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    Technology has the power to trans-

    orm business, many companies told us in

    the 1990s and in the last decade. Theres

    a renement to this, though; technology

    nowadays has the power to enable busi-

    nesses to transorm themselves. Its a

    small change to a sentence but its a vital

    one, and one which benets everybody.

    A way o explaining this is that in pre-

    vious decades, technology was a massive

    help to business. It became possible to

    automate accounts, payroll, customer

    relationship management, clerical and

    managerial duties and to gather data or

    major business decisions with enterprise

    resource planning systems (ERP). This

    was excellent as long as a business was

    willing to work in the way the technology

    was structured so to take advantage o

    ERP a company needed to reach the right

    size then spend the requisite amount o

    time implementing the system.

    DIffERENT ROOMsIt was a bit like being in a hotel rather

    than your own home everything would

    be ne and designed to make your organi-

    sation comortable but there would be

    that oddity o having to go check in to

    the whole building, then have a separate

    key or your bedroom, go into a specic

    room or dining and handing your key

    to someone to veriy your identity yet

    again; its ne, were all used to it, but i

    you go home then once the key is in the

    door youre in and you live like you wish.

    It was similar in business; youd have

    to work as the computing dictated you

    could or should. Prior to multitasking

    youd have to pull out o one program and

    shut it down beore using another, then

    a little later you could do it all simulta-

    neously but only i you were at a specic

    computer. This wasnt perceived as a

    problem because it essentially worked.

    It still does, but the dieren

    apparent when a competit

    work dierently.

    Technologies such as virtu

    the cloud have consigned

    o that approach to histor

    the business customer to s

    the business need at the cen

    OVERVIEWBusiness transormation used to mean technology changing the way people worked. Now people can make thetechnology work harder or the way they want to unction the machines are no longer in charge, saysGuy Clapperton

    ThE NEW vAlUE Of ITDriving a new Technology innovaTion organisaTion

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    iT Transorm

    example might be the scalable busi-

    ness, which either grows or shrinks

    depending on demand and might notwant to buy X amount o computers

    and servers which will be used only

    Y amount o time. Previously i your

    business had needed scale at a given

    time you would have needed to buy

    into it the whole time. In previous

    Raconteur reports we have reer-

    enced the people at Comic Relie

    who are a classic example; previously

    they would have needed to buy physi-

    cal computers and sotware licenses

    permanently to cater or a couple

    o huge peaks at a couple o times

    during the year. The organisation

    now virtualises and simply res up

    additional servers during the major

    appeals these just vanish when they

    arent required.

    pEOplE ChANgEsThis means change not only in tech-nology but rom the technologists

    and their colleagues. Elsewhere in

    this supplement is a discussion on

    how the relationship between CIO

    and CFO has evolved; by ar the most

    ruitul o these relationships are

    the ones in which the CIO is under-

    stood to have a strategic role rather

    than simply that o a costly enabler,

    because he or she can explain what

    will now be possible to the business

    and make it happen. There are still

    organisations which regard the tech

    as a drain and the nance as a gate-

    keeper and its not clear how theyre

    going to cope when their competi-

    tion sees a more ruitul relationship

    happening.

    Put simply, both sides need to have

    the imagination to realise the poten-tial benets o teaming up with rather

    than ghting their counterpart. The

    technologist is precisely the person to

    say what can happen when a business

    needs to expand, doesnt want the

    overhead o more premises but can

    allow exible working. A Catch-22,

    highlighted by one o the interview-

    ees in this supplement, is that this

    can mean the technology team has to

    accept change. There is no room or

    edoms in this new age; the IT team

    thats used to working on and indeed

    guarding all o the technology in its

    business will pass on relatively soon. A

    hosted solution in the cloud needs di-

    erent skills to manage and there will

    be a transitional period in terms o

    internal politics this wont be popular

    universally. One it is achieved, though,the IT team and particularly the CIO

    will nd their roles enhanced as inno-

    vators rather than as an in-house sup-

    plier. The implications or their own

    motivation are vast, even i we leave

    aside the enormous scope or produc-

    tivity and lower cost growth a busi-

    ness can nd with this new model.

    KEEp CAlM AND CARRy ONDisaster recovery also becomes

    easier; in this supplement we talk

    to a inancial services company

    which has a near real-time backup

    o its work in a second building, so

    i theres a problem the workorce

    is able to get up, walk into the other

    premises and continue as they were

    beore. Not every business will be

    able to go this ar but to have spo-

    ken to someone whose business wasabout to grind to a halt and simply

    instructed his team to walk down

    the road is quite something (then

    the power came back on otherwise

    the story would have been perect!)

    I a company cant run to a sepa-

    rate building and thats quite an

    overhead to take on it can take on

    a mirrored inrastructure hosted by

    someone else, and have it running

    in real time so it can be restored or

    worked on as the real system in the

    event o a ailure.

    Clearly there are implications

    or the partners someone chooses

    to work with as a result o these

    changes. The business a company

    chooses as its hosting partner or

    virtualised real-time backup has to

    be the most trustworthy companyimaginable. It needs to be ultra-reli-

    able and its data protection poli-

    cies need to be scrupulous. The old

    idea o outsourcing to anyone over-

    seas to save money will work only

    i overseas understands the UKs

    Data Protection Act (DPA) com-

    pletely and can understand all o

    its strictures and restrictions (and

    will thereore turn down certain

    business because o data jurisdic-

    tions). The onus is on the data han-

    dler typically the business looking

    to virtualise or otherwise have its

    inormation hosted to ensure this

    is the case. The IT department will

    now have to understand, or exam-

    ple, the Patriot Act in the US, which

    gives the Authorities carte blanche

    on access to stored inormation

    something which clashes directlywith the DPA.

    WhERE DO yOU WORK?Workplaces are changing as a result

    o all this and elsewhere we examine

    how. In act we challenge the exist-

    ence o a xed workplace any longer

    (or what its worth this article youre

    reading is being nished o in a hotel

    lobby in Amsterdam but it doesnt

    matter, on the Internet this is a work-

    place or the moment!) but argue that

    its being outmoded and replaced by

    a workspace which has dierent

    aspects to manage. Certainly the col-

    leagues working in remote environ-

    ments will need a whole dierent set

    o skills rom their managers i they

    are to remain productive.

    Science is ull o stories o dis-

    coveries happening in labs which

    could have happened earlier but or

    Your eedback is valued by us.

    Please send in your opinions to

    [email protected]

    For inormation about partnering

    with Raconteur Media please contact

    Freddie Ossberg: +44 (0)20 7033 2100,

    [email protected],

    www.raconteurmedia.co.uk

    The inormation contained in this

    publication has been obtained rom

    sources the proprietors believe to be

    correct. However, no legal liability can

    be accepted or any errors. No part o

    this publication may be reproduced

    withoutthe prior consent o the Publisher.

