www.governmenttechnology.co.uk | VOLUME 9.1
DIGITAL BRITAIN MOBILE & FLEXIBLE INFORMATION WORKING
DATA CENTRES What does the future hold?
MANAGEMENT Please visit www. government technology.co.uk for the latest news and events
LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES – Showcase of technology supported workplace learning
Analysys Mason is the world’s premier advisor in telecoms, IT and media We support regional and national public sector organisations worldwide delivering innovative and wide-ranging consultancy services. Please see our overview of selected projects below. Department of Health – Ambulance Radio Programme Analysys Mason is the lead technical consultant for the Department of Health, delivering the Ambulance Radio Programme (ARP) nationally. The ARP is providing NHS ambulance services with a new digital radio network and associated communications services, including a managed service for the radio terminals, integrated communications control systems, and mobile data applications.
Analysys Mason is proud to be listed on various frameworks such as:
Buying Solutions
East Midlands Development Agency – development of a comprehensive ICT toolkit EMDA commissioned a comprehensive ICT toolkit to ensure that new property developments of all sizes are planned, designed and built with ICT in mind, based on established best practice. Analysys Mason developed the toolkit, which provides guidance for the development of high-specification ICT locations that are commercially viable, environmentally sound, and beneficial to the community.
Jamaican Ministry of National Security – critical infrastructure for voice and data Analysys Mason has been working with Jamaica’s Ministry of National Security to overhaul its communications infrastructure. Since 2001 we have been assisting the Ministry in the creation of a new network to support the Jamaican Constabulary Force (JCF) and the country’s armed forces, the Jamaican Defence Force (JDF).
Telecom Networks Framework Agreement: Network Analysis and Billing Audit Services
Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Consultancy Framework
Department of Work and Pensions The Pygmalion Framework
Kirklees Metropolitan Council (KMC) - Assistance with Data Centre Development Analysys Mason has been working with the Council, providing strategic technology advice on a converged communications strategy - including data centre design - with a view to reducing costs and saving energy. KMC has the goal of creating a data centre that is radically innovative in its approach to energy efficiency and carbon reduction, which includes power and cooling strategies, virtualisation, best practice infrastructure, new data centre solutions and architectural designs.
Agreement for EDT (e-Delivery Team)
Olympic Delivery Authority Compete for 2012 Framework Contract
For more information about our service offerings and our landmark projects within the public sector, visit our Web site www.analysysmason.com or contact us on +44 (0)161 877 7808, enquiries@analysysmason.com
www.analysysmason.com
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Dear Reader,
gy.co.uk | VOLumE 9.1
hnolo www.governmenttec
The government has said it will provide super-fast broadband to 90 per cent of the UK by the end of 2017 but you will start paying for it now as the broadband tax was presented in the Chancellor’s pre-Budget report. INFORmATION
The £6-a-year levy will be imposed on all households with a fixed line phone. It is estimated that this will raise about £170m a year, still some way short of BT’s estimate of £5bn needed to provide super-fast fibre services to every UK home. The measure is controversial and the Conservatives have vowed to scrap the tax if they win the next general election. Where do you stand? Enjoy the issue.
mOBILE & FLEXIBLE mANAGEmENT DIGITAL BRITAIN WORKING
DATA CENTRES re hold? What does the futu
ology GIES – Showcase of techn LEARNING TECHNOLO
Please visit www. government technology.co.uk for the latest news and events
supported workplace
learning
editor@psp-media.co.uk
Government Technology Online If you would like to receive 12 issues of Government Technology magazine for £95 a year, please contact Public Sector Publishing, 226 High Road, Loughton, Essex IG10 1ET. Tel: 0208 532 0055, Fax: 0208 532 0066, or visit the Government Technology website at: P NEWS P FEATURES P PROFILES P CASE STUDIES P EVENTS P AND MORE
8 www.governmenttechnology.co.uk GT MAGAZINE PUBLISHED BY PUBLIC SECTOR PUBLISHING LTD 226 High Rd, Loughton, Essex IG10 1ET. Tel: 020 8532 0055 Fax: 020 8532 0066 EDITOR Sofie Lidefjard ASSISTANT EDITOR Angela Pisanu PRODUCTION EDITOR Karl O’Sullivan PRODUCTION CONTROLLER Reiss Malone PRODUCTION DESIGN Jacqueline Grist
MEMBER OF THE PERIODICAL PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
ADVERTISEMENT SALES Justine James, Luke Humphries, Jane Fraser, Sally Brockman PUBLISHER John O’Leary SALES ADMINISTRATION Jackie Carnochan, Martine Carnochan ADMINISTRATION Charlotte Casey, Victoria Leftwich GROUP PUBLISHER Barry Doyle REPRODUCTION & PRINT Argent Media
© 2009 Public Sector Publishing Limited. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any other means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Whilst every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the editorial content the publisher cannot be held responsible for errors or omissions. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the publisher. ISSN 1362 - 2541 THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
03
A practical strategy for transforming paper processes into connected government
Your roadmap to effective eGovernment
eGovernment initiatives not only facilitate enhanced services and cost savings, but also open the door to new challenges – from navigating paper-based processes to securing digital records.
Learn more about how EMC can help: http://uk.emc.com/government – Download our white paper “Solutions for National and Local Government”
EMC2, EMC, EMC SourceOne, and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. © Copyright 2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
CONTENTS GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY 9.1
07 NEWS 13 DIGITAL BRITAIN Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council has positioned itself as one of the leading local authorities to embrace the drive to provide increased public access to digital information
14 MOBILE & FLEXIBLE WORKING Five key pre-requisites for successfully developing and deploying mobile services for the public sector
23 DATA CENTRES Data Centre World is the largest free exhibition and conference for data centre professionals in the UK All public sector organisations urgently need to assess areas where wastage can be reduced, says 1E
The public sector is now addressing the huge task of re-orienting operations to reduce its carbon footprint What technologies will shape storage strategies today and tomorrow? A look at the biggest challenges facing data centres today
46 AUDIO VISUAL The use of video conferencing to power meetings is gaining momentum in the public sector
48 INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Is it carelessness or a lack of security awareness that’s a major cause of information security breaches?
52 FACILITIES MANAGEMENT Mention savings and all too often facilities services are the first port of call
55 EVENTS Learning Technologies is Europe’s leading showcase of organisational learning and the technology used to support learning at work For ePassports, advanced border control techniques, e-ID developments and document anti-counterfeiting, SDW 2010 will have an unparalleled line-up This year’s itSMF UK Conference included a great deal of innovative thinking during all the sessions The public sector showed a high commitment to sustainable computing at Green IT Expo 2009
8 www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
05
Most cost-saving proposals aren’t this far-reaching.
MLL Telecom brings you far-reaching communications networks, purpose-designed for the public sector. Challenge MLL to achieve the most from your next network upgrade at the lowest possible cost: contact us today at enquiries@mlltelecom.com
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
Internet safety to be taught to 5-year olds s part of a wide-ranging series of measures children from the age of five will be taught about internet safety in the classroom, including a new ‘online green cross code’. Ministers hope that making the lessons a compulsory part of the primary school curriculum for the first time will help tackle cyber-bullying and the online grooming of children by paedophiles. Instead of urging young people to ‘stop, look and listen’ the new code will instead advise them to ‘zip it, block it, flag it’. The message is a call to children to be careful not to reveal personal information online, to block e-mails or approaches from unknown people or sites and to report anything suspicious. The announcement comes as a new survey reveals that almost one in five children say that they have seen harmful or inappropriate images while surfing the internet. Many also said that their parents do not know what they do online. Gordon Brown’s three-year-old son
A
he Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has launched an online consultation on a new draft code of practice, which will provide organisations with a practical and common sense approach to protecting individuals’ privacy online. The new draft guidance explains how the law applies and calls on organisations to give people the right degree of choice and control over their personal information, for instance by giving them clear privacy choices or making it easier for people to erase their personal information at the end of a browsing session. Christopher Graham, Information
NEWSINBRIEF One place website launched Oneplace, the reporting website for Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA), is now live. The site includes independent information about how councils, police, health services and others are tackling the major issues in every area in England. The Oneplace website information and judgments have been made jointly by the Care Quality Commission, Ofsted, the Audit Commission and Her Majesty’s Inspectorates of Constabulary, Prisons and Probation. In a joint statement, the inspectorates said: “Oneplace is for those who pay for local services, those who provide them, and those who depend on them. This is 21st-century accountability, based on expert assessments of what services do for people, not how they are organised. “The website offers a way of checking the effectiveness of public spending and helps people hold those who provide publicly funded services to account for their decisions.” The website can be found at www.direct.gov.uk/oneplace
recently posted a gobbledegook message on Sarah Brown’s Twitter account while she was out of the room.
ICO urges organisations to give individuals more privacy choices T
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Commissioner, said: “People should have control over what happens to their personal information online whether it’s correcting inaccuracies, deleting profiles or choosing the privacy settings that suit them.” Iain Bourne, head of Data Protection Projects, said: “The draft code of practice explains a difficult area of the law and provides practical advice on a range of online privacy issues. It urges organisations to do more to explain what they do with the information they collect about people and to make sure they use it in line with individuals’ wishes.”
£30m to help 1m take part in Digital Britain The UK government has announced £30 million for UK online centres in order to get another one million people online by 2012.In a speech at the Royal Society of Arts, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: “Our aim is - within the next five years - to shift the great majority of our transactional services to become online only. This has the potential to save as a first step £400m but as transaction after transaction goes online billions more. “But in order to achieve our ambitions for this third generation of public services we must ensure that no-one in Britain is left behind” It is estimated that around 10 million Britons have never touched a computer.
The National Archives makes broken links a thing of the past Broken links will soon be a thing of the past for UK government websites, as The National Archives launches its Web Continuity project. The first of its kind anywhere in the world, the project has already enabled millions of people using government websites to find information that would previously have been lost through broken web links. If someone clicks on a link that is no longer live, redirection software being installed by government departments will automatically take them to where the information they need is held in the web archive. Currently, the service is leading to more than six million redirected hits a month. To date six central government departments together with The National Archives have installed the necessary redirection software.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
07
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
Government ICT spend reaches a plateau, says report ublic sector spending on ICT is set to stabilise over the next five years, but changing demands will create new opportunities for suppliers. New research from Kable shows that while is government is placing the brakes on the spending surge of recent years, the drives for efficiency and radical changes in service provision will open up new areas of growth. The UK public sector ICT overview and forecast to 2014/15 projects overall spending at £1.66bn in 2009/10, with the prospect of a series of marginal increases to hit £1.72bn in 2014/15.
P
The main internal shifts will involve a contraction of how much central government spends in the field, offset by continued growth for healthcare while changes in other areas will be marginal. Collaborative procurement, falling prices, small cuts in outsourcing and a move to extend the life cycles of equipment will reduce spending on hardware and ICT services. But investment in software and telecommunications will increase as organisations try to improve their processes through greater collaboration, standardisation and use of mobile technology.
New tool looks at how topical issues are discussed online ww.Tweetminster.co.uk, the service that allows people to follow MPs and UK politics on Twitter, has launched a real time sentiment search engine that measures the pulse of UK politics in real time, which will be used by Sky News today to track online positivity, neutrality and negativity surrounding the Pre-Budget Report. The search engine can be found at www.search.tweetminster.co.uk and shows the most influential people discussing the topic you search and more. If you search for the term ‘Gordon Brown’, you’ll see the frequency of references online looking over recent months, when people were most
w
discussing Gordon Brown online, why they were discussing Gordon Brown (looking at headlines around the time of the peak), how people ‘feel’ about the topic at different times (using a metric which measures whether or not the mentions were positive, neutral or negative) and the ‘reach’, or the amount of people who have tweeted or potentially seen tweets related to the topic. The topics you search for do not have to be politics related, for instance if you searched for an X Factor contestant – you could see how people using Twitter ‘felt’ about that contestant, and could look at how that person may fare.
Pupils at a London secondary school get free iPhone upils at a London secondary school have been given iPhones to test applications for education. A group of 30 pupils in years seven to 11 at Gumley House Convent School in Hounslow have begun to use the phones in class for the next seven months. The smartphones come loaded with a £15 credit that will allow them to download apps that will help them learn. The initiative is a part of a study to understand the potential of using the iPhone as a teaching aid.
P
Facebook is not allowed during classes and the phone volume must be off all the time, according to assistant headteacher, Stephen Byrne. He also added that that spot-checks were performed regularly to see what the students are downloading. iTunes vouchers will be given away to students who contribute the most by providing constructive data for the study which is being performed by Michael Gibson from Kingston University.
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
NEWSINBRIEF £48 million broadband boost to Northern Ireland The government in Northern Ireland has announced plans to connect 85 per cent of the country’s businesses to high speed broadband by 2011. The investment of £48 million was announced by the Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster who said: “At a time of economic slowdown when private sector companies are scaling down their investments, this multi-million pound injection in our infrastructure could indirectly create up to 1,000 additional jobs per annum.” The move has been funded by almost £30 million from BT and the remaining £18 million from the Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment, along with a number of European funds for the development of rural areas.
New organisation launched to help create digital Britain The Digital Systems Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) has been set up by the Technology Strategy Board to bring together business, academia, and government to drive technology innovation and create wealth for the UK. The Digital Systems KTN is led by experts in distributed computing, cyber security and satellite navigation. The KTN will create links between organisations to address technology issues such as intelligent transport, cloud computing, smart metering and mobile data access. It will stimulate knowledge sharing and break down business walls that prevent advances in technology. For example it could put academics carrying out the latest research on GPS services in touch with product developers and companies who know how to assure these services are provided in a scalable and secure way on the internet. The Digital Systems Knowledge Transfer Network will host conferences and online meetings, provide members with guidance on funding sources and allow them influence on future policy decisions. The Digital Systems KTN builds on the success of three existing knowledge transfer networks – Grid Computing Now!, Cyber Security, and Location and Timing – which have come together to form the new network.
More drivers ignoring mobile phone laws Motorists are now more likely to illegally use their mobile phones while driving than they were before tougher penalties were introduced to curb the practice, according to a study. New research from the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) shows that the number of people using their mobiles while driving has doubled in the past two years. Females under 30 (17-29) are the most likely offenders in their gender group, while for men, the worst culprits are those aged 30-59.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
09
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
DIGITAL BRITAIN
BARNSLEY GOES DIGITAL Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council becomes one of the lead local authorities in South Yorkshire to deploy the first universally accessible superfast broadband network in the UK of-the-art data centre in Barnsley because we see the business opportunities being created as the borough embraces digital technology. This is a pioneering partnership that has attracted much attention from other UK councils who now have the ability to utilise and benefit from the data centre facilities established. For Barnsley, this will help support local skills enhancement, community regeneration as well as the digital agenda to get people online.”
New Barnsley Digital Media Centre
BARNSLEY METROPOLITAN BOROUGH Council (BMBC) positioned itself as one of the leading local authorities to embrace the drive to provide increased public access to digital information. It has achieved this through the recent launch of a number of digital initiatives including Totally Online Barnsley, the Barnsley launch of Digital Region and the opening of the Bull TCL Data Centre. These initiatives have received endorsement from digital inclusion champion, Martha Lane Fox, who launched the Race Online 2012 Programme. As a visitor to the Barnsley national launch of ‘Get Online Day’, Martha Lane Fox commented: “Barnsley really is embracing the digital inclusion agenda with the launch of these initiatives. In the UK one in every four people still don’t use the internet and unfortunately it’s the people facing the toughest times who could actually benefit the most from what technology has to offer – from saving money to finding information that could make their lives easier and cheaper. Barnsley is a fantastic example of how communities can benefit from being online and has clearly demonstrated that through innovation, forward thinking and engaging in good public-private partnerships, the goals of digital inclusion can be achieved.” INCLUDING EVERYONE Totally Online Barnsley is part of a South Yorkshire-wide Making IT Personal project, which is supported by £1.5 million of European funding and £1.5 million from the UK Government. The project has set ambitious targets to get everyone in the borough online and using computers by 2012. “It’s a case of making technology readily
available and educating people so that they understand what the internet can offer them,” explains Phil Coppard, Barnsley Council chief executive. “Plus by providing support and training this will give individuals the confidence and skills needed to help navigate the digital world.” Barnsley recently played host to the official Get Online Day flagship event, which was split across two UK online centre venues – Royston Community Learning Centre and Barnsley Central Library. This was the first of more than 700 other Get Online Day events that will take place at online centres across the UK. NEW DATA CENTRE To support the technology infrastructure requirements of this project, BMBC has worked in partnership with Bull, which has invested in a new state-of-the art data centre, the official opening of which coincided with the Get Online Day. The data centre is one of the outcomes from joint venture company, Bull TCL, which was formed by Barnsley and Bull in 2006 to manage the council’s information technology operations and to compete for IT support contracts in the wider world. The data centre now provides a cost-effective, reliable and secure ICT infrastructure which has laid the foundations for improvements in both council services and further economic development in the borough. To date successes include substantial cost and energy savings under the government’s efficiency agenda as well as the securing of commercial contracts worth several million pounds. Commenting at the launch of the data centre, Didier Lamouche, chairman and CEO of Bull, stated: “Bull has invested in this new, state-
LEAD AUTHORITY The drive for digital inclusion has meant that BMBC is one of the four South Yorkshire lead local authorities in Digital Region in deploying the first universally accessible superfast broadband networks in the UK. It will cover 97 per cent of South Yorkshire’s domestic and business properties, placing it at the forefront of digital technologies. The high speed network is being built by Digital Region in partnership with Thales UK. Digital Region is a wholly owned by Yorkshire Forward and the four local authorities of South Yorkshire, which attracted investment of over £90 million, including £30 million from the European Region Development Fund. The high-speed service is seen as vital to developing the region’s economy as the Digital Region network will also attract inward investment and enable the delivery of more effective public services. The network will be available in some areas from early next year and completed in 2012. Once in place the network will bring a broadband service with speeds in the region of 25Mbit/s to 550,000 homes, 40,000 businesses and 1.3 million people in Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield. BMBC is in the process of recruiting 21 unemployed people to be trained as digital outreach trainers. They will work with their communities to help people get online and maximise the opportunities the digital world offers. Further commenting on these digital initiatives Lane Fox said: “Through the robust infrastructure that has been developed, the local people of Barnsley are already taking advantage of the technology on offer. There are some really inspirational stories here, which just reaffirm the fact that the internet can open up new opportunities that help both individuals and communities. I hope these innovative projects inspire other councils to follow in their footsteps.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION Web: www.barnsley.gov.uk www.bull.com
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
13
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
MOBILE & FLEXIBLE WORKING
WHAT’S YOUR MOBILE STRATEGY? Anuj Khanna, CEO of Wireless Expertise, shares his five top tips for developing successful mobile services in the public sector
14
IN THE WORDS OF DONALD RUMSFELD: “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.” Rumsfeld’s statement perfectly applies to the wireless sector where there is lack of consumer information and measurable metrics which can lead to confusion. That said, it is universal and also resonates with the current state of our economy where there are many unknown unknowns. The best way to build a mobile service is to start with the “known knowns”, learning from the collective experience of early adopters. Let me introduce you to five key pre-requisites for successfully developing and deploying mobile services for the public sector.
Brew and Symbian may sound like terms from outer space but they are actually the names of different development platforms and standards for developing mobile applications. Understandably, the range and diversity of mobile platforms can lead to confusion and distinctly different user experiences. In addition, the penetration of mobile computing devices (smart phones) is currently less than ten per cent and therefore developing rich applications is only appropriate when you know you are deploying within a closed group of council workers or contractors who have access to smart phones. However, if you are looking to introduce applications to a wider audience, you need to have a multi-channel strategy which includes mobile portals, SMS and Voice. Mobile services need to be easy to use and should be accessible for the entire spectrum of consumers.
ACCESSIBILITY All mobile phones do not have the same capabilities and while developing mobile services it is important that they can be accessed by the maximum number of citizens and stakeholders. Mobile phones today have different screen sizes, network connectivity standards, operating systems and multimedia capabilities. Android,
As people become increasingly happy to use the Internet to communicate with public sector bodies and perform transactions, so the mobile platform is the natural next step
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
INTERACTIVITY Very often you see mobile services which are mere miniaturised brochures with too much unnecessary information and brand rhetoric. These are normally well intentioned, but misplaced, ideas from companies who think: “Wouldn’t it be great if our customers could access our website and brochures on their mobile phone?” The answer: “Yes and No.” This was a good idea in the year 1999 when Y2K projects meant innovation was on the back burner and the Millennium Dome was heralded as the best place to welcome in the 21st Century. However, we are in 2009, maybe 2010 by the time you are reading this article, and times have changed drastically. The whole idea about building contemporary mobile services is to take advantage of interactive features such as messaging, location, audio, video and connectivity that modern devices offer.
