“IT accounts for somewhere between three and five per cent of global carbon emissions and when you consider that there are a billion Windows PCs around the world, we have the ability to deliver substantial carbon savings." Not my words but those of Darren Strange, Head of Sustainability at Microsoft UK.
This is one of those ‘watch this space’ postings as we have in development with Reading University a new online tool that will provide companies with the ability to work out how much energy they can save by upgrading to Windows 7. The tool has already been tested in pilot projects with two mid-sized firms where Microsoft undertook a carbon and energy efficiency audit of their IT estates and provided recommendations on how to cut their energy bills.
An organisation will be able to say how many PCs or laptops they have in their estate and then work out how much energy and carbon they could save in £000s, and CO2 emission reductions. After all, when you say to people that technology can help save energy, they tend to agree but will then often fail to take action. When you go in and can say with the support of a detailed analysis ‘this can save you £200,000 a year and save you this much carbon', then people tend to react.
You can read more about this development here and I shall let you know as soon as I can share more information on how to access the online tool.
Posted by Ian
One of the basic principles of good business is ‘cash-flow is king’. Nothing is more frustrating than knowing you have funds but cannot gain access to them because the funds are being processed or have not yet cleared for payment. This is as much an issue in the public sector as the commercial sector and, in fact, many public sector organisations are striving to pay small businesses within 10-days.
Which is why I thought this customer case study from Nationwide Building Society would be of interest as an example of how technology can improve business processes, increase productivity and improve customer satisfaction. As a founding member of the UK’s Faster Payments Service, Nationwide needed a solution to reduce the time taken for settlement of payments between customers’ accounts from three days to near real time.
Nationwide is proud of its record of excellent customer service. Introducing the Faster Payments Service was a business-critical initiative. It shows that Microsoft technology (BizTalk and SQL Server) and Microsoft Services are capable of meeting core banking requirements, and the solution also integrates easily with the Nationwide SAP core banking technology.
As a result of the joint project, Nationwide is now processing around 600,000 payments per day with near real-time transfer of funds from sender to recipient accounts. The solution, which is built on Microsoft technology such as Microsoft BizTalk Server and SQL Server as well as third-party software, was completed and operational within 12-weeks with the support of Microsoft Services.
You can read more and view the video of the Nationwide faster payments project here.
Norfolk Constabulary serves a population of 840,700 with 1,640 police officers. In keeping with a national trend, senior officers are eager to improve public perception by applying performance management and customer service to policing.
In the public sector, higher customer expectation linked with increasingly tight budgets drives the need to eliminate waste and receive better value for money. Norfolk Constabulary was seeking a solution to improve the flow of information throughout the police force, and to the Home Office.
Working with Microsoft and our solution partner, Contemporary, Norfolk Constabulary implemented the Policing Performance Management solution. This is a data management system that puts vital information, including crime figures, at the disposal of police officers. It helps police pinpoint problems and direct the appropriate resources to the areas that need them. Implementation has helped cut crime, provide better service to the public, and improved the ability of the police to solve community problems.
The system provides information for officers at all levels of the police force by pulling it from various sources into a SQL Server data cube that provides analytics and data-mining capabilities. Information, personalised to the specific needs of each user, is presented through dashboards and reports. Users access the information through Microsoft Office SharePoint.
You can read the full story of how Norfolk Constabulary uses information smarter to help them serve the community and cut crime by 20 per cent over two years here and find out more about Microsoft technologies for business intelligence and performance management here.
Microsoft Dynamics is our portfolio of products for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Client Relationship Management (CRM) . Given the increasing focus in the Public Sector on delivering even more efficiencies, saving money and protecting frontline services, you may wonder why I am recommending a Microsoft technology conference to you. The reason is that many, if not all public sector organisations, are using some form of financial ERP solution and, for citizen engagement, some form of CRM software.
The Microsoft offerings for ERP and CRM have come on leaps and bounds in recent years and include specific application capabilities for our Public Sector customers. For example, customers such as The City of London use the power and flexibility of Microsoft Dynamics CRM as an xRM development platform to enhance services such as event planning and voter management it provides to citizens, businesses and visitors.
The Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Conference is being held at Twickenham Stadium in south-west London on Thursday October 14th. It is an ideal opportunity for you to find out more about Microsoft’s ERP and CRM platforms, meet our experts, solution partners and hear from customers who are taking advantage of our cost-effective ERP and CRM products to lower the cost and improve the efficiency of their organisations’ business.
Sadly, there is not a rugby match on that day although I have no doubt you may get the opportunity to see the hallowed turf of Twickenham if you can tear yourself away from the conference sessions.
Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service responds to emergency incidents in the county of Cheshire. It also provides community safety advice, which reduces risks at home, in the workplace, and out of doors. The Service has implemented a new disaster recovery strategy to help the organisation comply with the Civil Contingencies Act and to safeguard vital data accumulated over 10 years.
The Civil Contingencies Act ensures that emergency services establish proven business continuity plans for all their operations. This is especially critical for IT teams in the National Health Service, the police force, and the fire and rescue service, which must prove they can continue to respond to emergencies even if primary systems fail.
Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service has implemented Microsoft virtualisation and system management technology to achieve better resilience and compliance with the Civil Contingencies Act, as well as an opportunity to reduce hardware and energy costs.
The ICT team at Cheshire Fire and Rescue calculate that by deploying the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system and Hyper-V virtualisation technology, they have also reduced the cost and improved the environmental sustainability of their infrastructure – reducing hardware support costs by 80 per cent, cutting server electricity costs by 77 per cent, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 36 tonnes.
You can read more on how Cheshire Fire and Rescue are improving their disaster resilience and reducing their carbon footprint here.
Then, if the Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service experience has whetted your appetite for more information you can download and view whitepapers and podcasts on Microsoft virtualisation and system management technologies here.
Microsoft experts are hitting the road across the UK in the coming months to deliver half-day briefings on a range of topics including licensing, our software roadmap and security. Topics that our customers ask to be kept up-to-date and informed about.
These briefings are packed with information, delivered by presenters who know the topics inside out and each session is limited to a small group of customers to provide the maximum time for interaction and engagement with the experts delivering the content.
The topics covered in the current programme of briefings are:
The briefings are taking place in the following cities between August and November:
You will find much more information about the where, when and what of these Microsoft briefings here together with instructions on how to register to participate in any of the briefings.
Let’s start by getting the jokes out of the way. Yes, the ‘…for Dummies’ books are my kind of books. And, No, that’s not me on the front cover.
Now, that’s over with…
I’ve got my hands on some copies of the ‘Desktop Virtualisation for Dummies’ booklet to give away. And, let’s face it, desktop virtualisation is the kind of thing that needs a booklet like this. Despite believing that it is important in the complex environment of public sector IT, I admit that I still find it confusing. After all, who wouldn’t be confused when you’re presented with so many choices:
So this booklet is a good starter guide to help you think about where (and whether) to start with desktop virtualisation. It’s just 32 pages long, so just about the right length, and it sets out the strategies for virtualisation clearly. And it deals with the reasons for doing it in a clear way. For example:
If you’d like your own free copy of Desktop Virtualisation for Dummies, then simply drop Mir an email, and he’ll get one in the post to you (As they say in America, this offer is “good while stocks last, for people in the Great Britain area”)
ps Have you already implemented some of the strategies for desktop virtualisation? If so add a comment to this blog, because it would be good to know how it’s going.
Lancashire Constabulary provides policing and public safety in the county of Lancashire in north-west England, serving a population of around 1.5 million people. The force employs 7000 people, over 55% of whom are serving police officers. As is the situation for most public sector organisations, Lancashire Constabulary need to get more value from their current investments in ICT to reduce costs and improve operational efficiency.
The force is implementing virtualisation for all desktop users using Microsoft virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). The force is realising substantial improvements in such areas of operation as:
Lancashire Constabulary also use the secure Microsoft VDI environment to access the Police National Database in accordance with security and confidentiality requirements. This represents a saving of £12m over a dedicated confidential network.
You can see how Lancashire Constabulary are achieving these operational efficiencies by viewing the video here.
Government IT departments are undergoing many transformative changes today, including initiatives to better serve citizens and employees with more open, participatory systems. For instance, the www.data.gov.uk website is making an ever-increasing volume of data available for all to view and analyse. The end goal is to help citizens better understand the efforts and results of government.
Putting data into the cloud can be a secure, reliable, and painless way to share valuable information with citizens. The cloud can give public sector organisations secure, web-based access to databases—without the need for additional hardware and software investments. However, the majority of public sector organisations are not yet ready to transition to a full cloud solution and need the additional security of a private cloud implementation.
Which brings me to the main reason for this blog posting – to make sure you are aware of the recently announced Microsoft Windows Azure Platform Appliance. The Windows Azure platform appliance is a turnkey cloud platform that Government customers can deploy in their own datacentre, across hundreds to thousands of servers. The appliance solution comprises Windows Azure, SQL Azure and a Microsoft-specified configuration of network, storage and server hardware.
Customers who deploy the appliance in their own datacentres to create private clouds get the benefit of maintaining physical control of location and regulatory compliance of the data the platform processes, while taking advantage of Microsoft’s existing cloud services.