CIOReview Recognizes Clear Technologies on the 2024 10 Most Promising IBM Solution Provider List

Clear Technologies, trusted advisors in data management, IT managed services, and cyber security, today announced that CIOReview®has named Clear Technologies to its 2024 10 Most Promising IBM Solution Provider list.

CIOReview’s annual list of the 10 Most Promising IBM Solution Providers is compiled of companies who strive to deliver best-in-class IBM infrastructure solutions including IBM Power, IBM FlashSystem, and IBM Security accompanied by expert-level managed services. 

“We’re proud to be recognized as one of the top 10 most promising IBM Solution Providers of 2024. Clear Technologies has been an IBM solution provider for over 30 years and we are constantly working to enhance our solution offering and knowledge base to meet our customers’ current and future needs”, said Phil Godwin, President and COO of Clear Technologies. “A major focus for us in 2024 is enhancing hybrid infrastructure observability and data security. I am excited to see how our team continues to grow and support customers with their IT optimization journey.” 

The Clear Technologies CIOReview 10 Most Promising IBM Solution Providers 2024 profile is available here https://www.cioreview.com/clear-technologies. Look for the Clear Technologies feature story in the next IBM edition of CIOReview Magazine.

About Clear Technologies

Clear Technologies partners with enterprise organizations to deliver customized IT solutions designed to increase operational efficiency. Unlike other solution providers, Clear Technologies utilizes Visual One Intelligence™ to help enterprises discover performance insights, simplify storage management processes, and increase ROI. With over 30 years of experience and a premier offering of hybrid infrastructure and services, combined with Visual One Intelligence™, Clear Technologies is the preferred partner in digital transformation. www.cleartechnologies.net

About CIOReview

CIOReview is a leading technology magazine that is at the forefront of guiding enterprises through the continuously varying business environment with information about solutions and services. The magazine serves as a trustworthy knowledge source as well as a platform for C-suite executives, industry experts, technology buyers, and other decision-makers to share their valuable insights about new technology trends in the market. 

CIOReview stands out with its learn-from-our-own-peers approach, enabling the senior management of a company to select from a wide range of choices available in the tech arena. The technology magazine bridges the gap between enterprise technology vendors and buyers by presenting vetted content and community resources. The content of CIOReview includes insights and opinions of C-suite executives and leaders who are changing the paradigms in the business arena.

Clear Technologies Contact:
Meredith Wardell

Clear Technologies
mwardell@cleartechnologies.net

CRN Recognizes Clear Technologies on the 2023 Solution Provider 500 List

Addison, Texas, May 30th, 2023 — Clear Technologies, trusted advisors in data management, IT managed services, and cyber security, today announced that CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Clear Technologies to its 2023 Solution Provider 500 list.

CRN’s annual Solution Provider 500 ranks North America’s largest solution providers by revenue and serves as the gold standard for recognizing some of the channel’s most successful companies. This year’s list of companies represents combined revenue of more than $475.9 billion, and the honorees are among the top influencers impacting today’s IT industry and the global technology supply chain. 

“We’re proud to be recognized for the fifth year in a row on CRN’s Solution Provider 500 list. Clear Technologies is celebrating 30 years of business this year and we are constantly working to enhance our services offerings to meet our customers’ current and future needs”, said Phil Godwin, President and COO of Clear Technologies. “This past year we grew the Cyber Security division of our company and we now offer customers a variety of security tools and services. I am excited to see how our team continues to grow and support customers with their IT optimization journey.” 

“It’s a distinct honor to recognize CRN’s 2023 Solution Provider 500. These are today’s top technology integrators, strategic service providers, and IT consulting firms, making this list the go-to resource for creating strategic partnerships among technology vendors and today’s top-performing IT solution providers,” said Blaine Raddon, CEO of The Channel Company. “My heartfelt congratulations go out to each of these companies for the significant impact they make on the continued growth and success of the IT channel.”

CRN’s 2023 Solution Provider 500 list is available online at www.CRN.com/SP500 and a sampling from the list will be featured in the June issue of CRN Magazine.

