A new look to com-com.co.uk

We’re pleased to announce the launch of the new and improved com-com website.

The new site is quite a change from what went before. It features a new design with a fresh new look and is more focused on our customers’ needs.

The goal of the new site is to provide our customers, partners and colleagues with a better insight into Com-Com’s services while at the same time providing a useful resource for all IT professionals who want to get more from their IT budget.

We hope you like the changes and welcome any feedback.

 

A Marathon, not a Sprint – Keeping your Systems running

It’s Olympic year and a rich summer of sport lies ahead. While many eyes will be on the 100m athletics final, we will be thinking about the marathon. This is because we understand that, in business, critical systems need to keep going. Business computing is more like a marathon: it’s a long-term investment and it requires sustained effort.

Your systems need to keep running, day and night, year in year out. They must function all the time, as service interruptions cost money. But of course like marathon runners, they need periodic refreshment. Com-Com’s unique expertise can help. Our services enable you to keep valuable systems running. We make sure that you receive prompt service and deliver updates, spares and services when they are needed to guarantee service performance.

High-performance computers need regular maintenance, just like an athlete. By auditing and reviewing your needs, we can make sure they deliver optimum performance for the long-haul. Our friendly and approachable team act like stewards, helping keep valuable IT infrastructure on track and ensuring they maintain peak condition.

But if anything does happen, we guarantee to sprint to the rescue, minimising down-time and putting your systems back on track so that they can continue operation, with minimal disruption. Our flexible SLA terms mean you get the service you need, when you need it. You never know what lies ahead, so we keep pace with your needs to make sure your systems keep running.

Keeping your Systems Stable

Bull computers are built for high-performance computing and mission critical applications. They have a world-wide reputation for stability and exceptional performance. But while you can rely on their performance, what happens when the warranty period for your essential hardware expires?

Manufacturers continue to innovate – they offer new systems and new solutions, but simply replacing a fully-functioning system that has been integrated into your network may not be an option.

It’s expensive to replace a fully-functioning system. It’s not just the capital costs involved in purchasing new hardware, there’s the cost of integration and commissioning. There’s the disruption and inconvenience of managing what will almost certainly be a significant project.

Worse, solutions that are working just fine may have been subject to end-of-life notices, meaning that support is no longer available from the manufacturer. Or, if support options are available, they could be too costly to be viable. What can you do if you are running essential applications on a Bull platform that is no longer supported?

That’s where we come in. We can offer full support and maintenance packages for high-performance solutions from Bull, enabling you to sustain your systems and ensure they keep running.

By choosing Com-Com as your support and maintenance partner, you can enjoy many benefits. We offer excellent terms for supporting out-of-warranty solutions and, best of all, in the event that you need any replacement hardware, our unrivalled access to spare parts enables us to maintain systems and extend their working life to suit your organisation and budget. If your Bull systems are working fine, doing their job and continuing to deliver performance, why change anything – except your support partner?

How to protect your IT hardware investment

For more than 20 years Com-Com has been helping organisations across the UK to get the most from their IT budgets. We specialise in providing new and refurbished equipment to extend the life of your systems, enabling you to maximise your Return on Investment and reduce your IT spend.

Worldwide urgent IT parts and equipment supply

We can help you prolong the life of your IT equipment with new, refurbished and second hand servers, networking or storage equipment from over 100 manufacturers. Whether you’re looking for parts, upgrades or complete systems, no matter how old or obscure, hardware can usually be located somewhere in the world and can normally be shipped within seven days.

If a critical server is down and you need a part in a hurry we can usually source and supply essential items within three-four hours to be shipped anywhere within mainland UK.

Why choose Com-Com?

