Digital Bulletin - Issue 22 - November 2020

DIGITAL BULLETIN Issue 22 | Nov ’20

EUROPEAN UNION A next-gen, federated cloud could soon become a reality

ANKE SAX The European Digital Leader of the Year on what makes a standout CIO

INSIDE A CLOUD SUCCESS STORY Lebara CTO Torsten Minkwitz on how a public cloud migration has benefitted its technology team, customers and bottom line

JAMES HENDERSON Content Director

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here can be very little more maddening for a CTO than having to deploy some of your most talented staff to projects that add no real value to the business.

It was a feeling all too familiar for Torsten Minkwitz, CTO at Lebara, with the company regularly tasking its technologists to work on lengthy and costly infrastructure upgrade projects.

In an in-depth interview, this month’s cover star tells Digital Bulletin that the frustrating cycle was the catalyst for embarking on a multi-year public cloud migration programme.

“It was clear to me that I couldn’t afford in the long-term to have all these skills working on the hardware, on backup robots. It would just eat away resources instead of focusing on the more customer-facing tasks,” he tells us.

Moving its infrastructure to AWS and Azure has enabled Lebara to cut the number of its London data centres from four to three, with plans to reduce their

number further by the completion of the initiative in 2022.

It is a project that is only one third completed, but Minkwitz says that Lebara is already benefiting from a more fulfilled tech team, happier clients and a significant saving in capital expenditure.

Elsewhere, our resident IT Services fanatic Ben Mouncer has put together a cracking piece on GAIA-X, a cross-industry and cross-country collaboration to create a unified ecosystem of cloud and data services enshrined in EU law.

The project was first announced in October 2019, but a major step forward was taken in September this year with the appointment of a management team and the signing of incorporation papers from its members, including the likes of BMW, Bosch, Deutsche Telekom and Siemens.

As the piece details, delivering data sovereignty for Europe could soon become a reality.

For that and much more, read ahead.

I hope you enjoy the issue.

PUBLISHED BY BULLETIN MEDIA LTD, Norwich, UK Company No: 11454926 TALK TO US editorial@digitalbulletin.com business@digitalbulletin.com

Chief Technology Officer Torsten Minkwitz meets the Digital Bulletin team at Lebara’s London headquarters

INSIDE VIEW

CONTENTS

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LEBARA A multi-cloud project in action

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MONTH IN REVIEW NEWS, VIEWS AND ANALYSIS

IT SERVICES Is Europe on the verge of a bold cloud play?

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DATA INTELLIGENCE Anke Sax on the difference between a CIO and IT Lead

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CONNECTIVITY CANONICAL Edge computing and the importance of containerisation

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A LIFE IN TECH

PEOPLE

Mobica CIO Tony Healy is in this month’s hotseat

ELIZABETH TWEEDALE Encouraging women into STEM

80 EVENTS

The best digital technology events for your diary

66 84 SECURITY

DEBATE How to avoid the ransomware threat

CLOSING BULLETIN

An exclusive column from Shrinivas Joshi of Nokia Fixed Networks

MONTH IN REVIEW

NEWS UPDATE Digital Bulletin rounds up the news that shaped the enterprise technology space over the last month

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NEWS UPDATE

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

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he biggest deal of the month saw SK Hynix tie up a $9 billion agreement to buy Intel’s NAND memory unit. If completed, the all-cash deal would make the South Korean company the second largest chip maker in the world. The deal will include Intel’s NAND SSD business, NAND component and wafer division, and its NAND memory chip facility in Dalian, China. Intel said that its Optane memory business is not to be part of the agreement.

GTT Communications confirmed a $2.15bn package to sell its infrastructure division for I Squared Capital. According to Telecompaper, GTT is selling a 103,000 route km fibre network with over 400 points of presence across Europe and North America; three transatlantic subsea cables, including GTT Express between Europe and North America, 14 tier 3 data centres and over 100 colocation facilities.

The Japanese-based IT multinational NEC agreed a deal worth $2.23 billion to acquire digital banking firm Avaloq.

NEC said the combination of their shared vision, technological strengths, and

global presence, will accelerate Avaloq’s long-term growth, global expansion and value creation strategy. Avaloq will continue to operate as its own entity, headquartered in Switzerland.

Juniper Networks shook hands on a deal worth $450 million to acquire 128 Technology in a bid to integrate more AI features into its network offering. The deal will enhance Juniper’s AI-driven enterprise network portfolio by uniting 128 Technology’s Session Smart networking with Juniper’s campus and branch solutions driven by Mist AI. The deal is expected to close in Juniper Networks’ fiscal Q4.

Veeam agreed a $150 million deal to acquire Kubernetes container backup specialist Kasten. Veeam is to integrate Kasten into its cloud data management platform for modern data protection and data management for enterprises. According to 451 Research,

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nearly three-quarters of organisations are currently using or planning to use Kubernetes within the next two years.

Cisco will pay a reported $100 million to acquire cybersecurity startup Portshift. Cisco has not disclosed the amount it will pay for the Israeli company, but the figure was revealed by Globes. Cisco said the acquisition of Portshift will deliver cloud native application security capabilities and expertise for containers and service meshes for Kubernetes environments.

Splunk made a double acquisition that it will use to bolster its observability platform. The is for Plumbr, an application performance monitoring company offering auto-instrumentation, Real User Monitoring and deep application performance insights for enterprise applications. The second is Rigor, a digital experience monitoring company offering synthetic monitoring and optimisation tools.

Cognizant announced its latest acquisition, after agreeing a deal to buy Bright Wolf, which specialises in custom Industrial Internet of Things services for Fortune 1000 companies. With the close of the acquisition, Cognizant will establish its newest IoT innovation lab in the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., Research Triangle, with the Bright Wolf team as its core. Financial terms were not disclosed.

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FUNDING Japan’s SoftBank Group invested $215 million in Norwegian startup Kahoot, taking a 9.7% stake on the company.

Kahoot has developed a user-generated gamified e-learning platform, a service in increased demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kahoot has said that it plans to use the newly raised funds to fuel growth through new partnerships, joint ventures and acquisitions.

Sendinblue, a French digital marketing automation startup has raised $160 million. The round was led

by Bridgepoint, Bpifrance, Blackrock, and previous investor Partech. Sendinblue’s email bot MailClark leverages AI

NEWS UPDATE

and machine learning to extract relevant content from emails, prequalify them, and optimise response time. Sendinblue will use the funds to support its go-tomarket efforts.

Sophia Genetics, the American-Swiss startup that uses machine learning to improve patient care, raised $110 million in Series F funding. It uses machine learning tools for both genetic sequencing and medical imaging to provide novel insights about how diseases can spread in a body. This will allow for better, more focussed patient care. The funding was led by aMoon and Hitachi Ventures.

Dialpad raised $100 million for its “work from anywhere” communications platform. The cash was raised at a valuation of $1.2 billion, with OMERS Growth Equity leading the Series E round. The Dialpad platform has a number of real-time elements, including note-taking and transcription powered by artificial intelligence.

Over the last year the company has opened offices in Europe and Asia.

Digital mortgage platform Snapdocs announced $60 million in new funding.

The Series C round comes less than 12 months after raising $25 million. YC Continuity led the round, with participation from all existing investors, including Sequoia Capital, F-Prime Capital and Founders Fund, as well as new investors Lachy

Groom and DocuSign. Snapdocs is used by 130,000 real estate professionals.

Anyscale raised $40m for its distributed computing platform. The company runs “Ray”, an open-source project for distributed computing. This new cash will allow it to grow an ecosystem around Ray and push its newly-developed platform.

The startup was founded by a team out of US Berkeley including Ion Stoica, who co-founded Databricks. Andreessen Horowitz and Intel were involved in its Series B. Network Security startup Axis Security has raised $32 million in a private funding round led by Canaan Partners, with participation from Eleven Ventures and Cyberstarts. The US-Israeli startup offers the Axis Application Access Cloud, which allows employees to safely connect to private applications. Axis Security will use the funds to meet the huge demand created by COVID-19 and remote work.

Solo.io, the API infrastructure company delivering application networking from the edge to service mesh, has announced a $23 million Series B round of financing. The round was led by co-led by prior investors Redpoint Ventures and True Ventures and brings the company’s total funding amount to $37 million. The funding will be used to scale its offering to meet increasing demand, Solio.io said.

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MOVERS AND SHAKERS Nutanix has been rocked by the news that one of its standout engineers, Manoj Agarwal, is leaving the business after seven years. Agarwal joined the company in 2013 as senior director of engineering before becoming senior vice president and general manager last year.

In a LinkedIn post, Agarwal said he was leaving his “dream job” and revealed that he is starting his own business.

Slack announced the appointment of Sean Catlett as its Chief Security Officer. He will be responsible for protecting our organisation and our customers’ data, ensuring that Slack is among the most secure and compliant channel-based messaging platforms for 12

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businesses and government agencies around the world. Catlett joins Slack from Reddit, where he served as Chief Information Security Officer.

Goldman Sachs raided one of its long-time rivals Morgan Stanley to fill its top cybersecurity position. Matthew Chung will be joining Goldman as CISO and head of technology risk, according to a memo seen by Bloomberg. The report said Chung will also help build new systems and defences on its expanding cloud platform. Chung has also previously worked for Barclays Bank.

The Facebook-backed Libra cryptocurrency project has announced the appointment of Ian Jenkins as

NEWS UPDATE

its Chief Financial Officer. Jenkins is HSBC’s former business finance and group general manager, and has also worked at Santander, and Credit Suisse.

He will oversee the unit tasked with managing the planned digital currency’s payments system.

Carl Pei, the co-founded of smartphone giant OnePlus has left the company to start a new hardware venture. Pei has played a fundamental role in the design of OnePlus products as well as in representing the company and interacting with customers. The news comes a day before the launch of OnePlus 8T, raising questions about the circumstances surrounding Pei’s departure.

