Aruba scores a 6/6!

For 15 years, Convergent Technologies Group has been delivering effective IT solutions and strategies that help transform companies and move businesses forward. We give the same care and attention to every client, whether you are a small business, or a Fortune 500. CTG works with various partners to provide the perfect solutions for your business, Aruba being one of them.

In addition to being a Leader in the 2020 Gartner Report: Magic Quadrant for the Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure, Aruba is thrilled to be recognized as having the highest scores in 6 out of 6 use cases in the 2020 Gartner Critical Capabilities for Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure Report.

  

An AI-driven enterprise embraces experience as the new uptime. It’s about leveraging tools, interfaces and data to reduce reliance on manual actions, as the future becomes more focused on operations.

 

From configuring and deploying your network, to monitoring and controlling it, Aruba solutions simplify your life and bring you a step closer to realizing the benefits of a secure and automated multi-cloud enterprise to drive powerful business outcomes for years to come.

See why Gartner has scored HPE (Aruba) highest in all 6 Critical Capabilities use cases and why we believe this shows the depth of Aruba's end-to-end portfolio.

 

Read the Gartner Critical Capabilities Report

Read the Gartner Magic Quadrant Report

 

We would love to discuss Aruba with you further! 

 

HPE Discover 2018 Recap

Dalton Gormus

Last month, I attended HPE Discover 2018 in Las Vegas, NV. This was my first time in Sin City and I was transported to a whole other world. When I stepped into the Transformation Zone in the Sands Expo, I felt like I was Alice in Wonderland, completely lost but entirely intrigued. You could find everything from Lego displays to the Hack Shack. HPE Discover was a 3-day event that featured various speakers from all over the world discussing topics ranging from Blockchain to Intelligent System Tuning (IST).

The first large session I attended was, Achieving IT Agility in Mobile, IoT and Cloud with Aruba, presented by Janice Le, Aruba Networks Chief Marketer and Parth Narasimhan, Aruba, CTO. Le began the session with introducing the idea that many industries are heading into an experience economy, we are no longer buying just a good or a service, we are buying an experience. The Intelligent Edge is the experience economy we are seeing in IT, it is where smart meets digital. Aruba Networks has recently partnered with major companies like CBRE and HermanMiller Furniture to create smart and digital workplaces to make you workspace feel like home, and this is only the beginning for Aruba. CBRE is using Aruba to create smart buildings for design and IoT sensors. HermanMiller is taking their office furniture to the next level with connected desks that adjust to your height and chairs that know when you are getting up to use the restroom or if you are leaving for the evening. Narasimhan later stepped out on stage to discuss Aruba Introspect, a sensor that is used in the network to alert engineers if there is any suspicious activity going on whether it is inside or outside the company. Introspect was noted by one of our own engineers as an IT trend to keep an eye on within the next year, it is something that many companies are going to want in their tool box.

GenZ Lego Display

The General Session was the most awaited session of the week presented by Antonio Neri, HPE President and CEO. Neri addressed the digital transformation we are experiencing and the three biggest factors that HPE will be tackling during the transformation. Much like what Le was discussing with an experience economy, HPE will be focusing on transformative technology, people and economics. And to enhance this transformation the products that HPE wants to focus on are, HPE OneView, a software-defined infrastructure that eliminates the complex manual processes and increases the speed and flexibility of storage. And, Infosight, which was discussed by Aruba Networks in the previous session is another product HPE will be focusing on; currently only available for 3PAR and Nimble, but soon it will be available for all HPE products. This transformation will be vital for HPE and how companies operate, Neri said, “our purpose is to advance how we live and work”. The way we can advance and transform all of this, is to live in the intelligent edge, the “future-edge” where we interact with customers. Neri announced that HPE will be investing $4 billion into the Intelligent Edge over the next four years, only to further enhance opportunities for businesses. Following that announcement, Neri brought out Ford Motors CIO, Jeff Lemmer. The two sat on stage and discussed the strong partnership between the companies and how they will continue due to the speed and innovation HPE has shown Ford. The General Session also touched on HPE Greenlake FlexCapacity. Greenlake was featured throughout the week with displays in the Social Media forum and various sessions and booths. It is a pay-for only what you use infrastructure capacity that essentially will never run out. Pat O’Conner from Business Alliances ONX came on stage to discuss the steps to take in order to make Greenlake a part of client’s infrastructure. It is flexible, because you should never run out of the IT resources when using, it is easier for customers to engage with and it will cut down contracts exchanged by a few pages.

