Category Archives: Industry News

Industry News, Technology

Park Place Technologies awarded sole supplier status by the Scottish Government

Park Place Technologies, a leading global provider of data centre hardware maintenance, has been awarded status as the sole supplier on Scotland’s Server and Infrastructure Maintenance Framework.

The framework is administered by the Scottish Government and provides services to Scotland’s public sector. The deal is believed to be worth around £5m over a 2-year period with an option to extend for a further two years, and had 5 other companies alongside Park Place Technologies in the running.

The framework is live and will support local government, education, national government and other public bodies while offering core IT support and infrastructure services. These services to be procured on the framework can include but not limited to; server hardware maintenance, identification of hardware failure, warranty management, and the installation of replacement hardware and components.

Commenting on the news Chris Adams, CEO, Park Place Technologies, said;

“We are deeply honoured to be awarded sole supplier status. It’s a role we are looking forward to immensely as it will give us the opportunity to improve public sector experiences in the region and support some of the most nimble and forward-thinking organisations Scotland has to offer.”

By awarding the contract to Park Place Technologies, public sector organisations are likely to receive multiple benefits including 24/7 availability to a dedicated team of specialist technology experts. All services will be delivered from a local Scottish office, based in Glasgow, which will provide local knowledge and insight, as well as helping to reduce costs by having all the necessary expertise close by. Local support teams will also have access to Park Place Technologies multinational services too.

“The point of this framework is that Scottish public sector bodies no longer need to worry about procurement when it comes to server and IT maintenance. Park Place Technologies was appointed following a comprehensive tender exercise, under EU public procurement regulations, which means quality and consistency is assured – something businesses of any size should feel good about”, said Adams

More information on the Server Maintenance framework can be found on the Scottish Procurement’s website.

For further information on Park Place Technologies, please visit https://www.parkplacetechnologies.com/

Industry News, Technology

Ajax Amsterdam enhances online experience for football fans with Mitek

Mitek (NASDAQ: MITK, www.miteksystems.com) has today announced that Ajax Amsterdam, one of Europe’s premier football clubs, will be using Mitek’s Mobile Verify® with Face Comparison solution to improve online experience and bolster security for fans.

Putting fan enjoyment and safety at the heart of everything they do, Ajax is committed to verifying the identities of ticket buyers. The hurdles, complying with GDPR while maintaining paper copies of fans’ ID documents, was becoming an unachievable task.

The club recognised the need to optimise its online process, ensure compliance, and greatly improve the online experience of its fans. Realising the role that identity verification technology could play in a digital process, Ajax selected Mitek’s Mobile Verify® solution.

Mobile Verify® combines a best-in-class image capture experience with leading document authentication technology to validate that the ID document presented in a digital transaction is genuine and unaltered. Once the ID document has been validated, Mobile Verify uses sophisticated face comparison algorithms to automatically compare the portrait extracted from the ID document with a selfie – thus proving that the person submitting the ID document is its rightful owner. Digital identity verification also hugely improves customer experience. Ajax has been able to digitise the customer journey and thereby make stadium entrance on match days, among other processes, easier and quicker. It will also help protect customer’s ID documents in light of GDPR. Naturally, this technology helps Mitek’s clients to remain compliant with privacy legislation.

“Our fans are the lifeblood of the Club. To improve our fans’ online experience and security in ticket sales, we knew the next stage was to deploy identity verification technology,” said Susan Lenderink CFO at Ajax Amsterdam.

“We know that our online process will be improved through digital ID verification, transforming our fans’ experience and keeping them on-side even outside the 90 minutes of play.”

Rene Hendrikse, EMEA MD at Mitek, added:

“Football fans nowadays want the best online experience, and Ajax’s investment in the latest technology is making this a reality.”

“We are proud to work alongside Ajax, a club so in tune with its fans, to help improve their online experience. With an identity verification process where AI is doing the heavy lifting, Ajax’s fans can get a consumer-friendly online experience. With an industry-leading focus on fan experience, we look forward to continuing our work with this innovative and historic club.”

