Digital Bulletin - Issue 4 | May 2019

Issue 4 | May ’19

DXC TECHNOLOGY The industrialisation of analytics

KEYSIGHT

What comes next in the 5G arena?

Lenovo THE INTELLIGENT TRANSFORMATION OF

Exclusive interview // Ajit Sivadasan, VP and GM for Global eCommerce

AI

The Bulletin

HIGHLIGHTS

Google releases ‘Anthos’, its hybrid cloud management platform

Google has made its hybrid cloud platform live and named it ‘Anthos’.

Unveiled by CEO Sundar Pichai at Google Cloud Next ‘19, the platform spans GCP and on-premise cloud - but will also be available for use on third party clouds like AWS and Azure. This will allow users to deploy workloads in pretty much any environment. Anthos is based on the Google-made Kubernetes.

(10/04/19) MORE ON THIS STORY The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read.

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

DIGITAL BULLETIN

Today’s technology leaders have an obsession. Something that’s always present in their thinking, it’s pushing them to surpass objectives and yet continually demanding them to look for more. But this obsession isn’t their products or their profits; it is their customers.

In the enterprise world, customer expectations and advanced technologies have grown hand-in-hand. Whether you’re a company looking to deliver complete satisfaction to a consumer, or a vendor striving to offer faultless provision to another organisation, richness of service is now critical to your success. Technology has accelerated this trend, with customer demand never having been higher.

Lenovo is a global organisation currently reimagining its approach around the expectations of its customers - and our newest edition of Digital Bulletin uncovers how this titan of the technology industry is meeting this ambition.

Ajit Sivadasan, leader of the company’s e-commerce and digital strategy, gave our team exclusive insights into Lenovo’s unique journey and its latest vision for ‘Intelligent Transformation’: using big data and AI to definitively understand customer needs.

“Customers are truly important and they’re going to have a much bigger voice in the future of how the technology is going to be used,” says Sivadasan.

Turn to page 8 for our article and feature videos.

Elsewhere in Issue 4, we speak with DXC Technology’s Philip Harker about how action in data analytics is moving from innovation to industrialisation, while Keysight Technologies’ Kailash Narayanan answers our questions on what comes next in the 5G arena.

Additionally, we go in-depth on deep learning, augmented reality, hyperscale data centres and more. There is plenty to digest in this bumper edition of Digital Bulletin - we hope you enjoy it.

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BULLETIN MEDIA LTD, Norwich, UK Company No: 11454926 www.DigitalBullet.in

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PU B LI S H I N G

M E D I A PRO D U CT I O N

D I G I TA L M A R K E T I N G

Las Vegas, United States

Lenovo’s Ajit Sivadasan on shoot with Digital Bulletin.

Sivadasan is the founding executive of the company’s global online strategy

INSIDE VIEW

IGITAL BULLETIN

IMAGINEA

Issue

08

Case Study

Lenovo

CONTENTS

The route to ‘Intelligent Transformation’

36 Future

Banuba

Bringing augmented reality to the masses

60 Services

Colt DCS

Meeting data centre demand with hyperscale 54

68 People

Accenture & Microsoft

Collaboration, innovation and transformation

28 Data & Security

DXC Technology Operationalising analytics outcomes

44 Networks

Keysight Technologies Embracing the onset of 5G

76 Events The biggest and best technology events for your diary

52 AI

Deep learning Neural networks and unlocking data’s potential

84 The Closing Bulletin

An exclusive column from Mellanox’s VP of Software, Amit Krig

CASE STUDY

THE INTELLIGENT TRANSFORMATION OF

AUTHOR: BEN MOUNCER

Over 35 years, Lenovo has repeatedly pivoted its business to drive growth.

Now a $50 billion global force, the next stage of evolution positions it as a pioneer in advanced technologies. Ajit Sivadasan, VP and GM for Global eCommerce Sales, Digital Marketing and Platform, delves into Lenovo’s fascinating history, the challenges of becoming truly global, its route to customer-centricity and its latest vision for ‘Intelligent Transformation’

AUTHOR: BEN MOUNCER PRODUCED BY: ROMILY BROAD

8 DIGITAL BULLETIN

LENOVO

over the last seven or eight years have reached maturity and we have been able to immensely benefit from those kinds of things,” adds Sivadasan. “It has y.”

9 Issue 4

CASE STUDY

LEGEN D TO LENOVO

Legend became Lenovo in 2003, with ‘Legend’ and ‘novo’ - the Latin ablative for ‘new’ - blending to create a fresh identity for the company’s globalisation mission.

10 DIGITAL BULLETIN

L

iu Chuanzhi, along with ten other Chinese computer engineers, had taken a professional gamble.

It was 1984. Chairman Liu had a respectable career and a growing family, but he also had a vision to do something different. Seeing the future, his group came together and founded New Technology Developer Inc., a vehicle for computer science backed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Equipped with just $25,000 and a small bungalow for an office, the team got down to work.

Inconceivable at the time, this basic operation was the start of something hugely significant, not just in the Chinese business landscape but to the country’s whole culture. The company that would one day be known as Lenovo had been born.

The fact that Chairman Liu is still recognised as the father of China’s IT industry, and held in such high esteem, is also an accurate measure of Lenovo’s reputation. Through multiple transformations since 1984, Lenovo has conquered the technology sphere, an against-all-odds journey made possible by tenacity, bold strategy and strokes of genius.

Today, Lenovo is a rare thing: a Chinese organisation that has gone truly global. With $50 billion in yearly revenues and 54,000 employees worldwide, Lenovo is universally recognised and respected. But in this

LENOVO

era of relentless digital transformation, it is now drawing on all of its experience to gain forward momentum and redefine the new paradigm.

Ajit Sivadasan, 13 years at senior level in the business, has had a front-row seat on Lenovo’s journey. As leader of the company’s customer-facing e-commerce and digital strategy, he is part of a senior team charged with steering it through the current phase of change. The firm’s past record holds it in good stead, he says: “The pedigree of innovation has been there right from the beginning.”

Back in the mid-1980s, New Technology Developer Inc. quickly morphed into Legend, and Liu’s team forged a niche, selling IBM-compatible PCs on the Chinese market. The vital next step was the creation of a proprietary circuit board that processed Chinese characters.

Four years after launching its own PC for the first time, in 1994 - a decade on from the company’s humble formation - Legend grew into China’s biggest PC manufacturer. With domestic dominance achieved, Sivadasan picks up the story, introducing a major milestone shortly after Legend became Lenovo in 2003. “(From) 1984 through 1994, it went through this process of discovering what it was,” he says. “2005 was a big year. The current CEO Yang Yuanqing we fondly call him YY - decided that in order for Lenovo to grow, it had to have

11 Issue 4

CASE STUDY

There’s going to be a lot of change in the landscape, but my sense is that Lenovo will be a $100 billion company that really is going to be on the cutting-edge of technology”

12 DIGITAL BULLETIN

LENOVO

an international partner. That’s when it decided to acquire the IBM PC business.

“That was the first major international move and, quite frankly, today everybody views that as a pretty historic accomplishment; for a Chinese company to buy a western company.”

The $1.25 billion takeover propelled Lenovo into the global market, transforming it into the planet’s thirdlargest PC maker overnight. But another decade later, the wheel turned again - and through two further high-profile acquisitions, it entered new territory in the enterprise and mobile sectors.

“We bought the IBM (x86) server business and the iconic Motorola business from Google,” Sivadasan continues. “In the process we became a very complex and a very different company than just the company that sold PCs. We had three legitimate businesses that were very, very different, with various personalities and one with three distinct cultures.”

Culture has been a running theme for Lenovo ever since the historic IBM buyout in 2005. Not only did that acquisition instantly double sales, but it also granted it complete strategic control over a traditional and iconic western behemoth. East had collided with west; IBM had revolutionised the PC industry and now a Chinese company was at the wheel, steering research, development and manufacturing.

This is a topic that Sivadasan - Indianborn, United States-based - has spoken

extensively on; how deep-seated business practices from opposite sides of the world have come together in the name of Lenovo to create a new type of brand. A challenge that went far beyond anything encountered in regular M&A, the company had to mesh cultures on an enormous scale.

“I joined Lenovo in 2006 and at the time, the merger had been around for about a year, give or take,” recalls Sivadasan. “You had IBM executives on one side, and then you had the Chinese executives on the other side. YY, incidentally, stepped down to take the Chairman role, and gave up his CEO role to an American CEO, in the hope of making sure that the cultures were well-integrated.

“The Chinese culture is very different in the sense of how they make decisions.

The way they think about a problem, the way they solve a problem, the way they collaborate, is very nuanced and in many ways reflects the long history they have from a civilisation standpoint.

“When you put yourself in their shoes, you begin to understand that collaboration comes differently. I can tell you for a fact that it takes a long time for a lot of people to understand, and that was a big challenge for us.

Chinese culture is much more about collaboration, getting everybody to agree and it’s not about one-upping; it’s about teamwork. There were a lot of subtle nuances that were at play.”

One critical driver in this years-

13 Issue 4

CASE STUDY

The Power o “We’ve had the privilege of working with Lenovo since 2006. Lenovo wants to double its online and computing device sales in digital channels over the next three years.

It’s an ambitious goal, and as Adobe Experience Cloud, we want to help them achieve this goal.”

