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Joe Burns - Press Release, 7th May 2013

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

1st Superstock 1000 podium of 2013 for Joe Burns

Oulton Park was clearly the place to be on Bank Holiday Monday, the spectacular racing was watched in glorious sunshine by a sell-out crowd, and Joe Burns riding his JG Speedfit Kawasaki claimed an excellent 3rd place, his first Pirelli Superstock 1000 podium of 2013.

Saturday started with a now familiar damp track and Joe took the option to sit out the free practice, on the basis that he knew the bike was good from the previous week at Knockhill so nothing was to be gained from running in the slippery conditions.

Qualifying 1 saw Joe settle into a good rhythm, setting the 5th fastest time on his 8th lap out of 11, Qualifying 2 saw him dip into the high 1:39s, good enough to post the 3rd quickest time, and ensuring a start in the feature race on Monday, the combined times giving him 4th place on the grid, the first front row start of the 2013 Superstock season.

The Pirelli Superstock 1000 race was scheduled to start at 13:45, and what a start Joe got! From the 'wrong' side of the grid he moved across and easily took 3rd place where he stayed for the duration of the race, he missed out on claiming fastest lap by just 0.037.

He maintained the gap between himself and the 4th place man and was never really under any threat of losing 3rd, he pulled on great move at Old Hall briefly snatching 2nd place, but he carried too much speed into the corner and ran too deep, allowing Kennaugh to retake 2nd Place.

After the race Joe said: "This is really good result, the bike felt good and I do not normally go well at Oulton Park, and here I am in 3rd place, I am especially pleased that we got a good result today as my headline sponsor JG Speedfit were entertaining a large number of guests at the circuit."

The team leave Oulton Park very upbeat with Joe now holding 3rd place in the Championship standings, and looking forward to the next race at Donington Park, when the Pirelli Superstock 1000 Championship supports the World Superbike Championship.

Editors notes:

About Joe Burns

Joe Burns lives in Newcastle upon Tyne and enjoys the wholehearted support of his family in his pursuit of a career in top level motorcycle racing, his career history includes the following:

2012: Competed in four rounds of British 1000 Superstock Championship, (best result 2nd)
2011: British 1000 Superstock Championship ¡V (best result 6th)
2010: British 1000 Superstock - Wildcard at 3 rounds ¡V (best result 9th)
2009: British 600 Superstock Championship ¡V (best result 1st)
2008: British 600 Superstock Championship ¡V (best result 4th)
2007: Took year out of racing to learn to ride a 600cc motorcycle
2006: North East Motorcycle Racing Club - Grand Prix 125 (1st)
2005: North East Motorcycle Racing Club - Formula 125 (1st)
2004: North East Motorcycle Racing Club - Formula 125 (1st)

Joe Burns - Press Release, 29th April 2013

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Burns Races to 1st place 4 times at Knockhill. The opening bike race meeting of 2013 for Knockhill Motor Sports Club provided the spectators with some thrilling entertainment, with Joe Burns winning 4 of the 5 KMSC Superbike/Clubman Championship races.

Joe topped the qualifying time sheet in conditions that were dry and sunny but with strong gusts of wind, undeterred he beat the other 28 riders to pole position by 1.317 seconds!

Sunday dawned with a typical mixture of rain, sun and wind, however in the changeable conditions race one took place in the dry and Joe was able to race away from pole position and pull a lead of 3.85 seconds to come home in first place and with the added bonus of fastest lap of 50.892, set on lap 7.

Joe’s second race of the day took place in damp/windy conditions, which slowed the lap times a little, however the result was another win, and this time by an excellent 10.492 seconds, and fastest lap of 51.104 on lap 6.

The third race of the day was in equally difficult damp and windy conditions, however this did not stop Joe from taking a lights to flag victory, romping to the line by 10.392 seconds, and with another fastest lap of 51.497 to add to the collection from the day.

Race 4 for Joe, and after venturing out on track he found the conditions to be very mixed, dry in parts, with a very narrow dry line to the hairpin and then streaming wet further round, so the decision was made not to risk the bike, so he sat the race out.

Race 5 of the day for Joe and with grid positions decided from your previous race result he found himself at the back of the grid, he quickly worked his way through the back markers and hit the front by lap 5, but this time the result was much closer with just 0.225 separating Joe in first place from Bruce Birnie the reigning Scottish Superbike Champion in second place.

At the end of the very busy days racing Joe said that "Once again the bike felt really good and strong we have the setup right for Knockhill, and this has been useful preparation for Oulton Park next weekend. I am very happy with the JG Speedfit Kawasaki bike, and today was very enjoyable with 4 great results, I cannot wait for Oulton Park."

Joe and the JG Speedfit Kawasaki Racing team left Knockhill very satisfied with the weekends work, the Knockhill Motor Sports Club website described the KMSC Superbike/Clubman Races as follows: "In the Superbike class, it was that man Burns who would prove the class of the field, aboard is JG Speedfit Kawasaki Racing machine, securing four wins in an impressive display."

Editors notes:

About Joe Burns

Joe Burns lives in Newcastle upon Tyne and enjoys the wholehearted support of his family in his pursuit of a career in top level motorcycle racing, his career history includes the following:

2012: Competed in four rounds of British 1000 Superstock Championship, (best result 2nd)
2011: British 1000 Superstock Championship – (best result 6th)
2010: British 1000 Superstock - Wildcard at 3 rounds – (best result 9th)
2009: British 600 Superstock Championship – (best result 1st)
2008: British 600 Superstock Championship – (best result 4th)
2007: Took year out of racing to learn to ride a 600cc motorcycle
2006: North East Motorcycle Racing Club - Grand Prix 125 (1st)
2005: North East Motorcycle Racing Club - Formula 125 (1st)
2004: North East Motorcycle Racing Club - Formula 125 (1st)

Joe Burns - Press Release, 14th April 2013

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Burns Races to 4th.

The solid start to Joe Burns Championship campaign in the 2013 Pirelli National Superstock 1000 Championship continued at Thruxton over the weekend of 12, 13, 14 April, and once again the weather played its part in proceedings with the Friday morning warm up being wet, however undeterred Joe topped the group B timesheet by 4 10 tenths of a second.

Once again with close to 60 entries Qualifying was spilt into two groups and Group B took to the track in the late afternoon in dry and bright conditions. By the end of the session Joe was 3rd quickest just 0.185 off the fastest time.

The weather came into play again on Saturday with qualifying 2 halted due to rain, which just poured down flooding the track. The consequence being that Joe started 6th on the grid based on the aggregate times of the two groups.

Sunday dawned with a mix of cloud and sunshine, and the race took place in dry conditions with Joe using his tried and trusted race strategy, keep clear of any first corner mayhem and put in good consistent lap times, and once again it went to plan.

Joe dropped to ninth place on the first lap, but then began to work his way forward, there were some damp patches on track that were catching the unwary riders, even Joe had a 'moment' when he went sideways at Cobb, however he recovered quickly and by lap 7 was in 4th place and catching the leading trio by 1 second a lap.

By lap 10 he had closed to within 0.3 seconds of the third place man Steve Brogan and the John Guest Speedfit bike and rider looked supreme, everything was set of a thrilling finish until three riders fell off just before Allard, causing a red flag.
Consequently Joe finished the race in 4th, but once again with fastest lap to his credit, and with a huge confidence boost of knowing that he was catching the leaders and with 5 laps left would have been on the podium. This would have been a nice early birthday present for him as on the 15th he celebrates his 21st birthday.

After the race Joe said that: "The bike had felt really good, and I am very disappointed not to have had the opportunity to challenge for the podium, just 3 more laps and I would have been past them! But I must take the positives, I am happy with the JG Speedfit Kawasaki bike and today was a good result with more points on the board, I cannot wait for Oulton Park."

Joe and the JG Speedfit Kawasaki Racing team left Thruxton with 21 Championship points and 4th position in the leader board. There is now a short break until round 3 which takes place at Oulton Park on the Bank Holiday weekend of 04/05/06 May.

Editors notes:

About Joe Burns

Joe Burns lives in Newcastle upon Tyne and enjoys the wholehearted support of his family in his pursuit of a career in top level motorcycle racing, his career history includes the following:

2012: Competed in four rounds of British 1000 Superstock Championship, (best result 2nd)
2011: British 1000 Superstock Championship ¡V (best result 6th)
2010: British 1000 Superstock - Wildcard at 3 rounds ¡V (best result 9th)
2009: British 600 Superstock Championship ¡V (best result 1st)
2008: British 600 Superstock Championship ¡V (best result 4th)
2007: Took year out of racing to learn to ride a 600cc motorcycle
2006: North East Motorcycle Racing Club - Grand Prix 125 (1st)
2005: North East Motorcycle Racing Club - Formula 125 (1st)
2004: North East Motorcycle Racing Club - Formula 125 (1st)

Press Release 7th April 2013, For Immediate Publication - Solid Start to 2013 Season by Joe Burns.

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Solid Start to 2013 Season by Joe Burns.

April 5th, 6th and 7th saw the opening round of the Pirelli National Superstock 1000 Championship, and who would have predicted that the race would be run in bright sunshine and a balmy 10°C? Particularly as when the team set up on Thursday it was snowing!

With 60 entries two qualifying periods are used to establish a grid for the Sunday feature race and a Saturday race for the slower competitors. The John Guest Speedfit Kawasaki ran faultlessly, with Joe qualifying 6th on Friday and 6th on Saturday, aggregate times from these two qualifying periods put Joe 12th on the grid for the Sunday feature race, and clearly in the top 20% of the field.

The race strategy was clear, keep clear of any first corner mayhem and put in good consistent lap times, and it went to plan, despite a slightly hesitant start caused by the sideways gradient of the Brands Hatch grid, Joe worked his way forward to finish a thrilling race in 8th place and with the credit for the fastest lap at 47.342 seconds. This was achieved on the 19th lap, proof that the 2013 Pirelli tyres on the John Guest Speedfit Kawasaki last well.

Joe left Brands Hatch with 8 points on the championship score sheet and now heads to the fastest circuit in the UK, Thruxton in Hampshire for the 14th April race day.

Editors notes:

About Joe Burns

Joe Burns lives in Newcastle upon Tyne and enjoys the wholehearted support of his family in his pursuit of a career in top level motorcycle racing, his career history includes the following:

2012: Competing in the British 1000 Superstock Championship
2011: British 1000 Superstock Championship - Best result 6th (10th)
2010: British 1000 Superstock - Wildcard at 3 rounds - Best result (9th)
2009: British 600 Superstock Championship - Best result 1st (11th)
2008: British 600 Superstock Championship - Best result 4th (12th)
2007: Took year out of racing to learn to ride a 600cc motorcycle
2006: North East Motorcycle Racing Club - Grand Prix 125 (1st)
2005: North East Motorcycle Racing Club - Formula 125 (1st)
2004: North East Motorcycle Racing Club - Formula 125 (1st)

NEW Case Study: IT Infrastructure Upgrade for World Leading Air Conditioning and Distribution Company

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Founded in Germany in 1951, TROX Group is a world leader in air distribution and comfort conditioning systems.

When Stephen Sheen joined TROX’s UK operation as IT Manager, one of his first tasks was to evaluate the IT infrastructure and provide the Board of Directors with recommendations of the upgrades and enhancements that were necessary to ensure TROX’s infrastructure would deliver the features, functionalities and capabilities needed to support the company’s future growth.

Working closely together, TROX and EACS identified the issues to be addressed, both in the short term and as a part of an ongoing project to ensure the future operational capabilities of the business.

In addition to a complete hardware refresh, TROX virtualised the hardware estate, consolidated their storage onto one, highly resilient platform, ensured that they had full business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities, and implemented an infrastructure that would substantially decrease their management and maintenance overheads.

TROX also upgraded its existing hardware, PCs and laptops to support Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2010 and implemented Microsoft System Center 2012 as its cloud and datacentre management solution for cloud applications and services.

“This major project is still ongoing and has involved us in an immense learning curve as we start to fully understand the benefits, capabilities and features of our new infrastructure,” concluded Stephen Sheen. “The entire solution has reduced our overheads, enhanced our flexibility and improved our business systems and processes. EACS’ best-of-breed solution has maximised our investment, reduced potentially prohibitive hardware maintenance and support costs, improved performance and ensured full business continuity and disaster recovery for key business applications.”

To download the case study please click HERE.

EACS won a European IT & Software Excellence Award in 2013 for their work with TROX Group.

EACS Wins European IT & Software Excellence Award for Second Year Running

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT

EACS has been selected as the winner in the European IT & Software Excellence Awards 2013 in the Datacentre Solution of the Year category, for the second year running.

This time EACS was recognised for their work at TROX Group, which included upgrading their IT infrastructure to provide a virtualised environment with a centralised SAN, and ensuring business continuity.

Last year EACS won the category with a virtualised infrastructure solution for the East of England Co-operative Society.

"EACS won in a category which was hotly contested with entries from across Europe,” commented John Chapman, Editorial Director at IT Europa. "The independent judges were particularly impressed with the implementation of the solution and with the minimum disruption to the client's business."

The European IT & Software Excellence Awards are the only pan-European awards which recognise the crucial role that ISVs, VARS, Solution Providers and Systems Integrators play in the delivery of real world solutions, and attracted entries from 25 countries. Entries were submitted by the ISV or solution provider themselves describing the solution provided and each had to be supported by an endorsement by the client. 64 companies from 15 countries made the finals. The winners were selected by an independent panel of consultants and editors.

Mike Dearlove, Managing Director, EACS attended the Gala Dinner last night at the Lancaster London Hotel and said: “This award is a credit to everyone who was involved in the project and highlights the exceptional level of services & solutions that the team here at EACS is delivering to our clients throughout the UK.”

EACS Announces Motorsport Sponsorship for 2013

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT

EACS announced today that they will be sponsoring Tom Onslow-Cole who is racing in the British Touring Car Championships and Joe Burns who competes in the Pirelli Superstock 1000 National Championship in 2013.

Last year EACS supported Tom as he raced with eBay Motors. He finished his campaign in 6th place after taking pole position for the last race meeting, his first of the season. Tom has now signed a deal to drive for Team HARD. piloting a new NGTC spec. Volkswagon Passat CC for 2013 and beyond.

Newcastle based bike racer Joe Burns will be riding a Kawaski ZX10R competing in the Superstock 1000 National Championship. 2013 is his first full season after sitting out most of 2012 recovering from an operation. The build-up to the season has already started for Joe and his team, the first test has taken place with excellent results, the season starts for real at Brands Hatch on 7th April.

