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Issue 1
Rack Pack in the Rack this issue! • ‘And the public gets what the public wants’ ..................1 • FES FM Spins Up a Chart Topping Service ........................ 2 • Kitted Out............................................................... 2 • Start Me Up............................................................. 2 • Test your design skills not your wallet........................ 3 • ‘Aint no stopping us now’........................................... 3 • The Cloud can be like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get........................ 3 • Primal Screams of Joy at Dragons’ Den Success .............4 • Searching for Extra Marketing Pounds?........................4 • One requests one company...........................................4 • No Bridge is too far (too tall or too long) ..................... 5 • Rowntree Chews over a Sweet Hosting Service................ 5 • Opening New Windows................................................ 5 • Munkeying around in the Cloud..................................... 6 • Banging The Drum ..................................................... 6 • Keeping the Social Net Working.................................... 6
Life, Clouds and Servers....straight from the Rack
Welcome to Rack Pack, We really are feeling #EPIC this month. A real watershed moment has arrived for us lonely hacks at Rack Pack Towers. To celebrate the fifth anniversary of this slightly odd but never knowingly undersold publication, we have expanded our potential readership by a factor of fifteen. We are now the official organ for the whole iomart Group and as such we are delighted to be able to reach out and give a big virtual hug to our friends at Easyspace, RapidSwitch, Melbourne Server Hosting and iomart Cloud Services. Making more sense and a lot less pretentious than the average Brad Pitt Chanel No 5 advert, you’ll find Rack Pack provides you with the latest news, offers, promotions, views and general ramblings about all things iomart. Rack Pack is produced every two months, is totally free, lovingly crafted and is only sent to folks who actually want to read it – which we hope will be everyone. Obviously you have the choice to opt out but please remember that for every one of you who clicks ‘unsubscribe’ another fairy dies. We hope that you enjoy this issue, the 28th if you’ve been with us since day one or the 1st if you’ve only just joined us.
‘And the public gets what the public wants’ Going underground to deliver a lightning fast fibre network iomart Group is making a multi-million pound investment in a brand new fibre network which will deliver huge benefits to all of its customers. The Group has entered into a 10 year agreement with leading fibre network provider Geo Networks to deliver high capacity connectivity into its UK data centres. Geo will provide a fully dedicated, diverse, business critical fibre optic ring connecting iomart Group’s six data centre locations across the UK. This 1860 kilometre fibre superhighway will significantly increase iomart’s current capacity and national reach and will ensure that iomart can provide end users with unlimited bandwidth across current and new market sectors. In line with iomart’s growing customer demand for high capacity bandwidth, Geo’s dedicated fibre will offer guaranteed latencies between data centre sites in London, Maidenhead, Manchester, Glasgow, Leicester and Nottingham. Angus MacSween, CEO of iomart Group plc, said: “This will give us one of the fastest and most resilient fibre optic networks of any cloud computing company in the UK. Customers on
OCT/NOV 2012
our network will have the fastest connections allowing them to move huge amounts of data at the highest speeds wherever they are located. It allows us to take our network right up to our customers’ doors which is of huge benefit to organisations wanting secure, private cloud environments.” iomart’s new fibre network will be completely dedicated, without the need for IP switching creating a resilient and extremely secure, reliable network. In addition, Geo runs all its fibre through the London sewers and alongside the gas mains across the UK which adds an extra layer of protection and is an efficient way of delivering networks with very little disruption to the external environment. Chris Smedley, Chief Executive at Geo commented, “As the only company in the UK which leases carrier-grade dedicated fibre, Geo can provide services faster than its competitors. Our model is different from the traditional telco model, offering our customers greater choice and flexibility. We welcome iomart Group to our growing customer base and are confident that their clients will benefit from our bandwidth intensive, secure network services.” Full details: www.iomart.com
www.iomart.com
Rack Pack
Issue 28. October/November 2012
FES FM Spins Up a Chart Topping Service
Leading UK Service Group calls the maintenance tunes across iomart’s data centres iomart has appointed one of the UK’s leading service groups to support the maintenance requirements across its UK data centre estate. FES FM, part of the FES Group, will provide a comprehensive range of planned and reactive maintenance services across the UK. FES FM and the FES Group have extensive experience supporting critical environments for a wide range of clients across the UK such as Prudential & AEGON. Neil Johnston, Group Technical Operations Director for iomart Group plc, said: “iomart is delighted to appoint FES FM to support the future delivery of critical maintenance services to its UK data centre operations. FES FM and the FES Group’s experience, methodology and in-house self-delivery capability matches our own commitment to providing the highest levels of service and best practice to our own customers. The appointment of FES FM means iomart Group can centralise all its maintenance needs
with a single contractor, allowing us to develop a robust maintenance operation with a high level of cost certainty that demonstrates real value for money. It will also make it a lot easier to bring further improvements and efficiency innovations to our data centres in the future.” Ian Maitland, Managing Director of FES FM, said: “This is an important strategic contract for FES FM. We understand and recognise the necessity to deliver exceptional standards of performance across the maintenance services to ensure the integrity of each of iomart’s data centres. We are confident that our experience will help iomart Group meet these performance standards.”