    RACONTEUR MEDIA

    Guy Clapperton

    Guy Clapperton is a reelance journalist, broadcaster and

    author, specialising in technology and small business issues.

    He is a regular contributor to Raconteur reports and the

    author oThis is Social Media and The Joy of Work.

    John lamb

    John Lamb is an editor and writer with broad knowledge

    o the IT business, who has edited a number o leading UKtitles including Computer Weekly, InformationWeek, Sunday

    Business ComputerAge, Information Economics Journal,

    Butler Group Review, Datamation Europe and Ability.

    Kevin townsend

    Kevin Townsend is an Oxord University graduat

    original ounder o ITsecurity.com. A technology

    more than 25 year s across dozens o publications

    author o several early computing books.

    JessiCa twentyman

    Jessica Twentyman is an experienced business and

    journalist. Over the la st 15 years, she has been a regucontributor to some o the UKs most respected nat

    newspapers and trade magazines, including theFin

    theWall Street Journal, Director magazine andCom

    CONTRIBUTORs

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    iT TransormaTion

    I we look at security today there

    is one conclusion we simply can-

    not avoid: it is not working. Despite

    the $20bn invested in IT security in

    2010, the cost o cyber crime to the

    UK economy alone is estimated to

    be 27bn per annum according to

    Detica igures. We need to under-stand what is going wrong in order

    to reverse this. And to understand

    that, we need to examine the evolv-

    ing threat landscape.

    It is tempting to blame the emer-

    gence o the advanced persistent

    threat (APT), a highly targeted,

    sophisticated attack aimed at large

    corporates. Hardly a week passes

    without news o a new APT attack

    on a household name: Google, Sony,

    Nintendo, RSA, Mitsubishi. And it

    is easy to support this idea with cur-

    rent statistics. FireEye divides cur-

    rent threats into two primary catego-

    ries: wide and shallow, and narrow

    but deep. The rst is the traditional

    approach: a wide net is thrown to

    catch as many targets as possible;

    but the actual loss is relatively small.The second is the specically aimed

    attack on an individual organisation

    that goes deeper and steals more

    the APT.

    Its a description that is recognised

    by Deticas Henry Harrison. O the

    27bn annual loss to the UK econ-

    omy, he comments, 17bn comes

    rom thet o intellectual property

    and espionage the typical narrow

    but deep targets o APT attacks.

    But while we must be aware o

    the threat o APT, we should not

    be diverted by it. The exploits and

    methodologies used are not new.

    Only the manner in which they are

    combined; the targets at which they

    are aimed; and, it has to be said, the

    almost military intelligence and

    precision with which they are con-

    trolled, is new. (Its worth noting

    that APT is a military term irst

    coined by the US Air Force.)

    ThREaT LandscaPE The move into the cloud and into othertransormational technologies hasnt eliminated any technological threatbut shited it.Kevin Townsend talks to some experts about the new risks

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    iT Transorm

    Successul security should stop

    APT just as much as it should stop

    common-or-garden malware. Con-

    sider the banking trojan Zeus. World-

    wide, RSAs security and raud expert

    Uri Rivner said, there are some vemillion PCs inected with Zeus.

    Clearly our security deences stop

    neither wide and shallow nor nar-

    row but deep attacks; and we need

    to understand the reason.

    One clue can be ound in Pricewa-

    terhouseCoopers 2012 Global State

    o Inormation Security Survey. A

    clear majority o [9,600 CEOs, CFOs,

    CIOs, CISOs, CSOs worldwide],

    it states, are conident that their

    organisations inormation secu-

    rity activities are eective. This is

    despite the unambiguous empirical

    evidence to the contrary.

    The problem is that we are stuck

    in an old security paradigm when

    the paradigm itsel is changing. We

    grew up with our servers in the com-

    puter room and our users in the samebuilding. The concept o security was

    simple: we put a barrier around our

    IT inrastructure to keep the bad

    things on the outside and the good

    things on the inside. Since the good

    things were all in one building it was

    conceptually simple. And since the

    technology to achieve this barrier

    is mature and eective rewalls,

    anti-malware, intrusion prevention,

    content lters and since we have all

    installed this technology, we believe

    we are secure.

    It is a alse sense o security that

    leaves us terribly exposed. Comput-

    ing is no longer that simple. Cloud

    computing means that our data

    could be anywhere. Mobile comput-

    ing means that our users could be

    anywhere. Consumerisation means

    that our access devices could be any-thing that has internet connectivity.

    Where now can we eectively place

    a barrier? Its not impossible, its just

    dierent; and were not keeping pace.

    But all o this pales into compara-

    tive insigniicance in the ace o a

    major new weakness: us. The rise o

    social networking combined with

    the consumerization o devices and

    mobile computing means that we are

    as like to socialise at work as we are

    to work at home. There is no longer

    even a virtual boundary between

    work and home.

    sEIsMIC shIfTThere has been a seismic shit in the

    threat landscape, explains Rivner.

    The criminals are no longer attack-

    ing the IT inrastructure. They areattacking the users. It is social net-

    working that provides the inor-

    mation that allows the criminal to

    bypass our security deences and

    get into our networks via our users.

    We have become nonchalant over

    the amount o personal inormation

    we eectively broadcast to all and

    sundry: our likes, our dislikes, what

    we do, what we want, where we are,

    where were going...

    Armed with this inormation and

    basic social engineering skills it is

    easy or the criminal to trick us into

    doing something we shouldnt, like

    going to a compromised website

    or opening a poisoned attachment.

    The malware itsel stays ahead o

    us by rapid and automatic changes

    designed to deeat, and is success-

    ul at deeating, signature-baseddeences. FireEye points out that

    90% o malicious executables and

    malicious domains change in just a

    ew hours, and that todays criminals

    are almost 100% successul at break-

    ing into our networks.

    The criminal no longer seeks to nd

    a way through our security deences;

    social engineering has shown him away round them. The dierence with

    APT is that the criminal will now try

    to hide his presence and will take his

    time to nd and steal what he wants.

    Unless we change our approach, and

    adapt our security to the changing

    threat landscape, the cost o crime

    will continue to escalate.

    TACKlINg ThE ThREATAs things stand today, any company

    targeted by APT or simple spear

    phishing will almost certainly suc-

    cumb. But it doesnt have to be that

    way. There are things we can do.

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    CONTINUED ON pAgE 07

    27EsTIMATED yEARlyCOsT Of CyBERCRIME TO ThE UKECONOMy

    $20INvEsTED INIT sECURITyIN 2010

    $17COMEs fROM ThEfTOf INTEllECTUAlpROpERTy ANDEspIONAgE

    Know your enemy and knowyoursel and you can fght athousand battles without disas(From The Art o War, by General Sun Wu Tzu)

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    Chie Security Architect E

    RSA, The Security Divisio

    INDUsTRy vIEW

    Absolutely central to this is continu-

    ous sta security awareness training

    to deeat that initial social engineer-

    ing. It would be best not to do this

    yoursel use an expert to test both

    your deences and your sta. First,

    says David Hobson, Sales Director oGlobal Secure Systems, the security

    practice o MTI, we test/audit your

    security systems and bring them up

    to speed. Then well test your sta

    and bring them up to speed.

