According to ESG Research, 50% of companies with more than 100 production servers report that they expect to grow storage between 30-50% annually, with the explosion of unstructured data and instrumented systems driving a massive wave of content.

A common quick fix to storage problem is piling up on hardware upon hardware.  However, research shows that storage systems are 60-65% empty space³.  This is where software-defined storage comes in.  It empowers users, delivers a new level of hardware interchangeability and is in congruence with the latest IT trend of commoditisation, openness and resource pooling.

DataCore, the leading storage virtualisation software, delivers compelling business value – better ROI, faster application performance, continuous availability and can rapidly integrate technologies from competitors with its devise-independent storage virtualisation.

Find out more and download DataCore’s presentation here.

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For the month of April, Frontier Technology is offering a free, no-obligation analysis of your storage infrastructure. Call Divina Tumlos at 0845 603 6552 or send her an email to book your appointment.

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¹http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/bigdata/

²http://www.commvault.com/solutions/protect-and-manage-virtual-machines

³http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9179751

Unfortunately, the company’s backup is stored on tapes. He does not have the patience to wait for the tape backup to arrive back from the off-site storage company, let alone wait further for the file to be extracted at a snail’s pace. If you were the IT manager, what would you do?

Tape backup comes with too much complication and uncertainty.  It raises pertinent questions such as – Can the tape be read successfully? Is the file even on this tape? Can the tape be found? What happens if the tape head alignment has changed from when it was written and the tape drive or library has been upgraded since then? How much time is lost on changing tapes, setting up backup jobs and worrying about backup?

Tape equals massive time consumption, tedious tasks for the IT team and unavoidable data loss. Plus sometimes, an unhappy boss.

In an era where speed is everything, no IT manager should worry about data backup and its recovery, especially when faced with an audit or compliance issue.  Electronic, or tape-free, disk-based backup technology makes lost files or emails searchable, from any point in time and is far quicker to recover than tape.  It offers a much faster data transfer rate, is versatile and flexible for multiple copies to be replicated off-site.  Unlike tape, it is a three-in-one solution to all three classes of backup – fumble-finger, archiving and offsite/disaster recovery.

Upping the backup game even further, virtualisation is harnessing the potentials of disk-based backup and is stretching the gap between tape and disk farther. Specific backup technologies allow a near instant recovery of data or servers from any point in time.  It is scalable to an organisation’s storage requirement, easily accommodating the growth of big data.  This also minimises all associated tape costs, time loss and the capital expenditure of tape libraries, tape drives, licenses and maintenance cost.  It carries with it the many benefits that cloud computing bring.

A few cloud computing providers now offer a fully managed off-site backup solution that provides disk-based backup utilising market leading technologies.  They pro-actively monitor report and support an organisation’s backup requirements.

Key items to consider when moving to a tape-free storage and backup environment while accommodating the growth of big data are:

Security & Resilience | Make sure all data are highly encrypted at source before leaving your servers.  Demand that best practices in security be strictly enforced as your data makes its way to your provider’s data centres.

Retention | Make sure no data gets deleted and that all daily backup retentions are fully customisable. Your provider should retain all daily or hourly backups for an agreed policy-driven duration. This means you can retrieve any file or individual inbox or email as it existed on a particular date – quickly and effectively.

Cost-effective | Make sure your provider is able to reduce your backup storage footprint before they even start backing your data up. This allows higher specification storage for backup data to become an affordable option. (High specification storage means superb resilience and multiple restoration streams delivering aggressive RTO.)

Disaster Recovery | Having been hosted in the cloud, make sure your provider can give you the option to include disaster recovery for all of your servers in the event of any untoward incident affecting business operation or data corruption.

Fast recoverable backup, when combined with the cloud, can equal huge savings on disaster recovery.  One day soon, with the constant growth of big data, backup and disaster recovery will become part of one another.

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About the Author:  James Petschenyk is Frontier Technology’s backup and disaster recovery specialist and has been in a never-ending search for the ultimate backup technology.  He currently lives, sleeps and dreams about Big Data and being able to recover it – in record time.

.The explosive growth of Big Data is creating huge concerns for businesses today.  Balancing the need to manage and store unprecedented amounts of data can greatly affect your organisation’s competitiveness.

Frontier Technology brings together industry experts in one afternoon to help you effectively address these issues.  Join us for lunch as we share breakthroughs in data management and /or for cocktails as we listen to the storage challenges you face in accommodating your ever-growing data.

