Emerald Expositions is the leading operator of B2B trade shows in the United States, operating more than 55 trade shows and numerous other events. The company also owns a number of trade publications, including My TechDecisions.

The Tech Decision

After being purchased by Emerald Expositions, My TechDecisions’ team along with colleagues in sales, marketing, audience development, design, and those running sister sites Commercial integrator, Security Sales & Integration, and Campus Safety, were in need of a new office space.

After creating a scatterplot of employee addresses to find central location for all employees, the company settled on a brand-new office space at 100 Crossing Boulevard in Framingham, Mass.

The new space would serve as a fresh start for the newly acquired properties, but before moving in the entire office needed to be built from scratch.

That included hiring an AV integrator to implement technology up to the standards of the publications that cover the industry.

“I hired a project manager because this is across country for me. They are great – they represent Emerald. The project manager bid it out,” says Stacy Smith, executive assistant and corporate operations manager for Emerald. “We were ahead of schedule the whole time.

“Lee Pongraphan, our sr. director of infrastructure and services, and I worked closely for months on the spec we need on the technology side. Lee maps all that out, and then the project manager sources that out for AV,” says Stacy. “As soon as you sign the lease you’re working on the technology.”

In this case, the project manager chose Dnet Cabling & A/V Technologies to implement much of the technology alongside Emerald’s internal IT team.

“We know the project manager, so we knew clients would be moving in. We did the work downstairs (at the building). Mike Bogdan reached out and said they wanted to bring us in on the project,” says George Ziegler, AV engineer at Dnet Cabling & A/V Technologies. “We submitted a bid based on requirements from the client, they were satisfied with it, and we got awarded both the communication and AV installation.”

The Solution

The work started before even entering the building for Dnet.

“Before the project took off we started with communication,” says Ziegler.

“We made sure everything was kosher with the client before any equipment was purchased, and that they fully understood what the scope of work was – networking, sound masking, TV installations, and connections at the tables.”

Ziegler and his team first came into the space after walls were put up. They began by cabling for the communications. They weren’t handling the phone themselves, as it was a network system that then internal IT team would deploy.

They still needed to run Cat6 white cable to every location so when it came to the rack it was one color. They implemented a Systemax solution and unloaded patch panels in case of issues – they could easily remove or replace jacks or cables without needing take down the patch panel completely.

Workstations could then be moved around as needed.

“It was a pretty straightforward installation for the communications side,” says Ziegler.

A more unique aspect of the space was the sound masking solution from Cambridge Sound Management. The solution is built into the ceiling with a similar look to the sprinkler system in order to blend with office aesthetics.

Read Next: See all of our projects of the week here!

The level of white noise coming from the solution can be adjusted through a corresponding interface. A relay is inside the equipment so that during a fire alarm the sound masking will be muted so that alarms can emit to the correct decibel in the space, adhering to the electrical code.

Finally, two conference rooms in the new office are fitted with Samsung OLED displays. HDMI/USB extenders from Crestron were mounted under the tables, while a Cat6 cable runs from the device to the TV, enabling users further connection options.

Additional technology implementations at the office include a keycard access system, wireless printing capabilities, and guest Wi-Fi access separate from the internal network.

The Impact on TechDecisions

Our coworkers are very happy with the space. Coming from a space that the company had leased out for fifteen years, a fresh start after the acquisition was well needed.

The advance in new technology for the space is also a welcome addition for a company that has multiple publications dedicated to the technology field.

“The new office space is pretty amazing with all its technological perks. The design is very modern, but inviting,” says Manuela Rosengard, creative services director, Emerald Expositions.

“The artwork for the office has a personality unique to Massachusetts with its Boston theme. It is a great environment to come to every day.”

This article was originally posted in January 2020.

The post Designing and Implementing Technology at OUR New Office appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The event includes an in-person discussion between multiple AV experts. A live Q&A, where webinar attendees can ask questions of the participants will occur immediately after the discussion.

The roundtable event is hosted by Audinate, developer of the industry-leading Dante AV networking technology, and brings together experts from the University of Southern California, University of Oregon, Arizona State University, University of Colorado, Denver and Brigham Young University – Idaho.