    But thats not enough; security

    awareness will not prevent all peo-

    ple-hacking. This summer RSA and

    TechAmerica hosted an Advanced

    Persistent Threats Summit in Wash-

    ington, D.C. One o the takeaways is

    this: Organisations should plan and

    act as though they have already been

    breached, according to RSA. Statisti-

    cally, you probably have. So i exist-

    ing deences arent work

    to basics and start aga

    is not an end in itsel: i

    mitigation aspect o ri

    ment. Use risk manage

    niques to understand wh

    value. David Hobson usewith medieval castles. Y

    crown jewels and keep th

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    tle, in the Keep.

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    networks is to coloca

    or partially, with a spe

    centre provider. Its a

    viding greater physical

    your servers than you

    ably do alone. We u

    manned security and

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    iT Transorm

    authentication (palm readers) or

    access to our data centres and to indi-

    vidual client suites, cages or racks,

    explains Brian Packer o provider BIS.

    Theres a second implication

    rom the APT Summit: i you are

    already breached, it would be good

    to know about it as soon as possible.

    You need to shine a light inside yournetwork, to see what is happening,

    to look out or anomalies and recog-

    nise any intrusion beore any data

    loss. There are several new and very

    advanced security products that can

    help you here rom companies like

    Detica and FireEye.

    vIRTUAlIsATIONRivner believes that virtualisation

    can also help. A virtual desktop

    inrastructure (vdi) could prevent

    malware getting onto the desktop

    and rom there to the server; and

    it certainly makes patching and

    upgrading the entire inrastruc-

    ture an easy task. Bear in mind

    that the Google Aurora hack would

    not have succeeded i the target

    were not still using an old and out-dated version o Internet Explorer.

    Patch your sotware should be a

    way o lie.

    But virtualisation is only as good as

    its implementation and your under-

    standing o its components. An

    APT or any other security threat,

    explains Mike Atkins o Orange IS

    Security Solutions, is likely to ocus

    on the weaknesses that can be ound

    in the target systems and processes,

    and then seek to leverage 0-hour

    exploits. The key to protecting a vir-

    tualised environment is to similarly

    ocus on the weaknesses o the sys-tem and then mitigate as ully as pos-

    sible any attackers ability to leverage

    those weaknesses.

    There is, however, one weakness

    in all o these approaches. Neces-

    sary and good though they be, they

    eectively use the same old secu-

    rity paradigm: wait or, recognise

    and respond to an attack. And that

    might be too late. In this new secu-

    rity paradigm we need to accept that

    our attackers are more sophisticated,

    better resourced and organized, and

    more patient and persistent than

    are we. We need, says RSAs Uri

    Rivner, global inormation shar-

    ing. It will be difcult, coping with

    the dierent privacy requirements

    in multiple jurisdictions, but it can

    be done. The banks are already doingit. When we all do it, we will h ave the

    necessary intelligence to cope with

    todays evolving threat landscape.

    CONTINUED fROM pAgE 05

    Security Threats and the Cloud an industry overview

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    the security practice o MTI

    INDUsTRy vIEW

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    A DEfINITION Of ADvANCED pERsIsTENT ThREAT

    OvERAll INfORMATIONsECURITy sTRATEgy

    EsTABlIshED sECURITy BAsElINEfOR pARTNERs / CUsTOMERs / vENDORs

    CENTRAlIsED sECURITy INfORMATIONMANAgEMENT pROCEss

    EsTABlIsh sTANDARDs / pROCEDUREDfOR INfRAsTRUCTURE DEplOyMENT

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    BUsINEss CONTINUITy /DIsAsTER RECOvERy plANs

    pORTABlE DEvICE sECURITysTANDARDs / pROCEDUREs

    AUThENTICATION BAsED ONUsER RIsK ClAssIfICATION

    WIRElEss sECURITysTANDARDs / pROCEDUREs

    EMplOyEE sECURITyAWARENEss TRAININg pROgRAM

    ClOUD sECURITysTRATEgy

    MOBIlE DEvICEsECURITy sTRATEgy

    sOCIAl MEDIAsECURITy sTRATEgy

    sECURITy sTRATEgy fOR EMplOyEEUsE Of pERsONAl DEvICEs

    NONE Of ThE ABOvE

    0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70

    OUR CURRENT sECURITy sTANCE- AND ITs jUsT NOT WORKINg

    % Of REspONDENTsglOBAl

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    iT TransormaTion

    The volume o data generated byincreasingly powerul enterprise sys-

    tems and by a lood o emails, text

    messages and online transactions

    is increasing at an exponential rate,

    now companies are looking to turn

    the inormation locked up in it to

    their advantage.

    Some bigger organisations can

    boast o holding as much as 200,000

    gigabytes per employee, enough to

    hold 30,000 hours o high deini-

    tion TV recording, but even smaller

    enterprises are racking up data about

    their businesses at a rate o knots.

    Technology is one driver or the

    extraordinary growth o data,increased regulation is another. In

    many industries a thicket o regu-

    lation has grown up in recent years

    requiring organisations to collect

    data and hold it or long periods.

    Oten there are rules about how

    inormation should be presented

    and how quickly it must be made

    available. In some markets, such as

    pharmaceuticals, participants are

    obliged to invest in complex systems

    or tracking, recalling and proving

    the provenance o products.

    Businesses are burdened by data.

    They view it as something theyre

    obliged to maintain, rather thanas a strategic asset, argues Chris

    Downs, ounder o levelbusiness.

    com, an online company inorma-

    tion service. You need to under-

    stand whos using the data and how

    to unlock its value. Data isnt just

    there or compliance purposes; you

    need to be more imaginative with it.

    Increasing numbers o companies

    are doing just that; mining the bur-

    ied nuggets contained in the growing

    spoil heaps o data. Indeed, the abil-

    ity to analyse and act on so-called big

    data, gathered in the course o busi-

    ness will be a key competitive edge or

    InfORmaTIOn aLchEmyBusinesses o anysubstantial size will have pockets o inorm

    all over the place, doing nothing. John Lamb l

    at ways o turning these neglected bits and into unhidden gems

    informaTion alchemy:Trivia inTo gold

    s u

    t t

    dutb t

    pp

    sc: TDWI Research

    TypEs Of DATACOMpANIEs ARECOllECTINg AsBIg DATA

    92%sTRUCTURED DATA(TABlEs, RECORDs)

    54%

    sEMI sTRUCTUREDDATA (XMl ANDsIMIlAR sTANDARDs)

    54%

    COMplEX DATA(hIERARChICAl ORlEgACy sOURCEs)

    45%EvENT DATA (MEssAgEs,UsUAlly IN REAl TIME)

    34%sOCIAl MEDIA DATA(BlOgs, TWEETs,sOCIAl NETWORKs)

    28%MAChINE-gENERATED DAT(sENsORs, RfID, DEvICEs)

    6%

    5%

    sCIENTIfIC DATA(AsTRONOMy,gENOMEs, physICs)

    OThER

    31%

    WEB lOgs ANDClICKsTREAMs

    29%spATIAl DATA (lONg/lAT COORDINATEs,gps OUTpUT)

    35%UNsTRUCTURED DATA(hUMAN lANgUAgE,AUDIO, vIDEO)

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    iT Transorm

    companies in the uture, according to

    a report called Big data: The next ron-

    tier or innovation, competition, and

    productivity by management consul-

    tancy McKinsey & Company.

