Sportech continues to improve IT

3600 Minnesota Dr., Suite 150
Edina, MN 55435
connections made simple.
Sportech continues to improve IT
CONTINUED from page 2
in the future. Sportech evaluated
several companies and, after meeting
the teams and reviewing the proposed
solutions, decided to partner with
Emergent Networks.
“Emergent Networks had the size,
resources, knowledge and horsepower
to grow with us,” said Diane Tschida,
Information Systems Manager.
As part of building the IT infrastructure, Emergent Networks architected
a brand-new system that included
centralized EMC storage, servers,
switches,
VMware
virtualization
and upgraded Microsoft Server and
Exchange platforms. The static, inefficient physical environment was
converted into a dynamic, flexible,
virtual infrastructure. The new systems
enable Sportech to utilize cuttingedge technology that will enhance
business processes while reducing
operating costs. The scalable architecture, along with the managed support
from Emergent Networks' managed
services group, has allowed Sportech
to continue to focus on its core business while Emergent Networks deals
with the day-to-day IT support.
“Emergent Networks rebuilt our
systems from the ground up. They
took something that had been piecemealed together and created a strong
foundation to support our expanding
business,” Tschida said. “Everything
works well and our business continues
to grow.”
To increase flexibility and collaboration within the company, Sportech
continued to improve its IT with the
addition of a fully functional Microsoft
Lync voice and collaboration system.
Emergent Networks continues to be
Sportech’s technology partner and
looks forward to growing with the
company.
Newsletter / winter 2013
Emergent Networks has a new home!
inside
We are proud to announce that
Emergent Networks has moved into
our new office at the Centennial
Lakes Office Park in Edina, MN. With
this move we will be better able to
accommodate our growing family of
employees and clients. Our new
facility has almost doubled our office
size from 4,800 sq. ft. to 9,400 sq. ft.
As we were hiring new staff to
address our clients’ implementation
and support needs, it became apparent
we were quickly outgrowing our space
in Burnsville. When evaluating new
office spaces, Emergent Networks
wanted a central location in the Twin
Cities. Several locations were reviewed,
but in the end Centennial Lakes was
the best fit.
Construction on the new space
started in late fall and finished in
late December. Emergent Networks
Top 5 / Case Study /
moved into its new home on Jan. 2,
2013. The office has several conference
rooms and is set up for collaboration
with colleagues, clients and vendors.
Our new state-of-the-art
conference rooms are
configured with fully
functioning industry
standard audio and
video conferencing
equipment
for
demonstrations
and meetings using
integrations
between Polycom and
Microsoft Lync.
We also have greater
ability to demonstrate technologies from all of our key vendors.
Emergent Networks will have client
demonstration stations set up for
virtual desktop environments from
Hot Topic /
Employee Spotlight
VMware, Citrix and Microsoft.
The Centennial Lakes area is
rich with dining, entertainment and
recreational options. The company is
enjoying the new office and
taking advantage of the
conveniences of the
area.
Employees have
even participated
in a pond hockey
match on the lake!
Our new address
is 3600 Minnesota
Drive, Suite 150, Edina,
MN 55435.
Be on the lookout for
invitations to our open house
in the spring. We are looking forward
to you joining us to experience our
new office and meet our growing
family of employees.
emergentnetworks.com
TOP
TechnologyDriven Trends
for 2013
Rapid growth of Big
Data: Companies will
start utilizing analytics
from big data to gain insights
and aid in business decisions.
1
On Demand Services:
Analysts predict
HaaS/ITaaS will grow
rapidly, representing a
shift in how organizations will
obtain/maintain software,
hardware and computing
capacity.
2
Virtualization of
Desktop, Storage,
Apps, Networking:
More businesses will adopt
greater depth of their virtual
infrastructure as virtualization
security increases.
3
Consumerization of
IT: Companies will
capitalize on this trend
and make it a competitive
advantage, recommending
safe and secure third-party
hardware and applications.
4
Smartphones/Tablets
Become Our Primary
PCs: Companies will
need to develop a
Mobile Strategy which could
include mobile: media, sales,
marketing, commerce,
finance, health and more.