Read Next: Investments in Digital Skills is Waning – and Will Cost the U.S. Billions

“When we talk with our partners about how they are using networked AV we always come away impressed at their innovation and ingenuity,” said Joshua Rush, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Audinate.

“This is especially true in the higher education market. We realized it would be incredibly beneficial to bring together some of the leading minds utilizing networked AV in higher education – and then share that discussion with the industry at large.”

Networked AV best practices discussion panelists include:

• Joe Way, Director of Learning Environments at the University of Southern California
• Guy Eckelberger, Director of Information Technology at the University of Oregon
• Sean Snitzer, Senior Systems Analyst at Arizona State University
• Scott Burgess, Manager of Recording Labs and Live Sound at the University of Colorado, Denver
• Will Davidson, Media Systems Engineer at Brigham Young University – Idaho

Registration for the webinar is open now at: www.audinate.com/ddm-edu

The post Major Universities’ AV Experts to Discuss Networked AV Best Practices at Industry Roundtable appeared first on My TechDecisions.

Recipients of these Federal broadband subsidies will be required to submit testing results as part of their annual compliance in the first quarter of 2020, Adtran says.

Carriers that do not comply with the FCC speed and latency requirements will be subject to a reduction in support, commensurate with their level of noncompliance. In addition, providers will be subject to audit of all testing data.

To help ensure that the funds allocated are used for broadband service delivery in rural areas, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted Performance Monitoring and Measurement requirements to ensure greater accountability for recipients of Connect America Fund (CAF) high-cost universal service support, including price cap carriers, rate-of-return carriers, rural broadband experiment (RBE) support recipients, Alaska Plan carriers, and CAF Phase II auction winners. — company press release

“We developed this one-stop, fully-managed subscription service to give our customers peace-of-mind by offering a turnkey option that off-loads the entire testing process, so they can focus on what they do best—providing a superior subscriber experience,” ADTRAN Services Portfolio Manager Derek Foster said.

“We know there is still some uncertainty with the FCC, which causes concern for our customers and that’s why we developed a simple and affordable compliance service.”

The FCC framework for CAF Performance Monitoring and Measurement includes measurements to be conducted over a minimum of two consecutive weeks during peak hours for at least 50 randomly selected customer locations within the census blocks of each state for which the provider is receiving model-based support.

Alternatively, service providers may deploy at least 50 white boxes to customers within the Connect America Fund Phase II-funded areas within each state and certify that 95 percent or more of the measurements taken quarterly during peak periods for a period of two weeks were at or below 100 milliseconds.

The service provider is responsible for the hardware and administrative costs of this testing.

The ADTRAN managed testing solution takes care of each aspect of FCC compliance from initiating the test to collecting data to report creation and submission to the FCC in the format needed.

It removes the administration burden related to Connect America Fund test compliance and utilizes the ADTRAN Speed Test Server Network as a cloud-based, managed service. The solution includes the SmartRG Device Manager Software to serve as the test controller and the SmartRG Gateways as the test clients and is available across the entire SmartRG portfolio of gateways. — company press release

By leveraging ADTRAN’s solution, carriers are able to deploy a purpose-built, open and flexible solution that leverages existing hardware, removes testing of unmanaged LAN segments, reduces privacy concerns for end customers and eliminates the unsightly white boxes used during the testing period.

Related: Obstacles and Priorities for NetOps Teams (And How to Address Them)

The solution delivers the added benefit that, once deployed, provides ongoing value by delivering network performance metrics and measurements that can help the operator better understand network performance over time.

The post ADTRAN Addresses Connect America Fund Program with Fully-Managed, Cloud-Based Performance Test Solution appeared first on My TechDecisions.

Masergy’s new ISC portal simplifies and unifies network and application management with real-time visibility, analytics and service control purpose-built for the multi-cloud enterprise.

The portal offers a holistic view of clients’ global SD-WAN and Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) applications while enabling the ability to manage, secure, and optimize their network environments in real-time.

Related: Voice Control: The Next Big Thing in Wayfinding?

From private and public bandwidth to edge devices, public/private cloud instances, business applications, and voice/video communications, global enterprises now have the unified visibility and control they need to maximize their application performance. No more reconciling information across multiple dashboards.