    Big data is already being applied to

    give companies an edge. For exam-

    ple, network surveillance in the tel-

    ecommunications industry to enable

    mobile phone companies to record

    when and where a call was made, web

    analytics in e-commerce, smart grid

    management in the energy sector, or

    the detection o credit card raud in

    the nancial world.

    UNlOCK yOUR DATAHow can businesses unlock hidden

    value rom their data? First, by mak-

    ing it more transparent; or instance,inormation about the whereabouts

    o goods gleaned rom tracking tech-

    nology such as barcodes and other

    sensors shared among companies in

    a supply chain can speed the ow o

    goods and ensure they are directed

    to the place they are needed at the

    right time.

    Similarly, in manuacturing, inte-

    grating data rom R&D, engineering

    and production lines to enable con-

    current engineering can signicantly

    cut the time to get products to mar-

    ket and improve quality.

    As organisations create and store

    more transactional data in digital

    orm, they can collect more detailed

    perormance inormation on every-

    thing rom how much product is in

    stock to how many sick days employ-ees take and use the knowledge to

    make continuous improvements.

    Leading companies are using data

    collection and analysis to conduct

    controlled experiments aimed at

    improving their management deci-

    sions; others are using data to take

    better business decisions on the y.

    Analysis o data garnered by track-

    ing the buying patterns o custom-

    ers allows businesses to get a better

    understanding o who and where

    customers and prospects are, ensur-

    ing better-quality sales leads and

    longer-term customer relationships.

    Companies can identiy customers

    more precisely and develop tailored

    products or services or them.

    Tescos use o loyalty card data to

    send customers oers based on theirprevious purchases is a classic exam-

    ple o how seemingly anonymous

    sales data can be used to personalise

    the buying process.

    Sophisticated analytics can also

    be used to boost decision making.

    At one end o the spectrum this may

    involve applying parallel processors

    to crunch the huge quantities o data

    to decide where to prospect or oil or

    which drug looks most promising, on

    the other hand analytic tools can be

    applied to quite mundane problems.

    Some local councils, or example,

    are applying analytic techniques to

    inormation gathered rom dustbin

    lorries about which residents are not

    recycling their waste properly. The

    inormation is being used to mount

    campaigns to persuade them to be

    greener citizens.

    Finally, big data can be used to

    improve the development o the next

    generation o products and services.

    For instance, manuacturers are

    using eed-back obtained rom sen-

    sors embedded in products to create

    new ater-sales service oerings such

    as preventative maintenance.

    Governments too are bent on using

    big data to reorm and cut the cost o

    public services. In the UK, the Coali-

    tion has oated the idea o a Public

    Data Corporation intended to open

    up opportunities or developers,businesses and members o the pub-

    lic to generate social and economic

    growth through the use o data.

    The UK Government says it is

    determined to have the most ambi-

    tious open data agenda o any gov-

    ernment in the world. The Public

    Data Corporation will, or the rst

    time, bring together government

    bodies and data and provide more

    reely available data at the point o

    use, announced Business Minister

    Edward Davey.

    In the developed economies o

    Europe, government administra-

    tors could save more than 87bn in

    operational efciency improvements

    alone by exploiting big data, claims

    McKinsey & Company. Extra sav-

    ings could come rom using big datato reduce raud and errors and boost

    the collection o tax revenues.

    fOR All sIzEsAlthough big data dened as inor-

    mation that is too much to be ana-

    lysed in a conventional database - is

    generally amassed by larger organisa-

    tions, all sizes o organisation can ben-

    et rom the intelligent use o data.

    Five or ten years ago, a company

    with a data warehouse that was used

    to make quarterly planning decisions

    was considered a data driven enter-

    prise, says Matt Scarbrough, Head

    o Service Delivery, search sotware

    company Coppereye Labs. Today,

    that level o solution is nothing more

    than a good starting point.

    Business intelligence applicationsare also no longer the exclusive ter-

    ritory o big companies, but are also

    present in smaller rms without the

    big budgets or inormation technol-

    ogy sta required to run multi-tera-

    byte database implementations.

    Not surprisingly, providing the

    tools to manage and make sense

    o business data is itsel big busi-

    ness. Suppliers have developed a

    rat o new online analytical prod-

    ucts and added analytical eatures

    to existing systems to enable

    organisations to mine their data

    more productively.

    There are an increasing number

    o tools aimed at tackling untapped

    data coming rom sensors, devices,

    third parties, web applications, and

    social media, oten arriving in real

    time. Big data is not just about high

    data volumes; it also includes many

    dierent types o data.

    The variety o data creates its own

    difculties. The biggest problem is

    not simply the sheer volume o data,

    but the act that the type o data com-

    panies must deal with is changing,

    says Clive Longbottom o advisory

    rm Quocirca.

    BlOBWhen it was rows and columns

    o gures held in a standard data-

    base, lie was relatively simple. It

    all came down to the speed o the

    database and the hardware it wasrunning on.

    Now, more and more binary large

    objects (BLOBs) are appearing in

    databases, which require a dierent

    approach to identiying and report-

    ing on what the content actually is

    and in identiying patterns and mak-

    ing sense out o what this means to

    the user.

    As eorts to come to grips with big

    data begin to move out o the science

    lab and into company data centres,

    another problem is looming: a lack

    o people with the right skills. Peo-

    ple with the know-how to exploit big

    data will be in short supply or some

    time to come.

    Nonetheless 38% o organisa-

    tions surveyed by TDWI Research

    reported that they were already prac-ticing advanced analytics, whereas

    85% said they would be practicing

    it within three years.

    Over hal o the organisations are

    contemplating platorm replace-

    ments to get a platorm that perorms

    well, handles diverse big data or satis-

    es modern requirements or ease-o-

    use or sel-service, notes Philip Rus-

    som, a director o TDWI Research.

    While exploiting data eectively

    may be the modern day equivalent o

    the alchemists dream o turning base

    metal into gold, it also carries risks.

    The increasing incidence o cyber

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    INDUsTRy vIEW: comPUTacenTer

    Computacenters Datacenter Solutions Dir

    Neill Burton, outlines how making the righ

    technology investments now can help incr

    utilisation and decrease costs

    Whats in store or storage?

