Atlas Business - Looking Ahead To 2010

The annual Atlas Business Kick Off Meeting was held at Crewe & Natwich Vagrants Rugby Football Club on Friday 22nd January with the clear message being encapsulated in the soundtrack for the day; Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin'

Covering topics directly and indirectly related to Atlas Business the day was its usual mix of retrospective analysis and forward-looking planning, always with one eye on our changing times. With today being the day that the UK has officially come out of recession it seems particularly apt that Atlas' own meeting sought to plan for the changes that this would bring, both to ourselves as a business and our partner businesses, both on supply and customer sides.

The day was also one for celebration of recent achievements and Group Managing Director John Butler presented awards to the Applications Systems Management (ASM) and Technical Systems Management (TSM) teams for their hard work in achieving ever-improving customer feedback. The Developers Group also benefited from a group award and project consultant Catherine Ball received a personal award for her hard work and dedication on numerous projects this year which have seen her travel the length and breadth of the country on an almost daily basis. Senior team members Ian Skaife and Kelvin Redmile were also awarded a joint prize in recognition of their continued effort and inspired management at the forefront of the company.

As we move from recession into recovery and from January into February, all of us here at Atlas would like to wish you and your businesses all the best for 2010, whatever its own changing times may bring you!


The ASM and TSM teams receive their award


Representatives of the Development group receive their award


Catherine Ball receives her personal award and (below) Ian Skaife and Kelvin Redmile are presented with their joint award.




The Atlas Business Team - looking to the future in 2010.

Top Trumps - The Atlas Secret Nuclear Bunker

We often refer to our Secret Nuclear Bunker which most of you will know is an actual decommissioned ex-Government bunker built for the cold war threat, located near to our offices in Cheshire. The bunker not only hosts our Disaster Recovery Facilities and Secure Server Environment but parts of it also serve as a museum with lots to see and do. It is both educational and interactive, well worth a visit.

As a light hearted way of conveying some of the interesting facts and figures of our data centre and why you should speak to us about all of your hosting, transit, internet connectivity, domain names and business contingency requirements please find below our Top Trump card. Come and 'ave a go if you think you’re hard enough!!

So confident are we that your place of work cannot top trump our facility, we have 5 family tickets to give away on a first come first served basis. If you believe you can beat any one of our 5 stats send an email to sales@atlasbiz.com substantiating your claim and proof that you work there!

If we’re so confident that our house is better than your house why have we limited it to five tickets, you may well ask? Well it’s just in case those guys from Area 51 are still subscribing to our blog!!!



Blast Defenses - 10/10

Hack Green Bunker was built to withstand impact from airblast, fragments and flying debris. The doors will sustain impact from a 5kg steel ball at 20 meters per second and the re-inforced walls at 900 meters per second, without sustaining any fragmentation of the inner surfaces.



Radioactive Defenses - 10/10

Hack Green Bunker was built to withstand the mechanical & radioactive effects of a 1-megaton weapon detonation at 2600 meters or a 300-kiloton weapon at 300 metres. This is equal to a pressure of 1 bar of incident pressure & 2.5 bar of reflected pressure.



Wall Thickness - 10/10

The bunker walls are 2 meters thick and made from special concrete. Every 150mm vertically and 150mm horizontally set 150mm from both the inner & outer surfaces of the concrete is a 25mm fully welded carbon steel bar.



Ground Shock - 10/10

Hack Green Bunker can survive a sustained ground shock of an acceleration force through the ground of 80 meters per second. This is the vibration the bunker is subjected to by the pressure wave propagating through the ground.



Cost - 9/10 (well... the government could have thrown a bit more money away on it!)

Operational in December 1982 the bunker cost £126 million of which £66 million was spent on the construction & £60 million on systems installation. Source: The Times 1996





To read more about the bunker, click this link - http://www.hackgreen.co.uk/



To speak to a consultant about your technical requirements please call 0333 666 3330 and ask for technical sales.


Picture Courtesy of Espresso Addict reproduced from its original form here.

It’s Snow Problem With The Right Technology

Despite the much publicised ‘Deep Freeze’ causing havoc up and down the country, Atlas are happy to confirm that we are still working with a full compliment of staff through the current sub-zero conditions.

Having braved the blizzards and icy roads, our Nantwich, Leeds and Glasgow offices are still busy, warm and full of staff, although there are a few disagreements still ongoing about who had to battle against the worst conditions to get there.

Similarly, our disaster recovery sites are fully functional and staffed and we can continue to offer business critical support to those clients who rely on us every day. In fact, we are proud to say that the current climate has not caused a second of downtime to any of our supported customers and has not affected our high standards of customer service in any way.

For those who can’t make it into the office, regardless of how much they would love to, Atlas are able to provide remote access to all the systems and documents that we all use on a day to day basis. This infrastructure, using our specialist networking solutions and Citrix virtualisation, has allowed us to continue to operate with minimal disruption, even when nature tries it hardest to stop us.

All offices are running on a common SIP telephony system, which as well as offering free internal calls and savings on external calls, also allows us to forward calls to mobiles and external land lines automatically or at the touch of a button, ensuring that no matter where we are we never miss that important phone call and all staff can stay in touch quickly and easily.

If you would like to find out more about disaster recovery and business contingency, remote access or flexible telephony solutions, then please do not hesitate to call technical sales on 0333 666 3330 or alternatively speak to your account manager