Highlights of this development include:

• New Simpana OnePass capability slashes the combined time typically required to backup, archive and report by more than 50 percent over traditional methods with the industry’s first converged backup, archive and reporting process designed to affordably protect, manage and access data on systems that have become “too big”.

• Simpana SnapProtect technology now delivers the industry’s broadest hardware snapshot integration, providing customers with SAN investment protection and choice, eliminating the backup window, accelerating recovery and reducing costs.

• Simpana software enhancements accelerate virtual server adoption further by helping organizations better manage, protect and scale virtual machines across their enterprises and into the cloud.

• New Simpana Edge Protection protects data on laptops and desktops with embedded source deduplication for optimized efficiency. End users now have flexibility to search, access and perform self-service recovery through any Windows, iOS and/or Android device.

• New Simpana 9 integration with Microsoft SharePoint improves application performance, capacity utilization and shrinks backup windows.

Frontier Technology is a CommVault partner.  For more information, please get in touch with Divina Tumlos at divina.tumlos@frontiertechnology.co.uk or 0845 603 6552.

Frontier Technology, in partnership with Citrix, will host a briefing on the 16^th of February, Thursday, which will discuss the issues businesses may face in the summer of 2012 and showcase its readily deployable 3-Month Cloud solution designed to safeguard businesses, minimise disruption and ensure seamless productivity for the workforce.

Please register now to reserve your place.

AGENDA

9:00 Registration & Breakfast

09:30 The 2012 events: What problems may you face?

10.00 Flexible Working: Access Work From Anywhere

10.30 Business Continuity: A Short-Term Solution To a 3-Month Disruption

11.00 Summary / Q & A

Guest Presenter: Alex Hill, Citrix Systems

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Date: 16th February 2012

Time: 9.00- 11.00 AM

Location: Entrance 2, 4th Floor, The Royal Exchange, London

(Click here for directions)

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Why you should attend:

• Get an insight into how you can shield your business from the consequences brought about by the potential for massive delays on public transport, increase in terrorist activity, criminal activity and public disorder
• Find out how businesses can exploit business continuity and flexible working technologies
• Explore short-term options to get your organisation covered just for the disruptive summer months
• Listen to presentations from industry experts and learn best-practices from your peers

Useful Links:

• Register for Free
• Venue

If you have any further queries about this meeting, please contact Divina Tumlos at 0845 603 6552 | 07967 573 902 | divina.tumlos@frontiertechnology.co.uk

Recently, a simplified solution, and possibly the future of VDI, has emerged from the market.  It uncomplicates VDI at a fraction of the cost without giving up its benefits whilst addressing its drawbacks.

The Intelligent Desktop Virtualisation solution NxTop, by Virtual Computer, eliminates downtime from PC support issues and from routine maintenance such as patches or updates.  It secures both laptop and desktop PCs so that users are unable to corrupt company systems.  It also ensures application compatibility across a large group of users with 100% consistent PC images.

NxTop executes locally by design which removes both the issue of off-line users and the cost implications of extensive server and storage infrastructure. In fact, the only infrastructure requirement is a management server. Using the computing resources of the user’s PC, together with the centralised management and the Type-1 Hypervisor on which NxTop is based, ensures a flexible but controlled desktop that is easily managed and with a happy user community.

To find out more about how an Intelligent Desktop Virtualisation solution can give your business a competitive advantage, please contact us on 0845 603 6552 or email divina.tumlos@frontiertechnology.co.uk

1. The Main Data Centre

Where your cloud actually lies is the most crucial factor in your decision making.  For an enterprise cloud infrastructure, it has to be in a data centre that conforms the industry’s highest standard – currently the pinnacle is Tier 4. This means it is designed to host mission-critical computer systems with fully redundant subsystems and compartmentalised security zones controlled by biometric access control methods.  Would you entrust your data and applications to a standard that’s not the best?

