EUR November 2012 16p

8/9/2019 EUR November 2012 16p

1/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

CWTHE DIGITAL MAGAZINE FOR EUROPEAN IT LEADERS FROM COMPUTER WEEKLY NOVEMBER 2012

for disaster?

prepared Are you

DISASTER RECOVERY IS AN

ESSENTIAL PART OF ANY

BUSINESS STRATEGY


2/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

EUROPEAN NEWS

Cyber attacks launchedat London 2012 Olympic

Games every dayThe IT supporting the London 2012Olympics was hit by cyber attacks every

day during the Games, according to

London 2012 CIO Gerry Pennell. He saidsome attacks were well organised andautomated and there was one in particu-lar that was a major assault.

EU advises Google torethink privacy policy

The EU is to tell Google to change the way it gathers information on users to reducethe risk of infringing on their privacy. Aninvestigation into Google follows con-

cerns raised by the regulators earlier thisyear when the company consolidated 60privacy policies into one.

Austrian hospital improvesaccess to patient data

with ImprivataKlinikum Wels-Grieskirchen hospital inAustria has improved speed of accessand security of its workstations with the

help of Imprivata. Hospital staff now gainaccess to workstations through keycardsand face recognition technology.

Hexal is purchasinga new home for its IT

After extensive renovations to its prem-ises, the availability of Hexal’s datacentre

rose to Tier III (Uptime Institute) and thepower usage effectiveness (PUE) is nowpersisting between 1.3 and 1.5.

Swedish government sitestargeted by Anonymous

The websites of several Swedish govern-ment agencies were knocked offline afterbeing targeted by hacktivist collective

WINNERS OF BEST OF VMWORLD EUROPE 2012

USER AWARDS ANNOUNCED

Six European IT projects have won the Best of VMworld Europe 2012 user awards at the

VMworld Europe 2012 event in Barcelona. Find out the winners and

read all the news coverage from VMworld Europe 2012

Anonymous. Affected sites includedRiksbank, the Riksdag, the SwedishInstitute, the Svea Court of Appeal, theSwedish police and security service Säpo.

2,500W/m2 and KyotoCooling

datacentre delivers ROIThe datacentre of German companyNoris Network was in need of more pro-cessing power, but this meant more heatwould be generated. The firm decided touse water cooling for a better return on

investment.

From document managementto the cloud via TNT

Paul Ballabene, IT director of the Italian

branch of TNT, said the demands formanaging social media are growing withinItalian companies. He said despite theheadaches that come with data security,consumer solutions enable better busi-ness processes. n

