Upcoming Meeting Notice

The Association of Service and Computer Dealers International (ASCDI) is a 30 year old, worldwide non-profit organization made up of companies who provide technology solutions, technical support or value added services to the business community.

Members and non-members are invited to learn how to grow your business, find new business opportunities, hear from industry representatives and enjoy some fabulous networking events at our conferences:

FALL CONFERENCE: October 7 - 9, 2009
New York City

Click here for more information on ALL ASCDI MEETINGS, to view the agendas, lodging details, attendee lists and to REGISTER AT THE EARLY BIRD RATE.

Automation
Finance and leasing
"Green" initiatives
HP
IBM
Market
Open source
Power
Security

Automation

ASCI extends ActiveBatch support
Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc. (ASCI) announced it has extended its ActiveBatch Job Scheduling and Workload Automation execution system support to include the HP NonStop Kernel (NSK), IBM i5/OS, SuSe Linux and SCO UNIX platform families. With the added support, ActiveBatch further increases the flexibility and cross-platform compatibility that has made it one of the world’s most widely-used job scheduling and workflow automation applications. ActiveBatch, currently available in Version 7, is a versatile and powerful enterprise application for Windows, UNIX, Linux, z/OS, and OpenVMS platforms. The solution uniquely adds strategic business value by automating operations in real-time for improved IT operations throughout an organization.
Visit www.advsyscon.com.^Back To Top

Finance and leasing

Avaya launches new “Zero to Sixty” financing program
Avaya announced a new financing program to help companies jumpstart their unified communications strategies. The “Zero to Sixty” financing program marks the general availability of Avaya Aura, the next-generation of enterprise communications, and includes core communications solutions for small, medium and large enterprises. The “Zero to Sixty” program offers zero percent financing, for both a 36 month finance lease and for a 60 month fair market value true lease, to businesses based in North America. The zero percent financing offer is valid for purchases of unified communication solutions including Avaya Aura Enterprise, Standard and Branch Editions, Avaya Modular Messaging and Avaya Meeting Exchange for medium to large enterprises, and for Avaya IP Office 412 and 500 with VoiceMailPro and Partner systems for businesses up to 100 employees.
Visit www.ileaseavaya.com.
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"Green" initiatives

Mutual of Omaha gains agility and efficiencies as it ’greens’ its technology
Having set out to increase its business agility, Mutual of Omaha also has achieved significant efficiency benefits from environmentally friendly modifications to its 40-year-old data center. The Omaha, Neb.-based carrier has saved nearly 10 million kilowatts per year, reduced emissions by the equivalent of more than 1,200 automobiles and gained annual savings of more than $460,000, according to Gary Denniston, Mutual of Omaha's director of IT operations systems, who adds that the insurer's efficiency profile continues to improve.

The carrier's virtualization efforts have been directed at both its midrange IBM System p (P series) hardware environment and its microserver environment, which consists of Intel-based machines running on a predominantly Windows operating system. As late as 2003 the System p environment was characterized by a 1-1 ratio of software to hardware. Today it is 100 percent virtualized, with about 150 virtual servers/images running on 50 physical servers. In 2005 the carrier upgraded the data center's fire prevention system, cooling system and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system and installed remote distribution cabinets (RDC) for its servers. The carrier also installed thermal glass to improve insulation and configured server cabinets so that adjacent rows would draw cold air from a shared cold aisle and expel hot exhaust air into a common hot air aisle, decreasing the bypass of cold air. Efficiency was further refined by the addition of "blanking" panels over gaps in cabinets, preventing the exhaust air from being circulated back into the shared cold aisle.
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HP

HP introduces first professional workstation with Six-Core AMD Opteron processor
HP announced the immediate integration of the highly anticipated Six-Core AMD Opteron 2400 Series processor into the award-winning family of HP Workstations. Ideal for high-end workstation applications in fields such as engineering, 3-D digital content creation, oil and gas, and science, the HP xw9400 Workstation taps the power of the new AMD Opteron processors to deliver higher productivity, especially for multi-threaded applications, multi-tasking and mega-tasking environments. With the built-in engineering advantages of HP’s highly tuned workstations, the HP xw9400 Workstation can accommodate up to two Six-Core AMD Opteron processors – for a total of 12 cores – each of which offers up to 34 percent more performance per watt over the previous-generation quad-core processors.
Visit www.hp.com.
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IBM

IBM tool allows virtual management from x86 servers to mainframes
IBM and other vendors have long provided tools for managing the diverse mix of hardware and operating systems typically found in corporate data centers. But the company is increasing the level of management control to include virtual systems with a new tool across its hardware platforms: Systems Director VMControl. The first parts of this new virtualization management tool are available for free download. And an enterprise system that can manage ever larger pools of compute resources is due out sometime in the fourth quarter of the year. VMControl can be used to manage virtual resources on IBM's mainframe System z, its System x86 servers and on Power systems that support AIX, Linux and System i (formerly iSeries and AS/400). This boost to virtualization management comes in advance of IBM's release of its Power7 chip in 2010, which will offer up to eight cores and support for up to 1,000 virtual machines -- up from support for 254 virtual machines on the Power6 chip. The VMControl system will include management of hypervisors from Microsoft and VMware, along with the virtualization systems on its Power and mainframe systems. And it will give users a range of abilities to modify, edit, catalog and deploy virtual servers to different physical servers.
Visit www.ibm.com.



