Category Archives: Data

Data, Networks, News, Telecoms

Robust Growth Expectations are Fuelling Network Security Investment, Reveal Communication Service Providers in UK Research from A10 Networks

All the UK communication service providers (CSPs) surveyed believe robust growth in traffic volumes will continue in the next 2-3 years with two-thirds (67%) expecting traffic to rise by 50% or more. 

 

A10 Networks today published research, Global Communication Service Providers: Market Growth Fuels Security Investments, revealing the priorities, expectations, and perspectives of CSPs across the globe as they evolve and expand their services and infrastructure in an increasingly complex digital environment.

The study was undertaken by independent research organisation, Opinion Matters, among 2,750 senior IT professionals from a range of communication service providers across 11 regions around the world, with 250 UK respondents surveyed.*

It found that all (100%) of UK service providers surveyed expect to see traffic volumes rise in the next 2-3 years. Two thirds of respondents expect to see traffic increase by 50% or more – with one quarter (25%) believing it will soar by 75% or more.

As a result, four key themes ran throughout A10 Networks’ second UK CSP survey. These were: focusing on investment, preparing for growth, expanding services to meet underserved communities, and seizing opportunities to expand into new markets with new services.

Commenting on the positive growth levels, Anthony Webb, vice-president of A10 International, said: “These predictions align with the sustained traffic growth we’ve seen in recent years. Although the pandemic created a one-off burst in growth which we witnessed in our 2021 survey, with 98% of UK CSPs surveyed stating this, we are now seeing more sustained patterns emerging which show continuing growth at a considerable rate. Likewise, these positive growth levels are creating both the urgency and the confidence for CSPs to undertake substantial investment projects.”

 

Network security strategy is becoming more sophisticated and diverse

The survey found that UK respondents’ top three priorities for network security investments were:

  • 32% simplification and integration of disparate, disconnected point security solutions.
  • 32% ransomware and malware protection services.
  • 30% upgrading firewalls.

Anthony Webb continues: “Although upgrading firewalls and other security appliances was in the top 3, this was less dominant than it was two years ago when we did our first CSP survey. This points to the fact that today’s network security strategy must be wide-ranging, with a well-rounded approach that can handle the full spectrum of emerging threats to maintain a high quality, reliable, and secure service for customers.”

 

Providers are working to close the digital divide

Alongside investing in network security, UK CSPs are planning to expand their networks to reach unserved or underserved communities:

  • 63% of UK respondents say they are expanding their networks to unserved/underserved communities.
  • 49% are planning to expand for an uplift of more than 10% of their current subscriber base.
  • 14% are expanding for an uplift of more than 50%.
  • 37% are planning to build additional data centres and expand to provide additional capacity for other service providers.

Anthony Webb added: “Connecting communities is central to reducing inequality and supporting digital opportunities, so it is heartening to see this positive direction of travel. Combining this with robust security strategies will result in more people and communities worldwide benefitting from safe, reliable digital services.”

 

Enterprise cloud migration is having a positive impact

Enterprise cloud migration has been a strong trend over the past decade, accelerated by the pandemic. The survey found that UK CSPs are now focusing on finding the right mix of cloud services to support future plans:

  • Overall, 69% of UK respondents report a positive outcome related to their cloud transition.
  • 27% say it has directly generated revenue.
  • 21% say they have evolved to offer public cloud and managed data centre services.
  • 21% now have differentiated services that have increased their relevance to customers.

Anthony Webb comments: “It is interesting to see that one in four CSPs say they have gained revenue as customers have distributed workloads and data centre functions between private, on premises and public cloud. This cloud transition is also evident when it comes to key purchasing criteria for network equipment, as being in a cloud-native form factor was a must-have criteria, with 30% saying this.”

 

IPv6 transition remains an ongoing challenge

Worldwide demand, as CSPs globally add more subscribers, has made IPv4 addresses scarce. Providers therefore need to plan for transition to IPv6. However, the survey shows that only 34% of UK respondents expect to achieve this in the next 2-3 years.

  • More than one third (34%) are adopting a strategy of carefully managing their IPv4 pools and gradually transitioning to IPv6.
  • 32% aim to run the two in parallel.

Anthony Webb concludes: “This shows that CSPs are adopting a more cautious approach to IPv6 adoption, leveraging existing investment and carefully managing existing IPv4 addresses or running the two in parallel, rather than accelerating full transition plans.

