PRODUCTS

Dell Precision 7865 Tower

Dell Technologies has unveiled the Precision 7865 Tower, uniting performance and computing power in the first Precision system to feature AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5000 WX-Series processors. This professional workstation is maximized for demanding, multi-application workloads and brings together immense power, flexibility and reliability in one system, whether for VR and AI initiatives, analyzing massive data sets, graphic design, or imaging.

The Precision 7865 Tower comes with up to 64 CPU cores, up to 56TB storage, optional Thunderbolt 3, up to 1TB of DDR4 ECC memory with RMT Pro and a full suite of professional graphics (up to 16GB AMD Radeon Pro W6800 or up to 48GB NVIDIA RTX A6000 graphics), allowing users to create and render simultaneously, without sacrificing performance.

The newly designed chassis also supports dedicated air channels for critical components, enhancing both thermal efficiency and acoustic performance. Servicing and upgrading are also made simpler with convenient front and side access, with tool-less interiors and organized, color-coded components that make it more intuitive to upgrade memory, storage or graphics cards as power demands increase.

Additionally, use of Dell Optimizer for Precision software makes the system smarter, using AI to learn work styles and respond to needs, automatically improving application performance, specialized reporting and analytics.

The Precision 7865 Tower also features a lockable chassis with intrusion detection which helps keep it secure. TPM 2.0 (trusted platform module) and selfencrypting drives create a comprehensive solution that users can depend on to help protect sensitive data, intellectual property and confidential projects.

The Precision 7865 Tower also delivers fast network speeds (1G and 10G native), supporting work from home and allowing multiple users on one tower virtually. The AMD Advanced Management with DASH (Desktop and mobile Architecture for System Hardware), allows the Precision 7865 to deliver secure out-of-band and remote management, giving IT administrators the ability to support employees’ needs regardless of location.

Siemon LightWays fibre routing system

Siemon has announced its new LightWays fibre routing system in the Middle East. LightWays is a fully enclosed, flexible ducting system ideal for protecting, segregating and managing fibre optic cables in the data centre environment. Each component has been specifically designed to protect fibre cabling from dirt and dust and to maintain proper bend radius, which is imperative to maintaining network uptime, performance and reliability.

Part of Siemon’s portfolio of advanced data centre solutions, LightWays comprises of a wide variety of straight solid and slotted duct, elbows, tees, crosses, reducers and outlets available in four different sizes. The easy-to-assemble fibre routing system is highly flexible to custom design protective fibre pathways with any turn or transition to meet the needs of any data centre.

LightWays features innovative toolless joiners that completely eliminate the need for any drilling, nuts, bolts or other tools to connect or disconnect components. The joiners provide an audible click to ensure a secure connection and can be easily removed and reused throughout the system as needed. Easyaccess covers and removable protective end caps allow fibre cables to be added or removed from any pathway section at any time, without the need to disconnect system components.

The system’s revolutionary low-profile Waterfall Outlet can be easily placed anywhere along the sidewall of straight sections to create vertical drop-offs with full bend radius control for safely routing fibre cables to and from data centre racks and cabinets. The Waterfall Outlet’s unique two-piece cover with hinged rear section makes it easy to access, add or remove fibres that bypass the outlet without disturbing those inside the outlet.

Axis Live Privacy Shield

With AI-based masking – supported in selected Axis cameras with a deep-learning processing unit (DLPU) – the application analyzes live video for human forms and gives users the choice of masking humans, faces or the background in restricted places. It enables users to schedule when the privacy application should be applied and removed, such as using the new functionality on weekdays and removing it during weekends.

AXIS Live Privacy Shield compares a live camera view to a set background scene and applies dynamic masking to areas of change—essentially, moving people and objects. Users can choose between transparent colour or mosaic masking, the level of masking required, and how often the background automatically updates. Colour masking provides the greatest privacy protection, effectively eliminating the collection of personal data while enabling movements to be seen. Mosaic masking shows moving objects in very low resolution and allows users to better distinguish forms by seeing an object’s colors.

AXIS Live Privacy Shield is suitable for remote video monitoring or recording in indoor areas where surveillance is otherwise problematic due to privacy regulations. With dynamic masking functionality, it is ideal for near-range indoor and outdoor scenes in places like hospitals, elderly care homes, hotels, schools, offices, and stores.

SECURITY IN A MULTI-CLOUD WORLD

SUNIL PAUL, MD OF FINESSE, EXPLAINS WHY SECURITY IS KEY WHEN SELECTING MULTI-CLOUD SOLUTIONS

As multi-cloud becomes a preferred solution for organisations worldwide for many reasons, data security and monitoring have become a prime concern.

As many as 81% of respondents in a recent Gartner study indicated that their companies have evolved beyond hybrid cloud computing to multi-cloud computing, where they are using two or more public cloud service providers (CSPs) in one network architecture.

The definition is slightly more expanded these days.An organisation using a different Infrastructure as a Service (say, Google Cloud), Software as a Service (Zoom, for example) and Platform as a Service (AWS Elastic Beanstalk), are also considered part of a multi-cloud system. The presence of industry behemoths like Google, Microsoft, Oracle, and Amazon in the market is one of the main reasons for the growing popularity of multi-cloud computing. These providers are evolving their offering to the market at a breakneck speed, helping increase agility for their clients in the process. However, each of them also has its own strengths and vulnerabilities. Being able to pick and choose and spread the workload across a number of service providers reduces the risk of single-vendor dependency. It enables the client to access the best and most useful features of all of them. Other benefits of adopting a multicloud strategy are increased backup options, better chances of disaster recovery if one of the cloud services is compromised, and easier migration for some data and applications. It also brings the organisations closer to their users and customers and complies with specific regulations that may differ from country to country.

However, price negotiation becomes tricky in multi-cloud solutions simply because an organisation cannot give its entire business to CSPs and hence will not get volume-related discounts.

Each service in the multi-cloud setup comes with its own set of tools. This makes it harder to optimise performance. It also leads to more time, effort, and money spent on training.

The complexity involved in multicloud deployments raises security concerns, including the enhanced risk of cyberattacks, as it offers a much wider surface area for hackers to target. It also requires consistent security controls across heterogeneous environments.

As organisations understand the value that a multi-cloud strategy brings, there is also a greater awareness of the need for a security approach that enables them to protect data, applications and other assets spread across a multi-cloud environment. While the CSPs are responsible for securing the cloud itself, organisations must plan and maintain security within the cloud.

Some of the security challenges are lack of visibility because of the involvement of multiple parties, increased risk of access and privileges from various parts of the globe, and inability of organisations to keep pace with the upgrades by their CSPs.

In a recent study, Israeli security company Aqua gave the following tips for improving multi-cloud security: Synchronise policies, so that the same security settings are used; tailor security policies to services so that each workload or application has its own security profile; automate security like you’d automate other processes on public clouds; consolidate monitoring that logs alerts and events from all cloud providers in one place; and just like each cloud platform has different compliance certifications and features, organisations should also run different workloads with different compliance obligations on each cloud.

Most importantly, a vibrant and detailed cloud strategy must be in place. The IT leaders in the organisations must know which services they have, for what reasons and what applications they host. A lack of proper data governance processes and procedures can expose the data to risk.

The famous line uttered by Benjamin Franklin way back in the early 1700s still holds true for several things in life, including multi-cloud security – if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.