NETCOMMS Europe Vol 4 Issue 4

Volume IV, Issue 4 2014

£35/€50

www.netcommseurope.com

FEATURES Changing the Face of IP

Supporting Homeworking Is your networking expertise up to the task? www.netcommseurope.com

FEATURES Modular Data Centres FEATURES Understanding Power Monitoring NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

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CONTENTS

COMMENT/OPINION 12 Understanding BS EN 50174-3

Covering external cabling specifications

18 The cloud in 2014 and Beyond

The cloud and the telecoms business model

22 The Cloud - Fast and Flexible

26 St Thomas Place, Cambridge Business Park, CB7 4EX

Cloud computing: business friend or foe?

30 Threat-Based Security Revealed

Tel: +44 (0)1353 644081 info@netcommseurope.com www.netcommeurope.com

How intelligence-driven security can protect your IT systems

32 Understanding the Internet security issue

Reducing the your Internet cybercrime risk surface

CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE 8 Changing the Face of IP

Published under licence by: LGN Media, a subsidiary of The Lead Generation Network Ltd

Samsung Techwin’s open platform offers choice and simplicity

16 Benefits of Pre-Terminated Cabling 26 Understanding Unified Access

How pre-terminated technology can save you time and money

How unified access supports true BYOD

28 Supporting the Age of the Homeworker 34 Staying Ahead of the Network Curve

How broadband can better service company teleworking

Network management in an era of virtualisation

CABLE MANAGEMENT

Price: €50 | £35 Subscription rate: €200 | £140

36 Cables Maketh a Wireless Office Tidying up network cables is now a must-have

The views expressed in the articles and technical papers are those of the authors and are not endorsed by the publishers.

The author and publisher, and its officers and employees, do not accept any liability for any errors that may have occurred, or for any reliance on their contents.

D ATA C E N T R E S 14 Are Modular Data Centres the Lego of IT?

How modular can offer companies a flexible

IT future

All trademarks and brandnames are respected within our publication.

However, the publishers accept no responsibility for any inadvertent misuse that may occur.

CASE STUDY 10 How 38,000 Staff Benefited from Advanced Networking

How Mitchells & Butlers

improved its data centres and networks

20 Power monitoring helps ensure service stability 24 Cutting the Cost of UPS Technology

Power monitoring goes a long way at TalkTalk

More to UPS than meets the eye

BETTER BUSINESS 40 LinkedIn - Powering New Business

REGULARS 5 Foreword 6 Industry News

www.netcommseurope.com

Publisher & Managing Director: Ian Titchener Editor: Steve Gold Production Manager: Rachel Titchener Advertising Sales: Bob Handley Reprographics by Bold Creative

ISSN 2045-0583 This publication is protected by copyright © 2013 and accordingly must not be reproduced in any medium. All rights reserved.

Printed by Stones The Printers Ltd, Unit 10, Acre Estate, Wildmere Road, Banbury, Oxon OX16 3ES, UK

Tapping the power of business social media

Netcomms stories, news, know-how?

Please submit to editor@netcommseurope.com including high resolution (300dpi+ CMYK) images.

NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

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FOREWORD

Welcome to the world of 4G mesh networking Hello Readers, The interconnected business world has come a long way in a relatively short space of time, with a growing number of SMEs hooked up the Internet using an 80/20 Mbps FTTC connection.

Many larger companies, meanwhile, make use of leased lines and/or Fast Ethernet connectivity, to give Their staff fast and easy access to the benefits of the Internet.

Outside of the major towns and cities, however, things really start to fall away, with many businesses relying on either aggregating multiple copper-based ADSL circuits – each operating at around 2 to 4 Mbps – together, or stumping up for expensive leased lines into the nearest available major switch.

BT may have a solution in the shape of what I can best describe as a 4G mesh network. Just as most BT-supplied business and consumer Internet connections also support access sharing using the BT Fon service, so BT is planning to upgrade every BT Internet fibre/ ADSL router to support a 4G picocell service.

economically viable.

The idea is that, when a BT 4G subscriber is beyond the reach of a 4G base station – or a 3G cell site for that matter – their smartphone, tablet or dongle can access the nearest available 4G picocells, piping into the Internet using the customer’s connection.

The good news for the networking community is that – if it takes off – this 4G mesh network will open up new business markets, as well as usher in a time when wireless feeds to business buildings in country areas start to become viable.

Given the dominance of BT broadband in country areas, this will – over time – create a mesh Internet access network capable of moving data at tens of Mbps, where a conventional 4G network would not be

May all of your network problems be little ones.

This is no pie-in-the-sky idea either, as BT has swathes of 4G frequencies available as part of its cellular licence. The gameplan is to launch a business 4G service this Autumn, with a consumer 4G service next Spring.

Steve Gold Editor – Netcomms Europe

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NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

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INDUSTRY NEWS

xxxxxxx

...NEWSWIRE...NEWSWIRE...NEWSWIRE. 

GoGrid has joined the Equinix Cloud Exchange. By joining the exchange, GoGrid claims to have enabled customers to use their cloud and Big Data solutions in a more secure, predictable, and high-performance environment.

Designed to accelerate cloud adoption and optimise performance, the Equinix Cloud Exchange is billed as an advanced interconnection platform that enables seamless, on-demand and direct access to multiple clouds and multiple networks across the globe.

“As a company that specialises in cloud infrastructure and Open Data Services, we understand the many intricacies that are incorporated into developing successful cloud strategies.

The Equinix Cloud Exchange simplifies the process of establishing hybrid cloud deployments by connecting enterprises and services providers – delivering the many benefits associated with cloud environments and private access,” said Mark Worsey, the firm’s CEO. “Expanding our relationship with Equinix enables our customers to use our cloud and Big Data solutions in a more secure, predictable, and high-performance manner via the combination of our Cloud Bridge option plugged into the Equinix Cloud Exchange,” he explained.

The Equinix Cloud Exchange is currently available in 13 markets globally: Silicon Valley, Washington D.C., New York, Toronto, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris – with plans to expand to 19 markets by the end of 2014. www.equinix.com



EE claims to have become the first network operator in the UK to include business grade security across all mobile operating systems in its corporate plans as standard.

The move is thanks to a partnership with mobile security and management specialist MobileIron, allowing the CSP to offer the ‘MobileIron Cloud from EE,’ an enterprise mobility management platform specifically designed for small and medium sized businesses.

According to EE, MobileIron Cloud provides simplified security and control 6

NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

of mobile devices across all mobile operating systems, including the ability to easily retire mobile devices when they are lost or when employers leave.

With the new service, the CSP says that businesses can configure and selectively manage mobile apps, content and devices, automatically enforce usage policies, and retire mobile devices when they are lost or when an employee leaves the company. User enrolment and device configuration are automated so employees can set up a mobile device for themselves.

Gerry McQuade, Chief Marketing Officer for Business at EE, said: “Security is essential if businesses want to become genuinely mobile without putting sensitive company data at risk. With partners like MobileIron, we’ve developed a portfolio of mobile security solutions that make it easier to manage mobile devices regardless of the operating system each device is running.”

“MobileIron Cloud is an important step in removing the complexity associated with securing business data across multiple device types and operating systems. With this latest development, MobileIron has made it even simpler for employees to enrol and secure mobile devices for themselves,” he explained.

Over at MobileIron, Nigel Hawthorn, the firm’s EMEA Marketing Director, said that small and medium businesses face many of the same challenges as larger enterprises.

“They need to securely deliver files and apps, and manage employee devices. Whether organisations are most interested in data and device security or whether they want to deliver content and apps to their users,” he explained. www.mobileiron.com www.ee.co.uk/business



3M has launched its One Pass Fibre Pathway range in the UK and Ireland.

Addressing the growing demand for high speed broadband in apartment blocks and other multi-dwelling units (MDUs), the One Pass Fibre Pathway system is fast to install and involves minimal disruption to a building or its occupants.

By using an adhesive exclusive to 3M

to achieve a durable bond to hallways and walls, the company claims that no sawing, stapling or hammering is involved.

Installation can usually be completed in one visit, typically less than two hours, with just one small crew.

Once installed, One Pass Fibre Pathway has been described as ‘virtually invisible’ - about the width of a pencil it can be painted to blend with the wall surface.

The One Pass Fibre Pathway Duct by 3M is a surface-mount, adhesive-backed indoor drop cable and cable pathway system that can be installed in just one site visit around the perimeter of a MDU hallway.

With the additional of the One Pass Mini Fibre Pathway by 3M, fibre can be further extended into the living unit or office, helping to ensure high-quality broadband connection deep within buildings www.3M.co.uk/structuredcabling



Virtus Data Centres has announced a partnership with euNetworks Group Limited, a European bandwidth infrastructure provider.

Under the terms of the agreement, euNetworks is delivering a scalable Dark Fibre solution to meet the growing connectivity demands of Virtus’ LONDON2 Data Centre in Hayes.

The connectivity platform is being deployed by euNetworks and offers diverse ducts into the data centre, with multiple sub ducts per duct and high fibre count cables.

Each fibre pair can support nx10Gb or 100Gb wavelength connectivity, meaning this data centre will be one of the quickest and easiest facilities for customers to connect into, from tier 1 and tier 2 carriers, to high bandwidth consuming enterprises and cloud companies.

With this partnership, Virtus says its customers will also benefit from seamless access to euNetworks high-speed metropolitan network across London and its connectivity to over 240 data centres in the UK and across Europe. www.virtusdatacentres.com

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Add in the introduction of cloud computing, and the demand for computing power, storage and streaming/serving will continue to surge well into the future. For small and medium enterprises, cloud services are highly attractive, offering enterprise-class computing, software and communications at costs that reflect the scale of the cloud, rather than the scale of their business. Consequently there is predicted to be a huge expansion of datacentre capacity to match the growth of cloud services.

Corning Optical Communications invented pre-terminated optical systems for the datacentre over a decade ago, and continues to set the standard for the performance of these systems. With this fibre-rich optical cabling infrastructure solution, Corning has combined industry-leading performance with a revolutionary approach to network www.netcommseurope.com

deployment and operation. This enables owners and operators to overcome the challenges of today’s datacentre requirements while also preparing for future growth.

Corning’s Pretium EDGE leverages the latest in advanced pre-terminated optical cabling systems consisting of optical trunks, harnesses, modules, housings and jumpers. It provides 100% more density than traditional systems, enabling datacentre owners and operators to support more data in a finite amount of space. In fact, it achieves the highest port density in the market of 2,304 fibres in only a 4U housing while at the same time offering unprecedented patchcord/connector access.

Additionally, cabling moves, adds and changes, which happen all the time, must be done quickly and without disrupting the datacentre’s daily operations. To address this, individual trays in the Pretium EDGE solution make it easier and less time consuming to add trunk cables during these change events, and every housing has separate routing guides, so jumpers are easily managed and accessed when adding new jumpers or re-routing existing ones.

This results in 25% faster moves, adds and changes over traditional solutions.

Corning continues to enrich Pretium EDGE in a never-ending drive to solve customer problems and challenges since its launch in 2009. Following the widely adopted high density EDGE solution, which utilises Universal Wiring to ensure Polarity Management is a simple process, Corning has continued to extend its product family. For example, it assists migration to 40G & 100G with EDGE Advanced Optics (AO) by maintaining 100% fibre utilisation; fully integrates Infrastructure Performance Monitoring into the structured cabling plant without incurring additional and costly rack units through the EDGE Tap Module; and provides ultra-high density single fibre or mass fusion splicing thanks to the EDGE Splice SE solution.

With smaller cable diameters simplifying cable routing for trunks, harnesses and patch cords, which are efficiently managed throughout Corning’s range of housings, there has never been a more complete solution to support the constantly changing datacentre landscape whilst protecting investment and giving businesses the EDGE. www.corning.com/opcomm/ pretiumedge

NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

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C O N V E R G E D I N FA S T R U C T U R E

Samsung Techwin’s open platform offers choice & simplicity

Changing the Face of IP

By Joanne Herman, Samsung Techwin Europe

Introduction:

In this Q&A session, Joanne Herman, Marketing Manager for the Security Solution division of Samsung Techwin Europe, explains the benefits of IP and why the time is right to adopt this new technology.