Ian Maitland added: “FES FM and the FES Group
More teams get new kits courtesy of iomart Hosting weekly paper after posing in their new strip. In Glasgow two opposing teams even played a match both wearing our iomart Hosting sponsored kits. Marketing director Phil Worms was there to watch and said: “We definitely had to sit on the fence for this one!”
The Host Your Kit campaign was launched in March this year to provide deserving youth football teams with a complete set of adidas football strips. Since the campaign was launched thirty kits have been distributed to teams across Britain. The latest road trip has seen us delivering brand new adidas kits to some great winning teams.
Full details: www.iomart.com
FES FM, which is headquartered in Stirling in Scotland, has signed a three year contract to provide full maintenance for iomart’s UK data centres from plant to air conditioning and from generators to UPS, as well as for future improvements and new installations.
Kitted Out
More youth football teams across the country are looking good after being kitted out by iomart Hosting’s community sport campaign Host Your Kit.
have extensive experience supporting the full life span of data centres from the infrastructure design, installation and commissioning through to the on-going day to day operation. We are fully committed to working with iomart Group to drive best practice and innovation across the maintenance services to meet the requirements at each of its UK data centres as these evolve over the term of the contract.”
And at the beginning of this month we helped Corporal Martyn Irvine to bid a tearful farewell to his young team Oak Juniors FC in Staffordshire. He handed over our iomart Hosting sponsored kit to his players just hours before leaving for a seven month tour of Afghanistan. We wish him a safe tour and hope his team do well in his absence. For full details visit: www.hostyourkit.com
Start Me Up
Easyspace supports entrepreneurism
Fancy starting your own business? Tired of being a hamster on the treadmill of life? Want to break free from the shackles of workplace tyranny and liberate your creativity? Or simply fancy spending a day in Scotland’s capital? If you have answered yes to any of the above, then you must consider attending the Start Up Summit on the 14th November, in Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms. Delegates will get the chance to hear the real life start up experiences from 16 entrepreneurs and will be able to obtain help and advice from 23 support organisations.
We’ve visited the Scottish Borders to give a kit to a team called Ancrum Juniors who keep football alive in a real rugby heartland. We’ve been to London to meet Berner FC whose pitch is about the only place where young boys in their area of Tower Hamlets can play football.
As a major sponsor of the event, Easyspace is pleased to be able to offer potential delegates a whopping 25% off the full ticket price. All you need to do is use the promocode: easyspace when purchasing your tickets.
In Cornwall, Charlestown United even got themselves on the back page of their local
Tickets vary in price from £10 to £50 depending on your status and may be purchased here: http://www.startupsummit2012.com www.iomart.com
Rack Pack
Issue 28. October/November 2012
Test your design skills not your wallet
Build an EasySiteLivePro site in minutes and have it free for 6 Months! If you are serious about having a good website or building website for your customers, then EasySiteLivePro could be for you. Sharper than a Tom Ford suit, faster than a Felix Baumgartner free fall and crammed with more gadgets than Q’s shed , EasySiteLivePro comes complete with professional template designs and all the tools you need to create and update pages, forms, animations, galleries & much more.
