December 2008 | Volume 11/ Number 12
Disaster Preparedness
VAR Survival Under Disastrous ConditionsMost financial analysts agree that 2008 was a disaster for the financial markets and particularly for the banking and mortgage industries. Of course, those industries brought the entire economy down. One VAR, however, feels this market provides his company with a great opportunity. CiBan specializes in delivering customized technology solutions to a wide variety of companies and has concentrated on delivering IP backbones and fault tolerant architectures. In an interview with Paul Banco, CEO and Founder of CiBan Inc. (www.ciban.com), he explained how the economy has actually been a boon for his business. First, Paul emphasized that some segments of the market are still strong including the Green Movement and business continuity. Perhaps a key to their strength is the fact that these technologies can actually save money if implemented properly. In a tight economy, that is a great selling point. Going Green means saving on power thus reducing costs. Products like VMWare and EqualLogic allow for virtualization and consolidation of equipment which further reduces costs. An added bonus is built-in fault tolerance. As Paul states: “The deployment can be configured so there is no single point of failure except perhaps for the EqualLogic Array and you can double that up if required. Dell (News - Alert)’s new Auto-Snapshot Manager/VMware Edition [ASM/VE] feature natively integrates with VMware APIs, further simplifying virtual data protection for all EqualLogic SANs. A key factor is the technology allows for live backup snapshots of virtual machines.” Paul also commented that communications applications like fax servers can run on VMware using the Dialogic/Brooktrout (News - Alert) SR140 FoIP products further facilitating consolidation. It also appears that CiBan is not the only company focusing on VMware. Ashlee Vance of The New York Times says “VMware has a leg up when the economy is down, because virtualization helps customers cut their hardware and energy costs.” VMware, the virtualization market leader had revenue of $472 million in its third quarter — a 32% increase over last year and earnings were $83 million, or 24 cents a share. CiBan’s strategy proves that the key for VARs success in a challenging economy is to focus on solutions like business continuity that combine both added security and cost reductions. IT Max Schroeder (News - Alert) is the Senior Vice President of FaxCore, Inc. (www.faxcore.com) and Managing Director of the DPCF. Rich Tehrani is the President and Group Editor-in-Chief at TMC (News - Alert) and is Conference Chairman of Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO. Today @ TMC
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