Giving you more network performance for your money
InTechnology and WAN optimisation specialist DBAM have come together to offer a free audit service designed to help firms get more network performance for their money. The initiative follows a recent successful project with Aberdein Considine, where DBAM’s Intelligent Network Traffic Management (INTM) approach helped the Scottish law firm avoid a £250,000 upgrade.
The audit aims to appeal to those organizations struggling with network performance and contention issues, and who have been advised that additional bandwidth is the only viable solution. The INTM concept focuses less on bandwidth and far more on network management, with DBAM technology bringing complete visibility of application traffic across the WAN and the ability to manage it as a whole and at individual application level.
In Aberdein Considine’s case, they were regularly being told by their network provider that they were maximizing their 2MB connection when in fact, post-deployment of DMAM devices, they were able to prove that they were using only 60% of the available bandwidth.
Mark Halpin, InTechnology’s legal sector manager, believes there’s never been a better time to address the issue of resource utilization. “In functionally-rich environments, there’s always the risk that certain applications may monopolize or poach bandwidth from others, inflicting unwelcome degradation on other parts of the network.
But simply throwing more resources at a problem rarely works – particularly when you can’t even be sure that it will fix the underlying issue. You have to act on facts, not instinct, and once you’re fully in the picture, you may be surprised at how much more you can do with what you’ve already got.
The audit is there to provide the facts. And while the headline benefit has to be the potential to save clients from premature six-figure investments, there are also other advantages that come with WAN optimization: greater productivity through enhanced application performance; fewer man hours lost in repetitive IT firefighting; improved user mood and morale courtesy of a faster, more resilient network, these can all be unlocked through INTM.”
For more details on the free audit service, contact Mark Halpin or the InTechnology sales team – mark.halpin@intechnology.com / sales@intechnology.com
InTechnology makes smooth switch tips pitch
Data, network and telephony management specialist InTechnology has published a handy ‘top tips’ style guide for those law firms interested in moving to IP telephony.
Designed to complement the recently published white paper on convergence, the ‘Top 10 Tips for a Smooth Migration to IP Telephony’ offers an easily digestible checklist of considerations: from the initial development of a strategy based on business drivers, through supplier selection and system design, and on to training requirements and project evaluation.
Richard Quine, InTechnology’s director of product management, comments: “Not unreasonably, many IT personnel find they are somewhat out of their comfort zone when it comes to IP telephony. But the idea of resources such as the earlier white paper and this new guide has been all about helping teams approach migration initiatives with a greater degree of knowledge and confidence. The ‘Top 10 tips’ should offer plenty of reassurance that IP telephony can be tackled in much the same way as any other IT-oriented project.”
‘Top 10 Tips for a Smooth Migration to IP Telephony’ can be downloaded from http://www.intechnology.co.uk/MainPage.aspx?ID=365
e-know.net celebrates virtual engagement
Managed service provider e-know.net has announced further success in the legal sector with the news that it has signed up family law specialist, Woolley & Co. The firm went live at the beginning of June with e-know.net delivering Office 2007, Exchange, Adobe Acrobat, Laserforms, Sage Accounts, SmartStamp, SOS Business and SOS Family on a fully hosted basis.
Unlike recent wins, this was not about pitching to replace the traditional in-house IT infrastructure but to improve the quality of IT outsourcing, as Woolley & Co’s founder, Andrew Woolley, explains:
“When we set up as one of the UK’s first virtual law firms back in 1996, I was determined that, just as people turn to lawyers for their particular expertise, so would we rely predominantly on a number of third parties to supply us with key business services. We wanted to focus on legal delivery and client care, and having external and suitably qualified teams taking responsibility in areas such as IT, HR and payroll, has allowed us to keep that focus, maintain standards and grow the business. The one challenge with outsourcing is ensuring you have the right partner on board – is it a marriage made in heaven, or hell?”
With the firm already convinced of the merits of the managed service platform, it was the qualities of e-know.net as service provider that came under the closest scrutiny. Andrew Woolley again:
“As an experienced user of outsourced services, we were very impressed and reassured by what e-know.net had to offer. Having effectively outgrown our previous supplier, we were keen to secure a partnership for the long-term – priorities for us were a depth and breadth of high-grade technical and support skill, coupled with an understanding of, and commitment to, a rather atypical practice.
One of the challenges of running a virtual law firm with thirty staff spread throughout the country is that systems need to just ‘be there’, available and working any time of the day or night. Should a problem develop, help needs to be similarly on tap and reliable. Plus you want to give colleagues the best possible tools for the job and to keep investing in line with the needs of the team, the business and its clients. e-know.net have the scope and capability to give us new technologies on demand; for example, mobile working via smartphones is just one way we’ve extended our capabilities since the go-live.”
Commenting on the win Nigel Redwood, e-know.net’s managing director, said: “This was an interesting deal for us in that it was the first in legal which didn’t really revolve around selling the merits of managed service as an IT platform. With their years of exposure to outsourcing Woolley & Co concentrated much more on our credentials as a suitable partner moving forward. As well as their day-to-day requirements they also have ambitious growth plans, and we’re confident that this new relationship can help underpin the firm’s continued success.”
