Digital Bulletin - Issue 08 - September 2019

Issue 8 | Sep ’19

EXASOL

Why data-ambitious companies must align their workforces

WINNING MARGINS

HCL Technologies and sport’s new-found digital focus

MAKING CLOUD SAFE

McAfee VP Sekhar Sarukkai on enterprise’s growing trust in the cloud

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HIGHLIGHTS

DXC AND GOOGLE PARTNER TO ENABLE ENTERPRISE TRANSFORMATIONS DXC Technology has partnered with Google Cloud to enable enterprise clients to modernise their mission-critical IT and integrate digital solutions on Google Cloud Platform. DXC is also launching a Google Cloud Platform Centre of Excellence (COE) and a Google Cloud AI COE. It will initially focus on industries such as insurance, oil and gas, automotive, retail, and banking and capital markets. (20/08/19) MORE ON THIS STORY

The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read.

A one-stop shop for all of the newest major developments of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, The Bulletin, available at digitalbullet.in, is a vital and dependable resource for technology professionals.

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loud computing is riding the crest of a wave; widely regarded as one of the key enablers of this era of transformation, the number of companies set to adopt a cloud-first strategy is predicted to soar in the coming years.

McAfee recently released a special edition of its Cloud Risk and Adoption report and one finding stood out: for the first time, more than half of surveyed organisations (52%) said they experience better security in the cloud than in on-premise IT environments.

“I’ve never seen that before, and it’s a tipping point in some sense,” Sekhai Sarukkai, the company’s VP of cloud security, told Digital Bulletin as part of this month’s cover story. “CIOs, CISOs, boards of directors; they are feeling more comfortable that cloud is more secure.”

You can read further insights from Sarukkai on McAfee’s mission to deliver security from device-to-cloud starting on page 8.

We also had the pleasure of speaking to HCL’s Corporate VP and Head of Digital and Analytics, Anand Birje, on the company’s newly announced tie-up with Cricket Australia.

HCL saw off stiff competition to win the contract to become the governing body’s Official Digital Technology partner, and Birje tells us how working with big sports brands can attract eyeballs and publicity that even the world’s biggest corporate entities cannot.

In this month’s issue, you will find a number of other in-depth pieces on vital topics, including VR/AR and the potential of ‘hyper visualisation’ and NTT Data’s attempts to nurture AI. Elsewhere, Aerohive’s Roy Verboeket answers our cloud networking questions.

We hope you enjoy the newest issue of Digital Bulletin.

PUBLISHED BY BULLETIN MEDIA LTD, Norwich, UK Company No: 11454926 www.DigitalBullet.in TALK TO US editorial@digitalbullet.in business@digitalbullet.in

PUBLISHING

MEDIA PRODUCTION

DIGITAL MARKETING

San Francisco, California VMware says its VMworld conference can be the ‘discovery powerhouse’ for IT professionals. The ‘Make Your Mark’ slogan dominated the recent US event, which attracted over 21,000 visitors.

INSIDE VIEW

CONTENTS

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DATA & SECURITY MCAFEE Delivering cloud security

PEOPLE EXASOL The future of the data profession

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SERVICES HCL TECHNOLOGIES Powering sport’s biggest teams

38 NETWORKS

AEROHIVE Roy Verboeket answers our cloud networking questions

66 48 EVENTS

AI

NTT DATA Nurturing artificial intelligence

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FUTURE GENESYS ‘Hyper-visualisation’ with VR and AR

The biggest and best technology events for your diary

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CLOSING BULLETIN

An exclusive column from Pivotal Software’s Ian Huston

DATA & SECURITY

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MCAFEE

SECURING THE CLOUD Enterprise trust in the cloud is increasing - but what else can be gained from a cloud-native security approach? McAfee is a leader in this field and VP Sekhar Sarukkai tells Digital Bulletin why security should be an enabler for cloud adoption AUTHOR: BEN MOUNCER

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loud computing is a cornerstone of the transformation era. Adoption rates continue to soar as companies discover the gains to be made with a cloud-aligned strategy; through 2022, Gartner estimates that growth in enterprise IT spending on cloud-based solutions will exceed more traditional offerings.

But one factor that’s held cloud back from even faster growth has been a lingering concern over security. While the major public cloud providers have invest-

ed heavily in security development and products, businesses managing more diverse environments have harboured worries around the security of data and the safety of applications in the cloud.

The rising prominence of edge computing and ‘micro data centres’ may extend these concerns, but evidence is also emerging that enterprise is moving from a position of doubt to a position of trust when it comes to cloud security.

McAfee is one company that’s mission is to deliver comprehensive security, in ISSUE 8

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its own words ‘from device-to-cloud’.

In June, it released a special edition of its Cloud Risk and Adoption report and one finding stood out: for the first time, more than half of surveyed organisations (52%) said they experience better security in the cloud than in on-premise IT environments. For Sekhai Sarukkai, VP in cloud security at McAfee, this represents a significant milestone.

“I’ve never seen that before, and it’s a tipping point in some sense,” he tells Digital Bulletin. “CIOs, CISOs, boards of directors; they are feeling more comfortable that cloud is secure.”

The report - which combined the feedback of 1,000 global companies with billions of anonymised cloud events from McAfee’s products - also highlighted the business potential offered by cloud security services.

Eighty-seven percent of respondents revealed that they’ve enjoyed some form of business acceleration because of such services.

This will be music to the ears of Sarukkai, who has been a key individual in McAfee’s transition from an antivirus software developer to a specialist in end-to-end enterprise security. The newlook McAfee was formed in January last year when it acquired Skyhigh Networks, a recognised leader in cloud security - and a startup co-founded by 10

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CIOs, CISOs, boards of directors; they are feeling more comfortable that cloud is secure” Sarukkai and his business partners, Kaushik Narayan and Rajiv Gupta.

Sarukkai, a former computer scientist for NASA, has an impeccable record when it comes to startups. The successful merger with McAfee was the third instance where one of his companies had been scooped up by an industry big-hitter; Confluent Software, a web services firm, was bought

by Oblix (now owned by Oracle) in 2004 and policy management software startup Securent caught the attention of Cisco, who paid $100 million for control in 2007.

Skyhigh Networks went to market in 2012 after Sarukkai and his cofounders spotted the need for a reliable security solution on high-potential cloud technology.

“We knew CIOs were saying that this cloud thing was going to be real but

MCAFEE

the biggest problem they were facing was that they had no idea what cloud services would be used by businesses and employees - or what risk they were exposing the enterprise to,” explains Sarukkai.

“Our point at the time was that, because applications and data were going outside of the enterprise perimeter, it would be possible for employees or partners to get access to these applications and data, completely bypassing your enterprise edge. The result was a lack of visibility and understanding of who was using what applications, what kind of data was being stored there and what kind of control was held.

“Traditional security investments had been around protecting your enterprise edge and your data centre edge. We thought you needed something like a virtual cloud edge; an edge around all the cloud services that your enterprise is using. That was the genesis of our thinking around cloud security; to provide that visibility and control to cloud-deployed applications. The notion that we talked about is the great blueprint for enterprises today.”

Skyhigh Networks went on to build a product that guaranteed cloud visibility and risk assessment, usage and threat analytics and seamless access policy enforcement and data security for its customers. It boasted a client roster that

included BMC Software, Cisco, CAA, Equinix and Diebold among many others.

On the face of it, its combination with McAfee seemed an unlikely one. Two companies operating very successfully in different areas of the security space, Skyhigh Networks was thriving on the back of investments from Greylock Partners and Sequoia while McAfee had a well-established brand and business model for endpoint security. As it happened, it was a case of opposites attracting to meet the enterprise security challenge.

Sarukkai admits that Skyhigh Networks wasn’t actively looking for a buyer when

SEKHAR SARUKK AI, VP AT MCAFEE

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HIGHLIGHTS

VMWARE TO ACQUIRE CARBON BLACK AND PIVOTAL FOR TOTAL OF $4.8 BILLION VMware has announced the acquisition of Carbon Black and Pivotal in a pair of deals worth $4.8 billion. It is buying cloud security firm Carbon Black for $2.1 billion. In addition, it is buying cloud-native platform provider Pivotal for $2.7 billion. “Building on another solid quarter, we are thrilled about announcing our intent to acquire Pivotal and Carbon Black,� said VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger.

