Top UK managed service provider wins award for cybersecurity excellence and client protection

We’re excited to announce that QuoStar has been named Managed XDR Partner of the Year at the Barracuda Networks partner awards. This award recognises our team’s dedication to delivering top-notch cybersecurity solutions and protecting our clients from ever more sophisticated cyber threats.

What This Means for Our Clients
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) is the future of cybersecurity. Unlike traditional security solutions that work in silos, XDR creates a single defence system that monitors, detects and responds to threats across your entire digital estate – from emails and endpoints to networks and cloud apps.
Our Managed XDR service is your dedicated cybersecurity hub, providing:

Awarded for Partnership Excellence


“We’re chuffed to bits to have been named Barracuda’s Managed XDR Partner of the Year,” said Neil Clegg, Managing Director at QuoStar. “We’ve had a great partnership with Barracuda for years and this award is a testament to the whole team’s hard work and dedication.”
This didn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of years of building our managed cybersecurity services expertise, investing in our team’s technical skills and keeping our focus on client outcomes. Every late-night security alert, every proactive threat hunt and every client conversation has contributed to this.

Why Managed XDR Matters More Than Ever


Today’s cyber criminals don’t work 9 to 5 and they don’t just use one vector of attack. Modern threats are:

Traditional antivirus and basic firewalls can’t keep up. That’s where our Managed XDR service turns your cybersecurity from reactive to proactive, from hoping for the best to knowing you’re protected.


Our Commitment to Cybersecurity


This Barracuda award proves what our clients have seen for themselves – QuoStar’s commitment to cybersecurity goes beyond technology deployment. We become an extension of your team, understanding your risk profile, business objectives and operational requirements.

We offer:

Looking Ahead: UK Cybersecurity


As threats evolve, so do we. This award cements our position as a trusted cybersecurity partner and gives us the motivation to keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with security.
We’re really excited about the growing recognition of managed cybersecurity services. Too many organisations still think they can do cybersecurity in-house, but the reality is that modern threats require dedicated expertise, advanced technology and 24/7 monitoring that most businesses can’t afford to do themselves.

Try Award Winning Cybersecurity?


Are you worried about your organisations cybersecurity or tired of security being a secondary priority? We’d love to chat about how our Managed XDR service can change your security operations.
Our award-winning team will do a full security assessment and show you why Barracuda Networks named QuoStar as their top Managed XDR partner.


Get in touch to see how our cybersecurity expertise can protect your business, your data and your reputation in this crazy digital world.

CEOs are always looking to drive efficiency, boost productivity and increase the bottom line. Microsoft Copilot is a powerful AI assistant that delivers business value – but which benefits will grab your CEO’s attention?

Key Points

Meeting Productivity Gains

Nothing frustrates executives more than wasted time in meetings. Copilot fixes this pain point by generating meeting summaries, action items and decisions in seconds.


Instead of spending 30+ minutes documenting each meeting, your team can capture key points and next steps in seconds. That’s 3-4 hours per week per knowledge worker that can be redirected to high value activities that drive revenue growth.
For CEOs focused on operational efficiency, that’s not just time saved but extra organisational output without headcount.


Lastly research from NNGroup shows AI can increase employee productivity by 66%, so it’s no surprise AI tools like Copilot are being rolled out across many organisations.

Faster Customer Response Times

In competitive markets, response speed is what wins or loses business. Copilot lets customer-facing teams craft personalised, high-quality responses to inquiries and proposals in a fraction of the time.


Sales teams report 40-60% faster proposal generation while maintaining or improving quality. Which is backed up by research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham that AI will do 60% of sales tasks by 2028. Support teams can reduce response times by up to 50% while delivering more comprehensive solutions. This speed impacts customer satisfaction scores, sales conversion rates and ultimately revenue.


When your CEO sees metrics showing faster deal cycles and improved customer retention tied to Copilot implementation, they’ll see the competitive advantage.

Market Intelligence Synthesis

CEOs need to stay on top of competitive landscapes, market trends and emerging opportunities. Copilot is great at synthesizing information from multiple sources into actionable intelligence.


Instead of spending hours reading reports and articles, executives can use Copilot to analyse content and extract key insights in minutes. This enables faster decision making and helps identify strategic opportunities before competitors.


The ability to make faster, better decisions based on comprehensive market intelligence is a major executive-level advantage that directly impacts strategic planning.

Financial Analysis Acceleration

Financial analysis can be a major bottleneck in the decision-making process. That’s where Copilot comes in: it can revolutionise the way financial teams prepare reports and analyse performance metrics.


Finance teams see a 50-70% reduction in the time spent on routine financial report preparation, forecast modelling and variance analysis. That acceleration lets them – and their CEOs – review financials more often and make those crucial course corrections when needed.


