Volume 5 Issue 2

February 28, 2005

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Welcome to the February edition of QTS QuikNews, our monthly e-mail newsletter. In this monthly e-mail, you will receive an update of what's new at QTS - new products we support, new patches and upgrades, solution ideas and promotions to save you money, and information about our company and our clients.

In this issue:

• QTS and Partner News
• Events
• President's Corner
• QuikSecure Tip of the Month
• Patches and Upgrades
• Product Support Lifecycle Watch
• Solution Spotlight
• Special Offers
• Partner Spotlight

QTS AND PARTNER NEWS

WELCOME TO NEW CUSTOMERS
QTS offers a “welcome aboard” to the following new customers:

·         Associated/ACC International Ltd.

·         CRP Industries

·         Ross University

QTS OFFERS FREE SYSTEMS STRATEGY CHECK-UPS
Having developed this award-winning engagement jointly with Microsoft, QTS is now offering Systems Strategy Check-Up engagements to qualified customers and prospects throughout New Jersey and New York.  This high-value, half-day consulting engagement helps businesses evaluate how they are using Microsoft technologies and identifies best practices and recommendations for how to best deploy Microsoft technologies in a business.  For more information on this no-charge engagement, contact your QTS Account Manager or visit www.QTSnet.com/SSCU.

QTS IS HIRING!
QTS is recruiting for senior level technical personnel, as well as entry and senior level sales staff/telemarketers.  If you know anyone who might be a good fit, please have them submit their resume to Liz Meechan, our Office Manager. Liz can be reached at lmeechan@QTSnet.com, or (973)984-7600 x223.

PRESS RELEASES

QTS TO PARTICIPATE IN MICROSOFT CAMPAIGN TO OFFER LOTUS NOTES INTEGRATION ASSESSMENTS
2/28/2005: QTS today announced that it has been selected by Microsoft to participate in an upcoming initiative to offer assessments around integrating Microsoft technologies into Lotus Notes environments, for New York and New Jersey.  Read more at http://www.QTSnet.com/stayinformed/l3_stay_pr59.htm

QTS SUCCESS STORIES

EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF NEWARK
QTS helped this not-for-profit organization modernize its network with Windows Small Business Server 2003 to increase reliability and provide new capabilities.
http://www.qtsnet.com/about/success stories/episcopal diocese of newark success story.pdf

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EVENTS

QTS and Microsoft are hosting a seminar entitled Why Renew: A Review of Benefits, Available Promotions and Microsoft Product Roadmaps and Key Initiatives. Join us for this informative, 3 hour event to learn why your organization should renew or upgrade into Microsoft Software Assurance through the Open License Value program.  Microsoft and QTS will review the benefits of Software Assurance (it’s more than just new version upgrades!), discuss available promotions that can save you money, and review the roadmap for upcoming product releases and features.  We will also present on key Microsoft initiatives such as Trustworthy Computing (Microsoft’s security efforts) and the integration of Microsoft’s Business Solutions offerings.  This event is focused on customers deciding whether to maintain their Software Assurance coverage, but will provide valuable information to any Microsoft customer! Join us on Tuesday morning, March 8^th at Microsoft’s Iselin NJ office.

QTS, Econium, Softmart, New Horizons and Microsoft are hosting two half day seminars on Tuesday, March 22^nd at New Horizons in Iselin, NJ.  In the morning, session, QTS will present on improving Operational Efficiency and Productivity with Windows Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2003, as well as discuss security and management solutions.  In the afternoon session, Econium will present on how to improve employee productivity with collaborative solutions including SharePoint, InfoPath and Live Communications Server.  Softmart and New Horizons will discuss Software Assurance benefits, including training vouchers, at both events.  For more information or to register, contact your QTS Account Manager or visit www.clicktoattend.com and enter event code 101544 for the morning session (QTS), and 101545 for the afternoon (Econium).

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PRESIDENT'S CORNER

In early March, some of our customers and partners are heading to San Diego for Microsoft’s “Convergence” conference, where the Microsoft Business Solutions group will spotlight new technologies and directions around Microsoft and MBS.

