So what is it?

It is a metaphor for consuming IT services as a utility, similar to how you’d use electricity. Like in the early days of electricity where you would need to know the method that it was generated with and how it was transmitted, everyone had a different plug socket and to use it you would have to generate it, maintain it and expand it at your own cost. It changed through standardisation and consumerisation bringing electricity eventually to everyone.

Similarly the internet and computing services are going through an evolution where by vendors are offering services that have been abstracted from their underlying technologies, servicing and upkeep for a recurring periodic charge. This provides you with the ability to consume what you need when you need it rather than having to purchase everything up front.

 What does that mean for me?

If you are a small business it opens up a number of technologies with a level of services that can only be achieved economically by scaling them. This has been an advantage that enterprise organisations have had for years. Whether you are looking for email and calendaring, file storage, customer relationship management, the chances are that a service is available.

So is cloud computing only for small businesses?

Certainly not but as the number of IT users you have in the business increases so does the magnitude on administration. No matter what current service providers say this does not diminish in a cloud environment and in many cases can itself magnify the problem due to the creation of data islands, mismatched service level agreements, regulatory compliance, fragmented authentication and authorisation methods along with service monitoring and management which still need to be upheld by you.

Where do I go from here?

As with any business change you need to start with a good understanding of what you are trying to address or what problem/issue you wish to remediate. We would recommend you take a structured approach so that you can clearly define your functional and non-functional requirements of the service then use this as the measure against using a public cloud service, building your own cloud service or taking a more traditional approach.

With the prolific growth of mobile devices such as laptops, smart phones and tablets, not to mention the trend towards hot-desking and working from home or whilst travelling, many large organisations (not just NHS Trusts) are struggling to balance both requirements. The need to maximise web based opportunities whilst safeguard from Internet-based threats calls for an effective and flexible solution!

Waxtie is therefore delighted to announce the launch of its SAFE ZONE services, a suite of software and hardware options that directly address the subjects of Threat Management Gateways (TMG) and Unified Access Gateways (UAG) whilst working alongside standard Microsoft products. SAFE ZONE protects your organisation from Internet-based threats whilst providing simple data access by such methods as hot-pin technology on mobile devices. Some of the SAFE ZONE products also have the advantage of being straight out of the box options which can be plugged in and used immediately, providing instant peace of mind.

SAFE ZONE can also be deployed as part of Waxtie’s SAFE START programme – a consultative approach to new IT Projects that ensures all deployment of IT is ‘fit for purpose’ in terms of people and technology – and that time and money is not wasted on things that don’t work. Proposed options are tested and ratified by a ‘proof of concept’ procedure and for larger projects are included in a roadmap to final deployment.

To learn more about how SAFE ZONE and SAFE START, can help your organisation, call us on 0845 241 3211 or email info@waxtie.com. You can also post a message to us via the contacts page on our website at www.waxtie.com

Waxtie – so much more than IT

2011 has been a busy but challenging year which has seen Waxtie Ltd grow quite dramatically and I think our success has come from our ability to be able to adapt quickly to market changes.
A high proportion of Waxtie’s consultancy work is for trade partners and whilst that reduces potential profits, it has allowed us to maintain & increase the workforce and has guaranteed a steady and reliable cash flow. This has also given us the capability to address the needs of our direct clients from our wider skill base.
Investment in staff has always been core to our business with continuous training and personal development being of the utmost importance. We have made a commitment for 2012 to continue our recruitment drive and investment in training and have further increased our sales and marketing efforts.
Whilst many of our services are aimed at enterprise organisations, the recent promotion of our Windows 7 Migration and Safe Start (IT Business Strategy and Alignment consultancy service) has put us in a dialogue with a wider business sector.
Lots of businesses need to Upgrade to Windows 7 with the withdrawal of support for Windows XP and this upgrade needs more preparation than is immediately obvious. It will become a priority for most businesses in 2012 to ensure they do upgrade to Windows 7 .
A new service for 2012 which addresses the needs of businesses large and small is our Safe Start consultancy process. By looking at the whole IT and business picture, and creating a roadmap for future IT deployment, Waxtie ensures that a company’s IT strategy aligns to its business needs.
I think 2012 will continue to be challenging and those businesses who have a solid IT and business strategy in place will be first to reap the benefits of an upturn in the economy.

