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JP Morgan Chase digital bank is good for UK IT sector – but why is it bothering?

SSE Renewables teams with Microsoft for AI-led puffin conservation project

Compass finds a new direction with tech to serve up better customer experience

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Buyer’s guide to digital customer experience

Age discrimination: An overlooked diversity issue in tech

Five things you need to know about cloud file services

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AI with climate credentials

How an artificial intelligence system for tracking the puffin

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Python-based ransomware attacks unfold in record timeThreat researchers at Sophos have identified a new strain of unusually fast-acting ransomware written in the Python programming language that has targeted VMware ESXi servers and virtual machines, which could present a significant threat to many environments that security teams may be, for various reasons, less attentive towards. This particular operation is conducting “sniper-like” attacks that unfold quickly.

Former Virgin Atlantic IT chief appointed Direct Line CIODirect Line Group (DLG) has hired Ash Jokhoo as chief information officer (CIO). He will join the insur-ance company on 15 November, and become a member of its executive committee, subject to regulatory approval. Announcing the hire on LinkedIn, DLG chief executive Penny Jones said the appointment was an indication of the firm’s commitment to technology.

US lawmakers proposeransomware reporting rulesUS senator Elizabeth Warren, along-side North Carolina congresswomen Deborah Ross, have introduced a bill that, if enacted, would require US-based victims to publicly disclose information on ransomware incidents. The Ransom Disclosure Act will sup-posedly provide the Department of Homeland Security with data on ran-somware payments with the intention of improving understanding of how cyber criminal groups operate.

Tech Nation adds 30 fintech scaleups to growth programmeTech Nation has added 30 financial technology scaleups, hailing from across the UK, to the fourth edi-tion of its growth programme amid record investment in the sector. The recruits cover areas including insurance, investment, blockchain and cryptocurrencies. On average, they have 24 staff each, turnover of about £190,000 and have raised about £130m in total.

Facebook unplugged for six hours due to configuration errorFacebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and any services using Facebook services were unavailable for six hours on 4 October, due to a configuration change that dis-connected Facebook from the internet. According to some reports, engineers at Facebook were also unable to access the Facebook servers remotely, which meant admins needed physical access to the datacentre hardware to resolve the issue.

❯Catch up with the latest IT news online

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Concerns over confidentialityin government data innovationThe duty of confidence and trans-parency should be central to data-driven innovation as efforts in that area accelerate across the public sector, according to national data guardian Nicola Byrne.

Two arrests made in European ransomware investigationThe National Police of Ukraine have arrested two men in an apparent major blow to a prolific ransomware gang that extorted over 100 vic-tims in a campaign of cyber attacks that netted as much as $150m (£110m/€129m).

BEIS urged to prioritise fundingto protect umbrella workersThe government is being called upon to put its money where its mouth is by using the forthcoming autumn Spending Review to allo-cate budget to fund the creation of a single enforcement body to protect umbrella workers.

Chancellor announces AIscholarships at party conferenceDuring his speech at the Tory Party conference in Manchester, chancel-lor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak unveiled plans to build out the UK’s expertise in artificial intelligence, calling the UK “a global leader” in it.

Open Infrastructure Foundation hails OpenStack deployment surgeThe Open Infrastructure Foundation claims the onset of the pandemic has led to renewed levels of demand for OpenStack-based public and private cloud, with the organisation reporting a 66% year-on-year rise in the number of cores deployed.

Mandiant name returns tofore ahead of FireEye saleCyber incident response specialist Mandiant has finalised its rebrand, pending the successful sale of the FireEye products business to a Symphony Technology Group-led consortium. It will begin trading under a new ticker symbol from 5 October. n

Metropolitan Police purchases retrospective facial-recognition systemThe Metropolitan Police is deploying ret-rospective facial-recognition technology in the next three months, allowing the force to process biometric information contained in historic images from CCTV, social media and other sources.

❯ Twitch data breach investigations continue.❯ Glasgow publishes draft digital housing strategy.❯ Nokia aims for edge in journey to Industry 4.0.❯ Ocado gets closer to autonomous delivery with trial.

❯Catch up with the latest IT news online

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JP Morgan Chase digital bank is good for UK IT sector – but why is it bothering?JP Morgan Chase’s digital bank can start from scratch in the UK with no legacy infrastructure, writes Karl Flinders

The UK launch of JP Morgan Chase’s app-based retail bank is good news for the local tech sector, but there are ques-tions over what it really means to the US investment bank.

JP Morgan Chase, which is more than two centuries old, recently announced that it had recruited 400 people to work at the new digital bank. Customers can sign up to the bank, known as Chase, in minutes, gaining access to the Chase app. They can then use features to help them budget, manage money, spend and save.

But in a market with so many challenger banks, what’s in it for JP Morgan Chase? Fintech entrepreneur Matthias Kroener, who set up early digital bank Fidor, questioned why JP Morgan is both-ering with retail banking – and why in the UK?

“The UK offers the highest competition, in particular in retail, which is an outcome of one of the highest retail commission incomes of banks in Europe,” he said. “Brits pay more than any-body else because a few banks dominate the market.”

Kroener was surprised at the size of investment in people being made by JP Morgan Chase, which he said was unlike most digital banks. “What did surprise me is that Chase has to spend hundreds

of millions and is hiring hundreds of people, which sounds like the opposite of modern technology and fintech,” he said.

Kroener said it would be interesting to understand what the cost per customer acquisition will be. ”This will be the first time that an investment bank is truly interested in the problems of retail customers,” he added. “That would be a culture change.”

One senior IT professional in the UK financial services sector welcomed the announcement as a boost to the IT sector, particu-larly in the City of London. “It’s great to see more tech investment and jobs in the UK, so that is very good news for the financial services and IT industries,” he said.

The IT professional said it will be interesting to see how Chase positions itself against the competition and attracts customers, as “they will need something compelling to pull people in”.

He added: “If this new offering has been designed to be low-cost in the long term, they may have opportunities to offer customers incentives that higher-cost operations cannot afford to do.” But being part of JP Morgan could dilute that advantage if the rest of the firm has a proportionally higher cost base to support, he said.

ANALYSIS


https://www.techtarget.com/contributor/Karl-Flinders

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252506836/JP-Morgan-launch-of-UK-digital-bank-expected-next-week


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During the launch, Chase CEO Sanoke Viswanathan said: “We’re offering people in the UK the opportunity to experience Chase for the first time with a current account that’s based on simplicity, a fuss-free rewards programme and exceptional customer service. Having spoken extensively to consumers across the UK, we know that people want good value, combined with an excellent experi-ence, from a trusted bank.”