Q: Joanne, why do you believe that Samsung Techwin can make such a big difference to how customers utilise Video over IP? Joanne Herman explains the benefits of supporting an open platform…

A: Our product development strategy has been based on the understanding that in the current challenging economic environment, businesses and organisations are understandably looking to achieve maximum long-term benefit from their investment in video surveillance systems. End-users want to purchase a solution that is not just fit for today’s purposes, but is also future proof in terms of its expandability and its ability to integrate with new technology in the future.

Q: There are many manufacturers of CCTV cameras and recorders who would say that their products are flexible, scalable and future proof too.

How do Samsung Techwin IP solutions stand out from the crowd?

A: Simply put, it’s the open platform capabilities of the WiseNetIII DSP

chipset that is at the heart of all our latest cameras and domes.

Q: The term ‘open platform’ is widely used in the software world.

How does this apply to the chipset that is inside your cameras?

A: We believe it is an exciting game changer in that the truly open platform allows users to effortlessly upload apps and run them on any WiseNetIII camera or dome.

Introducing video analytics Q: And why would customers want to do this?

A: Video Analytics is perhaps one of the best examples in which the functionality of a camera can be enhanced with the use of apps and the processing power of the WiseNetIII DSP chipset is such that we can now give customers the complete freedom and flexibility to choose the edge based video analytics app that best matches their individual requirements.

I am certain that we will look back in a year or so and be amazed at the diversity of apps that have been introduced. Many video-based apps are already available.

Retailers for example, may wish to use a video analytics app available from AgentVI which is designed to provide business intelligence on customer in-

store behaviour and can produce heat maps which show busy areas of a store, by hour or day of the week, to enable a store’s merchandising department to identify where to locate in-store promotions or perhaps relocate slow selling items.

Data can also be collected to allow analysis of how long customers have to queue to pay and this can be used to help inform store managers to establish how many checkouts should be open to ensure that the customer experience is not adversely affected by long queues.

Similarly, security personnel responsible for mission critical sites may wish to use the Foxstream video analytics app, which is ideal for perimeter protection applications where there is a need to have a high performance solution to detect and track would-be vandals and thieves.

It’s really easy to upload an app to one of our cameras. Following the connection of a camera to the network, installers or operators simply need to upload their preferred app via the camera’s browser.

All the 1.3MP, 2MP and 3MP models within the family of WiseNetIII network cameras and domes are extremely easy to install and set up, as are all our ‘plug & play’ network-recording devices.

We believe however, that it is the open platform capabilities of the WiseNetIII DSP chipset that will have the most significant impact on the demand for IP network based video surveillance solutions and create considerable sales growth opportunities for our business partners, installers and system integrators.

The WiseNetIII chipset

Q: Can users upload more than one app at a time to the WiseNetIII DSP chipset?

Samsung Techwin: answers to technical questions

8

NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

A: Yes. In fact a key feature of the WiseNetIII DSP chipset is that it has the ability to run multiple applications simultaneously, such as People Counting and Cloud Storage. This offers a clear advantage over competitors’ chipsets, which only have the capacity to upload and run a single app.

www.netcommseurope.com

Q: Do all the leading independent VMS’ support the Samsung Techwin WiseNetIII models?

A: Yes. Indeed this is another very important aspect of the open platform nature of the WiseNetIII DSP chipset, in that it is very easy to integrate with virtually any video management software package. We are continuing to accelerate our integration programme and are now supported by a large number of VMS’ including Genetec, Milestone, Axxon, Ipronet, Exacq, Genetec, and Seetec.

Samsung smart security The Security Solution division of Samsung Techwin manufactures video surveillance products designed to meet the current and future needs of security professionals.

The products use a variety of technologies, many of which are unique to Samsung Techwin and which can deliver tangible benefits and outstanding value to those involved in combating criminal activity, whilst offering time and cost saving advantages to installers and system integrators.

Samsung Techwin’s’ philosophy of delivering smart security is reflected in a product portfolio which provides customers with the flexibility to choose the best solution for the job in hand.

Training is at the heart of a range of support services, which also includes free system design, free technical support and a full three-year warranty. Samsung Techwin offers IP network solutions training courses for installers and system integrators and on its stand at exhibitions. www.samsungsecurity.com

www.netcommseurope.com

NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

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CASE STUDY

How Mitchells & Butlers improved its data centres and network

How 38,000 Staff Benefited from Ad “Thanks to a genuinely innovative partnership with Fujitsu that delivered equivalent innovation in technology and business processes, Mitchells & Butlers now has a robust and reliable platform on which to build its future” - Martin Taylor, Director for Business Change and Technology, Mitchells & Butlers

The customer

Mitchells & and Butlers is the UK’s leading restaurant and pub operator with 1,600 sites, including well-known brands such as Harvester, Toby Carvery, Browns, O’Neill’s and All Bar One. The company employs 38,000 people and has annual sales of close to £2 billion.

The company is committed to delivering great service, quality and value for money for their guests. The scale of their operation is enormous - serving 130 million meals and 430 million drinks per annum.

The challenge

As part of a three year technology journey, the company wanted to deploy flexible solutions that would help drive efficiencies in both internal back-office functions and guest-facing services, as well as create a platform to deliver new guest-focused services.

At the same time, there was an expectation that the company could cut overall IT costs significantly, improve the agility of its IT and introduce a flexible model to manage the cost base in line with the size of the business.

“Our main objective was to maximise the efficiency potential of our business, particularly in the restaurants and bars where we serve guests,” explained Martin Taylor, Director for Business Change and Technology, Mitchells & Butlers.

“By replacing an outdated till-based network with high-speed broadband coupled to innovative cloud-based services, we dramatically improved everything from internal ordering and stock management processes to the overall guest experience at our 1,600 sites nationwide,” he said.

Crucially, the project was designed around business outcomes, rather than technology - a key factor in ensuring that the company can introduce new products and services without the need for significant investment in technology upgrades.

The solution

In May 2011, Mitchells & Butlers engaged in an outsourcing project with Fujitsu that was designed to deliver these very specific business outcomes.

The project consisted of two

key phases - delivery of a superfast broadband network to the company’s 1,600 businesses, and the migration of old and inefficient applications to a new, virtualised data centre environment.

The second component, the migration of 85% of the business applications to a virtual environment in a new data centre, was also completed on time in March 2012.

The remaining 15 per cent of applications moved to a new physical infrastructure at the same time.

Fujitsu migrated 40 business-critical applications and 44 terabytes of live data to a private cloud in the new data centre over the course of a single weekend, with all applications available to staff the following Monday.

Mitchells & Butlers’ application portfolio now largely runs in virtual environments, which means they can pay for IT on a utility-based, pay-as-yougo billing model.

“These moves were technically and logistically complex, involving the migration of significant numbers of applications and volumes of data over the course of a single weekend, but the entire migration process happened with no disruption to business at any of our sites,” said Taylor.

“Every pub continued to trade, serve customers and process payments smoothly. This is the real measure of the success of the project; the fact that nobody noticed such a major transition indicates just how well-designed and well-executed the entire project was,” he added.

The benefit

Advanced networking meets the needs of 1,600 sites

10 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

With the introduction of the new, superfast up to 24 Mbps broadband service, all 1,600 Mitchells & Butlers pubs can also introduce many new services to guests, such as free WiFi and local promotions, giving an additional reason to visit, encouraging repeat visits and improving the overall guest experience.

At the same time, it enables the delivery of content-rich training programmes and other services to all 38,000 Mitchells & Butlers staff, without impacting on critical business applications or processes. www.netcommseurope.com

ks

dvanced Networking “Thanks to the flexibility and agility offered by Fujitsu’s cloud technology, we can design and trial new applications in weeks rather than months, ensuring that new ideas can be tested and deployed much faster than was previously possible,” said Taylor.

“That will enable us to offer many new services such as electronic order capture, table booking and guest enquiries, at minimal cost and without the need for further substantial investment in technology,” he explained.

The first phase of the project, delivery of superfast network services via high-speed broadband, was completed to schedule in November 2011, with all of Mitchells & Butlers

1,600 businesses nationwide switched over to the new service with no interruptions to service.

A further benefit is that Mitchells & Butlers’ core business applications now run at least 10% faster than their predecessors. Performance improvements in back-end and warehouse applications are even more significant, typically between 20 and 30 per cent.

This enhanced performance is combined with greater service availability, which is consistently higher than the defined service levels, meaning fewer interruptions to the business, less staff downtime and happier guests as a result. This all contributes to a more efficient business.

Conclusion

The result of this work is a radically new and improved IT infrastructure underpinning Mitchells & Butlers’ business, which is already delivering substantial and measurable benefits.

The company can now launch innovative customer-centric products and services quickly and easily thanks to a highly efficient on-demand computing model; applications run faster and more cost-effectively; and critically, the company now has guaranteed service availability, ensuring that its business runs smoothly across all of its restaurants and pubs www.fujitsu.com

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NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014 11

COMMENT

Covering external cabling specifications

Understanding BS EN 50174-3

By Mike Gilmore, DIRECTOR standards@fia

Introduction

Mike Gilmore discusses the complexities of external cabling…

In late 2013 the revision of EN 50174-3 was published in the UK as BS EN 50174-3:2013. The other two standards in the series, EN 50174-1 and EN 50174-2, were radically revised in 2009.

Now Part 3 has undergone the same transformation as compared to the first edition published in 2003. Conformance to the EN 50174 standards is mandated from both BS 6701 and the BS EN 50173 series of generic structured cabling standards and is therefore the default UK installation standard for telecommunications cabling of all types.

For this reason the release of a new version of any part of the EN 50174 series has to be taken seriously and time has to be allocated to understanding its new or modified requirements and recommendations - and indeed those that may have been removed.

A major change in BS EN 501743:2013 is that it now covers all cabling outside buildings - including core and access networks, although admittedly these networks are not covered in the same level of detail as external installations for `private’ use.

We also have to remember that for the installation of cabling, and indeed other infrastructures, particularly in the public space, outside buildings is largely covered by national or local legislation or regulation which differs in each country and that standards are in general subservient to that legislation and regulation.

Nevertheless, the stated requirements and recommendations of EN 50174-3 serve to point the way to such national-

specific rules and in the absence of such protocols the standard provides a viable alternative basis for quality assured installation.

As an example of this, we could consider the installation of underground duct (more correctly termed conduit).

Meanwhile, in the UK

In the UK, the National Joint Utilities Group (NJUG) Guidelines define the duct colours to be used for the subsequent installation of telecommunications, electrical power supply, gas and water.

In response, EN 50174-3 requires that “conduits shall be selected to ... avoid colours of cable management systems which are used exclusively by other services”.

BS EN 50174-3 specifies depths of lay “unless otherwise specified by national or local regulations” in order to avoid the cables being considered as sacrificial i.e. likely to be damaged following any substantial form of surface excavation.

In the UK, the NJUG Guidelines also specify depths of lay for the various infrastructures in particular types of ground. In this way the European standard encourages installers to identify those relevant national or local regulations, which apply and does not contradict them.

Similarly, the crossing of railway lines by telecommunications cabling is commonly covered by legislation to support the railway authorities and the standard points to them whether the

crossing is underground or overhead.

The issue of core and access network cabling deserves some mention here since EN 50174-3 treats it differently from the generality of installations outside buildings.

The standard is written in such a way to define the general requirements for all pathways, pathways systems, spaces and structures but then each of these topics is subject to further requirements and recommendations for applications other than core and access networks.

This treatment has been applied because the core and access network infrastructures act as complete systems - so things such as the dimensions of conduit, the separation between maintenance chambers and their general installation rules only have to be compatible with the performance demands of the specific transmission systems installed with them.