Having reviewed the Innovation Showcase exhibitor list for Venturefest Yorkshire 2012, I feel proud to be a fellow exhibitor. There are 36 Exhibitors, all of which, no doubt, have a great story to tell about what they can offer to the delegates who attend.

What makes Venturefest, now in its 9th year, so special? It’s the entrepreneurial theme, attracting exhibitors to show their great solutions and delegates the chance to see the very latest ideas and innovations in action. OH ! and… don’t forget there are some really inspiring keynote speakers.

Waxtie now in its third year of business, has built a strong IT Strategy and Infrastructure Architecture consultancy. Predominantly supporting the more established big name consultancies, we are now looking to expand our direct client base in the North of England.

For those companies with 50 IT users or more, it is well worthwhile coming to see us in the Innovation Showcase zone and talking to us about how our Waxtie SafeStart consultancy process affords your organisation the opportunity to address its IT business strategy and create an agreed roadmap for your future IT deployment.

There are plenty of areas for discussion… Mobile device access, Data security, Hosting or on-Premise. The larger your organisation, the more important it is that you have a clear IT Road Map.

Call or email ahead and arrange a coffee table chat with one of our architects in the Venturefest café area.  Info@waxtie.com or 0845 241 3211

Richard Rymill, Consultant

Waxtie first ever exhibition stand

I was recently asked to deliver a talk on what it is like running your first exhibitor stand by the Venturefest Yorkshire team and why I chose to come back.

As a fairly young company and my background being more technical and operations focused I remember how daunting the sales and marketing elements of running a business for the first time can be.

Expectation

Make sure you have reasonable expectations. It is very easy to get carried away in the hype and excitement being generated by event organisers that you could find that business partner that will launch your business forward. While this could be true you are more likely to meet a number of very interesting people who you will start to build a relationship with.

Don’t forget that this is a perfect opportunity to hone your skills and the message you are conveying. Use this time as training as well as a better way of getting some direct market feedback on the impression of your sales and marketing. If you have not come form a sales or marketing back ground the chances are you probably have never arranged to exhibit or may not have experience manning a stand or conveying your company message.

You only have 9 hours and you won’t grab everyones attention, therefore set a realistic target of the number of people you would like to talk to and how many contact details you would like to gather so you can get in touch with out of the event. Remembering that even if no one wants your service/product today, they may do in the future or know someone who may do. As such you have now increased your brand awareness.

This is your time, you have paid for it and you want to get as much benefit from it so work out in advance what you want to achieve, then write it down!

For our first ever exhibition my aim was to have talked to 50 people, collected the contact details for 30, have the experience of preparing and managing a stand, and gain valuable feedback about our offerings. I achieved all of these.

Preparation

Being prepared for the event is paramount. Hopefully you have your brand and message ready so now it is a case of how to get it across to the audience.

Start by writing it down and make sure everyone who will be on your stand knows what it is they should say and how to deliver it. Pay attention to how everyone should look so you can be identifiable with your brand.

1-2 weeks for a print company to complete a banner is a good estimate of lead time, then you have the art work itself to prepare beforehand. This goes for other printed works such as posters, hand outs, business card.

If you are going to use a large display screen ensure you have run through your show reel.

Make a checklist of everything you need for the day, the run up and afterwards. Include everything from the physical items you need to take, to stationary, to signage or other branded material, to electronics, to forms or details for the event, personal items, snacks, drinks, activities to promote yourself beforehand and tasks to capitalise on it afterwards.

Grab a box early and start packing it with everything for the day. Power leads, inline breaker, promotional give aways, tape, bluetack, pens, markers, scissors, lead sheets, stapler, etc…

Go setup your stand the day before if possible just in case something is missing, wrong, broken, forgotten, etc at least you have a chance to rectify it as it is a lot more difficult (and stressful) on the day.

And no matter how nervous you feel get an early night before the event. No one want to talk to someone who is tired or looks hungover.

