VitAL Magazine November-December 2012

vital Inspiration for the modern business Volume 6 : Issue 2 : November / December 2012

The future of service automation Making the case for automation from the cloud

The Big Data transformation How it’s changing business in the UK

Instant value!

VitAL canvasses the industry about what’s hot and what’s not for 2013 VISIT VITAL ONLINE AT: WWW.VITAL-MAG.NET

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leader

Another year of change Leader A

s we come to the close of another year, it is interesting to look back over the headlines in VitAL from years gone by. For instance a year ago the

consistent theme was ‘consumerisation’. While the term hasn’t completely vanished from our pages, a quick flick through this issue will show that it has been superseded by the somewhat less snappy ‘bring your own device’ (or BYOD) and to a lesser extent ‘mobility’.

Go back further and ‘cloud’ was the big issue. Of course cloud as a concept had gone through a number of name changes in the previous decade or so, but the use of ‘cloud’ seemed to mark the point at which the concept ‘crossed over’ into more mainstream usage. Cloud still is a big issue, perhaps the biggest facing us in the IT world as of the end of 2012, but some of the heat has gone out of the debate now that adoption had become more widespread and software as a service (SaaS) becomes more like the norm rather than a novelty.

In this issue I thought it would be interesting to canvas the opinions of a number of authorities about what the milestones in 2012 were and where we are headed next year and beyond (see page 10-15). BYOD, as you might expect, played a significant part. With the launch of ever more accessible and, let’s not beat around the bush, cheap mobile devices – the iPad mini and Microsoft Surface being the two most high-profile examples at the moment – this opening up of the IT estate to personal devices looks set to continue, aided and abetted by an increasing amount of functionality available through the cloud and virtualisation.

The common theme and what these technologies all seem to offer is ‘instant value’ – a quick payback – which is fantastic in the short term, especially when the economy is flat-lining as it is in late 2012 – but what may be very interesting, if it’s not already a redundant question, is how these pay-as-yougo solutions stack up long-term against the more traditional hardware-based alternatives. I guess we will have to wait and see what the answer to that question is, while keeping in mind that the cloud isn’t even an option for many in the industry anyway for one reason or another.

It only remains to wish all our readers, contributors and advertisers a very prosperous 2013.

See you in the New Year...

Matt Bailey, Editor

If you have any thoughts, feedback, or suggestions on how we can improve VitAL Magazine, please feel free to email me matthew.bailey@31media.co.uk

www.vital-mag.net

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contents

Contents 6 News The VitAL Cover Story

8 Into the era of instant value Matt Bailey As 2012 comes to its close VitAL asks a select group of IT professionals what they think the significant developments were in 2012 and gets them to tell us what will be hot in 2013 – a year of instant value?

The future of service automation Making the case for automation from the cloud

The Big Data transformation How it’s changing business in the UK

Volume 6 : Issue 2 : November/December 2012

Instant value!

VitAL canvasses the industry about what’s hot and what’s not for 2013 VISIT VITAL ONLINE AT: WWW.VITAL-MAG.NET

Editor Matthew Bailey matthew.bailey@31media.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)203 056 4599 To advertise contact: Grant Farrell grant.farrell@31media.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)203 056 4598 Production & Design Toni Barrington toni.barrington@31media.co.uk Dean Cook dean.cook@31media.co.uk Editorial & Advertising Enquiries Tel: Fax: Email: Web:

+44 (0) 870 863 6930 +44 (0) 870 085 8837 info@31media.co.uk www.vital-mag.net

VitAL signs – life in a world with it

15 Much Less?

Steve White Steve White discusses how an absence of language and process can make a difficult decision even harder.

VitAL management

16 The charities sector challenge Matt Bailey By its very nature, the charities sector has always had to do more with less. IT offers some interesting paths on this journey as Matt Bailey found out when he spoke to Barnardo’s assistant director IS – service management, Mark Barrett.

20 Dealing with Selfish Applications Dave Ewart A selfish application is one that has the tendency to utilise all available network bandwidth when being downloaded for the first time or when performing a software update. Dave Ewart offers some timely advice for dealing with the problem.

Printed by Pensord, Tram Road, Pontllanfraith, Blackwood. NP12 2YA © 2012 31 Media Limited. All rights reserved.

VitAL Magazine is edited, designed, and published by 31 Media Limited. No part of VitAL Magazine may be reproduced, transmitted, stored electronically, distributed, or copied, in whole or part without the prior written consent of the publisher. A reprint service is available.

Opinions expressed in this journal do not necessarily reflect those of the editor or VitAL Magazine or its publisher, 31 Media Limited.

ISSN 1755-6465 Published by:

24 The future of IT service automation lies in the cloud Kevin Kimber CIOs need service automation solutions that are not only intuitive and easy to use, but are built to support the way businesses work today. Kevin Kimber makes the case for the future of service automation being in the cloud.

VitAL Magazine, Proud to be the UKCMG’s Official Publication ITIL® is a Registered Trade Mark, and a Registered Community Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

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26 The double danger of BYOD Thierry Grenot There are challenges associated with BYOD (bring your own device) but there are also solutions. Smart companies can take advantage of this trend while mitigating some of the risks it brings according to Thierry Grenot.

Subscribing to VitAL Magazine

VitAL Magazine is published six times per year for directors, department heads, and managers who are looking to improve the impact that IT implementation has on their customers and business.

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3

COntents

Contents 28 The next generation of apps

48 Staying resilient

Kevin Galway

Professor Graham Jones With the rise of BYOD the app has long been at the heart of enterprises everywhere.

Kevin Galway explains how the next generation of apps will change our lives both at home and in the office.

30 The Big Data transformation A ground-breaking study by the IBM Institute For business Value and the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford set out to understand how ‘Big Data’ is transforming business in the UK.

32 Confident colocation Graham Monro With an almost total dependency on IT in modern business and more and more organisations planning to outsource their data centres to external suppliers, VitAL asks to Graham Monro what the key factors are to take into account when outsourcing your data centre.

Tips for sustaining high-level performance under pressure from Professor Graham Jones, founder of Top Performance Consulting.

52 Can morality be enforced through monitoring?

Abhijit Telang While the boundaries of privacy and the mechanics of monitoring can still be very controversial, could the behaviour of users change, knowing that there is a definite possibility that they are being monitored? Abhijit Telang addresses the implications of advances in technologies, regulatory pressures and our interactions with extremely potent and connected personal devices.

VitAL eyes on

55 A bit of MongoDB in my life

VitAL processes

Jonathan We4stlake

34 Technology: driving the online retail boom Mark Forrest Customer satisfaction can go hand in hand with the online retail boom if companies embrace the capabilities of technology according to Mark Forrest.

Fondly paying tribute to Alex Karras and his character in Blazing Saddles, Jonathan Westlake is getting enthusiastic about the open source Mongo database.

VitAL planet

56 Power consumption in the data centre: stopping the hot air David Palmer-Stevens Pretty soon everything in the IT world will be hosted in a data centre, or so we are told. David PalmerStevens explains how the design of new data centres should be greener, more economical and more reliable.

38 Ten steps to improving IT operations Ben Cody When companies do not consider the role that IT can play in improving business performance in the long term, they run the risk of lagging behind their competitors. Ben Cody has ten tips to improve IT operations.

42 Big Brother is helping you Neal Silverstein Why do we neglect the buildings we work in when it comes to technological innovation? Buildings can help us, support us and keep us secure – but only if they are given the technological empowerment to do so. Neal Silverstein reports.

46 Using IT to create cohesive, sustainable cities Diana Lind Diana Lind, contributing author to Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2012: Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity, details how information and communication technology (ICT) is promoting sustainable and inclusive cities www.vital-mag.net

VitAL events

60 Happy 21st itSMF! The itSMF (IT Service Managers Forum) is celebrating 21 years of service management knowledge and vision at ITSM12 at the Novotel London West on 5th and 6th November.

60 Secret of my success Peter Newcombe VP and GM Northern and Eastern Europe, Ciena.

November / December 2012 : VitAL

5

news

IT budgets flat due to ‘recovery’ spending

T

he latest budget forecasts from CEB reveal that CIOs plan to allocate roughly 30 percent of their total IT spending next year on business opportunities, with innovation accounting for just eight percent.

The global study from member-based advisory firm shows CIOs expect a modest growth in total IT expenditure to increase by only 1.8 percent, roughly 50 percent less than they did in 2012. Operational expenditure will rise to 70 percent of budgets in 2013 , while capital expenditure growth will stay flat.

The IT Budget Benchmark Report is based on CIO forecasts in more than 200 companies across the globe, representing over £32 billion in IT spending. According to the report CIOs plan to increase spending

on mobile applications next year, ensuring all applications are ready for the mobile environment from the outset, fitting into a broader trend in mobile spending across the globe. We are also seeing a growing migration to the cloud, as 54 percent of organisations plan to increase spending in this area. Almost half of this cloud spending will be spent on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Andrew Horne, managing director for CEB, comments: “Currently over two thirds of IT budgets in 2013 are already allocated to maintenance and regulatory compliance – essentially ‘keeping the lights on’ – before a single new project can be started. This inevitably means that the ability of companies to be innovative and set themselves apart from

Demand grows for virtualised services

D

ue to the tough economic conditions, businesses across the UK are looking to reduce costs while at the same time wanting to grow. According to cloud and communications company Qubic, moving towards a virtualised IT infrastructure is helping businesses decrease capital expenditure by reducing the amount of hardware and the cost associated with the upkeep of the equipment. Increasingly, more businesses are becoming aware of the benefits virtualisation can offer, from reduction of cost to its flexibility.

As a result, companies are moving to a virtualised service that will grant them a long-term advantage.

Chris Papa, managing director of cloud computing and communications company, Qubic said, “We have seen growing demand for virtualisation as it allows businesses to take greater control of their overheads. Businesses that want to grow yet don’t want the costs related to growth can opt for an opex service rather than a capex service to save money in the long run. Cost cutting has been the main driving force in the popularity of virtualisation, however it is important to remember that virtualisation actually offers many more benefits.

“In this unpredictable business climate companies also require their hardware to be flexible, giving their IT managers the ability to assign the right resources where they are needed.

Businesses are also looking for better sustainability and reliability from their IT services, and a virtualised infrastructure offers all these benefits.”

6 VitAL : September / October 2012

their competitors will be challenging. This increase in operation spend is in part a knockon effect from high levels of spending prior to the spending of 2010 and 2011, meaning that CIOs are seeing any budget increases absorbed by the need to keep existing capabilities going.”

However, despite the modest growth CIOs may end up expanding their spending beyond what they initially predict. “Although currently CIOs are very cautious in their planning, they may well expand their budget if economic performance is better than expected,” says Horne. “CIOs are becoming increasingly agile about their investments, with more people looking at rolling budget scenarios to embed a degree of flexibility.”

Poor IT integration hits banks

T

he Bank of Scotland has been fined £4.2m for failing to keep accurate records of the mortgage payments for 250,000 Halifax customers. The problem was due to the bank failing to integrate the systems of acquired companies, which resulted in it keeping mortgage records on two separate computer systems.

The records were then not updated or synchronised correctly. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) said the problem, which was discovered last year, had originally occurred in 2004.

“In a complicated organisation where several legacy systems exist, firms have to make sure they are synchronised, otherwise it is their customers who suffer,” said Tracey McDermott, the FSA’s director of enforcement and financial crime.

“Last Saturday it was the Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander, today it is the Bank of Scotland and Halifax – poor IT integration has really hit the headlines recently and what is surprising is that these incidences are not more common,” commented Mikko Soirola VP of IT integration specialists Liaison Technologies. “A recent survey from analysts Freeform Dynamics looking at B2B integration showed that many organisations are complacent when it comes to improving their integration with partners and suppliers despite the performance improvements available. There is a huge question mark over who takes responsibility for data in many organisations, and this is a classic example of where such complacency can have a catastrophic impact on both profitability and reputations.” www.vital-mag.net

news

Leading employers back IT Professional Profile T

he National Skills Academy for IT has announced what it says is a breakthrough in IT professionalism. The Academy says employers across the sector have come together to boost the UK’s global standing in IT by creating a world-leading approach to identifying, developing and promoting the skills of IT professionals.

Backed by employers such as HP, The John Lewis Partnership, Metropolitan Police, Morrisons, National Grid, Royal Mail, Tata Consultancy Services, Telefonica / 02 and UBS, the IT Skills Academy is providing the online IT Professional Profile, which is free for use by any existing or aspiring IT professional. The IT Professional Profile enables individuals to benchmark their skills against IT professional standards, find training and qualifications that help them progress their career, and share their skills with employers through a simple, personal web link.

Leading organisations have decided to use the IT Professional Profile, together with the services of the IT Skills Academy, in their recruitment process to compare the skills profiles of job applicants against the target profile of a particular job. Others have seen benefit in aggregating the profiles of individuals across their teams to identify skills gaps and suitable training.

Paul Coby, IT director at John Lewis, said: “We are now using the IT Professional Profile as part of our recruitment process. Comparing the profiles of individuals to our job roles is helping us to identify the best candidates, and the detailed skills definitions within the profile enable us to probe capability more easily, with more objective questioning at interview.”

Tata Consultancy Services, a leading IT services provider, is also going to be using Profile for their recruitment initiatives. Prospective graduate trainees will be asked to provide a profile with their job application. Vishal Gandhi, talent acquisition head – UK & Ireland explains, “Graduate hiring is extremely important to us, yet it could be difficult for us to understand whether a new graduate has the right skills for the job. The IT Professional Profile will enable us to identify this and bridge the gaps.”

National Grid is using the Profile to help with skills development and performance improvement. David Lister, global CIO, National Grid, sums up why: “Our business performance depends on the skills of our people. With the IT Professional Profile we can start, for the first time, to assess our skills against external benchmarks, aggregate our skills across the whole team, and identify the training we need to achieve the skills profile we must build as an organisation.”

The IT Professional Profile can be readily used by employers who have no existing skills framework, who have their own, or who use the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). SFIA-based job descriptions are easily loaded into the IT Professional Profile, which then provides detailed information about relevant competencies, knowledge and skills, and the link to appropriate training and qualifications.

Commenting on the response from organisations to the IT Professional Profile, Karen Price, CEO, e-skills UK said: “The IT profession has long needed a simple but effective way of benchmarking skills against consistent external standards in a highly dynamic environment. The IT Professional Profile is a real breakthrough. It will not only enable employers to save time and money, but will also help individuals to achieve their ambitions, and help us to establish the professionalism that will attract more talent into the sector.”

80 percent of Service Desks have disaster recovery plans in place – yet only half know how to implement them

I

T managers are taking no risks when it comes to disaster recovery, according to new research which surveyed over 15,000 IT directors from across Europe. The research found that 80 percent of service desks have a business continuity plan and 61 percent test their plan every six months, compared to just 9 percent in 2011.

The new findings are encouraging and suggest that companies recognise the unprecedented financial and reputational damage that can result from service desk disasters. Just this year, high profile computer failures at RBS Group and O2 highlighted the fact that businesses simply cannot afford to let technical glitches escalate into full blown service blackouts.

www.vital-mag.net

According to the research, 78 percent of respondents view the Service Desk as essential to re-establishing service if a disaster strikes. Additionally, nearly half (48 percent) of respondents expect full service to be re-established in one hour, underscoring the importance of having a business continuity plan that all service desk staff are trained to implement.

The survey also reveals a lack of awareness about business continuity plans within businesses, with over half (53 percent) of respondents claiming none or only some of the service desk staff are aware of the provisions in their plan. This leaves massive room for error in the event of a disaster. Despite this communication shortfall, the research

suggests that businesses are responding to the need to develop more efficient, more sophisticated business continuity plans.

Of those surveyed, 76 percent now have scenario-specific plans in place, compared with just 52 percent last year.

The findings suggest that businesses are relying on disaster recovery plans more than ever. Over 60 percent of respondents have used disaster recovery plans in a live environment, which demonstrates how vitally important it is to have substantial and tested plans in place. Should the unthinkable occur, a tested plan provides reassurance that a course of action can be taken to restore service quickly, avoiding widespread panic and uncertainty.

September / October 2012 : VitAL 7

news

London IT managers complain application issues hampered remote working during Olympics

L

ost productivity and an increased strain on the IT support organisation made IT managers less enthusiastic about the benefits of remote working following their experience during the Olympics. According to a survey that explores the attitudes of workers and IT Managers in the London area towards remote working during the Games, one-third of London-based IT managers are ‘less willing’ to let their staff work remotely in future as a result.

IT managers found that the most common issue with remote working during the games was lost productivity as a result of employees not being able to access applications. Half of all IT managers encountered this problem while 30 percent felt the strain of providing additional support and noted a sharp rise in the number of helpdesk requests received. For employees that were working remotely, 33 percent were frustrated by not being able to access applications as quickly as they could from the office.

The application delays that remote staff experienced during the Olympics are one result of the online video viewing habits of employees

in the office. In one of the key findings from the report a massive 75 percent of IT managers noted a higher bandwidth utilisation than normal. This is linked, in part, to a relaxed attitude to online video usage that allowed employees to watch online footage of the games at any time. Only 12 percent of IT managers surveyed implemented a complete ban while a quarter implemented more flexible policies that allowed workers to watch online video at certain times of the day. Sixty-two percent reported that their organisation had no restrictions on viewing online videos of the games.

