Revamped Web Site Launches

By Alexandra Suder

One of the biggest priorities on the marketing front this year has been on overhauling our Web site – and I was excited to finally hit the “go live” button on the new-and-improved www.ctgva.com last week.

We did a lot of work behind the scenes to make this a robust and meaningful site for our customers. How did we do that? We listened to what you’ve been telling us from our first years in business, nearly a decade ago.

The biggest takeaway we heard is that you don’t just want to hear that we offer great technology and services because you always trust us to do that. You want to know what CTG and our solutions can do for you. And in today’s idea economy – where IT is the biggest competitive advantage in your business – that’s more important than ever. That was the driver as we mapped out the framework for the new site.

What you’ll find now:

• Our focus on putting benefits first: In general, clients don’t come to us asking for a specific product. Instead, they come to us looking for ways to work more efficiently or solve problems. Now, at a glance, you can pinpoint the capabilities that CTG can deliver to help fuel your growth. The biggest gain is we help our clients achieve their goals and business directives: The focus becomes on opening their eyes to other possibilities that hadn’t yet been considered, but could redefine their business.

• Our expertise at your fingertips: You’ll find white papers, product videos and webinars – all available to you at a click. We’re also integrating our blog and social media channels, so you can keep up with the latest in our industry, Gartner and IDC.

• Our commitment to bringing you best: Much like our primary partner, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, we are committed to helping your transform your enterprise. The Web site is aligned to HPE’s mission to help you migrate to a hybrid infrastructure, use data to power your growth, boost workplace productivity through mobility and keep your enterprise safe and secure. No matter the size of your business, we’re committed to deploying the right solution for you.

We believe the new site structure allows you to quickly navigate the information you need, and we want to thank our partners at Agency Ingram Micro for bringing our vision for this new site to life. They brought some great ideas to the table on how to best share our story and services in engaging ways for our site visitors.

More is still to come. We’ll be regularly adding news and other information, and we envision ultimately launching an online store for various products in our portfolio.

For now, we encourage you to take a few moments, visit the site and share some feedback about your experience. The more we hear from you, the better we can continue to refine and adapt the site.

Of course, this is only one way to interact with the CTG team. While our Web site is open 24/7, we always prefer the opportunity to sit down with you in person to discuss your IT needs – and how we can put the right solutions to work for you.

Alexandra Suder is CTG’s director of marketing.

What To Look For In A Modern Firewall Solution

By Convergent Technologies Group
Your network is the central nervous system of your business—connecting employees, partners and customers and data. The value of that data found on your network is what makes every organization a target for breach. The risk from internal and external threats is very real. The compromise of sensitive financial information, personal data, or intellectual property by malicious outsiders or careless employees can cost an organization dearly.
A strong network protection platform is one that can stop internal and external threats from reaching its targets without hindering access to vital information resources. That’s where the Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) comes in.
More comprehensive than traditional traditional firewalls, a NGFW is a vital component of an effective, multi-layered cybersecurity platform. But with so many firewall options out there, how do you choose the solution that provides the right level of security for your business? When evaluating next generation firewall solutions, it’s important to look at platforms that meet your requirements for security, reliability, performance, ease-of-management and affordability.
Here are 6 factors to consider:
1. Reduced Complexity and Expense
Some of the less-expensive choices out there that are far less affordable than they seem. Many firewalls have additional charges for advanced features, and some of them actually stagnate the network. A good next generation firewall should simplify network management instead of making it cumbersome.
2. Point Product Consolidation
An effective next generation firewall consolidates the capabilities of multiple point products, eliminating problems resulting from incompatibilities between point products and piecemeal upgrades and replacements.
3. Advanced Security Protection
Modern cyber attacks come from all directions, and your next generation firewall platform needs to offer defense-in-depth protection to block them all. A NGFW that works hand-in-hand with an Internal Segmentation Firewall (ISFW) is the best approach. The ISFW sits inside your network to protect your highest-priority assets from APTs that have penetrated the network perimeter or insider threats.
4. Exceptional Visibility And Control
The most effective NGFWs give you the flexibility to protect your entire network from one view. Look for platforms with intuitive drag and drop controls and single pane of glass, centralized management for 360-degree network visibility and ease of administration.
5. High-Powered, Reliable Performance
A firewall only has to go down for a few minutes before culprits infiltrate the perimeter. And your network security can’t come at the expense of productivity. When evaluating next generation firewall solutions, ask for throughput comparisons from multiple vendors.
6. Credible Ratings and Endorsements
The single best way to determine the next generation firewall that meets your needs is to ask the experts here at CTG. Before investing in a comprehensive next generation firewall, make sure all vendor claims are validated by industry tests, and customer and analyst endorsements.
An independent systems integrator is your partner to help you identify your needs and security goals. Convergent Technologies Group works with best in class technology like Fortinet, to develop and implement network security solutions that offer the highest level of protection for your most valuable data assets.  We chose to work with the Fortinet because we believe it offers the best in its class technology and has been chosen by NSS Labs as the industry's top solution for security effectiveness, speed and total cost of ownership.
Contact Convergent Technologies Group here.

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.

Enhanced Web Site Will Better Tell the CTG Story

By Alexandra Suder

Nothing makes our team at CTG happier than sitting down with a customer or potential prospect and explaining how we can help deliver the technology that will power their business.

But sometimes we don’t have that in-person opportunity.

That makes how we showcase our expertise and experience on our Web site an integral ingredient in telling our story. Much as CTG has grown up over the past 10 years, so has our Web site. Unfortunately, it’s been a bit of a patchwork process, as we added new services to the site at the same time as we added them to our portfolio of offerings.

Now that we’ve celebrated our this milestone anniversary, we’re getting ready to unveil our present to ourselves: A freshly overhauled Web site that better shares how CTG can be the competitive edge for your business.

Our team has been working throughout this quarter on understanding what has worked on the Web site and on identifying gaps. Armed with that insight:

• We are shifting our focus to showcase how our services work for you. We believe that this helps you better understand how new technologies deliver meaningful benefits.

• We are continuing to share our expertise. The site will introduce white papers, product videos and webinars – all available to you at a click or two. We’re also integrating our blog and social media channels, so you can keep up with the latest in our industry and at CTG.

• We are better telling our story. You’ll learn more about the CTG vision, which aligns largely with that of our primary partner, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. No matter the size of your business, we are committed to deploying the right IT for you.

Right now, we’re in the design stage, with the goal of launching the new site early in the new year.

The enhanced Web site is part of a renewed focus on our marketing efforts. In the year ahead, you can expect to be invited to participate in learning events both at CTG and at our partner venues. We are continuing to expand our social media presence. And we are always looking to offer fun opportunities for our clients to network, as we know that great ideas sometimes happen outside the office.

Alexandra Suder is CTG’s director of marketing.