IBM Sees Real ‘Value’ in VAULT400

September 18, 2007 Alex Woodie

United Computer Group, the Cleveland, Ohio, company behind the VAULT400 online backup offering, received a big stamp of approval from IBM this month when it was awarded a “value added enhancement,” or VAE, in the managed services category.

VAEs are highly coveted certifications that bestow upon the holder the right to conduct business in highly competitive reseller channels. As such, they can make or break a company’s entire existence in certain business segments. In this case, the VAE allows UCG to sell a range of IBM equipment, including System i, System p, System z, and SurePOS point-of-sale hardware.

“The VAE approval by IBM, combined with our already IBM System i Server Proven status, is exciting news for our end-user clients and business marketing affiliates,” says Jim Kandrac, president of UCG. “Many of our new VAULT400 clients are in need of a server upgrade and this managed service value add will enable our sales and technical team to provide a turnkey hardware, software application solution to their online backup and disaster recovery requirements.”

VAULT400 has been attracting customers lately with its disaster recovery service, which combines online backups with System i servers that customers can use to get their businesses recovered in the event of an emergency. The offering utilizes i5/OS-based agents from EVault that back up the servers and send the encrypted and compressed data to a UCG data center in Columbus, Ohio, that features several electricity sources to ensure uptime.

UCG says that, while there are several products on the market that provide online backup and data vaulting, the VAULT400 offering stands out thanks to its “broad platform coverage and focus on the IBM System i.”