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IMPROVED TRANSPARENCY

WORKING WOMEN

ADOPTING INNOVATION

Ensuring better visibility around cloud access in the workplace

Arming the developing workforce with women and driving gender-blindness

Spanish companies join to promote digital identity using Blockchain technology

REALISING TRANSFORMATION DREAMS Petra Kasperova, Insights and Analytics Director, Dreams, tells us how the UK retailer implemented Exasol’s solution to drive transformation and better understand its customers’ needs.

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CONTENTS Providing Unparalleled Technology Intelligence

ISSUE 40

NEWS: Latest news round-up from across Europe

LATEST INTELLIGENCE: Whitepapers from Starline and

Schneider Electric

TRENDING: COVID-19 fuels appetite for app modernisation, AI

and Edge Computing

INFOGRAPHIC: Contino uncovers scarcity of business-wide

public cloud use

PROJECT LATEST: Updates from Europe, Germany, Turkey

and Russia

EDITOR’S QUESTION: How can IT leaders ensure better

COVER STORY

visibility around cloud access in the workplace?

TALKING BUSINESS: Arming the developing workforce with women and driving gender-blindness

FEATURE: NTT reveals only 20.6% of Digital Transformation efforts are optimised

CIO OPINION: Industry expert says 2021 is the year of recoverware

COUNTRY FOCUS: Spanish companies join forces to promote digital identity using Blockchain technology

FEATURE: Finding the perfect balance between sustainability and performance

CASE STUDY: Turning technology dreams into reality

with Exasol

CASE STUDY: How BT drives security from a necessity to a

beacon of business responsibility

42 38 www.intelligentcio.com

50 INTELLIGENTCIO EUROPE

CONTENTS

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ISSUE 40 MANAGEMENT

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INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGIES

INDUSTRY WATCH: New telecoms security law to protect UK from cyberthreats

TECH TALK: The importance of safety in a track busway

power distribution system

GET TO KNOW: Neil Hammerton, CEO and Co-founder, Natterbox

Client Services Executive: Tom Bush, tom@lynchpinmedia.co.uk (+44 20 3026 6825, Ext 1011)

Intelligent CIO Europe is a Lynchpin Media publication for IT professionals with an interest in Europe. If you wish to subscribe for regular copies, then please email: info@lynchpinmedia.co.uk Lynchpin Media is a boutique publisher registered in the United Kingdom. Company number 8096230. 63/66 Hatton Garden, London, EC1N 8LE If you enjoy reading the magazine, then keep in touch with the very latest information and

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Uptime is everything—

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news

EDITOR’S NOTE

ello and welcome to the latest edition of Intelligent CIO Europe, where we bring you some exciting developments from across the European technology sector. We hear from various industry experts who offer their best practice advice and share their opinions on hot topics of interest. On the cover, we have Petra Kasperova, Insights and Analytics Director for UK retailer, Dreams. We hear about how the company has implemented a solution from Exasol to drive transformation and enabled it to better understand its customers’ needs through the use of data. Read more about this on page 58. Another of our case studies this month explores how BT drives security from a necessity to a beacon of business responsibility. We hear from Steve Benton, BT Deputy CISO, GM Cyber and Physical Security Operations and Programmes, about how the major telecom provider operates with full control over its complex IT estates. We also hear how it functions in a way that aims to make cyberattacks worthless for those targeting the business. More on this on page 63. This issue, we take a look at how COVID-19 is fuelling an appetite for app modernisation, AI and Edge Computing, in our ‘Trending’ feature on page 25. Lori MacVittie, Principal Technical Evangelist, Office of the CTO at F5, discusses the findings of F5’s report which shows how the pandemic has advanced Digital Transformation across the world, with increased emphasis on AI, telemetry and multicloud deployments.

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Our ‘Editor’s Question’ this month sees us ask the experts how IT leaders can ensure better visibility around cloud access in the workplace. We hear from the CTO of Datadobi, the CEO of Unravel Data, and the Director of Systems Engineering WEURSSA at Nutanix. We draw our attention to female achievement and empowerment within the IT sector, for our ‘Talking Biz’ feature. Ping Identity has gathered the thoughts of some of its female employees to glean why being a woman in the field of technology/security can make a difference to its future development and drive gender-blindness. Our ‘Country Focus’ this month is Spain and we take a look at how 10 Spanish companies have joined together to promote digital identity using Blockchain technology. The companies will be launching a solution which will give the user a single self-managed digital identity, in a secure reliable environment, to make it easier to fill in forms automatically to take up services, among other uses. Read more on this on page 50. Our ‘Get To Know’ this month is with Neil Hammerton, CEO and Co-founder, Natterbox. We hear about how he landed in his role, and how he likes to relax and unwind outside the office. I hope you enjoy the read and if you’d like to contribute to any upcoming features, please don’t hesitate to get in touch at alix@lynchpinmedia.co.uk Alix Pressley Editor

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NEWS

Equinix to open first data centre in Bordeaux, France the new value created over the next decade will be based on digital platforms. However, this development is dependent on the ability to process data and create synergies between companies within physical infrastructures, located as close as possible to users. Strategically located in the south-west of France, near the Atlantic coast, Bordeaux is establishing itself as a new hub on the map of global connectivity.

quinix has announced it intends to open its first data centre in Bordeaux, France, in Q3 2021. With direct fibre links to Equinix’s International Business Exchange (IBX) sites in Paris, this new facility-named BX1 – will provide global businesses and local authorities located in New Aquitaine with the ability to connect directly and securely to the world’s digital economy, via comprehensive digital ecosystems.

BX1 will provide a landing hub for the new submarine cable, AMITIE, due to link France to the United States and Great Britain, creating a new European gateway for data traffic between the United States and Europe. Digital Transformation is reshaping industries worldwide. According to the World Economic Forum, digital will account for 60% of global GDP by 2022, and it is estimated that 70% of

A pioneer of the Smart City concept, Bordeaux has attracted a high concentration of startups and is home to cutting-edge industries such as aerospace and optics photonics. Régis Castagné, Managing Director, France, Equinix, said “The development of BX1 is part of our ongoing commitment to the French market, further supporting the growth of the local digital economy and Digital Transformation strategies.”

Nokia to supply Cibicom with mission-critical LTE network across Denmark

okia has announced an agreement with the Danish operator and Internet Service Provider (ISP), Cibicom, to implement a new 450MHz LTE (4G) network. The project will ensure that key missioncritical services throughout the country have access to highly reliable and secure connectivity as well as building preparedness for mass volume IoT adoption. The deal means replacing the existing Cibicom radio networks and migrating them to a new framework that will enable full 4G data coverage across Denmark, as well as massvolume IoT connectivity. Building on the company’s 450mHz license acquisition in June, the project will not only allow Cibicom to improve its offering to utility companies but also ensures that the service provider is in a strong position to adapt to changing customer requirements and offer new opportunities and application

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support around 5G 3.5Ghz. This deployment will enhance Cibicom’s credentials as a leading supplier of critical and businesscritical infrastructure, such as waste, water, energy and transportation. Smart grids and remote managed petrol stations are just some of the areas where these systems will be needed, as well as ‘blue light’

emergency services, such as the police and ambulance services. Currently, Cibicom covers 98% of Denmark and the deal will maintain that level of coverage, as well as provide improved connectivity for private households in neighbouring Greenland.

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NEWS

Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust signs cloud deal with Civica Trust to support mental health patients from first contact through to assessment care plans, management of beds for in-patient wards and prescriptions administration.

ivica, a global leader in software for public services, has signed a £10 million, eight-year contract with Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (GMMH) to enhance its electronic patient record provision (EPR). The Trust will implement Civica’s Health & Care EPR cloud product suite, comprising of Cito, Paris and Civica Prescribing. This will allow GMMH to consolidate all patient

data and workflow capabilities to deliver fast, effective and safe care to mental health patients. The integrated digital platform for mental health services will help meet rising demand for mental health services, overcome cost pressures and support the Trust’s remote working agenda, which has accelerated during COVID-19. The move to implement the digital healthcare solutions will provide seamless EPR and case management functionality. This will allow the

A new digital portal will give healthcare workers a real-time holistic view of information while working remotely, resulting in a better patient experience. GMMH can move further towards being a paper-free organisation with a digital platform that can capture, store and share clinical information safely and securely. Grace Birch, Associate Director of Information Management and Technology, Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Trust, said: “Over the past year, we’ve seen increased demand for our services as the UK’s mental health demands becomes ever more acute. This, combined with the availability of new technologies, saw us review our existing digital capabilities.”

VIAVI chosen by Openreach for full fibre build throughout UK

IAVI Solutions has announced that Openreach, the United Kingdom’s largest digital infrastructure firm, is using the VIAVI Optical Network Monitoring System (ONMSi) to accelerate its full fibre broadband deployment and enhance the quality of its build and experience for customers across the UK. Openreach selected ONMSi for the platform’s ability to address networks – from validating new construction, to performing pre-activation checks, to monitoring ongoing service – remotely, reducing the need for costly engineering visits. ONMSi has proven to be an efficient, reliable and fast certification platform across the network life cycle. Full fibre build monitoring processes are fully centralised and automated with Openreach OSS and Field App requirements. This solution drives actionable insights across the field and contractor labour

workforce to establish a traceable, guided process that results in high-quality, error-free network build, reducing the element of risk and with robust governance and compliance processes in place. Peter Bell, Director, Network Technology, Openreach, said “Having a fast, reliable

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broadband connection matters more than ever, so we’re proud that our network has played a crucial role in keeping the UK connected during the Coronavirus pandemic. We’re also convinced that our new ultra-reliable and future-proof full fibre network will be a major catalyst in helping the UK to build back better.”

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NEWS

Spain’s State Public Employment Service victim of cyberattack

ransomware attack has affected IT systems at Spain’s State Public Employment Service (SEPE). A statement released by the SEPE said: “The SEPE is being subjected to a security incident during which the availability of its information and communication systems has been affected.

Steve Forbes, Government Cybersecurity Expert at Nominet, said: “The cyberattack on the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) in Spain highlights just how prolific and problematic ransomware attacks have become, especially against governments.

“In Spain’s case, this is one in a growing list of attacks over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is particularly significant because although no personal data was stolen, SEPE is responsible for benefit payments to the 4 million people currently unemployed in Spain.”

“The first urgent actions carried out have been carried out as quickly as possible and with the main objective of containing the incident, isolating and, therefore, mitigating its impact on the SEPE systems.” The attack is particularly significant as the SEPE systems house the data for the nation’s four million people who are unemployed as a result of the economy downfall caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s also the latest of a number of cyberattacks against Spain over the course of the pandemic.

Nexign invests in development of universal billing

exign, a leading Business Support System (BSS) and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions provider, has announced the start of the project called ‘Universal Digital Billing’.

The project will be funded with investments from Nexign, as well as with a grant from the Russian Fund for the Development of Information Technologies (RFRIT) on a

targeted and free basis. The sales start is scheduled for 2022. The product is intended for both telecom operators and companies from related areas, it can be used by service platforms for the production and distribution of content in various digital networks, as well as by SaaS and PaaS platforms. Providing extensive converged billing capabilities, Nexign’s new product will give customers the choice between using mainstream commercial databases and moving to open source database systems, such as PostgreSQL. Thus, flexibility, scalability and availability for both large market players and small companies will be the key advantages of the universal billing. “The flexibility and high performance of the universal billing will enable Nexign to support the Digital Transformation strategies of telecom operators and service providers in both local and international markets,” said Igor Gorkov, CEO of Nexign.

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NEWS

Fire destroys OVHcloud Strasbourg data centre the blaze. No injuries were reported during the incident and a statement from OVHcloud thanked emergency services ‘for their exemplary mobilisation by our side’. OVHcloud technical and commercial teams were promptly called into action to utilise the operational park of 15 OVHcloud data centres in Europe to support their customers, implementing solutions and alleviating the unavailability of the Strasbourg site. The OVHcloud statement continued: ‘We are currently evaluating the impact of this incident and will communicate as soon as possible with the greatest transparency on the progress of our analyses and the implementation of solutions.

n March 10, 2021, at 12.47am, a fire broke out in a room of one of four OVHcloud Strasbourg data centres, SBG2. Firefighters immediately intervened on site to

protect the teams and limit the progression of the fire. The fire destroyed SBG2 and continued to pose risks to nearby data centres until firefighters took full control of

‘An investigation is underway. Whatever the cause of the incident, OVHcloud is currently evaluating potential technical and operational measures aimed at providing solutions to affected customers.’

Teleste to provide on-board solutions for trains in Italy

eleste is to provide its on-board solution for Alstom’s Coradia Stream trains in Italy. The companies have agreed on the deployment of Teleste’s solution to 31 of Alstom’s trains with FERROVIENORD, which manages the railway network in the region of Lombardy. With an option for an additional 30 trains, the now-agreed deliveries will begin in 2021, and they will continue the collaboration between Teleste and Alstom that was launched under a platform agreement in 2017. “We are pleased to continue advancing smooth and safe public mobility in Italy together with Alstom and its Coradia Stream train platform. Being deployed in several public transport networks in the country, we are confident that our solution will provide the passengers in Lombardy with an enjoyable travel experience while also meeting the needs of the railway operator,” said Jarkko Vehkala, Head of the Rolling Stock Manufacturers business line at Teleste.

Teleste’s deployment to Alstom will include the company’s passenger information systems (PIS), on-board video surveillance, intercommunication and public address systems as well as the latest generation full-color RGB LED information displays providing excellent visibility for passenger

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information and other types of content such as advertisements. The entire on-board solution is especially designed for easier, safer and more entertaining travelling, and it supports seamless integration and management of the systems also as part of larger public transport infrastructures.

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NEWS

BT partners Syngenta to support global connectivity and innovative culture Seeds focus on being a market leader with world-class science and innovative crop solutions that help farmers sustainably grow more from less. BT will continue to provide a full range of networking and communication services, as well as cloud security, to support Syngenta’s operations across more than 400 locations in 60 countries. These include key agriculture markets in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Brazil, China, India, Egypt and Ukraine.

T has announced an extension of its long-term strategic agreement with Syngenta, one of the world’s leading agricultural technology companies. Syngenta helps improve global food security by enabling millions of farmers to make better use of available resources. As part of the extended strategic agreement, BT will

support Syngenta’s requirements for flexible and adaptable consumption of services covering advanced networking, connectivity and security solutions, while aiming to create additional opportunities for joint innovation. Through highly reliable services that enable collaboration and communication, BT will help Syngenta Crop Protection and Syngenta

Nadja Risse, Director of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Global, BT, said: “As we launch more and more digitally native services in our portfolio, BT will look to help empower Syngenta to achieve its ambitious sustainability goals and unlock opportunities to transform farmers’ lives through data and science.”

Belgium prepares for 5G with new EricssonTelenet RAN partnership

ricsson has been selected by Telenet as its 5G radio access network (RAN) provider, bringing wide-reaching benefits of 5G to Belgium. As part of its expanded partnership, Telenet will use Ericsson’s technology leadership to modernise its existing network, as well as deploy crucial 5G connectivity. This latest contract includes the full modernisation of Telenet’s existing RAN (2G/3G/4G) with Ericsson Radio System products and solutions and the deployment of 5G technology nationwide. Telenet’s customers will benefit from technologies whose full potential will be unleashed with the rollout of 5G, such as AR, VR and IoT applications. Micha Berger, CTIO Telenet, said: “We are on the eve of a next step in our technological evolution. 5G is so much more than a radio

technology system – it is the engine for innovation and opportunities for other ways of working, automation and analysis. But as with any next generation, it all starts with developing a high-performance network.” Ericsson delivers best-in-class 5G RAN technology, which includes its Massive MIMO portfolio that offers a wide-range of antenna-integrated radios for maximum

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5G experience and capacity, both in urban and rural settings. Ericsson has recently bolstered its Massive MIMO portfolio with industry-leading lightweight and energyefficient products, combined with real-time and ultra-precise beamforming capabilities. These capabilities are essential for an optimised 5G network and allow 5G signals to focus on individual receiving devices to maximise both coverage and capacity.