One of the areas which attracted substantial interest when EN 501742:2009 (inside buildings) was published was the issue of segregation and, once again, EN 50174-3:2013 has provided clearer requirements for the segregation of telecommunications and power cables (and earth electrodes) outside buildings - although while the indoor standard only addressed low voltage power supply cabling, EN 50174-3 addresses situations up to 25 kV.

Conclusion

Some of the requirements of BS EN 50174-3:2013 are founded upon those of BS 6701:2010 and have either copied or amended those requirements. As a result, BS 6701 will have to be revised in due course by taking out the duplicated or conflicting text.

However, there are plenty more topics to be addressed in a revision of BS 6701 - not least the impact of the burgeoning use of remote powering over telecommunications cabling to serve lighting, access control, wireless access points and a growing range of other building services solutions. www.fia-online.co.uk

BS EN 50174-3 revealed

12 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

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LANactive

Switch to the future

FTTO Active & Passive Solutions Nexans is pleased to announce LANactive, an alternative approach to structured cabling. Using fibre-to-the-office (FTTO) topology together with access switches installed near to the work place, it provides Ethernet services via standard copper based RJ45 technology to the device.

• Long distance transmission • Elimination of costly floor distribution • Reduced cable containment • Refurbishment with minimum disruption

The approach offers significant cost savings and other benefits in specific circumstances:

• Redundancy at user level

ncs.uk@nexans.com www.nexans.co.uk/LANsystems

Global expert in cables and cabling systems

D ATA C E N T R E S

How modular can offer companies a flexible IT future

Are Modular Data Centres the Lego

By Matt Goulding, Managing Director, Cannon Technologies

Matt Goulding discusses the industry shift toward modular data centres

IT has always liked things that were modular. It plays to the engineering geek inside most IT professionals.

When Sun Microsystems announced Project Blackbox back in 2006, the company started a race to move from modular systems to modular data centres and a market that is estimated by Companies and Markets Research to be worth $40.41bn by 2018.

Before Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) launched Project Blackbox - later known as the Sun Modular Datacenter - a number of companies, including Google, had played around with the idea of modularising the data centre. However, it was Sun that took the headlines when it launched the Sun Modular Datacentre in 2008.

Sun took a 20-foot standard shipping container and built in all the racks, cabling and equipment required for it to become a data centre. All it needed was external power, chiller units and a network link.

Modular data centre

The answer is that it all depends on whom you talk to. While there is no standardised description, most in the industry see it as a container based solution.

However, the length of the container and even the width can vary by manufacturer and product range.

Despite this, what makes it modular is that the data centres can be bolted together and even stacked on top of

each other to create a larger facility.

So what is driving this change? This is a complex question with a lot of different answers. Some of them are about the technology while others are about cost.

There is no more powerful incentive to adopt an approach than cost. When Sun launched the modular data centre, it talked of being able to buy a data centre for less than one per cent of the price of a traditional facility.

There were many reasons for this.

There is often no planning permission, no building costs or need to acquire an existing facility, as well as no decommissioning or reconfiguration costs as the business demand changed and no business rates on the use of a building.

All of those reasons are as true today as they were back then but perhaps the biggest cost reason was speed. It can take months and even years to build or refurbish a facility but a modular data centre can be provisioned in just weeks from the order being placed.

For service providers and data centre owners, modular is a huge opportunity.

Google and Facebook today have hundreds of containers stacked together to create their data centres. When they need additional capacity, they just drop in more containers.

Change is expensive

One of the real challenges for the data centre is flexibility. For decades, the data

centre didn’t change much. Even as we moved from mainframes to minicomputers and into early rack-based solutions, the data centre was reasonably static. With the explosion of commodity computing and blade servers, the data centre became a place of constant change.

For older facilities that means redesign, overhauling and updating in order to deliver the power and cooling requirements of new technologies. This is expensive. An overhaul of a data centre can cost millions of pounds and take months. During that period, no money is coming in and in a competitive market that means the potential loss of customers. Â Modular data centres remove that need to lose customers and refurbish a facility. A refurbishment is simply a replacement module. Customer systems moved from one module to another.

Meanwhile the under performing module can be replaced or updated as required.

Dense computing

Modular data centres are not just about the provision of extra capacity or for cover when refurbishing a data centre.

With dense computing, data centres have shrunk in size for many companies.

Downsizing a data centre is just as expensive as adding more capacity.

Power and cooling systems need to be maintained even if they are not being used. Data centre halls that are not being fully used, need to be partitioned to reduce waste and that means refurbishment costs.

Using a modular data centres, companies can quickly downsize or move from older, larger, systems to smaller, more efficient ones.

New opportunities

Modularity brings flexibility

14 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

One of the real benefits of modular data centres has been the ability to deploy in new areas. The football World Cup, the US Football SuperBowl, the summer and winter Olympics, the football World Cup - as well as other global events - require data centre facilities, especially for media. www.netcommseurope.com

of IT? These events process large amounts of data, film, audio and run vast Internet sites to provide public information.

Disaster recovery operations, oil rigs, intelligence headquarters in war zones and even major political conferences have also bought into modular data centres. They all need to manipulate very large volumes of data and modular data centres make this possible and provide an opportunity to do so securely. Â In 2010, the US government took a long and hard look at how it responded to major disasters. One of the failings was the inability of government departments to respond caused by a lack of data and IT facilities. The result was a document highlighting how

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departments should evaluate and then commission modular facilities.

Highly efficient

Modular data centres are engineered to customer requirements. As they can be accessed from all sides, the components are integrated to create the most optimal configuration for power and cooling.

Over time, as components alter, some of the initial integration may be lost but those losses will be offset by the power efficiencies of new generations of IT equipment.

 Conclusion

The next generation of switches that

run at 40, 100 Gbps and even faster, require a lot more power. Storage systems - even those with hundreds of Sold State Drives, also need a large amount of power.

Modular data systems are capable of supporting racks of blade systems, petabytes of storage and very high bandwidth, something that traditional facilities would need 10 times the floor space to accommodate.

Modular data centres such as the Cannon Technologies T4 MDC drive down costs, can be deployed wherever there is a need for compute power and are highly efficient. www.cannontech.co.uk

NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014 15

CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE

Pre-terminated technology can save you time and money

Benefits of Pre-Terminated Cabling

By Paul Cave, Technical Manager, Excel Networking Solutions

Introduction

Paul Cave explains the rationale behind preterminated solutions

Pre-terminated cabling systems have been around since the beginning of computing – in fact, well before the inception of Structured Cabling.

Early IBM System 36 and 38 computers used to be connected to its peripherals by way of factory terminated twin-ax assemblies, very similar to the ones still used today for 40 and 100Gb connectivity within the data centre.

The use of pre-terminated solutions falls into a number of areas, one being Data Centres and the other increasingly used option is in commercial office fit-outs, as the project timescales are constantly being reduced by the competitive nature of the market.

We are now starting to witness the use of pre-fabrication within the construction industry. By that we mean not only the construction, but also the partial fit-out of wall sections.

Data Centres

This is the one area that is very competitive, not only the cost but also the delivery schedules required to satisfy the very quick turn-around of the modern data centre deployment. It is not uncommon for a DC operator to want to turn an empty data hall into a fully functioning and revenue generating suite in a matter of weeks, time is money, and as soon as the decision is made they want to start earning revenue.

Pre-terminated - neat and tidy is the word

16 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

Therefore the time pressure quite simply dictates that pre-termination is essential for the rapid commissioning of new data halls. Copper pre-terminated cassettes have been traditionally restricted to Cat-6 and below due to the potential problems of Alien CrossTalk.

Individual keystone jacks are more commonly deployed for screened solutions especially Cat-6A. One of the traditional drawbacks of copper is the density that can be achieved, especially within the main patching field. The use of traditional outlets and patch management bars every 2U can be very restrictive and waste a lot of space.

To get around this manufacturers have come up with a wide range of angled options, from angled V-style panels, standard outlets mounted at an angle within a flat panel, an angled modular panel that houses a standard presentation outlet in groups of six and so on.

Excel has come up with the approach of having the front presentation of the jack itself at 45 degrees, this means the patch cables lie flat at the front of the panel with standard presentation at the rear, meaning the profiles do not need to be adjusted and the dressing of the cables within the cabinet can be optimised.

Pre-terminated Assemblies

The completion of the handover of a project is critical, mainly due to the fact that the lease deadline of the end user client’s existing facilities, have to be met to avoid the costly penalty of having to extend their previous lease by a further 3-6 months. This is then compounded by protracted negotiations to get the best price.

Therefore pre-termination for commercial office installations is becoming increasingly popular as the project timescales are being constantly shrunk.

Some integrators have even taken the step to invest in their own facilities to keep up with the demand. Whilst it is basically the same product set being used, there are a few key additions and techniques being utilised. One key difference is the lengths involved, they

are usually much longer, and if there is a concern about the accuracy of drawings or measurements provided, some minimise the risks by just preterminating the floor outlet end at the factory.

Pre-fabrication

Another area on the increase is that of pre-fabrication where complete sections of buildings are being constructed in a factory with all services are being ‘preplumbed in’ it used to just be the power and water but now complete walls for schools and hospitals are having all their services installed in a factory environment including items such as gas/oxygen and IT cabling.

The completed wall is then wrapped up taken to site by lorry and craned into position.

This means the time and resources required onsite are dramatically reduced. If everything is labelled correctly it takes a fraction of the time and cost required for a traditional installation, hence the large number of construction companies that operate in the education and healthcare sectors who are looking to invest heavily in this approach.

If used correctly pre-terminated solutions can bring a raft of benefits to both the installer and the end user.

Conclusion

Pre-termination is not a fad, it is an increasingly popular way of delivering a project in a more timely and cost effective manner. It should not just be confined to the major projects delivered by the large integrators, this approach can provide benefits for all sizes of project.

Excel Networking is investing and will continue to invest in both products and services that can support any level of project with many different variations of product presentation, panel to panel, solid core harness links, panel to GOP, Panel to CP etc. Including both copper and fibre, both traditional and MTP. www.excel-networking.com

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OPINION

The cloud and the telecoms business model

The Cloud in 2014 and Beyond

By Martin Bishop, Head of Network Applications & Services Portfolio, Telstra Global

Introduction

Martin Bishop explains how Telstra is embracing the telecoms cloud...

The cloud has grown on an unprecedented scale, with the public/ private cloud storage market predicted to be worth $46.8bn by 2018. The changing human interaction with the cloud and its importance in our dayto-day lives has created an enormous opportunity for businesses to take advantage of by using intelligent insights to increase customer satisfaction.

Firms are increasingly looking at the cloud to support IT delivery models like software-as-a-service (SaaS), platformas-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructureas-a-service (EaaS). Organisations across APAC are embracing the IT transformations, within cloud, big data and mobile looking how to better serve the needs of their customers.

It’s not only businesses that are beginning to use the cloud. The number of internet-connected video devices are exceeding the human population and the influx of tablets and smartphones, have led to changes in the way consumers interact. Cloud enables individuals to access their content remotely and young tech savvy consumers have grown up surrounded by technological innovation, unaware of how connected and online experiences are shaping their lives.

The transformation of cloud Networks are increasingly being defined by dynamic functions and the introduction of business process service level agreements (SLAs). For instance,

cloud platforms are being linked with traditional on premise applications, including Customer Relationship Management and Supply Chain Management environments. This is enabling the network to reshape itself and categorise its applications based on current activity levels so that network traffic and the needs of remote workers can be easily managed and prioritised.

Cloud providers have discovered different approaches to supply companies and for consumers building private or hybrid platforms, by best suiting their needs and expanding its services accordingly. We’re also seeing a growing number of applications developed by business customers in the cloud, who are more willing to develop their own, as they are educated on its flexibility.

The idea is a simple one. Buying relevant computing space to test an approach and then shutting if off again when the activity has run its course, reduces the risk for businesses when compared to alternative options available.

We will increasingly see an evolved cloud platform model as a way of addressing and ensuring sustainable growth, and providing enterprises with a competitive edge.