“A10 Networks’ Global Communication Service Providers: Market Growth Fuels Security Investments report shows that CSPs are at a crucial point as they aim to capitalise on demand and seize opportunities to grow and diversify their business. To realise their full potential, service providers need to scale and protect their networks so the infrastructure they provide is secure and highly available.”

The global report also contains analysis of variations between individual countries and regions surveyed. Download the full report here: Global Communication Service Providers: Market Growth Fuels Security Investments

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*Methodology: A10 Networks commissioned a survey, undertaken by an independent research organisation, Opinion Matters, in January 2023. 2,750 senior IT professionals from a range of communications service providers were surveyed from a variety of operators including: mobile, fixed-line telecom, cable, converged, MVNO and MVNA and OTT providers. This is the second global research survey A10 Networks has undertaken into the communication service provider environment expanding on the previous study conducted in 2021. Markets surveyed were UK, Southern Europe, US, Germany, India, Middle East, Benelux, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Nordics, Central & South America.

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A10 Networks (NYSE: ATEN) provides secure application services for on-premises, multi-cloud and edge-cloud environments at hyperscale. Our mission is to enable service providers and enterprises to deliver business-critical applications that are secure, available and efficient for multi-cloud transformation and 5G readiness.

We deliver better business outcomes that support investment protection, new business models and help future-proof infrastructures, empowering our customers to provide the most secure and available digital experience. Founded in 2004, A10 Networks is based in San Jose, Calif. and serves customers globally. For more information, visit www.a10networks.com and follow us @A10Networks.

Customer Experience, Data, Data & Analytics, Retail & E-commerce

Authentic Transforms In-Store and Digital Consumer Experiences with Amperity

Amperity, the leading enterprise customer data platform (CDP) for consumer brands has partnered with global brand giant Authentic Brands Group (Authentic).

With a vast roster of more than 40 iconic and world-renowned brands, including Reebok, Forever 21, Ted Baker, Juicy Couture and David Beckham, Authentic’s digital platform is powered by more than 200M consumer data files.

In partnership with Amperity, Authentic will look to activate data from multiple online and offline touchpoints, including pre-purchase, point-of-sale, and post-purchase customer care, to create unified customer profiles. Amperity will become  Authentic’s cornerstone partner for data management strategy, helping to unify in-store and digital experiences for consumers across its portfolio of brands.

“We strive to provide the most optimal shopping experience for our consumers, and having a clean data foundation is essential,” said Adam Kronengold, Chief Digital Officer, Authentic. “Amperity’s platform allows us to resolve identities at scale across our portfolio and leverage data to inform brand and business development decisions.”

Amperity solutions brings together Authentic’s diverse consumer data to enable 360 unified view and comprehensive understanding of its brand consumers to enhance each brands’ digital engagement strategy.

“Authentic has amassed a vast and loyal customer base, spanning more than 40 renowned brands,” said Barry Padgett, CEO at Amperity. “The reality is that there are many CDPs, but not all of them are created equal. We’re honored Authentic has chosen our platform to help them to deliver personalised experiences for every individual customer, driving engagement and retention to unprecedented levels.”

 

About Authentic Brands Group

Authentic Brands Group (Authentic) is a global brand development, marketing and entertainment platform, which owns a portfolio of more than 40 iconic and world-renowned Lifestyle, Entertainment and Media brands. Headquartered in New York City, with offices around the world, Authentic connects strong brands with best-in-class partners and a global network of operators, distributors and retailers to build long-term value in the marketplace. Its brands generate approximately $USD24.7 billion in global annual retail sales and have an expansive retail footprint in more than 150 countries, including 10,500-plus freestanding stores and shop-in-shops and 375,000 points of sale.

Authentic is committed to transforming brands by delivering powerful storytelling, compelling content, innovative business models and immersive experiences. It creates and activates original marketing strategies to drive the success of its brands across all consumer touchpoints, platforms and emerging media. Authentic’s brand portfolio includes Marilyn Monroe®, Elvis Presley®, Muhammad Ali®, Shaquille O’Neal®, David Beckham®, Dr. J®, Greg Norman®, Neil Lane®, Thalia®, Sports Illustrated®, Reebok®, Eddie Bauer®, Spyder®, Volcom®, Airwalk®, Nautica®, Izod®, Brooks Brothers®, Barneys New York®, Judith Leiber®, Ted Baker®, Hervé Léger®, Frye®, Juicy Couture®, Vince Camuto®, Lucky Brand®, Aéropostale®, Forever 21®, Nine West®, Jones New York®, Tretorn®, Prince®, Van Heusen®, Arrow®, Hickey Freeman®, Hart Schaffner Marx® and Thomasville®.