Good luck Tom and Joe!

Case Study: Virtualised Environment with Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity for Bishop's Stortford College

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Bishop’s Stortford College had an existing server infrastructure which was nearing the end of its useful life. The College worked with EACS to implement a virtualised environment, using Microsoft Hyper-V, which delivers a fast and efficient service to staff and students. Servers have been reduced from fourteen to six, saving space and energy and removing the need to invest in additional equipment. Plus, there are now comprehensive backup and disaster recovery capabilities.

To download the case study please click HERE.

EACS Announced as Finalist in European IT Excellence Awards for Second Year Running

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT

EACS has been selected as a finalist in the European IT & Software Excellence Awards 2013 in the Datacentre Solution of the Year category, for the second year running.

This time EACS has been recognised for their work at TROX Group, which included upgrading their IT infrastructure to provide a virtualised environment with a centralised SAN, and ensuring business continuity.

The IT Europa awards attracted entries from 24 countries and are the only pan European awards that recognise real world solutions delivered by the IT and software channels, as well as channel support and partnerships with suppliers.

Last year EACS won the category with a virtualised infrastructure solution for the East of England Co-operative Society.

The 2013 winners will be announced at a Gala Dinner on 13th March 2013 at the Lancaster London Hotel.

NEW Case Study: A High Definition Experience in the Classroom

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

When the Thomas Deacon Academy opened to students in 2007 they implemented best-of-breed technologies that had served them well over the years, but their IT infrastructure was starting to show its age. They worked with EACS to upgrade their desktop virtualisation infrastructure with Citrix XenDesktop.

Now live, their solution is already delivering the increased performance and graphic capabilities that are needed to keep the Academy at the forefront of advances in the use of IT as a component part of the educational process.

To download the case study please click HERE.

New Sales Director Joins EACS

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Richard Betts joined EACS in January 2013 to take on the role of Sales Director after 20 years spent working in a blue chip company developing complex outsourcing and managed service opportunities.

Richard has experience of working with multiple verticals, including retail, leisure, transportation and construction. He brings a wealth of knowledge to EACS of delivering managed services to clients throughout the world.

“I am passionate about providing a world class customer experience and developing managed services that meet and exceed customer expectations,” said Richard.

Previously Mike Dearlove, Managing Director, was also responsible for this Sales role. However the new appointment will allow him to focus on the future development of the company.

EACS continues to expand and has recently added to the team in other areas, including the appointment of a number of new senior engineers increasing technical expertise in technologies such as NetApp, Citrix and Microsoft System Center.

To see a video about how employees feel about working at EACS, please click HERE.

EACS Achieves Microsoft Competencies for Devices & Deployment, Messaging and Midmarket

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

EACS announced today the achievement of Silver certification from Microsoft in three competencies - Devices & Deployment, Messaging and Midmarket. This is in addition to the Gold competency already held in Management and Virtualisation.

EACS had to meet rigorous standards set forth by Microsoft which enable partners to better serve customer requirements. This included meeting extensive technology requirements, demonstrating expertise through exams, receiving recommendations from customers and proving skills, support and knowledge with successful implementations in specific technology areas.

Devices & Deployment - involves delivering services and solutions for Windows 8. Helping organisations to migrate their operating systems and take advantage of new opportunities such as bring your own device and mobile workforce support
Messaging - recognises expertise in delivering Microsoft Exchange solutions
Midmarket - demonstrates experience in providing critical infrastructure solutions that are tailored to help midmarket businesses with their unique challenges

The attainment of these new competencies also allows EACS to deliver Deployment Planning Services across all areas of the business including Private Cloud, Exchange, Desktop, Lync and Office 365. With Planning Services, customers get in-depth planning assistance from qualified Microsoft partners to help plan on-premise, cloud-based, or hybrid software deployments.

“EACS has been a Microsoft partner for many years and is committed to strengthening our relationship. Only the top 5 percent of Microsoft partners have attained competencies and the achievement of these additional accreditations will illustrate the range of services we can provide to our clients,” said Mike Dearlove, Managing Director.

Case Study: Email management solution enables LOROL to migrate to Exchange 2010

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Click here to download a copy of the case study.

EACS Launches Microsoft System Center 2012 Training Course

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

EACS has announced the first dates for their System Center Configuration Manager 2012 training course, which will be held from 5th-7th February and 16th-18th April 2013 at their headquarters in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.

Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager helps organisations to empower people to use the devices and applications they need to be productive, while maintaining corporate compliance and control. It accomplishes this with a unified infrastructure that gives a single pane of glass to manage physical, virtual, and mobile clients. It also provides tools and improvements that make it easier for IT administrators to do their jobs.

This three day course is delivered by one of our technical consultants and enables systems administrators to get “hands-on” and explore the functionality and performance of SCCM 2012. You will receive expert advice on day to day operations and general maintenance. This includes deploying the client agent, managing and controlling assets, deploying software, endpoint protection and reporting.

If you would like further information, or to receive a course overview, please contact us.

EACS Selected as a Finalist in the CRN Channel Awards 2012

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

EACS has been announced as a finalist in the SME Reseller of the Year Category for the CRN Channel Awards 2012. These awards, now in their 19th year, represent the pinnacle of achievement in the UK market, rewarding outstanding performance in the IT channel.

Reseller awards recognise excellence in the delivery of solutions, service and support to end user customers, taking into consideration the reseller's ability to deliver benefits to the user organisation, and to meet customer objectives in terms of improved efficiency, ROI and investment protection, and cost reduction.

Mike Dearlove, Managing Director, EACS said: “At EACS we aim to add value to clients’ organisations providing practical, innovative and cost-effective IT solutions and services. I am delighted we have been chosen as a finalist in the CRN awards and believe this achievement recognises our track record in delivering real benefits to the organisations we work with.”

This is not the first time EACS has been recognised in the CRN Awards; the company won the Corporate Reseller of the Year Award in 2009, the SME Reseller of the Year category in 2003 and has also been a finalist in both categories in previous years.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony on 15th November at the Battersea Park Events Arena in London.

2012 has been an excellent year for EACS so far with the company receiving recognition for a number of other awards including winning a European IT Excellence Award and being selected as one of three worldwide finalists for the Microsoft Citizenship Opportunities for Youth Partner of the Year Award.

To find out more about the awards please click here.

EACS Listed Among Top Finalists for the 2012 Microsoft Citizenship Opportunities for Youth Partner of the Year Award

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Cambridgeshire, UK - June 26, 2012- Today, EACS announced it has been selected as a finalist for the Microsoft Citizenship Opportunities for Youth Partner of the Year Award.

Mike Dearlove, Managing Director at EACS said: "It is a great achievement to have been recognised by Microsoft in these global awards and to be one of only three finalists in this category. We support young people by taking part in apprenticeship schemes, which allow our employees to share their knowledge and expertise. We also encourage everyone in the company to get involved with sponsoring and raising money for charities that provide assistance to children. Recently this has included sponsoring the opening of a new children’s hospice, plus staff taking part in fundraising events such as spending a night sleeping outside exposed to the elements."

Awards were presented in multiple categories, with winners chosen from a set of nearly 3,000 entrants worldwide. The Opportunities for Youth-Citizenship Partner of the Year award recognises a partner that created a unique technology offering, or supported a strong employee engagement program, in order to serve the needs of youth (ages 6 to 24). The winning partner engaged its employees to lend time and expertise in support of a non-profit focused on youth causes. The winning solution or program was deployed within the past year.

"We are proud to recognise our 2012 Partner Award finalists for their outstanding commitments to solving customer challenges," said Jon Roskill, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft Corp. "Our partners are critical to our success as a company, and it is their creativity and innovative thinking in solving the unique needs of our customers that serves as the foundation for mutual, long-term success. We congratulate this year's finalists on their achievements and look forward to following their continued success in the future."

The Microsoft Partner Awards recognise Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions during the past year.

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About EACS

EACS was founded in 1994 and adds value to clients' organisations providing practical, innovative and cost-effective IT technologies, solutions and services. Solutions include desktop & application delivery, storage & server virtualisation, and control & collaboration. Services range from ad-hoc technical consultancy, IT support, project delivery & management, technical & end user training through to fully managed or hosted IT systems.

Partnerships with market leading manufacturers mean EACS is positioned to provide organisations with the highest level of expertise and quality. Accreditations include: Microsoft Gold Management & Virtualisation Partner, NetApp Platinum Partner, Citrix Gold Solution Advisor (Elite Certification in XenDesktop), HP Preferred Partner, VMware Enterprise Solution Provider and Dell Preferred Partner.

For more information on the work we do in the community, click HERE.

Product or service names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

EACS Wins European IT Excellence Award 2012

Thu, 31 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

EACS added another award to their achievements yesterday when they won the Datacentre Solution of the Year category at the European IT Excellence Awards 2012.

Datacentres are going through an enormous change at present particularly with the implementation of Virtualisation technologies. This category recognises these changes and was designed for solution providers who have redesigned a customer data centre or implemented a new technology within a datacentre. The judges were looking at how well the solution was implemented and the effect it had on the operations of the customer.

EACS was recognised for a virtualised infrastructure solution, using technologies from VMware and NetApp, which was deployed at The East of England Co-operative Society. EACS worked with the Society to reduce their servers by almost 90%, with a projected cost saving of £188,840 and energy savings of 227,292 kWh over the next 4 years. The Society now has a highly resilient solution with complete site failover of IT services from the head office site to the DR site and substantially simplified infrastructure management. (Click to hear what Richard Helliwell, ICT Services Controller at East of England Co-op, had to say about the solution: http://www.eacs.com/news_259.aspx).

"The EACS solution for the East of England Co-operative Society impressed the judges because it met and exceeded the three key business issues of sustainability, business continuity and disaster recovery," stated John Chapman, Editorial Director at IT Europa. "In particular they took into consideration the impressive cost and energy savings."

Mike Dearlove, Managing Director of EACS, attended the ceremony which was held last night at the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel, London. He said: “EACS has helped many organisations to move to a virtualised infrastructure and we are extremely pleased that our work with the East of England Co-operative has been recognised for the effect it has had on their operations. I would like to thank everyone involved at EACS for all their hard work, which has enabled us to win this award."

EACS was also a finalist in the Mobility Solution of the Year Award category for their work with East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH). (More details here: http://www.eacs.com/news_263.aspx).

The European IT Excellence Awards are the only pan-European awards which recognise the crucial role that Solution Providers and Systems Integrators play in the delivery of real world solutions, and attracted entries from 23 countries. 49 companies from 17 countries made the finals. The winners were selected by an independent panel of consultants and editors.

EACS Opens New Office Near Sheffield

Wed, 30 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

EACS has opened a new sales office on the Magna34 Business Park near Sheffield. The additional location means EACS can offer an improved service to customers based in the North of England with account managers able to respond quickly to requests for customer visits and demonstrations.

EACS has been providing IT services for over 18 years with headquarters located in Cambridgeshire. They supply IT services to a wide range of organisations of all sizes to help them achieve their business goals. Customers include McKesson, British Polythene Industries (BPI), Triumph Motorcycles Ltd and Travis Perkins plc.

Mike Dearlove, Managing Director at EACS, said:

"We have a growing number of clients based in the North of England and we hope they will welcome the opening of this new office, which will allow us to provide them with an even higher level of customer service. We have seen our customer base expanding geographically to additional regions within the UK, especially as a result of the launch of our Optimise IT on tour events, which provide the opportunity for IT professionals to spend a day away from the office focusing on their IT planning. The new site is part of our on-going strategy to ensure our clients have local and convenient access to the highest services and support they need and quite rightly demand."

For more information about EACS please visit: www.eacs.com, or to find out about the Optimise IT on tour events visit: www.optimiseitevent.com.

The Northern Office address is: Office 3, Building A06, Magna 34 Business Park, Temple Road, Rotherham S60 1FG.

About EACS

Partnerships with market leading manufacturers mean EACS is positioned to provide organisations with the highest level of expertise and quality. Accreditations include: Microsoft Gold Virtualisation Partner, NetApp Platinum Partner, Citrix Gold Solution Advisor (Elite Certification in XenDesktop), HP Preferred Partner, VMware Enterprise Solution Provider and Dell Preferred Partner.

EACS is a finalist in the European IT Excellence Awards 2012 - the leading pan-European awards for Solution Provider and Systems Integrator channels and was named Corporate Reseller of the Year at the CRN Channel Awards 2009.

EACS Named Mimecast Business Partner of the Year

Tue, 29 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

EACS Honoured for excellence at the 2012 Mimecast Partner Awards

EACS has been announced as Business Partner of the Year by Mimecast, the leading supplier of cloud-based email archiving, continuity and security for Microsoft Exchange and Office 365, at its annual Partner Awards ceremony last week.

The Mimecast Partner Awards recognise those partners which have excelled over the past 12 months by selling Mimecast products and services to new and existing customers, as well as helping to spread the Mimecast message among the channel community.

David Rouse, Finance Director at EACS, receiving the award from Alan Kenny and Nessa Lynchehaun from Mimecast.

EACS won the Business Partner of the Year award as they have had a fantastic year with some big name client wins and focused their efforts on Microsoft Exchange migrations in particular.

“Our partners do a fantastic job every year and these awards are an opportunity for us to recognise their excellence and dedication,” commented Nessa Lynchehaun, UK & Ireland Channel Director, Mimecast. “This year, judging was harder than ever and I would like to thank all of our partners for their tireless work. It’s been a fantastic 12 months for the Mimecast channel, with our partner community continuing to grow and drive our success. We look forward to continuing to build upon our existing relationships in the years ahead and recruit new partners to the ever-growing Mimecast stable.”

“We are delighted to be recognised as Mimecast’s Business Partner of the Year, less than a year after signing up to join their partner program,” said Mike Dearlove, Managing Director at EACS. “We have found the team at Mimecast a pleasure to work with; they are always willing to support us with our sales and marketing activities. We use the product internally and so have no difficulty explaining the benefits to our customers.”

The Mimecast Partner Awards were held at The Brewery in London ahead of the CRN Fight Night.

Keynotes Announced for Optimise IT on tour London

Tue, 22 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Following the success of our 11th Optimise IT event in Cambridge earlier this month, plans are now well underway for the conference to go "on tour" and the first stop is London on 19th June at the CBI Conference Centre. This will be the second year we have run a series of events around the country.

