Posts Tagged ‘business continuity’

Queen’s University Belfast appoints Novosco to build private cloud

Belfast, June 10th 2010 - Novosco, Ireland’s leading provider of virtual and cloud IT infrastructure and services, today announced it has been appointed to implement a VCE based virtualised Data Centre infrastructure into Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). This project represents the first major V-Block deployment throughout the Higher Education sector in the UK and Ireland.

Built on Cisco’s Unified Computing System, the new virtualised infrastructure will facilitate significantly greater numbers of virtual machines on the same piece of hardware. Cisco UCS offers centralised management over the compute, networking and storage elements needed to deploy virtual ICT infrastructures. This “wire once, walk away” approach will help address the power management targets within the University’s data centres.

The flexibility of the VCE approach within QUB will also afford management greater control over the support and management of the environment, with the potential for new and improved innovations delivered to an increasingly sophisticated end user base. Future investments in the platform will also be significantly less than additions to physical environments, all of which future proofs QUB’s investment. Novosco’s DataCentre Architecture Solutions’ Practice is underpinned by the VCE “DataCentre 3.0” vision. This approach, allied with EMC storage, Cisco’s UCS and VMware’s VSphere Could Operating System allows QUB the potential to optimise DataCentre resources with increased flexibility compared to traditional hardware based solutions.

Queen’s University is recognised as one of the best universities in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is the UK’s Entrepreneurial University of the Year, and a member of the Russell Group of the UK’s 20 leading research-intensive universities, which includes Oxford and Cambridge.

Founded in 1845, Queen’s University Belfast has been providing higher education to students from around the world for over 165 years. Currently it caters for more than 17,000 students and 3,500 staff, with some 100,000 alumni graduates worldwide.

Jim Cunningham, Assistant Director for Information Systems said, “Novosco’s experience in delivering enterprise scale virtualisation environments, along with their strong relationships with each of the VCE technology partners, made them an easy choice to deliver V-Block into the University’s Data Centres.”

John Lennon, Sales Director for Novosco said, “QUB’s approach to the next generation data centre is instrumental in helping it remain one of the most innovative Higher Education providers in Ireland. Giving staff and students a better ICT experience within existing financial and resourcing commitments will ensure that this competitive edge is maintained”.

About Novosco

Novosco is one of Ireland’s leading providers of virtual & cloud IT infrastructure and network services. With established hardware/software vendor partnerships with Cisco, Citrix, EMC, Microsoft and VMware, Novosco offers the highest level of accreditation in Ireland for Virtualisation solutions. The Novosco CloudStream™ range of solutions is leading the industry with Cloud networks and hosted Cloud servers / applications.    

Novosco has provided solutions to a range of clients including government establishments and private sector organisations of all sizes, such as the Queen’s University Belfast, Burlington Hotel, SIAC Construction, Windsor Motors and many more.

Novosco was recently recognised at the annual ICT Excellence awards as ‘Best System Integration Company, for 2009.

For more information visit www.novosco.com

About Queen’s University Belfast

Queen’s University is recognised as one of the best universities in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is the UK’s Entrepreneurial University of the Year, and a member of the Russell Group of the UK’s 20 leading research-intensive universities, which includes Oxford and Cambridge.

Founded in 1845, Queen’s University Belfast has been providing higher education to students from around the world for over 165 years. Currently it caters for more than 17,000 students and 3,500 staff, with some 100,000 graduates worldwide. This is reflected in the University’s Mission Statement:

“Queen’s is a broadly-based, research-driven university with a dynamic world-class research and education portfolio and strong international connections. The University promotes the widest possible access to this portfolio of excellence in an environment of equality, tolerance and mutual respect, and it fully embraces its leadership role in Northern Ireland and beyond.”

Posted in: News, Press Releases Tags: business, business continuity, Centralised Management, Cisco, Citrix, Cloud Computing, EMC, Networking, Novosco, press, security, storage, Unified Computing System, Virtual Computing Coalition, virtualisation, VMware

Company’s UCS accreditation and all Ireland approach, instrumental in winning industry accolade.

Left to right: Bernadette Wightman, Managing Director, Channels (Cisco UK and Ireland), Patrick McAliskey, Managing Director, (Novosco),
Kim Majerus, Director, General Manager – (Ireland Cisco UK & Ireland).

Belfast, April 19th, 2010 - Novosco, Ireland’s leading provider of virtual and cloud IT infrastructure and services, today announced it has been awarded Cisco Ireland’s UCS Data Centre Partner of the Year for 2010. Novosco won the award against stiff competition from other companies in the data centre arena.

In addition, Novosco is the first, and currently only, Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) technical solutions and sales accredited partner in Ireland.

