% 97would
Recommend
BYTES & 93% rate the service
Good or Excellent
Bytes have helped Tesco make significant savings by effective and intelligent management of our licensing entitlements. Their knowledge and ability to answer queries and sort problems accurately and quickly has made us more efficient and able to turn projects around at a pace that aligns with our business needs. Head Of Global Procurement Tesco
The RFU have been in partnership with Bytes for the last 7 years. Bytes has been at the forefront of getting an understanding of how we work as business, how we can leverage costs and reduce expense. Head of IT Rugby Football Union
Bytes SP focus on strong and proactive account management, provide excellent support and are therefore a partner we can work with long term. The rollout and on-going support we receive is first class. IT Manager De Montfort University
Software Asset Management audits are usually very painful, labour intensive and time consuming exercises, but this time round it was as painless as it could possibly be. It’s the people who are experts in their field, but they also care about their clients sufficiently to get to know them and their infrastructure. Head of IT Kingsley Knapley
Bytes SP have enabled our in-house teams to effectively run security solutions for 9 years. They have found us the best technologies Europe wide for our business, educated our teams on making the most of these, and provided ďŹ rst class on-going support.
Without the skills and professional approach displayed by the Bytes team, the minefield that is Oracle, could not have been negotiated by us alone. What Bytes promised was delivered and working with them as a team and partnership was a pleasure. Other organisations could learn much from the Bytes approach. I will always recommend Bytes to any of my colleagues and my wider network.
European IT Manager, P & O Ferrymasters
Manager, IT Service Delivery Allianz Insurance Plc
Bytes have given us a fantastic service over many years. Our account manager understands our industry and our organisation well, so is able to offer products and services which meet our requirements and provide best value for the organisation. It feels like Bytes work with us as partners. Information Management Directorate Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals
welcome to bytes Welcome to the latest edition of the Bytes Magazine! If you source software or get involved in software licensing agreements, or are concerned about managing your increasingly large software assets then read on!!
We want to help you make great
as you go basis or on premise software on a
purchasing decisions and we want
perpetual or subscription basis; allow Bytes
your organisation to do great business. Your
to partner with you through the process. After
success as an organisation is very important
all, it’s our business to know the business of
to us and we want to help in any small way we
software procurement, it’s all we do everyday
can. This magazine has been put together by
of the week, week in and week out since 1982
Bytes staff and great people from some of the
when we were formed.
best software publishers and IT distribution businesses in the world.
Now with 250 people in the UK we have a raft of expertise and account
Every day your organisation and its users
management to help you do
demand ever increasing levels of service,
great business for your users and
productivity and efficiency both from the
your organisation. Our objective is to provide
software deployed and also the team that
you with a great service and to exceed your
procures or evaluates it. This demand puts
expectations in the years ahead. If you are
ever increasing pressure on your IT department
an existing customer then thanks for your
or your procurement teams. Our desire is to
business so far, we know you have choices
help lift this pressure and to work with you to
as to which partners to work with and so we
simplify your choices and to provide you
appreciate you working with us.
with an expert level of guidance and support so that you make the right
buying decisions for your organisation. Whether buying off premise cloud software on a pay
Neil
Neil Murphy Group Managing Director
contact us Head Office: Bytes Technology Group, Bytes House, Randalls Way, Leatherhead, Surrey, KT22 7TW phone - 01372 418500
www.bytes.co.uk | 03
contents microsoft
p08 Windows 10
p37 Storage Spotlight
p12 Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS)
p38 Pure Storage Flash
p14 Windows Server 2003 EOL
p40 Symantec Backup Exec 15
p16 Microsoft Azure
p42 Nutanix by numbers
Time for a new era of personal mobile computing Microsoft’s comprehensive cloud solution As 14th July approaches, it’s time to migrate
Build, deploy, scale and manage your applications
p18 Licensing Microsoft Products and Services Agreement (MPSA) Goodbye Select Plus, hello MPSA
p19 Licensing Enterprise Mobility
Suite (EMS) Identity, device and data protection licensing
p20 Licensing Per User
With Windows Software Assurance and Windows VDA
p21 Licensing Office 365
Your options for licensing O365
p22 Licensing Enterprise Cloud Suite (ECS) Per User Licensing for procurement of cloud services
p23 Licensing SQL Server 2014
Your options on Server + CAL or Per Core models
p24 Payments Solutions
Intelligent finance for your IT projects
virtualisation
p30 Virtual Vision
The latest trends from Kay Heath
p32 Citrix Workspace Suite
Secure access to apps, data and services from any device
p34 VMware’s Software Defined Data Centre One cloud, any application, any device
04 |
storage
The latest trends from Stuart Curry The all-flash enterprise array Your FAQs for upgrading answered by Matt Compton Going web-scale for Datacentre simplicity
p44 NetApp Flash to the cloud
Matt Watts journeys to the future of storage
p46 Acronis Backup Anydata Engine Protecting your critical data
security
p48 Bytes Security Partnerships
Dave Rawle is fighting threats in 2015
p50 RSA Password Management
How risk-based authentication is the answer
p52 CyberArk enterprise security
Privileged accounts are the weakest link
p54 SafeNet mega breaches & identity theft Bag your copy of the breach level index
p56 Check Point network security
Your security checkup complete with analysis report
p58 Symantec’s answer to Windows Server 2003 EOL Four clear options for 14th July 2015
p60 McAfee for Microsoft Cloud
Security controls for 0365 and Azure
p62 Sophos detection & prevention
User-based licensing for your endpoint protection
p64 Mimecast for Office 365
Adding value to your Office 365 implementation
p66 Good Technology
Good suites, Good apps and Samsung Knox
applications
p68 Snow
Your licence manager come rain, shine or….snow
p70 Adobe Creative Cloud
Still haven’t made the leap to subscription-based software?
p72 Oracle Linux
Zero downtime updates with Ksplice
p73 Oracle Licensing
Are you licensing your Oracle estate correctly?
p74 Adobe Acrobat Document Cloud
Adobe adds cloud to the Acrobat side of the business now
p75 Adobe Acrobat XI
11 reasons to upgrade
p77 Nuance Power PDF
When did you last compare the costs of PDF?
p06
news bytes News Bytes
What’s hot in our world
p27 Bytes Portal
All your software estate available in one place
p76 Events and Webinars
Education or a free lunch – keeping you informed!
p87 Bytes Software & Licensing Services
p88 Bytes SAM Services p89 Bytes Learning Services
our partner ecosystem
p78 Microsoft Cloud from Dotnet Capex vs. Opex
p80 Office 365 from Content & Code
Bonhams IT infrastructure is far from antique!
p81 Skype for Business from Intercall
More than just a name change from Lync
p82 SQL Server deployment from Northdoor
How to modernise your SQL Server Data Platform
regular bytes
p36 Bytes Social
Stay in touch, keep up to date
p83 Meet The Manufacturers Meet our manufacturers at upcoming events in 2015
p84 In The Hotseat
An interview with Scott Dodds VMware
case studies
p02 What customers think of Bytes Satisfaction survey results revealed
p28 Council Share Services and Save £3.5m
p86 Try Before You Buy
Take the opportunity to trial before you make that important purchase
p90 Vendor & Industry Awards p91 Our Vendor Accreditations
How Bytes helped St Eds and Forest Heath with licensing solutions
www.bytes.co.uk | 05
news
bytes Catch up on all the latest news from the IT world from
new product launches, latest software and licensing updates to business acquisitions.
Bytes win 2 Microsoft EMEA Operations Awards Bytes is delighted to have won TWO prestigious Microsoft EMEA Awards at their Partner Conference in Dublin; Microsoft EMEA Operations Licensing Solution Partner Excellence Award and Microsoft EMEA Operations Cloud Licensing Solution Partner of the Year. Presenting the awards, Microsoft Ireland Managing Director James O’Connor at the Gala dinner said, “It gives us great pleasure to announce Bytes Software Services has been chosen as this year’s recipient of Microsoft EMEA Operations Licensing Solution Partner Excellence Award and Cloud Licensing Solutions Partner of the Year. These awards are in recognition of your ongoing Operational Excellence and continued collaboration! Congratulations!” 2015 has been an exciting year for Bytes, having now scooped no less than FIVE Microsoft Awards.
06 |
Microsoft cloud privacy criticisms tackled with adoption of new standards Microsoft has adopted a new standard for cloud privacy that commits the company to protect the privacy of customers’ data, not to use it for advertisement purposes, and to inform the customer of legal requests for personal data. The ISO/IEC 27018, published last year by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), outlines a common set of security categories and controls that can be implemented by a public cloud computing service provider acting as a processor of personally identifiable information. Microsoft said the British Standards Institute had verified that both Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online, in addition to Microsoft Azure, are in line with the standard’s code for the protection of personal data in the public cloud. Microsoft Intune was similarly certified by testing company Bureau Veritas.
BYTES WINS A PLACE ON £4BN PUBLIC SECTOR AGREEMENT Bytes is delighted to announce that it has been awarded a place on the new Crown Commercial Services RM1054 Technology Products agreement. This agreement will be the main procurement route for many public sector organisations when sourcing software, hardware and associated services. Bytes is a significant supplier of software and services, last year supplying over £50m worth of goods to UK Public Sector organisations. For our current and prospective customers, a place on this new agreement provides another efficient procurement route, in addition to our places on the Pro5 and GCloud frameworks.
BYTES TOP 2 FOR CHECK POINT We are delighted to share that Check Point have completed a major revamp of their partner programme and selected Bytes Security Partnerships as one of just two UK partners to promote to Check Point ‘4 Stars Elite’ Reseller status. This higher accreditation level is evidence of Bytes’ strengths in providing technical support to Check Point products and understanding the best deployment of Check Point products for our customers. It will enable us to offer even more value to our customers via a closer link with the Check Point engineering team, preferred Technical Account Centre access and a dedicated Elite Desk for account management.
Symantec Re-introduces Veritas Brand Name for Storage Business
Symantec has decided to bring back the Veritas name for its newly established informationmanagement (IM) arm which was created when the company split in two back in October 2014. Veritas was acquired by Symantec in 2005 and will now be used for the IM business once the split is complete. The remaining half of the business will comprise its security arm and remain as Symantec. “Veritas remains a powerful brand that still has tremendous equity with our customers, partners and employees, and after careful review it was an easy choice as the name for our information
Xtravirt launches SONAR™ to provide clarity in a data-driven world To help organisations deal with virtualised and cloud-based infrastructures, new tools are emerging that harness the plethora of data produced in these environments and provide valuable actionable insights. According to our sources (Xtravirt) SONAR is the industry’s first cloud-based analytics and reporting solution specific to this category that enables IT teams to automate routine assessment of their virtual infrastructure in minutes, and gives access to industry best practice guidance on system remediation. The first SONAR service released by Xtravirt provides health assessment and configuration management reporting for environments running VMware vSphere. This is available for FREE and provides a summary health assessment and a selection of QuickView reports. Alternatively users can upgrade to the Professional Edition available as a 12-month subscription, priced per vCenter. Future releases will also expand support for other technologies such as Horizon View, Microsoft, Citrix and others.
Azure IoT Suite set up as Microsoft prepares for Internet of Things deployments Microsoft wants to help organisations set up and run Internet of Things (IoT)styled distributed systems, by providing a set of integrated Azure cloud services designed to cut deployment times and management hassles. The Azure IoT Suite would be particularly useful for three types of workloads - asset management, remote monitoring, and preventive maintenance. Such workloads could be found across many industries, especially those with many physical assets. The global market for the Internet of Things will grow to be more than $5 trillion by 2020, IDC has estimated. The Azure IoT Suite, introduced at the Microsoft Convergence user conference in Atlanta, will be available in preview form by the end of the year. It’s being designed to ingest large amounts of data from millions or even billions of end devices. Using a set of orchestration tools, individual Azure services can be used to store and analyse data, and repackage it for other applications.
management business,” said Michael A. Brown, Symantec president and chief executive officer. “While the name recalls the company’s heritage, the new logo signals that Veritas is ready to solve the most critical information challenges facing our customers today and tomorrow.” The new logo design was influenced by the concepts of open, heterogeneous technologies that are required to harness the power of information, principles that are core to the future strategy of the new Veritas Technologies Corporation.
Check Point acquires Hyperwise Check Point Software Technologies has announced the acquisition of Hyperwise. Hyperwise is a privately held, early-stage company that has developed a unique and cutting-edge CPU-level threat prevention engine that eliminates threats at the point of pre-infection. The unrivalled exploit prevention technology provides a higher catch rate of threats and provides organisations an unmatched level of protection against attackers. The Hyperwise founders and team will immediately be integrated into Check Point’s operations, and the technology will be integrated into the existing Check Point Threat Emulation portfolio.
www.bytes.co.uk | 07
microsoft
the first step to an era of more
personal - moving Windows from its heritage of enabling a single device - the PC - to a world that is more mobile, natural and grounded in trust. Microsoft believe your experiences should be mobile – not just your devices.
James Akrigg Head of Technology Microsoft
We asked James to tell us what we can expect from Windows 10 prior to launch. Technology should be out of the way and your apps, services and content should move with you across devices, seamlessly and easily. In our connected and transparent world, we know that people care deeply about privacy – and so do we. That’s why everything we do puts you in control. We also believe that interacting with technology should be as natural as interacting with people – using voice, pen, gestures and even gaze for the right interaction, in the right way, at the right time.
Free Upgrade to Windows 10 Microsoft are pleased to announced that a free upgrade for Windows 10 will be made available to customers running Windows 7 Pro, Windows 8.1 Pro, and Windows Phone 8.1 who upgrade in the first year.* This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no cost. With Windows 10, the experience will evolve and get even better over time. We’ll deliver new features when they’re ready, not waiting for the next major release. We think of Windows as a Service – in fact, one could reasonably think of Windows in the next couple of years as one of the largest Internet services on the planet. *Terms and conditions apply.
08 |
New Windows 10 Experiences Windows 10 is the largest-ever open collaborative development effort Microsoft has ever shipped. Since we launched the Windows Insider Program in September, we’ve been joined by 1.7 million Windows Insiders, who have delivered over 800,000 pieces of feedback. We are truly co-creating the future of Windows.
Cortana, Microsoft’s personal digital assistant, comes to PC and tablet, for the first time with Windows 10. Cortana learns your preferences to provide relevant recommendations, fast access to information, and important reminders. Interaction is natural and easy via talking or typing, with advanced features to control Cortana for more trustworthiness and transparency.
Windows 10 for phones and tablets – Windows 10 for phones and small tablets features a fast, fluid and familiar experience that seamlessly interacts with your PC.
A new web experience for Windows 10 – Code-named “Project Spartan,” the next generation browser was built with greater interoperability, reliability and discoverability, with a new look and feel built just for Windows 10. Advanced features include the ability to annotate by keyboard or pen directly on the webpage and easily share with friends, a reading view that is distraction free, displaying the article in a simplified layout for a great reading experience for Web articles online and offline, and the integration of Cortana for finding and doing things online faster. Office universal apps on Windows 10 offer a consistent, touch-first experience across phone, tablet and PC with new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook. Further details on page 10 Designed from the ground up to run on Windows, you can easily create and edit Word documents, annotate slides in real-time with new inking features or easily present PowerPoint presentations, and with new touch-first controls in Excel you can create or update spreadsheets without a keyboard or mouse.
New universal applications will ship with Windows 10, offering innovative new experience applications, consistent across the device continuum, for Photos, Videos, Music, Maps, People & Messaging, and Mail & Calendar. These built-in apps have an updated design that look and feel the same from app to app and device to device. Content is stored and synced through OneDrive, enabling you to start something on one device and continue it on another. Continuum Mode: On 2in1 devices, Windows 10 will move easily between keyboard/ mouse and touch/tablet as it detects the transition and conveniently switches to the new mode.
On display at our events were the exciting new Windows 10 Devices But it’s not enough to deliver great software experiences. Windows 10 supports the broadest device family ever – from PCs, tablets and 2-in-1s to phones to Xbox and the Internet of Things. And today, we welcomed two new devices to the Windows 10 family: Microsoft Surface Hub and Microsoft HoloLens. Windows 10 Showcases Holographic Future with Microsoft HoloLens With Windows 10, holograms are Windows universal apps and Windows universal apps can work as holograms, making it possible to place three-dimensional holograms in the world around you to communicate, create and explore in a manner that is far more personal and human. Microsoft HoloLens is the world’s first untethered holographic computer – no wires, phones or connection to a PC needed. Windows 10 will forge a new relationship between us and our customers – consumers, developers and enterprises.
To learn more about Windows 10 and these exciting new devices or for more information about the free upgrade, contact your Account Manager at Bytes...
cont... www.bytes.co.uk | 09
microsoft
Office “universal” apps on Windows 10 deliver a touch and mobile-first experience across devices
Office for Windows 10 offers touch-optimized versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook that work great on small screen devices like your phone and tablet - all the way up to the Microsoft Surface Hub. They are designed from the ground up to run on Windows 10, built for touch and offer the unmistakable Office experience you know and love. As “universal” Office apps, they truly are the same app across device size, providing a consistent way for independent software vendors and developers to extend and integrate with Office apps. These new Office apps will be pre-installed for free on phones and small tablets running Windows 10, and available to download from the Windows Store for other devices. The Office universal apps will be available with the Windows 10 Technical Preview in the coming weeks and general availability is on track for later this year. Simultaneously, we are hard at work on the next release of the Office desktop suite that will be called Office 2016. (Unexpected, I know!) We will have more to share on Office 2016 in the coming months, but this suite will remain the comprehensive Office experience you’re long familiar with, best suited for a PC with keyboard and mouse. We have compelling new experiences coming as part of this Office suite–stay tuned to the Office Blog for more details. We expect to make Office 2016 generally available in the second half of 2015. With that context, let’s dive a bit deeper into the new Office universal apps for Windows 10. All of the new Office universal apps are designed for touch and mobile, working beautifully across devices.
Word for Windows 10 Create and edit great looking documents with Word. Review and mark-up documents, then share your work with others to collaborate in real time. The new Insights for Office feature (powered by Bing) in Read mode brings additional online resources like images, web references and definitions right to you in your reading experience.
Excel for Windows 10 Use Excel to create and update spreadsheets and gain new insights as you analyse data and visualize it with charts. And new touch-first controls shine in Excel, you won’t even miss your keyboard and mouse when selecting ranges of cells, formatting your pie charts or managing your workbooks.
10 |
PowerPoint for Windows 10 Create and edit beautiful presentations with PowerPoint. Then use Presenter View to prepare and present with confidence, even use Ink Tools to annotate your slides in real time so your audience really knows what you are talking about.
OneNote for Windows 10 Capture all your thoughts, ideas and to-do’s with the new version of OneNote. Getting things done with your friends, classmates and colleagues has never been easier with shared notebooks–now with the consistent Office ribbon experience.
Outlook Mail and Outlook Calendar for Windows 10 Crafting emails has never been easier or more powerful, with the familiar and rich capability of Microsoft Word built into the authoring experience. Simply insert tables, add pictures and use bullets and colour to get your point across. Keep up with your inbox with new touch gestures that help you read, sort, flag and archive your mail.
cont... www.bytes.co.uk | 11
microsoft
Announcing the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite. Identity, Device Management, Data Protection “All-In-One!”
Stuart Leddy Enterprise Mobility Business Lead, Cloud and Enterprise Business Group, Microsoft UK
12 |
Mobility is the new normal – devices, apps and data are driving change in the modern technology environment that is enabling users to become more mobile, which has created challenges for businesses and their users. There is increased pressure on us to be productive across a variety of device types, with access to the applications we need. Businesses need to unify their infrastructure technology environments with a common identity across on-premises and the cloud with deeply integrated capabilities for PC and mobile device management. At the same time businesses must protect their data, so they require a comprehensive set of access control and data-protection capabilities.
The Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) is Microsoft’s comprehensive cloud solution overcoming these challenges – and contains three main solutions: • Hybrid Identity – with Azure Active Directory Premium • Mobile Device & Application Management – with Intune and System Center Configuration Manager • Access & Information Protection – with Azure Rights Management With hybrid identity, Microsoft is combining its rich history in identity management from Windows Server Active Directory and Forefront Identity Manager to include cloud-based identity and access management solutions on Azure Active Directory, which drives greater efficiency and unifies the management environment. Users do not like having to enter multiple login credentials to access the files and data they need to get work done. Beyond user annoyance, the need for multiple authentications can lead to the unsafe practice of post-it notes with a not-so-encrypted list of all the required login IDs and their associated passwords. Hybrid identity management keeps users productive by providing them with a single sign-on for all their corporate resources. This means that they can use one set of login credentials to access their company’s line-of-business apps, Microsoft
cloud applications, and third-party SaaS apps. Fewer passwords, means less risk of users losing or forgetting passwords – or creating lists for the world to see. And even if users do forget, they can securely reset passwords themselves, meaning one less task for the IT helpdesk. Users want to use the devices they love, whether it’s the device with the best camera, the device with the largest screen, the biggest this or the thinnest that. But to be really useful, the device needs access to apps and data – wherever the device and its user happen to be. Mobile device management, provides IT with a solution that helps keep users and their devices well managed whether in the office, at home or roaming the world. Users need access to apps on their devices. IT can use unified device management to create a company portal with applications targeted to users and their devices. Users can then visit the company portal to selfinstall approved apps, reducing the burden on IT. Users sometime lose or misplace their devices. They can use the company portal to selectively wipe
BYTES corporate data from devices that are missing, ensuring sensitive information doesn’t end up in the wrong hands. And mobile device management integrates the management of PCs and mobile devices across all device platforms (Windows, Windows Phone, iOS, and Android) into a single console using Intune and System Center Configuration Manager, making common tasks such as applying security updates or inventory management a far more efficient task for IT. It is likely that most business users have two or more devices to do their work. A user may be working on a document in the office on their PC and later that day need to access the same document from a client’s network via a tablet. It’s also possible that IT may not want to make every corporate asset available to every user on any device. Access and information protection enables users to enroll their device using Workplace Join, making it possible to access corporate data from a personally owned device. The solution also allows users to sync data
Users want to use the devices they love, whether it’s the device with the best camera, the device with the largest screen, the biggest this or the thinnest that. But to be really useful, the device needs access to apps and data – wherever the device and its user happen to be. to work folders which then makes files available to any device. IT can protect sensitive information using Azure Rights Management, and can apply intelligent policies that may allow a user to access a sensitive file on a PC while on the corporate network, but would restrict access to that file by the same user from a personal smartphone. EMS enables your people to be productive across the broad array of devices they love with access to the applications they need, unify your IT
environment with a common identity across on-premises and the cloud, and deeply integrated capabilities for mobile device management, and protect your data with a comprehensive set of access control and data protection capabilities.
For information on Licensing EMS see page 19
call us today...
to discuss your cloud strategy. Whether it’s Microsoft, security, or virtualisation and storage we can help. Visit www.bytes.co.uk/contact to select the right team.
www.bytes.co.uk | 13
have won 5 Microsoft Awards this year!
microsoft
Windows SERVER
2003
EOL JULY 14 2015
With support for Windows Server
2003 ending on 14th July 2015, now is the time to understand the risks and migration options available for your legacy IT estate.
There are two principle aspects to server migration projects:
Windows Server 2003 Environment
Target Server/Cloud Environment Cloud Migration
Workloads: This work stream assesses the role/ capacity of the servers and identifies opportunities for consolidation. Applications: This work stream understands the compatibility of the current applications with consideration for upgrade paths or moves to cloud based offerings.
Migration & Optimisation
Bytes Migrate will help to identify all the potential licensing and technical options, including the cloud, in order to uncover cost savings, efficiency gains and ensure your project runs smoothly and on time.
Application Wrapping Application Version Upgrade Applications
Direct (as-is) Migration
Source Server (Physical or Virtual)
Target Server (Cloud) Target Server (Virtual) Target Server (Physical)
14 |
Ensuring Migration Success Bytes takes a robust and proven approach to the management and delivery of migration projects. Working with customer teams and industry specialists we can design a tailored IT architecture that is right for your business today and in the future. Our tool set and consultancy ensures
your project is undertaken in the most optimal and cost effect way possible, and after a successful migration of your Windows Server 2003 estate and associated software applications, there are options for on-going monitoring and management.
Definition Stage
Design Stage
Delivery Stage
Management Stage
Assessment for your IT estate and identification of efficiencies. This focuses on four key aspects:
Data gathered from the project definition is profiled and a target infrastructure designed. This covers:
The objective is to deliver the shortest migration at the least cost with maximum certainty.
Bytes has a range of full service offerings.
1 - I T Estate – what server technology and application software is deployed and project scope. 2-W orkload Assessment – current utilisation of servers and applications with a view for consolidation, virtualisation and cloud adoption. 3 - A pplication Assessment – focussing on the compatibility with the target OS. 4 - E ntitlement & Compliance Analysis – a review of licensing entitlements and future compliance position.
1 - Target Platform – what mixture of physical, virtual and cloud is best. 2 - Target Application – is there a direct migration for a simple lift and shift; is an upgrade required or do you need application encapsulation for native compatibility. 3 - Target Licensing Model – making use of current licenses, vendor promotions and future technology roadmaps.
This often starts with a proof of concept, ensuring all stakeholders are bought into the approach with a clear plan and agreed review gates. During delivery, we will use proven automated tools to migrate servers and applications, in addition to utilising technologies such as AppZero to address known application migration challenges and Double-Take to eliminate server downtime.
These can be tailored to specific organisational requirements with the focus on compliance management, technology services (incl. cloud administration), procurement advisory or a combination. This stage is optional but it is important. If you have the resource for on-going management of your estate then we can help you refine your software management processes to ensure compliance and estate optimisation.
Bytes were able to design, configure and successfully implement a robust solution that now meets all of Mott MacDonald’s infrastructure management requirements. Bytes’ technical expertise is coupled with robust project management to ensure successful delivery within very tight timescales and within a fixed budget.
next steps...
Whether you just have a few questions, or need to fully outsource your Windows Server 2003 migration project we would welcome the opportunity to help. Simply contact your Bytes account manager on 01372 418 500 or email tellmemore@bytes.co.uk Alternatively you can find further resources at www.bytes.co.uk/WS2003EOL including collateral and a webinar recording from Microsoft and Bytes experts.
www.bytes.co.uk | 15
?
microsoft
what is
Azure Microsoft Microsoft Azure is an open and flexible cloud
platform that enables you to quickly build, deploy,
it’s...
scale and manage applications across a global network of Microsoft datacenters. You can build applications using multiple languages, tools and frameworks. ...IaaS + PaaS Azure is the only major cloud platform ranked by Gartner as an industry leader for both infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS). This powerful combination of managed and unmanaged services lets you build, deploy and manage applications any way you like for unmatched productivity. ...hybrid-ready Some cloud providers make you choose between your data centre and the public cloud. Not Azure. Its enterprise-proven hybrid cloud solutions give you the best of both worlds, expanding your IT options without added complexity. With Azure, data storage, backup and recovery become more efficient and economical. It’s also easier to build applications that span both on-premises and the cloud. ...open and flexible Azure supports any operating system, language, tool and framework – from Windows to Linux, SQL Server to Oracle, C# to Java. It puts the best of Windows and Linux ecosystems at your fingertips, so you can build great applications and services that work with every device.
16 |
...always up, always on You’ll share the same enterprise-tested platform that powers Skype, Office 365, Bing and Xbox. Azure offers a 99.95% availability SLA, 24/7 tech support and round-the-clock service health monitoring. That’s why more than 57% of Fortune 500 companies rely on Azure today. From live-streaming Olympic events to online multiplayer online games, our customers are doing some amazing things. ...everywhere Azure runs on a growing global network of Microsoft-managed data centres across 19 regions, giving you a wide range of options for running applications and ensuring that your customers always get great performance. Azure is the first multinational cloud provider in mainland China and is continuing to expand to new regions around the globe. ...economical and scalable Azure can quickly scale up or down to match demand, so you only pay for what you use. Per-minute billing and a commitment to match competitor prices for popular infrastructure services such as compute, storage and bandwidth mean you’re always getting unbeatable price for performance.
you can do with Azure
Build infrastructure
Provision Windows and Linux Virtual Machines and applications in minutes. Use the same virtual machines and management tools in Azure that you use on-premises. • Virtual Machines • Virtual Network
• Storage • Backup
• Site Recovery • Big Compute
Develop modern applications Build and deploy a wide variety of modern applications for Android, iOS and Windows that take full advantage of the cloud – including web, mobile, media and line-of-business solutions. Automatically scale up and down to meet any need. • Web Apps • Mobile Apps
• Media Services • Integration
• Integration • Dev-Test
Gain insights from data Azure provides managed SQL and NoSQL data services and built-in support for gaining insights from your data. Leverage the full power of SQL Server in the cloud and use HDInsight to build Hadoop clusters to analyse data. • SQL Database • HDInsight
• Machine Learning • Stream Analytics
Manage identity and access Manage user accounts, synchronise with existing onpremises directories and get single sign-on across Azure, Office 365 and hundreds of popular software-as-a-service applications including Salesforce, DocuSign, Google Apps, Box, Dropbox and more. • Azure Active Directory • Multi-Factor Authentication
The Complete Hybrid Platform Your cloud roadmap is unique to your business situation. Cloud providers such as AWS offer few built-in private or hybrid cloud options, so you have little flexibility to leverage or support your existing datacenter investments or must find additional solutions to make a hybrid deployment successful, or manage separate public and private cloud environments. Microsoft believes that your cloud solution shouldn’t leave you boxed in. It should enable you to leverage your existing IT investments and let you move to the cloud as your business needs evolve. That’s why Microsoft offers proven solutions in private, public, and hybrid clouds, backed by decades of experience serving over one billion customers and 20 million businesses. That translates to consistent support and a consistent experience across the entire cloud landscape.
need help...
with Integrated Cloud Storage solutions, please contact your Bytes Account Manager or the Bytes Cloud team on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 17
BYTES have a 40% UK market share for Azure
microsoft
explain
LICENS LICENSING
John Gorton Microsoft Licensing Lead, Bytes
Microsoft Products & Services Agreement (MPSA) Select Plus is Retiring... Time to move to MPSA
Your FAQ’s Answered Q: What Happens When Select Plus retires? As of 1st July 2015, Microsoft will no longer offer new commercial Select Plus agreements. The options are as follows: • Select Plus customers can choose to migrate to the Microsoft Products and Services Agreement and maintain their current Select Plus price level • Existing Select Plus customers can continue to make purchases and renew Software Assurance through their Select Plus agreement for one year after this date As of July 1, 2016, commercial customers will no longer be able to renew Software Assurance through Select Plus agreements, or make new purchases through their existing Select Plus agreements after the next agreement anniversary.
Q: What happens to my Select Plus purchases? Customers will continue to have full rights and access to all software and Software Assurance that were acquired through Select Plus.
Q: What is the MPSA? The Microsoft Products and Services Agreement (MPSA) is a new foundational “master” agreement that simplifies the Volume Licensing agreement by consolidating common terms and conditions from standard Microsoft Volume Licensing Agreements into a single agreement for all organizations. It includes terms and conditions from the Microsoft Business and Services Agreement (MBSA), Microsoft Select Plus Agreement, and terms for purchasing Microsoft Online Services.
18 |
Q: How is the MPSA different from Select Plus? Transactional purchasing rules through the Microsoft Products and Services Agreement are just like Select Plus, so you will be able to make transactional purchases of Licence only or Licence and Software Assurance. However, unlike Select Plus, you can also purchase Microsoft Online Services and work with Bytes even if you are with another partner.
Q: How do I move to the MPSA? Select Plus customers can sign a Microsoft Products and Services Agreement with the help of Bytes, using their existing Select Plus price level to determine their price level through the MPSA. You then stop purchasing through the Select Plus agreement and begin purchasing through the new agreement.
Q: Do I manage my assets purchased through the MPSA with the Volume Licensing Service Center? No. Assets acquired through the MPSA are managed through the new Microsoft Volume Licensing Center. Assets acquired through a Select Plus agreement will continue to be managed through the Volume Licensing Service Center. Once your licenses and Online Services are fully covered by a Microsoft Products and Services Agreement, you will have all your purchases through the Microsoft Products and Services Agreement viewable in a single tool.
Q: Does this affect the academic and government licence offerings? Academic institutions can purchase via the MPSA now. From 1st July 2015 government pricing within the MPSA will be available with a pricing structure the same as Select Plus.
ed Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) Cost-effectively licence Microsoft’s Enterprise Mobility cloud services for all your users.
What is EMS? The Enterprise Mobility Suite is Microsoft’s comprehensive cloud solution for your consumerisation of IT and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Enterprise Mobility Suite challenges. In addition, the Hybrid Identity and Access Management Enterprise Mobility Microsoft Azure AD Premium Suite discount Mobile Device and Application Management makes it the most Microsoft Intune cost-effective way to acquire the Information Protection included cloud Microsoft Azure Rights Management services:
Hybrid Identity and Access Management Microsoft Azure AD Premium delivers robust identity and access management from the cloud, in sync with your existing on-premises deployments: • Cloud-based self-service password reset • Group Management, including user self-service management of groups • Group-based provisioning and access management for hundreds of Software as a Service (SaaS) applications • Synchronisation of user identities from on-premises directories, including write back of changes • Comprehensive Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) options.
Mobile Device and Application Management Microsoft Intune provides mobile device management, mobile application management, and PC management capabilities from the cloud: • Deliver mobile device and application management across popular platforms: Windows, Windows Phone, iOS, and Android • Intune-managed Office mobile apps and extend mobile application management to line-of-business apps with the Intune app wrapper • Provide access to corporate resources on devices based upon enrollment and compliance policies • A single management console in the cloud with Intune or on-premises through integration with System Center 2012 Configuration Manager.
Information Protection Microsoft Azure AD Premium and Azure Rights Management can help protect your corporate assets: • Deliver information protection in the cloud or in a hybrid model with your existing on-premises infrastructure • Integrate information protection into your native applications with an easy-to-use software development kit (SDK)
*Estimated retail price per user per month with annual commitment. **Correct as of 05/2015 – subject to change.
Licensing EMS • EMS is available through multiple volume licensing programs such as the Enterprise Agreement, MPSA and the Open licence programs. • EMS includes dual access rights: - In addition to Azure RMS, it provides access to Windows Server Rights Management Services - In addition to Intune, it also provides rights to System Center Configuration Manager - In addition to Azure AD Premium, it provides rights to Forefront Identity Manager - A full User Subscription Licence for EMS also provides access rights to Windows Server • Customers licensed for the Core CAL or Enterprise CAL Suite with active Software Assurance may purchase an EMS Add-on subscription • Customers with expiring Software Assurance for Core CAL or Enterprise CAL Suite may renew into EMS at a discounted rate (approx. 14% over buying a full EMS USL) • EMS is available as a part of the Enterprise Cloud Suite – for more information see page 22.
for all your...
licensing needs, speak to your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500
www.bytes.co.uk | 19
microsoft
explain
LICENSING
Per User Licensing with Windows Software Assurance Windows Enterprise can now be licensed on a per user basis through the new Windows Software Assurance per User and Windows Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) per User licensing options.
These new options put users at the center of Windows licensing, enabling flexibility to decide how to deploy and access Windows across devices. Licensing by user allows users to access Windows across all of their devices, regardless of who owns the device. There is flexibility to deliver Windows Enterprise across devices through local install, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), or Windows To Go. Also gained is the simplicity of counting users instead of counting all of your devices - supporting Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) scenarios without the need to track every device and license.
Flexible access to Windows Enterprise Access Rights to Windows Enterprise
Per User Software Assurance
Per Device Software Assurance
VDA
VDA
Local Install
Any device licensed for Windows 7/8/8.1 Pro or Enterprise and any Windows tablet with a diagonal screen size of 10.1 inches or less
The licensed device only
Romote Access Through VDI or Windows To Go
Any Device
Noncorporate devices while away from the office (through Roaming Use Rights)
The licensed device only if also licensed for Windows 7/8/8.1 Pro or Enterprise
With Windows Software Assurance and Windows VDA, users get flexible access to Windows Enterprise, including downgrade rights to earlier versions. Compare these access rights when licensed per user or per device.
Available through the following Licensing Programs Windows Software Assurance per User
When Added to Windows Software Assurance per Device Licensing Requirements
License Model Local Install of Windows Enterprise VDI Access and Windows To Go MDOP
When Added to Windows VDA per Device
Compare Windows Software Assurance per User, Windows VDA per User, and the Windows per User Software Assurance Add-on.
Primary user’s primary device must already be covered by Windows VDA
Note: ”Primary user’s primary device” means the user is the primary user of a device AND the device is that user’s primary work device.
Windows Software Assurance per User Add-on
Windows VDA per User
Primary user’s primary No device requirements, device must be licensed may be assigned to for Windows 7/8/8.1 any user Pro or Enterprise
Primary user’s primary device must already be covered by Windows Software Assurance
Per user, no device limits On any Windows 7/8/8.1 Pro or Enterprise device tablets < 10.1 inches
Any device Single MDOP subscription extends across all user’s devices’
There is a potential cost saving for customers who have more devices than users within their organisations as it may mean a reduction in the amount of licenses required.
20 |
Windows Software Assurance per User and Windows VDA per User licenses are available through the following Volume Licensing programs: Enterprise Agreement, Enterprise Agreement Subscription, Select/Select Plus, Microsoft Products and Services Agreement, and Enrollment for Education Solutions.
ed Licensing Microsoft Office 365 Office 365 is licensed on a Per User basis with User Subscription Licenses (USL). Each Office 365 USL must be assigned to a single named user, that user can then access the Office 365 services from any device and use the Office 365 ProPlus client on up to five concurrent devices. Key Principles to Understand
Office 365 Suites
• The Licensing of Office 365 is done per user over a user subscription licence (USL)
The Office 365 service is available under volume licensing programs such as Enterprise Agreement (EA), Enterprise Agreement Subscription (EAS), Open, and the Microsoft Products & Services Agreement (MPSA).
• Office 365 ProPlus is a user-based service that allows people to access Office experiences on up to 5 PCs or Macs and on their mobile devices • Dual access rights: Office 365 User Subscription Licenses not only provide rights to access the online services, but also the equivalent server in within your own datacentre
Office 365 Add on services
Following licenses must have been purchased through the enterprise agreement to licence the appropriate Office 365 Add-on offer: Core CAL
E1
•
E3 without Office 365 ProPlus
•
Core CAL + Office
ECAL
•
•
•
Dual Access Rights
E3 E4 without Office 365 ProPlus
•
Office 365 Enterprise Suites (E1-4) and the individual components contained in the suites (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Skype for Business Online) purchased under a volume licensing program, offer dual access right. In other words, the user subscription licence not only provides access to the Office 365 online service, but also provides access to the equivalent server software deployed within your own datacenter (or a third parties). In summary, it replaces the traditional Client Access licence (CAL).
E4
•
Exchange Online Plan 1
•
•
Lync Online Plan 1
•
•
SharePoint Online Plan 1
•
•
Access to the Online Service Access to the Enterprise Server
Microsoft Hosted Servers
locally installed client server
•
• •
• •
Add-on Subscription Licenses Office 365 Add-ons give you a simple, low-cost way to add Office 365 services at any time, while maintaining your current Enterprise Agreement and Software Assurance benefits. Pricing recognizes your existing investments in Office and CAL Suites, while preserving your Enterprise Agreement discounts for on-premises licenses and volume discounts for online services.
Office 365 ProPlus as an alternative to Office Professional
Transition to Office 365 within an Enterprise Agreement
Office 365 ProPlus is included with some Office 365 suites, including the Office 365 E3 and the Office 365 E4 suites and can be purchased as stand-alone User Subscription License. The USL entitles the user to use of the Office 365 ProPlus software on up to five devices at the same time.
The Enterprise Agreement also offers the option to transition existing licenses for Office Professional Plus or/and CAL Suites to Office 365 Enterprise suites. This simply replaces the on-premises licenses for Office 365 suites. Components from the CAL suites, such as Windows Server CAL and System Center Configuration Manager client licence are replaced by Bridge CALs to ensure you have access to on-premises servers which are not covered within the Office 365 suites.
The software can be deployed locally via click-to-run, as well as a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Remote Desktop Services (RDS), or even Windows To Go.
ECAL + Office
need more...
information or advice on EMS or Windows Software Assurance please speak to your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 21
•
microsoft
explain
LICENSING
Per User Licensing with Enterprise Cloud Suite (ECS) This new licensing method offers organisations a Per User licensing model with a simplified method of procuring cloud services.
ECS empowers users with best-in-class productivity across devices while supporting IT security and control ECS allows organisations to move to a pure per user licensing model for their entire platform EA and cloud services. Costs are saved by licensing USERS rather than DEVICES. Part of the Enterprise Enrolment, ECS brings together Office 365 E3, Enterprise Mobility Suite and Windows Software Assurance per User.
