P1 / CLOUD STRATEGY

How do you bring the cloud into your IT strategy?

P2 / INTERNET GRANT

Need a faster internet connection? You could get up to £3,000 to upgrade.

P3 / CASE STUDY

Abtec’s cloud infrastructure transforms leading UK business.

P6 / TEAM NEWS

Meet new members of our technical support team.

ConnectedIS#8 SUMMER EDITION

📰 📣

There’s a good chance, according to recent research, that you

already host some of your IT resources in the cloud.

That same research1 predicts that 70% of

UK businesses will expand their use of the

cloud in 2015.1 UK Cloud adoption snapshot & trends for 2016; Cloud Industry Forum; May 2015

Making the transition to the cloud can be

a task fraught with challenges. That’s why

it’s important to have the right expertise

and support by your side.

In this summer newsletter we’ll find out

how, and why, one of the UK’s leading

car servicing organisations moved its IT

infrastructure into our cloud. We’ll share

how that change in strategy affected the

business.

70% of UK businesses will expand their use of the cloud in 2015

“”

Cloud strategy

>> CONT. PAGE TWO

Cloud strategy

As Microsoft ends its support for Windows

Server 2003 and Small Business Server

2003, we look at alternative options for these

popular business servers.

We’ve also got some great news for

organisations who want to upgrade their

internet connection speeds, as a government

grant scheme expands its remit.

There are many reasons to bring the cloud

into your IT strategy; improving the robustness

of your disaster recovery plan, lowering

costs or creating a more agile responsive

infrastructure, to name a few.

Whatever the reasons for the expansion into

the cloud, our specialists can help you define

and deploy your IT strategy.

Talk to our infrastructure specialists on 01858

438 500 to find out how you could transform

your organisation with our cloud.

>> CONT. FROM PAGE ONE

Businesses in 51 cities across the UK could

benefit from a government grant to upgrade

their internet connection.

Up to £3,000Broadband Connection Vouchers is a scheme

set up by the UK Government’s Broadband

Delivery UK (BDUK) department. Vouchers,

worth up to £3,000, can be used to offset the

installation costs of high bandwidth internet

connections.

Internet services must be faster than 30Mbps

(megabits per second), and can include fibre

broadband, leased lines (including EFM access)

and microwave connections.

FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) broadband

technologies are eligible too. The chosen product

must have an ‘up to’ download speed greater

than 30Mbps; for example our Abtec 40/10 FTTC

service (with a ‘headline’ speed of up to 40Mbps

download) qualifies for the scheme.

FTTC connections qualify for up to £400 in

vouchers; this can help cover the install cost,

complete with business grade Cisco router.

Abtec is an official Broadband Connection Voucher

scheme supplier and we can help you get a faster

internet connection. We’ve helped businesses

around the UK benefit from the scheme.

To find out which areas of the UK are covered

visit our website or ring our specialists on

01858 438 500.

You could benefit from a £3,000 grant to upgrade your internet speed

Superfast Internet Scheme

2

Our sister organisation, Abtec Building

Technologies, has deployed the building

control and management infrastructure

for England’s first 24/7 emergency care

hospital.

Our Building Technology colleagues are at

the forefront of creating smart, intelligent

buildings. Their skills can help buildings to

reduce energy use by automating lighting,

heating and cooling.

Behind the scenes, the Northumbria Specialist

Care Hospital, in Cramlington, has over 9,500

building control and lighting devices. The

team created novel uses of technology too.

Life critical resources, for example anaesthetic

gas volumes, blood bank refrigeration

temperatures and water temperatures, are

monitored on this network. Alarms are

triggered if these resources breech monitored

parameters.

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation

Trust’s Northumbria Specialist Emergency

Care Hospital opened on 16th June 2015 and

is the first purpose-built hospital in England to

have emergency care consultants in a broad

range of conditions on site 24/7.

The new emergency care hospital will treat

seriously ill and injured patients from across

Northumberland and North Tyneside and is

part of Northumbria Healthcare’s new model

of emergency care which will help save more

lives and improve clinical outcomes for more

patients.

Abtec provides critical infrastructure for new hospital

Case Study: Cloud Benefits

Established in 1979, Ambrosetti has grown

to one of the UK’s leading vehicle servicing

businesses.

Recent growth had begun to stretch its IT

infrastructure to its limits. John Line, Project

Manager at Ambrosetti, notes “Our IT was really

feeling the strain.”

Data exchangeA feature that separates Ambrosetti from its

competitors is its ability to provide clients with

high quality information about serviced vehicles.

To achieve this efficiently, it needs reliable

communications to build an electronic data

interchange (EDI).

John continues “Our EDI link was beginning to

be compromised. The risk was that if we didn’t

do something about our infrastructure our client

relationships could be affected.”

Cloud strategyThis is where Abtec stepped in. Working closely

with Ambrosetti’s IT and senior management

team, it built an IT strategy that would resolve

current issues and provide a platform for future

growth.

Central to its strategy was the transfer of

Ambrosetti’s IT resources into Abtec’s cloud

data centre. As Andy Beynon, Abtec Managing

Director, points out “Hosting Ambrosetti’s IT

resources in our data centre, enables it to focus

on running its business.”