EACS is pleased to announce that both our keynote speakers will be joining us in London and so you will be able to see the following sessions:

Cloud, Consumerisation and Cost Reduction are key challenges for businesses and James Akrigg, Head of Technology for Partners at Microsoft, will be exploring these and explaining how they are leading to a greater focus on Efficiency, Effectiveness and Experiences enabled by technology. The keynote will cover everything you want to know about Microsoft in 2012, including current and future releases that can help transform your business, such as the release of Windows 8.

Following this Matt Watts, EMEA Director, Technology and Strategy at NetApp will look at how the way we build IT Infrastructures is changing. As we move further towards building 'Cloud' style environments we have to go through a 'Design Flip', where we design from the Infrastructure up instead of the application down.

As well as these keynote sessions there are 25 breakouts to choose from on topics such as mobile computing, cloud computing, cost reduction, desktop & application delivery, server virtualisation, storage, backup, business continuity & disaster recovery, security, email archiving, systems management and many more!

You will also have the opportunity to visit exhibition stands and talk to vendors face to face. These include: C2C, Citrix, EACS, EMC, Harvard Training, IGEL, Mimecast, NetApp, Samsung, Signify, STL Technologies and Websense.

If you would like to register for this FREE event please click HERE.

Video Case Study: EACS Provides Support Services for McKesson

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

McKesson is a healthcare technology solutions and services provider dedicated to helping its customers deliver high-quality healthcare by reducing costs, streamlining processes, and improving the quality and safety of patient care. McKesson has operated in the UK since 1990 and has a dedicated workforce in excess of 450 employees delivering to virtually every NHS organisation, as well as to a number of other public and private sector organisations.

McKesson has many servers distributed amongst their own datacentres and customer premises. The management and administration of the hardware contracts around these servers took up a lot of their time and so they selected EACS to assist with this. Benefits they have seen include improved reporting, improved service provided to their customers and time savings.

Optimise IT 2012 – Event Summary

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

On Wednesday 2nd May our 11th annual strategic IT update took place at The Wellcome Trust Conference Centre near Cambridge with record attendance of over 330 delegates and vendors.

Keynote Speeches from Microsoft & NetApp

This year’s event kicked off with a keynote speech from James Akrigg on Microsoft’s Vision for 2012. Cloud, Consumerisation and Cost Reduction are key challenges for businesses and are leading to a greater focus on Efficiency, Effectiveness and Experiences enabled by technology. This session looked at key trends in technology and how they can be embraced by businesses of all sizes to achieve greater business outcomes. It also went into detail about Microsoft in 2012, including current and future releases such as Windows 8.

The second keynote speech was delivered by Matt Watts, EMEA Director, Technology and Strategy at NetApp on Building a Future Ready IT Infrastructure. He looked at how the way that we build IT Infrastructures is changing, as we move further towards building ‘cloud’ style environments we have to go through a ‘design flip’, where we design from the Infrastructure up instead of the application down. Matt focused on the technology and IT changes expected over the next 5 years and then went onto discuss how to execute the flip and prepare yourself for how to really measure the true value of IT.

Finally David Fuller from EACS spoke about High Performance IT and showed video examples of where EACS has helped organisations to achieve more from their IT. This keynote included an appearance from EACS sponsored British Touring Car racing driver Tom Onslow-Cole who explained the difference that IT makes to him. As well as Mark Heath from Citrix who spoke about Byte Night - the IT industry's annual sleep out in support of Action for Children.

Over 25 Exhibition Stands

Following the keynote speeches there was the opportunity for delegates to visit the exhibition stands. This year there were more exhibitors than ever including:

Byte Night, C2C, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, EMC, Good Technology, Harvard Training, HP, IBM, IGEL, Mimecast, NetApp, Samsung, Signify, Sophos, STL, Toshiba, Veeam, VMware, Websense and Wyse.

Over 50 Breakout Sessions

Delegates were offered a wide choice of topics, with 56 breakout sessions to choose from.

Sessions included:

• Built for the future. Ready Now – Windows Server 8
• Desktop of the Future: Windows 8
• Focus on Licensing
• Microsoft System Center 2012: The Foundation of the Private Cloud
• Introduction to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
• Unified Communications: Collaboration Made Easy
• Mobile Security: Let your Corporate Data out of the office securely
• How to deliver a secure file-sharing service
• Beyond Virtualisation: Private Cloud Solutions for Your Business
• Backup & Recovery Solutions, Next Generation Data Protection

Closing Speech

At the end of the day EACS ran a draw including prizes of corporate hospitality at Brands Hatch, tickets to Triumph Live, Marks & Spencer vouchers (donated by IGEL), a coffee machine (donated by Mimecast) and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
Attendees also had the opportunity to compete with Tom Onslow-Cole on a racing simulator (with the fastest lap time winning tickets to the British Touring Car Championships), as well as taking a seat in Tom’s BMW racing car outside the conference centre.

Delegate Comments

“Just wanted to say thanks for the day yesterday. As always, it was very informative and gave us a lot of insight into new technologies and services that are becoming available. This is the only IT seminar type event I attend each year, and I always find I get the information I need.” IT Operations Manager

“Just wanted to say thanks for having us over at the event. It was very helpful, and as mentioned by one of your colleagues, more friendly than the rather sterile seminars we’re used to.” IT Team Leader

“The real thing I took away was a feeling that our business doesn't really focus heavily enough on IT...I often felt that many other businesses were utilising technologies we haven't even looked at. Having a day away from the office to actually focus on IT, something I rarely get an opportunity to do...was very refreshing.” IT Manager

If you missed Optimise IT 2012, then why not attend one of our “on tour” events? Please click HERE for details.

EACS Announced as Finalist in European Datacentre Solution of the Year Award

Thu, 03 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

EACS has been named as a finalist in the Datacentre Solution of the Year category for the European IT Excellence Awards 2012 - the leading pan-European awards for Solution Provider and Systems Integrator channels.

Datacentres are going through an enormous change at present particularly with the implementation of Virtualisation technologies. This category recognises these changes and is designed for solution providers who have redesigned a customer data centre or implemented a new technology within a datacentre. The judges are looking at how well the solution was implemented and the effect it has had on the operations of the customer.

EACS has been recognised for a virtualised infrastructure solution deployed at The East of England Co-operative Society. EACS worked with the Society to reduce their servers by almost 90%, with a projected cost saving of £188,840 and energy savings of 227,292 kWh over the next 4 years. The Society now has a highly resilient solution with complete site failover of IT services from the head office site to the DR site and substantially simplified infrastructure management.

“EACS has helped many organisations to move to a virtualised infrastructure and we are extremely pleased that our work with the East of England Co-operative has been recognised for the effect it has had on their operations,” said Mike Dearlove, Managing Director, EACS.

Click to hear what Richard Helliwell, ICT Services Controller at East of England Co-op, had to say about the solution: http://www.eacs.com/news_259.aspx.

The European IT Excellence Awards are the only pan-European awards which recognise the crucial role that Solution Providers and Systems Integrators play in the delivery of real world solutions, and attracted entries from 23 countries. Entries had to describe the solution provided and be supported by an endorsement from the client.

“The quality of entries was extremely high and demonstrated the depth of talent in the European IT channel,” stated Alan Norman, Managing Director of IT Europa. “Finalists have come from right across Europe with Central and Eastern European countries well represented.”

EACS has also been named as a finalist in the Mobility Solution of the Year Award.
The European IT Excellence 2012 Awards Dinner, at which the winners will be announced, will be held on 30th May 2012 at the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel, London.

EACS Announced as Finalist in European Mobility Solution of the Year Award

Thu, 03 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

EACS has been named as a finalist in the Mobility Solution of the Year category for the European IT Excellence Awards 2012 - the leading pan-European awards for Solution Provider and Systems Integrator channels.

Mobility is one of the strongest factors driving the deployment of IT in organisations. This award category recognises how the solution provider has helped an organisation to empower their mobile workforce. The judges will particularly focus on the scalability of the project and how the solution provider design, planned and implemented the solution.

EACS has been recognised for a Mobility Solution provided to East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH). EACH is a registered charity that cares for and provides support to families, children and young people with life-threatening conditions across Cambridgeshire, North and West Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge is the Royal Patron.

As EACH’s 120 care staff need to access and update highly sensitive patient records and produce equally confidential reports, the issues of resilience and security are of paramount importance. In order to enhance patient care, improve record keeping and reduce the amount of paperwork that care staff were undertaking, EACH worked with EACS to implement remote access to SystmOne - a clinical records computer system used by healthcare professionals in the UK.

“We are proud of the services we provide to EACH and pleased that we have been named as a finalist in this award. This mobility solution provided means that staff can access patient records in the patient’s own home, reducing paperwork and helping care providers work more efficiently and flexibly,” said Mike Dearlove, Managing Director, EACS.

Click to hear what Simon Hempsall, Head of Marketing & Communications at EACH, had to say about the solution: http://www.eacs.com/news_253.aspx.

The European IT Excellence Awards are the only pan-European awards which recognise the crucial role that Solution Providers and Systems Integrators play in the delivery of real world solutions, and attracted entries from 23 countries. Entries had to describe the solution provided and be supported by an endorsement from the client.

“The quality of entries was extremely high and demonstrated the depth of talent in the European IT channel,” stated Alan Norman, Managing Director of IT Europa. “Finalists have come from right across Europe with Central and Eastern European countries well represented.”

EACS has also been named as a finalist in the Datacentre Solution of the Year Award.
The winners will be announced at the European IT Excellence 2012 Awards Dinner at the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel, London on 30th May 2012.

Breakout Sessions Now Confirmed for Optimise IT 2012

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

There’s only a few days to go until Optimise IT 2012 takes place and all our 50+ breakout sessions are now confirmed.

Full details of the sessions can be viewed HERE.

We asked our registered delegates which they would be most likely to attend. The most popular were:

Built for the future. Ready Now – Windows Server 8 - discover the future of Windows Server Operating System and how this will underpin the future strategy of your business in the private cloud.
Desktop of the Future – Windows 8 - Discover the future of the desktop delivered by Microsoft Windows 8 client operating system and how this re-imagining of the desktop experience will benefit your users and business alike.
Introduction to Bring Your Own Device - Learn how the widespread consumer adoption of smartphones, laptops and tablets has led to the rise of Bring Your Own (BYO) initiatives and find out what you need to consider before launching a BYO programme.
Microsoft System Centre 2012 – The Foundation of the Private Cloud - This session will highlight the new and exciting innovations of Microsoft Hyper-V and System Center 2012. Through the use of slides and demonstration, you will learn how they enable your journey to the private cloud.
Mobile Security: Let Your Corporate Data out of the Office Securely - Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies can save company costs and raise staff productivity but IT need to ensure that company information is always safe and secure on these personal devices.
Introducing HP ProLiant Gen8 - The world’s most self-sufficient servers feature embedded automation and intelligent management software to eliminate up to 50 percent of manual tasks and associated errors.
How to deliver a secure file-sharing service - Citrix ShareFile enables users to securely share files with anyone, and sync files across all of their devices.
What’s in the Cloud for you? - Hear our take on the Cloud. Look at the different types of cloud and where we are helping organisations to maximise the use of cloud computing. The session will also cover the benefits and challenges of the cloud approach.
Take Virtual Backup & Replication in a New Direction - Game-changing advances in technology breakthrough the barriers of traditional backup and recovery processes and will equip your infrastructure for the higher heights of virtualisation.

Deliver instant restore of an entire machine in a matter of minutes, support a multi-hypervisor platform, recover individual objects from any virtualised application and automatically provide trusted verification of every backup.

We are also pleased to announce a number of new exhibitors - Cisco, Dell, IBM, Samsung, Sophos, Toshiba, VMware and Wyse have all now confirmed they will be attending.

If you would like to register for this FREE event, just click HERE.

Mobile Computing at Optimise IT 2012

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Users want fast, easy access to their desktop and business applications from anywhere and with any device. However IT departments need to ensure corporate information is secure and minimise complexity.

At Optimise IT 2012 Mobile Computing will be a key theme and you will have the opportunity to attend the following breakout sessions:

Introduction to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Learn how the widespread consumer adoption of smartphones, laptops and tablets has led to the rise of Bring Your Own initiatives and find out what you need to consider before launching a BYO programme.
Desktop of the Future: Windows 8. Discover the future of the desktop delivered by Microsoft Windows 8 and how it offers new possibilities for users to be mobile and productive practically anywhere, and provides IT with more secure, easy-to-manage intelligent infrastructure.
Mobile Security: Let Your Corporate Data Out of the Office Securely. Sales of mobile devices will surpass sales of personal computers during 2012. Find out how to ensure that company information is always safe and secure on these personal devices.
Managing Mobility and a Changing Device Landscape. The current trends for increased mobility, BYOD and cloud computing services are creating real challenges for IT departments. Learn how an IT strategy based on current cloud client and management technology enables secure, simple, and flexible access to services and keeps IT in a leadership position within the organisation.

As well as Mobile Computing, other topics which will be covered at the event include: Cloud Computing, Cost Reduction, Desktop & Application Delivery, Server Virtualisation, Storage, Backup, Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery, Security, Email Archiving, Project Management, Unified Communications, IT Services, plus many more!

Optimise IT 2012 takes place on 2nd May near Cambridge 9.00am - 5.30pm - click HERE for further details and to register.

Video Case Study: A Virtualised Infrastructure for East of England Co-op

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

East of England Co-operative Society is one of the largest independent co-operative societies in the UK with an annual turnover in excess of £350 million. Employing some 4,700 local people and with a business entirely owned by its members.

The society was formed by the merger of Ipswich and Norwich Co-operative Society and the Colchester and East Essex Co-operative Society, and had inherited an gaining legacy estate of servers which were nearing the end of their life. As a progressive and ethical organisation, the Society had business plans and objectives in place to address sustainability, business continuity and disaster recovery, as well as reducing the environmental impact of the company.

EACS worked with the Society to reduce their servers by almost 90%, with a projected cost saving of £188,840 and energy savings of 227,292 kWh over the next 4 years. This was using technologies from NetApp and VMware. The Society now has a highly resilient solution with complete site failover of IT services from the head office site to the DR site and substantially simplified infrastructure management.

Click HERE to download the full pdf case study.

Keynotes Announced for Optimise IT 2012

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Plans for our flagship Optimise IT event on 2nd May near Cambridge are now well underway and we are pleased to announce the details of two of our keynote sessions:

Cloud, Consumerisation and Cost Reduction are key challenges for businesses and so James Akrigg, Head of Technology for Partners at Microsoft, will be exploring these and explaining how they are leading to a greater focus on Efficiency, Effectiveness and Experiences enabled by technology. The keynote will cover everything you wanted to know about Microsoft in 2012, including current and future releases that can help transform your business, such as the release of Windows 8.