Innovation

Starting up you don’t have the largest marketing budget so be a little more creative. Can you use your home flat screen TV on a table or hire a stand to reduce the costs? Do you need that printed literature or can you provide a PDF on your web site? Do you have to use exhibition lights or will your up lighter work? Do you need to cover the back with a banner or something else, perhaps a wall of testimonials or a drape or 2 posters or roller banners?

Whatever the day brings try to relax, have a bit of run and enjoy it.

The site “Leeds, Live it, Love it” provided a good article covering the main points of the evening, which can be read at this link,

What it does not say is the fantastic hospitality of the LNT group director and staff on the night. I can only say thank you and hope we meet in the future.

For more information about Connect Gazelles please visit the website.

So come and talk to us about Safe Start. We look forward to meeting you.

Venturefest Yorkshire 2012

Nice Technology Limited create Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) with unparalleled realistic graphics and simulations using their in- house AliceServer Technology.

They have successfully developed their own game “Time of Defiance” as well as being commissioned to provide systems for military and security personnel training systems. More recently they have  been involved in developing “Tronji” in association with the BBC and Ragdoll. This            MMOG encourages children to participate and collaborate in an online world.

The Challenge

The key challenge that Nice Technology faced, was that they had to deliver a combination of highly creative skills with programming and development knowledge to bring their games and simulations to life. However, there were still some gaps in their technical knowledge which they needed external help delivering. These included;

• Infrastructure design
• Security
• Resilience
• Operations

The Solution  

Initially we assessed Nice Technology’s current infrastructure and their development requirements so that we could understand where the gaps existed. We also took into account the expected growth for the business for the next three years so we could plan how we could help them.

From this review we worked with the team to develop an infrastructure design that had appropriate levels of resilience that also included a disaster recovery strategy and backup plan.

Then, by working in partnership with the IT manager we were able to clearly identify the missing skill sets and provide mentoring to key individuals to transfer the essential knowledge they needed to develop their infrastructure and gaming solutions. As well as providing IT mentoring services, we also worked with the IT team to source key technologies and vendors to assist with the implementation of technologies that were required to build a robust infrastructure.

In addition, we made sure that there was full operational documentation and procedures in place that could be used by the team once we had completed the project to ensure the successful running of the environment.

The Quote

I can honestly say that WAXTiE do a fantastic job! We’ve been very impressed with their service and solutions. They are highly professional and a pleasure to work with. Our project was on time, on budget and a big success thanks to them.

Gary Wood,

IT Manager

Cloud2 is a dedicated healthcare solutions provider with a strong focus on providing Microsoft SharePoint solutions to the NHS and the broader health sector. They are Sharepoint consultants to the healthcare sector but they also provide the project management, the expertise, the design, the implementation, the management and the development of Sharepoint and other healthcare related services.

They have experience working with both private and public companies in this arena and are considered one of the leading authorities on implementing Microsoft SharePoint solutions for healthcare.

The Challenge

Cloud2 were experienced in delivering SharePoint implementations for their clients across the NHS and broader UK medical arena. However their clients were looking for additional services that would allow them to proactively monitor and manage the systems that had been installed to ensure they continued to run successfully.

Therefore they were looking for a partner with experience of this type of support and who understood and could meet the challenges of working within the regulations of the governmental systems. Their core challenges were:

• To provide proactive monitoring of the system that was available locally but could post the results to a central location
• To ensure that the data contained no user or patient identifiable data, was secure in transit and could not be compromised.
• To allow remote support should it be necessary if engineers were unable to make a site visit.
• To provide a standard view of each system or service to their support engineers so they could rectify any problems as quickly as possible
• That is must be easily repeatable across multiple sites

The Solution

At the start of the project we worked with Cloud2 to develop a full set of requirements and project plan to ensure that we had all the information we needed to ensure that implementation would be successful. Using this information we then developed a prototype system that could be tested fully before it was rolled out to each of the sites.

In addition, to maximise the budget available we decided to use a number of proven, open source components, including:

Nagios – An industry-standard in IT infrastructure monitoring that can provide enterprise-class monitoring of hosts, services and applications.