Abtec’s highly resilient cloud platform, built on

technology from Cisco, NetApp and VMware,

benefits from dual resiliency and a separate

Veeam based backup infrastructure, replicated

to a secondary data centre.

Business transformationAbtec’s cloud has been a revelation for

Ambrosetti; as John comments, “Working

with Abtec has transformed our organisation.

We’ve now got a very robust IT infrastructure

and that has rebuilt stakeholders’ trust in

us. Abtec’s involvement has been critical in

this project. We needed someone to help

support us through this process and the

level of attention we’ve received has been

fantastic. I’d definitely recommend them to

other businesses.”

Working with Abtec has transformed our organisation

“”

3

Windows Server 2003 End of Support

Support for Windows Server 2003 will end

on July 14, 2015.

If you’re still running 2003, what options

do you have?

4

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 was an immensely popular business server. For many of us it was the first ‘proper’ server we owned. But, by the middle of July, patch and security updates will no longer be provided. Lack of updates and support could leave the server vulnerable to attack. So what are the options and what’s the best route to take?

Let’s face it, if you are still running a 2003 unit there’s a good chance that it has a bespoke application on it that is going to be difficult to migrate. If that unit works in isolation and doesn’t have any customer data on it doing nothing could be a valid, albeit risky, option. What happens, though, if the physical parts of the server begin to fail?

DO NOTHING

This is the most obvious answer. However, instead of moving from a hardware server to another hardware server why not run the server as a virtual machine? This could extend the life of the application and could improve the resilience of the application. For more information about virtualisation check out our virtualisation guide.

UPGRADE TOSERVER 2012

If you want to get rid of the hassle of managing your servers this could be an ideal opportunity to consider hosting your IT infrastructure in the cloud. As Ambrosetti found, page three, it could enable you to focus your resource on running your business.

MIGRATE TO THE CLOUD

For help and information about your options ring our specialists on 01858 438 500.

We recently launched our Veeam Cloud Connect service and we’re giving you the opportunity to take a free trial. You can test drive the service for three months to see if it improves your backup regime.

Veeam Cloud Connect tackles an ever present

problem for IT managers; off-site backup storage.

Ideally we’d all use the

‘3-2-1 backup rule’. In

the real world limited

bandwidth and growing

data volumes prohibits

many organisations from

achieving that goal.

Cloud backupNot for much longer though. You can now

strengthen your off-site backup regime with

Abtec and Veeam Cloud Connect. We can store

your primary or secondary Veeam backups

in our secure cloud. Our Veeam optimised

network connections can help speed up your

backup and recovery process. And our ‘pay per

GB’ pricing ensures that you only pay for the

backup infrastructure that you’ve used.

How it worksYou can get your backups offsite into our cloud

with no additional Veeam licensing, it’s part

of Veeam Availibility Suite v8. Access and

recover data directly from your backup console;

track cloud repository consumption and receive

reminders for hosted storage renewals. Rest

easy by encrypting all data at source (before

it leaves your network perimeter), or use our

secure Veeam optimised network to speed up

the delivery and recovery process.

Contact our specialists for a free trial on 01858

438 500, or visit www.abtecnet.com.

Windows Server 2003 End of Support

Smarter Business Backup with Veeam

3-2-1 Backup

backups3mediatypes2

off-site1

FREE TRIAL

5

New customer service head

📣

Barents House, Compass Point, Market Harborough, Leicestershire LE16 9HW

www.abtecnet.com01858 438 500 enquiry@abtecnet.com

Jason Bates joins us as our new head of customer service and technical operations. Jason has over 25 years engineering and IT management experience, gleaned from the private sector.

Name Jason BatesTitle Head of Customer Service and

Technical OperationsFavourite film Silence of the LambsFavourite album

Final Cut (Pink Floyd)

Favourite book Anything by Dan BrownFavourite TV It’s got to be Top Gear, with or

without Clarkson!What challenges do IT managers face today?

Users demand high availability of applications, and having the right infrastructure skills in your team to support that is difficult. Our cloud can provide that resilient and secure platform. Letting your team focus on applications that add value to your business.

What do you bring to the role?

I’ve been an IT manager and engineer for 25 years. I understand clients’ challenges, and know the difference that personal service from your IT partner makes. I, along with my team, aim to bring that personal service to all of our clients.

We’ll be joined shortly by three

students from local universities.

Chris Topham, Abtec’s Head of

Marketing, has been working with

Loughborough and Sheffield Hallam

University to fill student placement

roles at Abtec.

Chris explains “I’ve restarted our

12 month placement and summer

internship schemes”.

The schemes will benefit IT and

computer science students by giving

them hands on experience with our IT

projects and support.

Network Management and Design

student, Luke Smith, joins us as an

intern over the summer. He’s already

got stuck into taking support calls and

helped with project installations.

“Later in the summer” Chris continues,

“two more students will join us for a

year from Loughborough University”.

The two IT students will be supporting

Abtec’s technical and projects teams.

IT students join the team

Cisco award for TomTom Shelton, one of Abtec’s

networking specialists, has passed his

Cisco Certified Network Professional

(CCNP) exam.

Tom joins others in the network

team who now have the accredited

expertise to support LAN, WAN and

ISP infrastructure.