As well as these keynote sessions there are over 50 breakout sessions to choose from on topics such as:

Mobile Computing

Hear how Windows 8 offers new possibilities for users to be mobile and productive practically anywhere, and provides IT with more secure, easy-to-manage intelligent infrastructure
Learn how the widespread consumer adoption of smartphones, laptops and tablets has led to the rise of Bring Your Own (BYO) initiatives. What are the things you need to consider before launching a BYO programme?
Find out how new VDI solutions for SMEs can enable you to deliver high performance virtual desktops to any user and any device cost effectively and centrally

Personal, Private & Public Clouds

Look at which cloud services your organisation could benefit from now and in the future
Examine the business benefits of adopting Microsoft Private Cloud solutions within your organisation
Hear how Microsoft Hyper-V and System Center 2012 enable your journey to the private cloud
Review the most common questions around cloud backup and look at the role it can have in your organisation

Cost Reduction

Find out how to manage, save and reduce desktop costs by up to 70%
Discover how deduplication storage systems and software can transform backup & recovery by dramatically reducing the cost & amount of storage infrastructure needed
Understand how to identify the most cost effective and flexible ways to license your software

If you would like to register for this FREE event please click HERE.

Alternatively, if you are unable to make this date, the event will be going "on tour" to various locations around the country. Please click HERE for more details.

EACS Sponsors Tom Onslow-Cole in the British Touring Car Championships

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

EACS is pleased to announce that we will be sponsoring Tom Onslow-Cole in 2012 as he races with eBay Motors in the British Touring Car Championships.

eBay Motors is the UK’s leading online automotive marketplace and 2012 will be its third season in the BTCC. They will enter three drivers and the new look team sees Tom Onslow-Cole join Rob Collard and Nick Foster in WSR-run turbo-charged BMWs.

Tom Onslow-Cole is 24 years old and made his BTCC debut as a WSR driver in 2007. He said: “This season I am looking to challenge for regular podiums as we certainly have the car to be at the front of the grid. I am counting down the days until the new season and can’t wait to get started at Brands Hatch.”

The first race of this year’s championship takes place at Brands Hatch on Sunday 1st April and staff and customers from EACS will be attending to cheer Tom on!

Last year EACS sponsored James Nash in the BTCC and was delighted when he became 2011 Independent Driver Champion. This year will see James go on to race in the World Touring Car Championship and we wish him all the best.

EACS Sponsors the Opening of the New Treehouse Hospice Visited by HRH the Duchess of Cambridge

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

EACS is sponsoring the formal opening of East Anglia's Children's Hospices (EACH) new Treehouse hospice in Ipswich. It takes place on Monday 19th March when Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge will visit and open the new service for Suffolk and Essex.

Mike Dearlove, Managing Director at EACS said: “We have partnered with EACH for over six years providing a fully hosted IT environment. EACS is pleased to work with such an inspiring charity as part of our social responsibility commitments and to be supporting the opening of this new hospice.”

East Anglia's Children's

Hospices (EACH) supports families and cares for children and young people with life-threatening conditions across Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. In January EACH announced that Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge had accepted the honorary position of EACH Royal Patron.

During the visit, The Duchess will tour the facilities and meet children and their families who receive care and support from the hospice service, as well as staff and supporters. A private tour of the bedrooms and care area will also take place. Following the tour, Her Royal Highness will make her first public address, before planting a tree in the grounds of The Treehouse to commemorate her visit.

EACH has set up a fundraising webpage to commemorate the official opening of The Treehouse. If you would like to make a donation please click HERE.

To find out more about how EACS and EACH work together, click HERE to watch the Head of Marketing & Communications at EACH explain how they recently worked with EACS to implement remote access to SystmOne - a clinical records computer system used by healthcare professionals in the UK.

HP Accelerates Server Market Transformation with Self-sufficient HP ProLiant Gen8 Servers

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

HP announces the industry’s most self-sufficient line of servers – the HP ProLiant Generation 8 (Gen8).

HP ProLiant Gen8 servers are the result of a $300 million, two-year program called Project Voyager, the company’s initiative to redefine data center economics by automating every aspect of the server life cycle. To date, Project Voyager has resulted in more than 900 patents filed and a new systems architecture called HP ProActive Insight architecture, which will span the entire HP Converged Infrastructure.

With intelligent technologies that automate tasks and significantly improve uptime, HP ProLiant Gen 8 with HP ProActive Insight architecture addresses the top concerns of enterprises. For example, in a typical 10,000-square-foot data centre:

Companies spend an average of $24 million over three years on manual operations to support servers. HP ProLiant Gen8 triples administrator productivity by eliminating most manual operations such as server updates, which typically take five hours of administrator time per rack of servers. The industry-first HP Smart Update feature can perform the same update in 10 minutes or less.

Growing server energy and facilities expenses cost companies up to $29 million over three years. HP ProLiant Gen8 features HP 3-D Sea of Sensors, an industry-first technology that identifies over utilised servers based on real-time location, power, workload and temperature data, increasing compute capacity per watt of energy by 70 percent. HP 3-D Sea of Sensors also automates energy efficiency while eliminating 100 percent of manual configuration and inventory process errors.

Unplanned downtime costs clients approximately $10 million an hour. With industry-first HP Active Health and HP Insight Online technologies, HP ProLiant Gen8 is the only server that automatically analyses its own health across 1,600 data points. Through self monitoring, self diagnosing and proactive support, clients can resolve unplanned downtime issues up to 66 percent faster.

“The skyrocketing cost of operations in the data centre is unsustainable, and enterprises are looking to HP to help solve this problem,” said Mark Potter, senior vice president and general manager, Industry standard Servers and Software, HP. “We are delivering innovative intelligence technologies that enable servers to virtually take care of themselves, allowing data centre staff to devote more time to business innovation.”

Project Voyager is the third phase of HP’s multiyear transformation plan for the server market, which began in November 2011 with Project Moonshot. Project Moonshot changed how servers are built for extreme-low-energy computing. Project Odyssey, phase two, redefined the future of mission-critical computing. With phase three, Project Voyager, HP automates every aspect of the server life cycle.

HP ProActive Insight architecture elevates customer experience

HP ProLiant Gen8’s ProActive Insight architecture comprises powerful hardware and software that delivers server life cycle automation. At the same time, it provides continuous intelligence on server health, power usage and other important diagnostics. As a result, online system updates can be deployed three times faster, with as much as 93 percent less downtime.

Tested in more than 100 real-world data centers, HP ProLiant Gen8 servers are built with more than 150 client-inspired design innovations. These innovations dramatically accelerate application performance and also allow administrators to maximise server availability by eliminating common problems that cause failures, downtime and data loss. These include:

Integrated Lifecycle Automation – speeds application deployment and proactively improves uptime by automating manual tasks. As a result, clients can increase productivity, reduce errors and greatly simplify operations. With these improvements, HP ProLiant Gen8 servers enable IT staff to save more than 30 days of administration time a year per person in a typical 10,000 square-foot data centre.

Dynamic Workload Acceleration – improves data-intensive storage performance by almost seven times with a converged server and storage design that leverages intelligent, HP solid-state technologies. Smart analytics and workload-aware intelligence enable HP ProLiant Gen8 servers to adapt in real time to optimise system performance and efficiency. Unique HP Advanced Data Mirroring and smart algorithms ensure data is as much as 1,000 times safer, speeding Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) initialisation by 95 percent.

Automated Energy Optimisation – delivers nearly double compute-per-watt capacity and saves $7 million in energy costs in a typical data center over three years with HP ProLiant Gen8 energy-efficient servers and industry-first intelligent racks that feature built-in sensors. HP 3-D Sea of Sensors automates inventory management and precisely tracks power usage per rack and server, allowing administrators to easily optimise workload placement. Competitive servers force organisations to manually inventory, track and measure power and cooling. This requires extensive resources, incurs risk of downtime due to configuration errors and drives up energy costs.

Proactive Service and Support – enables clients to achieve a 95 percent first time issue resolution rate with HP Insight Online, the industry’s most comprehensive cloud-based, IT management and personalised support portal. HP Insight Online is integrated with HP ProLiant Gen8 intelligent technologies, HP Insight Remote Support and HP services, and offers clients a converged server management and support experience through the automatic collection of server assets, health, contract, warranty and support case information. Data is available securely anywhere, anytime, allowing clients to grant access to HP-authorised channel partners via the HP ServiceONE program, providing proactive problem prevention in addition to rapid resolution.

Pricing and availability - Contact us for full details

Are You Prepared for the Pressures the Olympics Will Bring to Your IT Infrastructure?

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

The 2012 Olympics will cause major disruption to London’s businesses. An estimated 6 million Olympic athletes, officials, media and spectators will descend upon London when the Olympics arrive bringing disruption to the journeys of thousands of commuters. Without adequate preparation, many London businesses will suffer a reduction in employee productivity, hampering their ability to simply “do business”.

Many businesses will attempt to mitigate the impact of the Olympics by allowing employees to work from home, but this presents another challenge for IT Managers; the need to provide seamless, uninterrupted access to essential corporate applications and systems.

Without adequate planning, your business will suffer:

Impaired IT service delivery to users
Reduction in service levels

Click HERE to download the guide ‘Planning for Olympic disruption: Top 5 considerations.’

Video Case Study: Remote Working Solution for East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH) is a registered charity that cares for and provides support to families, children and young people with life-threatening conditions across Cambridgeshire, North and West Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. They provide care and support wherever the family wishes - in their own homes, in the community, support in hospital or care at one of its hospice buildings.

Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge is the Royal Patron of EACH.

As EACH’s 120 care staff need to access and update highly sensitive patient records and produce equally confidential reports, the issues of resilience and security are of paramount importance. In order to enhance patient care, improve record keeping and reduce the amount of paperwork that care staff were undertaking, EACH decided to work with EACS to implement remote access to SystmOne - a clinical records computer system used by healthcare professionals in the UK.

Please click HERE to download the full case study.

Take Control of your Private Cloud With Microsoft System Center 2012

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Microsoft System Center 2012 enables you to take full advantage of maturing technologies like cloud computing and virtualisation - so you can deliver IT as a service with confidence. System Center 2012 lets you control your physical and virtual cloud and datacentre environments, so you can:

Deploy flexible, cost-effective Infrastructure as a Service using your existing datacentre assets
Deliver predictable application service levels leveraging deep application insight
Take control of your public and private cloud resources using a single intuitive management toolset

Join EACS and Microsoft on 29th February at Optimise IT on tour in Luton to discover how to empower your business with the latest management solutions. This session will highlight the new and exciting innovations of Microsoft Hyper-V and System Center 2012. Through the use of slides and demonstration, you will learn how they enable your journey to the private cloud.

This is just one of 20 breakout sessions which you can choose to attend. Other subjects include Desktop & Application Virtualisation, Cloud Services, Unified Communications, Server & Storage Virtualisation, Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery and Security.

To learn more about this FREE event visit: http://www.eacs.com/optimise+it+on+tour+luton.aspx

Optimise IT 2012 – Save the Date(s)!

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Last year we took our annual Optimise IT conference and exhibition on tour for the first time and we will be holding one final “on tour” event in Luton on 29th February.

After that we will be putting plans in place for our flagship event in Cambridge, which will now take place on 2nd May. This will again be followed by a series of “on tour” events around the country for those who can’t make it to Cambridge.

These FREE events are open to all business and technical decision makers considering their IT strategy and infrastructure. They will provide you with a focused opportunity to learn how leading edge technology and solutions can improve your business and how to get the best return from your investment.

So make sure you book your place at an event near you...

29 February - Luton
2 May - Cambridge
19 June - London
12 September - Ipswich
9 October - Coventry
6 November - Doncaster

To reserve your place click HERE.

Why Attend?

Hear insightful keynote speeches from industry leaders
Select from a large choice of focused breakout sessions on major IT and business issues
Network and share ideas with like minded senior IT professionals
Visit a wide range of exhibitors and see live demonstrations of cutting-edge technology
Meet industry leading suppliers face to face including: Microsoft, Citrix, VMware, NetApp, Mimecast, EMC and Websense

It may be useful to read the summary from our Cambridge event last year to give you an idea of what the day involves HERE.

To reserve your place click HERE.

Microsoft Releases Exchange Server 2010 SP2

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 has arrived and is available to download. Microsoft says they are continually adding value to Exchange as part of their ongoing release rhythm and the enhancements in this Service Park are largely due to customer feedback.

SP2 includes much anticipated features such as the Hybrid Configuration Wizard, Address Book Policies, Outlook Web App Mini and Cross-Site Silent Redirection for Outlook Web App, as well as customer requested fixes and rollups released prior to Service Pack 2.

For more information on these changes, please click here.

Webinar: Security Threats in 2012

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Webinar: What Security Threats Can We Expect in 2012?
13th December 2011, 10:00am-10.45am GMT

In 2011, Websense identified data theft as the prime incentive for cybercrime attacks, urging organisations to establish stronger defenses against incoming threats and tighter scrutiny of outgoing data. In 2012, we see increased proliferation of data theft strategies, especially in the social engineering attack vector.

Be sure to attend this webinar to learn more about security threats likely to come our way in 2012.

Learn about projected security threats in 2012 based off of research conducted by the Websense Security Labs.
How should you prepare your data, email, and web security of your organisation going into the New Year?
Discover how security is being impacted in a highly mobile, socially networked, and cloud based environment.

Please click here to register

EACS Announces the Achievement of NetApp Authorised Support Partner (ASP) Status

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

EACS, the award winning IT solutions and managed services provider, is pleased to announce the achievement of NetApp Authorised Support Partner (ASP) status. This means they can now provide customers with support and maintenance for NetApp technologies.

The new accreditation demonstrates how EACS has reached the same certification level required of NetApp's own support service engineers, with the highest level of knowledge in remote and maintenance support services.

Mike Dearlove, Managing Director at EACS said: "Our close working relationship with NetApp means customers can be confident that we can quickly and efficiently resolve any technical issues. With EACS as their single point of contact we can provide level 1 and 2 telephone support, remote management, and also organise engineers to deliver onsite maintenance if required. These proactive support services will ensure organisations stay up and running."

EACS is also a NetApp Authorised Professional Services Partner (APSP) and in 2011 was awarded Platinum Partner status. The company has experience of deploying NetApp systems in a variety of industries.

