SHI is setting up shop at a new blog!

We've moved! We have a new look with broader content at blog.SHI.com. On our new blog, we'll be analyzing the trends driving technology development; providing insight about product releases from major vendors; and educating you on what you need to know when sourcing, deploying, or upgrading your technology. Come check it out! 

OUR NEW LOOK: We've made the move to blog.SHI.com

SHI helps Franklin Township observe Earth Day

We understand all the fuss about Earth Day, but at SHI, we don't observe Earth Day, we observe Earth year. As we mentioned in our last post, we think everyone should drop the day and get into an eco-friendly routine that lasts all year.

And we practiced what we preached last Friday when Guardian Data Destruction came to our campus to help us and those who work and live in Franklin Township disassemble and recycle their old electronics.

The chemicals in old electronics can have a harmful effect on the environment if they're not recycled properly, so we were happy to see that a lot of people came out with their old hardware. Guardian set up camp in our East parking lot from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Friday.

Take a look at some shots of the event below:



Couldn't make it out to the event? Contact your SHI Account Team for more info.

Don't have an SHI Account Team yet? Call us at 1-888-764-8888 to find the SHI office nearest you!

SHI helps move the campus to the cloud

If you went to school when I did, your college library experience was more "Dewey Decimal" and less "digital download."

That's assuming you could FIND the library or the Registrar's office before they closed!

But today's colleges and universities are on the verge of moving the campus to the cloud. That means they'll be bringing the centuries-old experience of enlightenment directly to the dorm room, the quad, and the offices of faculty and staff in seconds at any time, day or night.

In the past few years, universities across the country added online degrees to better serve students managing careers and families in tandem with school. Today, students can view grades, pick classes, access campus facility management, and even check out the meal plan menu from their smartphones.

So, what's the next step for 2012? Experts agree that moving the campus to the cloud can help universities manage mission critical applications such as ERP, email, collaboration, business intelligence analytics, and many others. That's why SHI and HP have helped develop an offering under Internet2 NET+ services to address the evolving needs of higher education computing by delivering an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) community-cloud service.

Every day is Earth Day at SHI

Earth Day is April 22, but we like to stick to a green initiative all year round. In fact, you might remember our post on our new solar panel array, and when we designed our new data center. Our next green move is to help the community properly dispose of their old hardware.

On April 20, SHI is partnering with Guardian Data Destruction to offer safe, effective disabling and recycling of old hardware for SHI employees and our neighbors who live or work in Franklin Township.

Don't think recycling your old electronics is that important? Think again. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that between 2000 and 2007, 500 million computers (alone!) were discarded. When that happens, mixtures of hazardous and toxic chemicals such as lead and mercury can trickle into the groundwater and be released into the air. Most of these chemicals release dioxins, which can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, and have been known to cause cancer.

No need to worry! Organizations like Guardian Data Destruction know how to disable and recycle your old hardware to prevent toxic chemicals from leaking into the air. So come out on Friday, April 20th from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm and take your recyclables to the Guardian truck, stationed at SHI's East parking lot.

But there's more going on than just recycling. SHI will also be scouring the crowd for creative, driven folks to begin their career at SHI. As Thai announced on Fox Business News last week, we're hiring! An SHI rep will be onsite during the event collecting resumes. And if you need any persuasion on whether or not to look into a job with us, take a look at why we were named one of the best places to work in N.J. by NJBiz.

See you next Friday!

How second-generation PaaS will change and challenge IT

No doubt about it, the cloud has become mainstream, especially so for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). How do I know? Because I meet with customers five or six times a week, and I'm no longer educating folks about the cloud, or about IaaS and how it works. Instead, we get right down to why SHI's approach to the cloud and our IaaS services are the best choice for them.

It's fantastic that our customers are seeing great benefits from using the cloud for IaaS. But looking forward, I see some big changes coming to the IT world, driven by what I call second-generation Platform as a Service (PaaS).

IaaS offers significant ROI, and IT loves it because it fits well with the current IT paradigm. Second-generation PaaS, however, will challenge the way IT is done today in most organizations. And CIOs should be preparing now for the changes. Those who don't will soon be facing hard questions from their CEOs.

From first- to second-generation PaaS

In the first generation of PaaS offerings, the providers developed what turned out to be proprietary platforms. You had to custom-build your applications for a specific platform, using a specific set of development tools. You couldn't write your application using any other toolset, and you certainly couldn't upload purchased enterprise application software.

Frankly, this was (and is) a waste of time. Most organizations rely extensively on purchased or licensed third-party software, and even custom software development is done using a wide range of tools purchased from an open market. It's not surprising that first-generation PaaS has seen slow adoption. The current generation of proprietary platforms doesn't answer the market need for a flexible, open environment.

Second-generation PaaS, on the other hand, lets you to develop custom applications using any set of development tools. You can also purchase or license applications from wherever you currently buy applications, install them on the second-generation PaaS platform layer, and let 'em rip.

What second-generation PaaS means to IT

With IaaS, IT might be offloading some infrastructure, but they still have a virtual infrastructure to architect, man, and maintain. Costs are reduced, but the structure of the work and of the IT department remains essentially the same. You no longer need someone to maintain your storage area network (SAN), for example, but all the other people remain in place.

Once you move to second-generation PaaS, all that virtual infrastructure disappears. Suddenly a large portion of what IT had to worry about is gone. And that's a good thing. Right now, IT spends most of its time doing something it gets no credit for. Nobody gets credit for keeping the infrastructure going. The infrastructure only gets noticed when it's down!

Fox Business spotlights SHI CEO Thai Lee on IT growth and hiring

I'm sure you've heard the news on the jobs front last week. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, employers added only 120,000 jobs in March, when economists expected 205,000.

The silver lining is that the unemployment rate did dip a little, to 8.2 percent. But clearly, as any business leader knows, these numbers are not one-size-fits-all. Some companies are growing fast and hiring aggressively. One of those companies is SHI, and Fox Business News turned to us because of our growth and success against this bleak economic background.

Moreover, we're a woman- and minority-owned business, and Thai's leadership has caused SHI to grow, despite an oppressive recession and very slow, but steady, economy.

Thai stopped by Fox Business on Friday to give her take on SHI's success over the past few years.

In case you missed it, be sure to head over to Fox to catch the segment.



Is there something Thai didn't cover that you'd like to know more about? Leave it in a comment below!

Here's why SHI was voted one of N.J.'s best places to work

Our corporate Somerset, N.J. headquarters, which is home to about 1,000 of our employees, was selected by NJBIZ as one of the "Best Places to Work in New Jersey" for 2012, and later this month we'll be attending an event honoring all of the nominees.

The aim of the award is to benefit our state's economy, its workforce, and businesses. To determine who made the list, NJBIZ looked at workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems, and demographics.

That's what NJBIZ had to say about what makes a workplace one of the best. But what really makes SHI one of the top offices in the area to work in? Instead of telling you, I decided to show you.

Click play below to gain an all-access pass to the SHI Somerset headquarters:



Is there something else you'd like to see about our headquarters that you we didn't show in the video? Tell us in a comment, and maybe you'll see your request featured in a follow-up segment.