legal firms need it systems data centre technology out of

of the Internet of Things will onlyexacerbate these problems.”

Sodzawiczny believes the biggest issuein the data centre today seems to beensuring that the executive board – whichultimately holds the purse strings –recognises the need for substantialinvestment in data centre projects.

“It’s not just about increasing the ITbudget; it’s about ensuring the right systemsand infrastructure are in place to continueoperating effectively in a digital world.”

Citing a 2013 Gartner survey into UKdata centre investment, Sodzawiczny saystwo out of three respondents had projectsplanned, more than 70 per cent of thoseplanning projects had budgets allocated,and 87 per cent of those with infrastruc-ture modernisation or upgrade projectsalso had plans for data centre facilityprojects in 2013/2014.

“This ought to be considered a positivesign. But the fact that [94 per cent] of therespondents that took part in our surveystill consider their data centres to be outof date shows there is still a very real needto get motivated to make modernisation

the top priority going forward.”Data centres are one of the biggest invest-

ments on the IT manager’s shopping listand probably the most risky and or costly toget wrong, according to the Data CentreAlliance’s (DCA) executive director SimonCampbell-Whyte. “The report highlightsthe essential need for group involvement toregularly assess the risk and the long-termvalue of the data centre set up,” he says.

Campbell-Whyte adds that the EU Codeof Conduct for Data Centres provides avaluable ‘best practice’ strategy toestablishing policies forreview, and advises ITmanagers to use it as astarting point to help deploythe correct strategies. �

by Rahiel Nasir

Battling the elementsHow distributedbusinesses canavoid downtime this winterFeature, pp10-13�

Data centres are “not fit for the future”,according to new research from ZeniumTechnology.

In its Motivation to Modernise study,the company found that in spite of animproved level of general awareness inthe market for greater flexibility, agilityand the ability to adapt faster to change,only five per cent of data centres wereconsidered “state-of-the-art”.

Zenium’s research was based on an inde-pendent survey carried out by DynamicMarkets who interviewed 210 senior ITpro-fessionals in the UK and Turkey (Zeniumoperates a data centre in Istanbul). Therespondents were those who had responsi-bility for their company’s data centres froman operational and/or strategic perspective.

In the survey, a “staggering” 94 per cent

of senior IT professionals admitted their in-house data centre is technologically out ofdate. One-in-ten said that their centres werelong overdue a complete overhaul, whilst afurther 41 per cent said some of thetechnology in use is no longer current.

The report also revealed that only 25 percent of respondents felt that C-levelexecutives are on board with data centremodernisation plans. Zenium says that thissuggests a “degree of denial” about theneed to start embracing future plans now.

“The disconnect between what is inplace and what is needed for the future isvery worrying,” says Franek Sodzawiczny,CEO, Zenium Technology Partners. “Thereis massive demand for increased storageand computing power to manage hugevolumes of data, and the impending impact

www.networkingplus.co.uk N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 4

Connecting flightsHeathrow’s new Terminal 2 boasts a state-of-the-art network from FujitsuNews, p3�

Law and orderedLegal firms need secure and resilient IT systemsReal World Networks,p9�

F I X E D & W I R E L E S S N E T W O R K S F O R E N T E R P R I S E U S E R S

Big storage for big dataThe latest data drives for keeping all your corporate bits and bytes secureOff-the-shelf, p14�

Zenium CEO Franek Sodzawicznysays it’s not just aboutincreasing IT budgets– it’s about ensuring the right data centreinfrastructure is in place.

Data centre technology out ofdate and not “fit for the future”

More than 81 per cent of IT managersacross the European Union are unfamiliarwith the new EU General Data ProtectionRegulation (GDPR).

The GDPR aims to unify data protectionlaws to meet the challenges of the digitalage and in particular strengthen the protec-tion of online personal data. The EuropeanCouncil aims for its adoption in late 2014and the regulation is planned to take effectafter a transition period of two years.

When enacted into law, it will requireall businesses handling EU residents’ datato delete personal information on requestor when it is no longer required by theorganisation, and encourage the use ofauditable deletion procedures forcompanies processing personal data.

Non-compliant businesses could receivefines ranging from €250,000 or 0.5 per

cent of annual worldwide turnover for lessserious breaches, up to €100,000,000 orfive per cent of annual worldwide turnoverfor more serious infractions.

But in a survey of 660 IT managers con-ducted by Kroll Ontrack and data erasurespecialist Blancco, 61 per cent said thattheir organisations have not taken measuresto achieve compliance with the pendingregulation. More than half had notreviewed or adapted their data destructionpolicies, while 25 per cent admitted to nothaving such a process in place.

“Organisations still have a great deal ofwork to do to ensure they comply with theGDPR regulation,” says Paul Le Messurier,programme and operations manager, KrollOntrack. “Any business holding personaldata on EU residents, be it online or offline,will have to abide by the new rules.” �

Most IT managers are unawareof new European data laws

Net+ 1411 p1 (cover) AM RN NEW.qxd 17/11/14 12:29

along with dwindling capacity.IDS global IT director Craig

Debban says that despite multi-ple frustrating and unsuccessfulvisits from EMC engineers andsupport team, the disk systemswasted performance and were notconfigured correctly.

As a result, it switched toTegile’s HA2130EP arrays alongwith two expansion shelves.The arrays combine high-performance DRAM and flashSSD with less-expensive HDDs, as wellas a comprehensive set of datamanagement and protection features. Thehardware connects via IDS’ existing mixof 10GB and 1GB Ethernet running bothiSCSI and NFS protocols.

IDS stores nearly 18TB on the arrays,but it’s claimed Tegile’s data services suchas deduplication, compression, snapshots,etc, have reduced that to just 4.58TB. “We are currently seeing 74.43 per cent

savings in our data and I expect that to goup as we add more servers,” says Debban.“With Tegile, the performance problemsare gone. We went from noticing slownessto it no longer being an issue at all.”

Cloning time on the firm’s VMs is alsosaid to have been reduced from 30minutes to around three minutes. �

news

2

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International Decision Systems (IDS) hasimplemented Tegile System’s hybrid stor-age arrays to improve its data storage capa-bilities. From its worldwide offices anddata centres, IDS provides software andconsulting services to more than 250 bank-ing and financial services in 34 countries.

The firm uses servers that are mostlyvirtualised, as well as direct-attached enter-prise class HDD arrays. Despite this, IDCbegan experiencing storage-based per-formance issues that impacted productivity

C4L is now running its coreTX MPLSnetwork (see News, Nov 2013) in parallelwith its existing Cisco network. The firmclaims this represents a “significantmilestone” in its rollout plan.

