Category: Uncategorized

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” overlay_color=”” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” padding_top=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” padding_right=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” center_content=”no” last=”no” min_height=”” hover_type=”none” link=””][fusion_text columns=”” column_min_width=”” column_spacing=”” rule_style=”default” rule_size=”” rule_color=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=””]

Things are changing. Enterprises are shedding complex, legacy multi-tiered solutions in favor of simplified data management purpose-built for cloud. In the past, using multiple point solutions resulted in brittle infrastructure, which brought challenges such as long deployment cycles, inability to meet SLAs, lack of scalability, architectural complexity, and fragmented management.

Rubrik has come along to change that. Rubrik bridges the gap between owned, on-premises infrastructure and the cloud by decoupling data from the data center. With a software-defined approach, Rubrik delivers the agility and performance of web-scale platforms and cloud providers while automating workflow management to provide resiliency and agility as enterprises on-ramp to the cloud.

What is Cloud Data Management?

Rubrik Cloud Data Management is a single, unified software platform to manage your physical, virtual, and cloud data. With Rubrik, enterprises can drastically simplify their data protection processes, automate workflows, and migrate data to the cloud. The results are powerful: faster recoveries, easier management, no forklift upgrades, and hard dollars saved for other projects. If your company is pursuing cloud- first policies Rubrik can archive to the cloud, create cloud DR capabilities, or perform cloud-native backup. And with Rubrik’s Polaris SaaS platform, it’s never been easier to unify data across data centers and clouds, simplifying operations and governance.

Before Rubrik – The diagram below depicts legacy architecture consisting of multiple points of technology, including media servers, backup storage, tape, and software licenses.

After Rubrik – Rubrik reduces management complexity by 70% with a converged software platform that is radically simple and built for any cloud.Why

Cloud Data Management?Rubrik decouples application data from infrastructure through a software-defined fabric, driving business acceleration and resiliency at lower costs. Rubrik’s Cloud Data Management platform provides a cloud-native approach to managing the lifecycle of data, from creation to expiration, across the data center to the cloud. In one platform, Rubrik delivers instant access, automated orchestration with self-service, and unified management for any application, cloud, or location.

• Instant Access: Rubrik enables predictive global search and instant recovery by unifying data locked within disparate application silos into one globally indexed namespace while leveraging zero-byte cloning technology to enable on-demand copy data workflows. Recover quickly from ransomware from immutable backups and point-in-time recovery. Deliver fast, customized platform analytics across your entire infrastructure.
• Automated Orchestration with Self-Service: Rubrik wipes out management complexity with just a few clicks through a single policy engine that orchestrates service level agreements (SLAs) across the entire data lifecycle. Automate management across hybrid and multi-cloud environments with one programmatic interface. Integrate Rubrik into your ideal stack to accelerate application and data service delivery.
• Freedom of Choice: Rubrik frees applications and data from infrastructure, unifying management on one platform. Rubrik provides a cloud-native platform with broad support for any third-party hypervisor, application, database, and cloud. Rubrik secures application data whether in-flight or at-rest throughout its lifecycle, regardless of location.

The benefits can you expect from Rubrik’s Cloud Data Management Platform:

• Near-zero RTO – Reduce your RTOs from hours to just minutes. Deliver near-zero RTOs by mounting directly onto Rubrik. No rehydration in production required. Instantly recover from failures, disasters, and Ransomware. Deliver near-zero RTOs with predictive search. Locate VMs, databases, applications, or files, whether the data resides on-prem or in the cloud.
• Immediate Hard Savings – Achieve 30-50% in hard savings immediately from software convergence. Management simplicity amplifies savings over time while freeing resources up for true innovation.
• Get Up and Running – Customers typically get up and running in less than 15 minutes. Determine what policies to apply to your applications. Rubrik takes care of the rest.
• Daily Management Time – Use one SLA policy engine to create and automate backup, replication, and archival policies with just a few clicks. Reduce daily management time by 60%. Rubrik wipes out management complexity with just a few clicks through a single policy engine that orchestrates service level agreements (SLAs) across the entire data lifecycle. Automate management across hybrid and multi-cloud environments with one programmatic interface.
• Data Center Footprint Reduction – Eliminate complexity of legacy multi-point solutions with a single platform. Shrink your data center footprint up to 70%.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”Contact Clear to Get Started Today ” color=”primary” align=”center” button_block=”true” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cleartechnologies.net%2Fabout%2Fcontact%2F|||”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Today, there are two basic schools of thought for architecting the infrastructure of the future: on-premise hardware or Cloud.  While both options can take many different forms (and have wildly different pros and cons), they are the basic decision one must make when modernizing their environment.  On-prem hardware can lead to lower long-term costs with better performance and more control, while Cloud offerings can offer lower upfront costs, faster speed to market and less management overhead.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]What if you could have an environment with the benefits of Cloud in on-premise architecture?

