A Dell Certified Enterprise Architecture Partner

September 18th, 2009 Frank Coward No comments

 

Dell Certified Enterprise Architecture Partners help enterprise customers decrease total cost of ownership (TCO) and increase return on investment (ROI) through improvements to their customers’ server and storage architecture.

It’s no surprise that servers and storage are the backbone of today’s enterprise. As such, solutions providers with enterprise product expertise continue to be highly valued strategic partners to businesses everywhere. We believe we can help enterprise customers reach total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) goals — faster, better, smarter.

With 25 years IT experience, Gardner can help Dell customers to specify, purchase and install their entire infrastructure.

 

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Gardner Systems has partnered with Trustmarque Solutions to offer a fully managed audit and compliance software licensing service to our clients

September 17th, 2009 Frank Coward No comments

 

In today’s recessionary climate, organisations must gain control of their IT environment for three key reasons:

Cost Avoidance

Reducing total expenditure is a priority for IT departments. Being either over or under-licensed means you are wasting thousands of pounds annually. So you must ensure you are:

  • Not procuring any unnecessary licences
  • Utilising all your software to its maximum effect
  • Not paying for unnecessary support and maintenance.

Compliance

Alongside the regulatory driver, software vendors see compliance as their route to new licence sales, offsetting smaller IT customer budgets by taking a zero tolerance approach to illegal software usage. Organisations who adopt SAM best practice can achieve upto 25 percent savings immediately by reducing maintenance and internal business costs.

 

Change and Complexity

Technology change is creating more complex licensing schemes and vendor agreements, making it difficult for companies to keep abreast of licensing regulations and contracts. Plus managing software with the advent of technologies such as cloud computing, virtualisation and SaaS is no easy task. M&A activity also introduces complexity into the management of software.

 

It’s All about Trust!

Organisations need a ‘trusted’ partner to advise how best to cope with these business challenges. Trustmarque Solutions can help ascertain the best strategy to rationalise your IT environment, saving time and money by:

  • Helping to better qualify business risk
  • Providing guidance on cost effective software procurement and maintenance
  • Always working with your best interests in mind.

Trustmarque are software management experts with a range of Software Licensing Services to help meet the challenge of cost avoidance, compliance and change/complexity. These include: Renewals Management, Procurement Management, Entitlement Management, Software Asset Management, Licensing Consultancy, Portfolio and Catalogue Management

Established in 1987, Trustmarque Solutions has an outstanding track record of successfully delivering solutions to our customers, largely due to the quality, experience and dedication of our people.

Trustmarque Solutions is a software licensing and services company specialising in all facets of software management. We are one of the largest software licensing companies in the UK and offer solutions to our customers to help them avoid unnecessary IT costs, deploy best practice IT as well as mitigate the risk of IT non-compliance.

Not only is Trustmarque a Microsoft Large Account Reseller (LAR) with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status but they partner with many other major vendors in the IT market such as: Adobe, Business Objects, CA, Citrix, McAfee, Nuance, Sophos, Symantec, Trend, VMware and Websense to name but a few.

In short, Gardner Systems and Trustmarque have a vast experience of IT compliance and we can ensure you:-

  • Achieve and maintain a legally compliant position
  • Are in control of your software estate
  • Ensure better pricing with vendors
  • Reduce training costs through knowledge transfer
  • Centralise purchasing and management of software licenses
  • Reduce the total cost of ownership of your software
  • Create a robust and effective SAM infrastructure
  • Through our consultative ‘hands-on’ approach we can manage all your vendor software licences, across the whole of your organisation, saving you significant time and money.

How can we help?

We are experts in software licensing and software management and for many years, we have been helping our clients to:-

  • Develop detailed and comprehensive network audits
  • Establish their legal licence position
  • Assess SAM policies and procedures in accordance with the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) guideline
  • Undertake quarterly reviews to help with:
  • Compliance
  • Licence renewals
  • Maintenance agreement renewals
  • Advice on future licence purchases and requirements
  • Knowledge of actual software use

IBM ServicePac for Maintenance of HP Server Products

September 17th, 2009 Frank Coward No comments

Maintenance services for HP servers delivered by IBM and available from Gardner Systems

 

Service detail

The IBM ServicePac is a simple, cost-effective way to purchase a range of support services and is particularly suited to those small and medium sized organisations who want the full backing of a world-class IT services provider yet at a competitive price.

