We held an exciting event at Markley earlier this month for a cause that we hold close to our hearts - Junior Achievement of Northern New England.  The mission of this impressive organization is to inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy.  Using hands-on experiences, JA helps to prepare young people for the real world by teaching skills in financial literacy, workforce readiness and entrepreneurship. Markley Group's Mark Sullivan, a Board Emeritus Member of Junior Achievement, moderated the session and also gave a tour of our facility. We welcomed Liz Brunner, formerly of Channel 5 news desk, and now CEO of her own media training and consulting firm, Brunner Communications. The award-winning news anchor and reporter shared from her experience with more than two-decades of television and public speaking experience to provide tips and best practices for corporate speaking, which she also uses to train high-profile individuals and organizations to develop their own personal presentation and leadership skills, and brand image through media training, coaching & consulting.  

Our Meet at Markley is later in the month, so we'll be sure to let you know how it goes. Or you can attend for yourself and find out! We will be discussing the importance and services to help you archive and the need for storage in the cloud on Thursday, February 27, from 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM. Lunch will be served as usual - sign up here: Meet @ Markley - Archive and Storage in the Cloud

Why this topic, you ask? While cloud services have exploded in recent years, nothing has grown like the need for storage. Burgeoning storage budgets have forced enterprises to implement alternative solutions in the Cloud. Getting data into, or worse out of, cloud storage can be both difficult and expensive without well defined SLAs. Lowering costs, while not harming productivity or performance, can be challenging. Determining the right solution for Cloud storage can be deceiving as multiple providers promise the world but delivery often comes up short in terms of performance and TCO. So many factors can alter storage and archival design significantly, and performance and reliability can suffer without the most efficient designs. Why save compliance data for years on expensive disk platforms when moving that data to secured Archive platforms can lessen costs significantly and free up precious expensive storage for data that actually requires it. Patrick Gilmore, Markley Group's CTO, will discuss strategies for using the cloud to store data.

New to Markley? Or maybe you've been with us for a while, but have never met one of our veteran executives, John Fleming. We urge you to introduce yourself to John as he presents a wealth of knowledge on the facility and data center best practices.

John is the Senior Vice President of Operations and has been an important member of the Markley team for 13 years. He is responsible for many vital processes at our One Summer Street mission critical facility. John's teams are responsible for mission critical infrastructure, such as power, cooling and critical maintenance of equipment, telecommunications, bandwidth, remote hands, security and logistics. As one of Markley's executive leaders, he oversees several departments that work hand-in-hand with vendors, carriers and customers to ensure continuous uptime, seamless data setup, bandwidth optimization, and on-going, top-notch support. In addition, he is responsible for overall building security, which involves continued interactions with critical government agencies.

John is highly regarded in the data center management community and has been recognized many times in Who's Who in both technology and communication segments. John has also served on an advisory board for his alma mater, Stonehill College. You can learn more about John here.  

Markley Group's Patrick Gilmore Quoted in the Wall Street Journal.

Frank Underwood Didn't Break the Internet, But He Pushed its Limits