Best Practice: Optimizing Data Center Efficiency & Sustainability

Every IT organisation is under pressure to deliver services as efficiently as possible, utilising infrastructure and services that may have a significant impact on the financial position and results of the organisation

Historically, cloud technology has made reference to the potential benefits of transferring costs from the balance sheet (capex) to the income statement (opex). However, an unintended consequence has been that few, if any, cloud related costs could be capitalised. This may not be the desired outcome for all organisations and the capitalisation of certain types of cloud technology maybe preferred, or even required by accounting standards. This session explores this area and what key considerations can be given to the capitalisation of cloud.

As part of the successful “Everything You Wanted To Know About Storage But Were Too Proud To Ask” series, we’ve discussed numerous topics about storage devices, protocols, and networks. As we examine some of these topics further, we begin to tease out some subtle nuances; subtle, yet important nevertheless.

In Part Sepia, we’re going to take a look at some of the terms and concepts that affect Storage Architectures as a whole. In particular, we’ll be looking at those aspects that can help or hinder storage systems inside the network:

•Encapsulation versus Tunneling
•IOPS vs Latency vs Jitter
•Quality of Service (QoS)

Each of these topics has a profound impact on storage designs and performance, but they are often misunderstood. We’re going to help you become clear on all of these very important storage concepts so that you can grok storage just a little bit more.

After the webcast, check out the Q&A blog at http://sniaesfblog.org/?p=629

Interview in partnership with BrightTALK, The Stack and Cloud Industry Forum
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BrightTALK discussed with Naveen Miglani, CEO and co-founder of SplashBI, the relationship between BI and digital transformation.

Among topics covered:

1. What is the future of BI?
2. What are the implications of AI and machine learning on BI?
3. What's the impact of digital transformation in the BI sector and vice versa?
4. What can organisations do today to best prepare for all the changes?
5. What are the key challenges for businesses in adopting and implementing a BI solution?
6. What's the role of IT now in a self-service BI environment?
7. Where are we seeing the most ROI when purchasing a BI reporting tool?

About the speaker:
Naveen Miglani is the CEO and Founder of Splash Business Intelligence and EiS Technologies. Naveen has more than 25 years of industry experience, including corporate strategy, service offerings, and business intelligence. Prior to joining EiS Technologies, Naveen held leadership roles at GE Energy and Oracle Corporation, as well as worked across many departments, including IT, Management, Business Development, Marketing, and Finance. Naveen holds a BS in Engineering and an MBA with a major in Information Systems and International Business from Mercer University.

Interview in partnership with BrightTALK, The Stack and Cloud Industry Forum
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In this conversation, Alex and Frank are revealing the results of the annual research performed by Cloud Industry Forum in regards to the current state of digital transformation in the UK.

The discussion covers the importance of cloud for digital transformation, as well as other "a ha" moments to expect in 2017.

Interview in partnership with BrightTALK, The Stack and Cloud Industry Forum
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Scott Cairns, CTO of T-Systems, discusses with Frank Bennett, what are the challenges and opportunities in the telecommunication industry.

Some topics discussed:
- How do AI and machine learning disrupt the industry
- What is the future of IoT
- Security in IoT
- Next industries to be disrupted
- How home will look like in 5-10 years
- How car industry will change in 5-10 years
- The most promising applications of VR and AR in the future

Interview in partnership with BrightTALK, The Stack and Cloud Industry Forum
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We interview Ray O’Farrell (Chief Technology Officer and Chief Development Officer, VMware) & Richard Munro (CTO Cloud Services, EMEA, VMware) to find out what they think about the digital IT revolution and what is the role of CTOs and CIOs in this regard.

Among topics discussed:

- What are the main prerequisites for digital transformation? Is there such a term as “being ready or not” for digital transformation?
- How can companies pursue digital transformation in case they don’t have a strategic expertise in house nor any experience in platform building?
- Does the type of cloud define the way digital transformation is going to progress or digital transformation defines the cloud strategy that the enterprise should adopt?
- How does DevOps and Containers fit into the digital transformation process? How do they contribute to innovation?
- What are the best reality checked strategies to accelerate transformation?

Interview in partnership with BrightTALK, The Stack and Cloud Industry Forum
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In this interview Christopher Wroath, Director of Digital Transformation, NHS Education for Scotland, shares with us the lessons he has learned from his digital transformation experiences and how his current job is different from all the other ones he had in the past.