(23/08/19) MORE ON THIS STORY

The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read.

A one-stop shop for all of the newest major developments of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, The Bulletin, available at digitalbullet.in, is a vital and dependable resource for technology professionals.

MCAFEE

approached by Chris Young, CEO at McAfee.

“We were the leader; we were a pioneer in the space and we saw that this problem of cloud security was not going away, plus we had some very strong backing. But what really made us look at being acquired by McAfee were our early conversations with Chris,” says Sarukkai. “We really had a mind merge, if you will, with how Chris was thinking about the evolution of security and where he saw the industry going.”

The evolution was for full ‘device-tocloud’ security, and that vision has become McAfee’s slogan. Cloud, thanks to Skyhigh Networks, is now as prominent a part of McAfee’s proposition as its endpoint security expertise and Sarukkai, Narayan and Gupta are senior deci-

sion-makers within the organisation.

“We were very clear that we were going to be standalone, that we were going to be a critical leg of the stool for McAfee’s strategic direction,” Sarukkai outlines.

“We were cloud-native and cloud-centric, and McAfee was very strong on the endpoint business. We didn’t have any overlap but Chris and McAfee had a commitment to device-to-cloud. That was our first point in the decision-making process.

“The second was that McAfee’s sales team was selling to the same type of customers that we were selling our cloud security product to. For us to extend our lead in the market and take our technology and product to a larger base of customers faster, it made sense to stand on the shoulders of a giant in McAfee.”

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We truly want to use security as an enabler for cloud adoption, rather than an impediment on the road to adopting cloud” Skyhigh Networks’ cloud security offering has now developed into the flagship McAfee MVISION, which offers data protection, a shield to cyberattacks and full security visibility and control across all IaaS, PaaS and SaaS clouds as well as devices, networks and on-premise environments.

Recognised industry-wide as the leading cloud access security broker (CASB), McAfee’s integrations with the dominant public cloud providers have been crucial to its success.

“When Microsoft announced Teams, which I believe is their fastest-growing cloud-hosted product, we were the only CASB vendor which was part of that announcement and we are still the only CASB vendor to support Microsoft Teams natively,” says Sarukkai.

“If you switch over to AWS, it has a huge ecosystem of vendors, both security vendors and non-security vendors

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– but if you look at their partner portfolio, we are the only CASB vendor which has the highest level of partnership. They actually reviewed our architecture to ensure that it is appropriate for AWS and we’re on the AWS Security Configuration Checklist, which is really unique for a CASB vendor. Our partnerships with these large IaaS and SaaS companies is an acknowledgement that we are a leader.”

Technology advancements have changed the enterprise security game and automation is now the primary enabler for McAfee’s ‘device-to-cloud’ solution. Without automation, end-toend providers would simply fail to build the security postures demanded by today’s environments.

The security industry is overflowing with standalone products and new solutions continue to emerge - increasingly, therefore, the desire from users is for

MCAFEE

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Traditional security investments had been around protecting your enterprise edge and your data centre edge. We thought you needed something like a virtual cloud edge; an edge around all the cloud services that your enterprise is using”

a ‘single pane’ view of their postures.

The benefits of automation are seen by providers, customers and end users, explains Sarukkai, simplifying a complex yet critical business function.

“It’s been a perennial problem with security and the way we’re addressing that is through consistency, but also through co-opting other participants in the ecosystem,” he adds. “When you go and talk to customers’ CIOs and you try telling them that you have another product, the first question they will have is: is this going to add more work for my team?

This is where automation comes in.

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“For example, let’s say I’m an employee and I upload a file into the cloud and McAfee says there’s some account information inside. In the traditional world, what happens is an incident gets created, somebody in the data protection team has to review it manually and then release it. Co-option is about making the end user part of the solution.

“In our case what happens is, when you upload a file, the end user gets a notification, either live or through an email, and it will say ‘You’re uploading a file and it has sensitive data. Did you mean to upload it? If you did, what

MCAFEE

is the business justification?’ If it’s an error, the user can delete that file and update it without the sensitive information. The security team still gets full visibility – every one of those activities from the end user is still autologged but it is not the critical part in resolving every single incident.”

Analytics and real-time feedback, alongside automation, will be the other vital components in future security systems, according to Sarukkai. Consequently, it won’t be long before any remaining doubts around cloud security are replaced by excitement about a

supply of up-to-the-minute, actionable insights from cloud-native solutions.

“There is increasingly a need for real-time analytics,” finishes Sarukkai.

“There are some very interesting technologies that we’re working on which will enable us to reach the promise of breaking security silos, for example.

Artificial intelligence and the real-time aspect of that will become critical for the security space.

“We truly want to use security as an enabler for cloud adoption, rather than an impediment on the road to adopting cloud.”

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PEOPLE

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EX ASOL

WORKING WITH DATA Building a workforce to deliver on the data ambitions of businesses will require a concerted effort from enterprise and academia.

Exasol’s Eva Murray speaks to Digital Bulletin about this challenge and empowering the next generation of data professionals AUTHOR: BEN MOUNCER

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ata strategy is a dominant topic in modern business. You would struggle to find a leader of any enterprise company who isn’t making data central to their plans, and organisations are striving to integrate data-led decision-making into their operations.

In reality, we are only at the beginning of this voyage. Data explosion will continue - by 2025 463 exabytes of data will be created each day globally - and

data-crunching technologies for businesses will grow more sophisticated, offering up unprecedented insights and guidance. But there remains a missing piece of the jigsaw.

Eva Murray, in her role as Head of Business Intelligence at Exasol, is tasked with overseeing its own data-driven strategy. Murray is therefore fully cognisant of both the opportunities and challenges represented by data’s lasting rise. And there is no bigger challenge ISSUE 8

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for leaders than aligning workforces with their data ambitions.

Despite increasing deployments of machine learning and database technologies like Exasol’s own solution for analytics, people remain essential to maximising data’s potential - and Murray believes enterprise is on the cusp of an “awakening” around what skills are actually required to succeed on that journey.

“I think there might be a bit of an awakening at some point,” she explains to Digital Bulletin. “A lot of people are using data, they’re generating visualisations, they’re being involved - but one day they’ll wake up to the reality that they’ve all done it, but do they truly understand it? Do they truly move the needle?

At that point we’ll hopefully put more programmes in place - whether it’s organisations or academia - so people can really focus on honing the skills they need to make a difference.”

The scope of organisations’ data plans doesn’t tally favourably with the depth of skilled workers available. Statistics relating to this gap make staggering headlines; demand for data scientists has increased by 344% since 2013 but the number of suitably-trained professionals drops well short of that demand. By 2020, IBM believes Europe will need 346,000 more data scientists. How are data-ambitious companies dealing with this shortfall?

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Eva Murray, Head of Business Intelligence, Exasol According to Murray, one current trend is for untrained workers to tackle data handling themselves. While she recognises the positives in a new section of employees feeling empowered to use data to their advantage, she believes this approach comes loaded with risk.

“There’s an increase of people moving into the data or tech world from a business context; they don’t necessarily have the technical foundations, but they move into it because they are subject-matter experts,” Murray explains.

“That’s great because they bring a lot of business knowledge that really matters and is important for finding insights and asking the right questions, but they

EX ASOL

We have to not just expect people to be data literate but also ensure that they can be, and that has to start at school and university”

don’t necessarily have all the data literacy they should.

“I see a risk there where people deliver reports, analyses and insights for decision-making - but they do it with errors because they don’t have the foundations.

They still need to build up the skills - to have a basic understanding of statistics, how to work with data, how to represent data effectively - otherwise we’re just reporting numbers but we’re not necessarily getting any smarter from them.

“Organisations, while looking for data experts, need to upskill internally to ensure everybody steps up and has the opportunity to handle data and be effective in this whole data value chain.”

Upskilling the wider workforce is one area where businesses can make gains, as Murray establishes, but the burden of responsibility spreads beyond companies themselves and into the world of academia. For enterprise to have any chance of plugging the data skills gap, it’s obvious that ties with education must be strengthened.