Enterprise Platform
Enterprise Cloud Suite
Per device/hybrid
Per user
Office Professional Plus Enterprise CAL Suites Windows Enterprise
Office 365 E3 Enterprise Mobility Suite Windows Software Assurance per User
What is it? How it works... The Enterprise Cloud Suite is for organisations with 250+ users or devices and is available as a User Subscription Licence (USL) or an Add-on licence for the Enterprise Platform in the Enterprise Enrolment: • Enterprise Cloud Suite USL: For users who are not covered by an existing Enterprise Platform or who would like to transition to full user-based licensing at renewal. The USL lowers initial licensing costs because you subscribe to the rights to use Microsoft products and services instead of purchasing a perpetual licence • Enterprise Cloud Suite Add-on: For users who are covered by an existing Enterprise Platform. The Add-on is a subscription that supplements your existing Enterprise Platform licence position
Key benefits • Best Value:- buying ECS as a suite results in initial discounts and Software Assurance provides additional discounts for online services • Easier to Manage:- with a Per User licensing model, you will no longer need to count devices for the EA platform and cloud services – avoiding bridge CALs and true ups without modifying your Enterprise Agreement • Flexible:- a range of ECS licensing options are available through Add-on licenses or User Subscription Licenses (USLs) and cloud services can be added at any time, then reconciled at anniversary
We can help If you need to renew your current Microsoft Licensing agreement in the next 12 months or would like to understand any areas of Microsoft Cloud Services then please contact us on 01372 418500 With over 75 Microsoft Certified Professionals, we are the UKs leading Software Licensing specialist with unrivalled expertise and sales of Microsoft cloud solutions.
22 |
ed Licensing SQL Server 2014 Many are aware of the major licensing changes that occurred with the release of SQL Server 2012, which moved from a Per-Processor to a Per-Core model.
Editions Overview 1. Enterprise Edition for mission critical applications and large scale data warehousing
These changes resulted in a potential increase in SQL licensing costs and were a concern to many organisations. However to counter this increase, organisations began to look at environment consolidation, virtualisation and migration options to lower their licensing requirements, achieve higher densities and improve
2. Business Intelligence Edition for premium corporate and self-service BI 3. Standard Edition for basic database, reporting and analytics capabilities
performance whilst lowering the total cost of ownership.
SQL Server 2014 Licensing Models BYTES
There are two main licensing models that apply to SQL Server:
Server + CAL:
Per Core:
Provides the option to licence users and/or devices:
Gives customers a more precise measure of computing power and a more consistent licensing metric, regardless of whether solutions are deployed on physical servers on-premises, or in virtual or cloud.
• Each server running SQL Server software requires a server licence. • Each user and/or device accessing a licensed SQL Server requires a SQL Server CAL that is the same version or newer - for example, to access a SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition server, a user would need a SQL Server 2012 or 2014 CAL. • Each SQL Server CAL allows access to multiple licensed SQL Servers, including Business Intelligence Edition, Standard Edition and legacy Enterprise Edition Servers.
hold over 75 MCP exam passes for Microsoft
• Core based licensing is appropriate when customers are unable to count users/devices, have Internet/Extranet workloads or systems that integrate with external facing workloads. • To licence a physical server, customers must licence all the cores in the server. Determining the number of licenses needed is done by multiplying the total number of physical cores by the appropriate core factor found in the core factor table. A minimum of 4 core licenses is required for each physical processor on the server. • With SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Edition, customers who have licensed all physical cores on the server with Software Assurance can run an unlimited number VMs on that server.
SQL Server 2014 Editions availability by licensing model: Licensing Options
SQL Server 2014 Edition •
Server + CAL
Per Core
Want specific advice on licensing for Virtualisation, High Availability and Business Intelligence Server Access?
Listen to our recent webinar www.bytes.co.uk/webinar
•
Enterprise Business Intelligence
•
Standard
•
•
Note: SQL Server 2014 Developer Edition is licensed under the Developer Tools model, which is ‘Per User’ based.
Special Note for Enterprise Edition Users: With the introduction of SQL Server 2012, Enterprise Edition was removed from the Server + CAL model and new server licenses are no longer available. However, customers with active Software Assurance (SA) coverage can continue to renew SA on Enterprise Edition servers and upgrade to SQL Server 2014 software. Note: for customers who upgrade to SQL Server 2014, a 20 core limit applies to the software.
need more...
information or advice on SQL server or Office 365 please speak to your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 23
microsoft
make
IT budget YOUR
WORK
Harder
24 |
Payment Solutions at a glance Are budget challenges and constraints impacting your ability to make strategic IT investments, improve productivity and deliver new business services? Payment Solutions help design convenient and flexible options to structure your technology spend to meet your
Payment Solution Options Extended Payment Terms
business and financial needs.
lets you structure your software payments through a simple amendment to your Enterprise
Flexible
Agreement, without the need
• Payment Solutions enable software purchases through a payment structure that aligns to your budget, cash flow, or deployment schedules
for a separate loan document.
• Choose predictable monthly, quarterly, or semi-annual payments ranging from 12-60 months
countries.
• Create a customised payment plan by deferring your initial payment up to six months, or ramping payments to start low and increase as you benefit from your IT solution
provides customised payment
This option is available in many
Software Licence Financing options to help match your technology spend with budget
Conserve resources
availability, executed as a
• Preserve capital and other financial resources for alternative strategic investments
traditional loan through a
• Structure payments to cover 100% of the solution costs with no additional collateral, no residuals and no hidden fees
third-party financial institution. Total Solution Financing
• Secure a funding alternative to a traditional loan at competitive rates
provides payment options for
• Low minimum requirement amount with no maximum limit
complete software, services and hardware solutions - including
Simplify cloud adoption
non-Microsoft products.
• Fund all aspects of your migration project, including Microsoft and third-party software, deployment services and hardware • Consolidate the multiple vendor and overall project costs into a single, predictable payment structure, including subscription services
find out...
more about Payment Solutions please speak to your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 25
Bytes portal
portal
The Bytes Portal brings together all elements of your software estate into one system. It enables you to manage and track the entire life cycle of your software assets from point of purchase to decommission. It has a unique and customisable intelligence, as well as real data/views that will help simplify the administration of your global software licensing estate. Below are some of the key functions of the Portal: On line Ordering The Bytes Portal gives you direct access to your current agreement information and pricing tailored to your specific contract parameters. Our product search facility helps you quickly find the items you need and create quotations, email these quotations to other people in your organisation and easily convert them to orders. The Portal offers customisable views and access rights so that components, for example the ability to place orders, can be included or excluded for specific users. Manage Contracts and Renewals The Portal offers a full contract management system which you can use to manage all the contracts and software licenses in your estate. You can upload your own data and documentation for any type of contract across your organisation. The Portal flags contracts and licenses at 90, 60 and 30 days prior to renewal or expiry and can be configured to send reminder emails at these intervals. Discover and Manage Assets The Bytes asset management service provides you with the ability to actively manage your organisationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s software licence and compliance positions.
Emma Magalhaes Bytes Portal Manager
I find the Bytes Portal extremely easy to use, I mainly create orders or convert quotes to an order and the process is faultless. When I request a quote for software the response is very quick and orders are always processed straightaway. I wish all portals were the same! Gayle Core - Specsavers This modular service is designed to deliver cost reductions by rationalising support and maintenance contracts and ensure cost avoidance through licence re-harvesting and contract renewal management. Manage Learning Our online learning portal offers services ranging from simple online booking of a wide range of popular training courses from many training providers, to bespoke solutions developed for your organisation. You can publish and manage your own in house training programs and curriculums and monitor course registration, budget approval and attendance. Service Desk The Portal service desk helps you manage all of your communications with
Bytes sales, technical and administration teams. It enables you to log and monitor requests online which go directly to the relevant personal with Bytes. The Service Desk can be used as an auditable way of tracking how Bytes and your organisation are interacting and how we are delivering against Service Level Agreements (SLAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s) and response times. Portal Development Services Our Portal development services enable secure seamless communication and navigation between your own back office systems and the Bytes Portal. Our in-house team have the skills to develop and support solutions to integrate with your systems.
learn more...
about the Bytes Portal or to set up a user account, please speak to your Bytes account manager who will arrange this for you.
www.bytes.co.uk | 27
case study
study case Saving ÂŁ3.5m through a shared service for
&
St Edmundsbury Council Forest Heath District Council
28 |
Richard Read Public Sector Sales Lead, Bytes
The Challenge The challenge for Bytes was to propose the best way forward for licensing the various existing software requirements across Microsoft, Citrix, VMware, Adobe Sophos and Veeam at the lowest cost possible. Bytes needed to consider the varying technology used by the individual entities now and in the future, the renewal dates and usage in order to advise on suitable solutions going forward and support the new shared services entity in negotiations with software vendors. The Solution First up, was the two existing Microsoft Select Agreements. Bytes presented a number of options, with short or longer term gains, before going with the decision to opt for an Enterprise Subscription Agreement (ESA). This subscription only licensing agreement offered the lowest cost with a fixed unit price point, allowing for the flexibility to increase and decrease licence quantities throughout the term without incurring penalties. Technologies included were System Center Suite, Lync, Exchange, Windows Enterprise and Office which allowed for consolidation of across the remaining software vendors and negotiations to co-term with a single date for future simplicity.
Bytes have enabled us to consolidate our existing software contracts and get us the best deal possible on new software purchases James Wager Infrastructure Support Manager, West Suffolk
The Benefits The new ICT infrastructure delivers an efficient and coherent service to residents and a solid platform to build on. In particular the benefits that come with the Microsoft subscription based licensing enabled the delivery of new ground breaking technologies including: • A consolidation of software vendors used with co-termed renewal dates for future simplicity and buying power • Migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 – first local council to switch before deadline day
• Lync to enhance collaboration through IM, PowerPoint and video and voice conferencing • Continual OS upgrades – first local council to migrate away levelling infrastructure resource, reducing peaks and troughs • Virtualised desktops and PC’s – consolation to Hyper-V from VMware producing good cost reductions • PSN Compliance achieved • 400% increase in Microsoft Training Day Vouchers negotiated for Windows 7 rollout to empower in-house staff
Bytes Solutions: • Vendor consolidation across the 2 trusts contributing to the £3.5m savings • System Center Suite, Lync, Exchange, Windows Enterprise and Office • Bytes Online Learning Portal to train staff on the latest version of Microsoft Office • 400% Increase of Microsoft SA Training Day Vouchers • Deployment Planning Service from the individual Service Providers
The work we’ve done with Bytes has been vital in helping the organisations achieve their savings target of £3.5million through shared service
Want to know more about creating a Shared Service? – watch the video of St Edmundsbury and Forest Heath @ www.bytes.co.uk/bytestv
BYTES TV www.bytes.co.uk | 29
virtualisation
virtual
Kay Heath Virtualisation Specialist, Bytes
What’s relevant to customers today? For a lot of clients I speak to, the primary focus is getting more from their existing data centre.
Businesses have already reduced data centre costs through rationalisation and consolidation of the server estate using technologies such as VMware, Microsoft and Citrix. Now the focus is on optimising these environments to ensure they’re as efficient as possible. Software-Defined Data Centres
Optimisation – Starts with the right Tool
By virtualising all components of the DC companies will no longer need to rely on specialised hardware and can reap benefits such as, improved efficiencies from extending virtualisation throughout the data centre; increased agility from provisioning applications quickly; additional control over application availability and security using policybased governance and the flexibility to run new and existing applications in multiple platforms and clouds.
Proactive Monitoring
More recently it’s not just the compute layer which is virtualised - the rest of the data centre infrastructure has been virtualised e.g. storage, network, security and applications – driving growth in the term ‘software-defined data centres’ - using management and automation software to enable the administrator to provision and control all the components. The software-defined networking market is expected to be valued at about USD $3.7 billion by 2016, compared to USD $360 million in 2013. IDC estimates that the softwaredefined storage market is poised to expand faster than any other storage market.
Whether it’s an on-premise data centre or not, having an automated and optimised environment is important for supporting business agility and improving service levels.
30 |
The first step is to optimise the environment. The ease with which virtual machines can be created can lead to a server estate growing disproportionately to the needs of the business, which we often see. Using a tool to right-size over or under provisioned machines and identify those machines no longer in use can help to reclaim unused capacity, increasing the life span of existing hardware and therefore saving cost. By having visibility of this you can also use capacity modelling to anticipate future needs which can help with budgeting for new capital expenditure. With tools such as VMware vRealize Operations you can input all future projects to view how they would impact the performance of the current environment which will provide exact dates on when new hardware would be required. We find that many customers have already invested in ops tools for various parts of the infrastructure, but by having disparate systems and several tools not only does this increase the time required to manage them all, but benefits in efficiency are eroded if they can only identify part of the problem. By having a monitoring tool with plug-ins to existing systems including Microsoft System Center and Oracle databases,
Helping our customers create a Software-DeďŹ ned Data Centre to name a few, you can monitor and view your environment through a single pane of glass - providing a single point of contact for support.
Problem Resolution
Operational efficiencies can also be found in Problem Resolution. One customer was receiving over 350 alerts per week, which was completely unmanageable and resulted in a critical alert being missed and a server going down. After implementing vRealize Ops this reduced to 23 per month, as the tool dynamically learns to identify normal behaviour and changes to only send out alerts which need attention. Root-cause analysis also massively reduces the time spent investigating faults so that the team can spend time on project work. Tools such as vRealize Ops can not only proactively identify the root cause of issues but can now remediate them at the push of a button using the integration with vRealize Automation. Proactive monitoring is not limited to the data centre; a financial customer of ours is using software to monitor the behaviour of its cash machines. The tool has learnt what is normal for each one, so if a remote countryside ATM starts spewing out thousands of pounds per hour the team is not only alerted, but a policy is in place to immediately suspend the machine therefore reducing the risk of loss to the bank.
Automation Implementation
Workflow automation is about enabling orchestrated workflows and process automation to significantly reduce operational costs and ensure that consistent standards are maintained. Done correctly, this will also ensure your business remains compliant and free from financial risk during a software audit.
Step one is to look at the everyday repetitive tasks that the IT team do manually, such as creating AD groups for new starters, provisioning mailboxes or password resets. If the Top 10 help desk tasks can be automated, this frees up time for the team to concentrate on projects which can bring value to the business. Next is to create an on-demand selfservice portal whereby application owners and developers can deploy or consume services via a catalogue. You can model infrastructure and applications once and deploy them in any approved cloud environment using blueprints. It enables you to price up each target environment e.g. AWS, Azure, vCloud Air and automatically allocate the resources based on business rules and servicelevel requirements. The business can be confident in choosing the most cost-effective option for each deployment and crucially, maintain control and visibility over all IT outside their own datacenter. When combined with structured workflows, delivery is faster and the overhead is reduced by minimising human dependencies. For automated workflow to be successful, each level of authorisation and delegation needs to be built in. We work with customers to help them identify and create these at a business level, enabling them to build out this self-service model.
Service Metering
The next piece to consider is service metering. By measuring the use of resources you can deliver IT services back to the business on a pay-asyou-use service model (chargeback) or simply provide IT cost analytics back to the organisation (showback). Some tools come with built-in industry standard cost sheets for everything from hardware to back office supplies. These cost sheets can, of course, be customised to include accurate costs specific to your organisation. This allows businesses to make informed sourcing decisions based on industry benchmarks and compare their IT expenses to peers and even cloud service providers.
In Summary
An optimised infrastructure, with intelligence and workflow automation can benefit in many ways. It reduces the time it takes to deploy services as well as improves responsiveness and consistency to the business. And by ensuring the provision of governed and self-regulated services, administrative overhead and cost is reduced without losing the audit trail or ability for custom reporting. A software-defined data centre enables IT to become a service provider to its own business, charging departments based on usage of resources and ultimately, the potential to become cost neutral.
interested?...
Please get in touch if you need more detail, you can contact us on vteam@bytes.co.uk or via your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500. Please follow us on @Bytes_vTeam
www.bytes.co.uk | 31
virtualisation
CITRIX workspace SUITE
Deliver secure access to apps, data and services from any device with the new Citrix Workspace Suite. This complete and powerful solution is optimised to meet the performance, security and mobility requirements of each individual, with instant access to personalised desktops, mobile, web, and Windows apps, data and services over any network. Personalised content to every user With Citrix Workspace Suite, workers can access all of their applications, data and even their personalised desktops from any corporate or
32 |
BYO device, including tablets, smartphones, PCs, Macs or thin clients. At the same time, IT can customise the right set of applications, desktop and data all while optimising the content to meet the security, performance, personalisation and mobility requirements of each individual worker. Self-service access to all apps Citrix Workspace Suite provides a unified app store that aggregates Windows, web, SaaS and mobile apps for delivery to any device. The app store allows IT to host all enterprise services in a single place where workers have self-service access to the apps they need to be productive. In addition, Citrix
Organisations can minimise loss of intellectual property and sensitive private information through centralisation of applications and desktops, which keeps all data in the datacenter. any mobile device while securing the delivery of mobile, web, and SaaS apps. Together, these technologies give workers a great experience to produce great results. Secure by design Citrix Workspace Suite offers enterprise grade security to ensure data and applications are always secure and compliant. Workers can access and sync all of their data from any device and securely share it with people both inside and outside the organisation. At the same time IT has the flexibility to manage that data on-premises, in the cloud or use a mix of both for the best economics. Organisations can minimise loss of intellectual property and sensitive private information through centralisation of applications and desktops, which keeps all data in the datacenter. And finally, IT can add features such as data encryption, password authentication, secure lock and wipe, inter-app policies and micro VPNs to mobile apps to further secure data on the device. Workspace Suite includes native mobile apps for secure email, calendar and browsing to maximize productivity and security for mobile workers. High performance user experience Citrix Workspace Suite delivers the best experience for any app or desktop. Using a universal client available on all tablets, smartphones, PCs, Macs or thin clients, IT can deliver high performance Windows content over low bandwidth high latency WANs, highly variable 3G/4G mobile networks or a reliable corporate LAN. And IT can deliver an unparalleled, native experience on
Single, flexible solution The diversity in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s workforce has forced multiple desktop, mobile, application and data infrastructure purchases that each require its own management and support. Citrix Workspace Suite addresses this challenge with a single, flexible solution that can streamline application and desktop deployment and lifecycle management to reduce IT costs. By centrally managing and delivering on-demand standard images, IT can improve the success rate of application and desktop image updates and provide role-based management, configuration, security and support for corporate and employee-owned devices.
Trade-up to Citrix Workspace Suite The Trade-up to Citrix Workspace Suite promotion provides XenApp, XenDesktop, XenMobile and ShareFile Enterprise customers with special savings for trading up. Customers who trade up to Citrix Workspace Suite keep all of the great functionality they are accustomed to with their current Citrix products, while adding new, powerful capabilities and 24x7x365 Technical Support to complete their mobile workspace.
SAVE up to
70%
The Trade-up to Citrix Workspace Suite promotion is a limited time offer and will expire September 30, 2015.
Your Options
Trade-up to Citrix Workspace Suite Exchange all of your XenApp, XenDesktop, XenMobile or ShareFile Enterprise licenses for Citrix Workspace Suite, with both 2-for-1 and 1-for-1 options. You can save up to 70 percent on Citrix Workspace Suite. Trade-up PLUS Trade up all your XenApp, XenDesktop, XenMobile or ShareFile Enterprise licenses and buy additional Citrix Workspace Suite licenses to reach MORE users. You save 10 percent on the additional Citrix Workspace Suite licenses. Trade-up MAX Trade up all your XenApp, XenDesktop, XenMobile or ShareFile Enterprise licenses and buy additional Citrix Workspace Suite licenses to reach ALL users. You save 35% on the additional Citrix Workspace Suite licenses.
www.bytes.co.uk | 33
virtualisation
one App App
HYBRID CLOUD Private
Public
Managed
Your Data Center
vCloud Air
vCloud Air Network
Traditional Applications
Software-Defined Data Center Virtualised Compute, Network, Storage
Any Application Anywhere Quickly and securely develop and deploy all traditional and modern enterprise applications on- or off-premises.
VMware vCloud® Air™: A secure public cloud platform built on the trusted foundation of VMware vSphere®, and compatible with your on-premise data center. It delivers a consistent vSphere-based software-defined environment across a hybrid cloud. VMware vSphere: The industry’s leading virtualisation platform for all enterprise applications. vSphere empowers users to virtualise scale-up and scale-out applications with confidence, redefines availability, and simplifies the virtual data center.