2. Back-up

It is not enough to rely on a single data centre.  No matter how top-notch it is, best practices tell us that it is wise that your provider has a back-up data centre that replicates your data from the main source.  It is always better to be safe than sorry.

3. Connectivity

How do you want your system to perform?  If you want the best then you are looking for a hosting centre with Tier 1 connectivity, the highest standard in internet network connectivity to date.  This means the data centre’s network is one that does not rely on another supplier for its connectivity to reach any other areas of the internet. Just as important, ensure there is a multiple redundancy of critical components to increase system reliability.

4. Physical Location

With the US Patriot Act, you would be well advised to have your data and applications hosted in the UK and in a date centre owned by a UK-based company.  You would also prefer it to be located outside busy London which is probably not the most secure location for hosting (historically, The City has been a favourite target for terrorists and other trouble makers).

5. Security

On-premise or Cloud, the threat of cyber security looms in equal proportions.  Make sure firewalls and encryption are in place on the data centres.  Just as important, make sure that the physical location of your partner’s data centre is secure.  The most secure data centres, usually those who are Tier 4, will have a 24 x7 secure entry via swipe card system, with 6-layer entry. Preferably, it will be located inside its own secure compound with at least 3-metre fencing and controlled entry, including anti-tailgate systems.

6. Monitoring

To enhance the resilience of your systems, make sure you and your provider monitor the data centres 24/7 using a fine tuned scheme in place. This will allow you to check event logs, CPU usage, memory usage, free disk space, SNMP, running services, Network Interface Card usage, performance counter values, POP, IMAP, and SMTP mail servers, web page content and load times and server temperature.  It will also allow you to monitor network traffic so you can check your bandwidth usage at any given point in time. It will allow you to pre-empt any problems which your provider should be able to intervene.

7. Compliance

Does the provider meet regulatory requirements? Make sure that their data centre is resilient and comply with the various global management standards.  Worth noting are ISO 27001 (Information Security Management), ISO9001 (Quality Management Systems) and ISO 14001 (Environment Management System).  If required, can your provider modify the offered service to comply your individual requirements?

8. SLA

To ensure your expectations are met, you can choose from a service-based SLA or a customer-based SLA.  Before you sign the deal, check if your agreement is generic for all of your partner’s customers (former) or is it customised to your needs (latter).  Whatever suits you, make sure you’re happy with the cost and support stipulated, and the flexibility of your agreement for when your requirements expand and grow in the future.

9. Cost

One of the major reasons you’re migrating to the cloud is the costs saved from your computing resources and IT team’s time.  Find out if there is an upfront cost, upgrade costs, etc. What are the extra charges?  What are the components and how are the costs calculated? The best choice would be a provider who bills you monthly, or quarterly, and only for the resources that you actually use.

10. Partner experience

Last but not the least, who do you trust? With so many cloud computing providers popping up, you want a partner with relevant experience.  Ideally, it may be a provider who has naturally evolved from being a Systems Integrator simply because they will have experience of different technologies and in building various types of infrastructures, including Cloud.

Section 215 of the Act reads:

“SEC.215. ACCESS TO RECORDS AND OTHER ITEMS UNDER THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT:

(a)(1) The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or a designee of the Director (whose rank shall be no lower than Assistant Special Agent in Charge) may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.”

If data privacy and security are major concerns for your business, it may be wise to think twice before deciding where you want your precious resource to be hosted. There are a good number of data centres in the UK, some of which are owned by US companies.

UK-owned data centres, on the other hand, are protected by the country’s Data Protection Act (DPA).  It stipulates that a hosting company cannot give data to other parties without the consent of the person or party that the information belongs or relates to.

Of course, there are global treatises in the world that allow countries to cooperate with each other with regards to issues that have global impact. The Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), for example, will allow the US to work with UK official to gain access to data within a UK-owned data centre.  However, it will be harder to be as discreet as the US Patriot Act because of the UK’s DPA. When the MLAT is invoked, the US embassy in the UK will need to inform the UK government why they want to access a data inside a UK-owned data centre, what they want to do with it and how they wanted to do it.  In effect, the data centre will be obliged to inform their clients that their information had been handed to the government.

