Past Meetings
July, 2010
Symform v2.0 Presentation
Symform’s Cooperative Storage Cloud offers small businesses a backup and disaster
recovery solution that ten times cheaper and ten times faster than traditional online
storage services.
The heart of Symform’s software is a proprietary technology called RAID-96. Traditional
online storage services require massive data centers that use extraordinary amounts of energy
and land. Symform has created a global storage system without data centers to store data.
This has never been done before. It’s efficient, inexpensive, and green.
June, 2010
DATTOBACKUP
DattoBackup uses an on-site device and provides off-site backup and they provide the software to perform the backup.
Austin McChord will present the products and demonstrate remote virtualization. Some of the new features include Instant
Virtualization, Message level Recovery for Exchange, Data Deduplication and a host of other very advanced features. If
minimizing downtime is your objective, this is the solution for you. This is the most robust backup I have seen.
May, 2010
Microsoft
Curt Witt, our new Microsoft Local Engagement Team contact was with us. Curt discussed
Microsoft Partner Network changes.
He also gave the group a Local Engagement Team update.
April, 2010
GFI
GFI presented several of their products. Todd C. Haugland and Gill Langston presented the Remote Management,
MailArchiver and Languard products. You can view the many other products offered by GFI at www.gfi.com.
March, 2010
IBM Server Hardware
Kevin Koski from IBM presented the new IBM server hardware.
IBM and Intel are once again setting a new standard across the x86 server landscape, with the
broadest portfolio of systems optimized for your most demanding workloads.
- Drive enterprise and virtualized workloads faster and more efficiently than ever
- Prepare to do even more with less
- Brace yourself for ultra-scalability
- Get ready for previously unknown levels of flexibility
February, 2010
Ryan Fisher from Edward Jones showed Business Owners how to build their own Line of Credit and how they can
have the control and flexibility of obtaining and paying their own Business Line of Credit.
January, 2010
Scott Schmoll of Intel presented Intel’s newest processors and motherboards and
Jeff Salo of Equus presented Equu's line of products.
December, 2009
Christmas Pary
Our December meeting included a Christmas party with a catered dinner from
Boston market.
November 2009
The Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud
Kevin Brown from Symform presented and demo'd an innovative and affordable solution to backup.
The Symform Cooperative Storage CloudTM enables small businesses to implement a backup and disaster
recovery solution that is more secure and ten times cheaper than traditional online backup services.
The company was founded on the realization that millions of small businesses have computers with an
excess of inexpensive storage capacity, power running 24x7, and unlimited Internet bandwidth – especially
nights and weekends. The Symform team has developed software that aggregates this relatively unreliable
and untrusted capacity over the Internet and transforms it into a secure and reliable global storage
system. The heart of Symform’s software is a proprietary technology called RAID-96.™
October 2009
Windows 7 Technical Class
Don Donais, a New Horizons Instructor presented a TECHNICAL class on Windows 7.
Topics were:
- New User Interface (Start Menu, Pinning, Floating Gadgets)
- Aero
- System Improvements (Search, Libraries)
- Management Tools (Reliability Monitor, Problem Step Recorder, Group Policy changes)
- Control Panel (Action Center, Performance, Network and Sharing Center)
- Security (User Account Control, BitLocker-TO-GO
September 2009
HP Servers. Mark Oppegard of the HP Solution Partners Organization presented
HP Proliant Servers. He discussed the models, processors and features, including Lights
Out and other Management tools. See our Resources
page for additional information.
August 2009
There was no meeting in August.
July 2009
Comcast Business Services
Our meeting took place at Comcast Business Services facility in Minnetonka. Terry Resch and Comcast’s Technical and Install teams
showed us how Comcast can “Turn Your Office On™”. We learned about the newest technologies in Digital Voice,
blazing fast Internet speeds, and TV services for our client’s businesses.
June 2009
Autotask
Michael Bienvenue, Autotask Go! Product Manager, presented the Autotask products.
Autotask Corporation is the leading SaaS provider of hosted service management tools that allow
VARs, Managed Service Providers and other IT service professionals to organize, automate, and
better manage their businesses. Available anytime, anywhere over the internet with no downloads,
Autotask software helps IT service professionals to streamline business operations, capture more
billable hours, and virtually collaborate with anyone else in the IT industry to maximize profits.
Today, more IT professionals rely on Autotask than any other software solution. For more
information go to www.autotask.com
or call (518) 720-3500.
May 2009
Netgear
This month Netgear joined us with a presentation about their Unified Threat Management devices
that they have developed for the SMB Space, as well as their Storage devices. The UTM devices are an
interesting alternative for one because licensing is by device instead of per-user CALs.
April 2009
i365, A Seagate Company
i365, A Seagate Company, provides proven solutions for the protection, retention management, and discovery of
electronic information. Trusted by over 22,000 customers, our innovative technologies combined with flexible
deployment options form solutions to solve organizations' most rigorous compliance and data management problems.
Gregg Scott, the local MN Territory Sales Manager, provided details about the i365 offering, the partner
program, and how this solutions is set apart from the competition.