Suresh Vittal, Vice President, Platform & Products, Adobe Experience Cloud

“ The partnership between Lenovo and Adobe is very special in the fact that it’s very open, it’s very transparent. We talk about what works and what doesn’t work and make decisions together. “ Jason van Namen, Global Account Director, Adobe 14 DIGITAL BULLETIN

LENOVO

of Partnership

15 Issue 4

CASE STUDY

DRIVING ‘INTELLIGENT TRANSFORMATION’

Lenovo’s Intelligent Devices Group encompasses the PC and Smart Devices Business Group , including PCs, tablets, augmented and virtual reality, and smart devices, and the Mobile Business Group for smartphones.

The Data Center Business Group includes servers, storage, networking, software and services, while the Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group drives innovation through investments in startups.

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Lenovo manufactures one of the world’s widest portfolio of connected products, including smartphones (Motorola), tablets, PCs (ThinkPad, Yoga, Lenovo Legion) and workstations as well as AR/VR devices and smart home/ office solutions. Lenovo’s data centre solutions (ThinkSystem, ThinkAgile) are creating the capacity and computing power for the connections that are changing business and society.

DIGITAL BULLETIN

LENOVO

“IT is no longer just ‘Information Technology’.

It is ‘Intelligent Transformation’ a transformation that is driven by big data, cloud and artificial intelligence” Yuanqing Yang,Lenovo Chairman and CEO

17 Issue 4

CASE STUDY

long transition has been Lenovo’s Morrisville office in North Carolina, where Sivadasan is one of 3,000 employees. Determined to establish a foothold outside of China, CEO Yang temporarily stationed himself at the Raleigh-Durham campus and the business views this location as its co-headquarters alongside its Beijing site and corporate base in Hong Kong.

Serving as a sales, operations and research centre with close proximity to a major manufacturing facility in Whitsett, Morrisville has been the beating heart of Lenovo’s globalisation.

The largest of 15 locations across North America, it is a beacon of Lenovo’s diversity and innovation, according to Sivadasan.

“We have most of our development happening there, we’ve got a lot of our senior executives sitting there, and it happens to be a place where we have a lot of investment in terms of manufacturing and other innovations,” he adds.

“It’s all about talent. We never want to be in a position to discount the talent that we have in a place like North Carolina, which is surrounded by universities and has a rich ecosystem of tech companies and biotech companies. You always want to leverage that and not lose those people and their expertise.”

Technology companies are having to fill an ever-broadening range of highskill jobs in the digital age, and this is

18 DIGITAL BULLETIN

especially applicable to Lenovo with its current outlook. It is in the ‘acceleration’ phase of its latest metamorphosis; the IBM x86 and Motorola acquisitions led to growth away from PC making, but it is now occupied by the pre-eminent technologies in business.

It is a strategic focus that CEO Yang and Lenovo have termed the ‘Intelligent Transformation’, where big data, cloud and artificial intelligence are converging to deliver on an ambitious objective: unrivalled customercentricity.

Its data centre group has become both indispensable and is driving hyper growth, in the most recent quarter achieving triple-digit growth year-onyear in North America. The same set of figures boasted record global profits in its Intelligent Devices Group, which included a first-time profit for the Mobile Business Group since the Motorola acquisition in 2014.

Powering this success is Lenovo’s winning combination of smart devices and infrastructure, now at the core of its business. Connected products are serving homes and offices, while enterprise is building trust in its ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile data centre solutions. Sivadasan says that to stay on an upward trajectory, however, Lenovo must always listen to its customers.

“It’s not an easy thing, to have systems aligned so we can actually treat every customer in 165 countries well,” he

LENOVO

Sivadasan with Adobe’s Suresh Vittal (right). “The reason I like Adobe is selfishly because of its technology and the technology platform it provides”

19 Issue 4

CASE STUDY

for client $10bn+ organizations impact to date Growth and Profitability

improved top line and bottom line

Rapid Insights

on customers, markets, and competition

Great Customer Experience

by optimizing digital and offline channels

Data Driven Decision Making data and insights democratization and adoption

Future Readiness

though powerful AI capabilities

Innovation

32

through IPs, products, and solution frameworks

20 DIGITAL BULLETIN

LENOVO

Driving

Digital Transformation

through Analytics, Insights, & Artificial Intelligence

21 Issue 4

CASE STUDY

We never want to be in a position to discount the talent that we have in a place like Nor th Carolina, which is surrounded by universities and has a rich ecosystem of tech companies and biotech companies”

22

admits. “Having infrastructure that can identify with customer concerns about privacy and other things, and trying to deal with the seamless customer experience, will always be challenging.

But we also realise that if you we don’t do that, well, it’s going to be a huge problem in the future.

“Having an end relationship with the customer becomes really important as we go into smart IoT (Internet of Things), as we go and work with a consumer that really is connected all the time. If you want to service them, you have to move to this next evolution of technology. In many ways, it’s a business model; we just recognise that customers are truly important and they’re going to have a much bigger voice in the future of how the technology is going to be used.”

Lenovo isn’t working alone on its ‘Intelligent Transformation’. To achieve maximum customer-centricity, DIGITAL BULLETIN

companies must explore every technological avenue available in order to make the necessary gains - and Lenovo is no different.

But it is impossible for organisations to harbour expertise in every strand of technology, such is the searing rate of development. Partnerships are therefore critical to ensuring both delivery and futureproofing, and Lenovo has a broad spectrum of trusted collaborators to call upon.

As VP for Global eCommerce, Digital Marketing and Platform, Sivadasan is responsible for growing Lenovo’s digital sales around the world. It has online presence in over 35 countries compared to just five when he first joined the company, but Sivadasan is now committed to doubling its online sales over the next three to five years.

A key strategic partner for meeting this target is Adobe.

Lenovo uses Adobe’s full suite

LENOVO

23 Issue 4

CASE STUDY

Sivadasan with Course5 Intelligence’s Anees Merchant (left). “Many of the things that we’ve worked on with Course5 Intelligence have reached maturity and we have been able to immensely benefit from such collaboration”

24 DIGITAL BULLETIN

LENOVO

of Experience Cloud products to orchestrate the optimal customer experience, from establishing audience profiles to utilising advanced data analytics and executing firstclass commerce and marketing through Magento Commerce and Marketo Engage.

Sivadasan expands further, commenting: “The reason I like Adobe is selfishly because of its technology and the technology platform it provides.

Ultimately, what we are really trying to do is figure out how to leverage technology to help solve the customer journey by connecting the dots. Adobe has probably the most complete end-to-end solution to manage this journey online.”

Partnerships also create a fertile innovation environment and for Lenovo, its long-standing relationship with Course5 Intelligence offers it the scope to identify untapped opportunities around big data and analytics. By using artificial intelligence and machine learning, Course5 Intelligence helps companies along their path to digital transformation powered by data.

“Many of the things that we’ve worked on with Course5 Intelligence over the last seven or eight years have reached maturity and we have been able to immensely benefit from such collaboration,” adds Sivadasan. “It has a data analytics platform, it is heavily invested into artificial intelligence and it’s doing a great number of things

that are cutting edge. It’s another example of a great partner that we have a lot of trust in.

“With most partners, we have a relationship that’s very similar, which is the ability to experiment, take risks, have open conversations, sometimes difficult conversations, but above all, have a personal relationship and a sense of trust to say ‘Look, we’re trying to do what’s right for both of our businesses’. That’s what it takes, it’s like a friendship.”

Looking to the future, Sivadasan says Lenovo is motivated as much by how much technology can help the human race as improve its own bottom line.

“If you really think about a lot of the work that we’re doing, whether it’s with a hospital in Utah doing cancer research, or enabling genome research in Barcelona, it’s really about using technology to solve humanity’s greatest challenges.

“I can’t predict where the future is going to be in ten years, quite frankly.

I think there’s going to be a significant amount of disruption. There’s going to be a lot of change in the landscape, but my sense is that Lenovo will be a $100 billion company that really is going to be on the cutting-edge of technology that continues to innovate and help solve humanity’s great challenges.””

25 Issue 4

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Delivering projects collaboratively with sponsoring partners enables us to keep costs down while producing stunning narratives with a rich variety of compelling media assets – from print to video - to be owned and used by all participants.

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DATA & SECURITY

INDUSTRIA

OF ANALYTICS

Action around data analytics is shifting from innovation to industrialisation. DXC Technology’s Philip Harker helps Digital Bulletin emphasise how, through refined artificial intelligence and machine learning, we stand on the cusp of true enterprise disruption

AUTHOR: BEN MOUNCER

D

ata crunching isn’t a new challenge in enterprise.

Businesses have always pushed to convert hard numbers into meaningful outcomes, though this has traditionally been a labour-intensive and costly task.

Over the past 20 years, technology has edged companies closer to the strategic sweet spot of evidence-based decision making. But as they skilled up on data science and integrated rudimentary analytics tools, a problem

28 DIGITAL BULLETIN

emerged: an organisation’s data sets were rapidly outgrowing its capabilities to manage and extract value from them. The term ‘big data’ entered the business lexicon - and technology was forced to play catch-up once again.

Fast-forward to today, and companies - large and small, industrial and consumer - are still striving to gain maximum insights from the mountains of information at their disposal. The race to deliver an all-encompassing solution is hotly-contested and involves some of the world’s major technology players.

DXC TECHNOLOGY

IALISATION

29 Issue 4

DATA & SECURITY

Innovation in this area has been based around artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning - and utilising the newest forms of these technologies is now firmly established as the catalyst for unlocking the potential of data.