Register for both sessions

How to get there

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Lunch Session  |  12:30 – 3:00 PM

Tape-Free Big Data

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Session Highlights -

• Learn how you can virtualise fearlessly with scalable virtual protection
• Understand the difference between archiving and backup and how each of them can create different impacts in your infrastructure
• Find out how a properly placed data management solution can also cover your Disaster Recovery requirements

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Agenda –

12:30 – 1:00    Lunch & Registration

1:00 – 1:15      Introduction

1:15 – 2:00      Big Data:  Virtualize Fearlessly with Scalable Virtual Server Protection

2:00 – 2:45     Data Management: Archive First, Then Backup

2:45 – 3:00      Closing / Q & A

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Resource Speaker –

Nigel Tozer, Business Development Director EMEA, CommVault Systems

Nigel has over 20 years experience in the IT industry with the past 15 years focused around storage. He has helped organisations ranging from SME’s to multi-national corporations deal with their storage management challenges, ranging from backup & recovery through to archiving, compliance & information management. Nigel’s currently managing CommVault’s EMEA Cloud programme & is well known in the storage world & regularly appears in press & industry journals offering advice & commentary.

Register for this session only

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Drinks Session  |  3:00 – 5:30 PM

Storage Clinic

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Session Highlights –

• Tell us what pains you are experiencing in managing growing storage and we’ll guide you through a step-by-step process to solve it
• Know how you can virtualise, protect and optimise your storage infrastructure
• Reduce costs, mitigate risks, avert downtime in virtual server and virtual desktop environments
• Be aware of storage-related problems that may be slowing down, interrupting and endangering your IT ecosystem

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Agenda -

3:00 – 3:30      Registration

3:30 – 3:45      Introduction

3:45 – 4:15      Symptoms:  An open discussion about Storage aches and pains

4:15 – 4:45      Diagnosis:  How can changing the way you manage your storage environment help ease the agony

4:45 – 5:15      Cure: Through software defined storage, you can emerge fit and healthy

5:15 – 5:30      Q & A

5:30 – 7:00      Drinks & Peer-to-Peer Networking

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Resource Speaker –

Kevin Davids, Regional Manager and Systems Engineer at DataCore Software

Kevin is a key player in the storage and virtualisation industry, having held positions throughout the UK channel for over 20 years. He has acted in an advisory capacity for software storage virtualisation solutions for the past 12 years and with DataCore for 8 years, advising customers how to best make the most of their virtual storage, desktop and server environment.

Register for this session only

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Register for both sessions

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For more details about the event, please contact Henry Conteh at  (0845) 603 6552 or send him an email at henry.conteh@frontiertechnology.co.uk

Our Tier 4 Infrastructure and Tier 1 connectivity brings us at par with the major global datacentres.  However, being UK-based and owned protects our clients from the US Patriot Act and data sovereignty issues that many large cloud providers succumb to. We also pride ourselves with a direct, non-tiered support that guarantees all concerns will immediately be addressed by the right consultant in the unlikely event that one is needed. Whether you have 5 or 500+ servers, we deliver the same unwavering enterprise-class service; always with a personal touch.

During the show, our cloud consultants will be on hand to answer all your enquiries about hosting, business continuity, data management and access. When you book your free cloud consultation with us during the exhibition, we will give you 300 GB’s worth of enterprise backup for a year* (worth over £2000) or a free enterprise backup of your entire infrastructure for a month.

You may also join our 5-question survey for a chance to be entered in our raffle draw.  The grand prize is a flying lesson that allows you to have full control of the aeroplane for as long as it is safe.  Get a feel of our cloud environment while being on the clouds!

Cloud Expo Europe is the single most important event for business and public sector organisations – big or small – wanting to unlock the potential of cloud computing.  It offers a world-class conference programme, with 9 streams and 8 dedicated theatres, including top industry CTOs, important analysts and over 50 case studies.  It is the biggest gathering of thought leaders and practitioners in Europe.

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*Based on Windows server.  To improve security, you must have a static external IP for your connection.

• Receiving too many alerts in a day
• Monitoring too many items
• Unable to monitor bespoke applications
• Wasting too much time to generate reports
• Underutilising its features and not performing at its full potential

Ensure that your business operations are running smoothly, your users happy and your infrastructure, systems and applications healthy.  Avoid spending too much time on unnecessary administration tasks and rectify issues by tuning SCOM and letting it function to its full potential.

Frontier Technology’s SCOM Performance Review is a methodical, fast-tracked approach to reviewing your system management tool and is conducted by industry recognised Microsoft Certified Professionals.

First, we meet with you to discuss current concerns and needs. Secondly, we engage with you in analysing the cause of the problem and present you with an action plan. Lastly, and most importantly, we conduct a thorough examination of your infrastructure. After all tasks are completed, we invite you to a round-table discussion and present the condition of your SCOM, making professional recommendations where necessary.  There is also an option for you to have the results documented in a management report format that highlights the strengths and potential risk areas of your current implementation.  The report will be complete with full technical details to support our findings and suggestions on how to fix the problems.

