Is your storage estate ‘just about working’?

Published by: Scott Reynolds on April 5, 2019 in Hybrid IT

Three quarters of UK enterprises with 500+ employees think their current data environment/ storage infrastructure ‘does not meet their needs well’: but what are they planning to do about it?

The storage landscape is changing rapidly as businesses strive to deal with an ever-increasing volume of data. To discover more about the challenges of operating current storage infrastructures and what this means for near-future storage strategies, we surveyed those at the sharp end of the data explosion to create ‘The State of Data Storage in UK Enterprises’ research report.

Download the report

A snapshot

The three biggest challenges of operating current storage infrastructures

Security and compliance
The complexity of diverse systems
An over-stretched IT team

The three biggest storage headaches for 2019

Security and compliance
Increasing volumes of data
Choosing the right storage option for specific business needs

These pressures are creating major headaches for IT professionals, who must manage and monitor ever-expanding storage infrastructure while keeping an accurate and up-to-the minute view of available capacity. The task is further complicated by the multitude of storage options now in common use – including on-premise, public and private cloud, and hybrid solutions – and exacerbated by the current scarcity of skilled and experienced IT staff.

Preparing for the challenge of Artificial Intelligence and IoT

The report highlights a spike in the accumulation of unstructured data. New technology – from machine learning to IoT and AI – is creating an avalanche of digital information. And of course, new data compliance regulations mean that more information must be safely stored in a way that also makes it easy to find, retrieve and, if necessary, delete.

For respondents who indicate an intention to adopt new storage technology in 2019, the drivers behind investment mirror the challenges they currently face. The highest number (22%) want to replace legacy infrastructure, while 16% want to add capacity and 13% want new storage technology to help them fulfil security or compliance obligations. 15% of respondents want to simplify their storage management processes and 20% are keen to add scalability to their storage infrastructure, so they can easily boost or reduce capacity as circumstances dictate.

Explore our in-depth research on the biggest challenges associated with operating current storage infrastructures and how your peers are planning to tackle them.

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WRITTEN BY Scott Reynolds

Practice Lead for Hybrid IT, Scott Reynolds has worked with Logicalis since 2007 in several roles in sales. In 2016 as Sales Enablement Manager, Scott was responsible for driving sales and marketing enablement around Hybrid Cloud solutions, Service Management and Information and Data Management. Since taking on the role of Hybrid IT Practice Lead Scott is now responsible for establishing and executing Logicalis’ vision around Hybrid Cloud, Data & Availability, and Operations Management.

With over 20 years in the IT industry, Scott uses his experience as a visionary to see the bigger picture while helping customers understand how they can achieve their goals, by applying a logical approach to drive value.

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Putting people at the heart of AI adoption

Fanni Vig
January 11, 2019

In years to come, it’s possible that we’ll look back on 2018 as the year that Artificial Intelligence (AI) really arrived. When potential became possible, and hype gave way to enterprise adoption. But how much influence are CIO’s having in its adoption, and how well understood is the term?

AI and innovation

We recently launched the sixth edition of the annual Logicalis Global CIO Survey, which gathered the views of more than 840 CIOs in a number of areas. Innovation was a dominant theme, with this year’s survey demonstrating real progress in the role of the CIO in this area. CIOs are finding that they are very much at the heart of the action – with 83% either leading (32%) or enabling (51%) innovation. It’s an area they’re being increasingly judged on too, with half (50%) now being measured according to their ability to deliver service innovation.

Given that technology now pervades innovation – either delivering it or enabling it – we were keen to understand how CIO’s view the rate of adoption, utility and impact of emerging technologies – particularly Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Whilst IoT shows signs of becoming more mature in its use, AI and Machine Learning, appear to be in an earlier phase of the hype cycle – possibly where IoT was 12 months ago. Nearly a fifth (19%) of CIOs claim that their organisations are already using AI. That adoption seems likely to continue at pace, with 66% saying AI will be in use in their organisations within three years.