Microsoft Licensing Clinics

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Changes to Microsoft Licensing

Customers have told us that a potential barrier to realising the benefits of Microsoft’s latest technology is the complexity of their licensing. With many environments now being virtualised it’s more important than ever to be clear about the best solution for your organisation, so you are not spending unnecessary money on licensing.

In the last 12 months Microsoft has made significant changes to their licensing programmes, which in many cases has delivered either more for your money or a lower investment than originally thought.

You may not have heard of ECI, EAP or ESA but if you have 250 users or more and are considering upgrading your Microsoft environment then EACS is running a series of 1-1 clinics. These sessions will help you understand the licensing options available to you.

Places are limited so if you would like to book a session please click HERE.

Mimecast Gains One Millionth User Worldwide.

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Congratulations to Mimecast!

They recently reached the milestone of "the one millionth Mimecast user" for their enterprise email management services that include security, continuity and archiving.

EACS works with Mimecast to offer essential cloud services for Microsoft Exchange. Their suite of services provides total end-to-end control of business email, while minimising risk and reducing both cost and complexity.

To find out more please Register for a Mimecast WebEx.

NetApp Café Briefings

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Attend a NetApp Café briefing to hear how our storage solutions can help you grow.

A FREE Session designed to drive your business forward - run by NetApp Sales Reps and System Engineers

These sessions will open your eyes to how NetApp can help your business to grow.

Dates:

24th November	10.00am - 1.00pm	Leeds	Bewley's Hotel
2nd December	10.00am - 1.00pm	Coventry	NetApp Office
19th January	10.00am - 1.00pm	Leeds	Bewley's Hotel
2nd February	10.00am - 1.00pm	Coventry	NetApp Office

Agenda:

Corporate Overview - home grown storage innovations since 1992
MSE Commitment - 30% of our revenue is from MSE with 24% growth in 12 months
Product Range - how this helps protect your investment
Unified Storage - why this makes businesses more saleable and flexible
Data Protection - get better than RAID 10 protection & performance at RAID 5 price
Application Integration - developed with key SW vendors for effortless backups

Storage Efficiency:
Thin provisioning - increase disk utilisation, performance and ease of use
SnapShots - increase backup frequency without any performance impact
FlexClone - spin off VMs or VDIs nearly instantly without using extra space
Thin Replication - minimise data transfers and speed up recoveries
DeDuplication - guaranteed 50% saving in virtualised environments

Let NetApp give you the upper hand - and work with you.

Click HERE for more details and to register for one of the events

Harvard Training: Training dates released for 2012 - Exchange 2010, Windows Server 2008 and SCCM 2007

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

EACS has now released dates for their Exchange 2010, Windows Server 2008 R2 and System Centre Configuration Manager 2007 R3 training courses in 2012.

Each course lasts two days and allows you to get hands-on while receiving expert advice from one of our consultants on migration planning and essential support skills.

Dates:

Microsoft Exchange 2010 Essentials

22nd & 23rd Feb 2012
25th & 26th April 2012
27th & 28th June 2012

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Essentials
25th & 26th January 2012
28th & 29th March 2012
23rd & 24th May 2012

System Centre Configuration Manager 2007 R3
21st & 22 March (Level 2)

They are held at EACS Head Office in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire and to receive a course overview please contact us.

Case Study: A Managed Infrastructure for EACH

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH) is a registered charity that cares for and provides support to families, children and young people with life-threatening conditions across Cambridgeshire, North and West Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. EACH provides care and support wherever the family wishes – in their own homes, in the community, support in hospital or care at one of its hospice buildings in Ipswich, Milton and Quidenham.

The Challenge

For some six years, EACS - an award winning and trusted provider of IT solutions and managed services has provided EACH with a fully hosted IT environment, with all applications delivered as a service via the internet.

“Our partnership with EACS and the services they provide makes sound financial sense,” explained EACH’s Finance Director, Ruth Kiani. “As a charity we rely upon donations and subscriptions from the public and have to make the best possible use of our budgets. By partnering with EACS we do not have to invest in or maintain internal servers, retain specialist IT staff to manage our infrastructure, or provide help and support. Plus we have flexible access to our applications.”

For the full.pdf EACH Case Study click HERE.

Citrix Synergy Update - Are you missing Citrix Synergy?

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Are you missing Citrix Synergy?

Citrix Synergy is taking place in Barcelona this week where attendees will hear Citrix divulge the full virtual computing story, from high-level strategy to practical application, and from virtual workstyles to virtual datacentres.

Don’t worry if you have been unable to take part because EACS is bringing a condensed version to the UK which will cover all the highlights...

When: Tuesday 22nd November, 9am – 1.30pm
Where: EACS Head Office, 7 Ramsay Court, Hinchingbrooke Business Park, Huntingdon, Cambs, PE29 6FY

Desktop virtualisation, datacentre solutions and cloud computing are major trends in virtual computing that can provide your organisation with cost benefits, greater simplicity and agility. If you missed Citrix Synergy then the best place to learn more about them is at this event.

If you are a Citrix customer... find out how to optimise your existing Citrix environment. You'll hear about new features and products that can add significant value to your IT system.

If you’re new to Citrix... Get the latest information about virtual computing, from high-level trends to technology details, which will enable you to discover what’s right for your organisation.

Why Attend?

Hear all the highlights and hot product announcements in one jam-packed half-day session
Discover the technologies and solutions available to help you create your own private cloud
Hear how to transform traditional, device-centric desktop management to a people-centric model where desktops are a service
See a demo of Citrix XenDesktop
Discover how easy it is to adopt the “Bring Your Own” (BYO) device movement in your organisation and why it benefits employees, IT and the business
Get guidance from our Citrix consultants and product experts

To register for this FREE seminar, please click HERE.

(Please note: registrations are limited to two people per company).

EACS Raises Money for Byte Night

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Byte Night is the IT industry’s annual sleep out in support of Action for Children. Each year hundreds of individuals and teams from across the IT and business community spend a night exposed to the elements in a bid to raise sponsorship and awareness of Action for Children’s work.

This is the second year EACS has entered a team for the Cambridge event which included Mike Dearlove, Managing Director at EACS. They joined other IT professionals sleeping out in the elements at Cambridge Science Park on Friday 7th October.

Over £60,000 has been raised so far from the Cambridge event and £730,000 overall. Staff at EACS took part in several fundraising activities in the lead up to the event, including “dress down” days, auctions and raffles. EACS contributed £2500, plus prizes such as corporate hospitality at Brands Hatch. Our customers and partners were also kind enough to donate prizes including a signed football and laptop.

C2C Announces Industry First In-Place Legal Hold for Email, Including PST Files

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

In-Place Legal Hold enables potentially relevant ESI to be easily locked down – a powerful Early Case Management capability - without the expense and challenges of traditional collection.

C2C, a leading provider of email, file and messaging management solutions, announced the release of In-Place Legal Hold, the industry’s first in-place legal hold capability for email – including PST files (also known as Outlook Archives). In-Place Legal Hold enables potentially relevant ESI to be easily locked down – a powerful Early Case Management capability - without the expense and challenges of collection.

With In-Place Legal Hold, all potentially relevant documents irrespective of location or state are simply found and locked into a secure repository, with all their metadata intact, ensuring that no further user action can affect the data. There is no user involvement, no concern about making current information inaccessible and no worries about altered metadata. If the eDiscovery request comes to nothing, the data is simply discarded and the systems remain as before the in-place legal hold took place.

“Email is the key evidence in more than 90 percent of litigation cases and it can be hidden in so many locations,” stated Dave Hunt, CEO of C2C. “We are very excited to offer a tool to the industry that reduces costs and most importantly, reduces the risks of having so much data scattered around an organisation without being under control. With sanctions for spoliation on the increase, companies need a proactive and intuitive mechanism to secure their data.”

eDiscovery requests are typically not bound by data in the email archive alone, they need to include all email locations, which may make emails more difficult to find. Common problems facing an organisation include:

Email will exist in archives, mailboxes on servers, public folders and PST files
PST files may exist on servers, desktops, laptops, and even home computers
PST files may be ‘lost’ to their owner or may belong to former employees, which may be relevant to a case
The time taken by IT to search all these locations and preserve any data can be enormous
When found, steps need to be taken to analyse and present only what is pertinent
Human errors occur when so much data has to be found and sorted

In-Place Legal Hold allows companies to search, discover and immediately ensure preservation of emails and metadata stored in any location, from laptops to mail servers to archives. “What makes this even more powerful is that the application is targeted for the non-IT professional,” added Hunt.

In-Place Legal Hold has the ability to secure any email data in a Microsoft Exchange and Outlook mailbox store, Public Folder or PST file without being required to archive the data first and without needing to involve IT in the process. The non-IT professionals, such as compliance officers, records managers and legal counsel, can now pinpoint data according to a search requests. They no longer need to wait for IT to identify data, issue preservation notices, secure and collect the items. C2C Advanced Discovery Application does it automatically and bypasses the many manual processes and complex workflows of preservation and collection.

With In-Place Legal Hold, C2C’s new Advanced Discovery application brings email focused Early Case Management to the eDiscovery market.

Other features of the application include:

Early Case Assessment reports and graphs
Sending and tracking of preservation notices
Collection of data from mailboxes, PSTs and an archive
Basic Review including tagging and syntax highlighting
Ability to export data

Additional features that give added value to the IT team include advanced performance tracking and graphing through a Performance Dashboard, a new WebAdmin Console with enhanced Roles and Rights management and more PST management features including the ability to auto assign PST ownership based on customer specified criteria.

C2C Announces Advanced eDiscovery Features in ArchiveOne

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

IT and legal departments benefit from the simplicity of ArchiveOne in discovering and searching relevant data in PST files

C2C, a leading provider of email, file and messaging management solutions, announced additional features in ArchiveOne® that allow IT administrators to search for PSTs and when found, search their content without requiring manual intervention. These features give IT and legal departments the ability to discover and search relevant data in PST files when needed for eDiscovery.

"PST files have often been a problem for IT folks but now they no longer need to be relocated or ingested into the archive to find relevant data,” stated Dave Hunt, founder and CEO of C2C. “With ArchiveOne, users are able to save time, reduce storage demands, reduce risk and find relevant data when needed for eDiscovery quickly and easily.”

With the advent of FRCP laws, Freedom of Information laws and an increase in lawsuits, the need to find data relevant to an eDiscovery request has never been greater. Yet, when the data exists in a PST file which can be held on a server or local computer the problems have tended to be ignored rather than tackled because of their scale and complexity.

ArchiveOne will discover PSTs automatically and report their location, size and other information to the IT administrators, giving them a global picture of all PSTs and their owners in the organisation. This allows the IT department to immediately assess the scale of the problems facing them and allows legal departments the ability to reduce the complexity of Early Case Assessment by pinpointing the data sources that may be of interest to them.

C2C automates the process that previously required that all PST files be found and manually moved into a central location before being ingested into an archive to search the data.

With C2C, users have:

The ability to remove retired data rather than ingesting it into an archive, reducing storage demands.
Simplicity and speed in meeting eDiscovery requests from legal departments.
The ability to easily and simply find data.
Greater confidence in knowing that all locations have been searched.
Reduced risks of non-compliance to an eDiscovery request.

ArchiveOne has solved the PST problems in these companies:

The IT department at a leading chemical company removed more than 80 percent of PST content purely on the basis of it having past retention periods, leaving them with a manageable system.
An AmLaw100 law firm located in New York was able to pinpoint only relevant data during their Early Case Assessment, reducing the amount of data to be processed in the complex analysis stage by more than 70 percent and saving costs.

Citrix Opens Up the Cloud for VMware Customers

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Latest Release of CloudStack Brings the Leading Open Source Cloud Platform to VMware vSphere and OracleVM Users

Citrix Systems have announced a new edition of CloudStack™, which will feature enhanced support for both the VMware vSphere and Oracle VM hypervisors, enabling VMware and Oracle customers to manage their virtualised servers as a highly available, scalable cloud computing environment. Citrix CloudStack is not just a traditional enterprise server virtualisation platform with cloud management layered on top, it is a production-ready, free and open source cloud infrastructure platform that helps providers of all types deploy and manage simple, cost-effective cloud services that are scalable, secure, and open by design. The new release is based on the same CloudStack solution that has been used by some of the world’s largest and most successful public clouds to roll out new cloud services up to 50 times faster and at one-fifth the cost of alternative solutions. This is the first release of the product since Citrix acquired Cloud.com in July.

Recognising that organisations currently face a daunting task when trying to build their own IaaS cloud environment, Citrix CloudStack provides customers with the fastest path to the cloud by providing the most advanced software technologies for building highly scalable, highly reliable cloud computing environments. More than 60 large-scale production clouds have been deployed using the open source CloudStack, including GoDaddy, GreenQloud, KT, Nokia, Tata Communications and Zynga.

As the industry ventures into the Cloud Era, a vast array of new cloud services will emerge, requiring platforms that are purpose-built for cloud computing – radically different from the traditional enterprise datacentres of today. These platforms need to be designed from the ground up to deliver multi-tier, multi-tenant services in the simplest and most cost-effective way. CloudStack addresses these challenges with a powerful, hypervisor-agnostic solution designed to help organisations build clouds the way the world’s largest and most successful public clouds are built – simple, automated, elastic, scalable and efficient. With advanced networking capabilities, high-availability and a robust web interface, CloudStack gives users complete control of their cloud infrastructure through a single pane of glass.

“vTax” Break

By providing a cost effective and scalable cloud platform that works with all major enterprise virtualisation technologies, Citrix CloudStack allows users to preserve their existing virtualisation investments – whether they are based on KVM, Oracle VM, vSphere, XenServer®, or a mix of these technologies – while enabling them to continue to grow their virtual infrastructure. VMware users particularly benefit when they choose to deploy Citrix CloudStack over vCloud Director as their preferred cloud platform. By using Citrix CloudStack, VMware customers not only break free from the proprietary costs that VMware imposes with its platform, but they also gain the added flexibility and control associated with leveraging the most popular open source cloud platform in the market. Additionally, Citrix CloudStack eases the financial impact associated with the “vTax,” the term used by many in the cloud and virtualisation communities to refer to the latest update to the VMware vSphere 5 licensing model that added costs to customers’ existing cloud and virtualisation implementations. Since CloudStack can support multiple hypervisors in the same cloud, VMware customers can mix and match their virtualisation technologies under the same cloud environment and optimise their costs, as well as the business value.

