The Tech Break

Thank you to all that attended our Tech Lunch and Learn last Thursday March 14th. We had some exciting presentations from A-10 Networks, Silver Peak Systems, and Imperva. Best of all, we enjoyed quality steaks and seafood thanks to Ruth's Chris. No worries if you missed the event... we host these events often. See you at the next one!!!

Topics Covered

• Silver Peak on WAN Optimization Software
• A-10 on DDoS Protection and Security
• Imperva on Cloud Web Application Firewall

Bird Rock team!

If you want to learn more contact Mike @ 858-777-1606.

Check out the results and pictures from the 2013 Farmers Insurance Open at the Torrey Pines Golf Course. Bird Rock Systems, Dell, and VMware hosted a Torrey Pines Suite on the oceanview 16^th green Saturday, Januray 26th.

Even though golf was fogged out on Saturday, it turned out to be a awesome day! A lot of our customers showed up to the Farmers Open and stayed thoughout the day. It was a lot of fun hanging out with San Diego IT professionals enjoying good food and cool refreshments from the comfort of our suite. Customers also had the opportunity to talk one on one with VMware, Dell Compellent, and Bird Rock Systems. Overall, fun and productive day!!

Results Below   

Agenda on Saturday the 26^th  

8:30am

Start of Round 3 of 2013 Farmers Insurance Open Golf Tournament on the South Course

9:30am – 4:00pm

Bird Rock Systems, VMware, Dell Compellent Suite Opens

10:30am – 3:30pm

Open Bar

11:00am – 2:30pm

Buffet Lunch

Pictures are up from our Cocktail Mixer on Tuesday 2.12.13. Bird Rock Systems, Aruba Networks, and Palo Alto Networks hosted a technology mixer in the Alfred Mitchell room at the Torrey Pines Lodge. 

The Lodge is always a great place to host a mixer. We enjoyed refreshing drinks and tasty appetizers along with our customers and learned about up coming technologies from Aruba Networks and Palo Alto Networks in relation to BYOD and mobile security. Great way to end a Tuesday night!

Topics Covered by Palo Alto Networks and Aruba Networks:

• Research detailing a new breed of sophisticated threats that incorporate applications, exploits, and malware
• A firm understanding mobile security and BYOD today
• How to detect known and unknown threats using Next-Generation Firewalls
• Where legacy firewalls or add-on security technologies fall short in protecting networks
• Next steps on how to protect and secure your network and mobile devices from security threats

We have all seen an increase in IT services being outsourced. The exact metric on adoption and market size is hard to come by because the definition of IT Managed Services is not clear. Nonetheless top IT management have become more accustomed to the idea of Managed Service Providers and in some obscure surveys, 90% of individuals were either familiar or somewhat familiar with what Managed Service Providers actually do.

Support contracts and renewals can be a nightmare to manage. Think about every hardware, license, subscription that you have in your IT environment. You may have 5,000 plus assets that require support. All of which have different expiration dates. Who is managing all of these support contracts?

There has been a lot of buzz around the end-point these days. There are many reasons why the end-point has come to the forefront in security discussions. First, anti-virus and malware software have basically become obsolete. Zero day threats are too constant and mulitplied for companies to stay up to date on their security patches. Security needs to be in real time or close to real time. Second, we have become extremely mobile. We take our laptops, smart phones, smart pads, and many more devices everywhere we go. Now many people will say “hey, I have a next generation firewall. I don’t need end point security.” That person is exactly right, except for one problem. Your next generation firewall only works when you are connected to your network whether you are at work or you VPN.

Did you know, on average, that IT knows about 10% of the cloud applications running on their network? The other 90% of apps are never approved by IT as enterprise ready or secure. 70% of these apps are being implemented by your business leaders to communicate internally/externally and to make processes more efficient. The final 20% are all the apps that your users access on work machines including BYOD such as unsanctioned storage and email apps.

Big or small the answer to this above question is most likely “no one.” While large enterprise businesses seem to always make the headlines for security breaches, the Sony’s and Targets of the world, all organizations have seen an increasing amount of security breaches. Why? Cyber criminals do not care how big you are! If they can take money, they will! The big wigs have implemented every security prevention solution known to man in order to protect against Advanced Security threats. They still get breached. So, whats the problem?

Bird Rock Systems had a baseball style weekend. We had a Happy Hour, a Lunch & Learn in Orange County, and closed out the weekend at the Farmers Insurance Open, luckily before the storm hit on Sunday!

Kicking off the weekend on Thursday January 28^th, Bird Rock held its 2016 Happy Hour Kickoff at Societe Brewing Co. We like to hold these relaxed, fun Happy Hours every month in order to talk with our customers and get to know each other and our respective teams better! Leaving all sales at the door this is a real opportunity for our customers to meet other IT professionals, mingle with the Bird Rock team, and relax over a few colds ones! We see the value in connecting our customers so they can share experiences and advice with each other outside of a solutions provider telling them what they need.

Pictured Larry Hoehn,Jim Matteo, Matt Hannula, Kelly Sullens, Ashley KoojiThe next morning we made our way north for a Lunch and Learn at Taps Fish House and Brewery in Orange County. We hold these Lunch and Learns in order to introduce ourselves and partners to prospected customers as well as update our current customer base on the latest and greatest of technology. Bird Rock Systems Senior Network Architect, Larry Hoehn, discussed to the value and benefit of Advanced Managed Services. To sum up his presentation, Advanced Managed Services is a proactive service that allows you to maximize the investment of the solutions in your network. It is like buying a pool and having a pool guy come out once every couple months to make sure everything is working properly and is safe to swim in. We partnered with Juniper Networks for this event as well and they discussed their latest products including switching, routing, and security. After an incredible lunch with tri-tip and craft beer, we were ready to prepare for the next event.

Saturday morning felt better than ever as we walked into the Farmers Insurance Open and onto the 16^th hole at our Executive Greenside Suite! It was the best customer turn out we had ever seen and it came to no surprise. The food was amazing, the weather perfect, and golfers “wowing” as well as “choking” on the Par 3 at the 16^th. Every year we like to hold around 6 Executive events like this one, giving our customers and prospects memorable experiences. Sometimes it is golf, other times it is driving a NASCAR racecar, or target practice with high powered weapons!

The whole purpose of our events is to give IT professional’s valuable experiences whether it adds value to their IT knowledge or to their personal life, like relaxing on the 16^th hole with a Moscow Mule!

If you are an IT professional and want to be a part of our next event feel free to email your contact information to mhannula@birdrockusa.com.

“No worries…We make I.T better!”