Understanding who is responsible for AI

Before we get too excited about AI changing the face of business, it’s important that we stop and question just how the term is understood. Like IoT, AI is really complex, and many of the use cases we’ve seen up until now are just scraping the surface. The technology industry is still collectively scratching its head to work out what it really means, as the hype continues and threatens to dilute the concept. Do CIOs perceive AI simply as autonomous automated services and interfaces essentially guided by complex manually created rules? Or do they see it in its purest form, as technology that is not just autonomous and automated, but also able to learn and adapt independently based on context? In truth, it’s probably a bit of both.

The big issue facing CIOs when it comes to AI is less about the technology itself, and more about the people, process and culture which support its adoption. Whilst there’s clearly a value in products being ‘AI-ready’, the hangover from the rise of Shadow IT – which saw departments and individuals investing in their own hardware, software, apps and services – is organisations that have huge swathes of data residing in a wide range of places, some out of sight of the CIO.

When asked about where AI and machine learning were in use within their organisations, it was no surprise to see the CIOs we surveyed point to the IT department as the leading area. That’s likely because this is the department they’ve got the most sight of. The siloed nature of organisations, and the distributed data residing within, causes a headache in terms of ownership. Most business have a variety of people who own the data in each department, but few who want to be responsible. That’s where the CIO comes in, as issues such as data security and compliance sit squarely within their remit.

The opportunity for AI

So where can the CIO start, in order to truly realise the potential of AI? The first step is to get people together to understand and agree their processes around data. People and processes can change really quickly, so taking the time to agree a clear approach is important. Those silos aren’t going to be broken down overnight, so the CIO also needs to be realistic. Only then can you think about how to leverage what you’ve got in place, but even then this needs to be done in the right way, with issues such as security, performance and cost-effectiveness at front of mind.

From the survey findings, it was encouraging to see CIOs so bullish about their ability to engage with AI. This, more than anything, will be vital if organisations are to derive true value from AI. At present, rates of use across various business departments are low – with the exception of IT and customer service – which suggests operational, fringe and test cases. However, this also seems to be an opportunity for CIOs to build a culture of experimentation and small-scale deployments driven by clear customer or market needs.

AI should not be seen as a silver bullet. It isn’t the answer to everything. It needs more data, more resources and you need the right foundations and infrastructure in place and ready to go. Otherwise there is going to be a huge amount of inefficiency. Especially as the speed of change in technology terms is unbelievable, with new vendors and solutions springing up on a regular basis. To understand whether these new options are to deliver against your objectives it’s imperative that you look at the entire ecosystem, with people, culture and process playing a pivotal role.

Category: Information Insights / IOT

CIOs and the data security dilemma

Alastair Broom
January 2, 2019

With high profile breaches for the likes of Facebook, British Airways and Marriott fresh in the mind, it’s no surprise to see a backlash against the companies that hold our data and a new impetus to take back control. But how are CIOs tackling the information security challenge, and what do we expect the future to hold?

Assessing the threat

According to more than 840 CIOs that we interviewed for the sixth edition of the annual Logicalis Global CIO Survey, the role of the CIO is in flux. A traditional focus on “keeping the lights on” has seemingly given way to more strategic activities around service and product innovation as organisations take to the cloud and expand their IT estate. Despite all this, security continues to dominate CIO’s time and attention, with 93% saying that they devote between 10% and 50% of their time to information security – with 54% spending at least 30% of their time on it.

CIOs are right to remain vigilant, as all evidence points to the fact that threats are definitely increasing. We’re seeing no sign that external threats such as malware, ransomware, crypto-jacking and phishing are going anywhere, especially because it’s become even easier for the bad guys to launch these type of attacks. They’re low cost and have the potential to reach either massive or highly targeted audiences.

One trend that has emerged from the survey is that CIOs are now far more focused on the human dimension of cyber risk than before. Whilst the 2017 report cited external threats as the clear focus, this year’s findings saw lack of staff awareness and mistakes as a concern for more than half (56%) of CIOs, while 39% are concerned about malicious insiders. The human dimension is interesting, and we’d certainly say that people and process should always be the place to start. This attitude doesn’t particularly bear out in what we’ve seen before, however, as technology tends to take precedence over training.