The Bournemouth-based connectivityand colo specialist says it raised consider-able additional funding to deploy coreTX onentirely new and privately owned dark fibreroutes between key data centres across theUK. As part of this, it has installed JuniperMX480 or MX960 routers at each PoP.

“As a result of some limitations in ourinitial rollout, we have redesigned thenetwork,” says C4L CEO Simon Mewett.“Although this inevitably caused a delayin rollout completion, coreTX will nowbe upgraded to a 100 per cent Junipernetwork, removing all interoperabilityconcerns between multiple vendors.”

C4L has already migrated all externalconnectivity and upstream Tier 1 providersfrom their existing networks to a new100Gb dedicated fibre ring. The firm saysits capacity planning, stability, traffic man-agement and DDoS mitigation strategiesare now enabling providers to start plan-ning for full customer migration to coreTX.

As well as creating several shorter pathsfor traffic and utilising all the available fibreto keep latency to a minimum, C4L hascommissioned new fibre links, each withN+2 failover paths configured by default.

It also claims a new suite of diagnostictools have closely monitored its networkand seen no outages – despite various realand simulated network traffic events. �

C4L’s“significantmilestone”

CityFibre plans to build a dedicatednetwork for businesses in Kirklees. Itclaims the Kirklees CORE will be a state-of-the-art, future-proof network that willbring transformational gigabit speedconnectivity to thousands of firms inHuddersfield, Dewsbury and Batley.

Construction on the network is due tobegin at the end of 2014 with the first busi-nesses being connected from March 2015.

The size and route of the Kirklees COREwill be determined by demand from localbusinesses. In early November, CityFibrelaunched its online Gig Up Kirklees cam-paign to encourage businesses to registertheir interest. It said that the more busi-nesses register in an area, the more likelythe network will be extended to them.

CityFibre CEO Greg Mesch said: “Nolonger reliant on the antiquated coppernetworks, Kirklees businesses will have the

capacity to position themselves at the heartof the UK economy as the technologicalrevolution continues to gather pace. It’scrucial that as many businesses aspossible can benefit and to ensure that,we urge you to register your interest.”

This development follows CityFibre’splan to build an 80km pure fibre networkto deliver connectivity for public sectorservices in collaboration with Easynet

With a network in 57 towns and cities,CityFibre claims to be the UK’s largestindependent provider of pure fibre infra-structure. It has also begun Gigabit Cityprojects in York, Peterborough, Coventryand Aberdeen, where metropolitan-widepure fibre networks known as COREs bringthe benefits of gigabit internet speeds. �

Gigabit internet speeds promise to“revolutionise” business in Kirklees

CityFibre says the size and route of the KirkleesCORE network will be “demand-led”.

It’s claimed the deployment of Tegile’s systemhas led to data savings of more than 70 percent for IDS.

Data storage more efficient with hybrid platform

Medway Council is using virtualisation toenable flexible working for employeesand reduce operational and IT costs.

The council provides services to a pop-ulation of around 270,000 citizens in Kent.As part of the Agile Working programme, it implemented Citrix XenDesktop tovirtualise desktops across the IT estate.

“Most local authorities are looking forways to transform their services,” says thecouncil’s head of ICT Moira Bragg. “AtMedway, we have a programme lookingfor ways to drive efficiency: doing thingsbetter, but more efficiently. That includesworking more flexibly to reduce thenumber of properties occupied by staff.”

The deployment is being rolled out instages. It has begun with the most complexdepartments, such as those scattered acrossmany sites and using a wide variety ofapplications. Bragg’s team has so farmigrated the 500 most challenging of2,800 desktops onto virtual desktopsaccessed via Dell Wyse thin clients.

As a result of virtualisation, Medway hasalso been able to consolidate Children’s

Services into a single building from thethree it previously required.

The deployment has also led to morecollaborative working. Hotdesking areashave been created within existing offices,dissolving what Citrix describes as theold “one person, one desk, one device”mentality.

The move is projected to save upwardsof £1m over five years for the council.Cost savings are expected as a result ofcentralising hardware procurement andreductions in energy consumption ofaround 24 per cent.

Completing the desktop deployment willtake about a year. A virtual telephonysolution is also on the transformation list. �

No more ‘one person, one desk’mentality for Medway Council

Head of ICT MoiraBragg says MedwayCouncil wants to workmore flexibly to reducethe number ofproperties occupied by staff.

Net+ 1411 p2 (news) AM RN NEW.qxd 17/11/14 12:32

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3 november 2014 nn ee tt ww oo rr kk ii nngg

Today, 70-80 per cent of workloads arevirtualised and that number is onlyexpected to increase. Businesses rely onVMs to run critical databases, but whenany of these processes fail to perform,the business also fails, reaffirming theimportance of having visibility and controlover virtual environments.

Prior to the widespread adoption ofvirtualisation, I/O patterns were‘predictable’ and storage was easy tomanage. However, that is no longer truein today’s virtualised reality. Picture thecontents of a blender after you push thebutton – they’re mixed up, hardlyresembling what was there before. I/O isno longer predictable; rather, it looks likeit has gone through a blender.

There are several problems arising fromthis I/O blender effect [also see News,Jul-Aug]. Firstly, the unpredictable natureof I/O blender patterns and concurrentaccess to the same resources canoverwhelm controller caches resulting in degraded performance.

Secondly, scheduling and performingread/write arrays can have a significantimpact on performance – especially iflarge amounts of requests from disparatesystems are realised.

Thirdly, during VMDK file locking inblock storage, all of the locking andunlocking can take a heavy toll on SAN and environmental performance.

And fourthly, operating system diskaccess relies upon placing data in blocks/clusters on disk. SAN relies upon placingdata on blocks in the array of disks. A con-dition exists wherein the OS’ block sizesdo not match (by some factor) with theSAN’s block sizes. This LUN misalignmentcan have serious impact on performance.

Firms can overcome these I/O blendedeffects by following these simple steps:

Adjust organisation of VMs for likeworkloads: this may involve different SANconfigurations. Like workloads are morepredictable and can be planned for.

Utilise storage offloading functions: thisallows the storage system to moreefficiently handle the operation, reducespressure on the hypervisor, and helpsreduce congestion on storage connections.

Understand the workload: this will helpadministrators ensure proper grouping oflike workload types.

Expand and extend storage systems:in some fashion, this ensures thedecisions you make now can be adapted,adjusted and enhanced to meet currentand future needs.

Finally, by staying up to date withinfrastructure technologies, bottleneckscan be reduced or eliminated. Utilising‘smart storage’ that sees, learns andadapts, helps to effectively manage thevirtual environment and provides moreefficiency and productivity to businesses.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO...Kieran Harty, CTO and co-founder, Tintri

How to solve the I/O blender effectFujitsu has completed its £34m networkinfrastructure project for HeathrowTerminal 2, The Queen’s Building.