About Clear Technologies

Clear Technologies partners with enterprise organizations to deliver customized IT solutions designed to increase operational efficiency. Unlike other solution providers, Clear Technologies utilizes Visual One Intelligence™ to help enterprises discover performance insights, simplify storage management processes, and increase ROI. With over 30 years of experience and a premier offering of cloud-based infrastructure and services, combined with Visual One Intelligence™, Clear Technologies is the preferred partner in digital transformation. www.cleartechnologies.net

About The Channel Company

The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers, and end-users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelcompany.com 

Follow The Channel Company: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

© 2023 The Channel Company, LLC. CRN is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Clear Technologies Contact:
Meredith Wardell

Clear Technologies
mwardell@cleartechnologies.net

The Channel Company Contact:
Natalie Lewis

The Channel Company
nlewis@thechannelcompany.com

CRN Recognizes Clear Technologies on 2022 Solution Provider 500 List

 

Addison, Texas, June 7th, 2022 — Clear Technologies, trusted advisors in data management, IT managed services, and cyber security, today announced that CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Clear Technologies to its 2022 Solution Provider 500 list.

CRN’s annual Solution Provider 500 ranks North America’s largest solution providers by revenue and serves as the gold standard for recognizing some of the channel’s most successful companies. With a combined revenue of more than $434 billion, this year’s list represents an impressive amount of influence and impact wielded by these companies on today’s IT industry and the technology suppliers they partner with.

“We’re proud to be recognized once again on CRN’s Solution Provider 500 list. Clear Technologies takes pride in our services organization, it’s really what sets us apart in the reseller industry. As the trusted IT advisor for our clients for nearly 30 years, we are always finding new ways to expand our services offerings”, said Phil Godwin, President, and COO of Clear Technologies. “This past year we announced the addition of Capacity Planning to a long list of customized services packages. I’m excited to see how our team continues to grow and support clients with their IT optimization journey.”

“The Solution Provider 500 list from CRN serves as the benchmark for the top technology integrators, strategic service providers, and IT consulting firms, making it an invaluable resource for technology vendors seeking to partner with today’s top-performing IT solution providers,” said Blaine Raddon, CEO of The Channel Company. “My congratulations go out to each of these companies for their extraordinary contributions to the continued growth and success of the IT channel.”

CRN’s 2022 Solution Provider 500 list is available online at www.CRN.com/SP500 and a sample from the list will be featured in the June issue of CRN Magazine.

About Clear Technologies

Clear Technologies partners with enterprise organizations to deliver customized IT solutions designed to increase operational efficiency. Unlike other solution providers, Clear Technologies utilizes Visual One Intelligence™ to help enterprises discover performance insights, simplify storage management processes, and increase ROI. With over 29 years of experience and a premier offering of cloud-based infrastructure and services, combined with Visual One Intelligence™, Clear Technologies is the preferred partner in digital transformation. www.cleartechnologies.net

About The Channel Company

The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers, and end-users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelcompany.com 

Follow The Channel Company: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

© 2022 The Channel Company, LLC. CRN is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Clear Technologies Contact:
Meredith Wardell

Clear Technologies
mwardell@cleartechnologies.net

The Channel Company Contact:
Jennifer Hogan

The Channel Company
jhogan@thechannelcompany.com

 

The Great Resignation: Maintain Business Continuity Through Staffing Disruption

 

“I’m quitting”, “two weeks’ notice” and other terms related to an employee resigning can be the worst phrase a manager hears. But it’s happening all too often with a surge of people leaving their current jobs for new opportunities. Corporate America has been experiencing a movement termed ‘The Great Resignation’ since mid-2021 and there are no signs of it trailing off.

Staffing disruptions are happening at a high rate, especially in the healthcare and technology industries. With a constantly evolving landscape, IT jobs are opening left and right. IT leaders are faced with the challenge of keeping the team members they have, filling open positions and maintaining normal workloads to keep the business running as usual. How does an IT team survive the spiraling effect?

IT leaders need a reliable solution for keeping infrastructure operations running smoothly during a staffing transition. Understanding your current environment and increased capacity needs for business growth is imperative to finding the best solution for maintaining business continuity. A trusted IT advisor can establish recommendations for implementing and maintaining data center projects including migrations, monitoring tools, plus regular maintenance and support services.