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    Neill Burton

    Director

    Computacenter

    Datacenter Solutions

    crime means that corporate data is

    more than ever under threat rom

    hackers bent on industrial espionage,

    sabotage or raud.

    Greater use o mobile devices and

    social networking are major actors in

    a rising tide o cyber crime, according

    to security sotware company Norton.

    Malware and viruses remain the com-

    monest type o activity, ollowed by

    online scams and phishing messages.

    There are now over 280m dierent

    varieties o malware in circulation, a

    rise o nearly 20% in one year, says

    Norton. Cyber crime cost the UK an

    estimated 27bn last y

    ing to the Governmen

    Cyber Security.

    Companies looking

    big data will need to se

    selves against these thr

    are to exploit the hug

    o detailed inormatio

    already capturing.

    It will be worth the e

    insey & Company is righ

    set to become a key ba

    petition, underpinning

    o productivity growth,

    and consumer surplus

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    iT TransormaTion

    Cloud computing has been heavily

    hyped as a way or organisations to

    ditch their own IT systems and move

    to a cheaper style o computing over

    the web or on a virtualised system in

    house, but there is now a hot debate

    about how ar and how ast it is possi-

    ble to move to the public cloud.

    Many organisations are resolv-

    ing the question by creating hybrid

    clouds that combine public and pri-vate services; sorting applications

    into those that can be entrusted to

    the public cloud and those that must

    be kept securely in-house.

    The hybrid cloud is a combina-

    tion o dierent technology and ser-

    vice elements that allow you to shop

    around, says Neil Thomas, Cloud

    Product Manager at Cable&Wireless

    Worldwide. We are moving into a

    situation where applications are just a

    workload that can be moved rom one

    cloud service to another, whereverthey are, in a private or public cloud.

    There are good reasons why organi-

    sations should keep applications in

    house using their private cloud. First

    they may have may have made big

    investments in their existing tech-

    nology inrastructure or be commit-

    ted to long term service contracts.

    They may also have security con-

    cerns or be bound by regulations

    that prevent them rom using a third

    party cloud provider.

    One o the key challenges or cor-porate IT departments, in act, lies

    in making the right decisions about

    what to hold onto and what to let go,

    writes Nicholas Carr in his book, The

    Big Switch.

    There is little doubt that the

    number o companies choosing to

    commit their inormation and IT

    resources to third party cloud pro-

    viders is growing: cloud adoption is

    set to double in Europe and North

    America over the next two years,

    reports the Forrester advisory com-pany in a recent report calledBuild-

    ing a Roadmap to Cloud Computing.

    hyBRId cLOud As cloud computing grows in importance peopleare looking at whether they should go or a private or publicinrastructure John Lamb asks whether it has to be one or the other

    hyBriD cloUD:poles aparT?

    An evolving landscape

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    Dominic Jones

    Director

    Products & Marketing

    Cable&Wireless Worldwide

    INDUsTRy vIEW: Cable & wireless

    BEgINNINgsInitially, cloud computi

    as a replacement or both

    ture, such as servers an

    as well as basic sotware

    The prospect o moving

    o in-house computer

    has appealed to smaller

    that lack IT expertise o

    to invest in expensive sy

    For this reason much est in cloud computing h

    around individual desk

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    orce automation and so

    The cloud service

    monly used by small a

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    remotely rather than

    drives, according to a s

    missioned earlier this ye

    alisation supplier VMw

    o public cloud applica

    as Google Docs, are ne

    productivity, solution

    to make ofce work mo

    Larger organisations

    use these application

    strapped IT departmenas a way o reducing t

    overheads by moving t

    you go model which al

    loads to expand and co

    demand and reduces cap

    iture on IT.

    However, many org

    remain concerned about

    ity and security o cloud

    vices and they are loath t

    sion critical services to

    suppliers. For smalle

    tions, products such as G

    are very useul, but or

    they dont provide a on

    JET

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    iT Transorm

    P ptppt b

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    Steve Hughes

    Principal Cloud SpecialisColt

    INDUsTRy vIEW: Colt

    Concerns over wholesale move

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    Mark Newton

    Regional Director

    UK and Ireland

    VMware

    INDUsTRy vIEW: VMware

    tion because o integration issues or

    security concerns, explains Thomas.

    Another issue that worries IT man-

    agers is the ability to comply with

    regulations such as the Data Pro-

    tection Act or the banking indus-

    trys Basel II rules that may require

    data to be stored in particular places

    and available within particular time-

    scales. It is difcult to satisy those

    requirements when data is held by

    a third party and could be physicallystored anywhere.

    fIT TO BURsTFor many organisations the pros-

    pect o putting their mission crit-

    ical applications in the hands o a

    third party provider is a step too

    ar, acknowledges Forrester. Cloud

    computing is seen more o a comple-

    ment to traditional IT and less o a

    replacement.

    Proponents preer to see the move

    to cloud computing as a journey that

    begins with an organisations sys-

    tems working in separate physical

    silos. They prevent applications rom

    being shared and keep a lot o pro-

    cessing power idle much o the time.

    The rst step or organisations is to

    virtualise their server estate, so that

    the server hardware can be used at

    higher levels o utilisation, applica-

    tions can more easily be transerred

    between hosts and also deployed

    more quickly and easily. It is a pro-

    cess that is well advanced in the UK

    public sector where up to a th o

    the services run by the UKs 2,000

    public bodies are virtualised already.

    Among local authorities the propor-

    tion runs as high as 40%.Virtual systems are a key element

    in using clouds o either sort since

    they allow applications to run inde-

    pendently o hardware and to be

    scaled up and down to handle peaks

    and troughs o demand. The irst

    step is virtualisation; it underpins

    all cloud applications, observes

    Thomas. It increases the mobility

    o your workload and allows you to

    move your computer services to the

    best place.

    Managing virtual environments

    requires users to set rules or poli-

    cies about the priorities that a sys-

    tem should ollow how it allocates

    resources according to demand.

    Once an organisation has got used

    to this quicker, policy driven way o

    working with virtual systems, says

    Forrester, it can move to a private

    cloud: a cloud run either by a third

    party or in-house or the use o a sin-

    gle organisation. Some commenta-

    tors believe that by virtualising part

    or all o your server inrastructure

    you have eectively created your

    own private cloud.

    Some organisations are now com-

    bining public and private clouds to

    create a hybrid using a technique

    called cloud bursting: a way o load-

    ing up a private cloud with critical

    applications and moving some o the

    processing to the public cloud when

    demand is excessive. Cloud bursting

    ensures that a private cloud is always

    used to ull capacity.(Whether you adopt a hybrid

    cloud) comes down to the question

    o do you really want to write new

    applications. Many say IT is not

    close to my business; others live on

    the web, says Steve Hughes, Prin-

    cipal Cloud Specialist at Colt. We

    work with inancial services and

    media companies that are looking

    at time to market rather than cost.