The well-known cybersecurity figure John McAfee was arrested in Spain having been indicted in the U.S. over multiple counts of tax evasion. U.S. citizens living abroad still have to pay tax on their income and file a tax return, which the U.S. Department of Justice states McAfee has not done. It alleges McAfee has earned millions of dollars from his cybersecurity and crypto interests.

Stay right up to date with the latest news shaping the enterprise technology sector with The Bulletin, available at digitalbulletin.com

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Failing the technology test Governments have been caught on the hop by the coronavirus pandemic. Mistakes are inevitable, but the UK government’s blunderings over its contact tracing app and data collection appear difficult to justify

AUTHOR: James Henderson

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NEWS ANALYSIS

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t is fair to say that public administration and technology have historically been uncomfortable bedfellows.

Large-scale public sector organisations are typically beholden to inefficient legacy systems and silos that make the effective implementation of enterprise-type technologies challenging, to say the least.

Things have improved in recent years with the introduction of government cloud services from the likes of AWS, Microsoft and Google, making it easier to oversee mission-critical workloads, but multiple issues abound.

That has been brought into particularly sharp focus with the governmental response to COVID-19 and the utilisation of technology to track, trace and monitor the spread of the disease. It goes without saying that in a scenario such as a worldwide pandemic, governments have had to scramble, making decisions

and policy on the hoof. In short, some mistakes are inevitable.

But if failure is expected then an ability to fail fast and learn from mistakes is imperative. Take Germany and the Republic of Ireland: mistakes have been made in their responses, but both countries were able to mobilise and iterate their strategies to push out widely-used contact tracing technologies.

The same could not be said for the UK, where an already beleaguered government has come in for severe criticism over its response to the pandemic, with its contact tracing app delayed on numerous occasions until its roll out in September, upon which it emerged that it was incompatible with a number of older Apple handsets.

Those murmurings of discontent grew deafening last month, when it was revealed that some 16,000 coronavirus cases went unreported in England

xxxxxx (L-R): Andy Cotgreave,Technical Evangelist and Senior Director, Tableau. James Carnie, CEO, Mobilise

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because Public Health England used Excel’s XLS file format to pull together testing data from private firms. To provide some context, the XLS format dates back to 1987 and was replaced as XLSX - which can handle 16 times more entries than its predecessor - in 2007.

The blunder has led to ridicule and anger, with a red-faced government tasked with answering why such important records were being collected in an Excel spreadsheet in the first place. Detractors have pointed out the disconnect between Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s promise to build a “worldbeating” contact tracing platform with 16

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a budget of £12 billion and the reality of collecting data in the most basic of office tools which has none of the automation bells and whistles you’d expect from a modern-day database platform.

While the UK government has defended its actions, it does rather feel that the weight of evidence is against it. But is that completely fair?

“The UK government has undoubtedly faced some huge challenges over the last year and has been working in wholly unchartered territory, but it’s clear some fundamental errors have been made,” says James Carnie, CEO at cloud enablement consultancy Mobilise. “While it could

NEWS ANALYSIS

be argued that we should cut them some slack as they tackle the global pandemic, this becomes more and more difficult for people to do as time goes on.

“One of the most significant mistakes the government has made is the loss of time during the development of the first iteration of track and trace. It’s okay to make mistakes, but in a global pandemic you need to fail – and recover – quickly.”

Speaking specifically about the UK’s contact tracing app, Carnie says that the country’s government failed to show adaptability and pivot to a new approach when it was clear to many within the technology space that its approach wasn’t working.

“For many working in the IT industry, the government seemed to spend too long on the wrong approach. It failed to contact businesses and experts well

versed in working with proximity-based Bluetooth platforms, who could have provided their expertise.

“There is technology that enables a device to find your keys using anonymised proximity-based community Bluetooth-enabled device detection, utilising a number of transferable features. Partnering with this, or another business experienced in using similar technology, could have given the government a much-needed head start.”

Tableau’s Andy Cotgreave has been reviewing the ways in which coronavirus mortality data has been collected and critiquing the ways that the government succeeded as well as how it could have gone about the task better. He believes that the initial action to leverage Excel can be explained, but can find little justification for its longer-term usage.

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“Very often projects are kicked off under duress with short deadlines,” he tells Digital Bulletin. “At that point, turning to the tools at hand makes sense. Sometimes tools like Excel might be the only realistic choice, under pressure. You wouldn’t go far in the technology industry to find someone who hasn’t done something similar.

“Yet we must acknowledge this is a national project to save people’s lives.

It may be defensible to have used Excel initially, but Excel is not a database – it doesn’t scale and it isn’t secure. You can’t track who edited what (i.e. it has no lineage). To continue to run a national crisis project using Excel is inexcusable.”

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It is difficult to see how this episode won’t have a long-lasting impact on the UK government’s reputation with how it organises and oversees large-scale tech projects. Carnie tells Digital Bulletin that the legacy of its work during the pandemic has undone much of its recent good work.

“Over the last few years I’d argue that on the whole, the government has been getting this right. Typically it operates under GDS guidelines and appoints suppliers to help solve a set of challenges, using a mixture of public and private sector resources to achieve an outcome. This will usually involve utilising agile software delivery principles,” he comments.

NEWS ANALYSIS

“While it’s not possible to fully understand the details as someone who wasn’t directly involved, it appears they may have defaulted back to outsourcing too many vital elements of the track and trace project. While this is understandable due to the significant strain that government departments will be under this year, it does mean mistakes have been made.”

The coronavirus pandemic has had a number of unforeseen effects, one of which has been a surge in the wider public’s appetite for data. At the height of the pandemic, millions of people in the UK and around the world tuned into briefings where charts, graphs and numbers were flashed onto our

screens to illustrate how well the spread of the virus was being dealt with.

With case numbers climbing again so, too, will the demand for data. Cotgreave says the pandemic has highlighted the challenge of data literacy both within the wider population, and at the top levels of government and policy-making.

“Too many people have struggled to make head nor tail of the stats, charts and graphs being used to illustrate the extent of the pandemic,” he comments.

“Even before the pandemic it was clear that national data literacy levels should be raised significantly.

“But, the hope is that this doesn’t lead to a tick box exercise in advancing comfort levels in dealing with data. As the pandemic’s data debacles have sorely revealed, what we need is more, not less, critical thinking around how we present and interpret data. Let’s hope this is a lasting legacy of these challenging times.

“How the public sector turned to outdated and outmoded tools to collect and analyse data should also make the pandemic a catalyst for better investment in data analytics and visualisation solutions and skills across all policy-making departments. And certainly using Excel to number crunch a national emergency should never happen again.”

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THE CLOUDIFICATION OF LEBARA Faced with regularly losing some of its best technologists to costly and time-consuming infrastructure projects, Lebara CTO Torsten Minkwitz decided it was time to change tact in the form of a public cloud migration. Here, he tells Digital Bulletin how the initiative has progressed so far, along with giving us his views on working through a pandemic and the timetable to full cloudification

PROJECT DIRECTOR: Callum Hornigold AUTHOR: James Henderson VIDEOGRAPHY: Fraser Harrop PHOTOGRAPHY: Dan Bozinovski

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LEBARA

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welve months ago, Torsten Minkwitz was growing increasingly frustrated. As the Chief Technology Officer of telecommunications company Lebara, he was weary with the continual cycle of costly infrastructure upgrade programmes, which were demanding the time and efforts of a disproportionate number of his technology team and, he felt, ultimately offering little value to the organisation’s customer base.

As a mobile virtual network operator providing services all over Europe and beyond, Lebara relies heavily on its talented team of technologists. The prospect of continuing to tie many of them up with the nuts, bolts and servers in the company’s data centres, rather than working on valueadding technologies, was wearing thin.

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It was a familiar bugbear, says Minkwitz, speaking exclusively to Digital Bulletin.

“Over the course of my career, I’ve been in many situations where you’re asking the business to invest millions in these types of upgrade projects, which offer no business value at all. All that really happens is that you spend that money on replacing what you already have. You also have to freeze what you’re doing in other areas while you change systems.

“It was clear to me that I couldn’t afford in the long-term to have all these skills working on the hardware, on backup robots. It would just eat away resources instead of focusing on the more customer-facing tasks.”

With much of Lebara’s real estate, such as web pages and CRM systems, already hosted in the cloud, the decision was taken

LEBARA

to bring its infrastructure - including its IP and voice networks - in-line with a large-scale cloudification migration project that has already cut the number of Lebara’s Londonbased data centres from four to three.

AWS and Azure were chosen as the public cloud vendors, with Minkwitz keen to take advantage of the competition between providers, as well as the automation and bandwidth management capabilities that are built into enterprise cloud packages.

“We had a discussion about which providers could support us best, and it’s not so much that one is cheaper, they all cost the same,” he says. “For example, one

vendor came in and said, ‘I’m going to give you architects for free and bring in other vendors to help you to become faster’. It’s more about those things than the actual pricing, because there are complexities involved in running two public clouds.

“Cloud for me is virtualisation plus automation. We get a lot from the cloud that is being built by AWS or Microsoft on their cloud platform that previously we would have had to use lots of our people for. If we want to spin up a certain type of software, we are able to go into the console and spin it up, whereas before that would have been several weeks of work.

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It was clear to me that I couldn’t afford in the long-term to have all these skills working on the hardware, on backup robots. It would just eat away resources instead of focusing on the more customerfacing tasks” Torsten Minkwitz

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“There is a lot of automation that is coming from the cloud that is very good for us. Again, that allows us to concentrate on things that add value, which is the application, and not so much on working on layer upon layer of technology.”

Given the position of much of the company’s key customer systems already sitting in the public cloud, the majority of stakeholders were very comfortable with the decision. However, as with any largescale technology project, there were some concerns and misconceptions.

“There were some doubts in the beginning about how to get telco-carrier grade systems into the public cloud, so we spent time speaking to the technical people who had to gain trust that it was the right way forward,” says Minkwitz.

“Things have changed since my first CIO position in Slovakia 20 years ago when there was a move from classical data centres manned by people to ‘lights-off’ data centres, which are very common today. But when we committed to this cloud journey, I had some one of my best engineers ask if I still needed them.

