10 tips about how businesses of all sizes can benefit from using managed IT services. 

1. secure SERVICES, USING the best TECHNOLOGY available

Thanks to PTL's long term partnerships with some of the best known brands in the industry, PTL is able to provide an excellent, secure service which focuses specifically on the needs of the customer and their business.

2. LOW CAPITAL Expenses AND controllable MONTHLY COSTS

The investment in specialist hardware and software will be high. PTL's managed service offers you the highest quality enterprise and carrier grade solutions. A fixed regular payment plan means you know what you're going to get and how much it's going to cost over the contract. No unexpected upgrade charges or changes in charges, guaranteed.

3. FLEXIBLE SERVICE

Since every business has different IT requirements PTL can offer a flexible service tailor made for your business' needs.

4. Single point of contact

PTL's service desk will receive your call and provide initial assistance. The call is then escalated to PTL's specialists to provide remote support or a scheduled visit. PTL will also use it's strong business relationship with other vendors to act as a single point of contact for your business.

5. Reliable, SECURE and stable INFRASTRUCTURE

A Managed Service Provider's data centres and managed network infrastructure is much more robust than a standard Enterprise IT service. Infrastructure is run under 24x7x365 management, with strict and high approval security procedures.

6. EXPERTISE and knowledge

With Many years of experience in the IT industry PTL gives you access to staff with specialist skills and knowledge. Sometimes you will only need this skill once, so you can save the expense of training your staff for skills they will never use!

7. CENTRALISATION

With a managed network you can benefit from the ability to centralise all your applications and servers within managed data centres or cloud services, this leads to improved performance of staff, regardless of location. Access to centralised data centres within the network can also provide access to virtual services, as well as storage and backup infrastructure.

8. Higher SERVICE LEVELS

PTL's Managed IT Services provide greater control of service levels and performance. With service level agreements in place you can be sure of continuity of service. 

9. DISASTER RECOVERY AND BUSINESS CONTINUITY

The delivery of services is the life blood of the Managed Service Provider. PTL has designed networks and data centres that will be available, resilient and redundant for maintaining business continuity. Your data will be safe and your main critical services will continue to be delivered even if you main office is lost.

10. Practice a green policy

By centralising your critical business systems within data centres and running your applications on a virtual platform, your business can benefit from a huge power saving - lowering your carbon footprint whilst reducing costs. 

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IT MANAGED SERVICES - Putting your IT systems in good hands - PTL 

Has your business grown faster than your IT team?

PTL’s Managed Services package provides comprehensive IT services and support to relieve you of burdensome technology matters. That way, you are able to focus on serving your own customers better and winning new ones.

Acting as a single point of contact, PTL’s team of experts is able to provide a wide range of technology-related services to reinforce your IT capabilities, fill technology gaps, and even collate the data you need to submit business proposals. 

The Managed Services portfolio includes

 vendor management
 hardware support
 IT security
 data base administration
 server services
 business continuity
 and many more

PTL’s Managed Services package is tailored according to your requirements, no matter the size of your business or the sector in which you operate. 

Whether it is to supplement an existing complement of in-house technology people, create timely support function or be your outsourced IT staff, PTL can help you in a cost effective manner. PTL offers a large compliment of full time professional ICT staff, trained and certified in a large multitude of disciplines. Our service provides for regular maintenance visits as well as a responsive callout service. With PTL, your company can have a large accessible IT team, all at an affordable price.

www.ptl.com.mt

5 steps to solve common IT problems in a second! Home

Most of us get to use a computer on a daily basis and at some point or another we all come across a moment in the day where our PC's decide not to collaborate any more! Here are some quick foolproof methods you could easily learn in order to troubleshoot your pc and fix your problems quickly.

Step 1) Turn it off and on again

This is usual a common fix for most problems, and most support technicians will tell you to do this as a first attempt. Most of the time the issue is solved after this.

Step 2) Check your updates window

Run through the updates section of your pc to make sure everything is up to date, as even the smallest of updates may result in fixing a serious bug in your computer, or help achieve smoother performance.
 

In case of a slow computer:

All PC's slows down every now and then, and even though most users usually blame the hardware, it is not always the case. A slow PC could be the result of software too, and it will only take up a few minutes of your time in order to fix this.

Step 3) Check your System Configuration

Having a lot of programs and applications set to automatically run when your computer starts up may be the result of slow performance. This may cause the computer processor to overload, causing it to slow down … a lot!

In order to fix this, open up the System Configuration by typing in msconfig in your ‘run’ command window or in the ‘search window’ situated in the start menu at the bottom left of your screen.

Tick the programs which are really necessary to run at Startup. Any secondary programs which can easily be opened manually after would be better left un-ticked. By doing this you will be lightening the load on your computer.

Step 4) Check your internet connection.

If your PC tends to slow down when you’re browsing the internet, the result of this performance loss is probably network related. Using a speed test program or speed test website as shown below is probably your best option. Some programs may be downloading data in the background, putting a load on your network and causing it to slow down.

When performing a speed test you will be given the ping, download speed, and upload speed. 