34 |
Unified Platform A unified, software-defined platform that spans on- and off-premise resources to form one hybrid cloud,built on VMware’s trusted, best-in-class compute, networking, and storage virtualisation products.
Compute Virtualisation VMware vSphere: The foundation for a modern, Software Defined Data Center, vSphere is the trusted, industry-standard compute virtualisation solution.
App
cloud
ANY APPLICATION
ANY DEVICE VMware is enabling a brave new model of IT for
App Modern, Cloud Applications
the mobile cloud era. Built on VMware’s industryleading Software-Defined Data Center solutions, their approach gives you a unified platform, defined in software, that unites on premises and public clouds with the open management capabilities you need to rapidly develop and automatically deploy any application to any device.
Open Management Flexible choice where it matters in how you control your IT infrastructure and manage your applications, based on what makes sense for your business.
VMware vRealize™: The leading cloud management platform purpose-built for the hybrid cloud. It provides a comprehensive management stack for IT services on VMware vSphere and other hypervisors, physical infrastructure and external clouds, all with a unified management experience. VMware Integrated OpenStack: VMware vSphere is not only compatible with, but optimised for OpenStack through the VMware® Integrated OpenStack add-on. This gives IT organisations choice without disruption through developerfriendly OpenStack services and APIs. As a result, companies can choose to deploy OpenStack based on VMware’s best-in-class infrastructure.
Learn more at vmware.com/cloud-computing/ hybrid-cloud
Network Virtualisation
Software-Defined Storage
VMware NSX: The network virtualisation platform for the Software-Defined Data Center, VMware NSX™ brings workloadspecific networking and security controls, native to your infrastructure.
VMware Virtual SAN: Policy-driven storage allocation for vSphere environments, VMware Virtual SAN™ streamlines storage provisioning and management, driving transformation through the hypervisor, and bringing to storage the same operational efficiency that server.
www.bytes.co.uk | 35
social
Bytes
SOCIAL
Stay in touch, keep up to date with the latest industry news, vendor news, Bytes events and webinars. Regardless of day, time or device, Bytes is at your fingertips.
If you would like to connect with Bytes, simply visit the following: LinkedIn: Search for ‘Bytes Software Services’ for either the group or company page YouTube: Search for the ‘Bytes Technology Group’ channel Twitter: Search for @Bytes_Software
36 |
storage
storage
Sp tlight with Stuart Curry Bytes Storage Specialist
Working with Bytes customers, the key areas that we discuss in our meetings are business continuity, cloud, virtualisation, application performance and local data recovery. One of the main desires of these organisations is to control escalating costs and manage performance across their applications.
solution. While its performance attributes were well recognised, the high cost of Flash put the technology out of reach for mainstream enterprises.
A quick win to address this, is to focus on the storage using Flash technology. Traditionally companies have bought far too many disk drives to ensure performance is available for their applications, which in turn creates challenges around overall storage footprint, power and cooling.
In the last few years, reductions in the price of raw Flash modules and economies of scale, combined with technologies like inline data compression and inline deduplication, allow the new generation of all-Flash arrays to compete with hard disk arrays on a £-pergigabyte level, whilst delivering a host of performance benefits and reduced TCO.
Continue with Tradition or Invest in Innovation? With IOPS growing exponentially clients are facing a crisis. Should they continue down the traditional route or invest in innovation? In parallel to rising application and data demand, budgets for new equipment, power, space, cooling and staff are all flat, if not declining. Following Moore’s Law, servers and networks have been getting faster and cheaper for decades. Storage has failed to keep pace because of the inherent limitations of mechanical spinning disk drives, a technology first introduced in 1956. While storage capacity and cost have grown explosively, hard drive performance has been flat. Although SSD technology has been accepted as a technology to support small consumer electronics devices such as Apple, only a small handful of storage vendors had looked at it as a data centre
According to recent Gartner research (‘Critical Capabilities for Solid-State Arrays’, August 2014), 50% of traditional general-purpose storage arrays used for low-latency, high-performance workloads
will be replaced by all-Flash arrays by 2019. All-Flash storage can be a competitive advantage for your entire company – it has the potential to unlock a new level of productivity by reducing the amount of time employees wait for their databases, virtual desktops and other applications. Flash’s speed, space efficiency and reliability make it a highly attractive alternative to spinning disk as a storage medium for enterprise applications. If you would like a fresh look at your storage setup, I’d be happy to take a look and share with you the latest technologies and cloud options, which are currently available.
How Flash Stacks Up: • 10x Performance • Up to 90% Reduction in Storage Costs • Up to 80% Reduction in Cores/Servers
300% Capacity overprovisioning on spindles to meet performance requirements
• Up to 70% Reduction in Licensing Costs • Up to 90% Reduction in Power, Space, Cooling.
Better performance with 90% less raw capacity
lets talk...
if you would like a fresh look at your storage setup, call me on 01372 418500
www.bytes.co.uk | 37
storage
the
all-flash enterprise array FA-405
FA-420
All-flash enterprise storage
FA-450
for less than the cost of spinning disk.
Accelerate Databases and Applications • Speed transactions by 10x with consistent low latency • Enable online data analytics across wide datasets • Mix production, analytics, dev/test, and backup workloads without fear.
Virtualize and Consolidate Workloads • Easily accommodate the most IO-hungry Tier 1 workloads • Increase consolidation rates, reducing servers • Simplify VI administration and accelerate common administrative tasks.
Deliver the Ultimate Virtual Desktop Experience • Support demanding users with better performance than physical desktops • Scale without disruption from pilot to >1000’s of users • Experience all-flash performance for under $100/desktop.
Protect and Recover Vital Data Assets • Provide an always-on global protection for business-critical data • Maintain performance, even under failure conditions • Recover instantly with FlashRecover. The simplest storage you’ll ever use No more managing performance, RAID, tiers or caching. FlashArray makes storage simple. And if you don’t love it, return it for a full refund. It’s the broadest guarantee in the storage industry. For details visit: purestorage.com/guarantee.
38 |
A better approach to storage acquisition and lifecycles Tired of forklift upgrades and maintenance extortion? Incrementally expandable and always non-disruptive, we make software and hardware upgrades easy and economical.
The FlashArray is powered by the Purity Operating Environment, storage software designed for 100% flash: “Pure’s performance is great – in fact it’s overperforming, doing even more than what we need as we add additional data sets.” Brent Allen Director of Infrastructure
“Flash was the right answer for all our OLTP environments, while it was a slight capex cost premium for us initially, it ended up driving our TCO much lower and enabled developers to do more, storage engineers to do a lot more work, database administrators to sleep at night, and just made everything a lot easier.”
“Previously, this process typically took up to 11 days – which is why we only used to do it once per quarter. With the FlashArray we can now snapshot all of our SQL databases, copy them, and mount the copies to a scrubbing server in under five minutes.”
Justin Stottlemyer Fellow
David Gloff IT Operations Manager
Dave Comben Head of IT Infrastructure Services
“I don’t ever need to use a physical host again. The FlashArray enables me to virtualize everything.”
BYTES Front View (dual controllers)
FA-405
FA-420
• Up to 200,000 4K IOPS • Up to 1.5 Gb/s bandwidth <1ms average latency
• Up to 400,000 8K IOPS • Up to 5 Gb/s bandwidth <1ms average latency
• Up to 40+ TBs effective capacity • 2.75-11 TBs raw capacity
• Up to 125+ TBs effective capacity • 11-35 TBs raw capacity
FA-450
Rear View (dual controllers)
Capacity
• Up to 250+ TBs effective capacity • 34-70 TBs raw capacity
Effective capacity assumes HA, RAID, and metadata overhead, GB-to-GiB conversion, and includes benefit of data reduction with always-on inline deduplication, compression & pattern removal. Average data reduction is calculated at 6-to-1. Some customers see data reduction in excess of 20-to-1. Effective capacity has no upper limit and will vary depending on workload. Performance
• Up to 100,000 32K IOPS @ <1ms average latency • Up to 3 GB/s bandwidth
• Up to 150,000 32K IOPS @ <1ms average latency • Up to 5 GB/s bandwidth
• Up to 200,000 32K IOPS @ <1ms average latency • Up to 7 GB/s bandwidth
Why does Pure Storage quote 32K, not 4K IOPS? The industry commonly markets 4K IOPS benchmark to make numbers look high, but real-world environments are dominated by IO sizes of 32K or larger. Pure Storage has optimized the FlashArray for the realworld. FlashArray adapts automatically to 512B-32KB IO for superior performance, scalability, and data reduction. Host Connectivity
• 8 Gb/s Fibre Channel • 10 Gb/s Ethernet iSCSI • Replication ports
• 8 Gb/s Fibre Channel • 10 Gb/s Ethernet iSCSI • Expansion slot (FC or iSCSI) • Replication ports
• 16 Gb/s Fibre Channel • 10 Gb/s Ethernet iSCSI • Expansion slot (FC or iSCSI) • Replication ports
Size, Power & Weight
• 2 x 1U HA Controllers • 330 Watts/controller • 33.5 pounds/controller • 1.72” x 17.08” x 23.74”
• 2 x 2U HA Controllers • 400 Watts/controller • 44 pounds/controller • 3.44” x 17.08” x 29.75”
• 2 x 2U HA Controllers • 500 Watts/controller • 44 pounds/controller • 3.44” x 17.08” x 29.75”
www.bytes.co.uk | 39
won Marketing Campaign of the Year 2015 award
storage
Backup Exec
™
FAQ
Matt Compton Storage & Security Lead
As more and more of our customers are looking to upgrade their backup solution, we ask our very own Matt Compton to answer the key questions that you need to know when evaluating Backup Exec 15 from Symantec. BE15 provides comprehensive protection of VMware and Hyper-V virtual environments in addition to protection for physical environments. Backup Exec provides advanced backup capabilities including: agentless backup, granular recovery for Microsoft® Exchange, Active Directory®, SQL®, and SharePoint® through a single image backup, integration with VMware and Hyper-V, data deduplication across all backup jobs, disaster recovery, dynamically protect new VMs found at job run-time, and change block tracking.
1. What is Backup Exec 15? Backup Exec™ 15 delivers easyto-use backup and recovery that is designed for your entire infrastructure regardless of platform: virtual, physical or cloud. Advanced integration with the most recent releases of VMware and Hyper-V ensures recovery is fast and efficient. 2. What’s new in Backup Exec 15? a. Platform Support for VMware’s Software-Defined Data Center • vSphere 6, ESXi 6.0, vCenter 6.0 b. VMware Software-Defined Storage • Virtual SAN 5.5 and 6.0, Virtual Volumes c. VMware Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Appliances • VMware EVO:RAIL
40 |
d. Platform Support for Cloud Storage • AWS Storage Gateway VTL support e. Enhanced Scalability and Performance • Granular recovery for VMware Virtual Machines with GPT disks • Granular recovery for VMware Virtual Machines with >2TB Volumes • VMware Virtual Machine SAN transport mode restore, leveraging high performance storage • VMware Virtual Machine SATA Disk support in HotAdd transport mode • Improved user interface performance and reduced memory usage (by as much as 90%) when browsing large directory structures f. Security • Support for vSphere 6 security certificates g. Upgrades and Migrations • Faster upgrades and migrations by maintaining single backup policies for multiple servers, and their configuration settings when upgrading from Backup Exec 2010-R3-SP3, and later.
15 8. Do I need new serial/license files to upgrade my Agents and Options to Backup Exec 15 Agents and Options? Yes. You will need new licence files for Backup Exec 15 Agents and Options. Please contact Bytes for more information. 9. How can I tell if my operating system is supported with Backup Exec 15? For a full list of supported hardware and software, please visit: www.backupexec.com/compatibility.
3. Where can I find a list of Backup Exec features introduced by product version? A feature matrix organized by product version is available at: www.backupexec.com/feature. 4. What has been End of Life’d in Backup Exec 15? Installing Backup Exec as a backup server on a 32-bit Windows Server is no longer supported. However, Backup Exec will continue to protect 32-bit Windows physical and virtual machines which have the Backup Exec Windows Remote Agent installed. 5. How is Backup Exec 15 licensed? Backup Exec gives you the ability to choose the right licensing model for your environment – all at affordable prices. Flexible licensing options include per module (agent/option), per TB or per socket. Portfolio includes: • Backup Exec™ 15 • Backup Exec™ 15 Small Business Edition • Backup Exec™ 15 V-Ray Edition • Backup Exec™ 15 Capacity Edition Lite • Backup Exec™ 15 Capacity Edition
10. I am an existing Backup Exec customer. How do I evaluate non-licensed agents and options? A feature within Backup Exec enables customers who have already purchased Backup Exec to evaluate most non-licensed Backup Exec Agents or Options available, free for 60-days. To activate non-licensed agents and options, select Options for Evaluation of the component tree in the management console. Each agent/option has its own 60-day evaluation clock. The clock starts when the agent/option is first utilized in a backup session. New customers can trial for free by visiting: www. backupexec.com/trybe
6. Is Backup Exec 15 backward compatible with previous versions? Yes. Backup Exec 15 is backward compatible with Backup Exec 2010 R3-SP4 and newer versions. Older versions of Backup Exec (those prior to Backup Exec 2010 R3) must be uninstalled before installing Backup Exec 15. Alternatively, for customers who are using Backup Exec 12.5, 12, 11d, 10d, 10 or older versions (including agents/options), you can step upgrade to Backup Exec 2014, update all remote agents, and then upgrade to Backup Exec 15. 7. How do I upgrade to Backup Exec 15? Is there a fee to upgrade? Existing customers with active maintenance can upgrade the appropriate Backup Exec 15 licenses free of charge. Customers who do not have an active maintenance contract or new customers switching to Backup Exec 15 can save up to 35% off MSRP when they upgrade.
11. What is the Backup Exec Tech Center? Where can I find it? The Backup Exec Tech Center is an online education service that helps you get the most out of Backup Exec. The modules also feature a 90-second recorded demonstration by a Backup Exec expert. Plus, it’s completely free! For more information, visit: www. backupexec.com/techcenter 12. Where can I go if I have more questions? Bytes
find out...
more about upgrading your backup solutions please speak to your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 41
BYTES hold over 75 Technical and Sales Accreditations for Symantec
storage
bynumbers the
42 |
storage
cloud flashto the
and back
I am fortunate to spend a lot of time talking to Senior people in IT across many different industries and across many different countries...
The Journey to Flash
There is a definite theme that has emerged, a picture in the mind of the people that I meet, and that is how they are categorising what IT actually does. There are most often three categories…
Future DataCenters will use increasing amounts of Flash, but they will also be Hybrid, Internal Clouds complimented by Public Clouds. Everyone’s journey will be different and will happen at different speeds. However quickly you want to go to Flash, we can help you, however quickly and however you want to embrace Public Cloud, we can help you. Most importantly though, is we can take you on this journey without changing your processes, your management tools and most importantly, without any disruption to your business.
Commodity IT – Those things that are important but cannot create much additional value to the business Business Value IT – Typically apps that are core to the business where there is potential to create real business value New Opportunities – What could we do? The breakthrough ideas that create the most significant value to the business What’s interesting is how the money is currently spent. In many organisations, Typically around two thirds of the IT budget is spent where there is the least opportunity to create business value! It’s my view that the reason for this is that Over time everything becomes a utility or a commodity. Every new application that comes into the business starts off with real business impact, but then over time, as you extract as much value as you can it becomes something that you have to run, to maintain, and the real issue is that you very rarely ever get rid of anything.
44 |
Matt Watts Director Technology & Strategy EMEA For more from Matt, visit www.watts-innovating.com/ This means that we must continuously look to reduce costs, but I believe that much more focus has to be on what IT can enable the business to do differently. What new business potential could be created?
Flash to the Cloud and back again…
IT has never had so many options open to it and most companies that I meet tell me they are on a journey, but it’s not just a journey to a new technology such as Flash, it’s also a journey toward Hybrid Cloud.
With Clustered DataONTAP (cDOT) we can now have different controller pairs and storage media inside the same Cluster. We’ve launched All Flash configurations of our systems, meaning you can now build a Cluster where some controllers are All Flash. Should a workload need high performance then put it on the Flash node, should it need less performance then move it back to a Disk node. cDOT makes this movement of data between nodes and media types absolutely seamless and essentially invisible to the Applications. Then when the time is right and the costs are compelling enough for you to consider using only All Flash FAS, simply add more of these nodes to your cluster and retire the disk media or nodes out as they get to the end of their write down period.
d
really is how do you want to consume IT services, what works for you, where are you now, where do you want to be in the future?
A Seamless Journey…we’ve taken you from using Flash as a way of accelerating the performance of disk to an All Flash environment and what’s more… You never had to change your processes, management tools, orchestration tools, train anyone on a new technology or isolate a workload into a silo along the way, and we did all this with absolutely NO Disruption to any application!
Embracing Hybrid Cloud
Virtually all our customers are now looking at how they can leverage Cloud as a resource within their business. NetApp’s vision is to bring the true value of the Hybrid Cloud to our customers and in a way where you see the Cloud as a seamless extension of your on premise environment.
A key element of Cloud is that although you many not own the infrastructure or the application, you will ALWAYS need to control what happens to your data, aligning the appropriate levels of data performance, protection, and security to support your business.
The future will increasingly involve Hybrid Cloud models, so how could that look for you?
Our Converged Infrastructure FlexPod with Cisco is a great first step, this is your Private Cloud, where your focus begins to change. It’s about spending less time building the Infrastructure and more on working out what services you can automate, which you can enable your users to provision for themselves. Now what if you could tap into the compute power of the Cloud just for the time you need it? Bringing hundreds or thousands of CPU’s to bear on your data for analytics or an end of month run where you need to report financials? This is your NetApp system in a co-location facility with a Direct Connect to AWS, Azure or Softlayer? Your system, your data, being replicated using the immense efficiencies of our replication software (SnapMirror). We call this NetApp Private Storage (NPS).
AWS you can dramatically reduce this. If you have 100 good ideas how do you choose the one or two that you can afford to invest in, why should you? AWS can reduce the costs so significantly that now you can try ALL of these good ideas. With Cloud ONTAP we can enable you to create an AWS instance and have a Software version of ONTAP running within it, this means you can simply replicate your internal ONTAP data to it, when you’re finished simply shut it down and stop paying for it. Maybe Hyperscale providers won’t work for you, in which case we also have 350+ Service providers that have built their Public Clouds on ONTAP, maybe one of these meets your security or regulatory requirements. With your Private Cloud on ONTAP and their Public Cloud built on ONTAP again we have a common Data Platform. Future DataCenters will use increasing amounts of Flash, but they will also be Hybrid, Internal Clouds complimented by Public Clouds. Everyone’s journey will be different and will happen at different speeds. However quickly you want to go to Flash, we can help you, however quickly and however you want to embrace Public Cloud, we can help you. Most importantly though, is we can take you on this journey without changing your processes, your management tools and most importantly, without any disruption to your business. We call this a ‘Data Fabric’ and NetApp is uniquely positioned to help you build it.
Many companies miss opportunities because the cost of investment to explore them is prohibitive, by using Every organisation will have a different strategy in place regarding Cloud that will include services from different types of providers – CSP (Cloud service providers), Hyperscalers (AWS, Microsoft, IBM Softlayer, Google) and also Private Cloud. The discussion
further info...
on NetApp and building with Data Fabric contact your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 45
BYTES are NetApp EMEA Midsize Market Partner of the Year 2014
storage
?
are you DOING
everything you can to Protect YOUR CRITICAL DATA
While local
and tape backups offer essential protection against day-to-day dangers deleted files, crashed servers, corrupt workstations - they cannot protect your business against threats such as fires and floods, internal sabotage, power grid outages and terrorist acts to primary production equipment.
46 |
Acronis Backup Advanced Unified backup and recovery solutions for multi-system The Acronis Anydata Engine environments. Protect all your businesscritical systems - physical, virtual, and cloud - with one efficient backup solution managed by a single, easy-to-use console. Designed to provide dual protection right out of the box, each product is fully integrated with Acronis’ secure cloud storage, giving you the ability to automatically create and send additional copies offsite as part of their regular backup routine.
Double your protection with secure offsite storage in the Acronis cloud For responsible backup & recovery, you need a “dual protection” strategy. Dual protection is the practice of boosting your local backup plan by adding an additional redundant offsite plan. By storing your backups both locally and offsite, you effectively double your protection and guarantee reliable access to your data in the event of a disaster. Acronis Backup to Cloud provides safe, secure and scalable data protection, disaster recovery and off-site backup of any data, anywhere, anytime. The product can be used in a stand-alone mode or seamlessly blended with Acronis Backup and Acronis Backup Advanced products, and is a complete, user-friendly, all-in-one backup solution.