Features of Masergy Intelligent Service Control portal include:

• A single pane of glass delivers unified views of analytics for the customer’s global networks, UCaaS, WAN edge devices, and application performance.
• Customizable dashboard views allow the customer to feature the information they need with views of top applications, security threats, network services, network usage, and open support tickets.
• Real-time bandwidth controls provide the ability to modify port bandwidth globally across both public and private connections.
• End-to-end visibility of application performance help customers make faster, more informed decisions about bandwidth allocation and service improvement.
• Comprehensive self-service features empower the customer to control the network with site and contact management capabilities, ticket tracking, alarm notifications, invoicing, device reports, change history, and escalations.

“When it comes to accelerating the pace of IT and building a multi-cloud environment, unified network visibility is everything–global enterprises need a single source of truth for information about their cloud application performance,” said Masergy’s Chief Digital Officer Terry Traina.

“Masergy’s Managed SD-WAN solution is leading the industry in providing customers with a unified framework for monitoring and managing their increasingly complex environments, so our customers can ensure cloud application reliability, streamline WAN management, and stay focused on their strategic initiatives.”

The post Masergy’s New Intelligent Service Control Portal Experience Packages Analytics and Control appeared first on My TechDecisions.

Organizations implement varying levels of governance hierarchy frameworks to align strategy, policies, and procedures. At the highest level, an organization’s Corporate Governance Framework defines the “systems of rules, practices, and processes by which companies are governed”.

Below this layer is a myriad of function-specific frameworks, such as the organization’s IT and Digital Governance, Records Governance, and Data and Information Governance Frameworks.

While these functional governance frameworks contribute to the overall governance of your new or existing O365 environment, gaps are likely to remain.

This article explores those gaps that your new O365 Governance Framework should address while acknowledging those components covered by your organization’s existing governance frameworks.

And while each organization requires its own unique set of governance frameworks, this article also argues that if your organization lacks functional governance frameworks, then those frameworks should be considered before creating a single governance framework to address all O365 components.

We’ve Got You Covered

The following Office environment components should be covered under your organization’s current functional governance frameworks:

O365 Application Implementation and Utilization Consistency

O365 components addressed: application selection and utilization, application integration, O365 security

Office application(s) involved: all

Contributing governance framework(s): IT Governance

The suite of applications associated with the O365 environment is not only large and slightly overwhelming to the average user, but this list of available applications is also constantly changing as Microsoft updates their technological objectives.

How do you know which applications are useful for your business, and how do you keep consistency in user adoptions of those applications chosen to meet the business needs?

A robust IT Governance Framework has been credited with enabling ROI realization for IT investments.

One major component shared by robust IT governance hierarchy frameworks is the alignment of IT objectives and the business’ requirements, objectives, and strategies4, allowing for technology investments that support business needs.

So, if the business has performed accurate needs analysis and their requirements are documented, knowing which O365 applications are necessary to enable these requirements is not nearly as difficult as guessing.

However, the micro-governance required for each of the implemented applications is vital to O365 ROI realization and is detailed in the section of this paper describing the O365 Governance Framework.

This alignment between the business and IT also ensures that ‘Shadow IT’ (the application implementation and utilization by a user outside of an IT Department’s list of authorized application usage) is kept to a minimum, reducing security risk, and increasing application adoption consistency across the user population.

Office Security

O365 components addressed: O365 security, permission levels, change management

Office application(s) involved: all

Contributing governance framework(s): IT Governance

It goes without saying that the security of the O365 environment is largely the responsibility of the IT Department, and its corresponding standards and processes should be outlined in the IT Governance Framework.

Additionally, the O365 environment allows for general security to be managed by the business through administrative functionality that does not require IT development intervention.

However, given that the organization’s typical user is one of the most significant (and uncontrolled) risks to a technology environment, the business bears much of the responsibility to mitigate user-related risk through employee cybersecurity awareness training, and detailed documentation of access and permission levels (including view, read, and change), followed by the necessary change management (as the employees’ permission requirements change due to promotion, termination, or other mortality causes), and prompt collaboration with the IT Department when these changes occur.

This process is particularly efficient if the O365 environment pulls user information from existing Active Directory (AD) lists.

The business’ responsibility for ensuring security in their cyber work environments should be outlined in the Company’s Records Governance and/or Information Governance Frameworks and is detailed in the following section.