Frontier Technology’s data centres are owned by a UK registered company.  Data access cannot be provided through the US Patriot Act and is protected by the UK Data Protection Act.

Hyper-V’s new features, as announced during Windows 8 Build Conference in California, are set to improve its functionality and include increased scalability and site to site failover.  Other major enhancements to watch out for are its new virtual disk format and its physical hosting, memory and storage capacities.  It can now possibly have up to 63 nodes in a cluster supporting 4000 virtual machines.  It will be readily deployable in a datacentre environment and can be used for monster applications that require tonnes of RAM and CPU resources.

Systems Center solutions, on the other hand, capture and aggregate knowledge about the infrastructure, policies, processes and best practices and allows businesses to optimise IT structures, reduce costs, improve application availability and enhance service delivery.  System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 is designed to bring cloud benefits to the enterprise datacenter.

Industry reaction now indicates that these releases will allow Microsoft to move from a serious contender to a potential leader in the cloud computing/ virtualisation/ operating system space.

So why virtualise with Microsoft?  Microsoft’s virtualisation solutions, the leading technologies for public and private cloud computing, enables business agility, increases IT efficiency and drives IT costs down.  “Why is virtualisation such a big deal?” asked Tom Bittman, Garner VP and Chief of Research of Infrastructure and Operations during Microsoft’s virtualisation launch event.  “A lot of people understand, and they think it’s about saving money, it’s about saving power, it’s about green IT, it’s about space and that’s certainly true.  But in our perspective, it’s much, much bigger than that and people are just now beginning to understand that.  We think that there’s a major transformation taking place in IT.  This major transformation that’s been taking place for years is starting to accelerate and we believe that virtualisation is a major enabler and catalyst of that transition that’s taking place.”

To stay informed about the latest updates with Hyper-V and Systems Center upgrades, call 0845 603 6552  or email divina.tumlos@frontiertechnology.co.uk

Frontier Technology and Double-Take by Vision Solutions recently hosted a briefing to address this question.  Alongside delegates from the insurance, retail, healthcare and financial sectors, they discussed the different alternatives on the deployment of disaster recovery plans and explored the strengths, weaknesses and costs of in-house and cloud options.

If an organisation has access to various resources, an in-house business continuity plan may be considered.  Knowing who is able to access and who manages confidential company data gives CIOs a sense of security.  It is, however, not totally exempt from potential threats.  This option involves heavy investment in fail-safe facilities, reliable equipment and software upgrades.  The disaster recovery planner should also take into great consideration the technical, process and procedural designs to meet their recovery point and recovery time objectives.  Before deployment, the solution must be rehearsed and then periodically refreshed.  The selection of business continuity facility must be in a secure location and the provider of deployed technology must be able to render support and maintenance services when necessary.

The less costly and rapidly deployable alternative is moving the disaster recovery plan into the cloud.  With this, there is no upfront capital expenditure for hardware, software licenses and implementation services.  It reduces company costs because there is no physical device or software to purchase and therefore no ongoing expansion and maintenance costs.  Because there already is an existing infrastructure, this option can be quickly deployed, it is flexible and can be accessed anywhere.  Disaster recovery in the cloud can also reduce the burden placed on the IT team as there is no need for solution design, there is minimal involvement during deployment, and it frees them to focus on line of business application and user service, allowing them to add value to the business.

“How secure is cloud computing?” This was the number one question that all the delegates asked.  Unfortunately, not all cloud computing providers are equal.  Organisations planning to take this route must consider the physical security of their servers. Ideally, it should be in a tier 4 data centre, the highest in standards.  To ensure disaster-free replication, the provider must have at least two data centres and each must observe the strictest measures within the premise.  It is also worth taking into consideration the US Patriotic Act, a law that allows the US government instant access to any data, without owner notification, if it is hosted in a datacenter that is located in or owned by a US entity.