Industry News, Technology

Node4 achieves PCI compliance certification for physical controls at its data centres

Node4, the cloud, data centre and communications solutions provider, has today announced the completion of its Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance for physical controls 9 and 12, across its three data centres. PCI DSS is the worldwide Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard that was set up to help businesses process card payments securely and reduce card fraud. This is achieved through enforcing tight controls surrounding the storage, transmission and processing of cardholder data that businesses handle. Node4 confirms to Control 9, which shows a high standard of physical access restriction to the workplace and cardholder data, as well as physical control 12, showing exemplary documentation and risk assessment processes.

The process of reaching PCI compliance is a huge achievement for Node4 and a great assurance to its customers. This third party assessment of all of Node4’s data centre locations across the UK is a continuation of its ISO27001 and ISO9001 accreditations, adding an external affirmation to the company’s commitment to security around customer data, on top of its already proven exceptional service and customer-focused credentials.

“We are immensely proud to be awarded PCI compliance at all three of our data centre locations,” commented Vicky Withey, Compliance Manager at Node4.

“This certification upholds our customers’ deep level of trust by demonstrating evidence that our compliance and security is of the highest standards. At Node4 we pride ourselves on the length we go to ensure our data centres are physically protected 24/7, and achieving this accolade from a third-party assessment is a great acknowledgement of our continued commitment to providing exceptional service and security for our customers.”

Industry News, Technology

Loughmiller’s appointment to Scale Computing’s executive team is part of the company’s high-growth plans for 2019

Scale Computing, a market leader in edge computing, virtualisation and hyperconverged solutions, today announced an update to its senior executive team with the promotion of Scott Loughmiller to the role of Chief Product Officer (CPO). Fuelled by the growth of both the edge computing market and the desire to bring automation to IT systems, Scale Computing’s appointment of Loughmiller as CPO is part of the company’s plans to drive substantial growth heading into 2020 and beyond.

As a co-founder of Scale Computing, Loughmiller has served as the company’s vice president of engineering since 2007. The promotion to CPO enables Scale Computing to further benefit from Loughmiller’s considerable industry-defining experience, as he leads the product team during a time of high-growth and strong business momentum.

A serial entrepreneur, with a distinguished 20-year track record in the technology industry, Loughmiller previously served as partner with Volt Capital, Director of Product Management at Tumbleweed Communications, and CTO and co-founder at Corvigo Inc. (acquired by Tumbleweed in 2004).

“Scott has been a key leader at Scale and an integral part of our technology development, from earliest inception to today’s edge computing offerings,” explained Jeff Ready, CEO and co-founder, Scale Computing. “As a fellow co-founder, I am delighted to welcome Scott to my senior staff and continue driving Scale to new heights.”

“Being part of building Scale Computing as a co-founder and VP of Engineering has been a deeply rewarding experience. Our product team is one of the best in the industry, and I’m excited to lead it to the next phase of growth and success,” commented Scott Loughmiller, CPO, Scale Computing.

“Scale Computing continues delivering the market-leading technology that led CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, to recognise Scale as a winner in the Converged/Hyperconverged Infrastructure and Desktop/Server Virtualisation categories and all subcategories of the CRN® 2019 Annual Report Card (ARC) awards program. I am passionate about building market-changing products and collaborating with the teams that make those products a reality. In the new role of CPO, I look forward to delivering Scale Computing’s next technology breakthroughs to our valued customers and partners.”

This is the third appointment to Scale Computing’s leadership team, following the appointment of Dan Pierce and Marlena Fernandez to its executive team earlier this year, advancing the company’s mission to lead the way as the top edge and HCI solution for global organisations. As further validation of the company’s momentum in 2019, Scale Computing was recently recognised by CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, as a winner in the Converged/Hyperconverged Infrastructure and Desktop/Server Virtualisation categories and all subcategories of the CRN® 2019 Annual Report Card (ARC) awards program.