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
MOBILE & FLEXIBLE WORKING
We need to take a holistic view of what we can offer and always bear in mind while building mobile services that they should be interactive and designed for regular usage. SUSTAINABILITY In the age of quantitative easing, there are no easy, quick-fix solutions for individual citizens, local councils and other public sector organisations, all of whom will be feeling the pinch. The fact is that we are all labouring under a sharp cost-cutting axe, with the public sector in particular subject to substantial budget cuts. Fortunately, mobile connectivity can enable flexible working practices that will easily help in cutting costs and improving efficiency. It is important that public sector mobile services are supported by achievable return on investments and a strong business case, which is desirable, measurable and sustainable.
candidate who had actually turned up for a job interview in the BBC IT department. Needless to say, his thoughts on the forthcoming court case proved less than illuminating. This type of hastily made mistake is not a one off case; I have regularly seen private and public sector organisations selecting vendors with little or no experience in the mobile sector to develop their services. Specialist creative, marketing and technical expertise is vital to build successful mobile services. While selecting suppliers, always ask for case studies, references and consult industry associations such as the Mobile Data Association to compare suppliers.
mobile services for the 2012 Olympics, but what will happen after that? Are we going to transfer these services in a container to Rio De Janeiro for 2016? The public sector needs to take a long-term view of how flexible and mobile working can deliver value to citizens and solve real world problems. We need to develop an integrated mobile strategy which is accessible, interactive, credible, sustainable and evolutionary according to the changing needs of our society. If you bear these five principles in mind when deploying mobile services within your organisation, you’ll end up with a much more successful and effective outcome. As people become increasingly happy to use the Internet to communicate with public sector bodies and perform transactions, so the mobile platform is the natural next step. Not only will your stakeholders become comfortable with mobile services, but they will come to demand the ability to use their mobiles to carry out vital transactions. When this day arrives, those who have invested in robust mobile services that meet the principles set out here.
LONGEVITY We can all agree that, in this climate of constant innovation and technical marvels, no new development will stand still for long. They will all be usurped one way or another over time – and this is the backbone of our digital economy. EXPERTISE However, building campaign-based mobile You may have heard about the famous mistaken services with a short shelf life which become identity case where the BBC conducted a live obsolete immediately on launch is inexcusable. TV interview with a certain Mr. Guy Goma from Mobile Services built on weak foundations and Congo about an impending Apple court case. without a long-term vision are the very thing In fact, the researchers had meant to introduce that can give an exciting, powerful burgeoning 02 Business Audio ad_GovGuy Technology:Layout 1 4/12/09 16:02 Page 1 respected technology commentator new technology an undeserved bad name. Kewney but had mistakenly selected a nervous We are hearing a lot of chatter about
FOR MORE INFORMATION Web: www.wirelessexpertise.com
Transform the way you dictate, transcribe and create documents with the latest stand-alone digital dictation solutions from Olympus - generating efficiency savings, delivering cost savings and improving productivity. Seamlessly integrating digital dictation and transcription: the professional solutions to enhance your workflow. DS-5000 / DS-5000iD Digital Voice Recorder
Dictation Module
USB Cable
Text Files DR-1000 Digital Voice Recorder
Transcription Module
T: 01943 468000 E: info@voicepower.co.uk www.voicepower.co.uk
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
Job no.: 0899-02 Client: Olympus Product: Audio products Publication: Government Technology Size: 178 (w) x 125 (h) mm with NO bleed Supply: Hi-res Pass4Press pdf Date of prep: December 2009
Enhancing workflow, delivering efficiency and cost savings
15
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
MOBILE & FLEXIBLE WORKING
BLACKBURN CLEANS UP WITH THE HELP OF SPIRIT Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council teams up with Spirit Data Capture to upgrade its handheld devices WHEN COLLECTING IMPORTANT data in the field, it’s often the little things that are important – such as a rugged device with a readable screen and a good battery life. Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council recently needed to upgrade its handheld devices to capture environmental cleanliness data. It sought advice from Spirit Data Capture, which recommended the M3 from M3 Mobile. Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council is a Unitary Authority based in Lancashire. The council is responsible for a mixture of urban and rural areas – with a total of 60,000 residences and 140,000 residents. The authority works in close partnership with Keep Britain Tidy, an environmental charity that spearheads England’s nationwide anti-litter campaign. An important part of its work is NI 195 – an initiative developed to provide a National Indicator for Cleanliness. This aims to improve the levels of street and environmental cleanliness in England. RELIABLE SOLUTION To monitor cleanliness levels effectively, the Borough Council needed an accurate and reliable method of capturing data. Its existing handheld devices had a limited capability and couldn’t cope with the demands of NI 195 as well as District Local Environmental Quality data changes. ICT Systems Technician, Louise Kidney, explains: “The units’ screens were large, but their visibility in sunlight was non-existent and their battery life was getting worse. There was no in-built GPS, so the devices couldn’t consistently send connection requests any more. This prompted us to start looking at other options. “The most important requirement was a battery life of more than six hours, as our surveys often last for about eight hours. Screen visibility was also vital, as the operators use the devices in both full sunlight and low cloud cover. The unit needed to be light, with a good ergonomic design, and very rugged. “Some of our other criteria included in-built GPS and USB connectivity. The devices needed to be within our budget. If the costs weren’t too prohibitive, we also wanted 3G capabilities (to future-proof the devices for mobile working across the borough) and an in-built camera.” Keep Britain Tidy works closely with Spirit Data Capture Limited, an independent consultancy specialising in mobile computing and data capture solutions. The organisation suggested that the Borough Council should contact Spirit for advice on the possible options. Louise continues: “We asked Spirit to show
16
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
us a range of rugged mobile solutions. Spirit’s sales representative was brilliant and brought three different options. This enabled us to make an assessment for ourselves, based on our requirements. In the end, we spent £1,500 less than we had anticipated!” The model chosen was the M3 from M3 Mobile – a light, very rugged and slim Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). It has very fast processing speeds and is GPS-enabled. It comes with a range of options, including an 802.11b/g (WLAN) radio, GSM/GPRS; Bluetooth radio; and a colour camera. It has a large, easily visible colour TFT-LCD touch screen display and a long lasting, removable and rechargeable lithium polymer battery. FEATURES Louise reports: “We really like the M3. It has good screen visibility, and the surveyors are able to control brightness and contrast. The GPS locks on quickly and the camera enables the operators to help other service areas while they are surveying, by reporting problems and emailing pictorial evidence. We also like its 3G capability. It’s very intuitive, because it mimics the desktop Windows operating system.” The M3s are used for surveying transects three times a year for the NI 195 programme. Each transect is a 50 metre stretch of road or grass, and a total of 300 transects across five wards are surveyed each time. This takes two to three weeks, with two people carrying out the survey.
Keep Britain Tidy’s specialist software was loaded onto the new devices, enabling the Borough Council to collect the data needed for the National Indicator programme. The surveyors complete a form on the M3 for each transect, noting the location of the transect and its GPS co-ordinates, and grading it for litter, detritus, fly posting and graffiti. EASE OF USE Louise continues: “The surveyors are very happy with the M3s. They can see the screens properly, so they don’t accidentally miss the entry data. The tapping interface for text is easy to use and very responsive, so they now enter data that they didn’t before. This makes it easier for me to process the data and get something useful from it. Overall, the ease of use and responsiveness of the M3 has reduced the amount of time it takes to survey a transect.” She concludes: “Spirit have been very helpful throughout. Their after-sales support is excellent as well. Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council prides itself on quality of service. It’s good to find this in our suppliers as well, so we would definitely consider using Spirit again.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION Contact: Katrina Evans Tel: 01928 718800 E-mail: katrina@spiritdatacapture.co.uk Web: www.spiritdatacapture.co.uk
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
MOBILE & FLEXIBLE WORKING
SPIRIT HELPS WDH TO MANAGE ITS MOBILE DEVICES When Wakefield and District Housing wanted greater control over its devices, it selected MobiControl from Spirit Data Capture for improved functionality MobiControl is an advanced Device Management, Helpdesk and Security solution for mobile and desktop computing devices. Built on award-winning technology, it offers a rapid and reliable performance over any network, for any size of deployment. Wendy carried out an Internet search and found that it was distributed in the UK by Spirit Data Capture. She says: “We opted for MobiControl because it’s easy to use, is logical and doesn’t require a huge amount of training. It’s intuitive and has great help pages for further information. Other solutions we explored just didn’t have the same level of functionality.” Spirit provided an online demonstration version of the MobiControl system, so that WDH could trial it for two months before installing it. It was subsequently installed on WDH’s server, and an agent (a piece of software) was also installed on a total of 120 PDAs. The agent sits on the device and monitors it, occasionally pushing data back to the server. The ICT department received support from Spirit at every stage of the installation process. THE USE OF MOBILE DATA CAPTURE devices has become widespread across many areas of industry, commerce and government. However, organisations with large numbers of devices need to monitor them and troubleshoot any issues. This can lead to inefficiency and unnecessary costs, negating the benefits the devices bring. When Wakefield and District Housing wanted greater control over its devices, it selected MobiControl. This is a mobile device management solution developed by SOTI Inc. and supplied by independent consultancy, Spirit Data Capture Limited. Wakefield and District Housing (WDH) is the largest single housing stock transfer organisation and England’s fifth largest housing organisation. It is responsible for over 31,000 homes and employs some 1,400 people. It also manages over 50 sheltered housing schemes for elderly and vulnerable people. The ICT Department of WDH is responsible for maintaining and developing all of the organisation’s ICT systems. It is committed to developing software and services that will support the business and enhance its efficiency and effectiveness. This ensures that tenants receive the highest possible levels of service. Some time ago, the department developed a mobile solution for its field workers, with the aim of reducing waste and streamlining processes. It purchased a large number of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), which helped to eliminate the paper-based element of WDH’s
Responsive Repairs process. They are used by a wide range of operatives, including plasterers, gas engineers, plumbers, electricians and joiners. REDUCING THE NEED TO TRAVEL Wendy Popplewell, the department’s Business Analyst, explains: “The PDAs allow our operatives to manage their own work, so they no longer have to travel to a depot for their job tickets. They can ring the tenants to find out more information so that they can attend the repair with any parts that might be needed. “This in turn eliminated the need for them to go back and forth to stores and depots. They can arrange their schedule so that they can go to tenants who live in the same areas on the same day, achieving further fuel economies. “Unfortunately, if there was a problem with the PDA, the operative often had to travel back to the ICT department, eliminating some of the efficiencies that had been achieved by using the mobile devices. We therefore started looking for a solution – so that if there was an issue with the device’s software, the operatives wouldn’t have to return here.” SOURCING A SUITABLE SOLUTION The ICT department wanted a reliable level of remote access to the PDAs for troubleshooting purposes. It looked at several options, including MobiControl, a device management solution developed by a Canadian-based company, SOTI Inc.
THE END RESULT: GREATER EFFICIENCY Wendy continues: “We can now access our operatives’ PDAs remotely, which enables them to continue working even if they have an issue with their PDA. They no longer have to come back to headquarters – which could entail a 30 mile round trip. Because MobiControl allows us to manage the PDAs remotely, we can diagnose and resolve any faults. Now, only hardware problems have to come back to the ICT department.” MobiControl is also able to track users if necessary and can send a message to a device to ‘kill’ the application if the device is stolen. Wendy comments: “Although we don’t use MobiControl’s tracking facility to track our personnel, it has proved useful when PDAs have been lost or stolen.” She concludes: “MobiControl is excellent – it’s good value for money and is easy to install. We’ve had great support throughout from Spirit. They’ve provided a good followup service, they’ve been attentive and have always come back to me when I’ve had queries. We would be happy to use them again.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION Contact: Katrina Evans Tel: 01928 718800 E-mail: katrina@spiritdatacapture.co.uk Web: www.spiritdatacapture.co.uk
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
17
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
MOBILE & FLEXIBLE WORKING
THE LIFECYCLE OF A MOBILE PROJECT Julie Purves, Managing Director of B2M Solutions gives her top tips on how to get the most from your mobile solution across all stages of a mobile project lifecycle A CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT approach in a mobile project is the key to maximising profitability from your investment. This is particularly important for local authorities and public sector bodies where front-line staff deliver vital services to the public such as in healthcare and law enforcement. These highly complex mobile systems are now becoming even more multifaceted as the trend is to deliver multiple services at the point of contact with the public. In these situations, an increasing number of mobile workers will need access to mission critical data and therefore the mobile workflow and supporting infrastructure must be robust. Since no two organisations are alike, an iterative and scalable approach must be taken. So whatever stage your mobile project is at – whether planning and selection, deployment, ongoing management, measurement and analysis or optimisation – a strategy that encompasses a Mobile Project Lifecycle approach will enable you to add value to your services on an ongoing basis and provide for continuous improvement at every stage of the mobile project. The mobile lifecycle has five distinct phases with a number of key attributes at each stage: PLAN The planning phase of a mobile project is often concerned with the selection of devices, applications and networks. At this stage, a lifecycle approach will focus attention on both current and future requirements. For example, a future-proofed solution must provide for an ever increasing population of devices with diverse models from multiple manufacturers running multiple software applications. The main priority at this stage is that the concept of a project must be proved. This means you need to measure and compare performance of items such as device battery life, network coverage, application failures and level of helpdesk support required. Achieving the correct combination of device, application and suppliers, before mass deployment, will mean less ‘pain’ during deployment and lower ongoing support costs. DEPLOY The more efficiently and reliably a device population is rolled out, the quicker the
18
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
department will benefit from a mobile project. Rollouts need to be staged to ensure minimum disruption to your operations even if they include large scale deployments to multiple locations. Tools are now available for secure and efficient device commissioning and rollout, giving you granular control over all aspects of deployment. Alerts and monitors, delivered via RSS or Atom feeds, will enable deployments to be closely monitored without interrupting other important work.
MANAGE The management stage of the mobile lifecycle is where helpdesk tools come to the fore. A helpdesk armed with pro-active alerts and monitors can identify problems in the field and then deliver full remote management including problem diagnosis and resolution. It’s at this stage that you need to maximise the operational efficiency of the mobile project and therefore minimise ongoing costs. You need to know that your front-line staff are working as efficiently as possible and be confident that the mobile devices they rely on are performing optimally. Once the mobile deployment is running smoothly and efficiently, significant performance
gains can be made through the effective use of analytics and reporting systems. Tools can be applied to measure and analyse service levels to ensure they are aligned with both IT and departmental strategies. Sophisticated analytics and management reporting will enable you to review both macro and micro level views of the performance of a mobile enterprise such as device type, groups, locations, GPS co-ordinates, help desk statistics, suppliers, applications, networks, ROI, KPIs and performance against SLAs. OPTIMISE At regular points in the mobile project lifecycle, incremental business intelligence is required to identify best practice and ready the local authority for its next stage of growth. As an example, device utilisation charts can identify the time spent on certain tasks and the cost per user per hour tracked, or inefficiencies in the tasks highlighted. The performance of suppliers can also be measured, analysed and evaluated to establish their conformance to SLAs. The mobile market is developing at such a pace that new services are constantly emerging and these are often required to be delivered across wide territories. So when deploying a new solution, enhancing an existing project or embarking on a next generation deployment, a lifecycle management approach focused on continuous improvement will support maximising the immediate return as well as the reengineering of key processes. B2M Solutions specialises in managing the mobile enterprise – it’s modular and scalable mprodigy® software optimises the performance of the entire mobile project throughout the mobile lifecycle; maximising the productivity of the remote workforce and protecting the investment in a mobile estate.
FOR MORE INFORMATION www.b2m-solutions.com/lifecycle
Di sco un S Ca ec te ll u t dP s f or or ub th Pr e l ic l at i n es g ic t pr
ice
the
solid
advantage
s
PUBLIC SECTOR EXCLUSIVE OFFER!
FREE 3 Year On-site Warranty on the Phaser 8560 & 8560MFP
Greener printing in Education Solid ink adds value to schools, colleges and universities. It is the only printing technology that can create brilliant, vibrant prints on a wide range of media. It is the easiest technology on the market to use. It is the only technology that produces minimal waste. And, with a low entry price and cost per page, solid ink printers truly give education the most value for their money.
Xerox Phaser 8560
Xerox Phaser 8560MFP
A4 Solid Ink Printer
A4 Solid Ink Multifunction Printer
• 30ppm colour & mono print speed
• 30ppm colour & mono print speed
• 2400 FinePoint resolution
• 33.6Kbps Super G3 Fax Modem
• USB 2.0 & Network
• Network scanning and scan to email
• Automatic Duplex (optional on 8560N)
• Automatic Duplex (optional 8560MFP/N)
Claim £100 Trade-in
and donate some or all of the £100 to a charity to plant trees
From £345 ex vat £28 MINIMUM SAVING ON OUR WEB PRICES! 00
Claim £100 Trade-in
and donate some or all of the £100 to a charity to plant trees
From £959 ex vat £51 MINIMUM SAVING ON OUR WEB PRICES! 00
Authorised Reseller
web.www.printerbase.co.uk tel.0845 230 7234 email.info@printerbase.co.uk Colour Printers · Mono Printers · Multifunctions · Photo Printers · Mobile Printers · Dot Matrix · Fax Machines · Accessories · Consumables · Media All Trademarks acknowledged. Prices and offers subject to change without notice. All offers are only available to Xerox qualifying public sector organisation, offers featured here require a claim form to be correctly completed and submitted before the offer can be fulfilled by the Xerox. Offers end 31st January 2010 or while promotional stock lasts. All offers subject to terms & conditions which can be found at www.printerbase.co.uk. For detailed product or promotion information, see our website, call us on 0845 230 7234 or email info@printerbase.co.uk. E&OE.
