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FILLIPEFRAZAO/ISTOCK

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THE WEEK IN IT
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Government & public sector

Cloud computing

Deputy mayor of London for business and


enterprise, Kit Malthouse, waged war on
the database giant Oracle over its licensing fees. The deputy mayor said there was
an opportunity for a new data company to
come into the market and crack the lock
Oracle has over the government. Like
most people in government, Ive been
screwed by Oracle, said Malthouse.

Coca-Colas bottling company is moving


its mission-critical workloads on to the
cloud. We have just deployed core services on the cloud, CIO Onyeka Nchege
told delegates at Cloud World Forum
2014. In the next two to five years, we
will move most of our core applications,
including enterprise resource planning
systems, to the cloud.

Deputy London Mayor criticises Oracle


over public-sector licensing fees

Coca-Cola bottler will move core apps


to cloud, CIO tells Cloud World Forum

Financial services

Innovation, research & development

Mike Fish, CIO of the Society for


Worldwide Interbank Financial
Telecommunication (Swift), said he will
retire in January 2015 after 15 years at the
financial transaction messaging company.
He will step down in January to give time
to hand over to his successor. Swift said
the organisation will look for a new CIO
internally and externally.

A 1m competition for small businesses


innovating in the internet of things sector
opened for entries on the first day of
London Technology Week. The initiative is
a joint venture between Tech City UK, the
Technology Strategy Board and
Cambridge Wireless, and is backed by EE
and John Lewis among other companies.

Swift CIO announces retirement date

EE, John Lewis and other big-name


brands support start-up competition

Cloud computing

Wireless networking

Microsoft admitted it runs out of Internet


Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses in the
US occasionally, but assured US Azure
customers their data remains in the US.
Some customers of Microsofts Azure
cloud platform service grew concerned
when they noticed that some virtual
machines being used for their workloads
had been assigned non-US IP addresses.

The owner of St Pancras International,


Stratford, Ebbsfleet and Ashford highspeed rail stations, HS1
access the latest
Ltd, has deployed what it
it news via rss feed
claims is the highest
performance Wi-Fi network accessible to the UK public. It hopes
the network will enable up to 7,000 users
to stream HD content simultaneously. n

Microsoft admits running out of US


Internet Protocol addresses for Azure

St Pancras International WLAN upgrade


promises gigabit speeds for commuters

WIMBLEDON ANALYSES
SOCIAL MEDIA INTERACTION

THINKSTOCK

The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club


(AELTC) at Wimbledon has started analysing
interactions between social media consumers
to gain insights into the famous tennis championship that began this week.
By analysing references to Wimbledon on
social media in real time, the club claims it can
understand key topics, identify influential individuals online and update the Wimbledon.com
website in line with fans interests.
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Hackers & cyber crime prevention

Legislation & regulation

The latest cyber breach to hit a


high-profile brand underlines the high
value of personal data and the need for
businesses to increase defences around it,
said security experts. Hackers demanded
a 30,000 ransom from Dominos Pizza
after stealing the personal data of more
than 600,000 of the companys customers in France and Belgium.

revealed a secret government policy


justifying the mass surveillance of
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google
users in the UK. Charles Farr, the director
general of the Office for Security and
Counter Terrorism, said surveillance is
permitted under the law because communications through US-based services are
defined as external communications.

Government & public sector

Privacy & data protection

The National Audit Office (NAO) said it


might conduct a second investigation into
the Universal Credit IT project. Speaking
at an event organised by IT trade body
TechUK, NAO executive Sally Howes said
it was likely the watchdog would produce
a report on the progress of Universal
Credit before the 2015 general election.

Europes top court is to rule on a case that


seeks to force data protection authorities
to investigate allegations that Facebook
passes personal data to the US National
Security Agency. The case, brought by
privacy campaigner Max Schrem, was
referred to the European Court of Justice
by the high court in Dublin.

Dominos Pizza cyber breach underlines UK spy reveals online snooping policy
value of personal data, say experts
A top UK counter-terrorism official has

Government watchdog set for second


investigation into Universal Credit IT

Top European court set to rule on


Facebook data privacy challenge

Government & public sector

Jobs & recruitment

The Department of Health (DoH) outlined


changes in the way it will use technology
and information. The DoH claims its
technology revolution will make it more
efficient. The department set out a number of priorities, including aligning public
services to meet the governments Digital
by Default agenda and migrating affiliated
external websites to the Gov.uk domain.

and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) IT


chief Phil Pavitt as global
access the latest
CIO. Pavitt was most
it news via rss feed
recently the global transformation and operations
director at insurance company Aviva, from
January 2013, where he was responsible
for global IT operations, IT security and
global procurement. n

Department of Health sets out changing Specsavers names global CIO


technology priorities to boost efficiency Specsavers has appointed former Aviva

SECURITY SOFTWARE MARKET SHARE BY SUPPLIER

8.7%

Global security
spending reached
$19,972bn in 2013

5.7%
5.6%
3.8%

18.7%

7.5%

Symantec
McAfee
IBM
Trend Micro
EMC
Others
Source: Gartner

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ANALYSIS

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EDITORS
COMMENT
OPINION

Salesforce: building business clout


As Salesforce.com works towards the expansion of its industrial and geographic
reach, Cliff Saran looks at the software as a service providers business potential

ith over 1.5 million developers on


the Salesforce platform and 2,000
apps on its AppExchange market,
is Salesforce.com a true business platform?
The company recently announced plans to
formally develop and expand its footprint in
six industries: financial services and insurance; healthcare and life sciences; retail and
consumer products; communications and
media; public sector; and automotive and
manufacturing.

Salesforce.com can
cut the amount of ERP
customisation from

BUYERS GUIDE TO
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Salesforce.
com opens UK
datacentre to
support data
sovereignty
Salesforce.
com: a CIOs
friend or foe?

40% to less than 10%


Forrester Research
According to Forrester Research, with
its ecosystem of AppExchange partners
Salesforce.com can cut the amount of customisation typical in the classic enterprise
resource planning (ERP) world from 40% to
less than 10%.
This particularly suits the systems of
engagement world, where clients value
agility over customisation to keep up with
rising customer demands and expectations,
Forrester principal analyst Ted Schadler
wrote in the Forrester paper, Salesforce.com is
building industry cloud ecosystems.
Forrester believes corporate developers
and systems integrators will be drawn to the
Salesforce.com platform to develop new,
mobile-ready enterprise applications.
For instance, pharmaceutical giant
GlaxoSmithKline used specialist IT services
company Bluewolf to build a custom iPad
application called Koach. The app enables
sales reps to search for information such as
current research, sales tools and suggested

questions to ask doctors based on personality type. Koach was integrated with
Salesforce.com and an internal intranet, so
employees had access to all information at
their fingertips, according to Bluewolf.