ED in the ER – treating the e-disclosure case
At the recent IQPC conference, leading consultancy Legal Inc hosted a workshop entitled:
THE ANATOMY OF PRACTICAL DISCLOSURE AND THE BODY OF EVIDENCE
As seasoned litigators will testify, there is often a huge gulf in theoretical best practice and the realities of disclosure on the ground. Using three client case studies, with those clients in attendance, the workshop looked at the key elements of effective disclosure, the challenges at the coal-face, the management of clients, process and technology, all with a view to helping delegates devise consistent and proven methodologies for successful litigation.
Central themes included:
• Information retention/information management – how prepared are law firms and their clients?
• Compliance – what are the issues when providing data to law firms?
• Logistics – how do you cope with huge data volumes efficiently, accurately and cost effectively?
• Legal review – how are practitioners dealing with CPR and disclosure obligations at the coalface?
• Client handling – how do litigators ensure client relationships stay on track?
• Production environments – how can the minefield of paper and/or electronic disclosure best be negotiated?
The session was moderated by Legal Inc’s Andrew Haslam and followed on from the medical analogy by adopting a theme based on the US hospital drama series ER, with each of the speakers adopting a persona from the show.
• Lovells’ Bill Onwusah presented on the “healthy patient”, that is a description of a well planned and executed case and how you go about achieving this. He was representing the young, fresh faced idealistic view of the world and hence was Dr John Carter.
• Vince Neicho from Allan & Overy talked about the “sicker case”, that is how events and individuals can conspire to thwart your well laid plans, and again what do you do about it, and how you can use strategies to try to minimise the impact of these events. A more world weary view of the situation, though still with aim of saving the patient, he was Dr Luka Kovac.
• Bill Sillett of the enforcement division of the Financial Services Authority, took people through the “basket case”, that is organisations or individuals who are not prepared at all for disclosure and the (sometimes fatal) effect this can have upon both their business and their own personal livelihoods. His patients were often desperate cases on the ER table with CPR and resuscitation sometimes failing to bring them back to life, in fact he was Dr Mark Greene.
Bill Onwusah took the delegates through the EDRM model with lots of sound practical advice on how to run a case “in an ideal world”. What came over, was that with planning and the right approach, it was possible to achieve significant savings in both time and money, with the key being early filtering and reduction in the volume of documents. Focusing on the processes on the left hand side of the EDRM model and taking your medicine in the form of control of information management and use of early case assessment tools, could indeed keep the doctor away, or at least make sure his bill was dramatically reduced.
In the real world, Vince Neicho explained the pitfalls that await those individuals and organisations that are not ready for the demands of litigation, fail to communicate with the other side within the spirit of the CPR, or do not take sufficient care with their processes and approach to handing electronic disclosure. Covering some of the same ground as Bill Onwusah, he used various real life anecdotes to show “how not to do it”.
In the final session, Bill Sillett took the audience through the very real dangers that await those foolish enough not to take the FSA seriously. He warned that the regulators are taking a tougher approach, based on targeting individuals rather than organisations. Failure to co-operate can be very expensive, both in terms of financial penalties and in the revocation of licences to trade in certain areas, effectively killing an individual’s ability to work at all. On a brighter side he reinforced the concept that being prepared for an investigation by having the rights tools and service providers in place beforehand can pay off handsomely and sometimes even cause the regulators to go away.
With a final continuation of the ER theme, Andrew Haslam undertook the role of the seasoned practitioner, the expert that could save the day no matter what the overwhelming odds against were, he was indeed Legal Inc’s very own Dr Doug Ross, and that fact he claimed George Clooney as an avatar was merely a reflection of his own ruggedly handsome good looks. (ED: “dream on, Andrew, dream on”).
He summarised the three sessions and then led an interactive debate around a top ten list of points for delegates to take away:
1. A clear, effective and enforced records management policy will save you time and money. This should address not just what you should keep, but what you can safely destroy.
2. When litigation is anticipated, establish an e-disclosure committee and ensure that Legal and IT are represented and talk to each other (whatever the size of the organisation).
3. Use the e-disclosure committee to establish the “who”, “what” and “where” of your data, and how to preserve it if you need to.
4. Collect wide, produce narrow.
5. Agree the keywords or any other searching methodology upfront.
6. Ensure that you properly comply with any obligation to “meet & confer” (or any similar requirement).
7. Don’t be afraid to shop around and to demand aggressive pricing from suppliers.
8. Be aware of the available technology and identify the solution(s) that meet the case’s requirements (it will help, honest).
9. Ensure the legal team are supported with good project management for control and provenance of data.
10. If in doubt, seek professional advice.
There was lively interaction between the speakers and delegates over the various tips, with a number of “real life” questions being posed and answered by all four panel members. After 3 hours there was just time for a quick play of the ER theme tune and it was time to leave the hospital behind and for delegates to begin the rehabilitation process of bringing their information to a fit and healthy state.
