The Open Learning Centre

Alara is a successful and dynamic company producing high quality, mainly organic, mueslis.

"Our commitment is to provide very high quality products to meet specific requirements, should that be organic, gluten free, fair trade or small production runs of customer specified blends using a unique data base control solution we have developed.

Certified by the Soil Association since 1988, Alara is also the very first company in the UK registered with the Coeliac Society. We believe that organic food is of the highest quality and extend this quality commitment to our products, systems and services. Operating from a modern unit, production is done in adherence to British Retail Consortium quality standards, Grade A."

Alara contacted The Open Learning Centre to advise and assist them on implementing a new server. They wanted to replace a very slow and poorly performing proprietary operating system and migrate their IT services onto Ubuntu Linux. Alara are now using a number of applications on the new server that is providing services to the business such as:

• Shared and individual file storage (using Samba),
• Proxy caching, content filtering and reporting tools (Squid),
• Centralised off-site backup using rsync,
• Virtualisation to support one mission-critical proprietary application.

Alara has one of the most fascinating and compelling stories regarding it's history that we've ever come across...

Life was a bit limited without money and, with someone else to consider it seemed serendipitous that, as I was walking in the square one day in 1975 I found two one pound notes in the gutter. The only money I had had during the previous year was a five-pound note given as a birthday present. This had been used to light the fire. Two pounds was the cost of vehicle entry to New Covent Garden Market. Using a friend's Morris Minor pick up van I went to Covent Garden and filled the pick up truck with thrown away fruit and vegetables from the bins. These were sold from an empty dairy squatted on the entrance to Tolmers Square. Alara had started...

It is definitely worth a read.