For more information, visit authentic.com.

 

About Amperity

Amperity delivers the data confidence brands need to unlock growth by truly knowing their customers. With Amperity, brands can build a first-party data foundation to fuel customer acquisition and retention, personalize experiences that build loyalty, and manage privacy compliance. Using patented AI and ML methods, Amperity stitches together all customer interactions to build a unified view that seamlessly connects to marketing and technology tools. More than 400 brands worldwide rely on Amperity to turn data into business value, including Alaska Airlines, DICK’S Sporting Goods, Endeavour Drinks, Planet Fitness, Seattle Sounders FC, Under Armour and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. For more information, please visit www.amperity.com

Customer Experience, Data, News

GLD Group Selects Mapp Cloud To Tackle Analytics, Personalisation And Customer Engagement Strategy

Mapp, the international provider of insight-led customer experiences, has announced it has been appointed by sports and fashion-industry specialists, GLD Group to provide its insight-led customer experience platform, Mapp Cloud. The platform will support the company as it drives its next phase of growth while delivering personalised and targeted customer communications. GLD Group will also be supported by Mapp’s Customer Success team who will act as an extension of its own internal teams and help optimise use of all tools available.

GLD Group holds the UK licences for Umbro, Superga and Sebago, and is the brand owner of Amplified clothing and ADDICT. GLD’s team has over 100 years of combined experience in the development and marketing of sport and fashion products.

With a relatively small but powerful marketing team, GLD was looking for an easy-to-use yet advanced platform to support its activity. After a thorough review of the market, Mapp Cloud was selected for its insight-led approach to personalisation and customer engagement.

 

Support for growth

As a rapidly growing company, GLD had outgrown its previous vendor and was looking for support for the company’s ambitious growth while minimising its team’s workload. It was important that any solution selected delivered the ability to easily share content, journeys, and learnings between all brands in the GLD Group to reduce replication and drive efficiencies.

The marketing team also wanted to unlock the full potential of customer data and needed a Customer Data Platform that could help them to unify all first-party data with one solution.

Additionally, GLD needed to visualise key performance analytics across all its digital marketing activity to easily see which campaigns were most successful and understand the most efficient paid advertising channels for each brand.

 

True personalisation based on insights

After a thorough review of the market, GLD chose to partner with Mapp for all its brands and to start leveraging its insight-led customer experience platform, Mapp Cloud. Drawing on real-time customer insights from Mapp Intelligence, GLD will be focusing heavily on how to maximise personalisation and activate smarter marketing campaigns. GLD will be rolling out dynamic content across marketing, transactional, and triggered email messages, and across different websites. Some examples of this dynamic content include persona-based targeting, advanced product recommendations and live Instagram content within emails.

 

Ian McCullagh, Head of eCommerce at GLD said: “We‘ve spent a number of years thoroughly reviewing the market and we’re confident we have chosen a partner in Mapp that can help us become more data-driven across the business. We’re really excited to expand from fairly limited personalisation capabilities and to start testing out more dynamic content tactics across our brand portfolio. The GLD team are looking forward to becoming more insight-led and seeing the great results we can drive through our partnership”

 

Ricardas Montvila, VP of Global Strategy at Mapp said: “As a business, we love working with high-growth brands and it has been hugely exciting to leverage the full Mapp Cloud technology for GLD Group, which is a brand with big ambitions. We are continuing to innovate and implement programs that are tailored to GLD’s customers based on intelligent insights and have many exciting plans upcoming.”

About Mapp

Marketers and data specialists should be able to focus on what will make a difference for their business, instead of spending all their time taming the technology behind it. With the #1 insight-led customer experience platform, Mapp Cloud, they can focus on what really counts – and the exciting insights that come with it. Thanks to customer intelligence and marketing analytics, companies can easily and effectively gain data-driven customer insights across all channels in order to trigger highly personalised marketing activities. Customers benefit from

AI-supported forecasting models that enable targeted and self-optimising cross-channel campaigns. Automated messages are sent via the most suitable marketing channel, at the right time, with the optimal contact frequency. Thanks to advanced one-to-one personalisation, the highest levels of engagement and long-term customer loyalty are achieved.

 

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Mapp operates globally with offices in seven countries and helps more than 700 brands including  Farrow & Ball, PepsiCo, Ella’s Kitchen, Vivienne Westwood, The Entertainer, JYSK, Diageo, and Lloyds Pharmacy.

