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european
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editor’s
comment
study predicts
growtH in tecH
spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
is benefiting
from superfast
broadband
sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
CW
The DIGITAL mAGAzIne for europeAn IT LeADers from CompuTer WeekLy JAnuAry 2013
IT spending to
rise in 2013
CW Europe January 2013 1
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Home
european
news
editor’s
comment
study predicts
growtH in tecH
spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
is benefiting
from superfast
broadband
sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
Dublin Airport Authority uses
virtualisation to overhaul IT
Dublin Airport Authority has launched
an it overhaul project with hp converged
infrastructure and a VMware vsphere
platform, delivering cost savings, standardised
it, highly available infrastructure and a
centrally managed environment.
European Parliament approves
single EU patent system
the European parliament has voted in
a patent statute to cover the European
Union (EU). it is on the road to becoming
law now 25 states have agreed to the
regulation, but italy and spain have chosen
to stay out due to language concerns.
UK users download highest
volume of mobile data
the latest international communications
Report from ofcom showed that unlimited
data tariffs and large allowances are
encouraging Uk users to download more
data on their mobiles than users in many
other countries.
EU businesses embrace
remote working
A Eurostat report has revealed that 48%
of companies across the European Union
provide employees with a portable device
for working on the move.
UK CIOs see EU regulation
as key, study shows
A third of Uk cios are more concerned
with EU regulation, such as the Data
protection Directive, than their own local
laws, a study has revealed.
EuropEan nEws
additional resourCes
Computer Weekly invites entries for
inaugural european user aWards in 2013
› uktecH50 2012 coverage
› tHe future of computing at
ibm ZuricH researcH labs
› aws re: invent 2012 coverage
› a tour of london’s victorian sewers:
geo networks cabling system
› computer weekly supplier directory
› world’s oldest digital
computer is back in action
› infrastructure as a service
on windows aZure
EC competition authorities
delay Google decision
Google could face a multi-billion euro
fine as Ec competition authorities debate
whether it has tackled issues about abusing
its dominant market position.
VMworld Europe case study:
DER Deutsches Reisebüro
A German travel agent gained control of
its it and increased its profits after implementing
a desktop virtualisation project.
VMworld Europe case study:
Bull SAS
the it team at Bull sAs collaborated
with suppliers to build a private cloud
platform capable of keeping sensitive
data secure. n
Computer Weekly has launched its first annual Computer Weekly european user Awards, which
honours IT professionals in europe who have excelled in their approach to networking, storage,
security, business software and datacentres.
running online throughout 2013, a different awards series will take place every two months.
entries are open to IT departments and resellers or suppliers that wish to enter on behalf of a
customer.
Click here if you wish to enter your team or on behalf of a client.
CW Europe January 2013 2

Home
european
news
editor’s
comment
study predicts
growtH in tecH
spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
is benefiting
from superfast
broadband
sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
2013 predictions
for tech in Europe
Afew years ago, most conversations seemed
to be around how to save the business
money and make it more efficient, whereas
in 2013 businesses look like they will be asking a
different question: how do we generate more value
for the business?
this is likely to be achieved through a number of
routes. For example, bringing offshore contracts
back inland, bring your own device (BYoD), and
utilising big data and business analytics.
however, these benefits will also bring downfalls
if not monitored correctly. For instance, analysts
predict that, by 2014, employee-owned devices will
be compromised by malware at more than double
the rate of corporate-owned devices.
As businesses start to warm up to the idea
of using their ever-growing storage as valuable
data, instead of finding ways to minimise it, it will
become too compelling for companies not to utilise
the information they have in their own databases
through the use of business analytics.
however, Gartner predicts that by 2015 demand
for big data specialists will hit one million in the
Global 1000, but only a third of these will be filled
due to a lack of skilled staff in this area.
in this issue of CW Europe you will find several
predictions for the continent in 2013, including
statistics on how it budgets are expected to grow
by 2% and how businesses will seek the best
value from their investments as they try to further
reduce costs and improve sustainability in their
2013 datacentres.
Read how a cash injection of £270m from
Brussels boosted the county of cornwall to enable
the Uk seaside attraction to become one of the
most connected counties.