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

›VMWORLD EUROPE 2012 COVERAGE

›RSA CONFERENCE EUROPE COVERAGE 2012

›IP EXPO 2012 COVERAGE

›CITRIX SYNERGY 2012 COVERAGE

›SNW EUROPE 2012 COVERAGE

›EMC MOMENTUM 2012 COVERAGE

›SPOTLIGHT ON WOMEN IN UK IT

›HOW TO COMPLY WITH THE EU COOKIE LAW

›GUIDE: EU DATA PROTECTION REGULATION

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.searchdatacenter.de/themenbereiche/physikalisches-umfeld/design-und-umgebung/articles/370332http://www.searchdatacenter.de/themenbereiche/physikalisches-umfeld/design-und-umgebung/articles/370332http://www.searchdatacenter.de/themenbereiche/physikalisches-umfeld/design-und-umgebung/articles/370332http://www.searchdatacenter.de/themenbereiche/physikalisches-umfeld/design-und-umgebung/articles/370332http://www.searchdatacenter.de/themenbereiche/physikalisches-umfeld/design-und-umgebung/articles/370332http://www.searchdatacenter.de/themenbereiche/physikalisches-umfeld/design-und-umgebung/articles/370332http://www.searchdatacenter.de/themenbereiche/physikalisches-umfeld/design-und-umgebung/articles/370332http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164674/Winners-of-Best-of-VMworld-Europe-2012-user-awards-announcedhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164674/Winners-of-Best-of-VMworld-Europe-2012-user-awards-announcedhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164674/Winners-of-Best-of-VMworld-Europe-2012-user-awards-announcedhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164674/Winners-of-Best-of-VMworld-Europe-2012-user-awards-announcedhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164674/Winners-of-Best-of-VMworld-Europe-2012-user-awards-announcedhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/VMworld-Europe-2012-Coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/VMworld-Europe-2012-Coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/VMworld-Europe-2012-Coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/RSA-Conference-Europe-coverage-2012http://www.computerweekly.com/guides/RSA-Conference-Europe-coverage-2012http://www.computerweekly.com/guides/RSA-Conference-Europe-coverage-2012http://www.computerweekly.com/guides/IP-Expo-2012-conference-coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/IP-Expo-2012-conference-coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/IP-Expo-2012-conference-coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Citrix-Synergy-Barcelona-2012-coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Citrix-Synergy-Barcelona-2012-coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Citrix-Synergy-Barcelona-2012-coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/SNW-Europe-2012-coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/SNW-Europe-2012-coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/SNW-Europe-2012-coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/EMC-Momentum-Vienna-2012http://www.computerweekly.com/guides/EMC-Momentum-Vienna-2012http://www.computerweekly.com/guides/EMC-Momentum-Vienna-2012http://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Spotlight-on-women-in-UK-IThttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Spotlight-on-women-in-UK-IThttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Spotlight-on-women-in-UK-IThttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/How-to-comply-with-the-EU-cookie-lawhttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/How-to-comply-with-the-EU-cookie-lawhttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/How-to-comply-with-the-EU-cookie-lawhttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Essential-guide-What-the-EU-Data-Protection-Regulation-changes-mean-to-youhttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Essential-guide-What-the-EU-Data-Protection-Regulation-changes-mean-to-youhttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Essential-guide-What-the-EU-Data-Protection-Regulation-changes-mean-to-youhttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Essential-guide-What-the-EU-Data-Protection-Regulation-changes-mean-to-youhttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/How-to-comply-with-the-EU-cookie-lawhttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Spotlight-on-women-in-UK-IThttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/EMC-Momentum-Vienna-2012http://www.computerweekly.com/guides/SNW-Europe-2012-coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/Citrix-Synergy-Barcelona-2012-coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/IP-Expo-2012-conference-coveragehttp://www.computerweekly.com/guides/RSA-Conference-Europe-coverage-2012http://www.computerweekly.com/guides/VMworld-Europe-2012-Coveragehttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.01net.it/dal-document-management-la-via-al-cloud-di-tnt/0,1254,1_ART_147801,00.htmlhttp://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.searchdatacenter.de/specials/energie-effizienz-rz/rz-design/articles/373359http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164674/Winners-of-Best-of-VMworld-Europe-2012-user-awards-announcedhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164674/Winners-of-Best-of-VMworld-Europe-2012-user-awards-announcedhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164674/Winners-of-Best-of-VMworld-Europe-2012-user-awards-announcedhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164674/Winners-of-Best-of-VMworld-Europe-2012-user-awards-announcedhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164674/Winners-of-Best-of-VMworld-Europe-2012-user-awards-announcedhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164618/Swedish-government-sites-targeted-by-Anonymoushttp://www.searchdatacenter.de/themenbereiche/physikalisches-umfeld/design-und-umgebung/articles/370332http://www.searchdatacenter.de/themenbereiche/physikalisches-umfeld/design-und-umgebung/articles/370332http://www.searchdatacenter.de/themenbereiche/physikalisches-umfeld/design-und-umgebung/articles/370332http://www.searchdatacenter.de/themenbereiche/physikalisches-umfeld/design-und-umgebung/articles/370332http://www.searchdatacenter.de/themenbereiche/physikalisches-umfeld/design-und-umgebung/articles/370332http://www.searchdatacenter.de/themenbereiche/physikalisches-umfeld/design-und-umgebung/articles/370332http://www.searchdatacenter.de/themenbereiche/physikalisches-umfeld/design-und-umgebung/articles/370332http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166100/Austrian-hospital-improves-access-to-patient-data-with-Imprivatahttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240166271/EU-advises-Google-to-rethink-privacy-policyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-dayhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240168945/Cyber-attacks-launched-at-London-2012-Olympic-Games-every-day


3/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

EDITOR’S COMMENT

Disaster recovery:Would you survive?

IT systems and company data are the lifeblood ofany business, so it is crucial to have a plan B inplace in case of a disaster. There are numerous

causes of IT disruption – natural disaster, humanerror, hardware failure, criminal behaviour – each ofwhich present challenges to businesses.

European IT managers are taking no risks whenit comes to their company’s data and businesscontinuity, according to research from the ServiceDesk Institute. In a survey of more than 15,000

European IT directors recently, the study found that80% of service desks now have a business conti-nuity plan in place. Of these, 61% test their plansevery six months – this figure was just 9% in 2011.

Despite these encouraging figures many Euro-pean businesses are still stuck in a time warp whenit comes to protecting their company against dataloss or systems downtime. Analysts have beenknown to predict that a business could fail if itsuffered a major outage for more than 24 hours –

would your business survive a disaster?Regardless of how you choose to implement a

disaster recovery strategy it is important that youhave measures in place – preventive, detectiveand corrective – instead of these becoming anafterthought.

In this issue of CW Europe we examine clouddisaster recovery and what questions to ask a cloudprovider. For example, ensuring you have enoughbandwidth and network capacity to redirect your

users to the cloud, in case of a disaster, and how tomake sure your plan clearly shows how to restoreyour data if it is lost – this includes expected recov-ery times too.

In addition, find out how disaster recoveryboosted business continuity at multinationalrecruitment firm Hudson after it consolidated theback-office IT infrastructure of all its Europeanoffices into its London datacentre. n

Kayleigh Bateman

Editor of CW Europe

Special projects editor for Computer Weekly

CW Europe, 1st Floor, 3-4a Little Portland

Street, London W1W 7JB

GENERAL ENQUIRIES

020 7186 1400

EDITORIAL

Editor, CW Europe; Special projects editor,

Computer Weekly: Kayleigh Bateman

020 7186 1415

[email protected]

Editor in chief, Computer Weekly: Bryan Glick

020 7186 1424

[email protected]

PRODUCTION

Production editor: Claire Cormack

020 7186 1417

[email protected]

Senior sub-editor: Jason Foster

020 7186 1420

[email protected]

Sub-editor: Philip Jones

020 7186 1416

[email protected]

TechTarget

275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466

3-4a Little Portland Street, London W1W 7JB

www.techtarget.com

© 2012 TechTarget Inc. No part of this

publication may be transmitted or reproduced

In any form or by any means without written

permission from the publisher. TechTarget

reprints are available through The YGS Group.

About TechTarget

TechTarget publishes media for information

technology professionals. More than 100

focused websites enable quick access to a

deep store of news, advice and analysis about

the technologies, products and processes

crucial to your job. Our live and virtual events

give you direct access to independent expert

commentary and advice. At IT Knowledge

Exchange, our social community, you

can get advice and share solutionswith peers and experts.

