Our offerings in terms of new hardware, software and solutions portfolio continues to grow in line with the business needs of today. You may or may not be aware that refurbished infrastructure is still widely purchased by many businesses nationwide. Here are just a few points where you can find benefit in going with refurbished:

Save money

Refurbished is a way to save money. The best analogy to use here is to compare to a new car. Once it leaves the floor, the showroom or the yard, it now has a decreased value due to it now having a previous owner. Who has not bought a used car before? And what are the leading points to sway a person in buying a used car over new? It may have a couple more kilometres on the clock, maybe even a tiny scratch from a trolley, but the features and performance are at a more swallowable price than stretching the budget for new. Perhaps the job can just be done by something a year or two older?

Save time

If I’m going to compare to vehicles, let’s compare this: typically do you expect to wait longer for the keys to be in your hand for a second hand car or for a new one to come from plant? Does that mean that new cars are not in stock? No, but maybe it can take two to three weeks or even months for the one you’d like. Use refurbished to your advantage. We carry a range of parts in our warehouse and utilise parts from other sources to build each server or solution to your required spec. Parts in stock can often be delivered within just a couple of days from order.

Keep your options open

You keep your options open with refurbished hardware. It might be that you have a server sitting quietly in the corner that’s only required every now and again. If it’s not under hardware support we can:

1. arrange a maintenance contract for you or
2. provide replacement parts that are no longer available new.

Another example is an Intel system – small or large – that after running for a little while just needs additional CPUs or a memory upgrade. Due to time, these may not be available to purchase new anymore. Pressure on the budget to make this server(s) last until the next refresh may be prevalent. Or a push for budget to be brought forward and more budget provided next time round, so that a purchase of a system fully configured is purchased to save the second and third year performance heartache of not being able to maximise the configuration because the parts are no longer orderable new. Your options are practically unlimited due to our access of in country and overseas stock of vendors.

Keep uniformity

We understand there are circumstances that require similar or identical hardware in your environment. This requirement can sometimes be for a number of years. It could be a test and development system where the system has to be the same or very alike. In that situation the new expense may be tough to have approved and, in a “do more with less” driven economic state, the premium price of a new system to perform this task eats away at the budget. A refurbished system for your Disaster Recovery (DR), can provide the same result and gives you the opportunity to match your configuration and performance and software license group at a possibly more acceptable price point.

Get us to contact you about refurbished hardware

Many mid-market organisations have not been able to justify moving from their legacy ERP systems

In the decade that has passed since they refreshed their technology:

• supply chains have extended overseas,
• lead times increased,
• product lifecycles shortened and
• the cost of investing in inventory has changed dramatically.

On the market facing side consumers and customers expectations have changed, and there is now a profusion of sales channels and information about products instantly available to everyone. Legacy ERP which was once the core of a business’ operations is now an obstacle to aligning to these new market conditions.

Here are 9 signs indicating that your system may be in need of review:

1. Your business will have changed and your current ERP platform will increasingly be reliant on data from external systems
2. Your system experiences frequent downtime
3. The skills you require to maintain or improve the system are not readily available
4. Your business is increasing its use of spreadsheets, manual data entry and external systems in order just to standstill
5. Maintaining a competitive position and addressing compliance issues is becoming harder and harder due to the number of systems in use that have little or no integration
6. Your ERP solution cannot adapt with your business – changes such as product line changes and business emphasis changes – without modifications and workarounds
7. Your ability to remain in touch with best practice in supply chain, customer relationship management, channel and sales management, retain high quality employees and provide the sophisticated financial and budget models that are required today, is increasingly challenging
8. Lacking visibility to make real-time decisions about your business
9. Your platform could deliver you more if only it was able to handle demanding workloads, real-time analytics and predictive workloads

Ideally, ERP systems should serve as the primary source for all critical data while delivering analytics and reporting functions that help companies make better decisions. If they don’t, or if one of these scenarios sounds familiar, it may be time for you to review your ERP.

Migrating from one or more legacy ERP systems to a new environment was traditionally a huge undertaking

The obstacles of the past have been removed with the development of Australian industry specific templates and a happy, referenceable install base at your fingertips.