Minimize the risk in migrating away from Windows Server 2003 After July 14, Microsoft will no longer issue security updates for any version of Windows Server 2003. If you are still running Windows Server 2003 in your datacentre, you need to take steps now to plan and execute a migration strategy to protect your infrastructure. Start learning now how Acronis Backup Advanced Universal licence can help you to securely and safely migrate off Microsoft Server 2003 with: • Complete protection and migration features for physical and virtual servers, including the OS, applications, data, configuration files.
Key benefits of Acronis Backup to Cloud:
• Microsoft applications support and advanced recovery functions for SQL Server, Exchange, SharePoint, Active Directory, file, terminal application and web servers.
• Creates a disaster proof setup and is the only setup that ensures business continuity
• Data and system protection of a Windows or Hyper-V host with all supported applications, including unlimited VM migrations.
• Reduces the investment in on-premise storage infrastructure. You can keep the most recent backups locally, and keep all versions in the cloud for disaster recovery purposes
Grab the bull by the horns and take advantage of the Acronis FREE 60 day trial and FREE Educational Support Tools and start learning how you can safely and securely manage your company’s migration.
• Data remains within German borders in a datacenter that is better protected against data loss and theft than most businesses can afford to invest in
be protected...
for a safe and secure migration call your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 47
security
Viewpoint by: David Rawle CTO, Bytes Security Partnerships
Open Source Software in your organisation is Dangerous The Bytes View 2014 was rife with attacks on open source software. From Heartbleed to the infamous UNIX GoToFail bug which unlocked terabytes of private data worldwide, open source was at the heart of many of 2014’s cyber security breaches. The vulnerability from open source is set to increase in 2015 as many organisations remain unaware of just how large a role open source solutions play in their IT infrastructure.
THREATS in 2015
Actions for 2015 Perform a full security audit on your IT security infrastructure. Understand exactly where common open source solutions sit in your networks so you know what you have to patch and when. Treat updates to the open source components in your software stack as equally important to updates from your commercial vendors. Take time to understand how each open source organisation issues updates and how they have reacted in the past when security breaches are discovered. This will allow you to make an objective decision on how secure they are and whether they should remain a part of your network. Have a strategy that allows you to take unpatched systems offline wherever possible until a full fix is available. Not all IT security professionals are convinced that open source solutions are necessarily more risky. Dr Ian Levy of GCHQ maintains that “On average good open source software is about as secure as good proprietary.” Dr Levy believes that the key is how well managed any particular piece of software is and whether procedures are in place to quickly patch any exploits that arise. He concludes that “Open source software is not inherently less secure”. Nevertheless it remains good practice to understand how every piece of software or infrastructure in your network, open source or not, can be patched in the event of a vulnerability being discovered.
48 |
David Rawle Says “Understanding where open source lies in your software stack is essential if you want to guarantee network security. This allows you to quickly take parts of your network offline when vulnerabilities are revealed”. Case Study Canada’s tax collection agency left unpatched servers online after the Heartbleed SSL bug was made public. 900 social security numbers were leaked and all users were forced to change their login credentials as the agency could not guarantee that more details had not been leaked. This caused delays in the processing of tax returns for thousands of Canadians.
Zero-day threats are the norm, not the exception. The Bytes View Zero day vulnerabilities have become an everyday headache for IT security professionals. The Elderwood platform has made it easier than ever for cyber criminals to create and package malware that rapidly takes advantage of newly discovered exploits. As it becomes easier for criminals to take advantage of these types of vulnerabilities, the number of attacks will only increase. Actions for 2015 Consider implementing new security solutions that scan incoming files before they reach your network and can do damage. Innovations like Check Point Threat Emulation will scan incoming files in the cloud by executing them and monitoring for suspicious behaviour. This makes it possible to detect vulnerabilities which have not yet been registered on virus and malware databases. On the other hand, there are experts who believe that the threat of Zero Day exploits could be overstated. Craig Williams from Cisco maintains that Zero Day exploits are “far from a regular occurrence”. He is not convinced that they will be a major issue for IT security professionals in 2015. Instead he says that the number may decrease as “companies get better at not shipping bugs in their code”. Whether you believe that zero day exploits are likely to become more common in 2015 or not it is crucial that you understand the risks
that your company’s network faces. This is a key part of any IT security professional’s role and an objective assessment of the risks that zero day exploits present should be part of this. David Rawle Says “As the number of Zero Day exploits increases it’s important that companies consider advanced means of threat detection. New threats are now distributed so quickly that traditional methods of malware detection are not enough” Case Study Customised Malware like miniduke is rewritten every time it is sent to a new organisation. The attacks are generally targeted at governments and large companies across the world. The governments of Poland, Portugal and Ireland among others have already been hit by the malware. Files from infected computers are relayed back to a network of servers in Panama and Turkey. In an attack in 2013 on a US healthcare organisation, patient details, including confidential information like social security numbers were leaked. The exact means by which malware operates varies from one case to another. In 2014 malware began to receive instructions via Twitter which allowed it to connect to new malicious servers if the original set were shut down. Since malware is customised for each individual attack it is not possible to include it in traditional antivirus databases. A useful means of detecting it reliably is to use a sandbox environment away from your main network to execute potentially malicious code before allowing it to be opened on your network.
Your Vulnerable Estate Doesn’t Stop with Pure Security Architecture. The Bytes View Computers and servers are not the only pieces of infrastructure at risk from IT security exploits. Your
computers and servers may be protected by your IT security systems but what about your modems, switches and phone systems? These could become key IT security battlegrounds in 2015. As the IT security systems protecting computer equipment and mobile devices become more robust hackers are likely to turn to other, lesser considered devices in order to cause chaos within an organisation. Actions for 2015 Many CIOs will need to expand their scope beyond the traditional areas of IT security. Every device in your organisation that has its own IP address is vulnerable to an attack that could unleash havoc on your network. Take time to expand your map of the vulnerable devices in your organisation and include everything connected to your network, whether it can run executable code or not. Once you’ve identified all the ‘at-risk’ devices in your network consider how you can best protect them. The best solution may be hardware based security which can sit between these devices and the wider internet. These systems can inspect the traffic that arrives on your network and prevent it from reaching these sensitive bits of equipment. David Rawle Says “The ShellShock exploit was just the beginning. As traditional computing platforms become increasingly secure, hackers will look for new places to attack. Basic IT infrastructure with the potential to bring down entire networks will become the target of many more attacks this year.” If you have concerns, call our security team on 0845 075 0560 for help and advice.
be sure...
To speak to a security expert at Bytes SP to see how secure your organisation is call our team on 0845 075 0560 or email securitysales@bytes.co.uk
www.bytes.co.uk | 49
security
A recent article indicated that employees are willing to sell their passwords to the highest bidder, and that password management is the right solution to combat this issue.
Legacy Approach to
PASSWORD management
TRADING SECURITY for Convenience? How can password management help mitigate a stolen password or a password that has willingly been handed over? The answer: it can’t!
Password management is yesterday’s problem, and many organisations are looking for better, stronger and more modern approaches. It does play an important role for IAM – it is helpful for things like self-service password reset and password synchronsation. In essence, it is really all about enduser convenience, which is crucial in today’s “BYOD” and “BYOI” and “BYO-what’s next?” environment. It is not, however, helpful for determining if the person using that password is really who they say they are. To be assured that the user attempting to log in is really the right person, you should take a layered approach to security.
• First, you should look at something like a multi-factor authentication (MFA) solution – a combination of something you know (your password) and something you have (a SecurID® token or an SMS-based One Time Passcode). Some also augment MFA with, or instead use, a risk based authentication solution – combining something you know with something you have and/or behavioural analytics. This approach only interrupts the end user if the risk is deemed high and an additional factor of authentication is needed. • To take it a step further, combining password management with a strong multi-factor or risk-based mobile authentication solution will really give you the panacea you are looking for: secure access that is convenient to the end user. It’s also important to ensure that identity governance is woven in, with business-driven policies that decide who should have access to what and that drive access fulfilment. This all goes back to the balancing act we encounter in security every day –
50 |
security or convenience. At the end of the day, it’s all about enabling business productivity, but not at the expense of security. Password management alone is insufficient and insecure. Combining these solutions will really give you the best of both worlds. How Risk-Based Authentication Can Improve the Authentication Experience
Authentication should be both as reassuring and as transparent as possible to the user. Risk-based authentication (RBA) can improve the authentication experience if used correctly. Users want an authentication solution to be strong enough to protect their digital assets, but they do not want to be inconvenienced with clunky technology that negatively affects their experience. RBA is a solution that can provide convenience and assurance in equal measure. Let’s use an example to demonstrate these points. We are all creatures of habit: After fumbling for the alarm (not a clock anymore but an app on a smartphone) and gradually waking up, you probably use your phone to check the news, Facebook news feed,
work and personal email, and perhaps get the latest balance on your bank account. your smartphones, through a combination of GPS and cellular radio technology, will pretty accurately pinpoint your location. This location information (also supported by other
non-mobile phone devices through IP addressing) is a factor that can be useful for authentication purposes. If you combine a number of these factors together - normal behaviour, known location, and registered device - they become even more powerful in assuring service owners and providers that it is really you, checking your bank balance. At the heart of a RBA solution is the risk engine (RE). The RE tracks hundreds of risk indicators (factors) in real-time to determine the risk of each access request, and the risk indicators are then used to create a risk score. If you were using a brand new smartphone for the first time during your daily morning routine, or if you were not at your house, then your risk score would be higher and the service provider may want to challenge your identity to ensure that it was you and not a potential fraudster. The risk score would be even higher if, in combination with using a new smartphone from a different location, you not only checked your bank balance but wanted to initiate a wire transfer for $5,000.00 to a brand new account. This highlights the importance of context in RBA solutions. By assigning a risk level to each attempted login request, the RE can then dictate an appropriate authentication level to match the risk score. The lower the
risk score, the lower the authentication factor level assigned to the request or transaction. For example, checking your bank balance from a previously used smartphone at a “normal” time and location would result in a low risk score and allow you to use your normal method of authentication, which could just be a user ID and password. In the second scenario, in which you used a new device in a new location and attempted a £5,000.00 wire transfer, a higher risk score and a correspondingly stronger authentication challenge would be assigned. The service provider could generate and deliver a one-time password (OTP) using a trusted form of messaging (email could be used instead of SMS if the RE detected a new smartphone). This “step-up authentication” method ensures that, in higher risk situations, service providers can have a higher level of assurance that it is the legitimate user attempting to access an account. Dethroning the Username & Password
There is plenty of analysis out there on the risky nature of passwords – yet we still rely on them every day. What are our options and alternatives? How do we reduce the ‘importance’ of unintended access to username/ passwords combinations as we know it? There really is no simple answer. One time password technologies have been around for years (and what RSA has traditionally been known for), but that technology has mostly been leveraged by corporations and enterprise environments. And even in that realm – where we have had
great success in for so long – we are constantly working on bringing new innovations to the space. That being said, we are seeing OTP hit the mainstream here and there – for example resetting your email password and the service provider asking to text a code to use along with your username/password to help verify your identity. There is also adaptive authentication that we see being used widely which will ask you challenge questions when the system deems your behaviour risky. In addition, we are seeing even more innovations in the mobile space that take advantage of the built in capabilities of smartphones and tablets including high resolution cameras for facial recognition, high fidelity microphones for voice recognition, location & motion sensors, touch screen and fingerprint sensors, etc. These innovations coupled with real-time assessment of the risk are foundational to help secure sensitive data and limit the panic that one feels when their password is stolen. We need an intelligence driven model – one that can evaluate: •W hether this application requires strong security? •W hether the user is doing anything out of the ordinary based on their usual behaviour? Based on the level of risk and sensitivity of the action being taken, we can do a much better job of enforcing the type of user authentication required for the activity – helping to balance defence in depth with convenience.
security checkup... To speak to one of our security experts at Bytes SP to see how we could help, call our team on 0845 075 0560 or email securitysales@bytes.co.uk
www.bytes.co.uk | 51
security
PRIVILEGED ACCOUNTS
Keys Kingdom the
to the
The abuse of privileged account credentials – which include administrative accounts, default and hard coded passwords and application backdoors – remains the primary vector for almost all targeted cyber attacks. A number of high-profile incidents in recent years have shown that today’s attackers are adept at using tactics such as phishing to target, steal and exploit these powerful access rights. Once an attacker has successfully hijacked a privileged account, they can then spiral through a network, hijacking additional accounts and elevating privileges to gain access to vast stores of information and control within an organisation’s digital repositories. The infamous Edward Snowden / NSA breach highlighted that fact that it’s vital for employees to only have access to information that is essential for their role. It’s equally important that
these privileges can be revoked in real time if any suspicious activity takes place on these accounts. Many organisations are seeking proactive steps they can take to better protect themselves from targeted attacks. Protecting privileged accounts is an important part of this, and there are four stages that businesses can follow to ensure better security of these credentials:
1. Understand 2. Control 3. Monitor 4. Respond The first step – understand – includes not only knowing how many accounts there are within the organisation, but also knowing which of these accounts are protected and properly managed. This means being aware of what people are able to view, what systems they can access, and if there is a real legitimate need for those privileges. The next step is putting the right processes in place to control these accounts and determining appropriate security policies. Good security policies will provide strong controls, while aligning with IT operations procedures. Ongoing monitoring of the use of privileged accounts is an important proactive step towards protecting
52 |
against advanced threats. Effective monitoring helps businesses to focus on risky activities or abnormal behaviour, such as accounts being accessed at unusual times of day compared to normal use, and lets normal activity continue without interruption. The final step is having the right tools in place to respond to issues – whether it’s revoking privileges while individual instances are investigated, or filling a security hole that has been identified. Without central controls and continuous monitoring, it’s difficult for businesses to stop an attacker operating on the network once the perimeter has already been breached and the hacker has escalated their privileges. The privileged connection in cyber attacks is well documented and is not going away any time soon. It is inevitable that attackers will immediately look to hide in plain sight in order to access the most valuable information with as few traces as possible. Protection from within is invaluable, and while there is no silver bullet to secure a company from today’s advanced targeted threats, removing the ability for attackers to hijack and abuse privileged accounts is a crucial proactive step that is available to organisations right now.
security
2014 OF & YEAR
Mega Breaches Identity Theft The Breach Level Index (BLI) is a global database of data breaches as they happen and provides a methodology for
security professionals to score the severity of breaches and see where they rank among publicly disclosed breaches.
54 |
The BLI calculates the severity of data breaches across multiple dimensions based on breach disclosure information. The 2014 BLI Annual report reveals more than 1,500 data breaches that led to one billion data records compromised worldwide. These numbers represent a 49% increase in data breaches and a 78% increase in data records that were either stolen or lost compared to 2013. In terms of industries, retail and financial services experienced the most noticeable trends compared to other industry sectors in 2014. Retail experienced a slight increase in data breaches compared to last year, accounting for 11% of all data breaches in 2014. However, in terms of data records compromised, the retail industry saw its share increase to 55% compared to 29% last year due to an increased number of attacks that targeted point-of-sale systems. For the Financial Services sector, the number of data breaches remained relatively flat year over year, but the average number of records lost per breach increased ten-fold to 1.1 million from 112,000. Not only are data breach numbers rising, but the breaches are becoming more severe. Being breached is not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when.’ “Breach prevention and threat monitoring can only go so far and do not always keep the cyber criminals out. Companies need to adopt a data-centric view of digital threats starting with better identity and access control techniques such as multi-factor authentication and the use of encryption and key management to secure sensitive data. That way, if the data is stolen it is useless to the thieves.”
Not only are data breach numbers rising, but the breaches are becoming more severe. Being breached is not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when.’ Breach prevention and threat monitoring can only go so far and do not always keep the cyber criminals out. Through its acquisition of SafeNet, Gemalto offers one of the most complete portfolios of enterprise security solutions in the world, enabling its customers to enjoy industry-leading protection of digital identities, transactions, payments and data – from the edge to the core. Gemalto’s complete portfolio of SafeNet Identity and Data Protection solutions enable enterprises across many verticals, including major financial institutions and governments, to take a data-centric approach to security by utilizing innovative encryption methods, bestin-class crypto management techniques, and strong authentication and identity management solutions to protect what matters, where it matters. Through these solutions, Gemalto helps organizations achieve compliance with stringent data privacy regulations and ensure that sensitive corporate assets, customer information, and digital transactions are safe from exposure and manipulation in order to protect customer trust in an increasingly digital world.
get your copy...
to receive your copy of the 2014 Breach Level Index Annual Report call us on 0845 075 0560 or email securitysales@bytes.co.uk
www.bytes.co.uk | 55
security
SECURITY
CHECKUP THREAT ANALYSIS REPORT Your corporate network offers access to valuable and sensitive information. Information that must never fall into the wrong hands.
The Report Covers: Malware infected computers
Access to high risk web applications and websites
Exploited vulnerabilities and attacks on your network
Data leakage incidents
Recommendations to protect your network from these risks
56 |
Can you be sure there aren’t any hidden “surprises” threatening your most precious data assets? No stealthy malware, back doors, data leaks or other security vulnerabilities? Early exposure to hidden threats will e able you to immediately address these risks and enhance security. With Check Point, you can uncover security risks threatening your organisation. Security Checkup by Check Point is an assessment identifying security risks on your enterprise network. At the end of the assessment, we provide a comprehensive threat analysis report. As a Check Point 4Stars Elite Partner Bytes will also provide one of their Check Point security experts to assess and review this report with you, which includes all the security incidents detected during the assessment and recommendations on how to protect against these threats. Our consultants will then act as your advisor, to help you address any security issues and make your organisation more secure.
Full Range of Security Risks The report covers a full range of security risks: • High risk web applications and websites used by employees such as: P2P File Sharing applications, Proxy anonymisers, File Storage applications, malicious websites, and more • Analysis of malware threats including computers infected with bots, viruses, and unknown malware (zero day attacks and malware that cannot be detected by traditional anti-virus systems) • Exploited vulnerabilities of servers and computers in the organisation, indicating possible attacks • Sensitive data sent outside the organisation via emails or the web • Bandwidth analysis identifying the top bandwidth consuming applications and accessed websites to understand who and what is hogging your network bandwidth
• For existing Check Point customers with active Security Management: Compliance and best practices comparing the current rule base configuration with Check Point best practices recommendations and also with many industry standards including PCI, HIPAA, ISO, and others The Security Checkup report includes recommendations to help you understand the risks, and how to protect against them.
Zero Risk to Network The Security Checkup assessment deploys a Check Point security gateway within the network, inspecting traffic traversing the network. The gateway is not connected inline, avoiding network configuration changes and downtime. Instead, it inspects mirrored network traffic using the Monitor Port connected to a Test Access Point (TAP) device or a Mirror Port (also known as Span Port) on a network switch. Doing so removes all the challenges of inline connectivity, ensuring inspection of only copied network traffic. Because the Monitor Port does not transmit any traffic to the network, there is no change to the existing network configuration and no risk of downtime.
On-Site Assessment Any organisation can participate in a Security Checkup, regardless if they are currently using Check Point solutions or not. Bytes Security experts conduct on-site assessments that include four main steps: 1. Check Point Security Gateway Setup - The security expert sets up the Check Point Security Gateway upon which the assessment will be conducted. They then activate and configure all relevant Check Point Software blades. These may include Application Control, URL Filtering, IPS, Anti-Bot, Anti- Virus, Threat Emulation, DLP, Identity Awareness if required, SmartEvent or more. 2. Inspect Network Traffic - The device arrives on-site. Once plugged into the organisation’s network it begins to inspect network traffic. In order to ensure a thorough inspection, we recommended monitoring traffic for
at least a week. The longer the time period of inspection, the better. 3. Results Analysis – After removing the device from the network, the security expert analyses the results and generates the Security Checkup report. 4. Findings Report - The security expert will present the findings that identify weak points in the network. Then they will go over what security technologies and solutions may be best for you protect your network against these threats.
What’s in it for You? • Better awareness of your security risk exposure • Identification and prioritisation of security gaps that require improvement • Introduction to the latest security technology that cover all aspects of network security.
Security Checkup by Check Point is an assessment identifying security risks on your enterprise network. At the end of the assessment, we provide a comprehensive threat analysis report.
security checkup...