Remote workers access the corporate network via the same Internet connection that employees in the office are using to stream video. As the video traffic drives network utilisation closer to 100 percent, it pushes out other applications, causing performance problems. Slow application performance can also be related to slow servers or congestion – either over the Internet or the remote workers’ local link.

To enable employees to work remotely, businesses need to be able to segment and prioritise VPN traffic over general recreation or Internet traffic. Businesses should also be able to pinpoint whether the delay is occurring at the network or server level.

Commenting on the findings Shirley O’Sullivan, vice president of EMEA marketing for Blue Coat, the company that commissioned the survey said: “For IT managers tasked with implementing the technology to support remote working initiatives, there are distinct challenges.

For remote working to be truly successful, IT managers will need to ensure that staff can work with the same ease and speed as from the office.Now that the post-Olympics dust has settled, it’s a great time to address these bandwidth utilisation and application performance issues to ensure they do not impede productivity in the future.”

Automation silos slow IT in ‘manual madness’ I

ndependent research from Redwood Software has revealed that 99 percent of organisations spend considerable time doing repetitive manual tasks, with almost two-thirds (63 percent) spending over a quarter of their time doing so. The Vanson Bourne research found that all organisations claim to automate processes to some degree, but this was largely limited to certain tasks and functions within organisations, such as HR / payroll (23 percent) and billing (26 percent).

Respondents on average claimed only 30 percent of their IT and business processes are automated, despite around half believing many of their processes – IT, business intelligence and reporting – would benefit from greater level of automation. Clearly, many organisations are missing automation opportunities in areas such as business intelligence and reporting – functions critical to the bottom line and often these are undertaken manually with heavily dedicated resources.

Tijl Vuyk, CEO at Redwood Software comments: “It seems that businesses have just cherry-picked the ‘easy’ automation targets

8 VitAL : September / October 2012

across a range of processes rather than tackling them from A-Z, despite seeing the value in doing so – it’s a contradiction in terms.

Whether it’s a lack of education, a lack of willingness, or a lack of confidence in branching out one’s process automation network, enterprises suffer because of the automation silos they have generated. This is a significant opportunity for enterprises to confront the automation contradiction. But the key to grasping this opportunity is knowledge – knowledge of what processes can be automated, and how this can directly impact business goals. Only then will the gap between silos be bridged, and benefits achieved.”

www.vital-mag.net

news

BYOD increases risk of data loss N

ew research shows that one in eight of the UK’s working population have unintentionally lost work data from their work device within the last 12 months, either through malfunction or corruption.

The number of employees accessing work information from a remote device within UK businesses has soared in recent times, with 10.3 million employees now using personal laptops, tablets and handheld devices for carrying out or storing work data. However, according to Kroll Ontrack research, privacy and security should be major concerns for employers, with employees risking the loss of important work information by using personal devices which are not supplied by their company.

According to the research, and despite the risks of losing confidential work data, one in five UK employees admit that they save critical work information on removable media devices such as flash drives. This figure increases to 27 percent for those aged between 25-34.

Robert Winter, chief engineer at Kroll Ontrack the company that carried out the research said “One of the biggest challenges for businesses today is to understand and manage the huge quantity of data they hold. Unfortunately, due to an increasingly mobile workforce, the risk of losing confidential data is heightened exponentially, unless the correct preventative action is taken. As a result, businesses are not only jeopardised financially but also run the

Third sector IT departments becoming more ‘strategic’

risk of damaging their reputation. Worryingly, seven percent of UK employees (1.9 million) are carrying around confidential work data on their own mobile or handheld device which has not been supplied by their employer. This research clearly shows that organisations need to do much more to help protect their data.

Companies must implement thorough policies and procedures to help staff understand rules and security features surrounding BYOD.”

Businesses hungup on employee BYOD app access I

I

T teams in large charities are becoming much more strategic and this has left IT departments within the third sector struggling to cope, research has today revealed. New research from MSM Software shows that 92 percent of third sector IT managers believe the IT department has changed into a more strategic role over the past 12 months.

Respondents cited the ways that the role of IT has changed, including changing skill sets and IT staff spending less time running inhouse systems. In addition, non-strategic roles have been the first to go when it has come to cutbacks for 15 percent of organisations involved in the research.

With IT departments focused on strategy, 45 percent of IT managers in the third sector say they no longer have sufficient resource to support IT systems. Thomas Coles, managing director at MSM Software, says, “Over the past year there has been a significant shift within in-house IT departments. This has been particularly prevalent in the third sector where funds are limited and so there have been necessary cut-backs, which have had a direct impact on resource.

“Third sector organisations must ensure they are not placed at risk by a failure to ensure their IT function can drive forward technology innovation. For example outsourcing provides a key way in which organisations can plug essential skills gaps to ensure their competitive future; enabling day to day activities to be supported whilst IT teams focus on delivering strategic objectives.”

On page 16 of this issue VitAL talks to childrens’ charity Barnardo’s assistant director IS – service management, Mark Barrett.

www.vital-mag.net

ndependent research commissioned by cloud security specialist Ping Identity has revealed that enterprises are restricting employee access to vital work applications due to security and control fears.

Employees were found to use an average of five work applications every day, but nearly a third (27 percent) claimed they were not granted access to these applications via their mobile devices. Many said they could gain access to some of these critical work apps (61 percent) however, only three percent could seamlessly work from their mobile device as if in the office, accessing all applications. Finance applications topped the list of restricted programmes with access to business applications and partner applications also being stated as limited.

In addition, over half of respondents (53 percent) claimed that security was the reason for restricting employee access to certain applications, whereas 22 percent viewed ubiquitous application access as a major management issue.

Acknowledging the need to create a seamless environment for staff to work, a third of enterprises have enabled employee access to internal and external applications with the same log-in details. Using Single-Sign-On (SSO) is a way of maintaining control of access points but also negates the need for multiple passwords.

“As workforces become ever-more mobile, business applications increasingly extend beyond the realms of on-premise and into the cloud. Security measures must therefore start with an individual’s identity, not the application they’re accessing, or device they’re using. Granting staff seamless access to critical applications both within and outside the business, and managing these connections closely, is essential to ensuring continued business success in extremely competitive times.”

September / October 2012 : VitAL 9

cover story

Into the era of instant value As 2012 comes to its close, it appears the Mayans were wrong and we will all live to see 2013. To celebrate this deliverance VitAL asks a select group of IT professionals what they think the significant developments were in 2012 and gets them to tell us what will be hot in 2013 – a year of instant value?

10 VitAL : November / December 2012

www.vital-mag.net

cover story

A

t the start of this year we predicted that 2012 would see the democratisation of IT. Chris Rixon, principal solutions manager at BMC mused in our start of the year issue that, “If consumerisation gained momentum in 2011, then 2012 will see the birth of democratisation, posing challenges the IT service management industry has never experienced before.” And it certainly has been a challenge, although few used the term ‘democratisation’, plumping for the more prosaic ‘BYOD’ (bring your own device) and ‘mobility’ to describe the trend of staff using their own smartphones, tablets and other devices in the enterprise sphere.

It’s clear that the need for ‘value’ – instant value – is still driving things forward and BYOD, offering go-anywhere access to cloud services, virtualised environments and a growing catalogue of useful (and not so useful) apps is a major contributor to this trend.

Mobility & instant value At the coalface of a modern IT-based business, confused.com’s IT director Rex Johnson certainly recognises the value that mobility can bring to an organisation, but also the potential challenges. “Some of the main talking points were around the increasing proliferation and influence that mobile devices are having on the consumer market and the growing influence that customers can now exert via social media channels,” he says. “Also, virtualisation and cloud computing in its many forms were discussed with many firms starting to investigate what advantages cloud computing might bring in terms of cost and efficiency.”

Speaking about his own organisation Johnson continues: “Confused.com IT underwent a root and branch re-architecture of our IT systems in 2012 where we went to a service-oriented architecture with quality and test-driven development at the heart of what we did. This has meant that we are able to explore and experiment with mobile and cloud and begin to rationalise where we want to be within these technology spaces.”

Challenges for the comparison site included some new legislation that has to be dealt with.

“I also think that the new cookie laws had a differing impact on companies and the IT work that resulted,” says Johnson. “Judging from the statements coming out of the EU the ‘Do Not Track’ directive may be more rigorously applied next year but businesses are sure to resist so expect confrontation with no predictable outcome at present. Businesses will have to www.vital-mag.net

think about how they deal with the way that the new IE10 browser is introduced as currently the plan from Microsoft is to default to ‘Do Not Track’ in this browser. We are thinking about how this may affect our business and what we might do to ensure we are prepared whatever the final outcome in terms of new legislation.”

Common themes Independent management consultancy LOC Consulting is able to get an overview of the IT word as we enter 2013. The company’s Peter Osbourne shares his considered observations: “In reviewing technical trends through 2012 a number of common themes emerge, namely digital, cloud, analytics, mobile and security were core. Gartner, the doyen of trends and quadrants, further re-enforces this view by highlighting that digital, social media and mobile technology reflect the primary trends.

“Unlike e-bubble predictions of 2000 where internet and e-commerce were to alter everything, these trends are more robust but have been overstated in terms of absolute influence and relevance to most businesses in the short to medium term. Unfortunately, many organisations have started to believe this ‘digital-hype’ and much of the focus and investment has been targeted on products and services that have a peripheral impact whilst neglecting core services relevant to their Go-Tomarket strategies. This focus is to their potential detriment in the short-term.

“This challenge is applicable to many of the companies we have worked with – although digital is relevant and needs to be considered, the real priority should be on integration of systems and services, specifically targeting areas affected by recent underfunding. Core to this are applications and technologies that facilitate end-to-end integration both from an e-commerce and customer delivery perspective whilst adopting aspects of the digital-hype that are relevant.”

The proliferation of social media in business is still an area that needs more clarity and alignment with the business strategy which we believe we will see happening in 2013.”

The view from the pit lane Because of the unique nature of his work environment, Toyota Motorsport’s service delivery manager Per Norqvist’s view of the year is somewhat different to most. “Mobility for us is a different thing altogether,” he explains. “We take our servers with us to the race tracks and all we need in terms of connectivity is a decent connection to the VPN at our HQ in Cologne.”

While this approach has caused some problems for the IT team, in terms of November / December 2012 : VitAL 11

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Going forward we expect businesses to demand more from managed service models from the cloud providers. We also expect that cloud becomes a more acceptable mode with a true commercial model for Big Data.

12 VitAL : November / December 2012

getting consistent power and dealing high temperatures in some of the more exotic locations – they have had shovel ice into the server racks in the past – it is the only way they can currently guarantee the functionality they require to keep the show on the road. And in a sport that is utterly reliant of IT – you even need a laptop to start the cars these days – it has to work consistently. “We are currently evaluating cloud and private cloud solutions,” says Nordqvist, “but I am a getting a little bit tired of this cloud thing!”

Per Nordqvist is currently putting together a new team for Le Mans and has seen their IT requirements increase significantly since the project was launched. “Initially they said they needed 13 laptops with no Internet, now they need 48 with full Internet access and sophisticated IT capabilities!”

The rise of ‘Big Data’ Charles Hughes and Ramyani Basu, from consultant AT Kearney have noted the rise of BYOD and social media in the enterprise but also flag the importance of ‘Big Data’: “A significant change is seen in the proliferation of mobile devices and mobile application solutions. Businesses and employees want to move from the Internet through their PCs/ laptops to an anytime anywhere model.

Employees have started bringing their own devices which means a greater focus on security for companies.

“Mobility applications arose from limited consumer applications to a plethora of options. This enabled consumers to have the ultimate power so that they can make decisions instantaneously and on-the-go.

On the other hand, Facebook became an important channel for businesses to increase their brand awareness and remain connected with their consumers. As mobility and social media usage went high, Big Data analytics became even more important for businesses.

Service providers started offering different analytic solutions: real-time analytics, predictive analytics and social analytics. Last but not the least, cloud finally made some progress from an unproven curiosity as a commercial model to a technology trend that businesses are interested in investing in.

“2012 has been a year of active endorsement of many IT trends and innovations. Many of which have been very positive such as mobility, data analytics and cloud which we believe will be the foundation for further success in 2013.

However the proliferation of social media in business is still an area that needs more clarity and alignment with the business strategy which we believe to see happening in 2013.”

The BYOD genie is now out of the bottle according to Patrick Bolger, chief evangelist at Hornbill: “The most important trend we’ve noticed in 2012 has been the growth of BYOD and consumerisation. For the end-user, this makes perfect sense: after all, it simply seems more efficient to bring in a personal iPhone rather than using a company Blackberry.

Yet this is also causing waves for the IT department: it now has to deal with an influx of devices over which it may have little visibility or control.

“The BYOD genie is definitely out of the bottle: in a recent survey, 40 percent of office workers said they’d use personal devices regardless of IT approval, in order to improve efficiency. From our side, we favour working with users to accommodate this. Put simply, it’s much better to harness workers’ desires to use technology and have them inside the tent. At the same time, consumerisation also includes greater sharing of information between endusers: 82 percent will help each other solve simple problems while the use of social media such as YouTube tutorials have proven a great help in getting users up and running. All in all, we’d class consumerisation as a positive for IT departments that can adapt.”

Enter the cloud Ewen Anderson, CEO of application and desktop delivery specialist Centralis says he has seen the cloud take centre stage.

“2012 has seen cloud move from the edge of the corporate whiteboard to the centre.

Expectations are rising that software, services, desktops and whole infrastructures can be provided on demand and at a fixed price.

Many business leaders are also eyeing free (or nearly free) software components and comparing them with their expensive onpremise counterparts, where so much of the budget is spent keeping layer upon layer of legacy IT functioning.”

This rise to prominence is abetted by consumerisation according to Anderson. “The fact is that many people own IT equipment which is faster, nicer to use, has better battery life and simply works better than the IT they get to use at work. It’s not just about BYOD – it’s about a whole new user experience and expectation,” he says. “Overall, a positive year in which strategic planning, change management and service delivery were placed firmly back on the IT agenda.”

Bringing a legal view of the current state of IT, Rob Sheldon, associate partner, DWF’s corporate and commercial team says the buzz around cloud has been growing through 2012: “And as we move towards a tipping point www.vital-mag.net

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where cloud-based environments become ‘standard’ rather than ‘novel’, we expect this to continue. Generally cloud providers’ contracts are improving but there are still potential issues for businesses that don’t fully evaluate the potential risks with this technology and simply sign up to a provider’s standard terms in their haste to implement a cloud-based solution. There can be potential problems around software licences and whether or not they permit the user to utilise the software in a cloud environment. There are also ongoing concerns around security, but this is an area that is improving all the time.”

Greening in the data centre Despite the economic gloom the green agenda hasn’t been entirely forgotten. Stephen Scott, managing director of Sentrum Colo comments: “Energy saving initiatives and a responsible attitude to renewable power have remained a focus within the data centre community. There is a great deal of investment and research into what is required to make data centres more efficient. At the simplest level this can be an increased tolerance in relation to the temperature at which a data centre hall is allowed to operate, however there are a number of good alternatives including free air cooling and super cooled cabinets.”

The data centre industry saw growth in 2012 which Scott attributes to an increasing demand for IT as a service as organisations continue to consider the merits of business continuity and disaster recovery strategies; and a continuing trend to manage better direct IT costs. “Public cloud services have caught the imagination, if not the budget, of the corporate and SMB space,” he says.

“As the anxiety subsides that naturally surrounds handing complete control of your data and applications to a third party provider, there will be a more significant uptake of these services. That said, the most significant providers in the space, for example Google, MSN, Time Warner and Amazon, are significantly increasing their data centre capacity, in terms of space and geography, to prepare for increased demand and adoption of cloud services.”

Looking forward to 2013, Scott sees continuing pressure to increase efficiency.

“The cost of power is going to increase and the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) will effectively become a tax that will have to be absorbed by the client. This will only add pressure for data centre operators to continue in their quest for improved energy efficiency. Public and private cloud service providers will get more traction. It is inevitable www.vital-mag.net

that applications as a service (ASP) models will become the preferred IT strategy for companies large and small.”

The network So what about the backbone of all this technology, the broadband network? Andrew Ferguson of Thinkbroadband.com says the picture is improving. “While fibre services are far from being available everywhere, home workers have access to much better broadband speeds, particularly upstream speeds which allow sending of material and remote connection to company networks to be a lot slicker. With travel budgets under increasing pressure, the ability to teleconference between offices and home workers helps reduce travel expense and save a lot of time. One danger for staff who do work from home a lot is isolation, so office days where teams actually physically meet remain important.”

The main changes for 2013, will be the continued push of better connectivity across the UK and the rolling out of 4G. “For those businesses that do travel, the rise of 4G with auctions in middle of the year and EE continuing the roll-out they started in 2012 will offer Internet connectivity that is as good or maybe even better than the office connection,” says Ferguson. “The launch of fibre on demand expected in 2013 from Openreach should, for an install fee in the order of £500 to £1,500, allow offices that have relied on flaky DSL services for years to upgrade to full fibre.

This should improve reliability and uptime, as well as offering speeds of 330Mbps (30 Mbps upload) with the prospect of even faster speeds later in the year.”

Businesses will expect IT departments to allow them to experiment and innovate quickly in this new space and IT has to ensure that their systems are geared to deliver so the business can be competitive.

