Posts Tagged ‘business’

Tayto collaborates with Novosco to drive Green IT agenda

Belfast, July 2011- Novosco, Ireland’s leading provider of virtual and cloud IT infrastructure and services, today announced it has completed the first phase implementation of Tayto Group’s “Green IT” overhaul of back office systems.

Built on VMware’s vSphere Cloud Operating System and EMC’s Celerra storage platform, Tayto Group has now virtualised a significant amount of its legacy server estate. This centralised approach affords the company greater flexibility in the deployment of servers and systems. Servers that had previously taken days and weeks to deploy can now be commissioned in a matter of hours. Moreover, fewer physical devices means reductions in maintenance combined with greater operational efficiencies. All of this can be delivered, whilst allowing the company to reduce its carbon footprint.

: L-R: Christopher Milligan, IT Systems and Infrastructure Manager (Tayto Group Ltd) and Ellen Dickson, Account Manager (Novosco)

This change in how ICT is deployed within Tayto Group has allowed the company to expedite certain strategic operational projects, such as the deployment of production systems, and most recently, the delivery of video conferencing between various production sites.

Christopher Milligan, Tayto Group IT Systems and Infrastructure Manager said, “Novosco, as an innovative local company, was an obvious choice for Tayto in this project as their business values closely mirror our own. Novosco’s experience in virtualising large scale enterprise environments has helped us adopt a more flexible ICT agenda between the main parts of the company, whilst allowing us to proactively reduce our carbon footprint not least from the time, effort and financial savings from our new video conferencing solution.”

Patrick McAliskey, Novosco Managing Director said “Tayto is undoubtedly one of Northern Ireland’s most instantly recognisable and beloved brands, with whom we have happily worked with for many years now. In the current economic climate, companies, including Tayto Group, need to be flexible and proactive in their approach. We are certain that Tayto’s approach will allow them to do just that. Novosco has provided the best possible technical advice to Tayto on a competitive basis to all levels within the company, and we will certainly continue to do so.”

About Novosco

Novosco is a leading provider of virtual and cloud based infrastructure solutions with offices in Dublin and Belfast. Our vendor accreditations  include:
• Ireland’s only accredited VCE Partner
• Ireland’s only EMC Velocity Premier Solution Partner
• VMware Enterprise Partner
• Cisco Premier Partner
• Citrix Platinum Partner
• Microsoft Gold Partner

With a track record of building and hosting some of the largest and most complex infrastructure projects on the island, our expertise with virtual and cloud infrastructure is second to none. Novosco works with some the largest public and private sector organisations in Ireland, helping them define and deliver their infrastructure strategies across a broad range of technologies. Recent awards include our 11th consecutive listing in the Deloitte Fast50 awards and Cisco Datacentre and Premier Partner of the year.

For more information visit www.novosco.com

About Tayto Group Ltd

Tayto was established in 1956, with production based in a castle in Tandragee in the heart of County Armagh, the Tayto brand remains the market leading iconic crisp and snack brand in Northern Ireland. The Tayto Group has expanded rapidly in the past five years to confirm its place as the third largest crisp and snack producer in the UK. Beginning with the acquisition of Golden Wonder in 2006, the company now boasts brands including Real Crisps, Mr Porky, Jonathan Crisp and Transform-a-Snack, with production sites in Corby, Scunthorpe, Crumlin and Westhoughton.

Posted in: News, Press Releases Tags: awards, Backup, business, business continuity, Cisco, Cloud Computing, datacentre, EMC, Networking, Novosco, Quality, security, storage, Unified Computing System, virtualisation, VMware

Templeton Robinson nominates Novosco as its ICT Partner for its business

Belfast, June 2011 - Novosco, Ireland’s leading provider of virtual and cloud IT infrastructure and services, today announced it has been appointed to host and maintain the back office ICT systems, and Wide Area Network links for Northern Ireland based estate agency Templeton Robinson.

A period of sustained growth for the company, coupled with the focus on transacting properties meant that IT was often neglected. This led to the contradictory situation of an increased reliance on IT services, whilst being unable to focus on hardware refresh, software upgrade and constant training.