Traditionally many enterprises have used in-house infrastructure or collocated with an external data centre provider, yet an evolution is on the horizon with providers now developing and offering cloud-enabled managed hosting. If companies do not

embrace this new development, they are in jeopardy of falling behind their competitors.

Business opportunity

To maximise the opportunity of the cloud, businesses must keep flexible and agile tailoring cloud platforms to offer solutions designed to individual customer needs. As providers recognise their strengths they will also identify partnership opportunities with vendors, offering complimentary technology to their existing portfolios.

For example, businesses that deploy application-programming interfaces (APIs) that allow developers to design products based on an organisation’s services, will achieve success.

Companies can build their Web conferencing capabilities into another web-based application, such as instant messaging, which enables seamless collaboration and communication between individuals.

The reality is that organisations rarely use applications in silos, meaning those vendors offering API solutions that increase collaboration with complementary products and markets stand to benefit from increased sales with their customers.

Business models

In recent times, big data has enabled us to access large amounts of data but has given us little time to digest it. Businesses will start applying different lenses to data sets, so that they can identify what is relevant to them or is impacting upon their business. By focusing on actionable data, businesses will be well placed to optimise their services and customer experience.

Looking further ahead into 2015, the use of data will become key in predicting future activity and risk management. This will be driven by ‘smart data’ platforms; assessing patterns and delivering forecast and trending data to enable improved business planning. www.telstraglobal.com

The telecoms cloud: simplicity exemplified

18 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

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CASE STUDY

xxxxxxxmonitoring goes a long way at TalkTalk Power

Power monitoring advantages

By Andy Mullings, Data Centre Business Development Manager, Synapsys Solutions

Introduction

Andy Mullings explains how power monitoring can reap dividends...

TalkTalk has for many years used Synapsys products for building management system monitoring and integration with a Trend Building Management System. In the service provider’s UK data centres, the technology integrates systems including UPS and DC power systems, Computer Room Air Conditioning (CRAC) units, metering, environmental monitoring, and so on.

Synapsys’ new SIPp power monitoring solution now adds the capacity for accurate, real-time power monitoring, and TalkTalk is installing the SIPp systems for rack monitoring at all its data centres.

Already retrofitted at the Manchester site’s first data hall with no downtime or rewiring required, last year’s expansion to a second data hall gave TalkTalk the opportunity to incorporate the SIPp devices from the outset.

This particular site had a problem to address because each system used a different communications protocol to communicate with the outside world - including RS232, RS485, SNMP, Modbus and other system specific protocols. It was clear that finding a way to get all the different elements of the network communicating would make life a lot simpler.

Monitoring systems

Paul Ashford, a senior electrical engineer with TalkTalk, specified a SIPp system for the project, where it monitors both the AC and the DC power systems, communicating this information back to the Trend 963 Supervisor BMS. “It makes managing the system very straightforward by establishing a single method of communication with our BMS system, and this simplicity for the operator is the system’s biggest plus point for us. We’d otherwise be looking at using different OEM software for each of the many systems that we use across the estate, monitoring systems including DC and UPS systems, power usage, backup generator status, CRAC systems, fire alarm systems and temperature and humidity levels - which is simply not practical,” he explained.

To monitor load current and 20 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

energy usage in the AC branch circuit monitoring system, a SIPp device simply plugs in to the power distribution unit at the end of each equipment rack. Each SIPp can monitor up to 72 individual power circuits using micro CTs (current transformers), 36 on each feed. It converts the information obtained into a common Trend format that can be shared with the other systems used in the estate.

SIPps are also used to monitor the -48V DC load current and power circuits at rack level across the facility’s data centres, providing a very robust and reliable system.

The power monitoring system ensures that all generated alarms are relayed back to TalkTalk’s central operation centre, which is managed around the clock. Alarms are assessed and escalated if necessary to ensure that the appropriate level of response is carried out.

Engineers can log in remotely to get precise information, even down to individual rack level. Unusual readings can be examined to see whether they have been caused by something as straightforward as a problem with a filter in the CRAC system, in which case schedule ‘next working day’ maintenance can be scheduled.

Alternatively, if for example a UPS has gone down and a generator has been activated, an immediate response is the order of the day.

“It’s all about knowing where we are,”

said Ashford.

“There’s a lot of detail in the feeds we can choose to monitor - we are able to access a massive amount of information.

We’re now rolling out additional SIPps across all our sites in London, Birmingham and Manchester to help us monitor our equipment rack power circuits and to feed this information back to our central network operation centre in Manchester,” he added.

Scalable hardware

The SIPp system offers a scalable hardware-only solution, with no ongoing licence or service costs. With its user-friendly graphic ‘dashboard’ display, the system presents real-time data in an easy-to-read format. New users can get to up and running with minimal training, as the user interface is so intuitive.

“Developing our system has not been without its challenges and we’ve all been on a massive learning curve, but the Synapsys team has worked with us from the start on some pretty ground-breaking projects, bringing real innovation and developing technology which today leads the industry,” Ashford concluded. www.synapsys-solutions.com

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COMMENT

Cloud computing: business friend or foe?

The Cloud - Fast and Flexible

By Jim Foley, SVP Market Development, Flexiant

Introduction

Jim Foley discusses how cloud computing changes the IT/ networking ballgame...

Cloud computing is fast becoming a competitive marketplace as organisations begin to realise the elasticity and cost efficiency it provides.

Gartner predicts that cloud computing will become the bulk of new IT spend by 2016 demonstrating that ample opportunity exists to reap the benefits from cloud.

For service providers, cloud computing offers a platform to be right at the heart of their customers’ operations. As cloud services grow more popular however, the potential of capturing this market becomes fiercer.

Struggling to capitalise from cloud and convert the potential revenue it possesses into a reality, along with initiatives such as OpenStack are geared towards helping service providers take control of this market.

Despite this, the technology doesn’t quite allow for the flexibility to innovate and speed to take these services to market quickly. On top of this, service providers continue to struggle to acquire granular control over IT resources and subsequently lose out on potential revenue.

Defensive

Faced with this challenge, service providers have become somewhat

apathetic, apprehensive and sometimes defensive in their approach to cloud with some strategies actually putting themselves on the back foot.

In order to be successful, these organisations need to start taking offensive action and begin thinking about how to increase profit, revenue and growth from cloud services.

Rolling out a generic cloud is no longer an option as the risk of commoditisation and potentially, poor delivery against customer requirements becomes more significant. Being successful in the cloud will depend more on how willing service providers are to adapt and change to new models instead of whether or not the technology exists to deliver against these needs.

Service providers looking to develop a cloud computing business require a solution that can be brought to market quickly and cost effectively. Being flexible with their proposition will give these organisations every opportunity to become one-stop shops for all of their customers’ needs; whether its providing IT infrastructure services, to a growing array of high margin applications and services.

To do this right, will mean incorporating and coordinating all the right features needed to deliver against customer objectives.

A flexible cloud orchestration platform helps service providers develop their own unique services to differentiate and lead through innovation and generate more revenue from cloud as well as accelerate growth.

Offering a portfolio of bespoke features, an orchestration platform

removes the complexity of coordinating these features by automating aspects that are important to service providers.

From here service providers are able to customise their offerings that will in return allow them to accelerate to commercialisation and help them find their niche where they will prosper against competitors.

To really future proof a cloud solution however, service providers need to think beyond what their customers need or require now. Being flexible and adapting to change is the first step to avoid service commoditisation and customer disappointment.

But to enable future growth, service providers need to think of the wider ecosystem that can be easily integrated to take advantage of the best of breed technologies.

This will allow for further customisation, a vital component needed as competition heats up in the future.

While cloud computing clearly marks a disruptive change for service providers, it is not a time to be fearful or apathetic about what this change can bring.

The success behind the rollout of cloud services and solutions will be dependent on whether service providers can and will adapt to new approaches that deliver against these needs and whether they arm themselves with the right tools to do so.

Being able to innovate, customise and surround themselves with the best of breed technology partners will allow service providers to compete more effectively in this cloud battle.

Jim Foley – SVP Market Development, Flexiant Jim, with 30 years in industry, has migrated from hands-on software development to running international businesses.

He specialises in strategic business growth, having previously held many roles such as CEO (EMEA and APAC) at Kroll and Global Director of Market Development and Innovation at BT. Jim is renowned as a catalyst for market led innovation and strategic alliances.

All roads lead to the cloud...

22 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

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CASE STUDY

There’s more to UPS than meets the eye xxxxxxx

Cutting the Cost of UPS Technology

By Kenny Green, Technical Support Manager, UPSL

Introduction

How West Sussex County Council trimmed 75 per cent of the cost of its UPS operations…

When West Sussex County Council took over Horsham’s County Hall North building, which was formally occupied by insurance giant Royal Sun Alliance, a shift in the building’s intended use led to significant changes in its data storage and processing requirement. In turn, this had a knockon effect on the UPS equipment used to support the critical load and maintain 24/7 availability.

Following the council’s arrival, a review of the current UPS system was commissioned to identify how the changing function of the building had enabled savings to be made.

Instrumental in the review process was the council’s Carbon Management Team, which is responsible for meeting targets for reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions across the council’s 300 buildings.

Once the review was complete, it was clear that the council’s critical load was significantly smaller than the existing capacity, with only relatively small increases in load expected over the next five years. This meant a new UPS, specifically tailored to the council’s actual load, could be commissioned.

“The old UPS had a capacity of 200 kVA; with another 200 kVA stand alone

UPS just for redundancy. In itself, this was an inefficient system compared to current technology and we didn’t need anywhere near that amount of capacity so immediately we recognised that we could reduce the size of the UPS, thus also reducing our power and cooling requirements,” said Nicola Winser, Carbon Management Officer for the council.

Finding the right solution

It was at this stage that Uninterruptible Power Supplies Ltd, a Kohler company, were contacted to provide an appropriately sized and efficient UPS system that could manage the transition between the mains and a standby generator, ensuring that all data remained accessible and unaffected by any power interruptions.

The decision to work with UPSL was based on the council’s and its maintenance contractor Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) Contracting identifying them as providing best value for money for the local authority.

“After looking at the PowerWAVE 9000DPA product it was also clear it offered the best solution for our needs, at a competitive price. Our review had highlighted that our actual load was less than 100 kVA and with the 9000DPA’s modular technology, we had the flexibility we needed to expand the system in line with any future growth,” said Winser The selected PowerWAVE 9000DPA system offered the council a 100 kVA load capacity, comprising three 50 kVA modules with N+1 redundancy.

Should the council’s load require it, the PowerWAVE 9000DPA’s true ‘hot-swap’ modularity enables capacity to be added in cost-effective incremental steps as power requirements grow.

Additionally, the ability to ‘hot-swap’ modules whilst the system is online significantly reduces mean time to repair (MTTR) and simplifies system power upgrades.

consumption. On top of that, the air conditioning was costing £2500 a year.

Compare that to the new system and we are expecting power costs of £1800, with cooling costing less than £600 a year. Over a five year period, we will be saving almost £39,000 in reduced energy and air conditioning costs alone,” said Winser.

It wasn’t just in cash terms that the council was able to save. The new system also offered a substantial reduction in carbon emissions, a key driver for the project.

“West Sussex’s annual CO2 reduction target is 320 tonnes for the entire corporate estate and although there are 300 buildings, finding projects that deliver meaningful reductions is still a challenge. That’s why this was such an important project for us. The new UPS system was able to deliver a 37 tonne reduction, due to the UPS being 11 per cent more efficient at its expected loading, so it’s a high proportion of our annual target,” she explained.

West Sussex County Council was also able to receive 80 per cent of the total purchase and installation costs through the Salix Finance scheme, funded by the DECC. Salix Finance helps to empower public sector organisations to take a lead in tackling climate change by helping to increase their energy efficiency. In the case of West Sussex County Council, only 20 per cent of its own funding was required for the project with the rest coming from Salix matched funding.

