January 2010

High Street retailer selects AssurIT to manage Business Continuity for their Virtualised Servers

A major High Street retailer has selected AssurIT to manage business continuity for a select number of their critical virtualised servers.

The service provides for matched hardware, data replication and full management of security service patches, application upgrades and hardware faults.

January 2010

Leading insurer extends AssurIT managed service contract

Domestic and General, the UK's leading specialist provider of warranty cover for electrical domestic appliances, has extended their managed service contract and increased their requirement for technical iSeries expertise. The contract covers a wide variety of IT services including a dedicated OOH Helpdesk, full 24/7 management of their iSeries servers, 24/7 management and application support for their replication environment and dedicated on-site technical iSeries staff.

February 2010

AssurIT extends its range of Support Services to include the iSeries System Management toolset, Maximise

AssurIT have acquired the rights to the iSeries System Management toolset, Maximise from Cartmorr Limited. The purchase was a natural fit for AssurIT's iSeries application team and provides a more focused support infrastructure for this intuitive application. The product encapsulates Job Scheduling, batch, message, disk and spool file management for the iSeries server platform.

Steve Ellis, AssurIT's Managing Director, says "We currently use Maximise for our own use in support of customer systems. The fact that this product is also used by IBM in delivering it's high availability solution, SHARP, meant there was real value in acquiring this software solution".

Support for the current Maximise install base will be provided by AssurIT's iSeries Application support team and their contact details are as follows:

Support Email: support@maximiseyour.biz
Support Telephone: +44 (0)2476 560030
Website(s): www.maximiseyour.biz and www.assurit.com

March 2010

Leading International Bank renews iSeries System Management Support Contract

Bank of Ireland have recently renewed it's iSeries System Management support contract for the Maximise software application, MaxSpool.

MaxSpool is seen as an integral toolset for BOI to manage the heavy proliferation of spool files that occur during the day-to-day operation of their systems. The application assists by performing actions automatically to delete; archive; compress; move/copy; import and distribute by email to reduce degradation in iSeries system performance.

April 2010

AssurIT provide On-Site Resource 5 days Per Week

Domestic and General, the UK's leading specialist provider of warranty cover for electrical domestic appliances, has embarked on further project work to speed up their IT infrastructure development plans. In order to meet the timescales set out by the board, they have turned to AssurIT to provide additional iSeries Technical resource to deliver on-site Operational back-fill to their lead technicians.

Domestic and General's confidence in AssurIT's technical and operational staff together with an extremely flexible and cost effective service, made the decision to approach AssurIT to deploy further staff at their business locations, an easy one.

May 2010

Wells & Young turn to AssurIT for Co-location

Wells & Young Brewing Company, the UK's largest private brewing company, have looked to AssurIT to provide further co-location services to meet their business disaster recovery programmes. AssurIT will host critical on-line backup SANs and infrastructure servers to provide a recovery location in the event of site denial and/or hardware failure at their prime business site.

May 2010

AssurIT Receives Certification to become an Authorised Seller of IBM WebSphere & Rational Software

AssurIT has successfully achieved certification to become an Authorised seller of IBM Websphere and Rational Software by meeting the skills requirements of the new IBM Software Value Plus initiative.

The IBM Software Value Plus initiative is designed to meet the demands of clients who are looking to drive more value from their technology by working with trusted partners. AssurIT with it's continued investment in skills and training to provide first class technical support with best value solution design, has embraced this initiative.

In gaining certification for IBM WebSphere and Rational, AssurIT had to demonstrate advanced skills and commitment to IBM's PartnerWorld program. In further recognition of this achievement together with accreditation for IBM InfoSphere under Software ValueNet, IBM have upgraded AssurIT's PartnerWorld membership to Premier.

June 2010

AssurIT improves Business Reporting for Tradex Insurance

AssurIT in conjunction with CSI Limited have assisted Tradex Insurance in delivering improved business reporting with SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence software.

BusinessObjects will provide Tradex with a complete suite of performance management, information management, reporting, query and analysis tools to simplify business trading statistics and engender flexible, reactive business decisions.

