Introduction

The boom in cloud computing over the past few years has led to a situation that is common to many innovations and new technologies: many have heard of it, but far fewer actually understand what it is and, more importantly, how it can benefit them........

Our Vision

The evolution of Cloud Computing is a symptom of the desire by many to let someone else run their applications, since the technology takes an ever-increasing part of our lives (wallets), we're not keeping up with the skills needed to run it!  Here at inCloudOne we have convergence and bundling at the heart of our strategy as we focus on unifying enterprise technologies, brokering complex service providers and integrating to provide a tailored, yet simple end to end IT solution for our consumers.  Paid for on a monthly basis these unique solutions are offered as fully managed services that are usually only afforded to large enterprises.

Why the Cloud

Its simple; the Cloud offers your business the ability to rent services as and when you need them without the capital expense of purchasing raw components and the investment required to develop these to meet your changing business needs.

Don't buy; let inCloudOne build you a solution and rent it to you

Many large enterprises spend large amounts of money on infrastructure solutions and associated support staff to provide a collection of services to their own organisation.

inCloudOne have developed their own private service cloud for use by all types of businesses offering enterprise solutions at affordable prices. By bundling our services into a tailored solution inCloudOne are able to meet your company's or partner needs easily and efficiently, reducing total cost of ownership and providing one simple monthly bill.

Today

The inCloudOne services are based around our customers' needs and focused on providing you a solution without large capital investment. We also understand that these needs will change as your business matures or changes direction and so most of our services can be rented on 30-day contractual terms.

We are seeing a lot of our customers moving their non-core applications (In house and Accountancy) and their utility application (Email, SPAM, AV, etc) to our cloud.

Whilst we offer solutions to large corporates we also specialise in small businesses and so we understand how fast your environment changes. With a large range of integrated and managed cloud services with short contract terms we can flex our solutions to meet your changing needs and allow your business to achieve its next milestone.

As rental is all we do, then you have no barrier to adopting the latest technologies, or solutions that are usually only afforded or accessible to larger enterprises.

Managed Cloud Services (MCS)

• inCloudOne® MCS Services are delivered straight from our Cloud to your business without the need for investment in expensive IT equipment and resources.  These services can be bundled together in almost any combination to provide your business with a tailored solution to your immediate needs.  All solutions can then be changed as your business changes without commitment to new and long term contracts. All solutions have been designed to deliver and support your organisation and all services are fully managed by our UK based staff providing your business with piece of mind that the services are there when you need them. inCloudOne® MCS range of services are large and and have been designed to cover all IT services that your business would need from end to end including all Connectivity, Voice, Messaging, Mobility, Application, Security & Storage, & Hardware we even offer solutions for Startups, Moving Office and Reducing Costs as well as full outsourcing of your server infrastructure, and associated networks to inCloudOne a giving you the freedom to focus on supporting and growing your business, rather than managing the day-to-day operational tasks associated with your IT infrastructure.
• For the larger enterprise inCloudOne® has a range of services which are built upon our own Virtual Server Infrastructure (VSI). inCloudOne will snap-shot your current legacy environment and deploy it to our Opex based platform. This means there is very little capital replacement costs and we take away the burden of monitoring and managing the day to day hardware & network while giving you back total control of a brand new environment. iC1 supports your IT staff by providing the skills, management interfaces and Service Level Agreements which guarantee the availability.
• iC1’s Managed Cloud Services (MCS) reduces costs and increases the reliability of your IT applications. Our virtual servers are located in our highly resilient and secure compliant data centre facilities, giving you the peace of mind that your information is safe and secure.  iC1's platform ensures low capital expenditure, short lead times and allows you to scale your requirements quickly. We offer resources that are dedicated to your business over a private cloud solution without tying you into long contractual terms that do not allow your business to flex.
• Our private cloud solutions allows your HQ, International sites, Satellite offices and Home workers to connect privately over any access method to your critical services via our resilient secure managed solutions.

The Future

We believe the growth of Cloud Service Providers (CSP) will continue through 2011 and 2012 with eventual consolidation occurring late 2012 through private equity play.  This will simply help mature the Cloud Computing market which will benefit your the customer.

See "Why can you Trust the Cloud" for more details

Why switch from traditional IT to the cloud?

There are many reasons why organisations of all sizes and types are adopting this model of IT. It provides a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Ultimately, it can save companies a considerable amount of money

Removal / reduction of capital expenditure

Customers can avoid spending large amounts of capital on purchasing and installing their IT infrastructure or applications by moving to the cloud model. Capital expenditure on IT reduces available working capital for other critical operations and business investments. Cloud computing offers a simple operational expense that is easier to budget for month-by-month, and prevents money being wasted on depreciating assets. Additionally, customers do not need to pay for excess resource capacity in-house to meet fluctuating demand.

Reduced administration costs

IT solutions can be deployed extremely quickly and managed, maintained, patched and upgraded remotely by your service provider. Technical support is provided round the clock by reputable providers like inCloudOne® for no extra charge, reducing the burden on IT staff. This means that they are free to focus on business-critical tasks, and businesses can avoid incurring additional manpower and training costs. IT giant IBM has pointed out that cloud computing allows organisations to streamline procurement processes, and eliminates the need to duplicate certain computer administrative skills related to setup, configuration, and support.

Improved resource utilisation

Combining resources into large clouds reduces costs and maximises utilisation by delivering resources only when they are needed. Businesses needn't worry about over-provisioning for a service whose use does not meet their predictions, or under-provisioning for one that becomes unexpectedly popular. Moving more and more applications, infrastructure, and even support into the cloud can free up precious time, effort and budgets to concentrate on the real job of exploiting technology to improve the mission of the company. It really comes down to making better use of your time - focusing on your business and allowing cloud providers to manage the resources to get you to where you need to go. Sharing computing power among multiple tenants can improve utilisation rates, as servers are not left idle, which can reduce costs significantly while increasing the speed of application development. A side effect of this approach is that computer capacity rises dramatically, as customers do not have to engineer for peak loads.

