XOR Professional Services

XOR named in 2012 Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50

admin — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 08:48:41 +0000

XOR Professional Services Ranked Number 17 Fastest Growing Technology Company in the UK in the 2012 Deloitte Technology Fast 50

XOR attributes its 1196 Percent Revenue Growth to the quality of specialist technical services it delivers and the need for services in the reseller channel

Watford, UK 9^th November 2012 — XOR Professional Services today announced that it ranked Number 17 in the 2012 Deloitte Technology Fast 50, a ranking of the 50 fastest-growing technology companies in the UK. Rankings are based on percentage revenue growth over five years. XOR grew 1196 percent during this period.

XOR’s Managing Director, Premkumar Subramanian, credits the company’s quality of specialist technical services and the increasing need for services in the UK reseller channel with the company’s 1196% revenue growth over the past five years. He said, “Our ability to assist our partners grow their business in a tough economic climate, coupled with the exceptional quality in our services has helped us achieve this phenomenal growth. We work passionately every single day to help us partners succeed which has in-turn helped with our own success.”

“Our success also demonstrates a growing need for independent services in the reseller channel. We intend to continue this aggressive growth over next three years”

David Halstead, Partner leading the Deloitte Technology Fast 50, said: “The Deloitte Technology Fast 50 gives great profile to technology companies and is internationally recognised as being one of the most important business awards in the sector”

“Achieving sustained revenue growth of 1196 over five years is a tremendous accomplishment “XOR’s exceptional growth puts it in select company.”

The full list of this year’s winners and winner breakdown by region and sector is available at www.fast50.co.uk

Notes to editors

* Growth rates are all over the last five years.

About XOR Professional Services

XOR Professional services is a recognized leader in IT services for the UK reseller channel. Established in 2004, XOR is a trusted partner for key industry vendors, resellers, systems integrators and distributors. XOR’s offer a range of services including consultancy, integration, support, application readiness and on-site services covering a wide range of vendor technologies.

For more information please visit www.xorps.com

About Deloitte:

In this press release references to Deloitte are references to Deloitte LLP, which is among the country’s leading professional services firms.

Deloitte LLP is the United Kingdom member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”), a UK private company limited by guarantee, whose member firms are legally separate and independent entities. Please see www.deloitte.co.uk/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of DTTL and its member firms.

The information contained in this press release is correct at the time of going to press.

For more information, please visit www.deloitte.co.uk. Member of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited

UK Deloitte Technology Fast 50

The UK Deloitte Technology Fast 50 ranks the 50 fastest-growing technology companies in the UK, based on percentage growth in stated revenue over five years. The programme is sponsored by Taylor Wessing, a leading International law firm with a focus on the industries of tomorrow, and Fidelity Growth Partners Europe, a venture and growth capital investor which backs technology entrepreneurs with aspirations for greatness across Europe. Frequently asked questions and details of the winning companies, including breakdowns by industry sector and region, will be available on www.fast50.co.uk

If you are a reseller, why and how you must differentiate!!

admin — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 10:25:30 +0000

I have had some very interesting conversations with partners off late and it looks to be a challenging time in the channel these days if you are a reseller. That’s doesn’t mean it’s all doom and gloom, but I believe there are challenges.

As a reseller big or small, one coherent message I get from most partners is ‘help me differentiate’. This I believe is happening primarily due to two factors. One, most IT hardware has become commodity these days. Sell server, storage of whatever tin you like there is increasing competition and reduced margins. The other factor is the consolidation/convergence of IT infrastructure in general. A large number of customers have consolidated their infrastructure platforms, which means there is no longer the same amount of server, storage, networking procured through the channel as it was 2 years back. Customers are just upgrading to newer hardware and newer storage with their incumbent supplier more often! In general this is also reflected by the increasing amount of opportunities we have started to see in the channel in the end-user computing space (VDI, Windows 7 etc.) as opposed to datacentre and core infrastructure.

Having said this, there does seem to be a lot of activity in the infrastructure space with managed service, hosting and cloud providers. We see lots of new projects with many end-users migrating to this model. One cannot argue the fact the push around cloud is assisting with a lot of consolidation in this space.

So back to my first point, differentiation seems to be the only way resellers can continue to win new customers and increase margins. Offering something unique that will add significant value to a customer above and beyond what they already have; Something that is not commodity and not available from tons of other IT suppliers.