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NEWS

Emtelle to help Norlys achieve a more digital Denmark Norlys plans to continue fibre rollouts across Denmark as well as contribute to developing new sustainable solutions for its end-users. Emtelle’s longstanding relationship with both SE and Eniig pre-merger has demonstrated the dedication and quality of service Norlys was looking for in its main supplier. Tony Rodgers, CEO at Emtelle, said: “Combining our ability to supply quality fibre and duct solutions with Norlys’ drive to deliver superfast fibre connections across Denmark, we welcome the opportunity to support Norlys and help it meet its target of a more digital Denmark.”

mtelle, one of the leading global manufacturers of pre-connectorised blown fibre, cabling and ducted solutions, has announced it has been awarded a three-year multi-million-kroner contract. Emtelle has been confirmed as the main supplier of duct, accessories and fibre units

to Denmark’s largest integrated energy and telecommunications group, Norlys. Running until the end of 2023, this contract is anticipated to be worth 120 million kroner over the next three years. Following a merger of SE and Eniig, digital services provider,

Over the next three years, Emtelle will supply Norlys with duct, accessories and fibre units to drive forward its ambitious plans of expanding its digital infrastructure to create a more digital Denmark. Norlys facilitates the expansion, operation and maintenance of fibre infrastructure across 40% of the country.

Infosecurity Europe 2021 will take place in July

eed Exhibitions, the organiser of Europe’s Information Security event, Infosecurity Europe, has announced that as a result of discussions with partners, venue and key stakeholders, Infosecurity Europe 2021 will go ahead from July 13–15 at Olympia, London. The event was postponed from its original June dates following the UK government’s announced roadmap out of lockdown. Nicole Mills, Exhibition Director at Infosecurity Group, said: “Just as with every other large-scale event scheduled for this year, our plans are subject to this roadmap progressing as outlined, with the majority of COVID restrictions in England lifting on June 21. We will of course continue to closely monitor the situation.” The safety and health of visitors, exhibitors, speakers and staff continues to be the number one priority. Reed Exhibitions will be taking all the appropriate steps and measures

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to ensure that Infosecurity Europe 2021 is as COVID-secure as possible and will provide full details on this in the coming weeks.

within the Information Security community and will be providing a programme of virtual content from June 8–10.

In the meantime, the organisers want to ensure that the conversation continues

More information will be available on the Infosecurity Europe website soon.

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NEWS

SITA helps Cyprus comply with EU air traffic control standard

ITA, the global IT provider for the air transport industry, is helping Cyprus comply with an EU-mandated air traffic control (ATC) standard that uses digital messages instead of voice communications for routine airspace clearances.

airspace or its vicinity. In terms of CPDLC compliance, we are closing an important gap in European airspace.”

As a Member State of the European Union, Cyprus must provide Controller Pilot Data Link Communications (CPDLC) in its upper airspace. Cyprus will be the first country in south-eastern Europe to implement CPDLC using ATN/VDLm2 technology as of October 2021. The Cyprus Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) and Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CYTA) have chosen SITA’s ATC Datalink Services to support the efficient and safe operation of CPDLC in Cyprus’ airspace, which covers a land and sea surface of 175,000 km2. DCA’s Haris Antoniades, Head of Area Control Centre Nicosia, said: “SITA provides complete VHF coverage of our airspace, including the maritime area, and ensures that the air/ground data exchange meets the stringent performance requirements of modern ATC operations. “The new set-up allows dynamic routing of ATC messages between Cyprus’ ground control centre and aircraft flying in the Cyprus

Stefanini opens Security Operations Center in Romania, striving for growth in EMEA region

tefanini, the global tech multinational, established in Brazil, extends its cybersecurity offering by opening a Security Operations Centre to cover the needs of the company’s clients in EMEA. The centre will be operated from Bucharest and it already employs a significant number of highly specialised cybersecurity experts, with the prospect of tripling its team by the end of the year. Stefanini aims to expand its offering of cybersecurity services globally which is supposed to increase its share of total sales significantly over the next two years. As provider of IT services for more than 33 years, in 41 countries around the globe, Stefanini entered the cybersecurity market in 2016, when it started a joint venture with Israelbased Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. The company leverages Rafael’s technology designed for military-grade cybersecurity and its own global sales channels.

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The new SOC in Bucharest already serves several global companies established in Europe and has an ambitious growth plan of 120% increase year on year, while the market is estimated to expand by 12% in 2021. “We are very confident that the level of skills and expertise we bring to the market is unrivalled, especially since we are closely working with our colleagues at the Stefanini

– Rafael venture we have in Brazil, as well as with Cyber Smart Defence, the joint venture we established in Romania last autumn. “We can provide 24/7/365 top-level services anywhere in the world, we can offer proof of concept to a client within days and we customise every single delivery and every project we offer our clients,” said CEO of Stefanini EMEA.

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NEWS

Nordea selects AxiomSL to automate risk and regulatory reporting in Nordic countries addition, RegCloud will aggregate multiple data sources and rapidly process massive data volumes while delivering trusted information to meet regulatory mandates across the European Banking Authority (EBA) and National Central Bank (NCB).

xiomSL, a leading provider of risk and regulatory reporting solutions, has announced that it has been selected by Nordea Bank to support the bank’s risk and regulatory reporting requirements in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Nordea Bank will implement AxiomSL’s RegCloud, a fully managed, cloud-based risk and regulatory reporting platform used by financial institutions to source, enrich,

calculate and reconcile large volumes of disparate data to comply with complex and evolving regulatory requirements. Nordea will be able to map its data once and comply with FINREP, COREP, AnaCredit and Securities Holdings Statistics Group (SHSG) reporting requirements by leveraging the platform’s adaptable data-dictionary and end-to-end automated processes. In

Part of Nordea’s RegTech project initiative was to transform its legacy regulatory reporting processes; AxiomSL will help the bank re-architect and future-proof its risk and regulatory systems to drive down efficiency ratios and achieve performance, reliability and compliance outcomes. Nick Livingstone, Head of Financial Reporting and Control, Nordea Bank, said: “Earning our customers’ trust and fulfiling our commitment to them is always a priority. “Therefore, investing in a reliable, secure and transparent regulatory platform that is constantly updated is paramount”.

New research reveals ‘hybrid’ skills are reshaping UK job demand

ollowing the publication of Robert Half’s Demand for Skilled Talent report, the specialised recruiter has released additional data, spotlighting the growth in employer demand for new ‘hybrid’ skills across the UK. Produced in association with Burning Glass Technologies, Robert Half’s latest research evidences a definite shift in skills demand among employers in response to the adoption of new technologies and economic shifts experienced during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Job advertisements are requesting more people-focused skills for technical roles and, conversely, more technical and datahandling proficiencies for administrative and marketing job functions. Based on an analysis of all online job postings in the UK during the period of December 2019 through until November 2020, examples of

how these new hybrid skillsets are impacting technical roles include:

Technology +52% in system administrators required to satisfy customers +51% in software developers who are able to establish customer rapport +42% in web and multimedia developers who can provide customer follow-up

Finance and accounting +100% in finance and insurance clerks with CRM abilities +46% in securities and finance dealers required to establish customer rapport +25% in management and organisational analysts to apply conceptual thinking “The skills employers need are not only evolving rapidly but also reshaping and

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combining in new and often unexpected ways. Just a few years ago, no one would have thought advertising and marketing managers would need to configure software, or that software developers would need the skills to build rapport with customers,” said Matt Sigelman, CEO of Burning Glass Technologies.

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NEWS

UK employees putting employers at risk with poor security hygiene company-issued computer to examine how consumer and enterprise cybersecurity habits have changed. The report’s findings reveal that poor security hygiene and gaps in enterprise cybersecurity strategies are putting businesses at risk. In addition to recycling login credentials, the main areas for concern identified are:

mployees working from home are putting their organisations at increased risk of cyberattacks by exercising poor security hygiene, according to a report released by Ivanti, the automation platform that helps make every IT connection smarter and more secure. The 2021 Secure Consumer Cyber Report found that onefifth of consumers admit to recycling their work email or password to log in to consumer websites and applications such as food delivery apps, online shopping sites and even dating apps.

The Secure Consumer Cyber Report surveyed 1,000 UK consumers who have been working from home during the pandemic on a

Personal devices for work access: More than one-third (39.93%) of respondents said they are allowed to use a personal device such as a laptop, smartphone, tablet or smartwatch to access company applications and networks. Two-Factor Authentication for IoT devices: Nearly half (47.87%) of respondents have not set-up Two-Factor Authentication for smart devices in their homes. Secure access tools: Almost one-third (32.5%) of respondents claim their organisation does not require users to use a secure access tool, such as a VPN. “By reusing passwords and failing to implement corporate workspace segregation policies and Multi-Factor Authentication, businesses are increasing their risk of falling victim to credential stuffing attacks,” said Nigel Seddon, VP EMEA West at Ivanti.

Thales selected to prepare France for new Schengen Area entry/exit system

n 2022, Member States of the Schengen Area will be required to have a biometric entry and exit system to register nonEuropean citizens crossing an EU external border. Thales has been selected by the French Ministry of the Interior to deliver several hundred pre-registration kiosks at various border crossing points. Therefore, France will be equipped with a state-ofthe-art biometric solution to streamline and secure its air, land and sea border crossings. In accordance with the directive approved by the European Union, the countries that are part of the Schengen Area will deploy pre-registration kiosks or similar equipment in order to allow non-Schengen visitors to register their identity quickly and securely, including their biometric data (fingerprint and facial biometrics). To this end, the ‘Thales Gemalto Border Kiosk’ will provide a self-service, intuitive

and interactive terminal to guide travellers through every stage of identity registration and verification. These kiosks, designed and manufactured in Europe, will incorporate various document verification and biometric technologies. They will offer rapid registration for travellers, highly accurate identity verification, data

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management protection and advanced operational fluidity at border crossings. The verification of biometric data is an extremely effective and reliable technology, allowing Member States to accurately identify any attempted identity fraud and prevent individuals with false documents, multiple identities, etc. from entering the country. p

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LATEST INTELLIGENCE

HOW TO REDUCE THE RISKS OF ARC FLASH INCIDENTS IN THE DATA CENTER

a Abstract

Introduction

Arc flashes are a dangerous on-the-job hazard in data centers. An arc flash occurs when electricity jumps, or arcs, between conductors.

Arc flashes are one of the most dangerous on-thejob hazards that electrical workers face. An arc flash explosion can kill or severely injure workers, and cause massive damage in any facility that utilizes high amounts of electricity, especially in data centers.

This can trigger an explosion that can kill or severely injure electricians and other workers, and cause major damage to a facility. However, data center owners can mitigate and significantly reduce the potential for arc flashes through a variety of methods.

An arc flash occurs when a high-amperage fault current jumps, or arcs, through the air to the ground, or from one conductor to another. p

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These include better, safer design and engineering of power distribution architectures use of Overcurrent Protection Devices (OCPDs) to stop fault currents performing an arc flash hazard study in your facility, and knowing the right Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that workers must use when working on electrical equipment where an arc flash is possible.

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THE TOP 9 MISTAKES IN DATA CENTER PLANNING

BY MIKE M. HAGAN JOHN LUSKY TUAN HOANG, P.E. SCOTT WALSH, P.E., LEED A.P.

Executive summary

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Why do so many data center builds and expansions fail? This white paper answers the question by revealing the top 9 mistakes organizations make when designing and building new data center space, and examines an effective way to achieve success through the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) approach.

Introduction

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Many businesses operate outside of safe capacity thresholds with little or no room to expand. According to the IDC, the average data center is 9 years old. However, Gartner states that any site more than 7 years old is obsolete. Overcrowded or obsolete data centers create a roadblock for growing organizations, and building a new data center(s) is sometimes the only solution. While speed-to-market is critical to success, companies that fail to assess their business needs properly will create dead-end data centers that will

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not deliver uptime performance goals or meet future business needs.

Top 9 mistakes How can you avoid making major mistakes when entering the build and expansion world? The key lies in the methodology you use to design and build your data center facilities. All too often, companies base their plans on watts per square foot, cost to build per square foot, and tier level – criteria that may be misaligned with their overall business goals and risk profile. Poor planning leads to poor use of valuable capital and can increase operational expense. Many organizations get overwhelmed, focusing on ‘speeds and feeds,’ green initiatives, concurrent maintainability, power usage effectiveness (PUE) and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. All of these criteria are critical in the decision making process. However, the details often overshadow the big picture. Most companies miss the

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business opportunity in a data center expansion – an expansion driven by a holistic approach. While there are numerous consultants in the field to help you find your way, assessing ideas and input can be overwhelming. Organizations with critical capacity requirements in the 1–3 megawatt range may fall into this risk category. The critical nature of mid-size users is no less important than mega users; however internal technical expertise to drive proper expansion plans may be limited. The result is information overload from multiple sources, leading to confusion and poor decision making.

Big mistake 1: Failure to take total cost of ownership (TCO) into account Focusing solely on capital cost is an easy trap; the dollars required to build or expand can be staggering. Capital cost modeling is critical, but if you have not included the costs to operate and maintain (OpEx) your business-critical facilities infrastructure, you have severely shortchanged the overall process of effective business planning. p

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COVID-19 FUELS APPETITE FOR APP MODERNISATION, AI AND EDGE COMPUTING F5’s seventh annual State of Application Strategy (SOAS) report shows how the pandemic has advanced Digital Transformation across the world, with increased emphasis on AI, telemetry and multi-cloud deployments. Lori MacVittie, Principal Technical Evangelist, Office of the CTO at F5, discusses the report findings in more detail.

OVID-19 has catalysed the speed and depth of the world’s Digital Transformation efforts, according to F5’s latest State of Application Strategy (SOAS) report. Now in its seventh year, the research features survey inputs from 1,500 respondents from a wide-range of industries, organisation sizes and professional roles.

The COVID-19 pandemic has vastly accelerated a global Digital Transformation that was already underway. Progress that might normally have taken a decade has leapt forward in a single year.

This year’s report strongly underlines how the need to improve connectivity, reduce latency, ensure security and harness data-driven insights is intensifying. It also points to an elevated interest in cloud, as-a-Service solutions, Edge Computing and application security and delivery technologies.

underway. Progress that might normally have taken a decade has leapt forward in a single year,” said Lori MacVittie, Principal Technical Evangelist, Office of the CTO at F5.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has vastly accelerated a global Digital Transformation that was already

“In a short time, more organisations than ever have modernised and distributed applications – and the

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Enthusiasm could be blunted by a lack of emerging, relevant skillsets in the market. application security and delivery technology solutions that support them – closer to users. “Add to that the use of Edge Computing and we’re starting to see incredible momentum for the emergence of truly adaptive applications that can grow, shrink, defend and heal themselves based on the environment they’re in and how they’re being used.”

App modernisation efforts double and AI adoption triples Since the last SOAS report, the adoption rate of AI and Machine Learning, a marker of late-phase Digital Transformation, more than tripled to 56%.

On top of that, two-thirds were using at least two methods to create modern workloads (the combination of traditional and modern app components that result from modernisation). Of the respondents claiming to use only one method, 44%, said that they were enabling modern interfaces, either via APIs or components such as containers. A mere 11%, mainly technology organisations, are exclusively refactoring applications. In other forward-looking developments, over half of respondents said they now treat infrastructure as code. The report shows that organisations using this approach are twice as likely to deploy apps more frequently, even when using automation. They are also four-times more likely to have fully automated application pipelines and twice as likely to have more than half of their application portfolios deployed using fully automated pipelines.

Architectural trends and shifts The vast majority of organisations will continue to manage both traditional and modern applications and architectures. This expectation is supported by the 87% of survey respondents claiming that they now juggle both – an 11% increase over 2020. Nearly half of all organisations – 30% more than last year – said they are managing at least five different architectures. According to almost half of the survey respondents, the pandemic was the main factor in accelerating movement to the cloud and SaaS. More than two-thirds of respondents (68%) are now hosting at least some of their application security and delivery technologies in the cloud. Simultaneously, organisations are positioning themselves to address the architectural complexity that results from adding SaaS and Edge solutions, maintaining on-premises and multi-cloud environments and modernising applications.

Lori MacVittie, Principal Technical Evangelist, Office of the CTO at F5

Furthermore, 57% respondents embraced digital expansion, which is a 37% increase on last year. The latter shows an intensifying focus on business process automation, orchestration and digital workflows, stitching together disparate applications to create seamless digital experiences. The same objective is being achieved through the use of APIs. There was also an eye-catching 133% annual rise in respondents saying they are modernising internal or customer-facing applications, with 77% now doing so.

