Manchester financial services group invests in ANS’ Infrastructure 3.0, FlexPod data centre design.

ANS Group have completed a contract with financial services group WH Ireland to build a completely new infrastructure that will replace the firm’s existing distributed systems, and deliver cost savings and improved performance, preparing them for future IT projects.

WH Ireland will establish two data centres which will provide co-ordinated and resilient IT services to their offices across the UK.  ANS Group was engaged to implement their award-winning Infrastructure 3.0 data centre design at both locations.

The new infrastructure consists of Cisco UCS Blades, NetApp storage, full VMware virtualisation and Cisco Nexus switches. The design is identical at both data centres and delivers several key benefits for WH Ireland. The combined benefits of consolidated storage from NetApp’s de-duplication and thin provisioning with VMware’s virtualisation technology will reduce the physical server count from 50 distributed across the country, to 3 at each site. This will save WH Ireland money in a number of ways: a reduction in cabling, power and cooling required for the data centre, a reduction in maintenance needs and therefore costs, a reduction in management time required to maintain this part of the network and a reduction in future capital expenditure.

The power and unified flexibility of the Cisco Nexus switches allow WH Ireland to plan for future IT deployments that would have been beyond the capabilities of the current network. One in particular is the currently proof-of-concept, and if successful planned implementation of Virtual Desktop (VDI) technology which will be a unique deployment in a demanding environment as traders are often using 2 or 3 screens while working.

Disaster recovery capabilities have been revolutionised. In the past, a critical incident would have left WH Ireland with significant work to recover critical systems from tape. Now with the efficiency of NetApp SnapManager and VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) the systems can be fully restored in a fraction of the time, saving significant work and limited availability of the systems in the meantime.

WH Ireland will also benefit from the general improvements made to their systems by running a next-generation FlexPod design: a faster network offering improved service for their end-users, reduced points of management for the IT team leading to fewer routine daily tasks, increased scalability and security of the network.

Paul Sweeney, MD of ANS Group, said “This is an excellent deployment that will help WH Ireland to continue to remain at the top of their game. Once again we are seeing Infrastructure 3.0 save money for one of our customers and improve their levels of IT performance and service delivery to both their business, and their clients. It is great to see that WH Ireland will have a secure and stable platform upon which to build for their future IT needs.”

David Halstead, IT Director at WH Ireland, said, “We are very excited about this new infrastructure and the difference it is going to make to our capabilities. The financial savings are well documented, but more importantly the improvements in disaster recovery and the platform that we have been given to build our future IT provision, will have a real, positive impact of the firm’s performance in the future. ANS have shown that they understand our requirements and have built an excellent solution for us.”

Each data centre site runs 3 Cisco UCS blades, 1 NetApp FAS3240 cluster with SnapManager and block level de-duplication, VMware Enterprise with SRM, and Cisco Nexus 5000 switches.

ANS Group is a FlexPod and data centre specialist based in Manchester and London. Their Infrastructure 3.0 solution combines Cisco, NetApp and VMware technology to deliver business benefits and cost savings to customers such as W H Ireland, Salisbury NHS, Milton Keynes NHS and UHSM. They are currently the Cisco Data Centre & Virtualisation Partner of the Year, the NetApp Partner of the Year and the VMware Global Business Continuity Partner of the Year.

W H Ireland provides a range of stock broking, wealth and investment management, and corporate finance to individuals, their families and companies. They are one of the few remaining UK firms of their size to offer this full suite of services. They can trace their roots back to 1872 as Manchester stockbrokers and are proud of their heritage. They have since grown in size and stature and have offices in the leading financial centres across the UK.

Data centre expert ANS Group was named NetApp FlexPod Partner of the Year last night at the NetApp partner awards.

ANS was the NetApp Partner of the Year last year and has followed up this success by winning the inaugural FlexPod award. The triumph demonstrates ANS’ expertise in the FlexPod arena, the company has installed over 50% of all FlexPod solutions in the UK with customers including The London Borough of Tower Hamlets, The DeVere Group, Salisbury NHS and WH Ireland.

Paul Sweeney, MD of ANS Group, said, “Our FlexPod expertise is beyond question, we have delivered over 4,000 days of FlexPod consultancy and our knowledge and experience with this complex, multi-tenancy technology is beyond compare. We are finding that we can deliver more value to our customers by allowing them to leave the management of their infrastructure to us and concentrate on improving their business processes. NetApp’s acknowledgement of our success in this area is much appreciated and we look forward to building our relationship to new heights.”

ANS Group is delighted to announce that it is the first NetApp to partner in the UK to have achieved all of the accreditations required for the soon to be launched NetApp data centre FlexPod specialisation badge.