The expansion of the IT footprint and the ever evolving threat landscape have clear implications for security, and most CIOs signal that they are moving away from a purely defensive footing to one of cyber resilience, which brings together defence with detection and recovery. More than a third (37%) of CIOs say their organisation now adopts a resilience-based information security footing. This stance will be aided by some element of automation within the process, as the rate at which threats are accelerating is outpacing our ability to develop skills. AI represents an opportunity to keep pace, particularly when it comes to threat detection and response. We’d expect developments in this area to focus on the ‘response’ part of this process, although it will require something of a cultural leap to allow technology to make decisions for us.

The value of data

Data breaches were cited as a concern by 54% of CIOs, demonstrating how CIOs are attuned to the broader debate around data privacy and management. Despite measures introduced this year, it’s still very difficult to understand and manage data permissions, for both consumers and the businesses that own their data, and there’s a lot more that needs to be done to clean up the ethics around this.

According to our CIO sample, the impact of GDPR has fallen far short of the dire predictions with nearly three quarters (71%) saying that GDPR passing into law has had no impact on their organisation at all. Based on what we heard from customers, GDPR was significantly overplayed and organisations became apathetic long before the May deadline. Faced by business trying to sell them solutions to address their GDPR requirements, a lack of understanding of what their liability was and a misconception that they were too small to be significant, fed-up businesses appear to have opted for a view that “we only need to be as good as our neighbour”.

It would be wrong to suggest that GDPR in, and of itself, had no effect. Rather that most organisations did a great job of implementation, as those with longer memories will recall from Y2K. The Logicalis Global CIO Survey also assessed the cost of GDPR compliance and, again, the reality fell well short of the hype. Though the average investment of up to £25,000 is not insignificant, it suggests that the process was well and efficiently handled.

So what happens now?

Even though the fines for non-compliance are considerable, we’d expect the biggest financial impact in a post GDPR world to be seen in class-action lawsuits arising as a result of data breaches. The huge numbers of customers affected by these large data breaches make this inevitable. But this also has the potential to be hijacked by ‘ambulance-chasers’, and our survey found that 6% of CIOs have already been targeted by opportunists seeking to profit from non-compliance. So expect those PPI and whiplash calls on your phone to be replaced by an automated voice asking about the data breach that compromised your personal information.

We’re certainly at the point now where data breaches should be viewed as ‘when’ and not ‘if’. We’d expect organisations to be increasingly turning to encryption as a way to minimise the impact when a breach does happen, a trend that has been slow to date because of the costs associated. Perhaps the threat of users removing their personal data, and a greater understanding of its value to the business world will be the catalyst this needs.

Category: Security

Innovation – the new ‘I’ in CIO?

Gary Lomas
November 19, 2018

The role of the CIO is shifting dramatically away from day-to-day activity and ‘keeping the lights on’ towards a long-desired strategic focus, according to the findings of the sixth annual Logicalis Global CIO Survey. The global survey of more than 840 CIOs has identified long overdue, significant change in the role of CIOs across Europe, the Americas, the Far East and Australia.

Key Findings:

Innovation accounts for around 25% of the modern CIO’s role, with strategic activity (including innovation) accounting for around half of the role.
94% of respondents spend between 10% and 50% of their time on innovation and other strategic activities, 38% spend at least 30% of their time on this area.
73% of CIOs are measured on system availability and 62% on their success in reducing the cost of IT and risk mitigation
22% of IT is now managed by external suppliers, and 24% is outside the corporate footprint.
31% delegate day to day IT tasks due to lack internal resources or know-how

With great(er) power comes great(er) responsibility

This time last year we were hearing from CIOs that their roles were dominated by day to day IT management. In the 2017-18 survey, the majority of CIOs were spending between 60% and 80% of their time on ‘keeping the lights on’ and remained frustrated in their desire to spend up to 70% of their time on strategy.