The main factors contributing to both successes have been primarily the company’s focus on the provision of V-Block service offerings to its customer base, and secondly delivering these solutions throughout the whole of Ireland.

Novosco has been awarded a number of high profile UCS contracts in recent months. These include the delivery of the first public sector UCS environment in the UK and the current largest public sector UCS deployment in Europe.

Novosco’s DataCentre Architect Solutions’ Practice is underpinned by the “DataCentre 3.0” vision extolled by each of the key technology partners of the VCE coalition. This approach, coupled with our experience of the Cisco UCS platform, EMC’s storage offerings and VMware’s Cloud Operating System allows Novosco’s customers to experience innovative, flexible and dynamic IT environments at competitive price points.

Patrick McAliskey, Novosco Managing Director said “Our investment in Cisco and the other VCE partners’ technologies allows Novosco to be innovative in solution design. This coupled with understanding the issues facing our customer base, has allowed us to deliver the flexible and dynamic IT experience expected by all our customers. Cisco UCS gives us a real chance to get ahead of the competition in this rapidly changing market, and translate these benefits to our customers. Doing more with less gives both us and our customers an edge in the current economic climate.”

Owen McAllister, Channel Partner Manager for Cisco Ireland, said “Novosco has demonstrated a willingness to challenge the traditional method of server based computing. Their adoption of the UCS platform as well as their knowledge of cloud based computing and their strong customer relationships throughout Ireland makes them the obvious choice for this award in 2010.”

About Novosco
Novosco is one of Ireland’s leading providers of virtual & cloud IT infrastructure and network services.  With established hardware/software vendor partnerships with Cisco, Citrix, EMC, Microsoft and VMware, Novosco offers the highest level of accreditation in Ireland for Virtualisation solutions. The Novosco CloudStream™ range of solutions is leading the industry with Cloud networks and hosted Cloud servers / applications.    

Novosco has provided solutions to a range of clients including government establishments and private sector organisations of all sizes, such as the Queen’s University Belfast, Burlington Hotel, SIAC Construction, Windsor Motors and many more.   

Novosco was recognised at the annual ICT Excellence awards as ‘Best System Integration Company, for 2009.

For more information visit www.novosco.com

About Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. Information on Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.

Cisco, Cisco Systems, and the Cisco Systems logo are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. This document is Cisco Public Information.

About VCE Alliance

The Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition, formed jointly by EMC and Cisco with VMware, represents an unprecedented level of collaboration in development, services, and partner enablement to minimize risk during an organization’s infrastructure virtualization journey to private cloud implementation.

Vblock Infrastructure Packages are integrated IT offerings from the VCE coalition that combine best-in-class virtualization, networking, compute, storage, security, and management technologies with end-to-end vendor accountability. Pre-integrated to provide a new way of delivering IT to businesses, these offerings are validated to help enable the creation of customized solution packages.

Vblock Unified Customer Engagement includes capabilities to help customers understand the business benefits of VCE and deploy Vblock Infrastructure Packages to minimize risk in the journey to private cloud.

Unifying customer engagements, the VCE coalition offers comprehensive professional and technical support services to provide a smooth end-to-end customer and partner experience.

The VCE coalition professional services, jointly developed and delivered, will help customers understand how to maximize value and speed time to virtualization and private cloud solutions. These offers include executive and architecture advisory services, strategy services, and design and implementation services.

Posted in: News, Press Releases Tags: awards, business continuity, Cisco, Cloud Computing, EMC, Novosco, press, virtualisation, VMware

Join us at this exclusive half day workshop to find out how we can help you to address the daily challenges facing IT managers  such as;

• Increasing numbers of users, application and productivity requirements.
• Increasing expectation from end users on quality of service.
• Continuous performance and stability issues.
• Complex patch management issues.
• Heightened security risks and compliancy concerns.
• Increasing costs for support and maintenance.
• Rapidly changing form factor and connectivity options

Agenda

09:00-09:30   Breakfast  & Introduction 

09:30- 10:00  Session 1 

•  Using VMware View 4 to meet the top desktop management challenges, whilst also reducing costs.
• Learn how to simplify your migration to Windows 7 through application and desktop virtualisation.
•  Q&A’s

10.00-10:15  Tea/Coffee break

10:15-10:45  Session 2                      

• Using VMware tools for virtual Infrastructure management.
• Investigate the availabilty of 3rd party tools to help manage Virtual Infrastructure.
• Reflections of our real life deployment in the field.
• Q&A’s

10:45-11.15  Session 3

•  Virtualisation in BHSCT
• The Business Challenges ‘Do more with less’
•  Why Virtualise?
• Future Plans & Developments(Next Generation Datacentres/ Building the BHSCT Private Cloud)                 
•  Q&A’s

11:15-12:00  Session 4 

• Overview of Cisco UCS
• Live BHSCT Demo               
• Q&A’s

12:00-12:30  Session 5                  

• Virtual Infrastructure Backup 
•  The challenges and methodologies of how to restore  
• How various backup products fit business requirements.                 