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Application security and delivery solutions were also in the SOAS spotlight. The critical roles these enabling technologies play in customer experience and service level agreements (SLAs) are now recognised by nearly four out of five respondents. SaaS-based security was identified as organisations’ top overall strategic focus over the next two to five years.

Growing ambitions at the Edge Edge Computing is also set to attract plenty of attention in 2021. As many as 76% of organisations surveyed say they have implemented or are actively planning Edge deployments, with improving application performance and collecting data/enabling analytics as the primary drivers. Moreover, 39% believe that Edge Computing

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will be strategically important in the coming years and 15% are already hosting application security and delivery technology at the Edge. “Organisations are definitely starting to look at the Edge with more purpose,” MacVittie explained. “Cloud data centres, while supporting ubiquitous access, are only slightly more distributed than onpremises data centres. By contrast, the Edge enables organisations to deliver applications closer to users. In many ways, the Edge is just the next step outward in an expanding universe of distributed applications, with benefits – and drawbacks – aligned with those of multicloud strategies. Data analytics represents a key edge use case, enabling the insights required for Digital Transformation initiatives.” Another Edge use case highlighted by the SOAS report is the distribution of modern workers. More than a third (42%) will support a fully remote workforce for the foreseeable future. Only 15% plan to require all employees to return to the office.

Organisations have data but lack insights and skills

problems. Worryingly, a mere 12% report the data back to business units, whereas fewer than 24% of organisations use data and insights to watch for potential performance degradations. By contrast, when it comes to monitoring components that modernise apps, nearly two-thirds of respondents (62%) are measuring performance in terms of response time. Conscious of a need to do better, over 80% of respondents said that data and telemetry are ‘very important’ to their security plans and over half are ‘looking forward’ to the beneficial impacts of AI. Survey respondents also flagged platforms that combine Big Data and Machine Learning (also known as AIOps) as the second most strategic trend in the next two to five years. At the same time, that enthusiasm could be blunted by a lack of emerging, relevant skillsets in the market. This is particularly true for those identifying AIOps as their top strategic trend. Half of those respondents cited a paucity of skilled professionals as their number one challenge.

The road ahead More than half of SOAS respondents believe they already have the tools they need to report on the health of high-priority applications. Nevertheless, an alarming 95% say they are missing insights from their existing monitoring and analytics solutions. Respondents agreed that the data collected by their tools is primarily used for troubleshooting, followed by early warnings about performance

Half of those respondents cited a paucity of skilled professionals as their number one challenge.

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“Only organisations with the right combination of insights and automation will be able to sort through overwhelming data, recognise looming availability and performance issues before they occur and act quickly enough to prevent them,” MacVittie added. “Until then, many won’t be able to take full advantage of their progress in Digital Transformation or generate additional speed towards AI-enabled businesses. “Ultimately, this will require an application strategy that includes application security and delivery technology solutions that follow the apps, even as deployments continue to be spread among multiple environments positioned nearer to users and at the Edge.” p

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29% of companies who suffered business email compromise attacks said they lost more than 100.000 USD. Learn more at proofpoint.com/uk/bec-scams

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Contino uncovers scarcity of business-wide public cloud use How are enterprises using the public cloud? How mature are cloud programmes and operating models? What are the main technical and business benefits? What is holding businesses back? What are the next steps? At the beginning of 2020, the Contino team set out to answer these questions.

ontino, a leading transformation consultancy that works with over 150 highly-regulated enterprises across the globe, has launched its State of Public Cloud in the Enterprise Report 2020. The report findings highlight the relationship enterprises and IT decision-makers have with public cloud adoption. Some level of engagement with cloud solutions is taking place within almost every enterprise, with only 1% of businesses yet to dip their toe in the water. However, responses indicate that while 77%

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of enterprises are using the public cloud in some capacity, only 13% have a fully-fledged programme across their entire business. The largest set of respondents (42%) have multiple apps and projects deployed in the cloud, 24% are still working on initial proofs-of-concept and 18% are in the planning stage. The cloud is causing a massive shift in how businesses are now operating, tearing apart previous business models. The report found that the most

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cited benefit of public cloud adoption is having the ability to align IT with today’s business needs. Furthermore, 99% of respondents claimed that it has shown significant technical benefit. Of those benefits, the three most cited included the cloud’s efficiency, agility and scalability. However, security and compliance remain the biggest barriers for not adopting cloud even in uncertain times – 48% cited that their biggest barrier for not using the cloud was security and 37% stated the need to remain compliant was the most prevalent blocker. Other challenges perceived as barriers include a lack of skills (29%), being unable to make a business case (32%), large existing investments in on-premises data centres (31%), and a lack of leadership buy-in (19%). Concerns around vendor lock-in are also common, with 63% of IT professionals ‘somewhat’ or ‘very much’ afraid of the commitment that can come with investing in the cloud. Michael Chalmers, Managing Director EMEA, commented: “It is evident from our report that the public cloud is firmly entrenched in the enterprise IT landscape, however, many of them are still in a period of transition with fully-fledged cloud programmes a rarity. “I can’t emphasise enough the importance of public cloud adoption in today’s uncertain world. With difficult

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economic times ahead, the cloud can enable many businesses to adapt and find new ways of operating to protect their prospects. From our research, we can see that the public cloud is increasingly becoming a central element of enterprise IT. “Businesses decision-makers must overcome their fears and stumbling blocks to embrace a cloudnative mindset. Only then can they benefit from the opportunities it opens up to not only survive but thrive and scale.” Contino’s State of Public Cloud in the Enterprise Report 2020 consisted of 250 IT decision-makers at enterprise companies across Europe, USA and APAC within companies of over 5,000 employees. p

It is evident from our report that the public cloud is firmly entrenched in the enterprise IT landscape, however, many of them are still in a period of transition with fully-fledged cloud programmes a rarity.

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EUROPE

Ascendas Funds Management has announced the proposed acquisition of a portfolio of data centres located across Europe for US$904.6 million from subsidiaries of Digital Realty Trust. The portfolio comprises 11 data centres located across the United Kingdom (four properties), the Netherlands (three properties), France (three properties) and Switzerland (one property). The 11 data centres have a total net lettable area of 61,637 m2.

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GERMANY

Nokia has announced it has been selected by Deutsche Telekom as a long-term strategic partner to transform the operator’s optical network into a service-centric platform that can easily scale to meet Industry 4.0 demands. The transformation will enable Deutsche Telekom to deliver an enhanced service quality experience to its customers by upgrading the existing network to a more scalable and automated one. Deutsche Telekom will also benefit from automation to simplify and streamline operational tasks to make more efficient use of network resources.

TURKEY

Nokia has announced that it has achieved a 5G speed record during a trial with Turk Telekom in the Turkish capital city, Ankara. The record, which reached over 4.5 Gbps, is the first to be achieved on 5G New Radio (5GNR) only, utilising Nokia’s AirScale 5G RAN solution on 26 GHz mmWave spectrum, 800 MHz bandwidth and a single user device. During the trial, Nokia’s AirScale Base Station connected with a mobile device to transfer data across Turk Telekom’s 26Ghz mmWave spectrum at a peak speed of 4.5 Gbps.

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RUSSIA

UnionPay International (UPI) has announced a co-operation with Credit Europe Bank. This will allow UnionPay to continue the expansion of its acceptance network, which already covers over 95% merchant terminals and ATMs, in the Russian Federation. This partnership between UPI, one of the world’s largest bankcard schemes, and Credit Europe Bank, a new credit organisation with more 6 million clients, will start from the acceptance of UnionPay cards, allowing customers to use UnionPay cards at an increasing number of ATMs and merchants.

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EDITOR’S QUESTION

HOW CAN IT LEADERS ENSURE BETTER VISIBILITY AROUND CLOUD ACCESS IN THE WORKPLACE?

T complexity, which grew exponentially following the recent acceleration of Digital Transformation, has led to a foundational gap in visibility across the underlying hybrid infrastructure. The gap exists because network tools lack visibility into cloud traffic, and cloud tools lack critical network visibility because they rely solely on application-level telemetry. Additionally, traditional visibility solutions cannot be automated to elastically scale across a dynamic hybrid infrastructure. This cloud visibility gap has made it extremely challenging for IT teams to effectively manage digital infrastructure, leading to a poor customer experience, blind spots in security and compliance and challenges in cloud adoption. To close this critical cloud visibility gap, Gigamon is launching Hawk, the industry’s first elastic visibility and analytics fabric for all data-in-motion across any cloud network. Hawk is the only visibility solution that delivers:

Elastic visibility for any cloud. Hawk’s visibilityas-code can be embedded into cloud automation to elastically scale-up and scale-out on demand. A single, consumption-based licensing model operates seamlessly across any cloud, public or private. Cloud visibility for network tools. Hawk provides traditional network tools with immediate, agentless visibility into layers two to seven across any cloud network. Network visibility for cloud tools. Hawk delivers the ‘ground truth’ of data-in-motion to cloud tools, such as visibility into east-west container traffic and unmanaged devices, through network application metadata. Thanks to this unparalleled elastic visibility, Gigamon Hawk radically simplifies hybrid infrastructure,

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eliminates security and compliance holes and provides IT teams full visibility of their cloud environments at scale. Hawk is available in a subscription, scaleas-you-grow, business model including embedded support and is comprised of: A suite of visibility nodes that can scale-up and scale-out as needed across any cloud network. A cloud data warehouse for security and operational analytic applications. A single, simple interface for either drag-and-drop manageability or programmatic orchestration. Hawk is integrated with AWS and other leading cloud platforms and tools, providing a unified view across hybrid infrastructure. Hawk for AWS includes features such as elastic visibility that automatically scales out to capture traffic from new EC2 instances, efficient distribution of mirrored traffic to multiple tool destinations and the ability to extract and store network and application metadata in an AWS storage bucket for near real-time or historical analysis. “Helping our customers derive value from their cloud investment and solutions is the most important aspect of our work at AWS,” said Scott Ward, Principal Solutions Architect at AWS. “As organisations move workloads to the cloud, they want to ensure that they have clear visibility around potential vulnerabilities in their environment. “Using AWS with Gigamon Hawk, for example by leveraging Amazon Athena to analyse application metadata collected by Hawk in S3 buckets, customers can gain the visibility they need across their hybrid – or pure cloud – infrastructure to be confident in its security, performance and scalability.”

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EDITOR’S QUESTION

STEVE LEEPER, OFFICE OF THE CTO, DATADOBI

When data is relocated to a public cloud, there are times when it must be recalled to local onprem systems.

nstructured data (i.e. file and object) is growing exponentially. In addition to usergenerated data, application-generated and machine-generated data is consuming more and more capacity and placing strain on storage devices and budgets. The answer to this dilemma is not to always expand on-prem storage capacity. Rather the procurement of enterprise grade data mobility software to scan, analyse and visualise the characteristics of content being stored along with the ability to take action is key to providing the flexibility organisations need today. These actions could be to classify, move, migrate, archive or even delete obsolete data and are the key to managing ever-growing content. As is becoming more common, public cloud storage is filling a new role to either replace or augment traditional enterprise storage systems. Today, data is often collected on an on-prem NAS or object storage system and many organisations are examining how to best derive value from that data.

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They are taking large existing collections of unstructured data and either making a copy for resiliency’s sake or transferring data to a public cloud provider for the purpose of executing analytics. Plus, when data is relocated to a public cloud, there are times when it must be recalled to local on-prem systems. For data that remains in the public cloud, there are issues such as life cycle management, which is required to efficiently manage cost, governance requirements to comply with and so forth. Key to handling these requirements is having the aforementioned visibility of the overall environment. This is critical to understanding what data is stored where, what data needs to be relocated, being able to relocate that data and to ensure the validity of that data as it is relocated.

Key to handling these requirements is having the aforementioned visibility of the overall environment. This is critical to understanding what data is stored where, what data needs to be relocated, being able to relocate that data and to ensure the validity of that data as it is relocated. INTELLIGENTCIO EUROPE

EDITOR’S QUESTION

KUNAL AGARWAL, CEO, UNRAVEL DATA

Governance controls need to be implemented and maintained at the technical level in order to meet a wide-variety of concerns.

e’ve built our DataOps platform to address cost, performance and reliability concerns for every cloud platform.

It interfaces nicely with governance and security concerns, so we discuss these issues with customers all the time. So, this question about cloud access is valuable but it’s tactical. It’s part of a bigger question: how can IT leaders have better visibility over access to all of an organisation’s data processing tools and all of its data, whether the code and data involved are on-premises, in any cloud, or in transit. You should always have access to your current and budgeted spending for all your data services. We think of this as a DataOps issue. DataOps is the intersection between data engineering, data processing and operations. It’s like DevOps but it starts with data flows first. When software is in development and being run against test data, or copies of existing data, it can more easily be kept controlled. But when software and data are used in production, you get operational concerns. These questions gain a sharper edge in the cloud because it’s new, so let me answer this directly. Governance controls need to be implemented and maintained at the technical level in order to meet a wide-variety of concerns, including security of code, data and metadata.

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Metadata leaks, at very large scale, have been hugely embarrassing and costly to some of the companies that have suffered them. Cost concerns also come up forcefully in the cloud. On-premises, costs are largely sunk – you paid for a certain number of servers, within a deliberative process and any large expenditure is closely scrutinised. The cloud is ‘pay as you go’; if you turn that around, it means, ‘as you go, you pay’. When you’re working at scale, it’s easy to run up a six-figure bill in the cloud in just a couple of days, even if you’re just testing a new service on production-type volumes of data. We have careful performance and resource use tracking in the Unravel data platform. As people have moved to cloud, we are adding in explicit cost reporting and controls. You can put a ‘stop loss’ on cloud spending for a job – for example, alerting you, or even pausing a job if spending on a workload reaches, say, four figures in cost. So, it may be that moving some workloads to the cloud is exposing the fact that you didn’t have the controls needed – which, perhaps you should have had – onpremises, as well. Take a holistic approach to your entire data and processing estate. ‘Solve the problem’ across your organisation, rather than playing ‘whack-a-mole’ as questions get asked, or problems arise. You’ll sleep better at night and so will your customers and other stakeholders.

You should always have access to your current and budgeted spending for all your data services. www.intelligentcio.com

EDITOR’S QUESTION

rganisations today are increasingly adopting a multi-cloud architecture that spans private and public clouds. This provides the necessary agility and flexibility of choice needed for IT teams to quickly fulfil business needs. However, with workloads spanning public and private clouds, there is a strong need for centralised visibility across all clouds and robust cost governance policies, not least to keep overall IT spending within budget. One key challenge in private cloud is the lack of immediate visibility into granular resource costs as opposed to public clouds that provide a highly granular breakdown of cost of all cloud resources based on consumption. But there are many other factors to consider beyond the hardware and software infrastructure licenses when it comes to evaluating the cost of owning and running a private cloud. By way of example, the need for IT teams to have the ability to chargeback spending to business units with a unified public and private cloud cost report. Illustrating the complexity of cloud environments, and therefore the challenges faced by organisations employing cloud operating models, is the Nutanix Cloud Usage Report, a report which provides detailed analysis of customer cloud spend in 2020. The report highlighted that in terms of cloud maturity, most customers are using more than 15 cloud services as part of their cloud consumption strategy, reflecting high maturity and adoption of cloud. Financial Services showed the highest cloud maturity, with Technology, Media and Telecom, Manufacturing and Retail close behind, but Healthcare still in the early adoption stage.

across all segments, with 70% of cloud spend coming from IaaS which consists of Compute, Network and Storage. Another observation from the report showed that enterprise customers are spending the most on analytics and emerging services, with the majority of that spend in Azure. While keeping control of cloud spending remains high on the list of priorities for IT managers, cloud resource waste is a constant issue that cloud users need to control, with the overprovisioning of resources a habit that continues. While rightsizing and eliminating unused resources can save 10–15% of spend, rightsizing continues to be a challenge and even in the cloud world users are leaving their VMs and datastores with high unused capacity. True costs can be surprisingly difficult for IT teams to estimate accurately in a complex data centre environment. However, by combining the ability of cost governance to private cloud environments,

One key challenge in private cloud is the lack of immediate visibility into granular resource costs as opposed to public clouds that provide a highly granular breakdown of cost. organisations can benefit from an accurate total cost of ownership (TCO) model, allowing them to monitor resource consumption, create and track budgets, and implement chargeback to increase accountability. p

In terms of cloud consumption by services, Compute continues to represent the largest service spend

JAMES STURROCK, DIRECTOR OF SYSTEMS ENGINEERING WEURSSA, NUTANIX

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Arming the developing workforce with women and driving gender-blindness To celebrate International Women’s week which occurred in March – an annual celebration highlighting female achievement and empowerment – Ping Identity gathered the thoughts of some of its female employees to glean why being a woman in the field of technology/security can make a difference to its future development and drive gender-blindness.

