How Safe is Your Business Critical Server?

So Windows Server 2003 End of Support has come and gone, and perhaps you’re wondering why you haven’t heard a media storm around a company that’s been hit hard due to not upgrading.

I think we all knew that lack of an upgrade plan wouldn’t cause huge disruptions straight away, but that’s not to say that those who have hung onto Windows Server 2003 are in the clear. In fact, the reality is quite the opposite. The last round of patches from Microsoft didn’t include Windows Server 2003 – so the situation for anyone holding on to this platform is much darker than they perhaps realise.

Server migration isn’t done in a week. In fact, it can take five months to fully complete a server and workload migration project, and even that’s optimistic depending on the size of your business. Organisations that haven’t yet started the upgrade process aren’t running late; they’re far past that point. The longer that businesses go without upgrading, the greater the security risk. On top of that, they’re taking the chance that Visa and MasterCard won’t do business with them due to Windows Server 2003 no longer being PCI compliant, which is bad news for anyone accepting card payments online.

Obviously, we’re talking bad-case scenarios here, but operating with an out of date infrastructure means that organisations are under threat. Every day on Windows Server 2003 is another day that issues can strike.

It’s not unusual for cyber attacks to target unsupported software, and really it makes perfect sense. If a global organisation is running outdated software, virus authors will naturally target it for a chance of fame. The grim reality is that by refusing to upgrade, an organisation is putting more than some data at risk; they’re actively threatening their own future. History is littered with organisations who have lost customer data – and as a result lost their customers too. It’s harsh reading, but it’s definitely worth thinking about.

To move onto happier things, End of Support has done a lot of good for businesses when customers have upgraded. The necessity of having to do something has allowed businesses to have a complete rethink of how they deal with their data, leading to some interesting choices. The most interesting is perhaps the rise of businesses using Cloud solutions. Gone are the times when migration meant a choice of which physical servers to keep in your basement. With the rise of Microsoft Azure and Office 365, organisations have been willing to not only try the cloud, but also consider both options as a valid choice when migrating from Windows Server 2003.

The main messaging to take from Windows Server 2003 EOS is that it’s never truly too late to upgrade. Mark Buckley, Senior Partner Sales Executive for Distribution at Microsoft, had this to say on the subject: ‘Support has now ended for Windows Server 2003, but it’s not too late to migrate. If your server goes down, how long is it until your business starts to lose money? Don’t wait for something to go wrong, and don’t learn the hard way.’

One thing is clear:  if businesses haven’t upgraded yet, it’s not too late. But the longer it’s left, the greater the risk is.

Watch our Windows Server 2003 EOS Video 

If you want to find out more about migration opportunities, contact your account manager or email: sales@westcoast.co.uk 

Microsoft WPC - We’ve Made It!

So after all the hype and build up, we are finally here in Orlando and what a first couple of days it's been! For all the ladies out there (and some men), I hope you brought your hair straighteners because the humidity is causing havoc with the frizz!

Sunday started with a great session with Peter Davidson and the CSP tier-2 partners. We had some great discussions around the strategy for FY16 and all the great things we will soon be offering through CSP. Make sure you come and talk to us in the UK lounge so we can tell you more about what's to come.

It was great to meet lots of the UK partners at the welcome drinks on Sunday evening. I hope you all had fun and that you're putting your Westcoast WPC Survival Kits to good use after such a fun night!

I'm really looking forward to listening to some more inspiring keynotes and speeches as the week progresses. Despite us Brits showing considerably less emotion than our American cousins, I personally find it really hard to not get caught up with all the enthusiasm which you will see and feel when you come to talk to us about CSP, and how partnering with Westcoast will help you grow your cloud services business.

If you see us, don't forget to get a selfie with us for the chance to win a Surface Pro 3 by tweeting your pic and capturing the essence of WPC 2015 to @MSPartnersUK using #WPCUK.

Join us on our Westcoast @ WPC LinkedIn Group for the latest information and a chance to win £250 of vouchers. I look forward to seeing you throughout the week and at the big party tonight!