So how do you address this, if you are reseller?! Now, this is not about getting back to the drawing board and making massive changes. I suggest making some simple changes that might help you differentiate. My first suggestion is to pick one or two verticals to go to market. If you are broad liner, I already hear you shouting “no way”. My suggestion is not to ignore other verticals but to pick a couple of verticals to specialise and focus on. Look at your existing customer and there should be a few that would fit into one two verticals. The next step is to formulate a proposition that addresses pains and needs in this vertical. For example, if you choose the legal sector one of their pains could be how efficiently they manage and their documents. Leading with a solution that addresses this problem will help you differentiate. If you need assistance with this bit, pick up the phone and we would be more than pleased to assist!

With differentiation comes the ability to specialise and replicate any success you have more efficiently! Speak to your vendor partners on what assistance they might offer and what experiences they have in your chosen vertical. Speak to your existing customers to understand the issues in their sector better and if your chosen proposition to differentiate is something they feel appropriate.

Good luck with differentiating yourself and please do share your thoughts and comments!

-Premkumar Subramanian, Director

P.S: Views expressed in this blog are my personal views and do not represent the views of XOR professional services limited.

XOR ‘IT Employer of the year’ finalist at UK IT Industry Awards 2012

admin — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 10:23:11 +0000

XOR Professional Services, the leading provider of IT consultancy, integration and support services based in Watford, Hertfordshire today announces it has been shortlisted as a finalist for IT Employer of the year category at the 2012 BCS & Computing UK IT Industry awards.

XOR’s submission mentioned how its management team have worked towards generating a positive, dynamic working environment that supports learning and professional development. It also highlighted the excellent staff retention rate XOR enjoys and the rapid progression of its employees in their careers.

Premkumar Subramanian, Managing Director at XOR said “We are delighted to be named as finalist at the UK IT Industry awards. This recognizes XOR’s continued growth and success in UK reseller channel and our focus on delivering best of breed services to our partners through the investments in our employees”

Stuart Sumner, Editor of Computing comments: “I would like to congratulate the finalists. The UK IT Industry Award are rigorously judged and to be announced as a finalist is a great achievement”

The UK IT Awards are sponsored by Computing and BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. The winners will be named at a gala event in London on November 14 2012. For more information, visit www.ukitindustryawards.co.uk

XOR LAUNCHES APPLICATION READINESS SERVICES TO CHANNEL

admin — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:43:00 +0000

XOR LAUNCHES APPLICATION READINESS SERVICES TO CHANNEL

June 13, 2012

XOR, the leading independent channel services organisation in the UK, today announces the launch of an Innovative, new Application Readiness Service as a further extension of its services portfolio.

XOR specializes in Desktop Transformation and VDI and already offers pre-sales, architecture and consultancy support through channel partners to assist them win and deliver opportunities seamlessly. XOR has now enhanced these offerings with the ‘Application Readiness Service’ which dramatically simplifies the way Desktop Transformation and VDI services are delivered to customers.

This service provides a comprehensive capability to discover, evaluate, analyse and prepare (package) applications for deployment as part of a Desktop Transformation or VDI project. It addresses the challenges of modifying an application environment when incorporating new technologies, new operating systems, and new capabilities, as well as the maintenance, disposition and rationalization of existing applications in an enterprise.

The new service will allow channel partners to deliver Desktop Transformation and VDI projects seamlessly, at a much-reduced cost and reduces the risks associated with a manual model.

Commenting on the new service, Premkumar Subramanian, Managing Director at XOR explains: “We constantly listen to feedback from our partners about areas where they need enhanced support and assistance and application readiness has been one of them. We are confident that this new service will greatly benefit our partners”

Ian French, Non-Executive Director at XOR agrees: “Our ability to innovate and deliver new services is key to the success of our partners. This new service not only enhances our capability as a channel services partner but will significantly strengthen our partners’ abilities to win business and will allow them to add more value to their customers”

Along with Desktop Transformation, VDI and Application Readiness Services, XOR offers a range of services on technologies including data storage, server virtualisation, specialist Microsoft software, Networking and Security.

More information is available at www.xorps.com

Contact Information: Tricia Staunton | tricia.staunton@xorps.com | 0203 589 4555

NetApp FAS32xx Critical Battery Firmware Update

admin — Mon, 28 May 2012 12:03:26 +0000

NetApp has identified an issue in FAS/V32XX and SA320 that can lead to a low battery capacity (charge) condition. This is caused by an FC-MTO error condition of the battery, resulting in the battery not being charged as expected. The system issues a low-level warning if the battery capacity drains to 80 hours runtime. If no action is taken and the battery continues to drain to a critical low level of 72 hours runtime, the system initiates a 24-hour shut-down sequence as a protective measure to safeguard NVMEM.