Contact us for more information on migrating your legacy ERP system>>

Software Subscription and Support provides you with:

• Technical Support for your ICT organisation – available 24×7.
• Product upgrades via download or CD delivery based on your location and eNotification preferences.
• eNotifications to alert you when new product releases and versions of your licensed products become available.

We can help you manage your software subscriptions – call us on 1800 777 111.

Technology has dominated the discussion. Now, for many enterprises, the security emphasis has shifted towards protecting data and the flow of information.

This requires a shift in thinking

We’re not simply protecting the infrastructure, but rather the value that runs through that infrastructure. We’re not blocking bad traffic or files, but rather securing mission critical information throughout its life cycle. And, most important, your approach and focus starts with your business needs rather than arbitrary technologies.

This mindset runs hand-in-hand with the reality of today’s successful enterprises: you need to increase collaboration while reducing risk. This may seem paradoxical – diametrically opposed goals – but that’s the challenge that today’s business landscape demands.

For any business that sees itself as an “information machine”, there’s really no choice. Data has to flow and collaboration must occur. At the same time, you have to respond to outsiders targeting your IP, threats from insiders and honest accidents when people just do their job.

When we talk to clients, we often hear two types of mistakes

Some will under-invest in security and some will over-invest.

If you are one of the former, the key is to apply the right controls in the right way as you increase investment.

If you are over-invested, you may be facing so much control that you are out of control.

As you evaluate the best practices and devise a strategy to safeguard your company’s data, we suggest four points of focus

They are:

1. Data Loss Prevention Assessment
   This means understanding your business and using automated tools to find sensitive and important data. We recommend identifying the highest risks and applying solutions to your priorities.
2. Policy Definition and Enforcement
   This means establishing policies and applications to stop data leaks, encrypting your whole disk to protect “loose” devices, controlling data at the point of use, and leveraging best practices to enforce regional and industry privacy laws.
3. Monitoring and Reporting Services
   This involves tracking 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, monitoring across your environment, performing pre-audit and remediation services and ensuring integration of solutions across control points.
4. Emergency Services and Professional Services
   This involves designing mechanisms for immediate response to incidents and linking to.

In short, best practices and intelligent strategy will help you establish reasonable security to achieve that most demanding but rewarding goal:

Maximum collaboration and minimum risk

What does this mean for our customers – you?

It means you get the right advice from Computer Merchants about how you can better manage your system backups and restores. How you can streamline your backup procedures so that the problems surrounding daily backups becomes a thing of the past.

As we are now a certified partner we have access to better pricing that we are able to pass on to our customers. We can also provide a full installation service and advise on any hardware requirements to enable smooth operation of TSM.

Cal us on 1800 777 111.

Netbox Blue allows businesses to protect their network from external and internal threats

• This includes eradicating spam and blocking potential viruses.
• Your staff will be happier – no longer will they receive numerous emails from unwanted sources.
• Netbox Blue virtualises hardware which leads to a reduction in costs.
• Visit ThinkInsideTheNetbox to learn more about Netbox Blue and what sort of companies have taken advantage of this product.
• Contact us on 1800 777 111 if you have any further enquiries.

Instant recovery – any time you need it

In business, time is a precious commodity, and there seems to be less and less available, as we’re tasked to fit more and more into it.

That’s why, when it comes to protecting and recovering your all important data, losing either time or information assets is simply not an option.

What’s needed is the ability to truly step back to any point in time to quickly recover data following any kind of incident, whether a security breach, virus attack, software corruption, or simply accidentally deleted files.

EchoStream/EchoCluster by Vision Solutions

EchoStream/EchoCluster is a true continuous data protection and automated high-availability solution that delivers nearly instantaneous recovery of your applications and data. Independent of applications and database, EchoStream/EchoCluster is designed specifically for the IBM AIX platform running on IBM system p and POWER architecture.

Computer Merchants – service with an edge

Talk to us about EchoStream, EchoCluster and affordable business continuity solutions services. Since 1979, we’ve forged a reputation as the most proactive, customer focused and service driven ICT partner in the country.

Win an Apple iPhone

Visit PickAnyMomentInTime to go into the draw to win the latest Apple iPhone!

