SpectrumOctober 11, 2017
Navisite Cloud Technology Helps Bolton Mountain Rescue to Transform Life-Saving Operations
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LONDON - Navisite, a part of Spectrum Enterprise, a part of Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHRT), today announced that the Bolton Mountain Rescue Team (Bolton MRT), a voluntary rescue service, has chosen Navisite and SRD Technology UK to help manage, migrate and transform its IT infrastructure to the cloud. Migrating to Navisite’s cloud environment will enable better communication between Bolton MRT and emergency services from remote locations, helping to improve the management and response times for rescues.
Bolton MRT also envisions this connected solution will be a direct aid in helping to locate missing people and casualties. The new Navisite cloud-based system will allow multiple emergency response agencies to work together and share information in real-time, in a single environment. More importantly, it lets Bolton MRT instantly share location information with emergency services so they are able to respond with the most appropriate resources, reducing rescue response time and potentially saving lives.
“Often in rescues, the biggest challenge is precisely locating the lost or injured person,” said Martin Banks, Operational Member and Treasurer at Bolton Mountain Rescue. “We’re now able to start the process of identifying the person’s location using an application which can be run on our system from any location.”
The police can often triangulate a person’s mobile phone location but this data can be inexact. The SARLOC positioning service, developed specifically for mountain rescue teams and now used across the country, is more accurate. Bolton Mountain Rescue team use Navisite’s cloud to access SARLOC data from any location. The positioning service requires the consent of the lost person, and a smartphone with GPS and mobile data service.
Sumeet Sabharwal, General Manager, Navisite said: “We’re proud to be collaborating with SD Technology UK to support such an important, life-saving organization like Bolton MRT and to be a part of its cloud transformation. When a cloud service like Navisite’s Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is being used in such a critical and time sensitive context, it’s vital that the service has a reliable and robust infrastructure with availability from any location. We’re pleased to have our technology and managed services used in such a beneficial manner.”
The new system works by sending a text message with a link to the mobile phone of the missing person. By clicking the link, any lost or injured person will be able to open a website that will calculate their location and notify Bolton MRT wherever they are through the mapping application running on Navisite’s DaaS. As a result, teams are able to locate lost or injured people much faster and with greater accuracy, no matter where the rescue team is located.
“Bolton MRT was working off IT equipment that had started to tire and limited their ability to carry out important work from the remote locations in which search and rescue incidents often take place,” said Simon Darch, Technical Director, SRD Technology UK. “With a dedicated focus on supporting cloud migrations for charities and not for profit organizations across the UK, the collaboration was critical for us to be able to provide not only the technology, but the managed services around it. Navisite’s Desktop-as-a-Service and Managed Office 365 solution enables Bolton MRT to work remotely, with full access to an integrated and standardized suite of applications to help their rescue operations.”
Bolton MRT is a registered search and rescue charity, with trained volunteers covering an area over 800 square kilometers. The team functions as a vital resource to local emergency services in locating and rescuing missing or injured hillwalkers, climbing and biking accidents and any other incidents involving people in wild and remote places.
The volunteer organization previously ran its operations from shared desktops located at the organization's base and had no back-up procedure in place. This system restricted the ability of the team to access important data and systems remotely, as well as limiting information sharing with other emergency agencies. SRD Technology UK implemented Navisite’ s DaaS and Managed Microsoft Office 365 solution which allows standardized remote working, making it easy to deploy and manage desktop environments and gives the team access to a full suite of applications.
SRD Technology UK and Navisite were selected ahead of other managed service providers for the flexibility and reliability of their solutions, as well as their experience and skills in managing these cloud applications and environments.
Navisite and Spectrum Enterprise are registered trademarks of Charter Communications.
“Microsoft” and “Office 365” are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
About Bolton Mountain Rescue Team
- Bolton Mountain Rescue Team was established in 1968 (registered charity 517454) and has 50 volunteers on call 24 hours a day 365 days a year. The Team has 12 non-operational support group members. The primary operational area covers 800 square kilometers from Rivington to the north to Manchester Airport in the south; from Wigan in the west to Darwen and Bury in the east. In 2018 the team will enter its 50th year of serving and supporting the community.
- Bolton Mountain Rescue Team responds on average to 120 calls for its assistance per year. The team supports the Police in Greater Manchester and Lancashire with search operations for missing people. It assists the North West Ambulance Service with calls to casualties in difficult to access or remote locations. It also provides support to Greater Manchester and Lancashire Fire Rescue Services with wild fire incidents on the moors and with rope and water rescue operations.
- Bolton Mountain Rescue Team works closely with its neighboring voluntary Search and Rescue organizations; Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue Team; Rossendale and Pendle Mountain Rescue Team; Oldham Mountain Rescue Team; Cheshire Search and Rescue; Bay Search and Rescue and the North West Air Ambulance. For more information, please visit https://www.boltonmrt.org.uk/
About SRD Technology UK
SRD Technology UK Ltd is a UK technology as a service provider, offering a full suite of IT & Unified Communication solutions including such as DaaS, Office 365, Hosting, Hosted Telephony, Data Connectivity & Mobility solutions. SRD Technology UK provide a wide range of services across the UK including implementation and support across all major technology platforms, networks and vendors, to ensure quality of service delivery, improved uptime and availability, increased operational efficiency and reduced costs. For more information about SRD Technology UK’s services, please visit www.srdtechnologyuk.com.
About Navisite
Navisite, LLC, a part of Spectrum Enterprise, is a leading provider of managed cloud services, including multi-cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (cloud IaaS), Managed Office 365 and Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS). Offering a full suite of scalable and secure managed services, Navisite enables enterprises to confidently extend their applications and data centers with VMware and Microsoft Azure hybrid, private and multiple public clouds. Navisite helps clients use the cloud strategically, by pairing employee expertise across leading enterprise applications and more than 800 IT certifications with an international footprint of state-of-the-art data centers to deliver solutions tailored to each client’s needs. For more information, visit Navisite.com
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