News

Congratulations to Tom Clowes, ISN’s senior support consultant, for passing NetApp’s Accredited Storage Architect Professional exam with a score of 90%!

This followed an intensive course at #NetApp UK HQ in Stockley Park where Tom was able to brush up on his knowledge of storage technology in general as well as learn all there is to know about the range of SAN and NAS storage solutions offered by NetApp.

This covered training on FAS2020, FAS2050, FAS3000 series and all the way up to FAS6080 filers as well as the core Snapshot technology which translates to easy data backup, file and volume restore (in seconds, not hours)and storage replication technology that is unmatched by any other vendor.

If you would like to explore how NetApp storage solutions can help your business, please contact us on 020 7313 9900 to arrange a demonstration, or come along to one of our short Demo Cafe briefings.

The annual conference for the EAGE – European Association of Geologists & Engineers – took place in Amsterdam last week – 8th to 11th June. A great opportunity for professionals in geophysics, petroleum exploration, geology, reservoir engineering, mining and civil engineering to get together for one of the key events of the oil and gas IT calendar.

As an IT infrastructure specialist for the Oil & Gas industry, London-based IT consultancy ISN Solutions partnered storage vendor Isilon Systems on their stand at the show. ISN have much experience of consultancy, design, project management, installation and support of IT and comms infrastructure for the oil & gas exploration and production sector.

With seismic data storage very much on the agenda and new applications for its manipulation and interpretation being showcased, ISN and Isilon where kept busy with interest on how best to manage the obvious storage implications, not just now, but allowing for likely growth patterns into the future.

Isilon’s scale-out NAS products offer unparalleled speed of access, uptime and cost effectiveness for storage of seismic data. Having evaluated the options available in the marketplace, we have been impressed by how easy  Isilon clustered NAS arrays are to manage and maintain. We have seen nothing that scales so well, while still maintaining extremely fast response times. Isilon’s product range includes solutions for storage needs from 5 Terabytes to over 5 Petabytes. Ideal for many geoscience applications.

Call us on 020 7313 9900  to tell us more about your storage challenges.

Cloud computing is one of this year’s hot topics. In a nutshell, it means locating your computing resources somewhere else, usually in a data centre run by a hosting company.

Many businesses are hoping that cloud computing will be a panacea to solve all the problems that appear to come from their computer room and all those troublesome servers.

However, even if your servers are located at some third party hosting site and managed by people who don’t work for you, those pesky problems may still occur and the overall costs may be less than owning and running your own servers.

Consultants from McKinsey & Co have produced a report which shows that moving your computing to the cloud could be a costly mistake. The McKinsey study, entitled “Clearing the Air on Cloud Computing” claims that outsourcing a typical data centre to the cloud could even double costs!

The report goes on to say that businesses could do better by running their own servers and using virtualisation to run them more efficiently. This approach may indeed hold the key to greater cost savings.

We at ISN tend to agree. While neither cloud computing or virtualisation will cure all corporate IT headaches, there is a place for both and, used to fulfill definite objectives, both can provide cost savings and better performing IT for businesses.

For instance, certain tedious but crucial tasks, like spam and virus filtering can be transferred to “the cloud” in the form of Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services for an insignificant cost and can deliver quick returns in terms of increased productivity and better security.

Similarly, our LiveVault online backup solution is a cloud-based application, which creates backups off site every 15 minutes at far less cost than an in-house solution could.

The cloud is fine for utility jobs like these, but the same approach doesn’t work so well for business critical applications where tighter control, flexibility and integration with other systems are high priorities. Costs of owning hardware are low in reality since they can be depreciated over several years or even written off against tax. Most organisations are having to get leaner in the way they use IT and server virtualisation is a clear way of squeezing more value out of your data centre.

We would welcome your opinions on this topic. Please leave a comment or email us.

Gold Partnership provides a “hotline” to Microsoft not available to smaller companies

Microsoft consider the number of MCSE qualified engineers employed, the quantity of references from satisifed clients and depth of knowledge of Microsoft products before awarding Gold Level Partner accreditation to a solutions provider. ISN have been a Microsoft Gold Partner since 2006.

ISN’s specialist competencies have been recognised by Microsoft in these fields:

• Advanced Infrastructure Solutions
• Networking Infrastructure Solutions
• Information Worker Solutions

Our partnership with Microsoft is invaluable in helping our clients with support and consultancy for their IT systems. We have a “hotline” to Microsoft not available to smaller companies.

Find out about ISN’s partner relationships with other major IT vendors.

How to become a “Super SME”

The Prime Minister told business leaders yesterday at a European conference that firms should invest in their IT as a way of fighting the downturn saying that we need to “build the technological and environmental infrastructure of the 21st century.”

“We have looked at how, just as many years ago investment in road and rail infrastructure was a powerful stimulus to economies then, so too in this new age we can invest in the digital infrastructure for the future.”

A survey by Plantronics echoes the same advice. It has identified that “Super SMEs” are thriving in the current difficult economy by investing in IT infrastructure, marketing and staff training.

ISN, being an IT consultancy, would agree of course. We had expected to see cost cutting amongst some of our clients. However it appears that many of them are indeed booming despite the tough market and redoubling efforts to take market share from weaker competitors.

IT is the “engine-room” of most businesses and cutting back on such a key function has a crippling effect on a company’s productivity. If you need advice on how to ride out the recession and maintain IT systems that keep your business ready to compete, give us a call.

Wow factor

Having braved the queues outside Carphone Warehouse early on a Friday morning, I found myself one of the first owners of the new iPhone 3G by Apple. I love it, it truly is one of the best mobile phones ever made, but past the ‘wow’ factor and ease-of-use, I’m discovering that the iPhone isn’t the direct replacement for my BlackBerry I thought it might be. Read more »