Evidence of progress can be found in the Future of Education and Skills 2030 project from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The OECD brings together 36 countries to find solutions to common issues and the Future of Education and Skills 2030 paper is one of its major ISSUE 8

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HIGHLIGHTS

BILL STASIOR, EX-SIRI CHIEF, JOINS MICROSOFT Microsoft has snared Bill Stasior, the former Apple engineer responsible for the Siri digital assistant. He has been appointed as a Corporate Vice President of Technology, reporting into CTO Kevin Scott. Stasior was in charge of 11,000 Siri workers at Apple. A Microsoft spokesperson said “he will work to help align technology strategies across the company�. (20/08/19) MORE ON THIS STORY

The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read.

A one-stop shop for all of the newest major developments of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, The Bulletin, available at digitalbullet.in, is a vital and dependable resource for technology professionals.

EX ASOL

Often the analysts are part of the back-office function - they want to be part of something that is important and making an impact” items of work. Included in the paper’s conceptual learning framework are ‘Core Foundations for 2030’ - and data literacy is among them.

The OECD is ultimately aiming to guide education systems in setting their future priorities, and the report states that school-age children becoming data literate ‘is essential’. Murray is adamant that this responsibility stretches across each stage of academia - and that every stakeholder has a role to play.

“I think for academia the challenge is to keep up with everything because you need to develop the curriculum and then you need to teach it. I would say changing what you do and what you test every year would be quite challenging. But we have to not just expect people to be data literate but also ensure that they can be, and that has to start at school and university,” she says.

“Support needs to come from industry to make resources available too; either

people who come in to teach subjects, or maybe other resources like technology licenses, so that the students can be taught up-to-date knowledge and the latest technical skills.

“You should also involve them in real-life scenarios through projects or business cases. Giving students access to a professional conference, for example, would be great for those who enter the job market. It will give them an understanding of what’s expected, what sort of community they’re entering but also what the jobs are that are out there. Being involved in that professional community from an earlier stage would be a massive advantage.”

Helping to generate a stronger sense of community among data analysts is one of the objectives that motivates Murray in her position at Exasol. Across an impressive career that has included roles at Deloitte, Commonwealth Bank and Trident, she has been a first-hand ISSUE 8

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witness to the digital revolution - and that experience informs her view that organisations can attract the best-of-the-best by creating optimal environments for data professionals to shine.

This includes attaching real value to their work, giving them space to develop their own skills and encouraging them to utilise their talents outside the pressures of the job. Murray leads on programmes where analysts volunteer for non-profit organisations and she says this all feeds into developing a sense of purpose, helping with talent retention. Non-profits also benefit from skills they would never normally have access to.

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“Non-profits get immediate access to about 100 or 200 analysts who will actively participate. They might have one or two people in-house who can learn and get inspiration, and get a headstart on something they might have worked on. Analysts are so passionate about getting involved in projects like that because they feel their skills can make a difference,” Murray adds.

“In work, it’s about saying: what is going to inspire these analysts to come to work every day and tackle this data? It needs to be interesting. People want to know what they’ve done actually matters, because often the analysts are part of the back-office function - they want to

EX ASOL

be part of something that is important and making an impact.

“What’s also important is that, because skills need to develop and the demands of the market change so quickly, people need to be encouraged to learn new skills all the time - but also to be able to do that freely. Organisations should form some kind of community so that these analysts engage with one another, have exchanges and actually understand that they could work together and come up with many more ideas as a team.”

Murray’s passion for the subject clearly extends beyond the confines of her job - but sector and academia have a long path ahead before the data skills issue is anywhere near resolved. Murray is pleased that, right now, more is

being done than ever before to highlight opportunities in the industry. The target market? Those of a curious mind.

“Between the technical knowhow and the communication skills people need to have, the ability to ask questions and the characteristic of being curious, or being relentless in the pursuit of digging deeper, is really important,” she concludes.

“Look at numbers but wonder whether there’s a story behind it. What if you go further and compare this number to last year, the last quarter or another business department? How are you performing?

“Data analysts should be in a position to challenge stakeholders on their points. As a data expert, there should always be some data-driven suggestions that feed back into the process.”

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BRINGING SPORT INTO THE DIGITAL AGE HCL’s Corporate VP and Head of Digital and Analytics, Anand Birje, speaks to Digital Bulletin about the company’s partnership with Cricket Australia and the upside of working with major sporting brands

AUTHORS: JAMES HENDERSON & ROMILY BROAD

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HCL TECHNOLOGIES

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port’s relationship with technology is a complicated one, but it is perhaps cricket that has best embraced and implemented technologies for the betterment of its game.

Players, game officials, and the hundreds of millions of ardent followers from the predominantly British Commonwealth nations in which the sport is played have benefited from a number of technological innovations over recent years.

Technologies leveraging broadcast cameras and on-field microphones have taken the guesswork out of real-time decision-making for umpires in the middle. In a game characterised by vast playing time punctuated by moments of high drama with minute margins of error, it is technology that adds another layer of intrigue for viewers, too. The cricketing powers-that-be have been keen to strike a balance between utilising this technology and not breaking up the flow of games, however; a rule dictates that teams only get a limited number of opportunities per innings to call upon it to challenge decisions.

The recent Cricket World Cup in England and Wales showcased how cricket has expertly ISSUE 8

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integrated technology into the flow of its game, with spectators able to listen to mic’d up umpires and follow technology-aided decisions on big screens.

Meanwhile, a combination of data and video analysis has helped coaches and players alike refine their methods and hone their overall performance.

No system is perfect, but when you compare cricket’s relationship with technology to that of soccer, where there is currently a heated debate about the impact of new Video Assistant Referees (VAR) on the game as a spectacle, it looks very favourable indeed.

As the ruling body of the most successful side in the history of the game, 30

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Cricket Australia recently undertook an extensive search for a digital partner to ensure it is making the most of technology. It eventually awarded the multi-year deal to HCL Technologies.

Under the terms of the deal, HCL will accelerate digital transformation and orchestrate experiences to engage an ecosystem of fans, participants, volunteers, partners and elite players, from grassroots to the international level. Key to this will be what HCL calls its ‘Scale Digital’ methodology, which it has successfully implemented for a number of large-scale enterprise customers, helping them to reimagine business models, strategies, processes,

HCL TECHNOLOGIES

ECOSYSTEMS ARE BECOMING VERY IMPORTANT TO SPORTS COMPANIES AND ORGANISATIONS AS THEY ALLOW THE CREATION OF PARTNERSHIPS”

and technology foundations to enable digital transformations.

It is this track record, says Anand Birje, Corporate VP and Head of Digital and Analytics at HCL Technologies, that gave it an edge in what was a ferocious tendering process to win the Cricket Australia contract. “Large sports companies are in some ways trying to re-innovate and reinvent just the same way as large retail organisations or large enterprises that want to engage with consumers in a better way,” he tells Digital Bulletin.

“Cricket Australia brought us into this discussion because they saw some of the work we had done, not just with sports organisations but with large scale ISSUE 8

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HIGHLIGHTS

STANDARD CHARTERED AND SAP ARIBA ANNOUNCE COLLABORATION Standard Chartered and SAP Ariba have joined forces to make the bank’s financial supply chain solutions accessible to businesses in the Asia Pacific region through Ariba Network. By year end, buyers using the Ariba network will be able to manage their payments and supply chain finance needs, while suppliers will get quicker access to financing and foreign exchange via Standard Chartered’s network. (21/08/19) MORE ON THIS STORY

The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read.

A one-stop shop for all of the newest major developments of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, The Bulletin, available at digitalbullet.in, is a vital and dependable resource for technology professionals.

HCL TECHNOLOGIES

HCL TECHNOLOGIES AND CRICKET AUSTRALIA EXCHANGING MEMENTOS TO ANNOUNCE THEIR DIGITAL PARTNERSHIP

retail or consumer-engaged companies in their digital transformations.”

As part of the deal, HCL will manage and elevate Cricket Australia’s suite of digital products that lead the way in Australia for digital consumption, including properties such as the Cricket Australia Live App, cricket.com.au, bigbash.com. au, and community cricket applications such as MyCricket and community. cricket.com.au.

All told, the platforms account for millions of hits each month and represent the most popular sites for Australia’s army of cricket obsessives. This will be particularly important, says Birje, to communicate with a younger and increasingly digital-savvy generation of fans.

“These fans want to be constantly engaged with the brands, teams and sports that they follow. That constant engagement has to be more intuitive, easier to use, much more data-driven and user-friendly to increase interaction,” he comments.