HPE Greenlake display

HPE made it a point to mix education and entertainment equally, which made you feel like you were not working all day. The week ended with relaxed networking and a performance by pop-rock band OneRepublic. Discover was incredibly informative, and I am grateful I was able to attend this large HPE event after only being a member of the CTG team for a few months. The biggest piece of information I took from this event was that HPE is moving in a direction that will make things simple and unified to create a better experience for partners and customers. With products like Greenlake, picking and choosing what you want rather than having it all are becoming more popular and are designed to help you save and have stronger structures.

If you are and IT professional and interested in learning more about some of these products and our services, please reach out or register for one of our events to speak with HPE and CTG experts!

Jeff Garell Selected into HPE’s Worldwide Partner Ambassador Program

The Worldwide Partner Ambassador Program for Solution Architects brings together the top Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) product and solution engineers and executives, with top Solution Architects from our HPE partners. The benefits of the Partner Ambassador program for Solution Architects for both HPE and the Partners is to deepen the relationship to foster better collaboration and communication and to influence future technology direction at HPE.

The Ambassador program allows selected partners:

• Participation, in monthly Partner Ambassador calls hosted by technical experts
• Enhanced access to information
• Participation in a virtual Partner Ambassador Community with HPE business units and HPE Solution Architects to ask questions, provide feedback and share experiences
• Opportunities to meet directly with HPE Business Unit Executives, Lab Engineers, and HPE Ambassadors at the annual Worldwide Partner Ambassador Summit

Congratulations Jeff!

A New Compute Experience: An Exploration of HPE’s Gen10 Servers

By Rod Knowles

Is your business finding it difficult to adapt to industry and marketplace shifts, analyzing the customer experience and/or innovating products and services rapidly?  If so, then you’re probably not thinking about, or have a plan in place for your digital transformation.  In today’s economy, digital transformation is the key to a businesses success and remaining ahead of the competition.  Through 4 key transformation areas:  Protecting the digital enterprise, Empowering the data-driven organization, Enabling workplace productivity and Transforming to a hybrid infrastructure, companies can increase profits, agility, flexibility, employee productivity and the customer experience while reducing costs and risk.  For businesses to thrive and easily adapt to their digital transformation, they need a computing environment that will deliver a Hybrid IT infrastructure providing agility, security and economic control.  HPE’s new Gen10 server line accomplishes just that.  Automation, optimized performance of workloads, secure compute lifecycle and flexible capacity are just a few of the benefits your company can gain from switching to an HPE Gen10 server.  In the next few sections, I will break down the benefits on the Gen10 line as its related to agility, security, and economic control.

Obtaining a more agile infrastructure

Manual IT operation processes can be slow and error-prone.  With the new iLO5, being introduced in all Gen10 servers, you will be able to accelerate maintenance tasks, at scale, with automated scheduling and rollback.  iLO5’s RESTful API helps automate and operate server components in all Gen10 servers from staging and updating the server BIOS, iLO, Secure Boot and TPM.  With iLO5’s intelligent provisioning, IT departments can perform initial setup tasks 22% faster than with previous versions of IP on Gen9 servers. Gen10's new Intelligent Systems Tuning can harness the power of the next generation of Intel Xeon processors and balance workloads which allows you to run more workloads on more cores, up to 28 on Intel's New Xeon Platinum processors, resulting in reduced licensing costs and more power/cooling efficiency. Couple that with HPEs new NVDIMMs to utilize the fastest persistent memory available, while realizing the real-world benefits of memory backup power, OS & Application support, reduction of database licensing costs and the fastest tier of storage on HPE Servers.

Increasing security awareness and control

Gen10 security, a better way to stay one step ahead of increasingly sophisticated attacks and protect your business utilizing the world’s most secure industry standard servers. Let’s talk about that for one quick moment, “The World’s Most Secure Industry Standard Servers”.  As recently announced at HPE Discover 2017, HPE engaged InfusionPoints to conduct an independent assessment of the security of the Gen10 Server’s hardware and platform firmware against three of HPE’s competitors. The test consisted of attacks against physical interfaces, platform firmware, and network interfaces.  The results showed that HPE Gen10 servers are a significant step ahead of their competitors and that HPE’s introduction of silicon root of trust will set new standards in providing auditable control of the integrity of platform firmware.