CW


4/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

DISASTER RECOVERY

Before server virtualisation, the stand-

ard approach to implementing disas-ter recovery (DR) was to establish a

secondary site that duplicated the primary

datacentre’s hardware and software. But,with such duplication of infrastructure camea doubling of operating and capital expendi-ture (opex and capex), so only the very larg-est organisations opted for this route.

Now, virtualisation has made servers andapplications independent of hardware so

there is no need for the duplicate iron. Addthe ability to run apps from someone else’sservers and even the need to own the hostsdisappears. This is cloud disaster recovery.

Many cloud DR services use a hybridmodel. An on-site appliance provided by thecloud provider receives your data and stagesit to the cloud Should disaster strike you

could work from servers and data held on theappliance or work from the cloud, dependingon the severity of the outage. The key advan-tage of the hybrid model is that it overcomes

a key limitation of working in the cloud – lackof bandwidth.

There are also pure cloud DR services thatsee data transferred immediately to the cloudwithout the intermediate staging appliance.Restoration in this model can be by remoteworking from the provider’s cloud or byreceipt of a data disk from which servers arerebuilt. Pure cloud models will incur smallerupfront and ongoing costs, but are only reallysuited to the smallest organisations.

All cloud disaster recovery services are

priced on a per-use basis, with rates varyingaccording to your recovery point and timeobjectives (RPO and RTO)

I S T O C K P H O T O / T H I N K S T O C K

Cloud disaster recovery can be complicated to get your head around. Thisbreakdown of the technology offers advice for working with cloud providers

and a short case study. Manek Dubash reports

Cloud disaster recovery explained


5/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

You also need to ensure you have enoughbandwidth and network capacity to redirectusers to the cloud. A DR plan should alsodetail how you will restore data, including

expected recovery times.Your due diligence should include research

into reference sites, case studies of real-world disasters and the provider’s response.Contact the provider’s customers to find outwhat happened. Your DR plan must also beregularly tested.

Like the cloud storage model, in which youstore data in the cloud and pay for what you

use, a key benefit of cloud DR services is thatthey can reduce your physical infrastructureand so save on capex and opex.

But there are key questions to ask your DR

provider. You will need to be sure the serviceprovider will transfer data securely in theevent of a disaster, authenticate users prop-erly, and ensure compliance with any appli-cable regulatory requirements.

DISASTER RECOVERY

TIP: HOW TO DEVELOP A DISASTER RECOVERY STRATEGY

Regarding disaster recovery strategies, ISO/IEC 27031, the global standard for IT disaster recov-

ery, states: “Strategies should define the approaches to implement the required resilience so the

principles of incident prevention, detection, response, recovery and restoration are put in place.”

Strategies define what you plan to do when responding to an incident, while plans describe

how you will do it. Once you have identified your critical systems, you should create a table to

help you formulate the disaster recovery strategies you will use to protect them.

You will need to consider issues such as budgets, management’s position with regard to risks,

the availability of resources, costs versus benefits, human constraints, technological constraints

and regulatory obligations. There are also some additional factors in strategy definition.

n People. Availability of staff/contractors, training needs of staff/contractors, duplication of criti-

cal skills so there can be a primary and at least one back-up person, available documentation to be

used by staff, and follow-up to ensure staff and contractor retention of knowledge.n Physical facilities. Look at availability of alternate work areas within the same site, at a dif-

ferent company location, at a third-party-provided location, at employees’ homes or at a trans-

portable work facility. Then consider site security, staff access procedures, ID badges and the

location of the alternate space relative to the primary site.

n Technology. Consider access to equipment space that is properly configured for IT systems;

suitable heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) for IT systems; sufficient primary

electrical power; suitable voice and data infrastructure; the distance of the alternate technology

area from the primary site; provision for staffing at an alternate technology site; availability of

failover (to a back-up system) and failback (return to normal operations) technologies to facili-

tate recovery; support for legacy systems; and physical and information security capabilities at

the alternate site.n Data. Areas to look at include timely back-up of critical data to a secure storage area, meth-

ods of data storage (disk, tape, optical, etc), connectivity and bandwidth requirements to ensure

all critical data can be backed up, data protection capabilities at the alternate storage site, and

availability of technical support from qualified third-party service providers.

n Suppliers. Identify and contract primary and alternate suppliers for all critical systems and

processes, and even the sourcing of people. Areas where alternate suppliers will be important

include hardware, power, networks, repair and replacement of components, and delivery firms.

n Policies and procedures. Define policies for IT disaster recovery and have them approved by

senior management. Then define step-by-step procedures to, for example, initiate data back-up

to secure alternate locations, relocate operations to an alternate space, recover systems and

data at the alternate sites, and resume operations at either the original site or at a new location.

Finally, be sure to obtain management sign-off for your strategies. Be prepared to

demonstrate that your strategies align with the organisation’s business goals and business

continuity strategies


6/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

DISASTER RECOVERY

Plan B recovers individual servers everynight, just in case they are needed, testsrecovered systems overnight, and promisesto repay a year’s fees if it misses its guaran-teed recovery time. n

Cloud DR providers

Key cloud DR service providers include:

Rackspace, which offers host-based repli-cation services and support for physical andvirtualised environments at the low-cost end

of its price range, and datacentre-to-data-

centre replication for mission-critical data onstorage arrays.

