• ViPR (pronounced Viper); The major announcement. EMC’s entry into the world of Software Defined Storage. ViPR will be (initially at least) an appliance designed to abstract the control plane and data plane. The control plane will effectively be a storage hypervisor, managing the storage (data plane) underneath, which on day one will be EMC’s VNX, VMAX or Isilon and any NetApp arrays, other vendors to follow. The Data plane can be commodity storage in the future. First products due to ship late 2013, so final verdict is reserved until then. Initial release sounds very much like a Gen 1 product, so expect push back from other vendors, but the roadmap sounds fairly compelling, and comes under the “product to watch” category”. Rumour has it that EMC belief this to be their best Gen 1 product yet released, and is their future. ViPR will offer pooled storage resources presenting Block, File and Object based presentation and include simplified management and automation. Full review in a separate post.
• Pivotal – Announced before EMC World, but had a lot of focus, Pivotal is a partnership between EMC & VMware with GE investing heavily, this is designed for next generation Cloud and Big Data applications. Pivotal splits into three areas; Data Fabrics, Application Fabrics and Cloud Fabrics. Pivotal 1 launched late 2013, again one to watch
• XtremIO – Available now in limited quantities but a big focus. EMC’s All-Flash Array (AFA). Provides a lot of the functionality expected of Enterprise class arrays, combined with very high performance. Want to see one? Contact me, I’ve got one!
• EMC Velocity Partner Program – the partner program changes to allow all partners to be “Business Partners” with specialities in relevant areas. Look out for Computacenter changing from one “Velocity Signature Solution Centre” logo to about 20 different Business Partner logos. Those PowerPoint slides suddenly got very busy.
• Isilon upgrades – Isilon is proving to be an excellent acquisition for EMC, look out for forthcoming enhancements including deduplication, auditing ability and integration with HDFS, combined with additional scalability. Also the required enhancements to the SynqIQ replication functionality are being delivered.
• SRM Enhancements – New suites of management products, sharing a common interface with ViPR. Let’s face it – these were needed.
• Continuous Availability enhancements – The ability to combine VSPEX + VPLEX is designed to eliminate complexity in this area for relevant customers
• VNX upgrades are on the way, but still under NDA (if you are internal ask me nicely)
• BRS (Backup & Recovery Services)  – Enhancement to the Data Domain range, with further development in Avamar technology means this remains a focus areas for both EMC and partners.

Summary; EMC World remains one of the Must-Attend events in the industry. Whilst some of the announcements are of future products which are work in progress, theses do give an insight into the direction the company is going. Joe Tucci stated that EMC will remain true to its roots, but with an increasing investment in software based products. EMC World proved a worthwhile investment in time.

In the world of data we are used to constants; Controllers that manage the configuration of the environment and the placement of data, disks grouped together using RAID to protect data and the presentation of this data to servers using fixed algorithms. In effect when we wrote data we knew where it was going and could control it’s behaviour, we could replicate it, compress it, de-duplicate it and provide it with the performance level it needed, and when it needed less performance, then we just move it somewhere else – all controlled within the storage array itself.

Software defined Storage changes this model; it can be thought of as a software layer, put in place to control to control any disks attached to it. The storage services we are used to (snapshots, replication, de-dup, thin provisioning etc) are then provided to the Operating System from this layer. This element of control software will be capable of sitting on commodity server hardware, in effect becoming an appliance initially at least, and will be able to control commodity disk storage.

This does not really constitute some of the features of storage virtualisation, where a control plane manages a number of storage resources, pooling them together into a single entity; rather it separates the management functionality removing the need for the storage controllers – the most expensive part of a data solution. Therefore one of the driving factors for the uptake of Software Defined Storage is an obvious reduction in cost, and the ability to provide data service regardless of the hardware you choose.

The challenge to this is that data should be regarded differently to other aspects of the environment; data is permanent, packets traversing network are not, and even the virtual server environment does not require any real form of permanence. Data must still exist, and exist in the same place whether power has been present or not. We are now starting to see a generation of storage devices, note I was careful not use the phrase arrays, which are looking more capable of offering a Software Defined storage service, through the abstraction of the data and controller layers.

So what does this all mean for storage in the datacentre?

My main observation is that physical storage arrays will be with us for a long time to come and are not going away. However the potential for disruption to this model is greater than ever before, the ability to use commodity type storage and create the environment you want is compelling. With the emerging ability of software to take commodity hardware, often from several vendors simultaneously and abstract the data layer then the challenge to the traditional large storage vendors becomes a real and present danger.

I believe the rate of change towards the software defined storage environment will ultimately be more rapid and see greater early adoption to the proven concepts of server virtualisation, it will cause disruption to many existing major vendors, but ultimately end-users will still require copious amounts of disk technology, so the major players will remain exactly that. Whilst some niche players may make it through the big boys will still dominate the playground.

However in recent years the market has changed and we no longer have the luxury of waiting for the annual Infosec to launch new products – they’re released when ready as competitive edge has become all-consuming and the threat landscape unrelenting in its diversity and evolution.  At least the latter is what vendors will have you believe - the truth is that security mitigation is becoming a commoditised landscape which is no doubt why certain vendors have stayed away in recent years. 

But commoditisation doesn’t meant that the problem is fixed – you know how to mitigate known threats  – it’s the unknown that’s the big issue.  If you’re going to Infosec the following should be on your to do list – if you want a differentiated view of the vendor landscape please feel free to contact me: 

• Ddos – Distributed Denial of Service Attacks – historically mitigated in the cloud – Ddos is getting smarter and moving closer to the application layer making it a harder problem to resolve in the cloud – a blended approach of on premise and cloud is evolving.
• APTs – Advanced Persistent Threats – those threats that we don’t know or have a method for detecting are those pieces of malware written by teams focussed on breaching an individual organisation – brand focussed and hell-bent on financial gain – ignorance is no longer a satisfactory excuse and IT Security teams have to have an answer.
• BYOD – Securing the device isn’t enough – If always on computing is going to become a reality we need to secure communication within the device and more importantly the applications communicating with one another on the device.
• Risk Based Computing – Security used to be built around trusted devices, secure connections and 2 Factor Authentication to identify the user.  The threat landscape has changed this – it’s about untrusted devices, enablement and did I mention threat mitigation?  A risk based approach to computing, enablement and threat mitigation is about to be released to the market – remember you heard it here…
• Cloud Computing – won’t become mainstream until we can secure the content – a cohesive approach to securing the cloud is the only way forward –naturally Computacenter has the answer. 

I’ll be at the show on Wednesday – for a lively discussion you can contact me through your account manager or this page.

Put simply, the wealth of digital information circling continually around the developed world could be classified as a fuel source utilised to drive everything from our social activity to the global economy. It now feeds the world, transported by IP networks and ensures we can consume the ever increasing volume of information created all the time, by everyone – everywhere. 

But should it really be called fuel, what does it drive or power? In this IT centric day and age it may be easier to describe what “Digital Fuel” doesn’t drive over what it does. And if we loosely align the “Digital Fuel” term with its fossil equivalent, what do we really understand about it? How is “Digital Fuel” generated and who dominates the supply chain? In the fossil fuel arena, certain geographic regions or nation states play a key role – does such a regional dominance exist in the “Digital Fuel” arena? And closer to home, as you read this blog, where does your “Digital Fuel” originate from – where is it refined and processed – how is it secured / stored?

For the purpose of this blog the term “Digital Fuel” is used as a play on words, analogous to other “powered” system based ideologies or indeed realities – but in a pause for deep thought the term may ring truer than initially considered.  As I sought to find additional insight to support the term “Digital Fuel” I located the following definition online in the midst of explanations aligning fuel with combustible fossil outcomes, Fuel -. something that nourishes or builds up emotion, action, etc.

Surely that definition resonates and could support the notion of “Digital Fuel” as information transported, realtime, all of the time by networks and now fundamental to our societal existence. But do you protect the pipelines or “networks” that deliver your “Digital Fuel” with the same level of diligence aligned with our fossil fuel pipelines – do you deem it part of your organisations “Essential critical infrastructure?”

If “Digital Fuel” really exists it raises serious questions of the use and importance of this fundamental and increasingly critical energy source. In too many circumstances the IP network readiness, design and deployment discussions are an afterthought usually well behind other more glamorous technology or business centric outcomes. BYOD, VDI, cloud computing, end user mobility, (I could continue) – all create, process and utilise “Digital Fuel”. But without a network fit for purpose, available and secure all of the time everywhere, the fuel delivery stops.  And with it so do we….

If you seeking business change and need more fuel, it’s time to make the IP network readiness conversation your first one not your worst one. If not how will your “Digital Fuel”, fuel?

Until next time

Colin W

Twitter @colinwccuk

In fact, successive Health Secretaries, and other NHS leaders, have often suggested dates by when the NHS must become paperless, and yet in 2013, we still have a mainly paper led system. Granted, there have been great developments in this – for example, most GPs work in a paper-light fashion, and referrals, results etc. are all moving to a more paperless system. However, paper – and other hard copy records (e.g. X-rays) – still exists in the NHS.

Most of the changes that have come about in the field have not happened due to some mandated requirement. Instead, they are often brought in by clinical and business leaders to solve real business and clinical issues. Paperless solutions can lead to a reduction in treatment/medication errors, quicker time to diagnosis, shorter time to treatment, more collaborative diagnostics (allowing a wider range of specialists to be involved) and overall better patient care.

From a business perspective there are a number of benefits. As well as reducing the time taken in certain business processes (look at how email has transformed the business world) there is greater traceability, more accuracy and an overall change in the behaviours of many organisations for the good. Unfortunately, the Health Secretary fell short of announcing any new funding to assist with the paperless NHS vision. And so, again, organisations will attempt to become paper-light through localised procurement and innovation.

There are many suppliers in the “paperless office” space and organisations need to ensure that they choose the right partner for what they are trying to achieve. The software solution alone is not the only consideration. What are you trying to achieve? Clinical notes digitisation has a number of specific issues which need to be carefully managed if the digitisation process is not going to negatively impact on clinical care.

Considerations as to the security model and the storage requirements will play heavily into the service definition, and it is often better to overestimate the growth of data by a small margin than to underestimate. Many vendors will offer an assessment as part of their overall offering.

Organisations need to be sure that they are looking at how and where the information will be required. Make certain that various clinicians are part of the working group which defines how the information should be used. Too often projects like this can become centred on the technology, when actually technology is just about enabling the change to information flows. Clinical participation is critical to service success.

With one week to go until the RSA Security Summit  – The world’s changing, IT security is evolving and if the vendors are to be believed there’s a Cyber War raging on the internet!  Distributed Denial of Service (Ddos), State led hackivism and the ever present Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) all challenge your business led initiatives of mobility and enablement against a backdrop of Governance Risk and Compliance and gaps will exist in most security strategies.

Welcome to the “New Normal” – we don’t know what tomorrow’s challenges will bring but here, today business outcomes need to be delivered and the conventional network led approach to security whilst necessary isn’t the most efficient route to success.  Computacenter is speaking at RSA’s Security Summit on the 22^nd April – come and hear about a different approach to resolving your security outcomes.

James

But all of that “usefulness” and “interesting stuff” does not come without concern. Use of the internet is for all intents, unpoliced, unlicensed and without service levels. For many the internet has been used to transport and transact virtually every form of digital information that can be encapsulated into an IP network packet. To that end the last decade has normalised the use of the internet for essential commercial and fundamental electronic communications – and in the eyes of many it is clear that we may now fail to function effectively without it.

It’s no longer just about technical topics like “internet security” or “latency”, but the quasi business aligned perspectives that include customer satisfaction, yield, loyalty, advocacy and customer retention. And magically, all of these elements are often realised at a marginal cost when compared to the “off internet” legacy approach.  This has propelled the internet to become a real “critical national infrastructure” element as essential to the business world as it is the personal world. But what happens if the internet disappears, fails, or is compromised? – dare we think of the day the internet finally “stops”.

Thankfully there are many supremely capable technical individuals around the world tasked with ensuring the internet doesn’t fail and due to inherent multiple levels of technical resilience, a full scale internet shut down is unlikely (but not impossible), however it is now a straightforward activity to shut down a corporate web server or the online presence of an organisation or group of organisations. The now infamous DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack is a commonly used approach to bombard a named web presence with unrequested traffic until it overloads and ceases to function.

Due to the essential commercial value delivered by corporate web sites and the financial revenue impact (and equally customer loyalty / goodwill) of a period offline, protection against DDOS and other malicious hacking approaches to take a web platform offline must now be fundamental to all. This week we have seen heightened awareness due to of one of the biggest cyber attacks of its kind involving a DDOS attack on a particular organisation at a level fourfold greater than had ever been previously experienced.  And for those aforementioned organisations underpinned by the internet, this mass DDOS attack has allegedly “slowed down worldwide internet traffic”.    

It may be time for you to consider a number of key points – is the internet an essential communications and commercial transport layer for your organisation?” and if yes, “What is the maximum period of offline activity could your organisation tolerate (i.e. no web presence, email availability or web access)?” and finally, “how slow is slower for your organisation when discussing internet related performance concerns”.

The web facing Internet presence of an organisation performs many key functions; most importantly acting as the prospect or customer initial “landing zone or gateway to the organisation”.  When discussing the corporate visibility on the net – now you see it, now you don’t is definitely NOT a humorous customer experience.

It’s time for DDOS protection for all.

Until next time.

