< Previousxxxxx Businesses fundamentally work with their customers on the basis of trust and loyalty, but in the event of a data-loss disaster, these relationships can be compromised. Although many organisations have disaster recovery operations in place, data can still be at risk if these systems are not foolproof. Failed disaster recovery can cause irreversible damage resulting in the loss of customers, revenue and productivity, and can even threaten the entire business operation. One of the most significant factors to consider when developing this disaster recovery strategy is whether it should be developed and operated in-house or outsourced via an external provider. So, what’s the difference and which is best suited to your business? ‘In’ versus ‘out’ Traditional disaster recovery (in-house) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (outsourced; DRaaS) use different types of business infrastructure and resources. Traditional disaster recovery relies on internal infrastructure to manage data protection and recovery operations. This is where the appeal of traditional in-house solutions lies – businesses can ensure complete security of their data and applications as no third parties are involved. On the other hand, DRaaS is recognised as an advanced category of computing that protects both applications and data from both natural disaster and human error. Able to recover data in one location by enabling a full recovery in the cloud, outsourced solutions such as DRaaS do not wholly rely on the success of the expertise held by a business’s in- house disaster recovery team. Traditional in-house solutions require designated staff that are competent enough to design, implement and maintain a disaster recovery plan – and this is no mean feat. Although traditional disaster recovery tools are kept on- site and are therefore secure, data recovery may be more difficult should you not have the required personnel on hand to initiate the process. Although the costs associated with in-house recovery solutions are often complex, all depending on the detail and specific processes required by your protection strategy, they are still incredibly popular to date. However, building a disaster-resilient infrastructure requires significant investment in purchasing servers, storage and IT equipment, and the development of a well-equipped, knowledgeable and dedicated maintenance team. Reduced costs, heightened security Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) eliminates much of the costs associated with building a traditional in-house disaster recovery solution. Building the primary in-house data backup site of an in-house solution, hiring an expert IT team, as well as purchasing the necessary equipment can make a significant dent in your budget – this is without the unexpected additional costs which come with your implementation plan and testing phase. With DRaaS, however, you can protect yourself from the unpredictability of in-house costs, and instead pay a third-party vendor only for the services you use. With cyberattacks becoming more sophisticated year on year, businesses that rely solely on traditional disaster recovery methods may find surviving these attacks increasingly difficult. A combination DRaaS and in-house solution however can provide advanced data backup support. As DRaaS providers are incredibly knowledgeable and best equipped to deal with these threats, it is in their interests to address existing and potential security risks within their product’s functionality. This means that the combination of outsourced DRaaS expertise and in-house knowledge can create the strongest of disaster recovery strategies. Speed, agility and scalability Most DRaaS solutions offer remote control of processes and, in the event of a disaster hitting a primary data centre, essential data can be recovered in just a few clicks. However, both in-house and DRaaS solutions offer reduced business Disaster recovery: in-house vs. outsourced by Veniamin Simonov, Director of Product Management NAKIVO DISASTER RECOVERY www.networkseuropemagazine.comwww.networkseuropemagazine.com 20Disaster recovery: in-house vs. outsourced downtime, lowered costs and efficient site recovery. In addition, the ease of use and scalability of both DRaaS and in-house can address the demands brought by potential business growth via instant updates to the systems. Both scalable, DRaaS and in-house disaster recovery options offer various capabilities that help businesses overcome growth bottlenecks through easy scalability. At times, a business’s choice of system all boils down to whether it wants staff to manage it on-site, or whether an external contractor will be taking responsibility. However, one thing to consider is that DraaS providers offer highly secure backup infrastructure that fully adheres to regulatory and compliance requirements both nationally and internationally. For many businesses this brings reassurance that they will always adhere to regulations in the event of a data-loss disaster. With in-house systems, staff need to ensure that regular updates are conducted and that any manual processes follow stringent processes and regulations. Third-party troubles Benefits aside, there are a few key considerations for those keen to proceed with a DRaaS solution. Although the underlying technologies are heavily encrypted and hugely secure, they aren’t completely foolproof. Organisations with particularly sensitive data may wish to consider whether they are comfortable allowing third-party access to datasets – a necessity for off-premise, third-party managed DRaaS. Furthermore, like many modern technologies, DRaaS is reliant on a steady internet connection. With a poor connection, data backup to an off-site storage area such as the cloud – on which DRaaS is reliant – will not be completed properly or in a timely manner. Key considerations Ultimately, there are three main points to assess when considering implementing a DRaaS solution. To decide whether it is the most suitable option for your business, you must fully assess your disaster recovery requirements and decide on how strongly they are connected to your business. Furthermore, research is essential. This means that you must fully