Issue Q3 2009

Ferranti e-Newsletter

For a start we would like to inform you that Ferranti recently established Ferranti Computer Systems India Pvt. Ltd.. The office in India will support local partners / system integrators in selling, implementing MECOMS in the Indian energy market.

As always in our newsletters, we would also like to give attention to a couple of new as well as completed projects at Ferranti.

A while ago the new MECOMS application for CRM & Billing at Essent Warmte has gone live. For VVV Nederland, Ferranti  is to build the new National Database for Tourism, Recreation and Culture and at VMW, the largest Flemish Company for the provision of drinking-water, the renewal of the SCADA systeem has been completed.

In terms of ICT Infrastructure projects, ferranti has worked for Selor,  the Federal Administration Selection Bureau, and the college of Europe. 

Do not forget to note down Ferranti events in  your calendar.

Enjoy reading,

Franky Baert
Managing Director

MECOMS for Dynamics AX application for CRM and Billing live at Essent Warmte

The implementation of the HEATFIELD project at Essent Warmte has been finished, and the project went live on the 20^th April following a perfectly executed migration. The new MECOMS® application ensures an efficient and flexible customer care system that supports the energy data management, billing, collection and the customer management processes.

Essent Warmte is responsible for the development, construction, exploitation and customer service for all heat-related activities of Essent Nederland. It is an autonomous entity within Essent, with its own people and its own working methodology. This entity is managing its own customer data and connection data. As a result of this autonomous position within Essent, Essent Warmte has opted for its own, new organisation and a new IT application landscape, which includes MECOMS® for Dynamics AX.

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New National Tourism, Recreation and Culture Databank and Content Management System for VVV Nederland

VVV Nederland has asked Ferranti Computer Systems to supply a shared back-end system for the National Tourism, Recreation and Culture Databank and a generic Content Management System. The National Databank is focused on the central and integral collection, management, enhancement and publication of digital data relating to tourism, recreation and culture in the Netherlands. The web content management system is based on Sitecore technology.

As an organisation linked to several local and regional organisations VVV Nederland is faced with an historic diversity of solutions and developments for a common problem, i.e. the management and supply of information on recreation, culture and tourism.

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Preliminary delivery of new SCADA system at VMW 

After an intensive monitoring period, the Vlaamse Maatschappij voor Watervoorziening VMW (the Flemish Company for the Provision of Water) awarded the preliminary delivery of the LISA2 project at the end of April. This includes the renewal of the SCADA system and the related telemetry for the monitoring and supervision of the water distribution network and the production plant in the Provincial Direction of Flemish Brabant.

RTAP’s Industrial Defender is used as a central SCADA system. This is an object-orientated, real time database with all the typical SCADA functionalities, such as alerting, visualisation, trending, etc. Due to the fact that SCADA has a critical public function with regard to the drinking water provision, substantial attention has also been paid to cyber security. To do this, an Industrial Defender application has been used that was specifically developed to secure critical infrastructures.  

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First BISON TMI standard defined

On Tuesday, the 26^th May, the Strategic Committee of BISON unanimously approved the new interfaces for Planned and Actual Travel Information for holding levels 7 and 8, version TMI 8.1. With this, the first BISON standard is a fact.

This standard has the following characteristics:

• Support with regard to information about modality, product formula and equipment used
• Support with regard to cancelled or additionally scheduled trips
• Support for free text options, and the option of automatically translating and/or abbreviating OV-related messages
• Supports all modalities of any number of transporters
• Contains more information in smaller messages (compared to previous versions)
• Is easier to implement and to manage (compared to previous versions)

The management procedure was also approved for this new standard. Both the new interfaces and the management procedures can be found here.

Selor expands its cooperation with Ferranti

Ferranti has recently received an order from Selor, the Federal Administration Selection Bureau, for the supply of high level ICT consultancy services for the support of infrastructure-related projects.

Selor handles the selection and induction of employees for its customers in various public administrations: The Federal Administration, communities, regions, public utility institutions, semi-public companies, local authorities, non-profit organisations, the Senate and ombudsman services.

At the beginning of 2009, Ferranti already received a first order from Selor for the delivery of an audit and improvement project to be carried out on the internal Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager implementation. The SCCM training course for the Selor IT employees who will manage this application will also be organised by Ferranti.

The provision of high level ICT consultancy services means that Ferranti will be responsible for the implementation of several System Center products (SCOM and SCDPM), and for all related technologies  (Dell hardware, Hyper-V, ...). The contract also includes consultancy with regard to the latest Microsoft technologies.

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Microsoft System Center implementation for College of Europe

College of Europe in Bruges called on Ferranti for the implementation of the Microsoft System Center suite within their existing IT infrastructure. They are now using the System Center Operations Manager, the System Center Configuration Manager and the System Center Data Protection Manager for monitoring, configuration and backup respectively. All this has been integrated into the College of Europe VMware virtualisation platform. 

College of Europe is the most 'European' of all university institutes for European studies: The institute attracts a highly qualified pan-European faculty, and welcomes students from all over the continent. A truly European atmosphere therefore reigns on the Bruges and Natolin (Warsaw) campuses, and the institute can rely on its unique network of personal and institutional relationships that have developed within and outside the borders of Europe over the past 59 years. The academic quality and the diversity of the post-university European study programmes are renowned worldwide.

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Ferranti First to Achieve Cisco Business Edition Reseller Label in Benelux

Ferranti Computer Systems is the FIRST partner in the Benelux to achieve the Cisco Authorized Business Edition Reseller Label.

Through the Cisco Authorized Business Edition Program, Ferranti will gain access to Cisco Unified Communications Manager Business Edition products for the 100- to 500-user market segment. By completing the program requirements, Ferranti demonstrated its competency in deploying these solutions and is eligible to participate in the Cisco Value Incentive Program and Challenge & Reward Plus Program.

Next to that, Cisco Systems is pleased to recognize and congratulate Ferranti for achieving Cisco Channel Customer Satisfaction Excellence. Customer Satisfaction Excellence is the highest distinction a partner can achieve within the Cisco Channel Partner Program.

vBox - Virtualization in a Box!

Operational IT costs are rising with energy prices responsible for an increasingly bigger share of this cost. In view of the fact that global IT budgets are not increasing proportionally, the margin for innovation within IT Departments is decreasing as a result. That is why a company's server infrastructure imperatively needs to run as efficiently as possible, use the lowest possible amount of energy and be easy to manage.

Next to this, IT is confronted with more and more servers (physical and/or virtual servers), whereas the associated budget is not adjusted in line with this development. That is why management tools need to ensure that everything runs efficiently: routine tasks need to be automated so that they require less time, management information has to be presented in such a clear and complete way that decisions can be easily made based on the available expertise, with a minimum of additional training for IT staff.

vBox

Ferranti Computer Systems is aware of companies concerns, which is why we are proposing the vBox solution.

Do you want to have optimized IT infrastructure at your disposal, which consumes the lowest possible amount of energy? A solution that is environmentally sound and which guarantees a good ratio between price and quality? Ferranti has it.

Our vBox solution is based on:

• HP BladeSystem c3000 enclosure
• HP MSA 2000 Storage
• HP MSL2024 Tape Library
• Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor
• Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager and Operations Manager

Contact us for more information!