By Nicola Boswell – Cloud Product Manager at Westcoast Limited 

Case Study: HP StoreEver MSL6480 Tape Library safeguards business critical content

Tape may be one of the most 'old school' storage technologies, but that doesn't mean it can't play nice with the newest kids on the block.  But don't take my word for it.  This week, HP published a new tape testimonial from a very interesting and exciting source.  Because when it comes to video production and multimedia, it doesn't get much more cutting-edge than the advanced 4K digital film making projects created by Brain Farm Digital Cinema.

You might think that when it came to completing their digital workflow, the last solution a state-of-the-art video company would turn to is tape, specifically the HP StoreEver MSL6480 tape library. 

But as Brain Farm's post production supervisor, Danny Holland, says:

"Estimates indicate that our storage cost per terabyte is 86 percent lower with the HP StoreEver MSL6480 solution compared to an equivalent SAN disk array. The lower total cost of ownership of the MSL6480 tape library delivers affordable storage technology, providing us with a competitive edge in the digital media market."

So HP StoreEver tape is not just a means of storing data.  It is a key enabler that makes Brain Farm a more successful company.  In this blog, I want to take a closer look at why this is the case.

Brain Farm Digital Cinema is at the forefront of video production and its recent National Geographic "Great Migrations" documentary series won the company a prestigious Emmy award for cinematography.  The team has a reputation for creating breathtaking images in locations where few dare to go, especially in the fields of action sports and aerial photography.

Brain Farm often shoots several films simultaneously at 4K resolution with multiple cameras, each creating an uncompressed storage requirement of about 200 GB per minute. Moreover, a single project frequently involves a 100-day filming season, generating many petabytes of content.

The challenges faced by Brain Farm can be summarised:

• storing massive output volumes.
• inefficient labor-intensive stand-alone tape drive backup and archiving processes.
• an inappropriate disaster recovery capability to safeguard clients’ valuable assets.
• insufficient scalability to support growth.

 HP'sMSL6480 tape library meets these challenges directly:

• Each unit offers up to 560 slots, storing up to 3.5 PB in a single rack, with 81 TB density per 1U of rack space
• It can easily be expanded with extra drives, slots and cartridges, including future generations of LTO Ultrium for even higher capacities.
• The automated process is 10X faster than the old workflow and 86% cheaper than using a SAN disk array for this purpose.
• HP StoreOpen for Automation, HP’s LTFS solution for MSL6480, makes sharing and accessing data simple.
• HP TapeAssure Advanced software makes the MSL6480 easy to manage from any location.

In the words of Danny Holland:

"The nature of the digital cinema business makes scalability extremely important. The HP StoreEver MSL6480 Tape Library design allows us to easily add extra drives, media slots and expansion modules as required, delivering a non-disruptive scalability model that’ll generate significant savings over the years.”

So next time anyone scoffs that tape is dead or for companies that haven't yet embraced innovation in storage, invite them to learn about Brain Farm Digital Cinema.  I think it's a great endorsement that such a successful and pioneering company sees a clear role for tape in its digital workflow.  Such companies do not use technology out of sentiment.  It's because they feel the core benefits of tape are the best solution for their cutting-edge needs!

Andrew Dodd

Worldwide Marketing Communications Manager

HP Storage Media

Businesses may be at risk from not migrating away from Windows Server 2003, says HP's Angela Cross

A significant percentage of businesses are putting their futures at risk and not migrating away from Windows Server 2003 as they think Microsoft aren’t serious about ending support on the 14^th July, says HP’s UK manager for servers. 

Angela Cross, HP’s server country manager for UK & Ireland, believes that an estimated 1 in 3 organisations have not migrated to Window Server 2012, despite the dangers surrounding security and compliance of retaining the soon-to-be obsolete operating system. "Customers are waiting for Microsoft to announce on the 14th July that support will be extended for another 12 months, but they have been very clear on this for the last six months that this will not happen. HP is concerned that customers are leaving themselves badly exposed."

