Systems Design & Integration

There are many ways to configure a PC network and the success criteria is most usually whether it performs the job of storing, processing and printing data and emails effectively; however, there are myriad other considerations which our experienced team would assess in order to ensure a robust, secure and most critically – a recoverable environment - in the event of some disastrous event.

The most fundamental input when designing any new IT system, or when looking to enhance an existing infrastructure, is to fully understand your current and foreseeable requirement and to share with you some of the technology applications and developments we have experienced in similar environments. For example is it likely that some or all of your users will need remote access to email and perhaps certain business applications or data such as their documents, the accounting system or the customer database.

Taking this information together we can then propose one or more solution that will provide the required functionality along with appropriate storage and performance overhead to accommodate the anticipated lifetime of the equipment.
We always recommend and implement business level hardware and software which we know to be reliable and widely supported, and we ensure that important administration passcodes are securely maintained.

Throughout our proposal, preparation, implementation and maintenance we are ever mindful of the implications of a significant event which might destroy your IT system, or perhaps render it inoperable or inaccessible. Though it is not necessarily possible or practical to provide a contingency for every circumstance or eventuality, we will work within your budget to provide backup, business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities; some common solutions involve the implementation of Continuous Data Protect (CDP) to mitigate against accidental or malicious file deletion, and the maintenance of pre-configured off-site equipment.

Application Services

Through our extensive business automation work with our customers we have achieved extensive knowledge of many of core application services ranging from ubiquitous e-mail messaging including Exchange, through productivity systems such as SharePoint, through to back end data environments like SQL.
From a desktop perspective this means we have the experience to integrate ancillary systems, over and above the standard Office and Outlook applications, including Device and Direct Dictation, Document Image Processing (DIP), Specialist and Bespoke Software, Computer Aided Design (CAD), Video Conferencing, plus the achievement of interconnecting a wide range range of mobility devices including Laptop, Netbook, Tablet and Phone devices.  
For the benefit of the majority of our customers we take pride in providing understandable and largely jargon-free direction and advice, which is balanced commercially and technically; consequently we are regularly visitors to Board Meetings as the ‘trusted IT advisor’.

Architectures

Some of our customers are interested in the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the technical solutions and for them we are happy to provide more depth.

We configure switched Local Area Network (LAN) at speeds of up to 10Gb to the desktop, and are adept in Power over Ethernet (PoE) and Virtual LAN (VLAN) configuration – both of which are fundamental to convergent technologies such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony and Internet Protocol Closed Circuit Television (ip-CCTV).     
We provide and support a range of server configurations from simple Small Business Server (SBS) devices to System Fault Tolerant (SFT) clusters based upon multiple Blades, Virtualisation and Storage Area Network (SAN) arrays.

For the straightforward addition of low criticality disk space we deploy Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices, and for portability we provide a range of media including ruggedized RDX cartridges and securely encrypted USB Memory Sticks which ensure that losing the stick does not expose your data.

Our recommended Server backup now utilises ‘Imaging’ technology and in most cases this is implemented with Bare Metal Recovery (BMR) which increases the likelihood of a successful recovery to dissimilar hardware and also reduced the time involved from days or weeks to a matter of hours – a serious consideration following a significant systems-loss event.

We take a multi-layer approach to system security and vulnerability threats such as hackers, virus and malware, and recommend and implement various ‘Perimeter’, ‘End-Point’ and ‘Remote Access’ software and appliances to minimise risk.

All of this adds up to a professional, robust and recoverable environment.