This latest release of CloudStack is a continuation of the company’s efforts to provide VMware customers with an open source choice when building clouds on vSphere. In March, Citrix delivered VMware support into OpenStack and has now extended that work into CloudStack. In addition to adding enhanced support for vSphere and Oracle VM, the upcoming version of Citrix CloudStack will also enable bare metal provisioning, allowing users to increase the agility of their cloud deployment by provisioning and managing workloads on physical servers without a hypervisor.

Product Availability

Citrix CloudStack with support for VMware vSphere and bare metal provisioning is available today as a free download from CloudStack.org or as a commercially supported solution from Citrix. Oracle VM support will be available in October, followed by Microsoft Hyper-V later in Q4. CloudStack can be deployed on-premise or as a hosted cloud service.

For more information on EACS and Citrix please click HERE.

Citrix Sets New Standard for Desktop Virtualisation

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 Enhances User Personalization and High-Definition Experience over the LAN or WAN

Citrix Systems have announced a new version of its market-leading Citrix XenDesktop® product line that adds major enhancements in personalisation, user experience and rich consumer device support. The new XenDesktop 5.5 adds the “Personal vDisk” technology acquired earlier this month from RingCube to all editions of XenDesktop, making it far easier for customers to deploy highly personalised virtual desktops at a substantially lower cost. XenDesktop 5.5 also features the most significant enhancement in company history to its market-leading Citrix HDX™ user experience technology, enabling customers to deliver high-definition virtual desktops up to three times faster for both LAN and WAN users. Using XenDesktop 5.5, customers can now build true “private desktop clouds” for the first time ever, delivering virtual desktops and apps with rich voice, video and multimedia support to more than one billion end user devices, even for the most challenging remote, branch and mobile users.

As the industry moves from the PC Era to the Cloud Era, virtual desktops are growing rapidly in popularity. IT organisations like the security, flexibility and cost-savings of delivering desktops as a centralised service, while end users like the ability to access corporate apps and desktops from any device, in any location. Addressing these market needs is one of the reasons Citrix was recently recognised as the only vendor in the Leaders category of the IDC MarketScape: Desktop Virtualisation 2011 Vendor Analysis.

Gartner expects mainstream adoption of hosted virtual desktops (HVDs) to take place in 2012 through 2014, with 70 million users by 2014. Driving broad mainstream adoption of desktop virtualisation at this scale will require continued enhancements in personalisation and user experience, along with continued reduction in deployment and operation costs. XenDesktop 5.5 raises the bar in all of these areas:

What’s New:

Virtual Desktops Made Personal - XenDesktop 5.5 gives IT the ability to deliver personal VDI desktops through the innovative “Personal vDisk” technology acquired recently from RingCube. This technology is now available at no charge as an early access capability in all editions of XenDesktop 5.5, making it easy for customers to gain hands-on experience and begin pilot deployments. This new feature will enable broader enterprise-wide deployment of virtual desktops by storing a single copy of Windows centrally, and combining it with a personal vDisk for each employee’s personal apps, data and settings, enhancing user personalisation and reducing storage costs.

Raising the Bar on High-Definition User Experience - With more than 150 new features, XenDesktop 5.5 represents the most significant enhancement ever to HDX user experience technology. Central to the release is the ability to deliver virtual desktops over the WAN to mobile workers and branch office employees up to three times faster, at a fraction of the cost. Key enhancements include six times faster printing and scanning, two times faster app launch, and flexible new Quality of Service controls to ensure superior user experience in all network conditions. The new release also features significant multimedia, voice and video enhancements, including new Flash redirection technology that delivers stunning video and audio experience over the WAN at less than half the cost.

Support for More than One Billion Devices - Combined with the Citrix Receiver™ universal software client, XenDesktop 5.5 extends the company’s already significant lead in delivering apps and desktops to the widest possible range of end user devices. Using XenDesktop 5.5, customers can deliver self-service apps and desktops to more than one billion devices, including PCs, Macs, tablets, smartphones and thin clients – and all major device operating platforms, including new environments like Apple iOS, Google Android and Google ChromeOS.

Unparalleled Native User Experience on Tablets and Smartphones - Unlike competing products that offer only basic support for non-PC devices, XenDesktop 5.5 enables a rich, native experience on each unique device, including support for gestures and multi-touch features. This experience is also customised based on the type of device. Smartphone users, for example, tend to be document-centric. Instead of opening a full Windows desktop, they generally prefer to interact with individual files. Tablet users, by contrast, tend to be app-centric, preferring to launch individual applications, rather than navigating a full Windows desktop. In all cases, XenDesktop 5.5 enables a rich, native experience on each unique device, allowing users to access corporate apps and data in whatever way is most convenient and natural. No other desktop virtualisation product in the industry comes close.

Millions More Laptops Supported with XenClient 2 - XenDesktop 5.5 also includes Citrix XenClient™ 2 as a standard feature. XenClient extends the value of XenDesktop to millions of laptop users, enabling customers to manage desktops centrally, but execute them locally on client hypervisors rather than run directly on each laptop – even when disconnected from the network. The XenClient 2 technology includes a host of new enhancements that significantly expand hardware compatibility, deliver a simple user experience and enable larger more complex production deployments.

Faster App Delivery with XenApp 6.5 - XenDesktop 5.5 includes the new Citrix XenApp™ 6.5 as an integrated feature. XenApp 6.5 delivers applications with the same high-definition experience as desktops delivered via XenDesktop. In addition, end-users benefit from the new Instant App Access feature that reduces application launch times by 50 percent. Customers can also manage applications delivered by XenApp alongside virtual desktops from within the XenDesktop Desktop Director console.

Enhanced Support for Microsoft Technologies - XenDesktop 5.5 includes support for Microsoft RemoteFX, a key capability of Microsoft Hyper-V. XenDesktop with HDX and RemoteFX delivers a great user experience for rich content, including Aero-based Windows 7 desktops, whether executing on the server or the client device. Support for Microsoft management technologies, such as App-V and System Center enables IT to virtualise applications and manage their desktop infrastructure, including physical and virtual desktops and applications, from a single view.

For more information on EACS and Citrix please click HERE.

Internos Real Investors selects EACS and STL Technologies

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

European real estate fund manager Internos Real Investors has selected STL Technologies, the contact and case management software specialist, to provide its new customer relationship management solution.

STL Technologies deployed the Microsoft Dynamics CRM with its commercial partner EACS, a Microsoft Gold expert in visualisation.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution is used by Internos to build and support stronger and deeper client relationships, by encouraging Internos staff to consider client relationships in more detail and by offering a facility for clients to choose exactly how they wish to interact with Internos Real Investors.

Edward Pennie, IT manager, Internos Real Investors, said: “We selected the Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution from STL Technologies and its partner EACS as their exceptional levels of service, flexibility and project management made them the obvious choice. We have every confidence in their combined abilities to help underpin our business strategy for growth across major European markets.”

Richard Perkins, sales and marketing director, STL Technologies, said: “Supporting a dynamic business such as Internos is a testament to the partnership between STL Technologies and EACS. Together we can completely fulfil the technology needs of a market leader such as Internos and assist them in becoming one of the most successful owner-managed real estate platforms in Europe.”

EACS previously helped implement Internos’ Disaster Recovery Virtualisation solution.

Citrix gains momentum in desktop virtualisation by acquiring RingCube

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Citrix continues to gain momentum in desktop virtualisation and again sets a strategic course via the acquisition of RingCube – makers of a highly innovative technology that when combined with XenDesktop will allow them to reach a far broader set of users and speed up customer deployments.

What is the value of this acquisition?

Gives end users all the personalisation benefits of a “dedicated” VDI desktop
Offers IT administrators all the cost benefits of a “pooled” VDI desktop
Reduces VDI storage costs
Makes it easier to move from physical to virtual desktops
Increases deployment of virtual desktops to every user companywide

With the acquisition of RingCube, Citrix further solidifies its position in desktop virtualisation, helping enterprise customers transform traditional desktop management into a secure, flexible “private desktop cloud” service.

For more information on EACS and Citrix please click HERE.

EACS Event: Accelerate & Optimise Your Core Microsoft & Citrix Technologies

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

EACS Event: Accelerate & Optimise Your Core Microsoft & Citrix Technologies
When: Friday 2nd September
Where: The Brands Hatch Circuit, Fawkham, Longfield, Kent DA3 8NG

At this FREE event you will learn why Citrix NetScaler is the perfect application delivery solution for your key Microsoft applications.

Find out how you can ensure applications like Exchange, SharePoint, Lync (formerly OCS) and SQL Server are always available, accessible and give end-users the best performance accelerating applications by 5x.

Plus learn how Citrix Branch Repeater can be integrated with NetScaler to provide ground-breaking multi-user optimisation, remote access and security for virtual desktops and applications delivered by class leading Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix® XenApp infrastructure.

What’s Included:

Find out how to accelerate your core Microsoft and Citrix Technologies
Access to our private suite, ideally located next to the start/finish straight where practice and qualifying for the British Superbikes will be taking place
Buffet lunch and refreshments

Please click here for further information.

VMware Updates Licensing Model for vSphere 5

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

On 12 July 2011 VMware announced a new Cloud Infrastructure Suite. The launch featured vSphere 5, the newest version of their flagship product.

As part of this announcement, they introduced changes to the vSphere licensing model in order to align costs with the benefits of virtualisation rather than with the physical attributes of individual servers. While their goal was to provide a licensing model based on consumption and value rather than physical components and capacity, they strived to make the new model as non-disruptive as possible.

These changes have generated much debate and feedback, which they have now acted upon. They have announced today three changes to the vSphere 5 licensing model that address the most recurring areas of feedback:

Increased vRAM entitlements for all vSphere editions, including the doubling of the entitlements for vSphere Enterprise and Enterprise Plus. This change addresses concerns about future-looking business cases that were based on future hardware capabilities and the previous vSphere licensing model.

Capped amount of vRAM counted in any given VM, so that no VM, not even the "monster" 1TB vRAM VM, would cost more than one vSphere Enterprise Plus license. This change also aligns with their goal to make vSphere 5 the best platform for running Tier 1 applications.

Adjusted the model to be much more flexible around transient workloads, and short-term spikes that are typical in test & development environments for example. They will now calculate a 12-month average of consumed vRAM rather than tracking the high water mark of vRAM.

Finally, they introduced the vSphere Desktop edition to address vSphere licensing in a desktop environment. The vSphere Desktop edition does not have any vRAM entitlements, and allows customers to purchase vSphere for VDI use case on per user basis.

Bogomil Balkansky, SVP, Product Marketing, Infrastructure Product at VMware said “We are confident that our vSphere 5 licensing model based on pooled vRAM is the right one for the cloud computing era.”

If you would like help on understanding and calculating how the new licensing model applies to your environment please contact us.

Case Study: A Virtualised Environment for Chard Robinson

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Chard Robinson Group is a multi-million pound property group with interests in both the UK and abroad. They are pursuing an aggressive growth drive to move from 8,000 property managed units to 30,000 within 3 years - a process that will be achieved through acquisition and business development.

When Paul Holmes joined as IT Manager, the decision was taken to consolidate the existing IT infrastructure into a virtualised environment.

EACS consultants undertook a review of the existing IT infrastructure and put forward detailed proposals to address Chard Robinson’s existing and future objectives as a three year strategy, with the company goals in mind. The proposals centred on virtual servers to deliver an improved level of agility, a mirrored SAN architecture to provide resilience, and a standardised platform to enable the rapid adoption of newly acquired companies into the Chard Robinson family.

Working in close partnership with Chard Robinson, EACS procured, installed and implemented the new virtualised solution, including ongoing support to ensure that Paul Holmes would be able to maintain and manage the solution efficiently and effectively.

“EACS has continued to be the exemplary partner,” commented Paul Holmes. “With our new virtualised environment we have now achieved over 99.9% uptime and have the flexibility that we needed to support our future growth. My trust in EACS has been well proven.”

Download the full case study HERE.

Case Study: A Managed IT Service for Emperor Design

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Company Overview

Emperor Design is a design and communications company, specialising in corporate, marketing and investor communications. With offices in London, Birmingham and Edinburgh, Emperor provides clients with a range of services including corporate communications, investor communications, marketing communications and copywriting services.

With some 75 staff and 14 years of profitable growth, Emperor Design is one of the UK’s leading design agencies and boasts clients listed in the FTSE 100, FTSE 250, FTSE SmallCap and AIM 100 and overseas.

The Challenge

Several years ago, Emperor outsourced its IT management to a specialist Managed Services provider but subsequently took the decision to bring responsibilities for these services in-house.

With the changing market and a need to provide additional services both internally and to its growing client base, Emperor decided to re-explore the viability of placing the entire responsibility for the maintenance, support and enhancement of its IT infrastructure with a specialist external organisation. “We are a design company and not an IT organisation,” explained Tony Drant, Emperor Design’s Technical Director. “We had taken the strategic decision to focus on delivering increased services to our clients and recognised that to manage all of our IT requirements internally would require a relatively large team with a wide range of skills that would probably only be called upon occasionally. With technologies always advancing, we would also have to ensure our IT staff underwent regular training. It simply made sound economic sense to outsource this aspect of our organisation so that we could focus on our core objectives.”

The Solution – A Trusted Partner

Having taken the decision to place the responsibility of its IT infrastructure with a specialist provider, Emperor approached a number of organisations before deciding to partner with EACS.

“One of the reasons why we decided to partner with EACS was their flexibility and willingness to adapt their services to our precise requirements,” continued Tony Drant. “EACS had successfully partnered with other businesses of a similar size to our own, and understood our business, our objectives and our operational processes and procedures.”

As Mike Dearlove explained: “Our Managed IT Services keep our clients’ IT systems operational, available and secure so that they can focus on the everyday demands of expanding their business, managing costs and increasing revenues. We deliver affordable and proactive IT system management and support, which has been developed through the use of a series of ‘Best Practices’ that EACS has accumulated over the years.”

One of the services delivered by EACS is remote infrastructure monitoring. This allows critical business systems to be continuously monitored by a team of IT experts, enabling hard pressed IT departments to concentrate on core business activities. “With best practices embodied in an automated state-of-the-art infrastructure, we are able to give Emperor immediate response, access to resources and proactive solutions,” continued Mike Dearlove. “By maximising the benefits of technology, Emperor’s daily, weekly and monthly IT tasks can be automated and scheduled to ensure all tasks are completed reliably.”

As these tasks run, valuable data is gathered by EACS to spot trends and patterns which can be used to plan future system changes or enhancements to the Emperor infrastructure, further reducing and eliminating impact on the business.

