GSA Technology Council

You think your network is big? You think you’ve got challenges? Imagine running the network of a Fortune 500 company who just happens to be the fourth largest cable operator in the US. Imagine your network has 5.2 Million customers in 25 states. Imagine also, that your network is always in the public eye and that you are under constant scrutiny from demanding customers.

The guy who actually has that job is Keith Hayes. He is the Senior Vice President of Network Operations and Service Assurance at Charter Communications. He’s spent 26 years in the industry and has twice been the chair of the SCTE, the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers and continues to serve on it’s board of directors.

If you want to learn from someone who has had to navigate the tricky waters of running big networks with lots of stakeholders, then you’re definitely going to want to join us for our learning lunch.

Tools, Techniques and Horror Stories – Lessons learned running a really big network
a GSATC Learning Lunch
with Guest Presenter: Keith Hayes, Senior Vice President of Network Operations and Engineering Services at Charter Business

Agenda
11:30 – 11:55 Registration, Networking, Lunch
11:55 – 12:10 Announcements
12:10 – 12:50 Presentation
12:50 – 1:00 Door Prizes, Adjourn
This meeting features easy access from I-385, plenty of free parking, ample networking opportunities, a great presentation, and door prizes. Plan to attend.

Onsite registration is available. Lunch is $25 at the door.

IBM announced today a collaboration with Recology, San Francisco’s resource recovery company, to continue reducing landfill disposal by further improving recycling programs designed to help the city achieve zero waste by 2020.

San Francisco’s diversion rate — the amount of waste diverted from landfill disposal — totals 78 percent, the highest in the country. Just last year, independent studies named San Francisco the Greenest City in North America due to advanced recycling programs.*

In collaboration with IBM Business Partner Key Info Systems, Recology is using IBM’s Smarter Computing approach to IT to manage and mine large sets of data to determine types and quantities of materials in San Francisco’s waste stream. With the use of IBM’s Power System, Recology pinpoints the location, types and amount of waste that needs to be collected for sorting or composting.

Gleaning insights from this information allows Recology to identify the most effective recycling programs for different business districts and neighborhoods. By tailoring recycling programs and services in this way, Recology operates more efficiently, which helps protect the environment and saves costs, which helps cities better manage collection and disposal fees — all steps that ultimately benefit residents and businesses.

As a result of this smarter approach to recycling, Recology customers in San Francisco have reduced the garbage they send to the landfill by 49.7 percent, from 730,000 tons in 2000 to 367,300 tons in 2011. By recycling 1.2 million tons of paper, the program has saved 20 million trees; by recycling 174,000 tons of glass, enough energy was saved to power the city’s cable car system for nearly three years; and, by recycling 135,000 tons of metal, 19 million gallons of oil was saved.

Improved recycling services give customers the means to participate every day in programs that directly benefit the environment and to better manage their disposal costs. Recology offers 20 distinct recycling programs in San Francisco, more than any other city in the U.S. Yet the monthly fee paid by residential customers is equal to or less than the fee charged in other major cities.

The Curbside Compost Collection Program provided by Recology in San Francisco has diverted 1.1 million tons of food and plants from landfill disposal and turned that material into nutrient-rich compost used by local farms and vineyards to grow healthy crops.

Since its inception, the compost collection program has reduced carbon emissions by more than 347,500 metric tons. That is equal to offsetting emissions from all vehicles crossing the Bay Bridge for 2.1 years.**

San Francisco greenhouse gas emissions are nearly 12 percent below 1990 levels and have exceeded emission reduction goals set by both the State of California and the United Nations.

“San Francisco continues to make progress toward our Zero Waste goal and we have achieved the highest diversion rate of any major city in the country. Our success stems from a strong partnership with our diverse communities and our commitment to making recycling easy and convenient for everyone. I thank IBM for providing innovative solutions that have contributed to making San Francisco the greenest city in North America,” San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said.

Recology serves 700,000 residential and commercial locations in 50 cities and manages a fleet of 1,400 vehicles. In San Francisco alone, the company handles nearly 3,000 tons of material a day.