To speak to a security expert at Bytes regarding the report and see how we can help you analyse the threats to your network, call our team on 0845 075 0560 or email securitysales@bytes.co.uk
www.bytes.co.uk | 57
BYTES is a Checkpoint Elite partner - one of only two in the UK!
security
YOUR
SECURITY
OPTIONS Win Server FOR
2003EOL Microsoft Windows Server 2003 will reach its end-of-productsupport-life date on 14 July 2015. After this date, Microsoft will no longer automatically issue security patches, leaving these systems highly vulnerable to zero-day attacks and other forms of malicious code.
58 |
Businesses may choose to continue running their applications on unsupported Windows servers for a multitude of reasons, such as: • Minimise downtime for missioncritical applications and manage their budgets by staggering the migration to the new supported platform • Support a mission-critical, legacy, proprietary application that is not currently supported by the new platform Challenges of Legacy Systems The following security and compliance issues influence how businesses will execute their Windows Server 2003 EOL migration and risk mitigation strategies: 1) Security threats from zero-day vulnerabilities and sophisticated malware 2) Regulatory compliance and cyber security governance including PCIDSS and HIPAA-HITECH 3) Reputation damage and remediation cost associated with data breach 4) Costs associated with testing and validating “custom” Microsoft patches What Options Are There? Organisations have four options for addressing their potential security exposure from running unsupported Windows Server 2003 systems after its last day of support:
Option 1: Do nothing.
Some may choose to continue running applications on the unsupported platform when these applications are not considered as mission critical. Recent data breaches have shown that malicious hackers are taking advantage of vulnerabilities in unsupported systems to gain a backdoor entry for launching their attacks.
Option 2:
Migrate applications into the new Windows Server Systems platform. This option is most suitable for taking advantage of the benefits of a new OS and its associated applications, or for minimising the operational and management costs of IT systems by standardising its hardware and software. Businesses will be able to eliminate the risks and vulnerabilities associated with end-of-life systems.
Option 3:
Purchase “Custom Support Agreements (CSA)” from Microsoft. There are several critical issues to consider for organisations evaluating this option: • Only businesses with a Premier Support Contract are eligible to purchase a CSA • Based on recent customer discussions, quotes can range from $500 to $750 per server • Access to “custom support” for legacy platforms like Windows Server 2003 are not distributed automatically • Even if Microsoft rates a vulnerability at the highest critical level, Microsoft will commit to a patch but there are no strict SLAs for the responsiveness to deliver this patch
Option 4:
Protect, Monitor, and Harden your legacy systems with Server Hardening Solutions. With this approach, the organisation deploys HIPS/HIDS based security to harden the servers, monitor for any activities in the application and OS kernels, and lock down admin rights and access to applications. This option will enable the ability to execute a server refresh and migration plan that fits their operational and budget objectives, and still protect their server infrastructure. This results in minimal downtime and protects applications that are not currently compatible with the new OS platform. Benefits of this approach: • Improves the security posture of servers by protecting them against known and unknown (zero-day) malware • Eliminates emergency patching, and minimises downtime and IT expenses related to patching through proactive protection that does not require continuous updates
• Reduces security incidents and remediation costs with continuous protection even if the server is unable to get the latest patches in a timely fashion Symantec Data Center Security Symantec Data Center Security: Server Advanced will help customers secure their Windows Server 2003 and other legacy systems effectively, so they can: • Minimise downtime and business disruption • Execute a platform migration plan that fits their operational and budget constraints • Maintain compliance to security standards and fulfill regulatory obligations • Automate and orchestrate a micro segmentation strategy, thus applying security hardening policies at the application level instead of relying on rigid network and security zones. This “application-level” security approach provides an additional layer of protection for mission-critical applications in the event a Windows Server 2003 system is compromised Symantec Data Center Security: Server Advanced offers the following features to protect the customers’ legacy Windows Server 2003 systems:
For more information on Symantec Data Center Security: Server Advanced, download the Data Sheet on www.symantec.com
As with any migration, the challenge is to execute it in an efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable manner while protecting end-user productivity. Symantec can meet that challenge with migration and deployment solutions that streamline processes to cut the expense, delay, and disruption of migration, keeping it in control.
safe & secure...
to discuss your options in more detail call your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 59
security
strengthen the security of
office
365
McAfee® Email Protection solutions provide advanced defenses against phishing attacks.
While Office 365 includes built-in security capabilities, additional protection is needed when it comes to spear-phishing exploits that use social engineering methods and other tactics to find and exfiltrate vital corporate data. McAfee® Email Protection solutions provide enterprise-grade security for Microsoft Office 365, defending against phishing attacks faster, offering greater reliability, and improving email continuity. Enterprise-grade email protection is available for most popular email form factors, along with the flexibility and scalability to support changing customer environments in any sector.
McAfee Email Protection for Microsoft Office 365 When layered over Office 365, McAfee Email Protection can provide the advanced threat protection businesses need to prevent attacks and stop advanced malware. Advanced phishing protection With McAfee Email Protection, you get phishing protection from the number-one-rated zero-day McAfee Gateway Anti-Malware Engine - a technology that’s part of McAfee Web Protection - built into email security as a core feature. We help you defend against advanced phishing tactics with ClickProtect, powered by this engine and available at no extra cost. ClickProtect, a feature of McAfee Email Protection, works in real time - at the time when a URL is clicked - and asks the all-important question: “Is this URL safe?” URLs are inspected by the McAfee Gateway Anti-Malware Engine, which uses emulation to detect malicious web content, without the need for a signature. It also provides users with customizable warning pages and secure previews of the destination web page to reinforce their phishing detection skills. And no matter what device users access or to whom they forward the email, ClickProtect security follows the message. McAfee Email Protection also prevents sensitive data from escaping via email because it leverages McAfee Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and McAfee SaaS Email Encryption technologies -
60 |
there’s no need to integrate separate solutions. Built-in compliance templates are more extensive and more accurate than Office 365 when it comes to identifying confidential data. These DLP capabilities are fully compatible with Office 365 and Google Apps for Work. Email attachments may also be scanned for stealthy, advanced malware. Through signatureless detection technology, including file emulation, static code analysis, and sandboxing, these threats can be uncovered and blocked with McAfee Advanced Threat Defense for Email Protection. Ultimate flexibility As you move your mailbox infrastructure to Exchange Online or a Hybrid Exchange, McAfee Email Protection follows, providing advanced, enterprise-grade security during testing, migration, and postmigration. Regardless of when and where mailboxes are deployed, email security can migrate with them. Flexible, hybrid deployment options with a single management and reporting console enable you to take advantage of the cloud without sacrificing privacy.
INTEGRATED,EASY-TO-DEPLOY
security controls
for your Microsoft
Azure environment Your Microsoft Azure environment can quickly scale up or down to match demand. You need an endpoint security solution that is just as nimble and scalable, but that will also protect your data with the same strength your traditional endpoints require. That’s why Intel Security have integrated McAfee Endpoint Security with the Azure PowerShell platform to make it easy to deploy, configure, and manage in your Microsoft Azure environment. It’s an easy way to take advantage of the full benefits of Microsoft Azure without sacrificing your security requirements.
How Does It Work?
Using Microsoft’s integrated security extensions, you can quickly and easily add security controls such as threat protection, web security, messaging security, and data protection to your virtual machines. And, because McAfee Endpoint Security can be deployed, provisioned, and managed through the Azure PowerShell platform, it is easy to reclaim and reapply your licenses to new machines as your workload changes. Deploying protection is easy using the Microsoft Azure console and McAfee Endpoint Protection Manager. Once deployed, the machine will appear automatically in Endpoint Protection Manager and you can apply policies using McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator (McAfee ePO).
Why Protect Your Azure Environment with McAfee Endpoint Protection? • Integrates with Microsoft Azure and deploys easily using the Azure PowerShell platform. • Provides advanced security for all of your endpoints - physical, virtual, and cloud servers. • Includes antivirus, anti-malware, host intrusion prevention, device control, host-based firewall, dynamic application control, and more to tackle malware, zero-day threats, and evasion attacks at every vector - mobile, data, web, email, and network. • Leverages our Security Connected approach, layering hardware-enhanced technologies, dynamic whitelisting, smart scanning, advanced anti-malware, mobile protection, and more.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Are all McAfee Endpoint Protection suites compatible with Azure environments? A: Yes, all components of McAfee Endpoint Protection suites are compatible with Azure Virtual Machines. Q: Are the pricing and licensing models different for deploying to virtual machines versus physical devices? A: No, the pricing models are similar for either virtual or physical devices. Q: Can I try McAfee Endpoint Protection in my Azure environment before purchasing it? A: Yes, when you choose the McAfee Endpoint Extension during the creation of your virtual environment, and the extension has finished installing, McAfee Endpoint Protection will be in trial mode and you can log into your VM to activate your software and sign up for a free 30-day trial. Q: If I am a McAfee Endpoint Protection customer, can I use my existing licenses with Azure deployments? A: Yes, if you are a current McAfee Endpoint Protection customer you have the option to install and include your security licence in your Azure environment. Q: How do I get support? A: As long as you are a current customer with a valid grant number, you can contact McAfee Technical Support for assistance.
• Minimises impact on users with fewer, more efficient scans and advanced memory management techniques. • Installs easily - with as few as four clicks, you’re up and running. • Uses McAfee ePO to streamline endpoint policy management across all devices and provide single-pane-of-glass security visibility.
more info...
• Delivers real-time, cloud-based McAfee Global Threat Intelligence, collecting the latest data to protect against known and emerging cyberthreats.
speak to a security expert at Bytes about Intel Security on: 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 61
security
better together: Detection & Prevention
with Next-Gen EndUser Protection Today, business users now access, store and transmit business information using a vast array of mobile devices and routinely access data stored on the network, in the cloud and on the devices themselves, without distinguishing between them. Maxim Weinstein Senior Product Marketing Manager Sophos ESG
The result is a huge step change in productivity and in what users expect to be able to do via their endpoints, wherever they are. Meeting those expectations has posed massive headaches for IT organisations, faced with protecting a diverse set of workstation and mobile device platforms, and it has meant that organisations have had to rethink the way they protect both their devices and their data. Although desktop antivirus may have once been sufficient endpoint protection, todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cyber threat landscape â&#x20AC;&#x201C; with increasingly sophisticated attacks and a growing number of successful data breaches â&#x20AC;&#x201C; requires a more comprehensive approach to create a secure computing environment. While we have seen attackers taking advantage of these changes, adapting to new platforms and developing more sophisticated attacks, endpoint security has been slower to evolve. In most cases, the focus is still primarily on preventing malicious files from infecting Windows endpoints. Little wonder, then, that businesses are struggling to keep up with the latest threats and to protect their sensitive data.
62 |
The Sophos solution to all of this is to focus on the enduser, irrespective of which device they are currently using, delivering complete and real-time protection wherever the user is, and making it easier for businesses to enforce security policies across all devices and platforms. We call this Next-Generation Enduser Protection (NGEUP). Launched in January, NGEUP provides more effective and simpler-to-manage security for end user devices and data by integrating innovative endpoint, mobile and encryption technologies. It is a stepping stone to achieving our Project Galileo vision of nextgeneration enduser, server and network technologies all working together as a unified, cloud-managed security system. Underlying NGEUP - and Sophos’ entire product strategy - are three guiding principles: 1. Security must be comprehensive: A solution must include all the capabilities required to satisfy a customer’s needs. 2. Security can be made simple: That simplicity must be reflected in everything about the solution, including deployment, management, licensing, support and the overall user experience. 3. Security is more effective as a system: New possibilities emerge when technology components communicate and cooperate, instead of each functioning in isolation. Next-Generation Enduser Protection is Sophos’ vision of applying these principles to deliver better security for enduser devices and data through the integration of innovative endpoint, mobile and encryption technologies. Imagine a system that collects suspicious events from all your devices, correlates the data to identify a compromised system, alerts the administrator, temporarily locks down the system - and access from that system to sensitive network and cloud data and removes the detected threat, all automatically. That’s what NextGeneration Enduser Protection will make possible. Next-Generation Enduser Protection represents a fundamental change to how we approach security. Traditional antivirus starts and ends with preventing infected files from running on a computer. If an infected file does
run, the attacker is now in a position to cause damage or steal data without being detected. In contrast, we’re looking not just at whether a file is infected, but whether the computer is exhibiting behaviours that indicate the system is under attack or already compromised. We can then bring all our technology to bear on stopping and removing the threat. By focusing on prevention, detection and remediation of the entire system, we can give organisations peace of mind that they will suffer fewer infections and have a lower risk of data breaches and other security incidents. The first next-generation feature released on the endpoint is Malicious Traffic Detection, which catches compromised computers in the act of communicating with attackers’ command and control servers. Similar technology available in nextgeneration firewalls (including the
Sophos UTM) can alert administrators to the presence of a compromised system on the network. But because Sophos NGEUP integrates the feature into the endpoint, it can go further by detecting a compromise on or off the network, identifying the specific malicious file, and cleaning up the infection. For customers, this means better detection rates and less time investigating and manually cleaning compromised systems. “Security needs are evolving as quickly as today’s businesses, and Sophos is committed to taking user protection to the next level,” said Dan Schiappa, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Sophos Enduser Security Group. “That’s why we keep innovating and building on our existing, proven technology to provide even better security that is simple to manage.”
BYTES own Adam Thornton won the Individual Contribution Award
Why choose Sophos Endpoint Protection? User-based licensing Sophos per-user licensing for Sophos Endpoint Protection is affordable and simple to administer. You can protect all your users’ Windows, Mac and mobile devices together. And users can add devices without adding to your security overhead. Recently Sophos conducted a survey of IT managers to find out how they’re handling the growing challenge of device diversity across their organisations. It was found out that IT departments increasingly need to support Windows PCs,
Macs and mobile devices: 78% support or plan to support Macs on their networks, and 41% see the number of Macs increasing in their corporate environments. Mobile devices are proliferating just as rapidly as Macs, if not more so. Whether it be the iPad Air used by your CEO, the latest Samsung Galaxy smartphone running Android, or the iPhone 6 your users are pestering you to configure for corporate use – you need complete control over all of them.
end user security... To find out more about Detection and Prevention call your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 63
security
HOW TO mitigate
theof arisk move to
office365 Microsoft Office 365 is an attractive option for organisations wanting to move their collaboration and productivity tools to the cloud and remove the need for an on-premises service such as Microsoft Exchange server. Orlando Scott-Cowley Evangelist, strategist & technologist, Mimecast
The benefits include elastically scalable storage, predictable subscription costs, performance, ubiquity of access and high availability but the real advantage is increased flexibility around scale and style of deployment. But while the capabilities of Office 365 are sufficient for some business, others – particularly large enterprises, or those with compliance requirements – will often need additional third party products and services. These may relate to organisational complexity, security and risk management considerations, or the simple concern around having so much mission critical technology dependent on a single vendor. Having made the decision to move your core email services to the cloud, CIOs will not want to purchase LAN-based products to meet these peripheral use cases, which ultimately keep them tethered to the LAN regardless. Planning for outages Two major Microsoft outages affected Office 365 in 2014 – the Azure outage
64 |
in November and the email outage on Exchange Online and Office 365 in June. It’s a stark reminder that care must be taken to ensure business continuity, as well as security and data integrity risks, are mitigated in the cloud in the same way they were on-premises – even with a vendor as established as Microsoft. Cloud outages will continue to happen so it’s essential to consider how to apply your well established risk management processes to new cloud purchases. Just as you built redundancy into onpremises IT infrastructure, you should not trust any of your critical business processes to one single cloud provider. Testing cloud services for downtime, failover processes, and other critical elements remain rare best practice. You need a plan for the inevitable moment that cloud service will be unavailable. At an operational level, enterprise IT is often firmly tethered to the internal LAN too; IT teams are keen to remove the complexity that has grown around their business systems, but the legacy
nature of these systems often means they are hard to replace. Moving to Office 365 can be the goal, but these stubborn LAN tethers can firmly hold organisations back from realising that goal.
Blending clouds The answer is a simple hybrid-cloud approach. A secondary cloud service, like Mimecast, can work seamlessly with Office 365 to enhance security and help ensure business continuity, data redundancy and archiving requirements are met. Cloud archives can also more easily accommodate connections to live Outlook services and SharePoint. Moving the email archive to the cloud makes it easier to allow employees to search all of their data through their phones and tablets. Defensive security services can be easily built around your cloud investments, such as Mimecast’s Targeted Threat Protection, designed to combat the growing threat of spear-phishing. This service scans all URLs in inbound emails every time they are clicked by the user, even if it’s through mobile devices not provided by the employer. Protecting the link is the only real way to defeat this threat, and for the enterprise that means adding another layer to the security stack. For business users of Office365 this means a similar layer of security over and above the already useful Exchange Online Protection.
BYTES
How it Works Simple to deploy, simple to manage, enhanced Office 365 - Switch corporate MX records to point to Mimecast, which then delivers to Office 365 - Route all outbound traffic from Office 365 through the Mimecast platform - Securely connect Mimecast to your Active Directory for user authentication - Inbound and outbound email is automatically retained in the archive - Use Microsoft Office 365 journaling to securely transfer all email to the Mimecast archive (all plans) - Enabling Exchange Co-existence with Exchange on-premise and Office 365 to smooth cloud migrations and manage users - Spam and malware is automatically removed by Mimecast’s multiple layers of protection - Administrator defined email content policies are applied
- Access all email management functionality from a single administration console. Outlook email continuity and personal archive access - Mimecast Outlook client application optionally installed - End users can search their Mimecast personal archive directly from Microsoft Outlook - If Office 365 or Exchange is offline, the Mimecast Outlook client automatically sends and receives email via the Mimecast service - Once Outlook has reconnected to Office 365 or Exchange, the Mimecast Outlook client automatically synchronises with Exchange and removes duplicate messages.
BlackBerry email continuity - Mimecast provides archive search apps for Windows Phone, Android, iPhone and BlackBerry smartphones - Users simply download the relevant mobile app to view and search their Mimecast archive - Deploy BlackBerry smartphone app via BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) - During BlackBerry email outages, simply activate the BlackBerry continuity service in the Mimecast administration console - The BlackBerry smartphone connects directly to Mimecast to send and receive email - When servers are back online, administrator de-activates BlackBerry continuity service. Web-based email continuity - Simply inform users of the Mimecast Personal Portal URL - Users have secure access to live and historical email, and calendar information from any web browser.
awarded...
a coveted Microsoft Innovative ‘Customer Advocacy Partner of the Year’ award from Microsoft. For more information please call your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 65
Mimecast Growth Partner of the Year 2014
security
SECURE MOBILITY
from the Trusted Leader, that’s TECHNOLOGY
Good Technology’s secure mobility portfolio delivers solutions for the entire mobility lifecycle, so you can securely build, manage, support and secure devices, apps and content. Good’s Suites: The Good Management Suite is a solution for those getting started with mobility. It offers the MDM that an enterprise needs, whilst providing access to Good’s Platform, to future-proof their mobility solution. The Good Enterprise Suite offers an easy, out of the box, solution for secure productivity with entry level EMM capabilities. It includes secure email, calendar, address book, browsing, and mobile device management along with a customizable enterprise app store. The Good Collaboration Suite integrates enterprise resources such as SharePoint, network file storage, IM integration and behind-the-firewall browsing, with the addition of mobile CRM via secure access to the Good for SalesForce1 app and can also deploy additional ISV apps. The Good Mobility Suite delivers advanced EMM by allowing companies to create their own custom apps and deploy them along with Good-secured commercial apps. This Suite also enables IT departments to manage the mobile infrastructure and provide excellent end-user support.
66 |
Good’s Apps: • Good Work: revolutionary new secure collaboration app including mobile presence, email, contacts, calendar and documents • Good for Enterprise: containerised email, calendar, contacts, browser access, task management and document data
• Good Access: mobile browser to securely access corporate intranets and web applications • Good for Salesforce1: a secured mobile app version of Salesforce1 giving IT the security and control over customer data necessary to meet regulatory requirements
• Third Party Apps: Good’s Apps are supported by apps from our ISV partners, as well as custom built apps, to provide an ecosystem of applications for secure business workflows which interact with each other within the Good container.
• Good Share: a secure client for direct access to corporate SharePoint environments and fileservers, including file synchronisation and support for SharePoint workflows • Good Connect: a containerized instant messaging (IM) client for Microsoft Lync and IBM
From their secure mobile development platform to their collaboration suite to their ecosystem of third party partner applications, Good Technology have every aspect of secure mobility covered.