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What appealed to you most about a career in the technology/ security industry? “I was just drawn to it from a very early age – I had computer/programming classes as early as elementary school and this exposure was such a positive experience for my eager young mind,” said Remy Lyle, Director of Technical Enablement. “In college, I saw all the boys were getting engineering and computer science degrees, and I said, ‘why not me?!’.”

What would you say to encourage females to pursue a career in technology/security? “Personal identity is everywhere now, in every part of the economy and in every country,” Emma Maslen, VP and General Manager, EMEA & APAC. “A career in security/tech can take you to the most interesting places, understanding the most innovative companies in the world. If you like variety, tech is a great place to get that variety every day.” “I think the biggest hurdle is what may be a preconceived notion as to ‘who’ pursues careers in technology and security – the standard socially awkward dude living in a basement,” said Remy Lyle, Director of Technical Enablement. “I am a wife and mum of two, who loves fashion, yoga and travel, surrounded by a ton of friends and family, and I have a full-time career in technology and security. There’s no reason not to rock Chanel pearl mules while coding an identity verification mobile application. My engineering degree is definitely funding my expensive fashion habits.”

Was there any advice you were given during your career that you would pass on to another woman just starting out or looking to make a career change? “Take the leap. You can always go back. I truly believe with strong sponsors and mentors, they will support you in a leap forward or a return to a past career,” said Emma Maslen, VP & General Manager, EMEA & APAC. “Be bold, courageous and unafraid,” said Remy Lyle, Director of Technical Enablement. “Take the roads less travelled by. Regardless of gender, we are all just trying to figure it out so don’t feel like it’s just you. You can be exactly who you are and there’s no gender or physical features required to be in tech.” “My mum always told me, ‘You can be anything you put your mind to’. I didn’t realise the power of these words until I transitioned from a career in education to politics and then to the tech industry,” said Jennifer Arzberger,

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Ph.D, Champion of Learning. “When I look back, I realise that her words are so very true. Each and every day, you get to write your story. You own your career and its trajectory. Growth happens at the edge of your comfort zone. Explore that edge. “I love how Steve Jobs describes the journey: ‘You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future’. There were moments where I didn’t know how to connect the dots, yet when I look back, I see the connection. I’ve discovered that the connection is leading change initiatives, creating culture, innovating and supporting the success of people. The connection is beyond a title. Trust that you will connect the dots as your journey unfolds and take advantage of opportunities that weren’t in your plans.”

Emma Maslen, VP and General Manager, EMEA & APAC

“Confidence is your greatest quality; don’t let anyone take that away from you,” said Beth Drew, VP Channel Sales. “Be confident in your convictions and back it up with data. Ask for help. Women, in my experience, are always willing to lend a hand up if you ask for it. Leverage that network, seek advice and then pay it forward to other women.” “Always be open to feedback,” said Michelle Jenkins, Director, Human Resources. “I know this sounds silly and we’ve all heard how much younger generations want feedback, but you have to really lean into it, accept it, change from it. The minute you stop accepting feedback well is the minute you will stop receiving coaching.”

The most challenging issue for women is the lack of innovation put in at the educational level to attract girls into STEM and tech. What’s been the highlight or most rewarding part of your career? “The best part of my career and day job is helping people succeed every day,” said Emma Maslen, VP and General Manager, EMEA & APAC. “My favourite part has been influencing the young ladies and engineers of tomorrow,” Remy Lyle, Director of Technical Enablement, said. “I regularly volunteer for Girls and Science, a STEAM career event sponsored by Denver Museum of Nature and Science and CBS4, and it’s so rewarding to see the young ladies and gents

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TALKING

business

‘‘

You cannot shortcut your way to success. Make people gender-blind by the incredible work that you are doing. excited for careers in science and technology. As a female leader at Ping, I am so excited when I see young ladies that I have mentored start finding their own way up the ladder and breaking their own barriers.” “The most rewarding part of my career is seeing others who I have trained and mentored experience greater joy, energy, meaning and purpose in their careers and lives,” said Jennifer Arzberger, Ph.D, Champion of Learning. “Being people-centric and dreaming big brings me a lot of joy and purpose and also accelerates my success. Challenge yourself to carry a vision larger than your current role. I believe business, more than any organisation out there, can influence people and solve the challenges facing today’s world. We don’t all go to church or to college, but we all go to work. We can use corporations across the globe to make the world a better place.

What’s the best thing about being a woman in technology and the most challenging? Candace Worley, Chief Product Officer

“The most challenging issue for women is the lack of innovation put in at the educational level to attract girls into STEM and tech,” commented Emma Maslen, VP and General Manager, EMEA and APAC. “We need to ensure STEM subjects appeal to females to truly see the allure of the subject. Otherwise, we will continue to be the minority in the workplace.” “The best thing about being a woman in tech is the different perspective that we bring to the table,” said

Remy Lyle, Director of Technical Enablement. “It’s wonderful to have diversity in all of the teams because everyone views and thinks differently. All of us working together, regardless of gender, race, age, etc. can help ensure the best outcome for whatever it is we are trying to solve. When gender stops becoming a filter, the world is living up to its full potential.”

General advice for being successful in business? Tips to continue growing professionally? “No one cares about your career more than you,” said Candace Worley, Chief Product Officer. “If you count on someone else to make your career dreams a reality you will be disappointed. You must own it.” “Humility and vulnerability are critical elements of leadership,” said Candace Worley, Chief Product Officer. “People want to work for people that they believe are capable of empathy. Strength and confidence are important attributes for leaders but confidence without humility translates as arrogance.” “Credibility and hard work matters more in my career than gender, which is the key to being successful,” said Remy Lyle, Director of Technical Enablement. “Work smart and work hard. All things that are worth obtaining are never easy. You cannot shortcut your way to success. Make people gender-blind by the incredible work that you are doing.” “Think like a stagehand,” said Jennifer Arzberger, Ph.D, Champion of Learning. “Stagehands are skilled in multiple disciplines, are often responsible for operating the systems during shows, and have a general knowledge of all the phases of a production. They also tend to develop specialties and focus on specific areas. “They ensure everyone looks good on stage. In business, seek to understand how your role fits into the bigger picture. Support the mission of the organisation, as well as your team. Develop expertise in other areas. And, always find ways to make others look good. Being taught to think like a stagehand was one of the best pieces of advice I’ve received that has helped me grow exponentially.” “Set your eye on the goal and don’t let your foot off the gas,” Michelle Jenkins, Director, Human Resources, said. “That doesn’t mean you will arrive promptly on time and you may even take some detours, but sometimes the hardest thing is to decide where you want to go. Along the way, learn, learn, learn. If you ever find yourself in a spot where you don’t feel challenged or you aren’t learning, that is the time to ask yourself where you are driving to.” p

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Deliver the extraordinary

FEATURE: DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

As global organisations seek to strengthen resilience and accelerate their journey to Digital Transformation, we take a closer look at how business leaders are taking advantage of market opportunities in order to scale. NTT Ltd.’s recent report highlights significant differences in approach and an emerging breed of organisation – the bold and brave – who’ve used the disruption of business as an opportunity to reset their technology strategies and scale to suit their business needs.

ne year since the onset of the pandemic, organisations globally have undergone major transformations as they seek to strengthen resilience, increase agility and deliver greater efficiencies. A total of 89.2% of business and IT leaders agree COVID-19 has caused significant changes to their operating processes, while 87.3% say it has accelerated their Digital Transformation strategy. These are the findings from NTT Ltd., a world-leading global technology services provider, and its 2021 Global Managed Services Report. Changes to operating processes, along with Digital Transformation acceleration, have presented organisations with an opportunity to reimagine their technology strategies and how it aligns to the business. A total of 92.4% of technology teams agree their overall technology strategy is aligned, either fully (49.8%) or partially (42.6%) to the organisation’s business strategy needs. This highlights how IT teams have become more responsive to organisational demands. Similarly, it has pushed business stakeholders to fast-track services and solutions already held by IT, such as enabling a distributed workforce, to a far wider audience.

NTT reveals only 20.6% of Digital Transformation efforts are optimised 42

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FEATURE: DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

However, despite greater strategy alignment, some disconnect in priorities exists between the business and IT. A total of 69.9% of operations teams believe the need for a technology strategy that drives business efficiency opportunities is crucial, yet only 48.0% of IT teams agree. Further, 69.6% of operations teams consider speed and agility a key component of technology strategy, in contrast to only 53.4% of IT teams. Damian Skendrovic, Executive Vice President at NTT Ltd., said: “The unprecedented challenges that

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COVID-19 has impressed upon businesses has forced the issue of business and IT alignment into the limelight and there is still work to do to ensure core organisational priorities are understood by all.

Damian Skendrovic, Executive Vice President at NTT Ltd

IT is under an immense amount of pressure to deliver against present requirements, while concurrently planning for future delivery and innovation. With

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FEATURE: DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

technology and agility front and centre of the business conversation, alignment of priorities is no longer optional, it is critical for the sustainability and resilience of the business.”

Bold, brave and resilient As global organisations seek to strengthen resilience, the research highlights significant differences in approach. While some consider cost optimisation as a

to them,” said an ISG spokesperson. “While not all organisations view disruption as an opportunity, onethird have adjusted course because they see a chance to do things better and take advantage; particularly in relation to enabling a more distributed workforce and innovative technologies,” said Skendrovic. “Bold and brave businesses are approaching resilience in a new and innovative light, and trusted technology partners are helping them achieve this.”

Present needs, future delivery – at speed

CHANGES TO OPERATING PROCESSES, ALONG WITH DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION ACCELERATION, HAVE PRESENTED ORGANISATIONS WITH AN OPPORTUNITY TO REIMAGINE THEIR TECHNOLOGY STRATEGIES AND HOW IT ALIGNS TO THE BUSINESS.

The research also highlights how embracing emerging technologies and the ability to automate and deploy innovation at speed as key strategies underpinning the future of business success. And while 91.7% of business and IT leaders agree emerging technology is crucial for their technology strategy, only two-fifths (41.1%) believe they have the technology available to meet the organisation’s immediate objectives. This brings to light the conundrum faced by many global organisations. The need to balance present needs, while also investing in technology and process

way of creating greater resilience, others are focused on being bold and brave. They view the pandemic as a chance to take advantage of market opportunities and to scale, with 33.8% pivoting technology focus to achieve this. Interestingly, this figure rises to 41.7% if an organisation currently has at least three-quarters of their IT managed by third-parties. While if an organisation has little to none of their IT managed by a third-party, the percentage drops significantly to just 25.7% prepared to pivot focus. NTT client, ISG’s vision is to become the world’s most dynamic construction services company, delivering places that help people and businesses thrive. To deliver on this vision, it needs to be continually bold and brave. “As we consolidate our position as the world’s most dynamic construction company, we need to optimise the ICT organisation to focus on delivering new digital products and data-driven value. “By working with NTT Ltd., we have full strategic control and operational visibility but can entrust the automation and operation of Microsoft Azure-based workloads

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FEATURE: DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

modernisation to capture opportunities to scale and evolve – in short; to be bold and brave. “Rapid change has been forced onto IT teams. And while business stakeholders expect to exercise a degree of agility in execution – IT is saddled with managing their own challenges. From managing vendor complexity, which further extends to integrating disparate systems, along with emerging technologies and legacy infrastructure; through to budget constraints and a lack of skills to keep pace with business demands,” said Skendrovic. As speed to market becomes a primary competitive differentiator, optimising Digital Transformation efforts is critical. Organisations who showcase the characteristics of being bold and brave are 50% more likely to optimise their Digital Transformation efforts and partner with managed services providers for over half of their IT support. Reducing the mounting infrastructure administration pressure on IT teams by embracing a DevOps culture and platform automation allows IT to optimise transformation efforts by focusing on innovation, and ultimately results in better Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) and cost-optimisation, as well as the delivery of continuous improvement across the business.

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Skendrovic concluded: “While change isn’t always perceived as positive in the moment, it is important to remember that transformation presents new opportunities for agility, scale and innovation.” p

WHILE CHANGE ISN’T ALWAYS PERCEIVED AS POSITIVE IN THE MOMENT, IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THAT TRANSFORMATION PRESENTS NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR AGILITY, SCALE AND INNOVATION.

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CIO OPINION

A huge part of this issue is mindset – organisations need to be ready for the worst possible scenario when considering their security posture.

Avi Raichel, CIO at Zerto

Industry expert says 2021 is the year of recoverware Avi Raichel, CIO at Zerto, discusses the need to adopt an approach to cybersecurity and data protection based on recoverware concepts and products, and tells us why businesses need to be better prepared for what they might face now that Digital Transformation is upon us.

020 was an unforgettable year and from a cybersecurity and data protection perspective, we learned several lessons.

As companies and public sector organisations found themselves increasingly targeted with malware, ransomware and hacking attempts, it’s vital that we use the collective experience to improve outcomes for anyone on the receiving end of a breach. Part of this must be a greater acceptance that being targeted by cybercriminals is not a question of if, but when. For many, the legacy approach to cybersecurity is focused on either doing everything possible to prevent a breach or doing the bare minimum in the mistaken belief that an attack is highly improbable.

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This needs to change. The security stakes are far higher than they were 12 months ago. Risks are more widespread and there are more opportunities for criminals to succeed. As a result, businesses need to be better prepared for what they might face now that Digital Transformation is an absolute necessity.

Changing mindsets A huge part of this issue is mindset – organisations need to be ready for the worst possible scenario when considering their security posture. Managing and mitigating IT disruption, caused by an external attack such as ransomware, should be near the top of the list of concerns for every CIO.

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CIO OPINION

Recovery should be included in the technology and process investments made by IT and security teams, beginning with a clear-eyed view of reality and an acceptance that no matter how much investment goes into protection, eventually something – or someone – will get in.

Minimising the cost of downtime

In practical terms, the answer lies in radically improving the ability of cybercrime victims to recover. This perspective means the ultimate protection isn’t a wall around the perimeter, it’s the ability to continuously protect and quickly get back to business as usual.

As a result, all of its file servers become infected and their only recovery method is restoring from disk. In this situation, it’s not uncommon for the victim to experience hours (or days) of data loss and many are unable to fully recover for several weeks.

Recovery solutions – or what we like to call, ‘recoverware’ – need to be fast and affordable, and organisations should be in a position to implement tools that provide Disaster Recovery and backup through continuous data protection (CDP) – right down to the final few seconds leading up to a breach.

The process is full of pitfalls. If, for instance, the organisation finds it is unable to restore any data from its disk backups, one option is to ship tape files to an outsourced data restoration specialist, with accompanying delay and additional cost. Even

Think of it this way: paying a ransom is an unpalatable decision, to say the least. However, in far too many cases, organisations see it as their only option. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Having the power to recover data to a point immediately before ransomware strikes puts IT teams back in control of their destiny. Recovery becomes a powerful defence against a malware attack, not a last resort when all else fails.

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Comparing approaches to dealing with ransomware helps to illustrate the recoverware process. In the traditional scenario, an organisation sees its network infected with the notorious CryptoLocker ransomware.

Managing and mitigating IT disruption, caused by an external attack such as ransomware, should be near the top of the list of concerns for every CIO.

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CIO OPINION

In adopting an approach to cybersecurity and data protection based on recoverware concepts and products, CIOs take the view that it’s smarter and more logical to prepare to recover than to pay any ransom. when data is then recovered, the recovery points may be different times with significant gaps, further complicating the challenge for IT teams and impacting the overall quality of recovery. But with data now available, file servers can be reconstructed and files restored. With testing carried out, the organisation can then begin a return to business as usual. Business leaders can then assess the full cost of downtime, lost revenue, potential compliance breaches, as well as the impact on company reputation and customer loyalty. For some, this process is so painful that it presents a very real existential threat to the business. For those

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hit by a major ransomware attack, full recovery is far from certain.

