> Turnover Increased by £1.2m to £13.3m up 10%

> Gross Profit increased by £537,000 to £3.9m up 16%

> Gross Margins increased from 27.9% to 29.5%

> Investment of circa £500,000 within overheads

> Adjusted Operating Profit (excluding investment of circa. £0.5m) up 21%

> Cash Reserves increased by £1m to £4.3m up 32%

> 44% of Gross Profit from recurring revenues

> Second Interim dividend maintained at 2.75p (2009-2.75p)

> Strong start to the current year

Chairman's Statement by Scott. J. Fletcher:

"I am delighted to report another year of positive results for your company. The company has increased Gross Profit by 16% (and an average of 17% year on year for the past six years). We have delivered turnover growth of 10% (24% year on year for the past six years) and our cash balances at the end of the year reached a record high of £4.3m compared to £3.3m in the previous year.  A strong focus on managed services and recurring revenues has led to 44% of Gross Profit coming from these areas. These important metrics demonstrate that your company continues on its course of growth despite the incredibly difficult market conditions in which we find ourselves. As reported at the half year, we chose to invest significantly during the past year in several areas including: two additional directors, key sales and technical staff, infrastructure renewals and quality management systems which has equated to nearly £0.5m. The Board feel that this investment was required in order to take the company forward to the targeted objective of £30m turnover. This investment has already started to produce returns with the award of the much coveted Buying Solutions Framework Agreement along with key industry accolades and accreditations and a significantly improved start to the first quarter of the year. We believe that this use of cash will provide enhanced returns for the business in the coming years."

ANS Group has been re-certified as a Cisco Gold Certified Partner in the UK.

ANS Group has again met all requirements for achieving Cisco Gold Certification, including personnel, support and specialisation. ANS has continued to demonstrate that they are qualified to sell, install and support Cisco solutions in the UK.

Cisco places great emphasis on customer satisfaction. In order to maintain Cisco Gold Certification, ANS Group was required to participate in Cisco's customer satisfaction program and meet the theater target score and the minimum number of valid end customer responses at the CSAT measurement periods during the Cisco fiscal year FY10 Q2 (January 23, 2010) and Q4 (July 31, 2010).

ANS Group specialist IT solutions provider has won a major contract with Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust to implement a new internal network across its hospital site.

The Cisco Nexus technology to be installed and managed by ANS Group will replace the organisation’s legacy network and lay the foundations for the Trust to continue to improve its internal infrastructure in line with long-term IT improvement targets. Based on ANS Group’s Infrastructure 3.0 solution, the project will allow Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust to gradually add various IT functions to its flexible next generation data centre architecture, without compromising compatibility or facing increased hardware costs.

The Cisco Nexus solution will also allow the Trust’s employees to access network data such as patient records efficiently and securely, and improve business continuity to ensure that network failures do not affect the organisation’s operation-critical functions. In addition, the solution provided by ANS Group will allow the Trust to make notable cost savings relating to hardware, cabling and administration across the data centre, whilst lowering its carbon footprint.

Linda Durham, Network Architect  at Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust, said:

“This latest investment in infrastructure will deliver notable efficiency benefits for service users and employees, as well as ensuring our commitment to future investment in technology is supported by a simple, flexible architecture.

During the tender process, ANS Group’s understanding of the public healthcare sector was evident in its response to the operational challenges we face as an organisation. As a strategic partner, ANS Group is the right fit taking into account its technological expertise and focus on return on investment for its clients.”

Paul Sweeney, Managing Director at ANS Group, commented:

“We are delighted to be working with Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust on a project that will allow for broader IT infrastructure improvements at the organisation for years to come, such as virtualisation. The Trust is one of many forward thinking public sector organisations currently looking to prioritise internal efficiency and future proofing to deliver long-term cost saving benefits."

Reseller ANS will confront this afternoon's World Cup mania head on by throwing a beach party for its staff.

The Manchester-based Cisco Gold partner claims the knees-up will ensure its staff don't pull sickies as England get set for their crunch match with Slovenia.