To register your interest visit: http://www.easyspace.com/web-design/ easysitelive-register Please note BETA places are limited
On the end of September, iomart Group plc (AIM:IOM), issued a positive pre-close trading update to the London Stock Exchange ahead of the announcement of its half yearly results.
The Cloud can be like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get. Join us for a FREE champagne VIP seminar at the London Film Museum
Cloud computing is here to stay. We’ve long passed the early adopter stage and are now fully into mass take-up. Despite the hype, moving to the cloud is not necessarily that easy and there are still challenges to be overcome, particularly around perceptions of security and risk. We have organised a FREE morning seminar at the London Film Museum on Thursday 15th November 2012 to address issues that can affect cloud computing. This free seminar will be informative and yet very relaxed. You will hear from key members of the iomart Hosting team, together with Mark Bailey legal expert from Speechly Bircham and Andy Tipping from Geo Networks discussing the topics which are becoming more important to the successful utilisation of cloud computing. We will be covering connectivity, data storage, security and legal issues - all of which are vitally important factors when considering cloud.
iomart Group issues positive pre-close trading statement
As a huge big thank you for providing us with feedback, and for being a good all round egg, we’ll then give you the site builder free for 6 months.
The EasySiteLivePro website builder is now available for end user testing. We would love it, or in the words of the wordsmith that is Kevin Keegan Absolutely Love it, if you would consider registering as a trialist, giving it a whirl and then telling us what you think about your experience.
Discover why connectivity, legal issues and storage will make or break the Cloud!
‘Aint no stopping us now’
on the banks of the Thames, with the former debating chamber of the old Greater London Council taking centre stage for the key notes. Commencing at 9.30 pm with a champagne breakfast and concluding with luncheon on the Riverside Terrace, the seminar will be also allow you the opportunity to spend time enjoying some of the most famous film sets and props ever seen including Star Wars! Tickets are free and are available on a ‘first come first serve’ basis. Ok so “Who’s on first.” For a detailed agenda and ticket registration please go to: http://iomartlfm.eventbrite.co.uk
Angus MacSween, chief executive of iomart Group, said: “We are into our fifth year of double digit growth and the environment for the continuation of demand for our services remains robust as businesses increasingly see the value of outsourced cloud services.” The statement said that the Group had performed strongly with revenues and profits substantially ahead of the comparative period last year and that the Board is confident that the financial performance of the Group for the full year will be ahead of current consensus market expectations. The focus of the business continues to be on the provision of high quality managed solutions to SMEs and corporate clients. Clients are increasingly staying with iomart on contract renewal, underscoring its established reputation as a market leader. The statement added that the recent acquisitions of Melbourne Server Hosting and Skymarket were being integrated successfully into the business and are expected to complement the Group’s strong organic earnings growth. It continued that iomart Group believes that the market potential for cloud computing remains strong. It concluded that the Group will continue to pursue further opportunities for acquisitions of quality, high margin businesses which make a contribution to Group profits. Analysts from Canaccord Genuity said iomart looked “unstoppable.” In a note to investors Canaccord said: “This performance is especially impressive given a relatively slow August as a result of the distraction of the Olympics.” iomart Group plc expects to report its half yearly results for the six months ended 30 September 2012 on 27 November 2012. For full details: www.iomart.com
The Seminar takes place in the wonderful surroundings of the London Film Museum, www.iomart.com
Rack Pack
Issue 28. October/November 2012
Primal Screams of Joy at Dragons’ Den Success iomart hosted Primal Parking wins over Theo & Peter to bag investment One of our youngest hosting customers appeared on BBC TV’s Dragon’s Den to try to secure funding for his new online parking business. 22 year old Manchester University geography student Harrison Woods successfully walked away with £60,000 of investment for Primal Parking from Theo Paphitis and Peter Jones when he appeared on the BBC 2 programme last month. Primal Parking is an online marketplace for matching the owners of private parking spaces across the UK with those who want to rent them. It’s hosted by iomart Hosting. Harrison Woods explains: “We had discussions with several hosting companies but iomart Hosting was the only one that could give us the secure, bespoke platform and the personal service we needed.” Primal Parking co-founder and technical director Jonathan Cherrie, who runs Bolton design agency JDC Communications Ltd, developed the Primal Parking website.
