February 2014 Newsletter — After the Olympics

Brian Wood Blog, Newsletters

And now a word from our sponsor…

Comments from CEO Greg Rollet

Dear Valued Clients,

Thanks for being our customer. All of us at AIS recognize your central importance to our mission, which is to provide innovative & trusted enterprise-class IT infrastructure solutions that enable you to focus on your core business.

AIS-Greg-RolletWhat we’ve accomplished on your behalf in the recent past has been very positive. Here are a few data points:

  • Support: Invested in technical training for our Client Service Engineers, each of whom has been on the job at AIS for an average of 3.6 years. In fact, the combined CSE team has over 100 years’ experience serving AIS clients. We’re proud of these talented professionals responsible for 24x7x365 monitoring and remote hands fulfillment.
  • Lightwave Data Center: Performed a full 4,000 amp switchgear retrofit and expansion; upgraded and expanded UPS 1 and implemented UPS maintenance bypass capability; upgraded UPS 3B2 and expanded production floor ASTS-PDU support capacity.
  • Fiber Alley Data Center: Performed upgrades to two engine generators to enhance our emergency stand-by capability; expanded the environmental support capability within the electro-mechanical area; replaced all the UPS batteries on all the UPS systems.
  • San Diego Tech Center: Upgraded and commissioned a new mechanical plant building automation system; expanded the environmental support capability to the electro-mechanical area; performed retrofit and upgrade to the fire suppression system.
  • Van Buren Data Center: Added cabinet capacity to accelerate the provisioning process for both production and disaster recovery implementations. Turning up cloud and colo service in Phoenix has never been faster at AIS.

Currently we are developing new Managed Storage and Managed Security services to provide the next level of functionality, fault-tolerance, and convenience. Stay tuned for details.

I am excited to be at the helm of AIS and am very positive about the prospects for all of us in the Southwest. Thank you again for your business and your loyalty to AIS — we wouldn’t be who we are without you.

Sincerely,
Greg Rollet, CEO

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AIS to Co-Sponsor BIOCOM DNA Sequencing Event

On Wednesday, March 26, AIS will be co-sponsoring a star-studded BIOCOM event in which four local powerhouses of biotechnology will take the stage:

Moderator:
David Hale, Chairman & CEO, Hale BioPharma Ventures, LLC

Panelists:
Jay Flatley, President & CEO, Illumina
Greg Lucier, Former Chairman & CEO, Life Technologies
J. Craig Venter, Founder, Chairman & CEO, J. Craig Venter Institute

Forty years ago, DNA sequencing was a laborious and costly process that produced only a few kilobytes of sequence data in a week. But then the world changed. The invention of automated sequencers in the 1980s enabled the completion of the Human Genome Project, and a subsequent generation of instruments developed in the 1990s laid the foundation for personalized medicine. Today, researchers can generate gigabytes of sequence data in hours for a few thousand dollars. We are rapidly approaching the point where whole genome sequencing can be performed economically at the point-of-care in physicians’ offices. Panelists will explore such questions as:

  • What did it take to develop the first generation machines?
  • Where has the next generation taken us?
  • Where can we expect to go in the future?

Wednesday, March 26, 2014
5:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine
2880 Torrey Pines Scenic Drive
La Jolla, CA 92037

Click here to register. BIOCOM member rate = $50.

Please note: You must be a member of BIOCOM and/or a Life Sciences Foundation Partner to attend.

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AIS Wins Audited Compliance GOLD!

In addition to refreshing our SSAE 16 SOC 1, 2, and 3 Type 2 audits — an unmatched level of compliance among Southwestern data center providers — AIS has also completed an external audit for 21 CFR Part 11.

Title 21 CFR Part 11 of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines establishes the requirements for approved use of electronic records and electronic signatures (ERES).

This is a big dang deal and is completely unique among data center providers. Just ask the analysts at 451 Research.

Attaining this important milestone helps FDA-regulated clients – including drug makers, medical device manufacturers, biotech companies, biologics developers, food manufacturers, and contract research organizations (CROs) – meet their own rigorous compliance requirements.

Conducted by Moss Adams LLP, one of the largest accounting and business consulting firms in the nation, the third-party audit of AIS data center operations demonstrates high standards in an area that is particularly sensitive for the Southwestern life sciences community.

Such audits are major differentiators for AIS. When evaluating data center service providers, remember to always ask to see the audit report!  Your business may depend on it.

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AIS Structured Cabling – Show Your Cage Pride!

Have you heard about AIS structured cabling?

Now is the perfect time to transform “chaos” into order. Our in-house team can deliver exceptional, professional results based on much experience over many dozens of projects.

Cabling is often overlooked or taken for granted, but even the major equipment vendors will be the first to say that all of their devices are useless if the cabling is incapable of supporting the applications.

Understanding the data center standards, identifying cabling objectives, and choosing the right components go a long way toward ensuring reliable performance and operation.

Let us do your cabling work and enjoy a professional, high-quality outcome with superior value and satisfaction.

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AIS Cloud Services Host Olympic-Size Party

As you may already know, AIS offers enterprise-class cloud services empower business leaders to transform capital expense (CapEx) into operating costs (OpEx).

Cloud services enable a wide range of options; typical scenarios for business clients using AIS cloud services include:

  • IT Extension, where a Layer 3 VPN connection is added to the company’s current VMware infrastructure and then managed using vCenter.
  • Hybrid Cloud, which provides instant IT scalability with built-in firewalling, single management console, and complete public / private network isolation.
  • Rapid Scaling (bring-up and tear-down) of massive quantities of virtual machines for short-lived IT projects (e.g., test and development).
  • Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity (DR/BC), which with zero CAPEX investment can mirror data between geographically diverse sites in both public and private cloud systems with full infrastructure duplication.

The AIS BusinessCloud1 instances in San Diego and Phoenix are completely autonomous from each other in terms of connectivity and functionality. This operational isolation ensures the highest level of Disaster Recovery capabilities while maintaining accessibility.

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AIS Network Connectivity – Top of Winners’ Podium

AIS has been committed to connectivity for a long, long time. In fact, we are the ONLY Southwestern service provider that operates its own regional optical and dark fiber network, which we manage with Cisco-certified staff.

We operate our own MPLS network spanning from Los Angeles to San Diego to Phoenix.

Our connectivity is the backbone of our disaster recovery / business continuity solutions and the gateway to our cloud services.

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AIS Blogs – Sochi & So Much More…

Our Blog Pages are where we offer expert opinion and relevant articles on topics that matter to our clients.

Recently we’ve been posting about:

We invite you to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and/or LinkedIn so that you will know when something new has been posted.

Your thoughts and feedback are important; please use whichever communications avenue you prefer (e.g., social media, email, web contact form, etc.) to let us know what’s on your mind.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR BUSINESS. We wouldn’t be who we are without you!

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