For more information freecall 1800 777 111 or email us.

Some of the services we provide that you may not be aware of are:

• Consultancy on solutions upgrades and consolidations
• Relocations of data centres with shut down and restore
• Software platform and data migrations
• Performance monitoring
• De-installation, decommissioning and removal of hardware
• Green disposal
• Retaining software licensing for companies off redundant hardware
• Consolidate all hardware / software maintenance contracts to 1 anniversary date
• Pre loading of software and setup of partitions for equipment being shipped to remote locations

Along with more common services such as:

• VMware installations
• Tivoli Storage Manager
• High availability products and installations
• Logical partitioning
• Data Migrations
• Upgrades and Patches
• RPG Programming
• Blade set-up and installation
• Storage set-up and configuration

So if you have a situation or uncommon circumstance, please give us a call on 1800 777 111 to see how we can help.

But Tivoli is so much more than just management of storage. Tivoli is a suite of products that IBM offers including:

• Storage Management,
• Security Management,
• Assets Management, and
• Systems Management.

As part of our ongoing development, our sales team have now completed sales certification in the Tivoli product set. So speak to your sales rep to discuss your business pain points.

Our team will be able to help you find a solution to your problems and we have the resources available to help you find a solution with presales advice and support right through to installation and implementation.

As Tivoli is such a large software portfolio, keep an eye out for further articles in our newsletter about the various products that make up the suite.

• Up to 50 users
• Integrated voicemail
• Automated attendant
• Basic call centre capability
• Music on hold
• Optional wireless access
• System management

Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series for Small Business and the Cisco Catalyst Express 520 are integral parts of the Cisco Smart Business Communications System, a complete system of voice, data, video, and wireless networking products for small businesses.

This system provides companies with a new way to communicate, enabling secure access to information anytime and anywhere, while helping people to work together more efficiently and effectively.

Call processing capability is included and enabled via Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express. Automated attendant and integrated voicemail are included and enabled via Cisco Unity Express software. It is expandable by adding the Cisco Catalyst Express 520 Series companion switches.

These fixed-configuration 8- and 24-port switches with embedded security are preconfigured to work with the Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series for Small Business.

Please consider Computer Merchants for communications solutions in addition to our wide range of server and storage offerings.

Netbox Blue allows businesses to protect their network from external and internal threats

• This includes eradicating spam and blocking potential viruses.
• Your staff will be happier - no longer will they receive numerous emails from unwanted sources.
• Netbox Blue virtualises hardware which leads to a reduction in costs.
• Visit ThinkInsideTheNetbox to learn more about Netbox Blue and what sort of companies have taken advantage of this product.
• Contact us on 1800 777 111 if you have any further enquiries.

Many businesses are taking the opportunity to reduce costs through consolidating multiple servers into fewer, more powerful systems with server virtualisation, or creating multiple virtual servers on a single physical server. By streamlining the management of your computing environment and reducing maintenance and support costs, your infrastructure will be consolidated.

There are many different and unique System Management Tools such as IBM Systems Director platform management family supported across IBM Systems. It offers a comprehensive, flexible and consistent approach to managing both physical and virtual resources, enabling you to provide higher availability of the infrastructure and lower total cost of ownership.

Note: IBM Sytems Director 6.1 will be available in Q4 2008.

Computer Merchants offer a service to help assess, design and implement virtualized server resources

This service helps clients focus on optimizing capacity, cost, availability and security of their data centres and distributed environments. Call us on 1800 777 111, or email us directly.

These services can help you:

• Secure a future-state server environment
• Provide a more flexible and responsive IT infrastructure
• Improve operational efficiencies and response times
• Enhance and simplify systems management
• Improve application performance and availability
• Increase security
• Increase access to critical business information and processes
• Increase automation
• Support lower software license fees
• Reduce maintenance fees
• Reduce total cost of ownership, potentially by as much as 20 percent.

Talk to us

We can analyse your situation and work with you on a solution that suits your particular needs.

Call us on 1800 777 111.

Virtualise this, virtualise that!

The term has been passed around like a hot potato and many of you may just be secretly hoping it doesn’t land in your lap.