 

Data, Hyperconvergence, Networks, News, Technology

Nutanix Study Shows Data Management Becoming More Complex as Cloud Deployments Diversify

Nutanix, a leader in hybrid multicloud computing, announced the findings of its fifth global Enterprise Cloud Index (here) survey and research report, which measures enterprise progress with cloud adoption. This year’s ECI showed that IT infrastructure is increasingly diverse with organisations challenged with integrating data management and control. The research showed that the majority of IT teams leverage more than one IT infrastructure – a trend that’s expected to intensify in the future – but struggle with visibility of data across environments with only 40% reporting complete visibility into where their data resides.

“In the coming years, there will be hundreds of millions of applications created, which will generate unprecedented amounts of data,” said Lee Caswell, SVP, Product and Solutions Marketing at Nutanix. “Organisations are grappling with current application and data management across the edge, different clouds and in the core. What this year’s ECI shows and what we’re hearing from customers is that there’s a need in the market for a cloud operating model to help build, operate, use, and govern a hybrid multicloud to support all types of applications – starting today and planning for tomorrow.”

In the past five years of conducting the ECI, respondents’ attitudes have drastically shifted toward the use of multiple IT environments. In 2018, well over half of respondents said they envisioned running all workloads exclusively in either a private cloud or the public cloud one day. Rather than working to consolidate on a particular infrastructure or IT operating model, as seemed desirable in 2018, most enterprises now see the inevitability, and even benefits, of running workloads across public cloud, on-premises and at the edge.

The goal for organisations now is to make this hybrid operating model more efficient, especially when managing IT environments across the edge to the core. The growing level of diversity in cloud deployments creates enormous complexity in managing application’s data across cloud environments. Comprehensive tools that allow organisations to provision, move, manage, monitor, and secure applications and data from a single console in a uniform manner is a growing priority for IT. Nearly all respondents say they’d benefit from having a single, unified control plane to manage applications and data across diverse environments.

Key findings from this year’s report include:

  • Most organisations use more than one type of IT infrastructure, and nearly all agree that having a single platform to manage them all consistently would be ideal. The majority (60%) of IT teams leverage more than one IT infrastructure, whether it is a mix of private and public clouds, multiple public clouds, or an on-premises datacentre along with a hosted datacentre. That number is expected to grow to nearly three quarters (74%) in the near future. However, this leads to challenges and 94% say they’d benefit from having a single place to manage applications and data across diverse environments.
  • Data security and management considerations drive IT infrastructure choices. Data is driving infrastructure decisions for enterprises, with data security, protection and recovery, and sovereignty topping the list of key drivers. However, visibility is a growing challenge. While 94% of respondents agree that having full visibility is important, only 40% of ECI respondents report having complete visibility into where their data resides.
  • Cloud cost control ranks as a top IT management challenge. Among respondents, 85% consider cloud cost a challenging IT management issue, and more than a third (34%) rank it a “significant” challenge. Specifically, application migration across clouds is currently a pain point for organisations with 86% of respondents agreeing that moving applications among environments can be complex and costly. Additionally, nearly half of respondents (46%) plan to repatriate some applications to on-premises datacentres to mitigate cloud costs in the year ahead.
  • Nearly all respondents (96%) have begun using open-source Kubernetes orchestration. But they cite designing and configuring the underlying infrastructure, storage, and database services as among the top challenges they continue to face with their Kubernetes deployments.
  • Sustainability is now an IT priority. Nearly all (92%) respondents agree that sustainability is more important to their organisation than it was a year ago. This shift in priorities is primarily driven by corporate Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives (63%), supply chain disruptions (59%), and customers’ purchasing decisions (48%).

For the fifth consecutive year, Vanson Bourne conducted research on behalf of Nutanix, surveying 1,450 IT decision-makers around the world in December 2022 and January 2023. The respondent base spanned multiple industries, business sizes, and the following geographies: the Americas; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA); and the Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) region.

To learn more about the report and findings, please download the full fifth Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Index, here.

Data, News, Technology

MillerKnoll Selects Amperity to Accelerate First-Party Data Strategy

Collective of dynamic design brands deploys customer data platform to drive revenue and customer loyalty

Amperity, the leading enterprise customer data platform (CDP) for consumer brands, today announced MillerKnoll has selected Amperity to maximise the value of its omnichannel data through the delivery of relevant, personalised customer experiences. With Amperity, MillerKnoll will be able to leverage its customer data to reach more consumers, while enriching advertising campaigns through insights on cross-channel behaviour, data science scores and content affinities.