2013 looks like it is set to be a challenging time for
many European businesses. here’s to an interesting
new year! n
Kayleigh Bateman
Editor of CW Europe
Special projects editor for Computer Weekly
CW
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CW Europe January 2013 3

Home
european
news
editor’s
comment
study predicts
growtH in tecH
spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
is benefiting
from superfast
broadband
sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
it spEnding prEdictions 2013
IT budgets to rise despite downturn
European IT budgets will grow by 2% this year, according to a study of 180
companies with an IT spending power of $52bn. Bill Goodwin reports
Cios across Europe are predicting their
it budgets will increase by an average
of 2% in 2013, despite the downturn.
But investment on capital projects will
slow, as operational spending assumes a
higher proportion of the it budget, research
by business advisory firm cEB reveals.
the findings are a reflection that it
departments have caught up with it projects
temporarily put on hold at the start of the
recession, says Andrew horne, managing
director of cEB, formerly the corporate
Executive Board.
Productivity
cios will use 2013 to invest in high-return
projects to improve employee productivity,
collaboration and mobility, the survey of 180
companies with combined it budgets of
$52bn shows.
“cios recognise that the nature of work
is changing and in this new environment
there is a huge opportunity for it to drive
employee productivity,” says horne.
it departments are moving away from traditional
process automation projects towards
more strategic business intelligence, collaboration
and customer-facing technologies.
the top 20% of organisations, measured
by it spending, plan to devote 66% of their
it budgets to information management and
collaboration projects, the research reveals.
End-to-end services
At the same time, more it departments are
shifting their focus to provide end-to-end services
to the business, rather than point it solutions.
Among those companies that already
offer end-to-end it services, some 75% plan
to devote as much as 30% of their operational
it budget on the end-to-end model.
the trend is leading to the development
of new it roles as it organisations appoint
service managers and user experience
designers to liaise with internal customers in
the organisation.
“these investments suggest that the days
of it project queues filled with process
automation are over. the best companies
are laser-focused on equipping employees
with the tools they need to more effectively
contribute to the bottom line,” says horne.
Cloud computing
the survey reveals that 54% of it organisations
plan to increase their spending
on public cloud services in 2013 in a drive
to make the it department more flexible
and efficient.
The Top 20% of firms
plan To devoTe 66% of
Their iT budgeTs To
informaTion managemenT
and collaboraTion
CW Europe January 2013 4
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Home
european
news
editor’s
comment
study predicts
growtH in tecH
spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
is benefiting
from superfast
broadband
sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
spending on cloud computing will rise from
5% to 7% of the it budget in 2013.
software as a service (saas) will account
for the greatest spending, followed by
infrastructure as a service (iaas). platform
as a service (paas) is a small but increasing
part of companies’ cloud portfolios.
Mobile
some 75% of it organisations plan to
invest in developing mobile applications
next year, reflecting the growing interest
in companies giving their employees
access to work-based systems on
the move.
spending on mobile application development
will grow by 50% to nearly 2% of total
it expenditure.
it spEnding prEdictions 2013
the true figure is likely to be higher, as
it does not include spending by marketing
departments on social media projects
without the it department’s involvement.
Maintenance spending still high
Despite efforts by cios to free up cash
for innovation, mandatory spending and
maintenance work still accounts for most
of the it budget. on average, more than
two-thirds of it spending is allocated to
maintenance and mandatory spending.
cios will need to work hard to prioritise
the demands of their business this year,
given the relatively modest rise in spending,
says cEB’s horne. n
european it outsourCing prediCtions for 2013
on the scale of things, europe’s economic problems rank pretty high. The credit crunch and euro
crisis have left businesses in the uk and across continental europe with a lot of challenges.
But what does this mean for the IT outsourcing sector in the continent?
lee ayling, head of kpmg’s technology shared services and outsourcing advisory, says:
“southern europe will outsource more. This will see the growth of local delivery centres to support
european languages and locales such as egypt and Latin American.
multi-sourcing remains the norm, with most IT deals having service integration layers now.
some strategic management functions are being brought back in-house in second-generation
outsourcing deals – often the driver is to manage costs
and governance.
Don’t expect double-digit cost savings on outsourcing “only Those
deals any more – focus on access to better capabilities.”
mark lewis, head of outsourcing at law firm berwin
leighton paisner, says:
“We’ll see more big companies finally adopting public
cloud at enterprise level, and we’ll see some of the banks
and other financial institutions using public cloud for
parts of their businesses.
The eu will publish standards and regulations for
public cloud that will cause havoc with the us tech sector.