The original Terminal 2 building openedin 1955 and was the airport’s oldestterminal. In 2010, it was demolished as partof a £2.5bn transformation project whichled to the development of the new buildingwhich opened in June.

Under a four-year partnership, HeathrowAirport Holdings (formerly the BritishAirports Authority) contracted Fujitsu toimplement the terminal’s entire integratednetwork backbone, benefiting bothemployees and passengers.

For example, Wi-Fi means staff cannow work more collaboratively andreceive information in real-time,

something that wasn’t possible before.And passengers can expect to see queuingtimes fall as the new technology allowsthem to check-in at any desk, instead of atone designated to a specific airline.

The Fujitsu implemented infrastructurewill also support key systems such assecurity, airport operation and buildingmanagement, self-check-in, and bag drop.

The company adds that the success ofthe project has opened the door for othercontracts at Heathrow.

For instance, it was recently awardedthe Centre of Excellence for privatemobile radio and cellular projects acrossthe airport, and will therefore provide allradio and cellular requirements over thenext two years. �

Terminal 2 takes offwith Fujitsu’s help

EDITORIAL:

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Designer: Alan McClenaghan [email protected]

Thanks to: Brian Anderson, Kieran Harty, Peter Groucutt

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Passengers can expect to see queuing timesfall thanks to the new network infrastructure.

Global bandwidth infrastructure servicesprovider Zayo Group has been selected byO2 to provide and manage a fully resilientcore fibre network throughout the UK.

According to Zayo, its 15-year dealwith O2 marks a shift for the mobileoperator. Previously, it used SDH andEthernet-based managed servicesinfrastructure but this latest agreementmeans it will move to a dedicated fibreoptic network that connects mobileswitching sites across its network.

The new infrastructure aims to provideO2 with flexible capacity toaccommodate increasing demand formobile data driven by its 4G rollout andincreasingly digital customer base.

“With the O2 4G network nowcovering over 260 towns and cities andhalf of the UK population, there has beenunprecedented growth in the amount of datatraffic transmitted across the network,”says Adrian Di Meo, O2’s CTO. “A yearafter the launch of our 4G network, it has

O2 moves to dedicated fibre to connect UK switching sites

already carried a total of 5,400 terabytesof 4G data, which is the equivalent ofeight million hours of HD video.”

Zayo’s nationwide fibre network willuse Geo Networks infrastructure which

the firm acquired earlier this year (seeNews, May). It stretches from Glasgow toSalisbury and spans a route of more than4,500km, incorporating 19 connectivitypoints around the UK. �


Draka’s Universal Cabling Connect (UCC)system will be installed throughout HotelFootball which is currently being built nextto Manchester Utd’s Old Trafford stadium.

The £23m themed hotel will feature 139rooms across seven floors, a ground floorrestaurant and shop, a mezzanine lounge,and a first floor conference space. It willalso be home to the Old Trafford SupportersClub. The building is crowned by a rooftopmini five-a-side football pitch whichdoubles as an events venue.

The space saving Cat6 UCC system wasproposed by Abzorb, one of Draka’spartners, after it secured the contract toinstall the voice and data network cablingand a 200 point digital TV distributionplatform at the prestigious development.

Draka says UCC is a complete cablingsystem for enterprise and data centrecommunications networks. “Contractors

can be confident in the cable’s quality, whichhas approvals as part of a three-connectorlink and four-connector link channel,” statesthe firm. “As with all Draka UCC brandedcables the product comes with third-partyapproval for cable performance.”

Hotel Football is being developed byGG Hospitality, a management companyset up by former Manchester Utd playersRyan Giggs and Gary Neville and The OldTrafford Supporters Club. It is due to openby the end of the year. �

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Virgin trains get fasterVirgin Trains is upgrading Wi-Fi systems to offercustomers significantly increased bandwidth aswell as improved connection availability acrossall routes. It will use Nomad Digital’s technologyto deliver up to 12Mbps to Wi-Fi users on 56Pendolino trains, and up to 8Mbps on 20Super Voyagers. The upgrade is scheduled for completion during summer 2015. Nomad’son-board routers are also 4G-ready inanticipation of the completion of newtrackside infrastructure by Network Rail. �

Datatech expandingDatatech UK claims its new data centre inRedditch is one of the most sophisticated serverhouses in the UK and among Europe’s greenest.It is said to have capacity for 951PB, which isaround 238 million DVDs worth of data storage.The Midlands-based firm has recently receivedinvestment to grow its business and says it willuse this to increase its server capability, investin new premises, and expand its fibre network.This currently reaches London, Amsterdam,Germany and Manchester and will soon provideconnectivity to France, other areas of TheNetherlands, and several locations in America. �

Eversheds’ big WANCorporate law firm Eversheds has deployed aMeru 802.11ac wireless network across eightcountries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia to support up to 4,000 staff, clients and guests.The firm has recently implemented MicrosoftLync, and the new network aims to bolster itsmobility strategy enabling flexible working andincreased collaboration. The deploymentincludes 270 Meru AP832 APs. Each office isserved by one of six regional hubs hosting avirtual Meru controller along with software toprovide end-to-end management and networkmonitoring capabilities. �

Annodata buys KeltecAnnodata has acquired Keltec. As a result,Annodata says it will have annual revenues inexcess of £78m and 380 employees. Foundedin 1998, Bracknell-based Keltec is said to havea “wealth of experience” in delivering end-to-end IT solutions to customers of all sizes.Annodata MD Andrew Harman adds that Keltecwill enhance his company’s hosting capabilitiesand consolidate its move into cloud. “Keltec willcomplement our existing service portfolio,which includes unified communications,managed print and document services, cloudand mobile device management.” �

Interoute has launched two new VirtualData Centres (VDC) in London and alsoplans to open its second zone in Germany.

The new facilities bring the company’stotal number of global VDCs to 12. TheUK locations include London’s CanaryWharf and a second site in Slough. It’sclaimed these two new zones weredeployed in less than 12 weeks.

Next month sees the launch of a VDC inFrankfurt, adding to the zone in Berlin thatopened in 2012.

Interoute says its VDCs enable customersto tailor provision and control compute,storage and network infrastructure ondemand, and on a global scale. Other VDCzones launched by the firm in 2014 includeMilan, Hong Kong and New York.

The operator claims to offer the fastest-growing enterprise IaaS platform in theEuropean market.