The reason behind this reluctance to upgrade, suspects Cross, is a combination of Microsoft’s track record in extending the life of PC operating systems and the cost to businesses of migrating away from XP last year, which has stretched budgets. "I think there is probably in excess of at least 30 per cent of the market (in the UK), if not considerably higher, that have done nothing.” said Cross.

Westcoast continues to offer services for HP partners looking to help end users migrate from Windows Server 2003, including a webinar covering best practices on the 21^st July and an incentive for purchasers of new Gen9 servers or Windows Server 2012 to win tickets to the forthcoming Rugby World Cup. 

Highlighting Westcoast’s work in helping resellers to provide migration via the Windows EOS program and Upgrade And Win campaign, Cross added, “I don't think it's for any lack of communication. Some end users have decided not to migrate.”

Microsoft has made several warnings that continued use of Windows Server 2003 will bring risks to the security and compliance of business systems, yet as of January this year it was estimated that over 400,000 servers were still waiting to be updated.  "There are potentially customers that are very exposed to huge vulnerabilities," Angela said. "I think businesses take the view that such servers are probably only doing file and print tasks, they’re not frontline so it’s not critical – but it's still an access route into their network and therefore their business, so they are a weak point in their systems."

It is this sheer number of servers yet to be updated, with end users feeling they lack time or resources to undertake critical migrations, that Cross believes presents an opportunity to the channel. “A customer might have perhaps 20 or 30 servers but understanding the vulnerabilities they may contain is difficult if they don't have a sophisticated IT capability. And that scales all the way up to organisations running tens of thousands of servers. Where do you start?"

"Windows 2003, from an HP perspective, is probably running on at least generation 5 or older, so if you had 10 Gen5 servers, you probably need just one Gen9 server to deliver the same performance today. It isn't a hardware-heavy refresh; it's a consulting and transformation project, which is where partners can work with Westcoast to provide professional migration services to their customers and help them move away from retaining a server operating system that will soon become a risk to their operations”

How HP’s Changes To Smart Quote Will Benefit You...

HP partners selling Enterprise Group solutions – servers, storage and networking - have been able to get access to special pricing through an online tool called Smart Quote. Soon there will be an important change being made to the system – will it affect you?

Currently, resellers can request a number of distributors to respond with pricing details, which the reseller would then look through and decide which to select.  From 1st July this will be changing; resellers making future pricing requests in Smart Quote will have to state their preferred distributor, meaning they will receive pricing information from one distributor instead of several.

So, if you’re a HP Partner, how will this benefit you?

The idea of having several distributors providing you with pricing may sound like good business  - keen pricing and fast response - but it can in fact be quite the opposite. Multiple companies competing for the same business can tend to focus on the larger opportunities, meaning lesser deals you place in Smart Quote don’t get such a quick response. Additionally, with so many responses and people following up with additional questions, you can easily be delayed in getting pricing over to their customer, which goes against the whole point of trying to provide a fast service to your customers in the first place. 

Let’s compare this with you stating Westcoast as your preferred distributor within the new version of Smart Quote.

By streamlining Smart Quote to stating Westcoast as your preferred distributor partner, you will be receiving a much simpler service.  Instead of getting multiple quotes and loads of incoming calls and emails asking for more details, you will get a single quote - making responding to requests faster and helping to ensure the pricing that you get is even better value

.

While we’re on the subject of speed, Westcoast is renowned for delivering pricing fast. There’s a good reason why we turn round pricing requests so swiftly; your customers often need pricing quickly, so the quicker we give a reply, the faster you can deliver a great value quote to your customer.

This simpler service for you also includes other areas such as;

Pre-sales; our industry-leading pre-sales teams can provide technical advice to help you give an expert service to your customers, guiding them on the best solution for their business – and thus winning more clients.

50-plus EG certified Account Managers and a dedicated BDM who will visit and work with you to help develop your business plan to grow your HP revenues.

Access to Solutions Lab and operational demonstration and education centre complete with HP EG demonstration  that’s yours to use – completely free of charge. 