The new Gen10 family of servers provides a host of security features:  firmware protection, run time attack detection, behavioral risk mitigation, data protection, compliance planning and End of Life disposal.  HPE’s new firmware protection is backed by HPE’s own silicon fingerprint unique to each and every server.  With HPE’s silicon root of trust, Gen10 servers WILL NOT boot unless the firmware matches the fingerprint and is protected through the entire supply chain: manufacturing, distribution, shipping, configuration, and installation. It’s locked and HPE is the only vendor who can do this.  When the server boots, millions of lines of firmware code run and verify before the operating system even boots.  Additionally, the firmware is checked every 24 hours verifying validity and credibility of UEFI, CPLD, iLO, IE and ME and reports any malware or compromised code.  Firmware can also be checked and validated on drives, NICs and other HPE server options containing firmware. When a detection of compromised firmware is discovered, the ability to send alerts and quickly recover to a good known state can be set to occur automatically or you can choose to take the compromised server offline.  The ability to recover other server settings can also be recovered as well as the future ability to recover operating systems. 

HPE’s Gen10 servers also offer advanced machine learning that identifies any malicious behavior.  Think of it like this:  The system endlessly trains itself and learns behavioral patterns.  It then analyses and identifies changes in these patterns that may relate to suspicious activity and informs you if there is a threat.  This advanced machine learning technology utilizing Niara’s behavioral analytics protects your organization from inside attacks.  Gen10 servers are protected from inception to their demise. When your server(s) are being disposed of, its embedded data cannot be reconstructed or accessed any longer, forever, utilizing enhanced data protection and encryption.

Managing Your Time and Money Productively

In addition to the Gen10’s server line agility and security features, Economic Control helps you control costs with over-provisioning, out-of-control public cloud costs and the pressures of transforming without the appropriate budget.  Utilizing HPE Flexible Capacity will help align your costs with monthly usage and requires no upfront payments.  Pay only for what you use and scale in minutes, not months.  If you're currently a legacy Gen9 server owner, there are several options for transitioning to a Gen10 server by utilizing one of HPE’s investment models for transforming from legacy IT to a hybrid IT model.

For more information on HPE Storage and Networking, please contact Convergent Technologies Group at 888-353-5307 or via our contact us page

 Rod Knowles is a solution architect with Convergent Technologies Group.

Executive Retreat at The Greenbrier to Focus on Continuity, Transformation

By Elizabeth Foster

“Continuity” and the willingness to “step and think outside of the box” are words that describe The Greenbrier, Convergent Technologies Group and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

In June, The Greenbrier – a historical legacy as one of America’s best resorts – and its community was tested as it faced massive flooding, the result of unprecedented levels of torrential rain. The national news showed images of homes, cars and other debris swept away in seemingly unstopping waves of water and mud. While the devastation destroyed much of the community, it didn’t stop the heart and resiliency of the community, which was buoyed by the reaction and support of The Greenbrier.

Even though this majestic, historical property was assessing severe damage across its property, the resort’s leaders opened its heart and its rooms to those who had lost everything. Two months later, many are still in the early stages of rebuilding their homes – and their lives.

Recognizing its role as a beacon in the community and a major employer in the region, The Greenbrier worked diligently to re-open its doors. In two months, Convergent Technologies Group will return again to The Greenbrier to host its annual Executive Retreat, partnering with HPE to discuss that latest in technology today – including resiliency when the unexpected might occur.

The background for the Oct. 21-23 is fitting. HPE is known for plowing through challenges, and today is recognized as a juggernaut for innovation and tried-and-tested technology. As a Platinum Partner, CTG shares those same values, refusing to settle for the status quo and pushing for next-generation solutions. At the same time, both companies have a history of empowering their people to be nimble, to be intuitive, to strive for excellence on a daily basis and to never settle for less than perfection.

For the Executive Retreat, technology leaders from Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia and North Carolina will be coming together with HPE’s Chief Business Strategist & Innovation Officer (aka Chief Creatologist) Joe Batista and CTG executives for open and frank discussions about today’s challenges. From digital transformation and the Internet of Things, from mobility issues to the need for hyper converged systems to handle virtual and storage environments, HPE and CTG together bring a new way of thinking and doing business. Collaboration is key but not the main factor for spurring on changes in technology. Executives are forced to do more with less with shrinking budgets and manpower, while still delivering business processes and continuity.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Batista’s keynote address will explore “The Pivoting Industry: What’s Your Next Move?”

