• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • United Computer Group Sailing Smooth Through Rough Water

    April 22, 2008 Dan Burger

    “Protecting Data for the SMB” could be the title of a book written by Jim Kandrac, president of UnitedComputer Group. The Brecksville, Ohio, company is doing quite well. According to Kandrac, its revenue for the first quarter of 2008 was up 198 percent compared to the same quarter in 2007. That’s pretty explosive stuff. When most companies are happy with status quo or small gains, where do numbers like 198 percent growth come from?

    The key to this, Kandrac says, was the launch of Vault400 in September of 2006. Vault400 is an online backup and disaster recovery managed service. It can take the place of tape backup, handles encryption, and provide off site storage for archiving and disaster recovery.

    “We’re somewhat of a poor man’s disaster recovery,” Kandrac says. “Those who are doing tape backups and may want some degree of high availability . . . we fill that gap. Where can a small shop go for DR and spend between $200 and $2,000 a month and get data protected and stored and get a DR Quick Ship program?” Quick Ship is a service that ships–within 48 hours–a System i machine that customers can use to recover their data and applications.

    The success of United Computer Group is not all about Vault400, but Kandrac admits it is the most important of three reasons for his company’s prosperity. “Vault400 opens doors to our existing customer base and takes us nationwide to gain new customers,” he says. But he also emphasizes the importance of a partnership with VAI, and the development of the IBM reseller business that his company has been involved in for 22 years.

    UCG did not release actual financial results (it is a private company), but instead announced the rate of change of its revenues.

    VAI has an installed base of approximately 750 companies running its ERP solution. That partnership has worked out well. Surprisingly, the reseller side of the business has been doing well, too.

    As a business partner in the Great Lakes region, UCG is permitted to market its services to about 1,500 companies that use the System i. Out of that base, it claims about 550 clients. The region is hurting, Kandrac says. Not surprising, because it is heavily oriented toward manufacturing and the global economy has not been kind to manufacturing. (Google China and manufacturing for all the proof you need.)

    So how does this relate to terrific revenue gains for UCG?

    “Our growth is somewhat attributable to other IBM business partners being bought out, merged, sold, or gone out of business,” Kandrac says. “We are gaining market share in a stable or shrinking marketplace because we are in the System i, now Power Systems business.”

    What’s that, some sort of reverse logic?

    “We’re gaining market share due to our persistence and the loss of some of our competitors,” Kandrac says. “We are doing turn-key implementations of 515s and 525s, because some of the larger reseller firms are not interested in doing deals below a quarter of a million dollars. We are doing all that business and some bigger deals, too, but [the bigger deals are] probably about 10 percent of our business.”

    The reason for that growth is not based on dynamic growth in the Great Lakes region. It’s national. UCG is now selling systems along with Vault400 nationwide. Selling Vault400 has brought UCG into selling situations it never faced before. The same for VAI customers. It’s broadened the playing field.

    On the horizon, Kandrac says his company is partnering with a company in Atlanta to get a second data center. The existing center is in Columbus, Ohio. The Atlanta data center is being designed specifically to provide a solution for companies that want a 12- or 24-hour return to operation after a disaster. It will have 50,000 CPW capability along with 8 TP of disk. “We can provide a second system, just like a company’s primary system, and we will manage it from A to Z,” Kandrac says. It is expected to be available by the end of the third quarter 2008.

    RELATED STORIES

    United Computer Launches VAULT400

    UCG to Sell VAULT400 to VAI Customers

    Vaulting Over Backups: The Pros, Cons

    IBM Sees Real ‘Value’ in VAULT400

    VAULT400 Offers Free Insurance with ‘Quick-Ship’



                         Post this story to del.icio.us
                   Post this story to Digg
        Post this story to Slashdot

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tags:

    Sponsored by
    UCG Technologies

    CYBER-ATTACKS ON THE RISE. PROTECT WITH THE TRIPLE PLAY.

    COVID-19 has not only caused a global pandemic, but has sparked a “cyber pandemic” as well.

    “Cybersecurity experts predict that in 2021, there will be a cyber-attack incident every 11 seconds. This is nearly twice what it was in 2019 (every 19 seconds), and four times the rate five years ago (every 40 seconds in 2016). It is expected that cybercrime will cost the global economy $6.1 trillion annually, making it the third-largest economy in the world, right behind those of the United States and China.”1

    Protecting an organization’s data is not a single-faceted approach, and companies need to do everything they can to both proactively prevent an attempted attack and reactively respond to a successful attack.

    UCG Technologies’ VAULT400 subscription defends IBM i and Intel systems against cyber-attacks through comprehensive protection with the Triple Play Protection – Cloud Backup, DRaaS, & Enterprise Cybersecurity Training.

    Cyber-attacks become more sophisticated every day. The dramatic rise of the remote workforce has accelerated this trend as cyber criminals aggressively target company employees with online social engineering attacks. It is crucial that employees have proper training on what NOT to click on. Cyber threats and social engineering are constantly evolving and UCG’s Enterprise Cybersecurity Training (powered by KnowBe4) is designed to educate employees on the current cutting-edge cyber-attacks and how to reduce and eliminate them.

