< PreviousHeat reuse is capturing and removing high-grade heat from servers in the data centre environment and redirecting it to district heating networks, industrial applications and other schemes. Across Europe, and particularly in Scandinavia, projects like these are heating industrial sites and local facilities, such as schools and hospitals. Waste heat recovery Sweden has several heat reuse projects underway. One experiment in Luleå is looking at ways to integrate fossil-free district heating and cooling with a renewable- powered data centre set up for the recovery of waste heat. Another larger project in Stockholm is connecting 10,000 homes to a district heating network pulling heat waste from 30 data centre operators. It is expected by 2035, that this data centre waste heat reuse project will meet one-tenth of the city’s heating requirements. Earlier this year, Microsoft and Fortum, a state-owned energy company in Finland, announced a collaboration to heat homes, services and businesses with sustainable waste heat from Microsoft’s data centres in the Helsinki region. Fortum’s district heating infrastructure includes about 900km of underground pipes that transfer heat to approximately 250,000 users. This is thought to be the largest waste heat project of its kind in the world. While many of the Scandinavian heat reuse projects create a more complete sustainable infrastructure as they are used with renewable energy, other countries are using heat reuse to help achieve climate change objectives in other ways. The UK government is making heat reuse a key pillar of its Net Zero strategy and plans for decarbonising the economy. This will include a ban on the sale of new gas boilers by 2035. New electric heat pumps will be serviced from networks that rely on pipes to transmit hot water from a centralised heat source. Data centres are likely to be one of the main heat resource providers. This could be a tremendous and important undertaking as there are 30 million buildings in the UK, the heating of which currently contributes to almost a quarter of all UK emissions. Liquid cooling What can a data centre operator do today to start preparing for these initiatives? Implementing liquid cooling is a good place to start. It is the most efficient cooling infrastructure to support heat reuse as it significantly reduces facility energy consumption for mechanical services, decreases water use and provides a platform for high-grade reusable heat. Heat generation at the server is extracted at a much higher temperature. The heat then becomes an almost immediately useful byproduct by being at the right temperature, in the right format and easily transportable. Data centre and infrastructure design is at a crossroads. Sustainability targets are initiating scrutiny of old practices and becoming more receptive to new process designs and methodologies. One of the ways we are seeing that play out is via heat reuse and recovery by data centre operators across Europe. What was once thought to be merely a futuristic possibility is starting to become a reality thanks to new cooling infrastructure technologies. Stuart Crump Director of Sales Iceotope HEAT RECOVERY www.networkseuropemagazine.com 30Making Data Centre Heat Reuse a Reality HEAT RECOVERY www.networkseuropemagazine.com 31SMART BUILDINGS www.networkseuropemagazine.com 32In the 18th Century, the invention of the sash window meant that it was possible to adjust variations in air flow – warmer air out the top and cooler air in the bottom – through a hidden system of weights allowing each section to move and remain in place independently. This must have felt like a massive achievement at the time and a clever application of knowledge from the new science of physics. Today, a smart building needs to go beyond just being adaptable in order to cater for the comfort of its occupants. Modern smart buildings should also contribute to the reduction of greenhouse emissions and to sustainable living. Sounds good, but what’s involved? Network challenge solved The components required to work together in a smart building include ambient light sensors, surveillance and security systems including door access, motion sensors, fire monitoring and alarm panels; HVAC systems (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), energy management, plumbing and water monitoring and air quality sensors, to name just a few. The challenge in many buildings is that facilities managers cannot efficiently access all these systems from one device or location, which impacts their ability to maintain the facility at the level of performance expected by occupants. The solution is to have a single converged IP network with just one integrated management interface, providing managers with instant notifications through a single pane of glass about any issues with the building, and enabling rapid troubleshooting and reduced downtime. Converged network, smarter & safer network One of the reasons for having a smart building is to optimise systems and eliminate the cost of duplicates. A network that enables data connectivity for workers, can also connect a facilities’ systems, sensors and other devices that provide data for optimisation. Running both IT and OT systems over a converged IP network utilises the same equipment for more than one purpose, increasing ROI and reducing operational costs. Importantly, concerns about increasing the OT attack surface are mitigated by converged IP networks’ A smart building is like a living, breathing entity, composed of multiple elements that must work together in harmony to achieve the goal of providing the people in