It says users can now benefit fromspeeds as low as 1.3 milliseconds forsending a data packet from one newLondon zone to the other and back, ordown to 68.2 milliseconds between theLondon and New York zones. �

Interoute offers “fastest-growing” IaaS platform

Draka secures an away win at Hotel Football

Organisations are at serious risk of dataloss and compliance violations due torisky file sharing practices, according tonew research from the Ponemon Instituteand SaaS specialist Intralinks.

In a study entitled Breaking Bad: TheRisk of Unsecure File Sharing, theresearchers found that employeesroutinely breach IT policies and placecorporate data in jeopardy. It said thatmanagers are failing to respond to theescalating risk of ungoverned file sharingpractices among their staff.

Among the more than 1,000 IT securityprofessionals in the UK, US and Germanysurveyed, 49 per cent said their companylacks clear visibility into employee use of

file sharing/file sync applications. While themajority of organisations have policiesgoverning the use of file sharing,respondents said these policies are not beingeffectively communicated to employees.

Around 61 per cent of employeesconfessed to having done one or more of thefollowing: often or frequently accidentallyforwarded files to individuals not authorisedto see them; used personal file-sharing/filesync-and-share apps in the workplace;shared files through unencrypted email; orfailed to delete confidential documents orfiles as required by policies.

“Data leakage and loss from negligentfile sharing is now just as significant a riskas data theft,” says Ponemon Institute

chairman Larry Ponemon. “While mostcompanies take steps to protectthemselves from hacking and othermalicious activities, this report shows thatthese same organisations are entirelyunprepared to guard against risky andungoverned file sharing using consumer-grade applications like Dropbox.” �

Ponemon Institutechairman LarryPonemon says firms areill-prepared to protectthemselves against theirstaff using consumer-grade file sharing apps.

Hotel Football is being built next toOld Trafford and will feature a rooftop

mini five-a-side football pitch.

File-sharing employees behavingbadly puts corporate data at risk


Net+ 1411 p5 (Toshiba).indd 5 17/11/2014 14:04

The use of mobile cloud apps is becomingmore popular in enterprise, but the vastmajority are not “enterprise-ready”according to a new study.

Netskope’s latest quarterly report,which monitors cloud app usage trends,reveals that nearly half of all cloud appactivity now occurs on mobile devices.

Based on aggregated and anonymiseddata from the Netskope Active Platform,the findings are based on tens of billionsof cloud app events seen across millions

of users between July and September2014. It found that enterprises arecontinuing to adopt cloud apps at a fastpace, with an average of 579 cloud appsper organisation in Q3, up from 508 in theprevious quarter.

Additionally, 88.7 per cent of apps arenot enterprise ready, scoring a “medium”or below in the Netskope CloudConfidence Index. This is a database ofmore than 5,000 cloud apps that areevaluated on over 40 objective enterprise-readiness criteria adapted from the CloudSecurity Alliance.

Sanjay Beri, CEO and founder ofNetskope, warns that all this makes iteven more difficult for IT to keep tabs onsensitive corporate and customer data onuser-owned devices: “While IT isincreasingly aware of the ‘shadow IT’problem, it continues to underestimateactual app usage and the associated risksby a considerable margin.”

The report also identified the top 20apps used by enterprises based ondistinct app sessions. Google Drive,Facebook and Twitter occupied the topthree slots respectively, whilst enterpriseapps such as Salesforce, Microsoft Office365 and WebEx ranked 11th, 15th and17th respectively. �

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Azzurri Communications reckons its cloud-based Communication Service Manager(CSM) will help organisations optimise thecommercial, operational and technical per-formance of their unified communications.

According to the cloud and managedcommunication services specialist, CSMdelivers “significant” commercial, opera-tional and technical benefits. It can help ITteams responsible for UC to fully utilisetheir estates, right-size their infrastructure,and help remedy issues such as call quality.

CSM is initially available to offer what’sdescribed as “unprecedented insight” intoAvaya’s UC, telephony and contact centreplatforms. Mitel systems and Microsoft

Lync will be added in the coming months.Azzurri says the service can be deployed

and become fully functional within 24hours. It is charged on a monthly basis andcan be taken as a cloud-based tool or as partof the vendor’s managed service.

CTO Rufus Grig claims CSM will makemanaging communications systems forlarge organisations simpler and cheaper.

“[It will] help companies to make surethey’re getting the most from their invest-ments in communications – from makingsure the technology is working at maximumperformance, to making sure that softwareis neither over nor under-licenced, enablingcapacity planning for the future.” �

IT departments areunderestimating the‘shadow IT’ problem

BT has launched a new business-grade IPvoice service that uses cloud technology.Aimed at SMEs, it claims Cloud Voice is acost-effective business solution delivering“great call quality and reliability”.

In addition, BT says users will benefitfrom a management system that ensurescalls no longer go unanswered due to theservice’s intelligent call handling features.

Cloud Voice is available with threesoftware licence options, ranging from anentry-level Basic service to Cloud VoiceCollaborate. The latter is designed formobile or home workers who want to beable to use additional features such asaudio and web conferencing, and makecalls via multiple devices.

Users only need a BT Business internetconnection and an IP phone to make callsacross single or multiple office locations.All calls run over the BT Business network

and users are supplied with an IP phone anda call plan. Minutes are purchased at acompany level, and the plans are designedto be shared amongst users.

Service setup is managed via an onlineportal. BT says this gives administratorsthe flexibility to add new or additionalusers and set preferences, such as callforwarding and call waiting, without theneed for any engineer visits.

The firm says that as Cloud Voice is ahosted solution and requires limitedupfront investment, there are no separatemaintenance contracts and businesses cansimply add users or minutes as they growthrough additional software licenses.

BT adds that the service manages calltraffic back to its national network,claiming that neither call capacity norquality is affected by surges in companydata or internet traffic. �

Azzurri offers “unprecedentedinsight” into managing UC

Top 10 cloud apps enterprise users are mostlikely to access from a mobile device.SOURCE: NETSKOPE CLOUD CONFIDENCE INDEX

6

The perceived security threats associatedwith cloud become less of an issue asbusinesses adopt more services. This isaccording to Databarracks’ latest annualData Health Check report which surveyedmore than 400 IT decision makers fromorganisations of various sizes andindustries in the UK.

It revealed that 81 per cent of respon-dents that had not adopted cloud servicesrated security as a top factor to considerwhen selecting a potential provider, withcore factors such as functionality scoringas poorly as 38 per cent.

However, once an organisation hasadopted two or more cloud services, theimportance of security falls to just 44 percent, with factors such as provider repu-tation becoming more important overall.

This isn’t a case of security becomingless important as you adopt more cloudservices – data security is always goingto be a priority for both the organisationand the provider. What we’re actuallyseeing is organisations moving past the‘fear of the unknown’, as they experiencecloud services first-hand.