“Whether it’s through an app or another platform, the aim is to get fans engaged, not just when they’re at the stadium or watching a game, but through a muchextended life-cycle. That means being engaged on players’ statistics and match information, being engaged in terms of their ability to identify trends of how these teams are performing across a tournament or across a season.

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FANS WANT TO BE CONSTANTLY ENGAGED WITH THE BRANDS, TEAMS AND SPORTS THAT THEY FOLLOW”

each other, which creates a collective that can exchange ideas and emotions.

As a brand, being able to understand the expectations of your fans, their emotions, and demographics is something really valuable.”

A brand like the Australian cricket team is a huge business opportunity, with some of the world’s biggest companies keen to associate themselves with the ‘baggy green’ and the passion and loyalty it evokes. As a result, part of HCL’s remit is to create digital ecosystems where Cricket Australia can do business and transact with its commercial partners.

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HCL TECHNOLOGIES

“Ecosystems are becoming very important to sports companies and organisations as they allow the creation of partnerships. You can imagine, for example, a partnership with Uber to help spectators get to and from the cricket stadiums, or with Visa to improve payments structures with advertisers, vendors and consumers. These are processes that we will be constantly looking to innovate,” says Birje.

“Everything we are talking about relates to the Scale Digital methodology, which is reorganising how they work, reorganising how technology planning is done in business process, really rethinking and then delivering through composable platform architectures that are nimble and data-driven.”

The scope of the Cricket Australia contract is immense, but HCL has a record of working with some of the sporting world’s leading names, not least Manchester United Football Club. That relationship began in 2015 and today HCL Technologies is the club’s official Digital Transformation Partner.

Birje was a key figure in the original deal with the club and says a number of insights gleaned from that experience will hold the business in good stead in its work with Cricket Australia.

“What you perhaps don’t immediately realise is that while these sports compaHCL HAS WORKED AS A STRATEGIC PARTNER ON THE VOLVO OCEAN RACE

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ENTERPRISES ARE ALWAYS GOING TO BE THE LARGEST SPENDERS, BUT THE PARTNERSHIPS WITH THE LIKES OF CRICKET AUSTRALIA, MANCHESTER UNITED AND VOLVO OCEAN RACE ARE HUGELY INTERESTING FOR US” nies are huge brands, they can actually have a very small IT management footprint within the enterprise, which creates its own challenges and opportunities,” he says.

“Secondly, and again I make the analogy with retail, these big sporting brands have a huge following from all corners of the globe, so you’re dealing with a number of different demographics.

The expectations of a fan of Cricket Australia - or for that matter Manchester United - might be very different from an expectation of that same brand of a fan in South Africa or in India, but there are common patterns.

“It means that when we’re creating user experiences and journey maps, while there will be common doctrines in the front end, we will address those 36

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demographics and sensitivities not just in terms of language but even in terms of jargon, colloquialisms, and local ecosystem partners.”

For a company like HCL, big enterprise clients are always going to make up the bulk of its business. For all the power of sport, the turnover of the biggest franchises pale into insignificance compared with even middling companies in the corporate world.

But you only have to look at the headlines the partnership with Cricket Australia has created to see the drawing power of the world’s biggest sports teams and the eyeballs they attract.

“I’m very excited about this partnership because while our business is targeted to the large enterprise across verticals, this essentially gives us great brand

HCL TECHNOLOGIES

visibility, and more so in Australia. Some of our largest customers are in Australia, including Commonwealth Bank, RACV, and Coles, the retailer. We love the fact that while we’ve done work in Australia, helping large enterprises in the digital space, this could actually create new awareness of HCL as a company and highlight our capabilities.

“Enterprises are always going to be the largest spenders, but the partnerships with the likes of Cricket Australia, Manchester United and Volvo Ocean Race are hugely interesting for us, and

definitely increase our visibility in the market. We’re now seeing sports brands come to us because of the work we’re doing,” says Birje.

“We’re really excited about this sort of market space because we’re increasingly seeing the larger brands starting to rethink their businesses, their customer engagement and fan engagement but also the business operations. We’ll consider each opportunity in its own right, but there are a number of sports teams and companies that we share a common vision with.”

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A NETWORKING SHIFT

Aerohive Networks’ Roy Verboeket explains the rise of cloud networking and how advanced technologies are critical to offering simplified access and management for customers

C

ould you please start by talking us through Aerohive Networks’ value proposition in the networking space?

Traditional networking is moving towards cloud networking. Customers no longer want to buy and own the hardware and licenses, and instead would rather pay for the end result - a good wired and wireless network that is managed from the cloud. This is exactly what Aerohive offers. Aerohive uses 38

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cloud management, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI) to radically simplify and secure the access network. We deliver value that goes beyond wireless connectivity, providing our customers with insightful data and advanced analytics that help them engage on a deeper level.

Our cloud-managed wireless, switching, routing, and security technologies provide flexibility in deployment, management, and licensing. Aerohive makes

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the life of IT staff easier by delivering continuous innovation at cloud-speed that constantly challenges the industry norm, allowing customers to rethink what’s possible.

Could you explain how Aerohive’s platform reduces network complexity for clients?

Our cloud-first approach allows us to rapidly innovate and radically simplify wired and wireless networks at scale. Our cloud networking platform has been systematically designed with the latest technologies to provide organisations with centralised, simplified, and secure access network management for one to thousands of distributed sites. Customers can leverage our cloud networking for scalability. As new Wi-Fi technology enters the market, these new technologies can be easily added without having to purchase additional compatible controllers.

In the old days, IT would face complex setups on the networking side, the device side, as well as the user side. But as software has evolved, configuration has become a much more streamlined process. Aerohive’s cloud configuration groups allow IT managers to create a single network policy that can span the entire enterprise network while still keeping management simplified. Using client configuration groups together with 40

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CUSTOMERS NO LONGER WANT TO BUY AND OWN THE HARDWARE AND LICENSES, AND INSTEAD WOULD RATHER PAY FOR THE END RESULT – A GOOD WIRED AND WIRELESS NETWORK THAT IS MANAGED FROM THE CLOUD”

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headaches or complex radius setups by offering features like PPSK (Private Pre-Shared Keys). When using a single pre-shared key for all devices, revoking a single device would mean that an IT department would need to change the key for every device. This process could take days or even weeks depending on the size of the network. With PPSK, you’ll be done with just a few clicks. You can revoke access, for a single device or individual, without affecting everyone else on the network.

classification rules, a single network policy can be tailored for specific groups of devices.

For many customers, having potentially thousands of sites, across multiple countries, and limited in-house Wi-Fi expertise, Aerohive makes it simple to remotely deploy networks and support mobile devices and Wi-Fi solutions. Our platform allows for simplified deployment of one to thousands of devices with auto-provisioning, a guided workflow, and an interactive on-screen step-by-step guided configuration assistant. IT is no longer needed onsite to turn on new networks.

In addition, the Aerohive platform enables customers to overcome security

Can you go into detail about the essential technologies that cloud networking relies upon?

Cloud networking has become a critical element in today’s economy. It’s high performing, highly scalable and very flexible. When done right, it gives you the perfect platform without having to invest in hardware resources, expensive licenses and manpower. A good cloud platform in our opinion needs to offer: Machine learning and artificial intelligence The demand for network usage by both users and IoT (Internet of Things) devices and the increased complexity this brings for network managers can lead to issues. Finding a way to help is vital. Machine learning (ML) and artificial intelliISSUE 8

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HIGHLIGHTS

DEUTSCHE TELEKOM AND ERICSSON COLLABORATE ON INDUSTRIAL 5G Deutsche Telekom and Ericsson are pooling resources to build network solutions for industrial customers. They will create ‘campus networks’ to support use cases in manufacturing, logistics and other industries. The pair have an eye on the potential for 5G to disrupt these sectors. “Our customers demand secure, reliable and high-performance network solutions,” said a Deutsche Telekom spokesperson. (28/08/19) MORE ON THIS STORY

The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read.

A one-stop shop for all of the newest major developments of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, The Bulletin, available at digitalbullet.in, is a vital and dependable resource for technology professionals.

AEROHIVE NETWORKS

gence (AI) can step in to help in IT automation.

The networking industry is using ML to create data baselines that reflect typical network usage. Once those baselines have been created, AI features can be used to alert you of anomalies and even take action to rectify certain issues without the need for manual intervention. Vendors have been building out platforms and systems that take advantage of ML and AI to do things like simplify monitoring of network health, performance analysis, and reporting on network KPIs, or even providing tools for troubleshooting client devices. ML and AI services allow networks to be managed using insights driven by network performance data that is collected frequently.

Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) With an ever-growing number of devices using Wi-Fi along with the emergence of the IoT, Wi-Fi networks need to be capable of managing dense usage, increased data traffic, and a diverse mix of applications and services with differing needs. It is natural that the underpinning infrastructure must adapt to support the changing workplace. Wi-Fi 6 allows for more capacity and efficiency in the network. Wi-Fi 6 brings a number of muchneeded Wi-Fi enhancements, which address capacity concerns and bring enhancements for IoT. Microservices It is very important to look for a microservices-based cloud architecture to take advantage of AI and ML. Microservices ISSUE 8

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MACHINE LEARNING AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SERVICES ALLOW NETWORKS TO BE MANAGED USING INSIGHTS DRIVEN BY NETWORK PERFORMANCE DATA” is a software development technique that structures an application as a collection of loosely coupled services. The benefit of a true microservices architecture is that the application is broken down into smaller modules and services, enabling parallel development and updating, as well as improving resiliency and scale.

This enables each of these services to be deployed, tweaked, and then redeployed independently without compromising the integrity of an application. As a result, you might only need to change one or more distinct services instead of having to redeploy entire applications.

How does your platform deploy these technologies to increase network intelligence?

Using our cloud-managed AI platforms, we are enabling enterprises to discover 44

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untapped business insights, allowing them to implement informed decisions based on these predictive analytics, while providing flexibility in deployment, management, and licensing of cloud-managed wireless, switching, routing and security solutions.

Effectively, it’s similar to putting network management on autopilot. IT only needs to complete the most basic of configurations, then allow the combination of ML and AI to self-optimise the network.

Aerohive’s customer networks contain a wealth of information about the network devices, clients and applications running on the network. The Aerohive platform includes a set of powerful APIs that enable enterprises, retail customers, and education organisations to leverage their access network data through customised applications and system integrations. This results in new insights, reduced cost, increased revenue and improved user experiences for customers, employees and business partners.

How do Aerohive’s solutions compare to those of your peers in the cloud networking space?

When it comes to peer-to-peer comparison, Aerohive is proud of our technology leadership. We have many ‘firsts’ under our belt, including being credited with pioneering controllerless Wi-Fi and

AEROHIVE NETWORKS

cloud management. Our cloud-managed wireless, switching, routing, and security technologies provide unrivalled flexibility in deployment, management, and licensing.

We were the first manufacturer to fully embrace 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) technology, for example. Aerohive was first to commit, first to ship, first to certify and first in achieving successful customer deployments with 802.11ax. Aerohive is committed to being on the leading edge of 802.11ax development and offering customers an ever-expanding family of 802.11ax capable APs. Aerohive has also extended its lead in previously developing Dual 5.0 GHz capabilities in an Access Point to the 802.11ax family.

Additionally, Aerohive is the first cloud networking competitor to achieve ISO

27001 certification. ISO 27001 is a thirdparty inspected and audited certification that verifies a company has established, operates, monitors, and maintains a comprehensive information security management system in accordance with industry best practices.

Our innovations and global cloud footprint radically simplify access network operation for 30,000+ customers and 10+ million daily users.

What are the emergent trends in cloud networking and how is Aerohive preparing for them?

Aerohive is constantly evaluating its cloud and service offerings. By doing that and adopting new technologies and services, we strive to be among the best in our industry. The biggest trend is much more focused on cloud adop-

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WE THINK THAT SERVERLESS COMPUTING AND OPEN FRAMEWORKS WILL CHANGE THE CLOUD INDUSTRY OVER THE COMING YEARS�

tion. We see more and more enterprises adopting cloud strategies, moving away from hosting their own hardware and software. Due to economy of scale, cloud makes much more sense to more and more organisations.

From a technology perspective we think that serverless computing and open frameworks will change the cloud industry over the coming years. The ability to build what you want, when you want it and without complexity or too many roadblocks.

Aerohive has been seen as a technology leader for many years and we are now focused on increasing our global 46

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footprint and scale across multiple industries and deployment environments.

Finally, could you talk about your own interesting journey and roles at Aerohive?

I started my career in the Dutch Armed Forces. After various roles, I found that radio communication and security were things that I had an aptitude for. I grew my skillset over the years, leading field teams and building various networks on Radio, Satcom, Fibre and copper connections using a wide range of products.

After leaving the Armed Forces I joined a system integrator as a wireless network-

AEROHIVE NETWORKS

ing and Voice Over IP specialist. I then ended up in distribution, bringing various vendors to market through a welltrained channel. From there, I joined Aerohive in 2012 as a Systems Engineer for the Netherlands and Belgium, building a channel ecosystem supporting our partners and customers in the region. In the years after that, I went from SE to Lead SE Northern Europe and finally Director of Systems Engineering EMEA in January of 2017.

In August of 2017, I agreed to take on an extra role as Product Manager for Aerohive’s private cloud offering, leading the development of the platform to

make it suitable and sellable for MSPs and large enterprise. Recently, I’ve been promoted into Sr. Director of Systems Engineering, where I feel I’m leading the best cloud-networking SE team in the industry. We want our systems engineering teams to be the best out there, and to be the best networking specialists - they not only need to excel in knowing WiFi, switching and routing, but they must also be cloud-savvy. We train our people in all these skillsets and part of my job is to help my team accomplish this.

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GROWING PAINS Artificial intelligence (AI) is coming of age. But what’s holding it back, and how do we make sure we bring it up well?

Simon Driscoll, Data & Intelligence Practice Lead for NTT Data, gives Digital Bulletin his unfiltered view AUTHOR: ROMILY BROAD

T

he birth of applied artificial intelligence is upon us. Conceived more than 60 years ago, its long gestation has finally produced the sort of offspring expected to usher in transformative progress in every area of business and life.

It’s quite the baby shower; the world is set to pour $35 billion into its crib in 2019, according to IDC - a 44% surge 48

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from the year before. Gifts proffered lavishly in the hope they’ll be returned in the future with interest. But, as Charles Dickens pointed out long before anyone thought to apply an algorithm to his e-books, corrupted youth and great expectations beget serious challenges.

The duty now is to nurture the infant technology in a way that ensures it doesn’t adolesce into a spoilt, socio-

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pathic ingrate, inhaling our money only to embarrass us in public. Thoughts have turned to ensuring AI matures into a trustworthy, productive and reliable friend rather than a malignant source of new problems, be those for businesses attempting to exploit AI or for society more generally.

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this is the view of Simon Driscoll, Data & Intelligence Practice Lead in the UK for Japanese IT services giant NTT Data.

Driscoll has a practitioner’s wisdom when it comes to effective data strategy implementations and now, through NTT Data’s newly-unveiled guidelines for the stewardship of AI, a prescription for the future.

His 25 years at the data management coalface - from Vodafone through BAE Systems to Deloitte before arriving at NTT Data late last year - informs a rationalist perspective on the steps required to implement productive AI applications. He says the most common problem he encounters is that organisations keen to implement AI often make the mistake of beginning their journey by implementing AI. “I think we’re in a hype curve at the moment. Everybody wants to focus on exploitation of data, because that’s where the hype is, that’s where AI sits.

Everybody wants to buy AI.” he says.

The AI feeding frenzy - or “peak AI hype curve” as Driscoll puts it - is leading to lofty promises from an ever-expanding range of vendors, all of whom attest to their ability to jump off the shelf and save companies vast amounts of time and money. But he suggests it’s a rush to bring the baby home before properly stocking the cupboards and preparing the nursery.

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“Today, I do not believe that the majority of organisations have recognised that data is an absolutely critical business asset and it needs to be treated as such.

What this means is that you come back to AI falling victim to that garbage in, garbage out situation.”

A painfully learned truth is that advanced AI solutions can be attempted but ultimately thwarted by applying it to data that can’t support it. It’s a fact borne out by a recent IDC survey that suggests a full quarter of companies report a 50% failure rate in their AI initiatives.

Driscoll adds: “All the conversations my clients want to have with me and

NTT DATA

I think the implementation of AI takes far more time than lots of organisations believe, or are led to believe” my teams are all about AI or data exploitation. And it’s great, because that’s a great conversation starter. However, what we actually find if you go through the traditional process of doing a proof of concept, a proof of value, then into productionisation, is that many of those exercises do not get to the productionisation stage.”