All cloud providers operating in europe will have to
radically overhaul their contracts, especially in the areas
of data protection, sovereignty, mobility and portability.
While public cloud will become more important, IT
outsourcing will become even harder for complacent or
unimaginative suppliers. We’ll see even more industri-
Bill Goodwin is Computer Weekly’s management editor
suppliers which can
offer really smarT
soluTions will
flourish. for The
resT, margins will
sink even lower”
mark lewis,
berwin leighTon paisner
alised, shorter-term, multi-sourced IT outsourcing deals. only those suppliers which can offer
really smart solutions will flourish. for the rest, margins will sink even lower.”
CW Europe January 2013 5

Home
european
news
editor’s
comment
study predicts
growtH in tecH
spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
is benefiting
from superfast
broadband
sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
casE study
Cornwall connected to do business
Cornwall has become one of the most connected counties since it received
funding from the EU’s Convergence scheme. Jennifer Scott reports
Cornwall has long been known as a
sleepy, seaside county, perfect for rural
holidays and cream teas, but rarely has
it been viewed as a hub for business.
As the strength of the British economy has
floundered, counties such as cornwall have
faced tough times keeping afloat and boosting
local businesses.
Brussels awarded cornwall £270m in 2006
from the EU’s convergence scheme to bring
the area out of the monetary doldrums.
Following a consultation, £53.5m of the
European Regional Development Fund’s cash
was allocated towards making cornwall one
of the most connected counties in the world.
the superfast cornwall project was born.
With additional funding from telecoms
giant Bt and cornwall council, the overall
fund reached £132m, and the cornwall
Development company (cDc) was put in
charge of planning the roll-out.
cDc set itself the challenge of ensuring at
least 80% of the county could access superfast
broadband by March 2014, with harderto-reach
residents and businesses getting at
least 2Mbps by the same deadline. computer
Weekly visited a number of areas in cornwall
to see how superfast internet connectivity has
changed the local community.
Trispen
the village of trispen is home to roughly
1,000 people. it is a former “not-spot” in
cornwall, but is now benefiting from highspeed
connectivity.
For three or four years, residents asked
“where is the broadband and when is it coming?”,
says councillor Rob trethewey, chairman
of the local parish council. “now we get
between 30Mbps and 40Mbps on average,
and it brings people the chance to work at
home or for children to go online and get
help with their homework.”
initial analysis of the area found it would be
too expensive to convert the copper wiring
to fibre, but with fibre-to-the-cabinet (Fttc)
technology, Bt was able to put a new cabinet
next to the existing one and join them up,
enabling the faster fibre connection to get to
the edge of the village and the traditional wiring
to carry it to the houses.
Resident Grant cullingford, who is the cto
of orbiss – the first company to be connected
to superfast broadband in the county – has
benefited from the superfast connectivity. “i
was going from 2Mbps in truro [at work] to
0.25Mbps when i got home,” he says. “now, i
get download speeds of around 65Mbps and
uploads of as much as 16Mbps.”
Pool Innovation Centre
the pool innovation centre is a European
Union-funded hub in cornwall housing
60 small and medium-sized enterprises
(sMEs) as well as the cDc’s main base.
superfast cornwall is run from a small and
unassuming office on the first floor.
“We wanted to be close to the people we
help,” says nigel Ashcroft, director of the
cDc. “it might be a small office for such
a big project [the team consists of just 10
people] but we deal with this through a lot of
hot-desking and remote working, all enabled
by the technology we are rolling out.”
falmouth
fibre poles
CW Europe January 2013 6

Home
european
news
editor’s
comment
study predicts
growtH in tecH
spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
is benefiting
from superfast
broadband
sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
the cDc and Bt have set up a showcase
room to educate prospective partners and
users, as well as encourage knowledge-based
firms to the area. Locals can learn about all
the technologies, from Fttc and Fttp (fibreto-the-premises)
to satellite broadband, see
the equipment Bt uses to roll out the connections
and watch educational videos explaining
where and when the project will take place.
“We need to be out in the community
talking to businesses, councils and being
the face of the programme,” says Ashcroft.
“the whole programme goes out under the
superfast cornwall brand, and that pervasive
campaign is important.”
Arcol is a semiconductor manufacturer
based in threemilestone – named because of
its distance from truro. it sits on an industrial
estate next to a small number of businesses,
which until six months ago were struggling to
keep a steady 1.5Mbps connection throughout
the day.