Fancy dress is compulsory, as the picture indicates.

According to CRN's poll this week, 48 per cent of channel firms said they had made provisions for their staff to watch the World Cup. 26 per cent said they had not.

ANS managing director Paul Sweeney said the latter group are simply burying their heads in the sand.

"I have read all sorts of surveys in the last couple of weeks - one quoting that nine out of ten companies plan to do nothing for staff during the World Cup and another saying that 32 per cent of England fans would skip a day's work to watch the game.

"With situations like the World Cup, we believe it's better to embrace the atmosphere rather than fight it and potentially end up with staff calling in sick."

Sweeney told CRN that staff would be making up the hours missed later in the week.

http://www.computing.co.uk/crn/news/2265319/ans-staves-sickies-world-cup

ANS Group is proud to announce that we have been awarded two prestigious awards at the NetApp UK Partner Awards 2010; Newcomer of the Year and Marketing Excellence of the Year.

The event, which took place in London's Bloomsbury Ballroom, brought together more than 200 guests and saw winners in ten categories recognised for outstanding achievements over the last twelve months.

ANS Group became a NetApp Gold partner just over twelve months ago and the Newcomer of the Year award is an outstanding achievement for us.  In such a short space of time we have also progressed to NetApp Platinum partner status.  The Marketing Excellence of the Year award is a direct recognition for our innovative Infrastructure 3.0 campaign, a strategy which has received great plaudits from the partner community and is now supported by our recent contract win with Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - read the article in full here.

These two new awards compliment our VMware Partner of the Year award, won in December last year, and reinforce our committed partnerships with VMware, NetApp and Cisco.

ANS Group has won a major contract to engage with Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to implement its state-of-the-art converged IT infrastructure at its hospital site. The implementation is part of the hospital's ‘Health Investment in Tameside' (HIT) project that will see the largest ever investment and most extensive site improvement of the Trust.

Based on the ANS Infrastructure 3.0 architecture, the contract, won through the new Buying Solutions Commoditised IT Hardware & Software framework, which commenced in March, will rapidly propel Tameside Hospital into the vanguard of next generation green data centre technology. Tameside Hospital is leading the way by being the first English-based NHS site to embrace the new Cisco UCS (Unified Computing System) and Cisco Nexus technology that is set to transform its computer network into a unified intelligent data centre infrastructure.

With further technology including NetApp data storage and VMware Vsphere this will allow further consolidation and virtualisation of the data centre, ensuring Tameside Hospital will achieve improved service with less hardware. The cost savings to be gained from the 3.0 infrastructure architecture will ensure Tameside Hospital can invest this money back into the Trust and focus on delivering better patient care.

Staff will be able to achieve streamlined access to network data such as patient records in a secure, fast and reliable manner. Infrastructure 3.0 will introduce a level of resilience and business continuity to ensure that network failures do not jeopardise the Trusts operations. Applications can now be seamlessly implemented onto the network with minimal effect to staff, saving time and service disruption.

By unifying each network component, Tameside Hospital will gain higher density computing with Cisco UCS, increased resilience and business continuity with VMware vSphere and lower their carbon footprint with unified storage from NetApp. This foundation allows the Trust to cut costs in power cooling, hardware, cabling and administration across the data centre resulting in a lower carbon footprint friendly architecture.

Tony Mellor, Chief Information Officer at the Trust commented:

"We are very excited about the IT implementation phase of our major hospital redevelopment as it will truly benefit both staff and patients. We were looking for a solution that would build the foundation for the hospital's current and future needs in respect of network access, data storage and virtualisation, as the Trust is committed to making significant improvements through technology-enabled change in the years to come.

ANS Group's extensive knowledge and understanding of the healthcare sector was evident during the tender process, making them the obvious choice as a strategic partner. The architecture will significantly update and simplify the Trust's IT infrastructure, delivering maximum efficiency at minimum cost, and the savings generated will allow the Trust to invest further in improving patient care."