Keith Mitchell, Partner (Templeton Robinson) and David Maginnes, Account Manager (Novosco)

After testing the market, Templeton Robinson opted to host all back office IT systems in the Novosco DataCentre, coupled with the CloudStream™ platform for WAN connectivity between the company’s sites. This was all backed up with a fully managed service offering to ensure that business critical applications, such as email and property databases, are available at all times.

The flexibility of this approach will allow Templeton Robinson to concentrate on its core business of transacting properties for the next three years. It will also afford management with greater control over the support and control of the environment, with the potential for new and improved services delivered as budgets and demands dictate.

Keith Mitchell, Partner with Templeton Robinson said “Novosco’s cloud computing based solution set gives us the much needed flexibility to cope with changes in how we run our business. By hosting the IT infrastructure with Novosco, we can scale our operations upwards and downwards as needed, whilst being able to accurately budget against this on a monthly basis. This is particularly important in the current market.”

Patrick McAliskey, Novosco Managing Director said “The challenges facing Templeton Robinson are similar to those facing many other companies. The ability to provide a dynamic and scalable IT infrastructure will be closely linked to Templeton Robinson’s success. We look forward to helping Keith and his team achieve this”.

About Novosco

Novosco is a leading provider of virtual and cloud based infrastructure solutions with offices in Dublin and Belfast. Our vendor accreditations  include:

• Ireland’s only accredited VCE Partner
• Ireland’s only EMC Velocity Premier Solution Partner
• VMware Enterprise Partner
• Cisco Premier Partner
• Citrix Platinum Partner
• Microsoft Gold Partner

With a track record of building and hosting some of the largest and most complex infrastructure projects on the island, our expertise with virtual and cloud infrastructure is second to none. Novosco works with some the largest public and private sector organisations in Ireland, helping them define and deliver their infrastructure strategies across a broad range of technologies. Recent awards include our 11th consecutive listing in the Deloitte Fast50 awards and Cisco Datacentre and Premier Partner of the year.
For more information visit www.novosco.com

About Templeton Robinson
Templeton Robinson has been one of Northern Ireland’s most recognisable estate agencies since 1994, and is situated across five branches throughout Belfast, Holywood and Bangor, employing more than 60 people. Templeton Robinson is widely seen as being well specialists in all aspects of residential estate agency. With the belief that nothing substitutes personal contact, the company’s experienced team ensures the experience of buying or selling property is be a straightforward one.

Posted in: News, Press Releases Tags: awards, Backup, business, business continuity, Cisco, Citrix, Cloud Computing, Data centre Partner, datacentre, EMC, estate agent, hosting, ICT Partner, Networking, Novosco, Quality, Templeton Robinso, virtualisation, VMware

Increased Capacity Enables a Future-Proof Network for Cloud Expansion

- Hibernia delivers fast, diverse connectivity to Novosco across Europe
- Novosco’s Network expansion allows for ‘future-proof’ virtual offering
- Hibernia was chosen due to its cutting-edge network, flexibility, rapid deployment and cost-effective solutions

Belfast June 7th, 2011  Hibernia Atlantic, the organisation responsible for the deployment of the ‘Project Kelvin’ high speed, diverse network, announces today that Novosco, Ireland’s leading provider of virtual and cloud IT infrastructure and services, chose Hibernia Atlantic for its fast, diverse connectivity within Northern Ireland and throughout the rest of Europe. This increased capacity enables a ‘future-proof‘ network for Novosco’s virtualisation and cloud expansion.

Left to Right - Patrick McAliskey, Managing Director (Novosco) and Steve Swift, Director of Network Operations Northern Ireland (Hibernia Atlantic)

As a robust and innovative virtual infrastructure company, Novosco specialises in integrating emerging technologies into its customer solutions. With the addition of Hibernia’s secure connectivity, Novosco has increased its capacity via a diverse ring topology throughout Europe, including routes linking Dublin, Belfast and London, as well as extending its national coverage by using Hibernia’s network to access key British Telecom exchanges.