Stalled progress of AI implementations is not necessarily the fault of the analytics or AI tools themselves – it’s because of legacy systems, siloed data sources, a lack of integration and chaotic, uncleansed data. Applying AI is therefore the end point of

Simon Driscoll, Data & Intelligence Practice Lead for NTT Data

a process that should have properly begun much earlier, addressing the sourcing of data, rationalising its treatment and understanding how it will be made available.

“I guess it’s a little bit of a personal frustration. Data is not new. Many of the conversations I actually have with my clients today go back to the same things we’ve been talking about for the last 10, 15, 20 years.

“AI is not a simple solution. It takes time. It takes investment. I think the implementation of AI takes far more time than lots of organisations believe, or are led to believe.”

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HIGHLIGHTS

CEREBRAS UNVEILS ‘LARGEST EVER CHIP’ TO MEET AI DEMAND A startup has created ripples by unveiling ‘the largest chip ever built’. Cerebras Systems’ Wafer-Scale Engine chip is designed to power AI workloads.

56.7 times larger than the Nvidia V100, it contains 1.2 trillion transistors and has 10,000 times more memory bandwidth. The chip’s been in development for over four years. It won’t be sold on its own but as part of a Cerebras computer “appliance”. (19/08/19) MORE ON THIS STORY

The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read.

A one-stop shop for all of the newest major developments of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, The Bulletin, available at digitalbullet.in, is a vital and dependable resource for technology professionals.

NTT DATA

Driscoll is tackling these issues with clients across a wide range of sectors with NTT Data. In the UK, the company focuses on telecoms and media, public services, the insurance sector and manufacturing. In doing so it offers data intelligence services from architecting and build, through to data management and exploitation.

It’s the exploitation element that’s driving a lot of the buzz around AI, and as the company levers more clients in that direction it has formulated a global policy framework to help guide the world’s conversation about how the technology should be governed.

“That is what has driven our ethical guidelines. Five very clear principles around how we want to ensure that AI is recognised as valuable to society in general.”

These principles, revealed in May this year, codify a set of values for the company that aim to ensure it contributes to a society where the positive outcomes of AI are widely accessible, while potential downsides, particularly social discrimination through unwitting (or deliberate) input bias, are reduced.

“What I am finding really refreshing is these guidelines we’ve published - and this comes from our Japanese heritage the whole organisation and the individuals within it absolutely believe in these. It’s not marketing hype,” Driscoll stresses.

The vision dictates that the company will work proactively with other players in the AI field to collaborate on developing AI with sustainability and human wellbeing at its heart. As Driscoll explains, NTT Data’s ethical guidelines are at their core a way to “ensure AI is not ISSUE 8

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We need to ensure that AI is seen as something which is really focused around society” something that harms humans”. To do this it commits to educating both professionals and the public, to prioritising the respect and security of personal data, and to develop AI that is always explainable in its decision making.

This collaborative, educational approach is one Driscoll sees as vital for establishing trust in AI in the face of often querulous or misinformed mainstream media.

Whether it’s Facebook evading accountability for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Alexa’s alleged eavesdropping or Tesla’s latest autonomous fender-bender, bad news tends to overwhelm the good.

But the positives are plentiful, if underrepresented; from NTT Data’s own work bringing AI to bear in hospital ICU units right the way through to the fact hundreds of millions of satisfied customers have bought AI-powered voice assistants because they actually are useful.

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As AI advances, says Driscoll, industry players will need to become much better at fostering trust and working together to achieve it.

“If I look at the Big 5 - the ones who have the most to gain, and potentially the most to lose if an AI winter comes around - they should definitely be driving some of that conversation.

“I think Facebook are now starting to do things, but I think that’s because of the Cambridge Analytica thing. They’re managing the fallout as opposed to proactively talking about the benefits and talking about how they’re going to use AI in an ethical way. And I don’t think any of the others are being overt in how they are making AI ethical right now.”

Early evidence of NTT Data’s seriousness in this effort was the unveiling in May of its new Artificial Intelligence Centre of Excellence in Barcelona. The aim is to have trained at least 200 NTT Data staff in AI over the next 12 months.

But while Driscoll and his colleagues at NTT Data work to progress a global consensus around ethical AI, he is quick to rewind the conversation and point out that whatever we imagine of AI’s capabilities in the future, it will be informed by the data we feed it today.

In fact, he goes so far as to say the next 10 years will probably not be signified by any major leaps in AI technology

NTT DATA

NTT DATA GROUP’S AI GUIDELINES 1. Realising Well-being and Sustainability of Society NTT DATA will promote solving social issues by using AI in recognition of diversity and in consideration with basic human rights 2. Co-Creating New Values by AI NTT DATA strives to harness the potential benefits of AI and promote innovation by interacting and co-creating with AI stakeholders 3. Fair, Reliable, and Explainable AI For users of AI to realise its fairness and trustworthiness, NTT DATA invests reasonable efforts in presenting the decisions based on AI in a form that can be understood by humans and doesn’t cause unfair discrimination 4. Data Protection Privacy and security is critical to NTT DATA in providing AI services. Our AI leverages the principles of security and design to protect against unauthorised access, strengthen data traceability, and develop the proper means and policy for collecting, storing, using, and providing personal information 5. Contribution to Dissemination of Sound AI NTT DATA will work to further the understanding of AI in order to accelerate its acceptance

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What I am finding really refreshing is these guidelines we’ve published – and this comes from our Japanese heritage - the whole organisation and the individuals within it absolutely believe in these. It’s not marketing hype”

itself - albeit he reserves healthcare as an outlying sector there. Rather, for business, it’s the human side of the equation that will either march it forwards or hold it back. Lawyers, governments and journalists will have as much to say on the topic as data scientists.

“We already have so many possibilities with AI that I don’t believe that AI itself will evolve massively over the next 10 years. It’s all the other elements that are required,” explains Driscoll.

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“AI is absolutely dependent on data.

AI can only learn from the data it is given.

AI is not an island. It’s not a standalone.

It requires this data - it requires us to ensure that the data that’s being used

by AI adheres to all the regulations, but not just the regulations - all of the ethical uses of that data.”

Set during the technological upheaval of an earlier industrial revolution, Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations sees its main characters, orphans Pip and Estella,

NTT DATA

trained by surrogate parents to exact cold revenge on society. The result, explains Estella to her guardian: “I am what you designed me to be. I am your blade. You cannot now complain if you also feel the hurt.”

In the early years of life, an inconsistent or corrupted environment inevitably leads to fixed and irretrievable harm for us humans. The same could be said of AI. As Driscoll, and by extension NTT Data, make clear - a concerted,

collaborative effort is now required to ensure AI is nourished with properly treated data, and that going forward it does so in accordance with a universally agreed set of honest, transparent and positive values.

“We need to ensure that AI is seen as something which is really focused around society,” he concludes. “We need to ensure that there is clarity around how AI is actually being driven.”

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REALITY DAWNS The need for clearer data communication could result in virtual and augmented reality finally coming to the enterprise fore. Digital Bulletin speaks with Simon Wright, Head of VR and AR at Genesys, to learn more about ‘hyper-visualisation’ and the company’s explorations in this field

AUTHOR: BEN MOUNCER

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GENESYS

t sounds mesmerising and transformative. A virtual reality (VR) environment where the user can literally walk through data, with information presented via interconnected ‘planets’ and 3D heat maps inside a ‘data universe’. Forget spreadsheets and graphs; this was data visualisation reimagined using one of the 21st century’s most exciting technologies.

The concept was created by Genesys, the billion-dollar customer experience firm, as it explored ways for clients to benefit from the vast amount of data generated by its contact centre solutions.

A working prototype designed for a customer in the telecoms industry, the VR-based visualisation tool wowed onlookers at a Genesys customer event.

But not long after, another reality hit home for the California-based company: VR adoption rates were just too low.

Cost and usability have historically been two of the main buffers to VR take-up; equipment and content are very expensive to acquire, while employees – in Genesys’ case, call centre operators – weren’t enamoured by the idea of wearing cumberhome headsets as they went about their work.