Our CTG co-founders, John Monahan and Jeff Garell, have a united vision and focus for supporting their clients. They believe that executives who attend The Greenbrier Executive Retreat this year will expand their knowledge by learning key business best practices and how to maximize hyper converged environments to lower cost and down time – not to mention finite details on how to shrink and lower the cost of data footprint in the data center. And that’s just a few highlights.

We’ll be sharing more in the coming weeks about this Executive Retreat, which will featured rich discussions about technology and innovative thinking against the backdrop of historical elegance at The Greenbrier. Have you talked with us about saving a seat for you at this once-in-your-business-lifetime experience?

Elizabeth Foster is an inside sales representative at Convergent Technologies Group.

Learn How IT Can Fuel Creativity in Your Business

By John Monahan

Without question, IT solves a lot of problems in your business. Consider automation alone, which can deliver boost efficiency, save time and reduce risks – all enabled by smart investments in technology.

But that’s not enough in today’s idea marketplace. Because of that, IT becomes an even more powerful tool in differentiating your business.

We’re standing at a pivotal moment for CIOs, who traditionally were charged with delivering fundamental, always-on technology to run a business from day t0 day. Today, CIOs increasingly are finding a seat at the head of the table, where they now have a greater stake in the overall business strategy as technology becomes a differentiator. IT is the cornerstone for engagement with customers and among employees, for development of new products and services, for innovation in everything a business might dream.

In the past year, you’ve heard a lot from CTG about transformation, particularly as we build on our relationship with the new Hewlett Packard Enterprise. A primary reason for the division that created both HPE and HP Inc. last year was to allow HPE to develop the resources that businesses today need to accelerate growth and meet aggressive goals. As HPE puts it, we’re defying that comfortable “business as usual” and bursting into new opportunities.

At the end of February, CTG will host a weekend CIO Retreat, giving IT leaders from around the Mid-Atlantic unparalleled access to some of the top minds in the industry. At the heart of our half-day Feb. 27 program – “Clearing the Fog: Insight into Unlocking Business Value Enabled by a New Style of IT” – will be exploring how we rethink about the role and application of IT in today’s business.

The program will feature:

• "Setting the Scene", “Pivoting to HPE’s 4 Transformational Areas,” Brian Bark, HPE’s chief strategist and innovation officer, will lead with insight into the new style of business and IT, then will work his way into HPE's 4 Transformational Areas. This platform includes transforming to a hybrid infrastructure, protecting the digital enterprise, empowering the data-driven organization, and enabling workplace productivity. 

• “Connecting Your World with Intelligent Mobility,” Scott Herman, Aruba Networks, networking channel director.

• “Enabling Breach Detection and Securing Digital Interactions,” Perry Payne, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, former chief information security officer at The Washington Post.

• “2016 Threat Landscape,” John Davis, Palo Alto Networks, vice president and federal chief security officer.

•  “HPE Converged Systems,” Rich Holmes, HPE, software-defined storage specialist.

Any one of those limited-access discussions with some of the industry’s innovators would help you find innovative ways to leverage your technology. When you consider what you can gain from engaging with that entire slate of leaders, you almost can’t afford to miss this opportunity to be on the front row in a transformational journey.

Join us for the morning, or come for the entire weekend. We kick off on Friday with a trek into the city to see the Washington Capitals from our side-by-side executive suites. On Saturday, we’ll meet for dinner at Old Hickory Steakhouse. Your guest will be able to enjoy spa treatments, and you’ll both have an opportunity to explore the great shopping and entertainment offered at National Harbor.

We’re looking forward to engaging with you on this new style of IT – and we’re here to help make it happen at your business.

John Monahan is co-founder of CTG.

Learn How IT Can Fuel Creativity in Your Business

By John Monahan

Without question, IT solves a lot of problems in your business. Consider automation alone, which can deliver boost efficiency, save time and reduce risks – all enabled by smart investments in technology.

But that’s not enough in today’s idea marketplace. Because of that, IT becomes an even more powerful tool in differentiating your business.