“Hibernia’s cutting-edge network, coupled with its flexible and cost-effective solutions, allows us to future proof our IT backbone, making it capable for the rapid expansion envisaged in the cloud and virtual space,” states Patrick McAliskey, Managing Director of Novosco.  ”Novosco’s CloudStream network will, for the first time, bring together the Northern Ireland Department of Enterprise Trade & Industry’s (DETI) flagship Kelvin project along with next generation broadband. This will provide Northern Ireland with the fastest and lowest latency fibre and Ethernet services, both nationally and internationally, and provide Northern Ireland business customers with the fastest direct broadband connectivity to European and North American markets.”

“By leveraging Hibernia’s rapid deployment of robust infrastructure throughout Europe, Novosco is able to meet the demand for its first-rate cloud service offering, as well as plan for future growth,” states Fergus Innes, Vice President Sales EMEA for Hibernia Atlantic. “With Hibernia’s successful delivery and operation of networks throughout Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Europe, our team continues to be Novosco’s strategic partner in the region.”

Operating an extensive 24,000-kilometre submarine and terrestrial fibre optic network, Hibernia successfully delivers a wide range of high capacity services including wavelength, Ethernet and Sonet self-healing circuits across the globe. Hibernia’s Project Kelvin Build, an extensive submarine and terrestrial cable deployment directly connecting Ireland to the United States, further strengthened its diverse capacity throughout the Ireland and UK region.

Operating an extensive 24,000-kilometre submarine and terrestrial fibre optic network, Hibernia successfully delivers a wide range of high capacity services including wavelength, Ethernet and Sonet self-healing circuits across the globe. Hibernia’s Project Kelvin Build, an extensive submarine and terrestrial cable deployment directly connecting Ireland to the United States, further strengthened its diverse capacity throughout the Ireland and UK region.

For a map of Hibernia’s high-capacity build throughout Ireland, please visit
http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com/images/NIrelandMaps5-09_000.jpg

To view its global network map, please visit http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com/documents/HA_StatSheet_0511_000.pdf

About Hibernia Atlantic:Hibernia Atlantic is the only diverse, transatlantic, high bandwidth, connectivity provider. The Company owns a transatlantic submarine cable system and terrestrial fiber network that offers over 120 Points of Presence throughout Canada, the US, UK, and mainland Europe, spanning over 24,000 kilometers.  Hibernia’s investors are Columbia Ventures Corporation and Constellation Ventures.
 
Hibernia provides secure and diverse dedicated Ethernet, DTM and optical-level service including GigE, 10G and LanPhy wavelengths and traditional SONET/SDH services. Hibernia offers wholesale capacity prices, unparalleled support, flexibility and service. Hibernia Express is the lowest latency cable between New York and London offering access to key metro markets and financial exchanges in North America, UK and Europe. The Company’s media division, Hibernia Media, operates in more than 60 European and North American markets and represents the largest, national, state-of-the-art optical switching and Dynamic Transport Mode (DTM) network.
 
For more information on Hibernia Atlantic’s cutting-edge network or to view the company’s communication video, please visit http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com/.  For further information on Hibernia Media, please visit http://www.hiberniamedia.com/?_sm_au_=iVV8kKbRtTTKWTG6.

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 Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, Queen’s University Belfast, Burlington Hotel, SIAC Construction, Windsor Motors and many more.
For more information visit www.novosco.com

Posted in: News, Press Releases Tags: awards, business, Cisco, Citrix, Cloud Computing, datacentre, EMC, Networking, Novosco, Quality, security, storage, Unified Computing System, virtualisation, VMware

SEHSCT appoints Novosco to install Trust-wide EMC backup solution

Belfast, September 30th 2010 - Novosco, Ireland’s leading provider of virtual and cloud IT infrastructure and services, today announced it has been appointed to implement a centralised data backup and recovery environment throughout the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust (SEHSCT).

Left to Right - Patrick McAliskey, Managing Director Novosco and Steven Stewart, Assistant Director of IT & Telecommunications, SEHSCT

Built on EMC’s Avamar backup platform, where disk is the primary backup storage medium, the need for tape based backup regimes is removed – a benefit universally welcomed amongst the Trust’s ICT department. This disk based backup also means that Trust staff can forecast future growth in capacity with greater accuracy, and budget for it accordingly. With capacity based growth and scalability, the need for inherent resilience is all the greater. This has been provided by configuring the installed solution with Redundant Array of Inexpensive Nodes (RAIN) architecture. RAIN architectures in this type of environment offer data-storage and protection systems that are more distributed, shareable and scalable, as well as being cheaper to deploy and maintain.