“Cities are struggling with a wide range of challenges and threats to sustainability in their core operations,” said George McGrath, Chief Operating Officer at Recology. “Our collaboration with IBM has helped us transform the programs we provide in San Francisco and, in turn, the very way people view bottles, coffee grounds, packaging, plastic bags, and other materials they generate every day.”

With the use of IBM’s Smarter Computing technology Recology is able to manage and maintain this complex operation and route dispatching of trucks. These functions require a dependable and flexible system to help the company manage logistics and an ever-changing waste stream with maximum efficiency.

“The demand for recovered and recycled materials is large, worldwide, and growing,” said Heather Achilles, Distinguished Engineer, IBM Research. “Because of the high value of recycled materials, we’re seeing a shift away from ‘waste management’ and toward ‘resource management’ as an emerging industry. Recology is an example if businesses recognize that using smarter computing technology to better understand existing data about material that can be recovered from what was once considered trash is key to this industry transformation.”

via IBM

Sales Representative
Engenius is looking for a Sales Representative to develop relationships with future clients, represent the Engenius brand, and help our company grow specifically in the Anderson/Clemson/Seneca area.
 

Another Open Position:
Systems Engineer
VC3 is seeking to fill a Systems Engineer position in their Decatur, GA office to serve as technical lead on projects involving servers, clients, LAN/WAN connectivity, peripheral devices and will provide first and second level support for clients on all technical inquiries.

Preview more open positions on the GSATC jobs board. We encourage you to share it with anyone who may be in the hunt. If you are looking for work, feel free to let us know what you need on our LinkedIn group!

Looking to hire? Post your openings to our job board.

Wednesday May 30
12:00pm Radio: Your Day
Listen to us on the radio on any of the NPR stations in South Carolina or streaming live at the Your Day website

Friday June 1
11:15am Upstate ISSA
The Upstate global voice of information security meets monthly for learning and sharing.
Learn more: Upstate ISSA

See more on the GSATC Tech Calendar

IBM announced May 23 it has completed the acquisition of Varicent Software Incorporated, a leading provider of analytics software for compensation and sales performance management. Financial terms will not be disclosed.

Varicent’s software automates and analyzes data across sales, finance, human resources and IT departments to uncover trends and improve sales performance and operations. The acquisition enhances IBM’s Smarter Analytics capabilities across line of business operations in all industries.

“Varicent advances IBM’s efforts to deliver analytics directly into the hands of front line employees, helping them uncover new ways to remain competitive and stay ahead of increasing demand,” said Les Rechan, IBM General Manager, Business Analytics. “The combination of Varicent’s software and IBM’s deep analytics expertise delivers a comprehensive approach to managing sales performance, allowing clients to make more informed decisions faster.”

Varicent software allows companies across a variety of industries including banking, telecommunications, insurance and retail to facilitate and streamline quota planning, compensation, sales assignments and managing quotas and insights into sales activities. The software is unique, taking what is traditionally a very labor intensive process, and automates and integrates all aspects of sales, client and financial performance management across the enterprise.

Varicent software, combined with IBM’s prior acquisitions in business analytics including Algorithmics, Clarity Systems, OpenPages and Cognos, and recent investments in predictive analytics such as SPSS, will provide clients with a broad range of business analytics solutions. These acquisitions are part of IBM’s larger focus on analytics, which spans hardware, software, services and research.

The news supports IBM’s long-term growth strategy to expand the company’s business analytics and optimization software and services capabilities, an area of IBM’s business that is expected to reach $16 billion in revenue by 2015.

Varicent is headquartered in Toronto, Canada with additional operations in North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific. Varicent has more than 180 customers using its software, including Starwood Hotels, Covidien, Dex One, Manpower, Hertz, Office Depot and Farmers. Consistent with its acquisition strategy, IBM will continue to support Varicent clients while allowing them to take advantage of the broader IBM portfolio.

With the closing of this acquisition, approximately 200 Varicent employees will join IBM’s Software Group.

via IBM

Immedion, LLC, a leading dedicated data center and managed services provider, announces the hiring of Ashley Phillips as their Customer Service Manager. Phillips is responsible for the development, monitoring, and enforcement of Immedion’s emergency response, customer service, and service delivery policies and processes. Immedion has a data center location in Asheville, NC as well as locations in Greenville, Columbia and Charleston, SC.