However, this isn’t the “convergence” I’m going to be discussing this month.  Nor is another area that people tend to think of for that term – the convergence of voice and data networks.  Rather, I’m going to focus on some recent developments in the convergence of networking and information security – something that I anticipated back in 2000 when we formed QTS’ information security practice and began development of our QuikSecure offerings.

A few things of note are happening in that regard.  First, and perhaps most obviously, we’re seeing an increased focus on the part of Microsoft in implementing security technologies and processes into their core product offerings.  This is all an offshoot of the Trustworthy Computing initiative, and has been going on since late 2001.  So the focus on security, and the improved security in Microsoft products, should come as no surprise.

Second, however, is the series of acquisitions Microsoft has made in what today is known as the security space.  This started a few years ago, when Microsoft purchased a Romanian antivirus company, GeCAD software, in mid-2003.  Since that time, antivirus companies have continued selling and enhancing their products, but this signaled a step in the direction of integrating at least a basic level of antivirus functionality in future product releases.  In December, Microsoft purchased anti-spyware software vendor GIANT Company, and within a month released the beta of Microsoft Anti-Spyware over the Internet (with over 5.5 million downloads to date).  Finally, in February Microsoft announced plans to purchase Sybari, the maker of numerous products in the antivirus and anti-spam space.  Sybari is particularly well-known for their tight integration with Microsoft technologies (not just Exchange, but also SharePoint Portal Server and Live Communications Server, as well as Lotus Notes), and for their integration with Microsoft’s APIs.

Although how Microsoft will “productize” these vendors’ current products and whether/how Microsoft will charge for them remains somewhat unclear at the moment, what does seem clear is that Microsoft has bought considerable staff expertise, as well as intellectual property, in the security space.  This will no doubt lead to a heightened and improved level of security in future Microsoft technologies, whether Microsoft chooses to charge for that or not.  And since following best practices around security dictates a “defense in depth” strategy, there is certainly room for multiple vendors to provide solutions in this space, whether Microsoft becomes the “900 pound gorilla” in this space or not.

Equally interesting is Microsoft’s planned move into the backup/data integrity space later this year.  Microsoft’s Data Protection Server will not compete with traditional tape backup products such as Veritas (now Symantec – more on that later) Backup Exec or CA’s ARCserve.  Rather, it is a Disk to Disk solution for replicating select data from one server to another, over high-speed LAN connections.  As such, it also doesn’t directly compete with NSI’s DoubleTake or Symantec’s LiveState Recovery Server, which are targeted at over-the-WAN replication situations.  Rather, it is specifically and somewhat narrowly targeted at backing up servers to a storage server where the data can then be restored quickly if needed, or backed up to tape or over a WAN using third-party technologies.  The Microsoft solution addresses the “backup window” problem that plagues many organizations today (being able to back up all data in the overnight window, with the limitations of traditional tape technologies), and also provides the opportunity for more efficient restoration of data by IT staff and even directly by users.

These are markets that Microsoft has traditionally left to third party developers like Symantec (which rose out of its Norton Utilities roots), Veritas and others.  But Microsoft is feeling pressure from its customers to provide for high availability of its platforms, and also potentially seeing opportunity in this space, so it is carefully walking the tightrope that Ray Noorda of Novell once termed “coopetition” in developing its presence in this space.  This is because security isn’t something independent of networking – rather, it is at the core of it.

We saw this at QTS back in 2000, when in planning how to reshape the business post-Y2K, we saw that Security was both a specialization and simultaneously a necessity based on where the industry is going.  It concerns me that even today, so many companies are still installing systems and developing software with security as an afterthought, and this has to change over time if we as an industry are to escape the troubles of our past.  That is what Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing initiative is all about.

The pending merger of Symantec and Veritas show further evidence of the integration of these messages (and is also something that I saw coming months before, based on how much sense it makes).  At its heart, security is about Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability.  Veritas’ core practice of backup products, combined with its clustering and related technologies, is all about Availability, so this is a logical complement to Symantec’s security and administration product lines.  The line between these disciplines continues to blur over time.