This has affected one of our customers already and triggered a shutdown of the controller. Fortunately, the system was a HA Clustered pair and only affected one controller, so a takeover was initiated and services were not impacted.

NetApp has posted the new battery firmware on the NetApp Support site for immediate update of systems. Detailed instructions are provided in KB article 2016592.

For systems with a Service Processor that cannot connect to an internal Web server, the new battery firmware is bundled with Service Processor firmware package revision 1.3, which NetApp anticipates releasing in May 2012.

Support Bulletin:

Click here

BUG Detail:

Click here

KB Article:

Click here

Please do not hesitate to contact XOR if you need any assistance.

EMC Announce VSPEX

admin — Mon, 28 May 2012 11:45:37 +0000

EMC announced the VSPEX recently and there’s been a lot of buzz about it in the Storage community.

What is VSPEX?

EMC have collaborated with some of their technology partners and announced a new offering, a pre-configured and pre-integrated infrastructure stack.

They have produced a set of reference architectures based on best of breed components from leading vendors including Microsoft, VMware, Citrix, Brocade and Cisco, providing the Server, networking and Virtualisation elements of the stack, and EMC VNX, VNXe, Avamar and DataDomain satisfying the storage and backup functions.

The EMC website currently contains 10 different reference architecture offerings for the VSPEX but these are variations on 3 main solutions:

VSPEX End User Computing Solution with XenDesktop and vSphere 5 for varying number of Virtual desktops
VSPEX Server Virtualisation Solution with HyperV for varying number of Virtual Servers
VSPEX Server Virtualisation Solution with vSphere 5 for varying number of Virtual Servers

These documents are available to download from EMC’s Powerlink site for registered users only.

Its early days and there is no doubt more documents will follow soon. There is even the option for Partners to ‘develop’ their own reference architecture and validate this against EMC’s VSPEX labs.

Isn’t that what the Channel has been doing anyway?

The channel has always provided solutions from best of breed technologies from market leading vendors, produced detailed technical designs and ratified these against all of the respective support matrices to compose a valid supported stack. The reference architectures simplify this process somewhat by pre-qualifying the arrangement and can be an attractive proposition to channel partners to simplify the pre sales process and get solutions out of the door quickly. No doubt cost will have an impact, but if EMC price this correctly, there’s no reason why the Channel won’t favour these offerings.

EMC have said they are committed to working with partners to provide a virtual infrastructure that can be delivered quickly, easily, efficiently and with low risk. They have created marketing programs, access to VSPEX Labs for solution validations and allow them to add value by deploying the applications on these stacks.
How does it differ from the FlexPod and vBlock?

Prior to the official announcement there was a lot of talk about EMC competing against itself pitting the VSPEX against the vBlock (they are a majority shareholder in VCE, the company that produces the vBlock converged solution).

The vBlock has a small number of offerings but it’s based on true converged infrastructure with single point of management and support, and is based on EMC storage, Cisco networking and servers and VMware virtualisation platform.

EMC argue that there is room in the market to provide a pre-configured converged stack offering more flexibility, with the ability to select vendors that suit the customer or channel partner in each of the layers (except storage of course).

NetApp’s FlexPod offering is based on reference architecture also, and has been since its introduction. It offers some level of flexibility within its stack, but namely at the virtualisation layer where it support Microsoft, Citrix and VMware. The VSPEX goes one step further and it differs from the competition by offering choice at the different layers of the stack.

A VSPEX solution can consist of Virtualisation products from any of the 3 main providers Microsoft, Citrix and VMware, Networking from Brocade or Cisco and Server products from HP, Dell, Cisco or IBM. Storage is the only layer that has offerings from only one vendor…but then again that was expected.

Not restricting choice is good because it means a customer is not forced to adopt a new vendor, especially if they have good history with another for server products for example.
What about Management Software?
Whilst the vBlock has UIM as a single point of management, there is no mention of a single point of management for the VSPEX, which leaves the door open to the channel to decide which product to use. With offerings from Gale Technologies and Cloupia for the FlexPod, it would be interesting to see which announces validated support for the VSPEX first.
How can XOR help?

XOR possess skills in all of the layers within a VSPEX stack.
Across our Storage, Virtualisation, Microsoft and Networking Practices we have certified consultants in all of the technologies that form a VSPEX offering, with many years of experience in designing, implementing and supporting these technologies for our Channel partners.

XOR can enable our partners to quickly adopt VSPEX and deliver these solutions, and can assist at every level of the engagement from presales and deployment to support.

