Smart Teaming

Risual are one of 21 partners within the Microsoft Consulting Services Smart Teaming Agreement. Established in January 2011 the Smart Teaming agreement has been setup to enable efficient, predictable, and transparent partner sub-contracting relationships by standardizing the engagement process, sharing skills / capability, demand data, and driving consistent value for Microsoft and its partners.

The Smart Teaming agreement runs for three calendar years ensuring a strong relationship is established and maintained between partners and Microsoft Consulting Services. The agreement enables partners to support Microsoft with augmenting key engagements by providing skills that cover the Microsoft stack and also supplying niche and in demand skills.

In the UK, Microsoft are committed to ensuring 80% of all sub-contracting is covered by the Smart Teaming partners and to date has been a great success in achieving this metric.

Wow! What a year!

As 2011 draws to a close Richard, John and Alun are reflecting on the exciting developments that risual has faced both as an organisation and with our customers. Over the last twelve months risual has helped customers:

• develop their Windows 7 deployments through jumpstarts and Proof of Concepts
• simplify the move to a Cloud infrastructure using System Center
• drive out telephony costs and improved collaboration by deploying Lync and Exchange 2010
• collaborate internally and with their customers better using SharePoint and CRM
• globally with a diverse range of customers from Blue Light and Local Government to Retail Fashion, Finance and Legal

To date, no other Microsoft partner in the UK has delivered more Windows 7 Jumpstart Proof of Concept engagements.

Here’s to 2012, the Olympics, major Microsoft releases and many more opportunities to support our customers business objectives through technology.

System Center 2012 is almost here…
Having just completed the System Center 2012 road show event in Manchester, where our friends at Paul Smith presented on their experiences to a capacity crowd, our minds are turning to wrapping presents, devouring mince pies and a well-earned rest.

In Redmond, meanwhile, they are hard at work putting the finishing touches to the 2012 wave of System Center products with significant investments in Operations Manager which will bring better cross platform support and network monitoring; Virtual Machine Manger delivering a more cloud and service centric approach to virtualisation management; to the new user centric approach of Configuration Manager

Take the pain out of budget planning with ROCR…

Identify tactical savings and support your new year budget planning in good time for April with risual’s Operational Cost Review. risual recognise the cyclical pain that both Public and Private Sector organisations have to go through each year. But with the constraints around spending getting ever tighter and the constant pressure to reduce cost without impacting Service Delivery, it makes any budget planning exercise a daunting task and one that requires detailed work in a busy time for everyone. risual can help….Read More…

risual is committed to making our customers successful, and this begins with delivering the highest quality of service within the timeframes that are critical to our customers operations. risual Support Services (RSS) offers unparalleled levels of support and guarantees customers a smooth experience therefore operating and maintaining support cover throughout Christmas and New Year (24X7x365). During the festive break, RSS will ensure business continuity at a time when resource may be low and another freeze captures our shores. The snow may fall to give us a white Christmas, but you are assured that RSS will be there whatever the weather to proactively monitor your infrastructure and patch the environment to ensure it does not fall behind – allowing you to concentrate on opening your gifts from Santa!!!

The risual team grows

Matthew further bolsters our team of subject matter experts in our System Center practice. Matthew brings a broad set of skills across the System Center suite and years of experience across both public and private sectors, delivering at complexity and scale.	As a key member of the Project Management Office Phillippa has a strong background in administration and excellent organisation skills, Philippa fronts the Project Management Office, co-ordinating the efficient delivery of the the Technical Consulting team.	Joining the Collaboration practice Mike brings 10 experience in the IT industry working across Finance, Insurance and the Legal sectors. His experience ranges from Developer to IT Professional covering all versions SharePoint Portal Server 2001 to SharePoint 2010.

System Center 2012 pre-launch..
As one of the key partners with strong skills and experience in helping customers to save money and improve IT Service Delivery using Microsoft System Center tools, risual was chosen by Microsoft co-host the System Center 2012 preview event in Manchester on 6th December. Over 150 customers attended to learn about more about the exciting, new System Center 2012 solutions and how they can take the next steps to gain value from these solutions with assistance from risual.

For more information on risual’s Systems Management offerings please click
For more information on System Centre 2012, read here.

As a key partner of Microsoft’s around System Center, risual can gain access to additional funds to assist you with planning and deployment of System Center and Private Cloud solutions.

