< PreviousSébastien Roques-Shaw, Director of Partnerships, Virtru looks at how the era of borderless data is ending and the era of digital sovereignty is beginning. Sébastien Roques-Shaw Director of Partnerships Virtru Enabling the New Era of Digital Borders DIGITAL BORDERS www.networkseuropemagazine.com 60Denmark’s data protection agency recently ruled that the Google Workspace suite — which includes Gmail, Google Docs, Calendar, and Google Drive — does not meet the requirements of the European Union’s GDPR data privacy regulations. Specifically, regulators found that Google's data processor agreement (terms and conditions) allowed for relevant data to be transferred back to the US for the purpose of providing support, even though it is normally stored in one of Google’s EU data centres. As a result of the ruling, Danish school systems are prohibited from using Google Workspace to educate students, coordinate curriculums with teachers, and share information with parents. Products like Google Workspace are fundamental to educating students in the modern world. Furthermore, Google Workspace is a robust platform that delivers tremendous value to thousands of schools worldwide, including Sussex Learning Trust, The Kemnal Academies Trust, and world-class universities like Brown University. So, why did Denmark suspend Google Workspace from its schools? Well, it's a complicated situation that comes down to two simple facts: The era of borderless data is ending and the era of digital sovereignty is beginning. Considering first the issue of borderless data, for many years, as the internet experienced explosive growth, data itself existed in a world without borders. DIGITAL BORDERS www.networkseuropemagazine.com 61It was a highly dynamic and lightly regulated environment that enabled hyper-scalers like Google, Amazon and Microsoft to create cloud platforms that delivered infrastructure and application services to billions of people around the world. Eventually, other countries became uncomfortable with the fact that a small number of US-based cloud operators had control over massive amounts of data that originated from inside of their borders. So, they decided to do something about it. And now, the era of borderless data is ending. Today more than 50 countries are accelerating efforts to control the digital information produced by their citizens, government agencies and corporations. Driven by security and privacy concerns, as well as economic interests and national pride, governments are increasingly setting rules and standards about how data can and cannot move around the globe. The simple goal is to gain sovereignty over data, representing a tectonic shift in the global economy. But this shift did not happen overnight. Indeed, the era of borderless data began to decline in 2016 when the EU first enacted GDPR data privacy regulations. These new regulations set into motion several years of sausage making which involved the US and its EU counterparts negotiating different "data sharing agreements" under which data could be legally transferred across sovereign borders from the EU to the US without violating the rights of European citizens. Along the way, we witnessed Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy activist, persuade European Courts to strike down the EU-US "safe harbour" in 2015 Schrems. Then, again, in July 2020, we saw Schrems convince the EU court that its successor agreement, the Privacy Shield, was also illegal - Schrems II. The era of digital sovereignty Helped in part by GDPR and Schrems, "digital sovereignty" is an idea that has become increasingly popular over the past decade – not only in western democracies, but in most countries around the world. Indeed, in a world that can't agree on very much, most people seem to agree that citizens of sovereign countries should have ownership over their own data. Simply stated, digital sovereignty is about respecting data – and carefully considering how other people's information and digital assets are treated. The result is that countries around the world are taking steps to implement "digital borders" designed to enhance privacy and help them govern data as a sovereign asset. These efforts have the following consequences: – They create distinct legal environments whereby data is capable of being regulated by the country in which it was created, and – They serve as an incentive for cloud service providers and technology innovators to build new data centres and develop new and innovative controls that make it easier to create clearly defined borders around data. So are leaders in the technology industry listening? The short answer is yes. Google Despite the decision by Danish regulators, Google is actively responding to market demand for enhanced sovereign data controls. One example is the recent introduction of innovative data encryption called Google Workspace Client-side Encryption (CSE), allowing customers to strengthen the confidentiality of their data stored in the Google Cloud while addressing a broad range of data sovereignty and compliance requirements. With CSE, Google gives customers direct control of encryption keys and the identity service of their choice to access those keys. As a result, customer data stored in Google Cloud is indecipherable to DIGITAL BORDERS www.networkseuropemagazine.com 62Google, yet customers can continue to take advantage of Google’s world-class cloud-based collaboration suite. Microsoft In another example of large tech players heeding calls for advanced cloud controls to foster digital sovereignty, Microsoft launched a new service called Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty. Microsoft states that this new solution will enable governments to operate workloads in the Microsoft Cloud in a manner that provides greater control over data so they can meet specific requirements for data governance, security controls, privacy of citizens, and data residency associated with regulations like GDPR. AWS Amazon AWS is also responding to the rise of digital sovereignty and market demands for improved data controls. Specifically, in order to help European customers comply with GDPR, Amazon announced last year that it was strengthening commitments to challenge law enforcement requests for customer data that conflict with EU law. Additionally, Amazon launched in July 2021 two new online resources to help customers complete data transfer assessments more easily and comply with GDPR. Collectively, these ‘Privacy