“We sell in over 40 countries, so the ability
to communicate is imperative to us,” says
Alun Morgan, technical director for Arcol.
“Before, we couldn’t even listen to a radio
stream from the internet and staff were having
to wait until 6pm when they got home to
use their email.”
now, not only has Arcol got Fttp providing
connections of up to 330Mbps into its office
and factory, it has become the base for a Bt
trial testing out 10Gbps lines to future-proof
Bt’s network.
“this technological proof-of-concept trial
is not just about great broadband speeds
now, but about future-proofing our network
and staying ahead,” says Ranulf scarbrough,
director of the superfast cornwall
programme for Bt. “We have proved we can
do it – we can get 10Gbps, which is 10,000
times faster than what Arcol was getting just
six months ago – and although we may be
limited by electronics, it is not the fibre that
will hold these networks up.”
Tremough Campus
the tremough campus, located on the
outskirts of Falmouth in a small town
called penryn, hosts two universities – the
University of Exeter and University college
Falmouth. thanks to EU funding, the site
is rammed with state-of-the-art buildings
casE study
housing modern technology to bring exciting
opportunities to both students and businesses
in the area.
the campus hosts the Academy of
innovation and Research, a sister site to the
pool innovation centre, which houses 60 businesses.
the main displays in the centre focus
on the idea of how connectivity and technology
could influence the arts and crafts movement,
enabling new techniques to create unique
pieces away from traditional processes.
“superfast cornwall is not just about rolling
out pipes and cables; it is about the way it
changes people’s lives,” says Anne carlisle,
rector of University college Falmouth.
“cornwall was once considered the edge of
Britain, but thanks to this technology, i like to
call it the leading edge, with all the innovations
we are now coming out with.”
the music department has a £45,000
Yamaha Disclavia grand piano, linked through
superfast broadband to Disclavias elsewhere
in the world, allowing it to replicate a remote
performance. Another project is looking at the
future of video-conferencing and telepresence
for performance, which involves two studios
in which each wall is turned into a screen with
cameras on every side recording what is going
on in the room.
the university is already in talks with local villages
to bring the technology into church halls
and allow residents to watch performances
surrounded by this immersive technology.
Falmouth
Falmouth is running overhead Fttp and
lightweight fibre cable trials. By using existing
poles in the area the trial shows how
superfast connectivity could be delivered
without having to dig up any roads.
“Falmouth was the first place in the Uk
to get this over-the-pole technology,” says
scarbrough. “it now covers hundreds of
homes, is lightweight for those hard-to-reach
places and it is designed to withstand frost,
rain and anything else you can throw at it.”
Without the need for digging, there was
little disruption to the area and future
connections can be made on a per order
basis in a matter of days, rather than weeks
or months. n
Jennifer Scott is networking editor for Computer Weekly
CW Europe January 2013 7

Home
european
news
editor’s
comment
study predicts
growtH in tecH
spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
is benefiting
from superfast
broadband
sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
datacEntrE EfficiEncy
Organisations to focus on
datacentre efficiency in 2013
As firms seek the best value from investments they will aim to reduce costs and
improve sustainability in the datacentre this year. Archana Venkatraman reports
Enterprises want the best value from their investments and will try to reduce costs
and improve the efficiency of their datacentres in 2013, according to a study
from analyst ovum.
the sustainable datacentre market will see accelerated growth in 2013 as it
becomes more focused on cost savings, and provides more efficient internal it delivery
methods such as virtualisation, software-defined networks (sDns) and the use of converged
infrastructure solutions, according to the research.
“Due to the rise of the datacentre infrastructure management (DciM) market – now
referred to as it financial management, closely linked to the cost and availability of
energy – the role of chief sustainability officer (cso) will become more commonplace in
organisations,” says Roy illsley, principal analyst at ovum and author of the report.
Although DciM represents a small market today, it will become more widely used in
2013, as its initial drives will be based on costs linked to energy and change, the analyst
predicts.
“As organisations look more into saving costs, energy represents a huge percentage of
the cost base,” he says.
Development and operations (Devops) will also become part of a cio’s sustainable
datacentre strategy in 2013.