Industry News, Technology

Two thirds of IT teams say it will be “impossible” to keep workplace IoT Devices up to date

Over half (61%) of IT decision makers believe that it will be impossible to keep all IoT devices in the enterprise up to date all of the time.

That’s according to new research from Kollective, the leading provider of software-defined enterprise content delivery networks to the Global 2000.

The Kollective report, ‘Distributed Devices’, is based on a survey of 270 US and UK based IT decision makers and explores the challenges of incorporating IoT devices into their business ecosystems. It also investigates what these professionals can do to ensure that all devices at the edge of their networks are reached effectively, securely, and at speed.

There is a growing demand to enable large-scale IoT networks in the enterprise, with Kollective’s research revealing that 88% of IT decision makers believe IoT devices will make their workplaces more efficient. However, there are concerns regarding the underlying processes and network infrastructure for managing, monitoring and updating these devices to remove security risks while enabling these efficiencies.

According to Kollective’s report, this will place significant pressure on IT teams, with 88% of respondents believing IT departments hold full responsibility for updating these devices and a further 90% accepting that all IoT updates should be tested before they are installed.

Commenting on the new research findings, Kirk Wolfe, VP of Corporate Development at Kollective said,

“As the network edge continues its rapid expansion with an influx of IoT devices, the path to scaling and maintaining large-scale IoT networks will require a similar type of peer-to-peer architecture.”

“Kollective is actively collaborating with its customers and partners, many of whom are leading the investment charge into IoT device infrastructure, and conducting this type of research to build a path for enabling the same scalability, high availability, and self-configuration capabilities for the deployment of large-scale IoT networks.”

To download Kollective’s full Distributed Devices research report, along with a related infographic, visit https://go.kollective.com/distributed-devices-wp.html

Industry News, Technology

Identifying the risks amidst the new EU copyright directive

David Ingham, Digital Partner – Media & Entertainment, Cognizant, discusses how the new EU copyright directive could pose problems for online business

Change is afoot across the internet’s copyright landscape. The European Parliament recently passed the controversial Articles 15 and 17 (previously articles 11 and 13), as part of the wider Directive on Copyright, raising concerns across content platforms and tech giants. The directive strives to ensure that the established requirements of universal copyright laws equally apply to the frequently unregulated internet. Whilst these changes now have two years to take effect in EU member states; here we will look at the impact of the most contentious articles in the directive.

What is Article 17?

Article 17 will leave online platforms open to sanctions if they fail to prevent upload to their sites that breach copyright laws. Previously, if a copyright owner found unapproved content online, the platform had to take it down with no damage liability. Article 17 means that they are now liable.

The introduction of this directive initially raised concerns that the internet’s beloved memes were at risk – with a question mark over whether these content types should be preserved as parodies, or whether they would fall victim to the new regulations. Recently, the European Parliament announced that GIFs and memes could continue to be distributed across online platforms; however, there are on-going concerns that these new laws could quash the internet’s free-flow of information not to mention potential issues around freedom of speech and expression. If copyright owners (a.k.a. creators) want their content to be shared and monetised on online media platforms, they will have to make sure that the copyright information is well known and easy to verify by mainstream platforms.

How does Article 15 differ?

Article 15 has the potential to change the entire news landscape. Previously article 11, and often referred to as the ‘link tax’, it will require news aggregators such as Google, or platforms like LinkedIn or Facebook, to pay publishers a fee for distributing news links. Such change prompts the concern that fewer articles would be distributed on these platforms and again, that the free flow of information shared across the internet will be harmed as a result.

For news organisations, the danger is that they would not be able to use these well-known aggregators for distribution, meaning they would need to rely exclusively on their apps and websites, as well as SEO, for ensuring that their content is discovered.

But are content platforms and companies born out of the internet age equipped to adapt to these changes? For many, the answer is surely no. There is no way that manual, human review processes can handle the copious amount of scrutiny required; automated filters will become a necessity for media platforms to identify copyrighted material and avoid infractions. Moreover, some platforms may be forced to alter their approach to uploading content entirely, perhaps replacing the current practice of real-time uploads with delayed processing for verification.