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
MAXIMISING VALUE FROM ICT In the current financial climate and with increasing pressure to cut costs, demonstrating value for money from ICT services has never been more important. Tim Bollands from Mouchel’s management consulting business looks at how organisations can ensure maximum value from their ICT THE UK PUBLIC SECTOR IS FORECAST to spend a total of £19.4bn on ICT in 2009/2010. This represents around 3 per cent of planned spend for every public sector organisation or around £3,300 per employee. This pays for the ICT services provided by both internal ICT departments and external service providers; it covers major ICT capital projects tasked with developing new systems and services; and it includes a variety of consultancy and specialist advisory services. STRATEGY Taken individually, each of these costs can be managed to ensure value for money. A competitive procurement process will help to achieve the most economical price; managing suppliers and projects effectively will ensure they
means investment, and investment requires governance and informed decision-making from those at the very top of the organisation. Skilled resources, good project management, best practice development, exhaustive testing, effective business change and a focus on benefits are all essential ingredients for ensuring the money invested in new systems and services has been well spent. SERVICE DELIVERY Of course, the story does not stop there. Projects may successfully deliver new systems and new ways of working, but the ICT department and users still need to make them work. If it is well organised, the ICT department will follow best practice service and security management practices. It will
Individual instances of value for money do not necessarily add up to overall value for money for the organisation deliver on their promises; monitoring quality of service and customer satisfaction will allow service issues to be addressed; and identifying and eliminating unnecessary spend will reduce ICT costs with minimal impact upon value. Taken as a whole, however, individual instances of value for money do not necessarily add up to overall value for money for the organisation. Part of the reason for this is well known: the various components of the ICT estate need to fit within a coherent vision and strategy, otherwise one runs the risk of duplication, fragmentation, inoperability and obsolescence. It can be likened to building a house without a set of plans: you might get a good deal on the bricks or even complete rooms, but unless they all fit together nicely, there is no guarantee the house will offer good value or even be habitable. INVESTMENT Unfortunately, having a coherent ICT strategy is not enough; even one that is aligned with the corporate strategy and future needs of the organisation. It may sound obvious, but an ICT strategy needs to be implemented well, it needs enforcing and it needs to adapt continually as circumstances change. Implementation
20
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
be properly resourced and closely managed to ensure the quality of service matches the levels agreed with their customers. It will be pro-active in its management of risk, ensuring all the right elements are in place to deliver the performance, reliability and continuity of service expected by their users. To achieve all this, managers will strike the right balance between in-house and external service provision, with suitablyincentivised long-term partnership working. MAXIMISING BENEFIT Get all that right and you can be confident that your ICT service will provide the value for money expected by the taxpayer – yes? No. Value is not merely a function of the service provided; it depends also on how that service is used. Managers need to feel ownership of the systems provided, together with a real commitment to gaining maximum value out of them. Well-defined processes, clear guidance for users and effective controls over data quality are all good ways to ensure that systems are used in the way that enables maximum value. Above all, users of ICT systems and services must feel motivated to use the systems properly and ensure that the information
held is accurate, up to date and of the quality required by the organisation as a whole. The ability to gain overall value for money from ICT is not simply a question of procuring the right services at the best price. It is an organisational capability, encompassing all the factors mentioned above, and many more. The good news is that there is a lot of best practice guidance available covering many of these areas, and a lot of it is published for free by the government. The bad news is that an organisation only needs to get one of these factors wrong and all of the value they have created can be lost. VALUE CHAIN These factors do not all contribute to the overall value from ICT in a simple manner. They act more like a value chain, where any weak link can let value leak away. Consider the National Health Service, as an example. It has an IT strategy fit for the 21st century, it has invested billions of pounds in some of the most sophisticated systems around and it has selected the best value service provider on the market. It may have streamlined its business processes and trained all its users until they know the new functionality back to front. However, if those users did not trust the systems – due to concerns over patient confidentiality, for example - and they chose not to use them as intended, then the NHS would run the risk that its investments had been wasted. STRATEGIC IT EFFECTIVENESS Within Mouchel’s management consulting business we have developed a suite of tools and techniques we call our Strategic ICT Effectiveness proposition, as part of our Value for Money range of services. We use it to help organisations significantly increase the overall value they gain from the money they spend each year on ICT. It includes: • An ICT Effectiveness Review which assesses organisational capability to gain overall value for money, clearly presented using a balanced scorecard; • Metrics which measure the overall value gained from ICT, together with benchmarks which allow a comparison of costs incurred by similar organisations; • Diagnostic tools which analyse the various issues which may be preventing an organisation from maximising value
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
from ICT, identifying the underlying causes which need to be addressed first; and • A range of best practice solutions which may be deployed selectively to address those underlying causes and so help organisations transform their overall capability at delivering value. ACHIEVING MORE WITH LESS In May 2009, a report published by HM Treasury recommended cuts of over £3bn in public sector ICT budgets over the next three years. Public sector organisations will, therefore, need to learn quickly how to achieve more with less, requiring a strong focus on efficiency across all ICT operations. By taking an equally strong focus on effectiveness and the value that ICT can deliver, organisations can dramatically improve the operational efficiency of their entire organisation and achieve significantly greater overall value for money from ICT.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Mouchel 4 Matthew Parker Street London SW1H 9NP Web: www.mouchel.com
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
CASE STUDY – IMPROVING ICT EFFECTIVENESS AT ESSEX COUNTY FIRE & RESCUE SERVICES
In early 2008, the directors of Essex County Fire and Rescue (ECFRS) Services had little confidence in the quality of their ICT systems and services and in the ability of their ICT department to turn the situation around. A recent Audit Commission report had convinced the Chief Fire Officer and Chief Executive that a step-change in ICT performance was required. ECFRS appointed Mouchel’s management consulting business to carry out a Strategic ICT Effectiveness Review, followed by an ICT Transformation programme, focused on enhancing the capability of the organisation to gain value from ICT. Led by Tim Bollands, the work used the Strategic ICT Effectiveness toolset, identifying and addressing 14 priority areas determined to be the underlying causes of the problems being experienced. Assistant Chief Fire Officer, Adam Eckley, commissioned the work: “The principal reason why Essex County Fire and Rescue Service engaged Mouchel was their clearly defined framework and processes for undertaking the Strategic IT Effectiveness Review. We found the process quite intuitive and easy to understand, leaving us with a scorecard that clearly shows where we started, where we
are now and where we are headed. “We have been extremely impressed with the dedicated and committed hard work of the Mouchel consultants, who have brought a very high level of technical knowledge, experience and competence to the programme to transform ICT within our organisation. This work is just one part of our overall strategy to transform ECFRS and make it one of the best fire services in the country.” A year later, ECFRS has seen real improvements in the quality of services provided by its ICT department and in the security of data held within its systems. It now has a clear ICT strategy with strong ownership by business managers, a governance and gateway assurance process to guide projects towards successful outcomes, and an enhanced ICT department and management team, led by new Head of ICT, Jan Swanwick. ECFRS is on course to achieve an additional £5m of value every year, from the current £2.5m it spends annually on ICT. This translates into a more effective service with better information available to fire crews at major incidents, as well as a more efficient service with less time spent by front-line and support staff on non-productive activities.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
21
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
DATA CENTRES
NEXT GENERATION DATA CENTRES Data centre professionals will be able to examine the issues surrounding the selection, outsourcing, building and running of a data centre at Data Centre World DATA CENTRE WORLD WAS LAUNCHED in February 2008 as the only free to attend event in the UK for data centre professionals. The number of events aimed at the industry has now grown but so too has the number of visitors to Data Centre World, making it the biggest gathering for the industry in the UK and it’s still the only free to attend event. The third Data Centre World Conference & Expo takes place at the Barbican, London on 23 and 24 February 2010 and attracts professionals responsible for the designing, commissioning and running of data centres or server rooms. It’s the only free-to-attend conference that guarantees top speakers discussing the very latest technologies and covers case studies, technical implementation papers, migration issues and scalability. THE CONFERENCE This year the conference will have over 32 sessions and the organisers have introduced different streams so that the programme now offers both technical and strategic sessions. The technical stream includes a session by Keith Clark, Head of ICT at Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, who will talk about how virtualisation can save millions. The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead is home to 135,000 and a council workforce of 5,000. The Council has slashed its energy bill by a staggering 44 per cent along with its environmental impact, and estimate total project savings in the region of £1.2 million. Intercept has been a tremendous help to have on board. The company’s expertise and experience was vital to the council’s success. Keith Clark is the Head of ICT within the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, a Unitary Local Authority in Berkshire which is home to Windsor Castle, Eton College, Ascot Racecourse and Legoland. Keith’s role is to manage the delivery of key strategic initiatives aimed at providing value for money services to residents. Keith manages a team of 58 staff delivering ICT services to 5,000 staff including schools, who support 141,000 residents and 4,600 businesses. Keith has over 20 years experience with the Borough including 9 years in his current role and has overseen the delivery of many significant projects within the council. CLOUD COMPUTING The strategic sessions include a talk by Trevor Dearing, head of enterprise marketing for Juniper Networks, who will look at whether datacentre security is obscured by the cloud? There are many unanswered questions
Data Centre World Conference & Expo is the only free-to-attend conference that guarantees top speakers discussing the very latest technologies and covers case studies, technical implementation papers, migration issues and scalability THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
23
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
DATA CENTRES
relating to what the cloud is and what it is intended to do. This is a critical issue, particularly when readying datacentres for the era of cloud computing. The common area where people often lose their focus when it comes to the cloud is how it is all managed from inside the business, such as who manages interactions with the cloud and who is responsible for the security of data shared on the cloud. Additionally, as more companies are moving towards cloud computing, service virtualisation is only going to get more complex as it introduces yet another layer of complexity to manage. Trevor Dearing has worked in the telecoms industry for 27 years in a variety of leading edge roles. He began in R&D developing networking solutions for digital CO voice switches. This included working with newly invented Ethernet technology. His career then moved to a predominantly data networking role and involved implementing one of the first PC networks in EMEA. Trevor then spent time working in support, sales and consultancy in the mainframe environment before moving to product marketing. He then changed to an EMEA role launching one of the first IPSec VPN products. He has been a prime mover in the integration of security within the network and works closely with many alliance partners. Recently he has guided Juniper’s entry into the Ethernet switch market. Other speakers include Lynn Collier, director of file and content solutions services for Hitachi Data Systems and Roger Bearpark, head of ICT, London Borough Hillingdon. INNOVATIONS An innovation for next year is the introduction of interactive panels where the audience will be invited to pitch their questions to carefully selected experts from the industry which will see some lively debates on key issues affecting the data centre market. This will be an invaluable benefit to delegates and was introduced after the organisers carried out extensive research amongst previous visitors to find out exactly what they wanted to see at the event. Back by popular demand is On365 hosting a series of seminars. Interxion and Telehouse are Platinum Sponsors with Equinix the Gold Sponsor. These companies will also be hosting special sessions in the conference. Details will be announced shortly. THE EXHIBITION Vendors also seem to have realised the benefits of attending Data Centre World. The show is almost sold out and has had to extend onto the upper floor of the Barbican. This year will not only see the biggest visitor and delegate audience but will also have the largest number of exhibiting companies. Exhibitor feedback was excellent and extremely positive:
CONFERENCE SESSIONS The technical stream includes: • London Borough of Hillingdon – The Economies of a Virtual Data Centre – Compellent • Green as an end-to-end approach – yes we CAN build a 15 year data center!! – Siemon • A unique application of absorption cooling reducing energy consumption by 40 per cent and making the scheme Carbon Tax Free – BNB developments • Measure, Analyse and Act – the Three Steps to Energy Efficient Data Centres – Sentilla • Using Cloud Computing to lower your carbon footprint – ACS • How Virtualisation Can Save Millions – Intercept The strategic sessions include: • Managing Data Centre Heat Issues – Chatsworth • Digital Britain and the data centre – Digital Realty Trust • Is Datacentre security obscured by the cloud? – Juniper • Beyond the call of duty – driving business value from compliance – Hitachi Data Systems • What will be the impact of decisions on infrastructure in meeting Carbon Reduction Commitment – Nexsans • Networking and virtualisation to flex the Data Centre – McArthur Stroud “Excellent show, there has been a really good mix of people and enquiries.” Cable Management Warehouse. “The best show we have done for over five years, we haven’t stopped for the past two days.” Marioff. “Brilliant – great potential clients and a surprisingly large amount of decision makers stopping at the stand. We are really pleased and will certainly be attending again next year.” Data Centre UK. “Data Centre World has been a great show. We have had numerous enquiries and will definitely be back next year.” EDP Europe. With over 100 exhibitors present at DataCentreWorld visitors will benefit enormously from seeing all the latest technology, solutions and applications. They will be able to meet
many of the major suppliers in the industry, some of which will be showcasing launches. For a complete and up to date exhibitor list visit www.datacentreworld.com/exhibitors VISITORS Visitors to DataCentreWorld will also be able to learn from case studies, find out if outsourcing is an option for their organisation, discover how to save on power consumption, gain advice on physical and virtual security, see how costs vary, analyse the fuss about virtualisation and network with their counterparts in other organisations. The event has always proved popular with the public sector and already many from the sector have registered to attend. To see who is planning to visit go to www.datacentreworld.com
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
25
DESIGN I MANUFACTURE I INSTALL I COMMISSION I SERVICE
BLADE SERVER & DATA ROOM COOLING SPECIALISTS ®
SERVER COOL When blade servers get hot
we keep them cool 150kW Cooling for only 2.4kW Power
Our CDU was developed and approved to match IBM’s Rear Door Heat Exchangers, including “Cool Blue®” and “iDataplex®” Our range of RDHx’s fit most rack cabinets Data Room
Server Rack
Ambient 22ºC
Heats to 35 - 50ºC Blade Servers heat the exhaust air up to 50ºC.
RDHx
(Rear Door Heat Exchanger)
+
CDU
(Cooling Distribution Unit)
Cools to 23ºC The RDHx cools the server exhaust air (up to 30kW) and returns it to the data room.
Data Room Ambient 22ºC
The CDU supplies chilled CRAC units control and water to the RDHx cooling maintain data room coil at up to 150kW per unit. ambient temperature and humidity.
One Company – One Solution Our most efficient and resilient high, medium and low density cooling solutions, are complimented by our full range of services, ensuring precision blade server / data room temperature control and customer peace of mind. RDHx
Up to
(Rear Door Heat Exchanger) Up to 30kW cooling capacity
40%
*
*In many cases this can be greater
fa ct
UK
For further information: ured i
he
over conventional server and data rack cooling systems
(CRAC Units) 15 - 120kW cooling capacity
u Man
Energy Savings
IPAC & DRU
nt
Tel: +44 (0)1782 597105 email: servercool@eaton-williams.com www.eaton-williams.com Eaton-Williams Group Station Road, Edenbridge, Kent TN8 6EG England
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
DATA CENTRES
To register for a free ticket visitors and delegates should visit www.datacentreworld. com and complete the online registration form. All sessions are free to attend for preregistered visitors. For those that do not preregister there will be a charge of ÂŁ350+VAT per day to attend the conference sessions. There are still some sponsorship and exhibiting opportunities available at DataCentreWorld and anyone interested in these should contact Peter on +44 (0) 1923 692 675 or at p.herbert@turretgroup.com Data Centre World is organised by Turret Group a media company specialising in exhibitions, magazines and directories. With over 50 years experience in the markets it covers, they have become a leading specialist publisher of magazines and directories as well as gaining a well earned reputation as an organiser of highlysuccessful international and national business conferences and exhibitions. Turret Group also has offices in the Middle East.
FOR MORE INFORMATION To see the full conference programme, session details and speaker biographies visit www.datacentreworld.com/conferenceprog
Protect your data centre against water leaks .A.M. LTD recognise the need for producing reliable and cost effective systems to help in the environmental monitoring of data centres with particular expertise in the field of water leak detection. Modern buildings such as data centres are constructed with raised floors and all services including pipework and electrical cables hidden beneath. Few companies realise the potential disaster they could have. The leak at first may go un-noticed then one or two pieces of hardware start playing up, someone on the floor below may notice a stain appearing on the ceiling, by now there is probably enough water to cause a major problem or even a shutdown. J.A.M. Ltd have had experience with projects worldwide, from government buildings to top blue chip companies. J.A.M’s innovative leak detection systems have a control panel linked to a specially designed cable which displays the location of a leak as a meterage reading, allowing the
J
appropriate remedial action to take place. Once the detecting cable is dried it is fully re-usable. J.A.M. Ltd can advise from drawings or site surveys the most suitable System, co-ordinate the installation with trained engineers and offer after sales telephone support or preventative maintenance visits to client requirements.
FOR MORE INFORMATION We would welcome any informal talks or a demonstration of our product on our stand No.38 at the Data Centre World exhibition Feb 23/24th 2010. Tel: 01268 777222 Fax 01268 777221 E-mail: jam.ltd@virgin.net Web: jam.uk.com
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
27
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Written by Richard Clarke, head of public sector at 1E
DATA CENTRES
POWER MANAGEMENT IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR Efficient power management is a key component to maximising the potential of limited budgets whilst also meeting the government’s aggressive climate change targets WITH SPENDING CUTS ANTICIPATED across the whole public sector over the next few financial years, coupled with central government demanding ‘more for less’, all public sector organisations urgently need to assess areas where wastage can be reduced in order to minimise the impact of these cuts on their frontline operations. CHALLENGE I It is vital that all opportunities to deliver greater value for money within the public sector are explored. With public debt reaching gargantuan proportions, it is important that the government takes steps, not only to improve efficiency in the public sector, but also to account more clearly and accurately for the savings it is making. In the face of ongoing job losses in the private sector, the public
28
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
sector must consider more radical solutions to reducing its burden on the taxpayer1. In April 2009, The Operational Efficiency Programme (OEP), a year long programme examining operational spending in the public sector, was published. This report concluded that the adoption of best practices across the public sector (i.e. collection of accurate management information, benchmarking and applying private sector cost efficiency experience) would lead to cost savings of around 25 to 30 per cent. Applying this savings figure to the £15 billion spent on back office operations gives a potential savings figure of £3.75 to 4.5 billion2. Therefore, all departments and departmental heads, including IT, in the public sector are responsible for ensuring that, during times of constrained public spending, they are
Richard Clarke
PEACE OF MIND WHEN IT MATTERS MOST Equinix Inc. (Nasdaq:EQIX) is the preferred destination for companies who control the world’s most valued information assets. Our International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers protect and connect mission-critical data with the highest levels of security and operational reliability. With locations in 18 strategic markets across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, Equinix enables customers to rapidly deploy data center operations worldwide. The centers are home to a dynamic ecosystem where major networks, enterprises, and business partners can interconnect. Every day, without compromise, the people who control the world’s most valued information assets place their trust in us, leveraging our insight, expertise and world-class service to protect and connect what matters to them most—their information. For further information or to arrange a site tour please contact us at: unitedkingdom@eu.equinix.com or call +44 845 373 2900
W W W. E Q u I N I X .c O m
AMSTERDAM CHICAGO DALLAS DÜSSELDORF FRANKFURST GENEVA HONG KONG LONDON LOS ANGELES MUNICH NEW YORK PARIS SILICON VALLEY SINGAPORE SYDNEY TOKYO WASHINGTON DC ZÜRICH
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
DATA CENTRES
enabling best practices and delivering tangible cost saving across their entire organisation. The results of the last major efficiency initiatives by the government across the public sector (the Gershon Report & CSR07) yielded more than a 20 per cent over-achievement of the targets set; so while it is clear that there is scope to go further and increase the value for money the public sector achieves, it is important that public sector organisations identify the biggest areas for potential savings without comprising their ability to deliver their frontline services. At 1E, we believe that the best ‘quick win’ for public sector organisations to undertake to address the combined challenge of reducing both operational costs & carbon footprint, is to negate the unnecessary wastage caused by PCs and servers. CHALLENGE II When you combine the spending restraints with the prospect of a global carbon emissions reduction directive, the case for eliminating energy waste is all the more compelling. The COP15 climate change summit talks are currently drawing to a close in Copenhagen so it will be exciting to see what new challenges that brings with it. Copenhagen aside, the UK government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme comes into force in April 2010, a mere three months away. While it is not too late to meet the April deadline for the 5,00020,000 public and private organisations that the government has identified must comply with the directive (based on their half hourly
30
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
electricity usage measured in 2008), action must be taken now. The incentives are clear; organisations that exceed the government-set carbon emissions levels will be forced to buy additional carbon credits on the open market which could prove very costly, whilst the best performers will stand to gain financially not only in terms of a rebate on their carbon credits but also by being able to sell any excess credits purchased to those underachievers. Over and above actual individual performance, CRC establishes a requirement to be able to accurately report against organisational carbon footprint. For those that chose to ignore or skimp on their reporting methodology, the penalties could be very high beyond just being publicly named and shamed. For instance, CRC allows for only a five per cent margin of error for under reporting of carbon footprint; if this margin of error is exceeded then the participant organisation must purchase and cancel the outstanding balance of allowances plus pay £40/tCO2 in respect of each tonne that should have been reported. ENERGY EFFICIENT PROJECTS Many public sector organisations have already embarked on energy efficiency projects, however they have started by tackling areas such as printer rationalisation. Whilst projects such as this are commendable, managing the two hungriest consumers of power within ICT (PCs & servers) should be the key priority for 2010. According to Gartner, PCs and servers account for a staggering 62 per cent of total organisational IT power
consumption (39 per cent and 23 per cent respectively)3 so the potential to make a positive impact on the bottom line is huge. When you couple the aforementioned Gartner power consumption statistics with the fact that an estimated average of 52 per cent of PCs are left on unnecessarily at night and over the weekend within the public sector4 and that between 15 per cent of servers are not doing any useful work5, the challenge is even more enticing. On the PC side, nearly half of UK workers (48 per cent) who use a PC at their job do not typically shut down at night. The survey also found that most employed adults in the UK (63 per cent) who use a PC at work believe that their companies should be doing more to reduce overall power consumption6. And, with PCs alone being estimated to account for 10 per cent of the total electricity used in offices7, the ability to accurately report on their power consumption (and hence their carbon footprint) is a key component to ensuring compliance with CRC and to avoiding large unnecessary penalties. So, the good news for public sector organisations is that technology solutions can help promote this behavioural change and enforce corporate energy saving policy. On the server side, in a similar survey to the one carried out on PCs, over two thirds (72 per cent) of server managers polled believed that 15 per cent of the world’s 4.7 million are simply not being utilised productively, but remain powered on 24/7, producing 11.8 million tonnes of CO2 (the same amount produced by 2.1 million cars) and wasting £15bn in hardware, maintenance and management – roughly equal to the cost of the 13 year Apollo space programme8. Notes
1. Treasury Committee - Thirteenth Report of Session 2008-09 2. Operational Efficiency Programme: back office operations and IT, May 2009: www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/ oep_back_office_pu730.pdf 3. Gartner Inc. “IT Vendors, Service Providers and Users Can Lighten IT’s Environmental Footprint” by Simon Mingay, December 5, 2007 4. Source: ICT Power Management case study, Office of Government Commerce (OGC) - www.ogc.gov. uk/documents/ICT_Power.pdf 5. 1E/Alliance to Save Energy Server Energy & Efficiency Survey, conducted by Kelton Research in September 2009 6.1E/Alliance to Save Energy PC Power Management Study, conducted by Harris Interactive in August 2009 7. Carbon Trust, Technology Overview, Office Equipment – Introducing energy saving opportunities for business 8. 1E/Alliance to Save Energy Server Energy & Efficiency Survey, conducted by Kelton Research in September 2009
PROMOTIONAl fEATURE
DATA CENTERS UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: TO OUTSOURCE OR NOT TO OUTSOURCE? EqUINIx PROvIDES THE ANSwER...