Scott Fletcher, the Chairman of ANS Group, said, “We are leading the way in innovating operational efficiency for our customers. ANS has long been implementing the benefits of the FlexPod virtual architecture, deploying over 40 individual private cloud solutions since its launch.  We are responsible for over 50% of the FlexPod deployments in the UK and have generated over £40m of FlexPod revenue since we began to sell the solutions over two years ago. We have delivered 4,000 days of FlexPod consultancy in this time and recently sold the first FlexPod ES solution in the UK to OPP. To be accredited for the FlexPod specialisation badge simply underlines our unparalleled expertise in this technology.”

Paul Sweeney, MD at ANS Group, said, “FlexPod has served us very well over the years and, as the market moves forward, we are seeing a lot of demand from our customers for our Infrastructure as a Service offerings based on this technology. We have an exciting pipeline built up and are excited about how this is going to help us to continue our fantastic growth.”

ANS Group is the NetApp Partner of the Year, became the first Cisco partner in EMEA to be awarded full Cloud Builder status in July 2011 and has installed FlexPod data centres for customers including Milton Keynes PCT, The Guinness Partnership, Salisbury NHS, WH Ireland and Tameside NHS.

ANS Group has been placed 38th in the Investec Hot 100 that was published today by Real Business. The Hot 100 profiles and ranks the fastest growing mid-sized companies in the UK with data compiled from accounts filed at Companies House. ANS is one of only 16 IT companies in the Hot 100 and has experienced rapid growth due to the success of their data centre Flexpod architecture, Infrastructure 3.0, and their managed services solutions.

ANS have recently announced large Flexpod contracts with UHSM, Salisbury NHS and Milton Keynes PCT, and expects turnover to be in excess of £40m for 2012, a 50% increase from 2011.

Paul Sweeney, MD at ANS Group, said, “We are delighted that our growth has been recognised by our inclusion in the Hot 100. As this position comes solely from raw data it is a real honour to know that we are amongst the fastest growing companies in the UK. We have worked hard to get ourselves to a position where, even in very difficult economic conditions, we can still provide value for our customers and therefore continue to bring in big deals.”

Ed Cottrell, Investec said, “The Investec Hot 100 reveals the gradual emergence of a new generation of world-class UK businesses that with proprietary technology and an appetite for international markets, will be the global players of the future.”

Matthew Rock, founder-editor of Real Business, said: "Real Business has published the Hot 100 for the past 15 years, and the 2012 report is one of the most revealing insights ever into the high performance mid-sized companies that are so critical to Britain's economic prosperity. The big lesson from this year's research is that, even in a tough climate, Hot 100 companies stay relevant. They adapt to the dramatic social, demographic and technology changes that are reshaping our world. As one market declines, they possess the high-energy leadership and finely tuned antennae to shift decisively into new growth areas."

ANS Group Plc was named the Manchester Business of the Year at the City of Manchester Business Awards that took place at Manchester Cathedral last night.  Despite tough competition from Applied Language Solutions, Bruntwood and Klarius, ANS’ tremendous performance over the past twelve months obviously impressed the voters as they left with the trophy.

 

With a large expansion seeing the number of staff rise from 80 to 140, ANS have seen sales of their innovative FlexPod data centre design, Infrastructure 3.0, increasing in both volume and value as customers in the private sector, the NHS, and regional and central Government implement the combination of Cisco, NetApp and VMware technology to save money and improve performance. The company has also launched a strong managed services portfolio, offering infrastructure-as-a-service in an outsourced cloud environment.

 

Scott Fletcher, the Chairman and founder of ANS Group, said, “This is a terrific award for us, one that tops off our year nicely. We have our year end in March and these last twelve months have seen us breaking records and progressing at quite a speed. What we are most proud of is that we have managed to retain our unique culture through this period of expansion, at ANS we genuinely all love coming to work in the morning and although this sounds like a cliché, it is one big family. Every single member of staff can be proud of their contribution to our success. Thanks guys.”

Data centre and managed services expert ANS Group has agreed a contract to implement the award-winning Infrastructure 3.0 data centre architecture for business psychology and online personality assessment expert OPP. ANS will install NetApp storage, Cisco Nexus switches and Cisco UCS C Series servers to add to the current VMware virtualisation technology to create a full FlexPod data centre.

OPP currently runs two data centres and intends to reduce costs and improve performance by bringing their IT network into a single data centre that will be running the latest technologies from NetApp, Cisco and VMware. By adding NetApp storage to their current virtualisation platform OPP will realise significant savings in both the amount of physical servers required for storage, and the power and cooling costs needed to run these servers. The unique benefits of deduplication and thin provisioning will further reduce the storage requirements and increase the savings made.