What to expect:

• An analysis of your existing SCOM performance
• An investigation of your alert and notification configuration and tuning
• A look at your reporting and alert problems and give practical advise on how  to resolve them
• A comparison of your current structure (SCOM and SQL instances) with that of the industry’s best practices
• A thorough check of the design and architecture of your existing implementation against your business requirements
• An inspection of how your management pack is set-up

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Book your schedule now. Call Divina Tumlos at 0845 603 6552 or send her an email at divina.tumlos@frontiertechnology.co.uk

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Presentation slides from our recently concluded event,  “Microsoft Tech Update: Windows Server 2012 & System Center 2012.” can now be downloaded here:

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Windows Server 2012

System Center 2012

System Center Operation Manager 2012

Feature Comparison – Windows Server Versions

As a Microsoft gold partner, Frontier Technology will be able to gain access to exclusive facilities and support, an offering that other providers are unable to do. These resources give our consultants the technical edge when supporting Microsoft products and when integrating them with other technologies that make up our hosting infrastructure.

Our customers, as a result, gain the most advantage of this certification because we are now able, more than ever, to combine Frontier Technology’s and Microsoft’s expertise in delivering our managed service solutions.  In addition, our clients can use us a channel to escalate Microsoft issues to the right people who can give the right answers right away.

Being a Microsoft gold certified partner is no easy feat. Frontier Technology’s consultants, who are all Microsoft Certified Professionals, had to pass a series of qualifying exams in application and infrastructure technologies.  However, the most meaningful criterion to gain this recognition was passing the customer satisfaction requirement.  Frontier Technology received an overwhelming response from its customers, attaining a rating that’s 22% higher than the combined averages of all other Microsoft partners. “We are very proud of this achievement.  It is a testament to our commitment to deliver exceptional hosting service to our clients and of their overall engagement with us,” Maciek Kozanka, head of the technical team, quips.

“To maintain our status, we remain committed to our promise – to deliver the best possible cloud experience for the SME market in the UK,” Edwin Wong, managing director, caps it all up.

According to recently concluded Chief Information & Security Officers (CISO) and Analyst Forum in London, the top five issues they face with regard security are: the emergence of BYOD model, explosion of Big Data, external threats, Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and serious negative PR resulting in major damage to reputation. A CISO from a finance firm in the City said, “You can’t stop the persistent intruders getting in and you can’t stop data from leaving your organisation.”  Research shows that only 15% of company data is truly secure and that 80% of staff take data with them when they leave.

Employment law firm Peninsula, on the other hand, claims that 233 million hours are lost every month as a result of employees “wasting time” on social networking. While social networking and Google is now a business critical tool, it is also a major distraction to employees.  This often leads to abusive use of chat and IM services and an increase in bandwidth usage due to unauthorised streaming and downloading activity.

The need to monitor. Any company that needs to improve productivity, utilise network bandwidth more effectively, reduce the risk of IP theft and leakage of confidential information and those who want to protect its brand reputation must seriously consider monitoring staff activity. Spectorsoft 360, Spectorsoft’ s corporate edition, addresses all these concerns.

Spectorsoft and its first Gold Partner in the UK, Frontier Technology, recently hosted a briefing that presented the major pains of Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) and analyst must tackle to safeguard valuable corporate assets.

To gain an insight on what was discussed, please download the presentations.

Spectorsoft: Enabling CISO to Monitor Employee Activity

Spectorsoft: Case Studies

Frontier Technology: Employee Monitoring & The Cloud

For more information on how Spectorsoft 360 can safeguard your organisation, please get in touch with Divina Tumlos at 0845 603 6552 or send her an email at divina.tumlos@frontiertechnology.co.uk

Hosting recruitment-specific applications in the Cloud, such as Microdec, Voyager, FileFinder, Sage and  MS Office, to include email applications, can significantly lower IT resources and service costs.  It also reduces the IT team’s administration tasks and allows them to focus on creating value to the organisation.  A good, fully redundant cloud infrastructure provides a scalable server for data storage and data backup.

One of the advantages SaaS brings is converting capital expenditure to an operating expense. With the pay-as-you-go model, a concept most of us have being doing for years with our mobile phones, it allows management to divest IT budgets to its core functions.  Starting offices up in other counties or abroad, for example, is made easier by rolling out cloud hosted applications, cloud hosted VoIP telephony, as well as a cloud hosted desktops.  Within a year, return on investment is guaranteed.

Frontier Technology’s enterprise-class cloud infrastructure can provide recruitment firms with regulatory compliant technology solutions and support as standard. To enquire, please get in touch with Divina Tumlos at 0845 603 6552 or send her an email at divina.tumlos@frontiertechnology.co.uk