Among topics discussed:
- The story behind NHS digital transformation
- Differences between digital transformation in public and private sectors
- Triggers for digital transformation
- Stages of digital transformation
- Barriers to a successful digital transformation
- Culture need for digital transformation

About the speaker:

Christopher is a digital leader working in the Scottish NHS to transform a disparate and complex information landscape into a single unified environment putting individual members of the NHS and social care workforce at the centre of delivery. Defining and delivering the NHS Education for Scotland (NES) vision for a comprehensive digital transformation by implementing dynamic change through innovative and agile approaches to technical, cultural and organisational challenges by leading the design and in house build of the NES Digital Platform.

Interview in partnership with BrightTALK, The Stack and Cloud Industry Forum
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In this discussion, Nigel Williams, IT Evangelist at Commvault, described what it means to drive digital transformations in the cloud.

Among topics discussed:

- Digital transformation struggles
- Cloud computing contribution to the digital revolution
- Top 5 enterprise cloud priorities to help with digital transformation
- The criteria for a smart cloud strategy
- Backup/recovery challenges in digital transformation
- And others

About the speaker:

Nigel Williams is an IT Evangelist and responsible for Marketing in EMEA at Commvault. Prior to his current role, he held the same position at OpenText and a variety of senior positions at EMC/Legato and EMC/Documentum. Nigel has over 25 years experience in Information Management and is a keen industry watcher. He holds an Honours Degree in English Literature and also studied Electronic Engineering as part of his entry to the IT industry."

Interview in partnership with BrightTALK, The Stack and Cloud Industry Forum
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In this in-depth discussion about the future of cyber security, Daniele Catteddu, CTO of Cloud Security Alliance, analyses the following topics:

- Changes and trends in the threat landscape
- Leading prevention technologies against cyber attacks targeting IoT
- Protecting critical infrastructure with AI and machine learning
- Yahoo breach lessons
- The most overlooked area of cyber security
- Main security challenges in digital transformation

About the speaker:
Daniele Catteddu is an information security and risk management practitioner, technologies expert and privacy evangelist with over 15 of experience. He worked in several senior roles both in the private and public sector. Daniele is member of various national and international security expert groups and committees on cyber-security and privacy, keynote speaker at several conferences and author of numerous studies and papers on Risk Management, Cyber Security and Privacy.

Currently he is the Chief Technology Officer, at Cloud Security Alliance, where he is responsible to drive, on a global scale, the adoption of the technology strategy roadmap within key CSA lines of business: Research, Membership Services, Standards, Education and Products. He identifies technology trends, global policies and evolving social behavior and their impact on information security and on CSA’s activities.
Daniele leads the product management for CSA and chairs the Futures Advisory Committee.

Interview in partnership with BrightTALK, The Stack and Cloud Industry Forum
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Rik Ferguson, VP of Security Research at TrendMicro, joined us for a video interview to discuss the following trending topics:

- The evolution of attack vectors in the past years
- Antwerp Seaport shipping container system hack and what can we learn from it
- What to do when hit by a ransomware attack
- Cyber security and Brexit
- Cyber security and the Russian hack of the US election
- The most overlooked area of cyber security that professionals should concentrate on
- Leading prevention technologies against ransomware
- Ransomware of Things
- Security challenges in digital transformation

About the Speaker:

Rik Ferguson, Vice President of Security Research at Trend Micro, is a Special Advisor to Europol EC3, project leader with the International Cyber Security Prevention Alliance (ICSPA), Vice Chair of the Centre for Strategic Cyberspace & Security Science and advisor to various UK government technology forums. In April 2011 Rik was inducted into the Infosecurity Hall of Fame

As a presenter at global industry events such as RSA, Mobile World Congress, InfoSecurity, Virus Bulletin, RUSI and the e-Crime Congress, Rik addresses the challenges posed by emerging technology and online crime. He is frequently interviewed by the BBC, CNN, CNBC, Channel 4, Sky News and Al-Jazeera English and is quoted by national newspapers and trade publications throughout the world.

Rik writes the Countermeasures blog and is the lead spokesperson for Trend Micro, he also writes regular columns for CIO, ZDNet, T3 and several other European publications. In this position, Rik is actively engaged in research into online threats and the underground economy. He also researches the wider implications of new developments in the Information Technology arena and their impact on security both for consumers and in the enterprise.