5
Sportech and Emergent
Networks poised for growth
Sportech Inc. manufactures OEM ech moved into a new 100,000 sq. ft.
thermoformed plastic products for facility to centralize and streamline its
motorcycles, snowmobiles, ATVs and manufacturing. In 2012, a 50,000 sq. ft.
much more. Established in 1994, the building was added for inventory storElk River based company quickly age and assembly. As the company
became a leader in the industry. The grew at this accelerated pace, its
needs for IT quickly
company got its start
went from that of a
producing
its
own
small operation to
aftermarket accessoone that needed more
ries for recreation veresources,
expertise
hicles. It now manufacand support. Sportech
tures all OEM (original
has worked with outequipment manufacsourced IT partners of
turer) products for its
various sizes for many
clients.
years. When facilities
Sportech considers
Chris Carlson,
needed to be expanditself a design house for
President/CEO
ed once again in 2012,
clients. The company
it was an opportune
has been experiencing
explosive growth for many years now. time to build an infrastructure from
In 2002, the company bought land the ground up that could grow with
and erected its first 10,000 sq. ft. Sportech. Company leadership began
building; and as the company grew, a search for an IT partner who had the
it added three additional buildings, resources and bandwidth to support
creating a somewhat disconnected their needs now and grow with them
and inefficient manufacturing campus.
To address this issue, in 2008 SportCONTINUED on BACK
612.213.2600
Newsletter / winter 2013
Hot Topic: Disaster Avoidance
By Jamie Anderson, President
One area of technology that much
of my time throughout my career has
been focused on is business continuity
and disaster recovery. This is driven by
the fact that many of our clients cannot
tolerate downtime because they
operate in heavily regulated industries
that require very robust DR plans.
These days, however, the thought of
having your IT systems down for any
length of time is enough to keep most
executives awake at night. Traditionally,
having an extensive business continuity
plan that involved fully functional IT
systems was a luxury of the select few
who had the IT budgets to match.
Fortunately, innovative technologies
such as server virtualization have driven
down the costs of business continuity
to a more accessible level.
When we meet with clients to
discuss their disaster recovery plans,
we typically start the conversation by
discussing their RPO (Recovery Point
Objectives) and RTO (Recovery Time
Objectives). This conversation drives
much of the technology that is used
in the solution. Each client is unique in
their requirements for data protection
and recoverability.
As one might expect, the lower the
RPO and RTO, the higher the costs.
While a recovery from last night’s tape
that takes 3-4 hours to restore may
have been acceptable several years
ago, we are consistently seeing the
requirement for both RPO and RTO
going to zero for mission critical applications.
Moving from a disaster recovery
strategy to a disaster avoidance strategy
is an excellent way to maintain the
desired uptime of those mission critical applications. While the concept of
disaster avoidance may not be new,
the technologies used to achieve it
are—and they are changing how we
look at business continuity within the
data center.
With the advent of virtualization we
are able to
create server
clusters that
span a physical machine to
minimize downtime within a physical data center.
These same concepts can be applied
to create a geographically “stretched”
virtual data center that spans two physical locations, creating the ability to
move workloads between data centers
with no downtime while the users are
accessing applications. Ultimately, this
means there is no “pushing the big red
button” to fail over to your DR site.
For more information about disaster
avoidance and business continuity
strategies, please contact us directly or
check out our blog for a more in-depth
discussion around the technologies
used to achieve disaster avoidance.
Employee Spotlight: Bill Kukowski
Hometown: Greenbush, MN
How long have you worked for
Emergent Networks? Just over 1 year
Caffeine of choice: Coke Zero
Favorite vacation spot: Lake of the
Woods – Ice fishing or Jamaica
Favorite tech gadget: Something I
haven’t seen or played with yet
Favorite quote: “You know what we
get to do today, Brooks? We get to
play baseball.” From the 2002 movie
"The Rookie"
Last book you read: "The Last Man"
by Vince Flynn
Bucket List item:
Play in World
Series of Poker
Main Event
Favorite holiday: Christmas
Favorite movie:
Sports-themed
movies
Favorite charity: My local church
Dream car: Chevy Avalanche
Hobbies: I enjoy watching youth
baseball, ice fishing, poker, adventure
books
Fun fact about you: Two different
colored eyes
Mobile device of choice: iPad/iPhone