About the supplier

Uninterruptible Power Supplies Limited (UPSL), a Kohler company, is the UK’s leading supplier of power support solutions, backing its products with comprehensive technical, installation, commissioning and maintenance services, and with an extensive track record in public sector, financial and retail channels. www.upspower.co.uk

Feeling the benefit The public sector - svaing money is a must

24 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

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CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE

How unified access supports true BYOD

Understanding Unified Access

By Johan Ragmo, Business Development Director, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise

Introduction

Andrew Ferguson analyses the current state of homeworking...

Capacity and security have always been a challenge for an enterprise network, but the convergence of personal and mobile devices and the growth of M2M communication is forcing IT departments to re-examine their network infrastructure.

Networks that were designed and built a few years ago are not prepared to support the requirements of today’s technology and applications.

They were created to handle predictable, static traffic flows that originated mostly from wired devices, not built for the mobile smart devices with their array of apps. As these become the norm in both personal and work lives, they are rapidly usurping desk-bound PCs as preferred devices.

IDC has forecast that by 2015, global shipments of tablets will surpass that of PCs and by 2017, 87 per cent of connected device sales will be tablets and smartphones.

Today’s networks

In practice, existing corporate infrastructure is having serious delivery issues. The inability of the network to meet the requirements of today’s applications results in impairments such as increased jitter, which can decrease the quality of experience (QoE) for realtime application such as voice and video.

What’s more, the user’s experience is

inconsistent as they move around the enterprise, particularly from a wired to a wireless network.

Often, the wired and wireless networks still behave as separate environments, each with its own authentication process and unique set of policies. This means users may still have different experiences when they are using a wired or a wireless device. It is also complicated for enterprise IT departments: there are two separate management systems, two set of policies and two authentication processes, making maintenance and troubleshooting more difficult.

A fully functioning mobile enterprise needs network unity. In order to improve and homogenise employee experience across both wired and wireless networks, enterprise networks do not just require extra capacity but a comprehensive network management system to support employee mobility.

Currently, however, many enterprise networks lack the ability to manage the levels of connectivity required to support the growing number and diversity of devices, real-time communication and media rich applications.

The right access

The problem is in the administration of the users and the heterogeneous devices, which they use in connection with a BYOD policy.

A unified access approach simplifies network management to provide a consistent experience across the entire network - both wired and wireless - and enables organisations to differentiate between corporate and personal devices and applications.

Setting policies

Johan Ragmo explains how to protect your network investments...

26 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

By setting policies in this way, the IT department simplifies management of devices so that, for example, a new employee can add their own devices to their profile on the network. New employees can add their own devices under a unified access with BYOD approach, and the portal automatically gives them the right access depending on which device is in use at any given time with on-boarding.

All policies and configuration for the different devices are made by the IT department initially in the portal, and once the employee makes the initial engagement, their profile can be built up accordingly. When the same employee gets a new personal iPad which needs to be authenticated on the network, the employee doesn’t have to go back to the IT department to undergo a complex process - they can just go to the online portal and indicate that they are using a new device, which already has its network access settings pre-configured.

It’s worth noting that the demand for bandwidth doesn’t just come from humans with smart devices. We must not neglect machine-to-machine communication here either, the so-called Internet of Things. Machine-tomachine (M2M) connections are set to rise dramatically over the next decade.

It has been predicted that by 2022 there will be 18 billion M2M connections globally (Machina Research), up from three billion connections in 2012, driven in part by greater mobile access, falling component costs, along with developments in both device intelligence and the growing applications market.

Wired devices such as security cameras with sensors, smart meters or GPS all require that data be sent across the network. The competitive advantages that M2M brings to the enterprise - cost reduction through automation, the collection of business or operations data and security or regulatory compliance monitoring - can lead to significant efficiencies and greater operational agility. The prioritisation of these devices must also be factored into any unified access approach.

Unified access provides real business takeaways - the scalability of being able to start with just a handful of employees and increasing that usage as demands increase, as well as the ability to use a single solution to support a virtual desktop approach with advanced applications across voice, data, LAN and WLAN. Obviously not all organisations have the same needs, or require the same level of infrastructure renewal.

A unified access management system www.netcommseurope.com

can be implemented to update existing technology and protect past investments in the form of a simple software upgrade, or it can even form part of a completely new solution to ensure functionality in the future.

This flexibility offers customers the choice of how to implement a unified access strategy when upgrading their network systems, keeping their strategy in line with business requirements and budget.

Whichever option is required, ensuring continuity across both wired and wireless networks will significantly help to cope with demand as smart devices and their demanding applications continue to increase in the workplace.

Evolving mobility

BYOD, the rise of mobile computing and the growth in M2M applications is not just something that is going to happen, it is happening. People’s behaviour and expectations have changed as a result of mobile consumer technology. The way we use and interact with technology is no longer a static, desk-bound affair.

Without a properly designed and implemented unified access strategy, the burden being placed on the existing network architecture from emerging technology and applications will only continue to grow.

The result will be frustration for employees, customers and clients when mobility and connectivity are not of the

standard that they are accustomed to in other areas of their lives.

Networks must be ready to cope with this future demand, and as WLANs become increasingly mission-critical as mobility evolves, a unified access strategy can help to ensure optimal performance and prioritisation across the enterprise network based on business needs and employee role, requirements and location at any given time. www.alcatel-lucent.com

Another Milestone in Fiber Optics Another year, another world record for OFS. 120 Gb/s transmission over 100 meters on a single multicore strand of optical fiber, a milestone on the road to next-generation 400 Gb/s transmission and beyond. Remarkable? Yes, but not surprising, when you consider who we are and where we come from. Our history dates back to 1876, with a heritage that includes technology powerhouses such as AT&T and Bell Labs, and scores of innovations that make possible today’s networks – and tomorrow’s.

It’s no wonder that people come to us when they need reliable, high-performance fiber for their most demanding applications.

What can we do for you? Call us at 1-800-fiberhelp or visit ofsoptics.com/fiber.

www.netcommseurope.com

NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014 27

CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE

xxxxxxx How broadband can better service company teleworking

Supporting the Age of the Homewor

By Andrew Ferguson, Editor of Thinkbroadband.com

Introduction

Andrew Ferguson analyses the current state of homeworking ..

Although broadband access allows people to work from home, the majority of us still seem to endure the daily commute to work.

A recent report from The Carbon Trust, for example, stated that home working has the potential to save UK business ÂŁ3 billion a year and more than three tonnes of carbon.

This illustrates how there is a business and environmental argument for home working to be more commonplace in the UK. Firms and individuals who want to embrace home working are often faced with a number of barriers, such as whether or not the broadband connection will let them work with the same ease and speed at home.

In addition, there are still companies that take the traditionalist approach to people clocking in and out and have a paranoia that home workers will down tools and watch TV all day.

In creative industries there is also a desire to keep people working from the office as much as possible in order to generate good discussions and ideas that

often come from face-to-face interaction.

However, as business rents continue to rise and cost saving measures kick in, some companies that need to implement drastic cuts have given employees the choice of working from home or face job loss. In my opinion, forcing people into home working as the only option is generally a bad idea.

The right stuff

Some individuals and businesses believe home workers require ultra fast connections such as 100 Mbps download and upload speeds, which are rare in the UK. In reality, a VoIP phone will provide a decent call quality on a slow broadband speed connection as long as it is reliable and latency is stable.

Higher speeds become desirable if a firm is heavily cloud-based, especially if continual access to a remote server is needed. However, in the main, the current generation of superfast broadband connections are capable of keeping up with this sort of cloud-based work.

I am quite surprised that remote desktop applications are regularly overlooked. These should run smoothly on a 2Mbps download connection, with just 500Kbps of upload speed.

Remote desktops are ideal when working on large datasets as it avoids the need to download all the data.

Instead, users can log on to a server that is located in the company’s main office or in a remote data centre. The rise of the virtual server can also help to further reduce the costs to a business as virtual machines are much cheaper to upgrade.

Staying in touch with colleagues in the office can be an issue. But thanks to Skype, Twitter and other instant messenger platforms, collaboration is just a click away and a colleague can appear on the computer screen or phone as clear as if he or she were sat in the office.

As larger companies frequently have offices and teams spread across Europe or further afield this can help to aide effective collaborative working rather than hinder it.

In addition, it can encourage a reduction in travel costs and enable

IT infrastructure from smallest to largest.

ENCLOSURES

28 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

POWER DISTRIBUTION

CLIMATE CONTROL

www.netcommseurope.com

rker teams to maximise the time they have with colleagues when they do meet faceto-face so they are focused on strategic actions rather than discussing more day-to-day queries or activities.

Live to work

Integrating home working into family life can be difficult and some people find it harder than others as it is easy to remain permanently connected to work and it is best to find ways to ensure the two are separated. Converting the spare room into an office where you do not venture outside of work hours for example can help delineate work as well as home life.

It also helps to be strict with yourself about your working hours and adhere to a routine wherever possible.

In the last few years the humble shed has seen something of a revival.

However, the security of PC hardware must be considered and it is important that home workers ensure that in the winter they don’t end up spending a fortune heating the makeshift office.

Those working from home with

slower broadband speeds will impact others in the house that might also be using the connection at that time. If you work from home, I recommend having two connections; one for work use and one for personal use. Having two connections from different providers and using technologies can help on those occasions when one connection or provider isn’t working well.

Also, during the school holidays when children are watching films from a streaming service it will not impact on you.

Other technology advantages include the availability of static IP addresses, which make firewalling access to cloudbased resources much easier. It is also worth considering a broadband router that can be configured to support the company’s VPN, so your computer is on the same network as those in the office.

When most of us are looking to make cost savings, the money saved from not travelling to the office every day is substantial with the average commute in the UK being approximately 16.7 miles.

A benefit that is often overlooked is if a business has a good proportion of

IT INFRASTRUCTURE

home workers, issues such as weather conditions or transport strikes have far less impact on the company. Home workers also tend to work longer hours as they don’t have to commute and are not distracted by their colleagues.

An article from the Harvard Business Review in February 20143 reviewed the results of a home working study that was undertaken by a travel Web site called Ctrip.

The study found that the home workers made 13.5 per cent more calls than the staff in the office, resulting in a considerable rise in productivity, which was the equivalent of an extra workday.

It is evident that more organisations are reaping the rewards of remote working, which also helps to increase efficiency.

I firmly believe it is possible that certain office jobs, such as call centres may in time vanish altogether, as more people work from home and more of us can then wave goodbye to the daily commute. www.thinkbroadband.com

SOFTWARE & SERVICES www.rittal.co.uk

www.netcommseurope.com

NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014 29

COMMENT

How intelligence-driven security can protect your IT systems

Threat-Based Security Revealed Lincoln Mattos explains how a new type of security works...

Introduction

It was only a couple of years ago, as we sat behind our impregnable firewalls, anti-virus software and state-of-the art updated security suites, that our false sense of security was shattered by a tsunami of major cyber-attacks.

These included security certificate providers such as Comodo and one of the largest security companies such as RSA Security.

You do not have to go very far across the planet to encounter IT environments so hostile that a new method of IT security to combat them had already been developed - and that place is Brazil.

Forward-looking organisations are adopting a new model, informed by threat intelligence and more inclusive of the complete kill chain of operations necessary to launch, and defend against, a cyber-attack.

The model is intelligence driven security.

Lockheed Martin defines intelligence driven security as “a risk management strategy that addresses the threat component of risk, incorporating an analysis of adversaries, their capabilities, objectives, doctrine and limits.”

By being pro-active about continuously understanding, tracking and anticipating adversaries, this model works to mitigate not only the vulnerability, but also the threat component of risk.

Anonymous - a whole new security threat

30 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

Threat-based defences

A threat-based defence also broadens the scope of security practice beyond the corporate perimeter, recognizing the complex supply chain of the underground economy.

The model also seeks to understand how, when and where the adversary communicates in order to have early warning of attacks, facilitate the recovery of stolen assets, and be proactively aware of new attack methods.

When this information is continuously used to inform the security posture and integrated into corporate defence systems, security teams start regaining an advantage against their adversaries.