assess the whole range of DRaaS solutions on offer before making a decision. Something often overlooked by businesses is conducting a proper assessment of internal IT infrastructure. It is vital to judge both its strengths and weaknesses, and whether the business has the proper financial resources to hand in order to implement a DRaaS solution before making the investment. Successfully implementing DRaaS relies on good assessment, proper process and IT staff that have a basic understanding of the protection of business data workloads. However, staff need not possess extensive knowledge of technical data backups – this is where DRaaS suppliers can fill in the knowledge gaps.cloud environments. n www.networkseuropemagazine.com 21 DISASTER RECOVERY www.networkseuropemagazine.com 21As the global pandemic of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) continues to develop, data centres have been called upon to play a critical role in maintaining a safe and secure digital infrastructure. As infection rates of COVID-19 increase, the virus has obvious implications for business continuity across the entire economy, and data centres are no exception. Data centres need to protect their employees, customers, facilities and mission- critical workloads. But they are also handling a level of unprecedented traffic as more customers move their daily operations online and employees need to transition to remote work environments. The pandemic has had an effect on the world’s economy and the supply chain has been affected, especially during the outbreak in China. As the virus continues to spread at an alarming rate, it is key that data centres review their supply chain arrangements and plan for disruption. Expansion projects could also be affected in the long term. Being part of the core digital infrastructure, it is critical that data centres continue to provide uninterrupted services to their customers. And, as people are required to work from home to further limit the spread of COVID-19, the demand for digital communication services like teleconferencing, e-commerce and remote working is sharply on the increase. Traffic spikes With millions staying at home, internet traffic spikes have been reported in several countries, especially those countries, where lockdowns are taking place. From remote working to pleasure, the internet is in some way becoming the real world these days. For example, DE-CIX (the Deutsche Commercial Internet Exchange) in Frankfurt has already set a new world record for data throughput driven by increased internet usage related to the Coronavirus outbreak. At 9.1 Terabits, it broke its 8 terabits-per-second record from December 2019. The global pandemic GLOBAL PANDEMIC www.networkseuropemagazine.comwww.networkseuropemagazine.com 22Data centres, as the powerhouses of cloud and connectors of the internet, are obviously going to feel the same effect. As governments step up social distancing policies to help stem the spread of Coronavirus, it has become abundantly clear that we must rely on our wired and wireless networks to keep us connected and informed. For the global customer base, networking infrastructure has never been more critical to sustaining and driving business. What Netlix have done Extreme Networks’ CTO, Eric Broockman said: “With an increasing number of people working and staying at home, the strain on European networks is currently enormous. But asking Netflix to reduce its streaming rates merely alleviated the symptoms of a more fundamental problem, instead of tackling its roots - especially as a lot of other streaming, video conferencing and cloud services will continue to put unusually high volumes of data across networks. “We at Extreme have noticed that some of the networks we help power have seen an increase of up to 25% in traffic over the last few weeks. In some cases that translates to an additional 1.5 TB of data that is being transmitted each second. “In an ideal world, network operators would obviously upgrade their infrastructure and invest in cloud-based solutions to make their networks as agile, resilient and flexible as possible. However, the reality is that this is a race against time for network operators that need to find a solution to this problem now, rather than in a few months or years down the line. “So, in the short term, what network operators could do to reduce the pressure on their networks and ensure connectivity for all is to deprioritise non-essential traffic coming from applications such as online gaming. This would then free up bandwidth for essential services, including voice & video traffic, and ease the pressure on the network without impacting service levels too much." GLOBAL PANDEMIC www.networkseuropemagazine.com 23 www.networkseuropemagazine.com 23xxxxx An extreme option that is sure to particularly upset the demographic currently isolating from all school activities, but could it work? Extreme Networks has also been developing innovative solutions, such as the Portable Branch Kit, to quickly and securely provide connectivity to temporary remote office locations. To facilitate virus testing and prevent healthcare facilities from getting overrun with voice, video and data demands, the company has offered a quick-response, cloud-managed Wi-Fi 6 mesh network solution. The system operates as a secure, encrypted extension to the existing hospital infrastructure that maintains HIPAA compliance. It can scale to support multiple pop-up clinics, testing facilities or quarantine sites. Development But it's not all about keeping the data running. Some companies are taking advantage of the new normal to engage in other developmental opportunities. Chris Atkin, Managing Director, FIA Cert Trainer said: "Total Comms Training moved over to remote working a week or so ago – we have worked behind the scenes to maintain contact with our customers and partner companies; it has been a challenge and I can't deny that we are all finding our feet in what can only be described as unprecedented and challenging circumstances. " As a company, we already had remote working capability in place. So for some time, we delivered some of our courses, via Skype. We wanted to ensure that the experience was feature rich