Growth across Europe

Salesforce.coms UK datacentre is due to


come online in a few months, which means
UK businesses will be able to host their
enterprise cloud applications on UK soil.
This is potentially a big step for the company as it extends its reach into Europe.
German and French datacentre facilities are
expected to come online next year.
The software as a service (SaaS) company
recently put its name to the Heron Tower in
London, which will now be called Salesforce
Tower and is the companys flagship office in
the heart of the city.
In the UK, Direct Line Group, Eurostar and
TNT are among the growing list of organisations choosing Salesforce.com to drive their
businesses.
Miguel Milano, European president at
Salesforce.com, said: We fully expect
that the next year will see Salesforce.com
build on its positive impact in the UK with
Salesforce customers, partners and application developers.

JAIME DE LA FUENTE/FLICKR

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Salesforce.com is also looking to extend the


momentum it has gained in customer relationship management (CRM) to other areas
of enterprise IT.

No need to spend a million on ERP

Waste management company The Green


House uses Salesforce.com to run its business. The company provides an environmental management service, supporting the
operational and regulatory requirements of
commercial organisations.

Seven years ago, I had


10,000 in my pocket.
When SAP quoted me
1m, my jaw dropped
Philip Mossop, The Green House

OPINION

Philip Mossop, development director at


The Green House, originally looked at SAP
BusinessOne to run the back-office function for his startup business. Seven years
ago, I had 10,000 in my pocket. When SAP
ERASURE CODING
quoted me 1m, my jaw dropped, he said.
MORE EFFECTIVE
Instead, he built his enterprise resource
THAN RAID
planning (ERP) business on Salesforce.com.
The heart of the system is a customer portal
WHY VDI CHASES
that allows The Green Houses customers
MOBILE USERS OFF
to find the most appropriate waste collecTHE NETWORK
tion facility which adheres to the companys
internal and regulatory requirements.
DOWNTIME
The company now has a turnover of 10m,
with customers such as Caff Nero on its
books.
Today, it has just one Salesforce.com developer the system was built around a customised Salesforce portal. With Salesforces
subscription
model we
What do SaaS implementations mean for IT?
How to tell if your firm is ready for SaaS ERP
eliminate
IT decision-makers accept SaaS future
development
costs and this
saves us a huge amount of money, said
Mossop. For instance, the company originally
spent 12,000 to develop an iPhone app, but
this functionality is now available through
Salesforce1.

BUYERS GUIDE TO
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AUTOMATION

Running a bank on SaaS

The Islamic Bank of Britain (IBB) is another


Salesforce.com customer that runs its business on the SaaS product. The bank was
established a decade ago and has 50,000
customers.
We began using Salesforce in 2009, both
for customer-facing and internal applications,
said IBB head of marketing Tim Sinclair.
It began with traditional sales functions
such as lead management, but the use of
Salesforce.com expanded to the account
acquisition process in 2012 and the opening
of savings accounts.
All of the banks products are created on
the Salesforce.com platform. When you
click to open a new online account, you go
through Salesforce, said Sinclair.
The bank is now working with Tech
Mahindra to take its Salesforce-powered
Home Purchase Plan application to market,
enabling other financial organisations to
buy the app.
CIOs should consider the impact of
Salesforce.com moving closer to enterprise
IT. According to Forrester, software as a
service potentially makes it easier for the
business and the CIO to finally decommission older legacy systems that are too fragile
or expensive to move outright. n

FINANCIAL CONDUCT
AUTHORITY DEPLOYS
SALESFORCE.COM
Salesforce.com recently announced its
first UK datacentre, which is also its first
in Europe. One organisation assessing the
UK datacentre is the Financial Conduct
Authority (FCA).
Gareth Lewis, CIO of the FCA, said financial stability is incredibly important and
consumers need a degree of protection.
The FCA needed new systems to support
consumer credit regulation. We had six
months to set up a platform. We started
in January 2014 and went live on 1 April,
he said.
The implementation was not trivial. It
could not be achieved in-house, so we bet
the farm on Salesforce.com, said Lewis.
computerweekly.com 24-30 June 2014 5

ANALYSIS

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Ukrainian
IT industry
calls on
government to
invest time
and money
Interview:
Carlos
Morgado,
CTO, Just Eat

Just Eat uses staffing outsourcer to


build IT skills pool in Ukraine office
Danish staff supplier Ciklum helped the online takeaway firm expand operations
by setting up an office in Kiev to exploit the local IT talent. Karl Flinders reports

nline takeaway service Just Eat has


built a team of software development
and project managers in the Ukrainian capital Kiev through an agreement with
Danish IT staffing services provider Ciklum.
The company realised it could not recruit
staff quickly enough to meet the demands
of its expanding business, which is built on
e-commerce platforms. Just Eat has around
120 IT staff and operates in 13 countries, but
is growing fast. IT staff are based in London
and three other sites but, in December 2012,
the company found its way to Ukraine-based
IT staff provider Ciklum.
Ciklum helps businesses find and recruit
IT staff in Ukraine which has a large pool
of software engineering skills and provides
office space for its customers at its operations in Ukraine and Belarus. The company
has about 2,500 software engineers working
for different corporate global customers.
Jim Beattie, director of international engineering at Just Eat, said the company needed
to build its software team quickly and
wanted the right mix of engineering skills,
culture, time zone and cost.
Cost was a secondary consideration.
Ukraine is not as cheap as places such as
India but it is important to get a good balance
of other factors, said Beattie.
Beattie said Ciklums model means the
workers become staff of the customer and
the supplier is not involved in an employees
relationship with the customer. A fixed fee
is paid to Ciklum for each worker, but the
customer is in full control of staff.
The difference between Ciklum and other
suppliers is that we take on and manage our
own staff. Ciklum takes over the areas where
we are not adding value, such as the hiring,
provision of office space and pay roll. I pay
Ciklum a fee, rather than to get a certain job
done, said Beattie.

Ukraine is emerging as
an IT outsourcing rival
to India, with workers
who understand
business needs as
well as offering
technical skills

THINKSTOCK

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The fixed fee means that, if Just Eat


requires additional help on a certain issue,
there is no wrangling over price or contracts.