Amazon Web Services underpins thecloud DR services of a number of providers,and offers its systems as the basis for a DIYapproach to cloud DR.

Cloud and managed services provider

Savvis offers a cloud DR service that includescold, warm and/or hot site provision.

Phoenix offers geographically dispersedworkplace as well as IT DR services, the lat-

ter including a ship-to-site service for whenthe building is intact but equipment has beenlost through damage or theft.

Manek Dubash is a business and technology journalist with

more than 25 years’ experience.

SURVEY RESULTS: VIRTUAL MACHINE BACK-UP AND

DISASTER RECOVERY TOP EUROPEAN STORAGE PRIORITIES

The two joint highest priorities in storage and back-up among European IT departments this

year have been virtual machine back-up and disaster recovery. With a score of 39% each from225 European IT professionals in the TechTarget worldwide IT Priorities Survey conducted in late

2011, these two fields emerged as top of the storage to-do list for 2012.

Third in the list of storage-related IT department priorities was storage virtualisation, which

28% of those questioned said they would deploy in 2012. Next on the list of priorities were cloud

storage or back-up (21%), data deduplication for back-up (20%), and data reduction for pri-

mary storage (17%).

Cloud computing also emerged as a “broad initiative” for a significant portion of those

questioned (27%). Of those, 28% said they would use the cloud for storage and 30% for disas-

ter recovery. By way of perspective, 58% said they would use the cloud for application provision.

When questioned on their main reservations about working with external cloud service pro-

viders, security was ranked highest, with reliability and protection of data behind that.So what is driving these priorities? There are two key constraints in play: the need to cut costs

and the need for legal and regulatory compliance.

Those questioned admitted they were feeling the recessionary pinch. A majority of respondents

said they were in recession (28%) or slowly recovering from it (40%). Compliance was also a

driver. Just under a quarter of respondents (24.5%) said complying with legal and industry regula-

tion – large chunks of which dictate data protection and disaster recovery standards – was a priority.

Server virtualisation was also a high priority for those questioned (58%). This too is arguably

ultimately an exercise in cost cutting as it aims to vastly reduce numbers of physical servers in the

datacentre. But, once embarked upon, server virtualisation brings the need for a number of associ-

ated projects that cost money, such as optimising storage and back-up for virtual machines.

Some questions must be raised regarding storage virtualisation, which emerged as the third

highest storage priority among respondents. Storage virtualisation is where heterogeneous stor-

age capacity is pooled to provide one shared reservoir of capacity. Interest in it has been spurred

by server virtualisation but take up has not yet been very widespread

A KEY BENEFIT OF CLOUD DR SERVICES IS THAT THEY CAN REDUCE YOUR PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND SO SAVE ON CAPEX AND OPEX


7/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

CASE STUDY

Disaster recovery boosts businesscontinuity for recruitment firm

Areview of disaster recovery capabili-ties has made multinational special-ist recruitment firm Hudson more

resilient in its day-to-day business.“We have improved Hudson’s business

continuity by modifying our disaster recovery

strategy,” said Bas Alblas, IT director Europeat Hudson.

“The back-office IT infrastructure of all ouroffices across Europe has been consolidatedinto a London datacentre, and we plan tobuild a mirrored datacentre for completeredundancy,” he said.

Once this project is finished, the Europeandatacentre will be fully redundant andHudson’s infrastructure will be able to sur-

vive a complete outage of one of the data-centres, said Alblas.The disaster recovery review was con-

ducted in the light of a couple of datacentreoutages in the past 10 years as a result of

external factors. These included a wide areanetwork (WAN) outage as a result of localconstruction works, a cooling system failurein a datacentre, and a water leakage.

Hudson, which operates in around 20countries, has chosen HP servers and stor-

age to ensure full recovery of all applications,expanding the firm’s existing relationshipwith the IT supplier beyond printers anddesktops.

Asked why Hudson had chosen HP, Alblassaid it had offered the best value for money.“A simple but working solution, preventingHudson from paying for functionality we donot need or would not use,” he said.

“HP storage ensures uninterrupted avail-

ability for all our users, and virtualisingall our physical servers onto HP ProLiantblade servers has cut Hudson’s datacentrepower usage and floorspace in half,”said Alblas.

A review of disaster recovery capabilities has made multinational specialistrecruitment company Hudson more resilient in its day-to-day business.Warwick Ashford reports

A L

E X S L / I S T O C K P H O T O


8/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

A single unified storage pool now supportsHudson’s virtualised environment, businessapplications and services, at a lower cost andwith greater flexibility.

“The total percentage of cost savings ishard to calculate as it includes simplified

management, better server usage with moreVMs [virtual machines] per host and data-centre costs as a result of lower footprint andpower,” said Alblas.

“Using a second datacentre is an increasein costs, obviously. However, basic analysisconvinced Hudson this solution would becheaper or cost neutral in the long term, pro-

viding more power, disk space and resiliencyat the same time,” he said.

“One other advantage is that we’re much

more flexible in choosing datacentres andWAN suppliers because we can easily moveone datacentre to another location withoutscheduling an outage as during the relocationof one datacentre the other will take over.”

According to Alblas, a storage area net-work (SAN) based on an HP LeftHandStorage system provides 61TB of secure, eas-

ily managed storage for Hudson’s business-critical data.

“Thin provisioning has already saved 43TBof physical disk space, and performance canbe scaled linearly to grow with Hudson’sbusiness,” he said.

HP Virtual Connect simplifies the con-nection of the SAN to a virtualised serverplatform of HP ProLiant BladeSystem c7000enclosures with 26 HP ProLiant BL490c

server blades running VMware 4.1.