Customer Immersion Experience Event

risual hosted two Customer Immersion Experience (CIE) workshops in Manchester on 6th December at which customers were able to see and experience the latest versions of Microsoft technologies such as Windows 7, Office 2010, Office 365, SharePoint, Lync and Dynamics CRM.

If you missed out on this event, you can see these solutions in action again on the “Microsoft Productivity Days” that risual is delivering in conjunction with Microsoft on January 25th at our offices in Stafford and on 13th February at Microsoft Cardinal Place in London.

For more details and to register for one of these events please click here

Police data centre event

On 29th November Hewlett Packard, Microsoft and risual ran an event hosted by Wiltshire Constabulary at their headquarters in Devises. The title of the event was “How to improve service with lower costs from Police data-centres”. Attendees from several forces came along to learn about how Police forces are reducing costs and improving service delivery using solutions from, Microsoft, HP and risual and looked at real case examples on how costs are being significantly reduced in Police data-centres.

We are running another event hosted by Greater Manchester Police at their new headquarters on 1st February 2012. For more information and to register for that event please click here

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risual, Parker Court, Staffordshire Technology Park, Stafford, Staffordshire, ST18 0WP
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© 2011 Risual Limited. All rights reserved.

I think this infographic really demonstrates what an amazing service they deliver…no wonder they get great feedback and customer loyalty…

risual is hiring

• Sales Account Directors
• Microsoft System Center Consultants
• Microsoft SharePoint Consultants
• Support Engineers
For more information and to submit your CV click here

Sales Account Directors

Risual is looking for New Business sales people and Account Managers. Candidates should have a proven sales track record; good solution sales experience and ideally have experience of helping customers to realise return on their investments in Microsoft Core Infrastructure and Business Productivity solutions

Microsoft System Center Consultants

Risual is looking for talented and senior-level consultants with experience deploying Microsoft System Center solutions in enterprise environments. This position is 100% customer facing for project-based work – as such, candidates must possess a high degree of professionalism and exceptional interpersonal and skills in addition to technical aptitude with the products.

The System Centre consultant will be responsible for leading and deploying Microsoft System Center solutions (SCOM, SCCM, SCVMM, SCSM & SCDPM.) at customer environments, from medium-size businesses of approx. 1,000 users to enterprise organisations of 10-100,000 users. The consultant will also lead end user computing refresh projects using Windows 7 and SCCM Operating System Deployment.

Microsoft SharePoint Consultants

To be successful the candidates will need demonstrable experience of completing technical delivery and consulting engagements across different business environments, sectors and sizes. In addition, the SharePoint Consultants should also have excellent and demonstrable experience Designing, Architecting, Implementing and Configuring Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies including:

• Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
• Office SharePoint Server 2007
• SharePoint Foundation Server
• SharePoint Server 2010
• InfoPath Forms Services
• Excel Services
• Business Connectivity Services
• PerformancePoint Services
• FAST search

Experience with earlier releases of SharePoint and other related Microsoft Technologies such as Office is also highly valued.

Support Engineers

Risual Software Support Services (RSS) provides the focal point for resolution of all technical issues for Risual customers with deployed production environments, based on Risual supported Microsoft technologies. The primary responsibility of this team is to provide excellence in support for all customers with a Risual support contract. The Support Engineer role is 100% Microsoft centric and relies on excellent technical skill, knowledge and understanding, including:

• Provide customer interface for all support queries into Risual
• Co-ordinate and fix all support queries and requests
• Maintain knowledge base for all encountered issues
• Update customers on all stages of support calls, from logging, research, action plan, escalation to resolution
• Publish customer facing technical information such as best practice guides, FAQ’s, etc.
• Provide reports and statistical analysis on issues reported and resolved for use by Risual account management teams and technical teams
• Provide a feedback loop to delivery and consulting teams
• Provide co-ordination of feedback and point of contact for customers and Risual consultants for issues arising during project deployment
• Provide point of contact and administration for Risual in-house IT systems

Season’s Greetings

What a fantastic time of the Year, we even have snow to make it feel even more Christmassy.

It’s been a while since you last heard from us and a lot has changed at risual in the last six months which we thought you would all like to hear about. So we’ve created our latest newsletter now branded “Progress” and this is below for your reading delight. One for the calendar is the risual Communications event on the 27th January 2010 at risual Head Office in Stafford, just email events@risual.com to secure your seat.

