DELL TECHNOLOGIES
SECURITY IN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION DIGITAL REPORT 2021
IN ASSOCIATION WITH:
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SECURITY IN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION We hear how security and digital risk management have only become more necessary for digital transformation in 2020
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n a fast-changing world, the imperative for digital transformation has never been clearer. Effecting that change while managing digital risk and prioritising security requires expert assistance. “Our intention is to be a strategic partner to our customers, an essential technology vendor and a one-stop shop for organisations as they undergo digital transformation,” says Arash Ghazanfari, CTO (UK), Dell Technologies. “Events in 2020 have proven that every business has to become a technology business in order to survive the unique operating environment we find ourselves
in. The need for digital transformation is stronger now than ever before. We’re finding that our customers have had to accelerate their digital transformation projects to take advantage of the emerging digital economy,” says Ghazanfari. “Our clients have recognised the need to leverage technology to create best-in-class experiences for their customers. Additionally, they need to empower a diverse, and in most cases distributed but connected workforce to collaborate on digital platforms with the ability to create value regardless of where they are. All of this means the amount of value you unlock from your data can
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Digital Transformation Index 2020
directly contribute to your competitive differentiation. It is now more important than ever before to consider your cyber resiliency and enterprise security as a matter of board level priority.” One of the major transformational megatrends is the adoption of cloud, an area in which Dell Technologies specialises as an essential infrastructure provider. “As organisations think about adopting cloud operating models, it’s really important they understand the cost and operational implications of where they place their data,” says Liz Green, Cyber Security Specialist UK, Dell Technologies. “We help our clients to make sure they’re mitigating risks and costs and are able to understand what workloads fit best in the cloud.” The cloud landscape entails many choices, but that needn’t be an issue as Ghazanfari explains. “Businesses are increasingly adopting a multicloud strategy and we help our customers by delivering a consistent software defined enterprise 4
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architecture, so that workloads can be deployed in the empowered edge, or in existing on-premises and distributed private cloud environments, or in the public cloud ecosystem. Our multicloud strategy delivers a consistent software-defined architecture underpinned by a consistent and platformagnostic operating model helping IT departments deliver consistent value
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“AS PART OF OUR WORK REDEFINED PROGRAMME, WE FOCUS ON THREE KEY AREAS: PRODUCTIVITY, TRUST, AND SAFETY” LIZ GREEN
CYBER SECURITY SPECIALIST UKI, DELL TECHNOLOGIES
ARASH GHAZANFARI TITLE: CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER (UK) COMPANY: DELL TECHNOLOGY (UK) INDUSTRY: I NFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND SERVICES Passionate about transforming great businesses in the digital age, experienced in start-ups and large corporations. Currently serving as a Chief Technology Officer, supporting the overall go to market strategy across the full breadth of the Dell Technologies Ecosystem in the United Kingdom.
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added services to their lines of businesses and achieve unparalleled flexibility, control and choice. We believe this is the most optimum approach to maintain the security of and keeping control over application and data supply-chains.” The number of subsectors experiencing digital transformation has led to a security landscape that is something of a headache for companies. “The security market is highly fragmented and there are many point solution providers out there. Historically, businesses have also made tactical and reactive investments in cybersecurity,” says Ghazanfari. “The result is a proliferation of disjointed security controls that don’t necessarily talk to each other - adversely impacting the security posture of the enterprise. The approach that we take within the Dell Technologies ecosystem of capabilities, with VMware technology being at the heart of it all, is to focus on delivering more foundational and proactive security measures by delivering security by design intrinsically within our pre-validated solutions. Building security controls intrinsically into our software defined capabilities reduces the need for bolt-on, threat centric and siloed approach to security.” Among the trends in the transformation
