Wikipedia defines Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) as “the delivery of computer infrastructure (typically a virtualised platform environment) as a service.” (Wikipedia, December 16, 2008)

The mbits IaaS offering provides customers with:

• an on demand, secure, highly cost effective IT infrastructure environment.
• infrastructure that can be rapidly deployed, is highly scalable and offered as a managed service under a fixed monthly charge.

The customer in taking up the mbits IaaS service removes the need to

• purchase servers, storage, network equipment, OS and base software licenses.
• physically house equipment, provide connectivity, and secure resources and IT expertise for support and administration of the environment.

In short, mbits provides the physical infrastructure inclusive of the ongoing IT expertise to run and support it. The result is on demand infrastructure provisioned and delivered to the customer whenever and wherever it is required.

mbits IaaS comprises provision, access to and management of the following

• Hardware - servers, storage, switches, routers, firewall, load balancing
• Software - Base OS and low level system software ie: virtualisation, resource management, automation, orchestration
• Systems Management & Optimisation
• Internet/Remote Connectivity
• Data Centre facility for physical hosting

Typical business needs which are driving takeup of IaaS

• Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Testing
• Application Development
• Application Performance Tuning & Testing
• User Training
• Pre-Production User Acceptance Testing
• Tender Requirements Development
• Website Development
• Issuing & Management of Tenders, RFP’s and EOI (packaged with mbits TenderingBITS)
• Emergency deployments and Tactical Field Operations
• System Integration & Commissioning
• Data Migration Data Mining and Analysis
• Data Archiving

The mbits IaaS offering is hosted out of the mbits Data Centre in Canberra and supported by the mbits Service Desk and Network Operations Centre also located in Federal.

The environment has been built in accordance with Federal Government information and data security standards: ISM (formerly ACSI 33) and the PSM for X in confidence data.

Each service is tailored to meet individual customer needs. The service is built on state of the art technology and supported by “on tap” IT expertise and support.

READ MORE... to review the key features of the service and benefits that can be derived through takeup of the mbits IaaS service.

The mbits Secure Internet Enterprise Gateway Environment (SIEGE) is offered as a fully managed end to end service. SIEGE comprises secure web hosting, email, secure firewall management, secure remote access, application based filtering and the latest security information and event management SIEM capability.

Through its highly innovative design incorporating the latest technology, mbits SIEGE delivers generational change in secure gateway functionality and capability.

In developing SIEGE mbits removed legacy technology limitations entirely which over time have restricted and constrained existing gateway service offerings. Coupled with removal of these limitations, came clear understanding of “what is increasingly required" in meeting current and emerging security threats, security policy, delivery of best practice threat management and mitigation, provision of online services and responsive change management.

mbits has built & designed SIEGE with Federal Government in mind, with particualr attention to the specific needs and requirements of small to medium sized agencies. mbits SIEGE scales from the smallest agency to the largest Department cost effectively.

People

mbits has secured the services of highly experienced, qualified personnel with the skills, expertise and “service ethic” to build, manage and support SIEGE. As with all mbits staff, these personnel reside and are physically located in the ACT/Federal Region with the infrastructure in place to support customers wherever they reside.

Key Infrastructure

The physical gateway infrastructure is located in the T4 rated mbits Data Centre, Canberra.

The Service Desk supporting the Gateway service is ITIL (ITSM) compliant and also physically located in the Federal region.

mbits SIEGE at a Glance

• Secure Gateway to PROTECTED level housed in the mbits T4 accredited Data Centre
• All Hardware is EAL4 compliant and supports IPV6
• Secure Web Hosting
• email Gateway with email filtering
• Real time HTTP scanning, FTP scanning, URL blocking, Alerting, Logging and Automatic Updates
• Secure Firewall Management
• Security Management
• Forward Proxy and Reverse Proxy
• SSL VPN gateway remote access from any Internet connected machine – SSL with 2FA
• Content Filtering
• Application based filtering – block certain applications OR components of those applications based on individual client/user profile.
• Policy control by application, users and/or content.
• Day-Zero Protection Against Application Level Attacks
• Intrusion Protection (IPS) and Intrusion Detection (IDS)
• NIPS (Network Intrusion Prevention) and HIPS (Host Based Intrusion Detection).
• High availability delivered via a fully redundant gateway, diverse paths and diverse Internet feeds
• Continuous Vulnerability assessment - ethical hacking used as input into VA and security risk management
• Client Access – via ICON, Private IP Networks, Public networks, mbits managed services clients
• Common Services, Monitoring, Customer Visibility & Reporting via mbits on line service portal
• mbits 24 x 7 Service Desk and Network Operations Centre support operating to ITIL  (ITSM)
• All operational staff are cleared to PROTECTED or higher
• Complete set of Unified Threat Management (UTM) security features
• Stateful firewall
• Intrusion prevention and detection
• Antivirus
• Antispyware
• Anti-adware
• Anti phishing
• Anti spam
• Web filtering—worms, spyware, trojans, malware
• High Performance and High Throughput – Single Pass Parallel Processing Architecture
• Exert fine-grained control over application traffic and application access by user
• Identify applications across all ports, irrespective of protocol, SSL encryption or evasive tactic.
• Enable policy control based on user identity and/or group membership, not just the IP address.
• Protection in real-time against attacks and malware embedded in application traffic.
• Centralised, policy-based management reduces the risk through simplifying rollout and updates
• Simplified policy management with powerful visualisation tools and a unified policy editor.
• Multi-gigabit throughput with no performance degradation when deployed in-line.
• Unique Identification Technologies enable greater visibility and control
• Application Command Centre – visualisation tools
• Fedlink Access
• Flexible Networking Architecture – permits connection to virtually any Network
• Virtualisation - divides the network into secure segments for additional protection
• Rapid-deployment features, (Auto Connect VPN and Dynamic VPN services)

Talk to mbits today about the "new benchmark" in Secure Internet Gateway Service., mbits SIEGE. 

