Our Story

Open Architecture Systems is a Johannesburg-based IT consultancy that has delivered enterprise IT solutions across Southern Africa since 1987. In an industry where companies appear and vanish within a decade, OAS has endured for over 40 years — not by chasing trends, but by investing deeply in the technologies and partnerships that matter most to our clients.

From Infrastructure Specialist to Managed Security Partner

OAS began as an IT consultancy in Johannesburg, partnering with Citrix from its earliest days in South Africa. That relationship — now spanning nearly four decades — remains the foundation of our virtual workspace practice. As a Citrix Platinum Partner (the highest tier), OAS has guided hundreds of South African organisations through every generation of Citrix technology, from early application publishing to modern cloud-managed DaaS deployments.

As the threat landscape evolved, so did OAS. The rise of ransomware, remote work, and regulatory pressure revealed a gap in the South African market: mid-market businesses needed enterprise-grade security but lacked the in-house resources to build and operate a security operations centre.

OAS responded with the Three Pillar Managed Security framework — a unified approach to endpoint protection, monitoring, and recovery that brings together SentinelOne, N-able, and Cove Data Protection under a single managed service. "Protect. Detect. Recover." is not just a tagline. It is the operational model that safeguards our clients' data, operations, and reputations.

Key Milestones

What We Stand For

Security First Every recommendation starts with protecting your data and operations. We do not propose solutions that compromise security for convenience.

Partnership, Not Vendorship OAS builds long-term relationships. Our engagement model is designed to transition from initial assessment through to years of managed service delivery — with quarterly business reviews, virtual CIO advisory, and transparent SLAs.

Technical Depth The team that scopes your solution is the team that delivers it. OAS's engineers hold certifications across Citrix, SentinelOne, N-able, and Microsoft — backed by decades of hands-on deployment experience.

Local Expertise, Global Standards OAS is headquartered at 25 Durham Street, Raedene Estate, Johannesburg. Our team understands the South African regulatory landscape — POPIA, FSCA, PCI-DSS — while delivering solutions built on global best-of-breed technology.

How We Work

OAS follows a structured, six-phase engagement model:

1. Discovery — audit your current environment, security posture, and licensing
2. Assessment — identify gaps, risks, and opportunities with a prioritised roadmap
3. Proposal — present a scoped solution with clear pricing, timeline, and expected outcomes
4. Deployment — implement with phased rollouts, testing, and validation
5. Onboarding — train your team and transition to managed operations
6. Ongoing Management — 24/7 monitoring, incident response, monthly reporting, and quarterly business reviews

This is not a project-and-leave consultancy. OAS is an extension of your IT department — proactive, accountable, and invested in your long-term success.

The Team Behind the Technology

OAS is a deliberately small, senior team — and one of the most heavily accredited in Southern Africa. We do not scale on headcount; we scale on certifications. Every engagement is staffed by hands-on, vendor-certified specialists rather than first-line generalists, across virtualisation, cybersecurity, cloud, and managed services. The accreditation profile below is the engine behind our Three Pillar managed security — and how we make enterprise-grade protection affordable for the everyday business.

Ready to Start a Conversation?

Whether you need to modernise your Citrix environment, strengthen your security posture, or migrate to Azure — OAS has the experience, partnerships, and people to deliver.

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