“I was a bit taken back by that because why wouldn’t I still need one of my best engineers just because we’ve moved to a data centre operated by Amazon? It shows that any change of this type can lead to uncertainty so we really concentrated on

LEBARA

Lebara’s services are used by millions of customers across Europe

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Cloud for me is virtualisation plus automation. We get a lot from the cloud that is being built by AWS or Google on their cloud platform that previously we would have had to use lots of our people for”

speaking to our people and getting them any training they needed.”

One of the first major pieces of work to become a fully cloud-based mobile provider was to turn to Openet, the Irish Business Support Systems specialist, to deliver a comprehensive charging solution to Lebara in the UK, Denmark, Netherlands, France and Germany.

Minkwitz says the Openet solution has given Lebara flexibility in how it develops, rates and monetises its services and provides the company a platform on which to drive real growth.

“In the past, we have done a lot of the offer configurations ourselves, but whenever it 28

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was a bit more complex - so if we wanted to connect to new countries - we were very dependent on the vendor and I think the new set-up allows us to make changes in a more lightweight way,” he says.

“Many business processes will be much more flexible because of the new software, particularly because it is much more modularised and when we need more scale, it makes it really easy. With on-prem, when you need more scale, it means more hardware.”

While the main thrust of Minkwitz and his technology team’s project is a largescale migration to the public cloud, as a company in the mobile industry, the

LEBARA

importance of being 5G-ready couldn’t be ignored. A key capability of Openet’s charging system was its compatibility with 5G, something that Lebara was insistent the winning bidder for the contract would be able to provide.

“We need an upgrade path towards 5G, and we need an easy upgrade path to 5G, which was offered by Openet. We think the way they attacked the topic with a microservices approach, which makes software very modular, is the right way to go,” Minkwitz says.

“For the online charging system, 5G is probably not an immediate topic, so we want to run the project in a 4G way to

begin with, but 5G is going to dominate the mobile industry over the next couple of years, so we will go there and it is important to understand how to get there.”

The relationship with Openet has been built on the back of mutual trust and understanding of Lebara’s goals. Minkwitz says he has been impressed with Openet’s enthusiasm and commitment to the project.

“We don’t have a huge tech department, so we depend a lot on partners that we work with and we lean on them,” he says.

“It’s important that we have the right sort of relationship and with Openet I think we can establish a real partnership.

“We see it very much as a long-term partnership because we don’t plan on switching again over the next decade, because we don’t want to run another upgrade project, another exchange of the online charging system projects. We just want to use that software to the maximum benefit of our customers.”

A clear driver of Minkwitz’s ambition is to free up Lebara’s technology team to spend more of its time working on customer-facing initiatives and projects, which promises to be something of a win-win of a fulfilled workforce and a client base that benefits from a greater focus from Lebara.

He describes the move away from labour-intensive infrastructure upgrade projects, where technology teams can get bogged down in the intricacies of physical ISSUE 22

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routers, electricity supply and air conditioning as a “relief”.

“I think most of the employees want to add value to the business and they want to be seen as doing something for our customers,” he says. “It’s much more fun and rewarding to do something that adds more customers, or gets feedback from the business that what’s been done has reduced customer complaints, improved customer experience or opened up a new market for the company.

“Everybody wants to get that feedback that they’ve contributed to something successful, it is rewarding for people and that is the way the majority want to go. Our customers will benefit from the fact that my team will put all its energy into improving customer experience instead of doing every screw and bolt in the infrastructure.”

But the cloudification project is not just about making staff and customers happy, it also comes down to cold, hard numbers.

By eliminating the regular and costly infrastructure upgrade programmes, Minkwitz says the company has paved the way to make significant savings.

“The most important change will be less capital spending on upgrade projects, getting new hardware installed and that will have a big impact. The CapEx is where we’ll benefit the most. Once we are through this entire cloudification story, which will take a few years, I think there will probably 30

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For the online charging system, 5G is probably not an immediate topic, so we want to run the project in a 4G way to begin with, but 5G is going to dominate the mobile industry over the next couple of years” be a 50% reduction of the normal annual CapEx - I’m pretty sure that will be a reduction of at least half.”

There is still some way to go until those savings are achieved, but Minkwitz and Lebara have marked out a timetable to build on the work that has already been completed. It is expected that the cloudification programme will achieve some pretty significant landmarks over the next 18 months.

“With Openet we are putting the charging system into the cloud, and then the next step will be to go to the voice core, which

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we also want to cloudify step-by-step.

The last piece is the IP network that will be cloudified, so it is very much a step-bystep approach,” he comments.

“We don’t want to take too much of a risk by doing too much at the same time but it is a clear goal to move from on-prem to the cloud. It’s a multi-year endeavour.

An important milestone will be next year, finishing the Openet project and after that in 2022 we’ll see some changes in the voice network.”

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What is remarkable is that the COVID-19 pandemic has not knocked Minkwitz and his team off-course, with deadlines still being achieved while the vast majority of the company’s technology staff are working remotely. In fact, he says, some of the cloud migration work streams are actually running ahead of schedule.

Against the backdrop of rising cases in early March, Minkwitz put in motion a plan to continue to progress the project

LEBARA

I am incredibly proud of my team, the motivation has stayed very, very high and I didn’t see anybody drop the ball. My team is very skilled, and they’ve really embraced going to cloud”

in a lockdown-style environment that has stood up to perhaps the greatest challenge faced in a generation.

“We asked everybody to stay home in all the different countries where we operate and just to test whether we would survive that. That date was the first day of becoming fully virtual, and we have stayed that way, which has been quite challenging for our team,” he says.

“It was quite tough for everyone but it actually worked much better than I

thought. We haven’t lost any speed in any of the projects, and people have continued to work very hard. The team asked if we could still have standup calls every morning so that we still feel like one company and didn’t forget about each other, which was a really good thing.

“I am incredibly proud of my team, the motivation has stayed very, very high and I didn’t see anybody drop the ball. My team is very skilled, and they’ve really embraced going to cloud.”

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EUROPE FIGHTS BACK The likes of AWS, Microsoft and Google continue to lure in enterprises with their expansive cloud and SaaS offerings. But worry over who has access to customer data in Europe has led to the continent uniting behind the ambitious idea of a next-generation, federated European cloud. Will it happen? Digital Bulletin explores

AUTHOR: Ben Mouncer

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ata sovereignty is a burning issue in the world today. The matter of who owns and has access to our data is relevant across society: it is a subject we all as individuals should be engaged with, and one that represents a big challenge for businesses.

For many years, our lawmakers have also been grappling with the consequences of the 21st century data explosion. Here in Europe, the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018 was seen as a milestone on the journey to people having control over their data.

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But just prior to GDPR’s enactment, across the Atlantic another equally high-profile piece of legislation was being pushed through. The CLOUD (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data) Act was signed into United States law in March that year, establishing the mechanisms by which its government could get access to personal data stored by U.S.-based tech companies overseas.

In effect, if armed with customer consent or a U.S. court warrant, law enforcement could obtain customer data held on European soil by the likes of AWS, Microsoft and Google. This possibility

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The likes of Microsoft and AWS are doing a great job with their platforms and their SaaS services, they’re easy to consume. But you start to get locked in, and I strongly believe that at a certain point of time, people will wake up and think that it’s getting expensive and there are some downsides.

That’s where I think GAIA-X comes in” Falk Weinreich raised alarm bells on the continent, and casted doubt over just how secure the private data of Europeans was in the hands of American cloud providers, even if AWS, for example, stresses that “customers should maintain control of their own data”.

“With that knowledge, the entire tech industry [in Europe] kind of woke up and said ‘this doesn’t sound right’,” says Falk Weinreich, GM for Central Europe at OVHcloud, the French cloud provider that turned over €600 million ($710 million) last year.

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Weinreich is catching up with Digital Bulletin because OVHcloud has a role to play in the ongoing fight for European companies to have data sovereignty in the cloud. As he revealed, the controversy surrounding the CLOUD Act was another wake-up call for Europe. Since then, political and business leaders have been hard at work figuring out a way for Europe to achieve cloud independence - and get back absolute control of our data.

The result? On October 15th this year, 25 European Union (EU) states signed a joint declaration to develop a “next generation cloud” for Europe. The EU plans to spend $10 billion over the next seven years deploying “resilient and competitive” cloud infrastructure and services across

EUROPE FIGHTS BACK

the continent. By the end of 2020, it will have launched the European Alliance on Industrial Data and Cloud, which will oversee the project’s implementation.

Work in industry has already started on the basics of a federated European infrastructure, however, in the form of the GAIA-X initiative - and this is where Weinreich and OVHcloud come in. OVHcloud is one of the 22 founding members of GAIA-X, a cross-industry and cross-country collaboration to create a unified ecosystem of cloud and data services enshrined in EU law.

GAIA-X was first announced in October 2019, and involves some of

Europe’s biggest companies: BMW, Bosch, Deutsche Telekom and Siemens to name just a few. In September, its members signed incorporation papers for the GAIA-X Foundation and a management team was put in place, marking major steps forward.

“The starting point of GAIA-X was that Peter Altmaier [the German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy] and his consultants became convinced that in Europe there is a little bit of an issue. A huge percentage of data goes to American cloud providers,” says Weinreich.

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mean a European cloud at that point, like a service offering necessarily, but a legislation if you like, a set of rules which is data sovereign, which is secure, which we can all trust and feel good about. And this is kind of how the project started.”

Over the last 12 months, GAIA-X members have been laying the foundations for the initiative, despite the obvious distraction of COVID-19.

OVHcloud has been at the centre of these actions; in September an official collaboration was announced with T-Systems, the IT services offshoot of Deutsche Telekom. The pair are to engage in developing a unique OpenStack public cloud platform, initially to 38

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address the specific needs of the public sector or companies operating in strategic or sensitive areas of public interest.

Expect to see serious movement on that front early next year. The foundation has also established a number of different work streams designed to call on the specialism of each founding member. Weinreich says there are now clear agendas to move the project forward at pace, and the GAIA-X Summit in the middle of November will kick off its “next phase”.