With widespread public spending cuts expected in 2010, government departments and public organisations will be under unprecedented pressure to do more with less, reducing costs while at the same time improving the quality of the services they deliver. ICT departments will find themselves particularly under the microscope. Shrinking budgets will be no excuse for failure when it comes to making more public services available online, improving resilience, meeting green initiatives or getting to grips with new technologies, such as cloud computing. THE ARgUMENTS fOR OUTSOURCINg Outsourcing has always been a popular way of meeting this challenge and, when done properly, can deliver dramatic efficiency improvements. It can also provide access to technologies and expertise that would be hard to achieve in-house. However, nowhere does outsourcing have a greater impact than in the data center. Firstly, such facilities are enormously expensive to build. With cash tight, and credit prohibitively expensive, raising enough capital to finance an in-house data center build is becoming increasingly unrealistic. Secondly, from virtualisation to cooling, from physical security to power, the rate of innovation within the data center is mind-blowing. Only true specialists, who live and breathe data centers every minute of the day, can keep track of these advances and provide the resilience, performance, environmental efficiencies and cost savings that ICT departments simply must deliver.
lOCATION IS CRITICAl
Operating some 45 International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data centers across 18 markets, Equinix protects and connects the information assets of some of the world’s most demanding organisations. Four of these centers are located in the London area and a further 21,000m2 facility is set to open in Spring 2010. Equinix’s strategy is to build large-scale, state-of-the-art data centers in locations close to (but not necessarily in) large metropolitan markets. This approach provides customers with the best of both worlds. They are close enough to the large urban centers to be convenient but – by locating in less congested areas – have room to expand and face less competition for power. Indeed, data center location is becoming increasingly important. As the public sector increases its reliance on the internet with, for example, the adoption of cloud computing services, demand for data center services will also grow. If organisations construct facilities in built up areas, or choose outsourcing partners based in already congested areas, they may soon run out of space or even face power outages. Equinix is following this same strategy in the UK. In 2007, it opened the purpose-built LD4 IBX® data center in Slough. Close to public transport, road links and major London airports, this 13,500m2 data center offers a convenient, high-spec alternative to central London-based facilities. To meet the growing demand for space in the London area, the company will soon open a further IBX® center – LD5 – in the plot adjacent to LD4.
This campus-based approach to building data centers means Equinix can seamlessly scale its offering to meet the changing requirements of public sector organisations, preventing them from having to take space in facilities scattered across a wide geographical area.
LD5: Equinix’s nEw uK Data cEntEr Phase one of the LD5 Equinix IBX® data center will open its doors in Spring 2010 and, when complete, will cover a total area of 21,000m2, including 16,000m2 of technical space. With multiple fibre connections linking LD5 to the neighbouring LD4, customers at both facilities can easily cross-connect. Even more importantly, with access to a 34,500m2 campus, these customers can rest assured that there will be enough space to support their operations for the foreseeable future. This purpose-built data center has been designed to the highest possible specification. Its secure access procedure will combine physical, biometric, electronic and human elements to ensure the most stringent levels of site security are always adhered to. With its own 40MVA main supply, backed up by 44MVA generator supply, Equinix is able to offer an SLA of 99.999% to all customer power distribution units. However, this abundance of power does not mean any of it will be wasted; the technical design of LD5 will deliver advanced power and cooling efficiencies while at the same time facilitate highdensity cabinet configurations. Rigorous SLAs governing cooling, together with advanced fire protection solutions, 24/7 customer support and advanced control systems will further ensure resilient operations. As a carrier neutral facility, LD5 will also provide its colocation customers with access to a wide range of networks, including the low latency solutions that underpin real time communications. For customers’ comfort and convenience, there will be ample car and bike parking, a coffee bar and even an internet cafe.
For further information please call 0845 373 2900 or email unitedkingdom@eu.equinix.com Equinix will be showcasing its new LD5 IBX® data center on stand 2, Data Center World, Barbican, London, 23-24 February, 2010.
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
DATA CENTRES
ENERGY EFFICIENT DATA CENTRES CNet Training will showcase its portfolio of internationally recognised data centre design courses at Data Centre World Expo 2010 CNET TRAINING IS THE FIRST TRAINING provider to be awarded the EU Code of Conduct Endorser status and we will be showcasing our portfolio of internationally recognised data centre design courses, which include the CDCT, CDCD and the CDCDPat, at the Data Centre World Expo 2010. This portfolio also includes the new ISEB Qualification in the EU Code of Conduct on data centres. The European Commission’s Code of Conduct on data centres’ energy efficiency comprises a series of voluntary, light-touch measures, expected to form the basis of more stringent legislation in the future, laying out a set of minimum standards for compliance. The move to introduce the code of conduct at the end of 2008 was recognition by the European Commission that data centres are heavy and
power is being used and tend to take action because consumption is growing and energy prices are extremely unlikely to go down. The code of conduct covers data centres of all sizes – from server rooms to dedicated buildings, both existing and new facilities and mechanical plant to software. It has been created with international expert input from the UK, USA, Europe and Japan and from vendors, operators and professional bodies. The code can be signed in two ways, as a participant (data centre owners and operators) or as an endorser (vendors, consultants and professional associations). One of the requirements of signing up to the code as a participant is that interested parties with existing data centres must submit initial energy usage measurements of at least one
The EC organisation estimates that while in 2007 data centres in Western Europe alone used over 55 TWh of power, this figure is likely to almost double to 100 TWh by 2020. Growth rates in energy consumption will inevitably and negatively impact on the European Union’s ability to achieve its carbon reduction and climate change targets, therefore, such facilities are an obvious area on which to focus often inefficient consumers of energy – and that this problem is only set to increase. The EC organisation estimates that while in 2007 data centres in Western Europe alone used over 55 TWh of power, this figure is likely to almost double to 100 TWh by 2020. Growth rates in energy consumption will inevitably and negatively impact on the European Union’s ability to achieve its carbon reduction and climate change targets, therefore, such facilities are an obvious area on which to focus. The aim of the code is to inform and stimulate data centre operators to reduce energy consumption in a cost effective manner without hampering the critical function. A few years ago, most CIOs were simply unaware what their electricity consumption was and certainly did not have financial responsibility for it, however, now over 50 per cent do – and once they do, they focus attention to where
month’s duration, before undertaking an energy audit to identify where savings can be made. The next step is to submit an action plan, which includes a range of intended best practices that need to be implemented in a minimum of 40 per cent of the data centre’s floor space within three years of the plan being approved by the code of conduct secretariat. Suggested measures include improving system resource utilisation via technologies such as virtualisation as well as optimising the design, configuration and management of energy-hungry cooling systems. This has resulted in the growth in free air-cooling systems and the heavily overused PUE metric. A further commitment relates to monitoring energy consumption on a regular basis and providing the EC’s Directorate General Joint Research Centre with an annual report outlining any improved energy efficiency
practices that have been introduced. The Directorate General Joint Research Centre compares these implemented practices with the promised measures set out in the action plan and has the right to suspend or cancel an organisation’s participation in the code if it believes that progress has been too slow or if the member organisation has failed to meet their reporting requirements. A Data Collection Working Group has also been set up to collect and analyse information from all contributors in order to identify trends and potentially form the basis of future energy efficiency targets. The Directorate General of the JRC has no powers of censure beyond the right to terminate participation, as the code is not mandatory, however, a number of approved auditors are now able to carry out compliance audits. The number of organisations signing up as participants of the code continues to increase and include organisations such as Fujitsu, HP, Microsoft, TelecityGroup and Vodafone. Additionally, the code of conduct is being used as a procurement tool by a number of organisations and the UK government has requested that CIOs adhere to the code of conduct. As the numbers of organisations increase so does the requirement for additional training to implement not only the best practices but all the overall design of the data centre facilities. CNet Training has been delivering the accredited CDCD (Certified Data Centre Design) and CDCDP (Certified Data Centre Design Professional) programs since 2006 and will in the first quarter of 2010 launch the CDCMP (Certified Data Centre Management Professional).
FOR MORE INFORMATION Detailed information on all the data centre courses offered by CNet Training can be found at www.cdcdp.com
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
33
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Written By Chris Smith, sales & marketing director, on365
DATA CENTRES
THE SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGE In the face of growing fears over climate change, the public sector is now addressing the huge task of re-orienting operations to reduce their carbon footprint – specifically their IT system energy demands
SUSTAINABILITY, GREEN AND ECO friendly are no longer simply marketing buzz words used to add a flourish to a new product. But as the public sector faces up to meeting targets, serious considerations must be made in risk management planning for IT operations in addition to management opening up to new ideas. Failure to do so could result in potentially serious disruptions to services, such as power outages and road crossing closures. We have seen growing interest from the public sector in sustainable operations and the role of the data centre in meeting efficiency targets. This is hardly surprising, as it’s estimated that worldwide carbon emissions from data centres will quadruple by 2020; but that by 2011 we could reduce data centre peak load by the equivalent of up to 15 new power plants by adopting energy efficient practices. NEW POLICIES In the drive to meet the sustainability challenge matched closely by government pressure to reduce costs in a difficult economic climate the government has introduced a series of legislations. Policies such as the Government Estate (SOGE) targets in 2006, the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres followed by European energy efficiency directives,
34
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
forced the public sector to rethink its use of key resources such as energy supplies. With renewed pressure around sustainability comes the added cost of the mandatory Carbon Reduction Commitment. From April 2010, senior executives must ensure that these new responsibilities are brought into their risk management planning for their IT operations. In particular, as companies ‘green’ their operations with innovations such as the latest low energy, high density demand servers, they must ensure that they don’t inadvertently compromise the resilience of their systems by asking too much of their IT function’s data centres’ and supporting backup power systems. But how will these fundamental changes affect daily operations? Can sustainable action plans be balanced with service needs and future spending cuts? Central government departments, the NHS, local authorities, and police forces and their partners will have to rethink and rationalise ICT infrastructures to meet energy efficiency targets. SIMPLE MEASURES Targeting major reductions in carbon emissions from data centres within the public sector and proposed cuts in public spending go together like chalk and cheese. The main
problem facing the government is education on often simple methods the public sector can use to help towards more efficient data centre operations. These can include fitting blanking plates, hot aisle/cold aisle separation and increasing server inlet air temperatures. These tips are only the starting point. To make major inroads into reducing the carbon footprint and meeting the sustainability challenge will require significant investment. Whether this is at the physical infrastructure level, such as complete and physical separation of hot and cold air, the use of free-cooling coils in chillers or at the computational level in terms of server/SAN virtualisation, further advancements into government cloud computing – money, and plenty of it, will be required. With further predicted cuts in public sector expenditure, will the government’s green targets become a reality? The problem facing many infrastructure managers is how to balance service transformation needs, sustainability targets and efficiency demands. In local government, Socitm’s review of 2008 conceded that despite progress on service reform, authorities had not organised their ICT operations towards sustainable targets. Too many authorities – like their private sector counterparts – are operating data centres but only spending on immediate technical problems. There are multiple approaches: where one authority maintains one central data centre, a neighbour will operate multiple data centres, posing different continuity and energy efficiency questions. Can local authorities operate shared services data centres? on365 has seen very promising developments towards shared ICT resources among authority groupings. Certainly, planned system audits, linked to SOGE action plans, will help identify strategic needs and sustainable targets within a risk management framework. However, cutting corners on maintenance or ‘greening’ ICT operations can be disastrous. on365 has seen road crossing closures and television studios blackouts because of inadequate checks on backup power and UPS systems. Rapid ‘greening’ of ICT operations has led to installation of energy efficient blade servers and other equipment that expose UPS and generator systems to loads they were not designed to accept. Sustainable operations are clearly underpinned by continual risk management and without effective planning, education and change, meeting ambitious government targets could be a hard task.
V lue There’s more to value than price, as anyone who’s paying central London prices for a basic data management service will testify. With a Tier 4 site at Milton Keynes and a Tier 3 campus in Maidenhead, BlueSquare Data’s ISO 9001 accredited service covers everything from quarter racks to entire suites, accessible 24/7/365. This is value without compromise. For further information or to arrange a tour of our facilities, please contact Robin Ellis, Group Commercial Director, via r.ellis@bluesquaredata.com or Matthew Munson, Group Technical Director, via m.munson@ bluesquaredata.com or call either of them on + 44 (0)1628 673131.
BlueSquare Data Co-location
Virtual
ISO 9001 Registered Firm Certificate No. SP240314
International Accreditation Board
Dedicated
Managed
Storage
Transit
www.bluesquaredata.com
Registration No. 0044/1
brand communications and design
Energy Efficient Data Centres Next-generation solutions from Nexans
See us on Stand 171
Data centre managerss fac face ce common challenges - to keep k information flowing reliably, iablly, to plan for future migration, and nd to o manage energy consumption. Nexans can help meet these e challenges with
With Environmental Monitoring and Access Control
reliable infrastructure solutions ns which offer a
(EMAC) and LANsense Intelligent Infrastructure
migration path to 40G whilst lst delivering the
Management, Nexans offer complete infrastructure
maximum potential for energy efficiency.
solutions for data centres.
Nexans Cabling Solutions UK 2 Faraday Office Park Faraday Road, Basingstoke RG24 8QQ Tel: 01256 486640 â—? ncs.uk@nexans.com www.nexans.co.uk/LANsystems
Written By Carla Arend, European Infrastructure Software, IDC
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
DATA CENTRES
FUTURE STORAGE TRENDS What is on the horizon that will shape the storage strategies of tomorrow? EVEN IN THE CURRENT TIMES, where budgets are under increased scrutiny due to the economic situation, the storage industry is not standing still. New technologies are constantly developed, and companies need to decide which technologies will be of benefit to them in the long run. This article looks at some of the storage technologies that will shape storage strategies today and tomorrow. WHAT TECHNOLOGIES ARE HOT TODAY? In the current economic climate, storage managers are particularly interested in expanding storage capacity as data continues to grow unabated, enhancing disaster recovery plans, and improving storage performance to service the business users better, according to IDC’s European storage survey (IDC’s 2009 Annual European Storage Survey: Understanding User Needs in a Changing Economic Climate). However, these initiatives typically increase the operational cost of the storage infrastructure. Adding storage capacity to cope with data growth is a very short-term strategy, which will lead to complexity and management nightmares, and ultimately, higher operational cost. Achieving a viable disaster recovery plan can also turn into a costly undertaking, if not well thought through. Finally, improving storage performance is often achieved through methods that result in low utilisation rates. This, in turn, drives the storage capacity expansion and operational costs higher. With the above in mind, it should not be surprising that the currently hot storage technologies enable users to achieve what they aim for, but at the same time enable them to reduce operational cost and increase storage
efficiency. The timing couldn’t be better since it has become clear that storage is reaching a new phase of maturity. This new phase is one where storage resources need to be used as efficiently as possible, and where old strategies of just increasing capacity without addressing operational cost or underutilisation of storage are no longer viable. This is even true for those that have put such efficiencies aside to achieve increased performance. This is a trend that will continue beyond 2009 as it ushers in a new phase where returning to previous levels of wasted storage capacity is not an option. There are a multitude of technologies out there, which help to tame data growth and support solving the storage efficiency challenge. Data deduplication, for example, has been the hot topic recently, as it helps to buck with the data growth trend. But this is hardly the only new and exciting storage technology addressing the industries new problems. Other technologies like thin provisioning and storage virtualisation provide greater storage utilisation and cost-efficient DR (respectively) are also in high demand. Storage management software is seeing increased interest because it enables users to manage across storage silos, whereas archiving is seen as a means to reduce primary data by off-loading to an archive. SHAPING STORAGE STRATEGIES Cloud storage is shaping up as the future architecture for storage deployment, and storage-as-a-service is the first step in this direction. Cloud storage is essentially a way of architecting storage infrastructure by using standard building blocks, in which management is automated to a large
degree and efficiency is paramount. File-based technologies like file virtualisation will see increased demand as well, as most of the data growth comes from the unstructured side. The before mentioned survey has shown for several years in a row, that email and file-related applications are driving data and storage growth. SSD is a technology much talked about, but still with very limited adoption, as it is currently more than 10 times more expensive than traditional disk storage. As storage administrators are evaluating this technology, they need to keep in mind that it is just a point solution, which actually emphasises the need for intelligent storage tiering. With another storage tier available (tier zero) at a high cost, storage administrators will not be able to resort to the good old “keep everything on primary storage” approach. By having a robust software layer in place to manage storage tiering, ILM can finally be implemented and its benefits (lower cost and better data management) can be achieved. SSD will most likely drive in mixed environments, where a limited number of SSDs is in the same enclosure as a large number of SATA drives bundled with automated storage tiering software. In order to architect a future-proof storage environment, good old management principles still apply. Consolidate and standardise your storage infrastructure, deploy storage virtualisation software for cost effective DR and invest in a solid storage management layer to simplify and automate management. Thus, you can take advantage of new innovative technologies, which most likely will be point solutions to start with, and maintain a solid management layer.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
37
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
DATA CENTRES
FACING THE DATA CENTRE CHALLENGE Dave Harney, group product manager at Molex, tackles the biggest challenges facing data centres today
IT’S FRIDAY, 3:00 PM AND AN ALARM has just notified you that your SharePoint applications server has lost connectivity, you have a cutover scheduled for Saturday morning and you are late in delivering a SAN expansion plan to the CIO. In the midst of your active deliverables list you are only too aware that IT service provisioning in your company is under increasing scrutiny and it seems that this is magnified in the case of your data centre. In an effort to drive costs down and reduce the potential for human error you’ve attempted to identify opportunities for automation, but let’s face it, you are faced with issues of process and document control, network monitoring and performing triage on the most important urgent events your monitoring identifies. In spite of your best efforts at planning you find that you’ve still been forced to bolt on additions, implement temporary initiatives that have become permanent and make decisions with incomplete or even
38
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
untrustworthy data. You’ve often thought how you would do things if you could start out with a clean slate. But what would that change be and how quickly would you end up in the same place you find yourself in today? Every element of a Physical Layer One Network infrastructure goes through a lifecycle from planning, design, installation, maintenance and ultimately, retirement. The concept of ‘Lifecycle Management’ is not new to the world of IT but it is a new concept to apply ‘Advanced Physical Layer Lifecycle Management’ (APLLM) principals to structured cabling. Cabling infrastructure is all too often considered a necessary evil, a burden on pathways and spaces, a limiting factor in implementing change, and according to some industry experts a not so infrequent source of network outages. Along with power, cooling and weight, cabling infrastructure was also recently classified as one of the four biggest challenges facing data centres today by Ron Hughes of
the California Data Centre Design Group. This article covers six factors that impact APLLM and extends APLLM principals to demonstrate the value that can be captured by IT and facilities when APLLM is extended to the planning, building and management of the layer one physical infrastructure. Each component goes through a continuous lifecycle, from deployment and management to integration and replacement. The intent is to address best practices for infrastructure management, with an emphasis on simplifying the infrastructure with an IT lifecycle management solution. ALIGNING OBJECTIVES ANSI/TIA-942 Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for data centres provides the platform for telecom designers to participate in the early phases of the data centre design, but it is also critical that institutional or corporate, property and facilities groups work to align the overall objectives of the business.
Think Telehouse Think DaTa CenTre With almost 20 years experience Telehouse is your first port of call for secure, state-of-the-art, carrier neutral data centres
Home to your global ICT solutions ConTaCT our sales Team: (0207) 512 0550
email: sales@uk.telehouse.net
VisiT: www.telehouse.net
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
DATA CENTRES
The obvious approach here is to make certain that the physical plant and facility’s requirements can meet an organisation’s financial objectives and that the organisation has adequate support resources. All data centres are built within these constraints and so the key is in anticipating future needs and determining how these constraints will limit the centre’s effectiveness in the future. The data centre is the prototype for dynamic environments. Recently a company within the electronics manufacturing sector completed construction of their new corporate data centre. As is all too common, they had suffered from power, cooling and space problems for several years. The expansion was completed late in 2006 and was built to a capacity utilisation level of 40 per cent. In fewer than twelve months that facility was over 90 per cent utilisation. As it stands, there is no room for expansion as the data centre is located within part of the building with only one external wall, facing a road. Expansion for this company means making major structural changes to the existing building, major ground works, moving to a new site, or outsourcing to a co-location facility. While the original build was a major capital expenditure it did not adequately address the company’s needs. The business objectives and the IT support requirements were in alignment only over the short term. A strain will be placed on this company’s business operations as they face major capital expenditures and a new IT services plan to make the inevitable changes. There may be no substitute for a good plan but an adaptable plan is a best practice essential for success. DELIVERING NEW FACILITIES As an addition to planning for an adaptable centre it is also recommended that systems be designed to support and monitor the plan and its implementation. When designed well, metrics for project scheduling and measuring progress during construction and implementation can be created, including even actionable controls that trigger project releases, approvals and invoicing. Relatively simple things such as coordination between complimentary trades on a project can lead to compressed delivery schedules, improved cash flow for contractors and even a reduction in change orders caused by trade errors. In one high profile project, competition rather than coordination was the operational mode. Electricians, trunking fitters and low voltage installers all needed access to the area above the ceiling grid. Deadlines on the ceiling contractor were in conflict with the need to coordinate with the other trades. The result was the ceiling contractor installed the grid and tiles before the electricians, trunking fitters; low voltage installers were able to complete their work. This resulted in long delays and cost overruns for those trades. It also resulted in damaged ceiling grid and tiles and again more delays and cost overruns. The
40
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
ceiling contractor concluded their work within contract terms and was the only winner. To enhance project control and decision making, visibility for the stakeholders of the facility, business management and vendors alike should be built into the system up front. Think of this as building in tools for process control and management similar to what would be done in a manufacturing environment. Apply the principles from the example to manufacturing a network switch.