The shift to intelligence-driven security also implies a significant cultural shift in how business leaders perceive security, manage and communicate about it.

A clear understanding of the threats’ intentions and capabilities is key to effectiveness. Business leaders and security teams need to be able to answer the following questions: Who wants to attack the organisation? How do they behave? What are their resources?

What can they do? What have they done to us or to our competitors so far?

Ultimately, this approach leads to better decision-making by informing defence investment and resource prioritisation.

Business leaders need to understand the threat horizons for their industries.

Cyber threats concern organisations across industries of all shapes and sizes.

Yet, criminal intent is highly tied to the industry a company is in.

Therefore, there is an advantage in knowing the types of threat one specific industry are under, and how other companies in the same sector have undergone attacks.

To gain this knowledge advantage, breaking the way a threat operates into three categories: intent, opportunities and capabilities, and provides a clear path to understanding the cyber threat scenario, and leads to better decisionmaking.

Threat horizon

One of Tempest’s ‘Threat Horizon Reports’, circulated to its media clients recently said: “The Syrian Electronic Army seems to be evolving. Instead of just being interested in shaming media by merely showing that their websites are vulnerable, it appears that they now want to spy and spread their confidential information.”

If we take a look at a very recent threat intelligence report, which Tempest produced, readers will get an idea of how closely this solution monitors the most likely attackers within their industry: Intent: In the media and broadcasting industry, adversaries are usually attacking out of a politically motivated intent, their goal is to get exposure to their messages (hacktivism).

Opportunity: As a rule of thumb, the more opportunities a company’s security posture provides for attack, the higher the likelihood of a high-impact breach.

Capabilities: Capabilities refer to what attackers can do in terms of technical abilities, logistics, access to tools and the level of skills and resources they need to have to reach their goals.

As the world trains up more technically adept citizens the number of potential criminals, hackers and phishers just seems to grow daily. www.tempestsi.com/en

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NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014 31 Email sales@cabcon.co.uk

COMMENT

Reducing the your Internet cybercrime risk surface

Understanding Internet security

By Professor John Walker, Director of CSIRT & Cyber Forensics, Integral Xssurance

Introduction

Professor Walker explains the intricacies of Internet security risk reduction...

As hard as it may be to accept, in 2014 there are an estimated 17,000 global financial crimes being committed every second - and when you assess the related impact on individuals, companies, and economies, this sum is probably a conservative estimate.

But as Willie Sutton, the highly prolific US bank robber said when asked why he robbed banks, his simple and eloquent answer was: “Because that’s where the money is.”

In our modern day of cyberinterconnection age of dependencies, I guess if you ask those engaged in cybercrime why they do it, one should expect the same answer.

Today we are seeing a massive onslaught against Internet connected endpoints, be they personal, government, or commercial systems, they all offer the same profile to the everpresent attacker, with three potential surfaces of attack, which are: 1. They are connected to the Internet [Opportunity] 2. That they are being used by humans[Sociability] 3. They are running software[Exploitability] It may be that all of these ducks are not always lined-up of course, but if you consider the huge number of connected targets the opportunities are massive.

To quantify the potential exploitation factor, let’s take a campaign involving the communication of 50,000 malware, or trojan-carrying spams targeting scattered end-points. The expected success rate here is around the 0.4 per cent mark, representing just 200 machines – not many I agree.

However, one of the earliest scams ran in 2004 in the early days of cybercriminal evolution – netted the cybercriminals involved $125 million – a huge sum in anyone’s book. Even with a 0.4 per cent success rate, the rewards can be huge.

Research

To bring readers right up-to-date I would like to share with you some results out of a small research project I ran in March 2014. The initiator to this research was when I using my smartphone’s small screen at the end of a long working day.

The small surface of operation, linked to my comparative oversized digits, and the fact I was tired manifested in a number of frustrating mistypes, which meant I was either not loading a page to my mini-screen, or I was going to the wrong location.

So what if I were to take a very well known, everyday URL, and drop the first character from the domain name, what would I find today?

Bingo. The results on my smartphone

were to present a black screen, with the notification warning that my media player required updating - and gave the option of an ‘OK’ button to proceed.

However, it was not possible to go back, forward, or to drop this screen – it was loaded, and staying there – my only exit option was to do hard reset.

I then attempted this same load three more times, and on each occasion it amounted to the same, with the requirement of a hard reset to get out of the logical trap.

The next step was to move over to a PC, and here through the more secure Aviator browser, I ran some lookups on these convoluted domain names, and was surprised to see that every instance of popular extension was taken – registered in various parts of the world, by various users, one of whom clearly recognised the illicit potential value of this nonsensical domain name, and was offering it up for sale.

So now it was time to move to the next stage of offering up a PC as a sacrificial lamb, and so the page was loaded – a white blank screen appeared, and some ‘other’ domain was called by our convoluted fake, and that was it – again nothing.

However, after dropping the page it was soon evident that the purpose of the load had been to deposit its logical payload in the form of malware on my fully patched, AV protected system.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it should be clear that mis-typed or mis-routed Web addresses are now a major source of cybercriminality.

As we have now come to understand, whilst the hit rates do not have to be high, the rich pickings can be massive and the path to exploitation can be very low cost and very simple.

The bottom line? We need to take more care when working online, and remember that situational awareness is more than a phrase - it’s a condition. www.integralxssurance.com An example of a spoofed Web page

32 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

www.netcommseurope.com

CLOUDCOMPUTING WORLD CLOUDCOMPUTING CLOUDSERVERS

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WORLD

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The cloud: it’s older than you might think

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CCW - The Format CCW is fully interactive and will be available on all major electronic devices from the first issue – thanks to the use of the digital format, content in the publication will be freed from the two dimensions of print and include rich media that readers will not find in any other place.

In this context, advertisers and editorial contributors will be able to present content in a rich media format. Put simply, this means

that content submissions with move beyond the printed page and into the realm of video and audio.

We believe this offers those involved a much greater opportunity to engage, entertain and inform our readers.

CCW will also deliver advertisers real-time and identifiable metrics, enabling advertisers to calculate their ROI and identify where response comes from.

For Editorial Enquiries Steve Gold steve@lgnmedia.co.uk 0114 266 3063

For advertising enquiries Ian Titchener ian@lgnmedia.co.uk 01353 644081

www.cloudcomputingworld.co.uk 26 St Thomas Place, Cambridge Business Park, Ely, Cambridgeshire CB7 4EX

01353 644 081

CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE

Network management in an era of virtualisation

Staying Ahead of the Network Curv

By Pravin Mirchandani, CMO, OneAccess

Introduction

Pravin Mirchandani explains how advances in network technology can benefit everyone...

It’s no secret that carriers and other large CSPs are locked in a battle between their network’s capabilities and the need to satisfy their customers’ everchanging requirements.

As if the pressure to deliver faster, more reliable and increasingly featurerich network and application services to the enterprise wasn’t enough, they must also find ways to fend off a new generation of smaller, more agile cloud service providers.

Behind the frontline, however, CSPs are laying the foundations for a future-proofed, fully-virtualised network architecture, which promises to arm them with the capabilities to vastly increase their network’s capacity and efficiency through network functions virtualisation (NFV).

But against today’s backdrop of falling ARPUs and increasing data volumes, the promise of future agility is just not enough. To be successful in today’s tough business market, CSPs must also focus on delivering tangible and revenue generating benefits to customers today.

Born out of software-defined networking (SDN) innovations in the data centre environment, NFV’s development has been largely driven by a group of leading CSPs, in direct response to the many cost and time-tomarket challenges they face with the

introduction of new network services One of NFV’s core aims is to ensure the rapid roll out of new services ‘on demand’, delivered through a virtualised network infrastructure, thus enabling CSPs to swiftly introduce and adapt new services and nimbly respond to changing competitive circumstances. If successful, the future looks bright indeed, but the initiative remains in its infancy.

The real problem lies with the massive scale and tremendous complexity of their legacy networks and organisations, which are dictating the speed of migration to service virtualisation. This unenviable task will take time and this is time that CSPs simply cannot afford.

Asking customers to hold on until the transition is complete simply isn’t an option: the promise of a brighter, service-rich future will do little to quell the allure of an innovative cloud service provider.

Alongside the delivery of new services, increased network traffic is also putting a strain on CSP’s service abilities. In the short term then, the biggest test for CSPs will be meeting their customer’s connectivity needs until NFV comes to fruition. This means placing customer experience management (CEM) at the top of their immediate agendas.

Fundamental to the delivery of successful CEM is the CSP’s ability to efficiently manage, monitor and control both up and down stream bandwidth flows. Yet the increasing complexity of enterprise networks means that it is becoming more difficult for CSPs to isolate and monitor the performance of individual business applications.

The march towards virtualisation has long since disconnected the physical servers and transmission paths from the network models that CSPs sell on to customers, meaning that network performance monitoring solutions must now effectively marry together two different systems.

Reducing TCO Tapping the power of the cloud...

34 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

Driven by a critical need to reduce TCO, most CSPs have taken a ‘just enough’ approach to acquiring their access equipment and gateway

solutions, which has left many without the required network and application visibility needed to uphold the performance guarantees that will keep their SLAs competitive in the marketplace.

In short, CSPs need a bridging technology: a platform that will help to drive cost efficiencies and reduce TCO, provide the network and application visibility and control that will underpin their near-term competitiveness and will support an NFV migration timeline that respects this delicate balancing act.

Fortunately for CSPs, network access equipment providers like OneAccess have been keeping their eyes fixed on the battleground and have responded swiftly to the CSP plight, with innovations of their own. From a network-edge perspective, all that is needed to address these requirements is the evolution of a single piece of customer premises-based equipment the humble router.

Today’s generation of CPE routers may look similar to those from years gone by, but that’s where the comparison ends. Inside, technical innovations have transformed them from simple data forwarding devices into business critical ‘service enablement platforms’, perfectly attuned to a combined virtualised and legacy network environment and ready to deliver game-changing network management services that safeguard the CSPs continued relationships with the enterprise.

Crucial amongst these innovations is the pioneering separation of the router’s forwarding plane from its control plane. By virtue of this separation, the management of the intelligent control plane can be virtualised and orchestrated, enabling network managers to ‘mass optimise’ network traffic flows in order to load balance the network in accordance with fluctuating requirements.

In other words, the execution of the data transmission still takes place in the forwarding plane, but the decisions as to where and how the packets are sent can be adjusted dynamically and on a scale that has never before been possible.

From the orchestrated centre, CSPs can also use this capability to develop a full view of the network’s performance, www.netcommseurope.com

ve extracting actionable intelligence gathered at the edge of the network, on-site, in the branch office in order to optimise their customer experience management (CEM).

The competencies of these orchestrated and ‘virtualised’ router functions enable CSPs to remotely configure and reconfigure their customer’s network ‘on the fly’, rerouting data from priority applications according to their specific needs.

When considered alongside the wide range of access technology combinations that these routers support, including satellite and LTE, the enabling potential of these technologies comes into sharp focus. CSPs have the ability

to make almost any legacy customer network configuration ‘NFV ready’ through the replacement of a single piece of kit.

Finally, when deployed on the customers’ premises but managed centrally, these solutions establish a much-needed platform through which revenue-generating services can be rapidly and flexibly introduced, in line with the CSPs own commercial objectives and the varying appetites of customers.

Conclusion

Where CSPs once struggled to introduce new services to their customers quickly,

they can now provision new features and switch existing services on and off from a central remote location, without incurring the elevated costs of site installation visits and CPE-equipment replacement.

NFV may still be a few years away, but by thinking strategically and deploying a fleet of intelligent, ‘NFVready’ CPE-equipment today, as a key component of a CEM-focused network management system, CSPs can reclaim their competitive edge and ensure their customers are appropriately primed for NFV as and when they ready to deploy. www.oneaccess-net.com

Making a difference where it counts In a Data Centre, the slightest cable malfunction can have enormous consequences. That’s why countless customers across Europe have chosen R&M for their mission-critical networks.

We are a Swiss developer and provider of best-in-class connectivity systems for high quality, high performance Data Centre networks.