Frontier Technology understands the various variables decision makers encounter when embarking their business continuity strategy into the cloud.  This is why they developed Frontier Continuity Service, a fully outsourced, tailored to fit, private cloud disaster recovery solution. Frontier Continuity Service client Andrew Hough, IT Manager at Hampden Group, explains: “We don’t believe in trailblazing but we do recognise the importance of keeping pace with technological advances which provide solutions that make real business sense. Having worked with Frontier Technology for many years – for example when we switched over from Novell Groupwise to Microsoft Exchange 2007 – it made sense to discuss our disaster recovery requirements with them. We realised that a 48 hour back up window was no longer acceptable and that we needed to be back up within the hour. Having reviewed competitive tenders, we opted for Frontier’s Continuity Service and we haven’t looked back. It has saved us time, effort and money. We also offer flexible working as part of this solution and have the reassurance of a 30-40 minute backup window which is very impressive.”

Frontier Technology is so confident that they can meet all disaster recovery requirements that they are offering a 3-week, no obligation Frontier Continuity Service trial.  During the trial, experts will perform continuous replication of customer’s data and an invocation test to demonstrate the capabilities of this offering.

To find out more, click here, call +44 (0) 845 603 6552 or email info@frontiertechnology.co.uk

During a recently concluded meeting hosted by Frontier Technology, representatives from the banking, insurance, travel, legal, commercial and charity sectors expressed that it was essential to upscale their remote access, business continuity and security processes to ensure they are productive during The Games next year.  “We want to continue doing business during the Olympics.  To ensure that, I have to make sure that all safeguard measures are in their proper place soon” a delegate from an international auction house remarked.

Major events bring major problems.  While the country expects a considerable boost in the economy, the millions of extra tourists next year will also put a strain on our transport systems and infrastructure.  Paul Eskriett, Security Advisor of the City of London Corporation, enumerated the possible risks as: potential terrorist activity & criminal activity including serious and organised crime, possible public disorder and domestic extremism, non-malicious hazards such as pandemic or heat wave, and other contingencies like mass casualties, human infectious diseases, power failure and water shortage.  On a micro level for establishments, major concerns are staff transportation into work, staff absences and productivity, road closures throughout London and the UK, reduced communication, supplier relations, and security and hacking issues.

The Olympics period itself will stretch from the 27th July – 9th September 2012, however organisations should expect disruption beforehand due to the influx of tourists, journalists, team officials and athletes in to the country. In figures there will be 34 venues across United Kingdom, 9.1 million tickets sold, 14,700 athletes from 205 countries, 21,000 media & broadcasters and more than 800,000 more people using public transport each day. Furthermore to celebrate The Olympics there will be a host of cultural and social events occurring throughout the UK.  In addition to The Olympics in 2012 the UK will also be celebrating The Queens Diamond Jubilee from the 2-5 June, The London 2012 Festival from the 21June- 9th Sept, Wimbeldon from 25 June- 8 July and World pride from the 7-21 July.

Staff transportation into the office was flagged as most organisations’ number one concern. Many were opting to allow more staff to work from home and were investing in up scaling their remote working facilities. However, some organisations felt that this posed major security concerns, they were uneasy about letting staff access secure files outside of the office. One delegate expressed that senior management in his organisation preferred staff to work onsite at all times and were investing in an office outside of London to work from during The Games.

It was agreed by all attendees that remote working systems needed to be properly designed, have security measures in place and be regularly monitored to ensure they were effective.

All of the organisations present were concerned about potential security threats, terrorist activity and public disorder. They were urged to upscale and test their business continuity plans for The Games. If there is a business disaster, having retrievable data and near-instant access to your applications and information will ensure that your firm minimises revenue loss.

