Cloud & Microsoft 365
Complete IT Infrastructure
One-off projects & CRM
Consultancy & advice
design
build
support
cloud computing
Cloud services and applications have revolutionised IT. They have enabled building, in the cloud, resilient and fault-tolerant IT architecture of a standard that is difficult and expensive to build in-house.
Amongst many others, the six features below have been keeping us particularly busy:-
ultra secure remote working
A new way to work remotely - the same, but different. Our new website has more...
so important, we've given it its own website and branding:-
microsoft modern workplace
The entire range of Microsoft's cloud services and facilities offered on the Azure platform is too extensive to detail here.
But one group of components is known as Microsoft Modern Workplace. It's a collection of features and services which fall broadly into the following five areas:-
User apps
Microsoft 365
Office 365
- Outlook
- Exchange Email
- Word
- Excel
- PowerPoint
- Access
- Teams
Storage
OneDrive
SharePoint
Shared
Teams
Teams Phone
Dynamics 365
- SQL databases
- Power Automate
- Power BI
ID & Access
Entra
Defender
Enterprise Mobility
- InTune
- System deployment and management
Infrastructure
Azure
- Virtual servers,
- networks & appliances
- Storage
Cloud PCs:-
- Azure Virtual Desktop
- Windows 365
- To name only a few
cloud drive mapper from IAM Cloud
Map a drive direct to OneDrive and/or Sharepoint in the cloud.
No more:-
- OneDrive Client app
- file synchronisation problems or breakages
- security concerns over the entire OneDrive folder stored on your local disk, especially on a laptop
- disk-space management worries, especially on multi-user PCs & laptops
- concerns about which version of a file is open - local or cloud
- '"...-Copy'" files infesting your folders
Developed by the excellent team at IAM Cloud, we regard this as an essential add-on to OneDrive and SharePoint
full fibre internet
Cloud services mean that fast internet connections are essential.
Plain old ADSL is not ideal because it is asynchronous - faster down than up.
Much better to be the same in each direction. And preferably much faster than ADSL.
Full fibre internet connections, with the fibre terminating on your premises, are the way to go.
Up to 900 Mbps in each direction are offered by many alternative fibre providers, including:-
Gigaclear, CityFibre (through partners such as Crystal Clear Telecom) & Hyperoptic.
Faster speeds are also available if/when needed.
We can help.
bt landline switch-off
The much-delayed BT Landline Switch-Off is finally due to complete by January 2027.
All existing BT landline phone connections - PSTN (analogue) and ISDN (digital) - will stop, and phone systems must be moved to Voice over IP (VoIP).
BT has its own VoIP offerings, but there are many better and cheaper options available elsewhere.
Suppliers such Voipfone, 8x8, bOnline, Microsoft Teams Phone, etc.
What's more, your existing phone numbers can be moved, or "ported", to your new VoIP setup.
We will manage the whole process for you. All the way through to providing the phone service.
One great advantage of VoIP is that your users can connect to your phone system from anywhere, including on their mobile phones, and callers can reach them wherever they are, using your existing "landline" number.
The days of being tied to a physical telephone on the desk are over.
wi-fi systems
As you might expect, we build a full range of business Wi-Fi systems.
But we recently completed a very interesting Full Fibre Internet, Wi-Fi and VoIP project in a large historic country house.
Given the visually-sensitive nature of the house, both inside and out, it was vital that the cabling and Wireless Access Points (19 of them) were unobtrusive - preferably invisible.
Internal cabling to Access Points would have been both difficult and visually awkward too. so cables were routed externally, hidden from view, with APs mounted directly inside external walls, hidden behind curtains etc.
Flooding the house with strong Wi-Fi signal means that the new IP telephones can be Wi-Fi (rather than DECT, which are dependent on DECT base units). So the phones - both desk-phones and hand-helds - can be located and moved at will. No network cables required. A beautifully flexible and unobtrusive system.
Suppliers included Gigaclear, RUCKUS, Voipfone, Yealink & Microsoft 365.
design
As well as the new cloud infrastructure, we also still design, build and support all the on-premises physical infrastructure that we always have.
Cloud
- Microsoft 365
- Office 365
- Azure & Amazon AWS
Internet
- FTTP
- Leased line
Data centres
- 19" racks
- Server hosting & resilience
- Disaster Recovery
Servers
Physical:
- Dell
- Fujitsu
- HP
Virtual:
- Azure
- VMware
Storage
- Azure
- Datacore
- Synology
User devices
- PCs, laptops
- Thin clients
- IP phones & mobiles
- Printers & scanners
Networks
- WAN & LAN
- Wired & wi-fi
- Dark fibre
- VPNs - Full & SSL
Security
- Defender & Entra
- Firewalls, routers
- Remote access
- Anti-virus & MFA
Building Control
- Loxone
- Heating, lighting, security
- Monitoring
build
Server
- Windows Server
- Exchange Server
- SQL Server
- Sharepoint
- Dynamics
- Backup: Veeam,
- Hornet, 11:11
Applications
- Office & Office 365
- Teams
- CRM: Salesforce
- Commence
- Sage, QuickBooks
- AV: Defender, Hornet,
- Bitdefender
Development
- SQL Server
- Salesforce
- Sharepoint
- Dynamics
- Commence CRM
support
Support
- End-user support:
- telephone, remote and on-site
- Training
Consultancy
- Advice
- Second opinion
- System development
Updates & backup
- Backup: Veeam, Hornet,
- 11:11, Synology
- Monitoring, maintenance,
- updates & support
clients
case histories
Altius Associates
We have been employed by Altius Associates (private equity advisor) since its formation over 20 years ago. It comprised offices in London (30 users), Richmond, VA (USA) (30 users) and Singapore (8 users). We re-developed and built its server infrastructure in all three offices, and maintained & supported all three and their 70-odd users throughout this period.