    Most o these companies have a

    oot in both camps. They use cloud

    services or version control, pro-

    totyping and proo o concept and

    internal cloud services or com-

    puter intensive applications.

    For cloud bursting to work suc-

    cessully, applications must rst be

    categorised into highly sensitive

    ones such as back oice processesand inancial bookings that must

    remain in-house; semi-critical work-

    loads, or example those involved

    with order management, that can

    be passed to a trusted public cloud

    provider; and non-sensitive appli-

    cations that can be handled by any

    public cloud provider.

    No doubt there will continue to be

    a shit to the public cloud, with the

    hybrid cloud model assisting with

    this transition. A lot o businesses are

    apprehensive about pushing busi-

    ness critical or sensitive inorma-

    tion into the cloud. Though or many

    businesses a hybrid cloud model

    oers the benets o both worlds/

    clouds, providing them with asso-

    ciated exibility and cost savings,

    says Simon Seagrave, a vSpecialistat EMC.

    The Isle o Man appears to have

    had little problem with its decision to

    move to the cloud. The Government

    o the island has just transerred its

    entire public services IT inrastruc-

    ture - running over 1,000 critical gov-

    ernment applications such as email,

    nancial accounting, customer rela-

    tionship management and health

    services - onto a hybrid cloud service

    in a move expected to cut operating

    costs by 15%.

    Implemented over ive months,

    the new public service inrastruc-

    ture has increased data availability

    and system perormance by a actor

    o eight, according the Isle o Man,

    while reducing operating costs by

    15%. Storage utilisation has risen

    by 40 per cent using the same

    amount o hardware as beore and

    the capacity o the Governments

    storage area network has tripled.

    The Isle o Man bought an EMC

    VPLEX virtual storage platorm

    with EMC Unied Storage. VPLEX

    analyses system usage patterns and

    automatically moves applications

    that are in-demand to ash drives orincreased availability. Demand or

    the Isle o Man Governments pub-

    lic service inrastructure varies due

    to actors such as seasonal tourism,

    shit work in government ofces and

    annual events such as the islands TT

    motorcycle race.

    By virtualising our entire server

    platorm and all service applications,

    the Isle o Man Government has sig-

    nicantly increased service levels as

    well as data exibility and availability,

    said Peter Clarke, Chie Technology

    Ofcer at the Isle o Man Government.

    Nonetheless, the move to the hybrid

    cloud is likely to be a s

    made all the more so b

    commitments which ha

    change, not to mention

    and ears about securit

    easy to turn on a dime. T

    ast because lots o this is

    long term contracts, say

    Head o UK Public Servi

    at VMware.

    Managing what are in

    lic clouds implemente

    is a highly technical p

    tools are vital to ma

    niques such as cloud bulier this year, VMwar

    ree sotware called vC

    nector that is designed t

    nesses transer virtual a

    between private and pu

    It is a real enabler or

    that want to use the hyb

    comments Seagrave.

    For the moment, ew

    have the expertise to m

    challenging cloud applic

    Forrester. There may b

    to go beore appreciable

    businesses are mixing th

    a matter o routine.

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    iT Transorm

    WORKInG TOGEThER Historically the CIO

    would ask or budget and the CFO would reuse.More recently they are discovering that astrategic partnership makes both worlds bettero.Jessica Twentyman investigates

    noT so DiviDeD ThecioandcFo

    IMAgE pROBlEMThe image problem that IT depart-

    ments ace is an issue that was also

    highlighted in another recent sur-

    vey o inance proessionals, this

    time conducted by US-based man-

    agement consultancy irm Oliver

    Wyman. Less than hal o respond-

    ents (47 per cent) said that they

    viewed IT as strategic, while 28 per

    cent said that the IT department

    merely ullls what is asked o it.

    To boost the IT departments pro-le, the CIO or IT director must lead

    the charge, CIOs must acquire the

    social and analytic skills share by their

    peers at the C-level, says Muller.

    They must also be able to speak in

    terms that the boardroom under-

    stands, adds Birley. To gain the

    respect o the CFO and other sen-

    ior decision-makers, the CIO must

    take the time not only to under-

    stand business drivers and busi-

    ness inancials, but also to put

    them into context in relation to

    how IT can support the business,

    he says. The CIO needs to be able

    to talk the language o business.

    With the CIO predominately pro-

    ject-based in their outlook, and

    the CFO value-based, he adds, a

    key challenge rom both sides is

    understanding the value in pro-

    jects and how the right projects can

    increase value.

    One key strategy or the CIO to

    interact with the CFO and senior

    colleagues is to ask or their input

    on the IT plans and ideas beore pre-

    senting them or approval, he sug-gests. By including the eedback in

    the nal presentation, they will gain

    the respect o their colleagues and

    are more likely to get backing or

    those plans.

    Costs are still a actor but are some-

    times over-emphasised. That kind

    o approach made sense 18 months

    ago, but as competition heats up,

    it doesnt seem like a ormula or

    growth, writes Muller. As an old

    boss used to say, you can never save

    your way to greatness.

    Instead, he suggests a new ormula:

    one that balances innovation and

    value created. For the ne

    years, at least, the role o

    be to navigate a practical

    rom the old paradigm, w

    every IT investment to

    balanced by anticipated

    move towards a new p

    which IT investments a

    by how much value they

    EMCs ONeill says bot

    evolved, and the best CI

    CFOs are adapting. P

    ing into the workplacecompletely dierent vie

    my generation had, he

    Y generation are used

    demand being the new

    its taken as read that a

    are plug-and-play with a

    being 24x7.

    Provisioning that is

    nesses are struggling w

    CFOs and CIOs need t

    doing the old school st

    governance, process an

    in a cost eective way b

    bling the creativity tha

    that new normal.

    co d cio

    u tt pt

    t t. T

    t t jt udtd

    iT pt t

    Per centage of It budget

    exPected to be sPent on

    cloud servIce In fIve years

    030

    50

    70

    90

    35 %

    30%

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    20%

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    Per centage of It budget

    currently sPent on cloud

    servIces

    030

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    20%40%60%

    80%90%

    % Of BUDgET

    20%40% 60%80%

    % Of BUDgET

    For Peter Birley, ormer CIO at law

    rms Eversheds and Browne Jacob-

    son and now a reelance interim IT

    director, the relationship between

    the inance unction and the IT

    department can be likened to a game

    o American ootball.

    The chie nancial ofcer [CFO]

    generally has a deensive strategy to

    ensure shareholder value, while the

    CIO has an oensive strategy to usetechnology to gain an edge.

    You have to ask: still? Steve ONeill,

    Senior Business and Finance Opera-

    tions Director or EMEA North at

    EMC, believes this sort o conlict

    should by now be history. The rela-

    tionship has gone through a unda-

    mental change over the last 5 years,

    he says. CFOs and CIOs are now

    a much more strategic part o an

    organisation. Rather than being all

    about costs, they need to understand

    the strategy o their business and

    how to drive growth with new go-

    to-market initiatives. The big issue

    now or them is to jointly understand

    how IT can be an accelerator to busi-

    ness growth.