Simon Hansford, CEO of UKCloud, has been a keen observer from the outside.

UKCloud is a British cloud provider specialising in delivering multi-cloud services exclusively to the public sector,

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and it shares many of the principles that GAIA-X is built upon.

“I absolutely support it, and I think it’s absolutely the right thing to do,” Hansford says. “Clearly there still needs to be work to fully understand what it means, what the deliverables are and when they will be realised. However I definitely understand the principles and I completely agree with them. We need to put data at the centre of digital transformation. It’s an essential resource for not only Europe, but for Britain, for our recovery and our longterm competitiveness.”

So how exactly does GAIA-X intend to deliver data sovereignty for Europe?

The promise is an open, transparent and interoperable infrastructure, where data will be accessible through federated catalogues. An ecosystem will slowly build as it finds, combines and connects services from participating providers.

The foundation has already illustrated dozens of different use cases across industries like finance, healthcare and agriculture, not just in the public sector.

“You have some customers - and I’m talking about the middle-sized businesses - that read about data sovereignty and they buy the story,” says Weinreich.

“They don’t want to put their intellectual property into a cloud that somebody else might have access to. With those companies, we have found our story well

We need to put data at the centre of digital transformation. It’s an essential resource for our recovery and our long-term competitiveness” Simon Hansford

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received. And with the public sector, by definition - would they really want their defence data, or police data, or healthcare data, in a public cloud? Maybe not.

So they are an easier catch.

“It needs a bit more time on, let’s say, the Fortune 500, because first of all they are very much engaged in the U.S.. The likes of Microsoft and AWS are doing a great job with their platforms and their SaaS services, they’re easy to consume.

But you start to get locked in, and I strongly believe that at a certain point 40

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of time, people will wake up and think that it’s getting expensive and there are some downsides. That’s where I think GAIA-X comes in - not just because of data sovereignty, but also because of the transparency and reversibility.”

The idea that Europe can face up to the might of the hyperscalers is nothing if not ambitious; this is, after all, a set of private companies that have enjoyed extraordinary growth in recent years. The coronavirus has accelerated that growth even more as the shift to remote working

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has brought digital transformation and cloud technologies to the fore. Overall, the public cloud services market is expected to grow by 17% in 2020 to $266.4 billion - and as of July, AWS owned more than 30% of that market, according to Canalys.

Hansford is adamant GAIA-X, and the EU’s wider goal to provide an alternative, isn’t about blocking the hyperscalers from being able to operate in Europe, more about stemming their broad influence.

“I’m not for one moment suggesting the hyperscalers are all bad,” he says.

“I can see some clear use cases where they’re very good. However, I feel there’s a real danger that they become too monopolistic. Therefore programmes like GAIA-X, and companies like UKCloud, who provide a sovereign alternative, I think are really, really important.

“We’ve got to hold that data, not only to create new digital industries but to give public confidence that their data is being used ethically, legitimately and encouraging them to be part of the digital transformation we all need to go through.”

The project is clearly being driven by right-minded companies and individuals who have the interests of Europe at heart. But is it viable?

Eyebrows were certainly raised when news of GAIA-X first filtered into the public domain, and many have questioned different aspects. Concerns have been highlighted about the clarity of GAIA-X’s concept and the vagueness around its timelines, along with the commercial viability and whether it could be successfully integrated with the multi and hybrid cloud setups used most commonly by enterprises today.

Weinreich says he understands those who might be sceptical but he ultimately believes that a project of the scale and ambition of GAIA-X is needed to secure the future of digital Europe.

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I think Europe understands that without coming up with something, the whole digital story will just pass it by�

Falk Weinreich

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EUROPE FIGHTS BACK

“I think Europe understands that without coming up with something, the whole digital story will just pass it by,” he says. “There are really no European giants in the digital space at all, and the growth rate is driven by the tech giants right now. The foundation made by GAIA-X is the starting point.

“It has reached the highest level of attention in governments - they are waking up and seeing that this whole industry is transforming, and if Europe isn’t finding a common ground, then it has no role to play any more. So I am positive.”

Europe is only at the beginning of this journey. Under its plans announced in October, it vowed that the European Alliance on Industrial Data and Cloud will work quickly to detail its business, investment and implementation plan for deployment. The details of GAIA-X’s involvement remain unclear, but Weinreich says action next year is critical.

“The groups are coming together, there are more and more parties now who are building on the same values and ideas,” he concludes. “I’ve got the feeling that it’s going in the right direction, but the speed is essential. We’ve got to come up with something tangible next year, because if it takes another year, then another year, then there’s a risk that it’s getting too complicated. So we need to watch the time, but I am positive this can be achieved.”

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FIGHTING FOR THE CIO CAUSE The European Digital Leader of the Year, Anke Sax, is on a mission to energise her CIO counterparts and catapult them to the centre of the enterprises they serve

AUTHOR: James Henderson

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here have been few more decorated CIOs over the past couple of years than Anke Sax. The German has spent 30 years working in the financial sector, split between business functions and, more latterly, the IT side.

Having taken the role of CIO of dwpbank in Germany in 2017, Sax’s work quickly caught the eye as she went about introducing strategic change and cultural realignment, while also overseeing a large-scale migration 44

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programme and modernising the organisation’s system architecture.

The work saw Sax named as German CIO of the Year 2019 and then the European Digital Leader of the Year 2020 for the financial sector. The awards have boosted Sax’s profile and given her a platform to deliver her message to a captive audience.

“It’s very satisfying that the community sees that

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It’s important we understand how critical digital transformation is across Europe, and I act a bit like a lobbyist for digital transformation” I’m trying to drive digital transformations, especially when a lot of business guys just want the CIO to be an IT lead,” she tells Digital Bulletin.

“If you are a CIO and you put across your opinion about speeding up transformations, it is much easier to do so with this kind of profile. You’re invited to speak at events or take part in discussions and really get your message across, which is hugely powerful.”

Sax is hugely passionate about the role of the CIO and its importance to leading digital transformations for enterprise. Speaking to her peers, her message has been that, as a collective, CIOs must become “more pushy”, moving the role beyond that of an IT lead and being on the same level as their c-suite counterparts.

An exasperation at CIOs being considered simply as IT leads comes up on more than once during our nearhour-long discussion. At one point, Sax says fewer than 10% of CIOs are really fulfilling that role.

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“That’s not because they are not able to, but because they aren’t being allowed to,” she says, pointedly.

All of which goes some way to explaining why Sax left her role at dwpbank earlier this year.

“It wasn’t really in my thoughts to take a step back or have a sabbatical, but rather the situation, which is a misunderstanding of what a digital transformation is,” she says. “I tried to push and explain, but I didn’t feel like it was being listened to, which was very frustrating.

“In the end, I said: ‘Do it your way, but I want to do it differently’. It wasn’t a way I wanted to work. I want to work with teams that have energy and belief in digital transformations.”

There appears to be no bitterness or major falling out, just simply a difference in philosophies, which Sax was no longer prepared to accept.

“I’m really clear that I want to be a CIO, and if a company is looking for an IT lead, then they should look elsewhere,” she says.“It’s important we understand

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how critical digital transformation is across Europe, and I act a bit like a lobbyist for digital transformation. As CIOs, we have to be more forceful with others and not just accept a role of being an IT lead.”

In terms of knowing what makes a CIO tick, there are few people more qualified than Sax, who spoke to no less than 40 as part of her PhD in an attempt to dig into how successful digital leaders manage their teams and projects.

“A CIO is a leader, but also a visionary, strategist; somebody who can deliver,” she enthuses, leaning into the screen as she does so. “As a good leader you have to be a good listener and ask people their opinions, whether that’s colleagues,

customers or staff members. That really helps bring together a collective strategy, not just your own.

“I see people who think being a good leader is about talking all of the time, but when I’m in a steering committee I don’t look to talk unless I have to because it’s more important to listen.

That’s important to forming teams and gaining trust.”

Not for the first time during the interview, Sax draws on a footballing parallel, reeling off some of the world’s leading managers, all of whom just happen to be German.

“It’s a bit like football, [Hansi] Flick, [Jürgen] Klopp, [Thomas] Tuchel - they are able to form teams and that is the

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I love to make change happen and I love to lead people and help them to shine. That’s what I really miss. I want to have a challenging role where I am allowed to lead change” essence of a good leader. As a CIO you should be able to have a strategy and put all the information and your knowledge of technology and the business together and then advise and consult about the best solution to work forward.

“As with football, there is a system and everyone knows their role in the team. But you have to be adaptable, so if you play against Chelsea, you have to play differently than you would against Bayern Munich.”

The management and mentoring of people is something that Sax clearly misses, despite leaving her previous role just a few months ago. She cites empir48

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ical studies that have consistently shown over the past 50 years that people are most effective when they have a target they understand and can work towards.

“It has been proven that it is important that people know where to go,” she says. “They need a target, and for me that is about strategy. People need a target they can believe in and they know that they are important in reaching that target. Give them a platform to shine and tell them when they do.

“It is so important to treat people as adults and not as kids; people don’t need to be told exactly what it is they have to do, which is a mistake managers

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make. People are usually very aware of what it is they have to do and if they’re not then I haven’t done my job properly.”

But just as important for a CIO is navigating an increasingly complex technology landscape. A common mistake that CIOs should look to avoid, says Sax, is implementing expensive new technologies before conducting a thorough analysis of the needs of the business.

“Something I see a lot but that I really don’t like is people saying they have an AI strategy or a cloud strategy or a blockchain strategy. It is much more important that you have an overall strategy about where you want to go.

From there you can decide if AI is the right technology for you, or if cloud is the best idea to help.

“I see so many people going down the road of having AI and blockchain and cloud and big data because they think it is hip. All these technologies can change a business but it depends on what your business needs. For some, it’ll be AI, but for others it will be blockchain.

“For example, if you don’t have good data, don’t bother thinking about AI because that’s not going to work. Start with your data. As a CIO, or even a CEO or COO, think about where it is you want to go then think about the tools you’re going to need to get there. Really focus and deliver, that is the best way to achieve success.”

