Cloud Computing

As information technology enters the new world of online services delivery, known in the industry as “cloud computing”, we are pleased to announce we are firmly ahead of the game with a complete set of offerings ranging from co-located hosting to fully outsourced business applications and virtual desktop infrastructures. Please review the following services section of our website and contact us today to find out how we can help your business “move to the cloud” and in doing so realize real productive benefits and cost effective reductions.

Colocation & Hosting

Orchid IT are able to provide a full range of privately hosted services from offsite digital storage, replication of existing on-premise servers or re-location of existing servers including telephony based phone servers (PBX) offsite to a highly secure data center facility here in the UK. Please contact your partner manager for more details.

•  24 hour manned secure facility with “N+1” failover

•  Fully redundant power provision

•  Direct “back bone” access to the internet via one of the UKs leading ISPs ensuring high speed delivery of hosted services

•  Any “rackmountable” server or telephone PBX can be migrated and hosted offsite

•  Complete range of internet connectivity solutions including leased line and point to point Ethernet links from your office location(s) to the datacenter can be provided for ultra high speed access

•  Highly competitive rates for “per U” equipment hosting and “per GB” data storage

•  Experienced consulting and implementation services – we do the work for you from initial project management through to solution delivery

Microsoft Online Services

Orchid IT, already a Microsoft Gold Partner are one of the few IT service providers in the Midlands area to be accredited to deliver Microsofts new online based server products. Commonly known as BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite), IT services that have been traditionally delivered as an on-premise solution – for example a software application such as Sharepoint or Exchange loaded onto a Windows based Server that is housed onsite at a companys local office – can now be delivered direct from “the cloud”. These “off-premise” services can work in conjunction with locally housed servers such as a domain controller/file server or can completely eradicate the need for costly on-premise equipment altogether. Whatever your particular requirements, Orchid IT will be able to provide independent consultancy, experience and advice so that the right decision can be made for your business. The suite of products can be purchased at a discounted rate or individually – all on a per user per monthly basis for a minimum of 5 users per account.

Exchange Online

•  Microsoft Exchange has long been the worlds leading application for the delivery of email and calendar based services. An integral part of the Windows Small Business Server product, Exchange provides a highly scaleable and secure solution for email communication, task based integration, calendar management.

Exchange Hosted Services

•  Protect your hosted Exchange platform by scanning inbound/outbound emails for viruses, trojans, worms and malware, encrypt vital business communications, halt the influx of spam at the source with comprehensive filtering techniques and achieve compliance through an archiving feature.

Sharepoint Online

•  Sharepoint is to date Microsofts fastest selling server application with merit. Online collaboration, workflow and true document management are all features of this powerful tool previously only available as high-end scale on-premise solution. Sharepoint online now delivers this service over the internet without the need for a minimum of 5 users without the need for a complex infrastructure.

Office Live Meeting

•  With Office Live Meeting, desktop presentations can be delivered to a worldwide audience without leaving the comfort of your office. Previously Live Meeting was available as a component within the on-premise version of Office Communications Server. With Live Meeting Online, it is available directly as a cost-effective subscription based service.

Office Communications Online

•  Online presence and securely encrypted instant messaging are key components of this business communications application. Quickly see when colleagues are online and communicate with them directly using instant messaging.

Dynamics CRM Online

•  Customer relationship management (CRM) is a business-critical application in any organization and Dynamics CRM Online is an off-premise service that not only delivers detailed records about clients and suppliers, it also provides full data and visual integration with other adopted Microsoft platforms such as Outlook and Sharepoint.

Virtualisation

Virtualisation has long been a buzz word in the IT industry and is becoming more mainstream by the day. Virtualisation is the process of creating a live snapshot or image of an actual physical server (hardware, operating system and applications) and allows the newly-created virtual machine to be run alongside other virtual machines on a consolidated physical hardware platform. Typically, a traditional physical server only utilizes a small fraction of the computing (memory/CPU) resource available to it whereas under a virtual environment, specific processing resources can be allocated to individual virtual machines based on capacity requirements. Orchid IT can deliver all types of virtualisation services from basic 2 server consolidations to major server farm re-structuring. Virtualisation allows for the following:

•  Accurately plan for future IT capacity without overspend

•  Make better use of existing expensive IT resources

•  Run legacy servers on brand new warranted hardware with simple migration but without risk

•  Virtualised machines can be stored on a central storage platform (SAN) and delivered across a multitude of physical server based resources enabling business continuity in the event of hardware failure

VDI – Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

The complexities of running and relying on a traditional desktop/laptop client based infrastructure are well known to IT managers and system administrators. Inherently prone to hardware failure, loss of data and in cases, a major cause of business downtime, the PC, or “fat client” as it is sometimes referred to, is not only an unreliable business IT interface but it is also one that can be extremely difficult to administer.

A VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) changes all this by enabling the virtualisation of existing desktop/laptop PCs and delivering them over a LAN or WAN network to either an existing PC or thin client device. New workstation images can be created instantly using common operating systems such as Windows 7, Vista or XP and delivered directly from a central storage solution via a server processing resource or direct from a server – no processing power is directly required from the workstation which in itself can be a considerable cost saving. In the event of thin/fat client hardware failure, no work will be lost and the affected user will be able to logon to their virtualized desktop via another device.

Data loss will be minimized due to the virtualized desktop images being able to be backed up to multiple storage devices and administration of all desktop machines can be handled by a single central admin console.

For more information on our hosted desktop offerings, please contact your Orchid IT partner manager.