UC4 Blog - Part 2

UC4 Serves up a FREE Forrester Webinar

November 23rd, 2011 No Comments

While many are preparing to cook a feast for Thanksgiving, UC4 has something special cooking up for you by way of webinar. UC4 is offering free registration for an informative webinar, taking place post-holiday, on Tuesday, November 29th, with Jean-Pierre Garbani, Vice President, Principal Analyst from Forrester Research, Inc., and Tom Flitter, Applications and Integration Manager for TASC, as they discuss how IT process automation is the key to industrializing your operations to improve productivity and reduce costs. As an added bonus, all webinar attendees will receive a complimentary copy of a recent Forrester report, Market Overview: IT Process Automation, Q3 2011 – just our way of showing “thanks” to all of you.

Also in celebration of the holiday, UC4 hosted a food drive to support Northwest Harvest, a local hunger relief agency. Since we all love a little healthy competition around here, we held a contest among departments to see which could bring in the most food in terms of weight – this year’s winner was the Development department. And in total, we raised more than 1,500 lbs of food that will go toward feeding a lot of people this holiday season. Great work, team, thank you!

Happy Thanksgiving from your friends here at UC4!

Farewell Integrate Attendees! Until Next Year!

November 10th, 2011 No Comments

Today marked the closing ceremony for the 10th Annual Integrate conference. Thank you to all of our UC4 users for a great week!

Yesterday at Integrate, both AMC Theatres and Collective Brands added to our collective knowledge by sharing their real-world experiences with UC4. After wrapping up presentations from our best-in-class customers, Integrate dove into the training portion of the program and provided five technical tracks on several of our solutions including the Automation Engine, Insight and Decision. Kudos to our customers on their inquisitive quest to improve their UC4 IQ.*

A huge hit at Integrate was the UC4 Support Lab – set up with plenty of laptops and top-notch technical experts – which was constantly packed with customers that wanted demos, hands-on support, and daily-use tips and tricks they could take back to the office.

To close out the 10th Annual Integrate conference, UC4 pulled together a video montage from a collection of photos submitted by attendees throughout the week based on the “What Do You See?” theme. We see UC4 users leveraging ONE Automation to enable their business to do more than ever.

Be sure to stay tuned to our blog for details on Integrate 2012!

*If you’re interested in more training opportunities on UC4 Software you can find a list of scheduled training classes on our full web site.

Integrate Showcases Best-in-Class Customers!

November 9th, 2011 No Comments

UC4′s Integrate 2011 ended its first full day of sessions yesterday with 11 customer presentations on various innovative ideas and best practices. Thanks to these companies for stepping forward and sharing tips and tricks for optimizing UC4’s ONE Automation platform and improving business results. We’re always impressed with the innovative ways our customers use our software, from automating run books and batch workloads, to helping meet audit and security requirements, to loading big data into multiple analytics platforms, automating applications, and so much more! A big round of applause to these customers for presenting at our user conference:

CBS Interactive
Comcast
Drexel
Fender
Hofstra University
John Deere
PG&E
Stein Mart
tw telecom
University of Alabama
Woolworths

The full agenda can be downloaded online and presentations will be made available to all UC4 customers after the event on our Support Zone. John Deere’s presentation focused on the emerging hot topic of predictive analytics and intelligent monitoring to prevent errors using UC4’s Predictive Analytics. Using UC4, John Deere creates custom alerts for end-users so they’re informed about potential issues before they impact the system performance and determine the root cause of impending problems before they ever take place. They’re a great example of a company who is “rethinking IT automation.” Check back later for more updates on customer presentations from AMC Theatres and Collective Brands as well as the top questions and answers being addressed real-time in our onsite Support Lab at Integrate 2011.

For those of you not at Integrate, here is a short video clip of UC4 CEO, Jason Liu, discussing ONE Automation:

Live Update from Integrate 2011: UC4 and Forrester Take the Stage

November 8th, 2011 No Comments

It’s been a busy morning for UC4 as we kicked things off at Integrate 2011 today in Fort Lauderdale. UC4′s CEO, Jason Liu, and president of the Americas, Ken Jackson, welcomed close to 200 guests to the morning sessions at the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina.