“HP Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) makes itpossible to manage the HP servers remotely,”Alblas said.

Hudson’s IT environment is centrally man-aged through HP Systems Insight Manager.Hardware-level management and auto-

mated remote support for the HP serversand storage enable the IT team to maxim-ise system uptime. HP Snapshot softwaremaintains system performance by allowingI/O-intensive applications such as zero-

downtime back-up to run concurrently with-

out affecting the performance of Hudson’sprimary applications.

Alblas said HP partner Softcat providedadvice and testing for the HP system prior todeployment. n

HUDSON’S VIEW ON DISASTER RECOVERY

As Hudson migrated all local server infrastructure to one central datacentre in the past five

years, a disaster recovery (DR) solution for that datacentre started to make sense to mitigate

the single point of failure. Initially the scope was to have a DR solution for the most critical

applications, covering a maximum of 50% of the total user base.

“During the investigation we found out we would be able to create a DR set-up covering all applica-

tions, able to accommodate all European users,” said Bas Alblas, IT director Europe at Hudson. “As a

result, we were able to get project buy-in/budget without much effort. HP’s solution allowed us to do

much more than originally required, with little budget increase. The project also involved replacing all

existing servers and network equipment with the newest technology, offering more central processor

unit power, three times more disk space and an upgrade from a 1Gbps network to a 10Gbps network.”

Virtualising all physical servers also allowed Hudson to address its back-up strategy, improving

back-up and restore times by moving from tape-based back-up to disk-based back-up and backing

up virtual machines using agentless technology instead of agent based file level back ups to tape

Warwick Ashford is security editor for Computer Weekly.

CASE STUDY

“VIRTUALISING ALL OUR PHYSICAL SERVERS

ONTO HP PROLIANT BLADE SERVERS HAS CUT HUDSON’S DATACENTRE POWER USAGE AND FLOORSPACE IN HALF”BAS ALBLAS, HUDSON


9/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

DATACENTRES

Enterprises have long lived in a world where storage meant buying in bulk, prepar-ing for possible influxes of data and signing cheques to make even the wealthiest ofbusinesses wince. However, with the growth of cloud computing, a shift has beenoccurring where rather than stockpiling terabytes of hard drives “just in case”, a more

flexible option of utilising other people’s datacentres on demand and paying only for whatyou use has emerged.

Box is one of the companies that have been driving this change. Based in California,with humble beginnings in a dorm room like many of the best Silicon Valley start-ups, itsfounder and CEO, Aaron Levie, has regularly been voted one of the upcoming techies tokeep an eye on. The company was founded in 2005 and has raised over $265m in venturecapitalist funding, with analysts now valuing it at around $1.5bn.

It started as a predominantly consumer-focused business, enabling individuals to uploadtheir files and share them with family and friends around the world. But that world is chang-ing, and now enterprises want to get a slice of the action.

Consumers driving business technology advances

“If you think about how enterprises traditionally bought technology, it was very much aprocess where a CIO – or somebody at the top of the organisation – would decide whattechnology is going to be applicable for the entire organisation,” said Levie.

“They would purchase it and spend years implementing the technology into your organisa-tion, only to eventually find out that either the technology doesn’t get used or that they needsome new update to be far more relevant for how their organisation works. This was the

paradigm that the enterprise lived off and thrived on for decades.”Yet, employees were using the likes of Box and its rivals – Dropbox, Google, Facebook, etc –

in their personal lives and wanting to make the change at work to use these simpler tools toboost productivity.

“What has finally happened is users are having a much better time with technology in their

personal lives and they are starting to bring that technology into the workplace,” said Levie.“It is changing the demand and the needs for the enterprise and the enterprise can no longerignore it and adopt technology that does not give all users an amazing experience.”

Suppliers must rise to customer demand

The CEO also claimed these circumstances put pressure on the more traditional suppliersto up their game and give better-performing technology to their customers.

“The natural trait of the technology ecosystem is if you are a really big company, you don’thave a lot of incentive to break the status quo,” said Levie. “In fact, you make the vast major-ity of your money on the status quo, so there are not many reasons why an enterprise soft-

ware company would want to deliver cloud sharing of information if it was making billions ofdollars from on-premise collaboration software.

“So finally there is demand from within the enterprise. Suppliers have to change, and thatmeans they are looking at what we are doing.”

And that they are From old incumbents such as Oracle and HP to the newer enterprise

European datacentres key toenterprise success, says Box CEOFounder and CEO of cloud storage firm Box talks to Jennifer Scott aboutwhy enterprises are embracing this type of technology


10/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

DATACENTRES

firms of Salesforce.com, it seems every technology firm wants to offer cloud storage to keeptheir customers signing up. But is that not frustrating for a company such as Box which wasdoing it first?

“Box is not the only one. They are looking at what Workday is doing, looking at what a

bunch of companies are doing, and realising that they have to build better software forenterprises – and that is what’s so exciting,” he said. “Ultimately, enterprises are going to win

because they are going to get much better technology and it is going to make them muchmore productive and that is a good thing for the market in general.”

Greater awareness means business opportunities

Recently, Salesforce.com launched its own enterprise cloud storage/collaboration systemcalled Chatterbox, meaning Box has yet another competitor with a similar name, but amore traditional, enterprise focus. However, despite some of Levie’s comments at the time,he sees it as positive for his firm.