and able to work seamlessly. In other words, we decided to tread lightly, whilst at the same time, offering the customer something much more than a static e learning course. "We have now launched our remote “realtime” training. The network cabling engineers are all logging into a series of training sessions." Google Google Cloud has seen a surge in the use of its video conference product Google Meet, as the COVID-19 pandemic causes a large population of the world to work from home. The cloud giant’s CEO Thomas Kurian revealed that the company has made the advanced features in Google Meet free to all its G Suite and G Suite for Education customers worldwide. Over the last few weeks, Meet’s day-over-day growth surpassed 60%, and as a result, its daily usage is more than 25 times what it was in January, according to Kurian. “We’ve also made Meet Hardware available in additional markets, including South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia and South Africa, to ensure customers have the right hardware to complement their Meet solution.” Microsoft In response to health authorities emphasising the importance of social distancing, Microsoft has seen usage increases in services, including Microsoft Teams, Windows Virtual Desktop, and Power BI. The company reported more than 44 million daily users on the platform, to which those users generated over 900 million meeting and calling minutes on Teams daily in a single week. Windows Virtual Desktop usage has grown more than three times, while government use of public Power BI to share COVID-19 dashboards with citizens has surged by 42% in a week, according to the company. Facebook Facebook has paused construction on its $750m Alabama data centre campus due to safety concerns over staff during the COVID-19 outbreak. The social media company announced on its website that it will be significantly reducing construction activities at the data centre site to help protect the construction crew during the pandemic. The company also announced that it has suspended construction on its expansion project at the company’s data centre campus in Clonee, Ireland. GLOBAL PANDEMIC www.networkseuropemagazine.comwww.networkseuropemagazine.com 24Contamination Control MANN+HUMMEL, the filtration specialist with more than 1000 engineers worldwide, has implemented global activities to help support an effective contamination control strategy in regards to the spread of the coronavirus. “MANN+HUMMEL has repeatedly demonstrated our competence in successfully transferring technology and know-how to new applications. We now use our filtration competence in automotive to build up and drive the production and supply of media for facemasks in our LS&E business segment. We have several groups in different countries all over the world working on this important initiative and we are extremely proud of their efforts,” said Kurk Wilks, President and Chief Executive Officer of the MANN+HUMMEL Group. MANN+HUMMEL is in contact with several textile manufacturers for appropriate filter media inlay supply to upgrade textile mouth-nose masks, which leading textile manufacturers have started to produce. MICRODYN-NADIR, the membrane and module specialist who has been a part of the MANN+HUMMEL Group since 2015, is contributing significantly as well: production at all plants continues as membrane technology plays a vital role in various critical functions, including the production of medications, vaccines and dialysis. Kaspersky Kaspersky has announced free availability of its core endpoint security products for medical organisations, in order to help them stay protected from cyberthreats during the pandemic. The full list of B2B products available for free for six months includes Kaspersky Endpoint Security Cloud Plus, Kaspersky Security for Microsoft Office 365, Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business Advanced and Kaspersky Hybrid Cloud Security. Evgeniya Naumova, Vice President of the Global Sales Network at Kaspersky, said: “In this critical situation, healthcare institutions are under immense pressure and carry huge responsibility while saving people’s lives and fighting against the infection. Doctors, nurses and all medical staff take on most of the load and therefore need any support possible. We feel that it is our duty to support the medical community. “In order to help these organisations focus on what matters most, we now offer healthcare institutions free licenses for key Kaspersky corporate products for a six month period.” Supply chain and utility issues The complexity of the data centre supply chain means that equipment sourced from low risk areas contains components from high risk areas - acute issues have already emerged from Italy, which is a major manufacturer of UPSs and related components. While the reliability of utility supply is not an immediate concern for most data centres; emergency standby capacity is equipped for outage – very long term outages could put pressure on the distribution network and this second tier risk is currently being assessed. IT hardware supply chain, Procurri LLC has announced its plans to help companies access data centre equipment more affordably, in the midst of any shortages experienced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company revealed that it has witnessed a surge in shipments at its Atlanta distribution hub recently. With wide and established networks through partnerships with Cisco Excess, HPE Spares, and Ingram Micro and distribution hubs spread across the globe in the US, Singapore, and the UK, the company plans to ship stocked equipment globally. “In these times of the COVID-19 crisis, the global IT equipment supply chain has been severely disrupted,” said Sean Murphy, Chairman and Global Chief Executive Officer, Procurri LLC. “We are doing our part to help keep economies going through the COVID-19 pandemic. We are in the business of IT uptime and are seeing the demand for solutions increase, and we are doing our best to secure supply to keep businesses connected and running.” n 857,641 Confirmed cases 42,006 Confirmed deaths 206 Countries, areas or territories with cases As at April 2, 2020 GLOBAL PANDEMIC www.networkseuropemagazine.com 25 