Sure, virtualisation may be fine in theory but what does it really mean for your company’s infrastructure? Don’t worry, there’s no chance of getting burned – as certified VMware resellers we will help manage the project for you!

So what does that mean?

Let’s go through some of the basics of what we can do:

• Hardware sizing and procurement where we spec appropriate servers from your existing server footprint while providing for expected future requirements and growth.
• VMware licensing and ongoing support to fit your virtualisation needs
• Ensuring all hardware has the latest firmware updates
• Bare metal installation of VMware clients
• P2V (Physical to Virtual) migrations where your existing servers are transferred into their respective VMs.

We will even set you up with VMware training courses whether it’s basic administration or specific areas you want to focus your abilities on.

Yes, we manage it to the point where your previous server sprawl is migrated and running on new hardware with VMware so you can sit back and start to see the savings roll in.

Call us on 1800 777 111 to get the ball rolling on virtualisation.

This month, we added our newsletter from July 2006. Even though these articles are 2 years old, there is still quite a lot of information that is just as relevant as ever.

Highlights of July 2006

• 15 Point Checklist To Keep Your IT House In Order
• Important Dates For IBM OS/400 V4 And V5 Support
• How We Prepare Your IBM iSeries For Delivery To You
• Issues When Upgrading From System 36 Mode To OS/400
• *noMAX sentry Saving Your Orphan Data
• Checking And Resetting Battery Age On Sun StorEdge Arrays
• Comparing IBM System i And System p
• Restriction Of Hazardous Substances (RoHS)
• You’ll Get Genuine Manufacturers Parts In Your Refurbished Equipment
• Keeping Up With IBM Server Brands

And don’t forget, you can check out our past and present newsletters on the Archive page.

Business Intelligence (BI) has long dominated CIO wish list, and according to Gartner, it has been their number one priority for the last 2 years. For many companies, the challenges of implementing a BI solution has been a daunting task. System complexity, costly implementation and support, cumbersome user interfaces and complex integration requirements have all been draw backs; however the cost of inaction is also high. Without a strong BI foundation, we typically resort to exporting data in Microsoft Excel or similar, a time consuming, potentially error prone process.

These challenges are common to many organizations that wish to optimize their business processes, decisions and actions, which is why Computer Merchants has teamed up with Fusion5 to introduce BI-in-a-Box -a fully implemented Business Intelligence solution for 10 users that includes all you need for only $200 per user per month.

BI-in-a-Box includes:

• 1 x IBM x3650 Server, Quad Core, 4Gb memory, 584Gb disk, Raid protection, Ethernet and 24/7/4 on site
  warranty
• 10 x named Users of Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Standard Edition One
• 25 x days Fusion5 consulting services to help build your BI solution and to provide ongoing first year support for application and technical users
• Finance agreement from IBM Global Finance

It doesn’t matter what your business application is today or what hardware you are currently running, or indeed what hardware or software you intend to use in the future. Most business systems and databases are supported by BI-in-a-Box, which gives you complete flexibility regarding your current & future reporting requirements.

In short, BI-in-a-Box includes the IBM System x hardware, software and consulting services from Fusion 5 all wrapped up in a low cost finance package from IBM. (Terms and Conditions apply).

Some points to note are:

We provide reminders 2-3 months out from your maintenance renewal

This allows time for you to ascertain whether you will renew, refresh or delete the hardware concerned. Due to this lead time, any amendments can usually be made without penalty. You can also consolidate all equipment to a single date and it is a simple task for us to delete and add equipment to the agreement as your hardware changes.

You can also put other vendor hardware under an IBM maintenance agreement

For example, you can consolidate your IBM, Sun, HP or whatever hardware onto your existing IBM agreement. This means that all of your hardware can be renewed through one port of call and covered in a single agreement.

You will find all of this is available from a single 1800 number (that’s 1800 777 111), and your own personal single point of contact who knows and understands your maintenance requirements. How SIMPLE is that?