2013, year of ‘choice’ “Proliferation of choice is one of the key trends that will become prevalent in 2013 and beyond,” predicts Peter Osbourne. “Over 50,000 new applications were added to the iStore in just the past three months. What is important is the ability to source and deploy correct solutions amidst the choice. Despite the proliferation of products, applications and services it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate. Tools and techniques to ensure the correct products are selected to address the business needs will be required. In parallel, data management and associated analytics will also be important.

“Overall, companies need to ensure they use technology to empower their business and not swamp it with unnecessary adoption of new concepts, applications or latest trends with no associated bottom line benefit,” concludes November / December 2012 : VitAL 13

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Businesses that take their customers’ personal data seriously will retain and grow their customer-base and differentiate themselves from their competitors who have poor data handling practices, particularly in regards to data-sharing and unclear privacy policies.

Osbourne. “Justifying the business case must be core to all future IT strategies.”

For Patrick Bolger the hot topics of 2012, consumerisation, social media and BYOD, were just symptoms of a much bigger issue.

“The traditional approach to ITSM does not appear to be meeting customer needs and the demand for increased business agility,” he says. “Times have changed and the lines between work and home have blurred for the modern knowledge worker. Acquiring and using technology has never been easier and consumers expect to be connected and productive whenever, and wherever, they are. Business has moved on, but IT appears to be stuck in the last generation, with a strategic focus on IT operations.

“Efficient delivery of IT services will always be high on the IT agenda, but a primary focus on improving the ratio of quality vs. cost does not create new business value. IT strategy has to shift from a focus on infrastructure to a focus on desired business outcomes and the mission critical activities our customers perform to achieve their goals.

This shift cannot occur unless IT understands the customer, earns their respect, and is seen as a trusted advisor. Customers are not concerned about the complexity of the IT service management lifecycle. They need basic help that connects them directly to their immediate service needs. All they want is a better support experience and a more agile and efficient response from their IT organisation.

“The message is clear,” says Bolger, “IT needs to focus on the customer and their service experience.”

Social interaction Charles Hughes and Ramyani Basu predict that the future for information interactions will be predominantly social. “This will mean the social world will collide with the personal and the corporate creating an environment of true collaboration,” they say.

“In 2013, consumers will expect online buying to be even more prominent – so we expect to see growth in traffic for the social media channels and internet sales. While 2012 has been a year of expansion and exploration of social media – 2013 will be one of focussing on how to monetise it as a channel to market and hence drive revenue generation. This would mean that the mega players in the social media space will require further innovation to enable businesses to use the platform for revenue generation. There is likely to be 14 VitAL : November / December 2012

strong possibility of market consolidation as smaller players will struggle and either get bought up or go under.

“With the proliferation of small and medium businesses, cloud as a commercial and as a technology delivery model will be expected to flourish. In 2012 organisations have explored packaged private cloud and custom packaged cloud for hardware, software and data centres. Going forward we expect businesses to demand more from managed service models from the cloud providers.

We also expect that cloud becomes a more acceptable mode with a true commercial model for Big Data. Businesses will be keen to explore pay-as-you-go models for most of the technology solutions and cloud could slowly be the preferred delivery model. Cloud brokerage role which is about aggregation, governance and provisioning between cloud providers and consumers will act as the key role to get the maximum benefit from the cloud ecosystem.

“We believe that success in 2013 will depend on how corporates, businesses and service providers develop a true consumercentric strategy and meld technology trends to maximise the impact in the market; hence convergence of existing technologies will be a key theme and mobility will become the means to access the technology solutions of the future.”

Better experience Rex Johnson of confused.com is in no doubt that mobile devices of all types will be used more by consumers and they will expect a good experience no matter what the medium.

“The challenge is to provide products via multiple channels where the experience is suited to the device. If we can do this then we will be able to encourage customers to engage with us on a regular basis,” he says.

“Our new software architecture has meant that we can be very flexible and quick in implementing the different innovations that the business wants to explore and a good example of this is the recent launch of our QuickQuote process which allows mobile technology to utilise existing software that is web based. Therefore businesses will expect IT departments to allow them to experiment and innovate quickly in this new space and IT has to ensure that their systems are geared to deliver so the business can be competitive.

All change Ewen Anderson of Centralis is looking forward to a year of change. “With Microsoft planning www.vital-mag.net

VitAL signs: Life in the world with IT

a new version of just about everything in late 2012 early 2013, the IT landscape is going to get quite a shake up,” he says.

“From their first hardware device to the new Metro styled and touch-friendly Windows 8, it’s going to be interesting to see how customers and analysts react.

“Mobile is going to grow and grow, so expect big news around connectivity, bandwidth and data acceleration – as well as solutions to that nagging issue that everyone really isn’t always connected.

Security will continue to be a major issue and the conflict between consumerisation, mobility and security is going to become more intense. Vendors will increasingly launch their own ‘stacks’, with integrated, optimised solutions that mean you get the best in a single bundle – but accept a long term tie in as a consequence.

“Matching solutions to business requirements will continue to be a challenge and a delight for businesses with the vision to see beyond the marketing. And desktops will change forever – because there really is no going back to XP.”

Data protection Legal expert Rob Sheldon is expecting increasing focus on security issues as new technologies including cloud and BYOD are implemented and in particular as the new General Data Protection Regulation looms. “The new guidelines will see increased rights for data subjects; greater obligations and liabilities for data controllers and data processors; more rights for the regulator; and higher fines for breaches of up to two percent of a company’s global turnover,” he warns. “We are already seeing how the EU regulators are dealing with data protection issues in the context of Google’s consolidation of its privacy policies, and we see this as a sign of things to come as regulators across the EU develop a common playing field on these issues and a uniform stance on common challenges.

“For the enlightened, we see data protection compliance as a way of securing a competitive advantage and engendering a relationship of trust between an organisation and its customers. Businesses that take their customers’ personal data seriously will retain and grow their customer-base and differentiate themselves from their competitors who have poor data handling practices, particularly in regards to datasharing and unclear privacy policies.” VitAL

Much Less?

Steve White discusses how an absence of language and process can make a difficult decision even harder.

I

am frustrated by the English language - we are missing a phrase to elegantly describe ‘much

less’. Much: adjective; great in quantity, measure, or degree. noun; a great quantity, measure, or degree.

So if you have less of one thing and a lot less of another - there we are - there’s no word to cleanly explain the degree of smallness without bringing to mind something that is great in quantity. A lot is a lot. ‘A lot’ brings to mind great quantity which then has to think small. ‘Much more’ – that’s good.

‘Much less’ – it juxtaposes awkwardly.

It seems that it’s perfectly possible to do without ‘Problem Management’. The support organisation in Sun Microsystems from 1991 to 2000 just got on with whatever came into the department. If it was a situation where the customer was down, we would do one thing, and if they had got themselves back up and were working on why it happened, we did another thing.

On the face of it, having a nebulous group of people working on incoming concerns, without there being the separation of Incident and Problem looks to be a good staffing idea - as long as the people are technically competent and willing to work in any role, then it works very nicely.

‘Fungible’ is an HR word for it. So if a company can do without an officially labelled Problem Management activity, what is it missing?

I believe it’s missing two things; the clear understanding of the different objectives that Incident and Problem Management have, and a language to describe what is being done.

There is a clear difference in the thinking that is required to restore a service, compared with the thinking that is required to find the root cause of an incident. The objectives of people involved in Incidents are quite different to those working Problems. The language is different.

More importantly, when there is no actual ‘Problem Management’ as a recognisable activity, if there is a crisis and a crunch, the thing that stops getting done by the fungible team is Problem Management. A company can quickly spiral into incident overload hell if the crunch turns into the new reality.

In the UK we seem to be facing a double dip recession, which means that again budgets and heads are going to be cut, and it seems to be traditional that no services are stopped, no business people are let go before the IT budget is savaged. With an allegedly fungible group of people, as a manager, how can you tell whether you are taking out experts in service restoration or IT stability, especially if you have limited data on what the individuals actually contribute?

You’ll know the ‘high flyers’ as they will be in the thick of service restoration. What would happen if you accidentally cut all your stability folk?

A financial services company drowning under the volume and intensity of incidents took a bold move and changed the emphasis from Incident to Problem Management. They drove IT stability and reduced the cost of ownership of IT to the business by a dramatic percentage.

It’s a lever for management to pull, a strategy to define and deliver.

If you have hidden the IT stability activity in regular activity, how can you tell if it’s being done effectively and efficiently? How will it be measured and valued? How can you make sure that your IT stability will continue to be delivered to the business when you have much less resource to deliver it with? VitAL Contact Steve White at: stevescolumn@vital-mag.net

November / December 2012 : VitAL 15

vital management

The charities sector challenge By its very nature, the charities sector has always had to do more with less. IT offers some interesting paths on this journey as Matt Bailey found out when he spoke to Barnardo’s assistant director IS – service management, Mark Barrett.

W

ith the UK’s economy still flat-lining – but hopefully with a little light on the horizon – imagine how tough things are getting at the sharp end for a leading charity.

IT is often seen as a panacea, especially in the public sector but increasingly in the third or charity and voluntary sector too.

Increasing automation may not be a solution when you rely primarily on volunteers for your labour, but many of the benefits that an enlightened 21st century approach can bring to IT departments could provide real savings.

16 VitAL : November / December 2012

Help for children As one of the UK’s leading children’s charities, Barnardo’s works directly with over 200,000 children, young people and their families; it runs over 800 vital projects across the UK, including counselling for children who have been abused, fostering and adoption services, vocational training and disability inclusion groups. Every Barnardo’s project is different but each stresses the potential in every child and young person, no matter who they are, what they have done or what they have been through. www.vital-mag.net

vital management

Every Barnardo’s project is different but each stresses the potential in every child and young Barnardo’s work includes: • Specialist educational needs schools; •F ostering and adoption services and support; •H elping children break free from sexual exploitation; • Helping children living in poverty.

Barnardo’s vision today is that the lives of all children and young people should be free from poverty, abuse and discrimination. It pledges to support children, stand up for them and bring out the best in each and every one. It transforms the lives of vulnerable children across the UK through various projects, campaigning and research. The charity believes it can bring out the best in every child whether the issue is child poverty, sexual exploitation, disability or domestic violence.

This vision is the same as the one Thomas Barnardo had when he came to London in 1866 and found children sleeping in the streets and being forced to beg for food.

It was in 1867 that he set up the Ragged School and started helping the abused, vulnerable, forgotten and neglected children of East London. By the time he died in 1905, the charity he founded ran 96 homes caring for more than 8,500 children. Following his death his work continued and now Barnardo’s helps more than 200,000 children, young people and their families every year.

The IT challenge Coping with the Service Desk and IT challenges of this world-class charity is no mean feat.

Assistant director IS – service management, www.vital-mag.net

Mark Barrett has worked in IT for over 23 years and has in that time undertaken a number of roles including helpdesk analyst, problem manager and developer, as well as working with servers, networks and security.

Reporting to the director of Information Services he is responsible for the running of the ITIL Service Management function, covering Service Desk, Incident Management, Problem Management, Configuration Management, Change Management, Site Services and IS Supply.

Barrett manages a team of over 20 staff working within an IS team of over 80 – that supports over 7,000 IS users across 1,600 plus UK sites.

“Barnardo’s transforms the lives of vulnerable children across the UK through the work of our projects, our campaigning and our research expertise,” explains Barrett. “We believe we can bring out the best in every child whether the issue is child poverty, sexual exploitation, disability or domestic violence.

We run over 800 UK projects that transform the lives of more than 190,000 children and young people every year.

“The IT function supports the organisation’s use of technology to deliver its services to children and young people. We work closely with our internal customers to help them make the right decisions and to ensure that the technology is supporting the business objectives and enabling the business to achieve them. IT is a business partner within the organisation.”

person, no matter who they are, what they have done or what they have been through.

November / December 2012 : VitAL 17

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Barnardo’s vision today is that the lives of all children and young people should be free from poverty, abuse and discrimination.

It pledges to support children, stand up for them and bring out the best in each and every one.

18 VitAL : November / December 2012

The charities sector challenge There are many specific challenges facing the IT services staff in the charities sector, perhaps the biggest one though is the same one facing everyone in business at the moment, that of making the income, in the form of charity donations, go as far as possible. Although of course funding and the responsible use of those funds has always been a factor for charities.

“The economy has had a big impact on organisations that rely on the generosity of the public to help fund them,” says Barrett.

“When times are tough charitable donations suffer and things will not be getting easier in the short term. Budget cuts due to reductions in voluntary funding and greater demands from commissioners are among the biggest challenges we face,” he confirms. “But there is also the competition we face from other charities for work and funding which we also have to address.”

In an environment where there is serious competition with other deserving organisations, there certainly has to be an emphasis on offering value for money. “There is a requirement to do more with less,” says Barrett, “and while staffing levels are at the minimum, the demand for our services is not reducing and our more IT-aware customers are becoming more demanding of the service and wanting to do more with the technology they have available. As an IT organisation, our main customers are our staff and volunteers, though there may be demands in the future to support our service users in their use of technology.”

An example of this money-saving use of technology is video conferencing. “For an

organisation covering the UK and Northern Ireland Video Conferencing has had a big positive impact,” explains Barrett. “It has enabled meetings to still be face to face but without the associated travel costs.”

Another challenge for the charity is data protection. With so much information about the children it helps located on its systems, one of the major issues Barnardo’s faces is data protection in general and complying with ISO27001 in particular.

Bucking the trend The IT organisation at Barnardo’s is focussed on adding value and as such is facing current events with a strictly positive attitude.

“Service Management within the Barnardo’s organisation is in a good place,” says Barrett.

“It enables us to provide cost effective support for the organisation with a limited budget. We work closely with the organisation to identify those issues causing the most pain or providing the most benefit and focus the limited resources we have and our efforts on those. This provides plenty of challenges to balance the sometimes conflicting demands of different areas in the business.”

As in the public sector there is an emphasis on automation, shared services and reuse.

“IT helps the organisation meet the current economic challenges by enabling it to work more cost effectively,” says Barrett. “Sharing resources, reusing rather than duplicating information, automating where possible, repurposing older kit and where that is not possible recycling all play their part.” VitAL www.barnardos.org.uk www.vital-mag.net

vital processes

Dealing with Selfish Applications A selfish application is one that has the tendency to utilise all available network bandwidth when being downloaded for the first time or when performing a software update. Dave Ewart, director product marketing at Blue Coat Systems, offers some timely advice for dealing with the problem.

20 VitAL : November / December 2012

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vital processes

download is coming over a three Megabits per second WAN link to a branch office, a selfish application would take all of it for the duration of the download. If it’s a 20 Megabits per second Internet gateway, all of the bandwidth could be consumed for a download, although for a much shorter period of time.

These are a few frequently asked questions and ansers about selfish applications and how to deal with them.

W

e have discovered a new trend and yet another implication of the bring your own device (BYOD) trend and the use of ‘consumerised IT’ applications.

Companies have been experiencing the effect of this condition for some time now, but no one has precisely typified what it is, how it works and what to do about it. The problem is getting worse, and it will produce an increasingly greater impact on company Internet connections and WAN links to branch offices.

A selfish application is an application that has the tendency to utilise all available network bandwidth when being downloaded for the first time or when performing a software update. If the www.vital-mag.net

Q: What is the impact of a selfish application on the network? Why is this a problem?

When downloading begins, bandwidth consumption spikes upward without warning and creates contention with existing application traffic and prevents other things from using the network. This will impact real time applications that are especially sensitive to latency and contention the most – things like video conferencing, voice-over-IP and virtual desktop (VDI) sessions. Other nonreal-time applications suffer. Enterprise transactions slow or stop. Oracle or SAP response times become horrible. There are actually two problems. The first, and most severe, is the impact on application performance over the network. The second is the unpredictability of the problem.

Q: What kinds of applications are selfish applications?

This ‘selfishness’ is typical of BYOD software associated with tablets and handhelds as well as almost any ‘consumerised IT’ application. It is also the case with most utility software, such as Adobe Flash or Adobe Acrobat updates. The sad fact is that more and more applications are becoming selfish.

As growing BYOD behaviour brings more mobile devices onto the corporate network, all of the initial software downloads, the addition of new apps and frequent cycle of updates will greatly expand the effect of selfish applications.

Q: Is this a Blue Coat term? Why isn’t anyone else talking about this?

The term ‘selfish application’ is a Blue Coat term. We believe we are the first to uncover this problem and document it. Almost every company has felt the effects of selfish November / December 2012 : VitAL 21

vital processes

The trouble is that on a network with lots of users and lots of applications, being selfish causes significant issues.

22 VitAL : November / December 2012

applications, but lacked the visibility or understanding of what the cause might be.

‘play well with others’. The selfish tendencies are needlessly selfish.

Q: Is the problem becoming worse?

Without a doubt, the problem is becoming a lot worse. As growing BYOD behaviour brings more mobile devices onto the corporate network, all of the initial software downloads, the addition of new apps and frequent cycle of updates will greatly expand the effect of selfish applications. In addition, accelerated adoption of consumerised IT applications will extend the effect. Furthermore, the tendency for more frequent updates and the bloating size of the updates will compound the problem greatly.

Q: What can companies do?

The first step is to have true application visibility to understand what is running on the network and how it behaves. The second step is optimisation to mitigate the effect of the downloads on the network. The third is to apply bandwidth management or Quality of Service (QoS) controls to prevent selfish behaviours and contention. The key is to have a very granular view of traffic in terms of specific applications and then to be able to intelligently apply controls. Controls such as limits and priorities are important in managing selfish applications.