Effective security is not its own discipline.  It cuts across networking, software development, and the business as a whole.  In our QuikSecure Security Assessment and our Security Policy Development engagements, we spend some time on information classification, and discuss the customer’s workflows around data – whether paper or electronic.  Most businesses can’t honestly answer that the term “confidential” means that same thing to all employees, or that it has been clearly defined in terms of how to handle strorage, transmission and destruction of confidential information.  This is not an area for specialists to rule - rather, something so fundamental to the business needs to come from management, with the security team or CIO/CSO serving as a catalyst and cheerleader for proper integration of security rules into the business process.  If security is disconnected from the business, the business is not going to be secure.

So, what does this mean to us as network professionals and as businesspeople making decisions about the technologies we deploy?  Essentially, I would argue that it bodes well.  Microsoft has taken a leadership position to drive improvements in the industry, but is not doing so in a way that forecloses innovation or cooperation.  Vendors like Symantec, Trend, McAfee, CA, Cisco and others will have a viable market and will have room to innovate and build customer solutions, as long as they continue to build upon the fundamentals that Microsoft builds into its products.  And some competition between Microsoft and these vendors, as long as it is fair and on a generally level playing field, can be good for the industry and for consumers.

Clearly, there are some interesting conflicts that come to the surface.  Having operating systems and products ship from the vendor with little to no security may be good for the security industry, and for malicious attackers, but it is not good for consumers and businesses.  Having at least a basic level of security embedded out of the gate, and a strong community of vendors and partners building on that to enhance solutions as needed, as well as to drive awareness and educate businesses, is in my opinion a good thing.  It will take a while for this model to mature, and there will certainly be some bumps and missteps along the way, but over time it is the right direction.

So, at some point, QTS being a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for Security Solutions may be a thing of the past as security becomes part of the core – and when the industry has matured to that point, I welcome the chance to evolve QTS in this ever-changing industry.

As always, feel free to email me your comments or thoughts at nrosenberg@QTSnet.com. Thank you.

Neil Rosenberg
President & CEO
Quality Technology Solutions

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PARTNER SPOTLIGHT

This month QTS is spotlighting its business solutions partner, AKA Enterprise Solutions (also known as Interdyn AKA).  AKA is a highly focused solution provider that provides services around Microsoft Business Solutions – currently, the Dynamics (formerly Great Plains) and Axapta accounting systems, and Microsoft CRM, as well as related eCommerce and application development services. These solutions are a great fit for most of QTS’ mid-market customers.

For more than a decade, AKA Enterprise Solutions has been a leading partner dedicated to the sales, consulting, service and support of Microsoft Business Solutions. AKA Enterprise Solutions provides solutions that address Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), e-Commerce and Business Process Consulting and Custom Application Development.

AKA’s dedication and focus on the Microsoft Great Plains, Axapta and Microsoft CRM products benefits their clients by providing increased access to knowledge and dedicated resources for all areas of customer care. As a certified Microsoft Business Solutions partner, AKA shares Microsoft's commitment to long lasting customer relationships exemplified by a 93% client customer retention rate and consistently high satisfaction ratings.

AKA Enterprise Solutions has been the recipient of numerous industry awards and national honors that serve to reflect the combined talents, innovation, and enthusiasm of the team members. AKA was the 2001 recipient of the Eagle Award, the highest award given to Microsoft Business Solutions partner organizations recognizing strong leadership, a commitment to excellence and extreme dedication to customers and partners. Of the 4,000 Microsoft Business Solutions partners worldwide, AKA is routinely ranked within the top fifteen companies in the world. As part of their dedication to Microsoft Business Solutions, AKA has maintained the only North East certified Microsoft Great Plains Education Center for the past three years.

As an InterDyn company, AKA Enterprise Solutions offers clients the advantage of specialized talents and industry expertise of each of its locations to maintain the highest quality of customer care services. With more than 500 certified professionals in locations around the world, InterDyn supports over 3,500 customers- making it the largest, most comprehensive, and most experienced Microsoft Business Solutions partner worldwide. For more information about AKA Enterprise Solutions visit http://www.akaes.com, or contact your QTS Account Manager.

QTS and AKA Enterprise Solutions work together for our customers to build new solutions that create competitive advantage, reduce costs or create opportunity - with QTS providing the infrastructure and AKA the software solutions, in a highly integrated fashion.

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