Philip Harker, Analytics General Manager for DXC Technology, says enterprise is reaching the point of true transformation.

“For many years we have been developing machine learning and AI solutions, initially on exciting use cases like image detection for counterfeit product detection or image analysis in other examples,” Harker explains to Digital Bulletin.

“These innovations have helped us develop the models and learnings.

Now is the time to industrialise these machine learning and AI instances and implement them in the overall business process to drive outcomes. For example, at DXC we have developed an AI solution for automating realtime decision processing in services procurement for a financial services customer, enabling the client to become AI-driven.”Financial services is one of two major sectors where Harker believes the ‘industrialisation’ of AI will have a huge impact on data optimisation, the other being healthcare. The global healthcare analytics market, currently worth $14 billion, will rocket to more than $50

30 DIGITAL BULLETIN

billion in five years, according to recent projections by Markets and Markets.

Machine learning underpins most successful advanced analytics use cases. Algorithms for machine learning have existed for many years but only recently have these complex mathematical calculations been successful in understanding immense volumes of data. Passing this milestone will ultimately benefit both organisations and their customers, according to Harker.

“In finance, for example, AI is used in fraud detection or risk exposure, and to support better governance,” he says. “In healthcare, it is about better patient outcomes through the use of deep analytics to find patterns and to augment data sets. All these uses are made possible by vast amounts of data and compute available on tap, and both these industries are highly regulated. “It’s all about AI but in reality, when scratching below the surface, many instances are about machine learning. One fine example of this is robotic process automation, or RPA – which is not possible without machine learning to drive it. Often RPA is embedded in a solution as a bot, but the tuning and sharpening of machine learning is critical to enable the value of RPA to be realised.”

Additionally, an emerging challenge is customer demand for instant access

DXC TECHNOLOGY

Traditionally, many analytics discussions were on innovation and use cases. Yet today, more and more of the dialogue is with operationalising the analytics outcome”

Philip Harker, Analytics General Manager for DXC Technology

to high-value analytics. Providers like DXC are having to find a balance between prioritising client delivery and maintaining innovation in the space, a methodology known as ‘DataOps’.

Achieving a streamlined approach to analytics will be key if data optimisation at scale is to sweep across the enterprise.

“Traditionally, many analytics discussions were on innovation and use cases,” outlines Harker. “Yet today, more and more of the dialogue is with operationalising the analytics outcome,

coupled with the demand for selfservice analytics – where users expect data, models and insights at their fingertips to develop their own findings, which in turn can be put back into the repository for general consumption.

So, the democratisation of data is the new norm.”

DXC’s own analytics services, which embeds advanced analytics tools like AI with legacy techniques such as Business Intelligence, are wrapped into three main areas.

The company’s ‘Industrialised

31 Issue 4

The Bulletin

HIGHLIGHTS

DXC Technology grasps the Asia cybersecurity nettle

DXC Technology is aiming to combat the growing cybersecurity problem in Asia from a new facility in Malaysia. Its ‘Security Operations Centre’ in Kuala Lumpur will support its latest security innovations built around advanced analytics and digital forensics. DXC will service both regional and global clients from the location. It has more than a dozen similar centres around the world. (16/04/19) MORE ON THIS STORY The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read.

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

DXC TECHNOLOGY

Analytics Business Solutions’ segment covers customer analytics - predicting customer needs by understanding their behaviour - and industry-tailored solutions. It has made a particular mark in the automotive sector, counting six out of the world’s ten biggest manufacturers as clients.

The ‘Information Governance’ service line includes data governance, information life cycle management and work around GDPR while its third area, ‘Data Engineering and Platform Services’, is DXC’s managed services

we are seeing many moving to a hybrid approach, in which organisations use a combination of cloud services and on-premise systems.

“We have extensive migration services for such workloads, but it is not just a matter of lifting and shifting the workloads. Often data will have to be cleansed as a prerequisite for the migration of services to off-premise.

Hence our adjacent service offering of information governance sitting alongside data engineering and platform services.”

The proportion of analytics workloads being served by cloud providers has grown exponentially” offering for data processing on leading platforms, including dominant public cloud services like AWS, Azure and Google. Cloud has undoubtedly altered the data analytics landscape along with enterprise transitions to hybrid environments, as Harker outlines.

“The proportion of analytics workloads being served by cloud providers has grown exponentially, and many of them have architectures and tools to serve better distributed computing environments,” he adds.

“AWS, Azure and Google are the de facto standards; we are seeing many big data examples of migration from analytics systems to cloud; moreover,

The Internet of Things (IoT) is creating even more opportunities for companies to use data to their advantage - but the unique characteristics of IoT solutions often lead to friction with established data management infrastructures. A Gartner survey of relevant companies found that more than a third would opt for completely separate data management capabilities for IoT. However, data processing across distributed networks is becoming easier thanks to the growth of open-source software libraries like Apache Hadoop.

Harker says DXC is finding a way of capitalising on the potential of IoT and edge computing.

33 Issue 4

DATA & SECURITY

We are now at the birth of industrialised analytics business solutions around IoT�

34 DIGITAL BULLETIN

DXC TECHNOLOGY

“Distributed computing is not new, but the containerisation on computing code is now becoming the norm, easing the deployment of such environments,” he comments.

“IoT has dramatically matured over recent years, but now it is less about developing use cases and more about edge compute and end-toend architecture. We are now at the birth of industrialised analytics business solutions around IoT. Our DXC Robotic Drive is a good example.

It enables autonomous driving developers to collect, manage and analyse massive amounts of global sensor data at significant speed.

“It not only embraces numerous challenges of distributed compute at scale but also addresses the various characteristics of the data generated by the vehicle. Moreover, the Robotic Drive architecture is the reference platform for productionised IoT applications, a platform that can scale and is based on a consumption model.”

One thing is clear; the challenge of data management has ramped up dramatically as environments and networks grow increasingly complex.

Companies are eager to define their data roadmaps but are discovering roadblocks along the way, none more than finding a suitable workforce.

The skills gap is prevalent across the technology sector and is especially stark in data-based specialisms.

IBM believes that data science will account for 28% of all technology jobs by the end of 2020 and the European Commission is envisaging 100,000 data-related roles being created in the region within the same timeframe.

But is there the supply to meet demand? DXC itself employs more than 8,000 analytics professionals and Harker admits recruitment is at the forefront of its work in the field.

“Recruitment is a constant for us.

We have grown our practice head count by 50% over the last year, and we expect this to continue in the future,” he explains. “We have deep expertise in four pivotal domains: data science, data engineering, business consulting and DevOps. “As is increasingly normal, personally I wear more than one hat. I lead the Solutioning and Advisory for Analytics team in the UK, Ireland, Israel, the Middle East and Africa – a team that sells, advises and architects analytics and data solutions. Secondly, I lead DXC’s major telecom customers in analytics, where I advise and oversee projects and services.

“In both roles, being on topic and staying at the forefront of industry trends is critical for continual developments.”

35 Issue 4

FUTURE

CHANGING THE FACE OF AR Belarusian firm Banuba is using facial filters to aid enterprise in a number of industry sectors

O

AUTHOR: JAMES HENDERSON

n the face of it, the

It is a lasting legacy from the days

Belarusian capital

when Minsk was a technology hub for the

seem like the obvious

strong today. And with technology

of Minsk might not

location for a thriving technology scene.

But this former Soviet state is making

a name for itself as a fertile ground for

technology startups – the beating heart being its Hi Tech Park, a low-tax zone

that has been set up with favourable conditions for tech companies, with more than 450 based there.

36 DIGITAL BULLETIN

former USSR, and it is one that remains

professionals being paid well in what is a relatively affordable country to live, young Belarusian mathematicians, engineers and technologists are

choosing to work in their homeland rather than seeking their fortune elsewhere. The ‘brain drain’, once highly prevalent in the country, is now far less of a concern.

Now, Belarus has designs on becoming

BANUBA

37 Issue 4

FUTURE

a hub of artificial intelligence (AI) in

hit with users, particularly millennials.

flourishing in this environment is Banuba,

filters purely for this purpose, but it

Eastern Europe. One of the companies

a startup with AI in its DNA which employs around 100 staff creating camera

technologies for both brands and people that can fit right in their back pockets.

When you think of how technology is

used on front-facing phone cameras,

Part of Banuba’s core business is facial also develops augmented reality (AR)

software for enterprise too. Sectors where

the company’s technology can be utilised include health and beauty, advertising and marketing, and healthcare.

Speaking to Digital Bulletin from the

you will probably envisage the ubiquitous

company’s base in Minsk, Vadim Nekhai,

Facebook that have proven such a

factors that makes Banuba stand out

filters on Instagram, Snapchat and

38 DIGITAL BULLETIN

its managing director, says one of the

BANUBA

Many big brands are embracing how they are speaking to younger people and they are using AR to do that”

from the competition is that it creates

and have the capability to customise the

eschewing third-party companies.

applications.”

all of its technology from scratch,

“Because of this approach, we are able

whole pipeline for various use cases and

Its FaceAR SDK software allows users to

to create data sets, create networks,

experiment with skin smoothing, skin tone

in house. And we are also able to

face symmetry improvements, hair

train models and test the technology patent our technology as well,” says

Nekhai. “It means we control the whole

correction, eyes and teeth whitening,

recolouring and makeup application.