BYTES are proud to be named Good Technology Partner of the Year 2015
Are you looking to incorporate Android into your Mobility Programme? Samsung Knox - The Most Secure Solution for Android Samsung KNOX offers a multi-faceted security solution based on tamper-resistant device hardware, a secured Linux kernel and Security Enhanced Android operating system, providing certified security against rooting and malware protection that preserves system integrity. Now the millions of deployed Good-secured apps and containers can easily be integrated with Samsung KNOX’s embedded Android security. Together, Good for Samsung KNOX: • Prevents rooting of corporate Android devices, or rooted BYOD devices from accessing corporate resources • Protects devices against Android malware that attempts to modify the kernel or system • Secures corporate apps and data at rest, in motion, in memory, and between apps. Good for Samsung KNOX is available at no extra cost in Good’s suites. It brings together the leading secure mobile app platform with the leading embedded security solution for Android, allowing organisations to accelerate corporate liable (CL), corporate owned, personally enabled (COPE), and bring your own device (BYOD) Android programs. Mobilising your people, processes and information is essential to staying competitive and growing your business. Over 6000 customers trust Good to deliver secure mobility solutions that help them deliver business results.
try for free...
do you have Microsoft Office 365? Try Good’s revolutionary new app Good Work now, for free. Contact your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500 for a free 30 day trial in the cloud.
www.bytes.co.uk | 67
applications
68 |
BYTES were named the largest Snow Partner Award 2015
To find out how Snowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on-premise and cloud-based SAM platforms can help you, contact your Bytes Account Manager on 01372 418500
www.bytes.co.uk | 69
applications
Subscription-based creative software
THE NEW WAY
of procuring software FOR FUTURE-READY BUSINESS The software industry is increasingly moving to subscription-based solutions for businesses of all sizes. Subscription-based software enables IT teams gain more control over their costs, flexibility over their deployments and the knowledge that they always have access to the most up-to-date and reliable software. The tools you need, as you need them Traditional software models require you to invest in new versions and upgrades in order to ensure you have the most recent, feature-rick and secure versions. Subscription software provides continual updates that deliver new features, stability and reliability as part of your service. You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to wait for product releases or pay for new versions - your tools are improved on a constant and ongoing basis. Lower up-front costs Traditional boxed-software models typically require a large up-front capital expense to support a growing team. By choosing a subscription software solution, you can add software for as many new creative team members as you need, at a fraction of the up-front cost of traditional software purchases.
Adobe Creative Cloud - the benefits of subscription with the power of Adobe. Adobe, the industry leader in creative software, is also leading the industry in delivering subscription-based creative software solutions. By leveraging Adobe Creative Cloud, your organisation immediately gains access to more than 38 of Adobeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s creative applications, with all features and updates available in the most recent version and access to ongoing updates and improvements. Adobe Creative Cloud gives your IT team control and flexibility to distribute and manage software across your team efficiently and effectively.
70 |
the
creative cloud journey began 23rd April 2012 1,000+ new features & counting
End of life for CS Commercial and Government TLP/CLP licensing
24 May Kim Kardashian marries Kanye West
18 June 14 new desktop apps
2 June Start of the Brazil World Cup
18 June Creative Cloud 2014 release
18 June Brand new mobile apps
15 June UK iTunes store 10th birthday
7 - 23 February Sochi Winter Olympics
16 January Photoshop 14.2 CC update with 3D printing
16 January Illustrator CC update - live corners
16 January Typekit - Sync Fonts launches
June - September Lightroom & DPS (Single edition) available in CC
15 January InDesign 9.2 Typkit update
13 December After Effects CC 12.2 update
27 July - 12 August London Olympics
31 October Premiere Pro 7.1 CC update
15 November Sony® Playstation 4 launches
19 November “Selfie” becomes word of the year by the Oxford English Dictionary
11 December CC for teams launches
13 November Muse CC update
Early February “Harlem Shake” becomes a viral trend
22 July Prince George of Cambridge born
1 August CC single apps launches
7 July Andy Murray wins Wimbledon
14 July DPS tools for InDesign CC available
19 March Creative Cloud exceeds one million customers
23 April CS6 released
23 April Creative Cloud announced
22 July Bradley Wiggins cycles to victory at the Tour de France
20 December Behance acquired by Adobe
14 February Preview of Edge Reflow, HTML5 responsive design tool for web
6 May CC in Creative Cloud announced for release on 17 June
www.bytes.co.uk | 71
applications
Oracle Linux LOW COST High Availability As one of the most widely deployed operating systems today, Linux is increasingly being adopted for cloud-based solutions. Oracle Linux is the most complete and integrated solution available - and delivers higher performance and better reliability at up to 7 times lower cost than Red Hat. Zero Downtime Updates with Ksplice Ksplice, now available as part of Oracle Linux, updates the Linux operating system (OS) kernel, while it is running, without a reboot or any interruption. Only Oracle Linux offers this unique capability, making it possible for you to keep up with important Linux updates without burdening your team with the operational cost and disruption of rebooting for every update to Linux. Key Features: • Rollback capability. Any update that can be applied using Ksplice can also be reversed without rebooting. • No performance impact. Ksplice does not negatively affect
Oracle Linux Cost Calculator
performance. No virtualisation, daemon, or system agent
You could save $29,000 with Oracle Linux!
is required
$39k
• Web interface and API. View and manage the status of
$32k
Ksplice on all your systems, from one place – either via a
$26k
Web interface, or programmatically via a REST API
$19k
• Virtualisation-ready. Ksplice works perfectly well in virtualised environments.
$39k
$13k
$10k
$6k $0k
Oracle
* Based on a 1 year support contact for 20 servers, 2 sockets per server and up to 4 virtual guests per server.
Red Hat
See for yourself the kind of cost savings you can get with Oracle Linux: www.oracle.com/us/media/calculator/linuxtco 72 |
Oracle Licensing
MADE EASY
Oracle Licensing is complex. You need to have ongoing access to accurate, up-to-date data on the Oracle software you have deployed and are using - to ensure you optimize your investment while remaining compliant.
We can provide you with an accurate and complete view across physical, virtual and cloud-based servers to ensure you gain, and maintain, control of your Oracle licensing.
Your Challenges
• Correctly identifying all options and management packs in use • Uncovering details of all CPUs and cores in all servers where Oracle is installed • Understanding “hard” and “soft” partitioning rules in virtualised and partitioned environments • Accurately interpreting the information discovered.
Common Mistakes We find the most common causes of inaccuracy are: • Errors in CPU and core counts - especially when dealing with multi-core, multi-threaded and virtualised servers • Failure to understand and identify which options require licensing based on installation and which options require licensing based only on use • Changes made to infrastructure as part of transformation, consolidation and virtualisation projects causing an unintended impact on Oracle licensing.
free
OFFER
Many of our customers are surprised at the challenges they face in trying to accurately determine their true Oracle position. These include: • Discovering all instances of Oracle installed across the network
Discover what Oracle is being used in your business for FREE • An Inventory of your Oracle Apps, Database and Middleware
• A follow up meeting to discuss your usage and compliant position • 100% agentless and mutli-platform • A guarantee that this information is NOT shared with Oracle. Simply email tellmemore@bytes. co.uk with the subject line “Free Oracle Licensing Discovery” Alternatively watch our Oracle Licensing Webinar, type into YouTube “Bytes Webinar - Optimising your Oracle Licensing”
www.bytes.co.uk | 73
applications
NEW reasons
ADOBE ACROBAT PRO DC
TOP
to BUY! All-new Adobe Acrobat Pro DC with Adobe Document Cloud services is the complete PDF workflow solution for today’s mobile, connected world. Acrobat desktop software is now combined with the new Acrobat DC mobile app and Document Cloud services helps you meet end-user demand for mobile solutions, let your organisation build smarter document workflows, and help ensure document security across devices. Luke Kiernan Adobe Sales, Bytes
Top Reasons to buy for IT Professionals. Meet user demand for mobile solutions - With Acrobat Pro DC, users can stay connected - and productive - with the new Acrobat DC mobile app. PDFs opened recently on either their computer or mobile device are instantly accessible, so it’s easy to swipe through files, add comments, fill and sign forms, and share files with others from anywhere. Get unmatched security - Help mitigate PDF-based attacks with multiple built-in defenses and advanced security techniques, such as sandboxing. Protect sensitive information in documents - Help safeguard company information by setting default document security properties for your organisation or by creating automated Actions to define a set of security tasks that users can easily apply to their PDF files. All security measures and protections move across devices. Integrate with - and extend - Microsoft investments -Take advantage of support for Microsoft Windows 7 and 8. Give users direct access to Acrobat functionality from the Microsoft Office ribbon. Open, edit, and save PDF files from Office 365 and SharePoint libraries. Streamline deployment - Simplify deployment and updates with support for Microsoft SCCM/ SCUP and Apple Remote Desktop, and get free Adobe tools such as the Adobe Customisation Wizard to speed up installation and configuration.
74 |
11
XI
Great Reasons to upgrade to
Acrobat
Get more out of your PDF documents.
You need advanced security, lower costs, and easier management. Your users need a way to do more with PDF documents. Adobe® Acrobat® XI makes it all possible. Acrobat XI means a more seamless experience for your users, fewer hassles for your IT team. Adobe® Acrobat® XI is more than just the leading PDF converter. It’s packed with smart tools that give you even more power to communicate. 1. Lower software management costs Reduce maintenance costs by spending less time on out-of-cycle security patches. 2. Increase application security Let your users work with PDF files without creating a risk to your systems and data. 3. Simplify your review and approval processes Gather feedback faster in shared PDF reviews that let people see and build on each other’s comments. 4. Do more with Microsoft integration Make it easy for your users to create and reuse PDF files that work, seamlessly with Microsoft Office, Office 365, and SharePoint. 5. Simplify IT by standardising Lower IT costs and simplify software management by standardising on the industry’s leading PDF solution.
6. Protect PDF files Make it easy for users to consistently secure documents, both inside and outside the organisation.
7. Stop retyping information in PDF files Turn a PDF into a native Microsoft Office file, saving fonts, formatting and tons of time.
BYTES has won 3 Adobe Channel Partner Awards in the last 3 years
8. Edit text and images right in your PDF file Make minor changes to text and images on PDF pages - no need to track down the original document. 9. Build forms and gather data faster Drag and drop to create PDF or web forms in minutes. Then move them online for easy distribution, collection, and analysis. 10. Share documents that look right every time It’s never been easier to save your work as PDF files that anyone can open and view- even on mobile devices 11. Merge and combine files for clearer communication Pull multiple files into a single, organised PDF file that’s easy to email and simple to search.
further info...
on Adobe Acrobat XI and Pro DC contact your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 75
events
events
how do you keep
well informed? Each year, thousands of our customers join us at swanky hotels across the country to hear the latest from the world of software and security. We’ve even been known to let in those “potential” customers to see what they are missing! If you would like to join us, simply visit www.bytes.co.uk/events
Sarah Folley Marketing Exec Amy Hammond Marketing Exec
Bytes Webinars – over 100 available to view for free now! To hear the latest Software and Security solutions from our leading vendors visit
www.bytes.co.uk/webinar
76 |
applications
PDF ADVANCED Power
&UNLIMITED PDF uncompromised For demanding business users, Power PDF is the next generation PDF solution that delivers performance, ease and value as never before, freeing you from the compromises of traditional PDF applications. Benfits of Power PDF Advanced • Boost productivity with automated workflows • Validate conformance with PDF/A archival and accessibility standards • Enterprise PDF security and rights management • Encourage users to comply with records management protocols • Easily deploy in compliance with information governance policy • Run in Citrix and Microsoft Virtual Machine environments
When the demands of business demand PDF, demand Power PDF.
pdf software... For PDF software that is available via a perpetual license model, call Bytes on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 77
partners
Over the last five years cloud platforms have evolved to become an undeniable part of the Information
Microsoft Azure Technology landscape.
To help our customers fully utilise the technology locked in their software licensing agreements, we have developed our Partner Eco-System - designed to complete the legwork of short-listing high quality, suitably accredited suppliers from someone you trust. From Cloud and Virtualisation strategies through to the implementation of Microsoft SharePoint, Unified Communications, Security and Data BackUp services, we’ve found and recruited System Integrators and IT Solution Providers that share our standards and complement our software services. We call it our Partner Eco-System.
Maggie Perry Microsoft & Partner Business Manager, Bytes
Today with a plethora of successful deployments and even more satisfied customers under our belts, Bytes is building a strong reputation as an organisation that can not only bring sense, clarity and cost control to software licensing but also excellence in the delivery of solutions that will drive true benefit to Customers. If you’d like to know more about how our Partner Eco-System can help you unlock the true value in your licensing agreements, please read the following four articles written by our Partners or ask your Account Manager for more information about the spectrum of technologies that we can deliver and the Partners we engage with.
78 |
As awareness is supplemented by understanding, cloud adoption is on the increase and as security tightens, the cloud cautious are fewer in numbers. Those organisations adopting the cloud are finding benefits such as a reduced costs, increased scalability, and increased efficiency. Capital vs. operational expenditure: A new perspective
Capex vs. Opex is a decision that is becoming prevalent surrounding technology spend for organisations. Traditional on premise infrastructure requires high levels of capex, as well as ongoing storage and maintenance costs. Azure, Microsoft’s cloud brings a new perspective with its pay as you use model. This means a step away from investing heavily on servers with a shelf life, a benefit that many companies cannot ignore. It’s not just
negating the need for large capex and a reduction in operational costs but also the many technological solutions available.
Stepping away from traditional hosting The last 6 months in particular have seen a change in the Azure product landscape and an upturn in interest in the number and relative size of companies who are now looking seriously at the platform as an alternative to their traditional hosting arrangements. Bytes, in conjunction with Microsoft’s FY15 Partner of the Year Dot Net Solutions Ltd., have engaged on a number of key technology domains during this time. A major airport authority had Dot Net design an alternative Identity solution using Windows Azure AD Premium. This allowed them to deploy a Single Sign On solution across a range of externally hosted SaaS applications, as well as providing them with a fully integrated and very flexible Multi Factor Authentication service to staff.
give both capacity when needed and cost efficiency when the platform is under less demand. Bytes and Dot Net have assisted other companies to migrate key line of business applications, both vendor supported and in house developed to Azure services.
More than just cost efficiency: Transform business process Finally Bytes and Dot Net have also seen companies interested in running a cross section of services out of Azure to allow them to vacate existing data centres and take advantage of the low costs of Azure hosting. These companies are deploying an ‘office in a box’ type suite of services providing core infrastructure like Active Directory, file and print alongside application and database hosting and storage.
to dispense with on-premise infrastructure and enjoy the benefits of running whole business units entirely out of the cloud. It is an exciting time to work with Azure. Bytes and Dot Net are continuing to have positive experiences and seeing the business advantages associated with the platform.
These services can be supplemented with Office 365 for messaging and collaboration and Azure hosted System Center for desktop imaging deployment, management and remote monitoring. This allows companies
Capacity and cost efficiency A budget airline is working with Dot Net and Bytes to migrate all of their public facing web elements to Azure platform services. This is to significantly reduce their current hosting costs and provide them with a dynamically scaling environment to
find out...
To find out more about Microsoft Azure or how Bytes and Dotnet Solutions can help you to implement it please speak to your Bytes account manager 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 79
partners
Bonhams are a privately owned British auction house and one of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques.
making the
cloud to move to the
The Bonhams name is recognised worldwide throughout all sectors of the fine art, antiques and collectors market. Bonhams like all global organisations (their operations are spread across the US, Hong Kong and Australia) needed a way to help them meet the growing demands and challenges of their industry. They started by tackling their IT systems, most notably, understanding what potential a Microsoft Office 365 solution could provide whilst gaining full visibility of the potential impact a new system could have.
Alongside the technical aspects Bonhams also had several business goals they wanted to achieve through the new implementation. They wanted to deliver a solution that enables users to communicate and collaborate effectively across the business on any device, create greater visibility of users and resources as well as being able to centralise management of disparate platforms. In order to achieve these goals Bonhams partnered with Content and Code to utilise Office 365, a suite of online services including, Exchange Online, Lync Online, Office Professional Plus and Yammer. Bonhams also faced the added complication of email migration across three separate email platforms - Microsoft Exchange 5.5, a legacy system; Lotus Notes 8.5.3, which had compatibility and usability issues and was not well received by the business and Quest Archive Manager and Message Solution Archiving. Migrating from the aforementioned systems to Office 365 as well as SharePoint Online and Lync Online has vastly improved collaboration and communication across this global business. Bonhams settled on Office 365, this decision was made as Microsoftâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new wave of productivity tools allowed Bonhams to transform the way their business collaborates,
80 |
shares information and communicates with one another. Content and Code worked with Bonhams to assist with the infrastructure changes required to move to the Office 365 platform. Content and Code have a standard and well-defined approach to the deployment of Office 365 and the entire Microsoft stack. Content and code ensured the success, adoption and usage of O365 within Bonhams through a tried and tested method, this included quick start guides and videos that were distributed prior to migration to the new platform. These were vital in providing initial and ongoing support to users. This provided support and assistance to Bonhamsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; users on day 1 as they were migrated to the new platform. This task was essential as it ensured that carried out every-day tasks were able to connect to the new service. Content and Code are a multi-award-winning Microsoft Partner. Their mission is to solve business challenges with creative IT solutions through SharePoint, Office 365 and other key Microsoft platforms. Their solutions help organisations like Bonhams to increase revenues, reduce costs, mitigate risk, and work more efficiently
find out...
more about SharePoint, Office365 or other Microsoft platforms, speak to your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
HAS ARRIVED… And replaces Microsoft Lync with an expanded feature set Skype for Business brings together the much loved Skype interface, with an expanded Lync feature set that continues to deliver enterprise-grade performance, security, compliance and control. Everyone knows Skype, so in the workplace, it’s intuitive right from the start. This familiarity, combined with the ability to voice and video call anyone who has a Skype ID, makes Skype for Business a powerful communication tool that has the ability to transform the way people work. Skype for Business features Instant Messaging and Presence, Voice and Video Calls, and Online Meetings that integrate with the productivity tools people use every day, like email, scheduling and document collaboration. Skype for Business will combine innovation from client to cloud, while also connecting businesses to the world’s largest video network.
The right UC&C solution for communication and productivity Skype for Business will enhance what is already a worldwide scalable solution into the most comprehensive productivity tool, with enterprise-grade reliability, security and control and the ability to deliver Quality of Service (QoS) from any geographical location. Furthermore, access to Enterprise Voice will provide users with benefits such as; two-way PSTN Connectivity, Team Calling and Response Groups. So a solution that not only provides a standard communication feature set but a fully-developed enriched voice, video and collaborative mobile solution. Skype for Business will benefit On-Premise users as well as those within the cloud – creating hybrid options for those not wishing to give up on what they manage locally, to what can be maintained securely elsewhere.
On top of all this, there is the option to integrate audio The Skype for Business experience is inspired by the conferencing via a global Skype user interface, so it’s familiar right from the start. network - whether you’re a small organisation with limited IT resources or a large enterprise with advanced requirements, you can enjoy all the benefits of an integrated conferencing and collaboration solution.
Modern, collaborative, interactive meetings A rich portfolio of meeting devices intentionally designed for and integrated with Skype for Business will be available in the near future, built on a Windows 10 based platform. Since Skype Room System devices are the next evolution of Lync Room Systems, all devices will be upgradable to truly experience Skype for Business.
Need Advice? Bytes work closely with InterCall - a Global Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in Unified Communications with a 24/7/365 experienced and fully qualified Professional Services team, including Microsoft Certified Senior Solutions Masters in Exchange.
find out...
more about InterCall or Skype, speak to your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 81
partners
thinking of a
modernisation
PROJECT?
Modernising a SQL Server Data Platform is one of the challenges organisations are now facing, some having already tackled this with varying degrees of success.
The modernisation journey is often more complex than is expected. It can include discovering ways for reducing Hardware & Software Licensing costs in tandem with the need to increase performance & database management capabilities, not to mention requirements for any consolidation and virtualisation which is often an integral part of these programs. Even the most capable IT infrastructure teams, especially those having 100’s or 1000’s of databases & SQL Server instances are finding this challenging. So how can a complex modernisation program be effectively planned, managed and delivered with so many demanding objectives placed on it? Firstly having the right balance of experience and skills will be an important requirement for any successful modernisation project. It requires relevant experience which is often found to be in limited supply or simply not evident within the IT teams, so selecting the right partner(s) to provide some or all of that missing experience is vital for many of these projects to become a reality. The relevant experience needed to tackle complex modernisation projects, needs to be real-world and based on the delivery of multiple projects across a range of diversity and scale of environments, coupled
with the technical skills and a refined process that are essential for managing the projects scope, costs, timeframes and deliverables.