We’ve been hearing it for years:security is the biggest inhibitor of cloudservices. Cloud service providers havebeen striving to change that perception,so it’s promising to actually see theattitudes change as the market matures.

Once an organisation actually uses a cloud service, it realises that thepracticalities of working with a provider –the functionality and the location of theirdata centres – become far more importantthan the security risks they once feared.

Past research has always highlightedsecurity as a big factor in the decision-making process when buying cloudservices. But that is changing. Ongoingstudies from the Cloud Industry Forumshow cloud adoption levels are risingyear-on-year. The forum’s most recentresearch highlights that when businessesnow face major IT refreshes, most areactively considering cloud services.

We’ve transitioned from a time of businesses learning about and testingcloud services, to them really under-standing what they need the services forand how to make the most of them.

VIEW FROM THE TOPPeter Groucutt, managing director, Databarracks

Cloud: the more services you adopt,the less you worry about security

BT launches enterprise classcloud-based voice services


Net+ 1411 p7 (APC).indd 7 17/11/2014 14:03

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Law and ordered IT systemsWith strict rules governing the storage and backup of their critical data, legal firmsneed IT systems that offer high security and resilience.Disaster recovery in avirtualised environment

Rothera Dowson Solicitors has beenproviding legal advice and services fornearly 200 years. With several offices in different locations, strict regulatoryprocedures to follow, and an ageing tape solution, its IT team faces manychallenges, especially since the firm was going through the delicate processof migrating to a virtualised platform.

With around 90 users spread across fourbranch offices and a head office in thecentre of Nottingham, the company haddeveloped a sophisticated setup to ensureits IT infrastructure supported everygeographical location while meeting itsday-to-day operational requirements.

Even if offices had only three or fourstaff, each was connected to the head officedata centre via a terminal server, makingthe IT infrastructure in a small branch ascomplex as an office supporting 100 staff.

Rothera Dowson’s existing tape backupsolution had become outdated, storeddata uneconomically, and was also slowand difficult to restore from in the eventof a system failure. When the decisionwas made to migrate to a virtualisedplatform, it became apparent the systemwouldn’t be up to the job of protectingdata. Furthermore, any new recoverysolution would need to comply with theSolicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).

Rothera Dowson developed a reliablesolution based on Unitrends’ Recovery-712 appliance at its the head office. Asecond virtualised appliance is deployedat one of the branch offices, and usesUnitrends’ software to replicate everythingbacked up by the Recovery-712. Thebranch office acts as the firm’s recoverysite. In the event of a disaster at headoffice, staff can decamp to the branchand remain operational. “The Unitrendssoftware has been installed on a virtualserver using our own hardware,” saysStefano Pratesi, principle IT consultant

for Rothera Dowson. “The software hasits own interface so it looks and worksexactly like Unitrends [Enterprise Backup]appliance. Using a mixture of Unitrendshardware and our own has allowed us todeploy a hybrid solution in effect.”

In addition to the Recovery-712 andEnterprise Backup unit, an archive backupof the system is taken off site each week.

Fully managed privatecloud for 25 Bedford Row

25 Bedford Row established itschambers in 1975 and specialises in thedefence of individuals and companiesacross the entire spectrum of criminaland regulatory law, including fraud,human rights and civil liberties.

With the increasing use of BYOD and staff requiring ‘anytime, anywhere’access to data and systems, the London-based practice had to ensure it met theneeds of its 68 barristers and 10 supportstaff. Due to the fast evolution of the ITindustry, it also wanted a way to keep upto date with the latest software andsecurity. Cloud offered the way forward.

After a rigorous tender process, thefirm selected Premier IT’s FullyManaged Private Cloud (FMPC) service.Before being awarded the contract, thesupplier was rigorously assessed by theMinistry of Justice to provide CriminalJustice Secure eMail (CJSM).

According to Premier, the deploymentprocess was quick and efficient – fromsigning the contract to going live tookjust eight weeks. It began with one of thecompany’s engineers conducting an auditof Bedford Row’s infrastructure. A newlease line was then ordered to facilitateimproved service delivery for the FMPCservice which was set up in Premier IT’sUK-based data centre. The legal firm’sdata was migrated from its on-premiseservers via the internet.

To minimise costs, existing desktopswere retained to connect to desktop anddatabase applications via terminal serv-ices. A new virtual desktop infrastructurewas also introduced to provide SaaS on a

dedicated server within Premier’s datacentre. As well as CJSM, the software

provided also includes Meridian LawConnected as well as Windows andMicrosoft Office products. Premier saysthe SaaS model allows the chambers tohave a scalable infrastructure and ensuresthat it is always up to date with the latestsoftware licences and security solutions.

Disaster recovery and business continu-ity are provided as part of the contract atno additional cost. Data is backed up incre-mentally and images of the servers aretaken daily and stored at a separate DC.

Backing up the briefsSpecialist law firm Leigh Day onlyrepresents claimants, and from its officesin London and Manchester it worksinternationally for the rights of individualsagainst corporations and governments.

The company handles thousands oflegal cases every year and over the pasttwo decades these have generated a largeamount of files and data. Data storageand security is critical for the firm andits clients, and in order to deal with itsstorage on a daily basis, Leigh Dayneeded to find a backup solution tosupport all its current and future work.

The firm’s incumbent supplier provideda ‘pay-by-capacity’ backup solution. Thiswas leading to escalating costs as it wasbeing charged per gigabyte. For example,saving and using high-resolution data-heavy satellite images and using the pay-by-capacity model proved unworkable

With 300 staff and new offices inManchester, Leigh Day needed a morerobust backup to accommodate its growth.It also used VMware and therefore neededa flexible infrastructure to suit thisenvironment. Furthermore, it had tocomply with regulatory bodies such as theSRA and the Data Protection Act to ensure

the safety and security of backed updata. IT reseller Covenco recommendedQuorum’s onQ backup appliance. Quorumworked with Leigh Day on a proof ofconcept test, during which it deployedonQ to protect two servers for two months,created a test server, and implemented areal-world disaster recovery fail back.

onQ is the building block of Quorum’sdisaster recovery and DRaaS capabilities,maintaining highly available, up to dateVM clones of critical systems. Thevendor claims the appliance is capable of efficiently taking over for failed serverswithin minutes, and worked “seamlessly”in Leigh Day’s virtualised environment.

The firm has now deployed three onQappliances and an Archive Vault at its HQin London. The devices protect 20+ serversas well as the excessive amounts of data.They take a snapshot of the local produc-tion server every 30 minutes, backing upand replicating the entire server estate.

