We’re excited to be participating at ICE 2016 for another year! Come meet us at our stand, N6-330 if you’re visiting between the 2nd and 4th of February - get in touch to set up a meeting with one of our staff members present at the event:
This is a very common question for us here at BMIT. Many an overworked business owner or IT administrator require this kind of ease and functionality. The good news is that a single control panel to manage al your public cloud services is available.
A single control panel that controls all your IT resources through the public cloud has tonnes of associated benefits. A dedicated server is only as good as the software used to manage it. The control panel simplifies all the day-to-day management of your dedicated server, automates a number of hosting related server administration functions and allows administrators to easily set up new servers, web sites, e-mail accounts, and more.
Additionally, using the control panel, administrators can purchase different cloud services and roll them out with no hassle to anyone at all!
Here at BMIT we make sure that relationship with our customers goes way beyond a buyer-seller relationship. A case in point is our rock-solid relationship with Interwetten, one of the most established online gaming firms on the market with 22 years of history at its back.
As an online gaming firm, the Interwetten site is the online face of the business so 24/7 availability is absolutely mission critical. The large spikes in web traffic associated with sporting events require that a strong, trusted partner with know-how and technical infrastructure be brought into the picture.
Having worked hand in hand with key personnel from Interwetten, the project has not only been completed with success, but maintained for months with no incidents or issues. Says Dr Birgit Bosch, COO at Interwetten; “We expected state-of the art technology, professionalism, excellent service and the shorwww possible response times for trouble-shooting on a 24x7 basis because this is how we work! Thankfully, we found all this at BMIT. Moreover, they faced each of the challenges we presented them with great enthusiasm and professionalism which is a credit to BMIT and the individual team members.”
Being praised by clients is pleasant enough, but receiving accolades from giants of the business is another thing entirely. The whole team here at BMIT is extremely proud at having joined the rarefied ranks of HP silver certified partners, signifying our incessant commitment to quality and customer service, as recognised by HP themselves. HP partnership not only confers certain brand credibility; it also means that clients stand to benefit from high-quality planning, deployment, maintenance and support, all backed by HP’s world-class products and solutions.
This article originally appeared on the March 16, 2014 edition of The Sunday Times of Malta - TECH SUNDAY.
Given the huge importance of data, proper data management is the cornerstone of any modern business, but not every organisation possesses the resources to develop an in-house IT solution that caters to their business needs.
Outsourcing part or all of your IT operations to a managed data centre that understands your business goals is imperative. The most common concern surrounding outsourcing is that business continuity will be lost when handing over your operations to an external provider.
This is not the case when entrusting your IT needs to a professional data centre that works hand-in-hand with your organisation to create a customised data solution. Ensuring that the company you entrust with your data understands the aims of your business is key to maintain continuity and make the outsourcing process as seamless as possible.
A managed data centre service lets you benefit from dedicated equipment and a team of experts, who will support you in all your data needs. You can outsource practically all aspects of your business’ IT requirements, from the infrastructure required to host your data to the actual day-to-day management of your outsourced solution.
The advantages of entrusting your data to a managed service is that information will be housed in a secure facility with a team of IT professionals available round-the-clock to provide you with any technical advice you need. The team will work to avoid unwanted downtime and help your system get back on track should disaster strike.
All IT outsourcing and managed services can be tailored to your business’ requirements, and both offsite and onsite support is provided whenever you need it. BMIT, as Malta’s leading data centre with the largest facility on the island, offers clients personalised and focused attention to suit their specific business needs.
The ICE Totally Gaming three day event took place between February 4th, 2014 and February 6th, 2014 at the ExCeL London in the UK.
ICE Totally Gaming is the largest, most comprehensive and international B2B gaming exhibition in the world. No other gaming exhibition on the planet comes anywhere near to covering the 8 sectors that make up ICE Totally Gaming. The breadth of the services and products on offer guarantees that, if it’s in gaming, it's at ICE.
BMIT was part of the 23,891 gaming industry professionals, setting a new record for attendance at ICE in 2014. BMIT has been attending this large scale event for years. It is an opportunity to showcase Malta and BMIT as a provider for a full range services for the gaming industry.
Existing clients and new clients had the opportunity to meet with BMIT and discuss how it can assist as one of the considered leading independent data centres in Europe for online gaming. BMIT has two data centres and offers a wide range of services, including co-location, cloud services and managed services.
Kate Chambers, Portfolio Director responsible for organising the world's largest business-to business gaming event, described ICE 2014 as 'the most dynamic celebration of international gaming imaginable.'
Colocation or managed hosting services? The answer to that question depends largely on the kind of enterprise you operate as well as the resources you currently manage. Colocation gives you the opportunity to “move out” your physical IT assets to a more appropriate location, thus doing away with the ongoing expense of hosting of equipment within your premises as well as the related cost of upkeep and maintenance. Meanwhile, managed hosting extend the advantages even further by providing you with off-site data and systems management.