The Cisco Nexus switches will make the network much more powerful, increasing the operational speed for the end user, and their scalability will also allow OPP to quickly and easily expand the current infrastructure as required. The servers provide a much greater memory footprint and this allows a higher VM consolidation ratio, which will lead to more cost savings.

These servers will also be connected to the network using "unified I/O," adapters so that both Fibre Channel and Ethernet traffic can be shared over single 10 Gigabit link, reducing the need for multiple hardware platforms in the network.

OPP’s disaster recovery and business continuity processes will also become much more resilient, with NetApp’s SnapShot and VMware’s Site Recovery Manager technologies allowing them to fully restore the network in a matter of minutes should there be a serious failure. This was previously a laborious task that involved backing up from tape and would have taken days, if not weeks, of hard work to fully restore the network.

Steve Howells, Interim CTO at OPP, said, “OPP needs a new infrastructure to maintain our already high levels of reliability and customer service whilst also massively increasing our ability to perform Agile product development with increased speed to market. We have made a start with VMware virtualisation, but now that we will be adding the components needed to create a FlexPod data centre we should really start to experience the full range of benefits that are made possible by the Infrastructure 3.0 architecture. We’ll be saving money in the medium-term and improving both day-to-day performance and our disaster recovery capabilities in the short-term. ANS have proved that they understand our needs and have provided a solution that meets them perfectly.”

Paul Sweeney, MD at ANS Group, said, “We have done a lot of Infrastructure 3.0 deals in the public sector and it is great to see that it can also bring value into the private sector. The combination of cost savings and improvement in performance apply equally to both sectors. OPP do some very interesting and progressive work, and so it is fitting I suppose that they should install an interesting and progressive data centre architecture to allow them to continue to do so.”

ANS Group is the current VMware Global Business Continuity Partner of the Year, NetApp Partner of the Year and Cisco Data Centre & Virtualisation Partner of the Year. They currently work with over 700 customers in both the private and public sector.

Infrastructure 3.0 is ANS’ FlexPod data centre design that combines Cisco UCS, Cisco Nexus, NetApp and VMware technology to provide a ‘joined-up’ data centre that reduces costs and improves performance. ANS have installed over 30 Infrastructure 3.0 platforms, including £1m+ deals with Salisbury NHS, The Guinness Partnership, Milton Keynes PCT and UHSM.

OPP are experts in personality assessment and enable people and organisations throughout the world to increase their efficiency through the innovative application of psychological tools and techniques. They have two decades of experience providing consultancy services and training programmes, as well as assessment tools and resources, and they have worked with thousands of businesses, including the majority of the FTSE 100.

Data centre and managed services specialist ANS Group is proud to announce that we have been awarded the Cisco Channel Customer Satisfaction Excellence star. This is awarded to ANS for having achieved outstanding customer satisfaction as measured by an independent Cisco worldwide assessment process, which is based upon the customer satisfaction results captured by the Cisco Partner Access online tool. ANS’ feedback rose to 4.55 out of 5 in this most recent assessment period.

Paul Sweeney, MD at ANS Group, said “We run our business on the understanding that we will provide a quality service to all customers from the moment that they engage with ANS Group. This recognition from our customers, via Cisco, shows that we are doing this right and accounts for the tremendous success that we’ve experienced in the past few years.”

ANS Group, the data centre and managed services expert, has released strong half-year financial figures that show a 100% growth in turnover and a 90% growth in gross profit. The company, that specialises in providing IT business solutions for over 600 customers in both the public and private sector, has seen turnover grow from £8,981,003 at half-year 2010 to £17,990,338 at half-year 2011. Gross profit has grown from £2,310,995 to £4,389,716 in the same period, with net operating profit rising by 62% from £688,274 to £1,117,173.

ANS Group founder and chairman, Scott Fletcher, commented on the results, “We are delighted to see yet more growth at ANS Group. Since making an investment in both staff and infrastructure in 2009 we have seen consistent double-digit growth as the company has gone from strength to strength. These figures really underline all of the fantastic progress that we have made, we believe that we are now the UK expert in data centre provision and the deals that we have been securing with large organisations seem to confirm that. We are growing quickly in order to maintain this level of performance and, in these times of austerity, it makes us very proud to be a success story with all of the benefits to the wider economy that this brings.”

Operating costs at the company have risen by 102% from £1,622,722 to £3,272,543, Paul Sweeney, MD at ANS Group, said, “With the front-end growth comes a requirement to bring in more members of staff to administer and install the solutions that we are selling. ANS have always operated with a high-level of expertise across our technical staff and our recruitment policy over the past twelve months has not deviated from that fundamental principle. We are selling large, complex, multi-technology infrastructures and have seen many large deals come in over the past twelve months, including three recent contracts that will be worth almost £10m over the next five years. Records are falling almost as quickly as they are being set at the moment and it is a very exciting, vibrant place to be.”