With our conversation drawing to a close, Sax addresses the million-dollar question: just what will it take for her to jump back into a new role?

“What I want is a challenging role where I can drive a digital transformation as CIO or with a partner who views IT in the same way that I do,” she says.

“I love to make change happen and I love to lead people and help them to shine. That’s what I really miss. I want to have a challenging role where I am allowed to lead change.”

You have to think Sax won’t be short of offers.

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LIFE AT THE EDGE

Canonical is the company behind Ubuntu – the Linux-based OS for most public cloud workloads as well as the emerging categories of smart gateways, self-driving cars and advanced robots. Here, in an exclusive interview, its Product Manager, Alex Chalkias digs deep into edge computing, how edge can help realise the potential of 5G and the importance of containerisation

INTERVIEW: James Henderson

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ou’ve previously likened technology to water, and edge computing to an ocean, could you explain what you mean by that?

In a similar way to water, technology often begins at a source – a central control or authority – before trickling down and away toward the edge. To that extent, edge computing could be described as technology’s ocean: a great wealth waiting to be explored, and we have only just touched the surface. However, as it continues to proliferate, so does its complexity.

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The potential of edge computing is clear, but what are some of the barriers to adoption?

With the current opportunity being so vast, almost infinite, it’s no surprise that the edge is often seen as a no-go, particularly for smaller industry players.

Data is being created exponentially, while both AI and 5G lie at the heart of the edge. So where do you even begin?

A challenge for enterprises is getting the infrastructure right to start with, and to support the growing complexity at the extremities, because more network

ALEX CHALKIAS

capacity locally means greater density at the edge.

Additionally, privacy remains a double-edged sword. Without trust and a comprehensive set of security measures, edge will never truly take off. On the one hand, processing data locally offers inherent benefits because the data remains in the desired sovereign area and does not traverse the network to the core. In other words, the data is (mostly) physically domiciled.

On the flip side, keeping data locally means more locations to protect and secure simultaneously, with increased physical access allowing for different kinds of imminent threats. A greater physical presence at the edge could, for example, increase the likelihood of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks,

rendering individual machines or networks compromised.

To combat this threat, backup solutions that circumvent local edge failures may be needed. However, by removing the constant back and forth of data between the cloud and edge, privacy will be enhanced beyond its current capacity, especially where individual consumers are concerned, because personal information remains in the hands of the user at the edge. When privacy combines with flexible infrastructure, edge will deliver innovation at a much greater scale.

How should enterprises accommodate edge computing as a wider part of broader ecosystems?

In short, there is a fundamental need for flexibility, to be able to shift workloads

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With the current opportunity being so vast, almost infinite, it’s no surprise that the edge is often seen as a no-go, particularly for smaller industry players” Alex Chalkias

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at the drop of a hat; and to understand the edge as one part of a broader ecosystem. In order to be flexible and easily manage the operation, enterprises need to have a grasp on containers, which will allow them to truly make the most of edge with multiple apps.

With data being created at an unprecedented rate, enterprises must also consider how economical it is to transfer data from the edge to the core and whether it is less expensive to filter and pre-process data locally. Workloads that aren’t subject to demanding latency requirements should continue to be served by the most optimal cloud solutions possible. However, the coming wave of new use cases requires operators to rethink how the network is architected. And that’s where edge computing comes in.

Interest in edge computing is being driven by exponential data increases from smart devices in the IoT, the coming impact of 5G networks and the growing importance of performing artificial intelligence tasks at the edge — all of which require the ability to handle elastic demand and shifting workloads. For companies that want to use edge, it can just be an afterthought, but will see more success if it is woven amongst their cloud operations from the get-go.

ALEX CHALKIAS

To continue the water analogy you’ve also spoken about technology’s “natural springs” as well, could you speak about that?

The natural spring is the origin of the compute, so in edge computing’s case, would be the cloud or on-premise, before it trickles its way into the ocean. The edge, like the ocean, is a natural extension.

How does containerisation fit into the conversation around edge computing?

Container capabilities have the ability to remove barriers at the edge and have now become more than just ‘nice-to-have’. That’s because they are already synonymous with cloud deployments and are also infrastructure-agnostic, meaning you do not have to

reinvent architecture to innovate from cloud through to edge.

Edge clouds should have at least two layers — both of which will maximise operational effectiveness and developer productivity, though each layer is constructed differently. The first is the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) layer.

Besides providing compute and storage resources, the IaaS layer should satisfy the network performance requirements of ultra-low latency and high bandwidth.

The second involves Kubernetes, which has become a de facto standard for orchestrating containerised workloads in the data centre and the public cloud. Kubernetes has emerged as a hugely important foundation for edge computing.

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While using Kubernetes for this layer is optional, it has proven to be an effective platform for those organisations getting into edge computing. Because Kubernetes provides a common layer of abstraction on top of physical resources — compute, storage and networking — developers or DevOps engineers can deploy applications and services in a standard way anywhere, including at the edge.

Kubernetes also enables developers to simplify their DevOps practices and minimise time spent integrating with heterogeneous operating environments, leading to happy developers and happy operators.

You’re known for favouring lightweight versions of Kubernetes such as MicroK8s, how would you characterise the advantage of leveraging that technology?

Kubernetes manages and automates containers at scale. This includes resource allocation, container networking, health checking and self-healing based on explicitly declared desired state.

K8s allows enterprises to move faster, improving developer productivity and operational agility. That means faster release cycles and go-to-market.

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in a single package alongside the most popular add-ons to bring an autonomous Kubernetes cluster from developer workstation to edge and IoT appliances.

The low maintenance user experience of MicroK8s is particularly evident when users create highly-available multi-node K8s clusters within seconds, without ever having to edit a single configuration file.

Which industry sectors do you think are best placed to benefit from advances in edge computing capabilities?

Since its introduction, edge computing has emerged as a proven and effective runtime platform to help solve unique challenges across telecommunications,

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media, transportation, logistics, agricultural, retail and other market segments.

The speed and reduced latency of edge combined with 5G can also provide benefits to an array of IoT applications such as smart cities, transportation, intelligent manufacturing, healthcare and smart farming.

While edge computing will be one of the differentiating technologies to take us into the next frontier for a fully-connected world, proof of concept will be a key factor to demand improved solutions from cloud providers to ensure edge is both effective and financially viable - before it starts revolutionising the likes of wearables, cities and robots.

How important is it that a company has a set cloud strategy if it wants to benefit from edge computing?

Businesses have yet to fully familiarise themselves with edge computing and its infinite possibilities. We see companies that have already invested in on-prem, public, hybrid or multi cloud having a better understanding of the benefits of having “micro clouds� at the edge.

A company that has already dealt with shifting workloads, upgrading or applying security patches on their cloud-native applications is more prepared to tackle the same challenges in the distributed, minimal and variable scale micro clouds at the edge.

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How excited should we be about bringing together 5G and edge, and where do you think we’ll see real leaps of advancement, such as in self-driving cars?

Combined with 5G, edge promises to fast-track the use of AI in the IoT. With faster speeds and dramatically lower latency, 5G makes it much more feasible to process AI workloads locally at the edge, where data is gathered, rather than the slower and more expensive method of sending it to the cloud or data centre. Multi-gigabit-per-second speeds and one-millisecond latency times will ensure more data than ever can be farmed off and used in wider crowd-sourced intelligence.

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The capabilities of edge for autonomous vehicles means we will see real leaps of advancement in this area as this kind of technology develops. In order to safely operate, driverless cars will need to collect a vast amount of data about their surroundings and directions as well as considerations such as road closures and weather conditions. Edge computing will allow these vehicles to collect, process and share data in real-time with almost no latency and superior reliability, as inferences can be run within the car instead of having to connect externally to the cloud.

There are also some exciting use cases in the pipeline for emerging tech like augmented reality (AR). AR

ALEX CHALKIAS

Edge will allow IoT devices to generate AR displays instantly, eliminating any loading times and improving the user experience� modifies real-world environments by incorporating digital elements, requiring visual data to be processed and rendered in real time. Edge will allow IoT devices to generate AR displays instantly, eliminating any loading times and improving the user experience.

As well as gaming, AR enhanced by edge could also be used in retail, so customers can visualise what they might look like in an outfit, for instance, and even employee training scenarios to encourage workers to adapt to changes in their surrounding environment.

Other areas with big potential for edge include industrial manufacturing and healthcare.

If you look into a crystal ball, what will the conversation around edge computing focus on in five years’ time?

The predictions say that edge will eventually be bigger than the public cloud.

Businesses will have a micro cloud at

the base of every cell tower, at the back of every store or in every office block.

The challenge then will be of large-scale fleet management, integration between different micro clouds (or edges) and the even further automation of lifecycle operations, like backups and upgrades.

Where does Canonical see itself as part of the edge computing conversation?

Our vision is to provide our customers with a zero-ops bulletproof micro cloud stack that can serve compute, networking and storage at the edge, near the consumer and the data source.

Our edge stack allows for remote operations without local presence at each site, repeatable deployments and ultra-resilience. Our micro clouds can be deployed and managed as a fleet of minimal clusters at scale, across geographies with better economics, predictability and performance.

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“DON’T DO IT LIKE A MAN” Elizabeth Tweedale discusses the challenges of being taken seriously as a female founder and CEO, the need to train the next generation and the future of edtech

AUTHOR: Beatriz Valero de Urquía

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TEM is a male-dominated field.

This comes as no surprise to anyone. However, although enterprises are increasingly aware of this issue, efforts to bridge the STEM gender gap need to begin much earlier; with education.

Just 7% of women who graduated from college in 2016 globally earned a STEM degree, according to figures from Microsoft. The numbers vary significantly between countries, but even in the UK, women only make up 35% of the students enrolled in higher education STEM degrees, a number that drops to 19% for Computer Science courses.

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Yes, STEM is a male-dominated field; but Elizabeth Tweedale is determined to change that.

That’s why she created Cypher, an edtech startup that aims to equip the next generation for the technological future by teaching them coding and computational thinking through camps and after-school clubs.