Following Jason and Ken, UC4 customer keynote Tom Flitter of Total Administrative Services Corp (TASC) addressed the crowd. TASC relies on UC4 to support their corporate growth initiatives of driving IT to service models. Tom provided several pieces of practical advice for fellow customers seeking to scale their IT operations staff in support of more dynamic and service-oriented business requirements.

Immediately following the customer keynote was a Market Overview of IT Process Automation discussion led by Forrester Research, Inc.’s analysts Glenn O’Donnell and J.P. Garbani. The analysts discussed Forrester’s recent Q3 2011 report on IT Process Automation, in which UC4 is positioned ahead of the pack in terms of IT process automation capabilities.

The morning ended with a panel discussion moderated by Forrester on the topic of the Future of IT Process Automation. UC4 customers, Boeing Employees Credit Union (BECU), Con-Way, and Air Products and Chemicals, staffed the panel to provide insights from the front lines.

Check back tomorrow for a recap of the customer presentation topics and favorite sessions. In the meantime, here are a few snapshots from the UC4 Innovation Station where customers are submitting leading technical innovations and best practices all in the name of “Rethinking IT Automation” — and for a chance to win an iPad!

Kicking off the 10th Annual Integrate…

November 7th, 2011 No Comments

…where a lucky customer will win a trip for two to the Indy 500!

While winning a trip to the Indy 500 would be awesome – it isn’t the only incentive to attend Integrate 2011! Our 10^th annual Integrate event is structured specifically with you – our customer – in mind, and filled with educational seminars, hands-on training, and dozens of best practices that you can take back to integrate into your company’s processes.

Here are the top technical reasons our customers are attending:

Access to 20+ hours of hands-on product training from UC4’s senior consultants and developers
Connecting with nearly 200 customers to share best practices and ideas
Networking with the UC4 executive management team to share experience and feedback with the highest level UC4 decision-makers
Gathering insight from industry experts on new technologies such as cloud computing, virtualization, and complex event processing
Becoming a UC4 Certified Professional

On the social side, there will be plenty of time to network and connect with consultants, developers and fellow users at cocktail receptions or during the hosted dinner cruise. Plus, Integrate is taking place this weekin Fort Lauderdale, Florida – who couldn’t use a little more sunshine in their lives, right?

Follow @UC4Software on Twitter to stay up-to-date on the latest happenings this week at #Integrate2011. You can also check back here for live updates and photos from the event.

Service Level Governor

June 1st, 2011 No Comments

Just last week UC4 released our new UC4 Service Level Governor to acclaim from customers, press and industry analysts. The UC4 Service Level Governor helps IT professionals improve their quality of service (QoS) by orchestrating three layers (business processes, applications and infrastructure), not just one. As cloud computing and virtualization add to the complexity of IT environments, meeting SLAs becomes ever more of a challenge.

The UC4 Service Level Governor allows businesses to gain real-time visibility, manage their SLAs proactively and manage IT to business requirements.

Our Fortune 500 customers are jumping at the chance to implement. When we previewed the UC4 Service Level Governor for one of our largest customers, a major e-commerce and payment company, they had only one question: “How soon can we get our hands on it?”

Another customer, a giant global bank, called the UC4 Service Level Governor a “game changer” because it not only reports on SLAs but helps them analyze, predict service level violations and make responsive decisions and changes to head off problems before they happen.

Likewise, the industry analyst community is very excited about the UC4 Service Level Governor, which they see as a step toward proactive monitoring or true “Service Governance.” They also told us UC4 is light years ahead of our competitors.

Learn about the future of workload automation with UC4’s ONE Automation and how the UC4 Service Level Governor combines real-time monitoring and analysis with intelligent decision making for higher service levels.

Welcome to ONE Automation

March 15th, 2011 No Comments

Well we made it to ONE Automation. This is the day the landscape of systems management software changes. Finally a unified automation solution that intelligently orchestrates your business processes, applications, and IT infrastructure. Now you can automate tasks AND decisions. Take a look at our press release.

No more managing up to 12 different automation tools – you just need ONE. No more spending time on administration when you could be working on those great projects that sit idle on the sideline because you’re too busy. You know, the projects that fundamentally add value to your core business. And no more wondering if the job will be completed on time. And accurately on time. Now you can unify, simplify and accelerate your business. ONE Automation.