Another important solution is a nextgeneration WAN optimisation solution or Secure Web Gateway appliance that cache software updates locally. That means that a company’s Internet gateway or WAN link to a branch office would only have to incur the cost of downloading an application or an update a single time. For instance, if there are 200 users in an office, and they all need an Adobe Flash or iTunes update in a short period of time, the network would only have to sustain a single download rather than the same thing 200 times. In the case of an 80 megabyte file, reducing the ‘multiplicative’ effect is practically revolutionary. In one case the total load is about 16 gigabytes; in the other it is only 80 megabytes. VitAL www.bluecoat.com

Q: Why don’t application developers do something about this?

It’s hard enough to develop a stable application these days that provides great utility and usability, security and reliability without having the network in mind. Many developers lack the time or resource to conduct real network testing.

At the same time being ‘selfish’ is not really inherently bad. If you are the only user and that is the only application running, you would want the download to conduct itself quickly.

The trouble is that on a network with lots of users and lots of applications, being selfish causes significant issues. The network itself really needs to intervene to optimise and manage application traffic. With the right technology, selfish applications can learn to

www.vital-mag.net

vital management

The future of IT service automation lies in the cloud CIOs need service automation solutions that are not only intuitive and easy to use, but are built to support the way businesses work today. Kevin Kimber, UK country manager at ServiceNow makes the case for the future of service automation being in the cloud.

24 VitAL : November / December 2012

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vital management

T

he predominant technology used today for IT service management (ITSM) is old-fashioned, complex and difficult to work with. Acquiring and maintaining the technology is both costly and timeconsuming. Upgrades can take months, use significant amounts of resources to test and then implement, and often don’t support customisations. Evaluations, dashboards and reports are inconsistent and hard to prepare. In fact, the ITSM tools a legacy vendor typically sells as ‘seamless’ solutions, often emerge as the results of the various client-server technologies acquired through the years.

CIOs need service automation solutions that are not only intuitive and easy to use, but are built to support the way businesses work, whether that be based on current process guidelines (ITIL, for example), or a unique workflow specific to their business and not just ICT. Modern solutions are also expected to deliver fast results and ensure data sovereignty across the entire network.

Furthermore, they require technologies that do not increase, but rather lower costs, by offering automatic upgrades, reducing maintenance costs, and delivering more rapid time to market.

Into the cloud Until a few years ago, there was no reason to believe these requirements could be realised.

But then came the cloud. It breathed new life into the ITSM market and set the scene for exciting developments going forward. The future doesn’t lie in cobbled-together suites with a patchwork of legacy tools, but rather in a cloud-based platform born through organic development, based on consistent data models, workflows and processes, and consumed with nothing but an Internet connection and a browser.

Modern cloud services also have the distinct advantage of delivering service automation, allowing IT departments to move away from high-touch, high-cost solutions to efficient and effective problem resolution and self-service environments. Intuitive service automation does not only benefit the IT department but can be applied to assist all business departments. www.vital-mag.net

Call in the SaaS Here are the specific advantages the SaaS approach offers for IT service automation: Automatic upgrades: IT shivers whenever they hear that their ITSM suite needs an upgrade, and not without reason. Apart from the fact that many upgrades are necessary just to keep the existing system alive, major modifications and integrations can be very complicated, along with very costly to reimplement. A solution that comes from the cloud is just the opposite. The vendor is responsible for upgrades and these are performed automatically as part of the subscription service, and customisations are kept intact.

Quick implementation: Companies no longer need to host the software within their own infrastructure – it simply works as expected through the cloud. Never-ending implementations become a thing of the past.

Ease-of-use: The user interface is geared towards the design and functionality of modern business to consumer websites that the user is already familiar with, like Facebook, Google or Amazon.com for instance. Users can configure SaaS applications very easily through the browser.

Inclusive, transparent licensing: Simple and transparent cost models, like flat subscription rates per process user, are easier to understand and consume. The product license shouldn’t get in the way of getting work done.

Service Management from the cloud According to Gartner, roughly ten percent of all companies currently use SaaS for ITSM. During the next five years, they expect to see half operate service management from the cloud.

Bill Keyworth, an analyst and IT management expert, sums it up by saying, “Those companies who are interested in lowering their upgrade and support costs and speeding up reaction times to user requests should consider ITSM as SaaS.” The benefits of cloud-based ITSM present an opportunity for IT to get ahead of the curve while helping businesses be more responsive through true automation. VitAL

The future doesn’t lie in cobbled-together suites with a patchwork of legacy tools, but rather in a cloud-based platform born through organic development, based on consistent data models, workflows and processes, and consumed with nothing but an Internet connection and a browser.

November / December 2012 : VitAL 25

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The double danger of BYOD There are challenges associated with BYOD (bring your own device) but there are also solutions. Smart companies can take advantage of this trend while mitigating some of the risks it brings according to Thierry Grenot, EVP and co-founder of Ipanema Technologies.

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ring Your Own Device (BYOD) describes the recent trend of employees bringing personally-owned mobile devices to their place of work, and using those devices to access privileged company resources such as email, file servers, and databases.

To put things simply, BYOD can be dangerous, very dangerous. To start with, you have the common security concerns associated with any technical device: spyware, malware, viruses, and so forth. These are all exasperated by the fact that BYOD involves foreign devices coming into the office in an uncontrollable way. With employees bringing their own computers and tablets into the office, suddenly things like applications and virus software become variable.

Troubleshooting Yet common concerns like security are not the only issues that come with BYOD. Troubleshooting can also be a problem in an environment where users are bringing a multitude of different technologies.

Consider how there is the danger of more ghost/rogue applications happening via BYOD. According to a recent study, 38 percent of surveyed UK companies don’t know what kind/how many applications are flowing over their networks – and this is within their own traditional office environment. Sixty nine percent admitted to not understanding the bandwidth requirements networked applications demand.

These numbers could be made drastically worse by BYOD. Just like before, with external devices come the unknown. Employees may have numerous applications installed on their own tablets and their own computers.

When employees come to the office with their own devices, these applications will suddenly 26 VitAL : November / December 2012

be running, unmonitored and unrecognised, across the networks. They provide a direct security threat in that they may be carrying with them certain virus-prone weaknesses.

Indirect threats BYOD also provides an indirect threat.

Additional devices running numerous applications could crash the networks themselves by putting too much stress on the available bandwidth. From photo sharing to social networking, employees operating on their own devices are more likely to use ‘at home’ applications while in the office. Companies, who currently don’t know what applications are happening where and when, will be operating more blindly than ever. Control is lost. Business is put at risk. Already 82 percent of UK companies in a recent study noted that problems such as slowness or unresponsiveness are becoming more frequent. BYOD threatens to make these problems worse.

In short, BYOD can be particularly dangerous, posing security threats both in the traditional and the network-related sense.

Companies must be prepared to handle these challenges before they rush after BYOD. They must understand how employees are using their networks, and prioritise businesscritical applications above others.

New tools enable companies to slow down applications such as Facebook and YouTube in order to allocate more bandwidth and network space to business-critical operations, reducing IT risks. Simultaneously, by slowing down certain BYOD applications, CIOs reduce the appeal of these potential distractions.

There are challenges associated with BYOD but there are also solutions. Smart companies can take advantage of this trend while mitigating some of the risks it brings. VitAL

Companies must be prepared to handle these challenges before they rush after BYOD. They must understand how employees are using their networks, and prioritise businesscritical applications above others.

www.vital-mag.net

vital management

The next generation of apps With the rise of BYOD the app has long been at the heart of enterprises everywhere. Kevin Galway of bss digital explains how the next generation of apps will change our lives both at home and in the office.

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t is staggering to think that Apple’s App Store celebrated its fourth birthday in July – in some respects it does feel like it should be much older than that. This is probably because apps have come a long way in such a short time. Prior to the launch of the iOS App Store in July 2008 the term ‘app’ was mainly used as a technical term.

Today, the landscape is very different – the number of apps for various smartphones

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and tablet computers is said to number well over a million. And it keeps growing by the day.

The ubiquitous app Think of anything and you are likely to find an app for it – from the ability to lock doors via your smartphone to the downright bizarre – virtual bubble wrap popping anyone? While most apps are free to download, industry www.vital-mag.net

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analyst Juniper Research predicts that by 2016 mobile apps will generate revenues of $52bn.

The exponential growth in smartphones and tablet computers means that more and more of us are using our handheld device instead of a PC or laptop. And we will be using even more apps in the future – for both personal use and in the workplace. So, what’s in store for the next generation of apps?

Remote controlling your life Already in early development, there are apps which can transform your smartphone into a ‘remote’ control. Wireless sensors placed within your home, car, bicycle and even shoes can ‘communicate’ to your handheld device to pass on information.

Needless to say, in the future, remote apps will be the norm and technology such as Near Field Communications (NFC) can bring a host of mundane equipment to life via your phone. Need to fill your bath, water the plants or turn on the heating in your car?

Do all this within a matter of a few clicks – no matter where you are.

Interlinked entertainment You can already watch television on your handheld device and get your smartphone to record programmes on your digital box at home, but we will soon have one app that looks after all your entertainment accounts (Sky/Cable/Netflix etc) allowing you to watch what you want, where you want, through your chosen device. The app could synchronise all of your devices so that if you only watch so many minutes of a particular programme, it will store this information in order for you to continue watching where you left off from, on any device.

Similarly, apps will also make gaming across devices possible. Started playing Angry Birds at home but need to leave for school? No problem, the app would take care of that and allow you to play on your portable player during lunch break.

Location is everything Augmented Reality (AR) will change the way you look at things – quite literally. Point your smartphone camera at a street, shop or even an exhibit at a museum and your phone will automatically detect your location to provide on screen details that include reviews, background information and money off vouchers. In fact, Juniper Research predicts that over two billion AR apps will be www.vital-mag.net

downloaded by 2017. The future definitely ‘looks’ different.

So, if you are in a city you’ve not been to before, AR could help you find the places you need to visit, all based on your preferences or requirements at that time. Stuck at a train station you’ve never been to before?

Your phone will automatically find a coffee shop on the concourse or give you the directions to a hotel in line with your past personal preferences.

Enterprising apps Over the next few years, businesses will move away from using PCs and laptops to provide staff with tablet computers. Within a matter of a few clicks staff can access inventories, risk assessments, CRM data, competitor intelligence etc. Such mobile computing power could revolutionise the office and drive productivity.

The ‘bigger’ effortless future As your handheld device is with you whenever you are out and about, it will gather data on your location and ‘compound apps’ will personalise all of your devices. Information on your preferences such as your train to work, the coffee chain you frequent or your favourite hotel will all be stored and linked.

This vast bank of information, known as ‘Big Data’, will also link with people who have a similar interest to provide a more networked effortless world where your device does the ‘thinking and looking’. If we think how social media is linked across many networks now, just imagine the power of compound apps and how they could change our lives.

And finally...

With apps the possibilities are endless. One note of caution however – figures show that as the number of apps have increased, their lifespan has decreased. Research has found that only around twenty percent of users return to an app after the first day of downloading it and the average app has a less than five percent chance of being used for greater than 30 days.

Despite all of this, our insatiable appetite for apps continues to grow as developers keep innovating and pushing the boundaries. For an app to be effective it must engage and provide the user with a service that truly enhances their life – this will ensure that they do indeed come back for more! VitAL

Over the next few years, businesses will move away from using PCs and laptops to provide staff with tablet computers.

Within a matter of a few clicks staff can access inventories, risk assessments, CRM data, competitor intelligence etc. Such mobile computing power could revolutionise the office and drive productivity.

November / December 2012 : VitAL 29

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The Big Data transformation A ground-breaking study by the IBM Institute For business Value and the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford set out to understand how ‘Big Data’ is transforming business in the UK...

Despite the all-pervasive nature of the term Big Data, the notion still engenders confusion.

It has been used to convey all sorts of concepts, including: huge quantities of data, social media analytics, next generation data management capabilities, real-time data, and much more.

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‘

ig data’ is still a term which means many things to many people, but it is becoming a term that is no longer confined to the realm of technology. Today it is a business priority, given its ability to profoundly affect commerce in the globally integrated economy. In addition to providing solutions to long-standing business challenges, big data inspires new ways to transform processes, organisations, entire industries and even society itself.

Yet extensive media coverage makes it hard to distinguish hype from reality – what is really happening? New research from the IBM Institute For business Value and the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford found that organisations are using big data to target customer-centric outcomes, tap into internal data and build a better information ecosystem.

Despite the all-pervasive nature of the term Big Data, the notion still engenders confusion. It has been used to convey all sorts of concepts, including: huge quantities of data, social media analytics, next generation data management capabilities, real-time data, and much more. Whatever the label, organisations are starting to understand and explore how to process and analyse a vast array of information in new ways. In doing so, a small, but growing group of pioneers is achieving breakthrough business outcomes.

The word on the street In industries throughout the world, executives recognise the need to learn more about how to exploit big data. But despite what seems like unrelenting media attention, it can be hard to find in-depth information on what organisations are really doing. The IBM Institute for Business Value partnered with the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford to conduct the 2012 Big Data @ Work Study, surveying 1,144 business and IT professionals in 95 countries, and interviewing more than two dozen

academics, subject matter experts and business executives.

The report found that almost two thirds (63 percent) of UK and Ireland businesses recognise the competitive advantage associated with Big Data. This marks a significant increase with just over a third (34 percent) recognising its value back in 2010.

Despite this increased appreciation however, there are still key areas which UKI companies are failing to exploit Big Data potential. Less than half of companies (39 percent) currently analyse data from social media (39 percent), while similar volumes neglect external feeds (39 percent) and geospatial data (37 percent). Investigating the reasons behind the lack of uptake, the study found a ‘lack of understanding of how to use Big Data to impact business’ as the key primary obstacle, with 41 percent of UKI respondents agreeing.

Commenting on the report, Matin Jouzdani, strategy consultant at IBM Global Business Services, said: “One key reason for companies not collecting and analysing wider varieties of data lies in the veracity – or truthfulness – of insights generated from sources such as real-time data and social media. Striving for high data quality is an important Big Data requirement, and the survey respondents questioned the ability to trust rapidly growing forms of unstructured data, such as those generated from on-line consumer comments, reviews, Tweets and other forms of freely offered opinions.

“Another reason that such forms of data are being underutilised is due to the skills gap. Having the more advanced analytical capabilities for managing unstructured data – including geospatial location data, voice and video – as well as streaming data remains a top challenge for most organisations. Less than 25 percent of the survey respondents say they have the required capabilities to analyse highly unstructured data – a major inhibitor to getting the most value from Big Data.” www.vital-mag.net

Popular Big Data Other sources of Big Data however are proving more popular with UKI business; with nine in ten (90 percent) of UK companies gathering Big Data from business transactions. Elsewhere 72 percent are engaging with log data, while 61 percent are gathering Big Data from emails, and 56 percent from events.

When asked for the reasons behind Big Data use; 38 percent of companies cited consumer centric outcomes as their primary reason, indicating an increased desire to understand and connect with consumers. Other reasons include using it to optimise internal operations (25 percent), developing new business models (18 percent), and managing finances and risk levels (16 percent).

The study also concluded that Big Data adoption occurs in four distinct phases, each with unique organisational behaviours and challenges. At present only five percent of UKI companies are using Big Data in the fullest sense, whereby they innovate and drive value for business advantage, while 70 percent still operate within the first two stages, identifying data requirements and developing their strategies.

“The Saïd Business School is working with colleagues across the University of Oxford to develop and support courses and research programmes that will bring together world-class expertise on the analysis and application of Big Data,” said Janet Smart, fellow in management, Saïd Business School.

The new report, entitled “Analytics: The real-world use of Big Data,” is based on a global survey of 1,144 business and IT professionals from more than 130 countries and 26 industries. The report provides a global snapshot of how organisations today view Big Data, how they are building essential capabilities to tackle Big Data and to what extent they are currently engaged in using it to benefit their business. VitAL

Big Data headlines: • 63 percent of UK companies agree that Big Data provides a competitive advantage – up from 34 percent in 2010.

• Social media provides wealth of untapped potential with only 39 percent of UK companies currently exploiting it for Big Data.

•L ack of advanced analytics skills for tackling unstructured data cited as biggest challenge against Big Data.

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Confident colocation With an almost total dependency on IT in modern business and more and more organisations planning to outsource their data centres to external suppliers, VitAL asks to Graham Monro of Sentrum Colo what the key factors are to take into account when outsourcing your data centre.

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ith all the talk of migration to the cloud, be it private, public or hybrid, there are a wealth of options for any company taking the plunge and outsourcing their data centre needs. Of course there are still many organisations that either have to maintain a data centre in their business because of the nature of that business or that perhaps don’t feel confident enough in the services and features offered by cloud suppliers to ditch their own in-house data centres, but for the rest, the appointing of a new data centre service supplier is a 32 VitAL : November / December 2012

major decisions and not something to be undertaken lightly.

Graham Monro, sales director at Sentrum Colo offers some advice for those wanting to take the outsource route.