The new alternative The recoverware alternative, in contrast, seeks to restrict data loss to a matter of seconds and limit recovery time to minutes. By selecting a recovery checkpoint immediately before the ransomware attack, IT teams then immediately recover, test and reconnect servers to the network. By assuming recovery will be required and by building it into the standard playbook for defeating a ransomware attack, IT leaders acquire a protection ‘reflex’ against the worst implications of a malware breach. In adopting an approach to cybersecurity and data protection based on recoverware concepts and products, CIOs take the view that it’s smarter and more logical to prepare to recover than to pay any ransom. This is not an admission of defeat, but a pragmatic perspective that prevention strategies must go hand-inhand with the ability to quickly move on from the impact of an attack and get back to business as usual. p

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Ready for the next wave in IT challenges?

Ride with balance and poise. Businesses are faced with ubiquitous IT challenges in today’s ever-evolving digital world. Unpredictable data capacity needs; ransomware protection; compliance requirements; high standards of data availability, security and recovery are major factors to manage and master. StorageCraft equips partners with flexible and reliable data management & disaster recovery solutions for the next generation of hybrid data centres. One vendor, one solution — total Business Continuity.

www.StorageCraft.com

W H E R E Y O U R D ATA I S A LWAY S S A F E , A LWAY S A C C E S S I B L E , A LWAY S O P T I M I Z E D

COUNTRY FOCUS: SPAIN

As more and more businesses worldwide are adopting Blockchain technology, we hear how 10 Spanish companies are working together to utilise it to develop a digital identity model and bring Spain to the forefront in Blockchain development.

Spanish companies join to promote digital ident Blockchain technology Skyline panorama of Barcelona at sunrise

total of 10 leading Spanish companies are working together to develop a self-managed digital identity model with Blockchain technology, which will bring Spain to the forefront in this kind of development. They will be launching a solution which will give the user a single self-managed digital identity, in a secure reliable environment, to make it easier to fill in forms automatically to take up services, among other uses. The project, known as Dalion, has completed the concept test, as well as the second phase of the project, to rollout the solution in May 2021. This initiative is open to new partners in order to boost its usage. The project, including Banco Santander, Bankia, BME, CaixaBank, Inetum, Liberbank, Línea Directa

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Aseguradora, Mapfre, Naturgy and Repsol, and also the Alastria consortium, will give users control over their personal data, making digital identity selfmanaged by each person in a secure and reliable manner a reality. Self-managed identity enables people to have their personal data in a single digital identity, backed by the companies involved and stored on their own mobile device. Users may decide who to share the data with at any time in a fast, simple, secure process, in order to take up any service with no need to fill in tedious forms. For example, they may use their data validated by other organisations to hire a car, take out insurance, arrange a loan, take up an electricity service, or any service they wish, in just a few clicks.

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COUNTRY FOCUS: SPAIN

n forces tity using Creation of a self-managed digital identity furnishes the certainty that information is reliable and has not been altered, thanks to Blockchain technology. The challenge is to ensure that it has legal effects which are equivalent to the most advanced data validation and authentication processes available today.

New business models, greater efficiency and more benefits This development will give the participating companies greater efficiency and improvements in various processes, such as registration of users. Also, in a bid to pass on their innovative capacity to people’s lives, the project will enable participating companies to design new business models (individual and/or

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Creation of a self-managed digital identity furnishes the certainty that information is reliable and has not been altered, thanks to Blockchain technology. collective) to improve the user experience on the basis of the potential of self-managed digital identity. During the concept test, now complete, the organisations found that the solution works satisfactorily. The second phase of the project took

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COUNTRY FOCUS: SPAIN

place in November last year. This aims to complete development within the next few months, in order to rollout this solution in a real production environment in May 2021. The companies participating in this concept test see great potential for all sectors. At the present time, the demos function on one of the Alastria consortium’s Blockchain infrastructures (Ethereum-Quorum). This is a pioneer development in the use of the open-code libraries developed by the Alastria Identity Committee. In the months ahead, work will also be carried out on other aspects of technical implementation and use cases. The project undertaken by these companies is a technological challenge that will bring Spain to the

fore in terms of Blockchain and identity management, a basic issue in digital environments for both users and businesses. The solution will also help fight attempted fraud and identity theft with greater efficiency.

Alastria ID, the basis of the initiative This project is based on the Alastria digital identity model (Alastria ID). The company is the first multisector consortium, composed of 600 partners including large companies, SMEs, public authorities and academic institutions, which aims to establish a public permission-based Blockchain infrastructure, designed pursuant to Spanish and EU regulations. Alastria ID has come about thanks to the cooperation of more than 100 members of this consortium, not only in terms of technical aspects and security, but also in legal terms, because Alastria brings leading digital technology lawyers into the design, to take account of all major regulatory aspects, particularly those concerning the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

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COUNTRY FOCUS: SPAIN

Since the first phase of the Dalion project kicked off in October 2019, this model has been analysed from a number of different perspectives (business, security, technology, legal issues, user experience etc.), and the necessary software components have been developed to enable organisations to offer the utilisation of selfmanaged identity in their business applications. The 10 companies involved in the Dalion project have built a solution that can guarantee the integrity and quality of data, preventing any duplication and errors, protect user privacy because no personal data are stored in the Blockchain network or in a centralised format, and prevent any traceability of the data subject’s activity on the network. The project includes observers from public authorities such as Alcobendas Town Hall and the University of Zaragoza, among others. The Dalion project seeks to improve upon traditional Single Sign-On (SSO) solutions such as Google or Facebook, on the main premise that digital identity, composed of multiple attributes (credentials), is certified and validated by the issuers of the credentials. This means a single solution may be used to take up any kind of service on Internet securely, a

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The project will enable participating companies to design new business models (individual and/or collective) to improve the user experience on the basis of the potential of self-managed digital identity. process which previously required specific complex mechanisms by each company or a physical presence. The Alastria ID identity model has been presented to the Spanish Standardisation Association (UNE) and is moving forward from a ‘de facto’ standard to a formal standard and has also been submitted to other international standardisation bodies such as CEN/ CENELEC, UNE’s European counterpart, and has also served as inspiration for the European Commission’s self-sovereign identity initiative, ESSIF. p

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Mobilize your network A more agile, mobile-first network starts with RUCKUS ICX switches. Contact MEAMarketing@commscope.com or learn more at commscope.com

FEATURE: GREEN DATA CENTRES

Finding the perfect balance between sustainability and performance Andy Connor, Channel Director, EMEA, Subzero Engineering, discusses the need for data centre leaders to become more aware of the environmental consequences of their digital footprint and how best to monitor it as demand for sustainable operations places more pressure upon the industry.

n 2020, the Uptime Institute’s, Andy Lawrence stated: ‘The average power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratio for a data centre is 1.58, only marginally better than seven years ago’.

This revelation may come as a welcome shock and while it might be overstating the situation to characterise data centre energy usage as the Internet’s ‘dirty secret’, there’s little doubt that the reality of the sector’s carbon impact has been masked by the many headlines which focus solely on its sustainability successes. Colt Data Centre Services, for example, recently announced that its operations across Europe are now fully powered by 100% renewable energy, while many members of the US hyperscale community are publicly revealing their latest renewable energy projects and initiatives. Carbon offsetting is another idea quickly embraced by end-users, vendors and operators of all shapes and sizes, and while all of these activities, in part,

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contribute to data centre sustainability improvements, they do not directly address the issue of data centre power consumption.

Data centre power usage Today there are many estimates as to the amount of power that data centres across the globe consume on an annual basis. Energy Innovation estimates that, in 2018, data centres likely consumed 205 terrawatt-hours (TWh), which equates to 1% of total global electricity. However, the authors of a paper published in Global Energy Interconnection in June 2020 state that ‘data centres will become the world’s largest users of energy consumption, with the ratio rising from 3% in 2017 to 4.5% in 2025’. The data differs again in the January 2020 Uptime Institute Journal, which reports EU data centre energy consumption figures of 130 TWh in 2017, alongside Greenpeace’s 2018 Chinese data centre figure of 160

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FEATURE: GREEN DATA CENTRES

ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND SUSTAINABILITY OBJECTIVES HAVE BECOME KEY DRIVERS FOR OWNERS AND OPERATORS.

Those are big questions, many of which people outside the sector won’t have considered, but the answer may lie within a recent data centre industry initiative to show us the way forward.

So what can we do to change the trajectory and how can we begin to pinpoint consistency within sustainable strategies?

Recently, 25 companies and 17 associations across Europe joined together to sign the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, with the objective of making data centres climate-neutral by 2030. There’s clearly a growing momentum behind sustainability, but the industry needs to move beyond the environmental easy wins of the past few years and start to address the factors that really address efficiency and PUE ratings – those which have hardly changed in seven years. There’s also the question of whether PUE truly is enough to measure our carbon impact. So with this in mind, where can we begin?

A change in demand

Beginning with the data

Demands for Digital Transformation are a key factor behind data centre energy consumption, but rather than overload you with a tsunami of data, I would urge you to take a short time out to consider just how essential Information Technology has become to almost every factor of everyday life.

Back in 2005, Subzero Engineering started life as a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) consultancy. At the time, a large percentage of the industry was using raised floors and experiencing issues with leakages. Yet, with a simple to use and accurate software solution, we were able to show customers how they could analyse their data centre infrastructure and take steps to both improve efficiency and reduce their environmental impact. Fast-forward 16 years and that approach has stayed with us.

TWh, which makes for a combined total of 290 TWh for China and Europe alone. The fact is that as data centre capacity increases, so will energy usage. And while we may not agree on the exact numbers, few would argue about the direction of travel.

Take a typical workday, how do you communicate with colleagues? What does your role entail? Then think about your plans for the weekend (lockdown not withstanding) – have you thought about the films you’ll watch, the apps you might use, or your personal connection to a data centre?

Now try and imagine a future that also includes Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), what impacts will this digital consumption have on the data centre industry, and what does it mean for sustainability?

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Today, we’re an engineering-led solutions provider that helps world-leading businesses achieve a

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FEATURE: GREEN DATA CENTRES

lower carbon footprint, greater efficiency, reduced operating costs and exceptional performance – and it all starts with the data. For example, by showing customers the hot and cold air influences within their data centre and helping them to analyse, optimise and retrofit their facilities, we believe we can help them find the perfect balance between sustainability and performance. The proof is in the outcomes and today, we keep a live record of the annual energy savings we’ve achieved for our customers. To-date they include:

Total savings: US$332 million Total kW savings: 356kW Total kWh savings: 3BN kWh H2O savings (gallons): 1.5 billion CO2 reductions (tons): +3 million

However, while these data points show some of the gains that can be made by focusing on sustainability, two questions remain; how do organisations become more energy conscious and what are the next steps they can take to become more sustainable?

Defining next steps At Subzero Engineering, we believe that beginning with a data-driven CFD report is the first step, and offers data centre operators insight into how to drive efficiencies across all areas of their facility. This is not limited to airflow; it includes the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), Computer Room Air Conditioners (CRAC), racks, IT and cooling fan speeds. A CFD analysis also shows them how they can achieve a higher rack density, more computing power and help increase the operating temperature to gain both a higher performing and more streamlined and efficient data centre. This information is invaluable, offering both a starting point and a medium for creating a strategy that balances performance and efficiency. It also offers a means of truly understanding what kind of Return On Investment (ROI) they can expect from improving sustainability, especially in terms of reductions in energy and water usage, and lower carbon emissions.

Looking forward Today, energy efficiency and sustainability objectives have become key drivers for owners and operators. Subzero has always been a sustainability-engineering

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organisation; it just so happens that in recent years, ‘sustainability’ has become a key talking point for the industry. Coming back to the data, a paper authored by Anders S.G. Andrae once presented three possible scenarios for data centre electricity usage (TWh) by 2030. The best-case figure is 1,137; the expected figure is 2,967; and the worst case is 7,933. As an industry we cannot let the latter become a reality.

Andy Connor, Channel Director, EMEA, Subzero Engineering

In the absence of the grown-up sustainability conversation that needs to happen soon, where more businesses and consumers become fully aware of the environmental consequences of their digital footprint, I believe more and more pressure will force our industry to perform better. Sustainability, however, begins with data-driven action, and a free CFD analysis is a perfect place to start. p

AT SUBZERO ENGINEERING, WE BELIEVE THAT BEGINNING WITH A DATADRIVEN CFD REPORT IS THE FIRST STEP, AND OFFERS DATA CENTRE OPERATORS INSIGHT INTO HOW TO DRIVE EFFICIENCIES ACROSS ALL AREAS OF THEIR FACILITY. INTELLIGENTCIO EUROPE

Case

STUDY

Data analytics is a tool used to better understand the end-user and ultimately enables businesses to optimise performance and achieve success. We hear from Petra Kasperova, Insights and Analytics Director, Dreams, and James Stewart, ETL/ELT specialist within the Dreams data insights and analytics function, to learn about how the Exasol collaboration has driven transformation for the retailer and enabled it to better understand its customers’ needs.

Turning technology dreams into reality with Exasol Petra Kasperova, Insights and Analytics Director, Dreams

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Can you tell us about your role at the company? Kasperova: I am the Insights and Analytics Director at Dreams. Prior to this, I was heading up the Dreams finance department function. Over the last two years, Dreams has invested in analytical software (Alteryx/ Tableau) and resources to start a journey of in-house analytical enhancement, centralising the analytical team and building the data analytics strategy. The function today represents six analysts and one primary technologist, James Stewart, who managed the implementation of Exasol in Dreams. Our key goal is to move away from traditional static Excel reporting and towards building a fully automated suite of pre-defined self-serving crossdevice dashboards, providing faster, more accurate and deeper insights to end-users; utilising advanced analytics tools and improving our analytical maturity

CASE STUDY

through those as well as resource upskill. At the same time, the aim is to build, grow and maintain a centralised data lake of verified internal and external data sources, overviewing the data capture processes and automation of any data-related tasks. Stewart: I’m the ETL/ELT specialist within the Dreams Data Insights and Analytics function responsible for enabling our three technology pillars: Exasol, Alteryx and Tableau. I’m responsible for administration and maintenance of all three platforms, as well as the ingestion of data sources into the Exasol database, and optimisation of ingestion from a varied range of platforms together with providing specialised technical expertise to the analytical team.

Why did you select Exasol as the technology vendor? Kasperova: Historically, Dreams’ internal analytics has been produced within Excel and to a large degree on an ad-hoc high-level basis. As such, Dreams’ reporting functions didn’t have real need for an analytical database. However, with the changing landscape and technological advancement goals, and with greater volume and variety of data being generated and captured, this has certainly changed requirements for Dreams. We continually strive to be better, more innovative, more technologically advanced in all that we do and this applies to the technology we invest in to support the business needs. Exasol has been recommended as the go-to platform in combination with the other platforms that we use: Alteryx and Tableau. The impressive performance stats followed by a successful proof-of-concept trial have clearly identified the benefits we could gain post-implementation. Stewart: We selected Exasol as we believe it to be the best-in-class analytical database. From a technical perspective, what we loved about Exasol is its fast performance, but with that it is also extremely important that performance continues to be maintained. Dreams doesn’t have the luxury of a large pool of experienced DBAs to call upon, so we are reliant on Exasol managing its own performance tuning, and so far Exasol has delivered on this aspect with no manual tuning required. The use of commodity hardware and Exasol’s licensing options enabled a cost-effective entry point to an analytical database, which we have previously lacked. With significant reliance on the ERP data, and limited resources, we also required a database that could easily integrate with our ERP, so we welcomed Exasol’s Virtual Schema. This has enabled

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OUR KEY GOAL IS TO MOVE AWAY FROM TRADITIONAL STATIC EXCEL REPORTING AND TOWARDS BUILDING A FULLY AUTOMATED SUITE OF PRE-DEFINED SELF-SERVING CROSSDEVICE DASHBOARDS. efficient ERP data accessibility without the need for complex programming, resulting in self-sufficiency of the insights and analytics team and reduction of overall timeline and cost of the project, leading to democratisation of the data. The post-sales support from Exasol has been outstanding. It has proactively maintained a strong relationship to ensure that Exasol’s solution is delivering Dreams’ goals, enabling us to identify and prevent any concerns early on and to enable mutual understanding of our Exasol implementation.

