March 2007 Newsletter

Technical support

Improving the quality of our support services

In line with our commitment to provide customers with the best possible technical support service we have recently made some important changes in the way that we handle support requests.

This has involved restructuring all our technical support resource into 3 categories. Initially all support calls will be answered by line 1 staff. These are highly qualified IT professionals who are capable of solving the vast majority of support problems without the need to refer to our more specialised consultants. If there is a problem that they cannot resolve it will be escalated to our line 2 and 3 staff. These are subject matter specialists who have many years real-world experience of solving all different types of problem.

We believe that this new structure will provide a much better service for our customers and enable us to ensure that complex problems will get the right level of expertise needed to resolve the problem efficiently.

Our expertise has also been enhanced by the addition of 2 new members of staff with specific skills. Recognising that Linux is now becoming prevalent within the IT infrastructure, we have invested in a Linux specialist who is capable of handling all the problems likely to be encountered by organisations implementing and supporting this OS. We have also invested in an additional consultant who is a specialist in Microsoft infrastructure and Novell ZENworks. This now brings the numbers of MCSEs we employ to 6 as well as 1 MCSA ‐ an impressive investment in Microsoft technical resource

To further improve our support offering, we will shortly be creating a brand new post within Salford Software, that of Service Delivery Manager. The Service Delivery Manager will act as a customer advocate within the company, ensuring a high quality of service is delivered from all our teams. We believe this will be a very important role and will help to maintain and improve the already high level of service that our customers have come to expect over the years.

Open Support Service now covers Microsoft Campus agreement products

We are pleased to announce that we are extending and renaming the highest level of support offered to Open Support. This solution will now also be available for Microsoft products. Initially designed for large organisations running mission critical services using Novell software, this change recognises that Novell and Microsoft software now co-exists in many IT infrastructures.

The key features of the new Open Support include:

• Biannual, onsite network health check
• Direct access to 4 named technical support contacts
• Creation of a network recommendations document
• Unlimited technical support incidents (by phone and e-mail)
• Support for all products listed in the Microsoft Campus Agreement (see below)
• Automated monthly management reports
• Easy access via our Portal for incident updates
• Dedicated service account manager
• Proactive network monitoring service
• Unique escalation and service levels
• 24x7 Access to engineers via pool mobile service*
• 24x7 Technical Support **

* Usage for the pool mobile service is charged on an hourly basis
** For incidents logged before 17:00 with an agreed severity level of critical

The products covered under this service are all those server products under the Microsoft Campus Agreement and comprise:

• Exchange server (and Enterprise Edition)
• SharePoint Portal
• Server SQL Server Standard (and Enterprise Edition)
• System Management Server
• Windows Advanced Server
• Windows Server
• ISA Server (and Enterprise Edition)
• Operations Manager (MOM)
• Project Server
• Live Communication Server
• Windows Terminal Server

For further details of our Open Support, please contact your account manager.

Flexible resource plan to launch soon

Currently, we are running a new service on a major academic site in the UK. This flexible resource plan is designed for organisations that have a continuing investment in Novell software but do not currently employ any staff with the necessary skills and experience to keep it up and running.

This service comprises of a mixture of remote management and control, providing alerts and responses to a SLA together with scheduled on site days. We believe such a service provides a very cost-effective alternative to finding and keeping technical resource staff and will prove very popular when we fully launch it later this year.

Although the pilot only covers Novell software, the final service will also include support for Microsoft products as well. If you would like furth er details, please contact your account manager.

Professional services

NHS Connecting for Health

Our consultants have recently been involved with the NHS Connecting for health Project. We have been working closely with 5 NHS Trusts on creating an identity management solution for a number of core NHS applications.

Within all NHS Trusts there is a need for a coherent identity management solution. There is a high level of inefficiency around processes for provi sioning new user accounts and the management of user credentials such as passwords. There is also a culture of shared generic accounts and password sharing by clinical staff because they perceive this as the only way to get their job done without letting IT get in the way of day-to-day patient care.

Typical problems faced include:

• New employees taking weeks or months to get their own unique User Account and typically using generic or shared passwords in the interim
• People who leave have their accounts active, which may be handed on to the next post holder with Post-It note provisioning
• Staff must wait for out of hours password reset(s)
• Securing remote access to IT systems for Staff, GPs and others
• Granting temporary or visiting NHS employees access to National Applications
• Using the NHS smart card and associated registration authority (RA) processes to enhance local access control

By working closely with the Trusts we are aiming to solve these problems with an integrated identity management solution.

New staff

Due to the increased volumes of work we are now dealing with on the professional services side of the business, we have recently added another 3 me mbers of staff to our team.

As well as recruiting 2 further identity specialists we have also enhanced our Microsoft skills by recruiting a new consultant in this area as well .

Development

The development team have been very busy over the last few months finalising a number of critical updates.