Paul Sweeney, Managing Director of ANS Group, commented:

"This is a fantastic opportunity for ANS Group to work with such a forward thinking Trust that is investing in all areas of its future development. It's great to see that Tameside Hospital is leading the way in public sector by deploying a high density efficient infrastructure to enable environmentally friendly, cost effective technology. Andy Barrow, Technical Director of ANS Group added: "We are gaining tremendous traction with our Infrastructure 3.0 architecture which has been validated by the vendors VCN Strategy, VMware, Cisco & NetApp"

View our Infrastructure 3.0 video here.

ANS Group, are pleased to announce that Andy Barrow has been appointed as their new Technical Director with immediate effect.

Andy has been promoted from his role as head of technical pre-sales where he was responsible for overseeing the architecture and implementation of solutions for clients. His new position will allow him to identify new opportunities for ANS Group to capitalise on, and drive the current business plan forward.

Andy is CCIE certified in Security for Cisco and has been with ANS Group since it acquired the Cisco partner, BIOS, four years ago. Andy is not a Director nor has he been a Director of any other Company in the last 5 years.

Andy commented:

“Having worked in the industry for the last eight years, this promotion will allow me to show my commitment to the company and help push the current strategy and vision forward. It has been an exciting year for ANS with the successful launch of Infrastructure 3.0, and I am delighted that my hard work has been recognised and rewarded in such a way.”

Paul Sweeney, MD of ANS Group commented:

“Andy has demonstrated that he will be a fantastic asset to the board. His recent work on our new offering, Infrastructure 3.0, turned the vision into a reality, and myself and the board look forward to working with him more closely in the future.”

Andy is interested in a total of 4,630 ordinary shares in ANS Group.  He also has the following options: 50,000 options exercisable at 87.5p between 31/08/2011 and 31/08/2012 and 100,000 options exercisable at 122.5p between 01/03/2014 and 01/03/2015.

The Directors shareholdings are as follows:

Mr Scott Fletcher	4,225,453	35.0%
Mr Paul Sweeney	1,415,517	11.7%
Mr Christopher Simon Malthouse	658,787	5.5%
Mr David Hutton	33,333	0.3%
Mr Richard Gascoigne	8,000	0.1%
Mr Andrew Phillip Barrow	4,630	0.0%
Mr Ian Hogg	170,000	1.4%
TOTAL	6,515,720	54.0%

Leading virtualisation and infrastructure specialist, ANS Group, has worked with well known branded snacks business, United Biscuits, to design an innovative virtualisation system that ensures continued flexibility, updates existing IT infrastructure and provides greater protection of data.

United Biscuits previously had limited storage systems which did not offer virtualisation capabilities and were already overstretched in terms of data storage. The company was also using traditional and expensive third parties for their disaster recovery solutions, meaning that a lot of budget was taken up by solutions that could be easily provided and managed in-house.

Steven Summersgill, Technical Services Manager at United Biscuits said of the decision to appoint ANS Group:

“We have spent a lot of time and resources on making sure our computer infrastructure has been updated regularly over time, however, modernity doesn’t always equate to efficiency, as we found to our cost.

“We needed to maximise our storage in the most cost-effective way possible, and ANS Group has a fantastic reputation in the industry for providing innovative solutions, incorporating new technologies such as virtualisation.

“We also needed to ensure that, once we had the storage capabilities, the data we were storing would be properly protected. We are extremely pleased with the inventive solution ANS Group has provided and we are really feeling the benefits of the changes made.”

Recent investment in hardware over the last five years precluded a ‘rip and replace’ solution, so ANS Group’s design, utilising the NetApp V-Series technology, allowed a phased migration away from the old hardware, while simultaneously creating a strategic storage platform for the future.

Paul Sweeney, Managing director at ANS Group said of the project:

“Our solution to updating United Biscuit’s storage systems without replacing them entirely was only possible with NetApp’s innovative V-Series, which we deployed in front of the existing legacy IBM storage systems, to implement a layer of ‘virtualised’ intelligence.