Chase is offering 1% cashback on everyday spending for the first 12 months, free card use abroad and 5% interest on limited savings. It intends to introduce a broad range of banking products in the future, including new current account features, savings and investment accounts, plus lending products.

JP Morgan Chase’s US rival Goldman Sachs launched a UK digital bank, Marcus, last year. It was built on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud and is another example of a tradi-tional bank launching a separate digital offering to keep pace with digital banking trends.

David Bannister, chief analyst at Bloor Research, said the two US banking giants do not have legacy infrastructures in the UK, so in effect are starting from scratch like any other digital challenger bank. “The same tech and regulatory drivers that lowered the bar-riers to entry for Starling Bank and other digital challengers work for big players too, when they open in different geographies,” he said. “JP Morgan Chase doesn’t have legacy core banking sys-tems to maintain in Europe, just as Goldman Sachs didn’t have legacy corporate banking services anywhere when it moved into that sector a year or so ago.”

Low cost baseBannister added that in retail banking, the challengers’ main competitive advantage is their low cost base. “The kind of inno-vative services they have introduced are easily replicated by competitors, but the established banks are less nimble,” he said.

“Effectively, JPMC in the UK retail banking market is just like Starling et al compared to the incumbents. They don’t have ATM estates to maintain, for starters.”

Traditional banks such as JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs also have deep pockets and can enter the digital challenger sector with a long-term plan.

Traditional startup banks are reliant on the continued confi-dence of investors, which could wane over time as banks move towards profitability. Starling Bank, for example, was the first UK digital challenger bank to reach profitability. After receiving its UK banking licence in 2016, it reported its first monthly operating profit of £800,000 for the month of October 2020. n

ANALYSIS

“This will be The firsT Time ThaT an invesTmenT bank is Truly inTeresTed in The problems

of reTail cusTomers”Matthias Kroener, Fidor

❯Challenger banks face the obstacle of winning customer trust.


https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252471899/Public-cloud-computing-is-early-on-its-journey-to-core-of-the-bank

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252471899/Public-cloud-computing-is-early-on-its-journey-to-core-of-the-bank

https://www.bloorresearch.com/

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252493457/Challenger-banks-hindered-by-lack-of-customer-confidence


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SSE Renewables teams with Microsoft for AI-led puffin conservation projectGreen energy provider talks up potential for artificial intelligence technology to help bring new supplies of renewable power to the grid more quickly. Caroline Donnelly reports

Green power firm SSE Renewables has teamed up with Microsoft on an artificial intelligence (AI) project trial in Scotland that could reduce the time it takes to bring new

sources of renewable energy to the grid.Scotland is renowned for having some of the most ambitious

renewable energy usage targets in the world, having pledged in 2011 to supply 100% of its electricity from green power sources by 2020.

Figures published by the Scottish government in March 2021 revealed that the country missed its 2020 target by a few per-centage points, having met 97.4% of its electricity demand using renewables.

Work on decarbonising its economy and ramping up its use of renewables continues apace regardless, but one of the big-gest barriers to bringing new sources of renewable energy online is ensuring that the build-out of the required power gen-eration infrastructure does not affect the environment or native wildlife populations.

This is a challenge SSE Renewables faces, and one it has sought to address with the help of Microsoft, cloud consultancy Avanade and government conservation agency NatureScot.

counting puffinsThe group has recently completed a trial technology project that relies on artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, combined with specialised cameras and image recognition technology, to identify and count puffin colonies on the Isle of May in Scotland.

SSE Renewables operates an 84-turbine offshore wind farm in the north of Scotland, 13km off the coast of Caithness, which is responsible for generating 588MW of energy a year – enough to power 450,000 homes.

Part of the tech project was geared towards potentially identi-fying ways in which it could improve its environmental monitor-ing procedures to ensure its energy-generating activities in this area are not affecting the local puffin population.

CASE STUDY


https://www.techtarget.com/contributor/Caroline-Donnelly

https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics/2018/10/quarterly-energy-statistics-bulletins/documents/energy-statistics-summary---march-2021/energy-statistics-summary---march-2021/govscot%3Adocument/Scotland%2BEnergy%2BStatistics%2BQ4%2B2020.pdf


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“We wanted to improve our environmental monitoring so we can be more proactive in that area,” says Oliver Abell, account manager at SSE Renewables’ Engineering Centre. “It’s part of a digital transformation at SSE Renewables that Microsoft and Avanade have been helping us with.

“They [Microsoft and Avanade] showed us a lot of tech-nology that could help us to meet our objectives and worked with our staff to show them how they could utilise that tech. There is no way SSE Renewables could have started the AI puf-fin counting project alone – we are an energy company, not a

technology company. Microsoft and Avanade have been critical pieces of this project.”

About 80,000 puffins were recorded as living on the 140-acre Isle of May in March 2020, making it the third largest colony in the UK.

Puffins are a species of concern for conservationists because of the relatively low numbers of them that exist in the wild, and the fact that female birds lay only one egg a year.

To keep tabs on population numbers, specially trained rang-ers are usually deployed to physically scout about the puffins’

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Cameras and AI enable conservationists to count the number of puffins and monitor their burrows without disturbing the birds



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burrows to count the birds and the number of eggs they have laid. The aim of the project is to make this work less labour-intensive and physically demanding for the rangers, while mini-mising the risk of habitat disruption for the puffins by limiting the amount of human interaction they encounter.

“This particular area on the Isle of May attracts many puffins each year to breed and it’s key to ensure that with the planning of any new wind farms, this is not interrupted,” says David Adey, lead data scientist at Avanade.

“To monitor the puffin population on the island, NatureScot would normally send people with clipboards to sit for hours, marking down how many puffins they saw,” he adds. “With SSE Renewables, we saw an opportunity to use technology to make this process more accurate, more efficient and less invasive for the puffins. Using cameras and AI, we are now able to count the number of puffins and monitor their burrows all day, every day, without going near them.”

ai birdwatcherThe project saw SSE Renewables and Avanade set up four cam-eras in stainless steel boxes that provide a live feed of the puf-fins’ activities on the island between late March and mid-August. This period is when the birds typically return to the island for breeding purposes after eight months away at sea, before leav-ing again before autumn arrives.

The data captured by the cameras is stored in a Microsoft Azure public cloud data lake and relies on the serverless Azure Kubernetes Services to help manage the information it collects.