the building with a safe, comfortable and productive environment. Chris Dyke Sales Director UK & Ireland Allied Telesis Smart Buildings Start with Smart Networks SMART BUILDINGS www.networkseuropemagazine.com 33ability to boost a firewall’s capabilities to create a ‘self-defending network’. These can automatically identify suspicious activity such as repeated failed user logins, logins from unusual devices, unexpected user movements, data leaks and odd network activity. Network reliability is critical. Fault tolerance and the ability to self-heal should be essential features of a smart building’s network, allowing them to offer protection from unexpected events. Built-in debugging tools will also enable rapid problem identification and easy troubleshooting to prevent minor issues from becoming major outages. BMS Smart buildings are best powered through an integrated Building Management System (BMS) communicating over a single converged IP network. A BMS is an intelligent application that collects and processes information from a smart building’s ecosystem. With all the previously disjointed systems connected to one set of controls on one converged data network, facilities managers can use a BMS to centrally monitor, control, manage and maintain a building’s technical systems, devices and services. Furthermore, an automated and responsive BMS ensures that all systems always run at their optimum, dynamically adjusted levels. In this way, it can reduce a building’s energy use and reduce its carbon footprint and environmental impact. An automated and responsive BMS ensures that all systems always run at their optimum, dynamically adjusted levels. SMART BUILDINGS www.networkseuropemagazine.com 34Smart stadiums It’s not just office or residential buildings that can be smart. Leeds United’s Elland Road - England’s 14th largest football ground with a capacity for 38,000 seated fans - is an example of a smart stadium. From a network perspective, the stadium is challenging as it needs around-the-clock no-fail network operations for all its internal businesses within the grounds including back-office administration, call centre, hospitality and executive suites, ticketing, merchandise shop, press box, television studio and a CCTV security system that operates several hundred surveillance cameras throughout the whole stadium complex. The Leeds United FC network is based on two high- capacity, diversely routed fibre connections constituting the resilient network core. One 20G connection is in the main data centre in the East Stand and one 20G connection is in the ticket office in the West Stand. The diversely routed fibres going east to west and west to east around the stadium create a 40G ring that is completely faultless. Connected to these two cores are several edge cabinets that run the rest of the structure. A Vista Manager EX network management platform and an Autonomous Management Framework run from a single pane of glass to allow the centralised display of network details, status and event information and automates common tasks like firmware updates, backups and zero-touch provisioning. It takes a partnership It is right that we have high expectations of modern buildings in terms of energy efficiency, low power consumption, and increased safety and security. The best way to achieve these demands is through a converged IP network delivering data-driven insights reliably from the many end devices, sensors and systems to be interpreted and acted upon by an integrated BMS. Look for a network partner experienced in providing secure, resilient, always-on networks that underpin smart building operations. SMART BUILDINGS www.networkseuropemagazine.com 35Nowadays, however, this concept is no longer applicable. Perimeter-based networks no longer have the necessary access controls to be able to detect or prevent cyberattacks, due to the ever-growing threat surface and evolution of attack vectors. An example of this can be seen with direct attacks such as the log4j vulnerability – a major susceptibility in the widely-used logging tool Log4j – in addition to indirect attacks, which includes phishing or malware attack. Furthermore, when we consider the implicit security assumption that organisations can trust everything inside their own networks, things can only get worse. This assumption provides cyber criminals with the ability to navigate laterally within networks, as long as they’re inside it, enabling them to discover an additional compromise. Instead, introducing a zero- trust architecture is designed to improve the network’s overall cybersecurity strength, while permitting services which drive digital transformation. What is zero trust? As stated by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), “Zero trust is an architectural approach where inherent trust in the network is removed, the network is assumed hostile and each request is verified based Traditionally, the best solution for defending businesses against potential compromises was by establishing a strong external perimeter – an outer boundary between an organisation’s own network and the outside networks which neighbour it. Sanjay Radia Chief Solutions Architect NETSCOUT Zero-trust Architecture: on an access policy.” Several different factors are required for a request to be regarded as trustworthy, including authorisation, access to valuable data, strong authentication, and the well-being of the device. The zero trust design principles which have been incorporated by the NCSC provide a new approach when it comes to resolving a longstanding issue faced by businesses – securing information and networks. As