On a monthly basis the snapshots arearchived, meaning that Leigh Day willalways have access to its legacy data fromthe Archive Vault. With its perpetual incre-mental and deduplication technologies, theamount of new data that needs to be sentto the appliances per snapshot is usuallyquite small, minimising not only storagerequirements, but also reducing the loadon Leigh Day’s LAN and WAN.

For added resiliency, Leigh Day optedto mirror the entire solution to Covenco’sdata centre, where an additional three onQsand Archive Vault constantly replicate theactivity in its London office to provide fulldisaster recovery capabilities.

The appliances keep up-to-date copiesof the company’s operating system,application and data files on both thelocal and remote appliances. It also keepsready-to-run ‘Recovery Nodes’ standingby. If any of Leigh Day’s servers fail, anode can be started with a single click andhave the firm running again in minutes.

The entire backup process is totallyautomatic and doesn’t require anyadditional hardware or software.

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Severe weather can have severeeconomic effects. Goldman Sachs hasestimated that little more than half of

the US economic slowdown was due tobad weather at the beginning of 2014.

Earlier this year, many British businessesalso got a taste of how extreme weathercould knock out essential services. The lossof landline connections had a real impacton businesses that depend on voice anddata communications for day-to-day workand doing regular financial transactions.

Electrical outages also meant systemswent offline, adding to the pressure onnetwork and IT managers to reset andreboot routers and computers once powerwas restored.

No matter what department or functionalarea within a business, ask any managerand they will agree that any form ofdowntime ultimately has a negativeimpact on a company’s bottom line.

Recent research by the CharteredManagement Institute revealed that theaverage cost of downtime for SMEs is£27,000 per hour, with this sum beinghigher for businesses reliant on e-commerce and reaching six figures for larger companies.

And it is not just severe weather that canknock out vital connectivity. The theft ofindustrial cables, including telecomscabling, has become a massive problem inrecent times. For example, in 2012 £770million worth of copper cable was stolen,bringing down voice and data communi-cations services without warning.

For distributed enterprises – companies

with two or more branch locations such asretailers, pub and restaurant chains, servicekiosks, etc – the financial impact of servicedowntime is even greater. Loss ofconnectivity and the inability to processtransactions can mean hefty financiallosses and potentially lost customers.

When it comes to something asimportant as your livelihood, businessescan’t afford to simply muddle through theproblems and hope that connectivity willbe restored soon. Having some contin-gencies for when network connections go down for minor or major reasons is a wise move.

Options for distributedbusinesses

Most organisations can turn a range ofprocedures to respond to a major incidentand work towards getting systems up andrunning again.

But what network business continuityoptions are available for organisationswith a distributed business model thatconsists of many small locations that are widely geographically dispersed?

Such organisations need adequatefailover systems in place across alllocations to handle any unexpected lossof connectivity. Whether it is a retaillocation, restaurant, kiosk, distributioncentre or branch office, the order of theday is to maintain continuous connectivityto headquarters and secure paymentprocessors.

What’s more, a well-designed solutioncan do more than assure faultlessconnectivity – it can also deliver theadded value of enabling quick, remotefixes when network troubles occur.

The ramifications of losing a networkconnection are severe, but the costs ofhaving backup services can be extremelyexpensive.

There is an option to have entirelyseparate, redundant communications linksinto each location that can offer a switch-over facility. Such an option is, however,unrealistic for a distributed business withmany different locations. Additionally,multiple links have inherent risks too asthey may share the same conduit duct.

Another model for ensuring connectivityhas been to insert a wireless USB in theavailable router port. Though this approachdoes offer some level of failover capability,there can be connectivity issues or poorspeeds due to an IT closet that is in poorwireless coverage or has RF noise.

Selling the cellularnetwork

For several years, mobile telecoms hasoffered the basis for a failover systemusing 3G. A good example of this wouldbe Money Mart, a leading provider ofaffordable alternative financial services in the US. Money Mart embarked on alarge-scale project to install backupconnectivity at all retail locations. Withstores in both urban and rural areas, the

firm couldn’t always rely on a landline soit chose a wireless backup solution basedon 2G and then 3G technology.

But as cellular networks have evolvedand the need for higher speeds/bandwidthhas also changed within enterprises, theopportunity to consider 4G for failoversolutions has arisen.

4G offers much faster mobile broadbandlinks than the original mobile internet 3Gservice. This means more data can becarried and the links themselves areinherently more stable and reliable.

While originally marketed to consumers,the opportunity of using 4G for businessapplications is becoming more attractive asthe availability of access to LTE servicesspreads nationwide. So 4G could be thebasis for a quick and efficient failoversolution when a landline connection goesdown from an everyday or exceptionalnetwork problem.

The key here is the mobile broadbandspeeds of 4G that can offer failoverbroadband connectivity at similar or evenhigher speeds to ADSL links. Currently,peak 4G download speeds of 100Mbpsand uploads of 60Mbps are achievable ina failover situation, allowing enterprisesto keep their branch locations up andrunning smoothly.

4G for failoverTo provide seamless continuity fromlandline to 4G connectivity, SMEs andenterprises with distributed locations likeshops can turn to a new range of 4G

business continuity


BRIAN ANDERSON discusses how to maintain critical business network continuity foronline transactions.

10

The loss of landline connections due toextreme weather has a real impact on

businesses that depend on voice anddata communications for regular

financial transactions.

Weathering the storm


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wireless gateway products. When thelandline goes down, the systemautomatically switches over to the 4G connection.

However, when landlines godown, the systems in a remotelocation can require resetting.4G failover gateways canperform a vital role here foreither handling an emergencyor an everyday situation when remotesupport is necessary. When the 4Gnetwork continuity equipment offers an out-of-band management (OOBM)capability, a range of support tasks arepossible.

While routers are typically very reliable,they can be a single point of failure, andmay require a firmware update orsometimes just a reboot. A 4G wirelessgateway with OODM and Reverse Telnet

can allowremote networkadministrators to log in to theenterprise router console port to performconfiguration updates or reset commands.

Once the initial problems on theenterprise router have been resolved viaOOBM, network administrators canperform in-band management of othernetwork connected devices. Of course,

there are wireless OOBM add-onproducts available today, but

having an integrated capability in a single form factor offers monthly

telecom cost savings and a simplifiedinstallation and maintenance path,

avoiding the complexities of gettingstandalone units ‘talking’ to the NOC.

This approach allows the use of 4G forsimplifying network management acrossremote, distributed locations, whiledelivering lower cost of ownership. Bysaving an on-site visit from a technician,OOBM can vastly reduce downtime and

associated repair costs, especially whenthose locations are remote or numerous.