O365 Digital Records

O365 components addressed: records, correspondence threads, emails, logical topology

Office application(s) involved: SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, Yammer, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Access, Stream

Contributing governance hierarchy: IT Governance, Digital Governance, Records Governance, Information Governance

Digital Records is a grouping of Office components for which contributing functional governance frameworks carry a lot of weight. The term ‘digital records’ encompasses just about any formal and informal collaboration, communication, and work product.

For the public sector, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request could send employees scrambling to locate an informal communique buried in an Outlook folder, while a federal or state regulatory agency could cause a private sector employee to search their personal OneDrive for an expenditure receipt.

The manner in which digital records are structured, stored, archived, and deleted could determine if a department fails an audit, or an employee spends a weekend reproducing misplaced deliverables.

Related: Get the Most Out of Amazon Web Services for Cloud Analytics

Before a SharePoint environment becomes a rampant dumping ground for old documents or miscellaneous content from a terminated employee’s hard drive, the company’s Records, Digital, and/or Information Governance Frameworks should detail records retention and destruction policies as well as the records’ physical security and cybersecurity protocol, while empowering departments to create approved and socialized naming convention and taxonomy.

Another vital component in the Digital Records category of Office components is the environment’s landscape or layout (logical topology) and how well it enables communication and data flow between the various O365 applications.

Without efficient data flow, not only is communication onerous and out-of-sync, but data contextualization and associated metadata may be lost, effecting data searches and retrieval. Efficient topology design will vary by organization and O365 environment structure.

You’re on Your Own

Now that your organization’s existing governance frameworks have addressed a majority of your O365 environment’s components, the remainder of this article will focus on those components that require the development of a unique O365 Governance Framework that easily integrates with the function-specific governance frameworks under the organization’s Corporate Governance Framework.

O365 User Adoption and Training

O365 components addressed: application usage

Office application(s) involved: all applications

Contributing governance hierarchy: O365 Governance

Among the many things to consider when migrating to the O365 environment or increasing user adoption and utilization of an existing O365 environment is employee training.

While some of the applications available in the Office suite are intuitive and commonly used (like Outlook email), other applications (like PowerBI) may be less understood by the average user.

And even commonly used and understood applications may contain functionalities that are not widely implemented but could enable specific business requirements.

Formal O365 training programs, workshops, or lunch-and-learns can broadly socialize the value each implemented O365 application brings to the business.

A particular focus on how these applications mitigate or eliminate specific business process- or work-related pain points may drastically increase user adoption and overall organizational consistency.

This training should be managed, directed, and implemented by either an O365 Governance Committee, or a joint collaboration of O365 experts from both the IT Department and the business.

This governance entity also ensures all Office-specific governance needs are addressed and liaises with the owners of the organization’s function-specific governance frameworks to ensure integration of Office utilization with their corresponding standards and policies.

O365 Application-specific Governance

O365 components addressed: application selection and utilization, application integration, Office security, records, correspondence threads, emails, logical topology, O365 security, permission levels, change management

Office application(s) involved: InfoPath Forms, PowerApps, Office 365 Forms, Third-party Forms and Apps, Workflows, Custom Apps, Reports and Dashboards, Business Connectivity Services, Searches

Contributing governance hierarchy: Office Governance

Depending on your organization’s existing data transfer mechanisms (for team collaboration, communication, personal material storage, and digital records management), and their pending migration to an O365 environment (or their current implementation within an O365 environment), application-specific governance will be required.

Detailed in a previous O365 governance article, the applications requiring specific governance are:

• InfoPath Forms
• PowerApps and Office 365 Forms
• Third-party Forms
• Workflows
• Custom Applications
• Business Connectivity Services
• Searches
• Third-party Applications
• Reports and Dashboards

A Layered Approach

Assessing those governance frameworks already in place within your organization will prevent your IT Department and business collaborators from creating an O365 Governance Framework that addresses components already governed by those frameworks.

Read Next: 9 Cyber Security Training Videos That Aren’t Boring

Let existing governance hierarchy manage their intended components across all technological environments, while utilizing your O365 Governance Framework to speak to those components that are unique to an O365 environment.