Avanade and SSE Renewables have drawn on this setup to incrementally train an AI using an image recognition model on increasingly complex objects, including pictures of puffins, so that it understands how to spot a bird in the surrounding landscape.

“When the cameras on the Isle of May are turned on, the AI will be able to spot the puffins, separate them from background images such as rocks, and track them, frame by frame, as they move around,” says Microsoft in a blog post.

Expanding on this, Adey says the AI is capable of drawing a box around each puffin it spots and giving it a unique identification tag, so it knows not to double-count the birds.

“When the camera moves to the next frame, the AI understands that the puffin closest to a particular box is the same puffin, it’s

“when The cameras on The isle of may are Turned on, The ai

will be able To spoT The puffins, separaTe Them from background images such as rocks, and Track

Them as They move around”MicrosoFt

❯Philanthropists join forces to create green energy platform to fight climate change.

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just taken a step to the left or right, so it redraws the box around the bird,” says Adey.

“This happens over and over again for every frame of the footage. Even if the puffin flies out of the frame, the AI system will recognise where it flew out of sight and attempt to track it again if it comes back. That’s how we can track and count individual puffins.”

green goaLsSSE Renewables’ Abell says it can take up to 10 years for green energy firms to secure consent for new wind farms. The hope is

that projects like this will speed up the time it takes to bring new sources of renewable energy generation online.

This, in turn, will help Scotland and the rest of the UK achieve its green energy usage goals more quickly, and plans are already underway to look at other ways to deploy this technology in support of that.

“We could monitor salmon to make sure they are able to migrate in rivers, for example,” Abell adds. “This technology could work in any environment in which you want to be able to monitor a spe-cies and be hands-off, either because it’s too remote or because you don’t want humans interfering in that environment.” n

Technology makes tracking the puffin population less labour-intensive and physically demanding for the rangers, while minimising the risk of habitat disruption

SSE RENEWABLES/MICROSOFT



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Compass finds a new direction with tech to serve up better customer experienceFTSE 100 catering services company Compass Group UK and Ireland is undergoing a widespread overhaul of its technology and is improving its digital offering to customers, as CIO Jon Braithwaite tells Mark Samuels

Jon Braithwaite, CIO at food and support services company Compass Group UK and Ireland, recognises that leading technology for a FTSE 100 company is far from straight-

forward. As well as significant IT challenges, CIOs can encoun-ter unusual perception issues – and that’s something he realised when he joined Compass in October 2019.

“When I joined the company, someone said to me, ‘we’re the biggest and best at what we do in a business that you’ve prob-ably never heard of’,” says Braithwaite, recognising that Compass – despite its high-profile status and a labour force of more than 500,000 globally, including 45,000 in the UK and Ireland – will not be a familiar name to everyone.

Rather than being known publicly for its own brand, Compass’s success is based on its ability to deliver great food and services to its customers. Across 45 countries and 55 client locations, the organisation serves 5.5 billion meals a year.

Parent company Compass Group plc generated annual rev-enues of £20.2bn in 2020 – and its continued success relies on

INTERVIEW

Jon Braithwaite, Compass Group:

“Modern CIOs need to be seen

as business leaders and not

tech leaders”


https://www.techtarget.com/contributor/Mark-Samuels

https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/How-CIOs-can-help-their-organisations-accelerate-digital-transformation


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people behind the scenes, including the IT department, putting in maximum effort on behalf of its clients, whether that’s blue-chip businesses, public sector organisations or major sporting events. That is something Braithwaite could see quickly, too.

“What attracted me to the business is that there are a lot of peo-ple who are really passionate about providing a great service to our customers,” he says. “I’ve met chefs and people who prepare our food who are excited about what we do, and super-hungry for what tech can do for them going forward.”

Braithwaite joined Compass following IT leadership roles at McDonald’s and Gala Coral Group. Although he wasn’t neces-sarily looking to leave McDonald’s, he spoke with Compass and saw the scale of the operation. More specifically, the potential for Braithwaite to make a difference through technology was clear.

“The executives described a really exciting organisation that was at the top of its game in terms of market share,” he says.

“However, it hadn’t invested in technology to the extent it prob-ably wanted to, and was looking for a tech leader in the UK who could take them on that journey. It felt like a really good challenge.”

On a day-to-day basis, Braithwaite is accountable for technology operations and transformation – which spans digital, data and sys-tems – across Compass’s seven business sectors, including health-care, education and defence. He reports to the UK chief finan-cial officer and is a member of Compass’s global CIO leadership council. Braithwaite’s IT team – which he reorganised after joining Compass – is known as the digital technology function. Split into two distinct but interlinked elements, the tech component of his team looks after applications and infrastructure for key business units, such as finance, HR, marketing and legal, while the digital component is much more focused on the company’s customers.

customer journeyThe digital arm of Braithwaite’s team creates a series of apps to help people order food, while also running 11,000 point-of-sale (POS) devices across a range of organisations and events. The team considers the customer journey across these loca-tions and devices, and explores how it can use technology to improve the food-ordering process. Braithwaite says his role is very much about showing his peers how systems and services can produce big benefits.

“Modern CIOs need to be seen as business leaders and not tech leaders,” he says. “I think those business skills – in terms of finance, marketing and presentation – mean CIOs need to be close to the business to understand its requirements, its strategy

INTERVIEW

“i’ve meT chefs and people who prepare our food who are exciTed abouT whaT we do, and

super-hungry for whaT Tech can do for Them going forward”

Jon Braithwaite, coMpass Group


https://www.computerweekly.com/news/450417277/CIO-Interview-Nick-Mayes-IT-director-Gala-Leisure

https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Coronavirus-Contactless-limit-rises-as-retailers-make-point-of-sale-changes

https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Coronavirus-Contactless-limit-rises-as-retailers-make-point-of-sale-changes


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and to be aligned to it. I think the days when CIOs were just tin and wire specialists are long gone.”

In the past two years, Braithwaite has been working hard to both simplify and digitise Compass’s IT estate. This journey has helped the business move away from legacy technology and towards becoming a nimbler, data-led organisation.

“Compass was a company that had grown organically from the point of view of its technology,” he says. “My first focus coming in was to look at all of those big systems that needed to be corrected and fixed and transformed.”