Cash in the bank has also increased from £2,430,565 to £3,263,816 and Sweeney sees this as another positive reason to do business with ANS. “We don’t carry any debt so our customers can be sure that we can provide a stable partnership for them over the life of the solution.” Sweeney also commented that the company’s expansion into managed services is already showing positive results, “We have already landed one very large managed services contract and we hope to be able to announce the full details in the next few weeks. We said last year when we brought in a strengthened managed services team, including appointing Richard Gascoigne as managed services director, that we saw this as a major part of the future plans of ANS and things look very positive already.

“With our Infrastructure 3.0 data centre solution continuing its popularity in both public and private sectors, we expect to have even more impressive figures to announce following our year end on March 31st.”

ANS Group has been named the VMware Global Business Continuity Partner of the Year. At the annual Partner Exchange event in Las Vegas, ANS were named as the premier partner in the world for consistently providing business continuity and disaster recovery solutions for customers such as Milton Keynes NHS, The Guinness Partnership and Salisbury NHS Trust.

ANS won the Business Continuity award for the EMEA region for the second year running and this year were also awarded the coveted Global award. Commenting on the award, the Managing Director of ANS Group, Paul Sweeney, said, “This is more good news for ANS. Winning the EMEA award for the second year running is an amazing feeling, confirming our position as one of the top data centre providers in the UK. It is a special feeling to be further honoured as Global Partner of the Year; knowing that we are the best VMware partner in the world for providing business continuity feels fantastic!”

“We are proud to acknowledge the achievements made in 2011 by members of the VMware partner ecosystem and congratulate ANS on winning a VMware Partner Network Award,” said Doug Smith, vice president, global partner strategy and operations, VMware. “VMware partners continue to be the foundation of our business and we look forward to the future successes of ANS in 2012, as well as the rest of our partner ecosystem.”

ANS replace hip hop misogyny with Nexus technology to bring Kingston PCT’s data centre into the 21st Century.

ANS Group has won a contract with Kingston PCT to upgrade the Trust’s entire Cisco core data centre with Nexus 7k, 5k and 2k products. The Manchester and London based business solutions provider will install the Nexus switches to replace the core network that was no longer fit for purpose, and to prepare the network for a new and improved storage solution.

ANS will replace the Trust’s core LAN infrastructure; currently comprising of end-of-life Cisco Catalyst 4506 and 3550 switches. The ANS Group solution is based solely on Cisco technology and provides a highly-scalable, resilient, future-proof and feature-rich architecture in which all devices will benefit from dual redundant power supplies.

The new Nexus 7000 series switch is a 10GB best-of-breed switch that provides integrated resilience combined with features optimised specifically for the data centre for availability, reliability, scalability, and ease of management. Introduction of this switch into the Trust’s core network prepares it for improvements to back-up and storage. A Nexus 5k switch will replace fabric switches and provide fibre channel and Ethernet at the same time, allowing network consolidation in the data centre. The solution will also improve the Trust’s resiliency and disaster recovery capabilities.

James Edwards, Network Manager working on behalf of NHS Kingston, said, “We knew that we needed to replace our core network and the ANS and Nexus solution not only solves our immediate issues but also improves other areas of the IT estate and prepares us to upgrade our storage technology. We are delighted that we will be able to make these improvements and look forward to continuing to be able to serve the people of Kingston with best-of-breed IT solutions.”

Paul Sweeney, MD at ANS Group, said, “It is excellent to see the enhancements that will be made to the network at Kingston by the implementation of this Nexus technology. Not only does it immediately provide a better service for their staff, it puts in place a platform for them to begin to make significant savings with a new storage solution. ANS remain as proud as ever to be helping the NHS to improve service and cut costs.”

NHS Kingston was formed in 2001 to commission services and administer programmes to help to maintain and improve the health of Kingston residents. In April 2011, the Trust became part of the NHS South West London Cluster of Primary Care Trusts as part of the move towards GP commissioning. The Trust’s vision is to improve the health of people in Kingston by improving the quality of services, reducing health inequalities and preventing ill health.

ANS Group have today released a case study detailing a communications solution installed at Lincolnshire NHS using Microsoft OCS to improve the internal communications capabilities within the organisation.

The case study can be found here: http://www.ansgroup.co.uk/files/pdf/cs_nhs_lincolnshire.pdf

...win NetApp Insight awards!

There have been celebrations this morning at ANS Group offices in London and Manchester as we have been handed the ‘Excellence in success with a go to market partner’ award at the fourth annual NetApp Insight for EMEA event in Rome.