Additionally, beware the temptation of using an Office-specific governance framework to address similar components across non-O365 environments.

The post Setting Up O365 as A Unique Layer In Your Governance Hierarchy appeared first on My TechDecisions.

With the recent addition of a 10,000-square-foot Eastern regional facility in Scranton, Penn., Canon Business Process Services continues to expand the capabilities and reach of its Business Processing Centers. The facilities are designed to help clients with their digital transformation initiatives.

Together with Canon’s Western U.S. and Philippines-based operations, the Pennsylvania location extends the company’s national and global capabilities to better support client business objectives.

“Organizations increasingly are launching digital transformation projects because these initiatives enable them to better concentrate on their core business while containing costs and improving operational efficiency,” notes Joe Marciano, president and CEO, Canon Business Process Services. “With our extended business processing capabilities, Canon can help clients meet these important goals.”

Canon’s processing centers support business functions ranging from invoice and claims processing to document imaging and electronic discovery services for corporations and law firms. Highlights include: workflow and forms design; digitization of hard-copy documents; search-enabled images; historical or vital records preservation; indexing/coding and transactional processing.

Another feature of Canon’s Business Process Centers is security. The facilities underscore Canon’s commitment to ensuring that client data is reinforced by the highest levels of confidentiality, integrity and ease of access. To support this goal the Business Processing Centers utilize technology and processes—such as dual physical authentication and third-party application penetration testing—to meet relevant industry standards. The processing centers currently have accreditations that include: AICPA SOC 1 and SOC 2; HITRUST/CSF certified; PCI compliant; HIPAA compliant and GDPR Ready.

The post Canon Adds 10,000 Square Feet to Business Processing Centers appeared first on My TechDecisions.

I arrived for the keynotes on the first day, waited for the doors to open, and followed the crowd. We skipped through the tradeshow floor, now dark and roped off, and suddenly I was in a long, dark hallway, crossing beam-lights making “X” shapes for the crowd to walk beneath. The sides lined with tables full of wine and beers for the crowd to enjoy. At the other end the keynote stage – seventy feet across at least, with the largest video wall perhaps forty feet long by ten feet high, flanked by two ten by ten video walls. A lone DJ on stage playing everything from Cardi B to Stevie Wonder.

Thousands were in the crowd, and each seat held a dedicated bracelet that would eventually light up along with the show. Was I at a technology show? A rave? A rock concert? I wasn’t sure until Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst stepped on stage to discuss the theme of this year’s show – Expand Your Possibilities.

Clearly Red Hat Summit was much more than I expected, and that was proven further as the keynote sessions continued. Read on to learn more about the insights and understanding coming out of the keynotes from Red Hat Summit 2019, company by company – specifically how these companies used open source to improve their organizations:

Ginni Rometty, President and CEO, IBM*

*IBM is currently in the process of purchasing Red Hat

• IBM has been working with open source for twenty years. In 1999, IBM invested $1 Billion into open source and Red Hat. It plans on purchasing Red Hat for $38 Billion
• The roots between the two companies are deep, and the beliefs in how important an ecosystem is to drive innovation are as well
• The importance of open governance is vital to open source, and if you want to take then you have to give. You can use it, but you have to contribute
• Both companies saw that they had joint clients, and many non-joint clients as well. There is plenty of mission critical work that has yet to move to the cloud, public or private. You need to have a way to connect all of those pieces.
• The timing is right between IBM and Red Hat because there is a fabric for a standard to do this across the globe. The opportunity is right in front of so many clients – they want to address this. Moving data to the cloud, where date needs to be, and hybrid environments. It’s time for chapter two for many clients, and the demand for Open source is stronger than ever.
• IBM and Red Hat will work together, but perhaps not come together in the traditional sense. To preserve the value of Open source – all welcome – is part of the mission as well. The mission is to scale Open source.
• Red Hat will stay an independent unit. The idea of having a platform that invites innovation for everyone means open source, open standards, friends and competitors alike. IBM can help power it to make it go further and wider. A broad horizontal scale. The work that Red Hat has done to create its culture is important, and so the companies will work together.
• IBM will change, building on top of what Red Hat has done. Offering clients a secure mission critical, hybrid stack. A bigger and broader plate for innovation everywhere.
• All companies are on a journey. There’s been plenty of experimentation, which is great. Now, however, we’re at the stage of scaling. We aren’t sprinkling in technology, we’re at the stage of true transformation. Exciting possibilities include cloud, all of the forms of artificial intelligence augmenting human work, blockchain fundamentally changing supply chains, and quantum computing.
• This acquisition is a win for clients.