Braithwaite’s team has brought disparate systems together on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud platform. Such integra-tion means enterprise technologies can communicate with each other, creating insights for the business and its customers via dash-boards. All Compass’s data systems now feed into AWS, where they are being used to optimise and improve business processes.

workforce management systemHis technology team is implementing a new workforce manage-ment system that will enable the company to place its 45,000 UK employees in positions at various organisations more flex-ibly and effectively. It is also updating the technology system behind Foodbuy, Compass’s food-procurement business that buys about £1bn of food a year. Both of these systems are run-ning in the cloud on AWS.

At the early stages of the implementation process, Braithwaite says Compass worked “hand in hand” with AWS consulting part-ner Inawisdom, with the supplier helping Braithwaite to make the

most of the cloud provider’s services. Braithwaite and Inawisdom are now working together to explore how Compass can make the most of the data it collects. The CIO says these kinds of trusted partnerships are crucial to digital transformation success.

Braithwaite’s tech team has also dealt with legacy systems. He inherited a reasonably aged network infrastructure two years ago, which has been updated. Also, the team has moved hundreds of servers into the cloud. “That’s given us a lot of resilience and allows us to manage our costs really effectively,” he says.

Finally, the tech team has spent a lot of time working on secu-rity and compliance, ensuring systems and services are in a good shape. “We’ve implemented and transformed some of the key components of the business, which has a very large work-force that’s buying lots of products from hundreds of vendors every day,” he says.

Braithwaite’s digital team has also been busy. Its 11,000 POS systems were previously provided by 37 suppliers, but a

“my firsT focus coming in was To look aT all of Those big sysTems ThaT needed To be correcTed and

fixed and Transformed”Jon Braithwaite, coMpass Group

INTERVIEW

❯Winemaker Concha y Toro’s CIO talks about combining tradition with technology.


https://www.computerweekly.com/ehandbook/Under-new-cloud-management-What-the-future-holds-for-AWS

https://www.foodbuy.co.uk/

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252502299/CIO-interview-Daniel-Duran-CIO-Concha-Y-Toro


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INTERVIEW

standardisation and consolidation process means that this number is now down to about 10.

Compass has also bought two app companies, one based in London and another in India. These development specialists are helping to build Compass’s multi-channel approach. Braithwaite says his digital team is also trialling kiosk technology, although the pace of these trials has been slowed by Covid-19 and the need to provide safe and sanitised access to touchscreen technology.

When they’re up and running, the kiosks will allow office work-ers to order food from Compass’s menus, with the option of either picking up the food or having it delivered to the desk. These kiosks will also be used at events, such as football grounds, allowing fans to pre-order a half-time pie and pint.

Braithwaite’s digital team has also turned to big data. Compass sells a billion meals a year in the UK, but when Braithwaite joined, it had almost no data about what was being purchased and how that information could be used to improve decision-making pro-cesses. The digital team has turned that situation around.

“In essence, data now flows in from about 80% of our POS sys-tems – and we’ve got a very aggressive plan to get it to 100% over the coming months,” he says. “That data flows through into our system, so we know what people are buying.

“We also get data from seven different apps in our estate. And now we’re working with Amazon to use their whole stack – from artificial intelligence [AI] to Amazon Insights in terms of report-ing – to start to drive insights from that data.”

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Compass Group serves 5.5 billion meals a year



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Braithwaite has certainly been busy since he joined Compass two years ago. His efforts were recognised recently when he was named as one of the top 20 digital transformation innovators in Europe in a report by consultancy Contino and independent body Tech London Advocates (TLA).

The report says successful digital transformation requires three things from CIOs: a clear vision, solid alignment of technology with the business, and a powerful effort to bring staff on the journey. Braithwaite agrees that transformational digital chiefs are experts at collaborating and communicating across the organisation.

Contino and TLA’s research also concludes that there are three common technological approaches to digital transformation: cloud, data and automation. Once again, that is something that chimes with Braithwaite, who expects his digital technology team to keep refining its approach to systems and services over the next two years. Across this timeframe, a combination of data, digital and AI will be crucial to the company, he says.

“We’ve really turned the dial on that in the right direction,” he adds. “We now know what our customers have purchased mil-lions of times a year across 11,000 POS systems.”

Further information will come from Compass’s other cloud-based systems. The workforce management platform means the company is beginning to develop a richer understanding of the human resources required to serve its meals. And information from Foodbuy that is being pushed to the cloud means the com-pany is developing a deeper awareness of the ingredients that are used to produce these meals, says Braithwaite.

“That work is all at different stages of being developed and integrated,” he adds. “But it gives us the whole lifecycle from the beginning of creating a product to thinking of how many of those meals we sold to our customers. We also have data in terms of customer satisfaction – which allows me to round off that journey.”

data-Led insightBraithwaite says the aim is to use data-led insight to keep improving customer service. The digital team will be focused on developing the tools to allow Compass customers to order food from multiple channels. They will also be working on services that enable the business to personalise its meals for clients.

“It’s about tailoring our products to what the customer demands at that time, and to continue to provide a great service, so that we are getting closer and closer to them,” he says. “We’ve got a great opportunity to become far more personalised in the way that we interact with our customers through technology – and that’s a big focus for us now.” n

“we’ve goT a greaT opporTuniTy To become far more personalised in The way ThaT we inTeracT wiTh cusTomers Through Technology”

Jon Braithwaite, coMpass Group

INTERVIEW


https://www.contino.io/resources/top-20-dx-innovators

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Amazon model is wrong sign for Gov.uk

Do we really want a single, centralised system to be used for signing in to all online government services? The Government Digital Service (GDS) is expected to ask for up to £400m budget in the forthcoming spending review to develop the system – but is that going to be money wisely spent? GDS’s explanation for why we need what it is calling “One Login” is sensible and logical.

We all expect to use a single sign-on for commercial websites, such as Amazon – so citizens should receive the same level of service and usability when dealing with government. We’re all comfortable – mostly – with the personalisation offered by the likes of Amazon, remembering who we are and what we did on our previous visits. Why shouldn’t that be the same with public services? It’s a compelling argument. On paper, the idea of a Gov.uk that’s as personalised and functional as Amazon sounds appealing. But Gov.uk is not Amazon.

The current proposals will see GDS build a huge, centralised database that maps our per-sonal identity verification data (such as passports, driving licence, credit ratings, mobile phone records, biometrics) onto the public services we’re using, such as taxes, benefits, disclosure and barring service checks, pensions, and more. The privacy and data protec-tion issues are, surely, obvious.

Add in the prospect of a One Login digital identity app on the smartphones of millions of people and… Well, it won’t be mandatory, but it’s a pathway to an official government digital identity being carried around in the pockets of tens of millions of us – even if there are alternatives for the digitally excluded. The attraction of adding private sector transactions to that central database of identity and behavioural data might just become overwhelming – especially if the current government plan to overhaul data protection law makes it easier to do so.