    Others reinorce this idea. CIOs

    nding concordance with nancedepartments might even be a game-

    changer in career terms, accord-

    ing to Hunter Muller, management

    consultant and author o the 2011

    book, The Transormational CIO:

    Leadership and Innovation Strate-

    gies or IT Executives in a Rapidly

    Changing World.

    In todays hyper-competitive

    economies, its simply not accepta-

    ble or C-level executives in the same

    organisation to be competitive [with

    each other] they must strive to col-

    laborate, he says. Poor or sub-par

    relationships between the CIO and

    the CFO cannot, and should not, be

    tolerated by senior management.

    Frankly, the relationship between

    the CIO and the CFO is absolutely

    critical to the overall success o theenterprise, he says.

    EMCs ONeill believes it should

    go even urther. The relationship

    between CIO and CFO should be

    completely aligned with a common

    ocus on providing basic operational

    support through to clear strate-

    gic leadership to their businesses.

    Whilst cost will always be a driver,

    its not the be-all and end-all. They

    should be jointly thinking about how

    their processes and systems provide

    oxygen to their organisations

    through harnessing IT to provide

    scalability and agility whilst reduc-

    ing total cost o ownership in a green

    and sustainable way.

    In act the sort o radical change

    technology enables is oten best seen

    between the CIO and CFO, so there

    can be a really transormational

    strategy i they are working closely

    together, he says.

    But are technology leaders getting

    the respect and air hearing that

    they deserve? Recent research con-ducted by IT market research rm

    Gartner, the Financial Executives

    Research Foundation (FERF) and

    Financial Executives International

    (FEI) suggest not. In their survey

    o 344 senior nancial executives,

    these organisations ound that the

    CFOs inuence over IT is growing.

    In more than one-quarter o IT deci-

    sions, the CFO is the person who

    signs o investments, compared to

    only 5 per cent o CIOs who have

    the nal say.

    And while one-third o IT depart-

    ments report directly to their organi-

    sations CEO, 42 per cent are answer-

    able to the CFO. This high level o

    reporting to the CFO, as well as their

    inuence in technology investments

    demonstrates the need or compa-nies to ensure that their CFO is

    educated on technology, and under-

    scores just how critical it is that the

    CIO and CFO have a common under-

    standing on how to leverage enter-

    prise technology, says Gartner ana-

    lyst John van Decker.

    In turn, he adds, IT organisations

    must understand the CFOs views

    o technology investment decisions

    and must work towards developing

    a relationship with the CFO that

    resembles a business partnership.

    The ability o an IT department to

    interpret its relative strengths and

    weaknesses as opportunities or

    improvement, he suggests, will be

    a deciding actor in improving poor

    perceptions o the IT unction and

    developing a closer working relation-

    ship with nance.

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    iT Transorm

    Occasionally there are disasters in a

    business, or around it. For this article

    Raconteur spoke to people who were

    ust near the World Trade Centre onthat terrible 11 September; we spoke

    to people who had been involved in

    Hurricane Katrina and about how

    they managed to keep going.

    Probably nothing like that is ever

    going to happen to your business but

    dont relax just yet. We also spoke

    to people whod been involved in

    instances where a builder went

    through a data cable outside their

    premises, and the recovery and the

    strategies to avoid this becoming a

    crisis were similar. The headlines

    were grabbed to a smaller extent

    but the sense o a business acing a

    potential crisis was just as real.

    Naturally i youre likely to be

    involved in a disaster then the best

    time to start planning or it is well

    beore it happens. Kelly Ferguson,EMCs director o marketing or the

    backup and recovery systems divi-

    sion, looks at the backup options

    in the irst place. What we do is

    encourage customers to use next

    generation backup technologies or

    disaster recovery readiness, she

    says. What I mean by that is being

    able to store a copy o everything

    o site so whatever the cause o a

    disaster you can recover rom the

    alternative site.

    The idea is to replace tape with

    disk. Tape involves physically mov-

    ing tapes to an external site or dis-

    aster recovery, then in the event o

    a problem returning the tape to the

    ofce and loading it up again; there

    are a lot o possible issues in this sce-nario, not least o which is damaging

    tapes in transit or during storage.

    What were doing is deduplication

    rom a backup perspective so you

    only move data thats changed. It

    helps your disaster recovery because

    youre sending only a raction o the

    data over your bandwidth.

    EMC clearly does more than this

    and is very active in the cloud area

    and virtualisation, but or people

    who dont want to put everything in

    the cloud next generation backup

    technology is a good option to help

    you prepare or a recovery in the case

    o a disaster.

    Jiro Okochi is CEO and co-ounder

    o Reval, itsel a SaaS provider or

    integrated enterprise treasury and

    risk management but also a com-pany which was based very near the

    World Trade Centre when the planes

    hit and also a company operating

    when Hurricane Irene hit, as well as

    the New York blackout in the mid-

    dle o the last decade. His company

    was able to help customers through

    with Revals core product, Asterisk.

    Our clients were able to deault back

    to an Asterisk-based recovery cen-

    tre, he explains. This enabled cell-

    phones as well as IT to continue or

    a while. They were able to work in

    a lights-down-but-not-out way, he

    says. The trick is to ensure that all

    o your data is religiously backed up

    and that hosted applications work.

    Closer to home, in London, the

    same principles apply. Simon Baileyis head o IT at independent stock-

    broking and banking service Numis

    Securities, conrms that the com-

    panys building behind the London

    Stock Exchange is secure but that a

    business continuity plan is vital. The

    rst prong o this is to look into vir-

    tualizing the ofce systems with sup-

    plier Virtustream, and the second

    is a parallel, mirrored ofce system

    working on an osite data centre.

    We have that replicating in near real

    time rom our primary to our backup

    site. So literally, i theres some sort

    o major disaster, headline-grab-

    bing or otherwise, as long as people

    are still mobile they can walk to the

    second site and continue work with

    all o their networks and data

    intact. And i all that ell apart wedo backups every night to a data cen-

    tre we hope never to have to resort

    to using those backups, we want to

    rely on the real time replication.

    Use o the backup oice has

    become essential only one time

    during Baileys time with the com-

    pany. In our last rather more rudi-mentary oices we lost power or

    about our hours, and we were just

    on the verge o leaving the building

    when the power came on. It was a

    powerul reminder o how the belt-

    and-braces approach can be totally

    appropriate.

    There are a ew things every com-

    pany should be doing. Virtualising

    and going into the cloud will pro-

    tect against a lot o disasters, but as

    EMCs Ferguson points out, that

    doesnt reect where a lot o com-

    panies are in their technology just

    at the moment. This being the case,

    the important thing to do is to check

    on backups. Ideally replace disk with

    tape or media reliability; use dedu-

    plication that makes it cost eective

    to replicate data to another location,and make sure testing is carried out

    too many companies lose data and

    business because they nd, too late,

    that their backup media is aulty.