12:30-13:00 Buffet Lunch & Conclusion

Posted in: Events, Uncategorized Tags: business continuity, Cisco, Cloud Computing, datacentre, EMC, hosting, virtualisation, VMware

Understand how to maximise your current citrix investment…

This Citrix seminar gives you the opportunity to understand how to get the most out of your existing Citrix application delivery investment.  Learn about new Citrix features and upgrade options, end of life products and in some cases how customers are entitled to free upgrades from existing licenses.   

For new clients this seminar also offers the ability to realise Citrix benefits such as effective and secure remote working, how to dramatically reduce capital IT expenditure costs whilst increasing business agility and centrally managing / delivering applications faster.
 
AGENDA in brief:

- Overview of XenApp Upgrade options including: Presentation Server end of life, XenApp 5  Provisioning server & streaming functionality now available, XenApp Platnium Edition

- Informal break out sessions offering advice on features & benefits within your existing Citrix licenses

- Speak to other Novosco customers on recent Citrix upgrades

- Hear about Marathon Technologies automated fault tolerance & high availability software. 

Latest ‘Citrix Application Delivery Centre’ DEMO on display including lastest XenApp (Presentation Server) versions etc.

Join Novosco at our free morning briefing in conjunction with Citrix and Marathon representatives.

Posted in: Events Tags: business continuity, Citrix

The highly renowned EMC Executive Briefing Centre is uniquely on the road to Dublin.  Normally located in Cork, the Executive Briefing Centre is being setup in Dublin on the 14th May.

Why attend?

The need to reduce storage costs, consolidate & protect data and ensure 24/7 business continuity is critical.  The Executive Briefing Centre team will discuss next generation storage and Novosco will be there to discuss customer examples.

Agenda

- Storing more effectively & industry trends
- Customer storage challenges
- Next generation backup
- Next generation archiving
- Optional demos including ‘VMware Site Recovery Manager’

Who Should Attend

All IT Decision Makers

Register now to ensure your place!
Email edwina.nugent@novosco.com  telephone +353 (0) 1 245 5114 or complete the below form.

Posted in: Events Tags: business continuity, EMC, storage, virtualisation

Novosco virtualise servers using VMware technology to cut costs and implement disaster recovery plan

Ken Kennedy, Sisk Group IT Manager & Eddie O'Rourke, Novosco Sales Director

Dublin, 16th April 09 - Novosco, Ireland’s leading provider of virtual IT infrastructure and services is to implement the second phase of John Sisk & Sons IT virtualisation project.  Part of a strategic phased virtualisation project to centralise John Sisk & Sons IT network, Novosco will implement VMware technology on all servers, with the benefits of consolidating hardware and reducing core infrastructure costs. 

The largest general contracting company in Ireland with turnover in excess of €1.2 billion, John Sisk & Sons’ IT infrastructure serves approximately 700 IT users and a vast number of remote construction sites.  Landmark construction projects include Croke Park and more recently, Lansdowne Road. 

“Over the past year we have been working with our preferred supplier Novosco, to centralise our IT infrastructure using VMware virtualisation technology, as well as to risk manage the move of our IT infrastructure to a 3rd party data centre,” said Ken Kennedy, IT Manager, Sisk Group. “Our VMware environment has grown significantly and has become the lynchpin of our IT systems. Within the last 4-6 months we have removed 15 of our physical servers and virtualised them onto two hosts. We feel virtualisation is the way forward for us to further centralise IT and to reduce both ongoing support and capital costs.”

With virtualisation phase two, Sisk will consolidate all servers into the external data centre. This decentralised platform is particularly beneficial given the low level of bandwidth in Ireland and has provided Sisk with a solid disaster recovery plan. From a return on investment perspective, the second phase of virtualisation will create ‘significant’ cost savings, which is particularly important given the current economic climate.

“With 60 to 70 construction sites throughout the country, reducing servers has greatly improved the Sisk Group’s ability to setup new remote sites. Virtualisation creates the ability to rapidly provision servers and applications to meet the needs of the business,” said Eddie O’Rourke, Sales Director, Novosco.  “We brought virtualisation to the table and advised Sisk Group on a staged virtualisation approach.”