As we see every day with users blithely clicking to approve the terms and conditions of an app, very few people are going to explore options allowing them a degree of control over how their data is used. Maybe there’s an opportunity here for GDS to also develop a system that allows users that control over their data, in a user-friendly way.

If a digital identity app is being developed, it will be interesting to see if it attracts the attention of privacy campaigners to start a wider debate. But if the government is soon to commit hundreds of millions of pounds to this project, that’s a debate we really need to have. n

Bryan Glick, editor in chief

❯Read the latest Computer Weekly blogs.

EDITOR’S COMMENT

The privacy and daTa proTecTion issues

are, surely, obvious

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In many organisations, customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) are separate areas, each with dif-ferent stakeholders and budgets.

This may well reflect the way many organisations work, but there is a strong case to be made for considering them together. Indeed, it could be argued that it is not possible to have excellent CX without also having good EX.

Few would dispute the importance of customer experience. Delivering a good experience from first contact, and onwards through sales, delivery and support, is vital to attract, retain and profit from customers. If you track the right metrics, the tangible impact of CX is measurable in terms of revenue, costs and, ulti-mately, profit and competitive advantage.

Against this background, there has been a great deal of focus on CX over the past two decades. Investments in areas such as mar-keting automation, digital customer engagement and call centre optimisation have been relatively easy to justify, at least in com-parison to many other aspects of the business.

Quick wins are often possible, as well as long-term benefits, which has helped to get buy-in and approval from senior stake-holders in marketing, sales and operations, and at board level.

But until quite recently, the same level of commitment had not been applied to employee experience.

Analysts at Freeform Dynamics have spent years tracking the “digital divide” between customers and employees. What they have seen is that while customers have increasingly enjoyed well-designed self-service portals and mobile apps, with rich and up-to-date information at their fingertips, all too often staff have been

Making the link between eMployee and

custoMer experience

Dale Vile explores what customer experience and employee experience have in common

and the benefits of combining them

BUYER’S GUIDE TO DIGITAL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE | PART 2 OF 3

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left struggling with clunky and disjointed systems accessed via slow corporate networks and out-of-date desktop infrastructure.

There has been some progress in improving EX, but it has been quite slow compared with customer-facing parts of the business.

New fouNdatioNsOne silver lining of the Covid-19 public health crisis is that organisations have been forced to address at least some of their technology shortfalls. The sudden realisation that a lot of ageing infrastructure wouldn’t cope with the transition to home working meant something had to be done. With the need to support virtual meetings and other mechanisms to replace face-to-face interaction, decisions to modernise were made almost overnight.

This speed of movement has been a double-edged sword, however. Some great new technology foundations have been laid, but the accelerated imple-mentation cycles often allowed too little time to think and prepare properly. Comments such as, “We have seen more digital transforma-tion in the last 18 months than over the previous two decades”, often heard from marketers, therefore exaggerate what really took place in many organisations.

The truth is that more needs to be done before claims of full workforce transformation can be justified. Add to this the require-ment to support hybrid working in its various forms as the world

opens up and it’s not surprising to hear many HR executives and line-of-business managers arguing for further investment.

The discussion of how to strengthen IT systems and facilities to create the right kind of environment for employees going forward is now very topical. Considerations here include employee well-being, satisfaction and motivation, but harder-edged motives are also at play. Providing a good employee experience enhances an organisation’s ability to attract, develop and retain talent, which in turn affects costs and competitiveness.

commoN iNterestsWhen you put these dynamics alongside constantly evolv-ing customer expectations, a few areas of overlapping interest emerge. The more you look at it, the more it becomes appar-ent that enhancing the employee experience will almost always have either a direct or indirect impact on the experience that

customers receive. You could even go further and say that paying ade-quate attention to EX is essential to achieving CX excellence.

While the design goal of digital engagement systems is typically to avoid or minimise the need for expensive person-to-person inter-

action, the reality is that exceptions will inevitably arise and prob-lems will occur that require human intervention. There are also certain high-value interactions and transactions where it makes sense to maintain the personal touch.

more needs To be done before claims of full workforce

TransformaTion can be jusTified

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https://searchenterprisedesktop.techtarget.com/futureofwork/Key-Principles-for-Delivering-a-Rewarding-Employee-Experience

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252506978/Employers-worry-about-remote-work-productivity-but-fail-to-invest-in-tech-solutions

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252506978/Employers-worry-about-remote-work-productivity-but-fail-to-invest-in-tech-solutions

https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Forward-thinking-companies-are-listening-to-employees

https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Forward-thinking-companies-are-listening-to-employees

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In situations that require staff involvement, it’s not good for anyone if that person has to battle with unfriendly applications and services to get things done. Not only do they struggle to provide what the customer needs, but they also get frustrated and potentially demotivated. Most of us will have been on the receiving end of customer service calls where the person we are speaking with sounds weary and disillusioned, even quite hos-tile in extreme cases.

Ironically, the slicker the digital experience received by the customer at the outset, the more their expectations will have been raised – and the greater the negative impact can be when they encounter a disgruntled employee or one who is clearly hampered by internal systems and processes. And it’s the bad

experience they will remember when it comes to renewing a con-tract or considering their next purchase, not how easy it was to interact with the website or mobile app.

Building on that last example, another type of situation famil-iar to most of us as customers is when the organisation you are dealing with is very fragmented. Manifestations of this include receiving conflicting information from different representatives, excessive hand-offs during your interactions, and even internal finger-pointing in extreme cases. Some of the poorest customer experiences stem from lack of internal coordination and the unwillingness of anyone to take responsibility.

Inadequate systems and process integration can be a contribu-tor here, but organisational and cultural disjoints and mismatches

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are often also evident. A common problem is that roles, struc-tures and lines of demarcation often reflect what was needed in the past, rather than the present.

Technology advances allow you to invent and roll out new products, services and business models more rapidly today than ever before, but changing the organisation typically takes a lot longer. Success with digital transformation is therefore as much about people and culture as it is technology.

exploitiNg tHe opportuNitiesFrom an IT systems perspective, the watchwords are modernisa-tion and integration. This applies to everything from your SAP or Oracle-based operational sys-tems, through specialist appli-cations and services used at departmental level, to the gen-eral-purpose productivity and col-laboration tools included in your Microsoft or Google environment.

Most modern solutions not only deliver a better employee experi-ence, but also provide open application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow them to work more seamlessly with other enterprise systems.

