Can Someone Manage My Network and Make It Simple?
Aug 25th
Wide Area Networking is becoming more complicated and the resources are sparse. Plugging different solutions with different companies and equipment, is too difficult to troubleshoot and often times is only a short term solution. No longer do companies have the funds and staff to deploy and maintain a wide area network. Intelletrace sees this demand, and continues to have great success in providing customers a full solution. Intelletrace is designing complicated networks with disaster recovery, VoIP, and full redundancy from the network level all the way down to the switches and routers. Also, we also can procure all of the hardware using refurbished equipment, which is 70% to 90% less than the new equipment. Intelletrace supports and manages the hardware 24×7, with next day shipping for equipment that might fail.
Companies are changing quickly in order to compete in today’s market place. Their wide area network is more important to them than ever, and most of the time, a straight out of the box solution will not work for them. Intelletrace has the experience and flexibility to offer any wide area networking solution to meet your need. Most importantly, we are going to cut through the BS and get your business up and running.
American Express OPEN Business Event
Aug 20th
Jumping off the Telecom subject…
Last night went to San Francisco to enjoy the American Express OPEN event. The event was at the 7 week old Wayfare Tavern. The Wayfare Tavern is the new creation of Chef Tyler Florence, of the Food Network. You might have seen his new show, the Great Food Truck Race. No, he would not tell me you won. Anyway, the food was awesome, especially the filet and fried chicken. Once the first mad rush for food was over, it was easy to get the food and well organzied. Although, they did run out of the lamb chops, which looked delicious. It was great to speak with other people in different industries, as well as, run into old friends. It is a small world…
I do recommend visiting the Wayfare Tavern, the next time you are in the City. Good location too. It is a block or two from the Embarcedero Shopping Mall. I have attached a picture of Tyler and I, enjoying the night. Sorry, the iPhone GS does not have a flash, so the picture is a little dark. I might have to step up to the iPhone 4, once the bugs are worked out.
If you have checked out the Wayfare Tavern already, I would love to hear about the experience, since we did not get to enjoy the full experience with a sit down dinner.
A Big Fish in the Carrier Pond
Aug 9th
The Customer First service Intelletrace provides our customers, make our clients feel like a big fish. The clients of Intelletrace are #1 and we are always striving to make them feel important. We understand the mish mash of layers upon layers add nothing but complexity to the big Carriers. Through all the acquisitions, multiple databases, and separate networks, the clients are the ones who suffer and get lost. How often have you sent an email or placed a phone call to your account team, just to get lost in the Carrier Pond? Intelletrace has one database, one account manager, and one project manager assigned to every client. We make you feel like you are the only Fish. We can access your customer information quickly, whether it is billing, service status, or pricing. To top that off, Intelletrace will also provide the competitive pricing less than the competition to meet your budgets. We provide our clients more clout, due to our spend with the Carriers.
Getting It Done!
Jul 19th
Intelletrace is working with another Social Gaming company. The name will be revealed at a later time. However, if you are a fan of Jim Cramer’s most popular saying on Mad Money, you may know who they are. The company’s growth is unbelievable and the upgrades needed to happen quickly. DSL was no longer an option for people to get work done. This company had many decisions to make and multiple needs. One most important need, was working with one company, experienced, and with competitive rates to meet their budgets. They just didn’t have the resources or time, to manage and work with multiple vendors. Check, check, check… Within 2 days, the Intelletrace team had set up a tour at a premium data center in Mountain View, who could deliver their configuration within 20 days, provided competitive pricing with a fiber provider who could deliver 50megs of Internet bandwidth within 20 days, and search out a tier 1 Carrier to build out fiber to the data center, to provide them diversity and a premier Carrier to reach their client base in the Philippines.
Intelletrace is the one Network Service Provider who could meet their requirements. Bottom line, we are getting it done in their time frames to meet their mission critical applications for their customers. Another Raving Fan!!!
Flexability, Accountability, and Endless Resources
Jul 9th
Intelletrace has entered into an agreement with California Transport Donor Network (CTDN) to provide all the Wide Area Networking Management services to their growing network. CTDN is a non-profit organization providing the community a resource for organ and tissue donation. As CTDN continues to grow, their network became complicated, as well as, they must continue to meet certain health care network standards. After struggling working with a large Carrier, Intelletrace entered the picture. Intelletrace designed a complete network to meet their needs, manage the installation of the new data services and equipment, and also implement 24×7, 365 days a year management of the network. Intelletrace was also able to secure them first class data center space in Milpitas with Coresite. Intelletrace listened to CTDN to meet their needs and take their headaches away, so they can deal with their day to day functions, and come under their budgets for the project. Initially, CTDN went down the path of working with XO directly. However, XO was only able to provide a portion of the services and management which CTDN was ultimately requiring. A big Carrier can only offer what is in place today. Thinking outside the box and creating customized solutions is impossible. This ended up putting a lot of extra stress on CTDN IT group, of finding the extra resources of man power and money, for a complete solution to meet their needs. Intelletrace entered the picture, to take this off their plate and provide a complete solution, taking the management, network design, and equipment off their hands. Intelletrace was not only flexible in proving a solution for CTDN, CTDN was also relieved they could contact one source to get the job done or when problems might arise.
Flexibility, accountability, and endless resources is why the relationship with CTDN and Intelletrace is flourishing.
Do Consumers No Longer Value Quality?