Cacti – A complete network graphing solution that can display data and information for complex networks with hundreds of users

OpenVPN – An open source virtual private network (VPN) program for keeping information data transfer secure between sites

Once the design was agreed, a test environment was created on a virtual server platform to simulate the connectivity, firewalling, local components, Microsoft SharePoint Server, Microsoft SQL server and Microsoft Active Directory. This was an important part of the process as it ensured that before the system was implemented at the client’s site it was running effectively and any issues had been dealt with in the test environment.  More importantly the whole process was documented so that there was a “manual” developed as the system was being built.

Once the testing was completed the support system was implemented “live” on the client’s site enabling them to monitor their systems much more effectively both locally and from a central point. More importantly it ensured that the data contained no user or patient identifiable information, was secure while being transferred and could not be compromised.

Most importantly now that the concept has been proven it has allowed Cloud2 to have a standard mechanism that they can repeat for a number of clients.

The Quote

“Martin and I worked on many projects around health sector infrastructure and N3 hosting. He has proved himself to be an outstanding engineer, forward thinking and flexible in his approach to architecting complex technical solutions and always willing to go the extra mile to deliver on time, to revisit proposals and to ensure that we could meet our client’s needs. I’m delighted to be able to forge a partnership between Cloud2 and WAXTiE” 

Simon Hudson

Bliss-Systems are an award winning software development and web-technology consultancy many years experience in professional software development services. Their knowledge covers the entire software development lifecycle from inception and business analysis to deployment and maintenance.

They deliver quality online-solutions, web-applications, database-solutions, desktop applications and automation software. They typically work with clients from research companies, procurement companies, laser control systems and cam systems, including Transport for London.

The Challenge

Bliss-systems is a software development house with a highly creative approach to developing solutions for their clients. Business has increased as they maximise the benefits available by integrating with the latest application servers. But the need to support legacy deployments alongside cutting edge software techniques is causing inefficiency with increased underutilised resources along with compatibly issues as multiple versions are running side by side.

An additional requirement was introduced by the necessity to provide access to the systems to contractors and staff working remotely for long periods.

The Solution

By clearly identifying changes in working practice and development requirements made possible by working in partnership with Bliss we were able to utilise virtual desktop computing as part of an overall virtualisation strategy aimed to provide improved utilisation and application compatibility through segregation.

After evaluating several manufacturers virtualisation solutions it was decided that the Microsoft platform was the most cost effective on both price/performance and supportability with their current skill set. Once all the equipment was delivered we then constructed the infrastructure using industry best practice and ensured that the platform was fully secure.

The result was the production of a resilient virtual platform that was secure, flexible and easily scalable and could be used to develop client sites and solutions. We also provided full documentation, monitoring and alerting systems so that the technical team could troubleshoot any problems or issues in the future.

Finally we have maintained a third line support contract to ensure assistance is available when required and provide additional consultancy with on going projects.

The Quote

Martin has provided high quality consultancy and technical service for us on a great number of systems. His attention to detail and unbiased approach to technology is both refreshing and cost saving. I would recommend Martin and his company to anyone looking to improve their IT systems and infrastructure whether you are small or enterprise level.

Dr Dan Donnelly

The Architecture

The infrastructure is based on a 5 node Microsoft Hyper-V R2 cluster using a Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2008 iSCSI SAN for shared storage and Microsoft Windows Remote Desktop Services as the broker for RemoteApp and Remote desktops.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager is used to manage virtual guest commissioning, placement and operations.

External access is granted utilising Microsoft Windows Server Remote Desktop Services Web Access portal and Gateway services.

The Technology

• Microsoft Hyper-V R2
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2
• Microsoft Windows XP
• Microsoft Windows Vista
• Microsoft Windows 7
• Microsoft Windows Remote Desktop Services
• Microsoft Windows Internet Information Server 6.0
• Microsoft Windows Internet Information Server 7.0
• Microsoft Windows Internet Information Server 7.5
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008
• Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services
• Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007
• Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
• Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 R2
• Microsoft Office 2003
• Microsoft Office 2007
• Microsoft Office 2010
• Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0
• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
• Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2008