CEOs who closely monitor financial performance will love the ability to get those deeper insights quickly – without having to add headcount. That’s a real win for them in terms of oversight responsibilities.

Strategic document creation

This is another area where Copilot can make a huge difference. Think board presentations, investor communications and strategic plans. Those high-stakes documents traditionally require a lot of executive time.


With Copilot, executives can generate first drafts of those complex documents in minutes rather than hours. That frees them up to focus on refining their messaging and strategy – rather than starting from scratch. Time-constrained C-suite members will particularly appreciate that efficiency as they need to communicate effectively with key stakeholders.


What really matters to CEOs is being able to produce polished, professional communications more efficiently while still maintaining their voice and strategic emphasis. That’s a personal productivity win that really resonates.

Measuring Success in CEO Terms

What makes these Copilot wins so compelling to CEOs is that they deliver tangible results in areas CEOs care about most:

When presenting Copilot to your CEO, frame the benefits in these terms rather than just technical capabilities or individual productivity gains. By showing how Copilot delivers rapid, measurable improvements in areas that impact the business and strategic goals, you’ll get executive buy-in and support for your AI initiatives.
By showing these 5 quick wins, you’ll position Copilot as a productivity tool but also as a strategic asset that delivers immediate value and supports broader business objectives – exactly what your CEO wants to invest in.

Choosing the right analytics tools can make or break your organisation’s ability to get insights. Microsoft’s analytics ecosystem has evolved and now has Microsoft Fabric alongside the well-established Power BI which is used by 97% of Fortune 500 companies. This guide will break down the complexities, similarities and differences between these two powerful platforms.


Key Takeaways
• Different but Complementary Tools: Power BI is for data visualisation and business intelligence, Microsoft Fabric is an end-to-end analytics platform that includes Power BI as one of its components.ibm
• Choose Based on Scope: Power BI for focused visualisation needs and user-friendly dashboards; Microsoft Fabric for unified data engineering, science, warehousing and real time analytics.
• Future Ready Integration: You can start with Power BI for immediate reporting needs and strategically implement Fabric components to build a scalable analytics foundation that grows with your data maturity.

What is Microsoft Fabric?
Microsoft Fabric is Microsoft’s biggest data analytics offering yet – an AI powered, cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that brings together all your data workloads under one roof. Launched in 2023 and generally available in 2024, Fabric gets rid of the traditional silos between data integration, engineering, science and business intelligence.

Core Architecture
At the heart of Microsoft Fabric is OneLake, a centralised lakehouse architecture that is the unified storage layer across all Fabric experiences. This allows for seamless data sharing without duplication, so different teams can work with the same datasets using their favourite tools and methods. IBM’s article “Data Warehouses vs. Data Lakes vs. Data Lakehouses” notes that fully grasping the differences between data lakes and data warehouses is crucial for optimizing how they work together.

Key Components/Workloads
Microsoft Fabric integrates several powerful workloads:
• Synapse Data Engineering: For data transformation at scale
• Synapse Data Science: For building, deploying, and operationalising ML models
• Synapse Data Warehouse: For enterprise-grade analytics
• Data Factory: For ETL/ELT processes and data pipeline orchestration
• Data Activator: For real-time analytics and automated responses
• Power BI: For visualisation and business intelligence (more on this later)


Key Features & Capabilities
• End-to-end integration across the data lifecycle
• OneLake storage with cross-platform compatibility
• Real-time analytics capabilities through Data Activator
• Advanced AI integration leveraging Azure AI services
• Comprehensive governance frameworks for enterprise-scale deployment
• Scalable architecture that grows with your data needs
• Simplified data sharing across organisational boundaries


What is Power BI?
Power BI is Microsoft’s business intelligence and data visualisation platform. Since 2015 it has become one of the leading tools serving over 350,000 organisations and is best known for turning complex data into interactive dashboards and reports. Power BI allows business users to connect to hundreds of data sources, prepare data for analysis and create shareable insights without deep technical expertise.

Core Architecture & Components
Power BI consists of several key components:
• Power BI Desktop: Desktop application for creating reports and visualisations
• Power BI Service: Cloud-based platform for sharing and collaborating
• Power BI Mobile: Applications for on-the-go insight access
• Power Query: Data transformation engine
• Power Pivot: In-memory data modelling tool
• DAX (Data Analysis Expressions): Formula language for calculations
• Report Server: On-premises report publishing solution

Key Features & Capabilities
• Intuitive visualisation tools with drag-and-drop functionality
• Natural language queries through Q&A feature
• Embedded analytics capabilities for applications
• AI-powered insights to automatically detect patterns
• Mobile optimisation for on-the-go access
• Secure sharing and collaboration features
• Customisable dashboards for personalised reporting
• Regular updates with new features and visualisations

Microsoft Fabric vs Power BI: Key Differences

Architecture & Storage
Microsoft Fabric introduces the OneLake architecture – a lakehouse approach that unifies data storage across all workloads. This eliminates data duplication and gives the performance benefits of both data lakes and data warehouses.
Power BI traditionally works with imported data models or DirectQuery connections to external sources. While powerful, this wasn’t designed for big data scenarios without additional components.