  • Savings – Preserve your hardware investment with new or refurbished equipment at low prices.
  • Expertise – Our brokerage team has over 50 years’ experience in the industry.
  • Reliability – Our in-house engineers can test equipment before delivery and install and maintain if required.
  • Quality Service – We typically handle hundreds of enquiries a day and provide our customers with a prompt and efficient service.
  • Multi-vendor – Obtain parts from over 100 manufacturers including IBM, Sun, HP, Dell, Bull, EMC,  Cisco, Nortel, Avaya, Symbol and Zebra.
  • Track record – We’ve been supplying equipment to over 100 countries since 1989.

Search our brokerage database of four million parts at www.com-com.co.uk. It lists our own stock as well as stock lists from  over 6,000 brokers worldwide. We have one of the largest stock holdings of refurbished EMC storage in Europe. We can provide new and factory-refurbished HP servers at very competitive prices.

To lean more…

Or call us on 0845 643 1180 to talk about your requirements.

New additions to the Com-Com team

We’re delighted to announce the addition of two new faces to our rapidly growing team.

Recent graduates Sarah Moore and John Macaulay joined us at the beginning of March to take up newly created positions in our sales and marketing team.

They’ll both be identifying new business opportunities for our growing maintenance division. Sarah will be working with our Storage sales team and John will be helping out with Server sales.

This makes six additional members of staff across or sales and engineering teams in the last twelve months as we expand to meet the needs of our customers and build on our recent growth.

“We’re delighted to welcome Sarah and John to our maintenance sales team” said Keith Parker, MD at Com-Com.

Don’t let the Sun set on your Sun equipment

2012 signals the End-of-Service-Life (EOSL) for a range of older Sun kit including some popular, widely installed Blade Server, Enterprise and Netra systems.

We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of all the Sun equipment that’s scheduled to go EOSL this year. You may no longer be able to get manufacturer support for any of these systems so it’s crucial to have an alternative plan in place.

Release

Sustaining Support Ends

Sun Blade 2000 Server

Aug-12

Sun Blade 1500 & 1500 (Silver) Server

Jun-12

Sun Blade 2500 & 2500 (Silver) Server

Jun-12

Sun Enterprise 220R

Dec-12

Sun Enterprise 250

Dec-12

Sun Enterprise 420R

Dec-12

Sun Enterprise 450

Dec-12

Sun Fire 280R

Jun-12

Ultra Enterprise 3000

Dec-12

Ultra Enterprise 4000

Dec-12

Ultra Enterprise 5000

Dec-12

Ultra Enterprise 6000

Dec-12

Sun Enterprise 3500

Dec-12

Sun Enterprise 4500

Dec-12

Sun Enterprise 5500

Dec-12

Sun Enterprise 6500

Dec-12

Sun Enterprise 10000

Dec-12

Sun Fire 12K

May-12

StorageTek Virtual Tape Library (VTL) 2.0

Oct-12

Netra t 1120

Dec-12

Netra t 1125

Dec-12

Netra t1 100

Dec-12

Netra t1 105

Dec-12

Netra st D130

Dec-12

Sun StorEdge 6020/6120 Array

Jun-12

Sun StorEdge A1000

Sep-12

Sun StorEdge D1000

Sep-12

Sun StorEdge D2

Sep-12

B200 – Disk Subsytem (SATA)

Feb-12

D200 Drive Module

Feb-12

D280 Disk Subsystem

Feb-12

FLA200 Drive Module

Feb-12

FLC200 Drive Module

Feb-12

210 Array (FLX210)

Feb-12

240 Array (FLX240) D240 & FLC240

Feb-12

280 Array (FLX280)

Feb-12

FlexLine 600 Series Storage Systems (FLX600) (FLC 600/FLX860)

Feb-12

Sun StorEdge L180 & Storage Tek L180

Jul-12

Sun LTO 1

Jun-12

LTO1

Jun-12

Sun StorEdge 2GB switches 64 port

Jun-12

We offer a range of flexible SLA’s and worldwide access to new and refurbished Sun parts through our brokerage business.

That’s where we can help. Com-Com’s specialist EOSL support effectively extends the life of your older Sun systems. We’re experts in providing first-class cover for end-of-life storage systems at a fraction of the manufacturer’s cost.