    BacK TO BusInEss Earthquakes, terrorist attacks, cut cables all can lay a companysconnections to waste.Guy Clapperton looks at what can be done to stop a crisis becoming a drama

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    iT Transorm

    Workspace, not workplace: thats

    the new mantra o orward-think-

    ing companies where business lead-

    ers know that its not where their

    employees work, but how they work

    that makes the dierence.

    Whether they are in an airport

    departure lounge, a conerence cen-

    tre, a clients ofces or simply in the

    study or spare bedroom o their own

    home, a new breed o employee a

    group sometimes reerred to as work-

    shiters - is increasingly demandingaccess to corporate inormation rom

    a huge variety o physical locations.

    In act, say workshiters, exibil-

    ity is key to their job satisaction.

    In a recent survey o 3,100 mobile

    workers at over 1,100 enterprises

    worldwide, conducted by mobility

    services provider iPass, almost two-

    thirds (64 per cent) report improved

    work/lie balance and more than hal

    (51 per cent) say that they eel more

    relaxed because o more lexible

    working arrangements.

    Those that arent oered ways to

    work more lexibly will vote with

    their eet, the survey suggests, with

    one-third stating that they would

    seek employment elsewhere.

    To bosses, that may sound like

    a threat but its an opportunity,

    too. Study ater study suggests that

    employees that work this way are not

    only more satised in their jobs, but

    more productive too.

    At BT, or example, exible work-

    ers are judged to be 20 per cent more

    productive than their oice-based

    colleagues. At American Express, tele-workers handle 26 per cent more calls

    and produce 43 per cent more busi-

    ness. Bosses at Dow Chemicals, mean-

    while, have calculated that average

    productivity has increased by around

    33 per cent since the introduction o

    its exible work programme.

    In all these cases, contributing ac-

    tors seem to be ewer interruptions

    and more eective time manage-

    ment, because better connectiv-

    ity means less time is wasted while

    sitting on a train, or example, or in

    the odd ree hour between coner-

    ence sessions.

    WhO, WhAT, WhENAND Why?From an IT perspective, however,

    much work is needed or a business

    to tap into the potential boost in

    productivity that the concept o the

    modern workspace promises. Above

    all, CIOs and their IT teams must

    have the right technology strategy

    in place to nurture and support the

    virtual workorce, rather than pre-

    sent hurdles that stand in the way

    o them getting work done.The rst priority is deciding how to

    develop the corporate IT inrastruc-

    ture in line with the workshiting

    trend, according to TJ Keitt, an ana-

    lyst with market research company

    Forrester Research.

    I business leaders and their coun-

    terparts in IT are to get in ront o

    this trend, they have to understand

    their mobile and remote work-

    orce, he writes in a recent blog.

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    ThE mOdERn WORKsPacE The space where you work is less likely tobe a single place than it used to be.Jessica Twentyman looks at some o thechanges taking place right now

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    iT Transorm

    For example, who is shiting

    between oice and home? What

    technology are they using to do so?

    Do they believe that the company is

    doing a good job o providing them

    with the policies and technology to

    work this way?

    Its a dangerous business to makeany assumptions when seeking the

    answers to these questions, accord-

    ing to Lisa Hammond, CEO o end-

    user computing specialist Centrix

    Sotware. When you start out on

    this kind o transormation, you

    should always start with a true

    understanding o users and their

    work styles, not devices and appli-

    cations, she says.

    In order to help companies achieve

    visibility into who uses what, when

    and why, Centrix Sotware oers

    an analytical tool that surveys all o

    the various devices (or end-points)

    that employees use in their day-to-

    day work.

    The results o such an exercise

    oten come as a big surprise to cus-

    tomers, says Hammond. For exam-ple, users may think that a corpo-

    rate laptop is the optimum device

    or them, but its increasingly likely

    that their on-the-move productiv-

    ity is based more on smartphones

    and increasingly tablets. One Cen-

    trix customer, she says, ound that

    three-quarters o corporate laptops

    were never used outside o its own

    ofce premises.

    Similarly, up to 50% o applica-

    tions installed across an enterprise

    desktop estate are never used at all,

    she claims. These orgotten appli-

    cations remain part o the desktop

    inrastructure; time and money is

    spent on supporting and maintain-

    ing them; they add unnecessary com-

    plexity to any desktop transorma-

    tion project. Companies that know

    exactly what they have installed and

    how, when and where it is used are in

    a better position to rationalise the

    sotware portolio. In the process,

    they recover budget that can subse-

    quently be used to und their trans-ormation projects, she says.

    yOUR vIRTUAl DEsKTOpHaving made a comprehensive

    audit o employee needs, its time

    to consider how appropriate levels

    o access might be delivered to each

    worker, regardless o their location

    or the device that they are using.

    Virtual desktop integration (VDI)

    technology provides a solution, by

    allocating each user a virtual desktop

    running on a server in the corporate

    data centre that can be launched,

    viewed and used as easily by a sales

    executive using a laptop in a coee

    shop, or a marketing executive using

    their smartphone at a conerence, as

    it can be by an ofce-based end-user.

    Because the virtual desktopremains in the data centre, VDI

    oers the right blend o reedom or

    the user and control or the IT team,

    says Dave Wright, vice president o

    technology services or EMEA at

    VMware.

    For some users, accessing sotware-

    as-a-service (SaaS) and other web

    apps is possible through a simple web

    browser running on any device, says

    Wright. For others, whats needed is

    a highly personalised, ull desktop

    experience capable o running across

    sessions and devices and in a variety

    o network conditions, he says.

    Desktop virtualisation delivers that

    but at the same time, keeps desktop

    images, applications and sensitive

    inormation on servers behind the

    corporate rewall to eliminate the

    risk o a security breach arising, or

    example, rom the thet o a laptop.

    Its one o the main drivers o d esk-

    top virtualisation, a market that has

    not yet achieved the same market

    penetration or visibility as servervirtualisation, but which promises

    to transorm that environment as it

    has done the corporate server arm.

    At analyst irm IDC, Ian Song

    expects the desktop virtualisation

    market to make signicant gains in

    both revenues and total customer

    count well into the second hal o

    the decade.

    Customers are intrigued by the

    possibility o a better desktop man-

    agement model and the operational

    savings that desktop virtualisation

    could deliver, he says. And one o the

    most attractive use-cases, it seems,

    will be keeping remote and mobile

    workers productive, but at the same

    time, compliant with their employers

    rules on inormation governance.

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    CONTINUED fROM pAgE 17

    The moDern worksPace:ThE OUTCOME Is OBvIOUs, BUT

    ThE jOURNEy Is ThE KEy.

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    Neil Pemberton

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    BT iNet

    INDUsTRy vIEW: BT neT

    PauLJacKsOn/ aLamy

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