Across its many design brands and digital and offline channels, MillerKnoll has a rich source of customer data that can serve as the foundation for delivering quality customer interactions. As consumer shopping preferences and behaviours evolve, the company needed a comprehensive solution to bring together and manage disparate data sources. Through an Amperity-powered 360-degree unified view, MillerKnoll can now understand and activate data across all touchpoints to deliver consistent and relevant shopping experiences.

 

“At MillerKnoll, we strive to create the best possible shopping experience for our customers, and Amperity is an invaluable partner in helping us achieve that goal,” said Bao Tran-Phu, Senior Director of Analytics at MillerKnoll. “Amperity’s platform allows us to seamlessly integrate our data sources, giving us a comprehensive understanding of our customers and the ability to deliver personalised experiences that are relevant and engaging. In addition, Amperity’s commitment to using customer data responsibly in compliance with ever-changing privacy regulations helps us build trust with our consumers and aligns with MillerKnoll’s privacy and security principles.”

 

With Amperity’s AI-powered technology, MillerKnoll will also be able to leverage enterprise-scale identity resolution and audience segmentation to drive retargeting, lookalike and suppression campaigns.

 

“By improving its customer data infrastructure, MillerKnoll will be able to supercharge the rest of its tech stack and deliver the level of excellence consumers expect from brands on a daily basis,” said Barry Padgett, CEO at Amperity. “We are proud to work with a forward-thinking partner to help take its customer experience to the next level.”

 

Amperity is already seeing great traction in the European market, working with several leading brands, including Brooks Running, Citizen Watch, and Reckitt. Learn more about Amperity’s expansion in the UK/EMEA market here.

 

About MillerKnoll

MillerKnoll is a collective of dynamic brands that comes together to design the world we live in. MillerKnoll brand portfolio includes Herman Miller, Knoll, Colebrook Bosson Saunders, DatesWeiser, Design Within Reach, Edelman Leather, Fully, Geiger, HAY, Holly Hunt, KnollTextiles, Maars Living Walls, Maharam, Muuto, NaughtOne, and Spinneybeck|FilzFelt.  MillerKnoll is an unparalleled platform that redefines modern for the 21st century by building a more sustainable, equitable and beautiful future for all.

 

About Amperity

Amperity is the leading customer data platform (CDP) provider that helps companies put data to work to improve marketing performance, build long-term customer loyalty and drive revenue. Amperity’s enterprise CDP is used by many of the world’s most beloved brands, such as Alaska Airlines, Endeavour Drinks, Kendra Scott, Kroger, Lucky Brand, Planet Fitness, Seattle Sounders FC, Under Armour and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. The company is headquartered in Seattle with offices in New York City. For more information, please visit amperity.com or follow @Amperity.

Data, Data & Analytics, News

Cohesity Named a 2023 Leader in the Omdia Universe: Protecting and Recovering Data in the Cloud Era

Cohesity today announced that it has been named a Leader in the Omdia Universe: Protecting and Recovering Data in the Cloud Era, 2022–23 report.

Omdia, a global technology research leader, positioned Cohesity as a leading solution provider for its latest Omdia Universe for Data Protection and Backup in the Cloud report. Cohesity is recognised for its modernised data protection approach and strong capabilities in core backup and recovery, and monitoring and reporting. Additionally, Cohesity earned the top capability score, above other market vendors, due to its high ratings in solution breadth, roadmap and strategy, and solution capability – underscoring Cohesity’s robust innovations for data security and management, and value to customers.

Other highlights in Omdia’s report include:

  • Strong Security and Ransomware Capabilities:Cohesity ranked at the top in the subcategory score in the security & ransomware category, largely in its capabilities to “protect the data from attack, detect an attack early, and recover rapidly from an attack” with automated management approaches. Cohesity grants customers the ability to safely recover their data through control over its storage repository and immutable backup architecture.

  • Cohesity DataProtect: Omdia acknowledged Cohesity’s unified and highly automated data protection solution offering easy recovery by eliminating the complexity found in traditional or legacy solutions. This is thanks to DataProtect’s data store mapping capabilities and more controlled appliance approach that is “paramount to providing near-instant recoverings, individual file restores and automating the process of recovery.”
  • Cohesity Helios: Cohesity’s all-in-one management and reporting solution earned high reviews from Omdia with its holistic view of monitoring and recovery of data. Helios offers robust end-to-end monitoring and granular-level analysis to ensure operational efficiency and agility.
  • Quality Customer Experience: Cohesity received the highest recommendation score from its customers, proving Cohesity’s strength in delivering on customer experience beyond its technology.