How important is having a robust data strategy in satisfying end-user demand? Kasperova: All decisions at Dreams are based on data and analytics. From investment into our store portfolio, selection and production of innovative product, design of our website, improved delivery services, to offering a drink to our customers as they shop. All insights and analytics are aimed at improving our understanding of our customer and their needs, as well as improving the understanding of our business

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to provide excellent service and better sleep for all. We believe that democratised data and analytics empowers our colleagues and helps cross-functional effort, as analytics is enforcing communication among teams. While less effort is spent on data collation and preparation, more time can be invested in gaining and sharing the knowledge. Data strategy is a key influencer of business performance, assisting in increased competitiveness as we identify risk and opportunity early. Stewart: Through data lake build, we are implementing a strategy of a ‘Single Version of the Truth’. This is to provide more accurate and timely data, enriched for internal and external sources and to enable automation and greater accessibility across the organisation. As result reporting and analytics is taken very seriously at Dreams, with accuracy, timeliness and accessibility being the most important elements, we are continuously striving for improvement and efficiency, and timely reporting and analytics adds value to everything Dreams does.

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Can you give us an example of some of the data-driven decisions you make at Dreams and how Exasol’s technology helps with such decisions? Kasperova: As previously mentioned, our analytics aims to support all decisions in everything we do. Our reporting is aimed at understanding performance, identifying risk and opportunity early across all business KPIs. In the post-implementation of Exasol, we have focused on data ingestion of large-volume externally-generated data sources aimed at better understanding our customer’s experience, be it data from consumer surveys, call-centre telephony system, product quality data, or data generated behind Dreams Sleepmatch (proprietary mattress fit technology), as well as drive efficiency through all that we do (delivery vehicle telemetry, online Speed data, to name a few). We have also implemented a web speed monitoring tool which stores speed test data several times a day and enables monitoring of key speed KPIs trends, and results in additional monitoring provided for our online development teams to review the impact of code releases. We are in the process of developing consumer survey dashboards following an ingestion of these external data sources; aimed at providing end-users with a unified view of all key insights from all the relevant platforms where feedback and surveys are completed by our customers, to unify all reporting within one platform and make the end-user journey simpler. This will also benefit from further insights on customer experiences, improved accessibility among teams and providing further context to already developed analytics. Stewart: Exasol has been a key component on the journey to automation and data ingestion from varied platforms, enabling easy access for our analytical resource, improving efficiency and releasing time to analyse rather than collate, prepare and ingest data. As an example, we were able to provide the end-user with automated Sleepmatch analytics. Sleepmatch, a proprietary in-store mattress fit technology, is located in all Dreams stores and carries out live calculations to recommend the ideal product for each customer based on individual needs. Prior to ingestion, only limited high-level store usage stats were available, but with the ability to ingest into Exasol and analyse the large volumes of data, we can now understand the product recommendations made by Sleepmatch as well as better understand the typical customer preferences and requirements. This in turn will help us with product

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innovation and optimisation going forward. The added benefit of accessibility of data among the insights team results in data being easily blended and shared between projects, providing further context to all our reporting with minimal further effort.

What benefits have you seen since implementing the solution and how does this impact the end-user? Stewart: The consolidation of the data within the highly available Exasol Cluster has resulted in the data just being available. Previously, where data was distributed across technologies and source systems, we had numerous single points of failure which often disrupted data availability. Exasol has enabled more relevant analytics, with Insight and Analytics teams more agile and self-sufficient without being heavily reliant on IT development and code. This enables them to spend more effective time on analytics and visualisations to meeting the business needs and requirements. Also, Exasol has been a key component of the data lake build, which provides the end-user with more relevant reporting as data is shared easily from project to project.

How has the solution allowed you to scale and future-proof operations? Stewart: As mentioned, the cost-effective entry point enabled us to spec a cluster with significant head room, and Exasol’s licensing model enables a costeffective path for growth. Exasol will enable us to move away from a model of Kill and Fill (aka Full Refresh) to an incremental model for refreshing our collected data marts/summaries reducing our processing and data refresh load times and making us more efficient. p

EXASOL HAS BEEN A KEY COMPONENT OF THE DATA LAKE BUILD, WHICH PROVIDES THE END-USER WITH MORE RELEVANT REPORTING AS DATA IS SHARED EASILY FROM PROJECT TO PROJECT. INTELLIGENTCIO EUROPE

Choice is important that’s why we have developed the markets most versatile range of rack solutions. From wall mount to open frames with a huge choice of cable management options, to racks designed for the deepest and heaviest servers, we have a product to suit the most demanding of applications. The new CL range of multicompartment racks is new to the offering and brings our renowned quality and design features to the colocation market. When choice and options matter, you can be sure there is a solution within the Environ from Excel range.

Visit Environ: excel-networking.com/environ-racks

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Steve Benton, BT Deputy CISO, GM Cyber and Physical Security Operations and Programmes, tells us how the company operates with full control over its complex IT estates and explains how the major telecom provider functions in a way that aims to make cyberattacks worthless for those targeting the business.

How BT drives security from a necessity to a beacon of business responsibility

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We know, though, that there is no such thing as 100% security and that criminals will constantly invest and innovate to create new attacks. That’s why we run regular ‘black swan’ events to test our defences and see how they really stack up against a cyberattack. We also make use of our excellent Offensive Security team, who we give the remit and latitude to stress test all aspects of our security.

How would you suggest organisations can gain control of complex IT systems and ensure security is the responsibility of the business?

Can you give an overview of your role at BT and the scope of your responsibility? My job is to ensure that BT can detect, protect and recover from cyber and physical attacks in the UK and across the globe. This means looking after our people, data, infrastructure and buildings across both the real and virtual world. Of course, this is an extremely difficult task. The scale and pace of threats are constantly growing, especially as criminals continue to realise the returns that can be made at relatively low risk. At the same time, we’ve seen nation state activities increase and expand, with huge effects, and more ‘traditional’ lone hacktivists are as busy as ever. Ultimately, we’re in a constant race between cyberdefence and cyberattack, and to be successful in my role I have to make attacks against BT expensive, dangerous and worthless for our adversaries.

How does BT exercise cybersecurity to ensure it operates with a robust infrastructure? BT is on the receiving end of an average of around 6,500 attacks every day, so we have to use all the tools at our disposal to protect our operations, people and customers. We employ a proactive security strategy that holistically monitors and scans for any threats across our estate. As part of this, we enact multiple layers of protection to identify and stop attackers, and use AI and Machine Learning capabilities to hugely improve our ability to detect anomalies and predict threats, significantly reducing the time taken to respond to attacks.

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Visibility of your IT estate is absolutely key. Most organisations have grown organically over time, adopting a mix of systems from a range of vendors, which makes it hard to fully identify your vulnerabilities and risks. After all, if you don’t know what you have, how can you protect it? This often becomes a critical issue when a significant security incident happens in the news, and ‘do we have one of those?’ becomes the most common refrain. Taking clear steps to assess your assets (not just the devices and systems, but also their patching status) and then putting in place clear protections based on this knowledge, is crucial for successful security. We also recognise the importance of ensuring all of BT’s circa 100,000 employees understand the behaviours they need to adopt to protect BT, as you’re only ever as secure as your weakest link. That’s why we run a comprehensive programme to ensure they all have the tools and understandings that ensure they’re acting as securely as possible.

Can you highlight any recent examples of when you have overseen a technology implementation/worked with a vendor to enable an enhanced cybersecurity posture? As COVID-19 hit last year, BT Security had to rapidly scale up its security capabilities around remote working. As part of this, we worked with CrowdStrike to employ enhanced Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) across BT to help secure our devices, cloud systems and the network as a whole. We didn’t expect to be able to deploy CrowdStrike’s technology at the scale and pace that we did during this period. We went from zero servers to tens of thousands covered in days and weeks, rather than the months expected, breaking all rollout records. We also worked closely with the CrowdStrike team to ensure secure connectivity out to the cloud was achieved

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without taking local resources like CPU cycles and bandwidth away from users.

you into ‘work mode’ and puts your guard up. Contrast that to the daily reality of remote working…

More generally, we use CrowdStrike as a key part of our response and investigation into security incidents. The company helps to give us real-time intelligence and context of the threat environment and allow us to rapidly investigate breaches within the ‘golden’ first hour so that we can quickly stop and eject malicious attackers.

We quickly published security guidance that looked at how these changes can make you drop the security best practices that you’d naturally employ in the office. This ranged from a reminder of actions you need to take to stay secure accessing data at home, through to fundamental behavioural stuff like asking people to just

How do you ensure you protect your customers and avoid cyberattacks? We apply the same security principles and protections to our customers as we do to protect ourselves, but our approach can essentially be broken down into two elements. For all our customers, such as home broadband and mobile users, we very much aim to be the most intrinsically secure network they can choose, by ensuring that security sits at the heart of all our operating decisions and processes. We also provide a range of guidance around how they can stay safe online, for example with advice on how to identify and avoid scams.

WE ALSO RECOGNISE THE IMPORTANCE OF ENSURING ALL OF BT’S CIRCA 100,000 EMPLOYEES UNDERSTAND THE BEHAVIOURS THEY NEED TO ADOPT TO PROTECT BT, AS YOU’RE ONLY EVER AS SECURE AS YOUR WEAKEST LINK.

Secondly, we also provide security solutions directly to private and public sector organisations via our BT Security unit. We work with a wide range of security partners to provide solutions that both protect their organisation from threats and enable them to securely adopt and reap the benefits of new technologies.

take a second to pause and take stock of their actions before continuing.

Has there been any change to how you manage security operations since the pandemic as more people work remotely?

What do you predict the future will hold for BT and the cybersecurity challenges you might face as a business, as you continue your move to the cloud?

The past year has really shown the importance of telecoms networks, as they’ve proved vital to enabling so many aspects of life in lockdown. Our network and systems coped really well with the increased demand – with daytime traffic on our core network more than doubling in 2020 – but this also means that securing those networks becomes more important than ever.

As more and more organisations make the move to the cloud, so too do the criminals looking to exploit them. The transition to the cloud erases traditional security perimeters and hugely increases organisations’ attack surface, meaning they need to move away from enacting certain security measures just because they’re expected, or they’ve done so in the past.

We employed a number of operational improvements, such as increased endpoint monitoring and heightened monitoring for any unusual system access, data extraction or unauthorised software. However, one of the most significant issues that we identified was that as well as the technological and logistical challenge, there was also a massive behavioural aspect. The whole routine of going to work – getting dressed smartly, travelling to the office, using your passcard to enter, noting a CCTV camera and security guard – forms a mental process that subconsciously switches

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In the cloud, tech choices can’t be taken in isolation; it’s not just about solving one problem. The thought process needs to explore where this tech will fit into the whole – what it will connect to and how. Strong cloud security comes from knowledge in three key areas: a sound understanding of how the cloud works; the applications a business wants to use; and the business’ plans for moving forward. Organisations that have knowledge about all three can build in effective security faster, more easily and at a lower cost. p

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INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cabling

Equinix and Vodafone to build digital hub connecting Africa, Europe and Middle East Equinix, a global provider of digital infrastructure and Vodafone, have announced a plan to build a new subsea hub in Genoa, called GN1. Situated on Italy’s northwest coast, Genoa has a rich history in maritime trade and is well-positioned to be a key location on the global subsea cable map.

odafone, which is the cable consortium’s lead for European landings, will land the 2Africa cable system at Genoa and use Equinix’s GN1 facility as a strategic interconnection point for the subsea cable system, creating stronger connectivity in Europe and contributing to building an inclusive digital society for all. 2Africa is one of the world’s largest submarine telecommunications cable projects, driven by a group of partners. The cable will circumnavigate the continent of Africa, directly connecting 16 countries to Europe and the Middle East. This will deliver much-needed Internet capacity and reliability, underpinning the further growth

OUR COMMITMENT IS ALWAYS TO SUPPORT THE INCREASING DEMANDS WE’RE SEEING FROM COMPANIES GLOBALLY TO ACCELERATE THEIR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION. 66

of 4G, 5G and fixed broadband access for hundreds of millions of people. The project will also drive the growth of increasingly digitised economies across Europe by strengthening connectivity between European countries. GN1 will have a direct fibre connection to ML5, the soon-to-be opened Equinix flagship data centre in Milan and will allow Equinix customers to increase the number of partners they connect with and expand their reach into new markets. The combination of 2Africa’s landing in the new Genoa site and the direct connection to Milan means GN1 will offer a new, complementary and diverse alternative option for the Mediterranean region. Nick Gliddon, Director, Vodafone Carrier Services, said: “The 2Africa project is vitally important to improving connectivity between

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Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and will also improve intra-European connectivity. “By linking Spain and Portugal directly to Genoa and Milan, the system will avoid fibre bottlenecks that naturally occur between France and Spain, further strengthening Vodafone’s Gigabit networks.” According to Equinix, the need for robust digital infrastructures can be seen across the world and Africa is no exception. Eugene Bergen Henegouwen, President, EMEA, Equinix added that: “I am thrilled we are adding a new metro to our EMEA portfolio. Equinix’s Genoa site provides a great landing hub for subsea cable operators, whilst at the same time boosting the digital ecosystems at our recently announced Milan flagship, ML5. Equinix continues to focus on expanding its position as a global connectivity service provider. “Our commitment is always to support the increasing demands we're seeing from companies globally to accelerate their digital transformation. We’re helping businesses connect to everything they need to succeed, and will continue to do so.” p

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INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cloud

Genesys announces recordsetting cloud business growth Genesys reports new bookings growth up nearly 130% for Genesys Cloud and more than 70% for Genesys Engage Cloud and Subscription year over year; with the company adding 800+ new customers during fiscal year 2021.

enesys, a global leader in cloud customer experience and contact centre solutions, reported fiscal year 2021 was a record-setting period for its cloud business. New bookings increased nearly 130% for Genesys Cloud and more than 70% for Genesys Engage cloud and subscription year over year. The company also announced Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tony Bates has been appointed chair of the Genesys operating committee, which has corporate

oversight responsibility equivalent to a board of directors. In his first full year as CEO, Bates led Genesys through a period of significant transformation, growing the company’s new cloud and subscription bookings in fiscal year 2021 to nearly 75% of total new bookings from 53% in 2019. This was driven by new and expanded customer deals, as well as cloud bookings growth in all regions, with a nearly 40% increase in North America, 35% in Europe and the Middle East, and nearly 25% in Asia Pacific. “Businesses all over the world are choosing Genesys because we have the right technology, innovation strategy, team and ecosystem to help them address consumers’ preferences for differentiated and delightful customer experiences and the changing nature of work,” said Bates.

“It’s a privilege to lead the company as we redefine the market by enabling fluid, digital experiences that connect a customer’s entire journey with a business.” Today, Genesys offers one of the industry’s broadest portfolios of cloud customer experience solutions to fit the requirements and scale of diverse global enterprise contact centres anywhere. With more than a 320% year over year increase in enterprise bookings, Genesys Cloud is experiencing accelerated demand from larger customers. In fact, nearly 60% of total Genesys Cloud bookings in fiscal year 2021 were from enterprises, with a 10x increase in the number of deals with annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $2.5 million or more. In addition, last year the company launched Genesys Engage Multi-cloud, the industry’s first native architecture to give complex global enterprises the ultimate flexibility in cloud infrastructure, deployment and management models so they can design unique service experiences for their customers in today’s digital world. For many consumers, customer service departments have become a lifeline, helping them to manage uncertainty brought on by the pandemic about their finances, health, travel and more. As the world shifted rapidly toward digital offerings last year, more than 800 new customers turned to Genesys during fiscal year 2021 for its cloud and multi-cloud solutions to provide consumers with missioncritical support and to transition employees to remote work. The close of a record year resulted in Genesys increasing its footprint in key industries including financial services, government, education, healthcare, telecommunications and retail. p

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INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres

Humidity increase is hidden challenge identified for data centres

power disruption impact brought on by such severe weather conditions, rising humidity and long-lasting damage caused by moisture should be a key concern.