Features for AWS Services’ make it easy for AWS customers in other countries to understand whether their use of AWS services involve any type of data transfer. Open Standards advance Data Sovereignty Large cloud providers alone cannot enable digital sovereignty without incremental capabilities supplemented by trusted third parties. For example, in the context of Google CSE, the keys that are required to encrypt and decrypt data cannot be managed by Google. Otherwise, Google would have the power to decrypt and inspect the customer's data. Therefore, in order to separate cloud data storage from data encryption, Google has partnered with a number of key management providers and by working together, they can give organisations confidence that their data is always encrypted and Google itself would never have access. There are, however, many platforms and methods to enable data sharing, and what the technology industry is really in need of, is an open industry standard — one that can enable organisations to easily share data without sacrificing security, privacy, control or sovereignty. Trusted Data Format (TDF), an open standard for object-level encryption, could help. TDF embraces both security and innovation, empowering organisations to apply policy controls to data so that it can be shared with others without sacrificing ownership. You alone decide exactly who should be able to access your data, and you alone hold the key – not a cloud provider like Google or Microsoft and certainly not a foreign government. TDF provides the freedom to collaborate while ensuring you maintain control and meet compliance standards: For example, while we await the final ruling on cross-border data transfers between the EU and the US, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) “has approved end-to-end encryption as a path to maintain data sovereignty and meet regulatory requirements.” The benefits of data sovereignty are numerous, and it’s vitally important for organisations to put protections in place that give them more complete control over their data. Even as global data-sharing regulations continue to evolve, organisations that choose to prioritise data sovereignty and privacy will position themselves for success. DIGITAL BORDERS www.networkseuropemagazine.com 63Managing data centres efficiently is a complex task. What are the most important factors that managers should consider? For years now, reliability, resilience and responsibility have been the core areas of focus for data centre operators. However, priorities have somewhat shifted in the last few years, with better environmental goals leapfrogging to the top of the list. Today, data centre operators must be mindful of adhering to sustainability standards, even as they maintain customer priorities of reliability and uptime, adjust their work patterns and ramp up capacity to handle growing demands for data centre services. The first critical step in achieving this is to outline explicit policies and protocols. In addition to this, now is the time for data centre operators to turn their attention to how much energy they are consuming. Global wholesale energy costs have skyrocketed over the last year. In light of this, managing and minimising energy expenditure is of the highest priority for data centre operators right now. The good news is this can certainly still be accomplished while managers continue to investigate and implement methods of getting their power from renewable energy sources. In an era when energy prices are on the rise, making sustainability a priority is not only ethical but also economically wise. When looking for a data centre provider today, IT managers have a number of requirements that they may not have had before, such as having the right certifications, being carbon neutral, and using sustainable materials and renewable energy. Under the greenhouse gas protocol (GHGP), data centre operations come under an organisation’s scope 3 emissions, which means as they look to reduce emissions produced by their business, they’ll be scrutinising data centre sustainability more than ever before. In order to become more energy efficient and consequently more attractive to customers, operators should be constantly rethinking and improving their operations. The need to strengthen the security of the infrastructure is another top priority. As remote working has become much more prevalent since the pandemic and employees are accessing networks from a variety of locations, there are a number of potential physical security risks that have emerged. To prevent these problems and avoid disruption, operators must consider strategies to maximise the resiliency of their systems and safeguard their infrastructure. In this interview, Giancarlo Giacomello from Aruba Enterprise discusses the most recent data centre management developments and the state of the market in the post-pandemic era. Giancarlo Giacomello Data Centre Technical Project Manager Aruba Enterprise DATA CENTRE MANAGEMENT www.networkseuropemagazine.com 64Data Centre Management DATA CENTRE MANAGEMENT www.networkseuropemagazine.com 65In today's market, what are the biggest challenges for data centre colocation operators? As is currently the situation across all industries, one of the most significant issues the data centre industry is facing now is the surge in costs due to inflation and the looming recession. Even if we put rising energy costs aside for a moment, the price of industry metals such as copper and iron ore has more than doubled in the last few years. Those operating in this sector are being exposed to a greater level of risk because of this increased cost. On the upside, however, market demand and growth are remaining strong so far. In order to continue to deliver an effective service to our customers during this tough time, we must nevertheless keep redesigning and building our infrastructure so that it becomes ever more resilient and efficient. A second hurdle for operators has been the exponential growth of cloud computing in recent years which has placed considerable strain on the data centre market. As demand only continues to grow, many providers are finding it difficult to find the capacity and power to meet these needs In what ways has the Covid-19 crisis affected your colocation offerings? There is no doubt that Covid-19 has had a major impact on the colocation market. The start of the The hybrid approach allows organisations to meet regulatory and industry standards while