Economies of scale

Cloud computing customers can benefit from the economies of scale enjoyed by providers, who typically use very large-scale data centres operating at much higher efficiency levels, and multi-tenant architecture to share resources between many different customers. This model of IT provision allows them to pass on savings to their customers.

Scalability on demand

Scalability and flexibility are highly valuable advantages offered by cloud computing, allowing customers to react quickly to changing IT needs, adding or subtracting capacity and users as and when required and responding to real rather than projected requirements. Even better, because cloud-computing follows a utility model in which service costs are based on actual consumption, you only pay for what you use. Customers benefit from greater elasticity of resources, without paying a premium for large scale.

Quick and easy implementation

Without the need to purchase hardware, software licences or implementation services, a company can get its cloud computing arrangement off the ground in minutes.

Helps smaller businesses compete

Historically, there has been a huge disparity between the IT resources available to small businesses and to enterprises. Cloud computing has made it possible for smaller companies to compete on an even playing field with much bigger competitors. 'Renting' IT services instead of investing in hardware and software makes them much more affordable, and means that capital can instead be used for other vital projects. Providers like inCloudOne® take enterprise technology and offer SMBs services that would otherwise cost hundreds of thousands of pounds for a low monthly fee.

Quality of service

Your selected vendor should offer 24/7 customer support and an immediate response to emergency situations.

Guaranteed uptime, SLAs

Always ask a prospective provider about reliability and guaranteed service levels - ensure your applications and/or services are always online and accessible.

Anywhere Access

Cloud-based IT services let you access your applications and data securely from any location via an internet connection. It's easier to collaborate too; with both the application and the data stored in the cloud, multiple users can work together on the same project, share calendars and contacts etc. It has been pointed out that if your internet connection fails, you will not be able to access your data. However, due to the 'anywhere access' nature of the cloud, users can simply connect from a different location - so if your office connection fails and you have no redundancy, you can access your data from home or the nearest Wi-Fi enabled point. Because of this, flexible / remote working is easily enabled, allowing you to cut overheads, meet new working regulations and keep your staff happy!

Technical Support

A good cloud computing provider will offer round the clock technical support. inCloudOne® customers, for instance, are assigned one of our support pods, and all subsequent contact is then handled by the same small group of skilled engineers, who are available 24/7. This type of support model allows a provider to build a better understanding of your business requirements, effectively becoming an extension of your team.

Disaster Recovery / Backup

Recent research has indicated that around 90% of businesses do not have adequate disaster recovery or business continuity plans, leaving them vulnerable to any disruptions that might occur. Providers like inCloudOne® can provide an array of disaster recovery services, from cloud backup (allowing you to store important files from your desktop or office network within their data centres) to having ready-to-go desktops and services in case your business is hit by problems. Hosted Desktops (or Hosted VDI) from inCloudOne®, for example, mean you don't have to worry about worry about data backup or disaster recovery, as this is taken care of as part of the service. Files are stored twice at different remote locations to ensure that there's always a copy available 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.

Cloud Bundled Services (CBS)

Aimed at the Small Medium Business (SMB) Market and allow you to create office solutions that meet your business needs in one affordable bundle which will flex and expand to your future needs.

CBS provide a wide range of services off the shelf including Internet access, private networks, remote secure VPNs, Web hosting, Email Messaging, Voice (office & mobile), Data (Raw Servers & Document servers), Desktop Security, Online Backup, Various Applications (Microsoft and other ISVs), Thin client desktop replacements

We can also host your own Applications in our MCS and provide it back to you through our CBS Thin Client solutions.

Professional Services (PS)

As part of our Managed Cloud Services (MCS) inCloudOne provide varying levels of professional services appropriate to your needs. We also offer this same high quality service to our SME customers who need to expand and require assistance in achieving a specific goal.

Business & Technical Analysis (BTA)

Help you capture your requirements and document the business processes you use and optimise these for future needs. We can also help you to realise the true potential from your ICT and IS systems through our architectural and security assessments & reviews.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)

Alternatively the iC1 Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) service we will take total control of your ICT and IS needs and outsource them to iC1 centres or manage the BPO to another 3rd party of your choice or conduct the tender process to find a suitable supplier

Cloud Development Services (CDS)

For custom solutions which require the modification or creation of new systems iC1's Cloud Development Services (CDS) operate on-shore, near-shore and off-shore development to suit your budget and timeframe. With years of Finance, Telecom and ISP industry experience you can be assured that we can offer you a solution that is simple, effective and cost sensitive to your needs. iC1 can also undertake performance and capacity management to ensure that key systems can handle peak demands and critical transitional timeframes.

Framework, Implement & Control (FIC)

If BPO is not the answer for your business and instead you wish to expand and operate your own technical environments then iC1 offers Framework Implement & Control (FIC) services where we can offer assistance to implement your ITIL, Information Risk, Business Continuity, IT Security & Governance frameworks giving you peace of mind that your services are fit-for-purpose and fit-for-use and the appropriate controls are in place to assure high availability and stability under all conditions.

Business Transformation Services (BTS)

iC1 offer you all the standard Project Management, Service Delivery and Deployment Services that have become common place in Enterprise businesses today. However not all SME's have the suitable skills on-site or only need them for short periods. iC1 offer all of Business Transformation Services (BTS) on a short-term basis to suit your budget and trading cycles as well as on a fix-term basis if critical focus is your priority. We also offer extensive services to transfer your data from various different application and even perform data cleansing services on all information assets.