Moreover, the new environment will provide greater flexibility for ICT administrators, by way of global de-duplication of data both at source and target destinations. This ensures that duplicated objects are identified at source and only objects not already stored are sent across the network, thus saving time, effort, whilst reducing network traffic. Such benefits to the Trust are in addition to the fact that the solution works on standard IP network architectures, removing the need for a dedicated backup network.

The South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust was formed in April 2007 by the merger of the Ulster Community Hospital Trust with Down & Lisburn Trust. It is an integrated organisation, incorporating acute hospital services, community health and social services and serves a population of approx 440,000 people. It employs over 10,000 staff delivering a range of health and social care services across the local government districts of Down, North Down, Lisburn and Ards.

Stephen Stewart, Assistant Director for ICT & Telecommunications said, “Novosco’s EMC accreditations and experience in delivering this type of solution, along with their relationship with EMC was instrumental in the Trust choosing Avamar for its backup regime. Global de-duplication for backing up the remote sites as well as its built in resilience makes this offering very compelling.”

John Lennon, Sales Director for Novosco, said “SEHSCT’s approach to data backup and recovery is undoubtedly the right one. Removing the logistical headache of tape based backups and centralising the process will ensure that the already over-stretched ICT team can focus on the delivery of healthcare applications and infrastructure to the healthcare professionals and ultimately benefit patients. It will be the blueprint for other organisations of this size and scale in Northern Ireland.”

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.   

For more information visit www.novosco.com

About South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust

From 1 April 2007, the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust has assumed responsibility for the services delivered by the Ulster Community Hospital Trust and Down & Lisburn Trust.

Both legacy Trusts which join to form the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust have a successful and distinguished history and come together to provide an integrated and comprehensive range of health and social care for the people in the local government districts of Ards, North Down, Down and Lisburn.

As outlined in its corporate plan 2009-2010, the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust will:
• improve the health and well-being of the people we serve in partnership with key stakeholders;
• provide person centred, safe and effective care and
• ensure best value for money.

The South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust employs over 10,000 staff, providing services for more than 440,000 people in its catchment area.

Posted in: Press Releases Tags: Avamar, awards, Backup, business, business continuity, Cisco, Cloud Computing, datacentre, EMC, Novosco, Quality, security, storage, VMware

Novosco virtualised Acheson & Glovers IT server infrastructure.Novosco virtualised Acheson & Glovers IT server infrastructure. This reduced and consolidated the number of servers from 35 to six. An EMC SAN was also put in place to manage storage and data.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkdO1PeSBqE

Wilson Nesbitt Solicitors provides legal services to commercial /private clients in Northern Ireland. With extensive IT requirements, Novosco has implemented many projects at Wilson Nesbitt including server virtualisation, desktop virtualisation, disaster recovery and Sharepoint intranet developments. Servers were reduced from 20 to two physical servers using VMware virtualisation technology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C20ZgWfiV6c

Spence and Partners has been a customer of Novosco for approximately eight years. During this time Novosco has provided consultancy and advice on system data management to ensure its integrity and consistency. Novosco has also implemented server virtualisation using VMware technology, as well as designed a robust data recovery plan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGVAJfWY_1U

Belfast Health & Social Care Trust (BHSCT) is one of the largest in the UK and has had a long standing relationship with Novosco for the delivery of innovative, cost effective and strategic ICT solutions. Projects include a centralised email solution, server virtualisation, faster access to applications and a centralised storage solution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4yeCHFzUAw

Posted in: Technology Tags: business, Cloud Computing, datacentre, EMC, Microsoft, Networking, security, storage, virtualisation, VMware

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

1. Virtualise Your Servers

This is arguably the lowest hanging fruit, in terms of a quick return on investment and tangible cost reduction. The savings to be made, through reduction of power and support can be easily quantified and a business case can be quickly written to justify the initial spend. In terms of how many physical servers can be virtualised onto a single host, a 10:1 ratio is the industry rule of thumb at the moment e.g. a reduction of 100 servers down to 10 hosts.  Organisations holding back on virtualisation because they perceive it as risky should consider that server virtualisation will in most cases, make their infrastructure more resilient than before.  Platforms such as messaging, database and general application delivery are now being virtualised whereas perhaps a year ago, many people were holding back. Quite simply, the technology is mainstream and virtualisation is now the de facto standard for server infrastructure.