June 2010

AssurIT wins first IBM Rational Software Deal

Domestic & General have awarded AssurIT with it's first order for IBM Rational Software to meet significant workload increases for implementation of their new web strategy and other client based international projects.

IBM's Rational Application Developer for WepShere will help Domestic & General deliver greater value from their current investment in web services to customers and suppliers alike. Rational Application Developer is used for visually designing, constructing, testing and deploying Web services, portals and Java Enterprise applications.

July 2010

Chartis Insurance Sign Up for Maximise, System i Management Software

Chartis, the world leading property-casualty and general insurance Company, has signed up for Maximise, a System i Management toolset, covering iSeries Scheduling, Backup and Messaging.

The toolsets chosen were, MaxScheduler, MaxRecovery and MaxMessenger. More information about these modules and other solutions provided for within the Maximise suite of Software Products can be found at www.maximiseyour.biz

July 2010

Fabris Lane to be Virtualised

AssurIT have been working with Fabris Lane, the UK's largest eyewear Company, over the last few month to provide guidance on how to reduce operational costs associated with their IT Infrastructure. The brief was all encompassing and covered everything from Enduser Desktops, Server Estates, LAN access and their existing tape backup processes.

Fabris Lane's overall goal was cost reduction however they also needed to address their passion for carbon offsetting with a lower footprint through energy efficiencies.

AssurIT will achieve both these goals with virtualisation of their Desktops and Server Estates using IBM hardware and AssurIT's expertise, following an order placed in July. This reflects a substantial commitment from Fabris Lane to refresh the whole of their IT infrastructure and strengthened their internal systems with new technology.

July 2010

Anglo Beef Processors trust AssurIT to provide a High Availability solution for their Movex M3 iSeries system

AssurIT are delighted to announce that ABP has signed a managed High Availability contract with us this month. ABP Group IT Director, Robin Irvine writes " ABP Group IT had been investigating iSeries High Availability for about 18 months, but never found a provider that could meet the budgetary constraints we are under. AssurIT's managed High Availability solution is truly innovative and unique compared to other capital outlay solutions. Together with AssurIT's pedigree in the IT hosting and Management marketplace, we had little hesitation in signing a long term contract with them."

August 2010

AssurIT gains another new customer by securing a Managed Service contract with Global Healthcare firm

Andy Lewis, Sales Manager for AssurIT writes "AssurIT's flexible Managed Service solution, coupled with an innovative delivery method were the key factors in securing a long term contract with this prestigious global company. Dove-Tailing our support contract with their existing Monitoring toolset and procedures has enabled us to become an extension of their internal IT team."

August 2010

Wessex Foods signs iSeries Hosting and Managed Service Contract

AssurIT have secured another new customer this month, in the form of prestigious food manufacturer Wessex Foods. Wessex supply 60% of the frozen mince within the UK Retail market and around 16,500 Tonnes of frozen burgers annually. The iSeries server platform hosts the Movex ERP system that makes all of this amazing production capacity possible.

AssurIT Sales Manager, Andy Lewis writes "We are excited at the prospect of working with Wessex Foods. Competition for the Hosting and Managed Service contract was fierce as all of the short listed parties knew of Wessex Foods premier status in the retail market. Once again it was our flexibility, responsiveness and pricing that set us apart from the competition. We are looking forward to a long and successful partnership with Wessex Foods."

September 2010

ApexManage partner with AssurIT to deliver 'best in class' iSeries Operational & Performance Managed Services

ApexManage is a Prime Managed Service Provider (PMSP) for IT infrastructure services and has partnered with AssurIT to deliver best in class iSeries Operational & Performance Management, supported by ApexManages Operation Level Agreements and Underpinning Contracts.

Call the platform what you will; AS/400, iSeries, System i5 or Power6, AssurIT has been managing IBM's favourite mid-range server for a wide range of customers since 1994. All contractual services designed, implemented and delivered by ApexManage will be managed through our Multi-sourcing Governance Framework. The mission of this service is to deliver a comprehensive, holistic service delivery model, where all parties deliver to a common goal of first class customer service.