This is exactly what IBM Cloud Private offers: the speed of the public cloud with the control of owning your own hardware.  IBM Cloud Private is a Kubernetes-based container platform that embraces modern workloads and dynamic provisioning all within your own datacenter – minimizing risk, complexity and cost.  IBM Cloud Private offers Rapid Innovation, Hybrid Integration, and Compliance & Management all while leveraging your current investments.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”6544″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”zoom”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]IBM Cloud Private also enables cloud benefits in IBM Power environments.  IBM Cloud Private for Power strengthens its industry-leading reliability and performance capabilities while adding the automation and flexibility of Cloud.  Clients run on IBM Power for its ability to handle mission-critical applications – IBM Cloud Private enhances that ability while also providing an easy avenue to add new technologies such as AI, Blockchain and IoT.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Here are three of the reasons you should consider IBM Cloud Private for IBM Power today:

1. Leverage your current investments in IBM AIX and i while modernizing those environments for the future.
2. Add the ability to use containers to quickly deploy new solutions such as AI and Blockchain.
3. Increase the agility of your environment for a Cloud-like approach to infrastructure for new AI and Machine Learning applications.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]All of these features and more can be added to your environment for very little investment. In fact, adding this to a IBM POWER9 proposal is as simple as adding a part number. Clear Technologies has IBM Power Systems  subject matter experts ready to show you how this would work at your organization.  To learn more about how to modernize your environment and add the best of Cloud to your environment, contact your Clear Technologies rep today.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”GET IN TOUCH” color=”primary” align=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp” button_block=”true” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cleartechnologies.net%2Fabout%2Fcontact%2F|||”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

When you hear the term Blockchain, it likely brings to mind cryptocurrency.  Although cryptocurrency is its most publicized use, Blockchain is not simply a technology for financial institutions.  Manufacturers are also utilizing Blockchain themselves in a number of ways. One of its more innovative applications is in the realm of technology service and support. Digital ledger technology is now delivering a new level of assurance that service providers are meeting their responsibilities outlined in service-level agreements (SLAs).

IBM recently launched a new Support as a Service capability powered by IBM Blockchain and aimed at businesses engaging in digital transformation. By embedding blockchain into their Multivendor Support Services “smart contracts,” IBM can provide transparent, audit-ready transaction data while monitoring SLA metrics and accountability. This process streamlines and automates the billing processes to more closely match the speed and dynamism of the digital business model.

Blockchain – Built in Trust?

The promise of blockchain is that a shared distributed ledger creates a tamper-resistant record of transactions enabling trusted and audit-ready products and services. When using blockchain, trust is delegated to people and even objects such as sensors and monitors that occupy a shared network. If one of these data sources isn’t trusted to perform well, it can be automatically rejected by the other objects on the network, as well as the transaction record itself. In this way, the ledger and its “smart contract” become the foundation of trust.

This ability to preserve trust becomes increasingly important as contracts grow in both size and complexity and transaction data is shared continuously, in near-real time. By time-stamping contract-related events and adding them to a tamper-resistant record, support providers can effectively embed trust into the digital ledger.

Blockchain is expected to become an essential resource for the enterprise to evaluate contract performance, reduce the complexity of billing processes and eliminate unrealizable billing costs due to lack of evidence or an over-delivery of services.

With blockchain now an integral part of IBM’s Support as a Service portfolio, companies can gain the ability to independently verify the activities driving their digital business processes, providing new-found confidence that they are both delivering and receiving exactly what is expected.

Learn More about IBM Multivendor Support Services in the video below:

To learn more about IBM Multivendor Support Services and how they’re using blockchain to ensure delivery of technology support services, please contact Steven Hargis, shargis@cleartechnologies.net.

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Integrated Multivendor Support (IMS) for your Data Center is a service designed to expand the life of your non-IBM server, storage and networking equipment.  Functioning as a single source for your multivendor data center environment, we can offer technical support solutions to fit your needs while helping to optimize system availability, reduce costs and reduce IT complexity.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_raw_js]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[/vc_raw_js][/vc_column][/vc_row]

]IBM® Hyperconverged Systems powered by Nutanix is a hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) solution that combines Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform software with IBM Power® Systems. The integrated solution targets demanding transactional and cognitive analytics workloads with an infrastructure that is easy to manage and simple to scale. ]Web-scale architecture

IBM Hyperconverged Systems powered by Nutanix bridge the efficiency and performance gaps between enterprise datacenters and public clouds. Nutanix Enterprise Cloud software enables simple management, nimbleness and cost efficiency for open system environments, allowing IT experts to spend more time optimizing performance and extracting insight from applications and data.

Acropolis OS

Nutanix Acropolis delivers software-defined enterprise-class storage, compute and native virtualization services to run nearly any application. It provides feature-rich data services in a turnkey hyperconverged infrastructure solution that can be deployed out of the box in 60 minutes or less. Its distributed file services eliminate the need for standalone SAN or NAS-based storage separate from compute servers – reducing the complexity of infrastructure management.

