In-depth support for all distributions of Linux is provided - we have been using, supporting and advocating Linux for more than 3 decades and run SuSE/OpenSuSE, Slackware, Debian and Ubuntu Linux desktop systems and servers in our own office; anything from a simple configuration tweak to full installation, desktop workstations to file, mail and large web server clusters can be undertaken.

We can integrate your Linux systems into existing Microsoft Windows, Novell and AppleTalk environments, providing all network, Internet and server facilities. In fact, we can even set up your Linux server to provide all of these server functions, replacing 'real' Windows, Novell and Macintosh servers with a single low-cost PC-based solution.

But why merely integrate Linux into legacy IT environments? Why not replace that old environment completely? Linux, and UNIX systems generally, have often been regarded as being unsuitable for mainstream desktop use, being associated more with server and network applications. This is a myth and we feel strongly that modern UNIX-like systems can take their place on the office desk - or in the home - completely replacing standard Windows and Macintosh systems, with a range of office, graphical & technical productivity suites to match as well as a large and rapidly-growing catalogue of applications, including truly awesome games for leisure time.

As well as Linux, we support UNIX - in particular, Solaris, OpenSolaris/OpenIndiana, Digital/Compaq/HP Tru64 UNIX, FreeBSD and OpenBSD but we also have experience of IRIX and AIX; Sun servers running Solaris power our mail systems, OpenBSD underpins our firewalls and networks while FreeBSD plays a major role in our off-site backup services. We are active members of the UK FreeBSD Users Group and UKUUG (UK UNIX Users Group) and while Linux tends to grab the headlines in the desktop world, most of the major innovations of the past decade have actually occurred in Solaris (zones and the ZFS filesystem) and FreeBSD (jails and its enthusiastic adoption of Sun's ZFS) which have revolutionised the UNIX server world.

The greater part of our business is in supporting Internet infrastructure - web, streaming media and DNS hosting, mail relaying, filtering & hosting, database and file servers, network routers, load balancers and firewalls. We set up, configure and maintain web servers for both public Internet and private intranet use along with the associated database, file, mail, DNS and network services and infrastructure; we recommend and use Apache httpd software on UNIX or Linux platforms, compiling customised versions to support special requirements such as secure E-commerce transactions, script language support, databases and embedded graphics functions. We build new servers to order and can repair and upgrade most servers irrespective of manufacturer.

Like the restless sea, the Internet never stops, never stands stiil - it runs 24x7x365. It is not a 9 to 5 weekday activity, so why should we stop work just because it is 5pm? We believe a non-stop service deserves 24 hour support which is why extended support hours and remote systems administration is our speciality; we will look after your UNIX and Linux systems wherever in the world they may be and whenever you want, at any time of day or night, 365 days a year, and in complete confidence. Supported by a comprehensive and reliable remote monitoring/alerting service written & developed by ourselves and hosted across multiple sites for maximum resilience and reporting accuracy, all of our work is backed up by off-site archives, allowing us to restore system configurations rapidly in the event of a problem.

Off-site backup services using D2D2T (disk to disk to tape) in conjunction with fully-automated tape library systems - two LTO 3 tape libraries with a total combined capacity of 35 terabytes - are offered which allows rapid access to tape backup archives created over the past few months even if we are not on the premises. In addition, we also operate an off-site remote database backup server which provides our clients with fast online access and retrieval of database dumps as far back as 18 months.

Extensive experience has been gained over the last few years in parallel compute clustering; we have set up several PC-based parallel clusters on behalf of UK academic institutions, with as many as 400 machines per cluster each running diskless FreeBSD UNIX. Booting from a network server and running entirely within local memory, this allows the power of desktop PCs that would otherwise be idle & unused outside of normal working hours to be harnessed to undertake computationally intensive tasks, thus maximising return on investment.

We also have experience of Linux-based Beowulf clusters using dedicated hardware including ClusterVision installations.