Humble beginnings

Beattie said it is important the firm finds


employees, not outsourced staff. We are a
technology company and we do not want to
outsource the how. The way we build and
support platforms is our secret sauce.
Just Eat has 30 employees in Ukraine,
which it found through Ciklum, and it will
soon have more. We started with Ciklum by
recruiting five people as a test and now we
plan to have 40 there soon, said Beattie.
He said the firm started the relationship
by tasking the first small group of Ukrainebased staff with low-risk projects but, due
to the projects success, some of Just Eats
country platforms are now run from Kiev.
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On the political troubles in Ukraine,


Beattie said there had been minimal disruption. There were a couple of days in
extreme cases when we had a slightly
smaller team and our corporate policy
meant we would not travel to Ukraine at
certain times. Beattie said he normally
visits his staff in Kiev once a fortnight.

When we have a
problem we sit down
with Ciklum and it

helps us sort it out,


because it has usually
experienced the same
thing before

Jim Beattie, Just Eat


Quality of service

Beattie said there is a good, transparent


working relationship with Ciklum, which is
ERASURE CODING
important because this is a new approach
MORE EFFECTIVE
for Just Eat. When we have a problem
THAN RAID
which happens sometimes, because this is
new to us we sit down with Ciklum and it
WHY VDI CHASES
helps us sort it out because it has usually
MOBILE USERS OFF
experienced the same thing before.
THE NETWORK
Another way Ciklum ensures a good service
is by putting its customers in contact
DOWNTIME
with each other, to share their experiences
and methods. I regularly go for a pint with
other Ciklum customers, said Beattie.
Central and Eastern European countries,
such as Ukraine, are becoming increasingly
popular destinations for UK IT outsourcing.
The proximity
Central and Eastern European nearshoring
and cultural
IT Priorities 2014 Europe
closeness of
Outsourcing in Ukraine: pros and cons
countries such
as Ukraine,
Poland, Romania and Moldova make agile
software development techniques more
manageable than in India or China. A highly
skilled software engineer in Ukraine will
command a monthly salary of 2,355.

Understanding business for growth

Ciklum CEO Torben Majgaard told


Computer Weekly that, in Ukraine, software
engineers understand customers business
challenges and address these with technology, in contrast to the approach in India
where a worker expects to be told what to
develop and does not challenge it.
Majgaard is involved in the Brain Basket
movement, an industry group that wants IT
to fuel the growth of the Ukrainian economy.
It aims to co-ordinate efforts to train
100,000 people and generate $10bn annual
revenues by 2020. It recently received
accolades from Richard Branson for its role in
boosting education and creating jobs. n

NEARSHORING IT TO
UKRAINE: AN OVERVIEW
Ukraine offers highly skilled IT specialists at
low cost for companies looking to develop
projects in Europe. But problems of corruption and social unrest remain stumbling
blocks for some companies.
When UK organisations consider offshoring, India has tended to be the first port of
call, due to its technical expertise and the
cultural ties between the two countries.
But that could be changing, with nearshore
locations such as Ukraine vying for a share
of the market over the last five years.
Figures from the Ukrainian Hi-Tech
Initiative, the countrys outsourcing
software development alliance, reveal
Ukraines outsourcing industry was estimated to have grown 20% in 2010.
It looks set to face India head-on, with
software development the most popular
outsourcing service, followed by software
testing and application maintenance.
In Ukraine, there were 18,100 IT specialists working in the outsourcing industry in
2009, but that figure was estimated to have
risen by 2,400 in the next year.
However, growing technical expertise
and demand for developers has led to
increasing labour costs. According to the
European Business Association (EBA),
the monthly earnings of IT specialists in
Ukraine rose to $1,500 in 2011, compared
with just $500 in 2005.
computerweekly.com 24-30 June 2014 7

CASE STUDY

NEWS
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OPINION
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DOWNTIME

Birmingham
rolls out free
public Wi-Fi
London
Symphony
Orchestra fine
tunes Wi-Fi

How York City Council installed a


Wi-Fi network in its historic streets
The ancient city now offers businesses, visitors and residents wireless access
to its fibre network technology using smart access points. Jennifer Scott reports

i-Fi is an increasingly ubiquitous


service. Whether travelling to the
other side of the world for business or popping down to the local coffee
shop for a break, people expect to be able to
connect to the internet and access their
emails, check their social networks and go
about their daily digital tasks on the move.
More companies are making the service
available. In recent years, everyone from fast
food chains such as McDonalds and KFC to
large venues such as Lords Cricket Ground
or Liverpool Football Clubs Anfield stadium
has been installing the technology. Now the
public sector is beginning to understand the
benefits Wi-Fi can bring and, rather than just
allocating budgets to the odd venue, whole
cities are getting connected.
One such city is York. The ancient hub in
the north of England is home to almost
200,000 people and receives seven million
visitors a year at attractions from the famous
York Minster to the Jorvik Viking Museum.

Technologically advanced city

The city has always been forward-thinking


when it comes to technology. In 2010, the
city council signed a 13.7m fibre deal with
Pinacl, to roll out a network to the councils
estate including 67 schools, 14 libraries,
council offices and sports facilities and
provide bandwidth for new services.
In 2013, the council asked Pinacl to build on
the existing system and bring fast connectivity to the wider population. Roy Grant, head
of ICT at the council, says: York City Council
had already embarked on an ambitious
digital plan, installing the largest metro fibre
network in the UK. The next stage was Wi-Fi.
We saw Wi-Fi as a key enabler of a thriving business community, and an essential
service for the millions of visitors and residents, and for council information services.

THINKSTOCK

HOME

York City Council took care that the Wi-Fi hardware


should not detract from the citys historic buildings

The move was part of the Re-invigorate York


project to rejuvenate the city centre. The
council chose Ruckus Wireless as its technology partner. The company specialises in
Wi-Fi systems for large, densely populated
environments and has a number of case
studies under its belt, from public Wi-Fi in
San Francisco to connectivity in airports.
Ruckus Wireless received an honourable
mention in the Computer Weekly European
User Awards for networking.