We do it all from ONE platform. The UC4 Automation Platform – rich in functionality, intelligent in execution. The UC4 Automation Platform can help you see around corners to keep your business moving. While everyone else reacts to problems – you see them coming and execute around them. While everyone else is doing root cause analysis on the problem – you’re already done, and on to the next project.

And while the other guy is trying to integrate a dozen automation tools – you’re working with ONE. One deployment, one training, one pane of glass. That is the power of ONE.

Don’t take our word for it, check out what others are saying.

6 Days Left Until the Launch of ONE Automation

March 10th, 2011 No Comments

We are less than a week away from ONE Automation and it’s getting busy around here.I have just enough time to remind you on this 6th day out that UC4 can consolidate 6 different areas of automation in your enterprise with ONE Automation.

That’s going from six to ONE. Job Scheduling – we’ve got the industry’s most scalable automation engine. Application Automation – we’ve got all the adapters, the integrations and over 1,000 enterprise class deployments of Oracle and SAP. Application Release Management – process flow logic and templates all ready to go. Run Book – broad range of the most critical datacenter functions ready, with more on the way. Managed File Transfer – encryption, compression, checkpoint restart are all there plus high performance transfer from any platform. Virtualization Management – use VMware or HyperV? Don’t worry we have you covered. (And did I mention our Virtualization Management solution won two awards?)

OK. So stop and think about how much time and money you are spending managing all your different automation tools. Really. It’s a lot. And now there is a better way. ONE way.

See you on March 15th!

20 Days to ONE Automation

February 24th, 2011 No Comments

Today begins UC4 Software’s 20-day countdown to our ONE Automation launch. From now until March 15, we’re highlighting some interesting facts about UC4 and why more than 2,000 companies trust us to automate their business. So what’s interesting about UC4 today? We’ve been recognized as one of the Top 20 companies to watch in 2011 by CIO.com. We appreciate the nod and couldn’t agree more. You see, we’re out to change the automation software landscape. There is a better way to automate your business processes. It can be simpler, easier and more reliable. You don’t need dozens of tools – you just need ONE Automation platform. You don’t need disconnected business processes and applications and infrastructures – you just need ONE Automation to integrate them all. And you certainly don’t need to be in reactive mode when orchestrating your IT infrastructure – you just need ONE Automation to help you see around the corner. Keep an eye on the countdown at www.uc4.com/one, and see you on March 15th!

Tech Conferences: Things are Looking Up

December 1st, 2010 No Comments

In the US, Black Friday and Cyber Monday kick off the holiday shopping season and are seen as something of a barometer on consumer confidence and by extension, for the state of the economy. As Forbes reported earlier this week, things seem to be looking up and “consumers are more confident about opening their wallets.” Attendance at tech shows and conferences seems to be suggesting the same thing.

People are back at shows in force. We’re in the final stretch of a fall run that’s included Gartner IT Expo in Orlando and Cannes, SAP TechEd, UK Oracle User Group this week and Gartner Data Center Summit next. It’s completely anecdotal, but Gartner ITExpo in Cannes and SAP TechEd in Berlin and Las Vegas were phenomenal for us. Attendance is up, the energy is different.

While it’s too early to call it, indications are there that conditions are changing. Focus is shifting to productivity over straight cost cutting. Customers are coming ready to buy – they’re doing research, not simply window shopping. And it’s solutions that are drawing their interest. We were swamped at TechEd with folks looking at our system copy solution, UC4 Automated System Copy for SAP.

So does that mean there’s reason to be optimistic about 2011? Absolutely. Gartner has outlined their Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2011 here. Forrester’s Top 15 Tech Trends from 2011-2013 are here (customer reg required). I’ll talk more about our predictions for the year ahead shortly.

In the US, Black Friday and Cyber Monday kick off the holiday shopping season and are seen as something of a barometer on consumer confidence and by extension, for the state of the economy. As Forbes reported yesterday, things seem to be looking up and “consumers are more confident about opening their wallets.” Attendance at tech shows and conferences seems to be suggesting the same thing.