“Our customers continue to face an evolving and complex cybersecurity threat landscape, and the protection and recovery of their data remains our top priority,” said Lynn Lucas, CMO, Cohesity. “Omdia’s recognition further validates our commitment to providing innovative and reliable solutions to this growing challenge for our customers.”

Data, News, Technology, UK, Yorkshire

Yorkshire Water accelerates data innovation

Yorkshire Water has teamed up with The Oakland Group to ensure customers benefits from data innovation and new technology.

The Leeds-based data consultancy will work closely with Yorkshire Water’s team to use data to enable smarter network and customer operations while delivering the right foundations and capabilities for the future.

The multi-year contract will see data used across critical elements of the organisation, including customer engagement, leakage management, operational improvement, and internal facing departments.

It builds on an existing relationship that has seen the two organisations develop a new Cloud Telemetry platform, which ingests millions of data points from multiple in-house and third-party operational technology systems at speed and introduces common data models.

Yorkshire Water and The Oakland Group also worked together to develop a new bio-resource model (BRM), which reduced costs around the bio-resource management process. The data was used to simulate a wide range of variables over a 40-year timeframe. It was determining potential scenarios for the future that allowed longer-term opportunities to be identified for a more efficient and effective service.

Lee Harris, head of technology change at Yorkshire Water, said: “Data has become increasingly important to how we operate as an organisation. It’s at the heart of everything we do, but there’s more we can achieve with it, so we are taking a more strategic approach to how it’s captured, managed, shared and used to help everyone do things better. We are working with the team at Oakland Group to develop this ambition and seek to build long-lasting data capabilities that will form the bedrock of how we operate for many years to come.”

The partnership will develop and improve data across all aspects, including architecture, governance and management. With a wide, complex operation, data can be a key enabler in driving efficiency and improving the customer experience.

Yorkshire Water aims to improve the use of data within the whole organisation by the end of Asset Management Period (AMP). With greater expectations from OFWAT heading into the next AMP period, it is preparing for a data-enabled future.

Andy Crossley, technical director at The Oakland Group, said: “This is a programme of significant importance to one of the largest water companies in the UK. We are pleased to be going on this journey with Yorkshire Water, and as a resident of Yorkshire, I can personally see the impact it will have. Whilst the programme seeks to develop a company-wide data-centric approach, and we are working with the internal teams to create real outputs that can be used to improve the customer experience and operational efficiency today.”

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Pictured: Andrew Crossley.

Data, Healthcare, News

MP urges Health Secretary to intervene to help GP ‘unlawfully’ dismissed over patient data

Patients accuse NHS England of forcing doctor to take further legal action after “unjustified, unacceptable and unreasonable” decision

The Health Secretary has been urged to review the case of an award-winning GP who was unlawfully sacked – according to the High Court – for trying to protect confidential patient data.

Labour MP John McDonnell has written to Steve Barclay pointing out the concerns of patients in his constituency and demanding that the Secretary of State intervene.

Furious patients of Dr Sashi Shashikanth say NHS England has forced the popular doctor to take further legal action in order to safeguard their patient records and the future of two practices which serve more than 8,000 patients.

Dr Shashikanth has sought to persuade NHS England to resolve a long-running confidential patient’s data conflict by reinstating him, without additional legal action, in order to save taxpayers’ cash.

But the West London GP says NHS England’s refusal to bow to a court ruling means he’s been left with no choice but to lodge further legal papers.

 

Patients ‘concerned’ at treatment of their GP set to meet with former PM

In his letter to Mr Barclay, the MP for Hayes and Harlington, writes: “Many of his patients have expressed to me their concerns about the way their doctor has been treated by the NHS bodies and the toll this has taken on him.

“I share these concerns and I am also anxious about the serious risk of losing two GP practices in an area of expanding population where there are already not enough GP’s to cope.

“I am writing to ask you to review the case of Dr Shashikanth and to seek a clear resolution to the current situation to enable this respected general practitioner to both abide by his patients’ wishes with regard to the sharing of their health data and to continue to serve our local community.

The development comes as patients’ groups also meet former Prime Minister, the Uxbridge and South Ruislip Tory MP Boris Johnson, on Monday (December 19th) to also urge him to intervene.