Tweedale is an Architect, Computer Scientist, CEO, founder, writer and mother of three. She has consulted for Foster + Partners, where she was the only female coder in the team that designed the

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California Apple Headquarters, and later went on to found three companies.

Tweedale has a strong belief in the need to diversify the industry. “The best way to get technological advancements is to bring a lot of different mindsets and ways of thinking together,” she says.

However, in her opinion, this needs to begin early on.

Cypher’s goal is to get children, and specifically young girls, interested in coding, bridging the STEM gap from its place of origin.

“When I set out to found Cypher I thought: ‘Should I do something that’s just for girls?’,” she says. “Because it’s so important to me to get more girls involved in coding. But I think one of

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the most important things is learning to work together, males and females.”

Cypher does that by incorporating different themes such as fashion or animals into their coding assignments, with the aim of showing that coding isn’t just a ‘boy’s thing’. And so far, she is succeeding: over 50% of the Cypher students are currently female.

By getting girls interested in coding from an early age, Tweedale aims to bridge the gender gap so commonly found in university STEM courses, including her own. Her first college Computer Science class was very balanced in terms of gender. “But then,

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by the second-year, it was then all boys, all men, and me,” she recalls.

When reflecting on the reasons behind that drastic decrease in female students taking computing classes, Tweedale cites the way those classes are taught.

“When computing science was created as a degree, females couldn’t actually take it,” she says. “So then the evolution of how you teach Computer Science was very led by what interests the male brain and the way that they think”.

In Tweedale’s opinion, women are no better or worse coders than men.

However, male students do tend to have an advantage when they begin learning

to code because of their experience with video games.

“If you like gaming then you do things on the computer and then you might find a resource pack that you can download and it helps you in the game,” Tweedale says. “You’re constantly interacting with technology, so gaming is a very easy segway into coding.”

Not coincidentally, Tweedale also considered herself a ‘gamer’. When she got an A in a college project that everyone else was asked to repeat, her colleagues were shocked.

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normally girls wouldn’t do as well in the projects as the boys, because they were just so much more comfortable naturally with computing and folder structures.”

Although Tweedale can link her coding abilities to her experience with video games, she can’t say the same of her entrepreneurial skills.

Tweedale seems to belong to that group of entrepreneurs who are born rather than made: she created her first “business” (a friendship-bracelet-making one) when she was only eight. “It has always been in me,” she says.

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She soon moved to the larger playground that is the real world, starting three different companies. The first one, GoSpace AI is a software company that uses artificial intelligence for dynamic resource allocation. Several of the algorithms that Tweedale helped develop as GoSpace AI’s CTO have been patented, and the company continues to be successful.

Tweedale credits her success in developing these algorithms to the fact that she could think in a different way to her male colleagues. “To this day,

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People don’t actually give you as much credit as you’re probably due, because they see you as a female first, coder second, instead of a business person first or coder first, female second.” my co-founder always says that the only reason that we got to that solution and this new way of putting algorithms together is because I had a female way of thinking,” she stresses.

However, as a female entrepreneur, she knows all too well the barriers that women face in the industry, both as technical experts and as business leaders.

“One of the biggest challenges that I’ve seen as a female in tech actually comes to raising investment,” she says.

“People don’t actually give you as much credit as you’re probably due, because they see you as a female first, coder second, instead of a business person first or coder first, female second.”

Tweedale remembers countless instances when she was overlooked by potential partners because of her gender, particularly when raising money for GoSpace AI. “My co-founder would have the initial conversation,” she says. “And they were like ‘Yeah, we’re interested. Bring your CTO in’. And, on multiple occasions, I would go to the meeting and they would think I was the secretary, or they would laugh at me and start talking about this Silicon Valley TV show that had a female tech person and they thought it was hilarious that that could exist in real life. That’s when I thought: ‘This is ridiculous. This is one thing we need to change’.”

The way she has chosen to change it is through education.

“I think that the heart of the issue really comes down to education, and creating an education system that encourages both genders equally to get involved and to be inspired,” she says.

For Tweedale, learning to code is learning “how to efficiently solve a problem”, a skill that everyone can benefit from and that all children should learn, particularly in the post-COVID-19 world.

“After lockdown, it’s becoming more and more apparent how important technological skills are for the day to day work life and work skills,” she says.

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I think that the heart of the issue really comes down to education, and creating an education system that encourages both genders equally to get involved and to be inspired”

As is the case for most companies, Cypher has had to adapt to the online medium as a result of COVID-19.

Tweedale reveals that, although she already had a one-year road map to move the company online, the lockdown forced her to put it into practice in less than a week’s time.

“It was quite amazing,” Tweedale recalls. “I still get goosebumps, thinking about how quickly it happened and how we all transitioned.”

However, the children not only continued to learn in the new remote environment but did so at a much faster rate. “The kinds of advancements that 64

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happen in two month’s time in our camps and clubs for a six-year-old, normally take them until they’re nine,” Tweedale says. “It’s just been amazing.”

Cypher is also growing at a fast pace since the pandemic began. Last March the company raised £225k and it is now looking at raising another million pounds by the end of the year.

“We are scaling up in the UK, for which all the groundwork for that is already in place, and that’s going very well,” she says. “But then the U.S. is next on the radar.”

Cypher’s next big goal is to get a million hours of kids learning live online,

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as Tweedale believes that this is the future of education.

“There are a lot of self-led coding platforms or lessons online,” she says. “But the thing with kids is that, to really get them engaged, having somebody live online makes such a big difference.”

Moreover, online learning is much more accessible. “If you have trained teachers that can deliver a course live online, then many more children would have access to greater resources and education.”

Education is changing at a rate never seen before, and companies need to follow suit and prepare to welcome the

new generation of female coders and entrepreneurs.

To any of these future female entrepreneurs, Tweedale would encourage them to utilise their own strengths. “Don’t try and do it like a man,” she says.

“I know in this day and age people like to say that men and women can all be equal and be the same, but I feel passionate about celebrating our differences and, of course being equal, but celebrating the fact that we bring amazingly different things to the table.

Hold on to what you’re good at and then I believe you’ll do very well in creating any business you want.”

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MITIGATING THE CYBER THREAT

Each month, Digital Bulletin picks the brains of experts in a particular sector of the technology world. This month, we ask: “With the U.S. suggesting it could take action against firms paying certain ransom demands, what should businesses be doing today to avoid ransomware attacks in the first place?”

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DEBATE

“ Address the symptom, not the cause” Tim Erlin, VP, product management and strategy at Tripwire

Whenever there’s a ransomware incident, the focus tends to be on the ransomware itself; what variant is it? Is it new? What features does it have? Little attention is paid to how the ransomware gained its foothold on the systems affected. Often, the organisation affected doesn’t really want to share that information. The fact is, ransomware doesn’t magically appear on a system. It has to get there through some attack vector, and by addressing those attack vectors, you can significantly reduce the chances of becoming a victim.

By far, the most common attack vector for ransomware is simple phishing.

Attackers send out emails with links to the ransomware, either in a malicious URL or simply a malicious executable.

When an unsuspecting user clicks that link, their system is now compromised.

The ransomware then might use its own tools to spread within the organisation.

Phishing has proven difficult to eliminate entirely, but there are many tools on the market today that can help reduce the chances of a malicious

email being the successful attack vector in your organisation. Scanning email attachments and URLs can help, but this is also an area where user training is vital. Teaching users how to avoid clicking on dangerous files and links isn’t perfect, but it is useful. Simulated phishing is a great way to build a habit in your user base.

There are three ways that vulnerabilities are relevant attack vectors for ransomware. First, you might have attackers that directly exploit vulnerabilities in exposed systems to install ransomware. Secondly, the phishing email might take advantage of a vulnerability in order to infect the user’s system. For example, a ‘malicious’ file might be labeled as such because it exploits a vulnerability in whatever application handles that file to install malware.

The same is true for a ‘malicious’ website exploiting a vulnerability in a browser.

Third, the ransomware may exploit vulnerabilities in order to expand its footprint in your environment from the initial point of infection. Identifying and patching vulnerabilities makes it harder for attackers to gain the necessary access to your systems to install their ransomware payload and can prevent the spread of ransomware once it’s inside.

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Ransomware doesn’t magically appear on a system. It has to get there through some attack vector, and by addressing those attack vectors, you can significantly reduce the chances of becoming a victim” the presence of a specific vulnerability.

There’s plenty of guidance available for how to securely configure systems, but it can be difficult to measure and monitor systems once they’re configured, especially in a large environment.

Employing a tool that can baseline your systems and compare them to hardening standards automatically can allow your efforts to scale. Monitoring those systems for changes that might affect their secure configurations can help prevent configuration drift from occurring. All of these efforts combined represent a defense-in-depth approach to preventing ransomware from getting into your environment and from spreading once present.

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“ Let’s take an economic perspective” Dr Russell Handorf, White Ops’ Principal Threat Intelligence Hacker

Let me start at the finish: it is and will continue to be virtually impossible to truly eradicate ransomware as a tactic.

No matter what the powers that be choose to institute as penalties for giving in to criminals’ demands, the fact that they’re criminals means they will - by definition - continue to operate. Penalties to cybercriminals and, especially, to their victims will not in isolation reduce the instances of ransomware.

Ransomware - and, indeed, cybercrime as a whole - is an economic problem much more than it is a technological one. Consider that for a startlingly low startup cost, a cybercriminal can: • Acquire the ransomware-triggering malware from fellow criminals in semi-open marketplaces.

• Use those same markets, or even a company’s own website, to gather the names and email addresses of potential targets.

• Stage a spoofed email address to gain their targets’ trust and attention upon delivery.

DEBATE

With only a modicum of creativity, that criminal can reach the inboxes of dozens or hundreds of potential victims and maximise the chance that any one of them will click on the attachment or link and tip over the first domino in a sequence that ends in a ransom payment. The fee for which, not coincidentally, greatly exceeds the cost of participation for the criminal.