In January, extreme weather was witnessed across the globe, creating a number of challenges for data centres. From flooding in Asia to heavy snowfall in Europe, these patterns have highlighted a new risk for facilities across the world. According to Aggreko, in addition to the more immediate

Outlined in a report, The Hidden Cost of Humidity on Site, the challenge facing data centres is how the drying process takes place, following a period of flooding or heavy snowfall. According to the report, poorly managed moisture control can result in persistent damp and warping of materials, which can lead to long-term damage within a data centre.

ne of the hidden challenges facing the global data centre industry is rising humidity levels, according to a recent report launched by temporary moisture and temperature control specialists, Aggreko.

Humidity levels are also a concern in the summer months and figures outlined in the report indicates that many data centre ‘hot spots’ are particularly prone to high levels of humidity. Among the areas to have a higher average humidity level than the recommended relative levels include Dublin, Frankfurt am Main, Amsterdam, Paris and Helsinki, all of which are popular among data centre operators. In addition to issues encountered on construction sites, moisture, in the form of water vapor, can find its way into the smallest areas and spaces of any components. This in turn can leave corrosive deposits behind that continue to cause damage after drying. Now, Aggreko is advising all data centre facilities – both in situ and those being contracted – to have an effective system in place to remove the moisture from the air. Ryan Stanley, Moisture Control Specialist at Aggreko, said: “Moisture build-up is an inevitable outcome of extreme weather patterns and its correct removal is a serious challenge for data centres. Unfortunately, not all teams are making the necessary considerations to remove moisture from sites entirely, with common mistakes prevalent. “For many, the immediate reaction to rising humidity is to use dryers to remove the problem. However, while the issue may appear to be resolved, drying doesn’t always remove moisture from the atmosphere and can actually cause long-term damage, impacting the lifespan of a data centre.” The report sets out a three-step approach to managing humidity effectively, which includes a combination of heating a site, circulating the air and removing with dehumidifiers. p

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INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Enterprise Security

Report finds UK tech sector unprepared for cyberattacks According to research conducted by the Ponemon Institute and commissioned by Keeper Security, more than half of IT and technology firms in the sector (59%) say their budgets are still insufficient to cover their cybersecurity needs.

ne year on from emergency lockdown measures that forced UK businesses to rapidly provision remote working tools, most IT and technology businesses have done little to bolster their own cyberdefences. In fact, more than half of the firms in the sector (59%) say their budgets are still insufficient to cover their cybersecurity needs, according to research conducted by the Ponemon Institute and commissioned by Keeper Security. Over two thirds (69%) of UK technology companies suffered a cyberattack last year, with almost half (47%) claiming the severity of these attacks has increased over the period. Despite the nature of the technology

sector, specialist expertise in cybersecurity remains scarce, with the majority of UK tech firms (61%) stating that they are without the necessary in-house expertise. “The technology industry has been targeted by cybercriminals on a mass scale throughout the pandemic, yet with priorities focused on the immediacy of risks that would create tangible damage, it’s understandable that priorities have been focused on making sure businesses can simply continue to operate,” said Darren Guccione, CEO and Co-Founder of Keeper Security. Technology chiefs believe the extraordinary conditions created by lockdowns – remote

working and the use of unmanaged devices – heightened this level of risk, with 45% of respondents blaming the conditions caused due to Covid-19 as affecting businesses’ online security. Remote working also made it harder for IT teams to respond to attacks, with half of UK tech firms (51%) stating the time taken to respond to cyberattacks has increased during lockdowns. And the consequences have been damaging: 43% have experienced an incident involving the loss of sensitive information about customers, prospective customers or employees, with 32% of cases having an estimated financial impact at over £175,000 per attack. Yet, while hackers, unmanaged IT equipment and the sudden imposition of remote working has been among the key causes of blame – nobody had a business continuity plan amid a global pandemic. Budgets have been squeezed more than ever and firms have not been able to afford muchneeded investments in large scale security projects. Half of the UK tech sector (49%) do not have sufficient financial resources to successfully prevent cyberattacks. Despite the growing number of high-profile attacks on prominent technology companies, a worrying 64% still don’t require the use of a password manager for employees in a remote working environment. “Stepping up security around passwords, through a multi-platform password management and security platform, can be very simple and cost-effective, providing a manifold improvement to organisations’ security posture,” concludes Guccione. p

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INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Green Technology

Pact commits European cloud and data centre industry to sustainability action

ne year after the adoption of the European Green Deal, leading cloud infrastructure providers and data centre operators have created the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact. Twenty-five companies and 17 associations have agreed to a Self Regulatory Initiative to make data centres in Europe climate neutral by 2030. Companies joining the Pact represent the most significant industry players in cloud infrastructure and data centres in Europe. This is a historic and unprecedented commitment by an industry to proactively lead the transition to a climate neutral economy. Stefano Cecconi, Vice President of CISPE and CEO of Aruba S.p.A., said: “Both the energy efficiency and local self-produced energy by using renewables are in line with Aruba's view towards a sustainable future. In fact, through our very own photovoltaic solar panel systems and owned hydroelectric

power plants, we're already producing more green energy than what we actually need across our data centres. This enables a negative carbon footprint across all of our operations and allows us to support our activities and our customers' ones with zero impact on the environment. By choosing climate neutral data centres, everyone can actively contribute to the future of our planet." Frans Timmermans, European Commission Executive Vice President for the European Green Deal, said: “Citizens across Europe use ever more technology to go about their daily lives and want this technology to also help secure a sustainable future for people and the planet. “Today’s pledge from important parts of the data industry constitutes a promise to society and offers a welcome first step towards achieving our common ambitions for a smart and sustainable future.”

Alban Schmutz, Chairman of CISPE (Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe), said: “With cloud infrastructure the backbone of the European Union’s digital economy, our industry is committed to the idea that we must all play a central role in addressing climate change. “This commitment underpins a roadmap for Europe’s cloud infrastructure industry to offer climate neutral services to customers by 2030.” Apostolos Kakkos, Chairman of EUDCA (European Data Centre Association), said: “Data centres are the supporting pillars of the fourth industrial revolution and, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, are essential infrastructure of not only the digital economy but of the entire global economy. It is our duty to commit to a self-regulatory initiative that will help to ensure the operational availability, sustainability and the future of our industry.” The Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact establishes a Self Regulatory Initiative which has been developed in co-operation with the European Commission. It supports both the European Green Deal, which aims to make Europe the world’s first climate neutral continent by 2050 and the European Data Strategy by making EU data centres climate neutral by 2030. The Self Regulatory Initiative sets ambitious goals that will facilitate Europe’s essential transition to a greener economy. It commits signatories to ensuring their data centres are climate neutral by setting ambitious measurable targets for 2025 and 2030. Progress towards achieving climate neutral data centres will be monitored by the European Commission twice a year. p

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INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Mobile Technology

Nokia and Orange strike global 5G network optimisation deal Nokia has announced it will expand its Self-Organising Networks (SON) technology across 5G networks operated by telecommunications carrier, Orange. The deal will cover all of Orange’s markets and will commence with France and Spain.

okia has announced it will expand its Self-Organising Networks (SON) technology across 5G networks operated by one of the world’s leading telecommunications carriers, Orange. The deal will cover all of Orange’s markets, starting with France and Spain. Nokia continues to offer widespread support for 2G, 3G and 4G spanning more than one million Orange radio cells in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Nokia SON operates on top of any vendor’s radio technology, enabling Orange to optimise its live commercial networks regardless of who built them. As a key tool in the Nokia network management and optimisation portfolio, SON offers Orange the power to automate radio network configuration and optimisation processes, as well as improve network performance and efficiency to support the increasing demands of 5G. Nokia SON lets Orange automate operations to realise the full potential of their existing 2G, 3G and 4G networks while also supporting the progressive deployment of 5G. Providing a centralised SON platform, it automates operations across multiple technologies, eliminating complexities from the multi-vendor and multi-layered networks naturally found across global operators. The extreme automation and Artificial Intelligence framework built into Nokia

SON helps Orange affiliates provide better network quality with greater reliability and speed to their customers. The deal is the latest example of Nokia’s continued investment, capability and focus on developing technology that supports the practicality of 5G network upgrades. Utilising Nokia SON’s software development kit (SDK), Orange has been creating and sharing custom solutions to manage their unique network environments. Arnaud Vamparys, Senior VP Radio Networks and 5G at Orange, said: “As a long-term partner, Nokia was a natural choice to help us automate our mobile networks in different geographies. The complexity of radio

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optimisation is growing with 5G beamforming and Nokia’s flexible, automated and multivendor platform enables us to maintain our exemplary network quality and customer satisfaction in the 5G era.” Mark Atkinson, Head of RAN at Nokia, said: “5G deployments and rollouts look much simpler on paper than they do in the real world. We appreciate and understand that our CSP customers have a technology stack that spans multiple vendors, which can lead to inefficiencies and complexity. “Working with Orange and its global affiliates to optimise and simplify their multi-vendor networks is a challenge we relish and are proud to be part of.” p

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INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Software for Business

Coding and software development are top skills chosen to aid employment opportunities

omputer programming and software development were the top skills chosen to improve employment opportunities across Europe, according to a new YouGov and Kantar Sifo study commissioned by Red Hat, a leading provider of enterprise open-source software solutions. The study, conducted across six European markets, polled 11,191 UK adults on the new skills they’re learning since the first lockdown, and their motivations for up-skilling, with almost one in 20 UK respondents having chosen to take up coding since March 2020. Nearly half of those surveyed (43%) have taken up, or planned to take up in the coming weeks, a new skill. When asked about their motivations for upskilling, almost one in three (30%) reported employment-related reasons: either to kickstart a new career, learn a new skill for a future job, or for job stability and security.

salary growing to £53,318. Almost half of the new coders surveyed (43%) come from a

THESE RESULTS COME AFTER THE PANDEMIC HAS BOOSTED TECH AND DIGITAL INDUSTRIES, THERE ARE OVER 31,000 VACANCIES FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS IN THE UK.

non-technical job sector, compared to only a quarter (25%) who previously worked in technology or IT, while 10% have not been previously employed. The vast majority (70%) do not have a STEM degree – over a third (35%) studied a nonSTEM degree, while a third (34%) haven’t completed a university degree. Of the new coders, less than half were working full time (49%), with 11% unemployed and 10% working part-time. Werner Knoblich, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Red Hat EMEA, said: “If the pandemic has shown us anything it’s that the future is digital. “It’s heartening to see so many people taking up computer programming or software development as a new skill, particularly those from non-technical backgrounds.” p

The findings indicate a desire to reskill since and with many working from home full-time, there is more opportunity to spend time learning new skills, and a wealth of online resources at their fingertips. Four percent of UK respondents chose to take up coding. This was one in ten (10%) in the 18–24 age group and one in 20 (5%) aged under 55. More than two thirds (68%) said their motivation to take up computer programming or software development was to reskill for a new job or career, more than any of the other skills chosen. These results come after the pandemic has boosted tech and digital industries, there are over 31,000 vacancies for software developers in the UK, with the average tech

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Telecommunication providers are under enormous pressure to secure their industry as one of the most targeted in the IT sector. Business leaders will therefore need to take action to introduce the required security standards to protect their networks and operations, and ultimately limit the damage of any breaches.

New telecoms security law to protect UK from cyberthreats 74

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COMPANIES THAT FALL SHORT OF THE NEW DUTIES OR DO NOT FOLLOW DIRECTIONS ON THE USE OF HIGH-RISK VENDORS COULD FACE HEAVY FINES OF UP TO 10% OF TURNOVER.

elecom companies in the UK must follow tougher security rules or face fines of up to 10% of turnover, under a law laid in Parliament. The Telecommunications (Security) Bill aims to give the government unprecedented new powers to boost the security standards of the UK’s telecoms networks and remove the threat of high-risk vendors. The Bill will strengthen the security framework for technology used in 5G and full fibre networks including the electronic equipment and software at phone mast sites and in telephone exchanges which handle Internet traffic and telephone calls. This will be a significant step to protect the UK from hostile cyber activity by state actors or criminals. Over the past two years, the government has attributed a range of cyberattacks to Russia and China, as well as North Korea and Iranian actors. The Bill will also provide the government with new national security powers to issue directions to public telecoms providers in order to manage the risk of highrisk vendors. While they are already banned from the most sensitive ‘core’ parts of the network, the Bill will allow the government to impose controls on telecoms providers’ use of goods, services or facilities supplied by high-risk vendors.

– including a ban on the purchase of new Huawei equipment from the end of 2020 and a commitment to remove all Huawei equipment from 5G networks by 2027. The Bill creates the powers that will allow the government to enshrine those decisions in law and manage risks from other high-risk vendors in the future. Digital Secretary, Oliver Dowden, said: “We are investing billions to rollout 5G and gigabit broadband across the country, but the benefits can only be realised if we have full confidence in the security and resilience of our networks. This groundbreaking bill will give the UK one of the toughest telecoms security regimes in the world and allow us to take the action necessary to protect our networks.” Currently, telecoms providers are responsible by law for setting their own security standards in their networks. However, the Telecoms Supply Chain Review concluded by the government last year, found providers often have little incentive to adopt the best security practices.

Companies that fall short of the new duties or do not follow directions on the use of high-risk vendors could face heavy fines of up to 10% of turnover or, in the case of a continuing contravention, £100,000 per day. Ofcom will be given the duty of monitoring and assessing the security of telecoms providers.

To deliver the revolutionary economic and social benefits of 5G and gigabit-capable broadband connections, the government has decided to strengthen the overarching legal duties on providers of UK public telecoms networks and services as a way of incentivising better security practices. These duties will be set out in the Bill and will mean telecoms providers will need to take appropriate action to bring in minimum security standards for their networks and services and to limit the damage of any breaches.

In July last year, following advice from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the government announced new controls on the use of Huawei 5G equipment

The Bill will allow the government to issue specific security requirements that providers will need to follow to meet these duties. These requirements will be set

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TELECOMS WATCHDOG, OFCOM, WILL BE GIVEN STRONGER POWERS TO MONITOR AND ASSESS OPERATORS’ SECURITY, ALONGSIDE ENFORCING COMPLIANCE WITH THE NEW LAW. out in secondary legislation, but are likely to involve companies acting to: Securely design, build and maintain sensitive equipment in the core of providers’ networks which controls how they are managed Reduce the risks that equipment supplied by thirdparties in the telecoms supply chain is unreliable or could be used to facilitate cyberattacks Carefully control who has permission to access sensitive core network equipment on site as well as the software that manages networks Make sure they are able to carry out security audits and put governance in place to understand the risks facing their public networks and services Keep networks running for customers and free from interference, while ensuring confidential customer data is protected when it is sent between different parts of the network

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New codes of practice will demonstrate how certain providers should comply with their legal obligations. These will be published once the Bill has received Royal Assent. Telecoms watchdog, Ofcom, will be given stronger powers to monitor and assess operators’ security, alongside enforcing compliance with the new law. This will include carrying out technical testing, interviewing staff and entering operators’ premises to view equipment and documents. Markets across the world have become overly reliant on too few vendors due to a lack of competition in the global telecoms supply chain. The government has been engaging extensively with operators, vendors and governments around the world and addresses this head-on in its 5G Diversification Strategy. The strategy outlines new measures to boost competition and innovation in the telecoms supply chain and reduce dependence on individual suppliers. NCSC Technical Director, Dr Ian Levy, said: “The rollout of 5G and gigabit broadband presents great opportunities for the UK, but as we benefit from these we need to improve security in our national networks and operators need to know what is expected of them. “We are committed to driving up standards and this bill imposes new telecoms security requirements, which will help operators make better risk management decisions.” p

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THE IMPORTANCE OF SAFETY IN A TRACK BUSWAY POWER DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM Busway systems are a popular solution for effective power distribution, but data centre teams must be aware that not all busway systems are the same and safety must be a key consideration in selecting a vendor. Here, John Berenbrok, Senior Product Manager, Data Centre Infrastructure at Starline, talks us through the safety aspects of various elements of a track busway system so organisations can make informed, safe choices.

or data centre owners and Consulting and Specification Engineers (CSEs), busway systems are rapidly becoming the solution of choice for effective power distribution. Track busways can be suspended from the ceiling, placed on vertical supports, or even mounted on the server cabinets themselves to provide a direct power source to servers and racks. But not all busway solutions are the same; some work better, last longer and require less maintenance than others. In evaluating a busway solution, you should look for three important qualities: Reliability – An effective busway system provides reliable and efficient power distribution, a

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Data centre owners have a responsibility to provide employees and electricians with the safest work environment possible. maintenance-free joint design and a long useful life, to ensure continuous uptime for your IT infrastructure. Flexibility – An effective busway system gives you flexible design and power distribution options, allowing you to build out, scale up and adapt your IT loads according to your changing power and facility needs.