Capabilities Scope
Microsoft Fabric has analytics across data integration, engineering, warehousing, science and governance – a full data platform.
Power BI is great at visualisation, dashboarding, report distribution and user-friendly data exploration – the last mile in the analytics process.


Target Audience
Microsoft Fabric is for enterprise data professionals, architects and organisations that need data solutions across multiple domains and technical personas.
Power BI is for business analysts, department managers and end users who need to create and consume insights without needing to know the underlying data infrastructure.


Integration Capabilities
Microsoft Fabric has native integration across the Microsoft stack, with OneLake as the unified storage layer.
Power BI has hundreds of connectors to external data sources but previously required additional tools for full data lifecycle management.


Security & Governance
Microsoft Fabric has end to end governance across the entire data estate with unified security, lineage tracking and certification.
Power BI’s governance was previously focused on report and data access management but has expanded significantly in the last few years.


Ease of Use
Microsoft Fabric combines multiple complex workloads so requires more technical knowledge across its different capabilities.
Power BI is all about user friendly interfaces and self-service analytics that business users can use with minimal training.


Pricing Model
Microsoft Fabric is consumption based with a capacity model measured in Fabric Capacity Units (FCUs).
Power BI offers capacity-based solutions (Power BI Premium) and user-based licensing (Power BI Pro).


AI Features: A Comparative Look
Both platforms leverage artificial intelligence to enhance data analytics capabilities, though with different approaches and focuses.


Microsoft Fabric AI Capabilities
• Deep Azure AI integration across the platform
• Synapse Analytics AI for advanced machine learning
• Real-time analytics with Data Activator for automated intelligence
• AI-powered data transformation tools
• Integrated Copilot experiences for natural language interaction


Power BI AI Capabilities
• Q&A natural language query technology
• AI Insights for automatic pattern detection
• AutoML capabilities for predictive analytics
• Anomaly detection to identify outliers
• AI-enhanced data preparation through Power Query
• Copilot in Power BI for conversational analytics


How Fabric and Power BI Work Together
Not competing solutions, Fabric and Power BI are complementary technologies with Power BI as a key part of the Fabric stack.


Power BI as a Fabric Component
In the Microsoft Fabric architecture, Power BI is the dedicated business intelligence and visualisation layer. This means reports and dashboards can access OneLake data without duplication or data movement.


Seamless Integration Points
The platforms connect through several key integration mechanisms:
• Direct Lake Mode: Power BI connects natively to OneLake datasets
• Shared Workspaces: Common workspaces across Fabric experiences
• Unified Security: Consistent security models and access controls
• Semantic Models: Shared semantic layer for consistent definitions


How Fabric Enhances Power BI
The integration with Fabric significantly expands Power BI’s capabilities:
• Enhanced large dataset performance through OneLake
• Real-time analytics capabilities via Data Activator
• Simplified data preparation through integrated data engineering
• Advanced AI integration across the analytics lifecycle
• Streamlined governance with unified management


Independent Usage
While the integration benefits are great, Power BI is a standalone product that can be used independently of Fabric. You can continue to use Power BI with traditional data sources and adopt Fabric as you need.


Best Business Use Cases

Knowing when to use each will help you get the most ROI.


Use Cases for Microsoft Fabric
• Enterprise Data Consolidation: Unifying disparate data sources into a cohesive ecosystem
• Real-Time Analytics: Implementing systems that respond to data changes as they happen
• Advanced AI/ML Initiatives: Developing and deploying sophisticated machine learning models
• Cross-Platform Data Engineering: Building robust data pipelines that span multiple technologies
• Comprehensive Data Governance: Implementing enterprise-wide data management policies


Use Cases for Power BI
• Departmental Reporting: Creating focused dashboards for specific business units
• Self-Service Analytics: Enabling business users to answer their own data questions
• Financial Analysis: Visualising complex financial metrics and KPIs
• Sales and Marketing Intelligence: Tracking campaign performance and sales metrics
• Executive Dashboarding: Providing leadership with critical business insights


Choosing the Right Solution for Your Business
Selecting between Microsoft Fabric and Power BI – or determining how to use them together – requires careful consideration of your organisation’s specific needs.


Assessment Factors
• Data Complexity: How diverse and complex are your data sources?
• User Technical Proficiency: What is the technical skill level of your primary users?
• Scale Requirements: How much data are you processing, and how quickly is it growing?
• Integration Needs: How important is integration with other systems and processes?
• Budget Considerations: What investment level makes sense for your organisation?
• Growth Trajectory: How will your analytics needs evolve in the coming years?


