Welcome to B & M Bulletin, produced specifically for IT specialists. In this issue:
• Tightening up the UK Work Permit system
• Tech View: ‘Thick’ and ‘Thin’ storage
• Specialist Profile: WebSphere Specialist John Ward
• Real People, Real Skills: Claire Brennan, Financial Controller
• B & M Assure
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Tightening up the UK Work Permit system
Matt Jones looks at the new advice from the UK Migration Advisory Committee which recommends the tightening up of intra-company transfers
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"A tightening of rules..… "
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Companies which import IT contractors into the UK 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. This could be good news for resident UK and other EU contractors, as it should help to reduce the competition for contract positions in the UK. 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 whether 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 overseas 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 contractors who offer the right technical skills and knowledge of UK business and culture will always deliver better value over the longer term than 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 whether work permits apply to you, please contact people@bmeurope.com.
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Tech View: in the thick of it - storage for virtualised environments
B & M Technical Manager Paul Smith considers the virtues of thick and thin storage provisioning in virtualised environments
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IT heads who want to deliver cost efficiencies are increasingly looking at Virtualisation as a way of delivering reduced costs and enhanced performance. However, rationalising your processor partitions into a more cost effective scenario is only cost effective if you also do the same for storage; there is no point in saving money in one area simply to over spend it elsewhere. Disk Storage is probably as cheap per gigabyte as it has ever been, but large amounts of storage still cost large amounts of money - and don’t forget that you also need the physical space and cooling systems to go with all this.
As an example, if it is assumed that 1TB of storage is allocated to a server, it would seem to make sense that you would therefore need 3TB of storage for 3 images (or virtualised servers). If however each image actually only requires 200GB, 500GB and 300GB respectively, you would have 2TB sitting around unused. This practice, often known as ‘thick’ provisioning, would mean that each partition may be unable to expand beyond its initial storage allocation.
The technique of ‘Thin’ provisioning on the other hand allocates storage dynamically, allowing the storage to be used much more efficiently, so in practice you might only need 1.5TB of physical data, backing 3TB of potential requirements. Software is used to provide a virtualisation layer, automatically mapping the Virtual File Store to the Physical File Store. In practice the amounts of storage would, of course, be very much larger, but this illustrates the point.
Thin provisioning also allows you to implement ‘Just-In-Time’ storage, whereby you can hot-plug extra real storage as needed. This enables you to build a much more efficient storage system saving physical space, power and money.
Software such as IBM’s Director and Virtualization Manager software allows intelligent storage control for the systems supported on zSeries platforms. IBM’s solutions also explicitly work in tandem with VMware and XEN virtualisation software to maximise enterprise resilience. Many other manufacturers such as HP, HDS and NetApp offer a variety of hardware and software solutions which perform similar functions.
In the next issue of B & M Specialist Bulletin, we will complete our series on storage for virtualised environments by looking at the networks needed to support them.
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Specialist Profile: John Ward, WebSphere Specialist
This month we talk to John Ward about living and working in Europe
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John Ward is currently working on a six-month contract for a major European public body based in The Netherlands. With a total of 14 years experience in IT, he has spent the past six years working on a wide variety of WebSphere administration, installation and support roles in financial environments.
The organisation where John is currently working has a significant middleware element, with many of the software applications having been developed in-house. As John explains, this slightly unusual set-up means that he is expanding his knowledge rapidly, at the same time as bringing his own skill set and wealth of WebSphere knowledge to the customer: “There is quite a diverse set of applications here and I’m enjoying getting to grips with all the ins and outs. I’m learning new skills and getting exposure to different technical environments in a way that just wouldn’t be available to someone who’s been in the same permanent job for years”.
The high level of home-grown applications has meant that John and his colleagues on contract have had to be prepared to learn quickly. As he puts it, “You have to hit the ground running and that in itself keeps you sharp”. In his current role, John has seen a big push to migrate to open source middleware solutions based on JBoss and Linux, enabling him to expand his skills even further.
Having worked for many years close to home in Dublin, John is also enjoying the international aspect of his current position, where he is working alongside people from all over the world. He explains, “One of the main reasons I took my current position was the opportunity to live somewhere else - I had been living and working in Dublin for 14 years in a variety of permanent positions and it was time for a change. When the opportunity came up to live and work in the Netherlands I took it, as the rest of Europe is so much more accessible from here. And, of course, from a professional point of view, it has also given me an opportunity to add some new skills to my CV”.
John is hoping to gain some mainframe experience in his current role, adding, “Of course I would also like to improve my Dutch to fluency level from the not so fluent level it is at the moment!”
John’s account manager at B & M is Seamus Hayes, with whom he says he has always had a good relationship. He concludes, “The process of getting my contract in the Netherlands was fast and efficient and Seamus has always kept me fully informed of developments”.
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Real People, Real Skills: B & M’s Claire Brennan
Claire Brennan shares her love of sailing with B & M Bulletin
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Claire joined B & M in May 2007 as Financial Controller to oversee the day-to-day running of the Accounts department. She started her career eighteen years ago working with Deloitte Haskins & Sells (now PriceWaterhouseCoopers) as an Auditor.
In 1991, Claire joined Piper Trust where she worked with two of their retail ventures, Postcard (a small group of card shops), and Pitcher & Piano (a national bar chain). She spent a total of nine years with Pitcher & Piano where she was instrumental in their fast-track expansion programme. During her time with the company she studied both AAT and ACCA, and obtained a Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) Certificate in Wine.
In 2000, Claire moved to Tootsies Restaurants where she developed both an accounts team and financial systems, neither of which existed before. During her time at Tootsies, the company expanded from having eight sites to thirty.
Outside work, Claire likes to travel when given the opportunity. Following her interest in wine she has travelled extensively visiting vineyards as far as the Casablanca Valley in Chile and Montana Valley in Australia. She is also a keen sailor and completed her Day Skipper seven years ago, although she has not had much opportunity to pursue this since having her son. She is currently teaching him how to swim so that he will confident when she next ventures on a sailing trip.
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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 information about how you could be involved in delivering B & M Assure, contact people@bmeurope.com.
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