VitAL: There are numerous data centre options available today for companies who want to outsource their data centre needs. What first steps would you recommend to a company just starting its selection process? www.vital-mag.net

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Graham Monro: Organisations need to start their search by first defining their key requirements. Why do they need a data centre? Do they require colo (straightforward racks or a dedicated suite) or managed services? This will help dictate the search and enable them to create a clear check list of items that are required from the data centre, subsequently helping them choose the correct provider for their needs. Next they will want to carry out thorough research into the options paying particular attention to the provider’s overall experience and their reputation. Don’t just look at the facility – meet the remote hands team, talk to other customers, ask in forums.

VitAL: Why is a data centre’s location such an important element? What do you need to take into account?

GM: When choosing a data centre you will need to take into account accessibility to the physical site. Firstly, you need to consider whether you require the data site to be in the vicinity of your offices for power and business continuity purposes. In this case, it is essential that the data site is easily accessible to all members of the IT team to ensure that the organisation continues normal business operations in the aftermath of an unexpected disaster.

In order to achieve fast, reliable access to your applications and data, you will crucially need a resilient high-speed link to ensure that the data held onsite is easily accessible to your company’s employees and other data centres. An ideal site should have multiple resilient feeds from different carriers – offering a range of options to enable business continuity in the event that an Internet gateway goes down.

VitAL: One of the main concerns when selecting a data centre remains security.

What should an IT manager look out for when it comes to security?

GM: There are three key layers to physical security: the building, adequate staffing and process. All data centres should have tight security procedures in place, for example documenting everyone entering and leaving the site as well as tightly secured buildings, www.vital-mag.net

significantly reducing the risk of any breakins and data theft. A constant security presence on site, coupled with processes that are regularly reviewed and updated is also crucial to maintain a higher level of security.

VitAL: Are there any hidden costs that you need to look out for?

GM: Always ask about waste disposal, cabling (inter rack and cross connects), and recycling. Some providers charge for admin and additional cabling and what starts out as a viable solution can soon cease to be so when hidden costs are revealed. Another thing to consider is whether the facility offers power monitoring /reporting, and how they charge for the power your equipment uses. Ask for example reports and invoices. You don’t want to be caught out by surprise costs if you exceed your power limit.

VitAL: Is there anything else that organisations need to consider when making the decision?

GM: Data centres with backup systems such as N+N UPS and generator systems are able to ensure that the data site keeps running 24/7 without any interruptions to the service. Should a power outage occur without any backup power supply, all connections to data will be lost essentially cutting off all organisations within the site from accessing their data.

The over-arching goal here is to ensure the data centre facility can keep your IT equipment running, whatever the situation outside. A key component of this is providing power to the rack as near as possible to 100 percent of the time. Ask to see the provider’s processes and procedures should an external power outage occur. Ask when these were last tested, and how often they are updated.

Finally do a full common sense audit of your systems from top to bottom. The best physical security and availability in the world is less than useful if there are gaping logical holes in your own systems. With a managed provider some of this onus is taken away, but for colocation ultimately it is you – as the IT manager – who owns it. VitAL

They will want to carry out thorough research into the options paying particular attention to the provider’s overall experience and their reputation. Don’t just look at the facility – meet the remote hands team, talk to other customers, ask in forums.

November / December 2012 : VitAL 33

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Technology: driving the online retail boom Customer satisfaction can go hand in hand with the online retail boom if companies embrace the capabilities of technology according to Mark Forrest, general manager of Trimble Field Service Management.

34 VitAL : November / December 2012

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nline shopping has taken the consumer landscape by storm. In 2011 Internet retail sales increased by 14 percent to more than £50bn, and this growth is anticipated to reach £77bn this year. The Internet retailing boom is the result of a number of factors, most notably, affordable 24/7 internet connections, simple and secure payment systems and the ever increasing functionality of mobile devices (smartphone or tablet) which has allowed mobile-based retail sites to flourish. However, as the rate of online shopping increases, customer expectations rise with it and although many are prepared to pay for the convenience of home shopping (£3,632million is being spent per year on delivery charges), many are not happy with the current service they receive.

The online retail boom A study recently commissioned by Trimble and which surveyed 1,000 British adults revealed that convenience (36 percent) is “cited as the key motivation for shopping via the web, but crowded high streets and shopping centres (20 percent) and busy lifestyles (15 percent) are also driving UK consumers online. The most popular items bought online are books, clothes and DVDs/CDs/Video Games. This is not surprising considering that online retail giant Amazon announced its 2011 fourth quarter sales results as being between $12-13.4 billion.

Affordable modern PCs and the rise of smart phones and tablets are major contributors to the online retail era. 45 percent of 25-34 year olds surveyed admitted to buying goods online via a PC on a monthly basis and 21 percent online via a mobile device. As a result, a staggering 65 percent of respondents held the view that online shopping (via a PC, smartphone or tablet) will increase in the next five years, prompting the decline of the high street. www.vital-mag.net

A recent Capgemini survey revealed similar results and highlighted the emergence of ‘showrooming’ and the expectation that by 2020 many physical stores will exist merely as giant display cases to showcase products available for online order. The expectation of showrooming comes as most consumers envisage a shopping experience that combines various channels, including social, web, mobile and physical stores.

Delivery and customer satisfaction More often than not shopping online requires a delivery charge and when asked why consumers are prepared to pay for the delivery of goods, common responses included that, ‘It is far easier and convenient to shop online than visit a store’, ‘online shops have a wider selection to choose from’ and ‘if goods are too heavy to carry home it is easier to get them delivered’. Trimble’s research revealed that consumers are prepared to pay to get the items they want, when they want; 40 percent of consumers are willing to pay for next day delivery, 22 percent would pay for delivery within a two-hour slot; 13 percent would pay for a Saturday delivery and nearly three quarters of respondents agree that fast delivery is a key factor when shopping online.

However, although consumers are prepared to pay for delivery charges, one quarter of UK adults believe that delivery costs are too high and are dissatisfied with the current service they receive. Effective delivery is critical to a positive service experience, but many companies are not meeting their customer’s needs. Tardy arrivals, missing deliveries and the inability to specify a time and date for arrival are the key contributors which have left consumers feeling let down by online retailers. It is no longer acceptable to say anytime during the day. In fact one third of respondents have to take annual, sick or unpaid leave to wait for delivery and service.

A recent Capgemini survey revealed similar results and highlighted the emergence of ‘showrooming’ and the expectation that by 2020 many physical stores will exist merely as giant display cases to showcase products available for online order.

November / December 2012 : VitAL 35

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Technology is available today that can help retailers improve their

Technology is available today that can help retailers improve their service for consumers. The key is making and keeping commitments and then ensuring the customer is informed along the way. As the online era is here to stay retailers have a real opportunity to improve their brand recognition and leapfrog the competition by providing excellent customer service.

The role of technology

service for consumers.

The key is making and keeping commitments and then ensuring the customer is informed along the way.

36 VitAL : November / December 2012

Managing the performance of a fleet of vehicles and drivers who are out in the field delivering service to your customers is not an easy task and in order to do this effectively, businesses require a complete overview and understanding of what is occurring in real time. The right technology can allow service managers to monitor the day’s work in a snapshot and react to any changes, from an emergency job to employee sickness, and make the necessary changes to keep customer expectations on track.

Today’s fleet and work management technology includes the vehicle location, speed, time, route as well as time on site and job status information, enabling every aspect of mobile operations to be measured, recorded and analysed. This insight delivers greater intelligence to managers, which they can use to inform customers, manage their resources effectively and also use retrospectively to identify improvement gaps and implement best practice.

Trimble recently carried out an independent study amongst managers and directors operating large field-based work forces in the UK and found that only 18 percent possess fully automated scheduling, dispatch and mobility tools. The majority are operating partly-manual, partly-automated systems, integrating a diverse mix of often incompatible legacy systems. This is preventing many organisations from realising the full potential of technology to increase workforce efficiency, which is ultimately a crucial factor in achieving field and customer service excellence.

Ultimately, customer satisfaction can go hand in hand with the online retail boom if companies embrace the capabilities of technology. You cannot manage what you cannot measure and taking steps to achieve optimum productivity and on-time service delivery whilst keeping consumers informed along the way can pay dividends when it comes to keeping your customers happy and your brand reputation intact. VitAL www.trimble.com/fsm. www.vital-mag.net

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Ten steps to improving IT operations When companies do not consider the role that IT can play in improving business performance in the long term, they run the risk of lagging behind their competitors. Ben Cody, vice president of Service Management Solutions at Serena Software has ten tips to improve IT operations.

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www.vital-mag.net

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seeing them in a fresh light. IT budgets tend to follow the 80:20 rule, with 80 percent allocated to existing IT management and 20 percent for new projects designed to add business value.

Encouraging innovation requires looking at ways that the existing IT management budget can be reduced or re-used, so more effort can be put into providing business value back to the organisation.

2. Set standards and rules

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any organisations improve IT by making incremental updates to critical applications, but this means the majority of its infrastructure is left to keep ticking over as it has done for years. They may argue, ‘if it is not broken then why fix it?’ The problem with this approach is that it may lead to bigger problems in the future. If companies do not consider the role that IT can play in improving business performance in the long term, they run the risk of lagging behind their competitors.

Instead, IT should take the lead on how the company can boost business performance based on rethinking internal approaches to management, where IT sits within the company and looking more at business processes. But how exactly can you go about taking this approach to improving IT operations? Here are ten steps.

1. Focus on innovation This aim must influence all thinking about how IT can make a real difference to business performance. Being innovative means looking at all of a company’s current operations and www.vital-mag.net

While innovation is a noble aim, this has to be kept under control. The IT function has a role to play around understanding the status quo. Getting a baseline for the present is critical because it gives IT a picture of where the company is today because it helps the organisation to judge the impact of any project.

This involves creating rules and standards that can be followed to ensure that the right procedures are in place from the beginning.

3. Orchestrate a little romance between dev and ops

While innovation is a noble aim, this has to be kept under control.

The IT function has a role to play around understanding the status quo.

One of the biggest barriers to being more innovative within IT is that different teams have differing objectives and deliverables.

The best example of this is the requirements of development teams and operations professionals. Development teams focus on providing updates and software to the organisation to meet demand and are moving to use agile development methods to deliver software faster. Meanwhile operations must provide stable IT systems that support the business and wants to see solid performance, even if this takes longer to deliver.

These different approaches can therefore put teams at loggerheads, causing them to fall out and frustrate those responsible for the overall IT function. Changing this mindset involves working across teams and understanding the requirements of other units with the process.

This is now happening as part of the DevOps movement, which aims to bring these two teams closer together to provide better levels of service to the business. As part of this, DevOps November / December 2012 : VitAL 39

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Whatever approach a company takes, having a clear overview of where the business process is heading in future aids strategic planning and development across IT.

involves looking at where processes can be automated and the flow of work between tools and teams can be orchestrated.

4. Think global – Centralise IT operations In many businesses, IT resources and assets are spread across multiple offices and different tools. This may be because companies have gone through mergers and acquisitions and different sets of IT systems have become part of a wider organisation.

Often, the main aim during a merger is to get the business sides up and productive as quickly as possible. As a result of this, the IT systems underpinning the main business processes may be evaluated but the back-end and support systems like a company Help Desk, IT Service Management product or application development tools are left as they are. Post merger, work begins to spread between teams and across two sets of IT; this can then become a huge headache.

As well as paying for two sets of licenses, the company may not be able to ditch either of its systems in a particular area as they might contain valuable data, so instead the systems carry on being used in silos. Companies with this problem should integrate the different systems at a process level instead. This avoids the risk of losing valuable information through ripping out and replacing systems too early. It also enables the business to consider its long-term strategy; when it makes sense to migrate information out of systems, this can be done in the background as and when it makes sense for the business.

5. Eliminate the bad guys Phasing out legacy products is an important part of helping IT help the business perform better. These products can be a big drain on the IT department bill because they have 40 VitAL : November / December 2012

software license and support contracts linked to them which can represent a large percentage of overall budgets. The software ‘bad guys’ are mostly those products at the end of support or with end of life status because they attract higher costs to run.

Dealing with issues can suck up a lot of IT staff time or require expensive extended support from the vendor involved. This adds to the ongoing costs of IT without providing much direct business benefit.

To solve this problem, the function must consider whether these tools have a place in the organisation. The decision can then be made to replace the tool or upgrade to the latest version, if there is a sound business reason to support this.

6. Build a roadmap for processes As the IT function becomes more innovative, the emphasis must move from individual tools onto the process that these solutions support.

Such a shift involves analysing business objectives at the heart of the company and understanding how IT supports them from initial demand through to completion.

A focus on process does help IT think more strategically. Rather than having teams only consider their individual projects, it puts them into a wider context around service delivery. Each project/product plan should be linked into a wider process roadmap. Where technology projects can deliver faster service or more automation, this can then be included as process improvement. If individual technology projects can’t or won’t keep pace with the organisation’s requirements, the process itself may need re-engineering.

Whatever approach a company takes, having a clear overview of where the business process is heading in future aids strategic planning and development across IT. www.vital-mag.net

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7. Set measurable goals The opportunity is there to make a real difference to both IT and the wider business.

However, it is important that these differences can be both realistic and measurable. If a goal is not well defined or achievable, then the results will miss expectations.

Setting out measurements and reporting on them must be an essential part of any process-focused IT strategy and overall company mission. This not only encourages the function to keep track of its achievements but can reinforce positive delivery of services too. This then becomes a virtuous circle of continuous delivery and improvement.

8. Escape tight spots IT involves helping the wider team to diagnose and solve problems. This not only improves service opportunities but also reduces the cost of support.

The main way to achieve this is through ‘shifting roles left’ – moving responsibilities from second level staff and R&D professionals across to first level staff. This requires giving that group of first level staff more power to meet customer requests and looking at other ways to automate requests around common problems such as password reset requests and application installs. Staff then have more bandwidth to think about improvements in business performance.

9. ‘Find beauty’ – market IT to the organisation Cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service makes it easier for users to get access to applications. At the same time, user experience with those applications makes them question how IT can be better. The long-term trend of the consumerisation of IT is important for internal teams because they have to consider how to provide a similar level of user www.vital-mag.net

experience in the future. They must do more than just meet business requirements. They must give individual users a really positive experience with the applications that the business develops and delivers.

At the same time, the function has to provide more evidence of the benefits that it provides back to the organisation and be proactive in sharing good news with other business units. Too often, the function is taken for granted and is only seen when a problem is encountered. This leads to IT having a negative connotation.

IT must highlight where it is producing good results for the company. This can be an opportunity to let business heads know how their own results depend on IT resources in order to be fulfilled and where they can continue to grow their results through use of the right technology and process.

10. Make your boss the hero This is not just about sucking up to superiors. It really means looking at what those in charge of the wider IT function want to achieve and how to give them information quickly and efficiently.

By delivering management information into dashboards or reporting more effectively across processes, the business can get a better overview of where projects are and how long it takes to deliver real business value.

From a company perspective, this ability to see across different teams and programmes should be an opportunity to get intelligence on how IT is benefiting the business overall.

Seeing across the borders of IT into business units opens up the opportunity for innovative ideas to be generated. IT has long been seen as an important supporting function within business but its role can go far beyond this. This demands a mindset change within the function that reflects the evolution of technology. VitAL www.serena.com

IT has long been seen as an important supporting function within business but its role can go far beyond this. This demands a mindset change within the function that reflects the evolution of technology.

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Big Brother is helping you Why do we neglect the buildings we work in when it comes to technological innovation? Buildings can help us, support us and keep us secure – but only if they are given the technological empowerment to do so. Neal Silverstein, director of cabling at Computacenter reports.

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through them. Buildings help us, support us and keep us secure – but only if they are given the technological empowerment to do so.

Power to the building

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ver the last few years, we have seen an enormous amount of innovation in the devices that we use in our daily lives. iPhones, iPads, tablets and speedy ultrabooks dominate news and social media coverage. At the same time, we have discussions around mobile working patterns, the ‘access anywhere’ generation. Work is what you do, we say, not where you are.

However, we often forget the importance of our own offices and how they can work harder for us. While we can style our work to work from anywhere, it is still most productive to be in the office where ideas can be shared with colleagues.

So why do we often neglect the very buildings we work in when it comes to technological innovation? Our buildings can empower and enable us to be more productive, greener and greater – and the power lines and cabling systems are the veins and arteries which run

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Unfortunately, rather like IT, many facilities staff consider buildings to be financially draining – something to be coped with, rather than something which can empower the workforce. Heating, lighting and water bills are a constant in the life of all organisations.

However, our buildings are getting smarter in a number of different ways. Technology is the key to unlocking their potential, and cabling is the foundation which underpins this technology, turning dumb buildings into smart, sensitive and adaptable structures which can keep an eye on us and help us to do our job better.

While the way in which buildings become more intelligent will vary from company to company, a good place to begin is occupancy.

With the growing trend towards mobile, and indeed, location-neutral working, many offices no longer need to expand – they can grow the workforce without growing the office itself, or carrying out a lengthy and resource intensive office move. This is something which one utility provider has pioneered in a new facility, operating on a basis of 80 percent occupancy, so that the office is no longer capable of holding all the employees – but neither does it need to.

Smart buildings can also be much more comfortable to work in, with sensors monitoring sunlight and temperature in the office and adjusting the lighting / heating accordingly.

This reduces the burden on the facilities manager and eradicates constant moans about air conditioning. This process is largely automated, turning the building from a dumb, static structure, to a responsive one. This is something which Toronto Pearson Airport has already piloted, connecting flight information to heating, lighting and air conditioning systems so that these systems are not active when gates are unoccupied.