Twitter: @colinwccuk

Raising a child has been one of the proudest moments of my life, and being a fan of technology and gadgets it was a given that my son would follow in my footsteps. Now my son is not even 3 years old yet, but give him an i-device and he is more than capable of navigating it to find and use what he wants. The thing is, he expects everything to work like an i-device. He touches and swipes on the TV screen and wonders why nothing happens and expects everything with a screen to respond to swipes and touches.

His frustration at the lack of continuity across devices reflects what I see and hear from customers with regard to unified communications and collaboration. I get questions such as “why can’t I perform what should be an easy task on device x that I can do on device y?” or “why do I have to do things differently at work from at home to get the outcome I require?“

The consumer world will always be more integrated and support a larger number of devices and features than corporate environments and this causes frustration, especially to the younger workers; this is for many reasons which we will not discuss here, but the way many modern businesses work restricts the adoption, interoperability or functionality of many modern collaborative tools and in turn their employees productivity, but that’s a subject for another blog.

What I like about i-devices is their ease of use, my son at 2 years old observed me using these devices and picked up the use of them pretty much instantly. Much of that comes down to the way that the user interface works. The other factor which is not specific to i-devices is that the user experience appeals to the senses to engage the user; I see and then I touch and something happens, sometimes visually, sometimes auditory or sometimes both, pretty much like reality. The virtual environment on the screen responds to your interactions just as you’d expect from the real world.

If we extend that to a wider audience, we get a similar experience with most of the tools that we use today, telephones all work in pretty much the same way, numbers remain the same, dialling is the same, email, text messaging, facebook, twitter etc. All function similarly in that the backend infrastructure can be accessed on many devices, be they tablet, phone or computer to provide mostly the same functionality regardless of the device used.

You could argue that it really doesn’t matter what device you use to create or access resources and information, as today most devices are good enough, and the user experience created by the application user interface is what separates a successful platform from an average one. Forcing people to change the way that they are and the way they work is not conducive to productivity. From my experience, good applications provide the best user interfaces to suit the device that the application is being accessed from. This is where I believe the future of unified communications will be. The device will simply become a tool that allows us to do what it is we want and need to do. The user interface and how it allows the user to access whatever, whenever will be the differentiator moving forward. Personally I can use pretty much any device to access what I need, what bothers me is badly written user interfaces  which prevents me from doing what I need to do or precluding me from accessing something because I don’t have the right device.

The challenge for application developers is to ensure that your user interfaces are usable and intuitive and that the back end protocols are inter-operable with other vendors; the challenge for Computacenter? Working with you to help guide innovation, change and collaboration without disrupting the workplace and making everything work seamlessly in the background so you don’t have to……

One way in which Acute Trusts and Mental Health Trusts are seeking to meet this challenge is to undertake Estates Rationalisation Programmes. Many organisations have a number of sites which are extremely expensive to run and are often providing limited services which can be carried out better in the community or linked with other NHS delivery to bring efficiencies.

For example, at some Trusts Community Nurses are based at a site where they have to attend each morning to log in to systems and collect their workload before setting off to see patients. At the end of the day, the clinician is required to return to the site to input the results of each clinical session undertaken, as well as ordering any follow ups required. This seriously impacts on the total time available to clinicians to meet with patients.

Technology can help. By making clinical systems accessible over mobile and wireless technologies in a completely secure and safe manner ensures that the clinician is able to access notes and patient details at the point of care. In the case of areas where mobile and wireless coverage is far from perfect (anything from rural areas to city centre housing estates and high rise blocks for example) systems can be made available in an “offline” mode. In this mode, the clinician still has access to information which is at most 24-48 hours out of date, but still very relevant to the patient.

The ability of these mobile clinicians not to have to come in to a “base” on a daily basis will reduce the amount of wasted time in travelling, and will increase total clinician-patient face time on a daily basis.

But Trusts need to think carefully about how this is achieved. Requirements of the Data Protection Act, the underlying principles of Caldicott and other NHS specific regulations around patient data security cannot be dismissed. The ICO (Information Commissioners Office) has been fining NHS organisations large sums for the loss of data, and so Trusts must ensure that data is fully secured both at rest and in transit.

Solutions will need to ensure that mobile devices (including BYOD devices) are properly secured and can be centrally managed – including full remote locking and remote wipe. In the case of clinical information, there is a requirement that the information is encrypted at all times. Furthermore, IT Directors and CIOs will have to ensure that such solutions are not open to “screen scraping” technologies.

But it is not only the information which needs to be secure. We also need to secure our staff. Clinicians are already vulnerable when out working in the community. Some are seen as targets for FP10 forms (prescriptions) or for possible drugs they may be carrying. Others invite attack simply for being a clinician. Equipping these staff with expensive mobile devices may increase the risk of muggings etc.

To prevent this, Trusts must employ strong lone worker solutions. A number of these are available ranging from solutions which are manual – based on mobile phone usage – to technically adept solutions which track locations (GPS) and have two way radio built into them which can be operated without patients/citizens being made aware. This then allows an emergency call centre to listen in to the situation and summon the appropriate assistance. The small costs of such systems and the decreasing costs of mobile solutions is quickly saved in the ability of organisations to reduce their estates footprint and to treat more patients in a shorter time.

But a word of warning. It is easy for CIOs and IT Directors to over-promise ROIs and perceived benefits of such systems. Any such implementation should be done in a phased approach allowing impact on services and savings to be correctly measured and monitored before a whole systems roll out. There are issues around ICT training, availability of hardware and solutions, security and even clinical adoption which need to be carefully ironed out before any programme is initiated. And one of the major reasons for failure of IT Programmes in the NHS? Clinician Engagement – the Trust must ensure that key clinicians who represent their areas are involved in the design and build of any mobile solution.

As an IT person, I can design a technical solution which will best meet the technical need – I cannot design a solution to be used in clinical areas without clinical input. I will only look at the technology, I need the clinicians to tell me how they work to ensure that workflows are logical to the use cases. Running a Proof of Concept with a partner of choice who is technology and vendor agnostic will allow Trusts to mix and match all solutions available to find the best approach for their specific clinical and business needs. Not all mobility solutions are the same, and not all security solutions are designed with the mobile workforce in mind. Overall, Trusts need to ensure that they select the right partner who is able to work closely with them to assist them in achieving their goals.

Now while you remove the cynical smile from your face, I thought there was a little more to the substance of this article. We all know that BYOD has reached the top of the hype curve and when you examine just how many Enterprise organisations have actually removed all of the corporately owned end user devices and let employees run their business from their own personal devices  -you’ll find that the answer is actually – very few.

I have been known to say on many occasions that ‘consumer IT’ and ‘BYOD’ are not the same outcome and here at CC we are definitely seeing a shift in our clients spend moving to more lightweight and touch enabled devices. However, we also see a range of new IT challenges — from security, compliance and management, to cost and human capital management, as organisations are rapidly forced to invest in some form of mobile device management (MDM). In a recent Gartner research note published at the back of last year they noted that MDM market has been growing, and will continue to grow in 2013, with the market size estimated at over $500 million, and more than 100 players!

The COPE article also stated that “Although a recent study shows that  77 percent of BYOD employees dislike the use of mobile device management (MDM) on their device, the “personally enabled,” or “PE,” aspect of COPE allows employees to choose the company-approved device they favour while also enabling them to use it personally and professionally”.

I can relate to this; as outside of the IT literate, high net worth and high fee earning individuals in an organisation – most would happily be given the right device to get on and do their job properly and accommodate for situations whereby they can access certain personal services if they want to (was it any different in desktop/laptop only days?).

However, there is clearly still some tension in reaching the right balance. Citrix recently published their quarterly enterprise mobility cloud report and one of the unexpected findings from the aggregated data showed that “Dropbox was on the blacklist, but was also one of the most heavily-recommended apps from enterprise IT (in the enterprise app catalog). This juxtaposition speaks to Dropbox’s simultaneous usefulness and risk! Organizations can’t decide!”

So how it for you? Is your mobile device strategy as clear as a bell or are you just about in a position to COPE? I’d be really interested in your viewpoint….

In recent years every mobility or BYOD discussion resulted in a “to MDM or not MDM” debate with the consensus MDM was a must have technology (whether it delivered all of the outcomes originally promised is the discussion of a future blog). However as we fast forward through the start of 2013 the BYOD topic now starts and ends with a debate about “wireless networking effectiveness”. In the time before the “mobility wave” the wireless LAN most commonly experienced by the corporate end user was a home based network of convenience deployed with simplicity in mind but often lacking in reliability.

But how things have changed, what was a useful add-on to the physical RJ45 cable based corporate LAN environment has now become the talk of the CIO agenda and potentially the bane of many CIOs lives. That same wireless network used by guests, learned end users (who knew how to sneak the secret passwords) and the handful of approved laptop users is fast becoming the defacto connectivity environment for most end users. Where is the RJ45 port on a tablet computer, or modern Smartphone – does anyone care? Why embrace the inflexibility of laptop use tethered via the physical RJ45 network port when it becomes free and supremely flexible when connected via a high performing wireless network environment. The behaviour of many of us in both personal and professional arenas toward wireless connectivity has changed. In previous years, the IT aware individual within a household configured and used the home wireless network due to awareness of it at work – now the generation Y/Z digital natives not only own the home wireless network for social, education and entertainment ideals, but equally expect it to exist all the time everywhere.

Searching for a wireless hotspot is a teenage norm and second nature to all due to the ubiquitous use of smart phones, tablets, hand held games consoles and all fundamental to a digital native personal or social existence. But it doesn’t stop there, the behaviour outlined previously synonymous with a generation Y/Z persona now exists within us all, from the seven year old expecting the ipad to connect to download the latest update to “Temple Run”, to the corporate professional checking into a hotel on business uttering those now all too common words at reception “what is the key for the wireless network”.  Do you ever remember the physical network deemed so fundamental to our work/home existence as the wireless network is today – it actually was, but in our minds it “wasn’t” and their lies the hypnotic magic of the wireless or WIFI network. This blog homes in on WIFI wireless networks but the ever reducing blur between WIFI and service provider 3G/4G networks forces us to summarise it all as “THE WIRELESS NETWORK” (not technically correct, but you get the picture).   

The wireless network underpins and enables the new world order, one where the end user can have the best connected experience of “ME” but at the swipe of a hand can choose to be part of a worldwide “WE”. That only works if the nothing stops connectively and no rules exist for connection (i.e. “it’s not available or limited to times, zones, locations”). The wireless network is already the primary network and with “gigabit wireless” coming soon destined to be so woven into the fabric of our personal and professional existence we face a “world wide stall” at times of wireless network failure. Some would say it makes the task of maintaining and securing these wireless networks far more important than we think. Uuummm, I think I can feel another blog coming on.

Until next time

Colin W

Twitter: @colinwccuk

But this blog is not about the ban as such, but new information about additional insight that validated or supported the merit of “withdrawal of work from home privileges”. It is rumoured that information gained from vpn logs (that record remote connections) highlighted a reduced use of the vpn platform, thus indicating little use of remote connectivity to the corporate network.

If we cast our minds back, IT logs were considered by many to deliver more hassle than value. Rarely was anything of use found within, but they still were key elements to be stored securely and reliably, as part of the backup regime. It’s true, database vendors have always utilised logs to good effect to aid with transaction integrity and recovery, but for the rest of the IT community, logs equalled hassle…

But in the case of the use of log data for evidence to support the “homeworking ban” or the forensic use of log information for analysis after a major security breach, and worse still the use of log information unbeknown to us for malicious intent to launch a security attack – these examples indicate there was always “gold in the hills” but few knew where to look.

System logs pretty much exist for all elements within IT systems, software, hardware, process, you name it, everything has one and often many logs that hold a treasure trove of insight for those clear on how to and what to look for. SIEM (security information and event management) platforms, deemed by many as the perfect tool to reactively and proactively interrogate log data and turn it into true business insight, are moving from desirable (unless PCI compliance forces their use) to mandatory corporate information systems. SIEM solutions are ideal for taking often meaningless IT system data and presenting correlated, relevant business insight.

Many of us lack the time to look in system logs, nor understand what to look for (and equally what to do when we find what we are looking for), so the deployment of a market leading SIEM solution will certainly provide all of the gain with none of the pain (the configuration and deployment headaches of old are long gone).

The moral of this blog, don’t presume because you may not know how or where to look, that the information doesn’t exist. You just need to know what you are looking for (and hope someone skilled isn’t looking before you find it).

Until next time.

Colin W

However in the case of the reported comments from the head of a leading technology company about advocating a employee “homeworking ban” that’s like swimming “up” Niagara Falls (think about it for a second).

All though at the risk of equally drowning in that “Niagara like” torrent, I do understand the comments made and potentially find elements of sense in the sentiment, but don’t agree with all of them.

Put simply, the comments are based on “logic” and ordered thought. The endless complaint of “21st century PLC” is the lack of person to person collaboration and corporate intimacy as we immerse ourselves in this IT rich, always on, “wired” world. For many the time span between speaking to someone else or a face to face interaction can be hours (sometimes when even in the same office) as we email and IM even the most complex of dialogue.

So the thought that reducing the distance between people and thus forcing them via proximity to be in the same place, “should” increase the opportunity to interact as human person to another human person. In yesterday’s world of poorly designed communications and collaboration technologies that either didn’t work or facilitated a poor end user experience, the theory of pushing people back to a central office to collaborate probably holds true, but is that really essential now?