“Many big brands are embracing how

vertical, from data set calculations to

they are speaking to younger people and

technology. We control the performance

for women not to be comfortable with

the graphical representation of the

they are using AR to do that. It is common

39 Issue 4

The Bulletin

HIGHLIGHTS

IBM expands quantum computing research with new universities

IBM has announced the expansion of the IBM Q Network to include a number of global universities. It will aim to expand the field of knowledge around quantum computing. The University of Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, Stony Brook University, and the University of Tokyo will have direct access to IBM QTM’s most-advanced quantum computing systems for teaching, and faculty and student research projects. (25/04/19) MORE ON THIS STORY The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read.

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

BANUBA

We believe that smart glasses will become a mass market product and the technology is perfect for AR”

applying lipstick in the beauty stores

from a hygiene perspective, so the user can use the front facing camera to

bored? It can tell what emotions are being triggered.”

Nekhai says that Banuba’s technology

see which colours of lipsticks – or hair

also has great potential in the medical

physically having to use the product,”

that will be able to determine the

dyes, for example – they like without he adds.

In marketing and advertising,

engagement analytics and gaze detection software are helping

marketers and brands track the

audience’s response to digital content.

The outcomes mean businesses can

personalise content, test engagement, measure attention and identify

field, with solutions being developed

heartbeat of a person just from facial screening. The company’s engineers

are also working on a solution that will help doctors to catch early signs of

health problems using facial analytics.

There is huge enthusiasm within

Banuba about the potential to serve AR adverts within its ecosystem.

“Snapchat and Facebook are

feedback in real-time – a step-change

pioneering this kind of approach with

format of a focus group.

other ad features. We are really excited

from what now seems like a dated

“Videos or adverts of a client can

be presented to consumers and our

branded filters and they are testing

about this and we believe it is a whole new format for ads, which is far more

technology can determine how it makes personalised and interesting for users. people react. It uses facial features to

We think it is engaging, fresh and new.

they feel from the video. It is a way to

of attention to this area of advertising,”

measure engagement and the reaction assess how effective an advert might be – is it capturing the imagination

of the audience or is it making them

Brands and marketers are paying a lot explains Nekhai.

“Facial analytics in the context of

AR ads are a driver to make this an

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FUTURE

Our goal is to take what can be expensive technology and offer it to a wider audience�

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BANUBA

experience that is more personalised and

Developing VR and AR is a costly

more interesting for users because you

business. Banuba benefitted from a

the effectiveness of ads. We are working

from Larnabel Ventures, the fund of

can measure their reaction and measure on this technology in-house; it’s not

production-ready yet but we’re working on improving it and testing it for different licensing.”

$7 million cash injection late last year Russian entrepreneur Said Gutseriev, and Prokopenya’s VP Capital, taking its total funding to $12 million.

“We’ll be investing the money into

To date, the technology has been

improving our technology portfolio,

on computers and smartphones, but

of talented engineers, which are not

developed for front facing cameras

Nekhai feels there are limitations on both mediums. He says there is, however, a technology that will revolutionise AR. “We believe that smart glasses will

become a mass market product and the technology is perfect for AR. It is a combination of the right technology

and the right hardware. It is a great fit.

which is expensive. And you need a lot cheap. In addition, we’ll use the money

to ramp up our marketing, we want to be a lot more aggressive in promoting our

technologies this year. We want to invest in improving our existing technology

and get the word out about what we are doing,” says Nekhai.

Looking to the remainder of 2019 and

The smart phone has been great for AR

beyond, he concludes: “We have pretty

has one in their pocket. But smart phones

platform as a self-service model so we

because they are ubiquitous – everyone are limited in what they can capture in terms of area; the field of view is a

drawback as the field of view with our

eyes is a lot wider enabling us to capture a lot more.

“We have technologies such as 5G

which will have a dramatic impact on AR and smart glasses. It will take time

clear goals; we would like to offer our

want to make it as cheap and widely

available as possible. We want to offer

developers the chance to come to us and download from our website and create

apps or new features. Our goal is to take

what can be expensive technology and offer it to a wider audience.

“It is a challenge but we want to be able

because the infrastructure has to be

to achieve that by the end of 2019. Our

and smart glasses to take off because it

want to be able to offer our developers

developed but it will be a big reason for AR removes the issue of latency, and we will be able to process data at vast speeds.

This will enable an experience to be

provided in real-time without delays.”

long-term goal is around AR ads and we and customers a way to monetise the

camera experience, which hasn’t really been done before. It is something that really excites us.”

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NETWORKS

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KEYSIGHT TECHNOLOGIES

EMBRACING THE NEXT GENERATION OF COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY In an exclusive Q&A, Digital Bulletin speaks to Kailash Narayanan, Vice President and General Manager at Keysight Technologies about what comes next in the 5G arena

Could you provide some background on Keysight and your role and responsibilities at the business?

Keysight provides design, simulation, measurement, validation, test, and optimisation tools for the electronics and communications industry. Specific to commercial communications, we provide design and measurement capabilities that are used across our customers’ entire workflow from research to deployment and optimisation. Those capabilities also help customers measure and analyse the physics of their designs all the

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NETWORKS

way up to the applications, from the physical layer to the application layer and in between.

What would you say are the main challenges facing those looking to bring products and services up to the standard necessary to deliver the latest 5G applications?

The challenges are multifaceted.

Firstly, companies have to address new technologies for 5G: higher frequencies, wider bandwidths, new network topology and design, higher degree of virtualisation of functionality and security. Secondly, they have to

address these in the context of an evolving standard. The standards coming largely from 3GPP are new, and therefore going through changes including the addition of incremental capability.

While standards are stabilising, they require attention to detail while maintaining an agile approach to understanding the relative timing and differences between what is in the standard, and what will be implemented in commercial systems.

Companies will have to do this in a fiercely competitive environment. Every time we go through a generational

We are very excited about 2019 and the coming years that will show amazing advancements in commercial communications�

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KEYSIGHT TECHNOLOGIES

change, to some extent, the playing field is levelled. New players come in, while traditional players update strategies and focus. All of them will have to make the tough decisions on how to manage the transition of investment from legacy to new technologies.

Which products and technologies do you believe will drive widespread adoption of 5G? Traditional Mobile Broadband—now to be “enhanced” by 5G is the initial core driver. While LTE is prevalent and widely used in this application space,

the demands of the users continue to increase at exponential rates. Hence, this will continue to be a large driver of updates to the core network, wireless infrastructure and devices.

But 5G is envisioned and designed for much more, such as the reduction of communication latency and a massive increase in managing capacity. This is especially true for a large number of devices designed for many vertical industries, and the virtualisation of the networks which means they will be much more flexible to enable expanded business models of the network operators. Widespread

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HIGHLIGHTS

Huawei launches 5G hardware for vehicles

Huawei says its new 5G hardware for autonomous vehicles is the first of its kind. Backing up its ambition in the self-driving technology sector, the Chinese company unveiled the module at the Shanghai Autoshow. MH5000 is based on the Balong 5000 5G chip, which it released in January. Huawei is keen to commercialise 5G technology for the automotive sector by the second half of 2019. (23/04/19) MORE ON THIS STORY The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read.

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

KEYSIGHT TECHNOLOGIES

Kailash Narayanan is Vice President and General Manager at Keysight Technologies. He leads the Wireless Test business at Keysight and is responsible for R&D, product and solution development, marketing and sales, and delivery to the wireless ecosystem that includes chipset makers, device industry, contract manufacturers, ODMs and service providers. He seeks to grow the business by taking a holistic view of the industry including software content, complete solutions and driving innovation at the pace of the wireless industry to enable next generation communication systems and applications.

adoption will grow into industries that have traditionally underutilised mobile wireless—transportation, finance, healthcare, energy and utilities, government management of cities, to name a few.

Why does 5G demand far higher precision, tighter tolerances, and robust designs than 4G? When you consider the many KPIs of a network, such as data speed, latency, reliability, capacity, cost, spectral efficiency, and network flexibility, 5G

places significant new demands on each one by one to two orders of magnitude beyond 4G. This means every part of the network needs to change and that includes the mobile devices.

Then add to that the expanded use models beyond the dominant smartphone use case—this means environmental, life, power, demands that go beyond the typical user. All of these drive significant increments in the technical demands for designs from semiconductors and components all the way to network architecture and software. Keysight is involved in every facet of this and I can tell you that the industry is rising to the occasion and being in the middle of that is a great place to be.

What are the hurdles that must still be overcome in order to fully realise 5G’s potential?

First, it takes time to trial, wring out, and build out new networks and ensure the new functionality does what it is intended to do. This is the case for all previous generations (e.g. 4G still does not have a majority share of all global subscriptions). In addition, the standard needs to be completely representative of the 5G vision. This will not really happen until Rel-16 slated for early 2020.

The industry has already a handful of operators in different locales that have initiated commercial 5G services.

Thirdly, multiple applications and use

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models must be deployed to create winning business opportunities. We are excited that all of this is ahead of us and we can help the industry in all aspects to accelerate and deploy this next generation technology.

Which products that are being developed for 5G should we be looking out for?

These come in several examples. In no particular order, there are new radio systems for 5G that require operation in the mmWave bands (24-52 GHz). This is not new technology for the world, but very new technology for mobile wireless systems. These require new

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transceiver designs, a completely different approach to antenna technology, and of course have to operate within the 3GPP standard.

Initially, some of these have to operate in a “non-Standalone” environment— using the LTE RAN as a fall-back and also using the LTE core only.