We have operations in more than 30 countries and a strong European presence, R&M offers trusted advice, tailor-made solutions and enduring support.

DATA C NTRE

Cabling might not be the first thing to grab your attention when designing a DC. However, many quality failures can be attributed to seeing cabling as a commodity product.

Designing, upgrading or migrating your Data Centre - and looking for peace of mind? R&M can help.

If you are looking for trusted advice and enduring postsales service – R&M can help.

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NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014 35

CABLE MANAGEMENT

Tidying up network cables is now a must-have

Cables Maketh a Wireless Office

By Jenny Bell, Head of Marketing & Business Development, CMD Limited

Introduction

Jenny Bell explains the need to ensure cables

To some, a wireless society is considered a vision, a dream of fluent movement allowing us to come and go as we please, removing the inconvenience of cables that restrain us to the perimeters of our working environment.

This may be confirmed by those who pioneer the latest technology whether it be mobile phones, laptops or more recently tablet PCs. Unfortunately, these devices all require to be re-charged from time to time, while synchronising with other devices that are cable dependant.

Whether at home or in the office, cables are a prominent item

are put in their place‌

Your wired office - neat and tidy?

36 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

of inconvenience to the modern workstation, either trailing between devices and sockets, or providing an eye saw to the clean functional environment.

Not only a visual problem but unorganised cables can soon cause hazards to both your own and your devices health due to accidental trip page of power leads, most of which moments occur at the most irrelevant times.

So where are we?

The technological world is quickly developing, with new equipment being designed and modernising the world of

work. As a result of this, there are often a considerable number of wires that employers need to take care of.

Although wireless technology is also becoming more widely available, this is not always the case, especially if the employer is working to a tight budget, as such a luxury can incur a higher expense. It is therefore necessary to implement some form of cable management system.

An easy and convenient solution is to use a basket or tray system. The installation process is relatively simple, as it requires only attaching the tray to the desired place and then using the hooks to clip the wires in place.

A common place to attach the basket is under the desk itself, which utilises the space available and is also aesthetically pleasing because the wires are hidden away. The clips are also an important feature for convenience because they will prevent the wires from falling to the ground and becoming a safety hazard.

Many employees suffer workplace injury and are forced to take time away from work in order to recover.

One cause of such injuries could be ineffective cable organisation, as it can easily lead to trips and falls. It is better, therefore, to put the cable management system into place as a means of increasing employee productivity and reducing employee absence. More information about the health and safety benefits of cable management can be found at Healthy Working Lives.

An alternative option is to use a spine as a means of managing cables. This is a form of cable wrap that surrounds and can therefore hide cables. Again, this is a particularly useful option for those concerned with aesthetics, especially as the product is available in different colours to suit the specific environment.

As well as this, the product is easy to install.

Although slightly more complicated than a cable tray system, it is still essentially a basic clip and hook system that can be attached either to the wall or underneath the desk.

Another useful feature of the spine system is that it can be unscrewed from the desk so that it can be used in another area, which is especially useful for those working from home. www.netcommseurope.com

S

?

W k

!

Cable eaters work wonders...

Additionally, the product often involves a two segment system for cable segregation, meaning it not only complies to the British Standards of BS6396:2008 (Electrical Systems in Office Furniture and Educational Furniture in commercial environments) but easy to access for making those future changes, as it is easy to remove a wire and add another if it is no longer necessary in the working area, or if a certain piece of equipment is replaced.

Did you know?

Cable Baskets – Cables baskets are one of the cheapest, yet most effective ways of tidying up your cables. All those cables overhanging down the back of your desk and on the floor are simply lifted up into the basket.

Immediate satisfaction on the eyes, and the removal of potential accidents.

Simple.

Cable Spines – Maybe you don’t have that many cables and a cable basket would look a little over dramatic. Cable spines will simply run any excess cables from desk level to floor level and the various styles on offer mean it will look good too! Additionally, many spines allow segregation of data and power cables, ensuring that performance is not interrupted.

Cable Eater – Because cable spines are often not flexible enough for your needs, the Cable Eater comes in various lengths allowing you to add your cables, organise them round your desk, and then cut of any excess Cable Eater. Customisable to your needs.

Cable Ties – Essential for any cable management set-ups alongside all other products. Cable ties mean you can organise, segregate, and keep things simple.

There is nothing worse when you need to replace or remove a single item from your desktop and then have no choice but to involve yourself in a game of ‘follow the lead’. Cable Ties remove the hassle.

See the difference cable management can make and check out CMD’s cable management range – www.cmd-ltd.com/products-range/category/ cable-management

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CABLE MANAGEMENT

Tidying up network cables is now a must-have (cont’d)

Cable fusion technology assists...

The newsroom

Cable tidies - complete with zips...

38 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

The newsroom is the hub of any journalistic organisation, whether is it is a local newspaper, a national radio station or an international news website. he newsroom is a busy place, filled with journalists making phone calls, researching stories, typing up news articles and doing everything they can to get a breaking news story delivered on time.

Journalists must deliver news as quickly and as accurately as possible to remain competitive in a cutthroat industry. The newsroom must be powered effectively and be free from clutter so journalists can operate quickly and efficiently.

Most newsrooms are now non-linear and operate around a series of hubs, where a number of journalists will sit around computers in different areas.

These hubs which will usually have two screens per person as it is vital that a journalist is able to monitor other news outlets and news feeds while going about their own work.

If a competitor breaks a story before they do, they must begin work on it immediately or risk losing the story altogether. Each hub usually has at least two phones as well. One phone will be used for ringing out to conduct interviews and at least one other phone will be specifically designated for freelance journalists to call the news hub if they find a breaking story.

A small newsroom will consist of at least three or four of these small hubs.

To remain efficient, these hubs must have a good desktop cable management

system so journalists can work in a neat environment.

Journalists have enough scraps of paper, notepads and press releases on their desk without having to worry about cables as well. Desktop cable management will help keep the desk clear of computer and phone cables.

The cables are directed through a hole in the middle of the hub into the floor.

Desktop computers in a news hub will be attached to an adjustable monitor stand. Adjustable monitor stands will allow a journalist to move both of their computer screens freely. This means that if they want to focus on the screen they are working on and have other news outlets on a screen in their peripheral vision, they can adjust the screens accordingly for their comfort.

Bigger newsrooms usually have television screens on the walls so journalists can see a variety of different news channels at once. This allows them to monitor breaking news from different regions and even different countries depending on the size of the organisation. An effective system must be in place to manage cables from these television screens so cables are not falling on the floor and tripping people over.

A 21st century newsroom is a very busy environment to work in and it is filled with modern technology. Effective cable management systems are vital to help manage space in a newsroom and allow journalists to complete their work quickly and deliver breaking news to the public. www.cmd-ltd.com

www.netcommseurope.com

Since 1895

WiFi Offload TM

Extending the cellular network capacity

Complete WLAN Offload test As data consumption continues to explode, innovative solutions are required to avoid a looming capacity crunch. Network operators are looking to small cell technologies for a solution, offloading data to Wi-Fi enabled devices is one cost effective means.

The MD8475A is designed to provide multi-standard testing in just one unit. LTE-A (FDD/TDD), WCDMA/HSPA, GSM/EGPRS and 2 cell interRAT/intraRAT, high level applications and services (IMS/VoLTE, RCS, web), and turn-key solutions (Wi-Fi, battery test, video & video quality) are integrated into the MD8475A. The SmartStudio GUI provides an easy to use interface hiding perfectly the complexity and power of the testing available.

The MD8475A is the ideal solution for WLAN Offload testing, where a combination of technologies is required. Hosting the mobile network architecture on the MD8475A and a WLAN Offload server application on an external PC the whole system configuration is achieved. The MD8475A governs the functionality, allowing you to focus on the results.

Sales Offices: Europe 44 (0) 1582-433433, USA and Canada 1-800-ANRITSU, Japan 81 (46) 296-1208, Asia-Pacific (852) 2301-4980, www.anritsu.com Š2014 Anritsu Company

Understanding WLAN Offload - Download your FREE Guide, learn more.

BETTER BUSINESS

xxxxxxx the power of business social media Tapping

LinkedIn - Powering New Business

By Phil Turtle, Managing Director, DataCentreIndustryPR

Introduction

Phil Turtle explains the many benefits of LinkedIn, the business social media site and service…

We have all become conditioned to think of PR (public relations) as being the process of getting your company written about in the pages, and on the Web sites of specialist magazines like the one you’re reading now. But, strictly speaking, that’s a sub-set of PR called media relations.

So we asked PR guru Phil Turtle, MD of DataCenterIndustryPR to look at how easy our reputation can be created (and lost) through LinkedIn, the business social-media site.

Whilst many of us (or if we’re older, our kids) are avid users of Facebook to stay in contact and to share what’s going on in our lives, we shy away from doing the same in our business lives.

Yet, in many ways LinkedIn gives us a fantastic opportunity to build our own and our company’s reputation in very simple ways.

The problem is we are mostly scared of the marketing department and the CEO who are still in the dark ages of wanting to ‘Control the Messaging’.

Just reading those words makes me angry. How disingenuous can people be?

Step back for a moment

Let’s just step back for one moment and remind ourselves that public relations is simply the process of interacting with our various ‘publics’ (prospects, customers, suppliers, consultants,

channel partners, etc., etc.) and what those people think about us. Our reputation, in fact.

Like it or not, we’re all engaged in public relations. The only choice is whether we manage our own reputation or abdicate and let other people manage it for us.

The beauty of `media relations’ has always been that you could help to manage the company’s reputation by getting news and informative articles disseminated from a few people to tens of thousands of readers of magazines like this one. And this is still a highly valuable technique.

But these days we all spend a lot of time in the online world and so it’s really important to manage our reputation there as well.

For decades now I’ve been advising companies that one of the best reputation-building strategies for PR is the opposite of advertising messages.

What you do is to simply give away lots of high-value information that the magazines readers will find really useful. For example, articles explaining upcoming technologies, opinions on which of alternative emerging technologies is better and why, and tutorial articles explaining how to do various things. Usefully, this is exactly what Editors want too.

So how do we take this technique into the business social-networking sphere?

Well, first there needs to be a sea change with marketing departments learning to trust the rest of their colleagues to evangelise the company.

(Note to marketing managers – instead of trying to approve every message, it’s now time to start training your colleagues what they should and shouldn’t say on social media and giving them support to put together highly professional profiles on social media like LinkedIn.)

Amazing facilities

LinkedIn - powering new business

40 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

LinkedIn has the most amazing facilities available to help you build your company’s reputation. They’re called ‘Groups’.

There are thousands of them and, if you look, there are probably twenty or more that are highly relevant to

your company’s activities. For example: Structured Cabling Professionals, Data Centre Engineering and Carrier Ethernet.

And in these groups, are thousands of people from your prospective customer base, supply chain and influencers.

Now, in just the same way that the most effective form of reputation building in the media is to give away really useful information - that’s exactly what you need to do here in these LinkedIn groups.

In fact, it’s even easier because Group members tell you what they want to know because they open ‘discussions’ in order to ask questions.

And all you need to do, as you’re an undoubted expert in your areas, is to give helpful answers and contributions to those discussions.

And that’s it. It couldn’t be simpler.

Just be genuine and use your expertise to help other people who have problems.

After all, it’s what you do all day long in the ’real world’, so just get involved and do the same in the ‘virtual world’ that LinkedIn so helpfully provides.

What’s in it for you?

Well, apart from building your own and your company’s reputation, LinkedIn Groups give you some of the best market intelligence that you could wish for - because by engaging in these discussion groups you’re finding out first-hand what it is that is giving your customer-base problems and challenges.

They are telling you what they need to achieve. And that can give you the most fantastic input into your development programs. Plus, of course, if you’re in any way involved in sales, it tells you who’s in the market for what.