We now have consumer communications and messaging technologies with levels of functionality and reliability so good that they are equally as viable in the enterprise (after successful tests and deployment in the most hostile of battlegrounds, the world of the teenager). We now have always on network connectivity so effective that the London 2012 Olympic games, one of the most information rich online events mankind has ever seen, barely registered a blip on the internet traffic Richter scale (from a negative impact perspective) and not forgetting we have a emerging workforce of tomorrow children so in tune with digital collaboration elements that they are their successful use is already second nature.

So to force people together in the same corporate locale to foster increased collaboration or community is surely no longer required because society has evolved to embrace different collaboration styles and operating modes – many underpinned by “boundary free”, always on collaboration digital methods.

The comments made by the leader of the aforementioned technology company potentially miss the double edged sword that this highly digital world increases end user productivity via a work wherever, whenever, on whatever ideal, but at the expense of a lack of demarcation between work and life (the worklife quandary). There is no global digital off switch for society or in many cases even a personal one. So a removal of remote or home working could hamper modern corporate productivity due to revisiting the ideals that work is a place rather than an activity.

However to come full circle in this blog and to touch on why I understand the comments made, “if work became a place again, and home a location to down tools, would that be such a bad thing ???”. Spend a moment to ask yourself and be honest with the answer… Maybe the “home working ban” isn’t totally of piste after all..

Until next time (and written from my living room)

Colin W

It’s been pretty interesting in the IT space too.  The rise and rise of Apple (that has understandably cooled down a bit of late), the continued pressing of the metaphorical self-harm button within HP and an emerging feeling that Microsoft’s continued success is inextricably linked to the success of Windows 8.

We’ve reached a fascinating time in the Global business environment.  On one hand, there’s no doubt that (some of) the big are getting very much bigger.  You don’t need to look further than the IT distribution channel to see a great example of this.  The ‘big 4’ of Arrow, Avnet, Ingram Micro and Tech Data are all acquiring smaller companies at a rapid rate in order to leverage economies of scale in global logistics, emerging technologies and vendor negotiation.  We’ve seen already huge companies such as Apple and Samsung (deliberately put in the same sentence!) grow significantly this year and both lead with hardware.  In a world where purportedly you “have to be in services to survive”, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for Apple and Samsung to take exception to this (Lenovo might join them).

On the other hand, some big companies have failed to capitalise on their position and or messed up strategically.  Notwithstanding HP’s woes, the ‘best’ recent example I can think of is Kodak.  The once globally dominant imaging company and inventor of digital photography kept digital on the back burner for fear of ruining their lucrative film margins.  Companies such as Canon and Nikon embraced digital and were soon followed by many others.  The rest as they say is history, certainly for Kodak.

Technology companies of all sizes are being acquired by larger players, often for what appears to be incredibly high valuations.  There’s a feeding frenzy going on and if you’re not in the thick of it, you’ll be left behind.  Or will you?  I would humbly suggest that HP succumbed to this frenzy during Leo Apotheker’s brief but calamitous reign at HP.  The recent $8.8bn write-down of their Autonomy acquisition (following a similar $8bn action on EDS) left Meg Whitman and her management team with a mighty task of re-establishing HP’s credibility.  Is it even possible to think that its future independence is in doubt?

It’s impossible to avoid Cloud at the moment and bemusing that an industry – that’s managed to confuse more people through the use of jargon and acronyms than any other – has now created a whole new market for a service that’s been around for years.  Still, once a good idea always a good idea and because of Cloud, lots of new businesses have been and will be created developing ideas and alternate solutions that challenge the established companies, including Computacenter, to up their game.  This should be good for the most important people in all of this, our customers.

The reason I love this industry is that although it excites and frustrates (often in equal measure!), it’s never, ever dull.  With emerging trends such as BYOD, Automation & Orchestration, Software Defined Data Centres, Mobilisation, Analytics, not to mention Cloud, this trend is set to continue.  For this reason alone, I’ll take 2012 as a step in the right direction and if I could have just two wishes for the coming year, it would be a return to stability for the Eurozone and a return to form for HP.

Wishing you a happy and peaceful festive season and successful 2013.

Often luck and good fortune ensures the acquisition finds its niche and delivers value (and in many cases not the originally envisaged value but at least some value), in all too many other cases the value can’t be realised, the introduction of a “somewhat distorted” solution adds to the overall complexity across the estate and any likelihood of an ROI just isn’t a discussion.

This journey through the dawn of this IT centric business revolution was previously acceptable, at times the norm and viewed humorously because it was all too common. However in these times of austerity, IT complexity, and the need for “accelerated time to value or real world ROI”, white elephant IT purchases can greatly hinder an organisation and its market leading aims.

The solution is not a difficult one, but does involve a behavioural and psychological shift. It means IT decisions made for technology reasons (upgrade, end of product life, new model) without a business impact analysis should be referred for further scrutiny. And that scrutiny whilst best validated via robust financial ROI aligned ideals could equally be driven via a more operational “value based” validation that may be less numerate (for the non accountants) but will still calibrate technology introduction and change against a realisable “business related” outcome.  You may say, this is surely the norm today and at times you will be correct, but all too often ROI & benefits realisation become afterthoughts over “get the solution in and get it in now !!”.

The onus is on IT systems integrators to help customers via intelligent probing, consultative solution sales engagements and “thought leadership”, to hold all accountable for the measurable benefits expected from the solution. As market aware trusted advisors that’s the minimum duty of care that will not only spotlight “business transforming” systems integrators from general services providers, but equally deliver the success criteria that both the customer solution buyer and systems integrator should measure success.  Its the Computacenter way…..

To return to the start of this blog, great systems integrators like Computacenter will ensure not only your “IT” clothes fit but you will look and feel good in them too (increasing your likelihood of trading with that systems integrator again).

“Happy IT solutions shopping”

Until next time (Happy Christmas and get ready for a fantastic 2013)

Colin W

Twitter @colinwccuk

In Q1 2013, RIM are to release their first generation of Blackberry 10 devices.  Blackberry 10 has long been touted as the next big thing from RIM, but will it be enough to arrest the decline of the last 5 years?  Or will the problems they’ve suffered the last year with very embarrassing service outages, a tablet product that was an undeniable flop commercially and the rise of BYO programs finally bring to an end this once unassailable organisation?

Blackberry really brought corporate email and calendaring to the mainstream and was responsible for the wide scale birth of mobility for corporates.  It was secure, it worked well (though let’s not talk about calendar synchronisation), had a proper qwerty keyboard that enabled you to type mails really well for a small mobile device.  It provided predictable mobile and data cost plans from a CFO point of view, removing the spiralling uncertainty of other mobile service offerings. 

Over the last 2 years with the rise and rise of BYOD programs, more and more organisations are opening up user device choice for mobile phones (though not for computers, we’ll cover that another day).  We’ve seen many corporates move from Blackberry onto MDM enabled programs (such as Good technology), whereby they can provide secure, controlled and auditable mail calendaring & intranet services but on a wider portfolio of device choices. Blackberry, whilst once innovative and cool, is now the much maligned device that is no longer in vogue, and doesn’t provide well integrated services or the user experience of Android, iOS and Windows Phone.

Mobile phone technology is still in the main a disposable technology rather than a strategic long term platform choice of something like an organisations CRM platform.  Every 2 years or so we dispose of these older devices, and move onto the fashion item of the moment.  iPhone has transformed the user experience of mobile devices, initiating the wide scale improvements we’ve seen in user interfaces and provided a benchmark for ease of use.  BB10 has a tough act to follow as it looks to improve on previous incarnations and meet the expectations of its once adoring user base.  With a market increasingly driven by the cool factor and demanding constant innovation though, RIM needs to address the perception that in the last few years they have really failed to deliver in either of these two areas with any real success.

With the increasing rise and domination of Android in the wider mobile phone sector,  Apple establishing itself as the premium brand product of choice and Microsoft finally having developed a corporately integrated secure mobile phone platform with Windows Phone 8 that end users doesn’t want to set fire to (Windows mobile 6 anyone?), what is it going to take to stop the rot for Blackberry? 

RIM’s market USP’s are no longer unique.  The network providers now provide good data tariffs at fixed prices, and importantly at very affordable prices.  It’s possible to provide a compliant secure corporate experience via an MDM product, and the mobility space is fast moving onto data sharing across multiple devices, integrating into corporately application delivery eco systems, none of which Blackberry can do on any other platform than their own (despite what they say).

RIM really can only rely on some really compelling corporate integration features, opening up their technology stack to support further mobile device platforms to be managed and secured and probably offer their devices at an extremely low price to be able to maintain any level of corporate adoption.  They’ve got to find ways to get developers to bolster the platforms application portfolios considerably (currently around 60k apps – a long way short of IOS, Android or even Windows mobile) or the long term sustainability of RIM lies in the balance.

It appears RIM have a long way to go to turn around the oil tanker, (just look how long it’s taken Nokia to get to the bottom of the curve), so let’s hope (for their sake) that BB10 offers some inspiration for the world at large to remain with them.  Right now, if you’re currently reviewing your approach to corporate corporately provided devices and like most you’re a Microsoft house then Windows Phone 8 looks like a very interesting proposition indeed.  For wider corporate choice, BYO still remains the fruit fly feasting on the remains of the once ripe and plump blackberry.

As a result, we’ve been busy this year developing our capabilities around helping our clients to manage and control their software estates.  We understand that the cornerstone of developing a Software Asset Management (SAM) strategy is to create an Effective License Position (ELP) i.e. understand what you have actually purchased versus what you are actually using versus what you actually need. It is also becoming increasingly more difficult to develop this multi-dimensional view as it contains aspects of commercial and technical information and can span assets that cover a wide and distributed estate.

To this end, earlier this year we launched our C3 Software service which is a suite of SAM services that can be delivered either as individual components or as a complete solution through Computacenter. Stage one of developing an effective strategy is to provide the visibility of the licenses that have been procured and acquired across the business. To cut the time and expense associated with developing this view, we have worked with one of our partners - License Dashboard to build this aspect as a “cloud” service where we have taken all of the pain associated with designing and staging the platform and turned it into a secure, accessible service that can be procured and used on a consumption basis . This easy-to-use deployment model and interface enables any organisation to start taking control of the full ISO/IEC 19770-1 Software Asset Management life-cycle without needing extensive, in-house license management knowledge or invest in significant infrastructure.

We think it is a service that many of our customers could benefit from and with the growing list of challenges in:

• consumerisation
• data storage & retrieval
• mobility & remote working
• workplace modernisation
• and not to mention “the cloud”

The need for an organisation to develop an ELP that can cope with this diversity is only going to grow and we don’t believe that any other solution can  help build an ELP faster!

We’ve been delighted by the response to our service and while we are on-boarding our first clients we were also thrilled to win Innovation Partner of the Year  at the recent 2012 License Dashboard awards. If you are interested in learning more, you can read about our wider C3 Software solution approach in our online Briefing Guide here

The move to Windows 7 or Windows 8 away from Window XP is an emotive decision for many customers. They can often feel forced to migrate and can struggle to identify the material benefit of migration. This is certainly true in terms of pure direct cost savings against the cost of transformation.  But fiscal benefit is of course completely separate to improving the experience of users and the material improvements in functionality and supportability which Windows 7 or 8 bring.  So are Microsoft unreasonable in wanting to move on and force their customer base to migrate?

Windows XP was released in September 2001 therefore By the time Windows XP becomes end of life (EOL), it will have been a supported product for 12.5 years.  Usually Microsoft only support a product for 10 years, and they would argue (with some justification) that they’ve gone the extra mile with Windows XP support already.  The main reason Microsoft remove support of a product though is because of the costs involved in having to support so many platforms and retrofit those platforms to accommodate new products and technologies.

Microsoft release new versions of products every 3 years, (a situation caused by EA agreements and software assurance rights) and so for Microsoft to have teams that support so many platforms (currently Windows XP, Vista, 7 & 8) it inevitably becomes  commercially unviable.  I also wonder (* Car Analogy Klaxon *) how many of us drive cars even 5 years old, never mind 12 years old? Yet we might consider running our business on software and technology that was developed over 10 years ago?

If you’re a customer considering staying on Windows XP, why move?  Inevitably, the eco system around Windows XP platforms will close. Your organisation will be forced to change in time.  Software vendors (for the same reasons as Microsoft), want to call time on older, legacy versions of their products too.  Hardware vendors (and it’s already happening), will not provide drivers and downgrade rights to older versions of operating systems on newer equipment.

All that new equipment you were thinking of buying in the next year or so but downgrading to Windows XP probably won’t be able to run Windows XP.  Also, it should considered that whilst it might be possible to sweat an asset for an indefinite period of time, (until it fails) at some point support and maintenance of really old equipment actually starts to cost your business more.  Effectively you’ll be paying more for support, to stay still technologically, whilst your competition embrace modern workplace working practices.

So, you’re thinking about taking a custom support agreement (Microsoft jargon for extended support)?  Well, if you’re an enterprise organisation, you’re going to be looking at 7 figures minimum per year, (and I’ve seen a customer that’s been offered 3 year extended support for an 8 figure sum).  There will be also be additional costs for customers who  request hotfixes and security patches as well.

All good things come to an end.  Windows XP has served the business world well, but inevitably technology vendors improve and enhance their technologies based on feedback and requirements from their customers.