Imagine if final case assembly and the setting of anti tamper fasteners was completed prior to the installation of the power supply. In the manufacturing environment this would not happen because process flow must be controlled and managed efficiently in order for the manufacturer to compete and survive. Think of building projects or even network expansions in the same light and build processes, controls, monitoring and management tools to support the processes you build. Tools exist today
think telehouSe think iCt ProVider Our extensive service offering ensures that all your ICT needs are catered for
Home to your global ICT solutions ContaCt our SaleS team: (0207) 512 0550
email: sales@uk.telehouse.net
ViSit: www.telehouse.net
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
DATA CENTRES
that facilitate automated project support to integrate actions by trade’s people with global project status reports allowing for data-based decisions and actions to drive a project. INCREASED VISIBILITY We live in a web centric world. Basic tools are available that allow varying degrees of online collaboration and document control for users. Additional tools are available to facilitate project management and report engine tools exist to enable users to track and monitor critical data. Integration of these functions and tools has historically been a challenge especially when applying them strictly to IT functions or at least construction and IT integration projects. Project managers may spend fifty per cent or more of their day gathering information, coordinating with trades and suppliers, updating schedules and ultimately preparing reports for their various stakeholders. Trades need tools to track materials, schedule labour and document project status for payment. Project managers need tools to coordinate and manage projects and facilitate reporting. General contractors need tools to monitor and manage project phases and completion to manage compliance with contract terms. IT & facilities need tools to monitor progress to allow effective scheduling of internal staff and to coordinate between building and infrastructure construction and network integration build out. Owners need the tools to monitor compliance, evaluate suppliers, schedule move dates, and trigger action for payment to vendors. Selection of tools should be made based on their ability to be tailored to meet the needs of the different stakeholders. At a minimum, tools should be selected that permit automation of basic workflows, configure data that is useful beyond initial construction, and provision for secure accessible data storage for regulatory compliance and future use alike. DECREASING OPERATING COSTS Symantec’s highly informative annual study on the state of the Data Centre reveals a conflict brewing between resources available and expected performance of the available resources. In a survey of over 1,600 companies worldwide they found that seventy-five percent of the companies surveyed say user expectations were rising gradually or rapidly, whilst fifty per cent reported budgets are flat to decreasing, and thirty-seven per cent of companies indicated that they were understaffed. Just as there is little doubt that user expectations will continue to rise there is also little doubt that pressure for cost reductions will mount in the face of a global economic downturn. When looking for cost reduction opportunities, IT organisations that focus on initiatives that both save in real expense and risk little opportunity cost to implement will be of greatest benefit, especially for organisations that are already understaffed. From the
42
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
infrastructure perspective, the solution would be to provide a bridge and visibility to layer one devices and cabling infrastructure to network management systems via advanced physical layer lifecycle management applications. Organisations that apply this strategy look to leverage existing network management tools such as IBM’s Tivoli™, HP’s Open View™ or open source NMS such as Nagios® from Nagios Enterprises to capitalise on opportunity cost management. Real operating cost savings occur when the user is able to mechanically verify open and available cabling channels, physically map devices or even cabling outages, automate auditing of the physical infrastructure, and even work order assignment and verification of completion. Typically each of the tasks mentioned are today done through physical inspection based audit, combined with work order systems. By establishing documentation requirements from installers and integrators to match a PLM system’s capabilities rather than simply accepting paper or PDF reports, drawings and network diagrams, the user can capitalise on the productivity offered by the APLLM system with little to no real or opportunity cost. GOVERNANCE AND COMPLIANCE In over twenty years of meeting with clients, finding a user who did not desire to have proper documentation of their network infrastructure and building has been scarce. By that anecdotal metric it would be assumed that accurate dynamic documentation would be the rule rather than the exception and yet experience indicates that is not the case. At the point of closing a project, pressures for completion and cost containment most often relegate proper documentation to non-essential status. The problem begins at the RFP stage. Most often an RFP contains ineffectual language such as the following sample that leaves the method, format and structure of documentation to the installation company’s interpretation: (1) contractor provides a copy of the test reports in softcopy format, (2) contractor provides as-built information to owner to accompany all test result information, (3) as-built information shall be in a copy of construction drawings, (4) contractor will indicate location of all TOs, pathways, distribution cable trays, junction boxes, and all additions and deletions pertaining to telecommunications. In recognition of the extent of the problem, CENELEC has addressed record keeping requirements for installation and operational administrative systems in its EN 50174-1:2008 standard. This standard provides a platform for establishing specific documentation requirements from installers and integrators that can be built into the RFP process. The competitive bidding process must be structured to assure the user that requirements are understood and accounted for in the bid response from the contractors and integrators awarded a project. By first
specifying and requiring the installation of an APLLM system as suggested earlier, the user can establish an evergreen documentation method. While proper configuration and system initialisation is essential to implementation, the key to long-term use is to automate systems as much as is practical. ELIMINATE MULTIPLE POINT SOLUTIONS Some time ago, an Olympic stadium project, fundamentally in the limelight of the world press, was, in a word, catastrophic. Services were alleged to have been ordered but not installed; installed cabling channels had been damaged by the cleaning staff who, incidentally, shared many of the telecom rooms. The lead project manager had an incredible memory and could recite location by phone number or phone number series by location. In effect, he was the Physical Layer lifecycle Management system for the site. Other venues’ systems were not so robust. No linkage existed for pulling all venues together and so it was a shuffle of paper coordinated through the telephone, two-way radios and meetings in construction trailers. While extreme, it did not represent the exception. In a best practice environment the construction process will include a global management and monitoring system that facilitates the ongoing management and maintenance of the installed global Physical layer management system, spanning its entire lifecycle. While there are clearly trends towards data centre consolidation it is common for multisite and global enterprises to have distributed data centres as well. Effective management of small and lights out facilities require tools. These tools must have local management capabilities but must be common tools that can be managed centrally. The cost alone in real expense and lost opportunity expense of dispatching technicians and skilled network managers to remote or small sites to conduct audits and correct problems that could be as insignificant as proper placement of a patch cord justify implementing an advanced physical layer lifecycle management system. CONCLUSION Planning, process management control, automation, full network visibility – down to the cabling infrastructure itself – real and opportunity cost management, and leveraging existing tools are all issues that are adaptable to solving one of the four biggest challenges facing data centres today. While there is glamour in cabling infrastructure only in the eyes of cabling manufacturers, there are tangible benefits to expanding the view and scope of the role and constraints that the cabling infrastructure plays in the life of the data centre, or indeed any network infrastructure. True physical layer lifecycle management principles need to be applied to maximise the useful life and financial performance of the data centre.
Think Telehouse Think global ParTner Our global reach, knowledge, experience and expertise have gained the trust of more than 1000 major companies worldwide, who rely on us to deliver their global ICT solutions
Become a Telehouse Global Partner today
Home to your global ICT solutions ConTaCT our sales Team: (0207) 512 0550
email: sales@uk.telehouse.net
VisiT: www.telehouse.net
DataCentreWorld - the only UK conference and exhibition to focus on the issues surrounding selecting, outsourcing, building and running a data centre. THE FREE TO ATTEND CONFERENCE covers the latest trends and technologies and
includes case studies from the UK’s top companies and the leading outsourced operators.
TOPICS INCLUDE:
•
What will be the impact of decisions on infrastructure in meeting Carbon Reduction Commitment? – Nexsans
• • • • • • •
Managing Data Centre Heat Issues – Chatsworth Carbon Reduction Commitment and the impact on data centres – Alquist London Borough of Hillingdon – The Economies of a Virtual Data Centre – Datanet Using Cloud Computing to lower your carbon footprint – ACS Green as an end to end approach-yes we CAN build a 15 year data center!! – Siemon Measure, Analyse and Act – the Three Steps to Energy Efficient Data Centres (EURO) – Sentilla A unique application of absorption cooling reducing energy consumption by 40% and making the scheme Carbon Tax Free – BNB developments Please note conference sessions may be subject to change
To book your free place visit www.datacentreworld.com/register
PLUS over 100 leading technology suppliers showcasing their latest products and services - to see the full list visit www.datacentreworld.com/exhibitors P L AT I N U M S P O N S O R
CONFERENCE HOST
M E D I A PA RT N E R S
S U P P O R T I N G A S S O C I AT I O N S
GOLD SPONSOR O F F I C I A L M E D I A PA RT N E R
BE PART OF THE LARGEST UK EVENT FOR DATA CENTRE PROFESSIONALS
www.datacentreworld.com
Visit the website to view the categorised product finder
Siemon presents next generation cabling innovation at DCW IEMON, A GLOBAL leader in the manufacture of the world’s highest performing network cabling, will be showcasing network solutions at Data Centre World (23rd/24th February) that address the DC environment challenges of 2010. The world’s highest performing 10GbE Category 6A system that offers 48 x Category 6A UTP and shielded copper ports in 1U – Z-MAX™ delivers data centre density that gives up to 100 per cent more space back to the data centre manager, market leading 10GbE performance and termination times of under 60seconds. VersaPOD™, a data centre cabinet solution that uses the normally redundant space found between ‘standard’ cabinets to deliver up to 20 per cent more network equipment space, thermal efficiency and flexibility for future MACs. For network security, MapIT G2® pushes the boundaries of next
S
generation IIM, allowing complex networks to be monitored, protected and managed from a central location – up to 2880 managed network ports from a single 1U 19inch panel and 75 per cent lower power consumption. Combining cutting-edge performance with high speed installation, Siemon’s ‘Plug and Play’ fibre optic cabling system was designed to satisfy the needs of high performance data centres – future proofed for 40 and 100GbE applications, with 75 per cent faster deployment and high density RazorCore™ cable replacing up to 24 individual fibres and connectors.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit us on Stand 150, or go to www.siemon.co.uk
Data Centre Solutions from HellermannTyton LOBALLY ESTABLISHED, HellermannTyton is an innovative leader in the provision of network infrastructure cabling solutions – in particular, RapidNet, iD and the new Deca10 range. RapidNet, the patented, risk-free, time saving pre-terminated solution and iD, a comprehensive intelligent infrastructure management solution are prime examples of innovation and development within the HellermannTyton product range which includes Deca10. Delivering uncompromised support for 10G, the Deca10 range offers a full end to end Cat6A solution in traditional and RapidNet and well as Fibre in pre-terminated and MTP formats. Additionally, the company offers a leading and broad range of quality, high performance connectivity for both residential and commercial use. 20 years of market experience coupled with in-house R&D and design capabilities enables HellermannTyton to work closely with its customers in a unique and consultative manner by advising
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
EPI – complete data centre solutions PI SERVICE IS AN Oxfordshire based company offering a complete solution for all data centre design and construction requirements from conceptual design to completed data centre. For over 20 years we have been designing and building data centres of an exceptional high standard for some of the world’s largest companies. Our products and services are aimed at helping our customers to increase availability of their mission critical infrastructure, improve efficiency, effectiveness and manageability, and minimize risk of business interruption. We work hard to provide solutions that fit each organization and we deliver quality on time, every time. EPI’s skilled Professional Services team offer a range of services including data centre design, CFD modelling, environmental surveys, ICOR accredited data centre training and 24x7 data centre monitoring. With extensive experience of
E
both conventional and modular construction techniques, our in-house capabilities extend to all aspects of data centre construction including civil works, power, cooling, fire detection/ suppression, security, racking and environmental monitoring. Complementing our traditional offering is the EPI Rapid Deployment Data Centre, the first truly affordable containerised data centre solution. Whatever your data centre requirement, EPI can help. Visit us at Data Centre World 2010, stand 105.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: +44 (0)1993 708855 Fax: +44 (0)1993 708850 E-mail: sales@epi-uk.com Web: www.epi-uk.com
Design and build of switch and data centres ALLIFORD TRY Communications has over 15 years experience in the design and construction of switch and data centres, from approximately 25m2 to 1500m2 across the whole of the UK. With our excellent project management ability and using expertise from traditional contracting with the application of our skills and experience of fast track, high quality and highly serviced mission critical facilities, Galliford Try Communications are well positioned to meet the demands and needs of clients in this sector. Understanding the clients’ requirements is fundamental in the ever changing market in which our clients work. We have built our success on qualities that provide an open and trustworthy approach. With increasing pressure for businesses to be more energy efficient it is our aim to encourage sustainable practice and to reduce the whole-life energy performance of the data centre.
G
G
on bespoke and custom products as well as the latest emerging technologies that matter. At Data Centre World 2010, HellermannTyton will be showcasing the RapidNet and iD products as part of their data centre solution. With pre-terminated RapidNet, available in both copper and fibre formats, able to reduce installation times by up to 85 per cent and the latest version of iD able to monitor temperature and power as well as track moves, adds and changes, HellermannTyton’s data centre solutions will benefit the installer/ engineer, the data centre manager and the data centre owners.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: 01604 707420 Fax: 01604 705454 E-mail: sales@htdata.co.uk Web: www.htdata.co.uk
Our skills in the roll out process together with exceptional project management skills enable us to undertake full turnkey services from planning and building regulation approval, building works and installation of equipment, power management, AC/DC systems, air conditioning, fire and security, equipment racks, cable trays, building works and installation and commissioning of equipment. Galliford Try Communications will be exhibiting at Data Centre World Conference & Expo on the 23-24 February 2010 at the Barbican, London - Stand 18.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Galliford Try Specialist Services Tel: 01455 222 792 Web: www.gallifordtry.co.uk
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
45
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
AUDIO VISUAL
INTERACTIVITY AND SUSTAINABILITY In a bid to meet carbon reduction targets, using video conferencing and the web to run meetings is gaining momentum in the public sector Promoting sustainable working practices and reducing carbon emissions is a priority for civil servants in their day-to-day roles. A survey commissioned at Civil Service Live – the annual UK event for government department employees – reveals that nearly half (49 per cent) of the respondents stated it is a high priority with a further 38 per cent setting it as a medium-term objective.
bringing together 2,500 people over seven locations using video conferencing. “The use of web to power meetings and video-conferences is gaining momentum in the public sector in a bid to meet government carbon reduction targets. It is inevitable that UK plc will follow in this quest for sustainable event dialogue especially in light of growing commercial carbon emission legislation,” states Toby Lewis, Managing Director of The Live Group plc.
THE GREENER OPTION
Using video conferencing instead of traveling to attend events and meetings is becoming an increasingly popular way to reduce carbon emissions. Natural England, the government advisory body on the natural environment, reported a 31 per cent reduction in emissions when compared to the previous year’s annual event, by
New low cost prompting packages from Autocue
INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY
Using green event technologies is also a better option in terms of public expenditure and can lead to increased productivity as less time is spent out of the office. Toby Lewis explains: “An average London-based conference for
400 delegates held in a hotel can cost in the region of £115,000 when taking into account venue hire, daily delegate rates, AV equipment, event management, overnight accommodation and standard train travel from 12 major city locations. “In comparison, the same event can be condensed to a fully facilitated golden four hours, powered by video conference in 20 regions with 20 delegates in each location. This costs near to £39,000 and is a 66 per cent cost saving. The other savings include greater workforce efficiency with minimal time spent out of the office and reduced carbon emissions.” AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
The survey also highlights that 84 per cent of respondents rate the use of audience engagement at events as very or quite important to gain live delegate feedback when running an event. The main advantages that touch pad voting systems provide were cited as generating better and quicker response rates (21 per cent), encouraging a greater feeling of involvement for delegates (17 per cent) and being more engaging than paper based questionnaires (22 per cent).
£599
PRICES FROM
INCLUD ING SOFTW ARE
+ VAT
NATIONAL/GLOBAL LIVE LINKS TRANSMISSION BY SATELLITE, CABLE, MICROWAVE, FIBRE OPTIC, ISDN (Video Conferencing) AND TELEPHONE SD/HD RECORDING, SHOOTING AND EDITING IN PAL & NTSC Cheshire based, Mustard Links Ltd celebrates its 10th year in 2009. We have been successfully providing live satellite, video & audio conference links globally to blue chip companies for internal communication events, business reviews, product updates and AGMs since 1999. We look after all the technical requirements and logistics – leaving you free to concentrate on delivering your message Delivered pre-assembled next day
020 8665 2992 www.autocue-qtv.com
46
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
Contact: Ross Sheppard Tel: +44 (0) 1477 549278 ross.sheppard@mustardlinks.co.uk www.mustardlinks.co.uk
Visit the website to view the categorised product finder
Event Concept – full production and event design services VENT CONCEPT has a unique range of services all housed in the same 30,000 sq foot of offices and warehousing in Bermondsey, South-East London. From this location, we are easily able to service our clients in the West End, Central London, City and Canary Wharf. Whilst this is our primary market, we produce events throughout the UK and have travelled as far as Moscow. Our audio visual department being relatively new, has already worked on over 400 projects in the last year alone, and has a wealth of experience in conferencing, awards, live music and projection. We also provide the following services – Event Production and Design, Lighting design and Installation, set & stage design, and floral design. We specialise in working in venues that offer very little access time, such as the Natural History Museum, Science Museum, Tate
E
Britain and Modern, where the public leave at 6pm, and shows need to be delivered by 8pm. We feel that all events should be delivered with the same level of precision, wherever they are.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: 0800 310 1026 Fax: 020 7740 3989 E-mail: eventsgt@ eventconcept.co.uk Web: www.eventconcept.co.uk
Leaders in video communications and telepresence STABLISHED IN February 1996, Direct Visual has been long recognised as the number one solutions and service provider in the videoconferencing industry in the UK, with a particular strength in the public sector. Direct Visual is currently the chosen partner for videoconferencing and audio visual products for a number of government departments, including the Department for Transport, Communities and Local Government, the Highways Agency, the DVLA, VOSA, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Equalities and Human Rights Commission, whilst also holding several multi-million pound contracts within the education sector, and strength within local government, healthcare, blue light and corporate business. By building a reputation based upon knowledge, integrity, commitment and experience, the company has grown organically year on year, leading to them
E
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Translating creative ideas into technical reality REATIVE TECHNOLOGY (CT) operates on a global scale supplying Audio Visual and event staging services to government and public sector departments worldwide. With inventoried offices in EMEA, APAC and the USA, Creative Technology’s positioning is to work either via incumbent production companies, or as an extension to in-house event teams utilising the seamless relationships between our international offices. Our bespoke events staging services bring together advice, support and equipment of the highest quality. We provide everything from large screen displays to content delivery systems: in short, all the elements required to translate creative ideas into technical reality. Recent projects include the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Athens and Beijing, London House at the Beijing Olympics, the Opening Ceremony of the 11th National Games of the People’s Republic of China and Dubai’s National Day. In the UK, Creative Technology has recently facilitated
C
the National Trust AGM 2009 and the 2009 Conservative Party Conference. Our clients include the COI, LOCOG, BOCOG, TFL, Liverpool City Council and the GLA, in addition to numerous councils and local authorities.