This kind of power usage trigger can also be applied to other areas – PCs which are left on when their owners have left the building

Our buildings are getting smarter in a number of different ways. Technology is the key to unlocking their potential, and cabling is the foundation which underpins this technology, turning dumb buildings into smart, sensitive and adaptable structures which can keep an eye on us and help us to do our job better.

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While many organisations view the ‘four walls’ of their HQ and branch offices as simply a place to be and work, other, more visionary companies will realise the need to enable their buildings to be smarter and more responsive, empowering the occupants and supporting them in their daily lives.

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for a certain period can be switched off and areas of air conditioning shut down. Re-use is also an important factor, with modern offices heating their premises with heat from servers and in return, cooling the servers with water from the toilets.

Smart buildings can also help with security. Based on the key swipe from the security system, systems can identify who is coming into a building, turning on the lights to their department and even their PC. Similarly, following a number of ‘bad’ logins on a door, or unauthorised swipes of a keycard, CCTV cameras can automatically zoom in on the person trying to access the door and take a high-resolution photograph.

This may seem like a paternalistic approach, with the system having the power to take photos of visitors, but the system has the power to prevent thefts and alert the company to potential break-in attempts, making it a worthwhile investment.

There are many other ways that buildings can support their inhabitants. Most of us today have our voicemails sent to us as emails so that we can access them anywhere, avoiding the embarrassment of missing an important customer call, for example. The list of how buildings can support their inhabitants is almost endless.

• Integrate real-time monitoring; •S upport intelligent infrastructures through the use of IP-based building management systems; •E nable mobile working with greater wireless connectivity.

By deploying high quality, smart, fast cabling, organisations can not only future proof themselves for larger, more bandwidth-heavy applications such as video conferencing, but also ensure that emerging technologies can be ‘absorbed’ into the organisation as appropriate – rather than having to make a case for substantial new cabling in response to technology. This means that there is an extremely strong likelihood that buildings using IP networks will be able to support new, futuristic technologies helping us to do our jobs better.

Smart buildings, supported by smart cabling can also be greener. For example, by monitoring the office temperature and responding dynamically, organisations avoid over- or under-heating, while optimising spend on heating and air conditioning. Similarly, by detecting the inhabitants of an office and adjusting lighting, offices can avoid paying for lighting when offices are empty. This is not only cheaper, but also greener.

The cabling foundation

As the smartphone and tablet markets slow down, it is inevitable that the eyes of technology vendors will turn back to the places we spend most of our working lives. While many organisations view the ‘four walls’ of their HQ and branch offices as simply a place to be and work, other, more visionary companies will realise the need to enable their buildings to be smarter and more responsive, empowering the occupants and supporting them in their daily lives.

By deploying fast, intelligent cabling which can support this move, organisations can not only enhance the lives of the occupants, but also become greener, more efficient, trim costs and future-proof the organisation. VitAL

Cabling is the system which carries the vital lifeblood of organisations and it should not be neglected. After all, it is highly unlikely that companies will be sending less data across the network in the future, so this is an investment worth making. But it’s not just about speed, it’s about standardisation. The network of the future will run on IP – there is little question about that. Why? Partially because it is already the accepted data transmission protocol of the internet, but it also has a number of features which make it compelling. IP networks can: •S cale in line with anticipated growth, minimising the cost and complexity of future changes;

Future-proof

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Using IT to create cohesive, sustainable cities Diana Lind contributing author to Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2012: Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity details how information and communication technology (ICT) is promoting sustainable and inclusive cities

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ore than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and countries such as India and China are in need of hundreds of additional cities to accommodate growing populations.

People in many cities suffer from inadequate transportation, sub-standard buildings, lack of sanitation, and poor public safety, highlighting the need for sustainable and livable urban planning.

Information and communication technology (ICT) can be a useful tool in helping cities

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to improve their safety, cleanliness, and sustainability.

ICT not only contributes to sustainable urban initiatives, but also encourages more environmentally conscious consumer choices.

In Singapore, for example, commuters can use mobile phones to avoid hours in traffic by accessing data mapping tools that display traffic and provide alternate travel routes. Commuters can also plan trips on public transportation and be notified of delays or changes in service. www.vital-mag.net

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Intelligent cities “As cities try to become more sustainable, some municipal governments are finding out just how useful ICT can be,” said Michael Renner, Worldwatch senior researcher and State of the World 2012 project co-director. “Cities can be run more intelligently with the help of digital infrastructure, such as motion-sensor street lamps and energy chips in transit passes that allow people to enter a subway or bus with the simple swipe of a card.”

In many cases, cities are partnering directly with businesses to boost urban sustainability.

The Dutch city of Rotterdam, for example, is working with General Electric (GE) in an effort to reach the city’s goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 50 percent compared with 1990 levels. GE will use data visualisations, smart meters, and other technologies to optimise energy efficiency and improve water management. The use of these technologies will greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Rotterdam, which emits as much carbon dioxide as New York City, while being only a tenth of its size.

ICT can be an excellent tool, but it is not the silver bullet solution to greening cities. To be effective, it must be used not only in mapping problems encountered across cities, but also to find sustainable solutions to those problems.

In my State of the World 2012 chapter, Information and Communications Technologies Creating Livable, Equitable, and Sustainable Cities, I highlight three ways that communities can effectively use ICT to promote sustainability: Open access to data: Improving data access is critical to creating sustainable cities. By sharing information, it is possible to make connections among seemingly disparate variables. The Spatial Information Design Lab at Columbia University in New York used data to establish the connection between crime and poor housing, education, and health care. By analysing data from the criminal justice system, researchers found that a disproportionate number of felons were from specific neighbourhoods in large US cities. Similar research may help officials target policies around education and poverty reduction in these areas, which could help in preventing crime. www.vital-mag.net

Community mapping: Mapping all neighbourhoods and regions of a city is vital to ensuring effective and sustainable urban planning. Kibera, the largest slum in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, is home to approximately a million people. Yet it has been excluded from city maps, discounting its thousands of residents. Recently, an independent team of researchers partnered with Kibera youth to create an interactive map of the slums. In 2009, the team succeeded in placing Kibera on official Nairobi maps, which resulted in a new project, Voice of Kibera, which helps citizens report the location of robberies or fires, and hold discussions by text message.

Community watch: ICTs can enhance community involvement and help authorities respond to local concerns. The Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, a grassroots-mapping community based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, uses low-tech materials, including helium balloons and digital cameras, to take aerial photos of areas that may endanger public health or be of environmental concern.

These tools helped identify contaminated areas in the Gulf of Mexico after a major oil spill and an illegal dumping site in Brooklyn, New York.

In addition, FixMyStreet in the United Kingdom or SeeClickFix in the United States are websites where people can report concerns, such as a burned out street light. Each problem is logged on the site, making it easier for local governments to respond to issues of importance to the community.

Using ICT helps cities achieve sustainability efficiently while connecting with local communities, to ensure that diverse perspectives are included in the city’s plans.

Worldwatch’s State of the World 2012, released in April this year, focuses on the themes of inclusive sustainable development discussed at Rio+20, the 20-year follow-up to the historic Earth Summit of 1992, also held in Rio de Janeiro.

The report presents a selection of innovative ideas and practices to achieve global environmental sustainability while meeting human needs and providing jobs and ensuring dignity for all. VitAL www.worldwatch.org

GE will use data visualisations, smart meters, and other technologies to optimise energy efficiency and improve water management. The use of these technologies will greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Rotterdam, which emits as much carbon dioxide as New York City, while being only a tenth of its size.

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Staying resilient Tips for sustaining high-level performance under pressure from Professor Graham Jones, founder of Top Performance Consulting.

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he economic climate has rocked the business world. In recent months, firms from small local practices to urban mega firms have seen tightened budgets, reduced deal activity and billing, business partners injecting more finance into firms, layoffs from partner level to support staff, and delays in implementing new hires. This is pressure indeed for business people at all stages of their careers.

The ability to cope with what can seem like overwhelming change has never been more important. How should you handle it? The first thing to realise is that you’re not alone.

Pressure is an inherent and incessant part of the modern business world.

Pressure, though, does extraordinary things to people. It can crush performance in sometimes unexplainable ways, or it can induce extraordinarily high performance. The key to being able to flourish under pressure is the development of mental toughness.

Mental toughness is the capacity to respond positively to multiple and sometimes conflicting pressures in order to consistently perform at high levels. The following are pointers on how to develop and strengthen the core skills that underpin this capacity.

Learning techniques for handling pressure Being mentally tough doesn’t mean that you never feel stressed under pressure. On the contrary, everyone experiences stress at various times. The key is accepting that it is an inevitable part of performing at high levels so you can then develop skills for handling the pressure. Research with the world’s top athletes shows that they can continue to produce their best performances at times of significant physical and emotional pressure because they have learned to cope with the stress and maintain composure in such circumstances. Business professionals can develop the same type of skills to respond www.vital-mag.net

to pressures ranging from incessant client demands, to the race for promotion, to the tough task of getting new business in a down economy.

Here are techniques that can be used to handle stressors effectively: Reframing negative thoughts: The starting point is the realisation and acceptance that you have a choice about the way you think and that you can alter your mode of thinking. Over generalising and taking things personally are all negative thought patterns that, once identified, can be addressed and reframed into more constructive and positive modes of thinking.

Managing the symptoms of stress: Stress can result in both behavioural and physical symptoms that are often difficult to manage. Relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing, visualising soothing imagery and taking meditation breaks, are extremely helpful in controlling these symptoms. It is also vital to identify physical factors that exacerbate symptoms of stress. For example if you fail to get enough sleep, drink too much caffeine, or don’t eat properly during difficult situations, problems can be more intense.

Identifying the things you can’t control: There are some things that are out of an individual’s control. Accepting this as a fact of life allows one to control the amount and the nature of the pressure one feels from conflicting sources. Frequently, though, people make the mistake of believing that many of their workplace issues and performance targets are out of their control. These are often assumptions that with the right approach can be challenged so that you can exert as much control as possible to reduce stress.

The ability to cope with what can seem like overwhelming change has never been more important. How should you handle it? The first thing to realise is that you’re not alone.

Pressure is an inherent and incessant part of the modern business world.

Staying strong in your self-belief Self-belief is an essential element in the makeup of the world’s best performers in business, sports and more. It underpins the ability to set and achieve stretch goals, November / December 2012 : VitAL 49

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Self-belief is an essential element in the makeup of the world’s best performers in business, sports and more. It underpins the ability to set and achieve stretch goals, take risks, control potentially debilitating fear, and learn from mistakes – all of which are key components of being a successful business person.

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take risks, control potentially debilitating fear, and learn from mistakes – all of which are key components of being a successful business person.

Robust self-belief enables you to maintain confidence in your ability to achieve performance goals under pressure. Here are some strategies to try: Highlighting your skills and abilities: These are the reasons you have risen to where you are in life, although in tough times people sometimes overlook the many accomplishments they have achieved thus far. Listing your skills and the tangible achievements that have resulted from them highlights evidence of your professional and personal successes. These can then serve as building blocks for strengthening belief in one’s self.

Truly believing that you can achieve your goals: Goals that are both realistic and appropriately stretching motivate you to achieve your performance expectations. But it’s also important to focus on the individual steps that will lead to each goal, as focusing solely on the ultimate outcome only adds to pressure. For example, reaching partnership may be the ultimate outcome goal, but component goals like building up your book of business and developing your leadership skills are fundamental to the process of rising in your firm as well. Step-by-step goals allow you to perform well and also understand that you are indeed achieving things even if the outcome goal is not reached.

Maintaining focus on what matters Top performers are a testament to the ability to deal effectively with many potential distractions while maintaining focus on the things that matter. This ability involves accepting that there are factors in the performance environment you cannot influence so that, as discussed earlier, you can focus on the things you can control. But it also involves the following: Focusing on processes: High-level performance is about getting the process right. Accordingly, the key is to keep your sights targeted on the processes involved in performing well in the matter at hand, like the steps necessary to close a given type of deal, rather than seeing only the actual completed

project. Focusing on the process will allow the outcome to take care of itself.

Focusing on the positives: If external distractions are not enough to disrupt focus, then internal ones often lurk menacingly.

Thoughts of past failures, doubts about the ability to achieve current goals, or thoughts of the consequences of not closing today’s deal are all negative thoughts that hinder performance. Focusing on personal strengths and the positive aspects of your role right now helps to maintain focus on what matters so you can realise your performance potential.

Making your motivation work for you Ultimately, skills and abilities alone will not enable high performance that is sustainable under protracted challenges. The mentally tough are able to bounce back because they continue to stay motivated despite sustained pressures. Extrinsic motivation, such as pay and reward, is unquestionably a source of motivation for many. But research shows that internal motivation and working with an inherent satisfaction leads to more enjoyment and consequently less pressure.

This ensures that desire and determination to succeed is founded on positive and constructive motives that keep you optimally motivated and enable you to recover from inevitable performance setbacks and failures that may threaten your longer-term goals. Life in the dynamic and unpredictable business world means that sometimes things will not go according to plan but, in order to succeed, individuals must be motivated and able to sustain performance during times of stress.

So the bottom line on those who remain motivated and thus thrive under sustained pressure is this: They’ll do things because they want to succeed at them. Or put differently, they are energised and exhilarated by what they do, rather than being desperate to succeed because they fear the consequences of failure. If you focus on the things you can control, what really matters in the job at hand, and all the positive aspects of your role rather than the negatives and constant pressures, you too can develop a level of mental toughness that will enable you to sustain high performance even in the face of today’s challenges. VitAL www.vital-mag.net

DE BULIV SINER E S I NG S

VA LU E

THE IT SERVICE MANAGEMENT FORUM’S ANNUAL CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION

VISIONARY KEYNOTE SIMON WARDLEY

NOVOTEL LONDON HAMMERSMITH 5TH-6TH NOVEMBER 2012 This year’s itSMF UK conference celebrates 21 years of service management knowledge and vision. Highlights include: Experience-based sessions from Tesco Bank, The Co-operative Bank, Oxford University Press, DHL, Everything Everywhere, GCHQ, London Borough of Merton, NYSE Euronext and many more…

A keynote presentation from IT visionary Simon Wardley, voted one of the 50 most influential people in IT Our celebrated Service Management Industry Awards, hosted by the hilarious after-dinner speaker Dave Gunson Interactive discussions with all our dedicated special interest groups: Service Level Management, Transition Management, Service Design, Continual Service Improvement and Problem Management.

TO BOOK YOUR PLACE OR FOR MORE INFORMATION: VISIT www.itsmf.co.uk/Conference2012 EMAIL conference@itsmf.co.uk PHONE 0118 918 6500 TWITTER #ITSM12

AWARDS DINNER SPEAKER DAVE GUNSON

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Can morality be enforced through monitoring?

While the boundaries of privacy and the mechanics of monitoring can still be very controversial, could the behaviour of users change, knowing that there is a definite possibility that they are being monitored? Abhijit Telang of MindTree addresses the implications of advances in technologies, regulatory pressures and our interactions with extremely potent and connected personal devices.

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nly recently it was reported that Facebook and other social networking sites have started monitoring online chats to flag suspicious or potentially criminal conduct, with the possibility of proactive reporting to the authorities. Earlier this year a teenager was caught by the FBI in the US, for stealing credit card information from website databases. He discussed exchanging stolen card information for a DSLR camera, on a shadowy chat forum, with someone, who happened to be an undercover FBI agent. And here in the UK, the British Government has proposed a bill that would empower it to access the phone records, online social conversations, and email communications of its citizens.

While the boundaries of privacy and the mechanics of monitoring can still be very controversial, could the behaviour of users change, knowing that there is a definite possibility that they are being monitored?

And could any change in behaviour be applicable to not only violation of law and order but also to extremely personal and frequently occurring transactions?

Take the filing of an expense report for instance. Suppose you know that your expense report filing application is tracking your behaviour, and perhaps profiling historical submissions. Will it make you reconsider

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certain expense categories? Will it make you more careful in doing calculations?

With built-in and context sensitive predictive intelligence, eDiscovery compliance mandates and sophisticated mechanisms of tracking behaviour profiling is very real and could have a lasting impact on our decision making.

Human interactions, both with each other and with the systems and devices, can be tracked and analysed. They are subject to regulatory scrutiny by firms and government and thus may have psychological implications.

So what are these interactions? In order to examine this, let us understand: 1) I f monitoring behaviour is technologically feasible?

2) To what extent it is being adopted? And, 3) W hat are the possible behavioural implications?

Advances in technologies Monitoring: Over the last decade, monitoring technologies have evolved from physical monitoring techniques only to monitoring interactions with various systems and devices.

Today’s security programs can track user interactions and compare them with historical data to identify patterns and initiate appropriate actions. They can do so, through pre-defined policy rules that specify which actions to take.

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only for a particular system but across multiple systems or networks.

Moreover, the massive scale of transactions and the vast and global consumer base are forcing businesses to consider more sophisticated mechanisms for detecting identities and behaviours.

Consider a global e-Commerce portal with millions of users transacting 24/7. How would the systems detect suspicious transactions from a perfectly legal account? While an individual transaction in that series could appear perfectly normal, a series of such transactions could very well signify something sinister. Consider repeated and unrelated purchases from an account, which historically had made purchases only in a certain category.