Rahul Samant, EVP and CIO, Delta Airlines

• Delta has transformed IT in order to transform the customer experience. It is working to be one of the world’s most trusted brand. That means people first, but technology next.
• Two years ago Delta had data all across the company. The first goal was to gather that data into repositories. The company is building APIs and hosting them in Red Hat Data Shift, so all employees can gain insights on customers to increase service and personalize customer experience.
• Before flying, you get emailed a menu of what you will be able to select on your flight. From there, they have automated, single-click check-in. Delta is the pioneers in using RFID technology to track bags from gate to gate. Those experiences are being built off of a digital foundation.
• On the operation side, they are doing machine learning oriented decision support. When they suffer irregular operation, such as bad weather, they make sure the decision support tools are in the hands of front-line people. That way the decisions on delays and cancels can be augmented, technology helping human decisions.
• All of this technology is sitting on the scalable, reliable platform of Red Hat. Red Hat is below the hood, and the customers experience the outcome.
• The technology vision is easy. It needs to be contextualized. In 2016, when this transformation started, the timing was off. They needed to focus on the basics of the platform. Fast forward a year and a half and they were ready for the transformation – hiring 600 new people with contemporary skills and abilities, and making sure they blend in with legacy employees. Delta focused on the human factors to make sure there wasn’t friction between the two groups.
• There is a war for talent. Working with partners not only brings great products, but help to bring great talent to the digital transformation.

Austen Smack, Container Platforms Product Owner, ExxonMobil

• ExxonMobil embraces technology to solve energy challenges. Geoscientists are using Open Shift to change the way they work through disruptive innovation.
• Disruptive innovation is the idea of introducing new technology that might not have short-term effects, but will pay off in the long-term. ExxonMobil watched customers as they did their work to learn what needed to change. Specifically with container platforms.
• They started with a small sandbox cluster, and continued to deploy more non-production clusters. As of today, there are over 130 development teams consuming resources on ExxonMobil’s platform.
• They keep up with these developer teams by surrounding themselves with people that are willing to disrupt, and bringing vendors with them throughout the process. Red Hat and other vendors have been on the team since day one.
• Everything they are doing is automated. Everything is infrastructure as code. Investing in extra time for automation will reduce technical debt.
• Containerization allows ExxonMobil to expand delivery options and enable quicker code iterations, then deliver those solutions quickly to customers. Customers might not know that at this point, however. Customers don’t want to put in the work unless it makes sense to them. Containerization expanded delivery options, allowed customers to better collaborate, and allowed for the deployment of solutions. ExxonMobile deployed a data science image, and customers only had to click on a URL to access the application. They could instantly visualize code, and because of that the customers could work with ExxonMobil to make better business decision, faster. It took hours instead of weeks. The only limitation is how quickly the data scientists can code.

Michael Cawood, VP of Product Development, F-16/F-22 Integrated Fighter Group, Lockheed Martin

• Lockheed Martin is under two threats – nation-states creating technology to render planes useless, and competitors fighting to take business away from Lockheed Martin.
• Traditionally the development of F-22 were a long process. Two to three years to develop a plan, and five to seven years to develop new capabilities. They utilized a Waterfall method of development, creating hardware and software independently. Flight tests took over a year before certification. Supply chain processes and hardware development cycles sometimes took years. The organization was siloed, and timelines were longer due to working with secure government systems.
• Six years ago, Lockheed implemented Agile methods, but didn’t achieve any improvement.
• In 2017 the company partnered with Red Hat. They changed tools, facilities, process, and culture utilizing Red Hat Open Innovation Labs.
• The approval of software tools has been sped up from months or years to a few days. They are using companies to build and deliver hardware in five to ten days instead of years. Forecasting improved 40%. They are now on track to deliver communications capability to the F-22 three years earlier than the original plan.

