I have many interesting newsletters, RSS feeds, and blogs come across my desk in the course of a month. When I get the chance, I like to skim through them and read the most unique or thought provoking. Today, one sparked my interest. A friend of mine, at Growthink, pointed me to an article in the Wall Street Journal about the last decade of investing. As the article states, “Since the end of 1999, stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange have lost an average of 0.5% a year:” That is pretty awful for a person, such as I, that began investing in 2001. Now I am not going to dive into my portfolio, but I will point out that, this is why we diversify our investments. By investments, I don’t just mean our pre-tax retirement funds. Wikipedia states that investments are “the active redirection of resources/assets to creating benefits in the future.” Investments can be in yourself, your education, gold, or your family.  I think this article is really stating that the 10’s, as they are being called, are a great time to start diversifying your investments. I could predict your portfolio will increase 10% on average over the next 10 years, but I can tell you there is another less risky way to get a solid return. Invest in yourself! How can you make yourself a better employee, a better father, or a better person? I am lucky to work with and for great people, and they have given me the opportunity to continue to invest in my education and myself, with a full lab and multiple training courses. However, there is a little known fact, that they have given that opportunity to all of you as well. CB Tech opens its labs and partnerships to clients, both current and potential, to learn about new technologies, take a test drive, or find a training course to help better your business, yourself, or just learn something new. Feel free to reach out to me at chris.kelley (at) cbtechinc.com to learn more about our lab or partnerships. However, on the dawn of a new year, I wish you a safe and wonderful New Year! Remember, the 10’s are a GREAT TIME TO INVEST!

Data deduplication was the “Buzz” word of the month a little while back. Many cold-callers would open with “If you aren’t using dedupe, you are wasting money.” I don’t put much stock in the buzz word of the month club, but data deduplication does offer some value to clients.  Before I dive into the value that I see, let’s get a brief definition of what it is. Good old Wikipedia says data deduplication is “the elimination of duplicated or redundant data.” Well, we already got that much from the name, so diving a little further in, deduplication cuts down on copying the same data over by referencing the original full copy, similar to when I just referenced Wikipedia. I gave you a hyperlink or pointer to go see all that Wikipedia had to offer without copying the entire page. Data deduplication works very similarly, it consolidates all that duplicate data of  and replaces it with pointers to the original material.

Now that we have a basic understanding of what it does, the real question is WHY does it matter to you? Company storage data doubles every 1 to 2 years. Storage product, such as disk and tape, costs continue to decrease per GB, but they are not keeping pace with the amount of increased data that must be stored. There are also recurring costs of storage; such as power, cooling, and real estate. Therefore, your storage costs are increasing exponentially every time you plug in a new device. What deduplication allows you to do is minimize the space required to store your files, thus allowing you to get more out of every disk, limiting power consumption, and keeping data center sprawl to a minimum. This equates to saving you money! In short, you should consider data deduplication when you want to store more data, in less space, for less cost.

There are multiple companies that offer deduplication software and each claims to have a better “special sauce” than the other. Some of these vendors are HP, NetApp, and Data Domain. A good IT partner can help you work through the particulars of which product will work best for you, and why and where to use deduplication technology.

A few interesting links on the topic:

HP White Paper: http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA1-9796ENW.pdf

List of White Papers by multiple vendors: http://whitepapers.businessweek.com/rlist/term/Data-Deduplication.html

Westminster, CA November 13, 2009.  Carrillo Business Technologies, Inc. (CB Technologies), an award winning IT reseller and solutions provider, has announced the hiring of Colonel Steve Christian (US Army, Ret) as Sr. VP, Business Development. In this role, Steve will work on new business generation and strategic alliances with a strong focus in the government, military, and DOD verticals.

Colonel Christian, a native of Las Vegas, NV, enlisted in the service in 1978 and rose in rank from Private to Colonel.  His distinguished career spans 31 years and includes Battalion Commander at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, a tour of duty in Afghanistan as Battalion Commander and as Legislative Liaison in Washington, DC.  At the time of his retirement Colonel Christian was serving as Garrison Commander of the Ft Monmouth NJ army base.

Colonel Christian received his education in the service including US Army Officers Candidate School and US Army Command and General Staff College.  He was awarded a BS in Social Psychology from Park University where he was a member of the Pinnacle Honor Society.  His MSA degree in Administration was earned at Central Michigan University.  In 2007 he received an MS in National Security Strategy from the National War College and most recently he completed the Six Sigma Executive Project Sponsorship training at the Armed Forces Staff College.

His personal awards and citations include the Legion of Merit, two Bronze Star, Joint Meritorious Service medal, six Army Meritorious Service medals, Humanitarian Service medal and the Global War on Terrorism medal.

Colonel Christian brings 31 years of experience successfully leading and managing organizations of increasing complexity and responsibilities.  His record of applying analytical skills, solving complex problems and strategic planning along with his superior interpersonal skills will make him a valuable addition to CB Technologies’ team.

About CB Technologies:

CB Technologies is a leading IT solutions provider to the Aerospace, Government, Commercial, and University sectors. CB Technologies current growth includes leveraging their High Performance Computing expertise into other verticals such as Web 2.0 and Cloud offerings that are looking to utilize a Scalable Computing Infrastructure. CB Technologies is one of the premier High Performance Computing Solution providers on the West Coast. In 2008, CB Technologies was named to Inc. 500/5000, Orange County Business of the Year, VAR 500 and is an active participant in FiRE. CB Technologies is experienced in Virtualization, UNIX, Linux and Windows environments including Windows HPC server 2008.