Award-winning partners are chosen for their technical knowledge, customer care and approachability, outstanding contributions to selected account business, and customer wins. NetApp’s recognition of the success of the FlexPod Infrastructure 3.0 architecture in bringing in big contracts with the likes of Salisbury NHS, Milton Keynes PCT, The Guinness Partnership and UHSM, has been extended from naming ANS as Partner of the Year 2011.

“All over Europe, partners are the single most important bridge to the customers. Not only do they support every step of the buyer’s journey, they are also the first go-to point when issues need to be addressed. To show our gratitude and on-going commitment, exceptional partners are presented with a NetApp Insight award, highlighting those teams or individuals that go the extra mile to drive NetApp business in their respective markets”, says Julie Parrish, NetApp Senior Vice President, WorldWide Partner Sales.

“This is great news for ANS Group”, said MD Paul Sweeney. “NetApp are one of our three strategic partners and this is another fantastic award that shows how well we are working together. We look forward to continuing to innovate and produce data centre designs that provide incomparable benefits for our customers.”

ANS Group, the Manchester and London based FlexPod expert, has announced that it will be working with University Hospitals South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust (UHSM) to install a brand new infrastructure. Using the award winning Infrastructure 3.0 network architecture, already successfully installed at other NHS sites such as Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust and Milton Keynes PCT, ANS will build a new next-generation infrastructure that will future-proof the Trust’s desktop solution for the next 3-5 years.

UHSM is a major acute teaching hospital trust that provides services for adults and children at Wythenshawe Hospital and Withington Community Hospital. They are recognised as a centre of clinical excellence and provide district general hospital services and specialist tertiary service to the local community. The Trust is recognised for the quality of its teaching, research and development, with major research programmes focussing on cancer, lung disease, wound management and medical education. The Trust’s sound financial management in recent years has seen it generate annual revenue surpluses that are re-invested in services.

ANS won a tender to provide an end-to-end infrastructure for a 550 terminal services solution for the Trust to replace its legacy desktops; this will include an upgrade of the server-based infrastructure and will deliver increased resilience in storage array network services across two data centres, with a third site used for archiving purposes.

Using NetApp, Cisco UCS, VMware technology the Trust will implement a compute & storage platform capable of replacing the entire desktop estate through a hybrid VDI & Terminal Services solution that provides much improved disaster recovery between two data centres, centralises all of the storage requirements, reduces the physical server count, reduces the carbon footprint, improves and simplifies backup requirements and empowers end-users with the ability to perform file level recovery.

Mark Wright, Head of IT at UHSM, said, “We were looking for a new infrastructure that could not only replace our existing desktop solution but significantly improve it. We were very impressed when we saw the capabilities of Infrastructure 3.0 and, even after a thorough search of the market place, nothing else came close for ROI or technological benefits. The combination of cost savings and technology improvements is significant and we look forward to reaping the benefits of this installation.”

Paul Sweeney, MD at ANS Group, said, “The ANS FlexPod solution is going from strength to strength in the NHS and as ever we are very proud to be able to help to improve the health services available through the organisations that we partner with. The combination of financial and operation benefits that we can provide are impressive and we are glad that UHSM will now benefit from them.”

ANS Group has announced that it has become the first Cisco partner in EMEAR (and one of a handful worldwide) to have achieved full Cisco cloud builder status as its expansion into the sector gathers pace. In a recently released statement on their financial performance to yearend 2011, ANS Chairman Scott Fletcher spoke of a £1m investment in the company's managed services practice, the appointment of Richard Gascoigne as managed services director and the board's expectation that commoditised IT will soon become a major part of the company's portfolio.

The Cisco Cloud Builder designation, launched in April of this year, is part of the Cisco Cloud Partner Program, and recognises ANS' competencies to sell and implement end-to-end cloud solutions that utilise Cisco technology. The designation covers competencies across all cloud infrastructure components (security, networking, compute, storage and virtualisation), cloud management applications, and a formal cloud professional services practice.

ANS' announcement of this achievement coincides with the company welcoming two more customers to its managed services family. Howard Jackson (recruitment) and HL Interactive (legal), both based in Manchester, have signed up with ANS.

Richard Gascoigne said, "As a board we have sent a strong statement of intent with our comments in the financial release and these two pieces of good news show that we are serious about the future of cloud services. Our expansion into cloud-based managed services will benefit greatly from becoming the first EMEAR partner to achieve the Cloud Builder status, which demonstrates our capability to build private and hybrid clouds and provides more confidence for our customers that we are a trusted partner. We can fully manage the progress to the cloud; from assistance with initial cloud assessments and evaluations, to using our years of experience in migrating our customers to new infrastructures, to full post-implementation care in delivering the real benefits of an outsourced IT solution. We are delighted to welcome Howard Jackson and HL Interactive to the company and look forward to long and mutually-fruitful working relationships."