Whilst it might be possible to put off the inevitable for a short period, the reality is that moving from Windows XP must happen at some point in time. My recommendation to any customer would be start planning to migrate off Windows XP if you haven’t already  and consider using that contingency/extended support fund you would have used to stay on Windows XP and get on with the business of migrating.  Migrating any volume of users before the EOL date of Windows XP has to be better than none.

…..and finally, if you have to make a change, make it a good one. There are many benefits and opportunities available to your business in moving to a new platform, make sure you understand what they are and communicate them. Show your user community that this change is a positive one for the business.

“ Data is the new oil”

“The most valuable currency in the world is not money, it’s information”

– A couple of great quotes written by people much more eloquent than me. However I do have one of my own ;

Data is the new rock’n’roll

Just as rock’n’roll transformed music scene the use, and future potential use, of information is dramatically changing the landscape of a data centre. Historically the storage array was effectively the drummer of the band, required but sitting fairly quietly in the background, and whilst a vital component it was not necessarily the first thing people thought of when putting the band together. Even now, if you look at a picture of any band, the drummer is the one hanging about aimlessly in the background, try naming the drummer in any large and well-known bands; it’s much harder than you think. And so it was with storage and data; the storage array would sit somewhere towards the back of the datacentre whilst the shiny servers were the visible component, and the items that got the most attention.

As we hit 2013 that all changes; the storage array is the Kylie of the datacentre, it’s the sexiest piece of equipment in there. And so it should be given that upwards of 40% of a customer’s IT budget is spent simply on provisioning the capacity to house data.

At Computacenter, we’ve made a large investment in our Solution Centre. Whats sits in the front row now? Of course it’s the data arrays; with the latest technology from EMC, HP, HDS, IBM and NetApp all showcased. Why is it front row? Obviously as it’s the most important component of any solution nowadays. And of course, it looks sexy, or is that just me?

The storage array is now front and centre, it’s the first component to be designed when re-architecting an environment. Why? Simply because a customer’s data is their most valuable asset, it’s transforming the way people do business; it’s changing the way we interact with systems and even each other, your data is now the lead singer in the band.

Data is the one thing that is getting attention within the business; it’s the one thing you have making the front pages of “Heat” magazine – Where’s it going? What’s it doing? Is it putting on weight? Is it on a diet? What clothes is it in? Should it be in rehab? But as the manager of the data (or the band) there is one simple question that you want answered; how do I make money out of it?

And that, dear reader, is the $64,000 question. The good news is that is becoming ever more possible to use your data as a revenue generation tool, we are only starting to see business value being generated from data, as 2013 progresses we will see some niche players mature (and possibly be acquired), we’ll see an increased push from the mainstream vendors and we’ll start to see ways of manipulating and using data that we just couldn’t contemplate when the storage was simply providing the rhythm section.

Even converged systems, the boy bands of the decade, which perform in harmony always have one better singer than the rest, well he’s the data

So: Compute, Networking, and Software, the gauntlet is down; Data is the new rock God, it’s the Mick Jagger to your Charlie Watts, you want the crown back? Come and get it, but for now it’s all mine.

All the data architects out there can join me as I sing (with apologies to Liam & Noel) “…Tonight, I’m a rock’n’roll star!”

It’s no coincidence that any new version of Windows is ready and available to supply to Microsoft’s OEM channel partners in September of any given year.  Christmas will soon be upon us all, and there are presents to be bought, whether for loved ones (or ourselves!) and this gives you a good indication of who Windows 8 is primarily aimed at in this first wave of enablement.  In fact, (as warned previously), you’ll no doubt have seen the Windows 8/Surface/Windows 8 phone campaigns begin in earnest, entirely to this end, to sell to home/consumer users. Uptake in consumers drives uptake in business, a lesson that Microsoft learnt a long time ago.

With Windows XP the predominant operating system for the vast majority of the remaining 50% of companies yet to upgrade, and with Windows XP support ceasing in April 2014, that gives these customers around 16 months with which to try and get off the older platform if possible, (of course, some won’t make it in time given their organisations size and plethora of legacy applications).  A typical 2000 seat organisation for reference takes around 12 months to plan, design, test, enable and deploy Windows 7; though don’t quote me if you don’t plan and prepare well enough. (You’ve been warned).

Windows 8 clearly brings some very attractive features for enterprise, specifically of interest are the following : -

• quicker boot up, stability and performance of the OS
• Improved security
• The improved search function (which is really excellent)
• Internet Explorer 10
• Longer support lifecycle(remember it’s 10 years from release for any MS product)
• Windows 8 to go – allowing boot from USB drives
• Internal application store for self service applications of your apps
• Touch UI for touch enabled applications (such as Office 2013)

Having used Windows 8 for some time now, (on both touch optimised device, and non-touch optimised device), without doubt, Windows 8 is better with a touch experience.  Yes, the Windows Modern UI is excellent, but there are functions and features you still need a keyboard and mouse for to make the experience less irksome.  Secondly, there is a learning curve with Windows 8; things aren’t where you’re going to expect them to be or do what you expect them to do sometimes.

As an example when I gave my wife a Windows 8 device initially, she didn’t like the experience at all, yearning for the ways she’s used for as long as she’s used a PC (which is a long time….. ).  Other experienced long term users  of Windows also report much the same, (me included).  With consumer deployment well established in perhaps 12 months’ time you’ll probably not have this problem but if you’re considering going early, you’ve got to consider the learning curve and factor in additional training costs.

Finally (as this is just a blog, not a whitepaper), it’s likely your existing hardware estate of the last few years will support Windows 8 right out of the box, in fact, I doubt you’ll struggle to make it run on equipment of up to 5 years of age, these devices however won’t have touch. The early devices that have touch are going to be great, but will be improved upon, and of course, importantly will come down in price, so again, Windows 8 touch optimised kit will come with a premium on your typical laptop cost of say £500 per device, with many slates likely to be £800 and upwards initially.

Right now, it’s most likely that Windows 7 offers most organisations the best choice for their corporate desktop deployment and Windows 8 for slates, Ultrabooks and touch enabled devices.  Windows to go might also offer you some benefit for flexible/home working practices (without the cost of additional hardware supply on the company’s part).

Windows 8 offers some great technology and features, but the added time, complexity of readiness (some features) and costs involved just make it another unnecessary time delay and barrier to deploying a supported and stable platform.  For these reasons; unless you have specific scenario that would be of benefit on Windows 8, Windows 7 remains my recommended platform of choice for the vast majority of your business.

Before we begin though, let’s start of by saying that I’m not going to discuss the device/hardware and app store, let’s just leave it at ”the external reviews on hardware are all about right”, (it’s beautifully designed and executed), the touch keyboard really is very workable and usable, and far superior to any iPad keyboard, and there aren’t loads of apps yet, (come on, it’s only been out two weeks, give  it 6 months. iPad had no apps for ages either, and up scaled/stretched iPhone apps don’t really count), those that there are beautiful on the whole (think flipboard cool).

So, why did I buy one?  Well, my iPad is just over 2 years old now, and to be honest, it’s not been performing well of late. Since I moved to IOS 5, application crashes are very frequent, and I’ve found it less and less enjoyable to use. Perhaps time for a new iPad then or maybe something else? Well, I checked out Nexus 7 (and they’ve just released Nexus 10), a good product for sure but whilst in US I visited a Microsoft store and well, the rest is history. I was won over by the device after 10 minutes, add in a nice dollar/pound rate and the deal was done.

What will I use it for?  Well, it’s a consumer device, (as is iPad), and I anticipate using it for a mixture of consumer stuff, and some day work usage. When I recount what I used my iPad for, I used it for the same, email at home, and a day trip device, rather than carry a full laptop. What I didn’t use it for was any creation, (I’m not a big fan of iPad keyboard and autocorrect), so as a basic consideration  does Surface do those things well enough?

How does it cope? Surprisingly well…… Surface comes with Office 2013 installed (preview to be upgraded to full version soon), so document creation is easy. (this article was written in Word 2013, then copied into the WordPress RT App). Integration into corporate exchange by ActiveSync is faultless.  Mail and Calendaring application, (it doesn’t have outlook), are as functional as iPad versions and the calendaring function is more reliable than iPads. Integration into Office365 is really excellent, (both Lync and SharePoint document access easy in addition to email) Citrix receiver is also available, though I’ve not tried that yet.

Where Surface works really well is the new combination of Windows 8 RT and the keyboard/touch interface, you end up evolving your interaction with the device, combining the Windows 8 UI and charms and touch/keyboard options.  As an example, when using the browser if you want to move to another page, you touch into the text box and then type.  If you want to go back a page in the browser, well that’s just a sideways swipe. It works really easily and beautifully, though there is a learning curve which is much steeper than iPad.

Keyboard and kickstand make the device lap or desk friendly, stable, and very usable. The really useful piece for a corporate addendum device comes in the fact the device has some really useful helpful features.   Firstly it’s got a USB port, so you can add devices to it.   Although it doesn’t have an Ethernet port, you can add one via USB, a useful feature given most companies in the UK don’t have wall to wireless.  Secondly, when I returned home and added the device to my network, it scavenged the network, found my wireless printer, and automatically installed the drivers for me. Printing without challenges. Try and do that on an iPad.

So, what’s not so great?  Surface is most certainly not a portrait device as it sports a 16:9 ratio screen, unlike iPad’s 4:3, (think old television versus new flat panel ratios).  Designed for watching films and such. It can run in this orientation, but it feels odd. If you’re an organisation that’s invested in MDM products, it’ll be a little while till Windows RT is supported I expect.  Microsoft licensing on RT means in theory you can’t legally use it to create documents in a work environment, (silly idea, I know). Corporate integration fully is just as painful as iPad, it can’t authenticate  against AD, and you can’t just point at your CIFS file servers or SharePoint servers.  The apps catalogue is thin on business tools and whilst it supports handwriting, there’s no digital stylus to actually handwrite into OneNote or Evernote (both of those apps are available already)

Is Surface a better addendum device than an iPad, in many ways, yes!  In some ways it provides exactly the same challenges for corporate integration, though with less MDM integration options in the short-term. It’ll be my new addendum device for a while, (neither iPad or Surface RT could be your only device) and we’ll  see how it pans out, though what’s really exciting is going to be the full Surface Pro (and other Intel based devices), which will be available in Jan/Feb and will come with the same strengths as RT, and fix many of its challenges.

One thing’s for sure though.  It’s going to make for some interesting challenges for selecting the right slates/tablets in 2013 for your business.

The role of a CIO or head of networking is evolving at a rate that is difficult to comprehend. What was once an IT role, then one of IT & business alignment and more recently IT & business innovation, is now all of the above and more – put simply it’s clear the outcomes expected from a CIO or networking head are now very different from yesteryear. Where do you fit in within the current state of flux, how do you “deliver” today whilst “appraised” of tomorrow?

The network is your friend not foe and holds many of the keys that will help to propel both you and your business forward. Fifteen years ago the network as we know it delivered connectivity often underpinned by tremendous operational stress – whether physical layer reliability issues (cabling), technical issues (some elements just didn’t work), or logical layer complexity issues (at the time much due to a lack of knowledge), the network for many was a necessary evil that only became important on failure.

If we fast forward to now, the network is currently one of IT’s biggest discussion topics – and the power of the network “helps to makes IT/us work in previously unimagined ways” – users require applications and services that turn human desires and outcomes into business logic (and vice versa). The network is the transport allows that interaction anywhere, everywhere, all of the time. Surely that means “tomorrow’s CIO – today” has a different relationship with the network than their predecessors as it is now a fundamental enabler of business change and execution. Equally that makes the networking head or aligned CIO key to the success of both today’s and tomorrow’s organisation.

It can no longer be just a discussion about cost, performance, reliability, flexibility, vendors, support – it’s all of the above and more but driven by a “relentless” appraisal of the business outcome desired followed then and only then by the conversations about network features and functionality. All too frequently the cost, feature / function discussion occurs far too early in the solution cycle and brings with it the potential to close the door on those dynamic “what if and how can we” outcome aligned conversations.

With all in mind the question is posed again, “are you tomorrow’s CIO today” and if so how WILL you leverage the network to deliver “tomorrow’s outcomes – today”. Now that’s real competitive advantage both for you and your organisation – and it will truly make you “tomorrow’s CIO right now”.

Many many moons ago with the series of milestone adverts featuring Muhammed Ali, Apple coined the slogan “Think Different” – now certainly is the time..

When we next revisit this subject we will touch on “tomorrow’s CIO” must know now technology topics.

Until next time

Colin W

Twitter: colinwccuk

Whilst it’s often perceived as a jolly, the days at such events are ordinarily long, mixed with a combination of vendor key messages, technology insights and details of technology improvements, and vendor meetings where we often talk about what we’ve done the past year with respect to them, and what we all think the opportunity is going to be for the following year.

For those of you internally, you’ll know that we’ve (CC) established ourselves as the leading service provider in the UK around Windows transformation, with our EMEA business equating to worldwide levels of prominence, numbers which frankly leave me very proud of what we’ve achieved over the last 15 years of improving and refining of our extensive service offerings to our customers.

It was actually this traction that lead to Citrix & Cisco asking us (well me) to present at the recent Citrix conference to extol the benefits of how we’ve deployed their integrated technology stacks to our customers, and how we’ve made such traction in a difficult market, (desktop virtualisation).  We’re being used as the poster boy (for want of a better description), on how it can be done, and how it’s possible to provide cutting edge desktop transformation services that provide innovate solutions to business problems.  Quite a vindication from these key vendors we felt, and why we agreed to do it.