History and technology

The project was a big one and the council


decided to start small with three defined
hubs to test out the technology, giving residents, visitors and local businesses access
to services provided by the local authority.
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CASE STUDY
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With an outdoor focus, this deployment


evolved to encompass a city centre Wi-Fi
that would light up key hotspots, with a view
to joining them together to provide complete
Wi-Fi coverage across as much of the city as
possible, says Grant.
Many visitors to the historic City of York
enjoy sampling the delights of Coney Street
and St Helens Square, or visit the Museum
Gardens for outdoor concerts, weddings and
York Museum itself. Alternatively, they can
travel to the edge of the city to see Rowntree
Park, a recreational space donated by the
world-renowned confectioners to the memory of the cocoa workers who fell during the
Great War. Now, they can do so and enjoy
the benefits of free Wi-Fi access.
One of the key parts of the project was
ensuring the necessary hardware did not
detract from the historic buildings that
comprise a large part of the city, while
ensuring high-speed connections.
Pinacl looked into this and selected Ruckus
ZoneFlex 7363 dual-band (2.4/5Ghz) indoor
802.11n mid-range access point technology,
which includes the companys BeamFlex
adaptive antenna.
BeamFlex holds a smart, compact antenna
array with multiple elements, which can be
combine to form individual antenna patterns.
The software learns from the environment,
identifying possible sources of interference,
and selects the best route for devices to
communicate, minimising the effect on other
nearby networks.

Quick Wi-Fi installation

Mark Lowe, director of major accounts


at Pinacl, says that, despite the complex
problems it overcomes, the technology was
straightforward to deploy and manage,
so the firms engineers didnt need much
training before
embarking on
Coventry GB city upgrades core metro fibre
the project.
Chancellor names super-connected cities
The Ruckus
Hyperoptic targets three UK cities for 1Gbps
SmartMesh
technology at
the centre of the system furthers this simplification. The Ruckus equipment supports
mesh operation, which meant, in the majority
of cases, we only needed to provide power to
the device, he says.

No cabled network connection was necessary, which meant there was minimal disruption to the citys infrastructure.
This also pleased the council, which had
asked for a speedy delivery for the project.
All three sites were installed and operational
in a matter of days and the project completed in January 2013.

Users can access


the Wi-Fi through a
smartphone application
to log complaints,
post requests or log
on for the services the
council provides

Roy Grant, York City Council


The Ruckus equipment gave us a great
experience from day one, says Grant. It has
supported and improved our flexible working
aspirations and opened up another channel
of access for our customers, citizens, visitors
and the business community.
To communicate directly with the council,
users can access the Wi-Fi through a smartphone application to log complaints, post
requests or log on for the services we provide. Its a tremendous, comprehensive
solution that were satisfied with.

Success leads to expansion

More than one million people have already


accessed the free Wi-Fi without any complaints, and now the City of York is looking
to expand even further.
Following the success of our initial deployment, we are looking to expand our Wi-Fi
hotspots across the area within the city walls
and also on to our strategic transport routes,
says Grant.
We have recently selected Ruckus for this
Wi-Fi expansion that will provide further
Wi-Fi coverage to residents, visitors and
businesses, so watch this space. n
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Betfair raises its game as World Cup


punters engage cloud infrastructure
Online bookmaker CIO Michael Bischoff tells Archana Venkatraman about the
benefits of using software as a service to deliver the apps the business needs

CW500

t is a busy time for


online bookmaker
Betfair, with the 20th
Fifa World Cup in full
swing. But CIO Michael
Bischoff is confident the bookies IT infrastructure is improving betting services, and
for more customers than ever.
We have spent a lot of time engineering
our IT architecture, he says.
But while the World Cup is important, so
is Wimbledon, the Champions League and
the FA Premiership, and thats why the IT
team constantly works to improve the infrastructure to deliver smooth services to its
users. Bischoff says Betfair is ready for the
games and the team is now focusing on how
to translate the websites back-end IT into a
smooth customer experience.

interview

Betfair spent a lot of time preparing its infrastructure


for the Fifa 2014 World Cup, says CIO Michael Bischoff

SaaS has been a boon


to us. It has freed up
ITs time to focus on
core things that will
generate revenue
Engaging social media

Bet365
improves
latency with
network
upgrade
Betting site
YouWin speeds
response times
with MongoDB
database

This World Cup is more special because it


is the first social World Cup, says Bischoff.
Twitter has become a standard medium
of communication for sporting fans while a
game is on. It has changed how our customers talk to each other and how they engage
with sports and betting exchanges.
We realised pretty early on that social is
going to be big and designed our infrastructure to help us introduce social into the play.

One element is Betfairs online Cash Out


tool, that will allow users to lock in a profit
or reduce exposure at the touch of a button
without having to trade manually.
Betfairs infrastructure has all the elements
of a modern infrastructure private cloud,
public cloud, software as a service (SaaS),
software-defined features and automation
capabilities, and is mobile-ready.
ITs aim is to give users internal and
external what they want, and we use any
technology that can help us provide that
in the best possible way. All clouds are not
created equal, so we believe in consuming
services that serve our needs, says Bischoff.
As a result, Betfair has a hybrid IT environment. It uses VMware vCloud suite for
automation and orchestration and Amazon
Web Services (AWS) public cloud RedShift
data warehouse service.
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VMwares vCloud suite has helped us


automate our infrastructure and give it to the
development team to build apps on, he says.
Bischoff says the team has its IT priorities
straight. Aspects like network virtualisation
and storage virtualisation are important, but
not at this moment for us. Right now, we
want to give our developers what they want,
make our infrastructures interface friendly
for the developers to write apps and integrate the teams, he says.

Adopting a DevOps strategy

Betfair has adopted an integrated development and operations (DevOps) software


strategy. We see DevOps as the ability to
BETFAIR RAISES ITS
have a simple, seamless integrated flow
GAME WITH CLOUD
between a business idea and its producPUNT FOR FIFA 2014
tion, says Bischoff.
In a traditional IT setup, the apps developEDITORS
ment
team takes business needs and writes
COMMENT
the software. The program is passed to the
testing team, which tests it in isolation. If the
OPINION
testing is successful, the development team
then sends the program back to the operaBUYERS GUIDE TO
tions team to be rolled out to users.
BUSINESS PROCESS
But working in isolation leads to frustration
AUTOMATION
and inefficiencies, as neither team understands the limitations or challenges of the
ERASURE CODING
other. DevOps merges the silos between
MORE EFFECTIVE
tasks performed by the application develTHAN RAID
opment team and those performed by the
systems operations team.
WHY VDI CHASES
We are still on the journey with DevOps,
MOBILE USERS OFF
says Bischoff. It is not about just having a
THE NETWORK
vision. Much of it is about changing people
and processes and business culture.
DOWNTIME
The line between software and infrastructure is blurring fast and that is the future, he
insists: Software is eating into the datacentre and the future is all about automation.
Betfair uses VMware vCloud suite to
abstract and automate its infrastructure
layer for apps
William Hill bets on mobile
development,
Online gambling backs business intelligence
and uses AWS
Gaming site bets on flexible benefits software
Redshift to get
access into
data and insights from customers to then
find revenue-generating opportunities.
We are actually pretty pleased with
Redshift and how it helps us in data analytics, says Bischoff.