Fast-growing IT sales recruitment firm Howard Jackson have appointed ANS Group to run their IT network with a full managed services package; a five year contract has been signed that will see ANS provide a fully managed IT solution.

Howard Jackson is a leading IT sales recruitment agency that has offices across the UK. They have been established for over 20 years and offer only the best IT sales roles, and have consistently placed IT sales managers, sales directors, account managers and sales executives.

ANS have assumed complete management of Howard Jackson's network, which is now hosted on a shared-platform data centre running the ANS-designed FlexPod solution, Infrastructure 3.0.

Howard Jackson's staff numbers have grown by 50% in the past six months, their infrastructure was due for a complete refresh and they do not have a dedicated IT team, meaning that managing the network was impacting upon staff members' ability to do their job. The ANS managed service will provide a full Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) service, allowing their users to securely log in to a desktop delivered by Citrix from any device within the company's three offices across the UK. All licences are for software used by the staff and are included in the solution at no extra cost.

With an SLA for guaranteed uptime in the contract, this means that Howard Jackson no longer have to worry about the performance of their IT and can concentrate on their ambitious plans for further growth. With the managed service delivered on a fixed cost, per-user basis the scalability of the solution is crucial; new members of staff can be effortlessly and quickly added and budgeting for increased staff numbers is a swift and simple process.

Peter Ingram, MD, at Howard Jackson said, "This has quite simply revolutionised our IT network. We have gone from the hassle of having to run an aging infrastructure in-house to just letting ANS run this impressive, next-generation data centre for us. The fact that the solution can grow with our company is both reassuring from a cost and an operational point of view, particularly that we will not be wasting any money on spare bandwidth in preparation for future growth. It will just be there for us when we need it."

Paul Sweeney, MD at ANS Group, said, "We're delighted to welcome another happy customer to our managed services solution. Once again we see the real and massive benefits that an outsourced IT network can make for a business, financially and operationally Howard Jackson are reaping the rewards of this decision. We see managed services becoming a large part of the ANS success story, and it is examples such as this contract that show just why we're so confident about this sector."

ANS Group has won a three year contract with HL Interactive to provide a managed IT service. The partnership will see ANS take responsibility for managing the Manchester-based law firm's entire IT network.

HL Interactive specialise in the provision of volume legal services to property groups, financial institutions and private individuals and are committed to becoming the UK's leading legal services provider to financial institutions. Their move to a managed service IT solution was driven by a desire to lower IT costs, remove day-to-day maintenance tasks from their in-house IT team to allow them to focus on strategy and application development, improve their disaster recovery capabilities, improve their IT support and service delivery without having to employ extra (and more skilled) IT staff members, to refresh aging hardware and software, and to facilitate more flexibility for staff, including remote working.

It is also critical that HL Interactive retain and enhance the aspects of their ‘in-house' IT that deals with legal sector specific compliance and regulation. To ensure that this is the case, ANS will now manage the provision of data security, data privacy and data archiving.

The hybrid on & off premise solution means that ANS are now responsible for monitoring the entire infrastructure and will also be providing and managing an ‘off premise' virtual platform. This transformation has already led to a substantial cost saving for HL Interactive as it means that they do not require a replacement for a recently-departed member of the IT staff.

ANS' managed service guarantees improved reliability for HL Interactive, with IT uptime SLAs written in to the contract. As the existing infrastructure had reached the end of its life-span and was due to be replaced the switch to a managed service has meant that no CAPEX investment has been required, and that HI Interactive can easily and accurately budget for their IT spend over the course of the contract with a simple, monthly fee.

The 60 staff members at HI Interactive experienced no disruption during the migration of the virtual platform and have carried on with business as normal. The technology used in the data centre is the ANS FlexPod architecture, Infrastructure 3.0. This means that HI interactive are now using best-of-breed technology from Cisco, VMware and NetApp, and this has markedly improved the company's disaster recovery policy. The environmental savings made possible by Infrastructure 3.0 will also reduced HI Interactive's environmental impact.

ANS' SysCare (system care) department will be monitoring HL Interactive's entire IT estate; ANS' Gold support means that they will now be responsible for proactive monitoring, reactive support & comprehensive reporting to deliver the highest levels of service. By combining these three elements, the SysCare team provides the power, visibility, and efficiency of centralised remote management for the whole IT environment. This will provide an improved level of network management while freeing the internal IT team to focus on strategic and business improvement initiatives.