- Amirul Islam, Storage Practice Manager

Flash Pools – Technical Summary

admin — Mon, 28 May 2012 10:21:25 +0000

Flash Pool is the newest addition to the NetApp Virtual Storage Tier and will be available in ONTAP 8.1.1 7-Mode and Cluster Mode.

Summary below:

SSD and HDD can be combined to form a single aggregate.
Only one type of SSD and one type of HDD can be in a Flash pool. You can have SSD + SATA, or SSD + SAS, but NOT SAS + SATA.
SSD will be in a separate raid group to the HDD and must be same RAID type.
SSDs cannot be removed from the pool without destroying the aggregate, nor can they be reversed into a normal aggregate.
Flash Pools are only 64bit aggregates. Cannot create or convert from a 32bit aggregate. If you convert a 32bit aggregate to 64bit, then it can become a Flash Pool.
A new aggregate option hybrid_enable allows the conversion (7 -mode)
storage -aggregate -modify is used to set a -hybrid_enabled true option. (Cluster Mode)
Read and Write caching can be modified for different workloads at a volume level using priority hybrid-cache command. FlexShare is also supported.
An existing SSD aggregate cannot be converted into a Flash Pool.
The SSDs do not add any usable capacity to the aggregate, it is used for read and write caching only.
You can mix SSD and SATA on the same DS4243 disk shelf, but you cannot mix SSD and SAS in the same disk shelf.
ONTAP uses TRIM and native wear levelling and garbage collection mechanisms on the drive.
Data is maintained in SSD based on usage. You cannot specify or pin data to the SSDs.
Deduplication and Compression are supported in a Flash Pool.
Flash Pools are not supported on the FAS2040.
sysstat -d will break down the SSD and HDD activity for performance analysis.
Flash Pools do not support SnapLock.
Flash Cache and Flash Pools are supported on the same system, but the FlashCache will cache data for all non-Flash Pool aggregates. Flash Cache ignores volumes and data in Flash pools. There are limits on a system basis to the total amount of FlashCache and Flash pools when combined.

Flash Pools are recommended for:

Effective at read caching random reads
Offloading random writes from disk
Thus any application that presents random reads and writes as a large part of its workload

Flash Pools are not recommended for:

Pure SATA aggregates that satisfy their performance requirement
If an application uses a very large read or write working set (not cacheable workload)
If the application is completely sequential read or writes.

-Amirul Islam, Storage Practice Manager

NetApp ONTAP 8.1 – New Features

admin — Mon, 28 May 2012 08:27:05 +0000

After being Release Candidate for a while now, NetApp have now released version 8.1 of the ONTAP Operating System as General Availability.

It’s a feature release that includes all of the functionality available in the ONTAP 7.x release family, as well as additional features.

NetApp strongly recommend upgrading to this version from 7.x and 8.0.x versions.

Below is a summary of the new and changed features in ONTAP 8.1:

Support for SAS tape drives.
Support for FAS2240 platform.
Support for ATTO FibreBridge 6500N - FibreChannel to SAS bridge that allows SAS disk shelves in MetroCluster configurations.
Cache rewarming for FlashCache modules – System is able to read data from cache after power up. rather than go through the entire (slower) warming up process.
Improvements to Reallocation Scans – relevent to deduped volumes.
Newly created aggregates are 64 bit by default. New systems are shipped with root volume in a 64 bit aggregate.
Setup for root account password during initial setup using secure password rules (minimum 8 characters, at least one number, at least 2 alphabetic characters).
Diag Account - A diagnostic account, named “diag,” is provided with the storage system running Data ONTAP 8.0 or later. IUse the diag account to perform troubleshooting tasks in the systemshell. The diag account and the systemshell are intended only for low-level diagnostic purposes and should be used only with guidance from technical support.
The diag account is disabled by default. You must enable the account and set up its password before using it. Neither the diag account nor the systemshell is intended for general administrative purposes.
You no longer need to add license keys on your system for most features that are distributed free of cost.
32-bit to 64bit aggregate conversion - The ability to non-disruptively expand 32-bit aggregates to the 64-bit format, without requiring data to be copied or moved. More details in a separate post.
SnapMirror replication between 32bit and 64 bit Aggregates - For both synchronous and asynchronous volume replication, the SnapMirror source and destination volumes can be either 32-bit or 64-bit.
MetroCluster supports shared-switches configuration. In a shared-switches configuration, two fabric-attached MetroClusters share the same four switches and the ISLs between them.
Support for SFTP, SMB 2.0 and FTPS.
Storage Encryption - allows you to protect your data at rest by automatically encrypting all data written to disk. The feature is available on certain supported storage controllers and disk shelves that contain disks with built-in encryption functionality.
Datamotion for vFilers - online migration of vFiler units from one storage system to another without experiencing any disruption in data availability. You must be aware of the storage system models and disks that support online migration of vFiler units.
See separate post.
Interactive SSH sessions to vFilers.
Deduplication limits - no limit is imposed on the supported maximum volume size. The maximum volume size limit is determined by the type of storage system regardless of whether deduplication is enabled.
Data Compression - supported on SnapLock volumes and in stretch and fabric-attached MetroCluster configurations. For compression, no limit is imposed on the supported maximum volume size. The maximum volume size limit is determined by the type of storage system regardless of whether compression is enabled.