The evolving nature of ‘adapt or die’

Over the next two years, organisations must determine and implement their strategy to address these changes. While many may feel that this is plenty of time to plan their approach, it will come around sooner than you think. The firms impacted should start taking steps to make changes now, as inaction is not an option. However, very few understand all the implications in a way that allows them to assess risks and viable options, make decisions on next steps and then implement those changes.

These firms could, however, break their approach down into three key areas. The first is technology – what internal and client-facing platforms and products will be impacted by these changes? The second is operations – what impact will the new directive have on day-to-day business operations? And finally, legal – what is the potential liability/risk that will be introduced to the organisation once the directive comes into force?

What is clear is that the technology industry – whether household name giants or smaller players – will soon have to put adequate measures in place to adhere to the evolving copyright landscape.

Industry News, Technology

Exabeam Expands International Availability of Cloud-based SIEM to Help Organisations Modernise Security Operations

Exabeam has announced the expanded availability of Exabeam SaaS Cloud, a hosted version of the market-leading Exabeam Security Management Platform (SMP) to help even more organisations modernise their security operations. Exabeam SaaS Cloud will now be available for in-region hosting in 15 additional locations in 13 countries, including Canada and others within Europe, Asia-Pacific and South America. This means its growing global customer base can take advantage of Exabeam SaaS Cloud while meeting compliance and policy requirements for in-region hosting.

SaaS Cloud helps identify anomalous behaviour in organisations’ cloud applications to stop adversaries in their tracks. As a hosted cloud offering, it provides the full functionality of the SMP, including a data lake, behavioural analytics, case management, security orchestration and incident response automation. This allows organisations to directly ingest data from dozens of popular cloud-based services, enabling faster deployment, while eliminating the challenges of on-premises SIEM installations—including cost and maintenance issues and the need to route cloud data to on-premises data centres.

Organisations with existing SIEM deployments on-premises or in the cloud can augment their current solutions with Exabeam Advanced Analytics and Exabeam Threat Hunter to transform their security operations through improved efficiency and enhanced detection capabilities.

By extending SaaS Cloud’s in-region hosting options, Exabeam is also empowering organisations to adhere to additional national data localisation and residency laws. For example, companies can more easily comply with Australia’s strict health record localisation laws and Canada’s provincial requirements for public service providers to store customer data locally.

Data in SaaS Cloud is protected using data encryption in transit and at rest, regular third-party penetration testing and SOC 2 Type II compliance, considered to be the security gold standard for SaaS companies handling sensitive customer data.

“SaaS solutions are increasingly becoming the deployment model of choice for organisations worldwide, and the response to Exabeam’s SaaS Cloud launch earlier in 2019 has been exceptional,” said Anu Yamunan, VP, Products, Exabeam.

“SaaS Cloud is ideal for organisations with a cloud-first approach, and we have expanded its availability in response to a huge demand from our international customers, which need access to in-region hosting to meet compliance and policy requirements.”

“In a modern interconnected world full of constantly evolving cyberthreats, running an on-premises SIEM is no longer just ‘old school’; for many companies, especially smaller ones without fully staffed security teams, it can be positively dangerous. Shifting security operations to a SaaS-based SIEM solution not only instantly relieves you from the daily operational burden but can significantly increase the scope and amount of analysed security artifacts, run event correlation at the cloud scale and ultimately give your analysts more time and context for making the right decision every time,” added Alexei Balaganski, lead analyst, KuppingerCole.

The international expansion of Exabeam SaaS Cloud builds on the company’s rapidly accelerating cloud strategy, including the recent launch of Exabeam SaaS Cloud Essential, which gives small and medium enterprises access to enterprise-grade SIEM tools and a wealth of Smarter SIEMTM capabilities. It also follows the company’s recent acquisition of SkyFormation, a leading Israel-based cloud application security business and the first company to collect cloud logs from more than 30 cloud services into any SIEM tool.