It seems that their progress towards that goal over the last 12 months has been significant. Today, 94% of these IT leaders spend between 10% and 50% of their time on innovation and other strategic activities, and 38% spend at least 30% of their time on this area. On average, innovation accounts for around a quarter of the modern CIO’s role, with strategic activity (including innovation) accounting for around half of the role.

But, with this shift comes a seeming increase in expectation when it comes to measurement. Tellingly, half of CIOs (50%) now see their performance measured according to their ability to deliver service innovation and more than a third (35%) are expected to make a direct contribution to revenue growth – perhaps through digital transformation and by enabling product and service innovation through digital technology.

Against this backdrop it’s no surprise, then, to see CIOs more willing to seek outside help to manage day to day IT. Overall 22% of the average CIO’s IT estate is now managed by third parties. What’s more, CIOs’ success in taking on a more strategic role appears to be enabling new, more agile and adaptable approaches to organisational innovation.

The way organisations think about innovation is changing, with strategies for innovation now most commonly about enabling small scale, everyday experimentation. Over a third (34%) of organisations now take that approach, with the large-scale projects that once dominated now accounting for less than a quarter (23%).

CIOs are playing a crucial role in this new approach to innovation. When asked what role they play in organisation-wide innovation, 32% said they played a leading role, while a further 51% pointed to an enabling role. Innovation isn’t for all it seems, though, with an unlucky 13% admitting to playing only a peripheral role and 4% playing no role at all.

Positive signs for the future

These findings complement a number of key takeaways in a recent survey of CIOs by Gartner (2019 CIO Agenda: Secure the Foundation for Digital Business). It reports that digital progress has reached a tipping point where a half of respondents say their organisation’s business model has already changed or is changing. 95% of the Gartner respondents believe security threats will increase and calls for CIOs to: “Build relationships with the business and other stakeholders while communicating the value of IT for digital business”, something the Logicalis survey shows they are doing as “agents of innovation”.

We’re delighted to see CIOs enjoying success in taking on a long-desired more strategic role – no doubt helped by their increasing reliance on trusted third parties to take on more of the heavy lifting associated with day to day activities.

Most importantly, this shift seems to have enabled CIOs to take central roles in innovation. This is essential given that digital technology now sits at the heart of innovation, not just enabling better service delivery, communication or collaboration, but defining entirely new business propositions.

There is still a long way to go if organisations are to realise the full benefits of digital transformation. But the fact that CIOs and technology leaders are central to this innovation – rather than struggling to keep up – can only give us real optimism for the future.

The results of the global survey of more than 840 CIOs can be accessed here: https://www.logicalis-thinkhub.com/

Category: News

While Autonomous Operations have cool factor, the big money’s on progressive digital platforms

Chris Gabriel
June 13, 2019

The world is awash with digital transformation excitement.

Digital is happening around us all day, every day, in the way we work, socialise, learn, purchase goods, entertain ourselves, live in our cities and receive treatment by the health service. And in large or small ways, digital is changing, augmenting or transforming the way things are done in every industry.

Some of those digital things delight us and we adopt them with speed and passion and never look back. And many of those digital things are foisted upon us and take a while for us to accept or enjoy our lives being digitised for us.

In digital the spending between business innovation and digital platforms is balanced

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), global DX (Digital) spending will reach $1.18trillion in 2019, an increase of 17.9% over 2018. Over the next four years, an additional $4trillion will be spent by organisations on digital initiatives that they hope will give them a competitive edge or, in the case of government, better serve the needs of their population.

So, with just over £5trillion of investment in the next few years, where is all that money going? IDC’s research paints a picture of the business and the CIO having shared responsibility to use this growing pot of money to drive digital transformation.

What’s getting the businesses investment? Spending in autonomous operations ($52billion), robotic manufacturing ($45billion), freight management ($41billion) and root cause technologies ($35billion) show that digital investments are systemically changing industries. Boards are clearly realising the potential of making the world a smarter, more efficient, more productive and more reliable place.