Managed Services

In the event of a staff departure or support gap, working with a Managed Service Provider ensures your core business applications continue running smoothly. With operational services like daily job queues, monitoring, capacity planning, and virtualization management, Clear Technologies’ service experts are an extension of your IT team. Data protection services including Backup and Recovery and DRaaS safeguard your systems in the unfortunate event of a breach.

Clear Technologies offers health checks and assessments for IBM i to ensure your environment is current. As your trusted advisor, our experts make recommendations for cost optimization and architectural services to improve availability and decrease unplanned downtime. With flexible SLAs, we offer a fully customizable services package to meet the current and future needs of your IT team.

Hybrid Cloud

As an organization with an evolving IT landscape, migrating to the cloud is a major undertaking for internal IT teams. Clear Technologies has an extensive partner ecosystem to bring flexibility and scalability to your hybrid cloud solution. With cloud-based services, our experts provide consulting, migration services, and monitoring for your cloud environment. This allows your team to focus on higher priority projects and trust the administration needs are taken care of in the event of a staffing disruption.

Storage Monitoring & Capacity Planning

Implementing a storage reporting and capacity planning tool helps your IT team fully optimize your storage environment and improve budgeting accuracy. With Visual One Intelligence™, you can trust that storage management won’t fall to the wayside during a turnover gap. Visual One collects and displays all of your storage infrastructure data into one dashboard including performance, capacity, and utilization. Not only does this give you the ability to reclaim space, but you can also improve data accuracy and prevent unnecessary purchases.

With consolidated alerting, Visual One warns you of any anomalies – helping prevent shortages, outages, and even security breaches. Visual One Intelligence™ provides expert insight into your storage environment with comprehensive email reports from a Visual One expert who knows your organization and storage environment.

Confidently maintain business continuity with help from Clear Technologies. Find out what solutions are best for your IT environment by speaking with one of our technical advisors today! Learn More.

Encryption at Rest: Best Practices for Data Protection

Data protection is top of mind for businesses of all sizes. Attackers are looking for every opportunity to access unsecured data whether it be in a large Fortune 500 company, mid-market, or small business. Sensitive company data and personal data is at risk. When a data breach happens, IT teams scramble to determine what was lost, how to recover, and how quickly they can maintain business continuity. Learning about how your data is secured is critical for building and maintaining a Cybersecurity resiliency plan. We’re here to help! Let’s break down how hardware encryption is evolving, highlight the new standards for data protection, and provide some helpful best practices for becoming cyber resilient.

Back to Basics: What is Encryption? Data encryption is the process of translating one form of data into another form of data that unauthorized users can’t decrypt. For example, you saved a copy of your customers’ credit card information on your server. You do not want that to fall into the wrong hands. By encrypting data at rest, you’re essentially converting your customer’s sensitive data into another form of data. Only authorized personnel will have access to these files, thus ensuring that your data stays secure. Encryption at rest is designed to prevent an attacker from accessing unencrypted data by ensuring the data is encrypted. Once the attacker obtains a hard drive with encrypted data, but not encrypted keys, the attacker must defeat the encryption to read the data. This creates a more complex attack and requires other resources. Encryption at rest should be a high priority for all organizations and is required for data governance and compliance. Organizations adhering to industry and government regulations such as HIPAA, PCI and FedRAMP are required to enforce safeguards for data protection and follow encryption requirements.

Evolving Encryption: Then vs Now Much like everything in our digital world, encryption practices are evolving to meet the security measures necessary to avoid a data breach. The Data Encryption Standard (DES), created in 1977, is a symmetric-key algorithm for the encryption of digital data. Although its short key length of 56 bits makes it too insecure for applications, it has been highly influential in the advancement of cryptography. The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a symmetric block cipher chosen by the U.S. government to protect classified information. AES is implemented in software and hardware throughout the world to encrypt sensitive data. It is essential for government computer security, cybersecurity, and electronic data protection. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) started development of AES in 1997 when it announced the need for an alternative to the Data Encryption Standard (DES), which was starting to become vulnerable to attacks.