We’re fighting against human nature with every link in this chain: the business just wants to keep the lights on and make

the proverbial bleeding stop, the criminal wants to get their payout or - at the very least - demonstrate to future victims that noncompliance with demands carries consequences, and the recipients of these emails will, sadly, keep on clicking.

It’s not as bleak as it sounds, though.

Combating ransomware as a tactic requires every arrow in our quiver, including the aforementioned penalties.

But the greater impact will come from leaning into the idea that human nature

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No matter what the powers that be choose to institute as penalties for giving in to criminals’ demands, the fact that they’re criminals means they will - by definition continue to operate”

and economics are the root of the issue.

To wit: • Train employees to recognise potential attacks and to be wary of all unexpected and unsolicited communication.

• Acknowledge that mistakes happen and that victim-blaming and shaming only forces those making the mistakes to cover up their actions, delaying response.

• Deploy robust business continuity measures so that in the event of a ransomware-triggered lockout, the results aren’t catastrophic.

• If you haven’t tested your backups 70

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and recovery, then they’re not backups or recovery.

• Consider cyber insurance - there are a number of firms that offer insurance for ransomware and other cybercriminal schemes.

Taken as a unit, these tactics can disincentivise ransomware as a lucrative cybercriminal activity. Fewer victims means more work for the criminal to make the effort worth the expense. We can change the economics and reduce the frequency of ransomware attacks by simply making the juice not worth the squeeze.

DEBATE

I believe this FinCEN and OFAC “ Next-gen endpoint advisory is a good thing. I have always felt strongly that companies infected protection should with ransomware should not pay be the focus” ransom, as doing so just proves the Corey Nachreiner, Chief criminal’s malicious business case Technology Officer, WatchGuard Technologies and results in more ransomware. Yet, many cyber insurers have made paying ransom a core strategy of their cyber extortion protection business. While To clarify, the U.S. government is the long-term actuaries don’t exist yet, threatening potential legal, criminal, and I believe this payment strategy will just financial penalties on U.S. persons or result in more long-term loss. companies who pay ransoms to threat While these advisories do not crimactors in countries or organisations inalise all ransom payments, they hacking groups - which already have U.S. sanctions on them.

For instance, the U.S. has sanctions on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and hacking groups in North Korea (NK) like the Lazarus Group.

If a company operating within the U.S. is infected by ransomware and pays ransom to a threat actor in NK, the U.S. government may hold that company legally liable with penalties up to $20 million.

This advisory and regulation is targeted to companies operating in the U.S. and does not apply to companies operating in other countries. In short, it’s already illegal in the U.S. to do business with sanctioned countries or groups, and this advisory just verifies that paying ransom does fall under ‘doing business with’ that sanctioned country.

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Not only should you make sure you are backing up your important data regularly, but you should test its recovery to make sure your business can get back to work quickly” could put enough risk around ransom payments that they become less attractive to insurers and also hurt the revenue potential of ransomware criminals. If criminals did not make money from ransomware, they would stop pursuing it.

Regardless of where your company does business, it’s in your best interests to avoid and mitigate ransomware. The first place to start is backups. Not only should you make sure you are backing up your important data regularly, but you should test its recovery to make sure your business can get back to work quickly. Yes, you want to avoid ransomware, but nothing is 100%. Having working backups will prevent ransomware from affecting your organisation if you get it.

That said, for prevention, I recommend you focus on modern, next-generation endpoint protection (EPP) products.

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These products do two things in particular to help guard against ransomware. First, they don’t only rely on signature-based protection, which is always a step behind the attackers. Instead, they leverage more proactive malware and ransomware detection techniques that use machine learning and behavioral analysis to catch never before seen threats.

Second, many EPP platforms include some endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities. Besides just blocking malicious files, EDR monitors the activity, memory and processes on your computer in real-time, to detect some of the tell-tale signs of malicious processes, like ransomware. Between next-generation EPP products to prevent the latest ransomware and good backups to quickly recover in the event of an infection, there is little reason a smart business would have to pay these ransoms.

DEBATE

“ Segregating networks can protect critical data” Alex Archondakis, managing consultant, Web Applications, at Pentest People

The most common way that ransomware gangs gain a foothold in a company’s network is through a phishing attack.

Over 90% of successful attacks begin with an employee clicking on a link in an email which takes them to a website that downloads malware onto their device, or an employee opening an email attachment that downloads malware onto the organisation’s network that is then used to encrypt critical data that the organisation cannot operate without.

Phishing attacks are successful for three reasons: people are curious, people respond to time pressures and people react to pressure from their superiors. If an employee receives an email, which has been spoofed to look like it has come from a friend, with the message, “OMG, I can’t believe she did this,” then the temptation is to click on the link to find out more.

If a message comes through saying, “final offer, get 70% off if you buy today,” that may trigger someone to click to bag a bargain. And a message that appears to come from your boss saying, “Sort out this invoice before we lose our license,” is likely to get a rapid response that fails to follow company protocol about not clicking links, or opening attachments.

In spear phishing attacks, ransomware gangs will invest some time in researching their target organisations, to

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A hotel that allows people to log on to a guest WiFi network should ensure that the guest network cannot talk to the network that runs the hotel’s critical business processes, including its billing systems and payment card data stores”

find out who the CEO, CFO, head of HR and heads of department are, who the new hires are, who may be more susceptible to pressure, who the less technical employees are. There is plenty of information on social media for them to piece together this type of targeted attack.

The fact that social engineering plays such an important role in ransomware attacks is why we always stress the importance of educating employees first and foremost, so that they are always aware of the risk of being targeted by ransomware gangs, in their personal lives as well as their professional lives, 74

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particularly as more of us adjust to working from home.

Having a recent backup of data will improve an organisation’s ability to continue operating in the event of a ransomware attack. However, many of the recent ransomware attacks have sought not only to encrypt data, but to exfiltrate and expose it too. Therefore, organisations also have to protect against the loss of reputation, and potentially customers, if their sensitive information is exposed, not to mention the financial liabilities of breaking GDPR and PCI DSS regulations.

DEBATE

When undertaking penetration tests, we strongly advise clients to segregate their networks in order to protect critical data assets from ransomware attacks. As an example, a hotel that allows people to log on to a guest WiFi network should ensure that the guest network cannot talk to the network that runs the hotel’s critical business processes, including its billing systems and payment card data stores.

In the event of a guest clicking on a malicious link, or downloading an attachment, this should have no way of reaching and compromising the critical operational

information of that business. More organisations are operating on a zero-trust basis, only allowing specific employees access to business-critical data.

We advise companies to work on the basis that they will be targeted and to act accordingly by continually reinforcing and personalising their security awareness training; by scheduling regular data backups; by using SIEM (security incident and event monitoring software) to identify and alert them any unusual activity on their networks; and by preparing an incident response plan that can immediately be put into action in the event of a breach.�

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A LIFE IN TECH

A LIFE IN TECH In the hotseat this month is Tony Healy, CIO at global software service company, Mobica. Since starting his career at BT in 1996, Healy has worked within a number of high-growth global industries - including distribution, edtech, pharmaceuticals and technology

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TONY HEALY

I

have always had an interest in technology, ever since I was quite young. I used to spend all my Sunday afternoons sitting in front of my Atari, typing out lines of code from a magazine to make a line bounce across my monitor and, when in school, working on my school’s BBC Computer.

From there, working in technology was just a natural fit.

I started off working on a BT helpdesk, taking calls on BT Internet and ISDN problems, and while there I became interested in how everything connected and worked at the back end – from the system we were using, to the desktop and network. It was just as the internet was taking off; it was an exciting space to be working in.

There have been many people who have influenced me, both from a positive and negative standpoint. From the negative ones, I learned how not to lead and manage people. But, from the positive ones, I learnt how technology impacted every aspect of a company and not to just focus on systems. I also learnt a lot about how to interact with people and deal with suppliers.

Some of the most influential leaders I have worked with are Nigel Underwood,

former CIO at Hilton, DHL and IAG, who I worked with at Punch Pubs & Co, Paul Chambers, who was my CFO at Synexus clinical research, and my current CEO at Mobica, Simon Wilkinson. They are all great leaders who know how to manage, motivate and develop teams to get the best out of them.

The most common mistake made by companies looking to digitally transform is a misguided belief that a system is going to solve all their problems and issues – which it obviously doesn’t.

People and processes are absolutely fundamental to any transformation and the systems are intended to complement what should already be an efficient and optimised function. If this is missed, then you end up having very expensive, bad processes.

Enterprises need to realise that everyone is a target for cybercrime.

All companies need to work with their IT leaders to understand the potential business, financial and reputational damage of an attack and not just assume they are immune.

Security costs money, but the risk of not taking the adequate precautions will likely be far more costly in the long run.

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I am not an advocate of paying ransom to cybercriminals, as I believe a good backup, security, disaster recovery and business continuity plan should be in place to help prevent ransomware. If all of this is tested and the right technology is in place, business disruption as a result of a cyberattack should be fairly minimal.

There are so many exciting technologies that will be really important over the next decade, but security and privacy will need to underpin them all. 5G will be a gamechanger, but AI will become more commonplace, with quantum computing and nanotechnology changing our perception of things.

The biggest challenge for CTOs and CISOs over the next decade will certainly be keeping up with the pace of change. Technology changes at a fantastic pace, and I remember being told years ago that the day after something is implemented it becomes legacy – that has stuck with me. The task of securing personal and enterprise data, while not impacting the user journey, is only going to get more complicated.

In terms of the biggest challenges I’ve seen in my career, COVID-19 is certainly up there in the top three, but not from a technological standpoint. As IT leaders, 78

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we have been practising for years with robust disaster recovery and business continuity plans. The bigger challenges have been ensuring the security of more disparate and remote workforces, and implementing new ways of training and rolling out projects to fully remote teams.

Enabling 800 users to remotely work overnight during lockdown is high up on my personal list of greatest career achievements. We managed this in just a matter of days, with no downtime and no impact to business operations.