Matt Hather, Head of IT, at HL Interactive said, "Our infrastructure was due for a complete refresh however this managed solution from ANS Group has proved to be much more sensible for our business. It has made our lives so much simpler; we can now leave the details of running the IT network to ANS and focus instead on our core business activities. We have avoided a large infrastructure investment, have improved our business continuity and disaster recovery policies, and are now able to fully budget for IT spend over the next three years."

Paul Sweeney, MD at ANS Group, said, "More and more companies are beginning to see the overwhelming benefits that come with switching their IT network to an outsourced and fully managed service. By using our FlexPod design, Infrastructure 3.0, as a service they are able to reap all the benefits of a managed service on a fixed monthly basis, safe in the knowledge that we will always be providing a solution built on best-of-breed technologies. We are delighted to welcome HL Interactive to ANS Group and we look forward to taking care of their network from now."

ANS Group has won a major Infrastructure 3.0 contract with Milton Keynes Primary Care Trust to virtualise their IT estate. The London & Manchester-based IT solutions provider will revolutionise the Trust's current estate with its Infrastructure 3.0 network architecture, providing an estimated £234,000 saving over a five year period.

Established on 1 October 2000, Milton Keynes Primary Care Trust is responsible for commissioning all the health services in the borough and also provides community and mental health services. It is responsible for spending more than £300 million each year, including £45 million on the services it directly provides. The Trust is working to improve the health and wellbeing of local residents, reduce inequalities and social exclusion and secure fair, fast access to a comprehensive range of services. It is also increasing choice and convenience for patients and improving their experience of health services.

The project will see ANS Group use VMware to virtualise the current IT server estate, reducing the number of physical servers from 46 to 7. This will dramatically reduce both Capital and Operating expenditure, and reduce the Trust's environmental impact by cutting the power and cooling requirements of the estate.

Cisco UCS has been implemented at the primary site, with the Trust's existing servers being re-used for Disaster Recovery at a secondary site off campus, saving even more money in upfront costs. NetApp and VMware Site Recovery Manager are being implemented at both sites to transform Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery processes.

Mark Pinner, IT Network & Technical Manager, at Milton Keynes PCT says, "This project delivers a vastly improved IT infrastructure to Milton Keynes PCT. The solution provides benefits such as a scalable virtualisation platform fit for current and future business growth, an architecture that contributes positively to the Trust's Green Policy through enhanced carbon efficiency, dramatic improvements in Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity capabilities and a significant reduction in our total cost of ownership. ANS' solution sees our IT spend reduced and the benefits that we get from the estate increased. This innovative solution allows us to maximise our infrastructure in the most cost effective way and is great value for the Trust."

Paul Sweeney, Managing Director at ANS Group, says, "This is another big win for our Infrastructure 3.0 technology, we are very happy once again to see another valued customer realise the improvements in performance and reduction in spend that are made possible by this outstanding network architecture. We feel that healthcare in Milton Keynes will be improved by this solution and that makes us all very proud."

ANS Group Plc has been named as one of four companies on the shortlist for the prestigious CRN Reseller of the Year award following a year of excellent growth.

Setting the benchmark for excellence throughout the IT channel industry, the prestigious CRN Channel Awards provide a spectacular opportunity for the entire industry to showcase and celebrate exceptional performance and innovation within the UK.

The Reseller of the Year will be announced at the lavish prize-giving ceremony that takes place on Thursday 17^th November at Battersea Park Events Arena in London.

Paul Sweeney, the Managing Director at ANS Group, said, "This nomination to the shortlist for the CRN Reseller of the Year award is a further indication that ANS have had a splendid year. These awards are well known throughout the industry and we are delighted to be involved. With our Infrastructure 3.0 FlexPod architecture producing big deal after big deal, and continuing to win plaudits from customers and the industry alike, we feel that we have a good chance of winning the prize on November 17^th!"

Headlines

• Turnover increased by £16.1m to £29.4m up 122%
• Gross Profit increased by £2.7m to £6.6m up 68%%.
• Operating Profit (pre exceptional item) increased by £600k to £1.5m up 66%
• Cash reserves reduced by £556k to £3.7m due to acquisition  financing
• Investment in Alpha acquisition
• Contracted revenues now £8m , 27% of annual turnover
• Further investment in managed services and cloud

Financial Review

ANS produce another excellent set of results during what has been a truly eventful year for the company. The business continued with its impressive record of year on year growth and this was achieved both by organic expansion and through the acquisition of Alpha Business Computers Limited of Stockport which took place on 31^st October 2010.

The enlarged group has increased Gross Profit by 68% to £6.6m and Operating Profit (pre exeptional item) by 66% to £1.5m. The business delivered a 122% growth in turnover to £29.4m and the cash balance at the end of the year was only reduced by £556k to £3.7m despite paying the initial consideration of £1.75m in respect of the acquisition of Alpha Business Computers Limited. Total annualised contracted revenues now stand at £8m and account for 27% of the annual turnover. The guaranteed future income line for all contracted revenues has risen to £14.5m which amounts to an increase in excess of 100% on the previous year.