with demand and a dedicated firewall for protection. Rhys Jones-Roberts, head of development at JDC Communications, explains: “There’s no point in making a house out of bricks if you leave the door open, so we turned to iomart Hosting to ensure that our hosting platform was just as secure as our encryption.” The Primal Parking website experienced a huge spike in traffic as the Dragons’ Den television programme went on air. The website got a 16Mb/s burst as Harrison Woods was told he had secured two of the Dragons’ backing. Sarah Haran, managing director of iomart Hosting, says: “Harrison’s Dragons’ Den appearance was a big moment for Primal Parking and we expected that there would be a surge to the site as a result of the show. We are delighted to be providing round-the-clock secure hosting for this exciting new venture and we wish the team every success. ” For full details: www.iomarthosting.com
Jonathan Cherrie says: “The Primal Parking website will be processing payment transactions so we spent a lot of time on the security aspects - we have an EV SSL for a secure environment. The site is linked to a bespoke data base which utilises Geo coding technology.”
Searching for Extra Marketing Pounds? Try Google and trouser 75 notes
Obviously don’t actually enter ‘extra marketing pounds’ into Google unless you want to read about companies spending more or overweight marketers wishing to shed pounds, nope all you need to do is read on. Easyspace has teamed up with those searchtastic folks at Google to offer a cracking deal to its customers. Thanks to this offer, customers can turn a minimum spend of £25 into £100 – when they sign up for a new account with Google Adwords, and all without the help of Derren Brown. Google AdWords helps businesses connect with targeted visitors searching for products and services online via Google search engine platform. If you’re unsure of how Google AdWords work, fear not! A Google Adwords consultant can talk you through and even setup campaigns for you, ensuring your adverts are placed in front of the right audience. The £75 Google advertising voucher is available to new customers who spend a minimum of £25 in their first month with Google. “Without a doubt Google AdWords is an excellent place for all our customers to start advertising their websites and the new offer will give every new business a kick-start with their advertising activities.” Commented Sarah Haran, the MD of Easyspace.
Primal Parking has two managed and dedicated web servers plus a database server pulled together by a load balancer to cope
Full details of this offer can be found: http://www.easyspace.com/web-hosting/ free-tools/google
One requests one company
Melbourne fast proving to be far too Kool for Skool
Staff at our Manchester company Melbourne Server Hosting are fast becoming media luvvies as they get to know key organisations in Media City. Brand manager Rajesh Joshi and commercial manager Chris Marsh both
popped up on BBC Breakfast television recently. Rajesh chatted to BBC News technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones about the potential impact of the UK’s first major 4G mobile network as it went live while commercial manager Chris Marsh popped up to talk about the impact of rising energy prices on businesses and growth. Keen not to show broadcast bias, Melbourne also welcomed an independent production company in to one of its data halls to do some filming for a Channel 4 programme about Cyber Security. Meanwhile Rajesh has been dusting down his suit (yes, he does own one!) for a Royal appointment. He and colleague Steven Allan www.iomart.com
have been invited to Buckingham Palace. We’ll reveal if Her Majesty made an Olympic Bondstyle entrance in our next edition! If you ever get a chance to go to Manchester, do drop in at Melbourne where you’ll be welcomed with a morning smoothie and freshly ground coffee from local roasters. Not only that, but their offices boast an indoor garden, a Narnia room and a Games area. In fact they’ve just been featured in an article in The Telegraph about the coolest places to work in Britain. Hmmm..Rackpacker is definitely working out of the wrong office… www.melbourne.co.uk 3
Rack Pack
Issue 28. October/November 2012
No Bridge is too far (too tall or too long) iomart Group staff run, walk, climb and jump for charidee Paragraph 1, Page 1 of our Employee handbooks states that all of our people must go the extra mile for our customers. Not content with straining every sinew in their bodies to achieve this day in day out during their working hours, many of our peeps continue to take this ethic forward, quite literally in many cases, into their own time on behalf of a myriad of charities, community projects and good causes. We are proud to support their efforts and in every issue we bring you a small selection of their endeavours. First off this issue, it’s congratulations to our cloud services Channel Marketing Executive Pete Jeffrey who pulled his trainers on to run his very first 10k. He completed the BUPA Great Edinburgh Run in just over an hour, raising £325 for the Scottish Association for Mental Health. “I’m not power walking in the picture I’m running, honest!” he says. Both the charity and the organisers of the run Nova International are customers of ours so great effort all round Peter. Meanwhile Caroline Fraser, the daughter of one of our managers Stuart, walked up Ben Nevis to support Love Hope Strength, the