Phillips most recently worked for SAIC with the Department of Energy in Knoxville, TN where he served as a Systems Administrator. He holds a BS in Information Technology as well as an MBA. He will play a critical role in Immedion’s customer support system.

“As we continue to grow, it’s imperative to have the right systems in place to ensure our customer’s needs are being met,” shares Immedion COO, Rob Moser. “Ashley has an ideal background in emergency communications and information technology, which will help us continue to enforce best practices in delivery of information and services to our customers. We’re excited to have him.”

via Immedion

Tuesday May 22
9:00am Clemson SBDC – EngeniusU Seminar
EngeniusU, a partnership of the Clemson University Small Business Development Center and Engenius web firm, present “Blogging to Increase Your Bottom Line” as their fifth installment of their Spring 2012 Seminar Series.
Learn more: Clemson SBDC – EngeniusU Seminar

5:30pm Tech After Five Asheville Launch
Tech After Five, the largest attended monthly tech networking event in Greenville, SC, is launching their first event in their fifth city in Asheville, NC.
Learn more: Tech After Five Asheville Launch

Thursday May 24
11:30am Upstate Women in Technology Meeting
For their May meeting, Upstate Women in Technology present, “Project Management – Tools of the Trade” with Jennie Fowler, Certified Master Project Manager with 20 years of PM experience.
Learn more: Upstate Women in Technology Meeting

See more on the GSATC Tech Calendar

Already hosting the Tech After Five after hours tech networking event in Greenville, Columbia, Charleston and Charlotte, Ta5 is excited to extend their network further into North Carolina and hold their first Ta5 in Ahseville. Because this is the first Ta5 event in the “Land of the Sky”, they are giving away a free gift to the first 100 attendees that pre-registered online.

The Rules:
RSVP Online and bring a business card with you and the first beer is free. This is about networking and getting to know fellow tech professionals.

Green Cloud Technologies, a Cloud technology solutions provider headquartered in Greenville, SC, has announced the deployment of its second data center facility, which will be located in Nashville, Tennessee. This site will house a fully redundant mirrored location of its facility in Greenville, SC. Nashville is expected to come online during third quarter 2012.

The launch of this data center provides an increased level of geo-diversity for Green Cloud, with regional power grids and fiber trunking routes that are independent of those in place in South Carolina. Such separation further minimizes potential impacts of localized catastrophic events. Fiberbased connections will tie the two centers together.

“The planning and design of our FlexPod infrastructure – a highly scalable architecture built around the industry-leading platforms of Cisco, NetApp, and VMware – provides for a reliable, redundant environment built to address incremental failures and safeguards against catastrophic events,”
explains Keith Coker, chief technology officer of Green Cloud. “The deployment of a second world-class site that is a mirror of our facility in Greenville enables us to respond rapidly in the face of a devastating event and to continue to offer our customers the highest levels of confidence in the security and accessibility of their data.”

Green Cloud has partnered with Peak 10, whose state-of-the-art facilities provide efficient, secure and redundant services. Facility features include SAS70/SSAE compliance, redundant access, multiple generators and UPS systems, fire suppression, controlled temperature and humidity systems, advanced security, and 24x7x365 monitoring.

The location of the site in Tennessee positions the company for westward expansion and rapid growth.

Keith Hayes is the Senior Vice President of Network Operations and Engineering Services at Charter Business.

Keith is a 30 year industry veteran who is currently Senior Vice President of Network Operations and Service Assurance at Charter Communications, the fourth largest cable telecommunications company in the US serving almost 5 million customers. Prior to Charter, he served as VP of Operations and Network Planning at Adelphia, as COO of GTS, and a variety of other industry roles. A two-term Chairman of SCTE, he was the founding President of the SCTE Foundation where he continues to serve on the Board, and has received numerous industry awards and certifications, including the Star of Integrity award and Broadband Communications Engineer (BCE) certification. Keith lives in the Atlanta area with his wife Pam and sons Marc and Todd.