Platinum achieve WatchGuard Gold Partner status

We are very pleased to announce that Platinum has achieved WatchGuard Gold Partner status within the WatchGuardOne Partner program.  This status reflects our long standing relationship with WatchGuard and our commitment to its award winning security products.  The award has been achieved through a program of Sales & Technical training that ensures Platinum has the knowledge and experience to successfully sell, deploy & manage WatchGuard products.  Joint Managing Director, Steve Jackman, said "Platinum has been selling managed internet security solutions based around WatchGuard products for many years now but the new status immediately lets our existing and prospective new customers know that we have been recognised by WatchGuard as having the necessary skills and experience to deploy and manage their products. The commitment shown by all the appropriate personnel within Platinum to help achieve this status has been second to none and I am delighted we have achieved this status."

   Platinum offer the entire range of award winning WatchGuard products to suit businesses of all types and sizes.  We can deploy and manage the entire solution and also offer a full range of reporting options using WatchGuard's to enable IT departments and Management to have visibility of traffic through the device(s).  For more information please visit our website www.platinum-connect.com or call us on 01234 832520

Cambria sign off MPLS upgrade

Cambria Automobiles plc has signed off an order to upgrade their existing Platinum MPLS WAN and has renewed for another 3 years.  Comprising of around 30 locations, the WAN provides connectivity for all their dealerships to each other plus central application and internet services via a Datacentre in London.

Cambria has a mixture of fibre EAD and copper EFM circuits already installed and will now take advantage of new Ethernet over Fibre to the Cabinet (EoFTTC) circuits into some locations.  Various locations will enjoy bandwidth upgrades to cater for the ever increasing demands placed on the network by cloud based applications. The network is fully managed 24x7 from Platinum's NOC providing pro-active incident management, customer visibility of the network status in real time via our portal and a full suite of reports.  Having been delighted with the performance and reliability of the network over the past 30 months, Cambria had no hesitation in committing to a further 3 years with Platinum.

For more information about Cambria Automobiles please click here.

Rybrook Holdings transforms print service and saves £100,000 year-on-year

Rybrook Holdings, setup and still owned by the Whale family, is a franchise business operating world-leading luxury car dealerships, including Land Rover, BMW, Jaguar, Porsche and Rolls Royce.  The Whale family also own Princess Motor Yacht Sales, the worlds largest and most established luxury yacht business.

Rybrook aims to deliver good quality services to its franchisees, but with just two engineers, Group IT Manager, Neil Prince, was struggling to support print facilities effectively.  Neil went to the board and proposed a managed print solution that would enable the business to get better support, better value for money and, importantly, better service for customers.

Rybrook has deployed a Platinum Managed Print Service (MPS), using around 30 Ricoh Multifunction Products (MFPs) and Ricoh @Remote software, for around 100 users across 24 different locations.  The Ricoh MFPs are used for printing, copying, scanning and faxing.

Rybrook has replaced most of its old print equipment with the new Ricoh MFPs.  The remaining old devices will be replaced on a rolling programme as devices reach end of life or end of contract.

Rybrook estimates that once it has replaced all its old print devices, the Ricoh and Platinum solution will save around £100,000 year-on-year.  This is because Rybrook has been able to reduce its print estate by around 25%, is able to buy and manage consumables more effectively, and can deliver a more efficient service.

Neil Prince says "Every customer that comes into our business and has a service from us - be that buying a part, a service or a car - ends up with a printed document.  That document represents the quality of the business, so we can't afford to have something that's poorly printed because it's an impression that goes away and lasts with the customer.  With Platinum and Ricoh, Rybrook now has a print service that's efficient, cost effective and reflects our high quality brand."

Read the full case study here.

Find out more about a Platinum MPS by visiting our MPS/MDS section on our website.

Jemca signs off MPLS WAN upgrade

Based in London and the South-East, the core business of Jemca Car Group is the sales & servicing of Lexus & Toyota vehicles.  The company operates from 12 locations and employs over 500 people. The company has had an MPLS wide area network from Platinum for the last 3 years, which has allowed them to implement several new IT and telephony initiatives which were not possible previously due to a lack of bandwidth.

With the introduction of faster and more cost effective data telecommunication technologies over the past 18 months, Jemca has decided to upgrade the existing network and introduce a new managed firewall service.  This will allow Jemca to simplify their current infrastructure, thus reducing their administrative overhead, save costs by reducing the number of dedicated data links they have to Toyota GB and ceasing other circuits used for services such as CCTV monitoring and customer WiFi.  The new network will provide more than enough bandwidth and resilience to allow all the services to run across one network and leave spare capacity for the future.

Most locations will use fibre EAD (Ethernet Access Direct) circuits as their primary link, with either an EoFTTC (Ethernet over Fibre to the Cabinet) or EFM (Ethernet in the First Mile) circuit as backup.  Smaller locations will have either EoFTTC ot EFM circuit.  Internet access will be provided through a resilient Managed Firewall solution, built around WatchGuard security appliances, that will break out to the internet via one of state of the art Datacentres.

Our MPLS IPVPN solutions are built on the NGN provided by TalkTalk Business, the largest of its kind in the UK and still expanding. Platinum have been delivering and managing IPVPN networks for many years and by choosing Platinum, you are assured of a solution delivered on a robust Tier1 infrastructure, but managed by a dynamic, agile company, able to respond with speed and flexibility to keep your network in optimum shape.