cancer charity founded by Mike Peters the lead singer of the Alarm. Caroline (seen here with one of her walking pals) raised over £800 and got a free gig from Mike thrown in. It was all to support Mike’s Love Hope Strength Foundation an international, music-centric cancer charity dedicated to building and supporting cancer centres across the globe. Well done Caroline. And last but not least, Easyspace sales and database administrator Emma Campbell who, with her dad David, abseiled 165 feet from the Forth Bridge to raise a fantastic £500 for the Child Brain Injury Trust. The Trust is close to Emma’s heart as a family member suffered a brain injury as a child. It was Emma’s first abseil. She says, “It was a great experience, a really exciting and different way to raise money for charity.” The Child Brain Injury Trust provides nonmedical support to families affected by childhood acquired brain injury across the UK. Three great employees, three great challenges and over £1,600 raised for three great causes. Ding Dong!
Rowntree Chews over a Sweet Hosting Service
Joseph Rowntree Foundation credits iomart Hosting for its online success How many of you remember the famous 1970s advert for Rowntree Fruit Pastilles with the tag line “Pastille Pickin’ Mama, pass those pastilles round”? Well the charitable foundation set up by Joseph Rowntree, the Quaker who created the company selling those famous sweets, has praised iomart Hosting for the web support it receives. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is a pioneering charitable trust dedicated to inspiring social change. It publishes the latest research into social issues, poverty and ageing in the UK in order to influence social and economic policy in the UK. It commissions around 100 reports a year, most of which
are between 20 and 30,000 words long, all of which are published and then archived through its main website. iomart Hosting provides a fully managed hosting service which supports the Foundation’s main website plus the linked websites for the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. “In order to fulfil our business objectives we use our websites as our primary dissemination and communication channels,” explains Dan Clarkson, Web Officer for Joseph Rowntree Foundation. “It’s vital that our websites offer
Opening New Windows RapidSwitch goes hyper
RapidSwitch has become one of the first hosting companies in the UK to announce the availability of Windows Server 2012 across its server range. Including Microsoft’s new Hyper-V3, the much awaited release of the new operating system will provide a real option for SMEs looking at using virtualisation technology to create their own private cloud platforms and an affordable disaster recovery option. Hyper-V’s Replica feature, which offers
multi-site disaster recovery, coincides with iomart Group’s investment in a dedicated fibre network connecting its data centres across the UK. Aimed specifically at SMEs looking for affordable, off-site disaster recovery options, Hyper-V Replica is one of the key features expected to help Microsoft challenge VMware’s title as market leader in virtualisation technology and where better to implement this feature than a high-bandwidth, low-latency network environment. www.iomart.com
the best user experience and therefore the hosting of them, which is often seen as the forgotten part of a website package, is of critical importance to us.” JRF uses iomart hosting to support an increasingly diverse digital portfolio. Roundthe-clock customer support and key account management are vital to the relationship. Dan says, “I can’t speak highly enough of iomart Hosting. It offers a stand-out service, bending over backwards to make sure we get the service we need.” Full details: www.iomarthosting.com
Neil Christie of RapidSwitch says, “Many of our customers have been eagerly awaiting both the investment in our network infrastructure and the release of Hyper-V specifically to cater for multi-site Disaster Recovery. Our customers are using our unique infrastructure to make best use of advances in both cloud hosting and virtualisation.” www.rapidswitch.com
Rack Pack
Issue 28. October/November 2012
Munkeying around in the Cloud IT Support Company extends its range of iomart’s cloud products An innovative IT support company in Hertfordshire has extended the range of online business support products it offers from the Group’s channel solution provider iomart Cloud Services. Cheeky Munkey, which is based in St Albans, already offers iomart Cloud’s Email Filtering as well as Netintelligence, its easy-to-use web filtering product. It is now extending the range of cloud products to include Business Mail, Mail Archiving and Cloud Backup. Graham Lane, Managing director of Cheeky Munkey, said: “We now have over 30 customers on the Westcoastcloud platform who we manage easily through their Control Panel. We’ve seen a rising demand for cloud services and we’ve had such a good experience with iomart Cloud services that it seems only natural to offer more of their product range.”
