Control your costs, without compromising performance
Most businesses are experiencing reduced profits and tighter margins, brought on by tough economic conditions. As cash flow inevitably tightens, IT budgets are being cut back, however; if overstretched or underperforming IT systems negatively impact customer service levels, client relationships can be severely compromised.
Intercept specialises in flexible IT solutions for all businesses. Our expertise and experience means we can help you balance the need for cost reduction, whilst maintaining service standards you can be proud of. Our premier hosted solution, onlinedesktop™, is an Enterprise class IT service capable of delivering all of your software applications and data from our hosted platform. We manage the underlying technology, while you have the assurance that applications such as email, line of business and accounting software, will always be available.
And to help reduce both IT management and acquisition costs, all Intercept’s online services use a simple monthly or per user pricing model, so you only ever pay for the services you need.
What exactly is IT?
onlinedesktop™ is a hosted, fully managed, Enterprise class IT solution. More recently referred to as Cloud Computing, this service delivers software applications and data via our own infrastructure platform, which is housed in powerful, purpose-built data centres. So rather than each business having to manage a costly internal IT system, it becomes possible to rent IT as a service, on a cost-per-user, per-month, subscription basis.
onlinedesktop™ allows businesses to simply pay for the number of users and the tailored solution they require. Access to our flexible Cloud platform is then made available via any Internet or private network connection, providing a secure, fully managed IT service capable of delivering whatever software applications, email and associated data businesses require.
onlinedesktop™ has been designed to cater for businesses of all sizes and has therefore been made available in two versions. onlinedesktop™ Lite is our entry level solution and is aimed at businesses with basic IT requirements and the need for a standard set of applications. By contrast, onlinedesktop™ Enterprise provides a completely bespoke service which is powerful and flexible enough to meet the application needs and challenges of even the most demanding organisations.
How does IT work?
Software applications and associated business data are made available on our high availability servers, which are located in state-of-the-art, multi million pound data centre facilities. These buildings are purpose-built for the hosting of IT equipment, providing unparalleled security, resilience and safe storage of all our clients data.
Software applications, email, files and documents are accessed by users via a communications link to our data centres. This link can be a private circuit from your office, a secure site to site VPN, or even general access from the Internet. This means that onlinedesktop™ can be used from almost anywhere that businesses and staff can get online.
onlinedesktop™ users can either login via our secure web site, or if there is a private communications link by clicking a pre-configured icon on their PC or laptop. By simply entering their user credentials they are presented with a virtual desktop, running in our data centre, that contains all of the software applications that they are authorised to use.
After login, the only communications which pass between the users PC/device and our servers are mouse clicks, keyboard strokes and screen refreshes, as our servers and not the end user device are carrying out all the data processing. The data size associated with each of these actions is incredibly small and therefore the solution operates extremely quickly, even over basic home Internet links. And as no data ever leaves our data centres, onlinedesktop™ is extremely secure. However, just to be absolutely sure, all information transmitted is also encrypted to 128-bit (the same level used for all online banking) to ensure client data is never compromised.
Why do businesses use IT?
A fully managed service, onlinedesktop™ allows businesses to completely focus on their core activities, without the distraction of running IT. In short, why employ an IT team, when a solution developed and maintained by experts is instantly available?
- Anytime, anywhere access – One of the major features of onlinedesktop™ is its flexibility. As there is secure Internet access to the system from almost any browser-enabled device, users can work from any suitable location, at anytime. This provides our clients with a wealth of options for home-working, ‘hot-desking’ and other flexible working environments, all proven to increase productivity and ultimately, the efficiency of the business.
- Linear Pricing – onlinedesktop™ allows all businesses to benefit from an Enterprise class IT solution, but without the usual spikes in capital expenditure. Our linear cost model means that charges for additional users are simply incorporated into the subsequent monthly costs. Conversely, if there is a need to reduce staff numbers monthly costs are actually reduced.
- Built-in Business Continuity – With onlinedesktop™ as all IT equipment and business data is stored off-site in our purpose built facilities, disasters at office premises such as fires, floods, or power losses no longer impact the business with the same levels of severity. And if staff are unable to physically get to the office, they can still continue to work from alternate locations as business data and applications continue to be fully accessible.