The board is delighted that the acquisition of Alpha Business Computers Limited and the continued development of the Infrastructure 3 solution has seen the business recognised as a leading independent data centre solutions provider. This investment will provide excellent opportunities to cross-sell the Infrastructure 3 solutions into the Alpha customer base and give the business the required critical mass to further develop the managed services data centre proposition.

Operational Review

During the financial year the delivery team's capacity has more than doubled and, as the business moves forward, it is already obvious that the increasing size and complexity of our deals means that we will be constantly looking to recruit the most highly qualified delivery specialists in the industry to keep pace with the escalating number, and contract values, of projects.

During the year the delivery team broke all previous records with monthly delivered professional services days exceeding 400 for the first time.

The company is fortunate to have found an extremely capable director in Howard Johnson who joined the board with the acquisition of Alpha. He has taken on the role of professional services director with full responsibility for project delivery. Richard Gascoigne now focuses on our managed services offerings as managed services director. As business focus intensifies on our data centre solutions and managed services portfolio, Richard has demonstrated all the necessary skills to take up the challenge and generate the critical mass required to deliver a profitable performance from this exciting new division.

The integration and transfer of the Alpha business from Stockport to the head office in Manchester has been carried out with commitment and professionalism from all involved. The transition has been made as seamless as possible for the Alpha customers who now enjoy a relationship with the enlarged business. The benefits being delivered to the client base are clearly displayed through the success that the London office (acquired through the acquisition) is having with the growing number and size of Infrastructure 3 projects that are being won.

With staff numbers doubling during the year to 120 the demands of the business require ever more highly qualified staff to deliver our portfolio of solutions.

The managed services and data centre divisions have been tasked with driving this fast growing business forward in a controlled and sustainable manner for the future. Our managed services contract base has grown by 60% to £8m helped by the acquisition of the Alpha contracts. With current expenditure agreed, investment in the managed services offering is set to top £1m. Following the investment, the division is growing quickly and the financial outcome is expected to become positive before this coming year end.

Outlook

Despite the world trading conditions continuing in a fragile condition and much of the economic news being negative the board maintain a highly motivated attitude to take the business forward profitably, with the knowledge and confidence that the key solutions provide real opportunities for public and private sector customers to develop more efficient IT infrastructures that deliver real and long term cost reductions. Although the public sector has been targeted for spending cuts, the company has seen no significant changes in the level of business from this sector as our proposition is both cost-effective in providing long term cost savings and fits the localisation policy for IT systems being encouraged by the current government

ANS have a market leading proposition with Infrastructure3 and this is a key factor in the development of our data centre solutions and the private cloud environment. The business has invested wisely and, with a planned and well executed growth strategy, your board is confident that the business will continue to flourish.

"This has been another year of fantastic growth for ANS Group. The figures speak for themselves but there is more good news as we see tremendous potential in our managed services proposition. Crucially we have been able to retain the unique ANS culture through a period of acquisition and organic expansion; when you combine our talented and highly-motivated staff base with our well-planned business strategy you cannot fail to be excited about the potential for further growth." Scott Fletcher, Chairman and founder.

ANS Group has become the first European partner to receive Cisco's cloud infrastructure status. The IT solutions & managed service provider, based in Manchester and London, has followed up the recent accolade of being named as Cisco's Data Centre and Virtualisation Partner of the Year with another achievement in the data centre environment.

The Infrastructure competency is the first stage in Cisco's new cloud builder and provider program and is designed to accelerate partners' cloud offerings through various enablement and demand-generation activities that will leverage existing investments in certifications and specialisations from both Cisco and other technology ecosystem partners such as NetApp and VMware.

ANS Group's award-winning Infrastructure 3.0 data centre FlexPod architecture has proved hugely popular with customers and vendors alike. The company has done over twenty deals over the past twelve months with customers such as Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust, and has been named NetApp Partner of the Year and VMware Business Continuity Competency Partner of the Year in addition to the award from Cisco.

Paul Sweeney, MD of ANS Group, said, "We are delighted to receive yet more recognition from Cisco for our data centre credentials. Infrastructure 3.0 has revolutionised ANS Group and to be the first partner in Europe to be accepted to this program is another sign from within the industry that we are moving in an exciting direction. We have recently expanded our infrastructure portfolio to offer I3 as a managed service where we will run customers' networks on our shared cloud infrastructure - providing all of the benefits of Infrastructure 3.0 and saving money and time for our clients. We are very excited about the potential of this latest program from Cisco to further increase our share of the data centre market."