“In addition to providing a help-desk and on-site engineers that undertake regular housekeeping tasks (as well as resolving issues that could not be addressed remotely), EACS has partnered with us to deliver a number of projects that ensure our continued growth and expansion,” added Tony Drant. “Over the years we have found that EACS’ familiarity with our infrastructure and business objectives means that they have been able to implement and recommend enhancements and improvements that increase our IT services and improve our performance.”

“Our partnership with EACS has been very successful,” concluded Tony Drant. “Their account management is excellent and unlike many other service providers, they have become fully familiar with our business processes and objectives and are able to adapt and respond to our changing requirements.”

“Having worked with EACS now for almost two years, I can say they have restored my confidence in outsourced IT support and project delivery. They have an impressive team with the skills and experience to cope with any situation. Crucially they have given us a platform that can happily function without them but is significantly enhanced with their involvement. Finally and most impressively EACS continually demonstrates a willingness to improve their services and make our business more effective.”

Benefits:

Outsourcing enables Emperor to focus on delivering increased services to clients safe in the knowledge that the maintenance, monitoring and support of their IT infrastructure is in good hands
Flexibility and willingness of EACS to adapt services to Emperor’s precise requirements
Affordable and proactive IT system management and support, developed through the use of a series of ‘Best Practices’ that EACS has accumulated over the years
Remote infrastructure monitoring allows critical business systems to be continuously checked by a team of IT experts, maximising the benefits of technology and automated and scheduled IT tasks
EACS’ familiarity with Emperor’s infrastructure and business objectives means that they have been able to implement and recommend enhancements and improvements

You can download a .pdf version of this case study HERE.

Free email ingestion offer from Mimecast

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Migration to Exchange 2010 or Office 365 requires the movement of data from one system to another; a process which heightens the risk of data loss or corruption. These risks rise in step with the volume of data. The more data you move, the longer migration will take – which increases the risk that something will go wrong.

Why move your data to the cloud BEFORE you migrate?

Shorten migration timescales
Avoid email data loss
Ensure data integrity and security

Store email in the cloud – prepare for a simpler email environment, post-migration

Reduce ongoing cost and complexity
Mitigate risk by applying consistent retention policies across all stored email
Increase the efficiency and effectiveness of eDiscovery and Litigation Hold activity
Highly skilled and experienced consultants ensure data security and integrity
Improve end user productivity and reduce help desk calls

Are you Migrating to Exchange 2010 or Office 365 in the next 6 months? Purchase Mimecast Unified Email Management (UEM) Enterprise and they will ingest your email archive into their cloud for free*.

Click HERE to find more about their data ingestion service which provides a reliable and safe method for importing historical email from various email repositories, or click HERE to read the UEM datasheet.

* Terms and conditions apply

EACS Celebrates Local Heroes at Community Inspiration Awards

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Local people who have been going the extra mile to help others in the community were celebrated at the first Luminus Community Inspiration Awards last week in Cambridgeshire.

Held in association with the Hunts Post, five awards were presented in the following categories: Good Neighbour,

Community Achievement, Outstanding Leadership, Inspirational Parents and Perseverance Among Young People.

EACS sponsored the Inspirational Parents award which recognises any parent (including foster parents, guardians or step-parents) who has persevered and become an excellent role model. It was won by Alison Watson whose fourth child Freya was born with Down’s Syndrome. Alison set up the Small Steps group for children with Down’s. The group provides children with fun learning opportunities, as well as support for their parents.

Every finalist received a certificate and a medal celebrating their achievements and the five winners were presented with awards.

David Rouse, Finance Director at EACS, attended the ceremony on Friday and presented Alison with her award. He said: “It was definitely an inspirational evening and a pleasure to be able to congratulate Alison, as well as recognising the work being done to support others in our local community."

VMware Unveils vSphere® 5 and Comprehensive Cloud Infrastructure Suite

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

This week VMware unveiled VMware vSphere® 5 and a comprehensive suite of cloud infrastructure technologies built to help customers transform IT to drive greater efficiency of existing investments and improve operational agility.

With nearly 200 new and enhanced capabilities, VMware vSphere 5 will deliver better application performance and availability for all business-critical applications while automating the management of an increasingly broad pool of datacentre resources. VMware also announced VMware vShield™ 5, VMware vCenter™ Site Recovery Manager 5, and VMware vCloud® Director 1.5, products that together with VMware vSphere 5 will amplify the value customers can realise from virtualised resources by enabling cloud-scale operations.

To find out what’s new in vSphere 5 please click HERE.

VMware Introduces vSphere® Storage Appliance™

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

This week VMware unveiled the vSphere® Storage Appliance™, a new software product that will bring the rich business continuity and automated resource management capabilities of VMware vSphere to small and midsized businesses (SMBs) without the cost and complexity of shared storage.

Until now, customers wanting to leverage the functionality enabled by VMware vSphere's resource pooling capabilities needed separate shared storage hardware, which presented a cost and complexity barrier for some SMBs. The new VMware vSphere Storage Appliance will transform server internal storage into shared pools of storage, removing the shared storage hardware requirement and enabling more SMBs to take full advantage of the unique business continuity and automation capabilities of VMware vSphere, including High Availability, vMotion®, and Distributed Resource Scheduler™. The vSphere Storage Appliance will be very simple to install and configure, eliminating the need for specialised storage skills, thus bringing high application availability to SMBs with just a few mouse clicks.

The VMware vSphere Storage Appliance is expected to be generally available in Q3 2011.

Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference - Keep up to date!

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Representatives from EACS are attending the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Los Angeles this week. This is an annual gathering for the Microsoft partner community to learn about Microsoft’s roadmap for the upcoming year, network and build connections, share best practices, experience the latest product innovations, and learn new skills and techniques.

Our colleagues will be sending back reports on a daily basis of what’s happening. To hear the latest news you can read our blog or follow us on Twitter.

Blog entries:
Day 4 - There's no place like 127.0.0.1
Day 3 - 118472...that's the number of times the word Cloud was used
Day 2 - I forgot to pack my Chinos!
Day 1 - Welcome to LA LA Land

Optimise IT on tour - next stop East Anglia!

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Our annual Optimise IT event is going on tour...

For the past ten years we have held our strategic IT update in Cambridgeshire and we are always told by our delegates how it helps them to keep up to date with new developments in the industry and plan their future IT projects. Now, for the first time, we are bringing the most popular sessions to other locations around the country.

The tour started in London last month (click HERE to read a summary) and will be stopping at the following venues:

8th September - Optimise IT East Anglia - NBI Conference Centre, Norwich
4th October - Optimise IT West Midlands - Ricoh Arena, Coventry

As well as hearing a keynote speech from Microsoft and Citrix on "How agile is your business to adopt change?" you will have the chance to select from 20 breakout sessions including:

The Impact of Windows 7 on IT environments
Virtual Desktop Delivery
The Foundation of the Private Cloud
Overcoming Barriers to Server Virtualisation
Discover more from Backup & Replication
What’s New in Exchange Server 2010
The Future Direction of your Corporate Email
Cloud Computing

You can read descriptions of these HERE.

Other reasons to attend...

Meet industry leading suppliers face to face
Have lunch on us - refreshments are provided at no charge throughout the day
Win prizes such as tickets to Wembley and corporate hospitality at Brands Hatch
Network and share ideas with like-minded senior IT professionals
It's FREE to attend

If you would like to register please click HERE.

Event Summary from Optimise IT on tour London

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Thanks to all the delegates who joined us at the CBI Conference Centre in London on Wednesday 22nd June for our first Optimise IT on tour event!

Attendees were able to hear keynote speeches from Microsoft and Citrix on “How agile is YOUR business to adopt change?" Plus we ran 20 of the most popular breakout sessions from our February event.

These included:

Virtual Desktop Delivery (Citrix)
The Foundation of the Private Cloud (Microsoft)
Server Virtualisation (VMware)
Accelerate your Microsoft Applications (Citrix)
Discover more from Backup & Replication (Veeam)
What’s New in Exchange (Microsoft)
Cost Benefits of Thin Clients (IGEL)

Visitors were treated to a hot buffet lunch and given time to visit exhibition stands from companies such as Appsense, C2C, EMC, Huawei Symantec, NetApp, Signify, STL, Tricerat, and Websense.

The day closed with a draw where prizes included an iPad 2, ticket to Wembley and corporate hospitality at Brands Hatch.

Delegate comments:

“Just a quick note to say many thanks for the invite to the Optimise IT conference. It was a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable day and perhaps my only criticism was that there just wasn’t enough time. It has come at exactly the right time as we are now starting to look at long term strategy. Please pass on my thanks to everyone involved. I look forward to future events and working closely with EACS to deliver the best solutions”

IT Manager

“We really enjoyed the show which was well organised with excellent breakout sessions.”
IT Engineer

“Many thanks for yesterday, it was well run, very informative and came with the added bonus of winning the draw!”

General Manager

“An excellent opportunity to see new technology”

Group IT & Technical Support Manager

If you missed the event then you can still come along to one of our other locations: Optimise IT on tour East Anglia on 8th September or Optimise IT on tour West Midlands on 4th October.

EACS Achieves NetApp Platinum Partner Status

Wed, 25 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

EACS, the award winning IT solutions and managed services provider, has announced the achievement of NetApp Platinum partner status. This enhanced accreditation means NetApp has recognised EACS as having superior sales and technical expertise in their full product line.

“We are proud to have been awarded NetApp Platinum partner status and feel this reflects the effort we have made to become experts in the solutions we recommend to our customers, both from a sales and technical perspective” said Mike Dearlove, Managing Director, EACS.

EACS has been providing the NetApp range of storage and data management solutions since 2007 as a Gold Partner. In 2010 they were awarded NetApp Authorised Professional Services Partner (APSP) status – the highest level of competency in professional service delivery for NetApp technologies.

“EACS has been a NetApp partner for four years and over that time has demonstrated exceptional sales and technical skill. They have trained and accredited consultants who are experienced in deploying NetApp solutions in a variety of industries. We would like to congratulate them on achieving Platinum partner status and look forward to working with them in the future” said Peter Rawden, Partner Sales Director (UK & Ireland), NetApp.

NetApp creates innovative products - storage systems and software that help customers around the world store, manage, protect, and retain one of their most precious corporate assets: their data.

New dates announced for Exchange 2010 and Windows Server 2008 Essentials Courses

Wed, 18 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

EACS has just released more dates for their Exchange 2010 and Windows Server 2008 training courses for the second half of this year. They last two days and allow you to get hands-on while receiving expert advice from one of our consultants on migration planning and essential support skills.

The Windows Server 2008 Essentials course covers:	The Exchange 2010 Essentials course covers:
Windows Server 2008R2 Editions (Including Server Core) Installing Windows Server 2008R2 New and Enhanced Roles & Features Monitoring & Optimisation Remote Desktop Services Active Directory (including Read Only DC’s & New Domain Services) Installing Active Directory High Availability Features Hyper-V	Exchange Server 2010 Roles Administering Exchange Server 2010 Client Access Services e-Mail Security & Compliance High Availability and Disaster Recovery Unified Messaging Upgrades from previous versions

Dates:

29th & 30th June: Exchange 2010
20th & 21st July: Windows Server 2008 R2
17th & 18th August: Exchange 2010
28th & 29th September: Windows Server 2008 R2
26th & 27th October: Exchange 2010
23rd & 24th November: Windows Server 2008 R2

They are held at EACS head office in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire and to receive a course overview please contact us.

EACS sponsors award for young people in Cambs for fourth year running

Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

EACS will once again sponsor the Cambridgeshire Young People of the Year awards or the ‘YOPEYs’. These contests are open to people aged from 10 to 25, who 'give to others' and are aimed at showing the positive side to young people today.

This is the fifth year of YOPEYs in Cambridgeshire (and the fourth year that EACS are sponsors), where the movement first held a contest in 2006. Since then it has spread to 12 English counties and the whole of Scotland. More than £120,000 has been won by young people to share with their communities.

In 2010 Edward Williams won first prize for raising £70,000 over four years by swimming the channel at the age of 19 to raise money for Prostate Cancer Research and later Lake Windermere to raise money for East Anglia's Children's Hospices.

Mike Dearlove, Managing Director of EACS, said: “I sponsor YOPEY because I believe in encouraging young people and in showing EACS’s support to the local community.”

YOPEY is the brainchild of former national newspaper journalist Tony Gearing, who became fed up with the ‘bad press’ inflicted on the young. He set up YOPEY to give the younger generation a fairer image and encourage more young people to give to the community.

The PM, Deputy PM, Chancellor and Labour leader have all endorsed YOPEY. David Cameron describes the social enterprise as “truly inspirational” and said of entries: “It struck me that their common trait was their own determination; their desire to succeed; and their resolve to make a difference.”

The kind of things nominees can do include:

caring for family who maybe ill, disabled of have other problems;?
helping run a youth club or other organization;?
looking after abandoned or neglected animals;?
making communities safer through initiative or behaviour;?
raising money for charity or other good causes;?
showing a spirit in adversity that is an example to others;?
supporting or mentoring someone through a difficult time;?
volunteering for projects at home or abroad;?
working with disabled, ill or elderly people;?
and acting heroically.??

The Cambs Young Person of the Year will win £800. Second place will win £400, third £200 and there will be a Junior Cambs Young Person of the Year winning £200. All winners give half their cash prize to a good cause of their choice and keep half to treat themselves.

To nominate inspirational young people for the Cambs YOPEY, visit www.yopey.org or send an SAE for an entry form to YOPEY, PO Box 236, Newmarket, Suffolk CB8 1DP. Young people can nominate themselves. Entries close on July 31.

EACS sponsors British Touring Car Championship driver James Nash

Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

EACS is sponsoring James Nash, who races in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), for the second year running.

The BTCC is firmly established not only as Britain’s most popular form of motor racing but also as one of the UK’s top sporting attractions with crowds similar in size to those at Premiership football and Test Match cricket matches. For more than half a century it has inspired great motor sporting feats and captivated millions of fans around the globe thanks to its terrific mix of teams, drivers, cars, circuits, exposure, public accessibility and carefully constructed sporting and technical regulations.

James races for Triple Eight Race Engineering whose objective is to create the most successful racing organisation in its field.

At the end of 2010 James said: “Overall I'm happy with how my first full season in touring cars has gone and it's nice to finish with three good results. Hopefully I can take this form into next season when getting on the podium consistently has got to be the aim."