“This now allows United Biscuits to react and recover from data loss more efficiently, providing a more granular data protection strategy. At the same time, the existing storage is now freed from the constraints of legacy boundaries, opening up advanced storage services that were previously unavailable to the business.  These advanced features add levels of protection to key Oracle, VMware and SAP systems for true business protection.

“Finally, the business will now have its critical applications protected and are secured from critical systems failure, both solutions that use existing infrastructure to provide data replication, without requiring costly network changes or expensive hosted solutions.”

It has been announced today that ANS Group are one of the successful suppliers for a government IT procurement framework agreement awarded by Buying Solutions.

ANS Group are one of only 13 companies to make LOT 2 of the Commoditised IT Hardware and Software framework agreement to supply IT infrastructure hardware with potential contracts worth a significant value over three and a half years.

The primary role of Buying Solutions is to maximise the value for money obtained by Government departments and the wider public sector through the delivery of money-saving procurement solutions, enabling organisations to maximise value for money in their commercial activities.  Buying Solutions is the national procurement partner for UK public services.

Paul Sweeney, MD of ANS Group comments:

“This is outstanding news for ANS, we have been working with the public sector for a number of years so to be part of this framework will offer us further exciting opportunities. It is great that we are being recognised for our work in this area.

“With the public sector’s need to increase IT efficiency, particularly in the coming years, our ability to deliver multi vendor solutions with our new Infrastructure 3.0 offering, will allow us to maximise their requirements, while minimising costs. As ANS Group are part of the framework, the public sector will benefit from the latest IT solutions from an approved supplier.” 

 

The framework agreement is designed to pull together the buying strength of central government departments and their agencies, NHS bodies and local authorities to get better value for money.

ANS Group, is celebrating after being ranked 9th in The Sunday Times Best Small Companies to Work For 2010.

The company has jumped 15 places from last year when it was ranked 24th. It is also the highest ranked IT and communications company in the UK as well as the highest rated Cisco Gold partner in the list.

The employee survey revealed that 88% of staff find their work stimulating. Additionally, 89% have confidence in the leadership of senior mangers with 90% believing that their managers truly live the values of the organisation.

Paul Sweeney, Managing Director of ANS Group, comments:

“It is brilliant to be ranked so highly again and to feature in the top ten is incredible. It is particularly meaningful as it is a result of our staff’s feedback. Being such a strong team allows us to take pride and pleasure from, our work and staff development is always paramount to our values. For me, staff satisfaction is vital as it has a direct effect on our customer relationships, and has been a major part of our success.

“Being ranked 9th is a particular accolade for us as it has been a challenging year for the industry. The recent launch of our Infrastructure 3.0 offering has been a major focus over the last few months and it is testament to the innovation of the company and its staff that it has been such a success.”

It follows a successful start to 2010 for ANS Group as they were awarded 3* by Best Companies in January, the highest a company can be awarded, for the second year running.

ANS Group, has helped to dramatically improve GP productivity within NHS Coventry, by implementing Cisco’s Wide Area Application Network Services (WAAS).

NHS Coventry is responsible for the welfare of over 300,000 people and, with targets to reach for improving healthcare provision and quality of service to patients, it is vital that GPs are able to access patient records as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Gigabits of patient data are stored centrally and delivered via a Wide Area Network (WAN) to GP practices across Coventry. To be able to achieve the necessary standards in patient care the WAN had to be fit for purpose, yet there were frequent issues with accessing the right data quickly and efficiently.

By implementing Cisco’s WAAS solution, ANS Group was able to provide a Local Area Network (LAN)-like performance across the area, speeding up application delivery and aiding GPs in working quickly and more efficiently by offering locally hosted IT services.

Yusuf Bhayat, network services manager at NHS Coventry, said:

“We have seen productivity jump at GP sites, as due to the quicker server access, doctors can spend more time with their patients and less on IT bureaucracy. Our bandwidth speeds have been increased by an incredible 50 per cent meaning critical diagnosis can be made as referrals and acute test result are instantly accessible. You cannot underestimate the difference this makes to a GP.”