- System Updates - Most companies typically ‘refresh’ their IT systems once every three years and as a result, operate with extremely outdated solutions. By contrast, the design of onlinedesktop™ allows us to ‘upgrade once’ then ‘deploy to all’. This means that not only is the system always running the latest versions of operating systems and other software used to maintain the service, but security patches, hot fixes and service packs are also being continually applied.
- Software License Compliance – Illegally run software can cost organisations, even small ones, substantial sums in fines and litigation. onlinedesktop™ can include all Microsoft licensing as part of its monthly subscriptions, and in addition with onlinedesktop™ Enterprise we can also manage licensing for any bespoke applications. Our clients therefore no longer have to concern themselves with legal compliance for their software needs. We can even provide regular reports should this be required.
- Service Levels - We are often asked; “What happens if things do go wrong?” Unlike most other service-providers, our Service Level Agreement (SLA) provides compensation to customers if our onlinedesktop™ platform is ever unavailable for more than 15 consecutive minutes. The longer the ‘down time’ experienced, the larger the penalty, which means we remain very focused on maintaining extremely high levels of availability and service.
- Predictable Running Costs – Most businesses are happy to lease premises, vehicles and furniture for operations, so why not do the same with IT? onlinedesktop™ provides predictable monthly charges and enables budgeting to be allocated from operational expenditure. This means that the cost of IT is far easier to budget for and capital expenditure can be utilised in other important areas of the business.
Is IT reliable?
To ensure onlinedesktop™ delivers optimum levels of performance and reliability, we have gone to great lengths to build redundancy into the service. Firstly, our core solution design provides high availability, replication and failover of all primary equipment to ensure that any hardware failures do not unduly affect the performance or availability of the system. If we experience problems with any particular piece of hardware, users can still continue working even whilst we replace any failed components or servers.
To protect against data loss, we use a multi-tiered approach whereby data is stored on both hard disks and on traditional backup tapes. We carry out regular point-in-time ‘snap-shots’ of data throughout the day, which is stored on our Storage Area Network (SAN). We then replicate between our primary and secondary data centres so that we have an off-site copy of all customer data. Finally, we use a traditional tape based backup procedure to secure all data on a daily basis using an industry standard rotation system and unlike many organisations, restore procedures are regularly tested to make sure that we can recover data in the event of a problem.
The security of business data is obviously of paramount importance and accordingly, extensive measures are taken to protect the integrity of
onlinedesktop™ systems and all customer data. Security is maintained in three distinct areas;
- Physical Security – The physical hardware and software used to deliver onlinedesktop™ is located in two multi-million pound, purpose-built data centres. These facilities provide unparalleled security, protection and redundancy for all IT equipment. Protection starts with security measures to guard against unauthorised access to the buildings, right through to the safeguarding of equipment against fire, flood, power outages and other physical threats. There are specialised measures and systems in place to cater for almost every conceivable eventuality.
- System Security – onlinedesktop™ has been designed with data security and integrity constantly in mind, with load balanced Firewalls, multiple layers of Anti-Virus (five levels of scanning in total), right through to intrusion detection and prevention systems. We have put measures in place to deal with literally every known threat. Our content filtering systems also apply separate scans to all inbound and outbound email to search for unusual ‘signatures’ blocking both SPAM (junk email) and possible viruses. It is therefore no surprise that onlinedesktop™ has an impeccable record of stopping viruses from compromising client data.
- Access Security – Whilst the onlinedesktop™ platform itself is fully protected, a common risk to corporate data is actually from ‘soft’ threats, such as social engineering calls to gain information about users. We have taken numerous steps to prevent this from happening. Similar to banking systems, if a user requires assistance, we ask for random characters from the information we hold relating to a security question and the appropriate answer, before providing assistance.
Pricing and Feature matrix
onlinedesktop™ is available in two editions, Lite and Enterprise. The features of each version are detailed below.
All prices quoted are exclusive of VAT.
* Additional charges may apply.
** Registration of a new domain name will incur a charge.