FalconStor Archives

How Managed Service Providers De-Risk Technologies For Customers

August 21, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

When you run your own IT shop, you can only absorb new techniques and technologies as fast as your people can learn about them. Managed service providers, on the other hand, generally have a higher level of expertise and they spread the cost of learning about and investing in new technologies across hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of customers, and they can develop expertise across different solutions, targeting various industries and use cases.

But perhaps more importantly, MSPs take the risk out of you trying something new, which makes it far more likely for you to deploy technologies …
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The Science Of Lifting And Shifting To The Cloud

October 11, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Companies in Japan have a long and deep history with IBM computing systems, both its mainframe and its midrange platforms. And in some cases, they have moved from one to the other to maintain the IBM style of integrated systems while attaining the benefits of what many customers still consider the more integrated, less expensive, and easier to use platform that Big Blue offers: Namely, the AS/400 launched in 1988 and its progeny up through the current IBM i generation.

Such is the case with Kosei Securities Co Ltd, which was founded way back in 1961 in Osaka, a …
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Blazing The Trail For VTL In The Cloud

March 29, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Making the decision to move IBM i applications to the cloud is a relatively easy endeavor. But covering all of the bases, particularly when it comes to disaster recovery and business continuity, takes some thought because even though the cloud is an ideal place to do HA and DR, not every cloud does it right. And doing it right often means using a mix of technologies and service providers.

IT managers are thinking of moving their IBM i workloads to the cloud for good reasons. They do the math, they weigh the risks and rewards. They take into account all …
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Like Tupperware, Think About Storage When You Move To The Cloud

October 5, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

It would be hard to find a company that knows more about storage than Tupperware Brands, which has a globe-spanning $1.6 billion business that designs and manufactures myriad containers to store food and beverages and has famously sold them through Tupperware parties for the past 75 years.

For the past several decades, Tupperware operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa have run their manufacturing and back-office operations on IBM’s AS/400 (now known as Power) systems and their progeny, just like countless other manufacturers and distributors have done around the world. The choice of the AS/400 was driven by a …
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Moving To The Cloud Should Be Easier Than Switching Homes

August 29, 2022 Rich Spring

If the modern economy has taught us anything, it is that ownership is sometimes overrated. There are many things that we are accustomed to buying that we might better rent at a slight premium.

The cloud IT infrastructure is one of those things. This new deployment and purchasing model is a boon for the workloads we rely on. Done right, a move to the cloud should be relatively painless, if possibly a little time consuming.

But for a lot of IBM i customers, the idea of moving to infrastructure outside of local control is scary, not because of their fear …
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Big Blue Taps FalconStor To Move Data To PowerVS Cloud And Protect It

August 22, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

When IBM i shops want to move some or all of their applications to the cloud, they have a lot of options. But there is still only one cloud that is designed and run by the same company that actually makes the Power Systems server and the IBM i operating system and database platform. And that, of course, is the Power Systems Virtual Server, colloquially known as PowerVS these days.

Over the longest of hauls, we expect that a fair number of IBM i shops will use the cloud in some capacity, and some will move their infrastructure entirely to …
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Kill Three Cloud Scenario Birds With One StorSafe Stone

June 1, 2022 Larry Bolhuis

It is a rare event when you can kill two birds with one stone. But thanks to a new partnership between IBM and FalconStor Software, you may have the opportunity to take down three with one stone. And it’s an opportunity I know well since I collaborated with the FalconStor and IBM teams to bring it forward.

Last month, IBM and FalconStor announced a strategic partnership to make the IBM i platform a better player in the hybrid cloud world that I believe will increasingly be a reality for IBM i users who rely on the platform to support their …
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Former Power Systems GM Joins FalconStor For IBM i Push

February 7, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Virtual tape library software provider FalconStor, which has been in the market for more than two decades, has tapped a former manager of IBM’s Power Systems division – namely Doug Balog, who ran Power Systems from 2013 through 2017 – as a strategic advisor as it begins a more aggressive push into the IBM i market.

Balog is a familiar to long-time readers of The Four Hundred, of course. He ran System x server development at IBM from June 2004 through December 2009, significantly the BladeCenter converged blade server platform, then did a few years running IBM’s storage business, …
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FalconStor Offers ProtecTIER Migration Deal to IBM i Shops

October 28, 2020 Alex Woodie

FalconStor Software is ramping up a new program to help IBM i shops migrate away from their IBM ProtecTIER virtual tape library (VTL) devices, which IBM has killed. The migration program essentially provides an extra 12 months of support for ProtecTIER devices for $999 per month, giving IBM i shops more time to make the switch to FalconStor’s own StorSafe offering.

On February 13, 2018, IBM announced a statement of direction to cease support for various ProtecTIER hardware devices and the software that runs on them. IBM’s plan called for it to stop selling the devices in in June 2018, …
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