FOR MORE INFORMATION For more information, or to discuss any aspect of our projects and 23 year experience, please contact Paul Sanders on 01293 582000, psanders@ctlondon.com
Audio visual solutions for the public sector LUE LIZARD MEDIA Ltd have been supplying audio visual solutions for many years, providing a complete service from design right through installation to commissioning and training of key staff. We can supply and install smart boards, data projectors, public address systems, training room equipment, induction loops, plasma displays and video conferencing units to name but a few of the products that we have available. Our services include: Audio visual equipment sale, installation and hire; staging and bespoke sets; lighting, exhibition shell schemes and display boards; video conferencing, voting systems; experienced and friendly technical team. Blue Lizard Media are committed to providing the best service and equipment for you. Blue Lizard Media can also assist you in organising your conference or meeting. Year on year clients
B
being listed among the 500 top AV companies in the UK, being named a videoconferencing Centre of Excellence by TANDBERG and becoming the first videoconferencing company to also be a Cisco Select Partner and a Microsoft Partner. Having already established a superb reputation in this and other sectors, Direct Visual is an ideal partner for small, medium or large scale projects.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: 08453 575757 Fax: 08453 575758 E-mail: government@ direct-visual.com Web: www.direct-visual.com
come back to us for all their equipment needs. We can supply everything including the stage set, lights, sound, projection and of course expertise to create that special event. Our friendly staff can provide technical advice and are happy to discuss your project.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Address: 9 Dryden Glen Bilston Glen Industrial Estate Loanhead, Edinburgh, EH20 9NA. Tel: 0845 130 9009 Fax: 0845 130 9008 E-mail: hire@bluelizardmedia.co.uk
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
47
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
COMPROMISING DATA Is it carelessness or a lack of security awareness that’s a major cause of information security breaches? Nick van der Bijl BEM, from the National Assiociation for Healthcare Security, investigates RECENTLY A TELEVISION INVESTIGATION claimed that the patient records held by a private sector hospital had been offered to undercover investigators for £4 each by foreign sales representatives. The hospital had contracted the digitalisation of patient notes to a UK-based company. This supplier then passed the work to a sub-contractor, who, in turn, transferred the work to a third UK-based company. It was then contracted to a foreign sub-contractor and it was at this stage that human frailities stepped in when some files were offered for sale by two men with access to the information at the transcription centre. No NHS patient notes appear not to have been compromised although some files contained GP referral letters. DATA PROTECTION UK data protection is governed by eight principles contained within the 1998 Data Protection Act, thus: • Information must be processed fairly and lawfully. • Information must be processed for one or more specified or lawful purpose, and not further processed in any way that is incompatible with the original purpose. • Information must be adequate, relevant and not excessive. • Information must be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date. • Information must be kept for no longer than is necessary for the purpose for which it is being used. • Information must be processed in line with the rights of the individual. • Information must be kept secure with appropriate technical and organisational measures taken to protect the information. • Information must not be transferred outside the European Economic Area (the European Union member states plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) unless there is adequate protection for the information Section 55 (1a) of the Act also states that “A person must not knowingly or recklessly, without consent of the data controller obtain or disclose personal data or the information contained in the personal data.” During its convoluted passage, the information was technically in breach of: • Principle 6 – Information must be processed in line with the rights of the individual. • Principle 8 – Data shall not be transferred
48
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
outside of the EEA (European Economic Area. • Principle 2 – Information must be processed for one or more specified or lawful purpose, and not further processed in any way that is incompatible with the original purpose. HIGH RISK BY NATURE By its very nature, electronic information runs a high risk of being compromised, particularly in an age in which it can be manipulated with sometimes careless abandon. Some nations have acquired reputations as cost-effective outsourced IT labour, but not all have the same stringent data protection culture evident in the UK. Accepting that that the hospital transferred the work in good faith, in risk management terms, it was responsible for the information until the contract conclusion. This can be difficult to achieve in some distant countries where there are thriving entrepreneurs with aspirations of wealth. The advent of convenient electronic information equipment, such as laptops, memory sticks and mobile communications, has escalated opportunities for data compromise. Electronic correspondence has made communications easier but it is evident from the losses that organisations are failing to develop defences to protect information. PROTECTING INFORMATION Accepting that NHS Connecting for Health is rolling out protective software, this is about 25 per cent part of the answer. The other 75 per cent revolves around practices that, at first sight, have little to do with computers – security awareness, physical security measures, investigation, accountability and common sense – but are critical. Defending electronic information solely with software is naïve. A hospital manager managed to lose a laptop from his car by breaking a basic crime prevention principle of never leaving property in a view in a vehicle. Statistics suggest that it is at very high risk of theft. In offering the inevitable apology, a spokesman said that since the information had been encrypted and the laptop password could be accessed only by authorised staff, there was little chance that patient details could be compromised. The hospital seemed not to accept that given time, every security measure can be breached. The Trust then went on the defensive by announcing that staff had been advised not
to store such information on laptops. So what principal lesson do we draw from this statement – Buy a pencil! This is backward step in an electronic age. A single lightweight laptop has replaced bundles of heavy files. It therefore follows that mature protective security measures should be adopted. UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM Careless handling of laptops has drawn stern warnings from the Information Commissioner’s Office, and rightly so, that compromise by public bodies is unacceptable. But that it still happens suggests that those responsible for information security either are not taking the matter seriously or, more likely, do not understand how information security fits into the overall security strategy. The problem that the ease in which information is gained is replicated by the lax manner in which it is protected. A fundamental problem is that finance departments are often entrusted with information security and governance. Essentially, the guardian of the information is divorced from the department employed to protect the organisation, namely the security department. The conclusion must be that until such time as all security issues, such as security awareness, are placed under a single umbrella of security managers qualified in all aspects of protective security, then avoidable breaches of information will continue. An alternative is to employ information security specialists working directly with the security manager to develop electronic security strategies, enhance security awareness, training and education and investigate breaches of information security. MINIMISING RISK No organisation can claim to be 100 per cent infallible and the actions of deliberate or accidental rogues will always overide corporate codes. The use of offshore contractors to manipulate information is fraught with the risk of security controls being breached. When formulating contracts, think the unthinkable, guard against the unexpected and challenge assumptions. Responses to breaches of IT security need to be mature and focused on learning lessons. Cost effective protection of information can be achieved by a sensible, coordinated security organisational structure using security systems working from the centre outwards.
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
HIDDEN SAVINGS Doing more with less at a time when less is more THE NEWS WE WERE ALL HOPING would not become reality – has. The Office for National Statistics has confirmed that we are still in recession; other economic indicators are pointing to further increases in unemployment which will bring additional misery to communities up and down the country. As recently as March this year, the Local Government Association reported 41 per cent of local authorities were experiencing an increase in demand for services for the unemployed or those at risk of unemployment, with 57 per cent of these experiencing increased demand for social housing. There is no doubt now, that greater social need and demands on public services have hit at the same time as proposed cuts in public services are being called for. There is a growing recognition that we need to manage by ‘doing more for less’. This needs to be reflected in public sector initiatives such as ‘Total Place’, which are important as a means of assessing the total contribution of the public economy and assessing how more can be done. TOTAL PLACE Total Place is a new initiative that looks at how a ‘whole area’ approach to public services can lead to better services at lower cost. It seeks to identify and avoid overlap and duplication between organisations – delivering a step change in both service improvement and efficiency at the local level, as well as across Whitehall. This combined with the economic downturn is encouraging the public sector to find radical new solutions that not only deliver better value for money, but also improve local services that are better tailored to meet local needs. As Sir Michael Bichard, Executive Director of the Institute for Government and Chair of the high-level officials’ group states: “It is about giving local providers the incentive to work together in new ways for the benefit of their clients and citizens – and the opportunity to tell Government how it could behave differently to make this kind of collaborative action more likely.” PROGRESSIVE PROCUREMENT But Total Place is only part of the solution. There is a requirement for progressive procurement processes and a greater understanding of where ‘hidden’ savings can be made without putting greater pressure on Council Tax payers. One such area yet to be explored by the majority of councils is the inefficiencies around their document production processes, where is it estimated there are hidden savings of £1 billion. Research, conducted across over 2,000
documents from a sample of 134 councils, has been undertaken to map activities, costs and resources supporting the conception of documents through to their publication. The findings have identified a huge untapped area for cost savings and performance improvements. This study highlights where, when and how real savings can be achieved, given the sheer number of documents – many of which are statutory – that are produced by local authorities each year. All against a backdrop of declining government support grants and increased pressures for substantial operational cost and headcount reduction. Key findings include: • A combined £1 billion can be saved from the document production process through improved business processes, design and print • On average a Tier 1 local authority has 2,566 live and current documents in the public domain; Tier 2 has 1,582 • Document production currently costs a Tier 1 local authority over £11 million a year and £2.8 million for a Tier 2 • Business process improvements could save a Tier 1 authority up to £2.6 million, and a Tier 2 could save £830,000 • A Tier 1 authority could save up to £290,000 by improving their graphic design services, while a Tier 2 could save £169,000 • Improvements in print management can
also deliver significant savings – £300,000 for a Tier 1 and £60,000 for a Tier 2. Councils have become experts in managing tight budgets, but they are likely to face even deeper, longer lasting cuts in the very near future. The report identifies some easy wins for local authorities, highlighting that in document production alone just under £1 billion can be saved across UK councils. For the past six years Limehouse, an Objective Corporation Company, has been providing solutions to local government to support the inception, creation and publication of large, complex documents. Limehouse’s solutions have been used to create more than 15,000 of these, supporting customers throughout the entire document lifecycle. This has led to a comprehensive understanding of how councils can streamline their document production process to deliver significant, quick savings.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit www.limehousesoftware.co.uk/ c2p for a copy of the research paper.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
49
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
ARRIVING AT HIGH QUALITY CARE St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has begun the move from paper to electronic health record management to further improve the quality of patient care million paper-based case files each containing on average 250 pages, in other words a total estate of some 250 million documents. As 90,000 new patients per annum are registered it is forecast that this quantity will continue to expand exponentially. Neil Darvill, director of Informatics, St. Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, explained: “The NHS is committed to continuously improving patient care. With lead times from referral to treatment reducing, and the increase in shared care across multidisciplinary patient care pathways, the need for Health Records Departments across the country to respond is vital. These departments are frequently environments in which teams of people do their best to get the right patient file to the right clinician at the right time with everything then filed away correctly at the end. As this is a paper based system, it is difficult to sustain in the long term as growth continues unabated.”
The new system means the Trust will be able to 100 per cent guarantee health records availability when outpatients arrive for consultations, with improved quality of service to patients and clinicians at the point of care ST HELENS AND KNOWSLEY TEACHING Hospitals NHS Trust has installed an electronic document management system (EDMS), using C-Cube software from OITUK and Kodak i660 and i780 scanners, to radically change the way health records are distributed around its various outpatient facilities in Merseyside. In a phased rollout starting with the respiratory, dermatology and ophthalmology departments, the Trust will move away from a labour intensive process to one where all authorised clinicians, medical secretaries and other staff in the local health economy will have secure access to patient files online via their networked desktop PCs. Files associated with outpatient appointments were chosen first
50
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
given the volume of visits – 250,000 annually, in contrast to 10,000 actual hospital admissions. IMPROVED SERVICES The new system means the Trust will be able to 100 per cent guarantee health records availability when outpatients arrive for consultations, with improved quality of service to patients and clinicians at the point of care. In addition to significant clinical benefits, the Trust expects the system to pay for itself within three years through staff, storage and efficiency cost savings. The Trust’s health records library, based in a purpose-built 10,000 sq ft building on the St. Helens hospital campus, consists of one
AVAILABLE RECORDS The impact of a paper-based system for patients is that historically no guarantee could be made that clinicians would have their medical files ready at the time of any given appointment, due to the logistics involved in the movement of health records. Darvill said: “Prior to the EDMS project, we were operating at 98 per cent availability, which we wanted to raise to 100 per cent. Given 1,200 case files are delivered on a daily basis, it could potentially mean that clinicians may, on rare occasions, be delayed in receiving the required patient information. Even at only two per cent down, we felt that the project would give significant benefit to patients and staff alike.” Two examples illustrate why medical records might not be available at the beginning of a consultation. First, a patient might attend the hospital for two appointments on the same day with different doctors. For example, if the first visit was to a diabetes clinic and the second an ophthalmology clinic, the medical secretary may not have finished typing up the notes after the first clinic, with the file returned to the library prior to the second appointment starting. Darvill outlined a second scenario: ”If a patient with a long tem chronic condition deteriorates and is admitted to the Emergency Department very unwell, and the notes are, for example, with a medical secretary,
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
this could create an unnecessary delay. Clinicians may not have the full overview of the patient’s condition at the point of care and the patient potentially may not receive the correct treatment in a timely fashion.” THE RIGHT SOLUTION At the outset, the Trust considered scanning its whole health records library, but rejected the idea after realising that this was too time consuming and, most importantly, added no patient value. Given the 250 million documents stored, a study carried out estimated it would take ten full time staff 30 years to do it, with the only benefits being space saved and the EDMS being marginally
a series of workshops were held with the Trust’s IT staff, senior consultants representing clinicians and OITUK itself – a team of 12 who met to discuss design options and concepts. OITUK then built a prototype, wrote the application, completed the technical integration and testing – a process which took just seven months to get the functionality right. The portal screen displays a whole of host of information such as patient name, appointment time, last doctor’s letter, and has a range of links (in effect virtual chapters) into the EDMS so that a clinician can delve into the patients’ past medical history at a click of a button. The Trust has installed 24” LCD screens so that A4 sized documents
Once we had been trained on the scanners, they proved to be reliable, fast, hassle free with excellent image quality which is key, given we have a myriad of different documents to scan. This ranges from A4 and A5 sheets, photos, ECG4 traces, which are 3“ high and 24 feet long, thick cardboard, and red paper with black type, which can be tricky for some scanners to recognise cheaper than actually constructing a new building. Crucially, the opportunity to improve services to patients would be missed. To solve these paper management issues, the Trust selected to install OITUK’s C-Cube EDMS. Darvill explained: “An EDMS was the only way we could start to take control and shrink case file growth. It’s not an electronic patient record (EPR) system, which has been much vaunted in the NHS but is still some years away. It’s a solution to manage paper that can be integrated to provide a solid base for any future EPR solution given we’d still want to access historical information electronically which the new EDMS now provides.” Instead of digitising everything, a scan-ondemand approach has been adopted where medical records for patients coming into the hospital the next day or the next week are scanned with the EDMS then used as a delivery mechanism. Archie Menzies, sales director, OITUK, explained: “To make the project clinically viable, a front end portal for the whole system was required which had to be bespoke built as there was nothing available on the market to meet the Trust’s needs.” SIMPLE AND SAFE ACCESS The portal offers a single, simple and safe point of access to view and access outpatient health records so that everyone can see holistically the patient’s medical history. In addition, it is enabling the Trust to rationalise and remove disparate department-based repositories, built up over the years, inevitably containing duplicated patient information. To ensure the portal met with local needs,
can be displayed completely on screen. Information shown on the portal is also sourced from various other IT systems, in particular the Trust’s Patient Administration System (PAS), the software solution comprising various modules such as Patient Master Index1 and Outpatients’ Module which records appointment times. This has minimised unnecessary development work or duplication of technology. PLANNING AHEAD Today, everyone can read files prior to a planned meeting by accessing the electronic case notes. Similarly, consultants have been given secure remote access so they can review patient files from home prior to attending their clinics, something they could never have done in the past as files would have been in transit. Equally, mobile district nurses can access the system when they need to just by popping into a local GP surgery and logging in. So far, the Trust has trained 530 clinicians and all medical secretaries to use the EDMS, with two weeks ongoing support provided if necessary. Yet only ten minutes of instruction has been required in some cases such is the intuitive nature of the system. The Trust has also used the project as an opportunity to standardise letters sent to patients and GPs, reducing the number of templates from 50 to 10, while allowing doctors and their secretaries the ability to customise how they work with the system. In terms of project rollout, the chest and dermatology departments are ‘live’ with the
ophthalmology files currently being converted – equating to about 25 per cent of all the Trust’s outpatient files. By the end of 2010, a further 20 departments, covering 30 specialities and 120 consultants, will be transitioned over. HANDLING LARGE QUANTITIES To convert the numerous paper-based medical files into quality electronic images, three high performance Kodak production scanners – one i1780 and two i660 series machines – have been installed based on OITUK’s recommendation which can each cope with vast scanning volumes per day2. Even using a scan-on-demand approach, where only the records required by visiting patients are scanned, the Trust expects to scan over 671,800 files over a five-year period3 hence the need for high capacity devices. Darvill commented: “Once we had been trained on the scanners, they proved to be reliable, fast, hassle free with excellent image quality which is key, given we have a myriad of different documents to scan. This ranges from A4 and A5 sheets, photos, ECG4 traces, which are 3“ high and 24 feet long, thick cardboard, and red paper with black type, which can be tricky for some scanners to recognise.” BENEFITS ALL AROUND In the business case presented to the Trust’s board, the project team estimates that £3.2 million will be saved over 5 years using a scan-on-demand approach further to an initial investment totalling £1.205 million to cover IT and additional scanning staff. The large return on investment is derived from reducing the number of health records staff over time, and the large efficiency and cost improvements realised throughout the whole Trust as the paper shuffling process is removed. Self evidently, the patient benefits are huge. Health professionals can now provide far better quality of care as they have the right paperwork in front of them, and, in turn, because they’re empowered, the patient has a better medical experience. Equally, online access to files means people can see more than one doctor per visit, with appointment times now guaranteed even if they are set up at short notice. This has advantages to both patients and the Trust – more can be done during one visit saving hassle and time for the individual, with the hospital reducing the number of patient appointments overall and keeping waiting times to a minimum. Notes 1. Lists all patients, names and address, local GP and contains demographic information 2. Recommended daily scanning volumes for the Kodak i1660 and i780 scanners are respectively 120,000 and 130,000 pages per day 3. This figure is made up of Health Records (546,182), Casualty Cards (54,620) and Health Record Supplement files (71,004) 4. Electrocardiogram
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
51
Written by Michael Hobbs, Carillion Business Services, for the Facilities Management Association
FACILITIES MANAGEMENT
MANAGING PROPERTY A guide to savings and improvements in public sector estate INCREASE EFFICIENCY, ACHIEVE energy reduction targets, use less space, comply with statutory requirements, reduce costs, and improve standards – this is the facilities management agenda facing public sector organisations. This pales into almost insignificance against the public service delivery agenda. But mention savings and all too often facilities services are the first port of call. This can be the silver lining for facilities management in that it does feature on senior decision makers agenda, if only at budget setting time. The facilities or property director invariably has the unenviable annual objective of meeting the budget target and reacting to crises. Rather than matching a serviced estate to the strategic requirements of delivering a public service. The result is a generation of battle-weary estates and facilities directors, whose expertise is in operational day-to-day management of an institutionalised, unionised and superannuated workforce. The senior operational management recognise the need for change. Yet implementation is frustrated by corporate bureaucracy and a risk avoidance culture based on consensus decision making. As a generalisation the middle management is disenfranchised and motivation and morale low. Despite this the profile of managing the assets that form the public sector estate has never been higher. In the current economic climate this focus will only increase. The demand is for realising savings, and achieving them now. But to release savings numerous barriers need to be overcome. These include the complexity of the estate and clarity of ownership; the level of ambition and the delivery capability within public sector organisations; clarity of scope and remit of facilities and asset management; and the need to transform working practices and processes. SAVINGS ON FACILITIES In central government alone the total asset base in 2003 was valued at £220 billion and costs some £6bn per year to maintain and service. The last six years has seen significant change with relocation of departments to the regions; improved utilisation of space and increasingly transformed working practices. The result is progress towards annual running cost savings of £1.25bn a year. At the same time improved working environments, enhanced access to technology and reduced energy consumption have been delivered. A key change is identifying how to work smarter using less space, which is contributing achieving a 2.4 million sq m reduction by 2013. Progress has undoubtedly benefited from outsourcing and partnering with the
52
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
private sector. Today over 70 per cent of the central government annual facilities management spend is outsourced. This has been achieved through a combination of traditional tenders, framework agreements and Public Private Partnership arrangements. Support service outsourcing is an often used phrase, yet remains a mystery to many. At its simplest it is procurement of a single service, for example cleaning. At the other end of the spectrum it’s the outsourcing of elements of operational service delivery. This can be thought of as a continuum with facilities management being seen as a subset of wider support services. The decision as to what to procure is crucial to realising benefits. Moving across the continuum the scale ranges from lowest cost for a service, to realising enhanced value from the asset base across its whole life. It’s no surprise that the management requirement increases from supervisory skills and culminates in strategic management skills; and the technology investment increases from commodity computer aided facilities management systems (CAFM) to bespoke business intelligence systems. These specialist systems give real time management information, including cost of occupancy that allows real time management interventions. OUTSOURCED SERVICES The depth and quality of management required to manage outsourced services depends on whether the scope of outsourcing includes strategic management as well as operational management responsibility. Inclusion of strategic management of assets and property, to maintain an estate that is aligned with the
ever changing business need, is associated with Total Facilities Management (TFM) or Integrated Facilities Management. If strategic management responsibility is being retained in-house the decision is the degree to which outsourced services are aggregated into bundles or procured as individual services. Bundling offers the opportunity to create synergies between services and to drive efficiency and deliver reduced cost. All too often bundles of disparate services are created limiting the benefit to contracting with a single entity. Bundles themselves can be grouped into services that focus on compliance, in terms of ensuring that facilities are safe, warm and dry; or on hotel services including catering and cleaning; or front of house with reception and switchboard. At the simplest level single service procurements generally provide commodity services with the benefit being to drive cost improvements on a single budget line. Despite central government departments making progress there is more to be done. Other areas of the public sector have not made the level of progress seen in central government. Facilities management outsourcing in local authorities and health is at less than 50 per cent compared with over 90 per cent in some areas of central government. Expectations of funding pressures dictate potential savings must be realised, and new areas for saving identified. Traditional facilities management outsourcing may be part of the answer, but is unlikely to unlock the levels of saving required to maintain or improve the standard of service delivery demanded by the public. The days of year on year three per
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
FACILITIES MANAGEMENT
cent efficiency savings are no longer sufficient. Ways must be found of maintaining or improving service quality at a significantly lower cost base. This is not a pipedream. Outsourcing is founded on using specialist expertise to increase efficiency and make more effective use of resources and assets. For companies providing outsourced services it is their core business. They invest in their people, in the development of enabling technologies and are constantly developing services to increase productivity and efficiency – in short they provide access to industry best practice and innovation – creating the opportunity to do more with less. ENSURING COMPLIANCE Ensuring statutory compliance is paramount, but is not a given. In complex multi-property estates the challenges are large. Up to date databases containing asset registers and histories are essential – yet all too often are none existent. And once the assets are known, how are they best maintained? Should planned maintenance be on a calendar basis, regardless of usage, or alternatively be based on criticality of the asset and its use. Is it necessary to have resident engineers or could engineers be part of a mobile team. If mobile do they need to be dedicated to a single organisation? Deployment of mobile engineers using dynamic scheduling significantly reduces travel time and increases productivity. Similar decisions that affect the quality and cost of service exist for each of the facilities management services. And it is these questions that need to be identified when specifying an outsourcing procurement and resolved during the selection process. Further benefits can be realised by addressing the assets required to deliver an organisations core business. Assets include property, fleet and IT infrastructure, which when managed collectively are referred to as Strategic Asset Management. Property asset management focuses on the property element of strategic asset management and it encompasses two interacting components. An operational component encompasses the ongoing management of property assets over the short to medium term time horizon (three to five years) within an allocated budgetary framework. The strategic component focuses on the medium to longer term (10 years and beyond) involving decisions on investment in property assets to meet end-user needs and service delivery requirements. As part of longer term planning workplace management offers the opportunity to create improved working environments in less space, by matching space to the needs of the occupants. It is an integral part of matching the facilities and property needs to the business need and aligned working practices. Application of workplace management in private sector organisations has created significant space savings. Benefits include reduced facilities management and maintenance costs, reduced rent and rates and lower energy consumption contributing to achieving saving energy targets. CORE COMPETENCIES The application of the core competencies required for efficient facilities management delivery are transferable. Benefits can also be delivered across a range of public service operations where there is the opportunity to increase productivity and efficiency. The effective management of mobile workforces does not differ significantly between maintenance engineers and the multitude of mobile public service delivery personnel. At the end of the day it is about getting the right person to the right place with as little time spent travelling as possible. The private sector is already supporting delivery of a wide range of public service delivery. Yet this is only a small fraction of the total. Outsourcing services brings the benefit that the private sector generally takes the risk of achieving savings. This creates incentives for breaking through the inertia often associated with public sector change programmes. Undoubtedly better quality services being promised by politicians and demanded by the public can be delivered at a lower cost through a combination of public sector and private sector expertise. The opportunity is there. It now needs the strategic vision and leadership to grasp the opportunity and turn it into reality.
