Welcome to B & M Bulletin, the newsletter specifically for users of IT services. In this issue:
• Tightening up the UK Work Permit system
• Tech View: Storage to support virtualised environment
• 10 reasons why you need interim support staff
• B & M Assure - premium continuity services
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Tightening up the UK Work Permit system
Jerry Smart looks at the new advice from the UK Migration Advisory Committee which recommends the tightening up of Intra Company Transfers
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Tightening up the UK Work Permit system
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Companies which import IT contractors from overseas will have to ensure that they don’t break new, more stringent immigration regulations, following a report last month on the abuse of the Work Permit system by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) - the independent body tasked with advising the Government on immigration policy.
In its report, which has now been accepted by Government, the MAC includes recommendations on how to reform the current system of ‘Intra Company Transfer’ work permits which allow organisations to import workers such as IT contractors into the UK from overseas, potentially displacing resident UK contractors. The report highlights that these transfers – part of the points-based immigration system - have in the past been abused by large companies who have used Intra Company Transfers as a way of importing cheap labour from overseas. The MAC has now recommended that the UK Border Agency (UKBA) considers whether there are enough resources devoted to enforcement and the penalties for employers are sufficient – indicating that there will be a tightening of rules and that historical loopholes will be closed. An explanation of the requirements for sponsoring workers from overseas appears on the UK Border Agency web site.
One of the key changes is that contractors will have had to work for an employer for a year – rather than just six months – before they can be eligible for an Intra Company Transfer into the UK.
At B & M, we believe that none of this affects the ability of companies to source highly skilled and experienced IT contractors who will deliver excellent value for money. Contractors who offer the right technical skills and knowledge of UK business and culture will always deliver better value over the longer term than overseas contractors who may be available for a lower daily rate, but who do not have the level of technical expertise and business knowledge necessary to support vital IT projects.
To discuss this, or any other IT contracting issue, please contact sales@bmeurope.com
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Tech View: Storage to support virtualised environments
Paul Smith considers the joys of free processing, but warns that storage needs must be taken into account
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Controlling the cost of resources is at the forefront of everyone’s mind and commercial enterprise systems are not exempt from this. The question on every IT manager’s lips is: “How can I exploit my existing resources better (preferably without spending any money)?” An increasingly common answer these days is ‘Virtualisation’.
Intel server CPUs in particular are on the whole vastly under-utilised. If your processors are on average 20% busy you could add three more similarly-loaded virtual partitions and still leave 20% capacity to cope with peaks. This is wonderful: it means you can have one machine where previously you had four, saving loads of money and power.... But - and unfortunately there’s always a ‘But’ - there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Making changes to resources and performance may end up moving a problem elsewhere. In the case of Virtualisation, it may shift bottlenecks to storage as pushing more processing into a single unit also means dramatically increasing the amount of data that needs to be accessed by that machine to keep things running.
When considering storage demands for any system you need to think about both capacity of your disk requirements and the bandwidth of your network. Modern servers generally have huge amounts of RAM, so all you need to solve is your disk storage needs. Disks are relatively cheap, but can be unreliable over time and, as you are effectively putting your all your processing eggs into fewer baskets, local storage should be ruled out in favour of resilient remote storage, such as SAN Nodes.
Then consider the network technology that you are going to employ for your SANs - from a choice of Fibre, iSCSI or NFS. Fibre performs better and can deliver around 185MB/s over a 2Gb data link; iSCSI or NFS on the other hand can only manage around 110MB/s over 1Gb, but will typically cost anywhere from three to five times less than Fibre.
In the next issue of B & M Customer Bulletin, we consider the complex subject of Disk and Network Provisioning.
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10 reasons why you need interim support staff
It is not always possible plan resources to cater for every eventuality, which is why B & M provides continuity and interim IT support resources to enable organisations to cope with planned and unplanned eventualities such as:
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1. Holidays
2. Workload fluctuations
3. Infill whilst recruiting permanent staff
4. Illnesses
5. Business continuity planning
6. Temporary reassignment of employees
7. Jury service
8. Skills transfer to employees
9. Maternity / paternity leave
10. Employee training
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B & M Assure
premium continuity services
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B & M Assure is a set of bespoke services designed to meet the ICT needs of today's businesses, no matter what is happening in the business. B & M Assure enables customers to plan for temporary skills shortages - at times of exceptionally high workload or when key IT staff are on leave for example - or to react swiftly to unplanned events, such as staff sickness.
For planned eventualities such as project work or absence cover, B & M's specialists will spend time assimilating the customers' systems and business. For unplanned cover, we offer a priority search and selection service to help source specialists at short notice (subject to availability). Both services use best practice and deliver carefully-screened specialists that meet the needs of the customers' business. For more information on B & M Assure, contact sales@bmeurope.com
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