This position in the market is allowing us to starting thinking about the future of workplace services, and for the last 6 months or so, I’ve been working on and considering the next generation of services and technologies, and how they’re going to impact us, our service offerings, and most importantly our customers.

The key vendors in this area are all thinking big, and are thinking cloud enablement (private and public) and this tricky integration and how it can reduce costs and provide better services for modern working environments.

In the next 12-18 months, it will be possible to build a true Desktop as a Service (DaaS) model, that critically will be able to flexible both up and down, and scale appropriately with need, (which the IT industry really can’t do right now).  I fully anticipate however,  it will probably be another 2-3 years before it’ll really be a viable option for our customer to consider buying and is thus part of our next generation  of service development unlikely to gain any traction until after the Windows XP to 7 uplift.

I’m working with these vendors on helping them shape their products, to be more complete service offerings, (as the vendors are notorious on concentrating on technology features and functions over service integration considerations or really thinking about their customers business need and problems), and I’ll share more on these interesting developments in time when it becomes more appropriate to share this insight.

I’m off on Holiday from today for 2 weeks; recharge the batteries before the big push for the remainder of the year.  I’ll pick up the blog when I return, as whilst I like technology and my job, even I like to put it down sometimes.

• Windows 8  (standard, Pro, enterprise)
• Windows RT
• Windows Phone 8

Windows 8 and RT are released for general availability on Friday October 26^th, and Windows Phone 8 has an entirely different release all of its own on Monday 29^th.  So, 3 products, what are they for, and what are the primary differences?

Windows 8 is what users would normally consider Windows, though as I briefly covered last week, it looks different and is developed to cover both touch, keyboard and mouse.  There are different versions depending on your specific need, but essentially, it’s your usual corporate windows, Active Directory integrated product, which runs typical X32 and X64 bit applications, and is entirely backward compatible with Windows 7.

Windows RT, (a name that has no meaning at all) is really geared as consumer market product.  It doesn’t run on Intel X32 or X64 technology, but runs on ARM technology usually found in smartphone handset technology.    It’s geared as an alternative to Android and Apples’ ubiquitous iPad tablets, and will spawn quite a lot of cheap slates no doubt.

Windows RT cannot be connected to an Active Directory, but will be shipped with Office 2013 (a version for RT), but, oddly, it’s a version which cannot be used to create corporate/commercial documents unless you have additional licence entitlement apparently.  (An interesting move, but one I can’t see people keeping too, or see how that’ll be very enforceable).   Most importantly, it cannot run traditional corporate 32bit or 64 bit applications, though you will be to use it with Citrix receiver if you have such technology available to you.

Applications for Windows RT will be downloaded from the app store, and as of writing this, there are around 6000 apps already available, (which isn’t bad considering it’s not released yet), and I hear Microsoft talking 100k apps by Xmas, which seems optimistic to me, but I guess we’ll see who’s the loser on that bet come Xmas. £10 that I’m a winner MS.

Windows Phone 8 will be a very interesting product, one which has been swathed in secrecy.  Microsoft are seemingly try to create some hype (ala Apple).  All of the features have not been released yet, and the development tools have only been released to the very top application developers to try and contain leaks of what’s in the product.

What I can tell you, is that it’s going to be a very well integrated corporate product, fixing all of its previous products shortfalls in the corporate security space.  Expect class leading mail/calendar (as has been in 7.5), with encryption and application security to surpass all.  We’ll cover more details when it’s released.  Expect some cutting edge industry leading handsets, (Nokia Lumia 920 anyone?) and it’s going to be a big push by Microsoft to attack corporate phone supply business for Microsoft houses.

What’s the most interesting thing about all these versions of Windows though is in one specific feature that’s not been widely articulated by Microsoft, and one I believe could well prove to be one of the primary drivers for (corporate) adoption.  When we consider most likely use cases for the new versions of Windows almost all are likely be used primarily on mobile devices.

The biggest challenge almost every corporate is having with mobility, (beyond the issue of wall to wall wireless internally), is getting access to corporate applications.  Sure email and calendaring is pretty easy, and most corporates have done tactical MDM implementations to help with the challenge of enabling BYO, and providing some corporate integration.  Applications access though, is not widely successful or even remotely easy to achieve right now.

Most corporate applications are X32 or X64, though of course, there are many applications that are widely used that are Web enabled.  Windows 8 and all its derivatives, all run the same common OS core code, (we call that a kernel), what this means, is that applications that are developed for your traditional desktop OS, can be quickly and easily ported down onto both RT and Windows phone 8.    What a vendor will have finally enabled, is a way of creating apps and making them easily movable across a broad spectrum of devices, a scenario that Apple hasn’t enabled or achieved across iOS and OSX and it’s entirely impossible on Android too.

Could this one specific feature be the killer feature that Microsoft needs to really provide customers with a more scalable and a better mobile integrated business?  I guess only time will tell, but it’s certainly got to be an interesting consideration for an organisation and its mobility strategy, if like most, you’ve not been developing your own iOS or Android Apps.  Will we finally move from tactical mobile solutions to a more strategic choice with a key vendor?  Microsoft is certainly hoping so.

However a few things caught my eye recently; the first two are very similar – the “Fitbit” and Nike fuelband, both work in similar fashion and take the pedometer concept to the next level. These devices have the same basic aim; to encourage us to lead a healthy active lifestyle and to monitor our progress and feedback in a way that is of benefit to us. They can track our steps, distance travelled, calories consumed and can measure if we are climbing stairs. We can use the App provided on our smartphones, tablets or any other device to input the food we consume and track our goals graphically if we want.

Ever woke up tired in the morning, wanting just another 5 minutes? Well, the next interesting thing they can do is measure how we sleep and what our sleep patterns are; this can then be used to wake us gently in the correct sleep phase to ensure we are ready for the day. Without thinking about it you are slowly building a database about yourself, we create the data and use the instrument to record it, and you wondered where all the growth of data you keep hearing about is coming from? Some of it is your fault, I’m afraid.

That’s all data generation we can control, we choose to wear the device, download the data wirelessly, stand on the wireless scales and transfer information about ourselves, but what about things we would like to control but really not sure how to? What if we wanted to measure heart rate, brain activity, body temperature and hydration levels and rather than having our own database we wanted to share it with our doctor or consultant? We’re not too far away from reaching that stage.

An American based company has piloted the concept of stretchable electronics products that can be put on things like shirts and shoes, worn as temporary tattoos or installed in the body. These will be capable of measuring all the criteria above. Another company will begin a pilot program in Britain for a “Digital Health Feedback System” that combines both wearable technologies and microchips the size of a sand grain that can ride on a pill right through you. Powered by your stomach fluids, it emits a signal picked up by an external sensor, capturing vital data. Another firm is looking at micro needle sensors on skin patches as a way of deriving continuous information about the bloodstream.

The data generated by this technology could be used for Business Intelligence purposes in the healthcare markets, it could be shared between yourself and your doctor allowing proactive activity to occur to improve the care offered and improve efficiencies, and ultimately to reduce costs. No more waiting 7 days to see a doctor, your chosen device downloads data which can be shared with your practitioner, who in turn sends you an email recommending more exercise and more vegetables in your diet.

The ability to use anonymous data from a group of patients would allow health care providers to spot patterns over an entire population or specific geographies. For example, the need for continuous data on blood glucose levels, particularly Type I diabetes patients, has become critical in the treatment of the disease, providing impetus for monitoring devices.

If this kind of information exists for a lot of people, it is arguably folly to not look for larger trends and patterns. And not just in things like your blood count, because overlays of age, educational level, geography and other demographic factors could yield valuable insights. The essence of the Big Data age is the diversity of data sets combined in novel ways.

These technologies could be used to get people with difficult to pin down conditions like chronic fatigue to share information about themselves, this could include the biological data from devices, but also things like how well they slept, what they ate and when they got pain or were tired. Collectively, this could lead to evidence about how behaviour and biology conjure these states, and ultimately could lead to a solution to such problems.

So it’s not just businesses that can benefit from the analysis of data, individuals and the population at large are potential benefactors of the emerging ability of technology to provide analysis of seemingly random collections of data. As I hit the weekend I may not need a wearable electronic device to tell me my brain activity is slowing down or my hydration levels increase, but it won’t slow down the amount of data I’m able to generate on myself, and the contribution this data makes to my future health. Maybe I’ll be able to store my personal database on my own DNA, who knows?

So let’s start by covering (very briefly), what’s the big differences between Windows 7, (released this time in 09) & the new upstart are.  Windows 7 & 8, are in many ways the same, though of course, Windows 8 has clearly evolved and the product has improved and been polished;  it’s more secure, performs better and many other details have been added and enhanced, but fundamentally under the skin, it works and runs the same.  So, whilst it looks different, (and it does, very different), it’s just as easy to integrate, manage, deploy and support as Windows 7 is right now.

Since Windows 7 was released, the world’s been taken by storm by a certain consumer product called the iPad, which started a whole new generation of tablet technology.  The uber cool gadget has sold by the bucket load, and really caught Microsoft a bit off guard, as there desktop/laptop product just couldn’t provide a slick “touch experience”, and the hardware that the OEMs touted as competitive alternatives, frankly were anything but.

So what’s Windows 8 bringing?  Microsoft have taken iPad, and it’s touch OS, and it’s integrated it’s strengths, added it to existing keyboard & mouse support than Windows did so well, and has also continued and developed digital stylus integration into the platform (hand writing to you and me).   Effectively, Windows now supports touch and non-touch optimised applications; as well as work as usual with your existing corporate applications (it’s Win 7 underneath remember).

To make this all the more interesting, The next version of Office, (expect this Feb 13), will also support these modes, so as an example you’ll be able to annotate notes into a working document, or handwrite notes in a meeting and so on, then go back to your desk and dock your device and start working with it as a fully functioning PC.  No more addendum devices required is the Microsoft vision, and probably one that works very well in reality.

This is where the OEM’s come in.  You’ll start to see a whole new slew of devices shipping, Slates, and Ultrabooks that incorporate all these new features.  They’ll be fully functional, fully powered devices, and with the design changes that have been developed, the improvements made in technology and manufacturing  will mean you’re about to see thin, light, cool looking Windows devices that can empower and embrace a whole new way of working.

So, where’s this leave a customer in their wider deployment decision?  Well, unless you’re planning on deploying touch screen enabled applications, (which clearly will come in time where appropriate) touch screens to support the new interface, there’s probably little immediate value in delaying and readying for Windows 8 and thus Windows 7’s still going to be your primary choice.  Secondly, the application compatibility is excellent between Win 7 & 8, and so any work an organisation is doing here is only going to benefit them for Windows 8 in the future anyway.

No, Windows 8 right now is going to be all about Slates, a new sub-genre of device (part tablet/laptop/ultrabook) that’s unquestionably going to make a lot of organisations  think about iPad, and whether it’s just going to be easier, simpler, and overall cheaper to just embrace and deploy a Windows 8 slate into their environment.   I’ll let you know how I feel about this further when I get mine in the next few weeks.  

What’s actually most interesting right now though is that for as long as I can remember, (and I’m old now), I can never remember a time when workplace related technology has been so in vogue and prominent.   Ten years back, the smartphone was a mere pipedream, the palm pilot and HP IPaq and other such technology existed, but you’d never consider it mainstream.  Certainly carrying one around wouldn’t been have deemed cool.  No, corporate IT was squarely about providing services to end user to do a job.  Options were pretty much limited to a desktop, or, if you were really quite important, you might get a laptop. A £2000 device at that!  A mobile phone had a mono screen, and basically you could text and do calls on it. (I think we’ve still got a few of those about still J )

Roll forwards to now, and how things have changed. Sure, the desktop and laptop exist, (though the price point has dropped considerably), we’ve added the word virtualisation into the mix (in many different forms; application, client and user to name just 3), Broadband speeds are now approaching 100Mb at home; the smartphone is everywhere, tablets too.  3G is here now, with 4G likely to be mainstream in most large cities by mid-2013, (that will provide near broadband speeds over cellular networks), and of course we’ve added the ability to provide services from outside the private network with this thing called “cloud”.    Certainly options aren’t the problem here are they? Or are they?

The problem for our customers is though is one of choice.  A bewildering array of choices presents itself to them on how they may deliver (and consume), their workplace related services, and of course, new versions of technology often stimulate questions of how and should I, (or should I even bother) uplift from our customers.  So often I go to see a customer, and their biggest challenge is trying to appreciate what this new technology means to them.   That’s where we come in; providing our customers with the pragmatic considered view.  We don’t make anything, and so our IPR and knowledge of what works best is why our customers chose to work with us. We shouldn’t be afraid of having that informed and considered view, it’s what our customers really want from us, and we’ll continue to keep doing, integrating this new tech into our proposition stack.

Look out for more news and thoughts on all these new developments over the coming months; it’s going to take some dissecting. 

•  Sleep. Nah, I’ll sleep when I’m dead thanks.
• Squint out the corner of my eye at the X-rated gardening book seat 14B is reading (50 sheds of grey?) –Emmmm NO!
• Create,  contemplate and plan with back to basics pen and paper – Yep.  I love this time, it allows me to step back, stop consuming information and use the time to reflect and contemplate about our Cloud Strategy, our customers and how the market might look in the future.