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Arc flash certifications that include operator and equipment safety Industry-leading short circuit ratings An Ingress Protection safety rating of at least IP2X (‘finger safe’) and, if possible, options for IP3X (‘tool safe’) Also, look for a busway system that gives you multiple ground path (earthing) options:

Safety – The elements of a busway system should guarantee safety for your workers, your IT infrastructure and your facility. Here we will explore the individual elements of a track busway system, with a focus on ‘safety’.

Standard (protective) ground system – The busway’s aluminum housing provides the system’s ground conduction. Isolated ground system – The ground conductor and the housing ground are isolated from each other in all components (this can be useful for protecting certain types of IT loads). Dedicated ground system – The ground conductor and housing ground are bonded together at the end power feed.

Joints The importance of safety Safety of equipment is paramount in the data centre – first and foremost, to protect the workers who work there; secondly, to protect the IT infrastructure and the data that it processes; and finally, to protect the facility itself. Busway systems offer significant safety advantages over RPPs and greatly reduce the risks of dangerous incidents, such as electrical shocks and arc flash explosions. Data centre owners have a responsibility to provide employees and electricians with the safest work environment possible. It’s crucial that owners and CSEs look for a busway solution that is designed for safety and is certified as safe.

A joint provides a connection between adjacent busway sections, or between a straight busway and an elbow or tee section. Different busway providers use different types of joints. But you should look for vendors that utilise the most reliable kind of joint – a compression-fit joint. The housing couplers in the joints carry ground conduction through the aluminium housing from busway section to section. It’s therefore important to find a busway solution with reliable, well-designed joints in order to properly maintain the ground conduction system.

The problems of bolted and male/ female joints

Design elements of a busway system There are four primary elements that make up a busway system. These are:

Track busways Joints Plug-in units (or tap boxes) Power monitoring

You should look for a busway system that includes multiple provisions to deal with potential arc flash scenarios. The solution should have the following: Certifications from nationally-recognised test labs Selective coordination of fuses which, in the event of a power surge, allows the busway system to lower potential incident energy to negligible levels

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In selecting a busway system, you should avoid solutions where busway sections utilise bolted joints, which are less reliable than a compression-fit joint. In a bolted joint, bolts are used to press flat busbars together. Over time, the bolts can loosen, again resulting in a poor electrical connection. In a worstcase scenario, the joint can heat up to the burning point and potentially cause a fire in the data centre. Bolted joints must frequently be checked via thermal imaging and re-torqued in order to maintain busway joint integrity. This adds to maintenance troubles and costs, especially in large data centres where thousands of bolted joints must be continuously serviced. You should also avoid male and female joint couplings, which are easy to install incorrectly. The two busway

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sections must be perfectly aligned with each other and a misaligned coupling can result in a poor electrical connection between sections.

Plug-in units The plug-in units (a.k.a. tap boxes) distribute the branch circuit power load from the busways to the servers, racks, or other equipment. Plug-in units can be easily added or removed to the busway units as needed. Safety of plug-in units is a primary concern, especially for facility engineers who often need to install tap boxes on live busways. At the most basic level, every plugin unit from any vendor will have a grounding tab or device, which automatically grounds the unit prior to the electrical connection of the conductors into the busbars. However, you should look for a busway solution with additional safety features: First, the design of the busway itself contributes to safety where plug-in units are concerned. An asymmetrical U-shaped busbar design makes it impossible to install a plug-in unit incorrectly. This in turn makes it impossible to cross live phases or ground paths when installing the plug-in unit into a live busway. You should look for a busway solution where the plugin units come with optional safety accessories. These might include: ‘Floor operable’ electrical connections – You can insert a plug-in unit into a live busway, step back to a safe distance and use a hook stick to turn the unit, which connects the paddle to the busbar and makes the electrical connection. Breaker interlocks – A metal locking piece that prevents the unit from being installed or uninstalled while the breakers are on and the unit is under load. Finger shrouds – A plastic ‘shroud’ cover that prevents the breaker switches on the unit from being turned off by accidental contact, i.e. during maintenance work on nearby server cabinets. IR Windows – Infra-Red windows that allow for scanning of the plug-in unit’s internal power connections without performing hazardous work around live conductors.

Power monitoring Today, many data centre owners do power monitoring at the PDU and rack PDU level. But this is not enough. For a more complete package of data and to ensure the reliability and safety of your entire power distribution system, you should look for a

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busway solution that allows you to do critical power monitoring at various points along your busway runs. A power monitoring system should have the ability to send out pre-set alarms in the event of a failure or emergency. For example, if a busway end feed rises to within 10 degrees of an unsafe temperature (i.e. ~85°C), the power monitoring system should have the ability to send an automatic email alert, or to provide that data to your BMS or DCIM, to warn you that a cable installation is potentially overheating and may cause a fire.

John Berenbrok, Senior Product Manager, Data Centre Infrastructure at Starline

The monitoring system should also offer breakerposition sensing, which allows you to monitor whether plug-in units are operating correctly. Again, the system should allow you to pre-set alarms, so if, for example, a plug-in unit suddenly shuts off, you will receive an automatic email alert, indicating that a server rack may have overheated and triggered the breaker.

Conclusion For data centre owners, CSEs and others who are seeking power delivery solutions, the ultimate goal in selecting a busway system should be peace of mind. You want the certainty and confidence that your power distribution system will always be able to deliver the power you need to your servers, racks or equipment. A reliable busway system is not just a power solution. It provides a competitive advantage, allowing your data centre or other facility to stay operational. This ensures that your company will always be productive and able to deliver products or services to your customers. At the same time, it is essential to select a busway system that will guarantee the safety of your workers, with the flexibility to adapt to the layout and changing power needs of your facility. If you evaluate the elements of a busway system based on these three qualities – reliability, flexibility and safety – and look for an experienced and highly-qualified provider who can also be a reliable business partner, you’ll be able to choose a busway solution that will effectively serve your power distribution needs over the long run. p

For data centre owners, CSEs and others who are seeking power delivery solutions, the ultimate goal in selecting a busway system should be peace of mind. INTELLIGENTCIO EUROPE

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On the lighter side of things, we ask the industry experts what makes them tick. . . .

. . . GET TO KNOW . . . Neil Hammerton, CEO and Co-founder, Natterbox

What would you describe as your most memorable achievement? For me, this has to be when we landed our first major brand. That’s not to say our work with other companies doesn’t hold great value, as in many respects the work we do with SMEs can be even more rewarding. However, winning your first well-known name is a big deal for any business and a moment of recognition for all the hard work we had put in over the years.

What first made you think of a career in technology? I’ve spent most of my professional life working with technology to improve business efficiency. My career began with British Telecom in its research labs, then I moved to security software which is where I started to recognise the importance of improving customer experience to benefit business performance. The idea of establishing a telephony company specifically occurred to me when I realised how poorly the business I was with dealt with incoming phone calls. Despite having limited knowledge of the telecommunication sector at the time, my co-founders and I taught ourselves about the industry and set up Natterbox to disrupt the traditional way of thinking about the telephone.

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What style of management philosophy do you employ with your current position? When it comes to managing my employees, for me happiness comes first, and that’s the approach we take at Natterbox. A massive part of managing and having a happy workforce is creating an open and honest dialogue about everything from their performance to their aspirations. Often though, the review process, where these conversations should take place, is poorly handled. Staff get better job satisfaction from proper, actionable feedback and that’s what will ensure they stay loyal to a business in these uncertain times.

What do you think will emerge as the technology trend of 2021 and why? There have been some obvious challenges accelerated by the pandemic. One of the most pressing has been trying to keep the workforce efficient and productive while working remotely. This is especially difficult due to the loss of micro-communication – the professional ‘small talk’ we usually partake in at work. While most of us are used to sitting around desks chatting to each other, nothing replaced this conversation when we moved to remote working. We lost the interaction we, as humans, need. Its loss also means managers aren’t able

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GET TO KNOW

A massive part of managing and having a happy workforce is creating an open and honest dialogue. to build the same relationships with their employees, teams can’t communicate as effectively, and it’s harder to notice when colleagues are struggling. As we move into 2021 and remote working policies continue, we’re going to see a higher demand for solutions enabling remote micro-communication. In contact centres we’ve already experienced a significant rise in demand for ‘listen-in’ functionality – allowing managers to listen to conversations with customers as they happen. This ensures managers understand how their employees are performing and identify areas they may need further training on. Virtual wallboards can also be implemented to help contact agents see how many customers are in the queue and where their colleagues are, for example on the phone or taking a break, to help fill the void of not being able to see them face-to-face.

What do you currently identify as the major areas of investment in your industry? In such a competitive world, businesses are fighting tooth and nail to remain one step ahead both in their digital capabilities and customer loyalty. As a result, the ability to take advantage of the data goldmine that all organisations have access to, and ideally in real-time, has never been more vital. Consequently, we’re seeing more businesses invest in technologies that are able to help them gain insights into their data.

How do you deal with stress and unwind outside of the office? Despite working in the telecommunications world nine to five, my love for technology also carries over into my personal life. I’m currently setting up a ‘smart home’. Flying has always been a passion of mine and when weather and time allow, I enjoy microlighting over the British countryside.

If you could go back and change one career decision, what would it be? One of my goals is to avoid looking backwards, and instead think about how I will approach the future when it comes to running the business. As long as I continue to enjoy the journey and the business continues to

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succeed, the decisions that brought me here were the right ones.

What are the region-specific challenges when implementing new technologies in Europe? The challenges facing the telecoms industry are shifting every day, but one of the biggest we’ve faced is the ambiguous attitude of business to telecoms. In recent years it’s simply not been something that they believe they should invest in. With the rise of social platforms and new technologies such as chatbots, the telephone has become somewhat a thing of the past for many businesses. It’s therefore our job to show them the possibilities and benefits that voice and the telephone can provide as part of integrated, data-driven and customer-centric communications, perception and relationship-building strategy.

What changes to your job role have you seen in the last year and how do you see these developing in the next 12 months? Advancements in technology in recent years have meant many businesses are increasingly operating a flexible, remote working structure. But ensuring all employees, particularly those in customer-facing roles, have access to the communication channels and data that they would have in an office, is vital and we’ve seen many organisations looking for solutions that can help. Furthermore, businesses have recently been pushed into an immediate industry wide Business Continuity full-test scenario of a having a remote workforce that will expose many flaws in their technology, so we only expect the demand for flexible solutions to increase. This is something I want to ensure we can help all of our customers with moving forward. That’s why I am now focusing on ensuring that the team at Natterbox have the tools and resources they need to focus on developing and advancing our intelligent solutions that shift the concept of flexibility to that of freedom. In fact, our new cloud-supported interface is already available to give users the ability to work from anywhere, on whichever device they want.

What advice would you offer somebody aspiring to obtain C-level position in your industry? Be yourself, share ideas and lead by example regardless of the role you are currently in. p

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The best of both worlds: Making the most of your hybrid IT strategy Hybrid IT is becoming a more talked about subject as businesses adapt to innovative ways of working. Chris Huggett, Senior Vice President, Europe & India, Sungard Availability Services, offers his best practice advice by explaining some of the simple steps to ensure you make the most of your hybrid IT strategy and reap the benefits.

iving through ‘unprecedented times’ is nothing new for organisations. Businesses have always had to deal with highs and lows and adapt accordingly. The pandemic has shown that the flexibility to maximise or minimise the impact of planned or unplanned opportunities or threats is vital. Hybrid working and hybrid socialising will be in place for the foreseeable and many predict that a hybrid working model will remain even when life goes back to ‘normal’. Hybrid IT, on the other hand, isn’t new, but adoption, having increased for the last few years, has seen a boost as companies look for the answer to safeguard against future disruption. Put simply, hybrid IT is the mixture of IT infrastructure platforms – legacy on-premise and private/public hybrid clouds – that an enterprise uses to satisfy its application workload and data needs. It is the perfect solution for companies that demand agility, scalability and an OPEX cost model of the cloud, but want consistent performance and control of security, compliance and costs long-term. Hybrid IT is about deciding which workloads should be deployed to the cloud and which should run on a company’s infrastructure. So how do organisations decide what goes where?

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Gaps in cloud compliance The move towards greater use of the cloud has followed growing concerns on the management and protection of data. Cyberthreats are continuing to evolve and accelerate, and the skills required to defend against are becoming more complex. Regulations such as GDPR bring additional rights and safeguards for individuals, but the move towards cloud IT could expose a compliance gap – especially for organisations that handle personal data. Organisations that host their data on-premise in local storage systems should be in a position to identify the location of most – hopefully all – of their data quite quickly and those that host data elsewhere could have concerns over not knowing where the data is stored. However, one of the challenges with public cloud adoption is the skills required to build and maintain it.

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Do organisations have the skills to ensure that data which is stored on-premise is secure and compliant? For many organisations, meeting compliance and regulatory requirements can be easier to achieve using private clouds. Just because organisations have outsourced their data storage, it doesn’t mean they can outsource responsibility for compliance, however. Organisations must ensure third-party cloud providers meet current standards and show due diligence. Complying with laws such as GDPR and penalties

Hybrid IT is about deciding which workloads should be deployed to the cloud and which should run on a company’s infrastructure.

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FINAL WORD

Chris Huggett, Senior Vice President, Europe & India, Sungard Availability Services

for breaches fall squarely on the organisation, so assessing any gaps in compliance is key.

hardware, as you are not investing in unused capacity outside of demand spikes.

Performance enhancing infrastructure, but at what cost?

Owning the base, on the other hand, is about calculating the capacity needed to securely support the steady state outside of demand spikes and procuring the capacity and associated hosting, such as buying servers, networking on storage to be hosted on-premise or in a colocated data centre. This is a relatively simple exercise for existing applications, but when there are new applications to be deployed, how much capacity does an organisation need? One simple way of addressing this is to rent capacity in the cloud and then evaluate the utilisation and performance needs of that application, then procure the resulting requirements and deploy it on company owned infrastructure. This approach can very quickly identify the true capacity and performance needs prior to committing to a large capital outlay. Not applying this approach, however, can result in significant overprovisioning. Analysis of customerpurchased capacity and performance, compared to what is actually used, often shows significant levels of over provision, which is all wasted investment. Buying the base provides organisations with the peace of mind that they are meeting their predictable needs, while renting the spike accommodates the unpredictable.

As an organisation considers infrastructure options, it doesn’t need to choose only one model. The best approach is often a combination of clouds and infrastructures to best meet the requirements of the business. One approach, often referred to as ‘own the base and rent the spike’ addresses cost and performance requirements. A common scenario for organisations to experience is spikes in demand, such as sales events that drive increased traffic but

Organisations that host their data on-premise in local storage systems should be in a position to identify the location of most – hopefully all – of their data quite quickly.

When adopting clouds, the on-premise IT footprint is reduced. However not all workloads are suitable for cloud deployment, meaning there are often legacy systems that need accommodation, and maintaining an on-premise hosting for a smaller footprint does not always make economic sense. Many organisations recognise the benefits of utilising a colocation facility to meet the needs of legacy workloads, because they offer advanced hosting and support capabilities with resilient power cooling and networking that would simply be overkill to deliver on-premise for a smaller set of workloads. Many organisations can then repurpose on-premise hosting environments into more productive space.

The best of both worlds

still require consistent performance. A public cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) environment provides the agility and scalability to rapidly accommodate these demand spikes. Traditionally, this is addressed by scaling out a web or application tier during these spikes and contracting outside of such periods.

The benefit of the ‘own the base, rent the spike’ scenario is that it ensures maximum cost-efficiency, performance, security and reliability, with the least risk of lost revenues and customers. In essence, it’s the best of both worlds, which, of course, is what hybrid IT is all about.

Conversely, public cloud, as well as some multi-tenant private cloud offers, are usually a pay per use model, meaning an organisation pays for the infrastructure it rents only for the time it is being rented. Renting IaaS capacity can be very cost-efficient when compared to throwing money at the problem and purchasing

The success of a business isn’t just about one application, one workload or one environment. It’s the ability for all applications and workloads to reliably work together within or across multiple environments and to always be available. Today, that’s what keeps a business moving forward. p

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