2. Virtualise Your Desktops

Many government organisations already run virtual desktops in one shape or another (e.g. Microsoft Terminal Services or Citrix XenApp).  However the paradigm for virtual desktops has shifted. The ability to provide the user with the horsepower, customisation and flexibility which they are used to with a physical desktop, is now available from a number of vendors. As with server virtualisation, the benefits are primarily around cost savings in terms of power usage and user management (albeit on a larger scale, due to the higher number of devices) but this solution can provide many spinoff benefits such as universal remote access. With new directives being issued around disaster recovery and the ability to provide services in the case of a national emergency, this can be of major significance.

3. Virtualise Your Applications

As distinct from virtual desktops, the challenge of delivering applications can be a time consuming and costly business. By virtualising the application delivery process, significant economies of scale can be realised.  Irrespective of whether you virtualise the desktop Operating System, being able to create an “application jukebox” reduces the cost of deployment, upgrade and ongoing support. Virtualised applications give the administrator the choice of whether to install, cache, publish or stream. When combined with virtualisation of the other layers of the stack, it all adds up to major cost savings.

4. Reduce Your Communications Spend

Many organisations are in the process of moving to VoIP which has clearly defined cost saving benefits. However, the amount being paid for traditional data connectivity is still a significant part of the overall IT budget. By analysing the true nature of the traffic traversing your network, it is good practice to introduce optimisation solutions which reduce the amount of physical traffic being moved. This invariably leads to a reduction of your telecommunications bills. When combined with certain thin client solutions, telecommunications traffic can be further reduced. Bear in mind that these savings will very much depend however on the nature of your applications and existing connections.

5. Reduce Your Storage Spend

Running out of disk space is an ever increasing problem. The advent of collaboration and document management plus increasing use of messaging and web browsing means that data is growing exponentially. The default reaction to a sudden capacity problem is to buy more disks.  People do not often have the luxury of figuring out a storage strategy in such an instance. This means that organisations can be left with large amount of expensive ‘near line’ storage for all of their data, even for data which is rarely accessed, if ever. By taking the time to understand the true nature of your organisation’s data, a new storage architecture can be created, with the dual purpose of being more efficient while costing you less money. Novosco work with EMC to carry out in-depth assessments of data growth in the public sector. Using advanced data analysis tools, Novosco and EMC can help you to more accurately measure how and why your data is growing the way it is.

6) Outsource Some IT Functions

The ‘O’ word can be a scary one, especially in today’s economic environment. However, it should be viewed as an opportunity to be smarter about how we can capitalise on the existing skills we have. For each aspect of IT, the lower the skill level, the more it should be considered a candidate for outsourcing. Outsourcing allows you to upskill existing staff to deliver more value to the organisation. Areas such as hardware maintenance or printer management have traditionally been outsourced. Other parts of the infrastructure which were previously considered as skills-intensive are now viewed within the industry as as a commodity, skills-wise. One example is messaging: the day-to-day administration of email is a job which adds very little value to the organisation but costs quite a lot in comparison. By outsourcing that function, savings can be made across a range of areas from telecommunications to licensing and from power to administration costs. The flexibility now available in terms of outsourcing is unprecedented. Everything from on-site resources to hosting virtual systems on a per usage basis means that your organisation can pick the level of outsourcing which makes the most sense.  Other examples which can result in significant savings, are the outsourcing of your organisation’s disaster recovery and backup solutions.

7) Consolidate Your IT Infrastructure

Organisations with many remote offices will have experienced the organic growth of equipment, data and support requirements over a passage of time.  The need for local infrastructure in many cases is not always required. Many organisations are looking at how they can centralise critical IT functions into one location. The benefits are not just around cost savings (due to the reduction of physical systems) but also around security, compliancy, accountability and disaster recovery.