But, according to IDC, it’s the CIO who is being given the lion’s share of this investment pile, building and operating the underlying infrastructure that digital businesses will now rely on.

In fact, hardware and digital services to develop, integrate, and support digital will grab 75% of all digital spend in 2019.

Connectivity ($102billion), IT Services ($154billion) take 25% of all spending, and enterprise hardware from cloud infrastructure to enterprise servers, storage, and end devices will devour $253billion between them.

Adaptable and progressive – innovation will power the best digital platforms

If one thing jumps out at me from the IDC survey it is that the stuff being invested in by the business sounds a lot cooler than the connectivity, IT services and hardware that the CIO is building to support new digital business models. It feels big on ideas and big on business impact. It feels full of AI and machine learning, autonomous and automation. If you pardon an old man trying to sound cool – it sounds dope.

If the business stuff sounds transformational; the IT stuff sounds transactional.

But, while the names for the near 75% of digital foundations purchased by IT sound the same as they ever were (we have been buying connectivity and servers for decades), the new generation of platforms that will support digital initiatives are just as progressive as the autonomous, AI, predicative, smart machines and things that will rely on them.

Today’s networking engineer must be as familiar with automation as their autonomous factory colleague. Today’s data centre server specialist must be adept at automating the provision of applications and their container services to any location as their AI enabled supply chain colleagues. Today’s security specialist will be using more AI to secure their business than their colleagues developing the next intelligent health screening system.

And of course, in a world where DevOps is creating a flood of new digital applications, your networking, data centre, cloud or security engineer of the future will also be disruptive developers.

Cisco, the company that connected the world through the internet, has over 600,000 members of their development community DevNet; pushing the potential of digital platforms as much as any Apple or Android games developer community ever has on those funkier platforms.

And while IDC classifies lots of spending in hardware, today there is really no such thing as a hardware driven IT strategy. The network switch, the physical server, the security appliance, are now hosts for software that is transforming once static IT hardware into a new generation of highly adaptable digital platforms.

We live in a world of Software Defined, where digital platforms can be integrated, automated, developed and adapted to the exact requirements of every part of the digital business model. And of course, in the digital world it is crucial that they can.

If 75% of the investment companies are making into digital business models is being directed at the underpinning digital platforms, the pressure is on those platforms to support transformation over time. In the old world, big technology platforms support static business models, and were complicated and slow to change. In the digital world, in the application world, agile is everything.

That $800billion of investment must provide a perfect digital service in a changing world, from the first sensor or robot installed in the autonomous factory, or connected asset, or intelligent building to the last. There is no room for the status quo in the digital world; change is a given.

So, CIO’s will use their money wisely and become the hotbed for progressive digital platforms that will ensure that £1.18trillion delivers maximum economic return for the organisations and the society that will be transformed not overnight, but over time.

Category: Hybrid IT

Logicalis at TechXLR8: Unlocking the value of IoT with AI & Advanced Analytics

Richard Simmons
June 4, 2019

Join Logicalis to witness how Industry 4.0 is playing an increasingly pivotal role in helping eliminate food waste and to learn how to get hyped IoT and AI pilot projects fully adopted.

London Tech Week is back. During the second week of June the city will see a festival of live events showcasing the best of UK tech and innovation.

We’re delighted to be playing our part by joining IBM on 12 -13 June at TechXLR8, London Tech Week’s flagship event. Based at ExCel and home to seven of the biggest technology conferences, including the AI Summit, IoT World Europe and Cloud & Devops World, TechXLR8 aims to connect people to the technologies that are driving digital transformation and revolutionising businesses.