Paul Sweeney, managing director of ANS Group, commented:

“With the necessary technology now in place, staff working within the Trust can rest assured that they will be able to access patient data extremely quickly and the highest level of patient care can be assured.

“With GP access to the central server reduced from a sluggish 25 seconds to just two, the solution has already achieved tangible results that the Trust will be able to quantify when measuring efficiency and evaluating patient experience. NHS Coventry can now look at plans to expand their services, knowing that the technology to support its workers is in place.”

ANS Group has been awarded a three star rating for the second year running by Best Companies, the highest attainable accreditation.

The star rating system awards the best companies who demonstrate high levels of employee engagement each year. Best Companies offers one star to businesses considered first class, two stars for outstanding companies and three stars for the most extraordinary achievements. A record 1,086 organisations from the private and public sectors applied for Best Companies Accreditation this year, showing how high a priority staff engagement is. Of these, 773 made the grade. Just 50 companies achieved three stars, a slight dip on 2009. Seventy-two organisations in the North West received accreditation, with just six achieving the coveted three star status.

Paul Sweeney, Managing Director of ANS Group commented: “We are very proud of this accreditation and is fantastic to know that our leadership continues to be recognised.”

“As a company, we are aware of the importance of a positive atmosphere, even during tough market conditions, and workplace engagement is an integral component of any company’s success and growth. This award comes just as we launch our 3.0 infrastructure and is further testament to the innovation of the company. For more information watch our Infrastructure 3.0 video.

“ANS Group prides itself on supporting and encouraging our staff at every level of their career and personal development and the Best Company Accreditation highlights that ANS is not only successful in the business arena but also a great place to work.” 

Jonathan Austin, founder and CEO of Best Companies said: “We would like to congratulate ANS Group on their outstanding achievement. An engaged workforce is essential as organisations move out of the recession and into a more stable economic situation. No doubt many organisations have tackled redundancies and rapid change this year. But organisations like ANS Group that have kept on engaging their staff and making sure they are involved in the business will be in a good position for the future and should be congratulated for their efforts”.

ANS Group is to transform the future of IT networks with the launch of its  Infrastructure 3.0 architecture.

In recent years, the expansion of systems has involved buying more servers, creating the need for more storage, more cabling, more electricity and, ultimately, more investment in time, money and management. 

Infrastructure 3.0 will reverse this trend, using next generation technology such as Cisco's unified computing and Nexus switching, VMware's Server and Desktop Virtualisation and NetApp's Intelligent Storage and Deduplication to streamline and unify the infrastructure.

As one of a few companies to hold the necessary specialisations with VMware, Cisco and NetApp, ANS Group is uniquely positioned to deliver this unified infrastructure, helping clients to achieve a higher level of performance at a much lower cost.

Paul Sweeney, managing director of ANS Group, said:

"Computer networks have evolved over the years from separate dedicated components where expansion of these networks is costly and time consuming, and servers and storage have grown in an inefficient, linear manner.

"Infrastructure 3.0 will reduce physical servers through virtualisation, creating systems that are truly unified in a stateless and fluid architecture.  This is a revolution in computing, and something we are hugely excited to be pioneering."

Want to see more?  Watch the our video here

Cisco Systems is pleased to recognise and congratulate ANS GROUP PLC (UK) for achieving Cisco Channel Customer Satisfaction Excellence.

Customer Satisfaction Excellence is the highest distinction a partner can achieve within the Cisco Channel Partner Program. ANS GROUP PLC (UK) will be recognised for Customer Satisfaction Excellence in the Cisco Partner Locator (www.cisco.com/go/partnerlocator) with a special star indicator representing your achievement.  Customers, Cisco personnel and partners will be able to identify you as having achieved outstanding customer satisfaction as part of Cisco's worldwide assessment process.

Channel Customer Satisfaction Excellence assessment is based upon the customer satisfaction results captured in the Cisco Partner Access Online tool (www.cisco.com/go/pal). Each quarter, Cisco will acknowledge Certified Partners that have the highest customer satisfaction distinction within each geographic region.