Aligning business and IT

According to Bischoff, IT strategies must


not only be about cost savings or even provisioning services quickly: Thats a given.
These bits are necessary but not sufficient
today. It has to be strongly aligned to business requirements, he says.
Adopting SaaS has been a boon to us. It
has freed up ITs time to focus on core things
that will generate revenue.
So what about shadow IT? Does Bischoff
like many other CIOs feel threatened by it?
If you asked me whether I know the exact
number of cloud services used by Betfair
staff, I wouldnt know. Shadow IT exists it is
real and we have to embrace it, he says.
I have 1,700 colleagues, all trying to innovate business aspects. I cannot constrain
that. I cannot curate the internet. But at the
same time, we are a heavily regulated player
and have to comply with strict data and
financial regulations, he says.
According to Bischoff, enterprise IT must
be a trusted partner and work with everyone.
If the IT is going to say, Right, you did this
without asking us and we are going to lock
you down, it wont work, he says.
What will happen is, the next time some
marketing employee uses their credit card to
purchase a cloud service or download a free
cloud service, they will not even tell you.
A CIO should engage with other business
colleagues and ask them how the IT team
can help them with their favourite IT services. Thats why IT brokerage has become
so much more important today, he says.

Planning for the future

In the three years since he joined Betfair,


Bischoff has made it his priority to adopt
SaaS and reduce datacentre complexity.
He did not inherit any mainframes or
legacy infrastructure, but that doesnt mean
his journey has been without challenges. In
the past three years, mobile access of data
by customers has become a big thing for us.
Users are expecting IT delivery an awful lot
quicker and we had to enable that, he says.
The mobile world is moving so fast that the
apps Betfair created 18-24 months ago are
termed as heritage apps today, he says. n
This is an edited excerpt. Click here to read the full interview.
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Todays IT professionals
are key to securing
the UKs digital future

t was the first ever London Technology Week last


week. It grabbed some headlines, but also shot itself
in the foot with rather ambitious claims that struggled to stand up to scrutiny.
But it is never a bad thing to see technology being promoted as essential to the UKs economic future and job
creation. A big frustration is that the focus on London,
and on the tech startup scene, misses the real point.
Lets say that London Technology Weeks claim of
46,000 new jobs in Tech City in 10 years is correct. That
means an average of 4,600 jobs a year. Thats just 0.4%
of the IT professionals currently employed in the UK.
According to e-Skills UK, we need 129,000 new
entrants into IT and telecoms jobs every year. Those
4,600 London startup jobs each year account for just
3.6% of those new roles.
The people who are going to be the core of the digital
economy are not working in Tech City startups. The
heartland of the UKs IT-enabled economic future are
the 1.2 million people working as IT professionals in IT
departments across the private, public and third sectors
and in established IT suppliers.
These are the tech experts who are already revolutionising the high street with multi-channel retail systems;
putting mobile banking in our pockets; delivering internet connectivity and websites that occupy more and
more of our time and money.
Yet it is in this heartland that we face the biggest risk
to the digital economy the growing lack of suitable
skills and people to support the IT-enabled economy.
The digital opportunity for the UK is clear to everyone
and of interest to everyone in business, politics and the
media, as London Technology Week has demonstrated.
But the problem that needs to be addressed is immediate the training and re-training of new and existing
IT professionals to grow the digital skills of the future.
So yes, lets join London Technology Week in promoting the importance of technology to the UKs economic
future. But lets also remember that its the UKs existing
IT professionals that will secure that digital future, and
lets invest in their future for the sake of our economy. n

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Whitehall
could save
33bn with big
data analytics,
says Policy
Exchange
Report
wants
government
remake for
digital age

Policy makers must take technology


more seriously for the UK to prosper
Influential think tank Policy Exchange says politicians need to make the UK the
worlds most connected and digitally skilled society. Eddie Copeland reports

n the lead-up to the 2015 general


election, the think tank Policy Exchange
wants to make one message loud and
clear: technology should be front and centre
of politicians thinking.
Why? Because it is no longer peripheral to
our lives. Almost every policy area is affected
by technology, for good or bad, yet few MPs
understand its potential to transform public
services. When technology is discussed by
politicians at all, it is generally treated as a
procurement issue, but this misses the point.
Technology should be taken seriously by
policy makers. It can aid social mobility, drive
British exports, create new jobs and allow
government to deliver more with less.

Technology Manifesto

That is why Policy Exchange published its


own Technology Manifesto. The document
offers 33 policy recommendations and
highlights three core goals we believe all
parties should aim to achieve by 2020:
to build the worlds most connected and
digitally skilled society; to make Britain the
most attractive place, outside of Silicon
Valley, for technology entrepreneurs to start
and grow a business; and to use technology
and data to make our government the
smartest in the world.
The next governments first priority should
be to ensure as many people as possible
have at least basic digital skills. This is vital
to breaking social barriers, ensuring the
government can provide more digital services
and creating the widest possible domestic
market for British businesses selling online.
Yet today, 9.8 million Britons lack basic IT
competencies. Addressing this will require
an 875m investment by 2020. But the cost
savings for government will be 1.2bn-1.7bn
by moving to digital transactions alone and
there will be big potential economic benefits.

Developing talent

Britain needs individuals who understand


how technology works and can harness it to
create innovative products and services.
Introducing computing into the school
curriculum this September is the long-term
answer, but we need it now. In the near term,
with almost half of all technology-sector
employers looking abroad to hire talented
staff, the only practical way to get more
skilled individuals into the workforce is from
overseas. Yet recent changes to the UKs visa
regulations have effectively shut the door to
many of the best and brightest from around
the world, and even to international students
who have studied in the UK.
As a result, between 2010/11 and 2012/13,
the number of non-EU international students
entering science, technology, engineering
and maths (STEM) subjects at UK
universities fell by 8% for undergraduates
and by 20% for taught postgraduates. In
computer science, both undergraduate and
taught postgraduate entrants saw a decline
of 38%. Visa reform should therefore be a
top priority for the next government.
As for making the UK government the
smartest in the world, all parties should be
aiming to build on the momentum started
during the current parliament. Soon we
will see the first digital-by-default services,
more websites being migrated to Gov.uk and
greater use of G-Cloud. But there is also a
real need for change behind the scenes. n

