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May 2021 Newsletter

Pete Massiello

Pete Massiello

This newsletter includes:

As you read this newsletter, we will have done our first in-person conference in over 18 months: COMMON’s NAViGATE in Columbus, Ohio.  I am sure looking forward to getting back to the new normal, and meeting customers, prospects, individuals, and — well, just everyone. I’ve been cooped up way too long, and now that I am fully vaccinated, I am ready to get back to life.  It will be interesting, and Laurie and I plan to do a podcast and video clips on the conference to show you what the conference is like. While I understand the in-person is on the lighter side (as we would have expected), the virtual conference has quite a few attendees.

View a snapshot of the NAViGATE conference with the iTech team.

Stay tuned for our upcoming podcast episode where Laurie and I will talk about the full conference experience, what we learned, what we came away with, and more.

 

We are looking forward to doing our next iTech customer-only event, which will be about Disaster Recovery.

As hurricane season is upon us, along with tornados and the rest of the summer weather here in the US, we thought it would be a great time to just go over what you should be doing to prepare for a disaster. We’ll cover what to do when a disaster strikes, backups, recoveries, Disaster Recovery, High Availability, and everything that goes along with options you need to understand.

This will be Wednesday, June 9th from 1:00 – 2:30 PM ET. The first hour and 10 minutes will be a live presentation, with the following 20-minutes as an open and interactive discussion in GoToMeeting. We hope this provides much value for our customers and allows them to better prepare for what might lie ahead.

If you are a customer and would like to register, please reach out to your iTech sales rep for a link to join us.

We had our first in-person sales meeting since January 2020 here in Danbury and we had almost everyone in attendance.  It was nice to be in the upstairs conference room with the sales team, discussing strategy, tactical plans, and other ways we will be helping our IBM i customers for the rest of the year.  We have been holding these as virtual meetings, but we really missed the camaraderie of an in-person meeting and going out to dinner and socializing as a team.  We made some great progress, and we are looking forward to new and additional ways that we can help our IBM i customers leverage their investment in IBM i.  Our Technical team is coming into Danbury in June, so it will be an exciting time once again as we meet to exchange skills, plan the rest of the year, and discuss the additional people we plan on bringing into the team in 2021.

Ransomware

Ransomware has been a hot topic as of late. We have all seen the pictures of the gas stations with no gas due to the Gas pipeline company being hacked.  We have been called in to remediate 5x more customers this year than ALL of last year.  People need to understand that the IBM i is extremely securable, but out-of-the-box changes can be made, sometimes allowing it to be too open.

We have been called in to fix systems when other business partners couldn’t put the system back, or when security holes needed to be plugged.  We have never been called in by one of our existing customers — doesn’t that tell you something? These attacks could have all been prevented if people had done one of our iTech Security Assessments, where we go about looking at your system and values to determine what exposures you have.  In fact, one customer hired us for an IBM i Penetration test, and within 8 minutes Steve had broken into their system and elevated his authority to having *ALLOBJ and *SECAUT.  8 minutes is not a long time. How safe do you think you are?  There are people out there who wish to break into your system.  Remember, a criminal only has to break in once. You have to be diligent and keep updating your security to keep them out. It’s time to get off your butt.

It is likely that you are familiar with iTech’s second to none technical capabilities for IBM i in North America.  We have provided our technical services to many of the world’s leading companies.  But today we are asking you to honestly consider the following business proposition:
Should our organization utilize iTech for our entire IBM i digital strategy; design, product, services, and consulting? 

First, we want you to consider why a closer business partnership can be good for your core business, ultimately leading to the financial well-being and mission success of your organization. Over 95% of IBM i systems are used for mission-critical applications.  The IBM i’s availability is paramount and its functionality is critical. With the growing amount and complexity of data and the variety of usage growing each year, any downtime or lack of data availability when needed, or any significant outage or delayed availability can cost revenue of five or six figures – or more!  At its simplest, having iTech analyze, design, and implement improved systems could provide value starting at 5 figures and going upward.   It’s time to look at switching to iTech Solutions as your IBM Business Partner and reap the benefits.

 

[New] Throwback Thursday

We have started another series in addition to our monthly 1 hour webinars, Podcasts, Sips and Tricks, and iBasics.  Throwback Thursday (#IBMiTBT) sessions highlight some of our best previously recorded sessions with Live Q&A at the end.

Our next Throwback Thursday:
Thursday, June 17th, 2PM ET
Hidden Gems in QMGTOOLS Utility Library
Marc Vadeboncoeur

iBasics: IBM i Education for the Beginner System Administrator

Wait, we have even more going on. I want to make sure you take advantage of our IBM i Admin Basics, which we refer to as iBasics. We started this in November, and it was originally a 14-week series, but we expanded this to be weekly through at least June. These weekly sessions will cover the basics of IBM i, helping new people be able to learn about IBM i System Admin. If you have someone in your company who would benefit from these, you can register for both upcoming and on-demand sessions at itechsol.com/ibasics. These will take place at 11 AM EST on Wednesdays each week, except for the Holiday weeks.

[ View All Sessions ]

We plan on continuing to be there for you this year and beyond, eventually in-person, but until then virtually. When you see what we know, you see our experience, knowledge, and know-how you will want to make the switch to us as your Business Partner.   Is your business partner just sitting there eating donuts? Because I used to say he/she would come by with donuts every three years, but most people aren’t doing in-person meetings right now.  So, what exactly are they doing for you?  Come to the iTech side, just make the switch. It’s as easy as making a call or sending an email. It’s easy to switch.

 

Here are our upcoming webinars:

View our full PDF June Calendar Here

Stay safe, wash your hands, wear that annoying mask, and take care of one another.  Hopefully, we will get our vaccinations soon and life will return to normal. I look forward to seeing everyone soon at the many conferences we will be attending.

This newsletter includes:

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