Internet bandwidth, during times of heavy user congestion, was also flagged as a major concern.  It was suggested that businesses should upgrade their bandwidths, deploy a WAN optimisation solution or tap a facility with greater bandwidth allocations to reduce communication issues. Unified communication systems were also highlighted as a favourable solution.

 It was suggested that UK organisations should conduct a business readiness analysis and technology audit to test their systems in anticipation for 2012. They should also ensure that their remote access systems, disaster recovery plan, security systems and communications strategies are able to cope with the on-going disruptions.

Frontier Technology’s Frontier Olympic Cloud offers an inexpensive solution for organisations to ensure they stay productive next year. It removes the complexities and costs of assembling in-house solutions which may only be used for a short time. It is a private cloud solution based on Frontier’s other cloud services. We transfer the data and applications that you want to be made available and safeguarded to our highly available, highly secure, compliant, tier 4 data centres which are located outside of London. They are then available to be delivered on demand to your employees from any location, from any internet connected device, using any type of internet connection.  Our technology ensures seamless access and the same efficiency as if you were working in the office. Furthermore we work closely with you and customise the system to meet your business requirements. After the Olympic Games, or however long you require, we seamlessly transfer your systems to your desired location without any disruption to your IT systems.

To find more about Frontier Olympic Service, please speak directly to one of our consultants at +44 (0) 845 603 6552 or email info@frontiertechnology.co.uk

To view our latest presentation, click here.

System Center 2012 preview will provide the best possible opportunity for you to learn about the latest System Center 2012 suite of infrastructure management products for helping IT organisations benefit from self-managing, user-centric, dynamic systems. System Center solutions capture and aggregate knowledge about the infrastructure, policies, processes, and best practices so that you can optimise IT structures to reduce costs, improve application availability, and enhance service delivery.

At this year’s Microsoft Management Summit 2011 in Las Vegas, Microsoft announced major updates to Hyper-V, their server virtualisation solution, due to be released next year.  New features which will improve its functionality include increased scalability and site to site failover.

 Industry reaction indicates that this release will allow Microsoft to move from a serious contender to a potential leader in the cloud computing virtualisation operating system space. 

Do you want to find out more…..?

We will be holding a seminar on the 8^th December  from 3.45pm – 6pm alongside Microsoft specialists to tell you more about these exciting 2012 features and what they may mean for your organisation.

To celebrate the Holiday season, we will also have a festive drinks reception afterwards where you will get the opportunity to speak directly to the experts and network with your peers.

Agenda

3.45    Registration

4.00   Introduction

4.10    Systems Center 2012 & Hyper-V3 Preview

5.10    Summary

5.20   Q&A

5.30   Drinks & Networking

If you would like more information about this meeting or would like to register, please email Divina Tumlos or call her on 0845 603 6552.

The survey was sent to over 22,000 UK IT professionals, from mixed industries. It also found the following:

• 28 per cent of companies surveyed were already making use of cloud technologies, 89 per cent of those organisations were happy with how the cloud is working them
• 20 per cent of organisations did not see the cloud as a good fit due mainly due to compliance reasons
• 31 per cent felt that they were still in the information gathering stage and were considering moving to the cloud
• By the end of 2012, 60 per cent of organisations felt that some of their IT systems would be cloud based
• When asked what issues they were currently facing, budget constraints was listed as the number one concern by 67 per cent of all respondents. This was followed by lack of in-house expertise (35 per cent) and staff efficiency (30 per cent)

Edwin Wong, Managing Director, Frontier Technology: “The private cloud is of big interest to the customers that we are speaking to on a daily basis. Many of them have heard of the tangible benefits and are looking for more education so they feel truly comfortable with the technology.

I am not surprised that 60 per cent of organisations felt that some of their IT systems would be cloud based by 2012. In a climate of budget and resource constraints, the cloud is perfect as there is no capex and the services are paid incrementally. The cloud is also fully managed by the service provider you no longer having to worry about constant server updates and other computing issues.”