Both colocation and managed hosting services offer off-site solutions for your data needs with all the advantages that this involves. These advantages include the ability to handle multiple traffic sources through shared connectivity resources, the ability to buy bandwidth as and when required (and scale up when demand peaks), and cutting down costs on in-house data storage and management solutions.
Colocation Hosting Services
Colocation is a an ideal choice for existing companies that have already invested in their own IT infrastructure and staff but face limitations on housing the facilities within their own premises.
Colocation lets you lease space in an off-site data centre where you can install your IT assets and therefore avoid the expenses related to expanding your physical facilities to accommodate an in-house data centre. Having your data on a colocation hosting services provides you with a better bandwidth capacity, power and network redundancy. Colocation hosting services also offer better opportunities for scalability of your business.
Colocation only caters for the physical storing of your data. The upkeep of servers and data management has to be performed by your own personnel since the solutions provider does not manage the system. The provider gives you the necessary space to host your data centre and guarantees the security of the facility so that your data and connectivity are not compromised. Of course, reputable companies will gladly add on a bespoke section of service in which data centre managed services are also used in order to take system management completely out of your hands. In addition, colocation usually includes redundant power connectivity thus keeping the servers in operation without interruption, so that your data is always available to your business, connected to the internet or both, according the requirements at hand.
Managed Hosting Services
Companies looking for more cost-effective solutions, including startups without the necessary capital to invest in the resources mentioned above should consider managed hosting services. However, managed hosting services are not the exclusive domains of startups and smaller companies; larger enterprises seeking growth without placing a substantial initial investment in equipment and personnel would also do well to consider managed hosting services as they guarantee that systems are run and maintained professionally at a much lower price tag than traditionally expected.
A managed hosting service allows the client to lease a server housed in an off-site data centre that is administered by the outsourced solutions provider. This frees the client from the necessity of hiring expensive personnel and all the complications and expenses that go along with hiring an expert contingent. As a small or developing business you will be able to focus more on other areas necessary for company growth, as well as channeling more human resources in these areas.
Managed hosting extends the benefits of colocation by catering for the physical needs of data centre as well as taking over the responsibilities of administering the system and more often, software.
Managed hosting services are better suited for new and rapidly growing businesses that want to ensure their data centres can fulfill the rising expectations of their companies. Outsourcing your data centre entirely can prevent problems that could arise in the case of a rapidly growing enterprise with limited space and restricted capital to acquire the technical resources that can cope with the increase in power and cooling necessities of a flourishing data centre.
Cloud computing has changed the way IT services are managed by offering several ways to drastically reduce costs and increase business agility. Trusting your business’ precious data on a public cloud, however, is not always the best option from a data security perspective and a number of private cloud systems leave you out in the cold in terms of cost-effectiveness. Hybrid cloud solutions are the silver lining that can give you the best of both worlds.
While public cloud solutions let you benefit from low costs and easy scalability, you can potentially have limited customisation choices since the system uses a fixed architecture that you cannot always modify to suit your own specific needs. As your company grows and expands, you cannot always benefit from a personalized cloud solution that fits your company requirements. In the long-term, your company might need to fork out more money to ensure that adequate and effective policies are in place.
Private clouds services, on the other hand, offer you more control on your data, but the advanced security options that a private cloud enables come at a higher cost. Installing private cloud systems requires you to invest more money on expensive software and infrastructure.
What if you could harness all the benefits of the public cloud whilst having the possibility to personalise your cloud experience just like a private cloud does?
Hybrid Clouds Give You Security and Flexibility
Hybrid clouds provide the security and customisability of an in-house solution with the scalability and affordability of external systems. Hybrid clouds consist of a combination of private and public cloud services. This puts you in a better position to manage your company’s data as well as taking advantage of superior agility and lower management costs.
A hybrid cloud solution accommodates for a spike in usage without letting you miss a beat. Applications and databases are typically run on the private side of the cloud with front end servers, accessible to the end users on the public cloud. Depending on the way your setup is configured, if your demand for computing capacity increases then the application can also 'burst' into the public cloud, providing business continuity and a degree of redundancy. With hybrid cloud architecture your system is more fault tolerant since you benefit from the immediate local usability of the private side that caters for any problems in public connectivity.
BMIT understands your need to have the best cloud solutions for your enterprise. We can help you by taking you beyond the traditional cloud systems and provide you with hybrid solutions that feature the best of both private and public cloud systems, tailor made by our world class engineers to fit your exacting requirements. Our goal is to provide you with a superior customisable and personalised system for your cloud computing needs.
On Wednesday the 26th of June 2013 a group of like-minded people met up at 8.45 sharp at the Microsoft Innovation Centre, for tea and an insight into BMIT’s latest developments. Nick Tonna, Chief Commercial Officer at BMIT took centre stage to kick-start the event.