Or call us on 0845 643 1180 to talk about your requirements.

For a full list of all Sun EoSL dates please visit our website.


 

 

EMC 2012 End of Service Life List

2012 signals the End-of-Service-Life (EOSL) for a wide range of older EMC kit including some popular, widely installed Celerra systems.

We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of all the EMC equipment that’s scheduled to go EOSL this year. You may no longer be able to get full manufacturer support for any of these systems so it’s crucial to have an alternative plan in place.

Product Model EOSL Date
Celerra Gateway NS700G (1st generation) 31-Mar-12
Celerra Gateway NS700G (2nd generation) 31-Mar-12
Celerra Gateway NS704G 31-Mar-12
Celerra Gateway NS500G 30-Apr-12
Celerra NS NS700 (1st generation) 31-Mar-12
Celerra NS NS700 (2nd generation) 31-Mar-12
Celerra NS NS704 (Integrated) 31-Mar-12
Celerra NS NS500 30-Apr-12
Connectrix – Cisco MDS-9Q20 31-Jul-12
Connectrix – Cisco MDS-9506 (with V1 Supervisor cards) 30-Sep-12
Connectrix – Cisco MDS-9509 (with V1 Supervisor cards) 30-Sep-12
Connectrix – Cisco MDS-PBF-16 30-Sep-12
Connectrix – Cisco MDS-PBF-32 30-Sep-12
Connectrix – Cisco MDS-9120 31-Dec-12
Connectrix – Cisco MDS-9140 31-Dec-12
Connectrix – Miscellaneous SP-1010 31-Mar-12
EMC Disk Library (EDL) DL310 30-Apr-12
EMC Disk Library (EDL) DL710 30-Apr-12
EMC Disk Library (EDL) DL720 30-Apr-12
EMC Disk Library (EDL) DL740 30-Apr-12
File Management Appliance Gen 4 30-Apr-12
Symmetrix 3300 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 3330 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 3400 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 3430 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 3630 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 3700 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 3830 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 3930 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 5300 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 5330 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 5430 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 5630 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 5700 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 5830 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 5832 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 5900 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 5930 31-Mar-12
Symmetrix 8130 30-Jun-12
Symmetrix 8230 30-Jun-12
Symmetrix 8430 30-Jun-12
Symmetrix 8530 30-Jun-12
Symmetrix 8730 30-Jun-12
Symmetrix 8830 30-Jun-12

Com-Com’s specialist EOSL support effectively extends the life of your older EMC equipment. We’re experts in providing first-class cover for end-of-life storage systems at a fraction of the manufacturer’s cost. We offer a range of flexible SLA’s and worldwide access to new and refurbished EMC parts through our brokerage business.

We’re here to help keep your EOSL equipment running and extend the life of your environment so get in touch today to see how we can help.

Or call us on 0845 643 1180 to talk about your requirements.

For a full list of all EMC EoSL dates please visit our website.

Five essential tips for Good Practice in Storage Area Networks

Managing Storage Area Networks comes with a particular set of challenges.

To help you ensure that your company’s data is safe and that your SAN is configured in line with best practice, we’ve compiled a list of five essential tips that should ensure your EMC SAN runs smoothly:

1. Don’t use the vault drives for time-critical applications. The first five drives (0-4) of your SAN hold the Operating System for both storage processors. Using these drives for application data can negatively impact the response time.

2. Maintain host multi-path connectivity. Much of the emphasis around improving performance is put on the drives themselves but it’s equally important to regularly check all host connections and paths. A host may have registered paths that are logged in, but they may not have an active connection to the storage. Reliable MPIO software can help monitor and resolve many issues.