Download and Upload speed should be the amount advertised by your Internet Service provider, or at least 50% of that speed, and the average time for your ping should be under 100 milliseconds. 

Anything lower than the above, would result in a slower performance and it would be best to contact your Internet Service provider.

Updates to the network card aren't all that common, but if one is released, be sure to download and install it because as mentioned before, even the smallest of updates could fix the simplest of problems.

Computer is overloaded with never-closing popups or restarts

Most viruses can cause various problems to your computer, from the opening pop-up ads on your desktop to restarting your computer automatically making you think your PC could be possessed!

If this is currently happening to you, you have most probably fallen victim to adware. Getting rid of these viruses isn’t as easy as you may think, as these viruses where made to stick.

Step 5) Get yourself an Anti-virus

The first step in getting rid of, or protecting yourself from adware, is to run your anti-virus software as well as having them run in the background giving you real time protection. Running a full-scan will search for any virus software, including adware and aid you in removing them. Make sure that the software you use to scan for these viruses is credible, as most small utility-tools which promise the removal of such viruses can be worse, resulting in fuelling the fire.

Below is a comparison of anti-virus software for your disposal, showing you which software is best rated for malware detection. 

Find out more about our Antivirus partner, Avira: www.ptl.com.mt/it/partners/avira

Can you keep up with your company’s IT infrastructure?

With all the new challenges of these days, companies and organisations are increasingly looking for ways to increase their productivity by focusing on their business. With the advent of mobile technology, cloud services and various internet threats, companies are becoming more aware of the benefits of aligning with companies that provide Managed Services.

Comprehensive and flexible Managed Services, enable businesses to free resources in order to focus on strategic initiatives and new projects rather than engaging in fire fighting efforts to maintain their systems.

The evolving technology puts additional pressure on companies to hire specialised staff to cover the diversity in technology. If we just take mobile devices, they come in three flavours:  iOS for iPhones and iPad’s, Andriod and Windows.  The same happens in applications, as some use MS SQL, others use Oracle, and you will find applications running on premise whilst others as a service on the cloud. As the businesses grow, so does the need to rapidly scale, deploy and manage IT services.   

Managed Services providers are designed to cater for this diversity with people specialised in different areas of operation and take out the headache for businesses of having to engage in an ever more sophisticated IT recruitment process.

Most of all, by providing flexible services, Managed Services providers personalise the services to their client’s budget, availability and needs.   Businesses that opt to outsource their IT to a Managed Services company such as PTL will benefit from overall cost effectiveness as well as peace of mind with reduced operational risk through better systems functionality and availability.

For more info visit: http://ptl.com.mt/it/content/managed-services

Enterprise resource planning for medium and small companies - By Julian Rausi

Flexibility and quick response are hallmarks of business competitiveness.  Access to information at the earliest possible time can help businesses serve customers better, raise quality standards and assess market conditions.  Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a key factor in instant access.  Although some think that ERP systems are only for large companies, this is not the case.  Medium and even small companies can also benefit from the ERP approach.  This is possible if the ERP system being employed is a modular system where one can implement only the necessary modules and adds more as the business grows. 

The use of information systems to add value to the organisation is strongly influenced by organisational structure, culture and change.  No system alone will successfully be implemented if there isn’t a willingness to adapt and change existing processes.  Information systems teams are the key to unlocking the potential of any new or modified system.   They support the cultural change within the organisation and guide the business owner on the process to successfully implement an IT system.

Businesses need to ensure that improvements or completely new IT systems help lower costs, increase profits, improve service or achieve a competitive advantage.   These can be achieved through the use of various modules which most ERP systems provide, including accounting, sales, purchasing, distribution, warehouse management, asset management, project costings and business intelligence tools.

The smart use of an ERP system in today’s ever evolving operating environment, where customers, competitors, suppliers, shareholders, financiers are closer to each other, enables businesses to have information available on demand consistently. This is critical for an organisation to not only to survive but to thrive. 

For more info visit: www.ptl.com.mt/it/solutions/finance-software-accountingerp  

Business Intelligence explained!

Have you been hearing the term "Business Intelligence" often but still do not quite grasp what it means? Check our our latest video that simply explains it in 2 minutes and find out the benefits BI can have on your business! :D

for more info visit: www.ptl.com.mt/it/content/business-intelligence

How Real Time are you?

Take a moment.  How current is the latest information you have to hand? Whether its real-time sales intelligence, or just in time feedback, any business of its sort is rapidly becoming a consumer of highly available and detailed data.

The big question is why is there such a gap between usability and capability? The art of building and using these data tools is still a mystery to most business owners, and has a price tag to match.

Past generations were able to defer decision making by weeks, because the information superhighway simply didn't exist.  Our generation has had to take steps to meet the thirst for information that the front and back office now requires.

Shouldn't the gathering and analysis of business critical data be intuitive, in-depth and economically viable? In short the answer is, yes, and it can be.  The real bar to entry is not the software, but rather our willingness to learn and change our business practices to take advantage of the new information that we are being supplied.

If we desire to be real time, then keeping up with the times both technologically and in the way we do business should be at the for front of every decision we make and the first question any of us ask when we build or buy any new system. 

Visit: www.ptl.com.mt