Tony Over, Head of ApexManage writes "We have carefully chosen service providers to work within this framework to achieve our stated aim. This agile approach to delivering service means ApexManage and the client will select the best service providers to deliver a high-quality managed service to their core skills profile within the overall PMSP. Critical to the success of this model is collaboration, we will select vendors who not only demonstrate skills and experience in their service portfolio, but who also demonstrate an agility and willingness to work alongside other vendors to achieve common goals. AssurIT was chosen as a partner because they meet this requirement and have proven partnering agreements with IBM, delivering similar services".

September 2010

AssurIT complete Network refresh project for New Customer

AssurIT have completed a 2 month network refresh project for Fletchers Bakeries. Fletchers are a major force in the UK Bakeries Market, supplying the highest quality product to all major Supermarket chains. Fletchers are a 90 million turnover business with production facilities spread across the UK. Performing a Network refresh project on vital communications equipment while preserving the production hours was a challenge, that AssurIT was equal to.

Mr Paul Mosley, Fletchers Group IT Manager writes "AssurIT demonstrated flexibility and excellent cost effectiveness during the quotation stage. This was complimented by the skilled and efficient technical team that performed the work. Fletchers Group are comfortable that the Network infrastructure is up to scratch and will see us through the foreseeable future."

October 2010

AssurIT implement a Cloud based System i Backup Solution for Leading Manufacturer of Designer Products for the Retail Sector

AssurIT have been providing consultative services to a major UK based manufacturer, with a view to migrating their existing System i backups, from the conventional tape media employed by most iSeries users, to a cloud based solution.

The brief was to move away from drive reliability problems and the usual errors relating to tape media, whilst at the same time providing an off-site service that was secure and met with data security guidelines. The client also wished to consolidate off-site iSeries data storage with a cold-start DR Service to improve their recovery window.

AssurIT have delivered a solution to meet it's clients requirements by using a specialist software package that provides for a complete disk-to-disk backup solution. This software replaces iSeries tape backups with a highly compressed, encrypted backup that is saved to a Wintel platform. With local SAN, client side and remote SAN storage based at AssurIT's datacentre, daily iSeries System saves can now be accessed locally or off-site for Disaster Recovery.

Further more, the benefit of having daily iSeries System saves stored on a SAN within it's datacentre, means that AssurIT can now provide a cold-start DR service, much quicker than the conventional service provided by its competitors.

November 2010

ApexManage partner with AssurIT to deliver iSeries Managed Services to leading Irish Client

ApexManage is a Prime Managed Service Provider (PMSP) for IT infrastructure services and has partnered with AssurIT to deliver 24/7 iSeries Managed Services to one of its overseas clients.

The client, one of Ireland's best known iconic retail brands and leading Film and Games retailer, required additional iSeries support to ensure it's IT Systems coped with increased workloads, as their business presence in Music, Mobile Telephony, Consumer Electronic and Confectionery grew.

Further to the recent partnership agreement between ApexManage and AssurIT, AssurIT's in-depth iSeries skill sets and leading position of providing iSeries System Management Solutions, was a natural fit to assist ApexManage with meeting their Client's requirements. The foremost of these was to quickly capture, report and resolve performance bottlenecks, which was a consequence of a fast growing business and to start to provide a proactive 24/7 monitoring service.

Tony Over, Head of ApexManage writes "We are very pleased how AssurIT has reacted in a short period of time to resolve our client's initial iSeries system performance concerns and to provide ongoing iSeries system performance metrics that aid both ApexManage and it's clients management teams in their decision making processes".

December 2010

Major UK Group of Bakeries signs Managed Service contract with AssurIT.

Fletchers Group of Bakeries is comprised of four business units spread throughout the UK employing nearly 900 people. Fletchers operate in the foodservice and retail markets with a turnover of around 90 million per year. AssurIT have been selected to provide High Availability and Disaster Recovery managed services to Fletchers.

Paul Mosley, Fletchers IT Manager writes "AssurIT presented an innovative and very cost competitive proposal to Fletchers. Their pedigree within the iSeries HA market is without question and we are looking forward to a long lasting relationship with AssurIT."