Fordway launches optimised infrastructure service with twenty-five per cent money-saving promise

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Issue Date: 15th October 2008

Fordway launches optimised infrastructure service with
twenty-five per cent money-saving promise

15th October 2008 - ICT infrastructure specialist Fordway has launched a new managed and hosted infrastructure service which it claims will provide users with cost savings of around 25 per cent per annum to deliver and support a standard corporate desktop, including the organisation's key applications.

The claim is based on benchmarking Fordway's Optimised Infrastructure with three medium sized organisations - two local authorities and one professional services firm - and applies whether the desktop is delivered via the hosted service or dedicated use of the managed infrastructure service.

Fordway Optimised Infrastructure combines a 'best of breed' technology - using products from VMware, Commvault, Riverbed, Citrix, Microsoft and Compellent - with ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) process improvement and Fordway's APAC IT governance. It enables organisations to improve their business efficiency, reduce IT infrastructure costs, lower the risk of a business outage, improve resilience and speed of recovery in the event of a disaster and maximise the return on their investment.

Savings are generated by reducing both operational and management costs. Bandwidth optimisation, central provisioning via a web portal, optimised server usage - reducing rack space requirements and energy costs - less hardware and lower maintenance costs combine to generate the 25 per cent savings predicted by Fordway.

Users can choose from three options:

* Advice and integration from Fordway to enable them to deliver an optimised infrastructure within their organisation

* A dedicated infrastructure which the client organisation can either rent or buy, which is managed by Fordway on their behalf

* A hosted service provided by Fordway, run to user-defined governance standards and operational SLAs.

"We are offering what you might term an "infrastructure in a box," explains Fordway's managing director Richard Blanford. "Fordway has 17 years' experience of providing high quality advice, guidance and IT Infrastructure solutions to medium to large organisations across all types of organisation. We have parcelled our expertise in IT governance and business alignment, operational processes improvement and pre-integrated technology to provide the complete optimised IT infrastructure for medium to large organisations.

"Organisations can choose whether they want us just to provide an optimised infrastructure, to provide it and manage it for them, or to host it for them and deliver their corporate desktop as a service. Whichever solution they choose will reduce their IT costs significantly.

"Organisations can no longer increase their competitive advantage by optimising every aspect of their IT themselves. They should treat the provisioning, operation and management of their IT infrastructure as a utility which someone else can manage and run on their behalf, allowing them to focus on specialised applications, business intelligence and information management which add real value to their organisation."

Blanford concludes with a challenge: "We believe we can install this solution and run it for whatever an organisation is budgeting to spend on their IT infrastucture in the next three years and save them money. We are prepared to offer a money-back guarantee if we can't achieve this, and challenge medium and large organisations to put us to the test!"

Fordway will be holding a number of seminars around the UK to explain more about the new service. Anyone who would like further information should call 01483 528220, email seminars@fordway.com or visit www.fordway.com

Key elements of Fordway's optimised infrastructure service
* All provisioning, changes, service level monitoring, availability and capacity management are carried out through a Fordway designed web portal using ITIL defined processes
* Every element is virtualised, including the desktop. Users receive the full corporate desktop as a streamed service and can work from anywhere that has an internet connection
* All applications are delivered from a central data centre using thin client, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and application streaming
* The WAN is optimised to reduce client traffic
* All servers are in a VMWare cluster; client's specific application servers can be accommodated as part of the service
* File sharing is via Network Attached Storage (NAS) with included content management
* Primary storage is on Compellent servers, using fast track and data progression
* Everything is backed up to disk using CommVault, with tape for an auxiliary copy
* Older email and files are archived off to a secondary disk using CommVault.
* User search of all data uses Commvault technology.

Ends

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