2D and 3D software for the public sector NFORMATIX SOFTWARE International Limited was founded in 1997 to develop 2D and 3D software for the architectural, engineering, construction, and facility management industries. This British based company sells in 70 countries around the world from its head office in Cambridge, UK. Their products have been used on large scale projects including Heathrow Terminal 4, the Channel Tunnel, BT Head Office in St Paul’s, London, Sprint Campus in the US and The Boston Big Dig. Customers who trust in us for their architectural and interior design, floor planning, building/ asset maintenance and graphically displaying data include Debenhams, Scott Brownrigg, HLM Architects, Manchester City Council, Miller Hare, Foggo Architects and many more. In an industry where change is the norm your ability to quickly
I
respond is pivotal to your success. Gone are the days where facilities management was solely concerned with the electrical faults and grounds maintenance. Today, the expectations on FM are to drive a reduction in operating costs, maximise space and ensure that all fixed and non-fixed assets are performing to their optimal capability. Informatix FM, with its flexible, intuitive and powerful technology has become the facilities manager’s most important ally in addressing this new generation of business-critical services. With its true multi-user functionality this software enables collaborative working with multiple departments and stakeholders around the world.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: +44 (0)1223 246777 Fax: +44 (0)1223 246778 E-mail: info@informatix.co.uk
New technologies help to reduce stress on new systems ULS UK ARE a subsidiary of PULS GmBH, based in Munich Germany, with manufacturing in both Europe and China. As a market specialist in DIN Rail power supplies for the process control and automation industry, and the second largest producer of DIN RAIL power supplies in the world, they have developed many advanced technologies for use within power supplies. These developments have allowed them to offer unique features, high efficiency, (so negligible heat generation), ultra wide input voltage range, (generators and UPS systems catered for), starting temperatures as low as -40 degrees, and no inrush current (allowing the operator to use lower fusing and smaller UPS systems). These features have caused the
P
products to be adopted by a wide range of markets and are currently being used in a many new applications. Included in this is building automation, where the efficiencies and long life expectancy can drastically reduce energy costs for lighting and control circuits. Further development is now being done to offer these features to other markets where recent applications have included LED systems, for information, control and safety installations, which has also lead to the development of DC UPS systems to offer secure (no single point failure) systems in fire control and door entry systems.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: 03309 999988 Fax: 01525 841291 E-mail: sales@puls.co.uk Web: www.puls.co.uk
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
53
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
EVENTS
LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES 2010 Europe’s leading showcase of technology supported workplace learning FREE CONFERENCE GIFT Free iPod nano 5G, Flip Ultra 11 or Canon PowerShot A480 digital camera for each booking delegate* *Terms and conditions apply (please see website for details)
IN TODAY’S FAST-MOVING, technologydriven business climate the need to stay ahead of the organisational learning curve is vital. Technology supported learning is now central to the success of any organisation and a visit to Learning Technologies 2010 will give you all the inspiration your organisation needs to thrive in today’s changing learning environment. The 2010 Learning Technologies event will be the biggest ever, with more than 130 exhibitors, 60 free seminars, endless networking opportunities and a world-renowned conference – making it Europe’s leading event for organisational learning and the technology used to support learning at work. But there’s more. In 2010 Learning Technologies will be co-located with an exciting new event, Learning and Skills – covering the entire spectrum of methods, products and services available for workplace learning and development. With even more exhibitors and free seminars, it adds up to two of the most important days in the learning industry’s calendar. OVER 100 FREE SEMINARS Free seminars will be running throughout the two days of the event in four open theatres on the exhibition floor. Entry to these seminars is free of charge and seating is on a first come first served basis. With free seminars also running in four themed theatres in the co-located Learning and Skills exhibition on the ground floor at Olympia 2 visitors are advised to arrive early to ensure a place. More than 200 leading suppliers will be exhibiting at Learning Technologies 2010 and its sister event Learning and Skills including all the leading companies currently shaping the way we learn and develop corporate
skills. For the latest exhibitor list and seminar information please visit the website. Now in its eleventh exciting year, Learning Technologies is Europe’s leading conference for organisational learning and technology-supported learning in the workplace. Running January 27 – 28th at Olympia 2 in London, the conference has more speakers and more presentations than ever, with an additional track added this year to provide even more breadth and interaction. There is a huge array of sessions to choose from, including keynote addresses, cafe sessions, case studies and theory presentations, across four compelling tracks – learning technology, learning strategy, learning issues and learning together. With over 400 delegates, 50 leading speakers and endless networking opportunities, it is the must attend conference for all learning and development professionals. EXPERT SPEAKERS You will listen to, and interact with, some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in workplace learning, gaining practical guidance for your challenges today, as well as insights into the big picture of learning tomorrow. Highlights for 2010 include keynote addresses from Lord Puttnam, Josh Bersin and Professor Stephen Heppell and speakers from Barclays Capital, Black and Decker, Boots UK, BT Group, Chubb Insurance, CMG, Fugro NV, Identity and Passport Service, Ministry of Justice, MOD, Sky, Thomson Reuters, Xerox Europe and many more. WHY VISIT? • See the latest advances in workplace learning and learning technology • Experience how learning technologies are influencing what we learn
at work and how we do it. • Meet over 130 learning providers currently shaping the way we learn and develop corporate skills • Get fresh perspectives on key learning issues • Deal with the learning challenges specific to your organisation • Choose from over 60 free seminars including case studies and best practice • Network with more than 4000 L&D professionals In 2010 there is even more to experience. Make the most of your time out of the office and visit two great shows in just one venue. Learning and Skills 2010 is the new event launched to complement Learning Technologies and features an even broader range of products, services and free seminars for visitors to see and do. WHO SHOULD ATTEND? Learning and development professionals involved with any aspect of organisational learning and performance improvement; from learning strategy, development and management through to learning delivery and implementation of learning systems. • Chief Learning Officers • Corporate Executive Management • e-Learning Directors / Managers • Heads of Learning and Development • HR Directors / Managers • IT Directors / Managers • IT Training Managers • Learning and Development Managers • Learning Centre Managers • Organisational Development Directors • Performance Improvement Managers • Personnel Directors / Managers • Project Managers • Talent Management Officers • Training Directors / Managers WHAT WILL YOU LEARN? At Learning Technologies 2010 you will find a wealth of suppliers and seminars covering: • Collaborative learning and technology • Content authoring and design • e-Learning strategy, technology and implementation • Gaming, simulations and virtual worlds • Informal and social learning • Learning management infrastructure, methods and systems
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
55
www.speechtek.com/europe
THE VOICE SOLUTIONS SHOWCASE COMES TO EUROPE! 26 – 27 MAY 2010
Copthorne Tara Hotel, London, UK www.speechtek.com/europe E: europe@speechtek.com
speech recognition • text-to-speech synthesis • speaker authentication • voice search • dialogue management speech analytics • video • natural language • VoiceXML 3.0 • unified communications • IVR localisation language identification • multilingual applications • voice-to-voice translation • multimodal applications
Winning strategies for Europe
Who will be at SpeechTEK Europe?
Explore winning speech strategies, innovative technologies, and new European opportunities at the launch of this long-awaited forum for the global speech market.
C-level executives
• • • • •
Contact centre professionals
Conference sessions Keynotes Case studies Master Classes World-class solutions exhibition
Whether you’re a speech technology customer, researcher, designer, developer, or provider, there’s something of value to you at SpeechTEK Europe 2010.
Exhibition fully sold! For sponsorship opportunities contact: Bryan Sayler LaShawn Fugate bsayler@infotoday.com LaShawn@infotoday.com
Enterprise IT decision-makers Telecom IT decision-makers Customer service managers Speech solutions managers and developers Speech technology vendors and integrators Marketing executives Voice user interface designers Consumer electronics designers And anyone who wants to learn about using speech technology for business applications
Produced by
For updated event information visit us at www.speechtek.com/europe
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
EVENTS
EVENT INFORMATION How to register Register for free entry to the exhibition and seminars at www.learningtechnologies.co.uk Europe’s leading L&D conference. How to book The delegate rate for the twoday Learning Technologies conference is £995.00+VAT. Booking discounts are available. Book your conference place today by calling +44 (0)1730 817601 or book online at www.learningtechnologies.co.uk • Mobile learning technologies • New technologies for learning • Virtual classroom technologies • Current best practice and case-studies The powerful combination of Learning Technologies and Learning and Skills – with over 200 exhibitors and over 100 FREE seminars between them - will give you the complete picture of corporate learning and development today. Together, they represent THE must attend event for all learning and development professionals. HOW TO GET TO THERE Olympia has excellent facilities with easy access from all major railway stations, motorway routes and all the main airports serving London as well as its own Tube station and local bus routes. For full travel information please visit the website.
FOR MORE INFORMATION The event takes place at Olympia 2, London, UK on Wednesday 27 January – Thursday 28 January 2010 10.00am to 5.00pm daily. Please visit www.learningtechnologies.co.uk for more information.
LMMatters – developing leadership and management excellence L MMATTERS, the UK partner for Harvard Business Publishing and Fifty Lessons, focuses on providing high quality resources to develop leadership and management excellence. Harvard Business Publishing resources are designed to help build critical leadership and management skills at all levels. The online resources include Harvard ManageMentor™, Stepping up to Management and Leadership Transitions. Harvard ManageMentor provides tools, templates and expert advice on more than 40 business topics. This high quality and well-liked resource is the most practical resource for fostering skills and
applying them on the job immediately. Fifty Lessons is an invaluable resource for organisations that want to encourage behavioural change and for individuals seeking guidance in their own career. With over 1000 inspiring and engaging videos with actionable suggestions for building on the lessons learnt, the Fifty Lessons library demonstrates memorable and powerful storytelling from over 200 of the world’s most
respected business leaders to enhance the development of individuals in your organisation. LMMatters has a wealth of experience in sourcing the right solution for your organisation. With experience in many sectors including government, telecommunications, finance and retail, we can ensure the right resources are successfully implemented to deliver innovative leadership and management development programmes.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Tel: 08451 707 700 E-mail: info@lmmatters.com Web: www.lmmatters.com
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
57
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
EVENTS
INNOVATIVE ITEM TYPES – THE CUTTING EDGE WAY OF TESTING
Suzana Lopes, EMEA VP Sales and Marketing at Pearson VUE, looks at how modern technology offers new types of questions and tasks to test people’s skills, competencies and knowledge A NEW GENERATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE is leaving school and meeting a squeeze on both sides. If they choose to pursue higher education they are faced by increasing demand and competition for university places, or alternatively they may decide to enter into the workforce, where they face a troubled job market with a similar imbalance between supply and demand. As a consequence, those wishing to make themselves a more employable prospect are ever more urgently seeking some means of distinguishing themselves from everyone else, and one way in which they can do this is by producing some solid, recognisable evidence of what they have learned and achieved. Training and learning opportunities are understandably in high demand, and developments in their delivery have kept pace with such demand. Conferences such as Learning Technologies serve as a showcase for some dazzling examples from the cutting edge, such as Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), Learning Management Systems (LMS) and e-Learning platforms; and already demonstrate an impressive breadth of offerings from the education and training sectors. In addition to these advanced learning approaches, assessment has also embraced the benefits of technology and this crucial measurement of learning is becoming increasingly important when candidates are taking their first steps into higher education or when seeking employment. Nowadays, there is much more on offer from assessment. With the advent of new technology comes the opportunity to create items (questions or tasks to be assessed) that are accurate, stimulating, and a true measurement of the skills or knowledge of the candidate. Modern types of items can demonstrate not just retention of facts, but can show accurate evidence of understanding concepts, or the application of knowledge to specific scenarios or job roles. The goal of the continued development of testing technology is to improve measurement, either by measuring the same knowledge or understanding better than before, or by measuring something more than or different from before. However, even with all of this technology at hand, there is one important caveat to remember, and that is not to let the tail wag the dog – technology must always be the servant, never the master. The process
58
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
of developing your test to incorporate some of these innovative item types is a highly complex one, which should start with good test design and may involve consultation work with expert psychometricians. Following the test design phase, the process may require custom software development. Also, the more complex the item types being utilised, the more potential operational issues must be considered. Therefore, test creators must stay focused on the purpose of the test and what it is intended to measure, and the technology must simply be a means to that end, meaning that the most appropriate item type may actually be the simplest! Item types can be classified as either Selected Response or Constructed Response. The former includes multiple-choice, but also much more,
measured by multiple-choice items. CBT makes these less confusing – for example, the candidate can drag-and-drop historical events into correct order or prioritise a list of elements in rank order; or drag and drop on-screen elements into different categories. • Hot spots. On an on-screen graphic, such as a map, spreadsheet, diagram or image, candidates can select areas. CBT gives a better, more direct and more accurate measurement of this. CONSTRUCTED RESPONSE • Entering quantitative, verbal or figural responses – such as giving a short answer to a verbal question, by marking or drawing an on-screen figure. This item type offers an increased cognitive challenge.
With the advent of new technology comes the opportunity to create items (questions or tasks to be assessed) that are accurate, stimulating, and a true measurement of the skills or knowledge of the candidate. Modern types of items can demonstrate not just retention of facts, but can show accurate evidence of understanding concepts, or the application of knowledge to specific scenarios or job roles and the latter requires the candidate to create their own response without provided options. SELECTED RESPONSE • Multiple-choice. With the latest computer based tests (CBT), multiple-choice can be constructed with more possible answers, both to reduce the opportunity to guess, and also to more directly assess traits. Psychometric analysis behind each item allows the test to assess the candidate, not only on whether or not they get the item right, but also on the answers they choose, to build up a picture of the cognitive process. • Multiple-response. In a “select all that apply” item type, CBT can score more easily – it can mark dichotomously or with partial credit for getting some, but not all, correct answers. • Ordered response / Select and classify. These types of items can measure a different type of cognitive task from what can be
• Essays. Computer scoring can supplement and complement human markers. Essay marking software is extremely sophisticated today - it is not proposed to replace the human input altogether, particularly in more creative, arts-based disciplines, but advances have been made and have proven their validity in more mature CBT markets, such as the USA. • Problem solving vignettes. The test-taker is asked to solve a problem though a series of steps or items. This can be structured: all test takers progress through items in the same order; or unstructured: test takers are taken down different branches of questioning depending on their item responses. Computer-based tests offer the addition of stimuli such as sound, 3D simulations, voiceovers etc, which can be incorporated into item stems (questions), scenarios and/or response options. This means that computer-based tests can measure a wide range of cognitive processes.
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
EVENTS
PEARSON TEST OF ENGLISH Recently launched as a high-stakes test of English as a Foreign Language, PTE Academic is a state-of-the-art language test that contains some strong indicators of the future of English language assessment for non-native speakers. It features the latest technology for test scoring: test takers’ verbal and written responses are scored using Pearson’s proprietary, patented automated scoring technologies. Research shows that the automated scoring technology underlying PTE Academic produces scores comparable to human raters but with the precision, consistency and objectivity of a machine, ensuring maximum reliability and validity. This test has been developed by Pearson Language Tests, and will be delivered on Pearson VUE software through Pearson VUE’s worldwide network of test centres. As the needs of learners change, so the technology is evolving alongside, and Pearson VUE is ensuring its place at the forefront of those changes. With the tests we deliver for clients such as Cisco, the Graduate Management Admission Council® (GMAC®), the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) in the USA, and in the UK for the Driving Standards Authority (DSA), we speak from experience of some of the most advanced and large-scale electronic testing programmes in the world. ABOUT PEARSON VUE Suzana Lopes is the EMEA VP Sales and Marketing at Pearson VUE (www.pearsonvue. co.uk), a global leader in computer-based testing for information technology, academic, government and professional testing programmes around the world. Pearson VUE provides a full suite of services from test development to data management, and delivers exams through the world’s most comprehensive and secure network of test centres in 165 countries. Pearson VUE is a business of Pearson (NYSE: PSO; LSE: PSON), the international media company, whose businesses include the Financial Times Group, Pearson Education and the Penguin Group.
FOR MORE INFORMATION For more information, contact pvemeamarketing@pearson.com
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
59
E d 4 th iti on
The Global hub for NexT GeNeraTioN CiTizeN & GoverNmeNT iD SoluTioNS
QueeN elizabeTh ii CoNfereNCe CeNTre, loNDoN P
Security documents, advanced ID technologies, anti-counterfeiting...
P
The largest event yet – more than 50 speakers, 300+ delegates, 1,250 visitors
P
ePassports in Focus: PKD Seminar – organised by ICAO
P
Government delegates: attend all 3 days and gala dinner for just £299 + VAT
P
70+ leading companies exhibiting from across the world if Government and Citizen iD markets are your business, SDW 2010 has the answers…
www.sciencemediapartners.com
Organised by:
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
EVENTS
SECURING AND ‘USING’ ID DOCUMENTS Having now established itself as the world’s number one show in this sector, SDW 2010 will focus on the concept of next-generation citizen and government ID solutions THE DIGITALISATION OF SECURE documents has been an overarching trend since the turn of the century. Billions of dollars have been spent in this global endeavour. But, as yet, the full potential of these documents has not yet been realised. Security Document World 2010 (SDW 2010) is a leading conference and exhibition taking place on 8-10 February 2010 in London. It looks at advanced security documents, border control and the latest in document anti-counterfeiting. A key question the show will answer is how documents can now be leveraged to enable a host of cutting-edge applications, as well as how new security features continue to be important in the never-ending quest to counter the counterfeiters. The last decade has seen a revolution in the use of security documents, such as passports and ID cards. No longer can the security document industry solely be thought of in a purely traditional sense, with security coming from embedded physical features, such as watermarks, holograms and micro texts. The digitalisation of secure documents has been the trend of the century, with smart cards usurping a variety of traditional documents and smart card chips being embedded into others, such as the ePassport. BORDER CONTROL Despite the billions of dollars spent across the world on developing new secure documents, there has been a relative lack, to date, on exploiting their full potential. ePassports are a prime example. Today, there are well in excess of 65 countries issuing electronic passports. However, the enhanced use of these documents at border control posts is still in its infancy, especially for live biometric checks and/or automated border control. According to industry association, Eurosmart, border controls are in place in the European Union with the following targets: • Reduction of illegal immigration at border control entry; • Facilitation of crossing EU borders for bona fide travellers; • Fight against terrorism and organised crime; • Better understanding and management of migration flows; • Identification of overstayers and wanted persons. Today, there are various means by which to check identities at the border, ranging from a purely manual process to checking with the support of computers, optical readers and checks against blacklists and infrastructure for reading electronic passports. There is also the opportunity for completely
ICAO AT SDW 2010 – EPASSPORT IN FOCUS: PKD SEMINAR SDW 2010 is happy to announce that the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is organising a seminar on its important PKD initiative at our show. An essential element in the introduction of ePassports is the implementation of a global system for their validation, achieved through the exchange of Public Key Infrastructure certificates. ICAO’s Public Key Directory (ICAO PKD) acts as a central, universal broker to manage the exchange of certificates and certificate
revocation lists. This critical role ensures optimum efficiency by eliminating the need for complex and time-consuming bi-lateral exchange agreements between countries on a case by case basis. The in-depth session will look at the current operational status of ICAO PKD, explain why more countries should be signing up and address key outstanding issues and questions surrounding its implementation by States across the world.”