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For Simon Wright however, Head of VR and AR (augmented reality), this is a battle that’s far from lost. Given the freedom by Genesys to continually push the limits of these technologies, Wright firmly believes they hold the key to business communication around data – and that wider adoption will finally begin to accelerate.

The often-stunted relationship between VR, AR and the enterprise world is a surprise to many observers. After all, this is technology that can trace its beginnings back to the 1800s and the very earliest days of photography. ‘Virtual reality’ was a moniker first used in the 1980s and since the turn of the century, VR and AR 60

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have been mainstream terms in the digital sphere.

Yet over recent years, VR’s adoption rate hasn’t matched previous anticipation around its business potential. Statistics are there to back up this claim; study Google search trends and you will see a sharp spike in VR-related activity in 2016, with an equally rapid decline in the years since. Sales-wise, 8.9 million headsets were shipped in 2018, up only 600,000 from 2017.

On top of concerns over price and user experience, VR has also suffered from a narrow range of enterprise use cases.

Employee training has been one of the few areas where it has gained traction

GENESYS

IF COMPANIES CAN HELP PEOPLE IDENTIFY PATTERNS AND CORRELATIONS AND MAKE BETTER DECISIONS BECAUSE THEY HAVE AMAZING VISUALISATIONS TO WORK WITH, THEN I THINK THAT IS THE BUSINESS CASE”

and it was this deployment that formed the basis of Genesys’ first experiments with VR, as Wright explains.

“This was around five years ago, so it really was Oculus [VR company acquired

by Facebook] version one,” he tells Digital Bulletin. “Could we use VR to skill up and train agents and customer service staff, and help them visualise problems?

It was also about problem-solving and UI [user interfaces], like the systems in a contact centre.

“We had some challenges with the early prototypes, one of which was motion sickness. There was a massive usability question mark, so although the tech was cool, the question which we were asking ourselves was: would people really want to wear these for 20-30 minutes in a busy contact centre? Other challenges we had were cost and time required to design and make the content.”

Wright’s data visualisation prototype stuck with him, however, and it was in this example that he saw the highest potential. But to make use cases easier to imagine, Genesys felt it needed to switch its focus from VR to AR. The key difference was the accessibility of AR capabilities through smart devices, removing the need for any additional hardware.

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HIGHLIGHTS

DELL TECHNOLOGIES AND AT&T PARTNER ON EDGE COMPUTING AND 5G Dell Technologies and AT&T have set up a new collaboration. In a press release, the pair said they will be ‘exploring the development of key open infrastructure technology areas for the next-generation network edge’. In short, they are to build tech to support use cases and services in 5G and edge computing. Dell is joining AT&T’s Airship project for automating telco infrastructure. (15/08/19) MORE ON THIS STORY

The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read.

A one-stop shop for all of the newest major developments of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, The Bulletin, available at digitalbullet.in, is a vital and dependable resource for technology professionals.

GENESYS

WITH THE BEST WILL IN THE WORLD, ANY COMPANY, EVEN WITH THOUSANDS OF DEVELOPERS, IS NEVER GOING TO THINK OF EVERYTHING ALL ON ITS OWN. YOU NEED THE FRESH, YOUNG, SLIGHTLY CRAZY IDEAS” approach looks like it could soon reap benefits. 2019 appears to be signalling a growth surge for AR, with the global market expected to register a CAGR of 151.93% over the forecast period up to 2024. Advancements in cloud and AI (artificial intelligence) technologies are behind these projections.

“Our focus has been on AR and we’ve had quite a lot of success,” says Wright.

“We’ve been looking at it from two sides; from customer experience and how we use AR to enhance the customer experience in ways we couldn’t do before, mainly using visualisation and animation to bring objects to life. The other area is data visualisation, or hyper-visualisation as we call it.”

Data is today’s enterprise currency; it offers businesses unprecedented opportunities to shape strategy and illuminate decision-making. Yet realising these ambitions doesn’t come without its challenges.

With data flowing from multiple sources, companies require both the technology and skills to turn this stream of information to their advantage. Overcome that hurdle and there still lies the problem of effectively communicating those outcomes to a wider audience. From this challenge has emerged the discipline of data visualisation.

This is where Wright and Genesys introduce AR into the equation. They have termed data visualisation supported by AR as ‘hyper-visualisation’ - and Wright believes it has a future in the world of data reporting and analytics.

“What we’ve seen already from our experimentation with AR is that it really works as a medium to help simplify and visualise massive amounts of data. Our brains are wired to react to what we see, much better than what we hear or read,” he explains.

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HYPER-VISUALISATION FROM GENESYS

a mass, with the moving data then captured in a video before being deployed in an AR interface. Users are able to view this interactive data display through their mobile phones or another AR-enabled device like smart glasses.

“You can essentially point your tablet or your phone at your desk, and bring a 3D data visualisation to life on the desk in front of you,” Wright continues.

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can use further use AR in the world of reporting and analytics because it certainly has a place, there’s no doubt about it.”

Will such solutions come a cropper in the face of familiar issues around cost and viability? Wright is adamant the business case is there.

“If companies can help people identify patterns and correlations and make better decisions because they have amazing visualisations to work with, then I think that is the business case,” he says.

“It’s potentially going to open the door to a whole new breed of analysts too.

In the future, we might have people who are specifically trained on AR visualisations. These are the people who, right now, are using Snapchat and Facebook-type AR and are completely comfortable with it.

“The business case does depend a lot on the devices, however; we need affordable AR devices that will allow anybody to not have to use their hands to hold their object, but to use their fingers to interact with the UI in front of their face. Once we’re there, it will allow anybody to walk around the room and see objects in a way they just can’t do at the moment.”

Data visualisation could be the use case that elevates AR to new levels of adoption across the enterprise. Certain

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verticals are already tapping into the possibilities of this technology in different ways, however, with “huge potential” opportunities in the fields of biotechnology and healthcare according to ResearchandMarkets.com.

Other sectors familiar with AR include manufacturing, engineering and architecture, but Wright believes a factor crucial to future application will be talent.

He insists the next generation of workers will benefit from the experience of VR and AR usage in their everyday lives - and Genesys is already making efforts to extract ideas from this generation of ‘future customers’.

“With the best will in the world, any company, even with thousands of developers, is never going to think of

everything all on its own. You need the fresh, young, slightly crazy ideas - but that’s fine,” he concludes. “We’ve recently started a programme where we’re working with some young, bright minds in the UK and soon elsewhere in the world, to foster and encourage them to innovate and develop around our solutions, which includes AR and VR. “We’ve already seen them come up with some amazing ideas for retail, for example. Whether they’ll go into production I don’t know, but it forces you to think about things differently and see it from their point of view. They live in a world of filters and face masks; these are all the AR things coming out now.

These people are important, they are the customers of the future.”

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EVENTS

EVENTS Digital Bulletin rounds up the industry events that are worth clearing your diary for...

AI IN FINANCE SUMMIT 05–06 SEPTEMBER, 2019 THE CONVENE, NEW YORK Attendees will discover advances in AI & machine learning tools and techniques from the world’s leading innovators across industry, research and the financial sector. The AI in Finance Summit New York provides the attendees with the opportunity to discover advances in machine learning tools and techniques from the world’s leading innovators across industry, academia and the financial sector Attendees will learn about machine learning applications in the financial sector from algorithms to forecast financial data, to tools used for data mining and pattern recognition in financial time series, to scaling predictive models, to stock market prediction, to using blockchain technology.

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SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER

GLOBAL CIO EXECUTIVE SUMMIT 11–13 SEPTEMBER, 2019 FOUR SEASONS WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA The Global CIO Executive Summit is a forum for enterprise heads of IT from the world’s largest multinational organisations. The annual summit dives deep into critical issues encountered by CIOs who lead large, international teams, operate in complex business environments, and make decisions that carry significant implications to their companies, industries and profession. The agenda has been carefully crafted by our Governing Body, active CIOs of global organisations, to deliver the most timely and relevant information in a true peer-to-peer environment.

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TECH LEADERS SUMMIT 12 SEPTEMBER, 2019 ROYAL LANCASTER LONDON Tech Leaders Summit is the UK’s largest conference for technology leaders and decision makers, with a focus on strategy – how can companies use tech to innovate, become more agile, reduce costs, transform departments and support employees? Tech Leaders Summit provides a 360° high-level view of the technologies and trends most impacting organisations and set to drive innovation in 2019 and beyond. Its 25+ renowned speakers lead the way in the IT world when it comes to demonstrating real business value from deploying technology in organisations both large and small.