Detection: Behavioural biometrics is a newly developing realm of technologies that is based on measurement of human characteristics such as gait, typing, browsing, purchasing and social habits, which can be uniquely associated with an individual. One specific example could be typing pattern detection (typing speed, keystroke combinations and time spacing, choice of phrases or words, spelling mistakes and more).

In terms of physical monitoring, surveillance technologies have evolved from disjoint, manual monitoring of video footage to networked and smart processing across facilities. Also, video algorithms have evolved to a stage where they can detect and analyse objects and event patterns to flag suspicious events or people.

Analysis: Along with monitoring and detection capabilities, analysis based on historical patterns has also evolved to a great extent

owing to adoption of statistical techniques and algorithms. For instance, search engines are now capable of analysing a user’s browsing patterns in order to predict search queries.

Predictive advice: Statistical analysis of data can also be used to identify new patterns, compare this with historical patterns and derive insights to influence future outcome. Predictive analysis is being increasingly leveraged across domains ranging from marketing to transportation.

In February this year, Target (the US grocery store) made the news with their ability to offer promotional offers to ‘would be’ mothers by predicting through their purchase patterns as they near their delivery date.

In the transport field, predicting traffic congestion patterns, to manage and control traffic flows is also being explored.

In summary, the technologies for monitoring have evolved from data collection to analysing and predicting outcomes and finally, are capable of influencing desired outcome through recommendation.

Given the potent advances in technologies, it would be interesting to know how often and how extensively we are monitored. In fact, it turns out that it is quite commonplace and legal

Workplace monitoring According to a 2009 survey of HR professionals

by Careerbuilder.com (as cited in white paper by Institute for Employment Studies), 27 percent of UK employers checked applicant’s social networking profiles and this is more likely to happen in the media, professional services and finance industries.

Take the filing of an expense report for instance. Suppose you know that your expense report filing application is tracking your behaviour, and perhaps profiling historical submissions.

Will it make you reconsider certain expense categories? Will it make you more careful in doing calculations?

Evolution in user interaction monitoring

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Along with monitoring and detection capabilities, analysis based on historical patterns has also evolved to a great extent owing to adoption of statistical techniques and algorithms. For instance, search engines are now capable of analysing a user’s browsing patterns in order to predict search queries.

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Apart from the recruitment processes, there are multiple instances where public expression of opinion by employees has been monitored and acted on by employers. In some of these instances, employees were found or judged to be criticising firm’s policies or commenting on their leaders and have been dismissed as a result.

Public monitoring As quoted by the Wall Street Journal, London is one of the most monitored cities with more than 500,000 installations. Monitoring of citizens in public places has been extensive and, as per the statistics revealed

by Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), a person could be filmed up to 70 times during a day.

But, given that monitoring someone’s actions is possible and that it could be practiced, will it have an impact on the individual’s behaviour?

Let us consider the following factors which users/consumers can recognise: 1. Presence: That actors (whether people, or programmes) that could possibly influence decisions exist.

2. Observation: That user’s actions can be known.

3. Reward/punishment: That consequence of decisions is made known to users in advance.

In their paper titled ‘Effects of eye images on everyday cooperative behaviour; in a field experiment’, University of Newcastle researchers observed a 50 percent reduction in littering behaviour in the vicinity of posters featuring eyes compared to areas that displayed posters featuring flowers. The report also cites two other findings which are complementary and reinforcing: –P hysical presence of other people in the room or other non-verbal cues of proximity or visibility produces more cooperative behaviour from people –B eing in a room with other people present had no effect on decisions when they were explicitly assured that those individuals would have no knowledge of what they decided.

So it is suggested that the mere presence of observers may not be enough to change behaviour unless the observers would also get to know the decisions or actions committed.

Let us use a simpler example to understand this further. Imagine a popular retail store and suppose a habitual shop lifter visits this store. What would deter him from shoplifting?

In a study titled ‘Prevention of shoplifting’ Cambridge University researchers in partnership with Dixons Stores Group discovered that mere presence of a uniformed guard in the store had no effect on shoplifting.

At the same time, electronic tagging caused a lasting decrease. This means that the presence of tags accompanied with alarm on violation, acts as a much better deterrence than the presence of guard, this is because a guard does not have any mechanism to know of violations until and unless helped by alarm system or some other notification.

However, the reward-punishment impact on behaviour is not limited to interactions in the physical world. People’s behaviour online can also be impacted in a similar way.

Effect on Online behaviour When asked whether they would change what they wrote on their social media profiles if they knew that their employer was viewing them, 58 percent of participants in a My Job Group report responded that they would change their posting behaviour, with almost 11 percent saying that they would change almost all of the things that they wrote (as cited in ‘Workplaces and Social Networking – The Implications for Employment Relations’).

Finally apart from presence and observation, let us consider the use of warning signs on changing user behaviour.

Another shoplifting behaviour study, ‘Shoplifting prevention: Providing information through signs’ concluded that publicly targeting merchandise that is frequently taken produced immediate and dramatic decreases in shoplifting. In other research, it was found that compliance behaviour was significantly and positively related to the memory of warning, perception of hazard, and carefulness. Thus, it is reasonable to believe that warnings when given in advance do positively impact compliance.

So, the chances are that the next time you are working on your expenses for that memorable business trip abroad; you will be more careful in separating personal and business expenses, when the application warns you of the consequences… just in time. VitAL www.vital-mag.net

VitAL eyes on

A bit of MongoDB in my life The technologies for Fondly paying tribute to Alex Karras and his character in Blazing Saddles, Jonathan Westlake is getting enthusiastic about the open source Mongo database.

monitoring have evolved from data collection to analysing and predicting outcomes and finally, are capable of influencing desired outcome through recommendation.

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ondly paying tribute to Alex Karras and his character in Blazing Saddles, Jonathan Westlake is getting enthusiastic about the open source Mongo database.

I fondly think back to the illiterate outlaw Mongo character played by Alex Karras in Mel Brooks’ comedy Blazing Saddles in 1974. Karras passed away in Oct 2012 but a new Mongo is alive and has caught my attention. The Mongo database is from the nosql document oriented stable and is open source which I always enthuse about.

Back in 1987 my master’s dissertation was based around comparative analysis of relational database technology and object oriented databases. That debate has continued within the context of the relational model’s continued rock solid dominance of the market over the last 30 years. However, for all the benefits of the relational model it can be a challenge to map the real world to a tabular structure. Over the last decade we have seen the rise of extensible markup language (XML) and inclusion of XML as an embedded datatype in the leading relational databases. So it is clear that the database market has continued to evolve and that is where Mongo makes a recent entrance (2007 onwards) offering a solution for document data and something much more able to deal with unstructured data and plaintext - perfect for the social media data I commented about in my last ‘Eyes-on’ column.

MongoDB enables the organisation of data in ‘BSON documents’ which are similar, in some ways, to records or rows in relational databases, but they are less rigid. They are

not required to align to a standard schema nor do they have all the same sections.

For example here’s a cut down user profile document: { _id: user: goat email: goat@staffs.com friendIDs: [....., ….., …..] } So the question is: when to use a documentoriented database like MongoDB? I would argue that the open source availability and ease of use of MongoDB makes it ideal for SMEs looking to explore alternatives for traditional relational databases. Whether MongoDB represents a full replacement is more difficult to answer and something I intend to work on but at this stage we can conclude that perhaps the argument is not SQL verses noSQL but really the selected use of a number of database technologies to support different data needs in a business.

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Useful reference/resource: MongoDB: www.mongodb.org Mongo in the Cloud with 0.5gb free space: https://mongolab.com/home More about BSON ...start off with an understanding of JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) which is a lightweight data-interchange format.

See: www.w3schools.org/json

November / December 2012 : VitAL 55

vital planet

Power consumption in the data centre: stopping the hot air Pretty soon everything in the IT world will be hosted in a data centre, or so we are told. David Palmer-Stevens, systems integration manager EMEA at Panduit explains how the design of new data centres should be greener, more economical and more reliable.

T

he rise of virtualisation and the potential of cloud computing is having an impact on data centre (DC) design. The overall goal is to provide greater utilisation of the computing power deployed in the DC environment. The move to server and storage virtualisation usually results in a DC consolidation exercise as the reduction of IT equipment requires less space, power and cooling to support the remaining equipment.

Virtualisation and cloud computing are seen as forging ahead with new innovations in application and infrastructure delivery models. While the actual physical DC design is perceived as lagging behind. It’s a relatively easy task to build a modern green field DC fit for a virtualised environment it is a completely different task to migrate an established DC into the architecture.

It is very easy for the DC consultant to say there are five easy steps: 1. Create some space; 2. Build or deploy one of these new modular preconfigured virtualised engines such as VCE Vblock or the Netapps Flexpod; 56 VitAL : November / December 2012

3. Run your business app in parallel on the virtual environment and the legacy system; 4. The technology will work so when staff are happy switch the legacy off; 5. Start again by creating space from the area the legacy system was running.

This way you can transition your traditional static DC into a virtualised dynamic environment for service delivery. Asking a functioning DC to ‘create some space’ is an enormous task that includes moving resources that are functioning and freeing up power and cooling resources that are already maxed out to support this new module.

Then the cabling infrastructure comes under attach to enable the new module to be integrated into the communications path of the service delivery.

The strength of a virtualised environment is the mobility, in real time, of the business application matching the demanded load with the computing resource providing it. So if more users of a given application log on the virtualised solution will look to move the application to a larger server or split the load across several servers. Similarly if a physical www.vital-mag.net

vital planet

server fails the virtualised system must move the virtual machine to a new server without interruption to the service delivery.

This implies that there must be redundancy designed in up front to ensure continuity of service. A balance of spare capacity to peak load must be planned for with the caution about using power and cooling for underutilised resources. This is one of the main drivers for virtualising in the first place.

Keeping the right balance between the power consumed across the whole DC, and the power used to produce constructive work is addressed by the Green Grid with their PUE Power Usage Effectiveness ratio. The PUE yard stick is an efficiency measure that has the intent of measuring where the DC is and then having a reference point for improvements on an annualised basis. It isn’t intended to say your DC is bad and this other DC is good, which appears to be how it is perceived in the market, but a measure of progression to efficient use of resources. Intuitively PUE in the summer is going to be worse that a PUE in the winter for the same facility.

Traditional DCs would identify mission critical applications and spend more and provision more for these resources, while low priority tasked would reside on less resilient systems. Virtualisation changes the concept of mission critical. As the applications running on the virtual machines are mobile and the system makes the decisions on where to run and when to change therefore all resources become mission critical at some time during the day. The concept of a ‘hot spot’ does not exist in the virtual world that traditionally you could correct by adding additional cooling to this location. The ‘hot spots’ become mobile depending on load and which resource the virtual machine is moved to. This puts demands on the DC design perspective in ensuring ‘hot spots’ cannot occur.

air flow and that the air from the cold aisle has no chance of bypassing equipment but rather passes through the active equipment.

This requires the sealing of racks and cabinets from front to back. It also might need the use of ducting to correct ‘side to side air flow’ found in many switches to a front to back airflow. Attention needs to be taken with equipment deployed in racks and cabinets that they do not generate their own micro climate re-circulating air internally in the cabinet.

The second step is to consider containment providing passive thermal management reducing the cooling requirement, for the same equipment load in a hot aisle/cold aisle deployment. This involves the addition of doors to the end of the aisle and a roof to seal off the aisle. You can contain a hot aisle or a cold aisle or you could use a vertical exhaust systems to vent hot air above the cabinets. These air containment systems can produce 23 -30 percent reductions in cooling provisioning for the same equipment loads.

More attention is needed to seal leaks and cable routing needs more considerations as it might pass through the floor or over head out of the containment. This may seem like a small detail, but overlooking the physical design stage here can add massively to the ongoing overhead for the DC. Passive thermal management designs air flow so that heat is taken away from the devices more efficiently. It uses the physics of the hot air itself and only the fans internal to the IT equipment deployed. Taking care of these design aspects for improved air flow without additional fan resources means that you get more benefit from the existing air cooling system and at the same time you can reduce the output saving electricity. Using a combination of these solutions a 38 percent reduction in cooling costs has been achieved by some users. Over the life of a DC, this can be a massive saving in electrical power consumed, simply based on getting the physics right.

Keeping cool

The big chill

There are a couple of routes that can be taken to keep the power and cooling efficiencies in place, while also ensuring that the benefits of virtualisation are delivered. The first is the move to hot aisle/cold aisle throughout the DC and ensuring no leaks between the aisles.

The mixing of hot and cold air drastically degrades the efficiency of the DC cooling units. Ensure that cabling does not impede

ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) researches and advising the industry on thermal best practice. It recently changed the input temperature recommendation for IT equipment deployed in the DC up to 27 degC. In the early days of DC design the industry was fixated on keeping this temperature at 20 degC. Which prevailed

The balance of power

www.vital-mag.net

Virtualisation and cloud computing are seen as forging ahead with new innovations in application and infrastructure delivery models. While the actual physical DC design is perceived as lagging behind.

November / December 2012 : VitAL 57

vital planet

The more you turn your cooling down or reduce air flow the IT equipment will try to maintain their operating parameters by turning up their cooling fans so what you save with reductions in one hand you pay for increases in the other and put the equipment at risk.

for many years, but this was not set for the benefit of IT equipment but for the original tape drives, whose read heads had a problem if the temperature exceeded this figure. This is why the general public who get a chance to visit a DC have the impression they are walking into a fridge.

Then there was the obsession with relative humidity (RH). This had to be strictly controlled to a range within 45 -55 percent RH. This was set for punch card readers that would be damaged by the static electricity caused by less than 45 percent RH and might fail to read soggy cards at above 55 percent RH. Equipment manufactures today make their products for sale in Iceland and Saudi Arabia so these traditional fixations are out dated and cost money to maintain for no reason. Input temperature can climb and you need to keep a temperature gradient between input air and output air for efficient cooling. But the more you turn your cooling down or reduce air flow the IT equipment will try to maintain their operating parameters by turning up their cooling fans so what you save with reductions in one hand you pay for increases in the other and put the equipment at risk.

The UPTime institute, that sets the benchmark for classifying the resilience of a DC around Tier levels 1 to 4, stated that 55 percent of IT equipment failure is directly attributed to thermal issues. There is a case for ignoring RH in a well maintained DC as these would not get to the state that water was condensing and running everywhere. As humidity on IT equipment just causes rust and to see the rust you need to keep your equipment in this hostile environment for over ten years there should be no impact. Switches and servers should be refreshed every three to five years and storage every five years anyway. The only long term investment is the cable plant which is a ten to 15 year investment.

Up and down: planning for the future Using this understanding of physical infrastructure and passive air cooling is 58 VitAL : November / December 2012

therefore essential in the building of new DCs and the migration of existing DCs into the virtualised, consolidated service delivery machine expected by the business community. The mobility of the business application and therefore the changing physical location and hence the operating environment needs to be monitored. It cannot be left to chance that everything is working as the day it was originally deployed.

There is a misconception that now DCs will be virtualised and they will become a static deployment. Gone are the days of continual DC physical activity in deploying new resources and equipment relocations to take advantage of better cooling facilities etc. Life goes on and businesses grow, therefore the provisioning needs to keep pace with business.

The UPTime Institute surveyed its members, which include the largest DC owners in the world, for their opinion on DC growth.

A good planning number is when your commercial business annual growth is seven percent per annum you can expect that the computing, switching and storage resources will have doubled in ten years. If however your commercial business grows at ten percent per annum you can expect your IT resources to have doubled within seven years.

Here is one great use of the cloud services.

The option now is to rent the growth required giving immediate service and increased response. This gives IT staff time to plan cost controlled growth and do a proper job. This approach will definitely need to be monitored as the organisation will be paying against a service level agreement and you should only pay for what you actually get not what you were told was delivered.

The DC tool that fits this physical layer monitoring is generically called DCIM (DC Infrastructure Management). The tools being delivered today are in varying states of completeness but the Gartner Group is anticipating some of the manufactures will have complete solutions ready this year. The function of DCIM is to monitor the physical www.vital-mag.net

vital planet

layer deployment of IT equipment which means it must cover the physical location, the power consumption, the cooling temperature, airflow and humidity. This complements the IT management which concentrates on equipment performance; DCIM is environment performance.

A key ability of the DCIM tool is physical location tracking. It knows where the physical locations of resources are and in the virtual environment it maps the virtual machines to the physical asset they are running on and as the system moves them it keeps the locations tracked. When there is a problem it is the physical location an engineer needs to get to speedily to keep the mean time to repair within SLAs. The DCIM tool data base becomes the ideal asset to enable the planned deployment of new equipment as the DC expands. The tool will know space availability, power availability and cooling capacity, and advanced tools should automate a good part of the deployment planning process. The DCIM tool also completes the conformance to ITIL by providing the physical aspects missing from the configuration management data base (CMDB).

Virtualisation domination Market analysis companies are predicting that virtualisation will dominate DC deployments up to 70 percent by 2015 with 45 percent of these deployments at cloud service providers.

Although these DCs are dynamic and growing as they strive to increase their capabilities in line with recruiting new clients, they are stuck with the misuse of PUE. The most efficient DC should have a PUE of 1; anything over this means there is power wastage on non service delivery processing.