Gateway to uptimeThere are some challenges with networkmanagers adopting 4G as the failover oreven the primary broadband connectivitysolution for retail or hospitality chains orsmall branch offices. Those links need tobe easy to monitor and control whenissues arise. Clearly it is going to beimportant to monitor airtime usage andset and receive failover event and airtimethreshold alerts.

Choosing a gateway device that includescomprehensive connectivity managementand is bundled with wireless connectivityvia a business specialised mobile virtualnetwork operator, means units can be setupin stores or branches in minutes.

This approach can minimise the potentialfor bill shock by ensuring the networkmanager chooses the appropriate failoveror primary rate plans and providing alertswhen airtime thresholds are reached.Typically, a failover rate starts from €25per month but it is important that networkmanagers make sure the plan includesLTE network features such as secureprivate network and fixed IP addresses tomake it easier to deploy and manage 4Ggateways in the field.

While 4G could potentially be morewidely leveraged for failover solutions,there are other primary connectionapplications that are attractive. Forbusinesses that need faster setup forbroadband connectivity than the weeksoffered by some carriers, 4G connectivitymanaged via a gateway device could bean ideal solution, especially in locationsdifficult to service with wire lines.

A good example here could be pop-upenterprises that need to setup quickly andtrade for a short period of time, perhapsover a festive or holiday season.

In a world where connectivity is growingat exponential rates, the expectation is thatinternet access should be readily availableat all times. Most individuals can afford tobe a little put out when they lose theirinternet access. For distributed enterprises,the financial impact of losing connectivityis painful. Implementing a failover systemthat is specifically tailored to mitigatefinancial risk should be a priority. �

“The ramifications oflosing a networkconnection are severe, butthe costs of having backupservices can be extremelyexpensive.”Brian Anderson,VP product marketing,Sierra Wireless

Used in conjunction with an enterpriserouter, Sierra Wireless’ AirLink ES440gateway provides remote out-of-bandmanagement while leveraging therouter’s failover features.

business continuity register online @ www.networkingplus.co.uk NEW WEBSITE NOW LIVE!

nn ee tt ww oo rr kk ii nngg november 2014 12


Asustor has unveiled four enterpriseclass rackmount NAS models as part ofits AS70R range. Available with nine- or 12-bays, the AS7009RD and AS7012RDare powered by Intel’s Core i3 3.5GHzdual-core processors, while theAS7009RDX and AS7012RDX featureIntel’s Xeon E3 3.4GHz quad-coreprocessors. All four are compatible withthe latest high capacity 6TB HDDs,enabling users to create storage spaces ofup to 54TB and 72TB respectively.

In addition to their built-in 4GB UDIMMDDR3 RAM (expandable to a maximumof 32GB; 8GB x 4), all devices also featurefour SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports and twoeSATA ports for added expansion possibil-ities. They come with four GbE ports alongwith two expansion slots for 10GbEnetwork or SAS cards.

A variety of output ports includingHDMI and VGA are also included,allowing IT administrators to

conveniently manage the system. All thedevices offer two-way transfer supportfor Rsync, FTP, cloud (Amazon S3) andexternal backups, allowing for greaterdeployment flexibility.

Each unit features the vendor’s latestADM 2.3 (Asustor Data Master) OS. It’s claimed that this not only providesreliable storage functionality, but alsooffers “seamless” cross-platform filesharing, making it suitable for enterpriseswith a “substantial” number of users.

ADM 2.3 offers several new featuressuch as proxy server connections, TFTPsupport, Windows ACL support, and SMB2.0 support which is said to increaseWindows networking performance by 30 to 50 per cent.


off-the-shelf: storage

The latest storage devices to keep those essential bits and bytessafe and secure.

LaCie, the premium brand from SeagateTechnology, has announced the latestevolution of its d2 desktop storage line. Thedevices now feature dual Thunderbolt 2interfaces as well as a new all-aluminium‘unibody’ enclosure.

According to the firm, the d2’s Seagate6TB 7200 RPM professional hard diskdelivers speeds of up to 220MBps. Itclaims this makes it possibleto significantly reduce backupand transfer times, as well asstore and browse massive fileswith zero lag. Users candaisy-chain up to six devicesto a single Thunderbolt porton a computer.

In what’s billed as anindustry first, LaCie hasdesigned the d2 Thunderbolt2 to be upgradeable to thefastest SSD on the market. Itclaims this boosts speeds up

to 1,150MBps and adds 128GB of PCIeSSD storage to a computer.

The device is said to provide “uncommonrigidity” for long-term durability, thanks toits seamless casing which is forged from asingle sheet of aluminium. The enclosurealso draws heat away from the hard disk,allowing fan-free cooling. The integratedbase extends the surface area, providingeven more space for heat dissipation.

In addition, LaCie says acushioning base and vibration-absorbing hard disk mountscombine to dramaticallyreduce vibration.

The new d2 models areavailable in 3TB, 4TB and6TB capacities. LaCie hasalso recently made availablea 128GB SSD upgrade forthe range, along with a USB

3.0-only version in 3TB,4TB and 5TB capacities.

The Turbo NAS TS/SS-x53 Pro series is anew line-up of tower-based devices fromQNAP Systems. The TS-x53 range isavailable in 2-, 4-, 6- and 8-bay models,while the SS-x53 line-up includes 4- and8-bay versions with 2.5-inch drives.

All are powered by an Intel quad-coreCeleron 2.0GHz processor and feature8GB/4GB/2GB DDR3L RAM (expandableto 8GB). There are two or four LANports that provide up to 400MBps readand write speeds in port trunking mode,and QNAP says 70+MBps read and writespeeds can be achieved with AES-256bitencryption performance.

Coupled with the vendor’s QvPCtechnology, it’s claimed the units can serveas cost-effective PC substitutes that enabledirect access to stored data, real-timesurveillance monitoring with local display,XBMC digital entertainment, and more.

QvPC is designed to consolidate anumber of high-end technologies includingVM integration, multimedia transcoding,HDMI output, cloud integration, and NASconnection technologies. According to

QNAP, it allows users to operate theTS/SS-x53 Pro series as a PC when theyplug in a keyboard, mouse and monitor.

The firm says functionality can be furtherextended by installing the VirtualizationStation from the QTS App Centre. Thisenables the operation of multiple Windows,Linux and UNIX-based VMs, and offersnumerous functions including snapshot,VM import/export, dedicated LAN ports,user permissions, and more.

QNAP adds that users can convenientlyoperate VMs as remote desktops via webbrowsers for instant management ortroubleshooting.

off-the-shelf

capacity, while Scale has 6-96TB.Both offer capacity scalability andare equipped with HDDs or SSDs.