There are also new designs for systems that work in the 3.5-6GHz territory which, again, is not new technology but it is new for commercial mobile wireless. So, these represent new products that have to be tested in the context of the 3GPP 5G NR standard.

In some cases, customers are designing these systems to be ‘Stand

KEYSIGHT TECHNOLOGIES

Widespread adoption will grow into industries that have traditionally underutilised mobile wireless—transportation, finance, healthcare, energy and utilities” Alone’ which means they use both the 5G RAN and the next generation 5G core—the functionality is different and thus test requirements are different.

Lastly, the networks have a different architecture from the RAN to the core and need a different approach to testing. For example, in the RAN, the radio is being even further disaggregated with the RF parts next to, or integrated into the antenna, and the baseband being either many tens of metres away, or even centralised as part of a virtualised set of functionality. We are working with the ORAN organisation to refine the test requirements for just these scenarios.

and continue to be very excited about these opportunities. Most recently we have made announcements about our collaborations with leaders in the industry using our solutions to realise 5G at this accelerated pace. These include industry-leading modem companies like Qualcomm, industryleading device companies like Lenovo/ Motorola and Samsung, leaders in network equipment like Nokia, and the leaders in the launch of 5G networks themselves like NTT DoCoMo, SKT, CMCC and Verizon. These organisations are using network emulation tools, base station measurement tools, 5G core and RAN testing tools, and a wide array of general purpose measurement equipment to design and deploy their 5G designs.

Will we look back at 2019 as a breakout year for 5G? We are very excited about 2019 and the coming years that will show amazing advancements in commercial communications. The standards are starting to mature, the entire industry is aggressively breaking down technical barriers and the regulatory bodies are making spectrum available. All of this bodes well for 5G in 2019 and for You’re heavily involved in the 5G space many years to come. Our first quarter’s earnings report should indicate that at Keysight – are there any recent our investments are paying off with developments you’re particularly growth and you can see from our press excited about? announcements that we are engaged We have been developing and around the world, across the industry, launching 5G design, simulation, and and across multiple technologies. measurement capability since 2013

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AI

MEETINGS MADE MAGNIFICENT

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A

DEEP LEARNING

DIVE Businesses are generating more data than ever before - and the flow is rapidly increasing. With technology leaders striving to unlock its value, Digital Bulletin explores why deep learning algorithms might hold the key

AUTHOR: BEN MOUNCER

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a concept regularly greeted with trepidation.

On a surface level, many of us are wary of the growing power of our own machines - and the mainstream media has too often perpetuated these fears. Eye-catching headlines and wild projections about AI have had us

nervously pondering our futures.

Those working in business technology have slowly learned to cut through the hyperbole. Industrial AI use cases are being integrated across the enterprise, bringing with them transformative benefits to productivity, efficiency and innovation. Organisations have never

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AI

been more eager to shout about their work in AI. As a single entity, however, AI is actually near impossible to define.

After all, the term ‘artificial intelligence’ has been in our lexicon for more than 60 years. Over that time, it has acted as a label for countless experiments and solutions around cognitive machinery.

Many of these fell by the wayside during ‘AI winters’, where funding shrunk and priorities changed.

Today’s enterprise leaders are the lucky ones. The technologies themselves are finally reaching maturity, defining identities of their own under the catch-all umbrella of AI. One such subfield is ‘deep learning’, which takes the idea of human-like machines to a scarcely believable level.

DEEP LEARNING, DEFINED

Deep learning is itself a subset of machine learning, the strand of AI which is now driving huge advances for many businesses. Machine learning algorithms work within a set framework of features, giving the system the opportunity to learn from experience and therefore perform tasks more effectively. Deep learning algorithms are structured differently, closely reflecting the neutral layout of the human brain.

‘Neural networks’ have been studied since the middle of the 20th century but have come to prominence in

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enterprise with the proliferation of data and rapid growth of computing power. The multi-layered nature of these networks allow structured, unstructured or inter-connected data sets to be utilised for the system’s gain.

Deep learning requires enormous amounts of data; the more information available to a model, the better it will perform.

McKinsey & Company’s 2018 white paper on the significant economic potential of advanced AI identified the following three variations of the neural network: Feed forward neural networks: The simplest type of neural network. In this architecture, information moves in only one direction, forward, from the input layer, through the “hidden” layers, to the output layer. There are no loops in the network. The first singleneuron network was proposed already in 1958 by AI pioneer Frank Rosenblatt.

While the idea is not new, advances in computing power, training algorithms and the available data led to higher levels of performance than previously possible.

Recurrent neural networks (RNNs): Artificial neural networks whose connections between neurons include loops, well-suited for processing sequences of inputs. In November 2016, Oxford University researchers reported that a system based on

DEEP LEARNING

AI is going to infuse all of software.

AI is going to eat software and it’s going to be in every aspect of software.

Every single software developer has to learn deep learning” Jensen Huang, CEO, NVIDIA

recurrent neural networks (and convolutional neural networks) had achieved 95% accuracy in reading lips, outperforming experienced human lip readers, who tested at 52% accuracy.

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs): Artificial neural networks in which the connections between neural layers are inspired by the organisation of the animal visual cortex, the portion of the brain that processes images, well suited for perceptual tasks.

MAKING THE CASE

Deep learning use cases are now springing up at startup level, within global organisations and everywhere

in between. Leaders across industries now have little choice but to embrace technology, and their biggest returns often come with investment in AI-based solutions.

As previously outlined, deep learning techniques are proving revolutionary in image recognition, speech recognition and natural language processing.

Conversational interfaces are proving valuable tools for businesses as well as consumers, with giants like Facebook and Google putting voice at the core of development strategies. The likes of Amazon’s Alexa will only grow smarter and more life-like as the software learns from input.

Real-world examples aren’t restricted

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HIGHLIGHTS

PathAI has raised $60 million in new funding round

PathAI, an artificial intelligence-powered technology for pathology, has raised $60 million in funding. The round was led by new investor General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm, with strong participation from General Catalyst and other existing investors. It will use finds to enhance offerings to existing partners, and drive improvement of its flagship pathology research platform. (17/04/19) MORE ON THIS STORY The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read.

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

DEEP LEARNING

to this area, however, as deep learning models match with an ever-more diverse range of data sets. NVIDIA, the US-based technology company with a strong focus on bringing deep learning to the enterprise, has worked on a range of engagements with companies from different sectors.

In the oil & gas industry, for example, Eni and NVIDIA - through its partnership with HPE - have built reverse time migration algorithms to create an accurate image of the Earth’s subsurface, enabling Eni to search for hydrocarbons. In the healthcare sector, Insilico Medicine has leveraged NVIDIA’s GPU accelerators in its DeepPharma platform.

DeepPharma utilises deep learning for drug repurposing and discovery in cancer and age-related diseases. In cybersecurity, Accenture Labs is able to detect threats by analysing anomalies in large-scale network graphs using GPUs and GPU-accelerated libraries.

Three other sectors in line for further disruption because of AI, according to McKinsey, are retail, sales and marketing, supply chain management and banking. More specifically, a key strength of deep learning technology is the role it can play in refining predictive maintenance techniques by detecting anomalies in data - and companies operating in the automotive assembly and wider manufacturing markets are the beneficiaries.

NVIDIA’s co-founder and CEO Jensen

Huang has long been advocate of deep learning methods. Back in 2017, he committed to training 100,000 developers on deep learning and, in October last year, the company launched its RAPIDS open-source platform for large-scale data analytics and machine learning.

“AI is going to infuse all of software,” said Huang. “AI is going to eat software and it’s going to be in every aspect of software. Every single software developer has to learn deep learning.”

CHALLENGES OF ADOPTION

Huang’s ambition might be admirable, but he will have encountered a predictable issue on his quest for deep learning ubiquity: a skills gap.

Quite simply, the data and AI markets are accelerating at a rate with which employers and educators cannot keep up. This problem is amplified when it comes to deep learning, where the technology is even more complex.

Aside from this familiar challenge and other normal hindrances to integration such as legacy structures, lack of roadmapping and deployment costs, deep learning adopters face a particular set of hurdles. A recent article by Forbes cited three key challenges alongside skills as incoherent strategic approaches, the interpretability of the data and a shortage of data.

In fact, it is the size and complication of the data sets that present the most

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AI

Even with an appropriate set of guiding principles, there are going to be a lot of perceptual challenges. They are way beyond those that current developers have solved with deep learning networks�

Rodney Brooks on autonomous driving and deep learning barriers to deep learning success.

McKinsey’s white paper expands further by pinpointing these data-specific issues:

rules and choice criteria to be clearly explainable.

The risk of bias in data and algorithms: This issue touches on concerns that are more social The challenge of labelling training in nature and which could require data: This often must be done broader steps to resolve, such as manually and is necessary for understanding how the processes supervised learning. Promising new used to collect training data can techniques are emerging to address influence the behaviour of models this challenge, such as reinforcement they are used to train. For example, learning and in-stream supervision, unintended biases can in which data can be labeled in the be introduced when training data course of natural usage. is not representative of the larger population to which an AI model The difficulty of explaining in human terms results from large and complex is applied. Thus, facial recognition models trained on a population models: Why was a certain decision of faces corresponding to the reached? Product certifications in demographics of AI developers could healthcare and in the automotive and aerospace industries, for example, struggle when applied to populations with more diverse characteristics. can be an obstacle; among other A recent report on the malicious use of constraints, regulators often want

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DEEP LEARNING

AI highlights a range of security threats, under the public’s glare - but truthfully, from sophisticated automation where are we on the autonomous of hacking to hyper-personalised vehicle timeline? political disinformation campaigns.