AES: The New Standard AES includes three block ciphers: Each cipher encrypts and decrypts data in blocks of 128 bits using cryptographic keys of 128, 192 and 256 bits, respectively. Symmetric, also known as secret key, ciphers use the same key for encrypting and decrypting. The sender and the receiver must both know — and use — the same secret key. The government classifies information into three categories: Confidential, Secret or Top Secret. All key lengths can be used to protect the Confidential and Secret level. Top Secret information requires either 192- or 256-bit key lengths. There are 10 rounds for 128-bit keys, 12 rounds for 192-bit keys and 14 rounds for 256-bit keys. A round consists of several processing steps that include substitution, transposition and mixing of the input plaintext to transform it into the final output of ciphertext.

Are you prepared? Work with Clear Technologies and IBM to determine your cybersecurity resilience strategy. Start with a Cyber-Incident Response Storage Assessment (CIRSA) using the NIST Framework to evaluate the vulnerability of your storage environment. By developing a cyber resilience strategy, you can ensure you will prevail in the event of a security breach. Clear Technologies is your trusted partner for improving storage performance and cyber resilience with IBM FlashSystem. Schedule a meeting with us today!

Your 2022 IBM i Strategy Starts Here


New year, new you… right? Your company has big expansion goals for 2022, but you’re stuck with the same resources you had last year. How will your IBM i environment maintain peak performance and evolve to accommodate new needs for your organization?

We’re here to help you understand the needs of your IBM i environment and build a customized service approach to not only enhance the capabilities of your internal staff but also fill the gaps of IBM support.

Where do you start? Step one is to gain valuable insight into your IBM i system. Our IBM i Health Check provides a comprehensive overview of your IBM i environment. With this assessment, our IBM experts examine the vulnerability, accessibility, and reliability of your IBM i system. Gain the assurance of knowing the current state of your system and proactively identify infrastructure issues. Plus, create a plan for future expansion to meet the needs of your company’s growth initiatives.  

A complete check-up reviews the following:

  • Hardware & Software Problems
  • System Connectivity Issues
  • Fix Level
  • IBM Library Capacities
  • Output Queues
  • Journal Receivers
  • Outdated Software Products
  • Backup/Recovery Strategy
  • User Profile Status
  • System Value Settings

Once the IBM i Health Check is complete, a full executive review document is presented to you with recommended improvements for your system. Our IBM experts take into consideration the necessary improvements paired with anticipated enhancements needed to accommodate future capacity growth. Receive a comprehensive plan of action for your IBM i environment without taking your internal staff away from their normal workloads.

A tailored service plan customized to meet the needs of your system.

Clear Technologies offers a robust managed services program for IBM i environments. Implement a fully customizable service plan to augment IBM support gaps while saving time and money. Our clients have seen an overall savings of 40% compared to the cost of internal staffing. As your IBM i trusted advisor, Clear Technologies helps you build an IT strategy that increases ROI and lowers TCO.

Confidently manage your critical business applications and free up your IT teams with Clear Technologies IBM i (iSeries, System I, AS/400) managed services. Support for the full IBM i stack includes infrastructure, software, operations, data protection, business continuity, and security. 

For a limited time, we are offering a FREE IBM i Health Check ($5,000 value). Take advantage of this complimentary service and learn more about the full suite of IBM i Managed Services options from Clear Technologies. 

 

 

Newly Released Assure MIMIX 10 Provides 4 Key Benefits for Organizations with IBM i

 

Precisely recently launched the latest IBM i HA and DR product, Assure MIMIX 10. In a press release, Precisely highlighted new capabilities including the ability to expedite data recovery by replicating data to production servers in near real-time – resulting in better protection for businesses from the high costs associated with downtime.

Clear Technologies specializes in helping clients run Assure MIMIX 10 for IBM i systems. With a wide range of services including implementation, health checks, MIMIX audits, role-swap services, and more, Clear Technologies is recognized by Precisely as a leading solution provider for Assure MIMIX 10.

SPEAK WITH OUR ASSURE MIMIX 10 EXPERT!