 

NHS England “defending the indefensible and wasting Taxpayer’s Cash”

Royal Navy veteran, John Rogers, 78, a prostate cancer patient who leads one of the local patient groups, said: “NHS England are wasting even more taxpayer’s cash by continuing to fight this case, despite a High Court judge saying Dr Shashikanth was unlawfully dismissed. They are trying to defend the indefensible.

“NHS England should do the right thing, and reinstate our doctor now. We also urge politicians of all parties to intervene to make NHS England see sense.”

Dr Shashikanth has asked for legal permission to appeal a decision by NHS England to unlawfully sack him as a GP for refusing to share confidential patient data. He has the backing of doctors’ leaders, including the BMA which is joining the case as an interested party.

Dr Shashikanth said: “Despite a ruling by a High Court judge which states that I was unlawfully dismissed by NHS England, they appear to be willing to waste more taxpayers’s money to defend this unjustified, unacceptable and unreasonable decision.”

 

GP Refused to Share Confidential Patient Data with PCN

The court ruling, which refused permission for a Judicial Review, raises major concerns for other GPs who seek to dispute decisions made by NHS England in future.

The long and bitter saga was sparked by Dr Shashikanth’s refusal, supported by legal advice and the wishes of his patients, to give full access to confidential patients’ data to the local Primary Care Network (PCN), part of a larger private enterprise. The GP’s practices were the only local surgeries which chose not to join the local PCN but offered to deliver services themselves.

As a result his contracts were terminated by Hillingdon’s now defunct Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) which also lodged a series of unfounded complaints about the GP to a range of key bodies including the General Medical Council (GMC), NHS England’s GP performance management department, and the Care Quality Commission (CQC), each of which rejected the complaints.

 

Dr Shashikanth said: “This whole ridiculous episode is totally unnecessary and a waste of NHS resources. At a time when GP workload is on the increase, our time, energy and resources are being diverted into fighting an unnecessary legal battle, when we should be concentrating on delivering services to our patients.

“I would, at this eleventh hour, urge NHS England to think again, and reinstate me without further delay.”

 

MP Tables Motion in Parliament

Mr McDonnell has already tabled a motion in parliament in support of Dr Shashikanth.

He said: “I am extremely concerned about what Dr Shashikanth has gone through purely because he wanted to follow his patients’ wishes to have control over whom their data could be shared with.

“Patients’ right to have control over their personal health information should be a fundamental principle and no health practitioner should be penalised for standing up for this right.”

 

Data, News, Tech

Global Research and Advisory Firm Names Commvault a Leader in Data Resilience Solutions Suites

Commvault, a global enterprise leader in data protection across on-premises, cloud, and SaaS environments, has announced Forrester has positioned the company as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Data Resilience Solutions Suites, Q4 2022.

Commvault has been top ranked in the Current Offering category, achieving the highest scores in the Backup-and-Restore Functionality and Automation and Orchestration criteria, and one of the highest scores in the Business Awareness/LOB Functionality criterion. In addition, Commvault received the highest scores possible in the Product Vision, Planned Enhancements, and Delivery Model criteria within the strategy category.

Key factors that contributed to Commvault’s ranking include its breadth of backup support and attention to enterprise needs, product integration of Metallic rounding out its Intelligent Data Services, and comprehensive ransomware defence capabilities through Metallic® ThreatWise™.

Commvault differentiated itself with its compelling vision in eight of the 13 different backup-and-restore criteria. Forrester specifically states, “Large enterprises that want to protect traditional infrastructure as well as provide advanced data resilience capabilities for newer technologies should look at Commvault.”

“In today’s hybrid cloud world, data has never been more valuable or more vulnerable, and customers need a proactive data protection strategy to stay safe from bad actors,” said Ranga Rajagopalan, Senior Vice President, Products, Commvault. “We believe our position as a Leader in the Forrester Wave for Data Resilience Solutions Suite validates the completeness of our current offerings and our vision in future-proofing the data protection strategy for our customers.”

The Forrester Wave™: Data Resilience Solutions Suite, Q4 2022 evaluated data resiliency solution vendors against 40 criteria, grouped into three high-level categories: Current Offering, Strategy, and Market Presence. The report shows how each provider measures up in its ability to offer comprehensive support for diverse backup sources and restore targets, secure customers’ backups and the backup infrastructure from cyberthreat, and address evolving data protection needs, especially in SaaS and container environments.