CW Europe January 2013 8
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Home
european
news
editor’s
comment
study predicts
growtH in tecH
spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
is benefiting
from superfast
broadband
sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
datacEntrE EfficiEncy
Will a fully virtualised datacentre become a reality in 2013?
While sustainable it, DciM and Devops will be the key focus for enterprises in 2013, other
trends predicted by ovum for the year ahead include the possibility of complete virtualisation
of all layers in the datacentre, from the database to storage.
total virtualisation will also drive the need for greater automation technologies and the
associated orchestration layer.
Bring your own device (BYoD) will become
more in evidence between 2013 and 2014,
and the mobile policies for corporate use and cloud compuTing
the growth of smartphones will be combined
will noT bring an
to provide a path for increased adoption by
employees.
end To The inTernal
cios will look for technologies to deliver the
same or more services at a reduced cost, the daTacenTre This year
ovum study shows.
Effect of cloud computing on datacentres
the analyst also says the hype surrounding cloud computing will not bring an end to the
internal datacentre this year.
For many organisations, the question of workload classification still remains a difficult
issue. the default position will remain to keep workloads on-premise in the organisation’s
own datacentre, says illsley: “Even if the workloads are fully understood in terms of
risk, cost and value, the ability to move them is the Achilles heel of current technologies.”
this scenario is highly unlikely to change unless workloads between cloud technologies
achieve true interoperability in 2013 or security and privacy concerns evaporate, he adds.
so far, lack of cloud portability and interoperability has hindered cloud adoption. n
Archana Venkatraman is datacentre editor for Computer Weekly
dataCentre group Collaborates With european
Commission over it energy effiCienCy measures
The european Commission (eC) and datacentre industry consortium The Green Grid are collaborating
on policies to improve efficiency in datacentres. non-profit industry lobby group The
Green Grid includes datacentre users, policy makers, technology providers, facility architects
and utility companies. speaking at The Green Grid forum 2012, experts said a clear and uniform
action plan must be implemented if IT is serious about limiting its greenhouse gas emissions.
“Datacentres consume 2% of total global electricity consumption and this is set to double in
the next few years, but currently there is no uniform strategy, metric or methodology to curb
carbon footprint,” said Colette maloney, head of sustainability unit at the eC.
“We see a lot of enterprises claiming they have improved their datacentre’s energy efficiency,
but everyone uses a different methodology and a different baseline to calculate energy efficiency,”
she said. “There are a lot of energy-efficiency boosting initiatives undertaken at an
individual or organisational level, but as policy-makers, the european Commission is not able to
have a view on how all that adds up. The eC is calling for standardisation in IT energy efficiency
metrics. We want to see more refinement in metrics.”
one of the most commonly accepted datacentre energy metrics is power usage effectiveness
(pue), but experts at The Green Grid admitted pue has been abused and misused. many businesses
calculate pue based on just regular cooling techniques and come up with an impressive
pue result. But they fail to take into account cooling generated by energy-guzzling ups devices,
said Andre rouyer, european chair of The Green Grid.
CW Europe January 2013 9

Home
european
news
editor’s
comment
study predicts
growtH in tecH
spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
is benefiting
from superfast
broadband
sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
Big Data
and Hadoop
data analytics
Adoption of big data to grow
Big data and analytics companies predict increased adoption in Europe, with
technologies such as MapR, Cloudera, ParAccel and Pentaho sketching out the
likely pattern of growth in 2013. Brian McKenna reports
Corporate users of it were increasingly
trying out big data technologies,
such as hadoop, throughout
2012. Apache hadoop is the open
source instance of the parallel programming
framework MapReduce, developed at
Google, which simplifies data processing
across huge data sets distributed across
commodity hardware. it is one technology
associated with big data, which includes
social media data, machine-generated data
and data types that do not fit neatly into
the rows and columns of relational database
technologies.
At the beginning of last year, teradata’s
chief technology officer stephen Brobst – a
leading thinker from the data warehousing
field – predicted that big data would “cross
the chasm” in 2012.
At the beginning of 2013, it is still in the
post-innovators and early adopter phase,
but moving from interactive digital companies such as Google, Facebook, twitter and
Linkedin, through financial services, and into telecoms. it is also moving from the Us
west coast to the east, and thence to the Uk.
Innovative use of big data
Asked to comment on how they see those pilot projects developing, or failing to develop,
and where they see big data in relation to “crossing the chasm”, a number of experts in the
field had similar, but differing responses.