So when I’m travelling, besides visiting my favourite city that is LDN, I get to see a lot of other really nice places thanks to my role. In fact before I headed to LHR on Monday this week, I had just arrived back last night from the Computacenter Vendor Golf Challenge in La Manga, Spain. Top quality food, wine, and lodgings… but more than that, the chance to spend a few days on some of the best golf courses with some of the biggest hitters  in the UK IT market.  It’s a pretty unique event, 16 vendor teams, a lot of them who are the best of enemies by day, but who all share a common bond in that they are all major, and very important  partners of Computacenter.  So besides discussing who is playing the best golf or has the most suspect handicap, we talk a lot about the IT market.

Due to my role, Cloud is always the order of the day and the one thing  I think every vendor agrees with is that Cloud is having and will continue to have, a significant impact on the IT market we all know and love, for customers, vendors and service providers alike. The arms race that is the public Cloud market will impact us all for sure if we don’t evolve, as the buyer changes and customer shifts from purchasing hardware and perpetual software licenses,  to consuming what was complex IT, as a service. A service where the badge on the technology  is less relevant, and service levels, cost and functionality are king. The IT market is going through a BIG transformation, probably more so than at any other time in my 25+ years in IT.

It was for one of our key partners, EMC that I agreed to sit on a panel at a media only session recently at EMC forum, discussing the subject of IT Transformation. I was talking about how organisations contemplating IT transformation in the last 18 months have a new dimension to contemplate with Cloud and the private and public ‘as a service’ market now becoming a very viable service delivery model. I was describing that by contemplating the shift to consuming IT as a service, the transformation was as much about transforming IT folks as it was about technology – where people have to be knowledgeable  in service, IT costs, IT process, understanding the business  and a whole lot more, on top of getting to grips with not just one area, but every layer of technology as Infrastructure converges.

Now I’m not proposing that cloud technology will replace traditional IT, they will co-exist for sure, but Cloud computing will have a big impact on many people and it’s time to think about how you might be impacted, and how you need to transform. For many, the days of making a career out of knowing a single layer of technology or shipping MORE storage are numbered. Far too many people, including many within Computacenter  who are used to being treated as a highly valuable IT asset by their employer are going to have to evolve or risk being marginalised by market that could bypass them.  It’s important to take time out from keeping the lights on, get your head out of the sand  at least spend some time contemplating in the Clouds.

Paul.

This week, during a meeting with a major global media and broadcasting organisation I was asked the question “what did we mean by the Journey to a Contemporary Workplace?”  To be fair, we have been using the branding and tag line for nearly a year now and it was the first time that I had been posed the question by one of our clients!  My answer went something along the lines of “we know that the Workplace has become a driver for broader infrastructure change and with the perenial organisational challenge of increasing performance and reducing costs – our solutions are targetted at helping you to get modern and stay modern”.  Now whilst this answer didn’t exactly explain what the outcome looked like for this particular client from the outset - but the time we had worked through each of the 5 core elements listed below, we had a much better understading of where they are today and where they needed to get to!

1. OS & Applications
2. VDI & Devices
3. Consumerisation
4. Mobile & Remote Working
5. Collaboration

If you’d like a little closer look at the these elements yourself – feel free to click the link to our free online brochure

After reflecting on the meeting druing the journey home, I was struck with just how many new product launches and features were due in the coming weeks alone (some I couldn’t mention due to NDA) and how when repeating this session in just a month’s time there would a whole raft of new or improved options to availble to help with the journey. Starting with the release of the iPhone 5 today (don’t mention the maps!) we have back to back conferences VMWorld and Citrix Synergy  in Barcelona mid October culminating in the release of Microsoft’s Windows 8 official launch at the end of October. The good news is that we have teams of people at Computacenter working with the technologies, attending and presenting at the conferences and building capabilities to help our clients get the best from these investments – so I’ll be sure to blog any intesting updates and viewpoints as the next few weeks progress. In the meantime, if we can help you with your particular journey right now – you can contact us at workplace@computacenter.com

Next I moved onto some more recent technology, surely I wouldn’t have to worry about throwing out USB memory Sticks, would I? Having counted somewhere around a 100 of the things lying around the house I decided that this was maybe the time that I didn’t really need 10x 64Mb sticks cluttering up space, after all my new shiny 64Gb version is now 1000x bigger.

This got me thinking about the state of the data storage market, and the changes going on. Whilst the capacity of floppy disks rose slowly and fairly consistently we have seen some spectacular changes in the storage marketplace. We got used to disk capacities doubling every 2 years, then this changed to 18 months, then suddenly the 2Gb drives became 200Gb then 400, then suddenly the 1Tb drive had landed.

It was at this time we started to expect development to slow down – after all as a wise Star Trek engineer once said “you cannae change the laws of physics, Captain” Well, you know what Scotty, actually we can and did, 2Tb drives appeared, now 3Tb are not uncommon in datacentres and 4Tb are available on Amazon.

Surely sometime disk drives have to stop evolving? Well, yes and no, they may stop evolving in their current form, but the requirements to store more and more data, and to hold it for longer and longer goes on unabated. Hmmm, what do we do now?

Well, change the form of course. When it comes to storing information, hard drives don’t hold a candle to DNA. Our genetic code packs billions of gigabytes into a single gram. A mere milligram of the molecule could encode the complete text of every book in the British Library and have plenty of room to spare. All of this has been mostly theoretical—until now. In a new study, researchers stored an entire genetics textbook in less than a picogram of DNA—one trillionth of a gram—an advance that could revolutionise our ability to store data.

Initially there may seem to be some problems around using DNA to store data; first, cells die—not a good way to lose your valuable information. They also naturally replicate, introducing changes over time that can alter the data (and whilst we accepted this on a floppy disk it’s unthinkable now). To get around this challenge a research team at Harvard created a DNA information-archiving system that uses no cells at all. Instead, an inkjet printer embeds short fragments of chemically synthesised DNA onto the surface of a tiny glass chip. To encode a digital file, researchers divide it into tiny blocks of data and convert these data not into the 1s and 0s of typical digital storage media, but rather into DNA’s four-letter alphabet of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts. Each DNA fragment also contains a digital “barcode” that records its location in the original file. Reading the data requires a DNA sequencer and a computer to reassemble all of the fragments in order and convert them back into digital format. The computer also corrects for errors; each block of data is replicated thousands of times so that any chance glitch can be identified and fixed by comparing it to the other copies.

By using these methods they managed to encode a complete book, just under 6Mb in size onto a single strand of DNA. Now, obviously this comes at a price beyond the reach of customers for now, but at the rate the data storage market moves who knows how we will upgrade our storage capacity in the future; it is estimated that a double DNA strand could encode 10 Exabytes of data or 11,529,215,046,100Mb, that’s quite a lot of floppy disks.

So, now when you hear us data guys talking about “Big Data” and not being scared by the volume element, maybe you’ll understand why.

In a few years time when you need to add an Exabyte or two to your data capacity, don’t worry – I’ve an armful right here.

I must admit that I hoped it would but still feared the worst. This was set to be the “Digital games” and at times I joined the many prophets of doom prior to the Olympics with forecasts of network slowdowns due to the volume of standard and high definition video expected across worldwide networks. But like “Y2K” and many of the previous “digital Armageddon’s” nothing untoward happened. The digital universe underpinned by the Internet and mobilised by the new wave of highly interactive mobile users, watched, snapped (digital photos), streamed (video, online content) and “shared” when they wanted to – how they wanted to.  And the Network just “worked”.

 The recent figures released from the BBC are compelling and surely throw down the gauntlet for the Olympics in Rio 2016. 

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2012/sport-online-figures.html

55m (global) and 37m (UK) browsers to the BBC Sport site in total across the Games (with the previous record for a single day was 7.4m global and 5.7m UK). And the records continued to tumble with 106m overall requests for BBC Olympic video content, more than double seen for any previous events. And let’s not forget our “on the movers” with 34% of the daily users mobile browsers with 12m requests for video from mobiles.  I cant end this BBC digital roundup without mentioning my daughters favourite, “the BBC Red Button” with 23.7m viewers to the 24 SD, HD and Freeview streams throughout the Games, and every single stream seeing at least 100,000 viewers. 

This leads me to a recent enlightening meeting with Jeremy Wallis the UK CTO of Netapp with discussions of the pervasiveness of 10Gb Ethernet as an enabler of simple, high performance storage connectivity. Checking back to the BBC figures, 2.8 petabytes of content was requested across the Olympics, with the peak traffic moment occurring when Bradley Wiggins won Gold with over 700 Gb/s. This is a sounding cry for those who forget to place storage and the network hand in hand.

Away from the anecdotes the hard numbers highlight the “network” took everything thrown at it across the Olympics period and more and just delivered. It even endorsed a working approach we have dabbled with from the earliest network “connected” environments – remote home & teleworking. Who can forget those empty central London streets and congestion free trains and UK PLC on mass where possible “working from home” (ok, maybe the park on a tablet computer). The remote access and corporate connectivity platforms seamlessly handled not just the existing corporate remote worker pool but also the short term “Olympic home worker” pool without a hiccup – surely heralding a new dawn in organisational approaches to redress the work life balance.

And what now, do we applaud gleefully the magical performance of global networks and shrink back into the “old way” of doing things. I suggest not, as the digital template delivered and embraced for the 2012 Olympics has surely proved the network is not only here to stay but is now a fundamental part of who we are.

Maybe those 70s and 80s SciFi films weren’t that far off the mark after all.

Until next time

Colin W

Twitter @colinwccuk

The reasons for this rather stable state include a networking journey to date that embraced the pain of interoperability and standardisation many years ago, the common use of high performance off the shelf network processing asics (with a few notable vendor exceptions) and until recently no real need to change the status quo.

After numerous years of highly effective network solution design by the extensively trained and highly talented network engineers, that embraced inherent technology limitations and extracted maximum performance we now have our “good enough” networks. I reiterate that there are many great network engineers that underpin the largest enterprises in the world, make complex networking “just work” and deliver business outcome after outcome - helping in many cases to hide that fact that below the surface all is not as well as it may seem.  

But surely, if you were given a blank sheet of paper and networking / security designs were architected with a clean view of the vendor landscape plus tomorrows business outcomes as well as today’s, would you still design yesterdays way? If the business outcomes of today and definitely tomorrow differ from the network usage approach of yesteryear surely good enough can’t still be “good enough”.

A five year old network designed and configured for large volumes of direct connected network servers with one Gigabit interfaces surely won’t be good enough for a densely consolidated converged infrastructure requiring multiple ten Gigabit network interfaces. Equally a multi layer network topology originally configured for hundreds and potentially thousands of physical servers, with multiple physical network interfaces has very different operational and performance characteristics to a distributed switch, hypervisor virtualised network layer.

The stage is set for good enough (or worse) networks to be evolved in line with tomorrow’s application and business requirements. Software defined networks (SDN) underpinned by the open standards aligned with OpenFlow and Openstack protocols and frameworks may in time enable the granular levels of flexibility and capability required to personalise today’s “good enough” general purpose networked infrastructure footprint into outcome specific networked topologies. This blog was set to discuss the well crafted Cisco ONE strategy that leverages the value delivered by OpenFlow and Openstack and clearly positions a customer journey that leverages existing technologies interfaced with the emerging software network footprints and equally the highly innovative HP VAN software aligned network play that leverages IMC and IRF tightly woven into those same open network software foundations, to deliver tangible application aligned networking.

But both of those great stories may now be somewhat pale when compared to VMware shock acquisition of Nicira. Put simply the worlds dominant x86 hypervisor vendor now includes a highly regarded SDN networking core that can be leveraged in numerous and as yet unannounced ways that could potentially paint a new picture for enterprise networking. (save this for another blog).

So “Good enough networks” in the not too distant future may become a thing of the past. Will they ever be “perfect networks”, unlikely due to the ever changing nature of business and increasing levels of complexity, but could they become much closer aligned with the levels of flexibility and adaptability and cost effectiveness currently sought by enteprise network customers. “Quite possibly”…….

And then they will be more than “Good enough”.

Until next time

Colin W

Twitter: @Colinwccuk

Just so you can get a sense of the scale yourself, you can see a picture of the keynote here

One of the major announcements of the week, was the availability of the new release of their flagship desktop operating system Windows 8. If you didn’t catch it on the news wire, Microsoft confirmed that Windows 8 is on track to Release to Manufacturing (RTM) the first week of August. For enterprise customers with Software Assurance benefits, they will have full access to Windows 8 bits as early as August.

There were many new features and enhancements discussed during the course of the week, but most of the excitement centred around the potential for devices such as Surface and the new Metro style user interface and applications. It is certainly going to be exciting to see how all of the OEMs, service providers and application developers innovate to exploit the platform for customer value. Here at Computacenter we have already started to look how we integrate it into our existing ‘Contemporary Workplace’ framework of solutions and services – whether it be advice, supply, deployment, integration or management that is needed for an effective outcome for our client’s users.

So, come the end of the year there is going to be another credible option for Enterprise organisations that wish to deliver touch based applications and services on slick, lean and powerful tablet devices. With Apple’s almost ubiquitous iPad already established as the market leader and Microsoft’s dominance of the corporate desktop platform (backed by the sort of ecosystem covered above) – the fight for market dominance is going to be monumental battle to watch.

The good news is that we can help our clients either way – but which way do you think the battle will swing or do you think there is room for both?

The first article that appeared in wired magazine shows that the Ratio of PC to Mac Sales Narrowing to Lowest Level in Over a Decade. Whilst the article cites that industries that use video and photo editing are typically Mac-centric, I think it is easy to see their use in many more scenarios than this.