IBM ServicePac offers a fixed term and predefined scope and is available through Gardner’s. The IBM ServicePac range is wide and includes hardware maintenance services, software support services, implementation services and education.

This ServicePac is available for a selected number of HP® servers including P class blades, Proliant DL and ML servers.

 

Highlights

  • Provides pre-packaged hardware maintenance services for a one time payment
  • The hours of cover are 7 days a week , 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
  • Gets your systems up and running fast, with over 30% of support calls currently fixed remotely
  • 4 hour on site response time following problem determination
  • Helps to minimise downtime and expense
  • 1or 2 year contract term
  • Network of UK stores with over 42,000 parts stocked

IBM delivers these services using the same systems, methods, resources and contact centre that are used for IBM products. This means that the service is delivered to the same high standard as other IBM services. This is not a subcontracted service.

ServicePac options are designed to be easy to use and order. Plan your support by making a single payment and be confident that IBM is delivering the service you need. Contracting has never been so simple. Each ServicePac is a self-contained contract and simply needs to be registered with IBM to activate service.

For full description including ServicePac Selection Guide and HP ServicePac Guide please visit:-

 

http://www-935.ibm.com/services/uk/index.wss/offering/its/n1629769

IBM Servicepacs for Software Support Services

September 17th, 2009 Frank Coward No comments

These services provide you with unlimited hardware and software phone support for IBM equipment and popular operating systems.

 

Service detail

IBM ServicePacs are a simple cost-effective way to purchase a range of support services and is particularly suited to the customer who wants the full backing of the manufacturer at a competitive price. IBM ServicePacs, which have a fixed term and predefined scope, are available through Gardner Systems. The range of IBM ServicePacs available is large and includes hardware maintenance services, software support services, implementation services, education etc. IBM ServicePac is available for IBM System x, IBM System p, IBM System i, IBM BladeCenter, IBM System Storage, Retail systems and other IBM products and to provide software support services for Microsoft Windows, LINUX and other system software.
When it comes to installing and maintaining your systems, devices and software environment, you need precise information and fast answers to complicated questions. IBM technical specialists provide expert support, and can help reduce the complexity of implementing your solutions.

 

Highlights

 

  • Unlimited calls and unlimited callers
  • Precise answers to technical questions.
  • Fast problem resolution
  • Hardware, software and services support from a single source
  • Competitively-priced, predictable support calls

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Industry leading response times helps to minimise downtime and expense

IBM technical support experts have high-end skills and knowledge to assist you with how-to usage, installation, configuration and software defects. With unlimited calls and unlimited callers, anyone at your company can call as often as needed and receive quick and efficient responses

ServicePac options are designed to be easy to use and order. ServicePac can be ordered together with an IBM hardware order or later, dependent on which option you may need. ServicePac options can be easily ordered through Gardner Systems. Convenience is a key factor. Each ServicePac has a part number and can be easily purchased just like IBM hardware. Contracting has never been so simple. Each ServicePac is a self-contained contract and simply needs to be registered with IBM to activate service.

For full description including ServicePac Guide please visit:-

http://www-935.ibm.com/services/uk/index.wss/offering/its/y1000229

NetApp Announce Huge Prices drops

September 16th, 2009 Jason Fitzgerald No comments

Following a meeting with our local NetApp TPA earlier on this month, we at Gardners were quite excited about some of the pricing models announced for SMB’s.

We wanted to find out how good the price changes where, in short…fantastic! for example a FAS 2020 (NetApp entry level model) with 12 x 500Gb SATA drives is now less that £9,000, that’s about 1/2 the price they had been previously!

We think this brings NetApp’s outstanding and versatile technology right into the reach of  Small to Medium businesses, who want to see their business data more effectively managed.

 These pricing changes are on the FAS2000 series and announced by NetApp in the following Press Report.