3. Ensure you have sufficient hot spares. Things do go wrong, even in the most scrupulously maintained Storage Area Networks so it’s good practice to configure one hot-spare for every drive type you have. Keep in mind that any hardware failure will need to be dealt with promptly and to have the correct type of drive (FC, SATA, SAS) and the correct speed of drive to cover all eventualities. EMC recommend one hot-spare per 30 drive type, however many sites have one hot-spare in each enclosure.

4. Balance the configuration of your buses. Effective load balancing is essential to avoid data bottlenecks and to keep your SAN running at maximum efficiency. Idle buses are wasted resources while over-used buses could spell trouble in the event of a failure so it’s good practice to distribute the load as evenly as you can.

5. Perform regular defragmentation. This is a particular issue for RAID groups that have been through multiple LUN bindings. It’s good practice to perform regular, periodic defragmentation to keep the available space contiguous. This will improve performance and utilize your available storage more efficiently. We recommend that this takes place outside peak hours as the process will impact the response time for the configured LUNs bound to the group.

Com-Com offers expert support and manufacturer-trained engineers to help keep your SAN running at peak performance. To find out how Com-Com can save you money on your storage maintenance contact us on 0845 643 1180 or visit our website.

 

 

Com Com simplifies hardware maintenance for major educational establishment

Background

In December 2009 a high profile educational organisation sought competitive pricing for support of their Sun servers and storage as the multiple contracts held with Sun began to come up for renewal. After a successful initial period supporting over ninety Sun servers plus storage pro-rated into one contract, a tender was initiated for multi-vender support for the whole Sun estate together with Dell and IBM RS6000 servers and storage.

Client Objectives

  • Significant cost savings
  • Flexible SLAs to cover the needs of a diverse estate
  • Multi-vendor support
  • Simplified contract and billing
  • Enhanced support for critical operational periods
  • Continuity of support for older kit

Com Com’s Approach

  • One week on-site engineering with enhanced spares for critical operational periods
  • On-site spare kits to assist with SLA all year round
  • One flexible contract (replacing more than thirty) allowing equipment to be added and removed, pro-rating as required
  • Dedicated engineers and account management

Business Outcomes

  • Support costs reduced by around 50%
  • One supplier, one contract and quarterly billing greatly reduce management overhead
  • Greater peace of mind with on-site engineers and spares around critical operational periods

Hardware and Software Support Provided

  • 24×7 cover with 4 hour response time
  • 90+ Sun servers, 19 storage
  • 80 Dell servers and storage
  • IBM estate of servers and storage
  • TAG Solaris, Windows and AIX support

Let us buy your old servers and networking equipment

Don’t let your old kit gather dust. Contact us today and turn your obsolete computer equipment into cash.

At Com-Com we specialize in breathing life into old, obsolete servers and networking equipment. We take the outdated, unwanted kit that’s cluttering up your storerooms and we renovate, recycle and refurbish to give it a new lease of life.

We’re looking to buy new, used and obsolete equipment from a wide range of manufacturers: Bull, EMC, Cisco, HP, IBM, Dell, Sun/Oracle and others and can offer you a simple, practical and lucrative way to get rid of your old servers and networking equipment.

What’s in it for you?

  1. Let us take care of RoHS and WEEE compliant disposal. Disposing of computer equipment is not as simple as it used to be since the introduction of EU wide legislation on the disposal of hazardous substances. Selling your old equipment to Com-Com avoids the complications and hassles of compliant disposal.
  2. Free up valuable space in your offices and storerooms. We visit a lot of customer sites and are always surprised by the quantity of disused equipment lying around and taking up space in computer rooms and warehouses. Selling your old equipment to Com-Com removes unwanted clutter and allows you to use your office space more efficiently.
  3. Turn your unwanted equipment from a liability into an asset. Finally, we pay our partners maximum value for their unwanted equipment. Instead of gathering dust, let it gather some cash.

We’ll consider any type of networking or server equipment, no matter how old or obsolete.

So if you’re tripping over ancient hard drives or buried beneath a mountain of ageing network equipment send us an email or call us on 0845 643 1180 to find out how we can help.