“Salesforce.com has a much larger footprint than we do,” he said. “That means it can [geta better view of] the criteria that customers are looking for in their technology. We thinkSalesforce.com and others talking about having your data in the cloud and being able to share

it easily will help educate the market that this is a very important category, and when thathappens, we think Box is in the strongest position to take advantage of it.”

Levie is clear that regardless of how some view his firm as consumer-driven, it is doingeverything to make itself an enterprise-ready option. Box recently announced two-factorauthentication, a partnership with email security specialist Proofpoint, and a new appli-cation programming interface enabling enterprises to extract data from the service andrun it through their own business intelligence and big data platforms to get the most outof the information.

“We don’t think the traditional suppliers can solve the problems customers have,” he said.“Customers are having challenges around how to access information on mobile devices,

how to collaborate with people anywhere they are in the world, and how to get their data indifferent kinds of applications, not just the onesthat are on-premise and not just the ones that aresold by their traditional go-to suppliers.”

Levie claimed few traditional options couldaddress those issues so customers would need toturn to cloud solutions. In that landscape, he said,Box has the best technology.

European datacentre essential

But one thing that is still an issue for compa-

nies in Europe is Box’s lack of a European data-centre. The company has introduced a featurecalled Box Accelerator to speed up the datatransfer in countries around the world, but thefact remains, data is stored in a datacentre inCalifornia, and many enterprises will not behappy with that from a security and regulatory point of view.

Levie said some data, such as marketing files or product brochures, did not need to be held

within the boundaries of the European Union, but he did concede his firm would have toaddress this issue to make real headway in the enterprise market.

“Ultimately, to be successful, we do think our technology will have to be resident in Europesomewhere,” he said. “I would say that on the long-term roadmap, you are going to see ithappen with that technology footprint of storing data in a global way.

“In the near term, we can get tremendous growth opportunity for how we do things today,but in the long run you will see us solve that problem in a much broader way” n

“ENTERPRISES ARE GOING TO GET MUCH BETTER TECHNOLOGY AND IT IS GOING TO

MAKE THEM MUCH MORE PRODUCTIVE”AARON LEVIE, BOX


11/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

NETWORKING

The FTTH (fibre-to-the-home) Council of Europe has blamed the tradition of onelarge incumbent provider and the lack of ambition from the government for the UK

lagging behind when it comes to fibre broadband.The council recently launched its rankings of those investing the most into

FTTH, which brings fibre broadband connectivity straight into homes and businesses,

rather than sharing cabinets or copper connections with neighbours, providing much fasterspeeds for users.

In the global rankings – which list countries with a minimum of 1% of its households withFTTH connections – the Asia-Pacific region scored the highest, with South Korea, the UnitedArab Emirates and Hong Kong claiming the most subscribers.

However, even when compared with the rest of Europe, the UK did not even rank, as lessthan 1% of its households have such connections.

Nadia Babaali, communications director for the FTTH Council of Europe, said it was notonly the UK at fault, as other large economies, such as Germany, were similarly holdingback. However, she said attitudes need to change to prepare the UK for the future.

“In these countries, you have strong incumbent operators that have already made stronginvestments, a long time ago, in copper networks, and they would like to keep these networksfor as long as possible as they are making money on them,” she said.

“The copper infrastructure is obsolete and the operators know it. In countries whereyou have a lot of competition for example from cable operators or from alternative

S T O C K B Y T E / T H I N K S T O C K

UK lacks ambition in

fibre broadband strategyWith less than 1% of UK households served with fibre-to-the-homebroadband, the FTTH Council is calling on the government to be moreambitious with its schemes. Jennifer Scott reports


12/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

NETWORKING

operators – then the incumbents have to switch technologies, but we do not see this situationtoo much yet in the UK, so there is no drive from the competition,” she added.

Babaali claimed the projects that were going ahead were local ones which, although on asmall scale, showed the desire for FTTH broadband in the UK.

“It shows there is demand and in places where local communities have a say on what tech-nologies they get, then they will go for FTTH,” she added. “In most cases, people don’t have a

say, they just buy whatever the operator is offering.”

Hazy regulations holding back deployment

Another element to blame is the regulatory nature of the industry in the UK. Babaali saida large incumbent operator – in the UK’s case BT – will be reluctant to invest millions intoFTTH if the regulations are just going to open this up to other companies to take advantageof the money it has poured in.

“If the regulatory environment is not stable and is not clear, and the incumbent operatordoes not know what will happen to the infrastructure it has deployed, then this also slows[deployment] down because no company would want to make an investment and not besure whether it would keep the competitive advantage,” she said. “In countries where the

regulatory environment is clear, you can see the incumbent is more willing because it knowsit has time to make a business case and to make it work.”

The president of the FTTH Council of Europe, Karin Ahl, sought to offer reassurance thatprogress was being made and that the UK was on the right path.

“The development we see in the UK right now is the same that we saw in the Scandinaviancountries 10 years ago. It starts the same way, and that is positive. It is something we shouldhighlight and talk about much more than the negative side,” she said.

“The framework of other countries was the same, and the history and beginning of othercountries was the same, so I think the development we see now is the start of somethinggood. It is also clear that the market is there because there are consumers that take this into

their own hands and there is a really big risk and investment, so that clearly shows there isbusiness to be done.”But Babaali concluded for all of this to come

together, there needed to be more will and pressurefrom central government to accelerate the deploy-ments and technologies used across the UK forbetter connections.