 

“NetApp Expands Offering for Midsize Enterprise Customers with New Entry-Level Storage System and Aggressive New Entry Price Points

New FAS2040 Adds Increased Capacity and Performance to Award-Winning Family; FAS2020, with Its Reduced Price, Is Now More Attractive to Smaller IT Organizations

SUNNYVALE, Calif.—September 15, 2009— Showing its commitment to Midsize Enterprise and distributed enterprise customers, NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) today announced the new FAS2040 storage system, providing customers with increased performance and capacity to handle demanding Microsoft® Windows® consolidation and virtualization workloads all on the same system. NetApp also announced significant price reductions for its FAS2020 systems and associated software, which are now preconfigured with high-capacity drives and include all protocols. These systems provide excellent value for midsize customers while enabling channel partners to sell into a broader customer base.”

Good move NetApp.

 

The Full Official NetApp Press Release

Windows Essential Business Server 2008 event 24/09/09

September 7th, 2009 Jason Fitzgerald No comments

On 24th September 2009, Gardner Systems and Microsoft will be presenting Essential Business Server 2008. This event is free to attend and runs from 9am – 1pm (including lunch).

This is the perfect opportunity for you to come and speak with Microsoft and Gardner Systems about how your IT infrastructure can save you money. Save money by providing an easy-to-manage technical solution which can address issues you are currently experiencing in your business.

EBS has been specifically designed by Microsoft for the mid-market to address the following issues:

 

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If you wish to attend the event or to find out more click here

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Increasing Network Security for Watchguard Customers

September 4th, 2009 Jason Fitzgerald No comments

A few days ago I was invited to join in a web conference with popular firewall manufacturer Watchguard. As a fan of Watchguard products I accepted and got involved in the conference designed to raise the awareness of network security.

The main topic was around making accessing a network from a remote location more secure by employing CRYPTOMAS solutions which provide two-way authentication. Usually connecting to a network using a VPN, RDC or IPSEC tunnel one-way authentication is used. The user authenticates using a password which is rarely changed and often easily bypassed. Obviously the downside of this is that once that password is cracked that particular person can access every corner of your network (and business) -  not good.

 

CRYPTOMAS addresses this issue with two-way authentication. In order to gain access, a user must type in a password which is constantly changing. The user is provided with a PIN code (which doesnt change) and is updated with a “One Time Password" (OTP)” to their mobile phone/pager/key fob…combining the two numbers results in a password which can only be used once.

In the diagram below the user is attempting to log into the Watchguard Firebox, upon the firewall receiving this request it will direct them off to the CRYPTOMAS server to authenticate with that. Only once the user has authenticated using the one time password can they gain access to the network.

 

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If you have users who regularly log into the business network remotely or if you are concerned about the security of your business then CRYPTOMAS can certainly help to secure further.

Once more, this product is free to trial for 60 days for anyone who has an existing Watchguard firewall. Gardners have an account and can arrange all of this for you, just contact me at.

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Windows Essential Business Server 2008

September 4th, 2009 Jason Fitzgerald No comments

Gardner Systems are pleased to announce that we have been carefully selected by Microsoft to deliver Microsoft Essential Business Server to the mid-market within the UK. Microsoft are working with only 5 UK partners out of 36,000 on a special LightHouse programme to help deliver EBS in the UK.

 So what is EBS I hear you ask…

 

EBS in Microsoft’s own words is:

Windows Essential Business Server 2008 is an enterprise-class server solution designed and priced for midsize businesses. Windows Essential Business Server 2008 provides a unified Administration Console to manage an integrated IT infrastructure with the latest versions of management, messaging, and security server technologies.  By helping to improve IT manageability and reliability, Windows Essential Business Server 2008 turns a midsize IT infrastructure into a strategic asset, boosting productivity and growth”

 

We at Gardner Systems met with Iain Frew, Principal Program Manager for EBS last week to discuss what it can bring to the typical mid-market business. Throughout the slides we were shown it was clear to that Microsoft has realy studied what a potential customer could want when producing EBS. It includes key technologies such as Exchange 2007, forefront security, SQL server 2008, hyper-V, system centre essentials and many more.

Gardners are presenting an event around this topic here in Liverpool on the 24th September 2009. This event is free for anyone to attend and will consist of us demonstrating EBS with Microsoft key speaker and Principal Program Manager, Iain Frew. A perfect opportunity for you to come and meet with Microsoft.

 

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Visiting the Essential Business Server website this product is usually shown on multiple (3/4) servers with one per function-Management Server, Messaging Server, Security Server. This can, according to this document be virtualised onto less hardware to provide “infrastructure in a box”.

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