My biggest achievements have to be seeing my teams develop and advance in their careers. Helping one of my junior IT apprentices become a senior system admin, or working with a business analyst

TONY HEALY

I don’t find it very easy to switch off from tech. Ever since I got my first BlackBerry, I had to check my device as soon as that little red light flashed, and I have never really got out of that habit. Having managed numerous global teams, I’ve learnt that you have to be flexible.

to help them develop into a programme director, have brought me my proudest moments throughout my career.

The five words I would use to describe myself are leader, dependable, ambitious, inspirational, and mentor.

The one piece of advice I’d give to aspiring technologists is to do something that excites and intrigues you – if that’s developing code and turning it into a Sat Nav, game or operating system, then focus on that. Likewise, if infrastructure and security interests you the most, focus on that.

Don’t try to be a generalist across 12 different disciplines, choose just one you’re passionate about.

But I also wish I had learnt to switch off earlier, as it has had an impact on my family and home life. I now make sure I keep my laptop locked up over the weekend and have started using the screen time feature on my iPhone.

There has never been a more exciting but also stressful time to be in technology. Technology leaders now have an opportunity to step up and help drive company strategy and innovation.

For many organisations, it’s their IT teams which are the ones keeping the company lights on.

For those who tackle the challenge head on, I would urge them not to slide back into the old day job. For years, IT wanted a place at the top table – now that we finally have one, we need to show the added value of having us there by contributing to the whole business.

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EVENTS

DIGITAL

EVENTS In-person industry conferences and exhibitions are off the table for now, but there are still many digital events worth making time in your diary for...

DREAMFORCE 2020

IGNITE ’20

09–12 NOVEMBER, 2020

09–12 NOVEMBER, 2020

Salesforce says it has decided to reimagine its events through the end of the year in new and virtual ways.

This will be true for all events, including Dreamforce, Tableau Conference 2020, Tableau Conference Europe, TrailheaDX India and our World Tours. The Dreamforce usually offers over 2700+ sessions over four days. The entire experience includes product panels, keynotes, and prominent guests, with former President Barack Obama appearing at last year’s event.

Join visionary leaders, industry experts and global cybersecurity innovators to advance your digital transformation and connect with like-minded individuals around the world at this year’s premier event. Cybersecurity is more important today than ever before. This two-day experience offers an exclusive opportunity to learn more about the groundbreaking security innovations for cloud, network and security operations that will shape our digital future. Ignite ‘20 will be content rich, with over 40 breakout

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NOVEMBER

sessions for novice, intermediate and advanced cybersecurity professionals in mind.

THE GLOBAL EXPERIENCE SUMMIT 09–17 NOVEMBER, 2020 The Global Experience Summit has transformed from the world’s fastest growing UX training conference (UX LIVE) into a three-part online festival covering every element of the experience process. The Global Experience Summit is dedicated to showcasing practical, actionable insights that help elevate daily project work. Whether it’s researching for or designing specific functions for your user; building the end-to-end service for your customer, or strategically marrying business and customer goals to deliver industry-leading products that work.

FUTURIST CONFERENCE 11–12 NOVEMBER, 2020 Untraceable’s third annual Futurist Conference is the largest blockchain and emerging technologies event in Canada.

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comfort of your home. Untraceable will be bringing you an immersive experience to gamify the virtual event leading up to and including the conference days.

Listen and interact with the world’s leading experts that are changing the technology landscape.

TECHDAY ONLINE 17–19 NOVEMBER, 2020 Take advantage of state-of-the-art AI powered matchmaking to schedule meetings with the TechDay Online participants most likely to help you succeed -- investors, accelerators, members of the press, corporate innovation teams, developers, engineers and early adopters. TechDay Online will feature a combination of live hours of operation, and on-demand learning and product discovery. “Live” hours each day will include keynote addresses,

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pitch stages, startup showcases, oneto-one meetings, event-wide networking, and more.

HONG KONG BLOCKCHAIN WEEK 2020 17–19 NOVEMBER, 2020 The largest blockchain virtual event in Hong Kong will see the global blockchain community converge to discuss the latest developments and insights into the evolving, real-world applications of blockchain technology in finance, investment, enterprise, socially important projects and global payment industry. The anchor event for the week – Block O2O Virtual Global Summit will be hosted on 18 November 2020. The conference and exhibition will provide a virtual event platform for both attendees and participants, with high-profile digitally based interaction.

NOVEMBER

IOT TECH EXPO EUROPE 24–25 NOVEMBER, 2020 Europe’s leading IoT conference & event series will become a fully virtual event for 2020. The free to attend online conference will cover two days of top-quality content and innovative thought leadership discussions

encompassing the IoT ecosystem.

The event will consist of live and on-demand sessions and will explore the latest developments, innovations and best practices within the Internet of Things and the impact it has on industries including: manufacturing, transport, supply chain, government, legal sectors, financial services, energy, utilities and more.

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THE CLOSING BULLETIN

Writing exclusively for Digital Bulletin, Shrinivas Joshi, Business Lead for Enterprise Solutions at Nokia Fixed Networks, outlines how enterprise can ready itself for the next generation of technology

W

ith more than half the global population currently having access to the internet, and an expected growth in connectivity to over 5.3 billion users by 2023, networks worldwide are experiencing ever-increasing amounts of data traffic. As the adoption of IoT, 5G, cloud services and Wi-Fi 6 increases, the pressure on these networks is set to mount, making next-generation solutions that offer the high-quality performance and cost effectiveness that enterprises need crucial.

For organisations looking to meet evolving service demands and offer outstanding network performance, Optical 84

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LAN is the answer. Allowing businesses across a wide range of verticals to improve capacity and performance across their networks in a cost-effective manner, this technology will enable enterprise networks to meet the needs of a vast number of users at all times – without compromising on the performance.

A real urgency for change The growing adoption of cloud computing and the rise of digital transformation is allowing businesses to access applications and data via the internet without the need for additional software or programs downloaded

SHRINIVAS JOSHI

onto a computer or mobile device.

Although a game-changer in terms of increased efficiency and transformation of business processes, cloud services are playing havoc in current enterprise networks creating bottlenecks due to the increased levels of data and applications in networks that were not designed to handle them.

This, alongside the expansion of IoT, 5G and Wi-Fi 6 are creating additional challenges for these legacy networks.

According to IoT Business, these technologies will generate 79 Zettabytes of data globally by 2025, highlighting the need for increased bandwidth. Again, traditional infrastructure will struggle to provide this and for the first time in history wireless speeds will match wired speeds, straining the entire network.

Enterprise networks must also overcome the need for high-quality, low-latency connectivity essential for video. With rising user demand for 4K and high-definition footage growing in popularity, businesses need to ensure that their networks are reliable enough to provide the streaming and other usage applications such as surveillance and control systems necessary.

reshaping business practices across all industry sectors – while their motivations may differ, many enterprises face similar network challenges. Most businesses operate using traditional networks, however with the rise in data traffic and capacity requirements driven by these new trends, networks must be adapted to support high bandwidth services.

The days of utilising traditional copper cabling for internet access are nearing their end. In an application with Cat6 cables, speeds of 10Gbps can be reached with a 55-meter distance.

Even with the newer Cat8 cabling, the limitations of copper can clearly be seen as speeds of 10Gbps and 25Gbps are restricted to a reach of up to 30 metres.

In a traditional copper-based Local Area Network (LAN) architecture, devices in the core layer connect to the distribution layer switches and then down to the access layer switches at the communication

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closets. Copper cables then link the closets to the end-user devices. Whereas an Optical LAN changes the fundamental set up by replacing the copper cables with fibre optics, becoming an all-fibre connection with only a small number of copper cables connected to the endpoints.

Optical LAN is the way forward It is worth considering alternatives that can deliver better value. Optical LAN is ideally suited and offers more value for less investment. Delivering gigabit, multi gigabit and 10 gigabit speeds and protecting sensitive data with built-in, military-grade security features, an Optical LAN can address the evolving service demands and offers high-quality network performance through its high-capacity capabilities. It not only improves efficiency but also enhances the end-user experience. It reduces operating costs by using equipment that requires less power, cooling, and maintenance.

The Optical LAN equipment also uses much less space and covers 200x more area than with traditional network equipment. Single mode fiber (SMF) cables are more resistant and longer lasting than copper cables and also offer unlimited bandwidth potential.

Value for business As previously mentioned, Optical LAN offers a variety of advantages for enter86

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prise networks and creates much-needed value for money during a competitive time for businesses. It not only provides the required bandwidth and high-quality performance needed by end-users now but can be adapted over time to fit in with changing business requirements and the evolution of technology and devices.

The Optical LAN technology converges all services onto a single infrastructure, eliminating the need for multiple platforms while providing high-speed services to all users. Voice, video, video conferencing, wireless access and monitoring services such as building automation systems, security cameras and building sensors are all supported with Optical LAN. It also allows different generations of PON technology to be

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combined on a single fiber serving old and new technologies simultaneously.

There is no need to change the head-end equipment and fiber cabling infrastructure, significantly reducing CAPEX and upgrade time. As daily life changes with sensors and devices connecting with and becoming part of information systems and user applications, an unlimited and connected environment is being created.

Optical LAN is ready to support any new application that may come along, enabling enough capacity through the infrastructure to address the data demands for years to come. When the time comes for more capacity, a next-generation network upgrade will be easy and cost-efficient with minimal

changes to electronics and no impact on the installed fiber distribution network.

Alongside the bandwidth advantages, Optical LAN is a proven, highly secure technology. It eliminates mid-span switching equipment entirely, reducing the number of vulnerable access points to which negligent or malicious users can have access. The Optical Network Terminal does not store configuration or user information and requires no local management access. With low human touch operations, the network is far less susceptible to human error. This adds another valuable layer of security not possible with traditional networks.

Looking ahead Today, businesses of all types have an unprecedented opportunity to benefit from innovative communications technologies. These technologies offer rich new devices and applications, fast connections, and mobility that allows users to be more productive. However, a fast, reliable, and cost-efficient infrastructure remains an essential enabler.

By upgrading to fiber-based network technology such as Optical LAN, businesses will be well positioned to enable and benefit from new communications technologies for years to come whilst supporting the current requirements of end-users.

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