Nick Tonna - The cloud comes Local …
BMIT, the leading provider of data centre and cloud services in Malta, has, over the years, built a portfolio of customers who trust it with their data and data setups as part of their operations. “Putting data in the hands of a service provider can be a leap of faith for some customers. With 80% of our staff focused purely on customer service, this is an area we take very seriously” – Nick Tonna.
Today BMIT also offers a range of cloud services home to the local market. This allows customers to take advantage of features and services that would otherwise cost a fortune, take up a huge amount of space and require a team of people to maintain.
BMIT offers a full-cycle service which facilitates the take-up of such cloud products. It’s team sizes-up the ideal solution based on the customer’s circumstances and if needed, it partners up with other companies to provide bespoke solutions. Through the selection of BMIT, the customer is making a safe investment, reducing the IT management needed to run an organisation without compromising on security, speed or agility.
Introducing iMovo’s Microsoft Dynamics CRM …
Pierre Mallia, iMovo
Pierre Mallia and Daniela Castillo took centre stage next to introduce iMovo’s customer relationship manager software suite (CRM). The CRM is built to enhance the quality of your day-to-day jobs. Put more simply:
People + Process + Technology = Customer Relationship Management
This CRM is integrated with the cloud and helps you manage your customers. It can help streamline customer acquisition, relationships, loyalty, value and reflection. The user-friendly system is completely configurable and is designed to accommodate and integrate with other services, systems and software seamlessly.
“Ultimately CRM is not about managing customers but managing relationships” – Pierre Mallia.
iMovo delved deeper by demonstrating some key software features of some add-ons that can be integrated to the CRM, such as Click Dimensions.
Daniela Castillo, iMovo
Imagine all email-marketing, web tracking, social media and event calendars located all in one place - presented with much more information than you would find using traditional tools. ClickDimensions, is a powerful marketing automation solution intended to consolidate all your key tools in one simple dashboard. Add to this even more marketing functionality such as nurture-marketing, trending and conversions it becomes clear that the power of this tool is undeniable, and we haven’t even scratched the surface.
eCabs & The Cloud ...
For the final part of the morning Nick Tonna introduced the director of eCabs, Matthew Bezzina, one of Malta’s top taxi firms that has been established for just over 3 years and is now a household name. The eCabs system is based completely on the BMIT Cloud and iMovo’s CRM system. To be successful in what was already a very saturated market, eCabs had to embrace technology in order to be effective in the market.
Matthew Bezzina, eCabs
eCabs integrated its CRM system into existing technology that it already owned, such as its communication network. For example, the PABX and CRM are inter-linked such that when the phone rings, the team at eCabs would already know who the client is and have all customer details on screen allowing a personalised greeting and service.
In a similar way, as they utilise cloud and web based solutions, all this information can be brought up on any machine, tablet or smartphone with a connection removing all limitations and opening up access and information for any member of staff anytime, anywhere. This gives eCabs an advantage over its competitors and ensures that eCabs original goals remain at the centre of its mission: “to be completely customer focused.”
Nick closed the morning with a well-timed and well-structured statement: “Cloud services and cloud computing allow you to focus on what is really important – your business”.
Do you want to learn more about cloud based systems that can empower your business? Get in touch with us now.
Late in Q4 of 2012, BMIT organised a business breakfast at the Hilton Portomaso in collaboration with GO Business. The event included a panel discussion and centred upon one premise - an outlook onto the world of successful outsourcing.
While outsourcing is often perceived mainly as a cost cutting strategy, this is often a mistaken attitude to adopt. In fact, in today’s hugely interconnected world, outsourcing should be focused upon giving your company a competitive edge using the advantages which outsourcing brings about.
2013 may very well be a watershed year for outsourcing. Increasingly over the past few years, outsourcing has been recognised as a key tool in obtaining better knowledge management and enhancement as well as better cost planning.
Essentially, the central argument for outsourcing follows the logic of the automotive and energy industries. While we all use both cars and electricity, none of us build our own cars or power stations, and this with good reason;
the costs are prohibitive
the maintenance is economically unfeasible
and highly specialised areas such as cars and energy are best left to the specialists.
Additionally, by outsourcing, a company is allowing itself the capability to rapidly react to changes in the business without incurring huge delays or monetary losses.
The panel featured Alan Alden (Kyte Consultants), Dr Tonio Fenech (FFF Legal), Markus Golder (GO plc), Ivan Refalo (Playmobil) and Christian Sammut (BMIT) and their discussion during the breakfast meeting was animated and included various moments of brilliant insight.
In the end, seven key take-aways with regards to outsourcing were identified, including:
having clear goals set
ensuring a ‘dream team’ is in place
careful timing
considerations to scalability
finding the right partner for the job at hand
a singular vision
and the importance of clearly internal communication.
All the opinions and especially these 7 key insights which were shared during the panel discussion were later expanded into a document which is freely available from BMIT’s website. Get a FREE copy now.