Eddie Copeland is head of


the technology policy unit at
PolicyExchange.
This an edited excerpt. Click here to
read the full interview online.
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Co-ordinating IT to align
with business processes
Organisations and their IT departments must learn to work differently if they
want to take full advantage of business process automation, says Cliff Saran

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business process automation part 3 of 3

Automating
workloads to
improve
business
efficiency
Automated
reference
checking
software cuts
turnaround
time

raditionally, when a business wanted to automate a process, it would turn to the


IT department, which would work on a formal specification. Once the specification had been signed off, IT would go away for a period of months to develop some
software, which would then be delivered to the business.
Job done. But not quite Projects delivered in this way often fail to match business expectations. Why? Because the business does not stand still while IT develops the software it
requires. There is also the risk of scope creep: a project that followed a neat formal specification on day one can quickly become an amorphous mess if extra functionality is added
without the due diligence that took place at the projects inception.
Going agile has been ITs answer. And there are many successful projects that are run in
an agile way, where the business and IT work much more closely together, and the software
development cycle comprises short, iterative steps.
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But agile methodologies fall very much under ITs control. Business process automation
(BPA) represents a different approach to developing software, in which much of the upfront
work is undertaken by the business , rather than IT.
Neil Ward-Dutton, research director at analyst firm MDW, says people typically do BPA
because they realise their IT systems are not aligned to the way the business gets work done.
They may have siloed IT that does bits of business process, but no common way for people
to engage totally, so people send internal memos, email and spreadsheets, he says. Theres
loads of rekeying, latency, and work gets redone.
Turnaround time and delivery times are getting faster, but companies realise they are
very inefficient because there is no clean flow of work. Often there isnt a system in place
that maintains a memory, says Ward-Dutton. The customer goes on a journey and
you need to support them, so systems need to be
designed this way, with a thread tying the customer
journey together.
nce we
However, traditional enterprise IT that has been
developed over time is not capable of maintaining
understand the
such a memory of the customer. Ward-Dutton adds:
Instead, we have siloed systems, designed for very
business process
specific people, and they are very transactional. They
we get real
are big buckets for information.
What is missing from traditional enterprise sysbusiness value
tems, according to Ward-Dutton, is a way to coordinate work so it gets done in a consistent fashion.
David Byrne,
Knowledge share is the missing layer [in traditional
enterprise IT], he says.
Carphone Warehouse
BPA co-ordinates work and enables sharing of
knowledge. For instance, in retail or the service industries, where the least-well-paid people are facing the customer, BPA can be used to make
sure they have the support they need to get the job done, says Ward-Dutton.
Carphone Warehouse has been using Tibco since 2005 to support its business process
for signing up customers to new mobile phone contracts. David Byrne, CIO of Carphone
Warehouse, says: Once we understand the business process, we get real business value.
Using instrumentation, he says, Carphone Warehouse can see where customers turn away in
the sales cycle. It is very important for us to see the route they have taken, so we can understand performance of staff in-store and can see if the process is being followed and whether
the process can be improved.
The architecture Carphone Warehouse has developed is now being used to power its
ConnectedWorld subsidiary, says Byrne: We recognise many of the services within our business can be transferred to other businesses, but much of the know-how is difficult for other
businesses to acquire. In retail, for instance, selling devices with mobile connections has a

MAKING BUSINESS PROCESS AUTOMATION WORK


Business process automation (BPA) is not just about application development. It is about
improving a process, so you need to understand the work you are trying to do.
BPA is almost a paradigm shift in how applications are developed.
Make sure the business accepts the overhead involved, because people across the business
need to collaborate.
The business and IT must be prepared to working differently.
Not every company can take advantage of BPA . There will be some that are stuck in old ways
for developing applications.
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steep learning curve, he says. ConnectedWorld provides software as a service (SaaS), which
offers system-to-system business process automation to enable retailers to buy network
connectivity for mobile devices.
Rather than attempt a big bang rollout, Carphone Warehouse used Tibco for back-end integration, allowing it to modernise enterprise applications as and when there was a business
need. We decided to extract business functionality when there was a need by the business
to carve out monolithic code [from the legacy applications] and make them available to other
applications, says Byrne.
Carphone Warehouse uses service-oriented architecture (SOA), a service registry and lifecycle governance
for SOA services. New applications are built using a
ou need
componentisation architecture, where developers reuse
input from
services published in the service registry.
From an IT perspective, Byrne says the architecture
management
has simplified licensing, improved code quality and has
allowed Carphone Warehouse to benefit from the R&D
which requires
that Tibco puts into its industry-proven platform. Also,
Byrne has been able to move offshore software developa different
ment to another supplier relatively easily. It has been
mindset
much easier to communicate what our applications do
so the incoming [outsourcer] organisation can come on
Teresa Jones, Gartner
board quicker, he says.
Byrne says the architecture enables Carphone
Warehouse to locate components of its IT systems in
different parts of the world, based on business requirements. We can run common services
that require a high level of security in our own datacentre, but other components can be run
in the cloud, he says.
Gartner analyst Teresa Jones says: Previously, business process automation tools were
deployed to automate manual work, such as opening a bank account. But now, organisations
are using such tools to differentiate. For instance, it may be possible to use a mobile device to
change the business process, allowing the business to operate more efficiently, says Jones.
Garter describes this as the business moment, and Jones adds: To do something cool
and different, you need a platform that is very quick and be able to reuse what you have in
a well-controlled manner. The challenge for IT departments is that BPA is not the same as
software development in the traditional sense, says Jones. You need to bring in input from
management, which requires a different mindset from business.