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INDUSTRY OF THINGS WORLD 16–17 SEPTEMBER, 2019 BERLIN CONGRESS CENTRE Industry of Things World is an international knowledge exchange platform bringing together the largest European community of high-level cross-industry executives who play an active role in the Industrial Internet of Things scene.

Attendees will be encouraged to rethink their technology and business strategy for scalable, secure and efficient IoT: artificial intelligence, automation, standards, interoperability, cloud, new business models and digital transformation.

Prof. Neil Gershenfeld will deliver the opening keynote, highlighting how the third digital revolution brings programmability of the digital world out into the physical world.

SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER

BLOCKCHAIN LIVE 25 SEPTEMBER, 2019 OLYMPIA, LONDON The organisers of Blockchain Live say the event is a ground-breaking festival of content and collaboration that connects the fragmented ecosystem to drive meaningful discussion and debate on how best to accelerate global adoption of blockchain. This one day event is packed with engaging, thought-provoking and quality content, this year Blockchain Live will be moving away from the traditional exhibition model, in to a ground-breaking festival of content and collaboration.

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SMART CITIES WEEK 30 SEPTEMBER–02 OCTOBER, 2019 MGM NATIONAL HARBOR, WASHINGTON D.C. The East Coast’s gathering of smart cities changemakers is back in Washington, D.C., in 2019, with innovative programming created for city leaders who want to create more liveable, workable and sustainable communities. You’ll network with peers and smart cities experts, uncover solutions to common challenges, be among the first to see new technologies and approaches from solution providers, and tour some of Washington, D.C., smart infrastructure projects that are delivering meaningful results.

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SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER

API WORLD 2019 08–10 OCTOBER, 2019 SAN JOSE CONVENTION CENTER AI DEVWORLD 2019 08–10 OCTOBER, 2019 SAN JOSE CONVENTION CENTER AI DevWorld will be the world’s largest artificial intelligence dev event with tracks covering chatbots, machine learning, open source AI libraries, AI for the enterprise, and deep AI/neural networks.

This conference targets software engineers and data scientists who are looking for an introduction to AI as well as AI dev professionals looking for a landscape view on the newest AI technologies. Speakers include senior staff from the likes of IBM, Cisco and Facebook.

API World is the first large-scale conference and expo with the goal of organising the new API economy. The API World 2019 Conference and Expo was created with the mission to be neutral and facilitate connections, knowledge, trust and business within the developer community of API providers and consumers. Hear from Fortune 500 tech executives and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs on how they planned, launched, and managed their API projects, both internal and external-facing. This event is ideal if you are a coder, a startup or an enterprise that consumes or provides multiple APIs.

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THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION CONFERENCE 17 OCTOBER, 2019 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS The Digital Transformation Conference Global Series brings together leaders spearheading digital initiatives in their organisations to offer insights into their digital transformations. Join digital business leaders as the event returns to Boston for the third time to navigate digital innovation with an event geared towards content enabling you to leave full of ideas to take away with you. The event agenda is built with keynote presentations, panel discussions, fireside chats, breakout sessions and exhibitions. Digital business leaders will share case studies, their challenges, success stories and a whole lot more.

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SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER

WORLD CRYPTO CONFERENCE 29–31 OCTOBER, 2019 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS Part of Vegas Blockchain Week, the World Crypto Conference sees executives, enthusiasts, and professionals from global enterprise companies, financial service providers, investment firms, traders, advisory & auditing institutions, blockchain focused startups, academic institutions, government policy advisors, and application developers descend on Las Vegas to discuss the most pressing topics facing this emerging industry. It will afford three days of intense discussions, product demos, expert keynote addresses and panel discussions with industry thought leaders.

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THE CLOSING BULLETIN

In a column exclusive to Digital Bulletin, Ian Huston, Data Scientist and Engineering Director at Pivotal Software, discusses the future of software engineering and code “that writes itself”

E

ver since the dawn of the assembly line, the idea of automation replacing human labour has divided opinion. On the one hand, reducing the need for manual labour opens the door to a more diverse range of jobs and limits the need for staff to become bogged down in menial or repetitive tasks. On the other hand, automation also holds the power to render certain jobs or skills redundant, threatening the value of hardearned staff knowledge and experience.

This is reflected in a recent report con74

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ducted by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), which found up to 1.5m UK workers at risk of losing their jobs to automation, a number which could grow further.

Historically, automation has gone hand in hand with the development of the technologies which enable it, and the creation of new ways of working. Now, with the practical business applications of AI becoming more and more of a reality, automation will likely have more of an impact on a wider range of jobs – even

PIVOTAL SOFTWARE

transforming the roles of the developers who create it.

The current model of software development (Software 1.0) consists of programmers creating oft-repeated segments of code as a series of rules: if X happens then do Y. “Software 2.0”, as described by Andrej Karpathy, director of AI at Tesla, will be based on a neural network that learns which instructions or rules are needed for a desired outcome, replacing the need for developers to “write” software with developers now focused on feeding data into machine learning systems. However, the need for software engineering is not going away anytime soon. In fact, the shift in dynamic between developers and the machines they work on will empower the practitioners.

Here are some possible benefits that traditional software engineers and data scientists could achieve in an era of Software 2.0: Automation, iteration and implementation One successful approach to writing software is taking an iterative, test-driven approach. With AI-enabled Software 2.0, a human could write the tests while the machine partner searches for a suitable implementation, iterating millions of times to find the right piece of code to

Software 2.0 will be based on a neural network that learns which instructions or rules are needed for a desired outcome” solve those tests. Instead of doing both jobs (i.e. writing the tests and making the pass tests) a developer constructs the former while a machine counterpart does the latter. As a result, less time is spent writing implementation code, freeing up developers to spend more time on identifying and understanding new areas in which business problems can be solved creatively through software.

Down the line, Software 2.0 might even help guide test-driven development and suggest the next test to be run, providing justifications along the way. Imagine the marketing people go to the development team and say they want such and such functionality. If they can express what they want in a way the machine can understand, the machine could help choose the tests that are needed and then suggest next steps.

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AI will empower, not replace, software developers This raises the ultimate concern: will machines just replace software engineers altogether? It is more likely that machines will only be able to competently write code 90% of the time, while the need remains for a human monitoring system to ensure that the code works. By bringing their experience to the table, and by monitoring the code generated, the human element will help achieve closer to 100% accuracy rate.

Today, it’s clear that deep learning neural networks do well in supervised learning settings, if they’re provided training data with good examples and bad examples, they can learn what to output correctly. But those systems are only as good as the training data they’re fed. As a result, improving a model’s performance frequently involves improving the underlying code and deployment environment, as well

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as improving the training data. The reality is that neural networks are not a silver bullet. Rather, we need to design neural networks to work with other solutions.

There are certain parts of software development that will work really well with deep learning and there are other parts that won’t.

Closing the gap between expectation and reality For years, we’ve been using automated helpers to refactor and save time writing boilerplate code, and we’re now welcoming the emergence of AI-driven assistants in more complex software development as well. Lately, they have been appearing among product teams in the form of supercharged IDE features that can suggest better code completion.

Now imagine a far more advanced AI assistant playing a much larger role in the future. When writing code, a machine partner might determine what kind of

PIVOTAL SOFTWARE

There are certain parts of software development that will work really well with deep learning and there are other parts that won’t” function is being written and fill in the rest based on style, using high-level predictive analysis. Essentially the machine writes the rest of the code, then the developer approves it.

Practically, AI will do much more to empower software developers than hinder them. For example, just like a smartphone uses machine learning to automatically check spelling and suggests word, a similar tool can be used to highlight possible errors when writing code. Considering the advances in machine learning and conversational interfaces, it’s conceivable that a machine could one day be an indispensable member of a programming team.

Collaborating with AI Looking at pair programming, there are many different ways to complete a problem by sharing the reins with someone else. Software development is a process of constant collaboration with other colleagues. Every time a new pair comes together, the partners bring different experiences and different approaches to tackling a problem. The more pairs brought together, the more solutions result. With Software 2.0, a new partner is added to help developers do their job better. The rise of a more energetic collaborative environment that leads to ever more, and ever more effective, solutions.

And that’s good for everyone.

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