“You cannot ignore that the ambition of the gov-ernment is also quite important and we see a biggap between the so-called ambition of the UK gov-

ernment to be the leading internet infrastructure in

Europe and the actual targets of the plan,” she said.“We should be talking gigabits, not adding two or

three megabits to download speeds. We are talk-ing about a revolution, not just about speed. We aretalking about enabling services, such as e-health.These are all long-term goals that the EuropeanCommission has really understood.”

Babaali concluded that the investment needed to be made now, not 10 years down the line– which according to current trends and predictions will be when the UK finally starts rankingin the FTTH league tables.

“All this infrastructure needs to be deployed and ready now because it takes time for peopleto connect and also for the applications and services to be developed and these businessesto grow,” she said. “Let’s be ambitious, because this is our future.”n

“WE SHOULD BE TALKING GIGABITS,NOT ADDING TWO OR THREE MEGABITS TO

DOWNLOAD SPEEDS”NADIA BABAALI, FTTH

COUNCIL OF EUROPE

Jennifer Scott is the networking editor for Computer Weekly


13/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Sandvik, a global Swedish mining and construction engineering company, has simpli-fied its supply chain with a single purchase order portal. This has created informationnot previously available to make decisions about supplier relations, such as renegoti-ating contracts.

Dubbed SupplierConnect internally, the

system, from Finland-based data integrationsupplier Liaison Technologies, has saved Sandvik“a lot of time and money”, according to pro-gramme manager Lars Holmström. Individualbuyers are now dealing with 20,000 purchaselines per month, and it was previously a fractionof that.

The engineering company, founded in 1862 andemploying 50,000, has many thousands of sup-pliers with dozens of enterprise resource planning

(ERP) systems and instances. SupplierConnectcovers 750 suppliers in 22 countries, and encom-passes 13 Sandvik ERP systems.

Mikko Soirola, vice-president of sales at Liaison,stressed that being ERP supplier-agnostic wascrucial to Sandvik Mining and Construction at the beginning of the engagement in 2009.

In the existing system, when Liaison receives purchase orders from Sandvik’s ERP systems,it sends them to suppliers via electronic data interchange (EDI), or using SupplierConnect. Tosuppliers, the portal looks the same; the Sandvik buyers work in their own ERP.

single supplier e-procurement

portal tightens supply chainSwedish mining and construction giant Sandvik has simplified its interface withthousands of suppliers using an enterprise resource planning data integrationweb portal from Liaison. Brian McKenna reports

Aerial view of the Sandvik industrialarea in Sandviken, Sweden

UNDERLYING THE NEED FOR A UNIFIED SUPPLIER PROCUREMENT PORTAL IS SANDVIK’S ORGANIC AND ACQUISITIVE GROWTH PATTERN


14/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Cutting costs, supporting growth

Holmström confirmed that a need to cut costs in the wake of the 2008 crash was the initialimpetus for the project, but that this gave way to a need to support business growth, as itsmining and construction markets picked up sharply.

Underlying the need for a unified supplier procurement portal is Sandvik’s growth pattern

– organic but also by frequent acquisition, said Holmström. The company has a variety of

different processes and multiple ERP systems throughout its dozens of global locations.“Our supply chain was fragmented around the world. Some areas were really good, others

were not,” said Holmström. “That put us in an awkward situation. It got to the point where wereally needed a better way to conduct business with our suppliers.”

Previously, the company had used a lot of manual processes, including fax and email. “Ourchoices were either to go for unique implementations for each location or a standardisedshared process,” he said.

The selection of Liaison was as much to dowith established advisory relationship as with

technology, said Holmström, referring to a rela-tionship with Sandvik, in Finland, since 2000.

After the 2009 pilot programme – focused onthe initial cost-saving phase – Sandvik Miningand Construction’s senior business leadershipapproved a plan to implement SupplierConnectglobally within 18 months.

Sandvik and Liaison chose a roll-out approachin which basic functionality would be imple-mented in multiple locations while, at the same

time, developing and implementing additionalfunctionality – such as advance shipping notices

and electronic invoicing – in pilot locations.“A key component of each roll-out is what iscalled an ‘acceptance test’, performed in eachlocation to prove that the integration solution isextremely stable,” said Holmström. “I am verycalm with every go-live. We can focus on ourbusiness, which is mining and construction, not data integration.”

Holmström’s advice to others considering similar projects to streamline a global corpora-

tion’s transactions with its supplier base is to keep things simple and focus on the process,not the ERP. His team’s procedure was to identify “lowest common denominators” in theprocurement business processes at 10 locations and “go from there”.

Now that the system is established, the company has seen unintended benefits.“For example, we have one Australian supplier which delivers to three locations there,but also to Singapore and China. There are four different ERP systems on our side,but they see one interface. And they are pushing our other locations to adopt the portal,”he said.

Having one uniform supplier portal makes new common and shared key performanceindicators (KPIs) possible, which are starting to reveal the best or worst suppliers, said

Holmström. “We can also see how our sites and factories are performing.”This means business decision-makers in the sourcing function at Sandvik have

“new decision material” to use in sacking suppliers, renegotiating contracts, and therest, he said.

And since the corporation as a whole is committed to a One-Sandvik ethos, theSupplierConnect portal is a good fit, he said. n

“OUR SUPPLY CHAIN WAS FRAGMENTED AROUND THE WORLD…WE REALLY NEEDED A BETTER WAY TO CONDUCT BUSINESS

WITH OUR SUPPLIERS”LARS HOLMSTRÖM, SANDVIK

Brian McKenna is business applications editor for Computer Weekly


15/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

OUTSOURCING

Spanish bank Banco Santander has pulled out of its multibillion pound agreement to

take over 316 Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) branches, and the customers associatedwith them, because of IT integration problems.