Crowd-sourced ideas

It is about getting crowd-sourced business process ideas, and this is not the way IT functionality is developed in many organisations. The most common way is to get the requirements, code in a traditional environment, test, then go live, says Jones. But in BPA, everyone uses the same tool. Business people need to interact with a visual metaphor to see the
business process, while developers need to take the layers of the suppliers platform and do
the development work.
The experts Computer Weekly spoke to agree that BPA requires a change in mindset.
Ward-Dutton says: A process automation tool is not general-purpose, but for domains like
workflow, it gives you a huge amount of stuff out of the box. So there is significantly less work
to do than when you use .Net or Java perhaps 30-40% less work.
But he warns that not all organisations will find it possible to use BPA. MWD has developed
a business process maturity tool to help organisations measure their readiness, he says.
It is difficult to automate everything, but as Byrne at Carphone Warehouse has shown, a
big bang approach is not necessary. Processes can be automated over time, and new services
can replace legacy code as and when the functionality needs updating. n
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Erasure coding edges ahead of


Raid as data protection method
Erasure coding has emerged as a method of protecting against a device failure.
Manek Dubash explains the technologys advantages and disadvantages
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As users
search for Raid
alternatives,
erasure coding
returns
Erasure
codes and
multi-copy
mirroring

ith hard disk drive (HDD) capacities edging upwards 6TB HDDs are now
available Raid is becoming increasingly problematic as a method of data
protection against hardware failure. As a response, erasure coding has
emerged as a method of protecting against drivefailure. Raid just doesnt
cutit in the age of high-capacity HDDs. The larger a disks capacity, the greater the chance
ofbit error.
When a disk fails, the Raid rebuild process begins, at which time there is no protection
against a second (or third) mechanism failure. So, not only has the risk of failure during
normal operation grown with capacity, it is actually much higher during Raid rebuild.
Also, rebuild times were once measured in minutes or hours, but disk transfer rates have
not kept pace with the rate of disk capacity expansion, so large Raid rebuilds can now take
days or even longer. Consequently, many argue that alternatives to Raid are now needed, and
one alternative iserasure coding.
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Erasure coding explained

Erasure coding is a method of data protection in which data is broken into fragments that
are expanded and encoded with a configurable number of redundant pieces of data and
stored across different locations, such as disks, storage nodes or geographical locations.
The goal of erasure coding is to allow corrupted data to be reconstructed using information
about the data that is stored elsewhere in the array or even in another location.
It works by creating a mathematical function to describe a set of numbers so they can
be checked for accuracy and recovered if one is lost. Otherwise known as polynomial
interpolation or oversampling, this is the key concept behind erasure coding methods that are
implemented most often using Reed-Solomon codes.
Developed in 1960, Reed-Solomon is found most widely on CDs and DVDs, where error
correction allows a player to calculate the correct information even though part of the discs
surface may be obscured. It is also used by space agencies to pick up signals from far-flung
spacecraft, such as the Voyager probes.

Benefits and drawbacks

Erasure coding

Erasure coding allows for the failure of two or


more elements of a storage array, so it offers more
consumes less
protection than Raid as commonly deployed.
storage than
If a copy turns up bad during a checksum it will pull
from another copy of the data, says Marc Staimer,
mirroring
president of Dragon Slayer Consulting. When a copy
comes up unhealthy, it will just call from a good copy
and requires
and delete the one thats not healthy.
Staimer describes erasure coding as up to 10,000
only
times more resilient than Raid 6. It can also rebuild from
more capacity
fewer elements, says Ethan Miller, computer science
professor at the University of California.
If you had, say, 12 data elements and four erasure
code elements, any 12 elements from that group of 16 would be enough to rebuild the
missing ones, says Miller. Any 12 it doesnt matter which four fail; you can always rebuild.
Erasure coding also consumes less storage than mirroring, which effectively doubles the
volume of storage required. Erasure coding typically requires only 25% more capacity.

25%

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However, the drawback of erasure coding is that it can be more CPU-intensive, and that can
translate into increased latency.
Any time youre adding processing which is what youre doing, because youve got
to process a lot of different chunks versus just read it all as one sequential data chunk or
datagram youre going to add latency, says Staimer.
And, when you have latency, that affects response time, and you can get high latency if you
distribute this geographically or over a lot of different systems.
The more chunks that have been distributed, the more resilience the technique provides,
but the greater the latency. So the decision about how the trade-off will be made depends on
the value of the data.

Erasure coding use cases

The high CPU utilisation and latency of erasure coding make it well suited to archiving
applications due to the long-term nature of the storage where, over time, a number of
storage elements can be expected to fail. It is
also suited to those with large datasets and a
correspondingly large number of storage elements.
rasure coding
You could start thinking about erasure coding
in thehundreds of terabytes, but once you get
provides better
to a petabyte, you should definitely be thinking
about it,says Staimer. And, once you get into the
resilience and
exascalerange, you have to have something with
erasure coding.
better durability
Erasure coding is also found in the context of object
than aid
storage, with very large-volume cloud operators the
most likely users now. This means erasure coding is
Tony Lock,
less suited to primary data and, like Raid, it cannot
protect against threats to data integrity that are not
Freeform Dynamics
a result of hardware failure. For applications where
latency is not an issue, such as archiving, erasure
coding works by ensuring that the life of the storage
medium, which on its own can never offer a 100% guarantee, is extended.

Erasure coding prospects

Use of erasure coding by organisations is limited at the moment, says Tony Lock, an analyst
with Freeform Dynamics, who describes it as very niche.
But this is set to change, according to Staimer. Long term, I see it getting better, he says.
DOWNTIME
I see the latency being managed in silicon or field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). I see
the latency algorithms getting faster, so youre not going to have as much latency, and it can
replace, for active data, Raid 5 and Raid 6.
But, for passive data, its going to replace Raid, period. You dont need Raid if youre using
erasure coding because it provides better resilience and
better durability than Raid.
Erasure coding offers cloud data protection
Suppliers that are already offering erasure coding include
Erasure coding needs additional storage
NECs
Hydrastor, a scale-out global data deduplication
DDN WOS takes erasure coding global
system for long-term storage, and Cleversafe, which uses
erasure coding for its large-scale dispersed storage systems.
Erasure coding can save capacity compared with mirroring, offers higher and configurable
levels of protection against hardware failure, is suited to very large-scale and archival
storage but, for the moment, less so for production data.
Lack of education among storage managers and buyers compared with well-understood
Raid techniques are probably the biggest barriers for erasure coding, although, as capacities
grow, this could change. n
computerweekly.com 24-30 June 2014 19

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Why VDI chases mobile users


off the corporate network
Some CIOs think offering mobile users Microsoft Windows on virtual desktop
infrastructure will suffice until they lose those users, writes Brian Madden
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Computer
Weekly Buyers
Guide to
tablets
Managing
the mobile
enterprise

t seems as if everyone is talking about enterprise mobility and how important tablets
and smartphones are. For years I just rolled my eyes at this notion. Im a desktop guy, I
thought. Those phones and tablets are not my concern. I wasnt trying to say that tablets are just toys and not real work devices; I just felt they were someone elses problem.
Phones are like BlackBerrys, and BlackBerrys are handled by the email team. So why should
I care? I just do my thing, delivering, maintaining, patching and keeping my users desktops in
good shape, and all should be well.
Unfortunately, I recently realised that, even though Im a desktop guy, my days of ignoring
phones and tablets are over. I realised this for two reasons.
First was the iPhone. When they first entered the company, I ignored them like everyone
else. I knew we could use Exchange ActiveSync for email and more, but what did they have to
do with me? I had a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environment, so anything else the
users wanted to do outside of email could be done in our VDI environment. That applies to
iPads too, since Citrix and VMware marketed their desktop virtualisation solutions as solving
the iPad challenge. From my standpoint as an IT professional, that solved the problem.
computerweekly.com 24-30 June 2014 20

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Unfortunately, from the users standpoint, that didnt suffice. The problem is that accessing
a Windows desktop environment from a phone or tablet is a great party trick, but its not
particularly easy to use. Sure, Citrix and VMware did a great job with their remote access
protocols and iOS and Android clients, but the fundamental problem is that the Windows
desktop is meant to be used with a big screen, a keyboard and a mouse.