We’re standing at a pivotal moment for CIOs, who traditionally were charged with delivering fundamental, always-on technology to run a business from day t0 day. Today, CIOs increasingly are finding a seat at the head of the table, where they now have a greater stake in the overall business strategy as technology becomes a differentiator. IT is the cornerstone for engagement with customers and among employees, for development of new products and services, for innovation in everything a business might dream.

In the past year, you’ve heard a lot from CTG about transformation, particularly as we build on our relationship with the new Hewlett Packard Enterprise. A primary reason for the division that created both HPE and HP Inc. last year was to allow HPE to develop the resources that businesses today need to accelerate growth and meet aggressive goals. As HPE puts it, we’re defying that comfortable “business as usual” and bursting into new opportunities.

On Saturday, Jan. 23, CTG will host a CIO Retreat, giving IT leaders from around the Mid-Atlantic unparalleled access to some of the top minds in the industry. At the heart of this half-day program – “Clearing the Fog: Insight into Unlocking Business Value Enabled by a New Style of IT” – will be exploring how we rethink about the role and application of IT in today’s business.

We’ll open the morning with comments from Joe Batista, HPE’s chief creatologist, whose role is about helping you discover, unlock and unleash the power of innovation. As an HPE Platinum Partner, CTG has been fortunate in hosting Joe at other CIO programs, and he always focuses on rethinking the intersection of IT and business. (You can learn more by reading an earlier blog post, where I wrote about Joe’s role in helping us advocate for change.

The program continues with:

·         “Pivoting to HPE’s 4 Transformational Areas,” Brian Bark, HPE’s chief strategist and innovation officer, will lead with Batista. That platform includes transforming to a hybrid infrastructure, protecting the digital enterprise, empowering the data-driven organization, and enabling workplace productivity.

·         “Connecting Your World with Intelligent Mobility,” Scott Herman, Aruba Networks, networking channel director.

·         “Enabling Breach Detection and Securing Digital Interactions,” Rob Aragao, HPE, chief information security officer.

·         “2016 Threat Landscape,” John Davis, Palo Alto Networks, vice president and federal chief security officer

·         “HPE Converged Systems,” Rich Holmes, HPE, software-defined storage specialist.

Any one of those limited-access discussions with some of the industry’s innovators would help you find innovative ways to leverage your technology. When you consider what you can gain from engaging with that entire slate of leaders, you almost can’t afford to miss this opportunity to be on the front row in a transformational journey.

Join us for the morning, or come for the entire weekend. We kick off on Friday with a trek into the city to see a Washington Capitals game. On Saturday, we’ll meet for dinner at Old Hickory Steakhouse. Your guest will be able to enjoy spa treatments, and you’ll both have an opportunity to explore the great shopping and entertainment offered at National Harbor.

We’re looking forward to engaging with you on this new style of IT – and we’re here to help make it happen at your business.

John Monahan is co-founder of CTG.

2016 Predictions or Trends

by Jeff Garell

I’ve never done a predictions post before – mainly because it’s really just guessing and the predictions are usually so obvious as to make them, well, not really predictions or they’re so out there that you it’ll require unicorns and rainbows to come true.

So as I start this, I have no idea how it will turn out. Hopefully interesting enough to keep your attention – many of these have been on prediction articles year after year. That’s mostly because these technologies or solutions are continuing to mature and gain adoption. I think we can consider this post more about trends than predictions.

Cloud adoption will continue to rise as Hewlett Packard exits the hosting market and competition heats up among Amazon (the 800-pound gorilla), Microsoft and Google. I think Microsoft has been doing all of the right things with Azure by adding support for Linux servers, and there is a future in docker-style container technologies. Microsoft’s offering has become very reliable and stable, and I believe that its experience in this arena has led to vast improvements in its most recent server operating systems. But Amazon is still the one to beat, given its long head start, continued improvements and new service offerings. The one knock I hear on Amazon is that it’s easy to get your stuff into an Amazon solution but moving back to premises-based is very difficult. This is the main reason HP (now HP Enterprise) bought Eucalyptus. We’ll continue to see businesses large and small move workloads into the cloud. Even more exciting to me is the hybrid cloud concept, where workloads can be moved from your on-premises infrastructure to the cloud and back.