In addition to the U.S., Exabeam SaaS Cloud is now hosted locally in Canada, Europe (Belgium, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom), Asia-Pacific (Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore) and South America (Brazil).

Industry News, Technology

SailPoint Names Matt Mills as Chief Revenue Officer

SailPoint Technologies Holdings, Inc., the leader in enterprise identity governance, today announced the appointment of Matt Mills to Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). In this role, Matt will lead SailPoint’s global sales organisation, driving the company’s overall go-to-market strategy and execution.

“Matt joins SailPoint at a pivotal time for us as a company as we embark on our next level of growth. His extensive expertise in leading a sales team built for growth and scale, coupled with a strong background in selling complex enterprise and SaaS software solutions makes him an excellent addition to the executive leadership team,” said Mark McClain, CEO and Co-founder, SailPoint. “We are very pleased to have someone of his calibre on our leadership team and look forward to his contributions to our business.”

Matt brings over 30 years of experience to his role as SailPoint’s Chief Revenue Officer. Matt spent over 20 years at Oracle as Senior Vice President North America Sales where he oversaw over 8,000 employees and was responsible for $4.5B in annual revenues. He also sat on the company’s executive committee where he played an instrumental role in its strategic go-to-market shift to the cloud. More recently, Matt was the CEO of MapR Technologies until 2018 and is currently a board advisor and member to early-stage SaaS companies.

“As enterprises continue their move to the cloud, understanding ‘who has access to what’ rises to the top of executive concerns. SailPoint, as the leader in identity governance, has become a critical partner to mid- and large enterprises by helping them answer that question, effectively securing the digital identities of their users across their hybrid infrastructure,” said Matt. “I look forward to working with the leadership team to help make SailPoint the go-to cybersecurity and identity governance partner for organisations of all sizes around the world.”

Industry News, Technology

UK organisations join pilot project to build the most secure communication infrastructure in Europe

Toshiba Research Europe Ltd (TREL), BT, the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the University of Cambridge, today announce that they will join the OPENQKD pilot project to install a test quantum communication infrastructure across Europe. The initiative will boost the security of critical applications in the fields of telecommunications, healthcare, electricity supply and government services.

Within the OPENQKD project, TREL will adapt its world-leading quantum key distribution (QKD) technology to demonstrate use cases for quantum security in networks in several European cities. TREL will supply commercial grade QKD systems to the networks, while BT will contribute its expertise on the requirements needed for robust operation in a network provider environment.

The networks will provide a testbed for the long-term verification of QKD technology, as well as a platform for the development of applications in different sectors and industrial standards.  Healthcare use cases, developed through a collaboration between the University of Cambridge, TREL and BT, will be a particular focus of a network linking several biotech campuses in Cambridge, which has one of the highest concentrations of health sector companies in Europe.

The development of industrial standards, as well as a security evaluation process, for quantum technology in Europe is another important aspect of the OPENQKD project, to which NPL, BT and TREL will contribute strongly. Standards are essential for ensuring interoperability of QKD equipment and other devices in the network, enabling their seamless integration. They are also important for ensuring that new products are implemented in a secure manner and without potential vulnerabilities. The project will also develop ways in which the security of QKD systems can be tested against the published standards.

Andrew Shields, Assistant Managing Director at Toshiba’s Cambridge lab, commented:

“Quantum communication technology is maturing very rapidly, with several large networks now in operation around the world. OPENQKD has a focus upon developing and demonstrating use cases for QKD technology, which will accelerate its commercial adoption in a number of different market sectors. We are delighted to contribute to this ecosystem of companies developing complete solutions that will secure the future IT infrastructure of European businesses and citizens.” 

Andrew Lord, Head of Optical Research at BT, added:

“We have been trialling QKD technology for several years now and see potential for its commercial exploitation in telecom networks.  In OPENQKD we will be developing the necessary tools and knowledge for integration into operator networks and customer applications.”

