Services

Technical Project / Programme Management

Whole project lifecycle, from initial concept / need, preliminary budgetary modelling and high level designs, fully engineered and costed low level designs, specifications, procurements and contract documentation, through to fully managed implementation / delivery, commissioning into production and operational support.

We can undertake any stage in the network project lifecycle or managed the whole process and all deliverables.

Critical to any project is the effective management of risks, issues, dependencies, responsibilities and reporting to ensure appropriate planning and mitigation is undertaken. Project Management processes address these but substantial real world experience of what can and does go wrong with a network project provides greater facility to anticipate and avoid and impact on outcomes.

Services

Network Design and Development

A technology / product agnostic engineering approach allows us to recommend based on functionality or suitability for your environment, and to accommodate and integrate existing infrastructure or specific customer preferences into an overall coherent design model.

We use configuration templating and automation techniques for efficiency and consistency in production, to promote new design standards and accommodate established design standard as appropriate to achieve production security, quality and enhanced availability.

Network topologies are optimised for high levels of resilience, minimised fault domains and maximised levels of availability, and integrate with business continuity and disaster recovery models or facilities to ensure the utility of the network to the business is maintained. For most businesses the network has become or is becoming the most fundamental utility delivering all local voice, CRM, AV, VC and data services, together with Cloud based software, infrastructure and Data Centre services.

We believe that full and accessible high quality documentation is key to continued serviceability, security and availability of network infrastructure and as such we prepare comprehensive physical and logical schematics and associated documentation optimised for ongoing operational support and further development.

Baseline Documentation

Many networks have been grown in response to business imperatives and expedites and are often poorly documented and lacking in consistency of design or implementation. This presents significant risks to the availability and flexibility of the network and thus presents risks to the business.

We can undertake a baseline audit of a network which will establish a fundamental record of the physical and logical topology (as interim record documentation) and also highlight design, operations and support issues and mitigation strategy to address urgent issues and established a strategic plan for developing and optimising the network to meet business objectives.

This has proven very effective with a number of clients (particularly in the Local Authority and Charity sector) and has allowed them to plan expansion, deployment of converged voice and data services, collaboration and integration with partner organisations, Quality of Service in the LAN and WAN for VoIP and video conferencing, connecting to cloud providers for infrastructure and software as a service. Such drivers increase the reliance of the business on the network and elevate the fundamental need for a reliable and highly available network for business continuity. We will normally expect to be available to assist the client, as required, over an extended period of time, to support strategic development, operational status and continued documentation and advice.

Investigations and Remediation

We can undertake a fundamental investigation of underlying issues and faults on a network to establish a minimum set of recommendations for remediating any issues found, and implement as a tactical approach, to re establish fundamental functionality where this has been compromised and is impacting business. If there is no or limited documentation we would normally provide a preliminary set of physical and logical snapshot record schematics and notes which can then be used as the basis for further investigation, baseline documentation and strategic planning and development.

Most ongoing network issues are due to a combination of technology failures and/or compromised configuration and topology elements. It is usually feasible to restore fundamental utility of the network by identifying the topology, process or protocol features and remediating with adjustments to configurations. There will generally be recommendations for further actions for further adjustment and development.