Infographics UK Ltd., a specialist software manufacturer and Microsoft® Gold Partner, today announced Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service (FRS) has gone live with their new Microsoft Azure Managed Service option.
Azure is Microsoft’s global cloud platform for building, deploying and managing services and applications.
Clients are now able to run Infographics’ mission-critical solutions for Enterprise Resource Management and Business Process & Case Management on the Azure platform. This includes FireWatch®, TeamWatch® and FloSuite® based solutions.
Hampshire FRS are one of Infographics’ first clients to move to the Azure Cloud, and have approaching 2,000 end users of the FireWatch and FloSuite solutions – previously provided via an ‘on premise’ infrastructure.
The new agreement has migrated their existing FireWatch and FloSuite applications into Azure, with Infographics providing an additional fully-managed service for both infrastructure and solutions, and 24 x 7 support.
Colin Sutherland, Systems Manager at Hampshire Fire & Rescue, said: “We’re extremely pleased to have moved over to the Azure Hosted Environment provided by Infographics. This has delivered us cost savings based on the previous hosting arrangement we had in place, increased our level of resilience and support, and also delivered greater flexibility to our employees as they are now able to access our suite of applications from anywhere they have internet access. This marks a major milestone for ourselves and for Infographics as we move forward with our ICT Transformation to move into cloud-based solutions.”
Infographics launched the Azure platform to support organisations who wish to move to the Cloud, but whom require additional expertise from Microsoft technology experts to manage their transition and gain the benefits of a fully-managed software-as-a-service environment.
As a Microsoft Gold Partner, Infographics’ IT professionals have both the Microsoft platform and solution knowledge to remove the complexities surrounding Azure, by assuming management and support responsibilities for customers.
Russell Wood, Commercial Manager at Infographics, said:
“Our new managed service offering increases flexible access to our solutions, and reduces cost, security risks and deployment timescales often involved in managing a complex, mission-critical infrastructure. This in turn enables Infographics to react quickly to support customers and address their requirements via a single point of contact. Our clients can then focus on optimising the professional service they deliver, assisted by our software platforms.”
Key benefits of adopting Microsoft Azure with Infographics’ managed services include:
- One point of contact for the support of Infographics’ applications, whether it is related to the server environment or software
- Access to Infographics’ cloud-hosted systems from anywhere, using multiple devices, such as PCs, tablets or smartphones
- A managed service that includes Infographics’ software packages and system upgrades, without the need to involve third parties in planned upgrade processes, which could otherwise create delays
- Removal of up-front capital purchase of ‘on premise’ server environments
- Greater resilience, scalability and security via the Microsoft Azure Cloud
Microsoft was the first cloud provider recognised by the European Union’s data protection authorities for commitment to rigorous EU privacy laws and the first major cloud provider to adopt the international cloud privacy standard, ISO 27018.
Microsoft Azure is a collection of integrated cloud services, covering analytics, computing, database, mobile, networking, storage and web offerings. Azure provides an integrated toolset, pre-built templates and managed services make it easier to build and manage enterprise, mobile, web and Internet of Things apps faster.
With the broadest global footprint, largest compliance portfolio, enterprise-grade SLAs and world-class support, Azure provides a robust, resilient and reliable environment – not just for your Infographics applications, but also other workloads. Azure cloud has been designed for enterprise needs with 85 per cent of Fortune 500 companies already using it.
Top image: FireWatch software, as used by Hampshire FRS, displayed on the monitor screens.