www.networkseuropemagazine.com 25Riverbed has announced the results of a survey which found that over 70% of C-Suite decision makers believe business innovation and staff retention are driven by improved visibility into network and application performance. The survey findings unveiled in the ‘Rethink Possible: Visibility and Network Performance – The Pillars of Business Success’ report cited a positive correlation between effective technology and company health, a finding that is supported by the fact that 86% of C-Suite and IT decision makers (ITDMs), and 87% of business decision makers (BDMs), reveal that digital performance is increasingly critical to business growth. Slow running systems and a lack of visibility Three-quarters of all groups surveyed have felt frustrated by current network performance, with IT infrastructure being given as the key reason for the poor performance. This problem is exacerbated by a lack of full and consistent visibility, as one in three ITDMs report that they don’t have full visibility over applications, their networks and/or end-users. Furthermore, almost half of the C-Suite (49%) believe that slow running and outdated technology is directly impacting the growth of their businesses. This highlights the importance of implementing new technology to drive productivity, creativity and innovation. Business priorities and challenges Business priorities and challenges are evolving, so the technology they rely on needs to advance too. Over three quarters (76%) of ITDMs acknowledge that their IT infrastructure will have to change dramatically in the next five years to support new ways of doing business. A further 95% of all respondents recognise that Rethink Possible: Visibility and Network Performance 73% of the C-Suite state that increasing visibility into network and application performance will drive business innovation The research was conducted by independent research firm Sapio, based in the United Kingdom, on behalf of Riverbed. OPINION www.networkseuropemagazine.comwww.networkseuropemagazine.com 26innovation and breaking boundaries is crucial to business success, emphasising the need to embrace new technology. This may be why 80% of BDMs and 77% of the C-Suite say they believe that investing in next-generation technology is vital. Commenting on the research findings, Colette Kitterhing, Senior Director UK&I at Riverbed Technology, said: “All leaders recognise that visibility, optimised network infrastructure, and the ability to accelerate cloud and SaaS performance are the next frontier in business success. Given this, it’s time the C-Suite, business decision leaders, and IT decision makers come together to invest in the right solutions, prioritise measurement, and place visibility and infrastructure at the top of their agenda.” Kitterhing continued: “At Riverbed, we are helping businesses evolve their capabilities, whether it’s by monitoring networks and the apps that run on them, application performance, or updating the network infrastructure that underpins their digital services. "We fundamentally believe this is the key to supporting our customers’ staff and their ambitions, driving innovation, creativity, and helping them Rethink what’s possible.” Rethink Possible: Evolving the Digital Experience With over 80% of all leaders (82% C-Suite, 84% BDMs and ITDMs) agreeing that businesses must rethink what’s possible to survive in today’s unpredictable world, technology needs to be an enabler in the process. Next-generation solutions are giving customers across the globe the visibility, acceleration, optimisation and connectivity that maximises performance and visibility for networks and applications. n To find out more, download the full ‘Rethink Possible: Visibility and Network Performance – The Pillars of Business Success’ report by visiting www.riverbed.com/ OPINION www.networkseuropemagazine.com 27 www.networkseuropemagazine.com 27Cable certifiers: What really matters? OPINION www.networkseuropemagazine.comwww.networkseuropemagazine.com 28Dan Barrera Global Product Manager IDEAL Networks Following the launch of its LanTEK IV cable certifier, IDEAL Networks shares its research into the challenges and demands that end users really face. OPINION www.networkseuropemagazine.com 29 www.networkseuropemagazine.com 29 Over the past two years, the team at IDEAL Networks has conducted extensive research with cable installation companies in the US and Europe, observing how they work when certifying cable installations and conducting more than 60 hours of in-depth interviews to delve into the specific challenges they face when using their certifiers. Extensive research with cable installation companies in the US and Europe has been conducted by IDEAL Networks, observing how they work when certifying cable installations. In this article, we will look at some of our key findings around cable certifier usage trends. Top line takeaways A core part of the research investigated what cable installers consider the most critical when choosing a certifier. It identified that durability is the factor that the market deemed most important by far, followed by the ability to set up tests simply, and having an accurate and easy to use fault finder. How the current available certification solutions performed against the customer outcomes identified was also measured. To do this, the devices on the market with the most common test methods requested by customers were tested. In each scenario, the tester’s performance was benchmarked against the customers’ average expectation. Investigations also looked at which areas users felt performed worst regarding the capabilities of cable certifiers and found there were several areas with potentially concerning market satisfaction gaps, with the largest concerning labelling, results transfer and management software. This was closely followed by fault finding– a potential worry for manufacturers as this was picked out as one of the most critical elements of a cable certifier to users. The industry’s requirements around fault finding were expanded on as part of IDEAL Networks’ more in-depth product investigations. Minimise fault finding time and improve accuracy Good cable installations tested with a correctly Next >