Decision Framework
For those who are looking at Power BI for the first time, this is a great starting point. For those who are looking for a visualisation and reporting tool with manageable data volumes, Power BI might be enough. For those who are looking for full data management across large complex datasets with multiple workloads, the full Microsoft Fabric platform has a lot to offer.
Many will find a hybrid approach works best – Power BI for immediate visualisation needs and Fabric components as data complexity increases.


Get the Most Out of Your Investment
Regardless of which platform you choose, here are some ways to get the most out of your analytics investment.


Implementation Best Practices
• Start with business objectives not technology driven initiatives
• Invest in user training to ensure adoption and effectiveness
• Establish governance frameworks early in the implementation process
• Create centres of excellence to share knowledge and best practices
• Have regular review cycles to review and optimise usage


Expert Resources
Consider working with Quostar’s Microsoft Data Management Solutions team who are Microsoft certified and know both platforms inside out. We can provide implementation support, custom development, integration assistance and training services to fit your business needs.


Frequently Asked Questions
Is Microsoft Fabric poised to take the place of Power BI?
No, Power BI will not be replaced by Microsoft Fabric. Power BI is a core component of the Fabric platform, the visualisation and business intelligence layer. You can still use Power BI standalone if that’s what you need.


Can I use Power BI without Fabric?
Yes. Power BI is still a standalone product and will connect to your existing data sources just like it always has. Fabric adoption is optional and can be rolled out as you need.
Who are the main competitors to Microsoft Fabric?
Fabric competes with various combinations of tools in the analytics space, Databricks, Snowflake, Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift and AWS analytics services, and other end-to-end data platforms. But Fabric’s unified approach across the entire analytics lifecycle makes it unique in the market.


Is Power BI faster than Excel for data analysis?
For large datasets and complex visualisations Power BI is much faster than Excel in processing speed and visualisation. Power BI’s in-memory engine can handle millions of rows, Excel starts to struggle with datasets over 100,000 rows.


Final Word: Complementary Tools for a Data-Driven Future
Rather than seeing Microsoft Fabric and Power BI as competing solutions, organisations should view them as complementary tools within Microsoft’s data ecosystem. Power BI is the specialised visualisation and business intelligence component within the Fabric platform which addresses the full spectrum of analytics needs.
The “right” choice depends entirely on your needs. Organisations with simple reporting needs may find Power BI sufficient, enterprises with complex large-scale data challenges will benefit from Fabric’s capabilities. More and more forward-thinking organisations are using both – Power BI for immediate visualisation needs and Fabric components to build a scalable future-proof analytics foundation.
As data grows in volume and strategic importance the integrated approach of Microsoft Fabric with Power BI as a core component is a compelling vision for unified analytics in the modern enterprise.

Ransomware is not just a minor irritant to UK businesses. According to the National Crime Agency, it’s “the most significant, serious and organised cybercrime threat faced by the UK.” And thanks to growing use of malicious AI tools, threat levels are expected to increase further still over the coming two years.

Moreover, although breaches of large enterprises and big-name brands tend to make the headlines, it is the mid-market that is most likely to be victimised. According to one study, the median size of breached organisation was just 200 employees back in Q2. For some, such as one unlucky Kettering-based logistics firm, it can even be an existential threat.


But what happens when you’re caught in the crosshairs? In the previous part of this two-part blog series, we took a look at the emotional impact a ransomware attack can have on business leaders in the immediate aftermath of an incident. Now we’ll look at the proactive steps you can take to prevent, or at least minimise the impact of, a breach.

Start with prevention

There are three main threat vectors that ransomware actors turn to time and again: RDP compromise, email-borne phishing and exploitation of software vulnerabilities. To harden systems against such tactics, consider best practice cyber-hygiene such as:

Prevention is always better (and cheaper) than cure, especially as there’s no guarantee that even a ransomware decryption key will work on all of your encrypted data. And once they’ve stolen it, it’s more than likely that your adversaries will seek to monetise that data, even if they tell you otherwise.

Enhancing incident response

However, in the event that they do manage to breach your organisation, a streamlined incident response process will go a long way to minimising the impact of an attack. In a best-case scenario, you’ll find the threat actors before they’ve had a chance to exfiltrate any data or encrypt key systems.
Forward planning is essential. A live breach is no time to start working out roles and responsibilities. Consider the following:

Ransomware has a nasty habit of turning up when you least expect it. The latest research reveals that most attacks now occur between the hours of 1am and 5am local time, or at weekends, in an attempt to catch cybersecurity teams off guard. All the more reason to invest in a comprehensive incident response plan today, to avoid potential disaster tomorrow.

Key Takeaways:

Are you concerned about the potential impact of ransomware on your organisation? What would an attack and its aftermath look like in practice? Join us for a QuoStar webinar where our cybersecurity experts reveal all – helping you build a more resilient organisation.