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WWT and Dell Technologies: partners in financial security World Wide Technology’s Chris Konrad and Matt Berry on the partnership with Dell Technologies and changing security needs in the financial services space World Wide Technology (WWT) is one of the world’s premier technology solution providers. “Revenues right now are approaching $13bn in 2020, encompassing our digital strategy, innovative technology, as well as supply chain solutions to a variety of different customers in the public and private sectors around the globe,” explains Chris Konrad, Director of Security for WWT’s global business. “We’re hyperfocused on providing secure business outcomes for our global clients,” adds Matt Berry, Principal Security Advisor, Global Financials. “We deliver solutions in the area of data governance and strategy, security platforms and tool operationalisation. We also address AI and ML model security and enterprise security architecture. Regardless of what the challenge is, our goal is to bring together business acumen with a full stack of technical know how to develop solutions that address our customers’ most complex cyber needs.” Security in the financial services space has been made only more necessary by the ongoing challenges around the pandemic and the transition to remote working. “Financial institutions are being forced to deal with their technical debt as non-digital processes are being digitised,” says Berry. “Often these workloads are being moved into cloud environments, for instance.” That shift in technology comes alongside a rise in cyber attacks. “Threat actors are getting smarter, they’re getting more organised and they’re becoming increasingly innovative in their tactics and technologies.” With those challenges in mind, WWT tailors its solutions for customers. “We architect our solutions and services around these business outcomes and offer strong consultancy combined with the technical competency.” WWT’s reputation has led to a strong partnership with Dell Technologies. WWT is a $1bn partner of Dell Technologies’ and their first ever Titanium Black partner. “We’ve leveraged about 25 years of partnership expertise to do everything from designing to testing and delivering best-in-class integrated solutions that really help accelerate digital and security transformation journeys,” says Konrad. “Working
with Dell Technologies ensures that as we speak to our financial services customers, we’re going to have the right technical solutions to offer, regardless of whatever business outcome we’re solving,” adds Berry. The partnership extends to the wider Dell Technologies ecosystem, with WWT having recently secured its largest managed services deal in partnership with Secureworks, a leading Cybersecurity Managed Services provider that is a strategically aligned business within the Dell Technologies portfolio of capabilities. “It’s a three-year programme broken out across 10 different key work streams, with the goal of working with this financial services customer to accelerate their security maturity by the end of next year,” says Berry. WWT also has invested $500mn in an advanced technology centre for clients to try technology before buying, as Konrad explains. “They can do proofs of concept, testing, and validation with the entire Dell technologies portfolio of capabilities. And then we also have a digital Dell desk that we’re able to offer our customers.” Going forward, Berry sees the partnership evolving to continue addressing current trends. “The digital landscape is at war and the commodity that is being fought over is data. Bank accounts are stored in ones and zeros, and proprietary algorithms and financial projections are all digitised and accessible from anywhere on earth - organisations need to know where their data is, at speed and at scale across a very complex ecosystem.” The answer is a focus on data discovery, classification and protection, as well as cloud everywhere security competencies. “Going into the cloud creates additional challenges,” says Berry. “Organisations need flexible security solutions that can adopt a cloud-agnostic approach to security. If you have sensitive data, wherever it is, however it’s stored, it needs to be easy to protect with simplified policies that are applied as code.”
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of security is virtualisation. “We’re seeing big transformations in network security, specifically in virtualising networks,” says Green. “Going from a physical to a software-defined network presents a lot of opportunities for greater levels of visibility and security. Micro-segmentation as an example, is a great way to prevent lateral progression of advanced threats,
LIZ GREEN TITLE: CYBER SECURITY SPECIALIST UK COMPANY: DELL TECHNOLOGY (UK) INDUSTRY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
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Data Protection and Cyber Recovery Strategist helping organizations to safeguard their most important asset, their data. Passionate about helping drive human progress through technology. Enthusiastic technical and financial sales leader that loves to work collaboratively towards common goals to drive positive outcomes for our clients.