Mobility and BYOD use will increase as more and more of our everyday thick applications become apps. This has an impact on security, accessibility, infrastructure and policy. Not necessarily in that order, but that’s unfortunately the order that things get considered, especially in the small to low-mid sized organizations. Do you have a mobile device/BYOD policy in place and the controls to enforce the policy? For example, do you allow your employees access to corporate information - even simply email - from their personal cell phone and how do respond when they lose that phone or simply go in for their upgrade replacement? Policies like enabling encryption, the ability to remotely wipe the device if it’s lost or stolen or the simple process of having someone wipe the corporate data (emails, documents, etc) when someone leaves your company. This will also drive the need to adopt a more robust and secure wireless infrastructure in order to support these addition wireless only devices.

Many of these trends are being driven more and more by the millennial workforce. These new entrants to the job market are more technically savvy (as users at least) than previous generations, and they’ve grown up not really knowing a time before the Internet. They generally don’t need end-user training on how to use a computer or search for information, which is certainly a positive trait. However, they have certain expectations on how things can/should operate. That convoluted home-grown Microsoft access application that you built in the 1990s probably won’t hold much interest and may generally drive them crazy. Prepare yourself for the requests that may drive you to adopt the previous two paragraphs trends.

Security will continue to be a problem, and there will still be no silver bullet. At least weekly, I read about someone’s lost/stolen laptop exposing personal data on thousands of customers/clients/patients. This is a policy problem. Most security issues are made possible by a policy problem. The first question you should be asking yourself is “What kind of data is my employees taking off the premises and why?” – and then you can develop policies and procedures (mixed with a little technology) to mitigate as much of the risk as possible. Some simple things can be done to protect your data that travels, such as either full-disk encryption or even encrypted “containers” that will hold your proprietary or personal information. In addition, there will continue to be breaches and denial-of-service attacks both large and small. I also expect the state-sponsored types of attacks to continue.

Converged and hyper-converged systems will increasingly become the preferred solution. For many applications and use cases, deploying these systems is the right answer. Easily deployed and expanded as well as being quite dense, they can offer a tremendous savings in rack space and power requirements. For example, HPE’s CS-250 has four servers (nodes) in a 2U footprint. Which can translate to 84 servers in one 42U rack – and these include the storage as well. In addition, it would make for a great Remote-Office/Branch-Office (ROBO) or retail location solution.

Well there ya go – that turned out a little better than I thought it would, given that it’s a predictionstrends post. In a shameless plug, I’d like to say that CTG stands ready and able to discuss or demonstrate all of these technologies and more. Just give us a call.

I hope you and your loved ones have a wonderful holiday and safe and happy new year!

Jeff Garell is co-founder of Convergent Technologies Group.

Celebrating CTG’s Milestones of 2015

By John Monahan

As we enter the final weeks of each calendar year, I always remind myself to take a moment and reflect on our successes. Our team at Convergent Technologies Group dedicated much hard work to delivering great solutions for our clients over the past 12 months, and it paid off in so many ways for our company.

Let me share some significant highlights of 2015:

• We celebrated our 10^thanniversary in November. We were brave souls when we opened up shop in Jeff’s basement down in the Fan a decade ago, but we had a great combination of IT expertise, market experience and passion to create our business. Yes, we put much effort in continuing to build our talent and refining our business model, and we know that some of that credit goes to our valued clients, who recognize that CTG is the right IT partner for them.

• We earned recognition as a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Premium Partner. This was the culmination of years of training and education, as our people mastered every component of HPE’s converged infrastructure portfolio. This elite designation demonstrates that we have a rare level of expertise, along with unprecedented access to the great minds at HPE. Even more important is that our people continue to delve into opportunities to earn more industry-leading certifications, because we are never satisfied with the status quo.

• We welcomed new customers. Each and every customer comes to us with a unique challenge or opportunity, and we develop the IT strategy that hits the mark today and will scale as that business grows. Each year, our proven experience and expertise has allowed us to attract market-leading companies with increasingly more complex IT questions. As we’ve faced tougher challenges, our team has crafted strong, inventive and meaningful solutions that are powering growth.

• We added new products and services to our portfolio. I doubt that any industry faces as much innovation as Information Technology, where something that might be only a dream at the first of the year can be a proven product by the end of the year. Our customers know that we remain committed to staying ahead and bringing new opportunities that will become competitive advantages for them. And we expanded our Solutions Lab, where clients can visit our office to see nearly every product in a configurable environment – so you can test out new technologies and make smart investments that work for you.