SDW 2010 CONFERENCE SESSIONS • Four keynote presenters • Crystal Ball Seminar – The Future for e-Security Documents • ePassports, eVisas and eIDs: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly • Countering the Counterfeiter… • ePassports in Focus: PKD Seminar – organised by ICAO • The Nuts and Bolts of Advanced Border Control automated gates. As States move to second generation biometric passports, including fingerprints, so border control posts will be able to consider live fingerprint matching against an image stored in the passport chip, involving a process called electronic passport authentication (EAC). The effective use of EAC requires states to exchange their EAC certificates cross border, and this is a complex issue still under development – although a technical specification to facilitate certificate exchange has been ratified by the European Commission. ICAO’s public key directory (PKD) initiative is also a hot topic in this area and both are key areas of focus at SDW 2010 (see box). EGATES According to industry sources, seven EU Member States (Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, France, UK, Germany and Finland) already have automatic eGate programs at airports running or in progress, with Poland having the first registered traveller program running at a land port. Many other Member States are expected to follow. Further afield, eGate programs are believed to be running in 20 countries, although only a small percentage combine eGate equipment with ePassport documents. This demonstrates the huge potential for such convergence
• Advances in Document Anti-Counterfeiting Techniques • Beyond ePassports and National eIDs • Intelligent Border Control and Beyond Plus the SDW Open Forum – Bringing eIDs to life…e-enabled citizen-centric services. This session is open to all attendees at SDW 2010 – delegates, exhibitors and exhibition visitors and takes place on 10 February. in the future, and is a major issue under discussion at Security Document World 2010. EIDS Away from ePassports and border control, other eIDs, such as driving licences, healthcare cards, resident permits etc are starting to roll out in earnest. At Security Document World 2010 we are running sessions that look forward to what might be possible in the future. If identity can indeed be assured then it is possible to imagine a world of opportunity, where secure online transactions may be performed by citizens in the comfort of their own homes. The benefits of such a world are clear to see, and include substantial pertransaction cost savings for service providers (governments) and greater flexibility and convenience for the end user (citizens). The Security Document World 2010 show takes place at the QEII Conference Centre on 8-10 February 2010. Visiting the exhibition with more than 65 companies is free. Three-day conference delegate places for government attendees are just £299+VAT.
FOR MORE INFORMATION For further information please visit our website at www.sciencemediapartners.com
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
61
Exciting News from IIPSEC – Europe’s Premier Network based Security Technology Event We are pleased to announce that IIPSEC 20ten, Europe's Premier IP based Security Technology event has been re-scheduled and co-located with the UK's No.1 IP infrastructure event IP Expo and moved to London Earls Court 2 on 20 - 21 October 2010 IP Expo is now in its 5th year and attracts over 7,000 IT professionals across all verticals with a particular strength in public sector and finance. IIPSEC has welcomed more than 10,000 visitors, delegates and exhibitors over the past three years to what has become a recognised calendar event in the UK, Europe and beyond. This arrangement will now allow exhibitors, delegates and visitors to both events to move freely between IP EXPO and IIPSEC, engage with one another, enhancing the overall participant experience and further increasing the knowledge base within both sectors. The structure and educational content of IIPSEC will remain as strong as ever and the "spending quality time with quality people" ethos will continue to underpin the event. For exhibitors, the opportunity to present and demonstrate products and services to more that 10,000 potential customers are unparalleled and with the event now located in the prestigious Earls Court Complex in the heart of LONDON, it represents a very positive development for visitors, delegates and exhibitors alike.
I
Paul Hennings, Event Director commented, “We are all aware of the continued convergence between the physical security, life safety and IT worlds with the IP UserGroup and the IIPSEC team having always been at the cutting edge, so when an opportunity such as this arises we take it very seriously. We all know that for Networked Security and Safety Applications to grow and thrive it is essential that the industry learn to engage with the IT industry as a whole and the IP infrastructure players in particular and this relationship with IP EXPO will provide such a platform”. Paul added. “I believe that this is a significant move forward helping to increase the awareness and acceptance of new IP based applications across many market areas and I am sure that you will agree, this is an extremely exciting development. Having worked closely with the IP EXPO team over several years we have been able to identify many areas of synergy and are keen to make Earls Court in October the centre of the IP Universe”. IIPSEC’s partners, Imago Communications organisers of IP EXPO are equally excited about the prospect of further growth into "Application Areas" and are committed to delivering a first class technology event.
20 SEC
“We are pleased to be working with Paul and his organisation to facilitate the co-location of the IIPSEC event with our flagship IP Expo event. I have long thought that the next evolution of IP Expo will be built on new network devices and applications which are now leveraging the core IP Network much akin to the addition of voice a decade ago. The co-location and Imago’s relationship with IIPSEC fast-tracks our entry into the Life Safety, Building Systems and Security arena and is an exciting addition to our autumn hub. It is particularly exciting from the audience perspective based on the level of interest we saw this year at IP Expo in CCTV and surveillance seminars. I personally look forward to working with Paul and his team to deliver this event” – Adam Malik, Content Director and General Manager Imago Communications The IIPSEC and IP Expo teams hope that the rescheduling of the event does not cause you any inconvenience and that they can rely upon your continued support. For further details, exhibitor enquiries and visitor registration visit www.iipseconline.com
An Event Focused on Network Centric Security & Life Safety Technology TEN 10 0 2 r e b o t Oc www.iipseconline.com 1 2 The Latest in IP Based Security 0 2 and Safety Technologies . n o Surveillance & CCTV • d n • Access Control, Time & Attendance o L • Intruder Detection & Alarms 2 Fire Detection & Evacuation • t r • Integrated Security/Safety Solutions u Audio, Intercom & Messaging • o C • Biometrics and Visual Content Analysis ls • Transmission & Comms Systems r a Building Management Systems • • Remote Monitoring & Hosted Services tE a W O IIPSEC 20ten at the IP EXPO N co-located with
Earls Court 2, LONDON 20th to 21st October 2010
Enquiries: +44 (0)870 7870 546 - Email info@iipsec.com
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
EVENTS
ITSMF UK CONFERENCE 2009 This year’s itSMF UK Conference was a great success despite the current economic climate, with over 1,100 delegates across two days “DESPITE A GLOBAL RECESSION, it was immensely pleasing to see healthy numbers of sponsors, exhibitors and delegates engaging and sharing experience and information. It is a huge encouragement to me that in these days of social media and a ‘twitter’ society, our members still value the opportunity we give them to experience a physical world class service management event over virtual alternatives,” said Barry Corless, itSMF UK Chairman. CONFERENCE The Conference this year sponsored by BCS and IBM hosted a large exhibition with over 50 seminar sessions, experiential learning sessions from HP and G2G3 and the IT Service Management Industry Awards. It attracted more than 1100 delegates across the two day event, which took place on the 9-10th November 2009. Delegate Barry Smith, Head of IT at Foster and Partners said: “It’s a chance to come together to share ideas and experiences. It gives me the opportunity to spend some time away from the office, to reflect, refocus and re-prioritise workloads.” Keith Aldis, itSMF UK CEO said. “It was, no doubt the best ever conference with lots of innovative thinking going on at all the sessions, we had Ian Pearson telling us about the future of IT and the inevitable feminisation of the IT Industry as well as a fantastic talk from Sir Clive Woodward. The Awards dinner was fantastic, hosted by TV commentator John Inverdale who added to an already charged atmosphere. As a first, people will be able to access the opening and closing videos from the Conference, enabling you to not only have a glimpse into this year’s story but to also see how the itSMF UK Conference is evolving. Here’s to next year’s!” THE IT SERVICE MANAGEMENT INDUSTRY AWARDS 2009 The Conference also hosts the prestigious IT Service Management Industry Awards. The awards recognise outstanding achievements and significant contribution to the world of IT Service Management, showcasing the people and organisations that are at the forefront of the IT Service Management industry. This year entries doubled that of last years, with a tremendous level of quality, coming from a wide variety of organisations. Keith Aldis, itSMF UK CEO explained: “The current climate we now live in requires all parts of a business to step up, but our industry has a phenomenal opportunity to help companies
make the most in challenging times; our award finalists and winners highlight some fantastic innovation, passion and commitment to Service Management, their case studies only endorse this statement.” itSMF UK Chairman, Barry Corless added “Every year I walk away from our awards ceremony thinking we can’t top that next year. I continue to be proved wrong, at what is after all the premier service management focused events evening in the calendar. The winners really do visibly swell with pride as they receive their awards.” WINNERS This year’s awards featured eight categories and the winners are: Student of the Year: ISO/IEC 20000, awarded to the individual that, in the markings submitted to itSMF UK, has been the most successful highest scoring student during the year, went to Malcolm Ashton, Execit Management Ltd. Student of the Year: ITIL, awarded to the student listed on the Official Accreditor’s ITIL Successful Candidate Register who has achieved the highest average mark across two or more ITIL Intermediate qualifications, went to Tony Williams, NHS Ashton, Leigh and Wigan and Donovan Pearce, Roche Products Limited. The Trainer of the Year award went to Mike O’Brien of Remarc (now part of QA) who, in the view of lead judge Dave Jones, “demonstrated an unparalleled dedication to the betterment of the students in his charge.” Submission of the Year was awarded to Ian MacDonald of The Cooperative Financial Services, for his paper entitled a simple, low cost but innovative approach to End-To-End Service Reporting. Ian MacDonald said: “Winning the ‘Submission of the Year’ award at the itSMF is the ultimate recognition you can receive as an IT professional for your work and the value it provides to the forum and its membership.” The Service Innovation award went to ‘Systems Thinking’ at Stockport Council. The judges said that: “Utilising service management alongside other methodologies and technologies has often been done but the results are not always as demonstrable as in the case of Systems Thinking.” The Service Management Champion of the Year award went to Terry Hodge of Logica who, according to head judge Tony Price, “demonstrated really excellent service across all his interactions.” Tony commented, “It was very humbling to receive such a prestigious award and to find that both my
AT A GLANCE At a glance…the winners are: • Student of the Year: ISO/ IEC 20000 – Malcolm Ashton, Execit Management Ltd • Student of the Year: ITIL – Tony Williams, NHS Ashton, Leigh and Wigan and Donovan Pearce, Roche Products Limited • Trainer of the Year – Mike O’Brien, Remarc (now part of QA) Submission of the Year – End-to-End Service Reporting submitted by Ian MacDonald, The Co-operative Financial Services • Service Innovation – Systems Thinking, Stockport Council • Service Management Champion – Terry Hodge, Logica • IT Service Management Project – BT Global Services, Major UK Network Programmes – CSIP Enterprise • Paul Rappaport Award for Outstanding Contribution to Service Management – Philip Montanaro, HP colleagues and client had collaborated on the bid. I just need to live up to it now.” ITSM Project of the Year was awarded for BT’s Major UK Network Programme’s CSIP Enterprise. Chair of judges Kevin Birch commented that, “This year’s winning submission demonstrated real quality throughout the lifecycle of their project and showed why they were a cut above the other submissions.” Finally, the Paul Rappaport Award for Outstanding ‘Lifetime’ Contribution to Service Management was awarded to Philip ‘Monty’ Montanaro, HP. Monty has been heavily involved with ITSM and ITIL since their earliest days. A key member of the ITIL examination scheme, he has been an examiner and member of accreditation panels for more years than he would care to remember and has contributed to numerous areas of ITSM and itSMF activity. From sitting on the committee that developed the BS 15000 qualification scheme to being a part of the itSMF management board to being a reviewer for ITIL version 2 and a mentor for one of the ITIL version 3 books – Monty continues to contribute a massive amount to our industry as it moves forward.
FOR MORE INFORMATION A photo library and the Conference opening and closing videos are available on the itSMF UK website: www.itsmf.co.uk
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
63
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
EVENTS
GREEN IT IN ACTION The public sector showed a high commitment to sustainable computing at Green IT Expo 2009 THE SECOND GREEN IT EXPO in London provided some encouraging signs for the progress of more sustainable computing practices across the public sector. Several senior figures from the UK government and the European Commission presented key sessions within the two-day educational event and the London Borough of Newham won the event’s coveted award for Green End-User 2009. Despite the economic downturn and significant time/budget constraints across the public and private sectors, hundreds of delegates turned up in November to hear about the latest developments, see new technologies in action and get to grips with the environmental, efficiency and financial benefits of greener IT systems. “With IT budgets in decline and increasing pressure on CIOs to deliver high impact results with less investment, Green IT Expo’s focus on practical solutions, sharing and learning is the ideal place to highlight the quick wins that IT leaders can deploy to provide significant savings and efficiency gains,” said Pat Tiernan, executive director of the WWF’s global Climate Savers Computing Initiative, one of the event’s major supporters. “The current focus on the energy efficiency of computing equipment and deployment of advanced power management techniques is helping organisations to achieve these benefits without the complexity, investment levels and often lengthy timelines that many IT programmes require.” DIRTY ICT Opening the event each day, internationally recognised expert and founder of the Green ICT Delivery Unit at HM Government’s CIO/ CTO Council, Catalina McGregor presented a thought-provoking keynote on ‘Dirty ICT’ – an issue that is fast becoming a major focus for governments around the world. This included an eye-opening video about the devastating environmental and human impact of computer recycling in Third World countries. Pulling no punches, McGregor revealed why the widescale dumping of ICT is still increasing and explained how national governments are asking organisations to tackle this in all new tenders and when contracts are due for renewal. McGregor commented: “So much has changed since last year and everyone needs to be aware of what’s coming next. Hence, Green IT Expo is an excellent way for ICT decisionmakers to stay on top of the emerging trends in green technology and evolving CSR policies.” At lunchtime, Chris Chant, CIO for the London 2012 Olympics and Green ICT Portfolio Holder at the CIO/CTO Council, explored the big picture behind the government’s green ICT targets, in a fascinating session entitled
64
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
“WHY are We Greening Government ICT?” Chant offered some valuable insights into the government’s ambitions for green IT: extending well beyond the achievement of carbonneutrality for the systems themselves, which is becoming almost inevitable in the shortto-medium term. Eventually, sustainable ICT will be used to transform almost every area of public services through the facilitation of more time, energy, and cost-efficient processes. LOW CARBON OPPORTUNITIES At the end of day one, Trevor Hutchings, Head of Low Carbon Economy at the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) stood in for David Kidney MP to explain how the government intends to move the UK onto a permanent low-carbon footing; maintaining energy security, protecting the most vulnerable
and maximising the economic opportunities that come with that transition. “The challenge for us and every global economy is huge, tantamount to the next industrial revolution,” said Hutchings, “especially given the current economic climate. But it also presents a massive opportunity for UK business – not just for low-carbon sectors, such as renewables, but for all mainstream and traditional businesses as well.” Hutchings went on to detail the range of measures that the government is putting in place to help the UK capture its fair share of the global market for low-carbon environmental goods and services, already estimated to be worth £3 trillion per annum. Other highlights included daily perspectives from the European Commission, presented by Linda Mauperon, Cabinet Member of the European Commissioner for Information Society
Government Technology | Volume 9.1
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
EVENTS
& Media and Paolo Bertoldi from the EC’s Joint Research Centre/Institute for Energy. Mauperon outlined the major drivers behind the EC’s work on developing a low-carbon society, including adoption of the EC’s recommendation on ICT for energy efficiency and the longer-term vision of how ICT will help to minimise the carbon and energy footprints of the economy and of society as a whole. While Bertoldi presented highlights of the EC’s action for improving
the energy efficiency of datacentres and telecoms operations – explaining how future EC initiatives in this area are expected to tie into the latest directives on emission reductions. GREEN IT EXPO AWARDS Meanwhile, at the Green IT Expo Awards 2009, presented at the end of the first day, London Borough of Lewisham was honoured with the Green End User Award
With IT budgets in decline and increasing pressure on CIOs to deliver high impact results with less investment, Green IT Expo’s focus on practical solutions, sharing and learning is the ideal place to highlight the quick wins that IT leaders can deploy to provide significant savings and efficiency gains – Pat Tiernan, executive director of the WWF’s global Climate Savers Computing Initiative
while computer manufacturer, Lenovo, was presented with the Green Supplier Award. The Green End User Award is presented to an end-user organisation which has shown outstanding commitment to reducing the environmental impact of its systems. London Borough of Lewisham was recognised for negotiating a free-of-charge contract for the recycle of all its redundant ICT equipment. The innovative arrangement with IT recycling and asset disposal company, ICEX, works within all current legislation and EU guidelines for data erasure and certification of destruction, paving the way for other local authorities to follow suit with similar schemes. Accepting the award for London Borough of Lewisham, IT Client and Policy Manager (Technology & Transformation Division), Michelle Ouzman said: “Lewisham wants to promote and move forward with the government’s ICT Green Roadmap and winning this award will help us focus on ROI with Green ICT initiatives. The award reflects the great work we have been doing with our partner ICEX, as well as the fact that we have been working hard for seven years now with sustainability in mind. It will help highlight to our internal stakeholders that zero cost for recycle and disposal of ICT has contributed to budget saving over a long period of time.” As winners of the Green Supplier Award, Lenovo was recognised for its efforts to engineer personal computers that offer ultra-green performance. The innovative computer hardware manufacturer was praised for the high level of attention to environmental issues across its entire product range – in particular its groundbreaking ThinkVision monitors, which all meet the latest Energy Star 5.0 standard, plus the World’s first TCO Edge Monitor, the L2251x Wide. Andrew Barrow, Western Europe Desktop and Monitor Business Unit Director at Lenovo, commented: “Lenovo is delighted to accept this award, which recognises our endeavour to show the industry what organisations can do in a commercial capacity to reduce the environmental impact they have, especially in terms of reducing power consumption and materials used.” Overall, Green IT Expo 2009 had a distinctly upbeat feel to the two days, with delegates, sponsors and speakers all reporting a far greater level of understanding of the key issues than last year – and a significant amount of progress expected to be made over the next twelve months. Next year, many of the key themes from Green IT Expo will be incorporated into a brand new event called ‘IT Decisions 2010’ taking place in the NEC’s Pavilion on 23rd & 24th June 2010 – so put the dates in your diary now!
FOR MORE INFORMATION For more information and a video of Green IT Expo 2009 visit: www.greenitexpo.com For more information on IT Decisions 2010 please visit: www.itdshow.com
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
65
www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
Visit the website to view the categorised product finder
Analysys Mason – supporting public sector projects NALYSYS MASON is a trusted advisor on telecoms, media and technology to private and public sector. Our team of over 250 people across 11 offices is respected worldwide for its exceptional quality of work, independence and flexibility in responding to client needs. For nearly 25 years, we have been helping clients in more than 100 countries resolve issues ranging from development of operator strategy, evolution of national sector regulation and execution of major financial transactions, to the deployment of public and private network infrastructure. We support the public sector, locally to globally delivering innovative and wide-ranging consultancy services including:
A
• Mobility solutions – experts in wireless technologies • IT and telecoms convergence – getting more from your network • Green IT – best practice in IT and data centre design • Information security – developing the right protection for your specific needs • Contact centres – engaging with customers and connecting with citizens.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Bridie Douglas or Terry Smith Analysys Mason 5 Exchange Quay Manchester, M5 3EF Tel: 0161 877 7808 E-mail: enquiries@ analysysmason.com
Protect your data centre against water leaks .A.M. LTD recognise the need for producing reliable and cost effective systems to help in the environmental monitoring of data centres with particular expertise in the field of water leak detection. Modern buildings such as data centres are constructed with raised floors and all services including pipework and electrical cables hidden beneath. Few companies realise the potential disaster they could have. The leak at first may go un-noticed then one or two pieces of hardware start playing up, someone on the floor below may notice a stain appearing on the ceiling, by now there is probably enough water to cause a major problem or even a shutdown. J.A.M. Ltd have had experience with projects worldwide, from government buildings to top blue chip companies. J.A.M’s innovative leak detection systems have a control panel linked to a specially designed cable which displays the location of a leak as a meterage reading, allowing the
J
appropriate remedial action to take place. Once the detecting cable is dried it is fully re-usable. J.A.M. Ltd can advise from drawings or site surveys the most suitable System, co-ordinate the installation with trained engineers and offer after sales telephone support or preventative maintenance visits to client requirements.
FOR MORE INFORMATION We would welcome any informal talks or a demonstration of our product on our stand No.38 at the Data Centre World exhibition Feb 23/24th 2010. Tel 01268 777222 Fax 01268 777221 E-mail: jam.ltd@virgin.net Web: jam.uk.com
ADVERTISERS INDEX The publishers accept no responsibility for errors or omissions in this free service
66
Active Power
22
Eaton Williams
Analysis Mason
IFC
EMC
Austin Hughes Europe
27
EPI Service
Autocue Group
46
Equinix (UK)
Avocent
24
Event Concept
B2M Solutions
18
Blue Lizard Media
Mustard Links
46
Nexans
36
45
Objective Corporation
49
29, 31
OKI Printing Solutions
BC
47
Olympus UK
15
Galliford Try Specialist Servies
45
Pearson Vue
58
47
HellermanTyton Data
45
Printerbase
19
Blue Square Data Group Services
35
Infomatrix Software International
53
PULS
53
Bull Information
12
IP UserGroup
62
SDW 2010
60
Cap Gemeni
10
J.A.M.
27
SpeechTEK Europe
56
Cnet Training
32
Learning Technologies
54
Spirit Data Capture
16
Creative Technology
47
LM Matters
57
Telehouse Europe
Data Centre World Conference & Expo
44
MLL Telecom
Direct Visual
47
Mouchel Management Consulting
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY
26 4
6 20
The Siemon Company Viglen
39, 41, 43 45 IBC