Prism management

Prism simplifies infrastructure management with one-click operations. Prism provides an end-to-end management solution for virtualized datacenter environments. It streamlines and automates common workflows therefore eliminating the need for multiple management solutions across datacenter operations. With its advanced machine learning technology, Prism analyzes system data to generate actionable insights – optimizing virtualization and infrastructure management.

IBM POWER Architecture

Systems built with the POWER architecture are different by design – engineered at every level to be more powerful and open than competing server designs. POWER8 processors enable 4X more memory bandwidth, cache and threads per core versus x86. IBM Power Systems deliver superior VM density in cloud environments providing a clear price-performance advantage versus x86-based systems for workloads such as MongoDB, IBM Websphere Application Server and EDB Postgres, among others.

Seamlessly scale data across distributed nodes

Individual servers (called nodes) are clustered together in a scale-out topology managed by the Nutanix software stack. Internal physical storage resources from each node are pooled into one large, virtualized distributed file system. Additional servers can easily be added to increase compute or storage capacity dynamically with single-click simplicity.

Contact your Clear Technologies rep today to learn more!

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]For the always on, always available world, a Cloud or Hybrid Cloud strategy is key to maintain a positive client experience, meet service level agreements and combat competitive pressures from other businesses.  However, beyond using applications that are “born in the cloud,” many businesses do not know where to start or have a way of measuring where they are to begin planning for the future.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”6498″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]It’s all about knowing for sure what you have so you can begin architecting for the future.  Clear Technologies’ Application & Software Assessment will enable your organization to take those steps so the to start or even continue your journey to the cloud.  In addition to cloud and hybrid-cloud enablement, the assessment also aids in critical projects such as data center moves, yearly budgeting, and employee turnover.

Our offering is platform agnostic. Once the discovery process is complete, we will provide you with a table showing all of your applications along with relevant data points for hardware/software capacity & lifecycle planning.

In order to scale, the approach we use consists of both manual and automated discovery. The full meaning of “platform agnostic” is understood. For us it means clients may have platforms we have never seen before. No problem. We’ll get the data points manually the first time and then automate for scalability in the future.

Building your unique baseline dataset is step one. Clear can provide substantial added value through analysis of the raw data:

• Per-application Software Lifecycle Planning
• Server, Storage, & Network Infrastructure Lifecycle Planning
• Consolidation Planning for Virtualization, Containerization, & Cloud
• Granular Policy, Process, Facilities, and Compliance Validation

To begin your journey with a Clear Technologies’ Application & Software Assessment, Get In Touch with us today!

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Author: 

Charles McCane

cmccane@cleartechnologies.net[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1528235143343{background-color: #002e63 !important;}”][vc_column][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Rapid proliferation of applications and the increasing cost of maintaining legacy infrastructure causes significant IT challenges for many organizations. Complex manual processes and non-integrated infrastructure can’t provide the power, simplicity and speed necessary to meet the demands of the enterprise.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Hyperconvergence offers the availability, performance and capacity needed—while future proofing IT infrastructure and lowering total cost of ownership (TCO). It allows IT operations to be simplified by breaking down traditional silos and allowing storage, compute, networking, and virtualization to be managed with the same hardware, which eliminates inefficiencies and accelerates compute.

Generally, a hyperconverged infrastructure:

• Enables centralized management of virtual environments via a single interface, which decreases labor-intensive activities
• Offers streamlined acquisition, deployment, support and management
• Provides a scalable, building-block approach that is easily expandable

Hyperconvergence, like convergence, eliminates traditional IT management issues by packaging data center services such as server, storage and network and allowing them to be managed in a single application. But unlike convergence, hyperconvergence is a software-defined infrastructure that decouples infrastructure operations from the system hardware and converges them at the hypervisor level into a single building block (thus hyper converged).

HPE SimpliVity is a powerful, simple, and efficient hyperconverged platform that joins best-in-class data services with the world’s best-selling server and offers the industry’s most complete guarantee. With HPE SimpliVity, you can streamline and enable IT operations at a fraction of the cost of traditional and public cloud solutions by combining your IT infrastructure and advanced data services into a single, integrated solution.

What makes HPE SimpliVity different from other solutions?

• Powerful – Modern data architecture that powers and protects some of the world’s most efficient and resilient data centers
• Simple – Intuitive VM-Centric management that streamlines operations and empowers IT generalists.
• Trusted – Recognized market leadership, long-term viability, and best-selling server platform in the industry
• Complete – Single building block combining all IT infrastructure and advanced data services for virtualized workloads

Contact your Clear Technologies sales rep to learn more today![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”Get in Touch” color=”primary” size=”lg” align=”center” button_block=”true” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cleartechnologies.net%2Fabout%2Fcontact%2F|||”][/vc_column][/vc_row]