Small and medium-sized companies whose desktop IT faciities are primarily Windows PC-based are increasingly turning to a Linux or UNIX-based infrastructure for their server and networking needs because of their much lower cost of ownership and higher reliability. Although a very different kettle of fish to Internet servers in data centre racks, we have recently extended our support to include this type of IT infrastructure; servers and network equipment in a typical office environment pose their own special problems and challenges but we have gained considerable experience of this along with sufficient awareness and understanding of Windows to be able to resolve PC/server integration issues. Compared with the data centre world, SME's often face tighter budgets, restricted space, cooling and noise constraints in offices and sometimes lack of access outside normal office hours; there is often a pressing need to pack as many different functions as possible (some of which are mutually exclusive) onto as little hardware as possible.

We are sympathetic to these issues - after all, it's your business and your business is our business.

On-site support and out of hours site visits are a normal part of our work and being based in north London, we have rapid access to data centres in the City, Docklands and other parts of London at any time of day or night, making full use of mobile Internet data facilities when we are away from base or out of the UK to maintain continuity of service.

Today we are responsible for an increasing number of servers and associated infrastructure co-located at data centres in the London area including Telehouse Europe, Sovereign House, Canary Wharf and Harbour Exchange in the Docklands, sites in central & east London and in Enfield, hosting a total of over 3300 web sites, some of which are well-known household names serving up to 5 million hits/day.

Web coding of all types, from single pages through to complete multi-level sites, we specialise in fully interactive pages using advanced embedded scripting languages such as PHP and JavaScript to provide lively visual content, access to on-line databases and dynamic page control. We also have experience of Macromedia/Adobe Cold Fusion programming and are expert at integrating web scripts with server shell scripts to implement complex web functions. In short, we provide the 'internals' and backend services that make a website work - we are not graphics designers or web designers although we can put you in touch with the designers we work with if you should need these services.

Although well versed in MySQL database programming & administration, we have experience of other DBMS and haven't forgotten our many years of xBase (dBase, FoxBase and FoxPro) programming experience. We'll consider database projects using other DBMS depending on the task in hand and the operating environment - try us!

We can undertake a variety of other projects in addition to our core activities so if you have something unusual in mind, why not contact us to discuss your requirements? We are sometimes asked if we support Windows; the short answer is no, we do not provide support for any kind of Microsoft Windows on desktop PCs or laptops. However we have recent experience of running and maintaining a large Windows server farm and we would be prepared to support Windows Server 2000, 2003 and 2008 on server hardware although it is important to realise that Windows is 'high maintenance' compared with Linux or UNIX, which has obvious implications for costs; we certainly would not recommend the use of this operating system. And we do of course support the UNIX/Linux X Window System (not to be confused with Microsoft Windows).

Established in 1985 for the small-scale manufacture of high voltage DC power supplies for incorporation into instrumentation built for solid state physics research, Time Domain Systems borrowed its name from one of the main projects we worked on - research into the dielectric properties of insulating materials in the time domain. Funded by US President Reagan's Star Wars project, our involvement gradually broadened into designing & building specialist computer interfaces for North Star Horizon and other S-100 bus-based computers running CP/M-80 and then writing the data acquisition software to make them useful.

Since then, we have evolved from being a purely electronics R&D facility to our present day status as an independent UNIX/Linux systems consultancy. Along the way, we have made good use of a decade of prior experience in acoustics research, having been commissioned to design & build amplifiers and speaker systems for the music and cinema industries, written bespoke assembly language software for acoustics, solid-state physics and biochemical research projects, developed hardware and software for commercial enterprises in the educational market sector and more recently, created custom hardware interfaces and software for bio-medical and physiology research, as well as a hydrogen-producing cyano-bioreactor plant. But from about 1994, our focus switched to the rapidly expanding Internet network arena and we were soon involved in implementing & running dial-up computer services, large-scale network installation projects and the use of first Linux and then UNIX servers to support these operations. We have not looked back since.

With a wealth of past experience in a number of distinct yet broadly-related areas encompassing electronics, acoustics, physics and computing-related disciplines, we are well placed to undertake the more challenging projects. We like challenge.

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Page first created 9.12.1998

Page last updated 14.11.2017