Originally, the existing London internet connection was a 2 mbps leased line costing over £11k p.a.
The poor performance of the existing VPN connection to their US office in Richmond was causing daily difficulties, working on shared documents across the Atlantic.
Alternatives? The existing ADSL infrastructure wasn't available in Victoria, and even if it had been, suitable or sufficient for this purpose.
However, the hosting locations such as Telehouse in the City were sitting on top of enormous internet pipes. But how to get there?
The answer was provided by Fibernet, via a dark fibre. By "dark", it meant that it came with no services. Ideal. We could put our own switches at either end of it, and "light" it, extending the office LAN over this Gbps link to the hosting location. A rack was rented in Telehouse, and the existing server infrastructure split between the London office and Telehouse, from where a super-fast internet connection was available.
Not only did this mean that extremely fast internet connectivity was available, but it provided Disaster Recovery and site/server resilience into the bargain.
Extending this further, we deployed VMware vSphere and converted the physical servers to virtual servers. This enabled us to run servers in either location, and migrate between them. Not only that, but Datacore SANsymphony real-time synchronising storage was employed between the two locations.
This meant that not only could the server load be distributed between the 2 locations, but if either location went down for any reason, the other location could take up the load instantly and automatically. Site and server resilience.
VMware vSphere was also deployed in the Richmond VA office, although the same data centre facilities were not available there.
For the Singapore office, with only 8 users, the server infrastructure was built in the cloud, using Microsoft Azure, hosted on Microsoft's Asian hosting locations to maximise performance for those users.
Eventually, Altius was purchased by Pavilion Financial Corporation in Montreal, and our work continued for them. Finally, Pavilion in turn was purchased by Mercer, part of Marsh & McLennan.
"ART Computing was a key support to our team as we established and grew Altius until the company was acquired. It was then instrumental in the integration of our IT with that of Pavilion and subsequently Mercer."
"We worked together to design, create and implement a robust IT infrastructure with global reach. They were prepared to do everything from basic desk support, to high level IT strategy and everything in between."
Jenny Fenton - former co-CEO of Altius Associates
British American Racing
One day we received a phone call saying that a deal had been done for BAT to fund a new F1 team.
Their small and temporary industrial unit in Brackley had three employees who needed a couple of servers and associated kit in double-quick time, and someone to look after it.
This included supporting the new users, who were arriving at a rate of knots. We didn't need asking twice.
We imagined that our involvement would end fairly soon thereafter, as a deal with a major IT supplier would be done almost straight away, but in fact it lasted for a year.
We'd supplied over 60 PCs before HP arrived on the scene and took over.
A thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding episode, from which we learned a lot, and met some people with whom we deal to this day.
Handle Recruitment
We supplied this small (at that time) London recruitment agency, specialising in the music and design industries, with their very first IT system (server, PCs and software).
This included helping them progress from their old card system to a fully electronic recruitment mechanism.
At the same time, the agency was expanding rapidly, and we ran the expansion and relocation of their system to several new offices over many years.
Naturally, this progression also included the move to virtualisation via VMware and Datacore SANsymphony.
"Your Case History is fine, but it could go even further!"
"Harry and ART Computing were an invaluable support for 12 years during the expansion of our agency. With Harry's help we were able to transform into a modern business that was able to compete with the very best."
"He constantly monitored the best available technology for our needs and kept us ahead of the curve at the same time providing the day to day support required to ensure virtually no downtime for anyone at any time..."
Peter Tafler - CEO of Handle Recruitment
Captimax & Planetaire
One of our first Commence clients, over 20 years ago, and still involved.
We designed a bespoke database for all marketing and CRM functions.
"I have now been using Commence CRM for 20 years. Harry revealed all the magic of Commence to me and my team. He was phenomenal at interpreting our immediate requirements and anticipate the future ones. Commence is still the central depository of all my data accumulated over 20 years from more than one business. Hard to beat."
Mario Hytten - CEO of Captimax & Planetaire
about
IT consulting and services company. We design complete IT infrastructures, typically for small to medium businesses, which we can then supply, install and maintain on a continuing basis. This includes user support, which is delivered through a combination of regular on-site visits, remote control and telephone support.
Typically, our clients are in London and the south of England, although the largest client has offices in London, Richmond, VA (USA) and Singapore, and we built, installed and supported the IT infrastructure and users for each of these sites.
For clients who don't have their own in-house IT function, we can fulfil that role (as above), but for those who do, we also work with existing departments.
When necessary or desirable, we also work with a network of partners.
We also sell and consult in a highly-customisable CRM application – Commence.
Commence is used by a wide variety of businesses to integrate the running of those businesses in all manner of ways - not simply CRM. For a few of examples, please see the Case Histories section.
This consulting work continues, using both Commence, with which we now have 25 years' experience, and, latterly, Salesforce.
contact
Harry Goodman
ART Computing Ltd
Spring House, Bull Hill
Chadlington
Chipping Norton
Oxfordshire
OX7 3ND
THE END
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