8) Explore Green IT

The government as a whole is committed to the green agenda and there are many ways in which IT can make a difference. Green IT encompasses many things but one of its fundamental directives is that it can save you money. Lower the energy used by your IT equipment and you will very quickly recoup any expenditure or effort involved. Some simple steps can quickly reduce your power footprint.  Implement the power saving functions native to your PC’s operating systems, replace ‘fat PC’s’ with thin clients (as less moving parts require less power), and consolidate your servers to dramatically reduce both their power and cooling requirements. You can even go as far as automating the powering down of server workloads during out of hours operations. These are just some of the ways that you can reduce your carbon footprint, save your organisation money and do a little to help the environment.

9) Increase Productivity

Productivity in the IT sense means having access to the information your workers need, when they need it. It is possible to implement extremely powerful information repositories and search tools ‘out of the box’ now, as key data is already stored inside indexable sources such as a directory structures, ODBC-compliant databases and/or messaging systems. It is incumbent on all government bodies to provide their users with the means to access the relevant information in a timely fashion and to ensure that this information is secure, accurate and relevant. If workers are productive it means that they are delivering more value to the organisation. At the launch of the late Paul Tansey’s report into Productivity in late 2007, the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern commented: “The productivity debate and the need to have a productivity mindset and culture embedded in both public and private sector organisations is more important now than at any time in our recent economic history.”

10) Pick a Strategic Partner

Novosco has extensive experience working with public sector bodies to help them streamline services and cut costs. As Ireland’s leading virtualisation expert with the highest level of certification with Microsoft, VMware, Citrix and EMC, Novosco are well placed to independently advise our clients on the strategic direction of their IT infrastructure.

More more information contact edwina.nugent@novosco.com

Posted in: business Tags: business, IT in Government, virtualisation

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

Left to right: Simon Hamilton - Technical Director, John Lennon - Sales Director, David Mulligan - Solution Architect

Novosco ranked 43^rd place in Ireland’s top 50 fastest growing technology companies

Belfast & Dublin,  29th October  2008 — Novosco, a leading provider of virtual infrastructure announced today that it has once again been awarded a ranking in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Awards, Ireland.  Ranked for the ninth consecutive year, Novosco is uniquely also one of only three companies to additionally receive a prestigious Fast 50 ‘Gold Standard Award’.

The Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Awards recognise and rank the fastest-growing technology companies in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.  Now in its ninth year, the programme allows innovative technology companies to demonstrate and receive recognition for growth strategies and successes.  This year, the Fast 50 ‘Gold Standard Awards’ have also been introduced to recognise companies that have successfully been ranked for seven or more years.

“Novosco is delighted to be ranked for the ninth time in the Deloitte Top 50 Technology Awards and is one of only three companies to achieve a ranking every year of the awards,” said Patrick McAliskey, Managing Director for Novosco.  “Through the use of innovative technology and strong vendor partnerships, Novosco is leading the industry in the concept of ‘infrastructure virtualisation’ and is positioned to transform the IT world for clients throughout the UK & Ireland”.

IT virtualisation is the act of isolating or unbinding one computing resource from others – from the data centre to the desktop.  It essentially lets one computer do the job of multiple computers, by sharing the resources of a single computer across multiple environments.  It offers organisations of all sizes great cost savings and efficiencies in reducing their carbon footprint.  With over 18 year’s virtualisation experience, Novosco has successfully assisted customers in implementing various aspects of virtualisation; from Server virtualisation right through to running virtual applications and desktops. The Awards which took place in the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin are based on percentage turnover over the past 5 years.  Novosco’s ranking is testament to the fact that turnover has grown substantially, with a customer acquisition growth rate of over 110% within both private and public sectors.

With the demand for Virtualisation technology forecasted to grow at a phenomenal rate, Novosco’s position as Ireland’s leading virtualisation expert is set to continue to go from strength to strength.

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 of all potential solutions, including the optimisation of current IT systems.  With established hardware/software vendor partnerships including 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 solutions that are an asset to client’s businesses.  Novosco have provided solutions to a range of clients including government establishments and private sector organisations of all sizes.

For more information visit www.novosco.com

For more information on the final Technology Fast 50 ranking list visit www.fast50.ie.

Posted in: Press Releases Tags: awards, business, Novosco