Monday 31 January 2011

ramsac delivers the benefits of server virtualisation for Air Charter Service

IT infrastructure overhaul gives air brokerage specialist greater peace of mind

ramsac, a leading IT solutions consultancy has completed an IT upgrade for Air Charter Service Plc (ACS), the global leader in air brokerage based in Surbiton. The project included the deployment of new servers, a Dell Equallogic storage area network (SAN) and implementation of ‘Virtualisation’ technology for improved fail-safe and better use of its network system resources.

Consolidating ACS’ number of servers has worked in tandem with the move to virtualisation to free up valuable resources and give a far greater degree of control over them. The company can now easily scale storage without having to make extensive changes to the network infrastructure. The network is also more robust, with a failover backup service that protects the company’s data and also ensures a high degree of flexibility and resilience, which allows a server to be taken offline (for maintenance or replacement for example) without causing any disruptions.

Thursday 27 January 2011

Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust HAS Improved IT Security with Winfrasoft

Health Access System provides secure remote access through UK health service smartcards

Bracknell, 27th January 2010 – Winfrasoft (www.winfrasoft.com), a UK company specialising in enterprise IT infrastructure and security solutions, has implemented its Health Access System (HAS) for Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust, to improve authorised access to important Trust and national resources. HAS enables staff to access patient records and other information via a highly secure Internet connection that uses 2-factor authentication (2FA). The project enables the Trust to achieve further benefits from the investment made by the NHS in the Connecting for Health (CfH) smartcards initiative.

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Extreme Networks Reduces Data Centre Complexity With Enhanced Network Architecture

Extreme Networks today announced an enhanced network architecture aimed at boosting performance in next-generation data centres and clouds by combining its Direct Attach Virtual Machine (VM) switching with Multi-System Link Aggregation (M-LAG) to create a new architecture that addresses high-performance switching for virtualised environments.

With the emergence of private and public cloud architectures, the networking infrastructure required to support virtualisation and the VM mobility associated with shared and dynamic cloud-based resources has become overly complex due to outmoded network designs based on Spanning Tree. Extreme Networks’ M-LAG Direct Attach architecture addresses this complexity by significantly simplifying network design and scaling performance.

For further information please contact extremenetworkspr@mccint.com

Wednesday 19 January 2011

ramsac a finalist for Toast of Surrey business award

ramsac, a leading IT solutions consultancy has reached the final stages of the Toast of Surrey Awards 2011. The annual awards celebrate the success of local businesses and recognise their contribution to the economy, community and prosperity of Surrey. A former winner of the Surrey Business Award for ‘SME Business of the Year’ and ranked as one of the top 100 managed IT source providers in the world by MSPmentor, the company is a finalist in the ‘Companies with a turnover of up to £5m’ category in the forthcoming awards.

Robert May, Managing Director and co-founder of ramsac comments, “We are always delighted to be recognised within the field of business excellence and it is particularly gratifying to be recognised within the local area. Many of our clients and a large proportion of our team live and work in Surrey, so it is at the heart of our business.”

Tuesday 18 January 2011

Learning the lessons of IT savings

By Paul Mew, Technical Director at leading IT solutions consultancy ramsac

Private and public education is facing tough challenges as a recovering economy means that budgets need to be stretched ever tighter. Whilst reduced government spending puts extra pressure on state-run schools, the economic slowdown means private education is facing falling admissions and must find ways to attract new pupils and retain current ones. Education as a whole is being forced to do more with less and schools, colleges and universities need to make the right decisions regarding where to allocate budget and where to reduce spending.

Clearly, the first priority is to identify those areas where reduced expenditure will not impact on the standard of teaching. In recent years education as a whole has seen huge investment in IT and the benefits, both educational and operational has been significant. However, many establishments can realise savings whilst actually improving what they have by taking a step back and asking: What do we have? What do we need and when? And, how can we do it in the most cost effective way?

To answer these questions the first step is to conduct, or commission an ‘IT-health check’. Once you have completed such an audit it provides a solid foundation upon which to fully assess the status of the IT infrastructure, how it meets the requirements of today and tomorrow, the return on investment and overall value for money of your chosen technologies. However, there are several aspects of the IT infrastructure that almost every establishment could improve and reduce costs.

Monday 17 January 2011

SSEDIC Brings Europe One Step Closer to a Single Digital Community


Thematic network launches to consult and contribute to the roadmap towards the Digital Agenda for Europe’s vision

Scoping the Single European Digital Identity Community (SSEDIC), a thematic network for the EC’s Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE), has launched following its first meeting on 16th December 2010 in Brussels at the Open Government Conference of the Belgian Presidency. SSEDIC will provide a platform for all the stakeholders of electronic identity (eID) to work together and collaborate to prepare the agenda for a Single European Digital Identity Community, as envisaged by Key Action 16 in the EC’s DAE.

For more information on SSEDIC please contact SSEDIC's partner, EEMA at EEMA's press office on eemapr@mccint.com

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Extreme Networks Demonstrates Data Centre Bridging For iSCSI-Based Storage

Extreme Networks today announced product support for Data Centre Bridging (DCB) protocols in multi-vendor environments and the company recently participated in the Enterprise iSCSI Interoperability Test Event, led by the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), an independent provider of broad-based testing and standards conformance services for the networking industry.

For further information please contact extremenetworkspr@mccint.com

Tuesday 11 January 2011

dhc Integration of Microsoft Dynamics CRM at Proskills Delivers Improved Productivity


CRM solution fully integrated with iConnekt, Access Dimensions and Constant Contact

dhc, provider of integrated software solutions, today announces that it has successfully implemented Microsoft Dynamics Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for Proskills. The software has been fully integrated with its financial, email marketing and workflow systems providing the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for the process and manufacturing sector with gains in productivity.

For further information please contact dhc's press office on dhcpr@mccint.com

Monday 10 January 2011

NanoKTN and School of Pharmacy Discuss Importance of Nanotechnology in Formulation and Drug Delivery


The Nanotechnology Knowledge Transfer Network (NanoKTN), one of the UK's primary knowledge-based networks for Micro and Nanotechnologies, is pleased to announce it has partnered with the School of Pharmacy to host an event exploring the ways in which nanotechnology can help with the formulation and delivery of drugs. The conference will provide a forum for industry professionals to discuss and highlight best practise and to encourage collaborative working.


The event will look at where nanotechnology can help with the formulation and delivery of the drugs currently in development that would benefit from such improvements. With presentations from leading industry professionals, the event will look at where key technologies are yet to be established, with the aim to identify gaps in the market where UK companies can invest and become involved.


For more information please visit http://www.nanoktn.com/