Assure MIMIX 10 provides 4 valuable benefits for businesses with IBM i:

  • Helps eliminate downtime with flexible, scalable, and automated replication, and failover
  • Prevents data loss through maintaining real-time replicas of data to on-premise, hosted, or cloud environments
  • Automates administration of high availability and DR with simple interfaces
  • Provides workload balancing and enhances IBM i mirroring solutions

Automation is key with the latest release of Assure MIMIX 10. With new automation capabilities, users can automate reliable configurations to run the product with minimal manual intervention.

“Clear Technologies, a leading solution provider of IT consulting, server, storage, and software products, welcomes these new updates: ‘Customers running Assure MIMIX on IBM i with a dynamic journal environment will greatly appreciate the automated journal-driven configuration support. Configuration is simplified, and dynamic changes to the journal environment are automatically handled, resulting in greater confidence in the replication environment,’ said Neil Clark, Technical Consultant at Clear Technologies.” – Precisely

“As a service provider for many customers running IBM i high availability solutions, the automated journal-driven configuration support in Assure MIMIX 10 will really help make our job easier,” said Neil Clark, Technical Consultant at Clear Technologies.

 

REQUEST AN ASSURE MIMIX IBM i HEALTH CHECK!

Clear Technologies’ team of IBM Champions works with clients to ensure Power systems running IBM i are fully prepared for disaster recovery. With our Assure MIMIX IBM i Health Check, you will gain critical insight into the performance, replication, and recovery abilities of your IBM i system.

Ensure your Power system running IBM i is fully prepared for disaster recovery, speak with an Assure MIMIX specialist today!

CLEAR TECHNOLOGIES | 2021 Finalist – IT Systems Reseller/Managed Service Provider

We’re Finalists! 

Clear Technologies is proud to be recognized as a finalist for the top IT Systems Reseller/Managed Service Provider of The Year Award by SDC!

The SDC 2021 Awards celebrate the high achievements of end-users and solution providers in the IT industry. Nominees and finalists are recognized for successful achievements centered around digital transformation.

As an IT Systems Reseller/Managed Service Provider of The Year finalist, Clear Technologies is being recognized for our extensive experience delivering IT Solutions to our clients for over 25 years. Our solution experts specialize in a wide variety of platforms and vendors and work to create customized solutions to meet the client’s needs.

You can help us WIN IT Systems Reseller/Managed Service Provider of The Year.

Voting is now open! Click Here
Voting closes on November 17th.

Learn more about Clear Technologies’ IT Solutions HERE

CLEAR TECHNOLOGIES | Increase Your Power to Innovate with IT Modernization

In today’s fast-paced world of continuous change, IT decision-makers are being challenged to maintain existing IT systems and create a foundation for future innovation. The challenge to migrate legacy operations and adapt for the future while improving overall productivity and business performance proves difficult for many IT teams.

The goal of IT modernization is to get more out of your IT investments while freeing budget and time to prepare for the future. By shifting to modern software, platforms, and processes, you can accomplish faster delivery of software and services to meet internal and external demands. Modernization is an essential transition for success in the digital world.

Standardization

A complex IT environment requires additional time, resources, and budget to manage. Inconsistent processes impact the opportunity for growth and cause a need for reactive maintenance. Multiple platforms require increased training, support, and operational budget. By implementing a standardized operating environment (SOE) with Red Hat, you can achieve consistency across your organization. This allows IT teams to reduce costs and accelerate IT while supporting innovation.

New technologies including hybrid and private cloud connectivity, cloud-native development, and containers are supported on a modern solution. Standardization also provides enhanced security and compliance with policies and regulations. Centralizing the life-cycle management of your platform supports increased speed of installations, upgrades, and patching.

Digital Transformation

Digital transformation has many different meanings across IT environments. But one thing remains constant, all IT teams are facing the need to digitally transform their platforms, processes, and resources to maintain business continuity and adapt to evolving technology. By modernizing your IT environment, you can free up budget and resources for innovation in the age of digital transformation.