Michael Denecke, Head of Test Technology, Volkswagen

• Michael’s job is to make sure all control units work properly together. The new challenge of autonomous driving falls under his scope. The normal way to do tests were not enough.
• Volkswagen got the idea to do all of the tests on virtual test requirements. They used Red Hat to put these tests in virtual containers. They chose Red Hat because, after speaking to a number of IT vendors, Red Hat was the only one to say it could be done.
• Volkswagen had a short timeframe to prove the viability of the idea. The Red Hat Open Innovation Labs allowed them to reach the goal in this short timeframe. The Open Innovation Labs showed Volkswagen to not worry about top-down innovation, but to put the onus on the team.
• First they proved they could have virtual test environments. Then they proved they could mix virtual and physical testing environments. Finally, they showed that quality and success was dependent on changing the culture and collaborating.
• No matter how crazy an idea seems, if you believe in it and it gives a business advantage then look into it. Trust your teams, and give them the responsibility to decide on their own.

David Gledhill, CIO and Head of Group Technology & Operations, DBS Bank Unlimited

• Ten years ago they started their digital transformation. Five years ago, they saw what was going on in China with banking disruption. The traditional physical branching wasn’t going to work. They decided to drive a digital bank.
• They were used to a traditional stack, and needed to change that as well. They needed to become a technology company, and looked at some of the biggest players to find out how to be like them.
• They weren’t building technology like a bank. They moved to open stack and used Red Hat to help with that. They built out the cloud environment, and continued to scale.
• The goal was to make banking invisible, which needed a lot of engineering. The customer toil needed to be taken out of it. They also needed to think about the ecosystems – how to create them and how to be part of others. They needed to be able to scale without concern, and build APIs (DBS has 350 and counting).
• As they transformed, they wanted to take the whole bank along with it. Learning how to fail fast was difficult, but also become a culture of continuous learning and development. The cultural shift has been the biggest part of setting the company apart.

Tom Gilbert, Global Head of Cloud, Deutsche Bank

• Deutsche Bank has created an Everything-as-a-Service platform, aimed at opening up new ways of working and allowing developers to get new ideas into production. They also wanted to use their own infrastructure more productively.
• Fabric, Deutsche Bank’s EaaS platform, is built on Red Hat OpenShift. 25,000 production containers are held on the platform to date. They are being brought to market in just three weeks.
• The technical capabilities have helped to foster communities in the bank so anyone can contribute to the platform. New iterations are introduced every few weeks. Rapid prototyping is available on demand. External developers and third parties can supply software, and test applications in the environment.
• As of today they are running over 25,000 container in production.
• They are running Fabric in multiple premises through multiple suppliers. On-premise IT has multiple suppliers providing data center services, and off-premises in the cloud they are using Microsoft Azure. They can write once and run everywhere. If they need massive scale at short notice for a short period, for example deploying new products into new regions quickly, it’s now possible thanks to the combination of OpenShift and Azure.
• This hybrid cloud platform on OpenShift let them build all of the controls and automation into the platform, enabling applications in the highly-regulated bank to consume the public cloud while reducing risk.t has also reduced cost and increased agility.

Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

• Microsoft and Red Hat have made much progress together, and announced at they keynote the general availability of the Azure OpenShift service, a collaboration between Microsoft and Red Hat.
• Believers in distributed computing, hybrid computing, and edge computing will appreciate the flexibility and agility provided from this partnership.
• One thing Microsoft is focusing on is getting data centers to meet the real needs of customers. Ensuring certifications needed don’t create friction for customers. Also the number of regions available – Microsoft has just launched its first data center region in Africa.
• Nadella is most excited about the number of software engineers being hired outside of the tech industry. It means that software is becoming a new factor of production in every industry. That means computing and architecture is going to change – everything from storage, to cloud, artificial intelligence, quantum, and all the stops between.
• The thing that truly needs to happen is to ensure the cost structure of raw infrastructure and the innovation platform is something that makes every business competitive. Support of open source and support for standards will reduce the friction of development. The second area is democratizing technology. Machine learning, DevOps, data science – those technologies need to be available to anywhere out there so any company can take them and build on them. It’s up to platform vendors to reduce the barriers.
• Five years ago Microsoft and Red Hat had an adversarial relationship. Moving forward, Microsoft is committed to the partnership because it’s driven by what customers expect of them – interoperability and commitment and contribution to open source.