Learn more about what the industry’s leading experts are saying about Commvault and read the full report on our website.

Data, News, Tech

YugabyteDB 2.17 and New YugabyteDB Managed Features Focus on the Needs of Business-Critical Applications

Enhanced data protection, streamlined usability, and a global-ready DBaaS help enterprises deliver business continuity and exceed modern application demands

Yugabyte, the leading open source distributed SQL database company, today announced a wave of new product innovations with the availability of YugabyteDB 2.17 and major enhancements to YugabyteDB Managed. The latest releases address the database needs of the most demanding, mission-critical applications, offering the data protection, global deployment and streamlined usability enterprises need to accelerate their modernization initiatives.

Enterprises know that reliable and robust data is essential to meet high customer expectations and stay ahead of the competition. On top of that, embracing automation and streamlining usability are required to accelerate developer productivity and decrease time to new offerings and value-added services.

YugabyteDB 2.17 introduces key innovations to help power an enterprise’s business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) strategy. This release introduces new APIs for xCluster to support planned and unplanned failovers. In addition, YugabyteDB Anywhere simplifies the challenges of data protection with built-in support and controls for Yugabyte’s unique xCluster Replication technology. It delivers geo-aware data protection and 5x faster backups than the previous release.

To accelerate developer productivity, enterprises can now embrace YugabyteDB Managed for distributed enterprise applications, without the complexity and costs of managing the infrastructure or the database. New enhancements help meet regional compliance requirements by providing simplified self-service geo-partitioning, improved customer experience with low latency access through read replicas, and reduced friction to getting started with confidence through a new free trial of production clusters.

“Organizations looking to modernize new and existing core transactional applications need to move away from costly monolithic databases, but barriers to enterprise-readiness like data protection, security, and usability can block the way,” said Karthik Ranganathan, co-founder and CTO, Yugabyte. “YugabyteDB 2.17 removes key obstacles to database modernization. It empowers organizations with a host of new benefits unmatched in both legacy and many modern databases, putting developer productivity at the core.”

 

The enhancements and features available give users:

  • Simplified BCDR through YugabyteDB Anywhere with built-in support for streamlined xCluster replication deployment and management
  • Fast, geo-aware data protection of a wider set of business-critical applications with 5x faster backup and restore times and 20x more frequent backups
  • Granular, microsecond data recovery with more accessible Point-in-Time-Recovery (PITR) through a few clicks in YugabyteDB Anywhere
  • Reduced total cost of ownership with simplified operations and advanced automation through YugabyteDB Managed multi-cloud DBaaS
  • Accelerated developer productivity with enhanced usability, new observability enhancements, and industry-leading PostgreSQL-compatibility

 

The new YugabyteDB Managed Quantum Leap program offers startup organizations a $10,000 credit towards a YugabyteDB Managed database in production on the cloud provider of their choice—AWS or Google Cloud.

Additionally, Yugabyte offers customers a free 30-day trial of the dedicated YugabyteDB Managed production tier, with no credit card required. Customers can access a production-ready environment to test enterprise features, including automated and on-demand backups, multi-region clusters, high availability, dedicated VPC for network isolation and more. This trial is available for both product evaluation and production-ready use cases, including fully dedicated multi-node clusters.

Finally, YugabyteDB 2.16 is due for release shortly and will become the latest production-ready YugabyteDB version. Yugabyte 2.16 will give users access to new generally available features, like Change Data Capture (CDC) and Packed Row Format. Enhancements to CDC in this version include the ability to add tables ad hoc to existing CDC streams, perform schema changes, and transparent transition from snapshot to streaming modes.

For a deep dive into the new features in YugabyteDB 2.17 and YugabyteDB Managed, visit the Yugabyte Blog and dedicated launch landing page.

For more information on registering for a free trial of YugabyteDB Managed, visit https://cloud.yugabyte.com/signup.

 

​​About Yugabyte

Yugabyte is the company behind YugabyteDB, the open source, high-performance distributed SQL database for building global, cloud-native applications. YugabyteDB serves business-critical applications with SQL query flexibility, high performance and cloud-native agility, thus allowing enterprises to focus on business growth instead of complex data infrastructure management. It is trusted by companies in cybersecurity, financial markets, IoT, retail, e-commerce, and other verticals. Founded in 2016 by former Facebook and Oracle engineers, Yugabyte is backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, 8VC, Dell Technologies Capital, Sapphire Ventures, and others. www.yugabyte.com