Lower your total cost of ownership and achieve a return on investment and deliver self-serving capabilities to IT users by automating processes with Red Hat Ansible Automation. Modern software not only improves IT efficiencies but also prepares you to adopt cloud-native and container-based development practices to help you become more agile. With an optimized hybrid cloud environment, you can increase flexibility and efficiency by replacing old infrastructure without downtime. 

Strategic Migration

Modernization is ongoing and requires IT decision-makers to continuously assess and migrate to new solutions with increased IT and business value. The adoption of a new technology platform poses obstacles concerning infrastructure, security, and deployment. Migrate what makes the most sense for your environment.

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform helps you develop, deploy, and manage existing and container-based applications seamlessly across physical, virtual, private, public and hybrid cloud infrastructures. With Red Hat OpenShift, you can increase operational efficiency, enforce security and compliance standards, and ensure uptime and availability.

Red Hat Consulting

As a premier partner in digital transformation, Clear Technologies offers the expertise needed to help manage your multi-site environment efficiently and securely. Whether you are looking to automate your IT processes with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform or accelerate application delivery with RedHat OpenShift, let Clear Technologies help modernize your IT environment.

Take the next step in modernizing your IT environment. Schedule time with a Red Hat consultant today.

 

Clear Technologies Announces Revolutionary New Service for Transforming Storage Optimization

 

Dallas, Texas – [September 21st, 2021] – Clear Technologies, a leading solution provider of IT consulting, server, storage, and software products, today announced the unveiling of a new service offering, Capacity Planning-as-a-Service, taking their storage expertise to the next level. In partnership with Visual One Intelligence™, the Capacity Planning-as-a-Service (CPaaS) solution is a significant advancement in the future of storage optimization.

Digital transformation heightens the need for continuous storage capacity analysis for determining critical IT infrastructure, application and financial resource needs. The CPaaS solution provides on-demand, comprehensive, actionable insight into the utilization and performance of any storage environment. CPaaS also eliminates the costly risk of over-provisioning cloud storage. With CPaaS, IT executives can ensure staff resources remain focused on normal workloads and suspend manual capacity planning. Paired with the human intelligence of Clear Technologies’ storage experts, IT executives will be well equipped to confidently make decisions for provisioning on-prem and cloud storage capabilities, at scale.

“We’re committed to building a strong, service-oriented relationship with our customers. In some of our discussions, we noticed customers conducting manual capacity planning outside of normal business operations and utilizing outdated tools. With turnover, the skillset and intricate excel spreadsheets were left to team members without the knowledge or time to complete manual reporting. We identified a strong need for accurate, on-demand capacity planning to help these customers save money and maintain normal workloads,” said Phil Godwin, Clear Technologies President and COO. “We’re excited to unveil the new Capacity Planning-as-a-Service offering to ensure customers are optimizing their storage environment and making confident, data-driven decisions for the future.”

Key Capacity Planning-as-a-Service Benefits:

  • Proactive Analysis – Actualize storage capacity needs on-demand with one centralized tool. Make confident, data-driven decisions in a timely manner.
  • Human Intelligence – Optimize storage capacity based on expert analysis and recommendations. With CPaaS, storage experts will factor in plans for acquisition, data migration or storage refresh.
  • Operational Equity – Build a risk-free IT Operations forecast by eliminating the financial pain of extended time and additional resources caused by manual capacity reporting.

“Developing the Capacity Planning-as-a-Service solution enhances the capabilities of the Visual One Intelligence™ tool,” said Van Symons, Visual One Intelligence™ Chief Technology Officer. “We created Visual One Intelligence™ as a client-driven tool to continuously meet the needs of our clients’ storage environment. Capacity Planning is the future of storage optimization, and we are helping clients take a modern, proactive approach.”

About Clear Technologies

Clear Technologies partners with enterprise organizations to deliver customized IT solutions designed to increase operational efficiency. Unlike other solution providers, Clear Technologies utilizes Visual One Intelligence™ (SRMaaS) to help enterprises discover performance insights, simplify storage management processes, and increase ROI. With over 25 years of experience and a premier offering of cloud-based infrastructure and services, combined with Visual One Intelligence™, Clear Technologies is the preferred partner in digital transformation.