“We have a very close relationship with Novosco. We chose Novosco as a preferred partner not just because of their virtualisation experience, but because they added value with their wide range of knowledge of other technologies such as thin client and core infrastructure,” said Daragh Doohan, Network Infrastructure Manager, Sisk Group.

With virtualisation phase two, Sisk & Sons will endeavour to make IT a business enabler, as opposed to being just a cost centre within business operations.  Virtualisation will free up more resources and will add value to projects, rather than be a cost contributor.  Over the next couple of years, Sisk & Sons will also focus on the whole area of desktop virtualisation in order to provide an even better experience for all IT users.  

About Novosco
Novosco is one of Ireland’s leading providers of virtual IT infrastructure and services and is committed to assisting customers in the evaluation and optimisation of their IT systems.  With established hardware/software vendor partnerships with Citrix, EMC, Microsoft and VMware, Novosco offers the highest level of accreditation in Ireland for Virtualisation solutions.  This approach enables Novosco to develop and deliver cost-effective IT solutions that enhance client operations and enable them to get the most out of their IT infrastructure.

Novosco have provided solutions to a range of clients including government establishments and private sector organisations of all sizes including Lagan Holdings, John Sisk & Sons and many more.

Posted in: Press Releases Tags: business continuity, datacentre, virtualisation, VMware

Belfast, 12th March, 2009 — Novosco, who is Ireland’s leading provider of virtual IT infrastructure and services, has been awarded the prestigious and internationally recognised ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certifications.  This formed part of an integrated achievement with Novosco also being awarded the Investors In People (IIP) award.   Novosco achieved the awards with the assistance of CIMAOMEGA, experts in transformational change in the workplace.

The Novosco NIMS system contains details of the procedures and processes that meet ISO requirements for business continuity, data security, and disaster recovery, as well as providing Novosco management and staff with an objective method of maintaining excellent working practices.

Patrick McAliskey, Managing Director for Novosco explained, “As an IT service provider, Novosco customers trust us with their confidential data and their IT infrastructure.  The awards reinforce our commitment to providing our customers with service excellence and they formally recognise that the products and services which we provide are consistently on par with world class standards.  Despite the current economic climate, Novosco felt it was important to invest in the awards as it gives us further competitive advantage and has reinforced Novosco’s position as Ireland’s leading IT provider to both public & private sector customers”. 

“Novosco has been our trusted partner since 2003 and we congratulate the company on the achievement of the ISO awards.  Novosco implemented the virtualisation of our IT infrastructure, which decommissioned over 20 servers and saved around £200k compared to the cost of a non-virtualised environment.” said Jim Fennell Information Systems Manager, Lagan Holdings Ltd.

At the end of last year, Novosco also received the Investors in People (IIP) recognition.  The company was formally assessed with regard to staff training, development and overall company performance. 

Patrick McAliskey continues, “The IIP award shows that we take our commitment as an employer very seriously.  The process has helped us to organise our development programme so that it delivers focused, up-to-date skills to our workforce.  The award is integrated with the ISO accreditation to ensure the high standards needed for these awards are continually maintained.”

About Novosco
Novosco is one of Ireland’s leading providers of virtual IT infrastructure and services and is committed to assisting customers in the evaluation and optimisation of their IT systems.  With established hardware/software vendor partnerships with Citrix, EMC, Microsoft and VMware, Novosco offers the highest level of accreditation in Ireland for Virtualisation solutions.  This approach enables Novosco to develop and deliver cost-effective IT solutions that enhance client operations.

Novosco have provided solutions to a range of clients including government establishments and private sector organisations of all sizes including Acheson Glover, Belfast Trust, Lagan Holdings and many more.   
For more information visit www.novosco.com

Posted in: Press Releases Tags: awards, business, business continuity, Quality, security

People, processes and technology are the hot topics on the CSO agenda for the next three years.

“Business continuity is further up the corporate agenda than it has ever been and is no longer being viewed as a necessary burden but as an opportunity to increase productivity, retain customers and gain revenue.” said Martin Hingley, EMEA chief research officer, IDC.

The IT system is the business system and the data contained within constitutes an organisation’s capital. An IT interruption means business interruption, and data leakage equals value leakage. CSOs must now understand, therefore, that they are business-oriented professionals, not just security engineers.

IDC’s Business Continuity and Security conference will examine the hottest topics, including:

• Protecting your mission critical operations
• Cost-effective protection of critical business data
• Managed security services

Visit Novosco at IDC’s Business Continuity and Security Conference to learn how virtualisation technology offers one of those rare opportunities to improve business efficiency, simplify business continuity, and tighten security.

Posted in: Events Tags: business continuity, IDC