GPAS update

First of these is the new Windows version of GPAS, our enterprise class print management and cost recovery solution. Due to be released in April this offers:

• Support for Windows and Active Directory
• Plotter support
• New Kiosk design with extra functionality

We have been getting feedback on the changes during development via our forum - which also contains screenshots of the new kiosk.

Other developments

We have now successfully integrated ePayments with Talis to enable the management of library payments and fines. Also, ePayments is now fully compa tible with any other SIP2 compliant system.

Our Remote Analyser service has been upgraded. It now supports Windows servers as well as NetWare. This solution will review your IT environment a nd provide a comprehensive report, alerting you to any issues you may have before they become problems. It provides our technical support staff with b oth up to date and historical configuration details of your systems. By having access to the correct technical information, they are able to diagnose your problems quicker.

We will be rolling out our 24x7 Remote Monitoring solution in April. This compliments the Remote Analyser system and provides our support engineers with real-time status information of a customer's servers and alerts when something goes wrong.

Training

IDM Training

As the leading identity management solution provider in the UK, we know that good training is a key part of ensuring that you obtain the expected return on your investment. That is why training has always been a key part of our service over the last 15 years.

Our identity management training follows a 3 stage process: fundamentals, administration and advanced administration. These courses enable delegates to become familiar with the purpose and components of Identity Manager and learn to perform configuration tasks in a lab environment. Utilising Novell OES and Windows Server 2003 they allow delegates to synchronise data and passwords between eDirectory and AD.

Beyond this we can also provided advanced technical training to cover provisioning and advanced workflow capabilities.

Leading the way with Linux

As one of the first Novell education academic partners in the UK, we have always led the way with our training courses. This is still the case now with Linux training.

We are currently offering 3 basic courses in SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10:

1. Fundamentals — 3 days
2. Administration — 5 days
3. Advanced Administration — 5 days

As well as a comprehensive schedule of other, more advanced Linux courses

For full details of the latest dates for all our Novell, Microsoft and Linux courses see our training webpages

Sales

Aberdeen Council

We have recently started work on a large scale identity project for Aberdeen Council. This new solution will provide employees with a single identity across the council's many departments and services.

It will ultimately streamline and greatly reduce the overhead associated with the management of employee access, as users will only need a single set of log-in details to gain access to essential applications. The finished system will support 14,000 government employees at around 100 council sites and will cover - central IT systems, employee identity badges and access to buildings.

Phase one of the project, now already underway, will create an ID vault where all relevant employee data will be held. This will create an employee "white pages" across the council sites. It will initially go live on the council's phone and e-mail systems. Other core systems will then begin to be connected, with HR seen as the major way of drivi ng the provisioning of other systems. Implementation has already begun, with a planned first-phase roll-out for the end of April.

Anglia Ruskin University

We are pleased to announce that we have recently signed an agreement with Anglia Ruskin University to provide a system that will link up the University's campus' and provide both its 28,000 students and 2,200 staff with a single sign-on and identity across the many faculties, departments and services on offer.

The new system will replace the current manual provisioning. It will pull together the data held in each department and service around the University and enable staff and students to access it with one single log on – remotely if required. It will also enable students to easily change courses and allow them to access, without delay, the resources they need without having to update many different systems.

What impressed Anglia Ruskin was our innate understanding of the needs of the University. Implementation will begin in March with a first phase roll out in September.

Shibboleth

We are currently working with a number of academic establishments across the UK to help them develop architectures, policy structures and design practical solutions that will enable them to support inter-institutional sharing of Web resources subject to access controls.

If you would like to know how we can help you implement Shibboleth, please contact the sales team.

Staff update

We have recently completed another round of recruitment and the sales team now consists of 10 people — 8 external and 2 internal staff. All of which are keeping the rest of the organisation very busy uncovering new opportunities every day!

Marketing

Putting a face to identity

Salford Software recently held a photographic and short film competition in conjunction with Bradford College - the theme being Identity. We were delighted with the quality and number of entries we received. Much hard work has obviously been dedicated to the projects, as they showed thought and diversity, with the students expressing their own interpretation of Identity.

Judging took place on March 15. We were delighted to have Guardian Photographers Don McPhee and Denis Thorpe on the panel of judges. We were also grateful to be joined by Perry Austin-Clarke from the Bradford Target Series. The winners were Dave Cropper and Roxanne Wilson-Moore with Richard Taylorson. The presentation will take place on 25th April at the Yorkshire Craft Centre.

Conference update

We recently exhibited at the JISC conference at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham. Salford Software was promoting the benefits of Identity Management and free Shibboleth workshops. If you were not able to attend the event but would like further details please contact us.

In addition, we held a prize draw to win a satellite navigation system. The winner was Martin Horder from The University of Birmingham. We will be repeating this competition at the UCISA Management conference at the end of March, so make sure you visit our stand.

We are a Platinum Sponsor at the UCISA conference (28 – 30 March) and will be delivering presentations on Thursday 29. So, to make sure you don't miss out on the chance to win a satellite navigation system, visit our stand, number 16, in the exhibition hall. We look forward to seeing you!