Founded in 1999 as an independent technology consultancy, x·maze it has spent a quarter of a century doing one thing: applying the right technology to each problem — honestly, and by hand.
Nicholas founded x·maze it in October 1999. Since then he has designed, built and run infrastructure for organisations of every size — from a two-person art consultancy in Mayfair to petascale genomic systems for the NHS. That's 25 years of shipped, running systems, not slideware.
The work spans the full spectrum: telephony systems and centralised backup, DNS and mail platforms, firewalls and security policies, cloud migration and Kubernetes — always built with open standards, and always to fit the client rather than the other way around.
Building and running cloud infrastructure for hundreds of petabytes of genomic data. Infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Packer, Ansible), Kubernetes on AWS and on-premises, CI/CD pipelines and observability across a vast, security-critical environment.
Technical operations lead for a global digital-identity company. Kept a multi-site UK data centre at 99.9% uptime, automated server and workstation configuration, and drove a 22% reduction in downtime through analysis and automation.
Infrastructure for a specialist marketing and communications consultancy: monitoring and automation (Nagios, Munin, Ansible, Puppet), DNS and mail systems, backup and recovery, and secure remote administration.
A long-running partnership with an international art consultancy (London, New York, Switzerland). Built a voice-over-IP telephone system on Asterisk, centralised RAID-based backups, hardened DNS and mail platforms, and a firewalled network — by hand, on open-source software.
These aren't marketing slogans — they've been the foundation of x·maze it since 1999.
Technology should be about solving your problem — not the most popular or most-marketed option. We give impartial advice, unbiased by hype.
Openness means flexibility. We build on open standards so you're never locked into a single manufacturer, and your systems can evolve with you.
We won't rip you off, and we won't hesitate to say if your current solution is wrong — even if it means recommending against our own sale.
We don't compromise on principles to win or keep a client. That gives you confidence in the integrity of our advice.
By understanding your business deeply, we can help you adapt as your needs change — a partnership, not a transaction.
This is a vocation, not just a job. The result is more effective, more considered work — for you.
Twenty-five years of building infrastructure by hand gives us something most consultancies can't offer — a platform engineer who has seen it all. What's changed is that the day-to-day running of those systems can now be automated and watched over by an AI partner.
That means our clients get the depth of a senior engineer combined with the constant attention of a tireless assistant: monitoring, maintenance, answering the phone, flagging problems early. It's the difference between IT that needs managing and IT that manages itself — so you can get back to running your business.