MapR, a customised hadoop distribution company, launched its European operation in
December 2012, with its headquarters in London. Jack norris, vice-president of marketing
at the company, says customer and partner demand drove the timing of its European
launch. in MapR’s experience, Uk organisations are going straight to production,
whereas more experimentation has been evident among Us prospects and customers.
norris notes a range of emerging applications where hadoop is being used creatively.
“there are the web 2.0 properties in digital. i liked last summer’s story that Rubicon
has now passed Google in the reach of its advertising network, based on the comscore
measurement. Rubicon happens to be a MapR customer, and so is comscore, and
Google is a partner. the other end of the spectrum is a major Us credit card issuer that
rolled out a new service based on hadoop in one quarter. We also have a Uk financial
services company doing something similar,” says norris.
“We’ve also seen hadoop used to understand sensor information on a global basis to
schedule preventative maintenance. And it is being used in government intelligence, and
at an internet security company,” he says.
CW Europe January 2013 10
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study predicts
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spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
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sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
data analytics
cloudera, a silicon Valley hadoop distributor which wraps its services around the open
source version, is also stepping up its European operation. With respect to the phasing
of big data analytics, chief operating officer kirk Dunn says that “with a lot of technology
the early phase is about evangelism”. But with hadoop for big data analytics, companies
are “already feeling pain” in terms of data size and speed. he says the traditional adoption
curve is less applicable, with adoption proving faster and more in parallel across sectors
such as digital, financial services, telecoms and government.
“once you have this technology, you can see other possibilities, and the open source
nature of hadoop is a wrinkle here. that means adoption is organic, bottom up as well as
top down, from cio level,” says Dunn.
his advice for those beyond pilot-stage experimentation is plain. “Don’t go trying to
solve any new business problems. Look at your top two or three business imperatives
and apply customer-generated big data capability to those. trying to find some esoteric
result from an esoteric technology is not to be recommended. Don’t do that.
“the social networking companies have taught us that there is a level of intimacy we
can get with who we are connected to. By the same token, enterprises can connect their
products and services with customers in a more intimate way, which is like the social
networking entities.
Guy chiarello, cio at JpMorgan chase, said the bank wants to understand customers
so it gets more share of their wallets in a way which benefits those customers. “it’s
the degree of customer insight that big data analytics makes possible that enables that.
We are now able to do things that we were not previously able to do because of storage
limitations and lack of compute power,” he says.
parAccel, an advanced analytics database company based in santa cruz, is also
increasing its activity in the Uk. Vice-president of marketing Rich Ghiossi says big data
is only part of the picture, which affiliates more with what Gartner calls the logical data
warehouse, spanning data stores large and small, non-relational and relational, from the
locus of an analytical hub. other analysts and analyst houses have their own terms for
the concept, such as the hybrid data ecosystem.
in relation to big data analytics adoption, Ghiossi says the Us seems to be ahead of
London, but only by a few months. there is a sticking point, however. “to adopt hadoop
today, you need a slew of expensive programmers. the government and the new dotcom,
digital companies have those – other sectors, less so,” he says.
Like norris, Ghiossi sees sensor data as an emerging area for user organisations, as
well as social networking data. “companies using control systems are leveraging log data
in new ways. small variations in the sensor data from air-conditioning or electrical systems
can indicate where preventative maintenance is needed. And we are also seeing, in
california, where smart metering in energy can generate data that can change consumer
behaviour in ways that could be phenomenal,” he says.
pentaho cEo Quentin Gallivan says the big data phenomenon is fuelling growth for
the open source data integration and business intelligence supplier. it helps customers
quickly ingest big data into their hadoop, nosQL or analytical platform, such as
teradata’s AsterData, and enables them to visualise and
A Computer Weekly/
searchDatamanagementuk survey of
184 uk and continental european IT
and business professionals critically
engaged with data matters revealed that
27% planned to increase investment in
big data technologies in 2013, and 23%
of respondents already had big data
programmes in development.
analyse that data.
customers tend to come to pentaho once they have
deployed hadoop, he says. “the Us is ahead, but we are
seeing lots of use cases in the Uk. And the industry analysts
we’ve talked to in the Uk are bullish. My sense is that if you
are not an interactive company, in digital or government, you
are more likely to be trialling [big data] technology, in an
experimental phase,” he says. n
Brian McKenna is business applications editor for Computer Weekly
CW Europe January 2013 11

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study predicts
growtH in tecH
spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
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broadband
sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
EC sets out
strategy for
EU cloud data
and standards
Cyber attack reporting to
boost defence capability
cybEr sEcurity
EC considers mandatory reporting of cyber attacks. Warwick Ashford reports
The European commission (Ec) is considering making it mandatory for companies
to report cyber attacks to harness the benefits of open dialogue, says vicepresident
neelie kroes.
