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BBIC, Innovation Way Barnsley S75 1JL
Tel: 01226 285600 |
What is PLEXUS?PLEXUS, put simply is the office network for the smart company that wants a modern, properly maintained and constantly updated IT Infrastructure without the hassle of planning, installing, maintaining and running it. With the PLEXUS system in place and some help and support along the way from our team, your company can soon be making use of up to date technology that you will soon wonder how you ever did without!
Before we go into exactly what PLEXUS is and does, it is worth pointing out that while this product may sound like something that is only affordable by large companies - that is not the case. This product has been designed for companies of all sizes and at the point of writing, our smallest PLEXUS client is a company with just 2 people; while our largest has about 45 users. Please do not be put off if you are a small company - if you want a proper IT network with properly maintained services and do not want to worry about maintaining it then PLEXUS is for you.
A brief history
During our pilot programme, the predecessor to the current PLEXUS service was known as the 'Shared Network Service' and was provided specifically to companies within the BBIC Wilthorpe business centre on Huddersfield Road in Barnsley.
With the success of the Shared Network Service with our BBIC based clients, we received lots of feedback from our customers. We have used this feedback to build upon the Shared Network Service and have produced the next generation of this product which we now call PLEXUS. One of the biggest improvements in the PLEXUS system is its capability to seamlessly deliver the service to anywhere that we can get a reasonable internet connection. (The Shared Network Service was limited the the BBIC site, PLEXUS has no such limitation.)
This is the location where the core systems for the PLEXUS network are now housed but the service can easily be deployed anywhere in the UK.
What PLEXUS does
PLEXUS is a very powerful corporate network built to operate across a number of sites and sustain a very large number of users. PLEXUS is not an individual network that we install at your premises, it is an existing network that we simply extend to your premises.
Due to the fact that we are extending an existing network to you instead of setting up a new one, we can deliver all the readily available features to you at a very minimal cost, and with minimal equipment deployed on your site.
PLEXUS supports Windows XP and Windows Vista currently. It is designed for use with Microsoft Office 2007 but does support Office 2003.
The email system provided by PLEXUS is based on Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and so has all the Outlook features you would expect like shared calendars, public folders, shared contacts folders, out of office auto-responders and the very powerful Outlook Web Access webmail system.
Our system also has an integrated mail security system that attempts to filter out all spam emails, phishing emails (like the ones trying to get your bank details) and any emails containing viruses. This filtering is done outside of our network so that as much of the unwanted and potentially dangerous mail never enters our network.
Once on the inside of our network, corporate anti-virus software protects every workstation and windows servers across the entire network. We also use a network wide Anti-AdWare system to help keep the workstations clean of dangerous software that may compromise security.
Each user will get a personal storage area where they can store their own files. Each client will also be assigned a shared network drive which is where you can organise a range of shared files and folders.
The advanced security system allows you to restrict certain area's of this network storage to be accessed by certain people. You can change access permissions across individual files, folders or the entire drive. Groups of users can also be created to simplify access management.
Our central system takes a backup of all the files and folders that are stored in both the shared drive and in each users personal area. This backup is taken approximately once every 24 hours and a history of up to 28 days is kept incase of accidental deletion of a file. Files can be restored by contacting our support team.
if you would like to learn more about PLEXUS, would like to see the service first hand or you are interested in ordering this service; please contact our office on 01226 285600.
What about security?
With PLEXUS, we take network security very seriously. We have a large number of security systems in place to help protect the network from attacks, inside and out. We scan files, folders, internet and email traffic for viruses, spyware and various forms of other potential hazards including network hacking attempts at multiple points from the workstation, on network routers, border firewalls and even outside our network as traffic is approaching.
Whenever a workstation is put forward to become a PLEXUS workstation, our technicians will perform quite a lot of work including the deployment of security software, various security checks and security configuration as part of its setup. All of our security requirements must be satisfied before the computer is authorised for connection to the network.
Our central system must authorise each workstation that is connected to the network before it can access services. If a new computer or device is connected without our approval, it will be denied access to the network and the information identifying where the computer was connected and the unique information that can be used to identify the connected device is logged on our security system.
Overall, these precautions make PLEXUS a safer, more secure and very reliable platform.
The PLEXUS infrastructure
PLEXUS is designed to be deployed from the ground up across many sites both locally and in some cases, in remote area's of the UK.
The core network is still located at the BBIC Wilthorpe site but the PLEXUS system is designed to extend itself where-ever we need to take it. Almost all installations involve the deployment of a 'sattelite server' which is installed at the clients premises. This server provides a local access point to the PLEXUS system which then uses the internet connection to communicate with the central network servers over an encrypted communications link.
The PLEXUS platform is made up of a combination of both Windows and Linux servers, as well as a number of high quality network routers, VPN hardware and fibre optic backbone links to the internet.
The software operating the platform is managed by a very powerful control system that was built by our own development team over the past few years. The rest of the platform is based on a combination of Microsoft, various 3rd Party products, a range of open source Linux based technologies and a selection of additional services built again by our own development team.
All this technology is put together and managed by our control centre to produce a very feature rich service that by the use of some of our advanced and bespoke rouers, can be deployed anywhere that we can get a reasonable internet connection to - at a very reasonable cost.
PLEXUS Telecommunications Offer
With most PLEXUS installations, our VoIP telecoms service can be deployed. The base cost of the telecoms service is the same as advertised with our telecoms services here.
When installed on top of a PLEXUS service, the telecoms service is provided with sufficient dedicated bandwidth for 3 VoIP channels at no extra cost and without the requirement on your part to provide a suitable, dedicated internet connection.
3 VoIP channels simply means that you can have 3 phone calls active at the same time. We can provide you a new local telephone number or you can transfer an existing BT number. Additional numbers can be setup on request. |
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