Visit our demo booth at BC106, ExCel London…
We’ll be exploring how IoT and Advanced Analytics can be used to create zero-waste food production methods, eliminate over-production and better respond to market demand. You will:

See how IoT and Advanced Analytics can improve business processes, implement predictive maintenance and enhance demand forecasting
Experience how IBM Visual Recognition can help better sort waste (such as coffee cups, meal deals or water bottles) to minimise improper disposal and begin to make the zero-waste movement a reality
Learn how we’ve applied IoT to drive value in industrial, retail and smart environmental settings

… and hear how we can help you make your IoT and AI visions a reality at IBM’s silent theatre
While there is a huge growth in the number of businesses embarking on IoT and AI pilot projects, according to IDC up to 75% fail to move into production. The primary cause is the lack of understanding of the impact to the key enterprise architectures to allow a pilot project to scale into a secure, performant production environment.

Join Richard Simmons, Head of the European IoT & AI Practice at Logicalis at 11am on Wednesday 12 June to hear about practical approaches that will help you overcome IoT and AI adoption challenges – before it’s too late to turn projects around.

TechXLR8, 12 – 13 June 2019, ExCel London, stand BC106

Your agenda:

Register for TechXLR8, for free – https://tmt.knect365.com/techxlr8/
Lear how to unlock the real value of IoT with Advanced Analytics at IBM’s stand – BC106
Hear how Logicalis can help you overcome IoT and AI challenges at 11am on 12 June at IBM’s silent theatre
Follow #TechXLR8 and #LTW for all latest news

Category: Analytics

Gourmet student experiences for the price of a flat white

Chris Gabriel
May 17, 2019

Why Higher Education CIOs have to manage exceptional expectations through adaptable investments.

Imagine being an IT Leader working for a firm that replaced 25% of its workforce every year with new employees who were paying you to come to work and who were of a demographic that demanded the very best in technology services, then being surveyed constantly with the results published to the world about how well you met their expectations. Not a job you would imagine a queue around the corner for.

Of course, that isn’t the description most Universities publish when looking for a CIO, but, that is the challenge of expectation that comes with this unique role in IT.

It is difficult to think of a more demanding role.

Now factor in that you are helping run a large complex campus that serves tens of thousands of students, hundreds of academics, research environments and in many cases private sector business users doing cutting edge research projects. An environment that comprises tens if not hundreds of buildings. A transport hub. Retailers. A place of learning, life and entertainment. Where people expect to be kept safe and secure. Sounds exciting. Tempted?

Well, what if you had to do all of that for the price of a latte per user per day?

CV in the post is it?

Getting more from less – theory v reality

In an age of growing transparency, Universities are ever more encouraged and regulated to publish a breakdown of how the £9600 per year student fee is spent. How much on teaching, buildings, admin, research, and, of course IT. The Office for Students, the sectors new financial regulator, and others, including the Minster of State, are creating a reporting environment that is giving students ever more detailed access to how their fees are spent, linked to the concept of value for money.

In a report published in November 2018 by the Higher Education Policy Institute[1], and one that garnered many negative headlines in national news media[2], this independent policy think tank published analysis of several leading institutions spending habits of their students hard found fees.

Any prospective CIO would likely look at the reality of their budget prospects and run a mile.

Investments in IT services varied across the report, but spending ranged from a low of £520 and averaged at around £580 per share of student annual fees. Now in percentage terms that’s 5% at the lowest spend with some institutions investing up to 9% in technology services. Sounds generous.

But, if you break that down by the number of days a student spends on campus you have the grand total of around £2.36 per day, per student, to run IT services. We aren’t even in large latte territory. CIOs are delivering IT services for the price of a flat white.

When you break the numbers down, the reality of running one of the world’s toughest IT gigs on a budget that expects you to deliver not just world-class services but exceptional experiences that differentiate your institution against your competitors is daunting to say the least.

The CIO wishlist

So, is it any wonder why this year’s UCISA* conference was a hot bed of discussion on topics such as automation, adaptable digital platforms, data driven decision making and the priority of demonstrating that IT investments can benefit every aspect of campus life such as student safety and security?

CIOs came with an appetite to discuss and drive change in how what they and their team do can better impact a range of outcomes; so, what was on their hot list of topics?