Despite industry opposition, open
discussion about cyber threats is vital to enable
organisations to learn and improve understanding
of the issue, she told the German publication
Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Details of the EU’s plans are likely to be
revealed with the publication of its cyber security
strategy. kroes, who is responsible for the EU’s
Digital Agenda, believes cloud computing may
give new impetus to the faltering economy, provided
people are confident that the new model is
reasonably secure.
cloud compuTing
may give new
impeTus To
The falTering
economy, provided
iT is secure
the Ec predicts that cloud computing could boost European economic output by
€160bn a year because of increased efficiencies and lower-cost access to resources by
smaller companies.
kroes believes that increased use of cloud technologies will also create 2.5 million jobs
by 2020 and help redress high unemployment among youth across Europe.
CW Europe January 2013 12
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study predicts
growtH in tecH
spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
is benefiting
from superfast
broadband
sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
Cloud
security
begins with
the contract
cybEr sEcurity
Cloud partnership
in January 2012, kroes called on
public authorities, industry, cloud
buyers and suppliers to come
together in a European cloud
partnership.
calling for action to support
the speedy uptake of cloud computing
in Europe at the World
Economic Forum in Davos,
switzerland, kroes said the main
obstacles to cloud adoption –
standards, certification, data
protection, interoperability, lockin,
and legal certainty – need to
be addressed.
the Ec has established a
working group to address the
need for common technical
standards to support and grow
the cloud computing industry.
the working group is set to
tackle thorny issues such as what happens to organisations’ data after the cloud
services contract expires.
in november 2012, the steering board of the new European cloud partnership (Ecp)
met in Brussels to kick off the process of building an EU Digital single Market for cloud
computing.
the board aims to make the most of the public sector’s buying power to shape the
growing market for cloud computing services.
the Ecp will develop common computing procurement requirements for use by EU
member states and create a common framework for cloud computing across Europe.
the Ecp is also tasked with stimulating the migration of public it to the cloud by
resolving barriers to cloud computing adoption in the public sector. n
neelie kroes: obstacles
to cloud adoption need
to be addressed
Warwick Ashford is security editor for Computer Weekly
european parliament opposed to giving Control
of the internet to united nations agenCy
european mps are the latest group to voice concerns that the International Telecommunication
union (ITu) could get control of the internet through its coming revision of telecoms rules.
The un agency updated its International Telecommunication regulations (ITrs) at the World
Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in December 2012, but some member
states fear it will lead to centralised control of the internet by the un.
european mps have joined the us and internet firm Google in saying that the un should not
be allowed to take control of the internet in response to reports that russia and its allies want
control of key internet systems passed to the ITu, instead of us-based groups such as Icann,
which regulates the web address system.
The european parliament says the ITu is “not the appropriate body” to have authority, according
to the BBC. european mps backed a resolution which urged member states to reject changes
to the ITrs, which would “negatively impact the internet, its architecture, operations, content
and security, business relations, internet governance and the free flow of information online”.
CW Europe January 2013 13
photo coURtEsY oF thE WoRLD EconoMic FoRUM

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study predicts
growtH in tecH
spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
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sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
Case study:
How law firm
Thomson Snell
& Passmore
uses Silver
Peak to
optimise Citrix
nEtwork optimisation
United Drug makes savings with
Silver Peak WAN optimisation
Drug maker deploys Silver Peak WAN optimisation products to cure network
bottlenecks and ensure effective disaster recovery. Antony Adshead reports
Irish multinational drug maker United Drug has implemented silver peak WAn optimisation
devices that have improved application performance, upgraded disaster
recovery provision and saved on bandwidth costs to the tune of €30,000 per year.
the WAn optimisation implementation forms part of a revamp of network and disaster
recovery (DR) provision under the company’s crystal project, which aims to boost
the effectiveness of the business and its it service and will see the current number of 26
it sites slimmed down to three or four main datacentres globally.