Customer Satisfaction Excellence is a core value we both share and a key driver of our current and future success.  Thank you for your commitment to the success of your customers.

For more information on Cisco Channel Customer Satisfaction Excellence, please visit: http://www.cisco.com/web/partners/pr11/pr20/announcement_031506.html

On 4 January 2010, Chris Malthouse, Finance Director of ANS Group, exercised options over 23,593 ordinary shares in the Company at a price of 67.5 pence per ordinary share. On the same day, an employee of the company exercised options over 30,000 ordinary shares at prices ranging from 14.75 pence to 30 pence per ordinary share.

Granting of Options

Also  on 4 January 2010, ANS Group granted options over 80,000 ordinary shares to employees at prices ranging from £1.00 to £1.25 per ordinary share.

Directors' Holdings

Paul Sweeney's interest in the Company has increased by 71,045 ordinary shares as his partner is now within the definition of "family" for the purposes of the PLUS Rules.

The total issued share capital of the Company is now 12,073,847 ordinary  shares  of 1p each and the Directors' shareholdings are 6,499,877 ordinary shares, now representing 53.8% of the total issued share capital.

To read more on this article follow this link.

Despite only 2 out of 85 staff making it into the office today due to the Snow its business as usual for ANS Group.

Thanks to Cisco and its Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) staff are able to access all the systems they require to work from home including the Cisco Telephony System which allow users to log in on soft phones on their laptops just as if they were in the office.

Managing Director, Paul Sweeney who battled for 2 hours to cover 8 miles early this morning to open the office said:

"It's a great time to practice what we preach, we invoked our Business Continuity Plan this morning at 7.30am communicating to all office based staff to log on from home and work as normal, all systems and accessible and all DDI's and hunt groups work as normal".   

Manchester City Centre saw it's worst snow conditions in decades with over 6 inches of snow in the centre, effectively crippling business just as they get started in the New Year.

Sweeney said:

"As many of office staff use Virtual Desktops is very simple and secure to connect via a broadband connection and continue to work"

When asked how he was going to get home tonight he said:

"That's a great question, to which I have no answer yet, I've checked the Kitchen and there plenty of Milk and Sugar though!"

ANS even made the BBC evening news, watch the following video clip.

Leading technology infrastructure specialist, ANS Group, was last week named as business infrastructure virtualisation provider VMware’s ‘Partner of the Year’.

The dinner was held for senior VMware management and its top 30 resellers and distributors in the UK at Pavillion restaurant in London.

ANS Group was awarded the prestigious accolade for its innovative use of both VMware’s server side technology and its ‘virtual desktop’ VMware view.

Mark Newton, Regional Director, UK and Ireland, VMware, said:

“We’re delighted to present this award to ANS Group in recognition of its fantastic work this year. Valued partners such as ANS Group play a hugely important role in helping organisations realise the benefits offered by VMware’s virtualisation tools. We look forward to working with all our partners in 2010.”

Paul Sweeney, ANS Group managing director, commented:

“We are absolutely delighted to be named VMware Partner of the Year, it’s a fantastic coup from our point of view and really validates our decision to back VMware two years ago.

“We work hard to promote the interests of our key partners, and are seeing real traction in our ‘next generation data centre’ strategy that brings together VMware, Cisco and NetApp technologies as a unique proposition.

“We are really proud that our hard work and efforts have resulted in this kind of recognition.”