Features not available in Data ONTAP 8.1 7-Mode

Do NOT upgrade to 8.1 if you are running FAS3210 or FAS3140 with FlashCache. They are not supported and the issue is under investigation.

FilerView is no longer available on systems running Data ONTAP 8.1 or later releases. You can use System Manager as a Web-based graphical management interface to manage common storage system functions from a Web browser.
Netboot is not a supported function, unless you are restoring the Data ONTAP image on the boot device, such as a PC CompactFlash card.
NetApp Snap Validator for Oracle
DS14mk2 disk shelves with ESH2 storage I/O modules are no longer supported. If even one of these devices is attached to your storage system, do not upgrade to Data ONTAP 8.1 or later until after you replace the devices. Upgrading a system with these devices attached to it results in an unsupported system configuration and shelf configuration errors.
2Gb FC target Ports. Data ONTAP 8.1 does not support the onboard 2-Gb Fibre Channel ports in 6030 or 6070 systems as targets. The onboard 2-Gb Fibre Channel ports can still be used as initiators.

For more information, please refer to the ONTAP 8.1 release notes.

Contact XOR if you need any assistance with planning or performing an upgrade.

IBM Storwize V7000 reboots automatically!!!

admin — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:37:07 +0000

I was wandering around IBM Flash Alert page and came across a bug which I believe will affect most customers who have implemented IBM Storwize V7000 storage system. The alert says “V6.2.0.x, V6.3.0.x and V1.3.0.x Node or Node Canisters Will Automatically Reboot After 208 Days of Uninterrupted Uptime!!!!”.

If you have customer with IBM Storwize V7000 that you have sold recently, please make your customers aware! The only way to avoid this is a firmware upgrade.

More details about this alert can be found here

-Suman Ramesh Babu, Storage practice manager, XOR

IBM announce V7000u unified storage

admin — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:37:47 +0000

After working for XOR for many years as a storage consultant, IBM have always intrigued me with storage technology innovations. After having worked with IBM V7000 technologies for some time now, I have been impressed with its simplicity, features and excellent block performance.

Recent, IBM have announced V7000u which is a unified solution offering from IBM which is an upgrade to their very successful V7000 range. Its a product which has been built with two IBM storage components,

1. SONAS – which is a NAS head

2. V7000 – Provides the block storage.

Even in the V7000u model, V7000 is the most important component which will provide the block access to the NAS head. Customers who have an existing V7000 can upgrade their storage to the unified model. Quoting IBM… “This is intended to complement IBM’s existing NAS products, the SONAS for enterprise installations and the IBM N-Series which is still the recommended product for pure file workloads” which I suspect will change once V7000u gets established in the market. Now let me jot down the advantages and disadvantages of the V7000u:

I see the following advantages;

1. It is a unified block and file (SAN and NAS) storage system. This should allow IBM to compete in the unified storage space.

2. The system can be upgraded from existing Storwize V7000 systems allowing customers to seamlessly upgrade to a unified storage solution.

3. I like the simplified GUI which is fully integrated user interface for block and file data simplifies management.

4. One can now replicate between Storwize V7000 and almost any storage systems.

6. Storwize V7000 remote mirror now supports replication to/from IBM SAN Volume Controller systems.

7. Support for NFS/CIFS/FTP/HTTPS/SCP file protocols in addition to existing block functions (FCP and iSCSI).

8. File replication and file level snapshots for business continuity and disaster recovery in addition to existing block functions.

10. Easy Tier, which is IBM’s storage auto-tiering solutions now works seamlessly.

11. Built-in IBM Tivoli Storage Manager client simplifies backup to TSM server.

However I do see the following, which can be improved;

1. There is no storage de-duplication (which I am sure will change in future).

2. There is no compression of data at the storage level today

3. N-Series Snap Manager Products are more robust and simple to use than the flash copy manager.

Finally, it looks like IBM may have a good NAS product in their hands!!!

- Suman Ramesh Babu, Storage Practice Manager