“Even with an appropriate set of guiding principles, there are going THE FUTURE OF DEEP LEARNING to be a lot of perceptual challenges,” It is clear that certain deep learning wrote robotics pioneer Rodney roadblocks are slowing down Brooks. “They are way beyond those ambitious companies, which is why that current developers have solved simpler machine learning algorithms with deep learning networks. Human are more widespread in enterprise driving will probably disappear in the today. Conversely, the potential of lifetimes of many people reading this. deep learning models is greater - and But it is not going to happen in the the technology stands to be a critical blink of an eye.” component in one particular sector Even with assistance from systems currently going through drastic future- such as Lidar, roadways dominated proofing: the automotive industry. by autonomous cars, vans and trucks Mobility as we know it now will soon are some way off. The example is the be unrecognisable as clean energy current state of deep learning models production becomes mandatory in microcosm; while the structure of and manufacturers edge nearer to layered machine learning algorithms perfecting the connected, self-driving and their purpose are firmly vehicle. Many consumers remain established, the scale of their potential sceptical about the true viability of remains hard to project. autonomous transport, however, The most recent analysis from raising obvious concerns around MarketWatch paints a positive picture, safety, vehicle intelligence and however, predicting the deep learning security. Deep learning could provide market place to grow ‘extensively’ the answers. between 2019 and 2025, with a CAGR As machines operating in a natural (Compound Annual Growth Rate) environment, self-driving vehicles of 31.2%. rely on deep learning. Breakthrough What is certain is that the value of autonomous technology uses tailored data to every organisation is only algorithms to recognise the likes of going to increase. With that, so will the road signs or pedestrians. The unlikely research and investment into, and may seen close to reality as highhoning of, AI-based technologies. Man profile automakers like Tesla and and machine will be collaborating on a Waymo test their self-driving platforms very deep level indeed.

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SERVICES

MEETING DATA CENTRE DEMAND Falk Weinreich, SVP Data Centre Services at Colt DCS, spells out why hyperscale represents the future in data centre provision

AUTHOR: BEN MOUNCER

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COLT DCS

D

ata centres are the backbone of the connected world. A component of the earliest enterprise IT systems, they have since taken many forms, always remoulding to meet demand.

Companies are continuing to reject on-premise solutions for data storage and processing, largely due to the size of their workloads. Cloud computing

is guaranteeing these businesses a simple, reliable and scalable alternative.

Without being news to anyone, the cloud market is in the midst of an astonishing growth phase. Projections indicate that it could be worth north of $600 billion by 2023.

Data centre providers are without a doubt beneficiaries of this change.

While the major players in public cloud Amazon, Microsoft, Google - are able to

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SERVICES

We have a big focus on the hyperscale market. We are selling entire halls; not just cages or racks any more, but entire halls�

develop their own sites from the bottom up, enterprise demand for hybrid or private cloud is presenting providers of both wholesale and colocation data centres with ripe opportunity for growth.

Right now, the market for data centre provision is seeing a trend towards hyperscaling. In a hyperscale facility, customers are afforded the scalability to match their rapidly increasing requirements. The International Data Corporation defines a hyperscale data

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centre as being built over more than 10,000 square feet and containing in excess of 5,000 servers. Construction of these sites has been dominated by the public cloud giants, but now more traditional enterprise providers are nudging into view.

One such company is Colt Data Centre Services, which currently manages 24 carrier-neutral locations in Europe and Asia. Funded by Fidelity Investments, Colt DCS has been active in the market for over 20 years and is

COLT DCS

now riding the wave as a provider exploiting the potential of hyperscale services.

“Ten years ago, the market was completely different,” explains Falk Weinreich, SVP Data Centre Services at Colt DCS. “It was dominated by enterprise companies with relatively low density on their racks and smaller pockets of business.

“All enterprise companies are thinking more and more about moving to the cloud. We are following that trend, so

we have a big focus on the hyperscale market. We are selling entire halls; not just cages or racks any more, but entire halls.”

According to Synergy Research, the number of hyperscale data centres worldwide grew by 11% in 2018, with locations built in 17 different countries. Amazon and Google accounted for more than half of the new developments while data shows that 40% of all hyperscale facilities are currently in the United States.

Colt DCS has its own programmes in this segment, however, as it aims to cement its leadership in the Europe and Asia regions. Last November, it announced plans for a hyperscale data centre campus with a 100MW capacity in Mumbai, India. Due to be operational by the second half of 2020, it will be the firm’s first site in a country where cloud revenue is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 25% until 2021.

It is also strengthening its footprint in Japan with a 30MW hyperscale data centre in Osaka, announced last month.

Such projects demonstrate Colt DCS’s ambition, according to Weinreich.

“We are offering a far more highdensity product, much bigger than everybody else. We are entering the market with a new standard of service levels too,” he explains.

“If you think about the Indian market, for example, it’s a little bit underdeveloped compared to Europe.

You don’t see a lot of data centre

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HIGHLIGHTS

IBM to support Lenovo’s data centre unit with new solutions

IBM and Lenovo have extended their partnership. IBM will now supply Lenovo’s data centre division with new cognitive and blockchain solutions.

Lenovo will utilise virtual assistants to improve its technical support, while blockchain will create a transparent environment for the purchase and distribution of hardware and software. The solutions will help meet increasing customer service demands. (26/04/19) MORE ON THIS STORY The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read.

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

COLT DCS

We believe that companies are getting more global but they want to enjoy one customer experience, not totally different flavours of service” companies building 20MW sites, most sites are even less than 10MW. We announced a 100MW IT load - but it could get even higher, we have 160MW in total available.

“We are in discussions now with customers who are very interested.

Why? Because a lot of the stuff in the cloud is actually not run in India. It’s run from Australia, from Singapore, from Hong Kong or even from Europe.

With the right product and the right capacity, we believe we will prove that it’s worth moving to compute in the Indian market itself.”

Going global is more important than ever to data centre providers.

As digital brings all parts of the world together, organisations are finding it easier to take their business elsewhere.

Combine that with a critical reliance on IT infrastructure and data, plus a

common strategic focus on customer experience, Colt DCS and its peers know that they must adapt.

For Weinreich, that means ensuring a consistent level of service across its global locations. Colt DCS looks to achieve this by using one universal sales strategy, from pre-sales through to service management.

“First of all, the market is like a real estate market,” he explains. “In a way, you need a good site, you need a good property. Location, location, location if you have the wrong property on the wrong site, nobody will come to you.

“What our companies are enjoying, however, is the fact that they can do business in not just one market but in more markets, and international markets. We have customers, for example from the finance industry or consultancy industry, who

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SERVICES

Falk Weinreich is an industry veteran and has worked across the IT, data centre and telecoms space for over 20 years. He is responsible for growing the global customer base for Colt’s data centre business and leads an international team across the UK, Europe, USA, Japan, China and Singapore. Falk holds a degree in Business and Administration from the University of Frankfurt.

actually operate in three different markets with us.

“The same methodologies and principles are put in place across all of our estates. We believe that companies are getting more global but they want to enjoy one customer experience, not totally different flavours of service.

Our organisational structure is helping those customers get that experience.”

Customer knowledge is also increasing alongside expectations. Colt DCS constructs ‘built-to-suit’ wholesale data centres for clients and Weinrech believes providers must develop more specialism to remain relevant, adding: “Companies know exactly what they want today.

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“Obviously they want security, but they also want a reasonable price. You sometimes even compete with their own design teams because they are capable of doing it themselves, and some are. Therefore you really need to get special and really need to get into it.

You need to gain real expertise in what you’re doing.”

Aside from the hyperscale demands, the soaring need for computation at the edge is challenging data centre providers to expand their offerings.

Local servers will be critical as edge use cases become mainstream across industries, with users expecting latency that simply cannot be delivered through a core data centre.

The Internet of Things (IoT), still at the

Catching traffic as close as possible to the consumer - that’s a big discussion in the industry”

COLT DCS

beginning of its enterprise journey, will drive extraordinary edge computing adoption. Forbes says industries such as manufacturing, logistics and utilities will lead the way on IoT spending, each laying out a projected average of $40 billion on IoT technologies by the end of next year.Diversity of service will therefore be crucial to the survival of businesses like Colt DCS. Weinreich is all too aware of the rapid emergence of distributed computing, highlighting the move to the ‘micro edge’ as another strand to consider.

“Where will we find mini data centres in the future? Next to the bus shelter?

On the rooftop of the skyscraper?

Catching traffic as close as possible to the consumer - that’s a big discussion in the industry,” he says.

“We have a specialism in what we call ‘edge-to-core’. We were lucky that we have some legacy edge sites which we have modernised. We’ve refurbished them and put better technology in to be more power efficient. They’re positioned very nicely to capture edge traffic and we’ve been very successful in filling them.

“We bundle products - that could

be for hyperscale customers, or for all enterprise customers, who want to have a site for high-compute traffic but they also want to get close to the consumers at the edge. We can offer that all together, and in most markets that is unique.”

Looking forward, however, Weinreich is adamant that with more businesses shifting to the cloud, hyperscale will continue to be the dominant force in the data centre market.

“If we build our sites for the hyperscale markets, and catch that demand, we will prosper,” he finishes. “We believe that in the next five years that trend will continue, and that hyperscaling will still dominate growth. We are building for that market.