HIGHLIGHTS

• Turnover increased by 7% from £5,142,064 to £5,499,224
• Operating Profit £378,533 (£379,912 2008)
• Cash Reserves up from £1.5m to £1.6m after £243,000 of share buybacks
• EPS 3.2p (3.5p 2008)
• Dividend maintained at 1.25p per share
• Annual Recurring Revenues increased by 17.6% from £3.4m to £4.0m
• Total  investment  during  the period in recruitment, infrastructure and  marketing  was  £138,000 excluding additional salaries.
• Increased head count of over 20%

CHAIRMANS STATEMENT

"It  gives  me great pleasure to announce the half year results to 30 September 2009. Your  company has shown tremendous resilience during the difficult and ongoing downturn. These positive results, delivering turnover growth of 7% to £5.5m with operating profit remaining at the same level as the first  six  months to September 2008, come following significant investments in the business.  The results  of these investments are already beginning to show through and our order intake  for  the period  is slightly ahead of the same period last year. We have also seen excellent growth in  our recurring revenues which demonstrates our success in developing our managed services offering.

During  this  period, when the downward pressure on margins has been significant, your  board  has continued  to  focus on the delivery of key solutions to our customers around business  efficiency and  'Spend  to  Save'. Your board made a decision to manage the overheads tightly as  is  prudent however  we  also  planned to sacrifice some short-term profitability to  enable  us  to  continue investing in the business for the future. We believe that it is important to ensure that we employ the  highest  skilled personnel in the industry and, given the general economic outlook,  we  have been able to attract talent in abundance that would not have been possible in a different economic climate"

Scott Fletcher, Chairman and Founder

Read the full statement here

ANS Group has been announced as a partner to RAW 2010, the movement that will change the face of business in the North West.

The business has strong entrepreneurial credentials, working with dynamic and fast growing enterprises and their leaders to implement the technology that can make the growth of the companies faster and easier.

ANS Group's partnership with RAW follows the ongoing support of its chairman, Scott Fletcher, himself one of the region's most influential entrepreneurs. 

Paul Sweeney, Managing Director at ANS Group, said:

"Entrepreneurs will be the driving force behind the new economy.  Technology will help them to speed up their development - and, as a result, the recovery of the region and of the UK as a whole.

"RAW 2010 is vitally important for the North West, and for us, getting involved was a no-brainer.  We are honoured to be a part of an initiative that will genuinely change the way business works."

ANS Group has been awarded a contract to audit and upgrade the server and storage infrastructure at NHS Bolton, including implementation of a Virtual Server Environment. ANS Group will use VMware and NetApp technology to implement the design.

Chris Russ, Assistant Director for IM&T at NHS Bolton, said of the appointment:

"NHS Bolton is a Primary Care Trust that cares for approximately 270,000 people in the local area. We are constantly trying to improve the health of the population by working to provide the best possible healthcare.  IM&T is seen as a key enabler in helping us achieve this and therefore we need to ensure that we have a safe and robust infrastructure capable of evolving with the organisation.

"At the same time, throughout the Trust, we are looking to implement changes that will result in reduced costs, improved carbon footprint and will support business expansion.

"Revitalising or replacing aging IT infrastructure is an effective way of meeting these targets, and also brings us up-to-date in terms of addressing business continuity, disaster recovery and risk management issues, meaning we are well prepared for the pressures on infrastructure that come with  an expanding organisation.

"The solution that ANS Group proposed had several key benefits, not least reducing the administrative burden of running the day-to-day system. By moving over to virtualised server and storage facilities, we are cutting down the ongoing management overheads and physically reducing the space needed for the server farms, meaning our power consumption is much less.

"Virtualisation also lends itself well to a scalable and expandable solution that we can adapt as we continue to grow - we will no longer be restricted by physical equipment that quickly becomes outdated.

"ANS Group, with its proven sector knowledge experience and their high level skills in storage management and virtualisation, was a natural choice for us to use for this infrastructure consolidation project. "

Paul Sweeney, managing director of ANS Group, added:

"We work with a lot of public sector organisations who need to make cost-effective changes to keep them in line with impending budget cuts or changing legislation. Often, simple solutions such as moving to virtual server environments can have multiple benefits in terms of money saving, cutting down carbon emissions and making existing infrastructure fit for purpose now and in the future.

"The design we plan to implement for NHS Bolton, using VMware and NetApp technology, will provide a robust platform that will mean greater resilience in terms of data protection and recovery, and provide a solid foundation for rapid business expansion"