April 23, 2012, IBM announces the entry Enterprise SAN24B-5 Switch for the next-generation platform designed to unleash the full potential of private cloud storage and virtualization.   The IBM System Networking SAN24B-5 Switch is designed to provide outstanding price/performance value, combining flexibility, simplicity and enterprise class 16 Gbps Fibre Channel functionality. The SAN24B-5 is configurable in 12 or 24 ports and supports 2, 4, 8, or 16 Gbps speeds in an efficiently designed 1U package. It comes standard with a single power supply or dual power supplies with integrated fans.   A simplified deployment process and a point-and-click user interface make the SAN24B-5 both powerful and easy to use. Moreover, the SAN24B-5 offers low-cost access to industry-lead...

Did you know companies typically experience over 50% growth of unstructured data year over year?   IBM recently announced IBM SmartCloud Enterprise Object Storage Cloud service. This new IBM/Nirvanix partnership allows companies to manage unstructured and object data such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, audio files, email and text messages at very cost effective pay-as-used prices. This gives clients the ability to upload a file of any size once, from virtually anywhere in the world and access it from virtually anywhere; with availability from 99.9% to 99.99%.   Are you interested in finding out how can you leverage this powerful capability?   Do you have infrequently accessed unstructured content that you need to keep or retain for regulatory com...

Web applications are the biggest area of risk for organizations. Help address that risk with source code and dynamic security testing for web applications and web services. Breach Trends: Security breaches are expensive ($5.5M USD on average) and cause damage to the brand. (2011 Cost of a Data Breach, Ponemon) According to the IBM 2011 X-Force Trend & Risk Report released in March 2012, 41 percent of all issues reported were Web application related. 39% of executives say their companies do not address security issues in application development, waiting until the launch or post-launch phase. (2012 US Business Case for Data Protection, Ponemon) Why choose IBM for Application Security: IBM is in the leaders’ quadrant in Gartner MQ for both dynamic and static applicatio...

The iPad and other tablets are making a big splash on the corporate scene.  Many enterprises are incorporating the iPad and other tablet technologies into their workforce for agility and marketing.  IBM Global Financing has a program to support clients with their tablet and PC lifecycle strategy.   Learn More

Every year IBM partners worldwide compete for an IBM Beacon Award.  Beacon's are awarded for exemplary solutions in a handful of categories.   The Beacon Award is, by far, IBM's most prestigious award and with thousands of IBM business partners worldwide, the honor of earning the award or making the finalist list is a tremendous acknowledgement for a business partners' innovation and expertise in architecting IBM solutions.   thinkASG is honored to be an IBM Beacon Award finalist for 2011 in the category of Best Competitive Solution.  Our solution comprised IBM Power System Servers and DS8000 Enterprise Storage to replace a 10+ year Sun and EMC installation in a Fortune 50 company.  The division that installed our competitive take-out solution selected the IBM technology fo...

thinkASG is named to CRN's 2012 List of Tech Elite 250.  This is CRN's second annual list and thinkASG has been named to the list both years running.  This pretigious list recognizes IT solution providers with deep technical expertise and premier certifications in North America.   Being named on the list is a representation of thinkASG's commitment to meet our clients' demands for a technology solution provider with sales and technical certifications and skills in the products we represent.   We thank CRN for the honor of this recognition and renew our commitment to our clients to maintain our extensive certifications and to continue to serve our customers with the best integrated technology solutions the industry has to offer.   Read the full press release.

On February 7, 2012, IBM announced the withdrawal of service for the IBM i V5R4 operating system, effective September 30, 2013. It's important all End Users running older model iSeries, System i or Power technology to begin planning a migration to POWER7 and IBM i V6R1 or V7 prior to the withdrawal deadline.  IBM is offering incentives to enable End Users to take advantage of the benefits of POWER7.   Contact thinkASG to learn about your options.

VMware has been the market leader in the server virtualization world.  But, are other virtualization tools catching up?  Industry leaders believe VMware will remain the best, but will businesses begin to deploy multiple virtualization platforms?  While this consideration flies in the face of recommended best practices, the sheer financial consideration to do so may result in the emergence of virtualization tool management software.  Check out this article to learn more.

thinkASG is one of the first IBM Business Partners nationwide to achieve this unique and coveted recognition.   With our investments in IBM System Storage skills and resources we can more effectively help our clients realize the benefits of leveraging IBM best of breed storage solutions. The specialization validates thinkASG and our capabilities to design and deliver storage solutions based on IBM technologies. This accomplishment is derived from a combined measure of sales and technical certifications, client references, and our annual volume IBM System Storage solutions.   We are now eligible for a variety of benefits we provide directly to our clients, including direct access to IBM’s team of Client Technical Specialists, exclusive IBM Storage Specialty education...

Not all storage controllers are crated equal.  Review the details below for a measure of individual drive performance. Question: Do you know of a study of like 2.5” 10K drives against 3.5” 15K drives? (2.5” 10K 600GB vs. 3.5” 15K 600GB drives) I keep getting like answers, but no real documentation to back it up. Answer: Before I begin, I would like to point out that the disk drive is not 100% responsible for the performance of a storage subsystem. You cannot predict the performance of a storage subsystem by the drives alone. Meaning that two different subsystems, with the exact same drive type and count will provide different performance levels. The “secret sauce” is in the controller firmware, and how it handles the I/O’s from the host. This is how the DS3500 ca...