“We have been not just growing but doubling or tripling in the last two years.

In the next two or three years to come, it will be the same. The acceleration of what is being sold and demanded is mind-blowing. Will it last for another 20 years? I don’t know, no technology trend lasts forever.

“What we’re also seeing, though, is that the industry needs to build cheaper. There’s a cost pressure around building data centres and there’s a lot of innovation going on in the market to keep pushing down the costs per megawatt.”

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PEOPLE

EMPOWERIN DIGITAL JOURNEYS Microsoft and Accenture have a history of collaborating to help their clients achieve digital transformations. The Accenture Microsoft Business Group builds on that legacy

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ACCENTURE/MICROSOFT

NG

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PEOPLE

The demand for digital transformation, powered by the cloud, has never been greater”

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M

icrosoft and Accenture are both giants in their respective fields, of that there can be no doubt. But what many people probably don’t know about these industry titans is they have a close working relationship that goes back almost two decades.

Majority owned by Accenture, Avanade was founded in 2000

by Accenture LLP and Microsoft.

Since then, the joint venture has provided digital and cloud services, business technology and design-led experiences delivered through the power of people and the Microsoft ecosystem.

This collaboration is a long-lasting and significant one, with 34,000 professionals across 24 countries helping 4,000 clients around the world, helping companies such as Carlsberg, DNV GL, Fugro, Siemens and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation advance their digital transformation agenda.

In February this year, the companies expanded their tie-up, with the launch of the Accenture Microsoft Business Group. The group will bring together more than 45,000 dedicated professionals – the largest group of Microsoft solution experts in the world.

With new joint products and services built on Microsoft Azure, clients will

ACCENTURE/MICROSOFT

be able to engage customers in new ways, empower employees, reimagine operations and invent new products and services.

The Accenture Microsoft Business Group will be led by Emma McGuigan, senior managing director, Accenture, who has been with the company for more than 20 years in various technology leadership roles, while Adam Warby will continue to serve as the CEO of Avanade.

“The Accenture Microsoft Business Group is a major step forward in our decades-long relationship with Microsoft. It brings Accenture’s broad industry experience and transformation skills together with Microsoft’s powerful digital technologies and Avanade’s specialisation in the Microsoft ecosystem,” said Paul Daugherty,

Accenture’s chief technology & innovation officer and chairman of the Avanade board.

“The demand for digital transformation, powered by the cloud, has never been greater. We are bringing the leading capabilities of our companies together to meet this demand and deliver innovation to our clients.”

Speaking to Digital Bulletin, McGuigan says she is “very proud” to be taking the role and “excited for what’s to come”.

Reflecting on the history between the two organisations, she adds: “Accenture clients are also Microsoft clients and we’ve worked together for decades as we help them transform their businesses. We’ve also worked together closely through Avanade, our 18-year-old joint venture, which is arguably one of the most successful

BU I LDI NG ON SUCCESS

J udson Althof f, executive vice president , Worldwide Commercial B usiness at Microsof t

“Every company is becoming a digital company.

Building on our successful partnership with Accenture and Avanade, we will help customers fuel innovation at scale and lead their industries into the future. This is core to our mission to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more.”

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The Bulletin

HIGHLIGHTS

Rackspace appoints Kevin Jones as CEO

Rackspace has a new CEO. Kevin Jones, formerly of MV Transportation, has replaced Joe Eazor with immediate effect. Eazor served as CEO for less than two years but guided the managed cloud company through three acquisitions. Jones, who has also held senior roles at DXC Technology and HPE, led MV Transportation to the highest revenues in its 44-year history.

(24/04/19) MORE ON THIS STORY The Bulletin is our stream of the most relevant enterprise technology news, aggregated from highly-respected sources and packaged in a short, digestible format, delivering a simple yet indispensable read.

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

ACCENTURE/MICROSOFT

TR ANSITION I NG TO TH E CLOU D

Mark Dajani, CIO and SVP of Global Business Services at Carlsberg Group “Our digital programme is all about giving customers and consumers an even greater experience when they engage with Carlsberg and with our beers. We worked closely with Accenture, Microsoft and Avanade to transition our business-critical IT infrastructure to the Microsoft Azure public cloud. The transition covered more than 150 terabytes of data on 600 servers and 200 applications, serving more than 10,000 employees in our western European region. Moving to the cloud has given us more visibility into our IT operations and enabled us to accelerate innovation with artificial intelligence, DevOps and analytics.” joint ventures in our industry.

“Accenture and Avanade have delivered more than 35,000 Microsoft projects for more than 4,000 clients around the world. We’ve been named Microsoft Alliance Partner of the Year 14 times, and Accenture was just recently ranked number one by industry analyst firm HFS in their Top 10 for Microsoft AI Services 2019 report. The launch of the Accenture Microsoft Business Group builds on a strong foundation and long history of collaborating together.”

Addressing the group’s key objectives, MMcGuigan continues: “Our mutual clients are making strategic decisions

about their platform and are looking for help navigating their digital journey. At the same time, Microsoft is increasingly recognised as a leader in the enterprise space. This has created a significant new market opportunity for Accenture and Avanade to help clients on their digital journey. We’re working together at the highest levels on transformational market-shaping deals.

“The Accenture Microsoft Business Group will help enhance our collaboration and ability to co-create assets and industry solutions to help them with large-scale digital

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PEOPLE

TH I N KI NG DIGITAL

Paul Mason , CIO at Canada Mor tgage and Housing Corporation

“CMHC embarked on our technology and business transformation to enable our employees to better assist Canadians in meeting their housing needs. Our close partnership with Accenture and Avanade has allowed us to introduce a range of Microsoft solutions that are helping us to transform the customer and employee experience, create exciting new housing solutions, and support continuous innovation throughout our business. Thinking digital has been an important focus of our work in recent years, and technological advancement is a vital component of our company’s strategy going forward.”

Harnessing the power of data and AI is a big focus for our clients”

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ACCENTURE/MICROSOFT

Emma McGuigan

transformation opportunities. Our ambition is to grow the momentum of our industry-focused work with Microsoft on cloud and AI and build on the strength and scale of Avanade to meet increasing client demand.”

To assist organisations across all industries, the new group will emphasise helping clients migrate toAzure and effectively harness the power of data and AI, optimise Microsoft business processes with Microsoft Dynamics 365, and foster modern work and collaboration with Microsoft 365.

“Harnessing the power of data and AI is a big focus for our clients, so we’ll have a special emphasis on helping clients migrate to Microsoft Azure and effectively leverage data and applied AI,

optimise Microsoft business processes with Dynamics 365, and foster modern work and collaboration with Microsoft 365,” comments McGuigan.

There will be a clear distinction between the new group and Avanade, she says: “We will co-invest in functional and industry solutions based on Microsoft technologies, with a mission to provide clients with the most comprehensive set of services focused on user experience, analytics and AI, cloud, security, IoT and other critical areas.

“What will differentiate this group right from the outset is the ability to scale and deliver new technologies that drive exponential business outcomes for clients.”

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EVENTS EVENTS

DIGITAL BULLETIN ROUNDS UP THE INDUSTRY EVENTS THAT ARE WORTH CLEARING YOUR DIARY FOR…

07-09 MAY .NEXT CONFERENCE 2019 07-09 MAY, 2019 ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA The only conference dedicated to the latest in data centre and enterprise cloud technologies heads to Anaheim, California in May. With 60+ unique sessions to inspire and inform you, there is no better place to get educated on hyperconverged infrastructure, hybrid cloud, cloud automation, IoT and more. Hosted by Nutanix, some new sessions include a focus on data centre modernisation that explores deploying scalable petabyte-scale storage solutions for unstructured data and how machine learning will transform IT Ops. Guest speakers at this year’s event include actor and The Honest Co founder Jessica Alba, The Simpsons writer Mike Reiss and renowned explorer, fundraiser and author Sir Ranulph Fiennes OBE.

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MAY-JUNE

15-16 MAY THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION CONFERENCE

15-16 MAY, 2019 LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

The 2019 Digital Transformation Conference will be tackling the challenges of successful transformation head on and will feature a diverse set of tracks and streams to cover the entire digital ecosystem. The agenda for the two-day event will be built around the defining topics of the digital era: people and culture and how people come first in transformation projects; the digital workplace; customer experience; emerging technology and trends; digital product innovation and digital delivery. Attendees at last year’s conferences included the likes of Ocado, ASOS and Unilever, as well as tech behemoth IBM. Historically it has attracted delegates from across Europe, even stretching to the EMEA and APAC regions.

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EVENTS

16-18 MAY VIVA TECHNOLOGY 16-18 MAY, 2019 PARIS, FRANCE Viva Technology stands out for its ability to bring together startups and established companies, providing a one-of-a-kind platform where professionals can do business and where the general public can preview new products and see how technology will impact the future. Viva Technology returns with its fourth edition and it’s bigger and better than ever: more space, more startups, more innovations, and more opportunities to grow your business and accelerate your digital transformation. Over 100,000 people will attend in the French capital, with guest speakers set to include Samsung’s Chief Strategy Officer Young Sohn, Tencent’s SY Lau and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov.