However in the past few years the concept of Logical Partitioning has made a resurgence. The benefits to users are many, including:

• Reduces floor area, reducing real estate usage
• Ability to share resources therefore reducing costs
• Attractive Presentation
• Fewer cables therefore fewer potential faults and costs
• Multiple Environments and Operating Systems in one Frame

We recently built and setup a System i Power 6 machine with 5 Partitions, 4 CPUs (22,000 CPW) and more than 5 TB of disk requiring RAID and Mirroring for a client of ours in PNG. This also included installation of OS400 V5R4M5, licenced products, and PTFs to all 5 partitions. Our engineer Richard, disassembled the system, so it could be sent to Papua New Guinea, where he met up with it again and rebuilt it.

It was HUGE as far as projects go, but it went without any problems because everything was done right, by the right people. It was literally a matter of Richard reassembling and powering on the server when he arrived in PNG. In fact the System and all 5 Partitions were up and running in the customer’s computer room on the first day!

As with any equipment supplied by us it must pass all diagnostics and performance benchmarks. In PNG it was no different, in fact Richard was required to run diagnostics to all the storage down to individual blocks on the disks, and like I said, not one hitch!

It all went smoothly, but NOT because it was easy. As anyone who has sent nearly two tonnes of IT equipment in three international shipping crates overseas will tell you it isn’t easy, but our production team here has decades of experience, a genuine enthusiasm about what we do and the quality of what you receive from us.

If you are planning on any services work please contact your rep to discuss whether Computer Merchants can do it for you. Some of what we can do on-site is:

• LPARs setup and implementation
• Installation of new equipment
• Operating System installation
• System migrations and upgrades
• *noMAX installations
• Equipment re-locations

Having the right cables shipped with your order is an obsession for us. I think we’d all agree it’s the difference between a hassle free customer experience and a headache. That’s why at Computer Merchants, it’s a point of pride that we guarantee your product arrives with the correct cables.

The process we use is simple but sound.

We have an internal check list that must be signed off by the production team and the sales rep to ensure your order is comprehensive, and has all the correct cables that are required. In some instances a server or other item (such as a tape drive) is requested to ship out by itself. Well, we won’t let it go out without questioning the sales rep first that the customer has all the required cabling!

And we’re not talking about just any cables either. All of our cables are 100% guaranteed genuine cables, which are additionally guaranteed for maintenance. The bottom line is this: we only ship genuine cables – unmarked cables are discarded.

We even try to identify the exact length of cable suited to each customer.

For example, if you need a 10m cable, we’ll try to send you a 10m cable! Not two 5m cables with a mid-way adapter or a 30m cable.

Did you know that before your goods leave us, they are:

• Checked via our final quality control checklist (this covers technical, sales and warehouse quality control)
• Signed off by an engineer
• Packed correctly
• Signed off by sales staff

If you have any queries or comments about cables, please call Matt Neilson in Production on 1800 777 111

But at Computer Merchants, we work with a great team at a company called ComActivity. These guys can upgrade your legacy system without touching the old software code.

They use the old system as the base and add a modern software platform on top, providing a new solution at a much lower cost and with less risk than a completely new replacement product. This process can transform your legacy system to make it easy to use, and provide the flexibility you need to match changing business requirements.

Best of all, they can work with virtually any legacy application, irrespective of the platform!

Over time, with changes to the business, legacy systems can move further away from business requirements.

Yours may have reached a point where the technology cannot deliver the type of flexibility and ease of use you need today. Your legacy software may meet most of your business needs, but these issues may make you consider upgrading:

• Is your system not very easy to use or learn?
• Too many fields and screen panels that are redundant make entering information difficult?
• It is expensive to modify to meet new requirements
• It’s not web enabled
• Do you need to enter information in multiple systems?
• There is no workflow management in the system
• It’s hard to integrate with other systems

ComActivity is all about modernizing and improving existing enterprise software, through a Web based user interface, to make it more streamlined and more functional. The result is software that is simple to use and change as your business changes - not complex or inflexible!

To a user, the interface is the application!

ComActivity can:

• implement a modern web-based user interface over old applications, providing the users with only the information they need to do their job
• combine information from various sources in a single screen
• align the application flow to match the business process

If you’d like to know more, get in touch with your Computer Merchants rep, and we’ll put you in touch with the right people at ComActivity.