But sources say that IT problems can always be sorted out and suggest the claimsmight be an excuse to pull out of the deal.

Partly nationalised RBS has been forced to sell assets by the government, after being savedfrom collapse during the bank rescue package in 2008.

Banco Santander is no stranger to huge projects to migrate customers to its system. It hasgained huge advantages by standardising its operations on its Partenon core banking plat-

form. Acquisitions in the UK – including Abbey and Alliance & Leicester – were migrated tothe platform.

Integration targets not met

Chris Skinner, chairman of the Financial Services Club, said that RBS has claimed all thedata has been separated and it is a case of putting it on Banco Santander’s core bankingplatform Partenon

K A K E P U G H / F L I C K R

Are IT problems to blame forSantander’s exit from RBS deal?Spanish bank Banco Santander has pulled out of its £1.7bn agreement to takeover 316 RBS branches because of IT integration issues. Karl Flinders reports


16/17

HOME

EUROPEAN

NEWS

EDITOR’S

COMMENT

OUD DISASTER

RECOVERY

EXPLAINED

STER RECOVERY

OSTS BUSINESS

ONTINUITY FOR

RUITMENT FIRM

E IMPORTANCE

OF EUROPEAN

DATACENTRES

K BROADBAND

RATEGY LACKS

AMBITION

ORM SUPPLIER

TAL SIMPLIFIES

SUPPLY CHAIN

D IT PROBLEMS

KE SANTANDER

EXIT RBS DEAL?

OUTSOURCING

He said an Accenture report has revealed that the migration of the retail customer detailswill take until 2014 and business customers 2015. “They could be making excuses not to goahead with the deal,” said Skinner.

The banks made the agreement in August 2010. A year later, a new target completion

date for the final quarter of 2012 was set.While not commenting on IT directly, Banco Santander said in a statement that

integration targets would not be met: “It is now apparent that this revised target will notbe achieved. Santander UK confirms thatit has therefore notified RBS that it doesnot believe the conditions to the transferof the business from RBS to SantanderUK will be satisfied by the agreed finaldeadline of February 2013, and that it isnot willing to agree a further extension to

that deadline.“In that case, the agreement will automatically

terminate in accordance with its terms and the

transfer of the business to Santander UK willnot take place.”

Partenon integration

Banco Santander had a strategy to grow byacquisition and integrate the IT operations ofthe firms it buys to Partenon, which uses in-house middleware called Banksphere.

As well as rationalising IT, this creates cross-selling opportunities and improves customers

satisfaction and operational performance. Theplatform uses a single database so all of a customer’s relationships with the bank are auto-matically linked through a single view of customers.

Santander bought Abbey in 2004 and acquired Alliance & Leicester in 2008. It set a

target of £300m cost savings after integrating Abbey with Partenon and it planned tomake efficiency savings of between £30m and £50m by integrating Alliance & Leicesterwith its core banking system. n

THE BANKS MADE THE AGREEMENT IN AUGUST 2010. A YEAR LATER, A NEW TARGET

COMPLETION DATE FOR THE FINAL QUARTER OF 2012 WAS SET. IT IS NOW APPARENT THAT THIS REVISED TARGET WILL NOT BE ACHIEVED

Karl Flinders is services editor at Computer Weekly.

REGULATORS MUST FORCE BANKS TO OVERHAUL IT

Regulators must force banks to overhaul complex IT infrastructures which risk causing further

large-scale system outages, IT trade body Intellect has urged.

The UK’s financial IT infrastructure is no longer fit for purpose and risks damaging the econ-

omy by creating more glitches such as the recent RBS outage, said the body in its report Biting

the bullet – why now is the time to rebuild the foundations of the financial system.

“Banks are willing to spend money on cutting-edge technology that facilitates high-frequency

trading or reduces the time it takes to process a transaction in the capital markets – where

every cut millisecond means more profit – but not on modernising the infrastructure that allows

them to deliver better customer services, act as a catalyst for the economy or allow regulators

to perform their roles,” said the report.

This attitude means banks are currently spending 90% of their IT budgets on managing

legacy systems it said


17/17

Elasticity. Simplicity. Expandability.

As enterprise datacenters transform to become enterprise clouds,

IT leaders need real solutions that scale performance on-demand for

cloud elasticity, deliver seamless capacity expansion and drive network

consolidation for greater simplicity. These next-generation cloud networksmust be built to deliver applications, desktops and data with the best

availability, performance and security—all from a single platform.

Visit www.citrix.com/netscaler to learn how NetScaler meets your

requirements for an enterprise cloud deployment.

© 2012 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix ® is a registered trademark of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one

or more of its subsidiaries, and maym be registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in othercountries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are propert y of their respective owners.

Get the benefits

of a cloud in

your datacenter.
http://www.citrix.com/products/netscaler-application-delivery-controller/overview.htmlhttp://www.citrix.com/solutions/enterprise-cloud-networks/overview.html?ntref=sol_tophttp://www.citrix.com/solutions/enterprise-cloud-networks/overview.html?ntref=sol_tophttp://www.citrix.com/solutions/enterprise-cloud-networks/overview.html?ntref=sol_tophttp://www.citrix.com/solutions/enterprise-cloud-networks/overview.html?ntref=sol_tophttp://www.citrix.com/products/netscaler-application-delivery-controller/overview.html

EUR November 2012 16p

Documents

Transcript of EUR November 2012 16p