But you can only benefit from the latest technology if you take advantage of what it offers. So, coming back to the earlier

observation about collaboration tools such as Microsoft Office 365, Google Workspace, Zoom, Webex and many other sys-tems being rolled out in a hurry, it’s worth reviewing the capa-bilities you have in place. You can then optimise how they are used to create the best employee experience, as well to drive speed, efficiency and harmony.

Overarching all of this, consider how to help your employ-ees adjust and grow as the environment they work in, and

what’s expected of them, contin-ues to change. Companies such as Microsoft and Salesforce are help-ing here by embedding learning and development into their application suites. From big players such as SAP to small specialists like 5App, there are some interesting options for employee engagement to get everyone aligned and working in harmony across the business.

There’s a lot more to consider, including the role of robotic pro-cess automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI)-based assistants,

embedded analytics, and much more. Suffice to say that, as soon as you start thinking in a joined-up manner, you’ll discover lots of opportunities to exploit CX and EX synergies. n

Dale Vile is CEO and distinguished analyst at Freeform Dynamics.

BUYER’S GUIDE

Technology advances allow you To invenT and roll

ouT new producTs, services and business models more rapidly Today Than ever before, buT changing The organisaTion

Typically Takes a loT longer


https://searchcio.techtarget.com/post/CIOs-lead-digital-transformation-as-pilots-co-pilots-engineers

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Over recent times, the technology industry has been rocked with apparently endless high-profile age discrimination lawsuits.

IBM, for example, is in the process of being sued by a number of different parties for what was claimed in a report by ProPublica and Mother Jones as far back as 2018 to be sys-tematic efforts to get rid of older employees and replace them with younger ones. Recent court documents contend that the company’s “highest executives created and attempted to con-ceal a multi-faceted ‘fire-and-hire’ scheme with the ultimate goal of making IBM’s workforce younger”.

A similar lawsuit against HP was given the green light in April, after five plaintiffs alleged they were part of a process of illegally selecting older workers for dismissal under the supplier’s multi-year Workforce Restructuring Initiative, which began in 2012.

But they are scarcely the only ones. So just what is going on here? Despite the tech industry’s persistent hand-wringing over talent shortages and the continual launch of one diver-sity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiative after another to try to resolve the skills crisis, why does the issue of age discrimina-tion continue to rear its ugly head? Is it simply the unfortunate reflection of a sector that really is as notoriously ageist as the popular stereotype suggests?

The answer to the latter question appears to be a resound-ing “yes” – although more so in less mature subsectors, such as software and the digital startup world, and less so among established companies and more mature subsectors, such as telecoms or hardware.

age discriMination: an overlooked

diversity issue in techWhen people discuss diversity, age discrimination is not

the first issue to come to mind, but it’s one that is prolific across the UK’s tech sector. Cath Everett reports

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https://www.theregister.com/2018/03/22/ibm_age_discrimination/

https://lrus.wolterskluwer.com/news/employment-law-daily/older-hp-workers-discharged-as-part-of-restructuring-initiative-win-preliminary-certification-of-nationwide-adea-collectives/137971/

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While most of the available data seems to have been compiled before the pandemic, a report by CWJobs at the end of 2019 revealed that the average UK tech worker starts experiencing age discrimination at the tender age of 29, nearly a decade earlier than the national average. As a result, by the time they hit 38, they are considered by col-leagues to be “over the hill”, with 35% saying they are classed as too old for their role and 32% afraid of losing their job as a result.

Unsurprisingly then, just over two out of five (41%) acknowledged having observed age discrimina-tion in the workplace compared with an average of 27% across other UK industries. The most common form this bias takes consists of older workers not being offered a job (47%), being overlooked for promotion (31%) and excluded from social activities (28%).

age discrimiNatioN iN actioNIf statistics across the wider economy are anything to go by, the situation has only got worse since the pandemic struck. The Office for National Statistics indicates that over-50s have been hit harder than any group other than the under-25s, who were disproportionately employed in distressed sectors, such as lei-sure and hospitality.

In the case of older staff, not only were they more likely to have had their working hours reduced, but they also experienced

higher levels of long-term furloughing, making them now the most likely group to lose their jobs and become unemployed long term.

This unfortunate state of affairs is similarly reflected in research from Rest Less, an online community for the over-

50s. It found that the number of age discrimination complaints made to employment tribunals from workers across all sectors has risen faster than any other category year on year. The figure hit 3,668 in 2020, up from 2,112 in 2019, and is expected to increase still further over the year ahead.

As Perrine Farque, founder of DEI consultancy Inspired Human and author of Inclusion: The ultimate secret for an organization’s success, succinctly puts it: “As always when there’s a crisis, the most vulnerable are the first to go. Covid’s been used as a cover by many organisations for age discrimination and as an excuse to get rid of older workers to cut costs as they were seen as too expensive in the face of a recession.”

The most at-risk professionals in this context, she says, were those that had failed to move into senior leadership positions, staying too long in the same middle management or technical roles, which caused them in many instances to stagnate due to lack of training or promotion. On being made redundant, such individuals tend to set up their own businesses, become con-sultants or even leave the tech sector altogether.

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“covid has been used as a cover by many organisaTions

for age discriminaTion”perrine Farque, inspired huMan


https://www.cwjobs.co.uk/advice/ageism-in-tech-press-release

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/ageing/articles/livinglonger/olderworkersduringthecovid19pandemic

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/ageing/articles/livinglonger/olderworkersduringthecovid19pandemic

https://www.ft.com/content/b4d964fc-d13a-4b58-abb7-40756aebaff7

https://restless.co.uk/press/age-discrimination-complaints-in-employment-tribunals-up-74-in-a-year/

https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/news/articles/more-than-third-over-55s-did-not-receive%20workplace-training-last-decade-study-finds#gref

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wHat is tHe tecH iNdustry’s age problem?Why the industry is so ageist in the first place is a complex question. One of the ongoing challenges is that the common stereotype of a tech worker – which despite lots of hard work to dispel it still consists of a young, white male – tends to be self-reinforcing.

The statement made by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over a decade ago that “young people are just smarter” certainly did not help here. It is still widely remembered and continues to res-onate in the common perception that youthful professionals are more tech-savvy and able to learn new skills more easily.

Sheree Atcheson, global director of diversity and inclusion at digital agency for business transformation Valtech, explains the problem: “It’s the widespread idea that young people have more tech fluency and are able to pivot more quickly. In a startup situa-tion, another issue is about them being able to take a lower wage and higher levels of equity which pays off later, an approach that doesn’t work for a lot of older people with family responsibilities.”