Service Delivery Management is a discipline applied across all mbits managed ICT services. Responsiveness, professionalism, management of customer expectations and delivery of committed outcomes reflect the culture and goals of the mbits organisation as a whole.

Service Delivery Management is management of the ICT services themselves, and involves 6 key disciplines.

• Service Level Management - management of the IT services to ensure that agreed services are delivered when, where and to the agreed level.
• Capacity Management - management ensuring that IT infrastructure is available, delivered on time and of sufficient capacity to meet projected day to day business demands.
• Continuity Management - the process by which appropriate plans are put in place to ensure that IT services can recover and continue a base level of operation in the event of disruption, disaster or misadventure.
• Availability Management - the practice of maintaining system and service availability to ensure that at any point in time the ICT services constantly reflect and support customer business needs and demands.
• IT Financial Management - the process by which accurate and timely information is presented as input to the customer for prepration of budgets, projects, services planning and future strategic IT initiatives.
• Relationship Management – the process by which mutual understanding and true collaboration is developed in order to achieve a common goal and deliver mutually beneficial results. To achieve this, the customer centric view of the end user should be one where the service provider comes to be viewed as a logical and seamless extension of the customers business.        

Focus and delivery against these 6 disciplines is the basis upon which mbits seeks to build a mutually beneficial, tightly aligned high value engagement with our customers.

The mbits client executive typically meets with the customer on a weekly basis to ensure services are aligned and to review the status and priority assigned to individual tasks and activities.

Where mbits is engaged in delivery of comprehensive managed ICT services, a monthly service report is prepared and submitted. The content, structure and frequency of reporting is dependent upon the nature of the services provided and the reporting requirements agreed between mbits and the customer.

Desktop computing has and remains a key component of the IT enterprise. The issue is, that as distributed end-points Desktop PC's are exceedingly difficult to manage, maintain and secure and becoming increasingly so.

Today, the highest cost component for Desktop PC's relates to operational costs. These costs include finding and retaining staff, individual device management, device security, software patching, backup and support. Spending on operational costs alone is higher than for every other component combined ie: software, hardware and physical housing.

THE KEY QUESTION is how to reduce the cost and improve the reliability of Desktop computing. A new approach to desktop computing which is gaining wider acceptance is Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).

• VDI combines all of the benefits and flexibility of server virtualisation with the power and personalisation of traditional PC based desktop computing.
• VDI addresses many of the inherent constraints and costs associated with traditonal Desktop PC based architectures.

mbits specialises in VDI and has over many years developed deep expertise in this technology and specifically how VDI can be most effectively deployed to meet an organisations specific needs. mbits is committed to broader adoption of VDI as a technology across the collective IT landscape.

mbits are experienced practitioners in VDI with deep expertise across all major vendor offerings and technologies. mbits works with organisations to identify the right VDI solution, confirm outcomes and commit to delivery of these outcomes through implementation of the solution as a managed service, under SLA.

Virtualisation and its application within the Desktop environment come in various flavours. In order to assist in the discussion, mbits has prepared a brief overview which poses the question VDI - "WHICH ONE"... The paper covers the various virtualisation technology offerings and provides insight into the applicability of each. We trust it is informative and provides a basis upon which we can commence a discussion around the right VDI solution for you. The following VDI FAQ's... have also proved helpful in answering some of the most commonly asked questions.

Call mbits today for a confidential no obligation discussion of the benefits a VDI solution could potentially deliver your organisation.

TenderingBITS – A Better Way To Participate In, Manage, Conduct And Successfully Conclude A Tender

Recent studies in the US and UK confirm that “issuing, running and managing a tender process itself represents between 18-20% of the total cost attributable to the purchasing of the actual goods and services”

The cost arises when one considers that the people involved in running and managing the tender process i.e. engineers, contract managers, project managers etc are highly paid and skilled individuals who are forced to devote a significant percentage of their time to repetitive administrative tasks in managing the process, rather than actually adding value to it.

Key Questions to consider

• How long does it take you to prepare tender documents for issuing?
• How do you ensure standardisation, probity and compliance through the tender process?
• How do you keep track of tender progress i.e. validation, response, correspondence?
• What % of your time is involved in administration as opposed to building value into the process?

Tenders are a powerful procurement methodology, where the purchaser leverages market forces to generate direct benefit. Whilst delivering this benefit, the direct and indirect costs in running and managing a tender process itself quickly remove the benefit entirely.

Traditional tender management tools, practices, internal processes and the individuals forced to use them, constantly struggle with the task of issuing and managing a tender. The situation is further exacerbated through mandated adherence to procurement guidelines and organisational procurement processes.

TenderingBITS and SecureLAN was developed by mbits to

• Preserve & retain the inherent benefit of a tender process through reducing the direct and indirect costs of running the tender process itself.
• Create an environment for both respondent and issuer that can be quickly and easily deployed, is highly secure, open & transparent with a complete audit trail to ensure probity and compliance.
• Support and adhere to Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines and/or other organisational procurement process mandates.
• Deliver highly automated operations reducing the human resource effort required to run the tender process whilst removing the likelihood and impact of human error or misadventure.
• Fully integrate the key steps in the end to end tendering process through standard feature rich "field proven" workflow.

TenderingBITS is offered under a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. SecureLAN is offered as Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas). The combined solution is presented as a fully managed service based on a "pay for what you need and for the duration you need it", for a fixed monthly charge.

READ MORE... on TenderingBITS and the significant benefits that can be derived through use of this unique and innovative service offering.