20-Year Anniversary for Cambridge Computer, in Educational Storage Services

Cambridge Computer Services, Inc. is one of the oldest storage-focused solution providers.

Deena Berton, CEO, Jacob Farmer, CTO, and Steve Odio, CFO/COO, launched the company in 1991 as a boutique integrator with a specialization in backup systems and archiving.

Deena Berton explains: "Back in the day, we figured that backups and archiving would be a good niche for a few years. We never could have imagined how storage capacities would balloon, how complex the storage industry would become, and that our little niche would have such staying power."  

Cambridge is known in the industry for its educational services. Back in the 1990s Cambridge created training materials for backup system administrators. They provided hand’s on IT training to thousands of IT professionals including end-users, consultants, and the professional services staffs of the major OEMs and ISVs in the storage industry. Cambridge participated in the early days of the SNIA SAN certification training and created a nationwide program for raising the awareness of SAN technology for small and medium size enterprises.  

Today Cambridge Computer continues to offer lectures and seminars on a storage-related topics around the country, except that now they are offered free to qualified IT end users.  

Jacob Farmer, Cambridge’s CTO explains: "Our company’s greatest asset is our ability to jam-pack a ton of technical knowledge and insight into a few short hours. Yes, people would be willing to pay for seats in our classes, but we find that it is better for business if we share our knowledge for free as a way to differentiate us from other providers in the industry."  Jacob continues: "Of course, the liability of this approach is that Cambridge’s students are free to take the info and run, but a meaningful percentage find that an advisory relationship with Cambridge costs nothing and is of enormous value."  

This strategy has proven effective. Cambridge has experienced steady growth over the last 20 years and has grown to a staff of roughly 70 people with representatives in all major geographies around the country.

Cambridge will be working with three industry groups this coming fall and winter to deliver storage education around the country:

• Backup Central Live – Curtis Preston, a/k/a Mr. Backup has launched a seminar series to promote new ideas and best practices for enterprise backup. Cambridge has teamed up with Curtis’ team to help promote the seminar series and to present Cambridge’s views on alternative approaches to big backup.
• Active Archive Alliance – The Active Archive Alliance is an organization made up of vendors in the active archiving space. Its mission is to provide messaging and education around the benefits and best practices for tiered storage and digital preservation. Cambridge has developed the course content for a nationwide roadshow that kicks off later this summer. 
• The Usenix Association – The Usenix Association is a non-profit organization whose mission is simply the advancement of information technology. Cambridge Computer has developed a day-long program called the LISA Data Storage Day.  This program consists of four lectures. Topics include, storage virtualization, deduplication, application acceleration with solid state storage, and object / cloud storage.

Dates, times, and locations for the above mentioned programs will be posted on Cambridge Computer’s web site in early September.