Thinking of a modernisation project? Make sure you leverage the new performance enhancing features in SQL Server 2014, such as In-Memory OLTP (aka Hekaton) for potential x30 gains, or data warehouse type workloads benefiting from Clustered Columnstore with x30 Performance & x10 Storage reductions, reduce reporting latencies with fast query performance and move closer to those real-time business reporting. AlwaysON Availability Groups (AGs) also has many rethinking their High Availability (HA) & Disaster Recovery (DR) strategies; it can be used for off-loading performance impacting reporting and maintenance workloads onto readable secondary replicas [Improved workload separation]. Northdoor are a Tier-1 Microsoft partner that jointly delivers full-day Microsoft & Partner events, one example are the Modernising Data Platform Immersions, which cover these modernising areas: • Accelerate -R emoval of barriers to performance, IO constraints & other concurrency issues -U sing of the rich array of features in 2014 for dramatic performance gains (5-30x) - I ncreased productivity & scalability from multiple feature release improvements.
find out...
• Consolidate & Virtualise - Maximise resource’s utilization levels (Higher Density deployments) - Reduced Hardware resource & increased performance - Lower licensing costs - Improved infrastructure utilization levels (Consolidation) - Higher performance with less costly server • Combine new Server OS, SQL Versions & Hardware. •A utomate & Unleash - Extend infrastructure into Cloud, Database tiers, SQL Backups and more - Managing of overall platforms with • System Centre 2012 R2 (Operational & Azure Packs) - Automation & Self-Service Provisioning - Security enhancements, like Separation of duties - Cost effective licensing & TOC.
About Northdoor Northdoor is an IT consultancy based in the City of London and has 25 years’ experience of providing IT solutions to their clients that give true efficiency. Northdoor’s services encompass consultancy, delivery and IT support and managed services and holds several Microsoft competencies in Data Platform, Application Development, Portal and Collaboration (SharePoint), Business Intelligence and Azure.
more about how Northdoor can assist with your business requirements, speak to your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
82 |
meet the
manufacturers We’ve listed a small selection of some of the events being run or attended by our manufacturers in 2015. These events offer a perfect opportunity to meet the experts and also to network and swap ideas with peers. If you would like details of any other manufacturer events not listed here, please speak to your Bytes account manager who will be happy to assist you.
CPX 2015: Amsterdam 29th – 30th April 2015, Washington DC 7th – 8th May Check Point Experience is Check Point’s annual conference to bring together customers, partners and industry leaders to discuss the latest technologies and solutions surrounding the hottest topics. To find out more visit: www.checkpoint.com/cpx-2015/
IP Expo: ExCel, London, 7th – 8th October 2015 IP Expo is the biggest end-to-end IT infrastructure event in the UK. It receives visitors from both the private and public sectors and due to the quality of the keynote speakers and exhibitors, it’s of particular interest to those at board level, and those involved in IT strategy, management, implementation and infrastructure. For more information visit: www.ipexpo.co.uk/Exhibitors
InfoSecurity 2015: Olympia London, 2nd – 4th June 2015 Infosecurity Europe is the only European event that enables industry professionals to gather vital information about the latest trends and developments in IT security, exchange ideas and shop for products and services to create security solutions. Bringing together hundreds of providers (about 350 exhibitors) showcasing the latest product and service solutions in the ever-changing IT security arena, Infosecurity Europe provides a leading platform for organisations to address constantly evolving security issues. For full details: www.infosecurityeurope.com/
IT Service Management Show: Olympia London, 3rd – 4th June 2015 Each year over 4000 IT professionals attend SITS to discover new tools, skills and connections, which will drive their IT services forward and maximise the value IT creates for their business. The SITS exhibition showcases 70 of the world’s leading IT software suppliers, consultants and trainers on hand to demonstrate how they can support you in fulfilling your business goals.
Vision 2015: London 21st October 2015 This event offers hands-on labs, technical breakouts, in-depth training, and one-on-one time with Symantec engineers and product experts. You’ll leave the event with the knowledge, relationships, and inspiration you need to solve tough new IT challenges, squeeze even more value from your Symantec investment, and move your IT organisation toward a successful, productive future. For information on this event: www.symantec.com/vision/
VMworld 2015: San Francisco, 30th August – 3rd September 2015, Barcelona 13th – 15th October 2015 VMworld 2015 brings together thought leaders, subject matter experts, and IT professionals to immerse themselves in the latest in virtualisation and cloud technology. Realise value in VMware’s leading products, interactive sessions and networking opportunities with their partner ecosystem, all under one roof. Learn how VMworld can help you shape your software-defined enterprise, radically simplifying IT while delivering services at the speed of today’s business. To pre-register interest: www.vmworld.com/community/ conference/pre-reg
For more information visit: www.itsmshow.com/
Cloud Expo Europe 2016: ExCel, London, 12th – 13th April 2016 Cloud Expo Europe, combines with Data Centre World, to make the UK’s largest technology event and the world’s largest independent cloud event. Join IT decision makers for incisive seminars from world class speakers and ‘how to’ advice from leading international suppliers. To find out more: www.cloudexpoeurope.com
Bett 2016: Olympia London, 20th – 23rd January 2016 Bett provides an unrivalled platform from which to showcase the latest technology and software resources to a global gathering of the education market. Over 35,000 education professionals, from 113 countries attend the event. The industry’s leading technology companies choose to do business at Bett with 700 exhibitors and sponsors taking to the show floor. To find out more: www.bettshow.com/
www.bytes.co.uk | 83
interview
in the
hotseat Scott Dodds EMEA VP - VMware In this feature we interview a senior figure from the world of IT. We ask them a bit about their view of technology from their perspective, but mostly we like to be nosey and find out about the person behind the job title!
What was your first job in IT & what year? I started as a technical support engineer for one of the first UK resellers supporting Apple II, IIe and Lisa computers (before the IBM PC1 with DOS arrived!)
In a nutshell what does your current job entail? Responsible for all of VMware’s Partner Channels & Alliances across EMEA, as well as the mid-market and SMB customer sectors for all of our products.
As a child what did you want to be when you grew up? I wanted to be an airline pilot because I associated it with being on holiday all the time. Now I fly a lot I’m glad it didn’t work out.
What is your current job title? Vice President of EMEA Channels & Alliances at VMware
What do you think was the single biggest & most beneficial influence on IT in the last 20 years and why? Battery technology to drive mobility computing.
What was your first job? Whilst still at school, I worked in a model village helping with the electric railway trains and signals.
84 |
What do you think will be the next ‘big thing’ in IT & why? Better battery technology (!) combined with Software Defined Everything is changing the world. What piece of technology could you not live without & why? The internal combustion engine – hopefully replaced with hydrogen soon.
If you could have lunch with three famous people past or present who would you choose & why? Alan Turing, Peter Sellers, Bill McLaren – all had profound effects on my life: computing; laughter; iconic rugby moments. What was the last book you read and what did you think of it? An Astronaut’s Guide To Life On Earth by Chris Hadfield. Interesting take on reaching for the stars (literally in Chris’ case) – Good read for anyone who has a lifelong fascination about space travel and the teamwork & ruthless attention to detail to make it possible. What is your favourite TV Programme? Anything with live sport – mainly rugby. What is your greatest achievement? Bringing up 2 kids to be great young adults. What are your hobbies? Watching Wasps rugby, playing golf & tennis, walking my 7 year old Labrador and being Chairman of a local school.
Do you have a favourite saying or motto, if so what is it? Carpe Diem What is your favourite biscuit & why? Not allowed biscuits anymore – but Digestives
If you were asking the questions for this piece, what single question would you ask? Why on earth are you doing this? ....and what is your answer to the above question? Because Murphs asked nicely. If you could trade places with any other person for a week, famous or not famous, living or dead, real or fictional - with whom would it be and why? Any of the world’s top 10 golfers, just so I could understand how it feels to be that good for a while.
If you were given a month off and the money for the fares and accommodation, where in the world would you go and why? I would go on a full British Lions tour to Australia or New Zealand. What would be your 8 ‘desert island discs’? (and which ONE track would you choose if only allowed one) Fleetwood Mac, The Police, Queen, Spandau Ballet, Madness, INXS, Hue & Cry, Adele – My one track would be Through the Barricades by Spandau Ballet What and where is your favourite restaurant? Spago at the Four Seasons in Maui – magical location and family memories.
www.bytes.co.uk | 85
tryBefore YOUbuy regular
Offers a broad range of products on a trial basis, to view the current selection visit: www.adobe.com/uk/downloads/
A comprehensive Trial centre, providing downloads of many Citrix products: www.citrix.com/site/SS/downloads/index.asp
Offers various free trials on its site located at www.checkpoint.com/products/trials/index.html
Download a free 30 day trail of Good for Enterprise at: www1.good.com/resources/trygood
Software vendors offer a huge range of products and solutions on a try before you buy basis, below is a small selection of some of the most popular:
To try RSA secureID for free visit: www.emc.com/security/index.htm
We wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t expect you to select a new SAM solution without first getting behind the wheel and feeling the performance first. Take a free SAM test drive here: http://www.snowsoftware.com/int/campaign/ take-snow-test-drive
Put Sophos products to the test at: www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-trials.aspx
Offers a comprehensive range of trialware on its site: www.symantec.com/en/uk/business/products/ downloads/index.jsp
Trial versions of McAfee SaaS Endpoint Protection Suite & McAfee SaaS Total Protection + several others are available at: A good selection of Trend Micro products available to download here: www.mcafee.com/us/downloads/downloads.aspx http://downloadcenter.trendmicro.com/index. php?regs=uk To trial a broad selection of Microsoft software and service packs visit: www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/default.aspx
A broad range of Oracle products available for educational and trial purposes are available free of charge at: www.oracle.com/technetwork/indexes/ downloads/index.html â&#x20AC;ŚIf you already have a commercial licence you should use the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud located here: https://edelivery.oracle.com/
For flash storage guaranteed for all workloads, all administrators, and all budgets visit: www.purestorage.com/guarantee/
86 |
Offers a free download of Veeam ONE for VMware and Hyper V at: www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-reporter-free.html
Download and evaluate VMware Desktop and Datacenter products from: www.vmware.com/tryvmware/
Live and video online demos + evaluation products available at: www.websense.com/content/evaluations.aspx
BYTES SOFTWARE & LICENSING SERVICES UK and Global Software Licensing Experts Bytes Software Licensing Services With over 600 different vendors to choose from, and with over 20 years’ experience providing software solutions to businesses, Bytes is perfectly positioned to meet your software licensing needs. Amongst other benefits, Bytes utilise their purchasing power and strong relationships with software vendors to negotiate the best possible rates, whether it’s volume licensing or specialist software. But we’re not simply about maximising your procurement budget. All of our team are experts in software licensing which enables us to provide you a truly focussed level of software licensing knowledge and support. We provide information about current software enhancements and other announcements as they happen and can recommend the solutions from established and emerging technology vendors. But of course, the key benefit to you is how much we can save you. By analysing and assessing your current software usage (see our TLC offer below) we can re-shape your licence model to fit prevalent vendor discounting offers, and by using our intimate knowledge of vendor licence agreements we can maximise the right deal for all parties. Imagine a situation in which your software requirements are accurately predicted both now and years into the future. Bytes can make this a reality by analysing your IT infrastructure and comparing it to growing trends in the market, allowing us to recommend licensing agreements that are both cost-efficient and flexible enough to grow with your business.
Bytes International Licensing International companies with a global software requirement will benefit from our specialist knowledge of international licensing. We are highly experienced in handling the myriad of different approaches to managing ICT systems internationally, helping you to overcome the technological and cultural barriers to local adoption. In order to gain you the best price possible, we can also use the foreign exchange markets to purchase the software in the most cost-effective currency. The Bytes Portal Everything comes together through the Bytes Portal, including:
The Service Desk – a quick and easy communication channel into Bytes.
Online Ordering – purchasing your software has never been easier, and the flexible system is entirely tailored towards your company’s needs.
Contract and Maintenance Management – existing licences are tracked with a traffic light system and warnings issued when the licence renewal dates are approaching. During each stage of the process the system feeds back information, which we can use to negotiate favourable rates for software renewals.
“The RFU have been in partnership with Bytes for the last 7 years. Bytes has been at the forefront of getting an understanding of how we work as a business, how we can leverage costs and reduce expenses”. Head of IT, Rugby Football Union
Mandi Nicholson Bytes Sales Director
learn more...
about Bytes Software & Licensing Services and SAM services, please speak to your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 87
regular
BYTES SAM SERVICES Software Asset Management isn’t just about compliance, it’s importance in large corporations for increasing performance and profits is becoming clear. Software Asset Management has been a necessary consideration for large companies for the past ten years, and Bytes have been at the forefront of this industry since day one. Many companies claim to offer SAM, but very few prioritise it as a core service. We are a Microsoft Gold Partner for SAM and were instrumental in establishing the ISO19770 standard in 2007. For companies that are using, or looking to use a Software Asset Management company, Bytes have three packages that will ensure your company is maximising the efficiency of its software estate. Taking one package does not restrict you from utilising parts of another; in fact many of our clients will later pick and choose various products from within another service range because either their internal structure changes, or because they find they waste less time, resources and money by outsourcing some of their SAM requirements to us. 1. A Software Licence Review (SLR): The first package is a full software asset audit, which gives companies a clear picture of their current software portfolio status and a definitive account of software users. We can utilise your existing SAM software, such as Altiris, SCCM, LANdesk, to name but a few, or we can use our own system to conduct the review. Fundamentally this package is designed for customers that need to inventory their software assets either for compliancy reasons, or to ensure they are making full use of their software investment. In both instances it is imperative that a completely accurate picture is generated from the audit, and Bytes will provide you with exactly that.
88 |
2. Asset Management Platform (AMP): For a continual overview of your software portfolio, we can supply and implement one of the world’s most respected SAM platforms – Snow Licence Manager. Snow Licence Manager is fully ISO 19770 and ITIL compliant and comes highly recommend by us. This package principally involves supplying and implementing the software; however, we can also provide both technical support and assistance with system controls and data entry. 3. The Bytes Asset Management Service (AMS): For those who do not have the time or resources to manage their software portfolio, Bytes offer a fully managed SAM solution. From initial audit and installation of an Asset Management Platform, we can take total control over usage, licenses, vendor audits, procurement and end-of-life software. To augment this service we have created a bespoke online resource that allows you to monitor and control your software estate in real time. The Bytes Portal is easy to use, extremely practical and very cost-effective.
Chris Hibbert Bytes SAM General Manager
“ Throughout the SAM process, Bytes demonstrated a tremendous level of knowledge and provided us with an extraordinary service. They’ve proved their value to the firm and have earned their place as one of our trusted business partners”. IT Manager, Martineau Johnson
BYTES LEARNING SERVICES Finding the right training course for you and your organisation just got easier! In 2010 Bytes organised 2,786 courses across 400 companies, in both the UK and internationally. Our independent position, coupled with our extensive knowledge and close relationships with all major vendors, means that we can source the highest standard of courses covering all forms of software learning, management and personal development. We can cater for all requirements and budgets, utilising our buying power to offer our customers the best rates. Our Learning Solutions team was established in 2000 and continues to grow as the importance of software and management learning becomes recognised. Our experience, systems and partners, means that whatever the course you’re looking for, we’re confident we can find it for you in less time and at lower cost.
The range of training courses offered: • Vendor specific courses including Microsoft, Oracle, Unix, VMware, Adobe, Citrix, Symantec, Cisco, Juniper, Novell, IBM, Lotus and many more. • Management & Personal Development. • Information Technology Areas including Virtualisation, Infrastructure, Networking, IT security, PC Maintenance, Software Licensing. • Data & Telecommunications. • Project, Programme & Service Management including Prince2 and ITIL. • Desktop Applications from Adobe, Lotus, Microsoft to bespoke.
“Bytes Software Services were able to provide us with a flexible approach in providing a team of high quality and appropriately qualified trainers to deliver training in a number of our offices. They quickly understood our requirements and provided us with a robust and well supported solution.” Director of ISS, Linklaters
Bytes offer a range of learning services to meet our customer specific requirements:
Bespoke training
If you need something that’s not ‘off the shelf’, let us know what you are looking for and we can put together a training solution to fit. Whether it’s a mix of technologies and vendors or the need for tailored on-site or off-site courses we can help. eLearning The most cost and time effective method of on-line training available. Whether it’s standalone or as part of a blended training solution, eLearning courses can provide the most flexible solution. All our eLearning courses are provided by our training solutions partner, Arc IT Training.
Bytes Licensing Academy
We offer two courses: ‘Licensing Essentials’ and ‘SAM Best Practice’. The Bytes Licensing Academy has been developed for our customers to help understand the complexities of software licensing and software asset management. These half day courses - vendor-specific or generic - are run by Bytes and they are for both the novice and experienced. Rachel Gill Learning Solutions Operations Manager
Training Budget Services To help our customers maximise their training budgets, we offer a range of services designed to fit a variety of budgets and payment systems. Prepayment discounting and price freezing along with prepayment budget management are some of the payment methods offered.
learn more...
about Bytes Learning Services, please speak to your Bytes account manager on 01372 418500.
www.bytes.co.uk | 89
awards
&
Key achievements
accred
A Selection of Recent Awards:
awards • Microsoft EMEA Operations Licensing Solution Partner Excellence 2014 • Microsoft EMEA Operations Cloud Licensing Solution Partner 2014 • Microsoft Sales Achievement for Cloud Sales 2014 • Microsoft Country Partner of the Year Finalist 2014 • Microsoft Cloud Partner of the Year Finalist 2014 for Enterprise Customers
Our vendor team is made up of a number of specialists who are dedicated to specific vendors and technology areas. Acting as an overlay to the sales teams, they ensure that our customers receive the best advice on the solutions available and negotiate hard with vendors in order to receive the most competitive cost.
• CRN Enterprise Reseller of the Year 2014 • Good Technology Partner of the Year 2015 • SC Awards, Best Security Company 2014 • Snow Largest Partner of the Year 2015 • Microscope Aces, Innovative & SME Reseller of the Year 2014 • NetApp EMEA Midsize Market Partner of the Year 2014 • Mimecast Growth Partner of the Year 2014 • Sophos Individual Contribution Award, Bytes Vendor Alliances Director, Adam Thornton • SC Magazine CSO of the Year Finalist, Bytes CTO David Rawle • CRN Sales and Marketing Awards 2014 Sales Team of the Year • Check Point 4 Star Elite Partner Status - one of just 2 in UK • Computing Security Awards - Security Service Provider of the Year • Computing Security Awards - David Rawle - Individual Contribution to IT Security
Bytes Security Partnerships has long been a key partner for Check Point, and the acquisition by Bytes Technology Group will further strengthen our relationship. The company adds real value in the solutions it delivers to customers, using Check Point technology to simplify complex security challenges.” UK Managing Director, Check Point
Adam Thornton Vendor Solutions Director, Bytes
90 |
accreditations
itations Strategic Partnerships
Bytes are one of our most proactive and dynamic partners and work with us and our mutual clients to deliver very high levels of service. They have continually demonstrated a first class knowledge of the products and solutions to the clients with the customerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s business priorities at the forefront of their minds. Director ERM Sales and Marketing UK, Citrix
Platinum Partner
4* Elite Partner
Gold Partner
Silver Partner
Authorised Reseller
Gold Partner
Gold Certified Partner (Volume Licensing & SAM)
Certified Partner
Gold Partner
Platinum Partner
Gold Partner
Affiliate Elite Partner
Gold Partner
Platinum Partner
Platinum Partner
Platinum Partner
Premier Partner
Platinum Partner
Strong Relationships Certified Partner
Preferred Partner
Gold Partner
Certified Solution Partner
Gold Partner
Gold Partner
Gold Partner
Accredited Partner
Business Partner
Authorised Reseller
Authorised Partner
Gold Partner
Business Partner
Accredited Partner
Cloud Connected Reseller Partner
Authorised Partner
Silver Partner
Business Partner
Member Level Partner
AIP
Gold Partner
Elite Level Partner
Silver Partner
Gold Partner
Approved Partner
Premier Partner
Red Hat Ready Partner
Gold Partner
Premier Partner
Referral Partner
Gold Level Partner
Gold Partner
Affinity One Partner
Authorised Partner
Gold Partner
Accredited Partner
www.bytes.co.uk | 91