such, companies across a wide range of industries are reconsidering their approach toward security, incorporating zero-trust features into their security architecture, processes and procedures. One example of a zero-trust principle is multifactor authentication (MFA). Requiring additional factors to prove users’ identity prior to being able to access a resource – for example, scanning their fingerprint or confirming a pin sent to their mobile device – MFA adds an extra layer of security for networks and systems. Looking at this from a zero-trust point of view, MFA is used to verify an organisation’s own security measures, ensuring that those with access to the network are who they are claiming to be. This level of security markedly reduces the opportunity for cybercriminals to use compromised credentials to access a business’s data, devices, networks and systems. How it can Increase Security DATA SECURITY www.networkseuropemagazine.com 36urity DATA SECURITY www.networkseuropemagazine.com 37Building a safe and secure domain The zero-trust model can be envisioned as a group of pillars which represent different aspects of security, from devices and applications to users and networks. However, underneath these pillars are the foundational elements of a zero-trust architecture: analytics, automation, governance and visibility. When it comes to adopting a zero-trust security model, the process tends to be continual and steady. At the start, enterprises tend to finetune their architectures, ensuring their solutions are near to becoming fully integrated across the aforementioned pillars. This allows businesses to become increasingly dynamic in terms of their decision-making regarding policy implementation. While installing and building a zero-trust model may take time, the architecture will constantly be improved through the upgrading of policies, processes and tools. Nonetheless, the verification and ongoing auditing of zero-trust architectures remains imperative to understanding and exhibiting that a company’s security measures are both strong and effective. One key feature of a zero-trust model is that it comes with no false sense of security – it is effectively ‘perimeter-less’ security. This differs greatly from conventional perimeter-based architectures, where anything happening inside of the network is perceived as being trustworthy, based on the assumption that in order to be in the network, users must have successfully progressed through the authentication stage and are permitted to be there. As such, this model believes that insiders provide no potential threats to the organisation and that perimeter security is unblemished. In contrast to this, zero-trust architecture puts an emphasis on providing protection against possible insider threats, thus preventing threat actors from gaining access to the system through the use of compromised credentials. At the point at which an enterprise decides to implement a zero-trust model, it must ensure it has comprehensive visibility of the entire network. As well as this, the architecture must contain network taps which are capable of mirroring traffic from the wire, in addition to a tool which has the capacity to replicate and distribute packets to pre-existing cybersecurity monitoring applications. By ensuring the architecture includes these features, organisations can rest assured that their zero-trust model is effective. This level of full-scale visibility will enable organisations to identify possible threats, track interconnected devices, observe historical usage, and offer their support in orchestrating mitigation through application programming interfaces (APIs). Furthermore, businesses should be capable of utilising protection groups in order to classify networks, servers and services, determined by the potential amount of damage which could be inflicted on them. This will put organisations in a strong position to swiftly adopt a zero-trust model. Irrespective of where an organisation is in its zero-trust implementation journey – be it at the beginning or already well on its way – it is imperative to make certain that analytics and visibility are major features inside the detection and validation of the design which underpins the zero- trust architecture. DATA SECURITY www.networkseuropemagazine.com 38Make the most of your presence NETWORKS EUROPE magazine is the longest established and industry leading technical journal for the network infrastructure and data centre marketplace. • NETWORKS EUROPE features editorial contributions from worldwide industry figureheads, ensuring that it’s the world’s best publication for information on all aspects of this constantly evolving industry. • Published every other month (x6 per annum), the magazine is produced in digital format, with a magazine viewing link (readable on all major electronic devices) e-mailed directly to subscribers on publication. • The readership consists of 26,000 industry professionals across Europe; with its core circulation covering the UK, Germany, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Italy and Spain. • The magazine's highly focused editorial content caters exclusively for an informed audience consisting of network infrastructure professionals, including; data centre managers, facilities managers, CIOs, CTOs, ICT directors, consultants and project managers. • Key editorial content areas include; news, legislation and technical information from industry-leading companies and commentators, with detailed case studies, as well as the latest thinking in technology and practices. 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