But please, please, don’t try to do ’marketing’, ’sales’, or any other such contrived and disingenuous stuff in the groups – those are a guaranteed way to damage your reputation. Just stick to being helpful, being real, and sharing your expertise. www.turtleconsulting.com/blog/ data-centre-pr/

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DIRECTORY

active products Austin Hughes solutions provide data centre managers and administrators instant secure, local and remote access control to mission critical equipment. Our leading edge Cyber ViewTM LCD drawer and KVM (leyboard, Video and Mouse) Solutions provide the widest range, available on the shortest lead-times in the European market today whilst ensuring capital equipment and software management costs are kept to an absolute minimum.

Our InfraSolution® and SmartPDU® products enable data centre operations managers, IT administrators and facilities managers to enhanace rack level security and equipment effeciency by using remote rack IP door access with swipe card control, temperature & humidity monitoring including intergrated monitored and switched rack PDU’s. To lower energy consumption, make more informed capacity planning decisions and improved operational efficiency our InfaPower® locally metered, remotely monitored and switched rack PDU’s are designed for use across the network, either locally via serial or over IP. Austin Hughes Europe Unit 1, Chancery Gate Business Centre Manor House Avenue, Southampton SO15 0AE, UK Tel + 44 2380 529303 Email: sales@austin-hughes.eu Web: ww.austin-hughes.eu

network infrastructure products Cannon Technologies is an international leader in the design and manufacture of IT infrastructure. From fully featured server racks, high density cooling and power management to remote control systems all under BSI - ISO 9001 :2008 Cannon Technologies has serviced some of the world’s leading organisations and is the ideal partner for challenging projects.

Taking our 35+ years of experience in the market Cannon Technologies has launched a completely unique modular data centre solution that will dramatically alter the way everyone views modular build techniques. The design is based on existing, market proven solutions and can be deployed in a fraction of the time required for traditional modular builds. Offering a wide range of in built features such as: Power protection; Power management; Cooling; Fire detection & suppression; Environmental & security monitoring; Low PUE. Cannon Technologies Ltd Queensway, New Milton Hampshire, BH25 5NU, UK Tel: +44 1425 632600 Email: sales@cannontech.co.uk Web: www.cannontech.co.uk

www.netcommseurope.com

cable management

network infrastructure products

Cablenet Trackmaster Ltd is an importer and distributor od networking, cabling and power products. As well as a wide range of imported copper and fibre optic cabling products and computer cables Cablenet also distributes for a number of best breed vendors.

Cablenet has one of the UK’s widest ranges of copper patch cables in stock, with cables available in 11 different colours and lenfths from 0.3mtr up 30mtr, and also has in house a manufacturing facilitty to produce cables to your own specifications Call our sales team on the contact details below for more information on this. Our sales staff are very knowledgeable about the products we sell,w ith particular expertise in Cabinets, KVM and UPS. Our 18,000ft2 southern logistics centre is within an hours drive of central London and 30 minutes drive from Heathrow airport marking Cablenet an ideal partner for intergrators and installers who serve the UK, international financial markets and overseas customers.

Brand-Rex is a leading BrandRex global supplier of structured cabling systems for data networks, and is a niche supplier of high performance cables for extreme environment applications.

The Brand-Rex data communication solutions include high performance copper and fibre optic cabling systems, a unique air-blown fibre system, high density data centre cabinet systems and an intelligent Infrastructure Management solution. Through sophisticated modelling techniques, extensive research and advanced test laboratories, Brand-Rex designs, develops and manufacture some of the most advanced cable and connectivity solutions available on the market today.

Brand-Rex has been manufacturing in the UK for almost 40 years and is one and is one of Europe’s leading structured cabling providers. With a worldwide office network, Brand-Rex delivers international sales and technical support to an extensive global customer base.

Cablenet Trackmasters Ltd Cablenet House 2A Albany Park, Frimley Road Camberley, Surrey GU16 7PL UK Tel: +44 1276 405 300 Fax: +44 1275 405 309 Email: sales@cablenet.co.uk

Brand-Rex Head Office Viewlield Industrial Estate Glenrothes File KY6 2RS UK Tel: +44 1592 772124 Email: morketing@brand-rex.com Web: www.brand-rex.com

network infrastructure products Creating perfect connections is Metz Connect’s core competence. The personal commitment of the founding family characterizes the international success of the independent, medium-sized enterprise group, which together with its subsidiaries pursuers the company’s goals with a high degree of responsibility.

Highly innovative, efficient processes and partnerships have characterized the Metz Connect Group for decades. The company’s brands RIA Connect, BTR Netcom and MCQ Tech offer a diverse, innovative product portfolio with highly specialized connector components that satisfy with highest quality.

Metz Connect Ottilienweg 9 78176 Blumberg Deutschland Phone +49 7702 5330 Fax +49 7702 533 433 Email: sales@metz-connect.com Web: www.metz-connect.com

network infrastructure products

Established for 30 years, Comtec provides the trade with one of the most comprehensive product portfolios for building and maintaining communication networks.

We stock everything from structured cabling and tooling to specialist fibre optic and copper test equipment and aim to deliver quality products at the lowest possible price, next day.

• • • • • • •

ADC KRONE premier distributor Nexans cabling solutions Cooper B-Line cabinets Over 5 ,000 product lines stocked Volume discounts FREE technical support Easy ordering by credit card or Trade Account

Orderphone: +44 1480 415400 Orderfax: +44 1480 454724 Email: sales@comtec-comms.com Web: www.comtecdirect.co.uk

NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014 41

DIRECTORY

network infrastructure products

Cray Valley is a leading distributor of Networking, Cabling Infrastructure and IP Physical security products and prides itself on the innovative range in its portfolio.

With a market leading Wireless LAN product from Extricom that has a unique single Wireless blanket giving it a number of technical advantages unavailable to traditional cell based wireless systems.

The innovative and comprehensive range of IP door access/IP cameras/IP Environmental monitoring from Axxess ID coupled with excellent technical back up support offered across the range from leading manufacturers, Cray Valley offers a partnership of choice to its customers. This is complemented with a full range of High speed RF and FSO links, with all products having free training courses available from the manufacturer. Our Cabling infrastructure Systems from Siemon, Nexans and Matrix are well respected Global manufacturers with a full range of Cat5e/ Cat6/Cat6a and Cat7 and Fibre.

Cray Valley Communications Limited Unit 11, Concorde Business Centre Airport Industrial Estate Westerham, Kent TN 16 3YN, UK Tel: +44 1959 573444 Fax: +44 1959 572172 Web: www.crayvalleycomms.co.uk

network infrastructure products Mills is a leading distributor of structured cabling, cable management and specialist tooling for the communications industry.

With a stocked product range of over 4000 lines, Mills is the one stop shop for your cabling infrastructure requirements.

network infrastructure products Excel is a worldclass premium performance endto-end infrastructure solution – designed, manufactured, supported and delivered – without compromise.

Excel is driven by a team of industry experts, ensuring the latest innovation and manufacturing capabilities are implemented to surpass industry standards for quality and performance, technical compliance and ease of installation and use.

Since the brand was conceived in 1997, Excel has enjoyed formidable growth and is now reported in the latest BSRIA UK market report as the 2nd largest structured cabling brand with 17% share of the UK market in 2013. The system is also a growing force in markets across EMEA and is sold and supported in over 70 countries.

Excel European Headquarters Excel House Junction Six Industrial Park Electric Avenue Birmingham B6 7JJ UK Tel: +44 (0)121 326 7557 Email: sales@excel-networking.com Web: www.excel-networking.com

network infrastructure products Minitran is a leading distributor specialising in structured cabling systems, networking, audio visual, home automation products and security systems and has been established since 1989.

Brands include Panduit, Nexans, Hubbell, Rittal, Dataracks, TE Connectivity, Belden, Schneider, Abitana, Domintell, Aten, Austin Hughes, Planex, Draka, Acome, GeoDesy, Noyes, Sharpmark, Psiber Data, Greenlee and our own Mini5/6 range.

• Cabinets & Enclosures

• Cable Preparation &

• Structured Cabling

Termination Tools

• Fibre Optics & Tooling

• Power Tools

• Voice Products

• Contractors Tools & General

• Structured cabling • Home automation • Audio visual •

• Active Products

Hand Tools

Fibre optic • Voice products • Cable protection • Ethernet

• Coaxial and Audio Visual

• Overhead & Underground

switches • Wireless LAN • Enclosures • Power products • Test

• Power Distribution

Cabling Equipment

equipment • Security

• Trunking & Cable

• Safety Equipment

Management/Fixing

• Test Equipment

• Tool Kits & Tool Cases

Mills is the premier distributor of the full Fusion structured cabling system range. Established over 90 years, Mills is an IS09001 and Investors In People certified company. Free catalogue on request.

Mills Ltd, 13 Fairway Drive, Fairway Industrial Estate, Greenford, Middlesex. UB6 8PW, UK Tel: 020 8833 2626 Email: sales@millsltd.com Web: www.millsltd.com

42 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

Comprehensive stock is held in our warehouse for next day delivery or collection. Orders placed up to 5.30pm are despatched the same day. Our experienced sales and technical support team provide free advice and assistance with design.

Minitran Ltd Unit 5 Myson Way, Raynham Road Industrial Estate Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire CM23 5JZ Tel: 01279 757775 Fax: 01279 653535 Email: sales@minitran.co.uk Web: www.minitran.co.uk

network infrastructure products The Fusion Product range represents the outcome of two years of market research and focus groups to establish installers and users expectations for an end-to-end network cabling system.

Altogether better because ..

Completely integrated - so everything fits together Cost effective - ensuring maximum return on investment Fast to install - every aspect of design optimised to save time Comprehensive range - providing a complete solution No excess packaging - save time opening packs and minimise impact on the environment 25 year warranty - providing peace of mind • • • • • • • •

Cat5e Cat6 Fibre Voice Coaxial Audio Visual Cabinets & Enclosures Cable Management

Fusion, PO Box 556, Greenford, UBS 9JS, UK Tel: 0845 370 4709 Email: sales@fusiondatacom.com Web: www.fusiondatacom.com

network infrastructure products With over 15 years of experience in the telecommunications training industry, we provide the most relevant and real life Data Centre Training courses available in the Europe, Asia Pacific, USA and EMEA regions. Our Data Centre Courses have been geographically localised for all the locations we deliver in. The Data Centre Training we offer is accredited by the largest number of independent organisations of any communications training provider these include IET, The CPD Certification Service, City & Guilds, BTEC (Edexcel), and BICSI. The Certified Data Centre Design Professional CDCDP™ and Certified Data Centre Management Professional CDCMP™ training courses bring together the essential components of proficiency to independently certify that an individual is a highly skilled and knowledgeable data centre professional.

The data centre qualifications validate the individual’s ability and knowledge in standards, compliance and the application of global best practices in the design, creation and management of preeminent data centres.

CNet Training Park Farm Business Centre, Farnham Saint Genevieve Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk , IP28 6 TS, UK Tel: +44 1284767100 Fax: +44 1284 767500 Web: www.cnettraining.com

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ARE YOUR COLLEGUES AS WELL-INFORMED AS YOU ARE? Volume IV, Issue 3 2014

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NETCOMMS europe magazine is the first, £35/€50

and only, pan-European journal dedicated to the network communications infrastructure marketplace. NETCOMMS europe features news, legislation and training information from industry-leading bodies, application stories and the very latest information on cutting edge technology and products. NETCOMMS europe compiles editorial contribution from worldwide industry figureheads, ensuring that it is the No. l place to find information on all aspects of this fast-paced industry.

Cloud - the next phase:

If you think your colleagues would be interested

Resilient cloud networking revealed

in receiving their own regular copy of NETCOMMS europe simply register online at

FEATURES Optical fibre - the future of mobile FEATURES Measuring data centre PUE FEATURES Building Britain’s appetite for repair

NETCOMMS VOL 4 Issue 3 2014.indd 1

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And don’t forget to renew your own subscription every now and then, to make absolutely sure that you never miss an issue of the most up-to-date publication in the industry!

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Tel 01353 644081 www.netcommseurope.com

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44 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 4 2014

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