    A company is only as strong as its weakest link and prevention is just part of the story. Organizations need to have a quick response and actionable plan to implement should their data become compromised. This is the role of cloud backup and disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS).

    Data is a company’s most valuable asset. UCG’s VAULT400 Cloud Backup provides 256-bit encrypted backups to two (2) remote locations for safe retrieval should a cyber-attack occur. This is a necessary component of any protection strategy. Whether a single click on a malicious link brings down the Windows environment or an infected SQL server feeds the IBM i, once the data is compromised, there is no going back unless you have your data readily available.

    Recovery is not a trivial task, especially when you factor in the time sensitive nature of restoring from an active attack. This leads to the third play of the Triple Play Protection – DRaaS.  Companies have myriad concerns once an attack is realized and a managed service disaster recovery allows employees to keep focus on running the business in a crisis state.

    The combination of training employees with secure backup and disaster recovery offers companies the best chance at avoiding financial disruption in an age of stronger, more frequent cyber-attacks.

    Reach out to UCG Technologies to discuss your company’s security needs and develop a data protection plan that fits you best.

    ucgtechnologies.com/triple-play

     800.211.8798 | info@ucgtechnologies.com

     

    1. https://theconversation.com/cyberattacks-are-on-the-rise-amid-work-from-home-how-to-protect-your-business-151268

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Sponsored Links

    COMMON:  Join us at the annual 2009 conference, April 26 - April 30, in Reno, Nevada
    LANSA:  It's Time for 4 days of education at the LANSA User Conference, May 4 – 7, in Orlando
    Camp Help/Systems:  Explore operations automation and BI, June 17 - 20, 2008, Minneapolis, MN

    IT Jungle Store Top Book Picks

    Easy Steps to Internet Programming for AS/400, iSeries, and System i: List Price, $49.95
    Getting Started with PHP for i5/OS: List Price, $59.95
    The System i RPG & RPG IV Tutorial and Lab Exercises: List Price, $59.95
    The System i Pocket RPG & RPG IV Guide: List Price, $69.95
    The iSeries Pocket Database Guide: List Price, $59.00
    The iSeries Pocket Developers' Guide: List Price, $59.00
    The iSeries Pocket SQL Guide: List Price, $59.00
    The iSeries Pocket Query Guide: List Price, $49.00
    The iSeries Pocket WebFacing Primer: List Price, $39.00
    Migrating to WebSphere Express for iSeries: List Price, $49.00
    iSeries Express Web Implementer's Guide: List Price, $59.00
    Getting Started with WebSphere Development Studio for iSeries: List Price, $79.95
    Getting Started With WebSphere Development Studio Client for iSeries: List Price, $89.00
    Getting Started with WebSphere Express for iSeries: List Price, $49.00
    WebFacing Application Design and Development Guide: List Price, $55.00
    Can the AS/400 Survive IBM?: List Price, $49.00
    The All-Everything Machine: List Price, $29.95
    Chip Wars: List Price, $29.95

    IT Shops Worried About Energy, But Cutting Power Isn’t Happening A Recycle Bin for the IFS (Sort Of)

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Volume 8, Number 16 -- April 22, 2008
THIS ISSUE SPONSORED BY:

Help/Systems
PowerTech
Aura Equipments
Vision Solutions
Guild Companies

Table of Contents

  • inFORM Helps Save the Earth with Updates to i-Based Document Management
  • Industrial Strength Software Debuts DB2/400 Optimization Tools
  • Turning a System i into a Time Machine: Nippon Express and CCSS Show How It’s Done
  • United Computer Group Sailing Smooth Through Rough Water
  • Enterprise Features Gain Focus as MySQL 5.1 Nears Release
  • Drummond Submits AS4 Requirements to OASIS
  • IBM Incorporates DataMirror Into InfoSphere Software
  • Alpharma Expands Use of iQ4bis BI Solution
  • Island Pacific to Continue Selling Help/Systems BI Tools
  • Dextron Supports Java with Data Modeling Tools

Content archive

  • The Four Hundred
  • Four Hundred Stuff
  • Four Hundred Guru

Recent Posts

  • Why Open Source Is Critical for Digital Transformation
  • mrc Refreshes IBM i Low-Code Dev Tool
  • Unit Testing Automation Hits Shift Left Instead of Ctrl-Alt-Delete Cash
  • Four Hundred Monitor, March 3
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 9
  • Doing The Texas Two Step From Power9 To Power10
  • PHP’s Legacy Problem
  • Guru: For IBM i Newcomers, An Access Client Solutions Primer
  • IBM i 7.1 Extended Out To 2024 And Up To The IBM Cloud
  • Some Practical Advice On That HMC-Power9 Impedance Mismatch

Subscribe

To get news from IT Jungle sent to your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.

Pages

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Contributors
  • Four Hundred Monitor
  • IBM i PTF Guide
  • Media Kit
  • Subscribe

Search

Copyright © 2021 IT Jungle

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.