What makes me most proud is that we accomplished all that by working together as a team, and we have a solid foundation for continuing to make CTG a sought-after IT partner in the year ahead. We are doing a better job of telling the CTG story, with a greater social media presence, expanded blog posts and a revamped Web site that will launch in early 2016. All that effort is generating results that speak for themselves, as our company has once again delivered on our ambitious year-over-year goals.

As you reflect on your successes in 2015, all of us at Convergent Technologies Group wish you the warmest holiday greetings and a prosperous new year.

John Monahan is a co-founder of Convergent Technologies Group.

Our Employees Share How They’re Thankful

As we wish each and every one of you a Happy Thanksgiving, we wanted to share the many different reasons that our CTG team members are thankful this year:

Grace SunDance, administrative assistant:

“I am thankful for the amazing opportunity that Convergent Technologies Group has given me, and everything that they continue to give. I am also very thankful for my two compassionate, loving, and caring beagles, Odie and Cabella.”

Jeff Joyner, network architect:

“I'm thankful for my wonderful family and having a passion for my chosen vocation.”

Scott Haizlip, SMB account manager

 “I am thankful for my beautiful fiancé, Christi, our golden retriever, Ranger, and for all of the help and opportunities CTG has given me.”

Chastity Loving, purchasing manager

“I’m thankful for my two children and for loving everything in and about my life.”

Alexandra Suder, marketing director:

“I’m thankful for my mother and father, my two sisters, Julz and Camille, my brother-in-law, Tom, and my boyfriend, Kevin. I am so thankful for our pets, Maverick and Malo, and for each and every one of my guardian angels (furry or not) watching and protecting me. I am so thankful for CTG and for the intelligent and amazing people I work with. I’m thankful for being excited to go to work every day and for loving my job. I’m thankful for all of my friends and family – close or far, new, old or rekindled – because their positivity, support, generosity and kindness has shaped me and helped me discover who I am, which has allowed me to better myself.”

Brandon Samuel, assistant manager:

“I’m thankful for the growth and relationships that I have built while at CTG, as well as the flexibility and personal understanding that CTG provides.”

John Monahan, co-founder:

“I am thankful for my staff, and all their hard work. I am thankful for the year that CTG has had and our accomplishments. I am thankful for my family!”

Jeff Garell, co-founder:

“I'm thankful for the many opportunities I have been afforded in my life and those that gave them to me.

“I'm thankful to be living in a country that offers the ability to take your life in any direction and to any height (or depth) you choose.

“I'm thankful for the generations and generations of brave men and women who have given us the ability to make those choices.

“I'm thankful for the rights that give everyone the voice to say what they want and for me to choose whether to agree or not.

“I'm thankful for everyone I've ever worked with and the examples, good or bad, I've witnessed and learned from.

“I'm enormously thankful to have two beautiful, intelligent and caring daughters that have changed my life so dramatically for the better. They have plumbed the depths of my heart further than I ever thought possible.

“And most importantly, I'm thankful for my wife without whom I would be a much lesser man.  Who showed me that the third time really is the charm.”

Major Deals, Splits Will Transform IT Industry

By Brandon Samuel

Anyone who has been reading our blog posts or following CTG on social media channels knows by now that Nov. 1 will mark the end of one era and the beginning of a new one for HP. While the news will usher in a new era in technology, it has not been the most impactful news of this month – at least not in the eyes of the end user.

Last week, Dell announced its purchase of EMC, after reaching a $67 billion agreement. In this most expensive technology purchase in history, two giants in the IT world are coming together at a time when our industry as a whole is in the midst of a major shift. As with any big news in my industry, I spent much time after hearing the news going over the pros and cons of the deal, with hopes of better understanding how it would affect my goals of making Convergent Technologies Group and HP the platinum standard in manufacturer/reseller relationships.

When I meet with clients who use Dell products within their infrastructure, I always ask two questions: What do you like about buying Dell? And what do you dislike about it? The answers – although often varying in length – are almost always the same. Clients like the fact that Dell has a direct purchasing model because they believe that they are getting better discounts because of that agreement. Their dislikes always center on support, whether it be for warranty issues or implementation of new solutions.