Free marketing material - We even help you promote HP EG solutions with a range of rebrandable materials through GYM+.

So as you can see, by ensuring you state Westcoast as your preferred distributor when using Smart Quote, you’ll be building a loyal customer base who look to you as their IT expert, trusting your advice and loving your service. 

To find out more about the changes in Smart Quote and how Westcoast can help you Click Here 

How to gain the most from the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

Platinum sponsorship – Check.  

All access pass – Check.  

Hotel – Check.  

Flights – Check.  

That is the easy part. Now is the time for planning for WPC to make the most out of your investment.

WPC is a great week of the year for any Microsoft partner looking to discover the Microsoft strategy for the next year from their worldwide leaders, build relationships with key Microsoft employees and partners from around the world and to get sight of future technologies.   

The key for us is to make sure you keep your agenda packed, the busier your agenda the less time for tiredness! 

Here are our top tips to help you gain the most from WPC:

1. Use WPC Connect as this is the best way of scheduling meetings with Microsoft employees and partners. 

2. Make sure you go to all the evening events laid on by the Microsoft team, most networking happens at these events so make sure that you have enough business cards. 

3. Spend time in the UK lounge, this is where a lot of the best networking happens along with many valuable ad-hoc introductions and meetings.

4. Do your research - What is CSP? What is Cloud? This will enable you to ensure you gain the most out of your experience. Make sure that you visit us in the UK lounge to find out what our offering is and how we can help you demystify CSP.

5. Enjoy yourself – The WPC is a huge event and will be a full on rewarding experience. You may find yourself asking these questions; Why am I so tired? Have I not slept? It’s inevitable. So make sure you enjoy yourself whilst you’re there and you can catch up on sleep when you’re back!

I think we know that Cloud and Microsoft services available on monthly billing, through the CSP program are going to be the hot topics for the week, and here at Westcoast we are perfectly aligned to the Microsoft strategy to be able to support partners with the transition to cloud and to CSP. 

Not forgetting Windows 10 – one platform across all devices, Microsoft Edge browser, Continuum, A PROPER START BUTTON! Have you ordered your free upgrade?

Be sure to follow us for the latest news and exclusive competitions on WPC and Westcoast Cloud..  

Twitter - @WestCoastCloud 

Linkedin - Westcoast @ WPC

Online - www.westcoast.co.uk/csp

See you in Orlando!

 Ben Feurtado – Microsoft Business Manager at Westcoast Limited

Reinventing the way students learn with HP in Education

Technology is everywhere and affects nearly every part of our lives from shopping, to socialising and, most importantly, learning. With their great and increasing presence entwined in our lives, innovative IT solutions in the classroom are a valuable learning tool for students everywhere and it's never been a more important time to make technology more accessible to young people in the Education sector.

Westcoast's HP in Education portal highlights the key HP products best suited to education to make it easy for our partners to make an informed decision on the solutions available as conveniently as possible.

HP are reinventing the way students learn and teachers teach by offering very specific solutions depending on the needs at each stage of the education journey from primary education right the way through to university level.

Over the next few weeks, we will be running a 'HP in Education' Blog series and taking a deep dive into the benefits, solutions and products designed specifically around the bespoke needs throughout education from primary to university, special needs to emerging markets.

So keep your eyes peeled and in the meantime here's a few examples of how HP are innovating their solutions designed especially for each stage of education ...

-        In early primary, HP has designed smaller, ruggedized tablets for those tiny hands and moments when faced with an unannounced drop test!

-        For middle school, HP's larger convertibles allow students to work together by collaborating and communicating ideas easily using technology

-        As the curriculum shifts from content consumption to content creation, the shift from tablets to HP workstations allows students to develop their writing skills

-        College & University life demands both on and off-site availability of devices so HP's consistent user experience regardless of device is essential

-        HP also has exclusive value added feature(s) addressing assistive technology for students with disabilities including voice recognition for those challenged by keyboards, Text to speech/ speech to text functionality, and much more within a controlled environment so students can only see apps that are relevant for them (not distracted by others)

Over the last two years, Medhurst IT has been using HP’s Mobility Technology within primary schools, universities and colleges. They have found that this has had a huge impact in growing as a business to reach new target audiences so HP now resonates as a crucial component within the organisation. Tom Drew, Education Sales Specialist at Medhurst, has also been using the Westcoast's SMARTbid tool to get the best pricing on HP devices.

