Evros - The Computer Centre - Company News
February 2008
Martin Cullen, TD, officially opens Evros Waterford Office
Waterford, Ireland, dateline… Irish Information Technology solution provider Evros formally opened landmark offices in Waterford City recently. Located in Cleaboy Buiness Park in Waterford. Martin Cullen, TD, was the guest of honour at the opening on 22nd February 2008 as he officially cut the ceremonial ribbon. The new offices will act as a hub for Evros customers in the South East.
Minister Cullen said: “Maintaining Ireland's attractiveness as a competitive and profitable location from which to do business is a key priority for Government. Enterprise development and entrepreneurship are important elements in the development of a modern innovative economy and it is companies like Evros that are the drivers of job creation in our economy. In my view, the key to successful Irish companies is the commitment to high quality standards and to developing resourceful innovative work practices that in turn, will maintain competitiveness in the face of strong competition in the marketplace.
“I believe that your company, with your new premises, excellent staff and clear strategy, has a very bright future indeed. Evros must be congratulated on its high quality standards and on developing a successful business model.”
Caroline Godsil, managing director of Evros, said: “While our business is spread across the 26 counties, Munster accounts for some 35 percent of our customer base. Our new offices at 9b Cleaboy Business Park, Old Kilmeaden Road, Waterford. will provide the company with a critical base and resources to support and maintain these important relationships.”
Evros' Waterford Offices are located at 9b Cleaboy Business Park, Old Kilmeadan Road, Waterford. The offices cover some 9,000square feet and will house a Network Operations Centre (NOC) for all Evros's customer's nationwide. In addition, the central engineering team will also be located at these premises and through this new facility over 200 customers receive remote IT assistance and in many cases the team here are the virtual IT departments for a large number of these clients.
Evros, founded some 20 years ago, has been growing rapidly under Godsil's leadership. The company's offices in Dublin, Cork and Waterford currently offer employment to 45 staff. 25 of the staff will be based at the Waterford office with an expected increase to 45 by year end.
About Evros
Evros is an Irish Information Technology solution provider, partnering with companies in Ireland and abroad to implement their IT projects efficiently, professionally and cost effectively.
Evros was formed in 1988 and has offices in Waterford, Cork and Dublin, as well as engineers strategically located in other areas. Evros' maintenance support team provides one of the most comprehensive service offerings in Ireland.
Evros has implemented a fully operational Network Operational Centre (NOC) providing 24x7x365 support to clients throughout Ireland.
The company has recently become an Authorised Service Delivery Partner for HP, this allows the company to carry out all warranty and break-fix calls for its customers that originally would have gone through the central HP helpline.
Evros - The Computer Centre - Company News
January 2008
Renewable energy leader supplies green electricity to over 38,000 customers in Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Dublin, Ireland, Monday, 14 January 2008… Irish IT services company Evros celebrates eight years of partnership with world renewable energy leader Airtricity. Evros has provided Airtricity with tailor-made IT infrastructure solutions to cater for the company’s fast growth, since its beginning in 1999.
Airtricity was founded in Dublin in 1999 and has grown to become a world leader in renewable energy. The company develops and operates wind farms across Europe and supplies green electricity to over 38,000 commercial customers in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Throughout Europe the company operates 14 wind farms with a capacity of almost 400MW.
“Globally, we have 14 wind farms in operation throughout Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland resulting in almost 400MW,” explains Liam O’Riain, IS Operations Manager for Airtricity. “A further nine wind farms, totalling almost 200MW, are under construction with a global pipeline in excess of 10,000MW.”
The company has almost 300 employees, a turnover of €177m and has been most recently valued at €1.2bn. This year, Airtricity has been voted The Best Company to work for in Ireland.
One of the most important projects delivered by Evros was the recent installation of SAN (Storage Area Network). “The SAN provided Airtricity with an industry best solution that catered for our Data storage needs both then and into the future,” explains O’Riain. His team is responsible for Production Systems, IT equipment, Networking and Telecommunications for the global wide organisation.
“Apart from serving the initial Data storage and retrieval needs, this project was the cornerstone of al future projects and was a mandatory pre-requisite to the deployment of most of the business critical application that followed,” he adds.
