Cloud services are indispensable for any company running business applications, hosted ERP or financial systems such as JD Edwards, Salesforce, Microsoft Office365, Microsoft Teams, voice and other cloud-based applications. It will come as no surprise to businesses running these applications that cloud services rely heavily on Internet access. The Internet is the circulatory system of
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The Benefits of Cloud SD-WAN as a Failsafe
There was a time not very long ago when Wide Area Networks (WANs) were the best solution for connectivity among multiple locations to keep work flowing and businesses connected to critical day-to-day information. Yet like all things in a rapidly changing technological space, WAN is evolving — fast. Chuck Paolillo, Chief Technology Officer at CloudFirst,
Running IBM i Software Applications in the Cloud
Since the late 1970s, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and financial software have comprised the bulk of software applications run on IBM POWER systems — specifically the IBM i (AS/400, i Series, System i) operating system. This should come as no surprise, as IBM was founded on the premise of producing computers and hardware specifically earmarked
The Risks of Running End of Life IBM POWER Technology
Would you pile your family into a 20-year-old jalopy with half a million miles on it and head across country, knowing there’s a very strong possibility the vehicle will break down irreparably at some point along the journey? Likewise, would you run your critical applications on an end-of-life system that was long past its prime
How Managed Backup can enhance your IBM i Disaster Recovery Strategy
There are a number of options for local and cloud-based backup and recovery solutions. In our last blog, we discussed the issues with local tape-based backups. Most cloud backup services provide a basic subset of services for backing up and restoring production data. The list below shows the seven basic services every cloud backup provider
Realizing your IBM i Tape Backup Strategy Must Change
Tape-based backup is older than most people reading this article, and many organizations are still using it as either a primary or secondary backup solution. With tape backup systems, data and systems are backed up to magnetic media and stored locally off-site in a (hopefully) secured tape storage facility. But there are a multitude of
Considering Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (IBM i DRaaS) as a Path to the Cloud
Disaster Recovery as a Service Can Help Mitigate Cyber Threats on Your IBM i System
In recent years, much progress has been made in IT security to guard against cyber threats for companies running IBM i – especially with protections such as: threat detection and access management software. Yet these troubling issues still cost businesses upwards of $8 trillion a year. That’s serious money! Just ask the IT managers at
The Benefits of Migrating your IBM Power Production Software and Operating Systems to the Cloud
Our last blog discussed the risks of running IBM Power Systems past end-of-life, including: security and operating system and legal and regulatory risks, violation of customer service level agreements (SLAs), and loss of support by IBM. Although there are a few options when a system reaches end of life, the most efficient and forward-thinking strategy
How Can Data Growth Be Managed Efficiently on IBM AIX – Part II
Since our last installment, your business has been busy creating and storing even more data. We’re already looked at some significant ways to get a handle on the seemingly unrelenting growth of data. There are other measures that you can institute right away that can help you to control your data growth while keeping information