So to attract clients these guys will have to measure their PUE in real time and make pre-deployment assessments not to damage the PUE they have achieved. If an end user client signs up for a cloud service and the DC is quoted as having a PUE 0f 1.2 and within twelve months the PUE has gone up www.vital-mag.net

to 1.4 because of organic growth, the client will be unhappy paying for 20 percent extra power wastage. DCIM is the tool that will allow DC staff to do this pre-deployment planning using real data from the real DC. And as Gardner predicts that by the end of 2012 we will have fully functioning DCIM tools that in real time will give full DC CFD (Computer Fluid Dynamic) analysis with the click of a mouse.

Thinking modular One of the latest trends is the move towards DCs becoming modular. From pre-built stacks of physical and virtual equipment from the likes of VCE with their VBlock, through to IBM PMDC creating full ISO shipping containers of DC kit; whatever the size of the module, the main aim behind these suites of solutions is to speed up the delivery of the DC resource to the customer.

The advantage of these modular systems is they are pre-deployed using the cable experts to plan them and route the cables for performance ensuring no service point or air flow requirement is covered.

The cabinet and rack experts deploy the equipment for the best airflow, easy access and grounding and bonding. The power experts take care of power distribution and the cooling requirement is designed to be minimal so a known PUE is available before deployment. This is much better than hiring cabling guys and asking them to deploy 1,000 port switches and requiring them to guarantee a PUE figure.

The switch manufacturer should approve the full deployment of the equipment. It is how the aerospace industry builds aircraft: approved, repeatable, and modular. It doesn’t allow German engineers to do it one way and French engineers another. Predictability and reliability is the foundation of the aircraft industry because mistakes cost lives and as we move to the cloud, all our lives will be run by data centres – if they’re not already – and these DCs will need to be just as reliable as an Airbus 380. VitAL

Market analysis companies are predicting that virtualisation will dominate DC deployments up to 70 percent by 2015 with 45 percent of these deployments at cloud service providers.

November / December 2012 : VitAL 59

vital events

Happy 21st itSMF! The itSMF (IT Service Managers Forum) is celebrating 21 years of service management knowledge and vision at ITSM12 at the Novotel London West on 5th and 6th November.

i

itSMF keynote speaker Simon Wardley

itSMF closing speaker Sarah Winmill

60 VitAL : November / December 2012

tSMF UK, the UK’s largest service management user group, has announced an impressive agenda and speaker line up for its biggest and best conference yet – ITSM12. The 2012 conference will take place on 5th and 6th November at the Novotel London West.

The itSMF UK Conference and Exhibition is the annual event for IT Service Management professionals, offering education and networking opportunities along with the highly popular Service Management Awards dinner. Over 50 educational workshops are scheduled, including presentations from all the itSMF’s special interest groups, an entire series of sessions dedicated to problem management, and experience-based talks from user organisations including Tesco Bank, The Co-Operative Bank, Oxford University and Everything Everywhere. The popular interactive plenary session will also be returning this year, allowing the audience to vote on discussion topics via interactive keypads.

This year’s keynote speaker, Simon Wardley, is one of the UK’s top 50 most influential people in IT (voted by Computer Weekly readers) will focus on IT strategy and new technologies.

A visionary speaker, Simon has spent the last 15 years defining future directions for companies in the FMCG, retail and IT industries.

The closing keynote will be presented

by Sarah Winmill, Director of IT for Support Services at University College London who brings her entertaining and informative style to the closing session. During a varied career she has worked for some of the UK’s most iconic arts heritage organisations, delivering networked IT services to historic royal palaces and providing strategic ICT leadership at the Royal Academy of Arts and Victoria and Albert Museum.

Alongside the conference, the ever-popular industry exhibition includes all the industry’s leading tool vendors, product suppliers and consultancies – an excellent opportunity to catch up with over 40 organisations in one place.

Highlights include: •S essions from all itSMF special interest groups; •A series of presentations focusing specifically on problem management issues; •E xperience-based sessions from user organizations such as Tesco Bank, The Co-operative Bank, Oxford University Press, DHL, Everything Everywhere, GCHQ, London Borough of Merton and NYSE Euronext.

Ben Clacy, chief executive of the itSMF UK commented: “This year’s conference is set to be our biggest ever. We’re pulling out all the stops for our 21st birthday and we are planning to make this an event to remember.

We have a really packed two days and so many excellent speakers, delegates really will be spoilt for choice – the only problem will be fitting it all in!”

The Service Management Awards will follow the conference on the Monday night, recognising the outstanding achievements and significant contributions of Service Management professionals, teams, contributors, trainers and students. Details of all this year’s award categories are available at www.itsmf.co.uk/Awards2012.

The Awards Dinner Speaker this year will be Dave Gunson, one of the UK’s funniest afterdinner speakers, he flew Shackletons in RAF Coastal Command for twelve years before becoming an air-traffic controller, a role about which he used to say, “My aim is to stick at it until I get it right!” The winner of the Benedictine After-Dinner Speaker of the Year Award, Dave brought the house down at itSMF UK’s very first conference, and is expected to do the same again this year!

Colin Rudd, Chairman of itSMF UK, commented: “This year’s conference marks my first anniversary at the helm of the organisation. I’m really looking forward to helping the itSMF UK to celebrate its 21st birthday at the conference, a significant milestone in our history.” VitAL www.itsmf.co.uk/Conference2012 www.vital-mag.net

vital events

www.vital-mag.net

November / December 2012 : VitAL 61

directory

Hornbill Systems

Ares, Odyssey Business Park, West End Road, Ruislip, HA4 6QD T: 020 8582 8282 F: 020 8582 8288 W: www.hornbill.com C: sales@hornbill.com E: info@hornbill.com Hornbill develops and markets ‘Supportworks’, applications for IT Service Management (ITSM) and business helpdesks. Hornbill’s ITSM & service desk software with a ‘Human Touch’, enables its customers to provide excellent service while benefiting from consolidation on a single technology platform.

InfraVision

Delegate House, 30A Hart Street, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon, RG9 2AL T: +44 (0) 1491 635340 F: +44 (0) 1491 579835 W: www.infravision.com C: Nigel Todd E: info@infravision.com BMC Software’s #1 partner for Service Desk Express and the Alignability Process Model, delivering rapid implementation of proven ITIL aligned processes, procedures, work instructions and tool settings, and transformation to service-led approach in only 12 weeks!

Monitor 24-7 Inc

PO Box 4530, Maidenhead, SL60 1GG T: +44 (0)20 8123.3126 W: www.monitor24-7.com C: Frank Huitenga E: frank.huitenga@monitor24-7.com Over 13 years of customer experience bundled in one solution to help centralise information, prioritise issues aimed to increase control, productivity and improve communication and service excellence.

100% focus on support and development of IncidentMonitor Service Management software, PinkVerified for 10 ITIL processes.

62 VitAL : November / December 2012

ICCM Solutions

Cedar House, Riverside Business Village, Swindon Road, Malmesbury, Wiltshire, SN16 9RS T: + 44 (0) 1666 828 600 F: + 44 (0) 1666 826 103 W: www.iccm.co.uk C: Kate Springer E: sales@iccm.co.uk One of the overriding directives of ICCM Solutions is the simplification of complexity in Service Management environments. ICCM provides a global client base with sophisticated ITIL aligned Service Management Solutions built on Business Process Management (BPM) Architecture, from Metastorm BPM®.

iCore

60 Lombard Street, London EC3V 9EA

T: +44 (0) 207 464 8883 F: +44 (0) 207 464 8888 W: www.icore-ltd.com E: sales@icore-ltd.com C: Greg Lake iCore is the largest specialist IT Service Management Consultancy in the UK. ICore has a long & impressive track record in delivering & embedding pragmatic IT service management, solutions, relying on the deep, real world experience of our mature & determined consultancy team.

Kepner-tregoe

NetSupport Software Ltd

Quayside House, Thames Side, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 1QN T: +44 (0) 1753 856716 F: +44 (0) 1753 854929 W: www.kepner-tregoe.com C: Steve White E: swhite@kepner-tregoe.com Kepner-Tregoe provides consulting and training services to organizations worldwide.

We collaborate with clients to implement their strategies by embedding problem-solving, decision-making, and project execution methods through individual and team skill development and process improvement. Clients build competitive advantage by using our systematic processes to achieve rapid, targeted results and create lasting value.

Towngate East, Market Deeping, Peterborough, PE6 8NE

T: +44 (0) 1778 382270 F: +44 (0) 1778 382280 W: www.netsupportsoftware.co.uk C: Colette Reed E: colette@netsupportsoftware.co.uk NetSupport provides a range of complementary Remote Support and Service Management solutions that help organisations deliver a productive and cost effective IT support service. Products include multi-platform Remote Control solution NetSupport Manager, IT Asset Management suite NetSupport DNA and web based ITIL Service Management tool NetSupport ServiceDesk.

ManageEngine

Sunrise Software

ZOHO Corp, 4900 Hopyard Rd, Suite 310, Pleasanton, CA – 94588, USA

T: 925-924-9500 F: 925-924-9600 W: www.manageengine.com E: eval@manageengine.com C: Gerald A. Raja ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is highly customizable, smart and flexible Help Desk Software used by more than 10,000 IT managers worldwide in 23 different languages. It helps you to implement ITIL best practices on the go and restore your IT services on-time.

ManageEngine has a suite of software products in Enterprise IT management space like Network monitoring, Desktop Management, Applications, Logs, AD management, et al.

50 Barwell Business Park, Leatherhead Road, Chessington, Surrey KT9 2NY T: 0208 391 9000 F: 0208 391 0404 W: www.sunrisesoftware.co.uk E: welcome@sunrisesoftware.co.uk Sunrise Software provides applications which underpin business processes across its customers’ organisations.

Sunrise has a highly successful track record in IT service management, customer service management and business process management with fully configured applications designed around best practice guidelines. www.vital-mag.net

directory

TOPdesk

sitehelpdesk.com Ltd

APMG

61 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0HL

Eagle House, Lynchborough Road, Passfields , Hants GU30 7SB

Sword House, Totteridge Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK

T: +44 (0) 207 8034200 F: +44 (0) 207 8034215 W: www.topdesk.co.uk E: info@topdesk.co.uk

T: +44 (0) 207 419 5174 F: +44 (0) 870 138 3824 W: www.sitehelpdesk.com E: sales@sitehelpdesk.com C: Bryan Taylor

T: + 44 (0) 1494 452 450 F: + 44 (0) 1494 459559 W: www.apmg-uk.com C: Nicola McKinney E: nicola.mckinney@apmgroup.co.uk

TOPdesk Service Management software seamlessly integrates Facilities, HR and IT processes in a single 100% webbased tool. TOPdesk’s affordable and ITIL-compliant software has won several awards for user-friendliness. Secure more time for your colleagues and customers with TOPdesk.

Cherwell Software

Sitehelpdesk.com will take you to the forefront of service delivery with a suite of products designed to provide you with low cost web browser based action tracking and self-help, making your services instantly available 24 by 7.

Solisma

Lime Kiln House, Lime Kiln, Wooton Bassett, Wiltshire, SN4 7HF T: + 44 (0) 1793 858181 W: www.cherwellsoftware.com/contact Cherwell Service Management delivers ITIL v3 best practice ‘out-of-the-box’ including: Incident, Problem, Change, CMDB, SLA, Knowledge, SelfService and is PinkVERIFY certified. Our unique CBAT development platform empowers users to fully customise screens, workflow processes and develop additional business applications. The Cherwell solution is available via a standard license model or ‘On Demand’ SaaS service.

avocent landesk

Dukes Court, Duke Street, Woking, Surrey GU22 7AD

Service Improvement Made Simple!

Solisma is a leading global provider of ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000 courseware, training, consulting and assessment services, with a global partner network to help you quickly and cost-effectively improve your ITSM capability like never before. To learn more, contact us today or visit service-improvement.com

IT Service Management Forum

T: +44 (0) 1483 744444 F: +44 (0) 1483 744401 W: www.landesk.com C: Sarah Lewis E: sarah.lewis@avocent.com Avocent delivers IT operations management solutions that reduce operating costs, simplify management and increase the availability of critical IT environments 24/7 via integrated, centralized software. This includes Systems Management, Security Management, Data Centre Management and IT Service Management.

www.vital-mag.net

T: +44 (0) 207 193 2085 W: www.solisma.com E: info@solisma.com C: sales@service-improvement.com

As an accredited ITIL® Examination Institute, APMG offers our training organizations a range of benefits to help them demonstrate the quality and professionalism of their services.

Call us to find out how your business could benefit from our accreditation services.

Global Technology Solutions Ltd

T: 01288 355800 W: www.globaltechnologysolutions.com E: info@globaltechnologysolutions.com

“Taking the headache out of recruitment” Specialists in Service Management and Technical resource throughout the UK and globally.

We believe in “quality” not “quantity” when submitting cvs.

Let GTS manage your recruitment process and allow us to become your most valued solution provider.

e-Warehouse

.

150 Wharfedale Road, Winnersh Triangle, Wokingham, Berkshire.

RG41 5RG

e-Warehouse Ltd, Hampden House, Hampden House, Monument park, Chalgrove,Oxfordshire , OX44 7RW

T: 0118 918 6503 F: 0118 969 9749 W: www.itsmf.co.uk C: Ben Clacy E: ben.clacy@itsmf.co.uk

T: 0845 299 7539 f: 08717143802 w: www.oxygenservicedesk.com c: Victoria Eggleton e: oxygen@e-warehouse.com

Oxygen Service Desk is a process automation engine that simply interprets your pre-defined business processes and then mobilises the actual process, pushing work tasks to people and to systems, streamlining how the processes run across your entire department or organisation.

The itSMF is the only internationally recognised and independent organisation whose sole focus is on the on-going development and promotion of IT Service Management ’best practice‘, standards and qualifications. The forum has 14,000 UK members and official itSMF chapters in 44 countries

November / December 2012 : VitAL 63

secrets of my success

Peter Newcombe VP and GM Northern and Eastern Europe, Ciena

VitAL: Name, company and job title please? Married? Kids?

Peter Newcombe: Peter Newcombe, VP and GM Northern and Eastern Europe at Ciena. I’m married with identical twin boys.

VitAL: What got you started in IT? PN: I was good at science when I was younger and always liked dismantling things such as old clocks and radios and putting them back together again. I had a ZX81, a UK101, a Commodore VIC20 and even a BBC Computer so you could say I was an early adopter. The BBC computer is long forgotten by most but the company, Acorn Computers (now AMD), has gone on to be a British success story which now makes components for the iPhone.

VitAL: Was there any one person or organisation that was your inspiration?

PN: I honestly have to say it was my dad.

He was a bank messenger back when financial institutions would transfer money by walking pieces of paper between banks; a humble but interesting job. He instilled in me a very strong work ethic and I credit him for the values and integrity that I carry with me today.

Professionally, I count myself lucky to have worked with so many great people over the years and have learned a lot from colleagues, bosses and employees alike.

VitAL: What was your first IT job, what was your first major IT triumph?

PN: My first proper job was assistant network engineer in the international division of STC. The first major project that sticks in my mind was winning the contract for the

64 VitAL : November / December 2012

Ministry of Railways in China. This was a very big deal for me at the time and a great boon for the company. Another highlight was publishing a book on SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) called ‘The Black Book’. It printed 50,000 copies and was translated into several languages.

Even now, years later, people in the industry still remember it.

VitAL: Did you ever make any embarrassing mistakes? What did you learn from them?

PN: I learnt early on that pride comes before a fall. When I was working as an apprentice to repair a PCB track, I thought I could fix anything and got a bit gung-ho with the soldering iron. I ended up lifting up a whole track and ruining a £400 board, which was a lot of money at the time. That incident brought a little humility to me.

A more recent example was giving a technical presentation at an event in Russia and walking on stage only to realise that the organisers had translated all my slides and prompts into Russian, giving me nothing to refer to! I flew by the seat of my pants on that one and winged the presentation. Thankfully I do a lot of preparation of my own material so it all turned out alright in the end.

VitAL: What do you like best about your job?

PN: Enjoying the job comes down to liking the people you work with and this has been fundamental to me over the years. I also relish the international aspect of the role and have firm friendships with people all over the world as a result. People management

is another important aspect; there is nothing more satisfying than nurturing talent and seeing people do well.

VitAL: What is your biggest ambition?

PN: I aspire to run a company or a division in a corporation. My career to date has given me experience of many aspects of this role and the next logical step is running a complete business.

VitAL: What are your hobbies or interests?

PN: I love cooking, which I’ll admit I got into through a love of eating. I travel quite a bit with my job and pick up as many tips as I can. Current favourites are Italian, Chinese, Mexican and Spanish.

I also have an ever deepening interest in history and love discussing the broader aspect of the historical context. I find military strategy as well as British and European history particularly fascinating.

I’ve just read a great book on the history of Italy called ‘In Pursuit of Italy’ which I would highly recommend.

VitAL: What is the secret of your success?

PN: Luck - pure and simple. There is a lot to be said for being in the right place at the right time. Of course, you can help yourself create these opportunities and then it is up to you to make the right decisions. I’m also good at listening. One of my favourite sayings is “God gave us two ears and one mouth, and we should use them in that ratio.”

There is a lot to be gained from listening to and learning from people.

VitAL: Peter Newcombe, thank you very much.

www.vital-mag.net

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For exclusive news, features, opinion, comment, directory, digital archive and much more visit

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