March 2009
Trend Micro and MyTech
James Ray from Trend Micro presented Trend Micro SMB products including remote management and archiving of email.
Philip Hult of MyTech provided a technical presentation / discussion of using Server Core 2008 and SBS 2008.
Click here to download his presentation.
February 2009
How to sell SBS 2008 presented by Microsoft and MSPSN
The group enjoyed a conference call with Microsoft on how to sell SBS 2008.
Amy Luby visited us and presented her company's approach to Selling Value in a Down Economy. She presented tips and best practices on helping
deliver the value proposition message to your small business clients and prospects. There was a discussion time regarding managed services
business models in general, why MS is a great model to deliver in an economic downturn, and how to accelerate
and mature your model quickly and easily.
January 2009
Nor-Tech, CyberPower and Seagate
Nor-Tech. Nor-Tech is a premier wholesale OEM and a leading manufacturer of custom
configured, build-to-order PCs, servers, notebooks and custom vertical market which it offers
to a large variety of customers in the United States and internationally. Nor-Tech is recognized as
the 2nd largest custom system builder in the country, producing thousands of PCs and Servers each month at its 60,000 sq.
ft. facility in Burnsville, MN.
CyberPower produces the most popular and affordable line of dependable,
high-quality UPS systems on the market today. Its feature-rich, intelligent products continue
to set the standard for power protection design and innovation in the UPS market. Cyberpower
is located in Shakopee, MN.
Seagate is a leading manufacturer of storage products for servers, desktops
and laptops and external devices. Seagate has offices in Shakopee, MN.
December 2008
Minnesota Cyber Crime Task Force
We were privileged to have Doug Dvorak of the Minnesota Cyber Crime Task Force(MCCTF),
a joint FBI and U.S. Secret Service task force that includes members of the U.S. Postal
Inspection Service and local law enforcement. FBI agents assigned to the Computer
Analysis Response Team (CART) also operate out of the task force. The mission of
the MCCTF is to investigate violation of Federal law where the Internet and
computer systems or networks are utilized as instruments or targets of terrorists,
foreign intelligence services, and criminal activity.
Beacon Auditor
Rich Loeber of Intepro, LLC presented the Beacon Auditor, a software
inventory product that provides a very complete hardware and software
inventory of all networked devices.
A trial copy is available at
http://www.intepro.us/index.php/products/auditorpro
November 2008
CrashPlan PRO and Code 42 Software
Robert Casserly, VP of Business Development, CrashPlan PRO presented the first and only backup solution that combines
an extremely people-friendly client with a sophisticated enterprise server to continuously
protect your business. Mission critical data on remote laptops, desktops and servers are
backed up in real-time to multiple destinations regardless of location.
Matthew Dornquast, CEO, Code 42 Software presented his company's software.
October 2008
Mytech Partners & Success Computer
Mytech Partners and Success Computer shared the SBS 2008 migration preparation and migration process. View their
PowerPoint presentation.
September 2008
SBS 2008 Roadshow
In September we were fortunate to have two members of the SBS 2008 Product Development Team
visit us as part of the SBS 2008 pre-release Road Show. They filled us in on many of the details
around the upcoming releases in the SBS/EBS server family. They covered features, technical
details, and licensing. Now is the time to purchase SBS with Software Assurance to receive the
lowest available price. The last date to order SBS 2003 is October 31, 2008 and the official
release date for SBS 2008 is November 12, 2008. Here are the links to their slide decks:
Some of the high level details discussed included price increases for the Standard/Premium
OS Sku’s, as well as the distinction of Standard and Premium CAL’s. We learned that Standard
and Premium CAL’s can be mixed and matched as needed, as well as User vs Device CAL’s. The
standard CAL’s are less expensive than the current SBS03 CAL’s, so for larger implementations
the licensing cost may be significantly lower than the 2003 pricing. The second server in the
Premium Sku may be used to provide Terminal Services access, but the TS CAL is not included with
the SBS CAL and will need to be purchased separately. All the ‘connector’ licensing etc. that are
available on the ‘regular’ Windows server sku’s can also be applied to the SBS servers.
We discussed upgrade paths, installation and migration details, and special offers that would be
available. At the end of the meeting representatives from My Tech Partners and Success Computer
shared some of their TAP experiences. They are also the featured speakers for our October meeting,
so you’ll want be there to learn more about the in’s and out’s of SBS 2008! SBS 2008 and EBS 2008
are included in the October Action Pack shipment, so we can start working with this before it is
publicly available to our customers, a welcome change!
August 2008
SYNNEX and HP
Frank Gross from SYNNEX Corporation shared the benefits of doing
business with the 3rd largest IT distributor in the nation. Established
in 1980, SYNNEX is a Fortune 350 company offering computer systems,
peripherals, system components, software and networking products.
SYNNEX is HP’s #1 distributor in channel sales and warehouses $150
million in HP inventory across their 13 warehouses at all times.
SYNNEX is an HP PartnerONE Center of Excellence with a large support
staff to help you uncover programs and rebates to stay competitive
and profitable.