For the better part of the last two decades, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs focused on the outward appearance of his company’s products with an enthusiasm unmatched by his competitors. The unique designs that resulted from this obsession have given Mac products the “hip” image that they enjoy today. However, this ‘hip’ image also comes at a premium on acquisition, particularly when you consider that if you take apart a Mac computer, and you take apart a PC, you will find that they use the same parts and components. Both have: a motherboard, processor, RAM memory, graphics card, optical drive, hard drive etc.

However, they do not use the same software which brings me to another hidden cost that I had not heard of until recently.

Over the weekend I read an article in the WSJ that stated Apple Mac users booking holidays on the travel firm Orbitz’s web-site were paying up to 30% more than Windows PC users! Mainly because they could and would.

Orbitz are defending the tactic as an ‘experiment’ and believe some of the data has been taken out of context, with their CEO commenting: “However, just as Mac users are willing to pay more for higher end computers, at Orbitz we’ve seen that Mac users are 40% more likely to book 4 or 5-star hotels as compared to PC users, and that’s just one of many factors that determine which hotels to recommend a given customer as part of our efforts to show customers the most relevant hotels possible.”

So basically their website was interpreting the type of software accessing their content and then used advanced algorithms to render the more expensive options if it was Apple based. Whilst this has created a flurry of social media objection and conjecture, marketing data for this company showed that Mac users are associated with a somewhat richer demographic than PC users and Orbitz CEO Barney Harford defends their position stating that its software is simply showing users what it thinks they will want to see and buy.

The WSJ believes that the sort of target marketing undertaken by Orbitz will become more commonplace in the future as retailers become bigger users of predictive analytics.

Clearly, the challenge with this approach is that there is an assumption that if you use a Mac, then you stand out as a big spender. Whether it is true or not, I sense that other organisations will soon follow suit and will try to see that you place bigger orders as a result. In theses austere times, its just another factor of cost that sometimes isn’t considered by the more well heeled advocates of completely corporate wide BYOD scheme.

Personally, I think it’s just another example of how quickly the dynamics of the workplace and technology are moving – and as an Apple user myself I’ll be keeping a keen eye on my purchases!

In you are interested, you can read the WSJ article here

A quick scan of the web will highlight many stories chronicled from some of the world’s largest organizations that outline the extraordinarily high number of “stealth” or non company issue Smartphone’s, tablets or laptops found connected within their own environments after a standard audit.  With so many “non company issue” end user devices now fundamental to the professional outcome delivered by company employees or end users, a wholesale shutdown is no longer an option – instead a new way that educates and embraces the end user plus delivers a means that the organization can become “end user centric” from a device perspective whilst still retaining control.  The plethora of solutions marketed to deliver BYOD outcomes help with the challenge but no one “silver bullet” exists to solve the problem. BYOD interfaces many elements of an organization not least the people (attitudes, device choice, etc), the devices themselves, capital expenditure costs, operational support costs, applications and so on.  Seeking a quick fix to resolve BYOD issues is likely to be costly in the long run, so careful planning and leveraging specialist insight will deliver immense value.

As the UK’s leading workplace transformation partner, Computacenter possesses a view second to none of the impact of new IT end point device form factors and operational approaches within the corporate environment.  Connectivity and security underpin BYOD success and the Computacenter services portfolio includes solutions from industry leaders including Good Technology, Mobileiron, McAfee, HP, Symantec, Juniper to name a few. More recently the Computacenter networking and security team achieved the lucrative Cisco ISE ATP accreditation to deliver the highly regarded Cisco context aware, access, accounting, authorization platform within enteprise organisations.

BYOD really can deliver a win win for smart organizations. With solutions such a Cisco ISE and companion products, organizations can successfully enable BYOD from a connectivity perspective whilst regaining visibility and control.  Compare that to a pre BYOD environment where end users may be activity working to circumvent IT policy and control and with it creating an ever greater security risk than the original policy strived to prevent.

Like it or not for many organizations, BYOD isn’t if, or when, it’s now.

Until next time.

Colin W

Twitter: colinwccuk

Fast forward 24-hours and I was privileged to be invited to official opening of our new facilities for our remarketing, redeployment and recycling subsidiary – RDC. During the Managing Director’s welcome speech and tour, I was amazed at some of the statistics they shared.  Just a few to sample below:-

• This unique facility extends to 22 acres and houses 355,000 square feet dedicated to the processing and sale of used IT assets
• Turnover and profitability has grown over 100% in the past 3 years
• They have recently been awarded their third Queen’s Award for Enterprise, this time for International Trade, adding to the awards for Innovation and Sustainable in 2002 and 2009.
• They have remarketed, redeployed and recycled enough equipment in the last 2 years to fill the new Olympic Stadium nearly 350 times!

Gerry and his team should be very proud of the achievements they have made.

So how does this related to cloud and devices? Well, even as RDC looks forward to see what the business holds for them in 2012 and beyond – ‘The cloud’ and consumerisation are the key technology drivers! However, for RDC, this is also coupled with the economic tilting of the world  towards the South and East that will also shift the origination and market for used product. Whereas in 2003 less than 5% of their customers’ product was left the UK, it is now approaching 80% that is being exported.

At Computacenter, we know that more and more of commercial and consumer traffic will be driven to the cloud, and people will want to access software and data through a diverse range of devices.  In the same way we are developing new services around application delivery, data-security, device management and fulfilment of BYOD/Employee choice schemes – RDC recognise that they need to offer more flexible access to dispose of and purchase used equipment. You only have to look around you to see the diversity and growth – but what is happening to the old devices that consumers are so keen to drop whilst they move to the latest and greatest gadget? (in increasingly shorter cycles).

Well that is where RDC are one step ahead. They have already developed a range of web solutions for consumers and employees, to return and purchase used equipment on-line, which you can see here at  Money4computers.com.

That is why we believe in delivering truly end-to-end infrastructure services. So even whilst all of the development around cloud and devices is focussed on taking business to new levels of efficiency, mobility, flexibility and agility – with our capabilities in RDC there is also the opportunity for our clients to make money and save the planet at the same time!

My Cisco Live “Road Trip” concludes its fourth and final day. For those who think trips to San Diego are all glitter (!!!!), picture the ten plus hours spent inside a convention centre each day embracing the latest and greatest messaging from the world’s leading networking vendor.

It was interesting to hear Padmasree Warrior (Cisco CTO) still refer to herself as a “Technology Geek”, that’s definitely not me. I have an expectation that technology implemented well will work so am less interested in the how or even the why. I am compelled to find ways to make technology enhance the human existence and experience (in both work and play) which means it has to be relevant to the outcome expected or even fundamental to it. Technology for technology sake is simply a waste of money, but more importantly a waste of time (you can recoup lost money but can’t recoup lost time). To that end Cisco Live equips, energises and inspires me to think differently about the challenges faced by customers both now and in the future. If I do my job which is to listen to, understand and advise customers, Cisco can continue to design and build technology I expect to work.

Presenting live to large audiences is an extremely difficult skill that can be taught / learned (but it’s not easy). Practice does make perfect (or at least better), but some are far better than others. As mentioned in the blog earlier this week, John Chambers nails it for me. Every word he says is scrutinised across the world, the audience size is often unmatched and again he uses minimal on hand notes but presents so so well. Padmasree Warrior has potentially one of the most difficult and coveted roles in IT as the CTO of Cisco but manages to deliver the most complex messages in an effortless and highly entertaining manner. And lastly the new kid on the block Chris Young Senior Vice president for security on the biggest of stages at his first Cisco Live sailed through the security keynote. Really great presentations by all that will be interesting and educational to view on replay.

Wednesday night saw the now obligatory trip to a stadium for the evening customer / partner gathering (common with US events as the “in town” stadiums are normally so good), and resulted in a walk across the road to San Diego’s Petco Park. For someone from the UK aware that some of our well known sports stadiums (Wembley, the Emirates, Old Trafford to name a few) are pretty good it’s always an eye opener to visit US stadiums and find even average venues are often as good as our best. The welcome event was an entertaining evening of food, more food, more food, beer and more food (Ok a few live performers too). As a non drinker I succumbed to way too much Crackerjack popcorn and sadly had to cry off early due to my increasingly suspect knee.

I am well known as someone who doesn’t fanfare the cloud journey. As a realist when discussing the cloud impact, I make it relevant when it delivers the business outcome required but not as a silver bullet to everything. The Cisco cloud messaging of the week with an emphasis on the network as the real enabler of cloud success is highly encouraging. Cloud computing (current industry version and definition) is an on demand service consumption and delivery model but it’s often forgotten without a secure, performant, resilient network, no cloud outcome whether public or private can be realised. The Cisco cloud play is taking a business eye view of the network and how it securely connects users, applications, systems and organisations to unlock the benefits of a cloud like approach. In the Cisco strategy “placeholder” platforms now seem absent and it is now clear to see how the addition or adoption of appropriate Cisco cloud connect solution stacks take an organisation closer to cloud reality.  As an increasing amount of information about Cisco Cloud connect is released I would encourage you to invest the time to really understand it.

I can’t conclude my Cisco Live roundup without a few messaging takeaways (there were many more than this but the list the follows worked for me)

• Cloud – Cisco cloud connect, CloudVerse and Cisco cloud security will take up many press inches over the coming months. The cloud connector strategy and alignment with Openstack can if executed correctly simplify and accelerate the use of enterprise cloud provisioned networked services.
• ISE & BYOD – Identify services engine could be a real silver bullet for the broader enterprise BYOD challenge which is greater than basic connectivity of a mobile or tablet device. With access, authentication, remediation, MDM awareness, management and context, ISE could be an essential BYOD networking and security first step.
• Security – Chris Young the new SVP for security is adding warp speed to the Cisco security playbook. New solutions, increased integration with the wider Cisco story and alignment with the customer agenda has put Cisco back on the security map.
• Intelligent Networks – A catch all for all that is good in the Cisco solutions portfolio that when implemented correctly and “business aligned” delivers an intelligent network that will underpin and propel the intelligence of an organisation. Expect to see increased messaging around the intelligent networks concept.
• Business Video – The rise of business video has been a false dawn a few times but played a major role in the success of Cisco Live. Digital signage solutions presented content and session information throughout the conference centre, educational sessions were captured live via standard Telepresence camera installations and keynote sessions were recorded and broadcast quickly for all to engage with. Business Video is more than conferencing.   

Enterprise organisations now face some tough decisions. It’s a topic I spent long periods of time in deep thought at Cisco Live. In this generation of IT it’s quite difficult to find really bad networking and security products due to commonality of chipsets and manufacturing techniques, but easy to find badly implemented solutions. It’s increasingly hard to find really poor technologies but easy to find poorly implemented and aligned solutions. That makes the role of Computacenter as a vendor independent, highly accredited, market aware and personnel rich organization even more important than ever before. Organisations no longer have the luxury of time to try and fail but recover – in that period the competition can capitalise on even short term absence and deliver and equivalent customer satisfying solution. Computacenter is perfectly positioned to leverage the messages radiated at Cisco Live of cloud, business video, multi platform integration, intelligent networking, compute & security to add Computacenter best practices and deliver personalised solutions to an increasingly challenged customer. And as Cisco also highlighted an ecosystem approach where relevant partners are leveraged to maximise the customer outcome, the whole approach aligns with validated Computacenter strength as the industrys leading infrastructure systems integrator with one of the richest enterprise vendor portfolios in the industry.

In summary Cisco Live continues to be a great event whether in the UK or US. For the deeply technical person no door is closed with everyone from Cisco press book authors to the most distinguished technologist on hand to answer the most cryptic questions (and extremely keen to do so). For business and strategy types like me, the executive interaction is very useful as is the opportunity to discuss go to market and customer specific outcomes with peer personnel within the Cisco team.

Just like my last time at Cisco Live US I leave with more than enough ideas and opinions to take me though until the next year.

Homeward Bound …

Until next time

Colin W

Twitter: @colinwccuk

The John Chambers keynote was as inspiring as ever. If you have never witnessed a Chambers presentation live, it’s impressive how he wanders between the stage and floor and presents for over an hour without an abundance of cue cards or prompting devices (check the online recordings). He covered the last year for Cisco which many had deemed Cisco’s “Annus horribilis” but with the results painting a different picture from the external view of many. Yes, Cisco faced challenges but with market leading sales performances, streamlining or internal operations, relentless focus on the “customer” and the now legendary Cisco drive to capitalise on “market transitions”, a stronger Cisco has emerged.

Does this mean Cisco will have things their own way again and totally dictate the market agenda, unlikely in the midst of a market moving at warp speed with new competitors appearing daily. But this Cisco seems to be correctly aligning less with the “next best thing” and more with the use of the “intelligent network” and an integrated eco system of solutions to help organisations utilise technology to unlock “business next generation and beyond”. As expected cloud featured heavily but not with the all too common “more of the same” approach. Cisco is taking the challenge and opportunity presented via the cloud approach to IT services  very seriously and continues to present a pragmatic and compelling cloud strategy with far more of the “how” and less of the “hype”. Other solutions areas continue to compete for top billing in what many still deem is a “networking” company with mobility, video and security areas of major focus for Cisco.