Automation of major IT platforms to reduce the cost of operations, shifting resources to experiential roles rather than traditional IT service admin.
IT platform investments adapting to longer term requirements; using the latest in software defined automation and innovations such API platform development to better integrate investments.
Building better strategic platform roadmaps so investments shift from being depreciating assets to ones that demonstrate increasing value over time.
Platforms such as the digital network becoming multifunction investments; not just supporting students and their devices, but playing a role in the connected campus, IoT and student safety.
Data as a key decision-making tool for the CIO and the right data being made available to all stakeholders across their institution; but not in backward looking reports, for real-time decision making.
Governance and control of resources is now key; the rush to the cloud for desktops has been followed by major application workloads, but the CIO is now looking to put controls and governance in place to ensure the cloud doesn’t become a cost or a risk.

Lessons to be learnt

The key to this major feat of investment sleight of hand must be adaptability. No longer can a network, or data centre, security investment or data source become an asset that stays stagnant to only perform the job it was initially designed for. Nothing can be left to depreciate – because the network bought this year is serving a new cohort of students next year. And it is expected to support IoT campus security in three years. A data centre platform this year must extend to the cloud next year as applications and data can be shifted to the most cost-effective location.

IT operations cannot stand still either; automation that is impacting every industry must be embraced in full to prove that human resources are being used as the truly valuable resources they are in delivering high-value experiences, and software and automation takes the strain of repetition.

And of course, at UCISA whilst the CIO was looking for ‘technology life hacks’ to show that the money they are being trusted with delivers increasing value, they are also looking for partners who are able to shift their focus to more value-driven relationships.

They don’t want partners who just look at how much budget there is to spend on a major tech re-fresh, but a partner who demonstrates that an in investment can deliver accentuated value over time.

The world of the CIO in Higher Education must be one of the most exciting roles in the industry; and by partnering in a different way we can shift the focus on how much money is being spent on IT services – stop the headlines castigating institutions for investing in anything but teaching – and show that the CIO and their partners are focused on turning the money we are entrusted with is continually delivering differentiated experiences for every University stakeholder.

If we can do all of that for the price of a flat white, then the drinks are definitely on us.

* UCISA is the member-led professional body for digital practitioners within education.

[1] https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2018/11/22/new-report-calls-universities-tell-students-fees-go-new-figures-reveal-half-fee-income-goes-teaching-rest-also-benefits-students/

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/nov/22/less-than-half of-tuition-fees-spent-on-teaching-at-english-universities

Category: SDN / Mobility

While Autonomous Operations have cool factor, the big money’s on progressive digital platforms

Chris Gabriel
June 13, 2019

The world is awash with digital transformation excitement. Digital is happening around us all day, every day, in the way we work, socialise, learn, purchase goods, entertain ourselves, live in our cities and receive treatment by the health service. And in large or small ways, digital is changing, augmenting or transforming the way things are done in every industry. Some of those digital things delight us and we adopt them with speed and passion and never look back. And many of those digita...

Category: Hybrid IT

Logicalis at TechXLR8: Unlocking the value of IoT with AI & Advanced Analytics

Richard Simmons
June 4, 2019

Join Logicalis to witness how Industry 4.0 is playing an increasingly pivotal role in helping eliminate food waste and to learn how to get hyped IoT and AI pilot projects fully adopted. London Tech Week is back. During the second week of June the city will see a festival of live events showcasing the best of UK tech and innovation. We’re delighted to be playing our part by joining IBM on 12 -13 June at TechXLR8, London Tech Week’s flagship event. Based at ExCel and home to seven of the big...

Category: Analytics

The Weakest Link

Alastair Broom
March 10, 2017

As Logicalis’ Chief Security Technology Officer I’m often asked to comment on cyber security issues. Usually the request relates to specific areas such as ransomware or socially engineered attacks. In this article I’m taking a more holistic look at IT security. Such a holistic approach to security is, generally, sorely lacking. This is a serious matter, with cyber criminals constantly looking for the weak links in organisations’ security, constantly testing the fence to find the easiest place...

Category: Security

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