HP’s Channel Trainer, Aaron Blosser, provided an overview of the
HP server portfolio: ML, DL, and BL servers. The emphasis throughout
the presentation was HP’s management suites. The ease of use, reliability,
and security is what makes HP’s servers stand out from the rest.
When it comes to the HP Blades servers, we discussed which customers
are ready for blades and how blades will change your customer’s
business. In the end, it will be simple to determine which server
is right for each customer based on their budgetary, management,
and expansion needs.
July 2008
We were fortunate to have Naseem Saab from Results Software join
us, coming in from the Washington DC area!
"Results" is a CRM software that tightly integrates with QuickBooks,
and allows import of e-mail from Microsoft Outlook so that all of
our customer communications are in one easy-to-use package, including
visibility to financials and automated business processes. It also
allows you to standardize business processes, and assign and manage
resources. It's been called "Goldmine on Steroids".
Naseem Saab is the president and founder of Results Software
with more than 22 years of experience in the computer consulting
and software development industries. Naseem leads the strategic
direction of Results Software and is a recognized pioneer in the
CRM industry and office technologies. Naseem is a frequent speaker
on topics including business growth strategies, office automation,
leveraging CRM to boost sales and streamlining business processes.
Naseem will be demonstrating the product, and fill us in on how
we can partner with Results and offer this product to our clients.
Make sure you register for the July 8th meeting. More
information regarding Naseem and Results Software here:
http://results-software.com/About_Us/index.html#NaseemSaab
June 2008
Comcast: This month we have Comcast sponsoring our group, and
they will give a short presentation on their services, new technologies
they are rolling out in our area, and how they can partner with
us to help our customers.
Susan Bradley: We also had Susan Bradley join us remotely. Most
of you know her as E-Bitz or the patching lady. She'll be talking
about "What freaks Susan out about PCI and "best practices" in general".
In particular the places in the PCI benchmark that she believes
block a SBS box from containing PCI data, and facilitating an open
discussion of concerns of where the benchmark is good and where
it may be overreaching.
And last but not least we had our own Joe Jarrad with an update
of the current Microsoft offers, and what we should make use of
before Microsoft's year end by the end of June.
April 2008
SBS2008 and EBS2008: Jeff Middleton, SBS MVP has joined
us remotely and shared his experiences so far and impressions on
where Microsoft may be going with certain details based on his workings
with Microsoft. We'll had an interesting presentation including
a screenshot demo, and discussed how to be prepared and what opportunities
are coming up, and what to do now. With Server2008 released, and
SBS2008 coming up, isn't it amazing how many environments we run
into that still run on (unsupported) Win2000 server based platforms?
What do you recommend to these customers at this time?
March 2008
In March we were fortunate to have Karl Palachuk speak about Project
Management in IT shops.
Most of you probably have heard about Karl or read one or more of
his books, like "The Network Documentation Workbook", or "Service
Agreements for SMB Consultants". He started a SMB IT book website
at http://www.greatlittlebook.com/ where you can find his and other
IT related books Karl has started a very successful Small Business
IT consulting practice in Sacramento California, has a blog at http://smallbizthoughts.blogspot.com/
that is intended primarily for Small Business Consultants like us,
and he just published "The Super-Good Project Planner for Technical
Consultants" not too long ago.
February 2008
We had Mark Crall for a presentation on DR Recovery to Virtual
environment or dis-similar hardware. Mark is the founder and acting
CEO of Tech Care Team Inc. a managed IT services provider in Charlotte
NC with a focus on SMB. He is the founder of the 250 member Charlotte
SBS Group (www.sbs-charlotte.com) and serves as the Meetings Director
for the 6000 member Carolina IT Professionals Group (www.carolinait.org).
More information on his blog:
http://sbsc.techcareteam.com/about
http://sbsc.techcareteam.com/archives/81
In addition we had Jerry Moore from Call Management Products visit
us from Colorado to demonstrate the Syspine ResponsePoint System!
Quanta, the SysPine ResponsePoint manufacturers, are sponsoring
this month's meeting and sent Jerry to demonstrate it to us: You've
probably heard about the new Microsoft ResponsePoint offering, see
for more information here here http://microsoft.com/responsepoint
or http://blogs.technet.com/.aspx.
The ResponsePoint phone system is a great entry in the SMB Market
with an easy to install easy to manage VOIP phone system that (currently)
connects to regular POTS phone line.
January 2008
SonicWall:
Tom Barr (Territory Manager) and Ben Ellering
(Systems Engineer) were present. They are local SonicWall
resources based in the twin cities are and provided a brief introduction
of SonicWall and covered their portfolio at a high-level.
They also discussed the SonicWall Medallion Partner Program.
On the technical side they covered in more detail their firewall
products and Total Secure Unified Threat Management (UTM) offering,
Continuous Data Protection (CDP) data backup and recovery solution.
Zenith InfoTech:
Todd Wolpert, Account Manager visited
us from Pennsylvania. He introduced Zenith InfoTech and talked
about Managed Services and Zenith. He demonstrated their Partner
Portal features to manage client's networks and talked briefly about
their Backup Disaster Recovery offering.
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