Tom says “HP and SMARTbid allow us to be competitive in the education sector. We always backed ourselves to be successful once taken on by a school or college, but HP kit provides that ‘foot in the door’ that we always lacked when it came to the initial pitch.”

Education customers should also take advantage of HP Subscription: One price, one payment, one place to buy your entire IT solution! If your customers are looking for a better way to manage their schools' PCs then the best solution is a subscription to use bundled hardware and services for a monthly payment. Learn more about HP Subscription here

Interested in learning more about HP Innovation for Schools and how we can help?

<< Visit the Westcoast HP in Education portal today >>

Storage Media: Why tape storage is here to stay!

You may not consider tape to be an innovative technology, but perhaps it's time to think again. During the last decade, tape storage has witnessed massive improvement in terms of capacity and performance and benefited from continuous innovation in critical areas relating to cost, reliability and ease of use. Today, this evergreen technology can effectively address new data protection opportunities in addition to its traditional role as a backup device.

And, although it’s important to note that disk storage has made advances during the same period, tape’s progress has been more than equal to it.

First, let's set the scene with some important facts about the tape media business (source: Santa Clara Global Quarterly Backup Tracker Q4 CY14, February 2015):

1. Customers are using more tape storage than at any point in history – In Q4, the market shipped 6,638 petabytes of capacity on new low & midrange tape formats (LTO, DAT, DLT, AIT) – a record total!

2. LTO Ultrium is the most popular technology – accounting for 97% of those shipments in a market worth $117.6M. Hewlett-Packard is the leading brand in this category and has been since mid-2002. In particular, LTO-5 (3 TB per unit with 2:1 compression) and LTO-6 (6.25 TB per unit with 2.5:1 compression) account for 82% of total capacity shipped.

3. The cost of tape storage media is the lowest it has ever been - When LTO-1 was launched in 2001, it offered a compressed cost per GB of about $0.60. Today, LTO-6 offers a native cost per GB of less than $0.01, as recently announced by the LTO Consortium. To purchase 2.5 TB of HP tape media capacity in 2000 would have cost $3,125. Today it costs about $50!

So why does tape look set to remain so popular in 2015, for data protection in general, and archive in particular?

The answer lies in the on-going business value of the technology. It's not just about performance, capacity and usability, but also how technology can lower costs, reduce risks, and improve productivity within an organisation. From that point of view, tape continues to impress.

Low Cost of Ownership - Tape continues to offer one of the lowest costs per terabyte for any type of storage, especially when you consider energy consumption and carbon footprint, which both should be factored in for a true like-for-like comparison. When comparing the TCO of an LTO tape library and a disk array over a 9 year period, disk storage is 26 times the average TCO of tape. The cost of energy alone for the average disk-based solution exceeds the entire TCO for the typical tape-based solution!

Risk Reduction – A primary purpose of any backup or archive program is data retrieval and restoration. The LTO tape drives, libraries and media have great reliability and availability features such as hardware redundancy, path failover, proactive health monitoring software and data archive verification software. These help to ensure that data is always available and recoverable. Plus, tape cartridges can be easily and securely transported off-site so they are safe from security threats and cyber attacks that could occur without warning.

Productivity Improvements – As data growth increases uncontrollably, it's never been a more important time for businesses to effectively manage their backup and archiving infrastructure. Luckily, tape can be scaled almost effortlessly – it's just a case of adding more tape cartridges and tape expansion modules – and with very little additional cost. Meanwhile, innovative technologies like Linear Tape File System (LTFS), Tape As NAS (tNAS) and Flash And Tape (FLAPE) make tape even simpler to access, use and share.