Interview in partnership with BrightTALK, The Stack and Cloud Industry Forum
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Jez Back, Senior Manager in Cloud, Deloitte, joined BrightTALK for an interview to share what enterprises are doing right and wrong with cloud deployment.

Among topics discussed:

- Main obstacles/challenges with cloud deployment
- Strategies for accelerating cloud deployment
- Security in the cloud
- The stages of cloud deployment
- One advice that CIOs should remember when planning cloud deployment

About the Speaker:
Jez is a cloud technology specialist and technology platforms & mobility SME, creating ecosystems of alliance partners to drive value in business transformations; with a proven record of delivering outstanding results in diverse high-pressure environments for 10 years in the technology sector.

Interview in partnership with BrightTALK, The Stack and Cloud Industry Forum
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Mathew Finnie, CTO of Interoute, got on camera to analyse with Andrew Bird, EA Visionary, the impact of global political and economical changes on digital transformation.

Among topics discussed:

- Opportunities of digital transformation
- Complex issues to be aware at every stage of digital transformation
- Brexit, Trump election and digital transformation
- Cloud and digital transformation
- Other technologies to remember when undergoing digital transformation
- Top 5 tips for CIOs implementing a digital strategy

About the Speaker:
Never afraid to challenge the status quo of existing technology and traditional industry thinking, Matthew Finnie is one of the most provocative technology thinkers in Europe. When Matthew became Interoute¹s CTO, he had a vision that if companies centralised technology development, then Europe could produce technology success stories on par with Silicon Valley. Proving that the US model can be put to work in Europe, Interoute now owns and operates the largest networked cloud computing asset in Europe and is redefining how businesses deploy advanced communications platforms in the Cloud.

Interview in partnership with BrightTALK, The Stack and Cloud Industry Forum
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In this interview John Abel, the Head of Technology and Cloud for UK, Ireland and Israel at Oracle, is discussing the latest innovations in the cloud and how these impact the modern business environment.

Among topics discussed:

- Cloud in 2020
- Extreme innovations in the cloud
- Challenges with cloud adoption today
- Legacy organisations and digital transformation in the cloud
- "What does lobsters have to do with innovation"
- Top 3 pieces of advice for aspiring technology leaders

About the Speaker:
John Abel has worked with Oracle for over 20 years and during this time he has worked in Support, Applications, Technology and Consulting.

More recently John has been in Oracle Systems for four years. John's main focus now is Engineered Systems and Oracle Database Cloud (Database as a Service) across Europe, Middle East and Africa and he often uses his prior experience to explain all aspects of technology to customers. In his presentations, John relates to actual customer experience and provides real world answers to real world problems. John is also a successful Oracle Press Author and using his experience of over 300+ customer engagements has produced publications explaining the Oracle Technology and Applications.

Interview in partnership with BrightTALK, The Stack and Cloud Industry Forum
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BrightTALK caught up with Darren Thomson, CTO & VP of Technology, Symantec, for an in-depth conversation on the future of cybersecurity in the context of IoT, AI and Machine Learning.

Among topics discussed:

- Trending business vulnerabilities in 2017
- Particularities of pentesting
- How to prepare for GDPR in 2018
- Implications of IoT, AI & machine learning on cyber security
- Yahoo breach
- Brexit and cybersecurity
- Recommendations to CISO's developing security strategies

About the speaker:
Darren is an industry recognised IT innovator and strategist, with +20 years of industry experience. He is a published author. His latest work has recently been published by Wiley Co. and is entitled, “Delivering Utility Computing: Business Driven IT Optimisation”. Details can be found at www.amazon.com.

Interview in partnership with BrightTALK, The Stack and Cloud Industry Forum
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In this interview, Simon Ractliffe, Principal Consultant & IT Evangelist, Ensono, shared with us ideas, recommendations and best practices on how to deliver DevOps in a legacy world.

Among topics discussed:

- Is DevOps for the legacy world?
- What are the challenges of DevOps for legacy systems?
- What makes the delivery of DevOps in a legacy world so different from the other worlds (start-up world, continuous delivery world, growth world etc?)
- Case examples in which legacy organisations thrived or failed from adopting DevOps
- And others

About the Speaker:
For publications see Simon's author page on the Digital Transformation People - http://www.thedigitaltransformationpeople.com/authors/simon-ratcliffe