No Cisco Live would be complete without a glut of product launches and the new UCS E series blade for the ISRG2 branch router is a clever and welcome addition to the solutions stack. The addition of real world high performance compute power in the highly innovative ISRG2 will drive down the cost and increase performance / flexibility of remote site or branch IT service delivery. A new area of focus is the Cisco “Connected Industries” play that hails the arrival of a whole new business unit and product range focused at industry specialised environments that includes connectivity for city utility vehicles, industrial systems and enabling machine to machine communication via Cisco technologies. Look out for a growing range of Cisco enterprise switches, access points and devices in new form factors optimised for previously unfamiliar environments like ATMs or buses on the move.

I encourage you to scan the web for the mass of Cisco Live 2012 information that will be arriving thick and fast. There is little I have seen to date that is earth shattering but certainly the new reenergised Cisco now looks more like the organisation that dominated the networking landscape for many years. This looks like a company primed and really for the next journey enterprise customers face but equipped with a strategy and solutions stack that is perfectly placed to succeed.

Now where is that sun San Diego is famous for.

Until next time

Colin W

 Twitter @colinwccuk

But think about it. Like most people, many years ago I was handcuffed to the PC in the study if I wanted to do anything ‘on line’ or run the gauntlet of the 10m cable and the then heavy and usually very hot laptop to remain part of the family in the lounge. Now I have smartphone and tablet at my disposal wherever I am in the house as well as smart tv, Apple tv and a myriad of other devices all communicating with the tiny little box in the study. Can you imagine life without wifi?

As more and more of us access increasingly rich content from our smartphones and other devices, the demand on wifi bandwidth will reach incredible proportions. How will this be delivered, who will ‘own’ the supply and will a whole new market emerge in the same way that oil is traded today? Entirely new businesses will be created to profit from this opportunity and unless existing companies adopt new strategies to evolve their business models, they may find themselves with a fight on their hands.

Within the business community, growth in BYOD is as inevitable as rain during a bank holiday. IS departments have little if any choice in the matter and instead should be focusing their efforts on building strategies for securely incorporating the multitude of new clients into the network. The subject of security has never been more important and if your own organisation is seeking advice or support on this or the future of wireless in the workplace, please speak to us.

Not only was the music, pomp and ceremony broadcasted to millions and potentially billions around the world (if you count the use of internet based video services), it was the use of video footage both past and present to stitch together the whole event.

The visual scenes from the top of the Mall of thousands of people crammed into such a small area but kept informed of the events at the Buckingham Palace end via massive video screens shows just how important and fundamental video can be to our current existence. Its an example of the use of video at its best totally invisible but highly visible.  How can you “make video work for you” within your organisation – note my question “how can you”, I am no longer trying to convince you that you need to? The dawn of the business video age is no longer when and if, it’s now.

Whether video is created, captured or shared, (and our current favourite solution, digital signage seems to do it all), video enriches our lives. And it’s only going to get better.

Until next time

Colin W

Twitter: @colinwccuk

On top of the spike traditionally created Microsoft’s financial year end, we are also dealing with the additional demand created by Microsoft’s proposed increases to their UK volume licensing prices. As one of Microsoft’s Large Account Resellers (LAR) we have been asked for our viewpoint by the media and advice from our customers at an increasing rate.

You can see a recent article here Microsoft volume licensing costs to increase up to 33.5% and detail on our website here

It is all to easy to suggest that this news has been out in the market for many weeks now and everybody should have developed a strategy to deal with it – but is very apparent to us that the news is still landing for some of our clients or decisions are still yet to be made. It is our aspiration to try and make sure that we help avoid any unnecessary anguish for current and prospective clients by helping them develop a strategic approach to these changes and their software assets as a whole.

If you are still unsure of your options or just need some advice and guidance on our software solutions, feel free to contact me directly, contact your account manager or email enquiries@computacenter.com

But do they really? If 2011 was the year of the hack, 2012 is already becoming the year of the advanced attack. The security threat is no longer one of simple endpoint viruses or malware (even though they still exist), but one of advanced threats and attacks with a level of sophistication that makes them difficult to detect. The term APT (advanced persistent threat) seemed to be a marketing term to sensationalise and align real focus to the new wave of multi vector attacks. But no sooner had we branded them, the innovation within the attacks in question has increased.

The new kid on the block is allegedly “Flame“, a virus claimed to be the most complex malware ever found. Threat analysts worldwide have positioned “Flame” as potentially another nation state style malware vehicle that steals carefully selected data (Stuxnet was allegedly another), with a level of sophistication that may take years to analyse and understand.

In the past, this could be ignored as one of those IT systems, or technology based problems that the IT team should solve (and are paid to solve) so deemed less of a priority amongst the non technical community. But with so many high profile names (including Government bodies) now regularly appearing on BBC news apologising for data loss means it may not only be happening by stealth within your organisation, it may be happening as you read this blog (as the best malware isn’t designed to be easily found).

Does that mean it’s time to admit defeat and prepare your apology (and potential resignation letter). Absolutely not – now is the time to challenge even your most secure environment and ask yourself that worrying question “Is my data secure”? Can you really answer “Yes” with confidence?

Enjoy the Queens Jubilee weekend (and keep safe)

Until next time.

Colin W

Twitter: @colinwccuk

For me whatever happens to the Facebook stock (and I hope for all of our sakes its good things), it is impossible to avoid the impact of Facebook on our social, professional and technical lives. It’s now our social communications norm, its now important to HR professionals within companies as any employee evaluation tool, its fast becoming the “marketing persons” dream platform and from an IT and networking perspective is forcing IT & networks systems to move and manage data at levels previously unimagined. Big data is another of those “buzz phrases” those in the know discuss at length but often struggle to point to easy to digest examples of Big Data at work. Facebook and the data generated and manipulated by its 800m users is a real world example of big data at work, doing work. With my networking, security and visual collaboration hat on imagine the daily challenge faced by Facebook to keep the data used by 800m users, secure, accessible, resistant to failure and available at high speed – 24x7x365. 

Now that’s how I like to see modern technology at work, solving highly complex problems, empowering the end user – but almost invisible to them. Maybe the Facebook share frenzy is justified after all.
 
Until next time.
 
Colin Williams

Twitter: @Colinwccuk

One of the straplines that Mark Templeton (CEO, Citrix) used for his keynote was “the exceptions of the PC era are becoming the new assumptions of the Cloud era”. Clearly with a business focused on Mobile and Cloud you can understand why he feels that such a prediction should come true!

But it was noticeable to me during the week that the 4,000 or so attendees (less than 10% from EMEA) were embracing this message with the level of appreciation and hoopla that our rather less inhibited cousins from across the pond can sometimes exhibit!

We are undoubtedly going through a period of change in the way we consume and use technology (you only have to read through the variety of topics we have covered in the blogs more recently) despite this, most European businesses and public bodies have endured tough times in recent years. But, regardless of how painful the recession and however far-reaching its effects, technology has retained its power to cut costs and support business transformation – when implemented properly. Shiny devices and cloud computing may grab the headlines, but nowhere has the transformation of IT been more tangible and important to end users than in the workplace arena.

That’s fundamentally why we believe our clients are on the journey to a ‘contemporary’ workplace – it’s about getting modern and staying modern. However, we do appreciate that it’s also about the appropriate use of technology and what’s right for one type of company may not meet the needs of another. However, as with most industry inflection points, it becomes less of a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’ will such a transition takes place? If the amount of investment, energy and innovation being driven by corporations such as Microsoft, VMware, Apple and Citrix continue at the pace we are currently experiencing, it could be here sooner than we may think!

If you’d like to take a look first hand at how Mark sees the future for his organisation meeting the industry challenge you can check it out here.

As practice leader for networking, security and visual collaboration I am fortunate to be able to take a “customer centric” view of the market and the services we deliver without a vendor bias.  To that end expect a few left field views, sometimes tongue in cheek but I would like to believe always valuable (PS: The view are purely my own so please don’t hold Computacenter accountable).

 As I roam around on planes, trains and automobiles (I also walk every now and again) I marvel at the volume of marketing content that discusses “of the future”.  Reality check all – let go of this the future for a while and “do what you need to do today.  Save that marketing money on “future states and future messaging” and live it to shape it. As a generation W child (OK, probably generation X but I jest), I was born during a time when we dared to dream of what could be or might be. Whether it was hover cars, supersonic travel or the most paradigm shifting one of all “mobile telephones”, we dared to dream of the future but never expected technology to deliver. We sketched pictures, we built things with Meccano and Lego (yes Lego and it’s still around) and guess what our imagination probably surpassed what we really deemed possible. 

Fast forward to now, what technology solution can’t be formulated to solve the majority of the outcomes we seek today that will be our springboard to tomorrow? My abstract tip, religiously consider all solution deployment and enhancement from the view on the person who realises the final benefit (i.e. the buying customer, the employee) then you will worry less about the future and more about how to keep that end user happy now. Paradoxically if you ensure the end user is always happy in “the now” doesn’t that self manage the future (apologies for the use of dysfunctional English but I’m sure you get my drift).  

With the above in mind I spend as much time as possible listening to our customers and users of technology as the real world views and business perspective from them adds relevance to the strategies I formulate.

If you are interested in build IT services and solutions for the future, feel free to discuss that with others – however if you are interested in a dynamic approach to realise and live tomorrow, today – give me a call

Till next time.

Colin Williams

Twitter @colinwccuk

Pierre Hall, Computacenter’s director of Workplace & Software Solutions, discusses the results and implications of our recent Generation Z research.

Find out more and download the full research report here.

On occasion I take all three devices with me when I need to do some ‘proper’ work, specifically creating in addition to reviewing. When travelling overnight and especially abroad, I have left the Notebook at home a few times and this has made a very positive difference to the holdall weight but there’s always that nagging doubt…

On the face of it, the Ultrabook does appear to combine the functionality of the Notebook while coming closer to the weight and battery life of the Tablet. The new Intel Ivy Bridge processors will further improve matters in the battery life department and Windows 8 will support touch, perhaps the single biggest USP of the iPad (as well as ‘instant on’). Oh, and that screen…

I’m eagerly awaiting my first Ultrabook and although it won’t be loaded with Windows 8 when received, it will provide a strong pointer to the future. If you’ve never had an iPad then this is probably the ideal solution but if like me you have, it will be a tougher call.

Client computing has become sexy again and whether you love or hate Apple, we should all probably thank them as it’s their innovation and design that is driving the competing manufacturers to produce better products.

One of the other data points I picked up on was that they have now sold over 60 million iPads worldwide since their inception in 2010 and has hence created a category all of their own. Whether it be their financial might or technology innovation – you certainly can’t ignore them.

Apart from the fantastic opportunity this presents business in changing they way they can enable and support their workforce, it has created a lot of headaches too!

To this end, we’ve been busy working with Apple to ensure we have developed our portfolio in line with their with technology to help our clients and provide the type of service that most Enterprise workers have become accustomed to. We’ve even put a little ‘chalk n talk’ video together to outline what we have done. You can check it out here. I hope you like it?

A lot of our discussion focussed around the time needed to fully address the scope of such a migration exercise in Enterprise customers. Gartner’s view was that customers should have started planning 2 years ago!, however we see the reality that many customers are only just starting to address the problem of XP going end of life on 8^th April 2014. Whilst this may seem quite a long way away, it is in fact only just over 700 days away and less than 500 working days (498 to be precise at the time of writing) – not very long for what can be a technical and logistically challenging project on an Enterprise scale.

If you’re interested on keeping an eye on the timeline, we’ve built a countdown timer that you can find here.

The good news is that we have be building capacity in line with our client’s current demand, but we do agree with Gartner that many organisations are leaving it late to address the problem, (particularly if they want to exploit the new functionality that such a platform change can provide  i.e. virtualisation, enhanced automation, application rationalisation, support improvements etc.). With only a finite amount of time and resource to meet an immovable date, we were speculating on whether we’re approaching a ‘Y2K’ like bow wave of demand when organisations scramble to react and we see demand outstretch supply.

Are you well on the way to addressing the challenge or can you XPect delays?

We have investigated one of the hottest topics in the news the ‘consumerisation of IT’ and BYOD, which confirms there has been a significant shift in IT thinking which is mainly end user led and driven by the sophistication and proliferation of consumer devices in the workplace

However, the research has thrown up an anomaly that suggests IT departments have potentially misjudged the attitudes of young workers towards new workplace technology trends and their demands for consumer devices at work.

Interestingly more than half of 16-24yr olds in the workplace – dubbed ‘Generation Z’ – state they don’t want an iPhone or tablet device in the office, and that they believe that it is more important for companies to stay in control of data than to embrace consumerisation.

Even more surprisingly given the growth of social media apps, 85 % of Generation Z employees surveyed actually prefer to communicate with their work colleagues face-to-face, with only 17 per cent voting for using instant messaging or social media networks.

Generation Z just want to be given the right tools to do the job; although they have grown up with instant messaging and high-tech gadgets, they don’t necessarily want to bring them to work.

IT departments need to avoid getting caught up in the hype surrounding consumerisation – it is just one of many enablers for today’s contemporary workplace, but organisations do need to address the growing flexible working requirements and the  heightened performance expectations of the technology demanded by members of staff – young and old.

Experience shows that when corporate IT systems prevent workers from delivering their best – that is when they can start to take matters into their own hands. Connecting people (to people) and information, simply and efficiently, remains the core objective.

Having cast doubt on the current widespread assumption that Generation Z, who have grown up with smartphones and social networks, are driving the ‘device rebellion’ in Enterprises, you might want to read the full report… it makes for an interesting read.