The BTCC kicked off 2011 at Brands Hatch on 3rd April. James finished the day 3rd in the Championship and 2nd in the Independent Standings, his highest ever positions. In round 2 at Donington Park James did even better finishing 1st in the Championship and 1st in the Independent Standings! James currently stands at 3rd in the Championship following round 3 at Thruxton. The next round will be held on 5th June at Oulton Park.

To read news from each race and watch footage please click HERE.

Good Technology wins Best Enterprise Security Solution at SC Europe Awards

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

At the annual SC Europe Awards on Tuesday, Good Technology was named the winner of the Best Enterprise Security Solution award. A judging panel (which included SC Magazine’s editor, Barclays Information Risk Management’s managing director and KPMG’s information security director) selected Good Technology for this accolade thanks to its ability to manage multiple devices in the enterprise.

Good for Enterprise from Good Technology supports and manages multiple mobile devices across large organisations in both a corporate liable and “Bring Your Own device” environment. Leveraging a Secure Container approach, Good assists enterprises in providing secure access to data and applications from Mobile platforms such as iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian and PalmOS and is compatible with Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino email servers.

Good Technology Mobility Summit, 19 May, London

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Date:	19th May 2011
Venue:	The Paramount at Centre Point 101-103 New Oxford Street London Click HERE for directions.

Stop business data loss. Before it starts.

Plan to attend the 2011 Good Technology Mobility Summit

On 19 May find out the latest on securing your enterprise data across an array of mobile platforms and devices at the 2011 Good Technology Mobility Summit. This is an essential forum for protecting against data leakage and enhancing mobile employee productivity.

Join 100 industry colleagues for presentations on multiplatform mobile security trends, such as mandating jailbreak or rooted device detection and remediation, as well as erasing—remotely—business data on devices. There will also be an update on strategies from Good, as well as a customer case study that highlights best practices.

You can also take part in facilitated round tables compliance and regulations, security and data loss prevention and enterprise deployment. And did we forget to mention there is a closing reception with free drinks and an iPad giveaway?

Agenda:

2.00pm	Registration Opens
3.00pm	General Session Mobility Trends: An Update Good Technology Update and Strategy The #1 Challenge for Consumerisation: Security, IDC
4.00pm	Roundtables Security / Data Loss Prevention Enterprise Mobile Deployment Compliance / Regulations Individual Liable / Corporate Liable Mobilizing Your Business: Which Apps Are In Your Plans and Why?
5.00pm	Reception
6.00pm	Close

Please click HERE to register for this event.

VMC announces next-generation virtualisation appliances

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The Virtual Machine Company (VMC) today announced the launch of the next generation of its server virtualisation appliances.

Outperforms all current commercial and custom-built servers in independent Geekbench power and performance testing
Comfortably runs more virtual machines and delivers class-leading savings on energy, cooling, software licensing, and datacentre real estate
The world’s fastest, most cost-effective, and environmentally-friendly commercial computing platform

Built around the latest AMD 12-core processors, with highly-optimised RAM options up to 512 gigabytes, and fast and cool solid-state storage, the two new servers can host unprecedented numbers of virtual machines running the most demanding commercial computing applications.

The new VMC appliances use less power, require fewer software licenses, and take up less rack-space space than anything else on the market.

For example, a mid-range 24 Core, 192 Gb RAM VMC virtualisation appliance comfortably accommodates 50 or more virtual machines running processor and memory-intensive applications of the kind usually confined to non-virtual environments; tasks such as rendering video, enterprise-scale databases, and huge FTP batch operations. All of this while consuming less than 307 watts (1.43 amps) at peak loading. Average power consumption for competitor machines delivering this much firepower is more than 900 watts.

Virtual Machine Company CEO, Steve Barnet, said:
This is exciting, high-performance computing meets boring stability and cost-effectiveness. The top of the Geekbench league table is usually dominated by “custom rigs” built by clever enthusiasts or researchers. I am proud of our development team for productising and normalising unrivalled power and performance with such impressive stability and economy.

AMD Head of Commercial Marketing EMEA, Stefano Chiavegati, commented:
We developed the AMD Opteron™ 6100 Series processor to meet 21st Century commercial computing demands for the optimum balance between power, reliability, cost and environmental considerations. The Virtual Machine Company’s Server Virtualisation Appliances tick all of those boxes and more.

Fewer software licences
VMware requires an expensive licence for every pair of processors. Because the new VMC virtualisation appliances use AMD’s processor core-dense CPUs, the licence-to-virtual-machine ratio becomes much more favourable. For example, when virtualising an estate of 240 servers running Windows Server, one customer saved an additional £180,000 in year-one capital expenditure by using VMC Virtualisation Appliances to deliver a hyper-dense solution.

Models and configurations

Two standard appliances are available with additional configuration options:

VA 1200 Series Server Virtualization Appliance: 1U, 24 Core minimum configuration 64GB RAM
VA 2400 Series Server Virtualization Appliance: 2U, 48 Core minimum configuration 128GB RAM

Optimise IT is going On Tour! Next date – 22 June in London

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

For the past ten years we have held our annual strategic IT update in Cambridgeshire and we are always told by our delegates what a fantastic event it is and how it helps them to keep up to date with new developments in the industry and plan their future IT projects. Now, for the first time, we are bringing the most popular sessions to London to make it easier for those who live nearby to attend.

The event is open to all business and technical decision makers considering their IT strategy and infrastructure. It will provide you with a focused opportunity to learn how leading edge technology and solutions can improve your business and how to get the most return from your investment.

As well as hearing keynote speeches from Microsoft and Citrix you will have the chance to see some of our most attended breakout sessions including:

The Impact of Windows 7 on IT environments
What’s New in Exchange Server 2010 SP1
A Guide to Microsoft Volume Licensing
Online Backup – The Next Generation of Backup Solutions
Virtual Desktop Delivery with Citrix XenDesktop
Overcoming Barriers to Server Virtualisation
Cloud Computing

You can read descriptions of these HERE.

Why Attend?

Hear insightful keynote speeches from industry leaders
Select from 20 focused breakout sessions on major IT and business issues
Network and share ideas with like-minded senior IT professionals
Meet industry leading suppliers face to face and see live demonstrations of cutting-edge technology – you can see an example exhibitor list HERE.
It's FREE to attend and lunch is included

To give you an idea of how the day works we have provided a short summary of our annual event, this includes comments from our delegates HERE.

If you would like to register please click HERE.

Event: Consumerisation of IT, Mobility with Security

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Date: 20th April 2011
Venue: EACS Head Office, Huntingdon

How to turn a potential IT security risk into a cost saving that increases productivity.

In the fast paced world of IT there has been a change in the last year that has caught many organisations by surprise. This change has come about not from the I.S. Department installing new operating system or new applications, but by staff wanting to use their own iPhones, iPads, Android devices, and other smart phones to access organisations networks. This change has posed a number of challenges especially around network security, at the same time as offering real improvements in productivity and significant cost saving.

Good Technoloy specialises in enabling organisations to deliver real-time access to corporate email & business applications on today’s new Smartphones (iPhone and Android) without compromising security or increasing the IT burden. Good’s unique approach of proving a highly secure container on the Smartphone ensures the complete separation of personal and corporate data, allowing organisations to offer employees a much wider choice of corporate Smartphone, as well as the ability for employees to use their own devices for corporate use.

The event is free to attend and lunch is included.

Agenda: (subject to change)

11.00am Registration
11.30am Introduction from EACS
11.40am The Consumerisation of IT
12.10pm Live Demo
12.20pm Q & A
12.45pm Lunch

To find out more and to register for this event, please click HERE.

Event: CRM - Practice Management Module or Business Strategy?

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Date:	12th May 2011
Venue:	EACS Head Office, Huntingdon

Technology should be your last consideration when considering CRM for your legal practice. Andrew Wormington from STL Technologies will introduce how a robust CRM can improve business performance, particularly as excellent business service is essential for your practice's success.

He'll explore how a CRM strategy satisfies core business needs including better business intelligence, recording non-billable time, understanding client trends, and help you assess your CRM strategy on the day.

The event is free to attend and lunch is included.

Agenda: (subject to change)

11.00am	Registration
11.30am	Introduction from EACS
11.40am	The importance of establishing a clear CRM strategy for better practice performance
12.00pm	The business criteria to consider
12.20pm	Self-assessment - are you ready for CRM? Score your practice's commitment to CRM
12.30pm	A corporate client's experience - a demonstration of how CRM adds value
1.10pm	Open floor discussion
1.20pm	Lunch

To find out more and register for this event please click HERE.

EACS Achieves Gold Certification in Virtualisation from Microsoft

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

EACS has announced the achievement of Gold Certification from Microsoft® in Virtualisation. To earn Gold Certification, EACS had to meet rigorous standards, including revenue, service, support and customer satisfaction requirements set forth by Microsoft.

“Although EACS has been a Microsoft Gold partner for many years, we are extremely pleased to have been awarded this new certification in virtualisation,” said Mike Dearlove, Managing Director, EACS. “We are also members of the V-Alliance - a worldwide collaboration between Microsoft and Citrix which promotes their joint end-to-end virtualisation technologies. I believe that these additions to the certifications we hold, along with the experience we can demonstrate from working on virtualisation projects with our customers, highlight the expertise we can bring to companies considering virtualisation.”

“Partners with Gold status in competencies represent organisations (and associated individuals) that have demonstrated the highest, most consistent capability and commitment within a targeted business solution area. Gold competencies reward this deep expertise and high commitment with benefits including tailored, competency-specific benefits based on solutions offered, and core benefits such as training, channel incentives etc. In addition, Gold competencies entitle the partner to a Microsoft named contact who will support the creation of a business plan to serve customer demand and help with sales efforts. We are committed to supporting our Gold level partners by enabling them with the right set of tools, training and information that will help them delight our customers through leading edge Microsoft based solutions and services offerings that address the customer’s technology requirements”, said Clare Barclay, Director of Partner Strategy and Programmes, Microsoft UK. “With a Gold competency in Virtualisation, EACS has made an investment in developing their capability to deliver an integrated and customised technology solution to support today’s customer demand.”

The Microsoft Partner Network is committed to serving the needs of Microsoft partners and helping over 160 million mutual customers worldwide realise their potential. By acquiring the Gold level in Virtualisation competency, EACS has demonstrated its ability to meet stringent technology and customer satisfaction requirements set forth by Microsoft in order to provide best in class Microsoft based solutions to our customers.

As a Microsoft Gold Competency Partner in Virtualisation, EACS has met the requirements for attaining the broadest range of expertise across multiple technologies aligned to the competency. Microsoft Gold level status provides EACS with access to comprehensive marketing, sales, technical, and support services benefits that will enable us to serve the technology needs of joint prospective customers.

Event: Email Archiving, Continuity & Security in the Cloud

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Date:	12th April 2011
Venue:	EACS Head Office, Huntingdon

Complexity is crippling most corporate email systems, and increasingly businesses are turning to the cloud to manage that pain. At this lunch and learn, Matt Cooke, Technical Consultant from Mimecast will explain how cloud-based services can be effectively deployed to reduce complexity and deliver a better, more simplistic approach to email management.

The session will also explore how Mimecast complements your Microsoft infrastructure, whether that is Exchange, BPOS, Office 365 and will highlight new features in the service, such as seamless email continuity for BlackBerry users.

The event is free to attend and lunch is included.

Draft Agenda:

11.00am	Registration
11.30am	Introduction from EACS
11.40am	Why email archiving, continuity and security in the cloud makes sense for UK businesses
12.00pm	Complementing your existing Microsoft investments
12.20pm	Customer case study: migrating and consolidation strategies – whiteboard interactive session
12.40pm	How Mimecast works: technical demonstration of the service
1.10pm	Q&A
1.20pm	Lunch

To book your place, please click HERE.

Dates announced for EACS Desktop Virtualisation Roadshow!

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

If you are currently considering a desktop virtualisation project then you may have some questions and the EACS Desktop Virtualisation Roadshow is here to answer them!

1.How can desktop virtualisation help with my Windows 7 rollout?
2.Are the claims such as “50% TCO Savings” or “Save up to 40%” real?
3.What’s the difference between VDI and desktop virtualisation?
4.How would it work for my business?

Due to the popularity of the events we held at the end of last year, we have teamed up with Citrix, Appsense and IGEL again and are now bringing our roadshow to the following locations:

Huntingdon - Wednesday 6th April
Norwich - Tuesday 19th April
Milton Keynes - Tuesday 10th May

Why attend?

Learn how desktop virtualisation allows you to better manage your PC environment from an efficiency, security and flexibility perspective while reducing your TCO
Hear how Citrix XenDesktop with HDX gives users the same rich Windows® experience they currently enjoy while dramatically simplifying desktop management (and see a demo)
Find out how AppSense extends XenDesktop and enables Windows 7 deployments by virtualising the most important component in application delivery, the user
See how IGEL Universal Desktops deliver these solutions in the most cost effective, flexible, easy to manage and secure way
Ask any questions on your specific project
It’s FREE to attend and lunch is included

For more information and to register click here.

Lunch & Learn: Server Virtualisation Seminars

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

EACS will be holding a number of lunchtime seminars at our head office in Huntingdon covering the topic of virtualisation.

All seminars are free to attend and include a buffet lunch. Registration is from 11am with each event starting at 11.30am and closing at approximately 2pm.

The seminars are run by one of our virtualisation consultants and will give you the chance to ask any questions you have about server virtualisation and allow you to benefit from the experience we have gained from working on projects.

29th March – Server virtualisation for small businesses
13th April – Unifying your virtual infrastructure
17th May – Overcoming barriers to server virtualisation

To find out more and register for these events please click here.

Video Case Study: Datacentre Virtualisation & App Delivery Project for BPI

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

British Polythene Industries (BPI) is one of the largest producers of polythene film products worldwide. EACS helped them with a datacentre virtualisation and application delivery project. To download the full case study please click HERE.

EACS has brand new vacancies in our Technical Department!

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

For the very latest vacancies at EACS and to see how you could become our latest Team Member click HERE!

Video Case Study: Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity for CHS Group

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

EACS has added a new case study to the website focusing on services provided to the CHS Group.

CHS Group is a charitable housing association. The Group incorporates CHS Homes (which manages properties) and CHS People (which provides personal care, support and community investment services). CHS Homes provides and manages about 2500 homes for affordable rent, and about 280 shared ownership or fixed equity homes for purchase, covering 6 Local authority areas across Cambridgeshire and north Essex.

Working with EACS the Group now has an efficient and effective disaster recovery and business continuity solution in place which ensures little or no data loss, even in the event of a complete system failure.

To download the case study click HERE.