online, as well giving access to a suite of reports on customer activity. Graham Lane continued: “iomart Cloud’s Partner Control Panel is a fantastic feature for us. From a single point we get an overview of all our customers and the status of their services. Plus the fact that it is white-labelled allows us to apply our Cheeky Munkey logo and brand making the whole service to our end-users look seamless.” Bill Strain, Director of iomart Cloud, commented: “We’re delighted that Cheeky Munkey is expanding its range of our Cloud products to include mail, archiving and backup. Providing services through the Cloud allows our partners to benefit from high margins, more efficient sales processes and a really impressive rate of repeat customers.”
iomart Cloud’s products are delivered entirely via the Cloud which greatly reduces capital expenditure for reseller customers as well as ongoing maintenance, repair or replacement costs. Simple to use online Control Panels allow resellers to add or amend customers and provision new products for their customers
Marketing and media website heads to the Cloud with iomart Hosting
It’s using iomart Hosting’s VMware-powered CloudSure platform to ensure a highly available online presence. iomart Hosting has also provisioned EMC® Avamar® to deliver enterprise Cloud Backup. Nick Creed, Digital Director of The Drum, said: “The Drum has expanded rapidly over the last 24 months with a huge increase in traffic to the site. Moving our hosting to iomart’s CloudSure platform has ensured we can continue to expand with the confidence we have the infrastructure that will be able to expand with us. The platform allows us to have the flexibility we need for our future plans and iomart’s proactive support ensures we have the systems expertise to hand as the business expands.”
iomart Hosting announces headline sponsorship of Social Buzz Awards
The 2012 Social Buzz Awards, the UK’s leading social media awards, will this year take place in association with iomart Hosting. We decided to sponsor the awards to help widen recognition for the talented individuals, companies and agencies who are transforming social media communications in the UK. The Social Buzz Awards were established last year by The Drum, the award-winning marketing and media news website, to reward the creativity, innovation and strategic thinking being used in social media marketing and communications in the UK. Awards categories include Best Use of Twitter and Facebook, as well as Social Media Agency of the Year and InHouse Client Team.
Banging The Drum
The Drum, the award-winning marketing and media news website, has chosen iomart Hosting to take it into the Cloud.
Keeping the Social Net Working
Control Panel. Sarah Haran, managing director of iomart Hosting, said: “The Drum is one of the most visited news and marketing websites and often makes the headlines itself leading to big spikes in traffic, so we are delighted that it has chosen our enterprise cloud services to deliver reliability, data security and guaranteed performance.” Headquartered in Glasgow, The Drum is expanding rapidly in the South East of England in addition to gaining a growing international audience. The Drum’s website has over 340,000 unique visitors every month but that increased dramatically to 420,000 when it became the first UK-based website to publish the controversial photos of a naked Prince Harry.
Phil Worms, Director Marketing for iomart Hosting, stated: “As one of the UK’s leading providers of cloud services we support the platforms and technologies that enable effective global communication, so we’re honoured and delighted to have the opportunity to celebrate the individuals and organisations that are using social media effectively for their own businesses and their clients.” You can view the list of finalists at www.socialbuzzawards.com/nominations
Keep in Touch If you would like any further details on the Group, our brands or the services that we provide please contact: marketing@iomart.com Alternatively join us on Twitter for our latest news. @iomartgroup @easyspace @_rapidswitch
One of the main benefits of using CloudSure is that customers can manage their billing, spin up virtualised servers and manage power and bandwidth, all from one easy-to-use Cloud
@iomarthosting @melbournehost @iomartcloud
© iomart Group plc 2012 All trade marks are acknowledged
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