Jun 28th
Maybe today is just a bad Monday, coming off a sunny nice weekend, but I am continually speaking with customers who no longer care about the value of service or quality of network they are getting if they could just save 5% to 10%. I am not talking 5% to 10% from $10,000. I am talking about $500 to $2,000, which is not a whole a lot of difference for a proven reliable existing service. Is it the recession, which we are supposedly slowly getting out of or are there just so many choices and prices or so cheap, consumers do not care. Consumers are starting to take the stance, “the price is so cheap and unbelievable, if it does not work out, I will go find something else.” I feel consumers are no longer realizing the cost for their own time. As our time gets more valuable, with the popularity of Face book, Twitter, and IPhones, consumers would rather spend hours working on finding better pricing for their services, instead of working with their current reliable vendor, and making a win-win. Sometimes consumers forgot what made them successful to begin with or where to spend their time where it is most valuable. Today was the last straw for me, when a customer wants to move this 4th of July weekend in 4 days, and was insulted that we charged them a $400 one time fee for us to process the order, manage and coordinate our vendor to a site survey, roll a truck to pick up the old equipment and take out the cabling, roll another truck for the new location to cable and place of new equipment. I might be out of line on this, but the price of gasoline and paying employees to do this job on short notice does cost money. I would love to hear from people their thoughts and if they are experiencing the same thing and what you have done to combat this reality.
2010 Telx CBX Show
Jun 14th
Playing catch up after a few days in New York and attending the Telx CBX show 2010. It was a great event. Met a lot of new people, as well as, saw plenty of familiar faces. There are a lot of new vendors who are up and comers. As IP is moving to a commodity and continues to drop in price, now high bandwidth at the 2.5G and 10G size, are starting to become very attractive. Even smaller companies can now afford to take advantage of the bandwidth availability in the market place.
Telx is probably the best show I attend. People are there to meet and do business. Although, there is an after party, the event is one day, so people make sure they can get the most out of it. Now it is on to Nanog…
I will leave you with a quick interview I did at the show…http://www.tmcnet.com/tmc/videos/default.aspx?vid=2665&title=Interview+with+Intelletrace+at+CBX+2010
Partnership with Quadrant Data Systems, Inc
May 28th
Intelletrace has formed a partnership with Quadrant Data Systems, as their single source for all of their wide-area-networking. Intelletrace is proud to be involved with Quadrant Data Systems, who is the premier data center and hosting facility in Marin County.
Here is the link to a recent press release:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Encompass-Holdings-QDSI-pz-3023490140.html?x=0&.v=1
Projecting Economic Cycles
May 24th
Busy week… I believe this is a sign of good things to come. Went to an Economic forecast last week, which had some very good information. I want to pass some of the highlights along:
There is a solid recovery which will last through 2012 (except if you are in non-residential construction).
It’s time to change our mindset in the way we are investing in our businesses, or you are going to be left behind. The mindset has been to hunker down, due to the Great Recession, but that time is now over! The economy has turned the corner. His specific recommendations:
1. Train your folks and get them ready for the turnaround.
2. Spend money on marketing, but ONLY if you know what your competitive advantage is. If you don’t know it, develop it!
3. Have the courage to spend the money you need to build your business. Take measured, calculated risks. Most of your competition will wait.
* There will be three years of growth (2010-2012) before a flat year in 2013, and a mild recession in 2014. 2015-2017 will be recovery years.
Expect a 2019 recession (not as bad as 08-09) (Ouch!)
The stock market will not return to the 2008 peak until 2017.
Inflationary pressures are coming. Expect .25-.75 basis points rise later on in 2010; and 2.0- 3.0 basis point rise in 2011. Rates should peak at 7.5% in 2012.
How you can deal with Inflation: 1) Borrow as much money as you comfortably can this year (or a bit more). 2) Buy equipment to improve the efficiencies of your plants and businesses, so you’ll need fewer people. 3) Lock in all of your costs, for as long as you can. (Leases, long term costs, etc.) 4) Personally, go purchase inflation adjusting assets (real estate) in good, cheap markets – like AZ and TX and 5) invest in commodities. You will need to raise prices one year from now.
East Bay Data Center
May 13th
I toured the Core Site Data Center yesterday in Milpitas. I know it has been around since 2007, but it was the first time I had a chance to visit. There are not many in the East Bay and I consider it the premier Data Center, which has available capacity. The facility is easy to get to from the South Bay and the East Bay. The data center is also well disguised in an office park and has all the features and benefits of a top notch data center, SAS 70 type I compliant and soon to be type II. With multiple fiber providers coming into the facility, being an old WorldCom mega POP, and fiber back hauled to 55 South Market St, San Jose, this makes it very easy to reach any Carrier you want. 55 South Market, is one of the premier locations in the Bay Area. Almost every Carrier has their IP POP or LD POP at 55 South Market, making it very convenient for diversity and cost efficient bandwidth.
Intelletrace is providing our customer a MPLS network for all of their offices and their colo, a 100 meg point to point for data replication, and 10megs of bandwidth for Internet. We are able to provide this network design using 3 different providers for full diversity and redundancy, due to the multiple fiber providers at the Core Site facility. Intelletrace’s flexible business model allows our customer to meet their goal of multiple Carriers, one point of contact, and one invoice, allowing them to work on their business.
Let us know if you would like us to set up a tour and provide a free consultation of your data center and wide area networking needs.
Marc Alciati
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Industry: Telecommunications
Occupation: President CEO
Location: Novato : CA : United States
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