Each appliance can be used as a standardised platform for thebackup and archiving of data fromphysical and VM environments.Fujitsu says their administration iseasy thanks to comprehensive automationwhich ensures highly efficient andreliable data backup.

There’s also a central managementconsole with GUI and remote access totrack, index, schedule and perform datatransfers. The vendor adds that unified

management eliminates multiplemanagement points, reduces risks, cutscosts and frees up administration resources.

The ETERNUS CS200c comes fullylicensed to ensure that capacity can beexpanded quickly and cost-effectivelyduring the lifespan of the appliance.

FUJITSU Storage reckons its newETERNUS CS200c delivers a completebackup and archiving solution in one box.

The appliance integrates Fujitsu’sPRIMERGY servers and ETERNUS DXstorage system with CommVault’s Simpana

backup software. The latter features built-indeduplication and can be extended withenterprise functions such as snapshot,application support and tape management.

There are two ETERNUS CS200cmodels available: Entry offers a 2-24TB

Data centres

Quantum’s StorNext Pro Workgrouphas been designed as an easy todeploy, high performance and highcapacity content workflow solutionfor post-production and broadcastprofessionals.

The integrated system supportsingest, production, review anddelivery along with different optionsfor peta-scale content storage andaccess at any stage of the workflow.

Quantum says StorNext ProWorkgroup extends onlineproduction capabilities by shiftingimportant yet secondary productionoperations to its Lattus objectstorage-based system (pictured). As a result, it is claimed to provideusers with “full access and unlimited

storage capacity in a seamless and fully integrated manner”, all managed by Quantum’sStorNext 5 platform.

The new solution includes aStorNext M662XL metadataappliance and StorNext QX-1200high performance storage arrays.

Utilising StorNext 5 and (in thecase of archive add-on options) the included StorNext StorageManager software, Quantumreckons its solution enables teamsof creative professionals to workdirectly on content with the toolsof their choice, and have contentautomatically migrated to theoptimal storage based on workflow stage.

14


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Demand for Big Data professionals in theUK has created a “salary bubble”, enablingthem to command more than double theaverage wage, according to a new report.

The Big Data Analytics: Demand forLabour and Skills, 2013-2020 studyforecasts that a total of 346,000 Big Datapositions will have been created in the UKbetween 2013-2020. It says jobs requiredto support Big Data projects have increasedmore than ten-fold in the past five years,and with demand significantly outstrippingsupply the average salary for specialists inthis area has reached £55,000 – 24 per centmore than the average IT position.

But recruitment specialists servicing thesector rank senior data analytics roles asharder to fill than those in businessintelligence, purchasing, engineering, sales,finance, management, IT/communications,marketing/PR, and health/medical.

The study was published by the IT sectorskills council Tech Partnership, and businessanalytics specialist SAS. Mark Wilkinson,SAS’ UK and Ireland MD, says: “Big Datais on the cusp of going mainstream as theInternet of Things takes hold, and govern-ment, businesses and individuals look touse data to make better and faster decisions.

“We believe Big Data is the ‘new oil’that will power the information economy –and Big Data analytics will refine this newoil so valuable insights can be extractedthat inform business decision-making.”

SAS says it has already invested morethan £100m to support UK universities anddevelop the next generation of Big Dataprofessionals. The government is alsosupporting the drive for more specialistswith the implementation of nationalstandards and the creation of new projects,especially around open data.

Last month, the EC and the Big DataValue Association (BDVA) signed a partner-ship deal to invest €2.5bn into several BigData initiatives from 2015 to 2020.

According to reports, the EC will commit€500m to help create up to 100,000 newdata-related jobs in Europe by 2020. TheBDVA will add at least another €2bn overthe same period. The association is a publicprivate partnership whose members include

various research bodies andfirms such as ATOS, IBM,SAP, amongst others.

Gateway Programme to“boost” graduate prospectsQA has launched its exclusive GatewayProgramme for recent STEM graduates.Through the programme, the trainingspecialist aims to fast track the careers of young people into the increasinglycompetitive IT market.

According to QA, while new graduateshave the drive and academic qualifications,they do not necessarily have the practicalskills to maximise their potential within thefirst two years of employment. The newprogramme aims to address the problem. It will provide graduates with a period ofwhat QA claims is “world class” practical

training followed by an assignment withone of the employers in its 6,000-strongclient base. The firm says training andassignments will provide a balance of bothinformal and formal learning to support thedevelopment needs of graduates.

The UK Council of Professors and Headsof Computing predicts that demand for ITprofessionals will increase by up to 15 percent in the next eight years. As a result, QA’sGateway Programme will initially focus onthe well-publicised UK IT skills gap.

“During the recession, IT budgets weretight, projects held back, and staff numberscut,” says Andy Thompson, skills manage-ment consultant at QA. “As the financialclimate improves, the need for skilled ITstaff is accelerating. The technology deficitthat many companies are experiencingneeds to be fixed quickly with new staffhitting the ground running.”

NEW COURSESLevel 3 Award in Principles ofTelecommunications – PTTPTT says its Level 3 Award in Principles ofTelecommunications helps address the UK’scurrent skills shortage in telecoms byproviding new entrants with a solidfoundation for technical competence.

The programme is flexible, and traineesdo not need to travel to a training centre. It consists of a combination of interactivecourses, tutor support and assessment alldelivered online. The course provides acore element and a choice of one of threespecialisations: mobile communications,telephony and data communications.

Successful participants will be awardeda certificate of achievement by NCFE, oneof the UK’s major awarding organisations.www.ptt.co.uk

Qualified Security Team Member –Tigerscheme/PGI Cyber AcademyCyber training specialist PGI CyberAcademy is now delivering the trainingand assessment for Tigerscheme’sQualified Security Team Member (QSTM)at its training facility in Bristol.

The course allows individuals to becomerecognised and certified informationsecurity professionals within the public andprivate sector. It also offers the opportunityfor IT practitioners to add informationsecurity to their skills set.

The QSTM assessment has been reviewedby CESG (the National Technical Author-ity in the UK) and has been accepted asmeeting the technical requirements for aCHECK Team Member assault course.

Tigerscheme’s QSTM certification isbacked by the University of South Wales.www.pgicyberacademy.com

network knowledgeregister online @ www.networkingplus.co.uk NEW WEBSITE NOW LIVE!


Thousands ofBig Data expertsneeded by 2020

SAS UK and Ireland MDMark Wilkinson says

Big Data is the ‘new oil’that will power the

informationeconomy.

Net+ 1411 p14-15 (Off the Shelf & Net Knowledge) AM RN NEW.qxd 17/11/14 13:19

Net+ 1411 p16 (Sandisk).indd 9 13/11/2014 17:01

legal firms need it systems data centre technology out of

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