United Drug has grown through acquisition over the past two years to span 23 countries
and 8,000 employees. it has around 200 locations overall, mostly in Western
Europe, with 10 sites in the irish Republic and northern ireland, plus six sites in Britain.
key applications for the business are enterprise resource planning (ERp), quality management,
business intelligence, Microsoft Exchange, sharepoint and office. the company
runs on an infrastructure of EMc VnX unified storage subsystems, cisco networking
gear and x86 servers from Dell, hp and iBM. Data replication between sites is dealt
with by EMc’s switch-based replication product Recoverpoint.
core applications are delivered from centralised country hubs to remote sites, but
United Drug was suffering latency issues that affected replication between the company’s
main site in Dublin, second production site in Belfast, as well as to a new dedicated
DR site in Dublin. Also, poor replication performance affected United Drug’s disaster
recovery provision, according to it director tim Buckley.
“We had a newly deployed MpLs WAn but were struggling to get the performance we
wanted for key apps. We also wanted to change our DR landscape completely. that’s
why we looked at WAn optimisation,” he says.
CW Europe January 2013 14
JUpitERiMAGEs/BRAnD X pictUREs/thinkstock

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european
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editor’s
comment
study predicts
growtH in tecH
spending across
europe tHis year
How cornwall
is benefiting
from superfast
broadband
sustainable
datacentres to
see accelerated
growtH in 2013
adoption of big
data and data
analytics to rise
across europe
ec considers
mandatory
reporting of
cyber attacks
drugs company
boosts efficiency
witH silver peak
wan optimisation
nEtwork optimisation
so far, in ireland and the British mainland United Drug has deployed silver peak
VX-5000 WAn optimisation appliances at central hubs and nX-3700s at remote sites.
the devices have been rolled out to 12 sites so far. the project will see silver peak hardware
rolled out to the rest of Europe in 2013 and other worldwide sites in 2014.
WAn optimisation products reduce the load on existing bandwidth by a combination
of data deduplication, caching and optimisation
of network protocols and application traffic.
WAn optimisation is often deployed to help with neTwork Traffic
replication of data between sites to effect disaster
recovery provision.
efficiency has
Optimising network efficiency
Buckley says network traffic efficiency has
improved by between 50% and 90% since the
silver peak implementation, and this has boosted
application performance and allowed effective
disaster recovery provision to be assured. he
estimates that the company avoided bandwidth
upgrade costs of €30,000 last year, with increasing
savings expected over the next few years.
improved by
beTween 50%
and 90% since
The silver peak
implemenTaTion
“Remote office locations have seen much improved app response times, and WAn traffic
is much improved. Disaster recovery now presents a much lower risk for a company
of our stature,” says Buckley.
silver peak was chosen in an evaluation process alongside Dublin-based reseller
comsys from a field of WAn optimisation suppliers that also included Blue coat
systems, cisco and Riverbed. Buckley does not give details on why silver peak was chosen,
other than to say it came out best on “speed, quality and cost”.
Asked how silver peak could improve its product in future, Buckley says: “currently
when silver peak devices go down at remote sites we have to reboot them from the central
hub. it’d be good if this wasn’t necessary in future, although we haven’t checked the
upgrade documentation, so it may have already addressed this.” n
Antony Adshead is storage editor for Computer Weekly
Case study: Cern adopts openstaCk private
Cloud to solve big data Challenges
The Large hadron Collider (LhC), which aims to answer fundamental questions of the universe’s
existence, is one of Cern’s most important projects. But as the LhC produces 1pB of data every
second, big data and lack of computing resources were becoming the european organisation for
nuclear research’s biggest IT challenges.
The IT team has been using the open source openstack-based private cloud environment
in the testing and development stage. Cern started using the openstack private cloud about
12 months ago in the testing environment, upgrading more recently to the fifth version of
openstack – the essex release. Cern hopes to go live and use private cloud infrastructure in
production by february 2013, according to infrastructure manager Tim Bell.
“This month, we will upgrade to the sixth version of openstack – folsom. We will test it for
a month and go live in february,” he says. moving to a large-scale infrastructure-as-a-service
(Iaas) cloud based on openstack will help the european organisation for nuclear research
significantly expand its compute resources and support more than 10,000 scientists worldwide
using the infrastructure to find answers to questions such as what the universe is made of.
CW Europe January 2013 15