The Enterprise Storage Solution installed by Evros is based around a HP Storage Area Network over Fibre Channel. The SAN is a high-speed and high-performance network allowing all current and future servers in Airtricity to access shared central storage devices. Multiple servers can now access multiple storage systems though redundant paths, resulting in much higher data availability and speeds.
An important number of storage challenges are eliminated under this new storage infrastructure, as Paul O’Neill, technical director for Evros, explains. “IT administration costs associated with storage are significantly reduced because storage is now centrally managed. Users can also access data on any storage system on the SAN quickly and cost effectively and the server no longer blocks access to the data.
“Because the SAN is a dedicated storage network, which is separate from the LAN/WAN, normal application traffic and use of the LAN/WAN is not impacted when backup and restore procedures are undertaken and another benefit is that new devices can be added to, or a failed device removed from, the SAN without interrupting normal operations, practically eliminating downtime,” he says
Enterprise Storage Solution has key business benefits for Airtricity, including lowering of overall cost, higher data availability, improved disaster tolerance and recovery, as well as improved backup and restore capabilities, and improved application testing.
“Evros demonstrated that they had Expert Resources married to a very strong partnership with the Solution Vendor,” O’Riain adds. “They worked hard to prove that they are customer focused from pre sales thru installation and beyond. All engagements with Evros are good experiences and they continue to impress Airtricity with the quality, dedication and customer service orientation of their staff.”
Airtricity co-developed phase I of Ireland’s first offshore wind farm (25MW), - the Arklow Bank wind farm with GE Energy, located about 10 kilometers off the coast of Arklow, Co. Wicklow. The company has offices in Dublin, Belfast, London, Glasgow, Lisbon and Beijing.
Evros - The Computer Centre - Company News
December 2007 -
St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group invests in state-of-the-art IT infrastructure by Evros
Dublin, Ireland, 2007… St. Vincent’s University Hospital, one of Ireland’s leading hospitals, has invested in new state-of-art IT infrastructure by Irish IT Company Evros, to cater for the hospital’s ongoing expansion.
Evros has installed a new state-of-the-art HP server infrastructure based on HP BladeSystem, along with Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) storage. The new IT infrastructure will support critical clinical, administrative and patient services at St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group.
With the new installation, the hospital has boosted efficiency and improved ICT services. St.Vincent’s installation allows the hospital’s ICT team to monitor critical elements of the hospital’s day to day administration using high capacity, consolidated and reliable ICT infrastructure, adaptable to changing business requirements.
St. Vincent's University Hospital is one of Ireland’s leading medical treatment and teaching hospitals. It provides emergency service and medical care at inpatient and outpatient level. The hospital provides in excess of 40 medical specialties ranging from clinical training, primary care treatment and therapeutic services to laboratory services and medical research.
"We have seen the recent introduction of new technologies, such as Blade Servers, to St. Vincent’s as key components of our strategy to create a stable robust foundation for the development of clinical systems," explains Dermot Cullinan, Director of ICT for St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group. "These are not out of the box technologies and a strong partnership with our vendors was a prerequisite to their successful implementation."
As Neal Mullen, Deputy Director of ICT for St. Vincent’s explains, we required an enterprise solution that was both easy to support and offered high availability on our growing clinical systems. We turned to Evros to assist us with this solution. We have built a long term technical relationship with Evros and as one of Ireland’s largest HP enterprise solution resellers we felt that they would be the right partner to delivery and assist in the roll out of a totally new storage and server solution for the hospital. "We have worked with Evros on other enterprise solutions and have found their responsiveness, technical knowledge and approachability to be excellent. As part of our back end consolidation project, this solution has provided a platform for our high end applications. Evros’ level of commitment on this project has reduced its complexity and eased in is deployment" he adds.
Evros has worked with the St.Vincent’s team over the last six years. "During this period we have gained a unique understanding of their operating environment and their unique set of business needs," says Caroline Godsil, managing director for Evros. "Our core objective for this project was then to come up with a solution to meet these specific needs and one which we know is reliable, flexible and overall gives good value for money."
HP and Evros collaborated with St. Vincent’s University Hospital to provide an original, tailored server and storage infrastructure that successfully caters for their needs so the hospital can better manage operations and serve its patients.