Along with the Dell-EMC announcement came another announcement that I believe is equally important. Dell and CDW announced a partnership that will allow CDW to begin selling Dell products, virtually eliminating the direct model that so many customers are so fond of. Dell is not well-known to have a strong reseller focus, and this shift will have major impacts on clients who aren’t fond of change. Perhaps the reason behind the deal is that HP’s numbers with CDW were down 6 percent over the past year, a result, in my opinion, of HP’s increased focus on bringing deals to partners such as CTG that bring value throughout the entire sales process.

You might be asking yourself, “How does the merger affect either of these things? Shouldn’t two goliaths in the IT world coming together be a good thing for EMC and Dell clients alike?” Not from our market analysis.

The deal between Dell and EMC is one that has major financial ramifications. At $67 billion, the deal could prove very costly in the short term. Dell will be responsible for paying upward of $2.5 billion dollars annually in interest alone, which will cause a major disruption when it comes to support and R&D, both areas in which Dell has struggled as of late. You must also take into account that these are two very large companies coming together, with very different sales models. The integration of products and sales/service teams will be time consuming and cause major interruptions for the combining businesses for some time. In short, I believe that it will take these companies quite a bit of time to get it right, leaving the door open for companies such as HP to show the value that their products and partnerships can bring to the table, particularly for clients that have flown the Dell flag for quite some time.

Dell has always been a strong company with a loyal following. The move to purchase EMC has allowed them to expand its Enterprise storage portfolio with an EMC product that has been one of the top three Tier 1 solutions for many years. However, the EMC solution has become stagnant of late, as can be noticed by HP’s 3Par offering earning top ratings for the past two years. This deal will likely to cause loyal EMC customers to take a look at their architecture, which could likely lead to an increase in conversations around 3Par. I look forward to the challenges that this merger will create in the long term and am excited for HP Enterprise to take the lead across all major Data Center infrastructure portfolios.


Brandon Samuel is assistant manager of Convergent Technologies Group.

The World Rides with Richmond

By John Monahan

Starting late next week, Richmond’s roadways will be filled with bicycles, as our region hosts the UCI Road World Championships. We’re expecting to see 1,000 cyclists from some 70 countries.

And Convergent Technologies Group is part of the action.

We’ve signed on as a sponsor through the Société 2015, a coalition of businesses that are supporting this great event because we love our city and recognize the grand opportunity that lies in the days ahead. Created in partnership with the Greater Richmond Chamber and the Retail Merchants Association, the Société explains: “We are businesses, organizations, entrepreneurs, cyclists, bicyclists, pedestrians and motorists alike.”

We are connected together to build on the energy of this race – a grand international experience brought to life right on the local streets we travel every day – to continue Richmond’s recent economic growth.

This is an unparalleled opportunity both to support our community and bring the great business and IT resources here to the forefront. More than 450,000 spectators will be watching in person over nine days of racing from Sept. 19-27, and millions more will be watching on global telecasts.

Richmond has a lot of offer for companies willing to make an investment. With all that attention on the race and the great state of Virginia, why not show the world what Richmond businesses have to offer? Who knows – maybe one global business may decide to explore our region deeper and one day bring hundreds (or thousands, even) of new jobs to Virginia. We have a strong IT industry, growing financial services, an outstanding creative workforce – not to mention great residential areas and restaurants that are attracting national accolades.

Being part of the community means getting out into the community. This fall, CTG celebrates our 10^th anniversary. No way could we have reached this milestone without the support of those around us, starting with our employees and partner vendors. But the success of our business relies on the extensive relationships we have built with our clients, many of whom have relied on our IT expertise from the first day we opened our door. Although we have grown our operation along the East Coast, we still call Richmond home and want to give back to the community that has given so much to us.

Cycling is a healthy lifestyle that is blossoming across the region, with new bike paths and lanes. Personally, I was a smoker for close to 30 years. Now that I’ve stopped and joined a gym, one of my favorite activities is spin class, a.k.a., intensive indoor biking. When you ride hard for an hour, it gives you a great respect for those who have chosen to do this for a profession. The endurance, strength and stamina it takes to be a biker is amazing.

Interested in learning more about the race? Check out this great video from the team at Richmond 2015, which is organizing the event:

And as the Société suggests, let’s welcome these cyclists and spectators – and their bikes – with open arms.

John Monahan is a co-founder of Convergent Technologies Group.