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MAY-JUNE

20-21 MAY GARTNER CIO & IT EXECUTIVE SUMMIT (EMEA) 20-21 MAY, 2019 MUNICH, GERMANY CIOs will see the use of digitalised products and services drive new forms of growth. New sources of revenue, business value and opportunities to engage with customers and citizens require CIOs to lead their organisations to the next level. Gartner CIO & IT Executive Summit prepares CIOs for their new job as a growth leader. Topics covered include how digitalisation and technological innovation are changing the job of the CIO, how the CIO role is transitioning from delivery executive to business executive and technology trends such as cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI). Key Gartner personnel will deliver addresses at May’s event, while other notable speakers include Evonik Group CIO Dr. Bettina Uhlich and Volkswagen’s Director of Group IT Labs André Radon.

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EVENTS

20-23 MAY INTEROP19 20-23 MAY, 2019 LAS VEGAS, NEVADA Interop’s goal is to provide a vendorneutral educational environment that provides real insight into the best IT practices and strategies for your enterprise. It has no products to pitch and no forced agenda to push - except to help you uncover the best solutions possible, regardless of platform or ecosystem. You’ll hear from industry thought leaders as well as peers experiencing the same challenges you are, making your takeaways practical and actionable.

Hosted at The Mirage in Las Vegas, Interop will have summits, workshops and sessions covering every topic imaginable. It counts the likes of Apple, Dell EMC and Microsoft among the list of previous attendees.

WWW.INTEROP.COM

29-31 MAY AUGMENTED WORLD EXPO USA 29-31 MAY, 2019 SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA AWE is the world’s most high-profile AR+VR conference and expo, with annual dates in the USA, Asia, Israel and Europe, as well as meetup chapters around the world. The tenth anniversary of AWE will take place in Santa Clara. This year’s event will be the biggest and most experiential conference and expo yet, with worldclass speakers, groundbreaking ideas, and real-life use cases. Learn how startups are creating solutions and organisations are using AR & VR to drive economic growth, encourage empathy and collaboration and democratise healthcare and education. AWE brings together a diverse mix of CEOs, CTOs, designers, developers, creative agencies, futurists, analysts, investors, founders and top press to learn, inspire, partner, and experience first-hand one of the most exciting industries of our times.

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MAY-JUNE

04-06 JUN DATACLOUD GLOBAL CONGRESS 2019 04-06 JUNE, 2019 MONACO Datacloud Global Congress is now entering its 16th year as the premier leadership summit for critical IT infrastructure. Over the past 15 years, this event has evolved as a recognised beacon of high quality content offering thought leadership across the entire IT infrastructure ecosystem. Datacloud has performed a critical role as an international networking and deal making opportunity for key players across the sector. With a powerful agenda covering cloud challenges, edge evolution and data centre infrastructure, it attracts investors, financiers, business leaders and their customers who use this annual meeting in the stunning backdrop of Monte Carlo to do deals that influence outcomes for the next 12 months and beyond.

10-14 JUN LONDON TECH WEEK 10-14 JUNE, 2019 LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM A series of mini-events covering every angle of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, London Tech Week unites tech and talent in a world-class hub of innovation. The UK continues to innovate as a worldwide cuttingedge technology centre. As one of the world’s most open & welcoming markets, it is positioned to lead the global conversation in designing and scaling technology, with talent at its heart. The week-long bonanza connects international communities from across the spectrum to address how access to technology for all can have a profoundly positive impact in society and business. Leading the speaker list this year is ASOS CTO Bob Strudwick, Twitter’s Bruce Daisley and Hyperoptic CEO Dana Tobak.

LONDONTECHWEEK.COM

WWW.DATACLOUDCONGRESS.COM

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EVENTS

17-19 JUN DIGITAL WORKPLACE EXPERIENCE 17-19 JUNE, 2019 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS DWX19 is the premier digital workplace conference, produced by Simpler Media Group, publisher of CMSWire.com, in partnership with the Digital Workplace Group. During this three-day conference, DWX attendees have the unique opportunity to see inside the world’s most successful digital workplaces.

Discover the latest trends, best practices and research and deep dive into real digital workplaces through engaging workshops, Innovation Spotlights, case studies and live tours. Whether your focus is employee experience, collaboration, communications, intranets or digital workplace tools, DWX will give you the latest on modern digital workplace trends.

WWW.DWEXPERIENCE.COM

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MAY-JUNE

27-28 JUN INNOVEST UNBOUND 27-28 JUNE, 2019 MARINA BAY SANDS, SINGAPORE The award-winning Innovfest Unbound is the anchor event of Smart Nation Innovations, a week-long series of events that showcase Asia’s most innovative developments. In 2019, it will welcome over 15,000 entrepreneurs, brands, corporations, investors and tech startups from 100+ countries to meet and share new ideas, build partnerships and celebrate digital disruption. In partnership with Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), Innovfest Unbound is organised by NUS Enterprise and Unbound and is Southeast Asia’s largest and most exciting innovation festival. Co-chaired by Yossi Vardi and Lily Chan, it is the place where brands connect with disruptive innovation and explore Asian opportunities.

UNBOUND.LIVE/INNOVFEST-UNBOUND

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THE CLOSING BULLETIN

THE CLOSING BULLETIN In a column exclusive to Digital Bulletin, Mellanox’s vice president of software Amit Krig explains why the route to digital transformation must involve machine learning and real-time monitoring of an intelligent, automated network

D

igital transformation is described as “the fourth industrial revolution” because it is changing business, government

and the world.

Traditional business functions are being broken into independent microservices that can be deployed across the whole organisation, building

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a library of re-usable service modules that expands and updates in real-time as the business environment evolves.

Should e-signatures be replaced by palm scans, the update should be automatically propagated across the entire business. Changes that could take weeks become almost immediate.

Network agility is vital to this ongoing evolution.

AMIT KRIG

A NETWORK OF FUNCTIONS We used to think of a network connecting physical locations; better now to think of it connecting, and shaping itself to, applications. No more separation into hierarchical silos – connections must run horizontally across the organisation, with everything connected to everything else, in order to harvest and communicate the accumulating wealth of data.

Stocktaking, for example, is no longer a weekly task for people with clipboards.

It is an automated function updated in real-time by Internet of Things (IoT) chips on every shelved item. Customer choices and buying patterns are registered and recorded along with payment details and other data. When IoT includes phones, cars, surveillance cameras, sensors, control systems and more, it generates exabytes of data.

Knowledge is power but unstructured data is simply a burden. A “mountain of data” describes it well, because the mountain can be mined for nuggets of knowledge. Human intelligence is a masterful miner of all the data receivable by human senses – we would instantly recognise that CA, Cal

and California all mean the same thing in an address. But this natural human ability to recognise these similarities belies the sophisticated intelligence required to parse and analyze such data. Even a relatively well-defined source such as click data from websites still needs to be massaged into consistency by specialist data scientists because similar data from different users comes in many different formats according to the platform.

MINED BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE With the volume of data gathered through IoT, such human processing is no longer viable. To identify, correlate and then analyze all the data coming from our machines, we need other machines. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the key.

AI can no longer consist of programmed algorithms to tell it that CA, Cal and California all mean the same thing, let alone allow for human misspelling. AI has to evolve more rapidly; it has to teach itself, and that means machine learning – a process that depends upon comparing present data with past and comparable data, looking for meaningful patterns and

AI has to evolve more rapidly; it has to teach itself, and that means machine learning” 85 Issue 4

THE CLOSING BULLETIN

Techniques developed by hyperscale cloud giants are now migrating to the enterprise, where distributed applications dominate.

At every level, automation is the key� learning what does and does not work.

Machine learning can only work if it has sufficiently rapid access to the data mountain, and so it depends critically on the performance and efficiency of the data centre and storage network.

PLAYING THE GAME At the recent GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California,

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Nvidia Corp announced a partnership to allow online games to be streamed over tomorrow’s 5G networks.

Nvidia builds graphics chips that make video games more realistic. Now the company is putting those same chips inside servers in data centres so that gamers can stream games from the data centre without needing to buy the most expensive hardware. Instead,

AMIT KRIG

it is processed in the cloud. One “pod” of these graphics cards can support ten thousand streaming gamers at once.

This again will generate a massive amount of network bandwidth, requiring utterly reliable real-time responsiveness if it is to satisfy skilled gamers.

HOW IS THIS ACHIEVED? Evolving microservices, massive amounts of IoT data being received and processed using artificial intelligence – these are some of the pressures facing today’s data centres.

So how are their operators preparing for this future?

The report ‘Untold Secrets of the Efficient Data Centre’ summarises a recent survey of over 200 high level data centre professionals across China, USA and the UK to find answers.

It revealed a significant shift from the practice of adding greater processing power and more servers to optimise data centre performance.

Instead, the network is now seen as a key performance driver. Building intelligence into the network itself is taking an enormous load off servers that have been responsible not only for application support but also for a host of virtual network functions.

84% of respondents thought network infrastructure was either “very important” or “important” to supporting artificial intelligence and machine learning.

The report shows how the very techniques developed by hyperscale cloud giants are now migrating to the enterprise, where distributed applications dominate. At every level, automation is the key: automating the collection of data via the Internet of Things; automating the mining of that data; and automating the network itself to support all these functions in real time.

Hyperautomated connectivity is the nervous system that brings the parts into one intelligent and responsive whole.

Amit Krig has served as Mellanox’s vice president of software since October 2013. Previously, he was Mellanox’s vice president of solution validation and programme management from March 2012 to October 2013. Krig joined Mellanox in 2000 as a software engineer, holding numerous roles including software development, solution validation, post-silicon programme management and customer project management. Prior to Mellanox, he worked at Intel Corporation.

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