The post 8 Open Source Digital Transformation Journeys from Red Hat Summit 2019 Keynote appeared first on My TechDecisions.

This article was updated, originally published in 2016.

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Blockchain technology is sweeping across enterprises in all major industries. With its shared ledger and smart contract software, blockchain requires business network participants to collaborate in order to deploy and operate the technology. This collaboration can often take the form of blockchain consortia: groups of organizations that collaborate to define use cases and to develop and run blockchain applications for shared business utility. In fact, according to a recent study by Deloitte, 74% of respondents said their company was either already participating in a blockchain consortium or likely to join one.

Yet organizations to date have struggled to progress blockchain projects in part because each enterprise brings its own pre-existing investments in cloud, IT structures, operating preferences and data residency requirements. Participants starting with different entry points could find themselves siloed in one cloud when they want to graduate out of limited size pilots into large scale hybrid business networks where they can realize the full value of blockchain ecosystem initiatives.

“Blockchain with its shared ledger is fundamentally a distributed technology. The world’s transactional systems are being reinvented on blockchain and need an enterprise platform that also is broadly distributed,” says Steve Cerveny, Kaleido founder and CEO. “We’ve built our platform across the leading public clouds including Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services to give our clients the ability to create global, cross-cloud networks. Our customers’ digital ecosystems can now grow and scale wherever and however the participants require.”

Kaleido on Microsoft Azure is available today, can you can try it for free at kaleido.io.

The post Kaleido Announces New Support for Microsoft Azure; Unveils Ability to Build Borderless Blockchain Platforms Across Clouds and Geographies appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The Volta Elastic Virtual Routing Engine (VEVRE) from Volta Networks is a virtual routing platform that the company claims can reduce total cost of ownership by 90% compared to legacy routers. Plus it can be scaled to handle 255 virtual routers per switch as well as support for industry standard routing protocols and carrier automation. Based on patent-pending technology, Volta’s VEVRE is in lab tests and trials with network operators worldwide.

“With one of the largest networks in the world, we continually evaluate new technologies that can enhance the performance and economics of our network to better serve our customers,” says Dorian Kim, vice president of IP Engineering at NTT Communications Global IP Network. “In our tests, Volta’s virtual routing technology was completely interoperable with our existing routers while delivering potentially significant cost reductions.”

Cloud-Native Virtual Routing at Massive Scale

Designed on the virtualization and cloud-scale principles that helped disrupt the compute and storage markets, Volta’s VEVRE separates the control and data planes and leverages the benefits of the cloud and white box switches built on Ethernet switching silicon to achieve its order or magnitude cost savings. Key components include:

• Volta Elastic Virtual Routing Engine(VEVRE) – the control plane runs on any public, private or hybrid cloud so customers can optimize for the lowest cost. Cloud-native using container technology, it is designed for elastic scale, flexibility and resiliency.
• Virtual Route Processors (VRPs)– the equivalent of a routing engine, VRPs are hosted on the VEVRE, are unique to a specific customer, application or service, and assigned to a set of physical or logical ports on white box switches.
• vAgent– Volta’s software agent on each white box switch that communicates through standard APIs to the associated VRP. The lightweight and efficient software minimizes processing overhead on the switch while Volta’s route compression optimizes its performance.

“Compared to the compute and storage markets, the networking industry is at least ten years behind in taking advantage of the benefits of virtualization and cloud scale – leaving network operators with little choice but to keep buying bigger, more expensive routers that are bloated with features they will never use. Volta was founded on the idea that it was time to entirely rethink routing,” adds Dean Bogdanovic, co-founder and CEO, Volta Networks. “With complete interoperability with any existing router in their networks, our VEVRE platform empowers network operators to begin scaling their network cost-effectively with virtual routing leveraging powerful white box switches and a cloud-based control plane.”

Carrier automation

Volta’s VEVRE is designed to support network operator and carrier automation, including NETCONF and YANG. Volta’s YANG model service library powered by an API approach complies with all the key standards for management, administration and network orchestration (MANO). The API provides a single point of connection for optimizing automation as compared to appliance-based routing solutions that still require network operators to manage every single box.

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