Hannes Hübel, scientist at the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, and project leader of OPENQKD:

“After successfully demonstrating the basic concept of QKD, quantum based cryptography has achieved a mature state and we are proud to lift quantum technology now onto a market-ready level – ready to be deployed in everyday-life applications.”

Industry News, Technology

Scale Computing and Acronis Form Technology Partnership

Scale Computing, a market leader in edge computing, virtualisation and hyperconverged solutions, and Acronis, a global leader in cyber protection, today announced an OEM partnership, offering Acronis Backup to customers through Scale Computing channels, delivering archiving, enhanced data protection, disaster recovery, and threat mitigation on the Scale Computing HC3 platform.

Scale Computing HC3 offers the Scale Computing Data Protection Suite, which provides high availability, backup, replication, and recovery features. Many HC3 users deploy additional backup and recovery solutions to utilise other types of storage, extending existing storage investments in NAS or SAN, or use advanced data protection features that are not available on HC3. Scale Computing has determined Acronis Backup best meets these archiving and advanced disaster recovery needs for these HC3 users.

With Acronis Backup on Scale Computing HC3, users will be able to meet the toughest backup objectives for mission-critical systems, saving up to 10x the storage space, and reducing the backup workload with automated administration. Acronis Backup on Scale Computing HC3 ensures that data is safe, and mission-critical business applications are available, by enabling users to proactively prevent, or recover quickly from disasters, with capabilities such as:

● Long-Term Retention for Data Archival – Backups can be stored on inexpensive storage for long-term retention to meet regulatory compliance
● Acronis Active Protection – An integrated anti-ransomware defense powered by machine learning (ML) models that proactively detects and stops ransomware attacks and automatically recovers any affected files, including those on network shares and removable devices
● Full Bare-Metal System Recovery – Accelerates recovery speeds up to twice as fast with the ability to restore a backup image to a machine that doesn’t have a preinstalled OS
● Acronis Universal Restore – Simplifies the recovery of an entire system to the same or dissimilar hardware, or virtual machine, by using smart technology that automatically detects boot requirements
● Granular Recovery – Enables individuals to search for and restore specific files or folders without having to recover full databases or systems

With flexible on-premises and cloud storage options, Acronis Backup users can easily scale their deployment to fit their archival and data protection needs. A simple, touch-friendly UI offers advanced reporting capabilities that lets administrators manage and orchestrate backups with ease across sites.

“Faced with ever-increasing volumes of data along with the growing threat of ransomware and other malware, IT professionals are under tremendous pressure to protect everything while ensuring production systems aren’t impacted. The good news is that protecting your organisation’s data doesn’t have to be difficult,” said Pat Hurley, Vice President and General Manager, Americas, Acronis. “With Acronis Backup on Scale Computing HC3, organisations gain a fast, scalable cyber protection solution that won’t consume their limited IT budgets.”

“Data protection and disaster recovery are a necessity for IT organisations today, and many of our HC3 customers have implemented effective disaster recovery strategies that combine per VM snapshot scheduling with replication, failover, and recovery. Each HC3 appliance has built-in VM snapshots with scheduling capabilities that are flexible enough to implement almost any backup strategy,” said Jeff Ready, CEO and co-founder, Scale Computing. “With Acronis Backup, HC3 users are enabled to add market-leading archiving and data protection capabilities to their infrastructure. Our technologies are highly complementary, and HC3 customers, who are used to the flexibility and ease of use of our platform, will also benefit from the performance, ROI and TCO advantages offered by Acronis Backup.”

Acronis Backup on Scale Computing HC3 protects nearly all supported VM operating systems on the Scale Computing HC3 platform and can granularly backup and restore individual VMs up to and including the entire system. Acronis Backup can store backup data in a wide range of storage locations, including HC3 virtual disks, existing NAS/SAN, and public clouds.

Acronis Backup is available for purchase from Scale Computing today.

Scale Computing is a key sponsor at the Acronis Global Cyber Summit 2019 between Oct. 13-16, 2019.