So, in conclusion, tape is very much alive and should not be discounted as no longer being a key strategic storage technology!

Significant innovations have been made in terms of performance, higher capacity, power efficiency, improved reliability, ease of use and budget-friendliness. If you haven’t considered tape storage recently, you may want to take the time to do so (or have a second, or third, look!)

But tape today still has an amazing amount to offer.
For more information on tape today and in the future, contact your Westcoast Account Manager or why not take a look at our range of Storage Media that you can buy directly from our website? Click here

Size is just the beginning for this little space saving superhero!

Introducing the most flexible, powerful, compact desktop solution available for the space-constrained – The Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny.

This great little compact performer can fit any workspace (as the name suggests) but don't let it's small size fool you – Tiny has a whole lot more to offer and is so much more than small...

Take a look at the Tiny's Top 7 'super powers':

1. Blazing Performance & Unrivaled Power - Delivers faster performance, up to 10× faster transfer rates and 50% or greater charging power with better signal reception for a hyper-speed wireless experience.

2. Invisibility & Ninja Silence - Hides almost anywhere. Plus, it's nearly silent while operating and with its ICE 3.0 cooling system, produces less heat, as well so you wouldn't even know it's there!

3. Adaptability - Fits virtually anywhere. Install Tiny behind flat-screen monitors or choose from an under-the-desk mount, vertical stand, or secure it inside the Tiny-in-One 23.

4. Expandability - Additional ports available so you can easily expand your desktop performance without compromising on versatility. You can even power it on from the keyboard, an industry first!

5. Security - The most comprehensive hardware-based management and security capabilities, to give IT managers the confidence to secure their networks. With security this tight, take Tiny anywhere with the Kensington® Microsaver® Cable lock.

6. Energy Efficient - Tiny offers huge possibilities for users and the planet by using 50% less energy than regular-sized desktops and 12% less energy than its previous generation without sacrificing performance.

7. Friendly, Entertaining and an all round good guy! - works well with multiple users and multiple monitors and is built to tackle heavy multimedia with ease to benefit from a much better user experience.

It's easy to deploy and easy to service, and can be accessed by just one screw for quicker serviceability and a more efficient use of IT resources.

So are you ready to discover all that Tiny is besides just small?  Now available at Westcoast!

You can find out more about the Tiny here! Or if you are Reseller looking to purchase click here 

Linking the questions you ask your Apple customers

In our last Apple post we gave you some suggestions as to what questions you can ask your customers to unlock further conversations, creating potential for a larger sales. This week we want to explore customer profiling a little more and give you something you can try out straight away with your customers.

Profiling your customers might be an approach that is completely alien to you or it maybe something at which you have become somewhat of an expert. Either way, our vision at Westcoast is to bring our customers together to collaborate on what those techniques may look like. Try new methods out. Share successes and challenges. But most of all, join us in becoming the experts in selling Apple Solutions.

We want to give you something you can try

out straight away with your customers.

We recommend remembering the process we call

C.H.A.I.N.

 

This is the process by which you determine your customers current situation, background, aims, pains and business needs. The result gives you a crystal clear understanding of who it is you are talking to.
You must ask the relevant questions in order to understand who you are talking to, what role does that person play and what is the environment for the company.

The idea behind using CHAIN is that by linking the the questions you ask your customer, you will start to…

 

build a solid foundation to understanding what

the full solution for that customer may be.

 

Here is the CHAIN model:
 

CURRENT SITUATION – what is their technical situation as it currently stands?

HISTORY – what is their company background?

AIMS – what is the purpose of the purchase? ISSUES – what problem is this purchase trying to fix?

NEEDS OF THE BUSINESS – what overall business need is this in response to?

A full Apple solutions goes beyond the the Apple Products themselves.We want to share with you what we do to uncover the solution. By doing this the customer benefits and you benefit by selling more products and services.

Next time we will to share with you some examples of solutions that could come from a sales conversation structured around CHAIN.

Until then we would love to know how you get on with trying this out.

Join in the discussion here!