Our service to you
Critical Impact works with customers to build IT infrastructures – the foundations upon which business goals will be achieved. It’s crucial work which invariably has a massive bearing upon the success or failure of any IT-related project.
Which is why we encourage our customers to consider their IT infrastructure early – ideally in conjunction with the design of their software architecture. Our focus on infrastructure means we can help put the right foundations in place to ensure the overall system delivers the service required, and continues to do so whatever the future brings.
We work closely with our customers to make sure their IT infrastructure is designed and built specifically to enable their individual goals. Our service is structured around four stages as follows.
Understanding
Drawing upon extensive experience in business and industry, the Critical Impact team starts any project by clarifying our customers’ business objectives and strategy.
We know from experience that simply working to a IT brief is more than likely to result in difficulties for the customer later on. An IT infrastructure must be able to adapt and scale to possible future scenarios.
At the outset, customers usually have a strategic aim in mind – to establish a new Internet shopping channel for example – and often an idea of the software they will use to deliver the service. On other occasions, Critical Impact will come on board early and advise on the total IT solution - the infrastructure, and also the most appropriate application and database software partners. The team will then project manage the design and implementation in close partnership with the technology providers selected.
Design
Having established a clear understanding of the business goals and anticipated scenarios for the future, the Critical Impact team starts the system design. Our aim is to create an architecture which is flexible enough to scale in performance with anticipated changes in workload, whilst always maintaining reliability, serviceability, and a predictable and linear cost-to-scale.
The architecture informs the selection of server platform, processing capabilities and scalability, as well as the software requirements to manage the workload and balance performance. Critical Impact maps users’ needs with the application server and database server requirements, and where maximum redundancy is required, servers are distributed and load-balanced across multiple sites.
Design excellence comes from a combination of process and experience - we ensure that the potential of leading-edge technology is realised intelligently, cost-effectively and in line with industry best practice.
Implementation
Critical Impact provides either a completely managed implementation or a menu of options to complement its customers’ existing resources.
Experience and a clear understanding of the business needs informs our team’s approach to getting the system up and running quickly and with minimal interruption to existing operations. Whether it’s a greenfield or replacement implementation, Critical Impact brings many years’ project management experience.
Support
Our priority is to enable customers to run their businesses, not spend time maintaining their IT infrastructure. Getting the design right in the first place is fundamental, but it’s always vital to have cost-effective and rapid support services in place to deal with expected and unexpected issues. We provide a range of cost-effective options to meet customer needs and complement their existing support resources.
Additionally, in recognition that up to 90% of support issues are relatively straightforward, Critical Impact is developing its up24 brand of remote monitoring, management and maintenance services. These software services work night and day to monitor vital indicators and, as required, either fix problems automatically or alert support staff. In this way, up24 enables valuable support expertise to be deployed more cost-effectively to deal with the relatively low incidence of issues requiring individual attention.