The Projector Group ('Projector') is a privately held consortium with offices and representations in London, Geneva, Singapore, Dubai, and Moscow. Its primary activities include trading of crude oil and petroleum products; Storage and Blending; and vessel operations including ownership, vessel hire on a spot and time charter basis, brokerage and vessel management on an international basis.

What was their problem?

Projector has expanded rapidly over the past few years, moving from 30 staff working in a single office to approximately 150 staff working in offices around the world. That has meant increasing the capacity and capability of its IT infrastructure at a similarly fast rate: from a single server in London to 15 servers and complex back up systems in different locations across the globe. Since 2001, Connect has provided helpdesk IT support for staff as well as onsite engineers in the company's London offices. Connect has also upgraded the system when necessary and managed discrete one off projects. As the company has grown, however, the key challenge has been ensuring that the IT system can deliver the kind of security and high availability that is essential for the business.

How has Connect helped?

With security and system availability at the top of the company's agenda, Connect has installed the latest firewall technology and other anti-hacking devices to provide the front-line protection that Projector requires. All of Projector's business critical data and files are continuously backed up on two systems in different parts of the world so that, even if a disaster were to strike in one location, the company could instantly switch to the back up server. As an additional measure, Projector has exclusive access to a number of desks at Connect's Canary Wharf HQ with dedicated phones and computers linked to back up servers to enable the company to continue to operate if the company's London office was out of action.

More recently, Projector expressed an interest in establishing a wireless network in the company's London office. A key concern was whether this would be more vulnerable than the existing set up. Connect's engineers devised and installed a system that delivered the security required with Cisco networking equipment then organised a test run with Projector to prove that it was failsafe. Connect also implemented a secondary wireless system in the London office that allows visitors to use the Internet, without giving them access to the internal network.