CCL operates its data centre in an insulated 20 foot shipping container in the head office in Christchurch. This is no run of the mill storage container, packed into it is a data centre facility which is engineered to host and secure the mission critical operations and network redundancy for a variety of companies.

A hosting and disaster recovery solution can also be implemented for clients by utilising the secure hosting facility located at CCL Nelson.

The secure hosting facility provides an environmentally monitored location for clients’ servers. This includes suitable power protection, power supply, fire suppressant and cooling.

The technologies implemented to support the hosting scenario focus on managing third party service failure and Disaster Recovery scenarios. Solutions include:

• Core computing services such as servers running database and ERP systems and email and file serving. These are protected with the highest level of tolerance to faults.
• Disaster recovery servers.
• Internet servers with redundant links to multiple service providers. Tens of megabits are available in a standard shared configuration and higher data rates offered in a customised solution. These services can provide our clients with a comprehensive Disaster Recovery option or offsite server hosting if desired.

We work with clients to identify system enhancements, business process improvements, and effective resource management. The solutions we provide clients are geared to bring them the highest return on investment and the competitive edge in their industry.

Our experts design services and installation of networks for small home businesses through to corporate enterprise-wide networking solutions. Projects can range from full technology rollouts to maintenance issues that might only require a few hours of our time.

Consulting Services:

• Technical assessments
• Network administration plans (N.A.P.)
• Strategic vision documents
• Network LAN/WAN design and management
• Project management
• Database and performance tuning
• Disaster contingency planning
• Documentation standards and procedures
• Protected data access
• Network security

Project Management

Each project is judged and formulated on its own merits and has different requirements, CCL follows a standard project management approach towards all projects breaking the projects into five phases:
• Initiating
• Planning
• Executing
• Controlling
• Closing
A successful implementation requires planning and resourcing, but will never succeed without good communication! CCL utlises its own standard templates for defining the scope, requirements, risks, the plan, and ensures these are communicated to all the stakeholders and project team.

CCL offers customers a fully hosted environment utilising Virtualisation technology. This environment provides for both production servers and disaster recovery (DR) services.

CCL operate a dedicated, high availability, DR platform that relies on virtualisation technology to provide hosted production and DR services for multiple clients. Customers pay for a service that gives them access to a virtual section of the hardware which provides them with DR. One server system can host multiple operating systems in separate “containers”, each of which is allocated disk, memory, network and CPU resources shared with the other hosted systems. Typically, more than 16 virtual machines can run concurrently on one multiprocessor server.

The goals of server virtualisation are to generate utility computing, much like electricity or water supply. If there is available capacity in a virtualised data centre, it can be provisioned as required to new servers or reallocated amongst the running systems as individual performance demands rise and fall with different workloads during the day.

CCL has also been involved in a number of successful virtualisation implementations for our clients. This includes VMware implementations which have reduced the physical server requirements for one client from over 30 servers to just four, improving manageability and significantly reducing the carbon footprint of the data centre with the added advantage of reducing warranty costs.

A common problem for business these days is the volume of data that needs to be stored for general business operation or compliance requirements. Storage Area Networks (SANs) are more prevalent today and CCL has been involved in a significant number of installations and configurations. We have extensive experience in this technology and this includes hardware knowledge in IBM DS series, HP EVA, NettApp and EMC SANs.

CCL designed and implemented the first SVC (SAN Volume Controller) installation in the South Island in early 2008 for the Christchurch City Council. The SVC is designed to combine storage capacity from multiple disk systems into a single reservoir of capacity that can be better managed as a business resource and not as separate boxes; this increases storage utilisation by providing host applications with more flexible access to capacity.

Computer Concepts Limited (CCL) has academic and industry qualified network support staff with expertise in numerous vendor product portfolios. Areas of expertise include large-scale network support in sectors from small office/home office to ISP, security solutions, remote access, hardware support and deployment, large-scale network design, consumer and carrier grade wireless solutions (design and deployment), extensive experience in troubleshooting WAN links and liaising with third-party network providers, satellite communications, and telephony.

CCL also has access to a dedicated business support helpdesk and 24×7 remote monitoring and alerting systems.

CCL currently provide Oracle DBA services to sites including manufacturing applications, distribution systems, gaming systems and for a Nationwide 250 user point of sale rental system. CCL staff have previously been involved in providing hardware, OS support and tuning for both Oracle and the operating systems to enterprise and government Oracle installations.

For our existing customers we provide performance and capacity monitoring and monthly server reporting on a contracted basis, and perform first level contact and support for their Oracle support services. For example logging of TAGs on Metalink and interfacing with Oracle support.

For AIX systems the patch management largely consists of installation of AIX maintenance releases as they become available from IBM, and ad hoc patch installation as recommended by suppliers, usually as part of the install or upgrade procedures. Security patches are only applied if they are considered a direct risk to the integrity of the system.