Stonebranch’s Infitran and Indesca solutions now available
Stonebranch, Inc. announced a new release of Infitran, Stonebranch’s Intelligent File Transfer solution, and Indesca, Stonebranch’s Independent Scheduling Agents solution, for IBM i operating systems. Stonebranch’s Managed File Transfer and Job Scheduling solutions provide increased visibility, audit capabilities and central management of all file transfer and job scheduling processes. Stonebranch integrates enterprise-class Managed File Transfer seamlessly into the job scheduling environment. Job scheduling, application interoperability and Managed File Transfer are integral to a streamlined IT infrastructure, enabling true end-to-end visibility and control while providing top-to-bottom management for application processes.
Visit www.stonebranch.com.
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Market

Notebooks erasing desktops' lead
Once the most popular form of personal computer, the desktop PC has faded as more users choose notebook PCs instead. Market research firm IDC sees desktop PC shipments worldwide falling 13.2% this year from 2008, while portable PC shipments grow 7%. Next year, it sees desktop sales down 1.7% while portable PC sales, including notebooks and netbooks, jump 14.9%. It does forecast 1.4% growth for desktops in 2011 thanks to international sales, but sees a bigger rise of 21.4% for portables. Prospects for desktop PCs are even worse in the U.S. Annual desktop shipments have fallen the past three years and will continue to do so at least through 2013, IDC says. Lower-priced, all-in-one desktop models just starting to hit the market could give the category a sales boost. With all-in-one PCs, the computer is built into the monitor for a more compact and stylish look. Traditionally, they have been premium machines with limited appeal because of their high prices. However, lower-cost all-in-one PCs could finally fulfill the promise of PCs for common areas of the home such as the kitchen and family room.
Visit www.idc.com.
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Open source

Open source software market accelerated by economy and increased acceptance from enterprise buyers
A recent IDC study reveals that worldwide revenue from open source software (OSS) will grow at a 22.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to reach $8.1 billion by 2013. This forecast is considerably higher than 2008 for three reasons: (1) the bottom-up list used to calculate the revenue has expanded through an exhaustive effort to include more projects in this forecast; (2) open source software has had a much higher level of acceptance over the past 12 months than previously expected, and; (3) the economy accelerated the uptake and use of open source software in the closing months of 2008. Large software vendors like IBM, Sun, Dell, HP, and Oracle are making significant amounts of indirect revenue from their activities with and support of OSS. This has greatly aided mainstream adoption and acceptance of OSS. The opportunity to leverage OSS in ways that increase competitive advantage, such as a part of BPO offerings or as a part of a software appliance, is on the rise and should help increase adoption and growth for OSS vendors.  
Visit www.idc.com.
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Power

Emerson and Sun announce Global Sales Alliance
Emerson Network Power and Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced a global sales alliance that will help provide businesses and organizations with roadmaps and technologies to increase the productivity and energy efficiency of their datacenters. Globally, datacenter energy consumption is driven by businesses’ demand for greater computing capacity and increased IT centralization. When combined with increasing global electricity prices, the financial implications are significant. To address the need for energy-efficiency improvements, Sun’s datacenter efficiency consultants will work directly with Emerson’s local Liebert power, cooling and services specialists throughout the world to assess, develop and maintain solutions to a variety of customer datacenter problems. The companies will deliver not only the plans but also the products and services for improved datacenter productivity and efficiency.
Visit www.EmersonNetworkPower.com or www.sun.com.
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Security

FMS Solutions selects Secure2Disk online backup and recovery services
FMS Solutions Inc., an accounting and consulting service provider to independent retail grocers, has selected SunGard Availability Services' Secure2Disk solution to provide online backup and recovery services to help protect and recover data more quickly in the event of a disaster or test. SunGard will help FMS improve the operational availability and security of the financial management information it extends to a national customer base of more than 1,800 retailers. FMS is deploying SunGard's Secure2Disk solution to support critical business applications including accounting, payroll, reporting tools and e-mail. SunGard will also provide recovery services for FMS' IBM iSeries and Intel servers, which will allow information to be restored to a SunGard recovery environment should an outage occur. Secure2Disk eliminates the lead times associated with tape-based backup, helping periodic testing and recovery to be completed within hours instead of days.
Visit www.sungard.com.
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