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“GOING FROM A PHYSICAL TO A VIRTUAL NETWORK PRESENTS A LOT OF OPPORTUNITIES FOR GREATER LEVELS OF VISIBILITY AND SECURITY” LIZ GREEN
CYBER SECURITY SPECIALIST UKI, DELL TECHNOLOGIES
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a common trait seen in modern destructive attack patterns.” The fintech industry has kept up one of the fastest paces of transformation. “Programmability, extensibility and visibility have played a major role in the success of open banking. What’s going to make organisations even more successful down the line is how they secure data and how they make sure that their customers understand how their data is being used and how the data is secured. We’re going to see a huge focus on security and
resilience for the fintech industry, but also as a huge catalyst for change across every sector.” All of this has only been accelerated by the pandemic, which has served to catalyse new approaches and new understanding of security, with Dell Technologies offering a Work Redefined pathway for the new normal. “We’re seeing fundamental shifts in operations, and how we talk to customers and clients in all industries. As part of our Work Redefined programme, we focus on three key areas: productivity, trust, and safety,” says Green. delltechnologies.com
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Trustmarque and Dell Technologies: delivering for customers
Andrew Downes, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Trustmarque, on the company’s digital transformation expertise and partnership with Dell Technologies IT solutions provider Trustmarque is laser-focused on customers, as Andrew Downes, Head of Strategic Partnerships, explains. “We provide customer-centric IT solutions which enable our customers to run their businesses more efficiently and give them a competitive edge in whatever marketplace that they happen to work in. We have six key go-to markets, namely cloud and data center, modern workplace, IT asset management, security, RPA and data and analytics.” As a 20-year veteran of the industry, Downes has seen plenty of innovation. “The rate of change is phenomenal. I think it’s actually one of the reasons that people get involved in the business in the first place. In my time, the biggest accelerant for that change that we’ve seen has been around the adoption of cloud technologies.” He emphasises that it isn’t enough for IT solution providers to merely keep up with the rate of change. “You need to stay ahead of it so that you’re best placed to advise your customers and guide them through new technologies as they come to market.” Trustmarque is a trusted partner of Dell Technologies, holding Titanium partner status within Dell’s partner programme. “We’re one of the most accredited partners in the UK, with a specialism in unstructured data storage and next-gen elastic cloud storage,” says Downes. “We
were the first Dell partner in the UK to sell both Isilon and the object storage platform ECS - with us being the only partner accredited in the UK to deploy ECS.” As a key strategic partner, Downes emphasises that Dell is a keystone vendor with which Trustmarque collaborates closely. Downes reiterates that the future heralds an acceleration in its customers’ digital transformation strategies, not least due to the events of 2020. “A great example of that has been in some of our healthcare customers, where we’ve seen cloud adoption like we’ve never seen before.” Also coming down the line are new and transformative technologies, such as the rollout of 5G. “We’re also going to have a more disparate workforce than we’ve ever seen, which throws up its own security challenges,” says Downes. “That’s why we’re working with Dell to facilitate this new working environment as part of their Workplace Redefined initiative.”
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Bearing those tenets in mind allows businesses to thrive, as Ghazanfari explains. “It’s about assessing the risk of adoption of new digital technologies and providing a consumer-like, persona-driven experience
“OUR CUSTOMERS HAVE HAD TO ACCELERATE THEIR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION PROJECTS TO BE ABLE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE EMERGING DIGITAL ECONOMY” ARASH GHAZANFARI
CTO (UK), DELL TECHNOLOGIES
that effectively makes the complexities around delivering a digital workspace disappear and enables businesses to focus on delivering business value.” Having that increased awareness of risk can then lead to better outcomes. “Organisations didn’t always have a comprehensive digital strategy. Now, it’s essential that they do. With that comes a need to look at how risk is being mitigated and managed effectively, but this can actually be a really positive thing. The more that we assess and evaluate digital risks, the faster and better organisations can transform digitally.” From this viewpoint, security acts as a catalyst for, rather than a barrier to, innovation. “In order to achieve that outcome, you need to have visibility of your threat landscape and your risk profile,” says Ghazanfari. “We can help our customers understand every aspect of their business architecture so that they have the end-to-end visibility delltechnologies.com
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“ORGANISATIONS DIDN’T ALWAYS HAVE A COMPREHENSIVE DIGITAL STRATEGY. NOW, IT’S ESSENTIAL THAT THEY DO” ARASH GHAZANFARI CTO (UK), DELL TECHNOLOGIES
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that they need to maintain and manage risk, and then make calculated decisions around the steps that they need to take towards innovation. Fundamental to all of this is the recognition that we can’t secure the future in the same way we secured the past. Modern applications can have several cross platforms and complex lateral dependencies, a connected digital workspace can and will lead to the erosion
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of traditional perimeters and a distributed data consumption model. This requires a context centric and unified approach to security transformation.” Dell Technologies will continue to help companies make the most of technology in more flexible ways, as Ghazanfari explains. “We are seeing many businesses value and embrace consumption models. We recognise our customers are looking
at consolidating, simplifying and de-risking their vendor relationships. Our broad ecosystem and open approach, as well as our diverse and inclusive consumption models, has put us in a position to serve the needs of our customers and the unique challenges they face in 2020.”
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