"The medical field is one of the most dynamic and fast changing environments there is; HP BladeSystem will allow St. Vincent’s ICT Department to rapidly react to their ever changing business requirements, providing resources when and where they are needed while also reducing their management and facility costs," said Mary Lou Nolan, HP’s Head of Sales in Ireland.
"HP is committed to working with its clients to deliver the best possible innovative solutions to help address their individual goals."
Evros - The Computer Centre - Company News
Evros awarded Microsoft Gold Certification Partner status
Dublin, Ireland, dateline.. Irish Information Technology solution provider Evros has been awarded Gold Certified Partner status, Microsoft’s highest accreditation.
"Gold Certification is the highest accreditation Microsoft provides and it demonstrates that partners have invested in the skills and capabilities to help customers make the most from their investment in technology," said Colin Cassidy, Partner Strategy and Programmes Manager for Microsoft Ireland, commenting on the new Partner programme.
"Investment in a competency and associated specializations as well as having customer references and deployments is something we are keen to ensure customers understand when it comes to choosing the right partner. Evros clearly has made substantial investment in their Microsoft related business," he explained.
Caroline Godsil, managing director of Evros, commented on the accreditation, "Receiving Gold Certified Partner status is a great achievement for our company. Our focus is to deliver a first class service to our customers, on time and within budget, and having this accreditation is a great reward for our good work."
Microsoft Gold Certified Partners represent the highest level of competence and expertise with Microsoft technologies, and have the closest working relationship with Microsoft itself. The programme allows members deliver the most sophisticated and effective solutions by availing of internal advances and technologies not yet published or available to a more general audience.
Evros - The Computer Centre - Company News
Enterprise Board Appoint Evros as IT Advisor
Following a detailed audit and consultancy process we were delighted to be appointed by the South Cork Enterprise Board to carry out ICT health checks for the Cork County and City enterprise boards. Over the coming 12 months Evros will be visiting many of the companies in this region and accessing their IT infrastructure and thereafter providing a solution to ensure this infrastructure is as up to date as possible. Providing IT consultancy is a key offering for Evros and we look forward to bringing our skills in this area to this region and providing them with the tools, strategy and support necessary in todays demanding IT environment.
Sean O’ Sullivan, CEO is quoted as saying "Following our recent tender for applications to provide this service we were pleased to inform Evros of their successful application."
Evros - The Computer Centre - Company News
Evros appoints Joe Hurley
Evros is pleased to announce the appointment of Joe Hurley as Group Sales Manager.
In his new role he will have responsibility for Sales & Marketing within the Group. With a strong team of Accounts Managers based in Waterford, Dublin & Cork his aim is to increase the revenue / profit and highlight the company profile within the business arena.
Having previously worked in the IT sector for 16 years he brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to Evros.
Commenting on the appointment Simon Kelly General Manager said, "Joe’s appointment demonstrates our growing commitment to provide our clients with choice, innovation and real service. His experience will be a valuable asset to us as we continue to roll out our services & product to our customers".
Evros - The Computer Centre - Company News
Evros awarded Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Status
"Gold Certified Partner is an elite status for companies who have achieved higher levels of certification for their people, products and processes."
Evros, Ireland’s leading independent IT and data management company, today announced that it has been awarded the prestigious Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status. This award places it in an elite group of Microsoft Gold Partners with the highest level of direct support into Microsoft. Evros was established in 1988 and has a nationwide client base.
To qualify for Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status, Evros went through a lengthy evaluation process. Staff members needed to demonstrate proficiency in mission-critical areas including networking infrastructure solutions, and OEM Hardware evaluations. Evros customers also acted as referees.The awarding of Gold Certified Partner status is a further reassurance for Evros customers that they are being supported by one of the most highly accredited Microsoft partners in Ireland, with a proven track record of excellence in IT and for the design, implementation and support of Microsoft's range of products. According to Colin Cassidy, partner development manager at Microsoft, "Gold Certified Partner is an elite status for companies who have achieved higher levels of certification for their people, products and processes. In order to obtain Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status, Evros needed to attain a high level of Microsoft technical and application expertise. This award will position it for strong growth as it brings with it strong marketing and technical advantages."