But the sector faces other age-related challenges too. One that is often not discussed relates to recruitment. A recent study by health and wellness consultancy ProAge and the 55/Redefined online platform, for instance, discovered young recruiters were much more likely than older ones to hire people of their own age – a finding that would seem particularly pertinent in the tech industry given its young age profile.

As Deirdre Golden, a consultant at DEI consultancy Included, points out: “When organisations talk about older workers, they’re usually referring to someone who’s stayed with them

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The assumption that older people could not keep up with technology has led to many employers holding bias in their hiring of skilled professionals

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https://www.cnet.com/news/say-what-young-people-are-just-smarter/

https://www.computerweekly.com/video/Diversity-and-inclusion-in-tech-supporting-mental-health

https://workplaceinsight.net/over-55s-feel-full-force-of-workplace-ageism/

https://workplaceinsight.net/over-55s-feel-full-force-of-workplace-ageism/


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until later life. It’s much less about new recruits, but to create an age-inclusive workforce, you have to look at all strata.”

Another consideration, meanwhile, relates to “cultural resist-ance” and the assumptions made about the potential decline in the physical and mental health and abilities of the over-50s. Other concerns relate to possible tensions with younger staff, particularly if older workers are required to report into them, and the fact that their experience inevitably makes them more expensive in terms of pay.

The resulting “conscious and unconscious bias” generated by these situations can lead to “subtle acts of discrimination and microaggressions that are difficult to prove”, says Farque. These include the use of ageist comments disguised as “banter”, the most common, according to the CWJobs survey, being “old fart” (heard by 61%) and “dinosaur” (56%). Another popular state-ment is that “old people don’t understand technology” (60%).

tHe beNefits of older workersDespite all of this though, there are advantages to employing older people, believes Josh Bersin, founder and dean of the Josh Bersin Academy for HR professional development. For example, most are used to “managing complex, difficult and disruptive work environments”, not least because “they’ve been through ‘this’ before, probably a few times”.

They are also “generally more experienced as managers and teammates and are generally great mentors to other people”, says Bersin. “Young people who are not sure what to do with their career can get useful direction from somebody older.”

Atcheson agrees. “The key is creating a balanced workforce, but if the focus is on youth, it’s not balanced,” she says. “Older people have much more experience and insights, which when taken together with the fresh ideas and ways of doing things provided by younger people, is very impactful.”

A further consideration, says Vicky Sleight, director of diver-sity and inclusion at telecoms industry association TM Forum, is the danger of missing out on potential revenue streams.

The idea here is that because technology products tend to be “designed by younger people for younger people” without taking older age groups into consideration, these groups often decline to buy or use them, which can lead to missed sales opportuni-ties among a rapidly growing and affluent demographic.

wHy is age bias still a problem?So with all of this in mind, why has the tech industry so far done so little to tackle the age discrimination challenge, and what can realistically be done about it anyway?

An important point to consider in this context, according to Atcheson, is that until last year – when ethnicity rose up the agenda due to the global resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement following the killing of George Floyd in the US – most DEI-related issues outside of the gender debate were routinely “ignored”.

“Due to the widespread focus on gender in tech, diversity and inclusion discussions were in the main about one kind of woman as if she was a monolith, which meant that other things like age, disability and ethnicity weren’t considered,” she says.

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https://ilcuk.org.uk/older-workers-key-to-post-covid-recovery/

https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Is-the-dial-shifting-for-underrepresented-groups-in-the-UKs-tech-sector

https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Is-the-dial-shifting-for-underrepresented-groups-in-the-UKs-tech-sector


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“In general over the past decade, but in tech specifically, most organisations have taken a one-size-fits-all approach to this, when what you really need is an intersectional approach.”

To address this challenge, Atcheson recommends under-taking three key activities. The first consists of collecting age-related employee data to understand the age profile and makeup of the workforce.

The second involves gaining some insight into what the employee experience is like for people across all age groups and ensuring that benefits packages are not overly geared to a single demographic.

The final action is addressing bias in recruitment and promo-tion processes by using the data collected to understand current dynamics. This includes looking at which age groups are being hired and which are bypassed, which are progressing and which are not, and which are receiving training or being overlooked.

On the upside, there does appear to be hope on the horizon of improvement, says Inspired Human’s Farque. “When it comes to DEI, the focus has to date been first on gender, followed by ethnicity. But as the definition of DEI is changing and becoming broader, other criteria, such as age, are gaining in importance – it’s a slow shift, but it is happening,” she concludes. n

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C loud file services offer access to file data and the flex-ibility of hosted cloud storage infrastructure, with the number of suppliers offering cloud-based file storage growing significantly in recent years.

These services are sometimes pitched as a “NAS replacement”, and companies including Nasuni, Panzura and Ctera have posi-tioned themselves as enterprise-grade alternatives to on-premise network-attached storage (NAS) hardware. Some claim cost reductions of more than 80% compared with local NAS or prod-ucts such as Microsoft SharePoint.

Alongside the specialist suppliers are the three hyperscale cloud providers, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Microsoft Azure, which have their own cloud file services. Industry stalwarts such as NetApp and IBM are also in the market, with NetApp offering its technology via options that range from on-premise systems to partnering with AWS.

“The goal is to create a globally distributed file system, so employees and distributed users can access their files from any-where, and to replace traditional NAS environments,” says Brent Ellis, analyst at Forrester. “Changes to the way we work have pushed a lot of businesses to adopt these services, but it was being driven by the move from capex [capital expenditure] to opex [operational expenditure] even before the pandemic.”

cloud file services, aNd wHat tHey are NotAt the basic level, cloud file services present enterprise custom-ers with a file system-based architecture that allows storage of documents and other unstructured data.

Five things you need to know about cloud File services

Stephen Pritchard looks at cloud file services, which providea file system-like architecture that gives users access to filedata wherever they are, just as if it were a local NAS filer

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https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Five-key-benefits-of-AWS-Azure-and-Google-cloud-file-storage

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252506285/NetApp-and-AWS-launch-fully-managed-Ontap-cloud-file-storage

https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/CAPEX-capital-expenditure

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This is distinct from block storage for applications, or cloud-based compute infrastructure. Under the skin, file services might be based on object storage, but suppliers present users with a file system, such as NFS or SMB.