Which Office?

After using a virtual desktop on an iPhone for a few days, a typical user would think Hey,
I have this great email client on the phone, but for my Office apps I have to use this kludgy
VDI interface. Why dont I just download Office for iPhone?
So the user goes to the App Store and searches for Office. Now we IT professionals know
that, until recently, there was no Office for iPhone, but the users dont know that. When they
search for Office they get a slew of results Quick Office, Smart Office, Polaris Office and
dozens of other apps. They download whichever looks the most like regular Office, unaware
that what theyre downloading is probably not the office Microsoft Office.
So, great! Now they have Office on their iPhone. Of course Office is pretty worthless
without their documents and files, so they click the button in their new app to connect to a
file source. When they do that, what options do they see? DropBox, Google Drive, Box, etc.
At this point the user is probably thinking OK, so which one of these is my T: drive? Then
they shrug their shoulders and think: Well, whatever Ive been hearing a lot about this
DropBox thing on the news so Ill just go ahead and download that. And hey presto, they can
install the DropBox agent on their Windows desktop, so they instantly have all their Office
documents and files available to them on their phone or tablet. Problem solved, right?
Now lets take a step back and look at what happened from the IT point of view. I thought I
was doing everything right. I used desktop virtualisation to deliver the corporate Windows
environment to my users regardless of whatever device they used. The result? Not only did
the user not use my system, the inconvenience of my system drove them to find ways around
it and now all their files are in the cloud.

Defend and block

The traditional IT response is to defend and block. I could block DropBox from the corporate network, but then the users would use Box. When I block Box, theyll use Google
Drive. When I block everything, theyll email the files to themselves. When I add data loss
prevention software to the email servers, theyll connect via 4G. Its a constant game of
Whack-A-Mole Ill never win. So whats the right approach?
First, its pretty clear that we cant ignore mobile devices. Sure, users can easily hook them
into our email systems, but we also need to ensure we provide access to the apps they want,
in the way they want to use them.
Fortunately thats easy enough to do. The same companies whose desktop virtualisation
products we use Citrix, VMware, Dell and so on also sell software to manage our users
mobile devices. And if you dont like their offerings, there are dozens of other mobile management software options, from companies such as Symantec, Good, MobileIron, Oracle,
IBM and others. All of these products collectively called enterprise mobility management
or EMM suites provide simple ways to apply security policies to mobile devices, deliver
mobile apps in encrypted, secure containers and control how corporate and personal apps
interact with each other.
At the end of the day we have to realise that its no longer about mobile computing versus
desktop computing. Rather, its about mobile computing and desktop computing. We
collectively refer to this as end-user computing and its why even hardened desktop folk like
me have to consider mobile devices as were building our desktop strategies.
Fortunately the software to do it exists and is easy to use, we just have to get started. n
Brian Madden is editor of BrianMadden.com and an internationally recognised expert on desktop virtualisation
computerweekly.com 24-30 June 2014 21

DOWNTIME
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David Cameron has said he wants us to be


more British. So, despite Britishness being
a largely subjective notion that embodies
different characteristics for different
people which are constantly changing and
evolving, alongside our societal norms and
values (get to the point ed) Downtime has
compiled a few thoughts on how
tech enthusiasts might display a
bit of Britishness in their own lives.
To get the ball rolling, we suggest
you kidnap Stephen Fry, duct-tape
him to a chair and force him to
record a quintessentially British
answer phone greeting on your mobile
in his mellifluous, trademark received
pronunciation. If he co-operates, give him
a cup of Earl Grey and a Rich Tea biscuit. If
he refuses, why not utilise a British-themed
method of torture? Threaten to smear
Marmite on his eyeballs and shoot Lea &
Perrins up his nostrils, while playing the

GoCompare jingle full-blast on a stereo.


If hes still reluctant, tweet Millwall fans
are POO POO HEADS! from his Twitter
account, throw him on the front lawn and
run fast. Then, film the ensuing assault on
your iPhone before uploading the footage to
Facebook as a nod to the charmingly British
phenomenon of happy slapping.
Since youre now complicit
in several high-profile crimes,
youve no choice but to follow
in the footsteps of eminent Brits
Lord Lucan and Ronnie Biggs by
scarpering abroad ASAP. The good
news is that, once youve reached
Puerto Rico and written your best-selling
Penguin Guide to Kidnapping Stephen Fry, itll
be easy for you to dodge tax in true British
fashion, like fellow Englishmen Gary Barlow
and Jimmy Carr. Now sit back in the sun,
take a swig of Pimms and know that youve
done Cameron and dear old Blighty proud
ideally to the sound of Elgars Nimrod. n

PHIL NEVILLE ESCAPES WRATH OF TWITTER

Read
more on the
Downtime blog

WIKIPEDIA

EDITORS
COMMENT

Inject some Britishness into your life

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A 60-year-old man was reportedly bombarded with hundreds of abusive


tweets after the Italy versus England football match in the opening round
of the World Cup. Footie fans, angered by former football player Phil
Nevilles commentary for the BBC, launched a barrage of complaints at the Twitter account @
philneville. Unfortunately, the recipient was radiator salesman, Phil Neville, and not Phil Neville
the commentator, who was partly protected by his less obvious Twitter username
@fizzer18. But the innocent Phil Neville, who has also been on the receiving end of messages
from fans of the former footballer, felt sorry for his commentating namesake and tweeted a
good luck message. Despite the complaints, the BBC has confirmed Neville will remain in the
commentators chair, but Downtime suggests he stays away from Twitter for a while.
computerweekly.com 24-30 June 2014 22

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