We do hope you all have a lovely Christmas and New Year and look forward to seeing you soon.

Merry Christmas from all of the risual team

risual marketing team

Have you visited our website and blogs at www.risual.com and www.risualblogs.com

So you have laptop without a TPM and still want to use Bitlocker? Well you can still use Bitlocker and store the key on a USB key instead. this will give you a secure data encryption solution and will require you to insert a USB key when the machine boots or resumes from hibernation. This is not required when your machine goes to sleep or standby, so is primarily most useful when your laptop is stolen or someone is conducting an offline attack on your disk.

Funnily enough it would protect you from an attack directly on the TPM such as this, but you are still better with than without a TPM.

The steps on a Windows 7 machine are as follows:

Edit GPO

Edit your local Group Policy to enable Bitlocker with a USB key:

Local Computer Policy>Administrative Templates>Windows Components>Bitlocker Drive Encryption>Operating System Drives>Require additional authentication at startup

then edit the policy to enable require boot authentication without a TPM using Bitlocker

And configure to store your key in Active Directory ( a good idea but optional)

Update GPO

Run Gpupdate to cause the policy to apply

Enable Bitlocker

Then Enable Bitlocker in Windows Explorer

Now when I tried this on a USB key the other day i had an un pleasant surprise when I rebooted and my machine wouldn’t boot as it couldn’t find the Bitlocker key.

Turns out out my USB key had a freebie security application on it which made the key unreadable at boot time. Luckily i had enable the 48 bit recovery key and kept it somewhere safe, so I just reformatted the key and then used the manage BitLocker option to recreate the key:

It’s a common sight: staff crowded round a laptop, cradling their coffees, or wasting valuable time sending countless e-mails to each other to get a group project finished. But in an economic environment where you need to maximise your resources, it’s time to discover a better way of working.
There is a far better way to work, which improves both productivity and collaboration. Your team can work together faster and more effectively, with help from Microsoft products. Freeing them to:

• Collaborate better — Forget the restrictions of offices. Teams can share vital documents and information through team worksites and portals
• Work simpler — Group work can be effortless. Produce documents seamlessly with features such as update notifications and alerts, online/offline access, built in version control and workflow functionality
• Boost productivity — be more productive and efficient by sharing information, analysing data and creating professional-looking documents easily

We can help you find the right solution to boost collaboration and productivity. Contact us today to find out more:
E-mail us: enquiries@risual.com
Call us: 0845 6800077
Visit our Web site: www.risual.com

Microsoft are hosting a Virtualization Summit 2010 – From the Desktop to the Datacenter on Monday 12 April 2010 at Shepherds Bush Vue Cinema in London.

Can you and your staff only access your e-mail, desk phone and calendars when in the office? Are your staff wasting time sitting in traffic just to meet with potential customers?
We’re facing one of the most challenging business environments in 60 years. But there is a better way to work that allows you to cut costs without affecting customer relationships, and keep in touch wherever you are.

Keep your business connected
Help your business get better connected with advanced communications solutions like Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Office Communications Server and Microsoft Office Live Meeting.
By freeing your staff to easily keep in touch with colleagues and customers,
you’ll be able to:

• Reduce travel costs — by setting up meetings online, you can present to customers as if they’re in the room; including showing presentations, amending documents and collaborating on a virtual whiteboard
• Find, communicate and collaborate quickly and easily — by bringing together e-mail, calendaring, voicemail, instant messaging, VoIP, and Web conferencing
• Stay up to date out of the office — with easy access to all of your communications, through your mobile device, Web browser or telephone
• Be more responsive — edit documents and review presentations wherever you are
• Organise meetings faster — by viewing each other’s availability and status
• Prepare for the unexpected — make sure your teams are able to work remotely, in the event of incidents like road closures, rail strikes or floods

Save money — with a complete communications solution throughout your entire business, including voice call management from your desktop and on-site conferencing

Contact enquiries@risual.com today to see how risual can help you.

looks like no-one else has mentioned this here so I’ll get in first

The OCS product group have announced an online tool you can use to test your OCS connectivity from the Internet. Nice and useful if you are testing a deployment and don’t have a spare line/3g card fro testing from the outside.

it’s here https://www.testocsconnectivity.com/