This allows the cloud service to work in the same way as on-premise NAS, but with the added advantage of remote access, or access via a browser. However, enterprise cloud file services are distinct from the file-sync-share services offered by the likes of Dropbox, Box, or even Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive. These ser-vices are focused on individual users.

Consumer-based sync-and-share services lack the management and monitoring functions of enterprise cloud offerings, and typically work by synchronising files on a user’s desktop or other personal device. OneDrive, with its close ties to Microsoft Office 365, is a good example of this.

Although such services are useful on a per-user basis, they are not a replacement for NAS infrastructure or properly man-aged and secured enterprise cloud storage. Cloud file stor-age aims to bridge that gap by offering user convenience and enterprise-level control.

beNefits of cloud file servicesInitially, enterprises might look to cloud file services as a way to move from on-premise hardware and the upfront capital

spend required, to an opex model. Cloud services also provide resilience and redundancy, because data is located offsite. And users can scale storage capacity more quickly, without recourse to physical hardware upgrades in the office or datacentre.

But these are not the only benefits. Often, businesses find that once they have moved to cloud infrastructure for file storage, it is the flexibility that keeps them there.

“We are seeing users convert capex spend on a NAS to opex spend on per-user licences, so they can tailor their costs,” says Forrester’s Ellis. “But at the same time, they enable a more mobile workforce, and eliminate some of the frustrations of using tradi-tional file shares over VPNs. You can access files pretty much any-

where you can get a net connection.”Cloud file services can also achieve higher levels of availability

than on-premise systems, he adds.Broadly, CIOs should expect cloud file services to provide

robust user account management and security, and high avail-ability. They can also offer additional, NAS-style features, such as versioning and backup and recovery.

But enterprise cloud file services also provide features such as shared workspaces, multi-site collaboration and appliance-based file sync, which go beyond the sync-and-share offerings. File-based locking is critical to prevent users overwriting each

CLOUD FILE SERVICES

broadly, cios should expecT cloud file services To provide robusT user accounT managemenT and securiTy,

and high availabiliTy


https://searchstorage.techtarget.com/answer/NFS-vs-CIFS


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other’s work. Buyers should also be able to specify where their data is stored, which is important for compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation and other legislation.

limitatioNs of cloud file servicesAs with any cloud service, access to sufficient bandwidth can be a limitation, especially for the initial migration to the cloud. One way to address this, adopted by suppliers such as Ctera and NetApp, is to provide a local appliance that manages ongoing file

upload and sync. That is especially useful for branch or remote offices that might lack connectivity.

Another limitation is contractual, rather than physical. Buyers of cloud file services need to understand the suppliers’ obligations in the event of an outage.

What measures does the supplier have in place to back up data, and to provide failover? If an organisation moves files to the cloud to reduce capex, it is possible it will no longer have on-premise hardware to fully recover and restore data. This is all the more

CLOUD FILE SERVICES

AN

NA

/AD

OBE


https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252499294/AET-gets-Ctera-to-smooth-hybrid-cloud-access-to-big-files


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critical if the service is being used for production data, rather than an application such as archiving.

IT managers should also consider how much control they will have over resources. “Generally, with cloud or consumption-based pricing, you don’t have hard [capacity] limits,” says Ellis. “Costs can get out of control if everyone keeps everything.”

Features such as robust account control and tiering less-used data to lower-cost storage will help, he adds.

Suppliers might also claim to offer infinite capacity, so it pays to check the volume sizes that they actually offer and whether these are practical and fit the organisation’s workflows. And, as with all cloud storage, CIOs should check data egress charges.

key suppliersSpecialist cloud file services sup-pliers include Nasuni, Ctera and Panzura. Nasuni is a file- and object-based storage system that can run on top of AWS, GCP or Azure. Ctera emphasises its support for collaboration, enterprise file-sync-and-share, and its integration with Office. It also uses object storage under the hood, and has multi-cloud support. Panzura also lists collaboration as one of its features, along with replacing NAS drives, and backup and recovery systems.

NetApp offers its Cloud Volumes for File Sharing, as well as shared block-and-file storage via its user-managed Cloud

Volumes OnTap architecture. This supports NFS, SMB and iSC-SCI on top of AWS’s S3, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. IBM offers cloud file storage in capacities up to 12,000GB.

cloud providers vs poiNt solutioNsPoint solution suppliers emphasise that they can directly replace an organisation’s hardware NAS technology. They also promote other features, such as team collaboration, which are not usually native to a physical NAS device. They promote a greater range of features than those offered by the big three cloud hyperscal-ers, including more advanced backup and recovery services and

the ability to support small offices, teams and individual users.

Services such as AWS are posi-tioned towards more demanding, data-intensive applications such as content management and media, or big data analytics. These applica-tions need file-based storage, but do not directly aim to replace local NAS hardware.

However, a direct comparison between specialist providers and the hyperscalers is complicated by the fact that the large cloud providers offer basic file sharing in the form of home directories and cloud file services, including NetApp, Ctera and Nasuni, work on top of the hyperscalers’ clouds.

Ultimately, the decision for each IT team will come down to features, reliability and cost. n

CLOUD FILE SERVICES

poinT soluTion suppliers emphasise ThaT They can direcTly

replace an organisaTion’s hardware nas Technology


https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Unified-file-and-object-storage-The-best-of-both-worlds

https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Unified-file-and-object-storage-The-best-of-both-worlds


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DOWNTIME

“Facebook, Instagram,

WhatsApp and Messenger are

coming back online now. Sorry for the

disruption today – I know how much you rely on our services

to stay connected with the people you care about”

A dejected Mark Zuckerberg

“It’s all good, bro”Some random guy

Don’t worry, Mr Mark

Mark Zuckerberg’s 33-word post addressing Monday 4 October’s six-hour global outage of Facebook and all the rest of them has laid the foundations for the most ambient section of the internet, the forgiving comments of his doting supporters.

The unplugging of the social network from the world’s missing dog post-sharing popula-tion is said to have cost Zuckerberg £4.4bn – the last thing he needed while former employee Frances Haugen was busy tearing him a new one in the Senate. But he can always find solace in the top replies to his half-hearted apology. “Don’t worry, Mr Mark,” wrote one user, signing off with a rose emoji. “Thank you, Boss,” wrote several other fawning chumps. Building work for the October 2021 Facebook Outage Memorial Fountain is set to begin next week. n

❯Read more on the Downtime blog.

DRE

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ETTY


https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10113957526871061

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/05/what-caused-facebook-whatsapp-instagram-outage

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58805965

http://www.computerweekly.com/blog/Downtime

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