generating auditable evidence at the same time. DATA CENTRE MANAGEMENT www.networkseuropemagazine.com 66pandemic marked the beginning of a transition, in which we were forced to rethink how we manage our projects, especially during periods of change and uncertainty. The real challenge at first was simply continuing to deliver best-in-class service for our customers, despite the switch to remote working which meant removing all personnel from sites. As a result of soaring raw materials costs and supply chain disruptions, the pandemic has also caused major lead time delays. Vendors who required four weeks lead-time for a certain component prior to the pandemic are now facing waits of up to 12 weeks or more. It has even come to a point where, on occasion, date ranges can't be provided anymore. With this in mind, a severe delay in project time is a prominent issue that IT managers will have to deal with. Last – but certainly not least – while data centre operators and customers were already aware of the importance of sustainability, the global pandemic undoubtedly cast a spotlight on this issue, prompting more action across the industry. For instance, a growing number of companies are now requesting environmental information, which means service providers will likely be setting themselves more and more stringent sustainability targets for the foreseeable future. In your opinion, what cloud solution would you recommend to IT managers and why? With hybrid cloud solutions, a company can take advantage of both public and private cloud technologies and customise them to their specific needs. In other words, IT managers can get the best of both worlds. Improved security, scalability and cost are among the main benefits of hybrid cloud. Plus, thanks to the hybrid cloud's inherent flexibility, IT teams can prepare for all scenarios. For example, in the event of unexpected spikes in demand, teams can easily acquire additional public cloud capacity. Meanwhile, on-premises storage is available for more static, long-term workloads. Consequently, businesses can ensure that their cloud infrastructure remains lean, The hybrid approach allows organisations to meet regulatory and industry standards while generating auditable evidence at the same time. without having to acquire expensive and rarely used excess capacity. The hybrid approach also allows organisations to meet regulatory and industry standards while generating auditable evidence at the same time. This is down to the control that the hybrid cloud allows IT leaders to have over their own storage and networking infrastructure (for long-term or sensitive data workloads), while leaning on the cloud to store data such as dynamic workloads. The cost-efficiency of hybrid cloud is another benefit. Salaries are rising, user demands are growing, supply chain disruptions are rife, and energy costs remain high, which puts many CIOs under added pressure to keep their IT budgets in check. Hence why they are increasingly looking toward hybrid offerings to accomplish this. What is your forecast for the data centre market in 2022 and beyond? Which trends are likely to emerge? In the coming years, we can expect the market to continue to evolve as legacy IT frameworks are being replaced by newer, more advanced ones. Our industry is currently seeing several prominent trends. As data volumes grow, operators will need to be able to manage them better, so it's no surprise that the development of new machines with enhanced computing power is one trend we're seeing. However, it is the more energy-efficient machines that are in higher demand, rather than faster machines, as they combine the two key components of environmental impact and level of service. As a result of this approach, energy consumption is reduced (resulting in a lower environmental impact) and costs are kept to a minimum. High-density colocation is also becoming increasingly popular. This refers to newer, more powerful, and more energy-efficient machines being put into denser racks to minimise the footprint of an installation while retaining the same computational efficiency. How long can we expect the popularity of high density to continue in this sector? Only time will tell. DATA CENTRE MANAGEMENT www.networkseuropemagazine.com 67Movers and Shakers www.networkseuropemagazine.com MOVERS AND SHAKERS 68 Do you have a mover or shaker to introduce to the data centre industry? editor@networkseuropemagazine.com Platform.sh Hires Leah Goldfarb as Environmental Impact Officer to Oversee Greener Web Hosting Strategy Platform.sh has announced the appointment of Leah Goldfarb as Environmental Impact Officer. In what is the first hire of its kind for the PaaS industry, Goldfarb will oversee the company’s greener web hosting strategy as Platform.sh looks to further reduce the digital carbon footprint of its large enterprise clients. Holding a PhD in Atmospheric Science, Goldfarb has spent two decades working in environmental science and policy. Prior to joining Platform.sh, Goldfarb served as Senior Science Officer at the Technical Support Unit of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group I, and before that as a Science Officer at the International Science Council, liaising with the United Nations around sustainable development. This appointment is a signal of intent by Platform.sh to offer responsible website scaling and fleet management and become a more sustainable business. Under Goldfarb’s lead, Platform.sh is currently engaged in the B Corp certification process. Due to the server density provided by Platform.sh, businesses of all sizes can reduce their carbon emissions. Platform.sh uses proprietary technology to increase density by up to 12 times and cut energy usage by up to 10 times. Data centre location can also make a huge difference to CO2 emissions. Through Platform.sh’s API, developers of companies such as Nestlé can access environmental information to see which regions use less CO2, meaning they can make more informed greener decisions and help improve their company’s digital carbon footprint. Goldfarb’s initial focus at Platform.sh will be on measurement, and then continued optimisation: currently Platform.sh is looking to measure the impact of its clients’ carbon emissions and optimise deployments and further improve application performance monitoring. “Working in climate science and policy, I was writing reports for decision makers who didn’t always do enough with the scientific information provided. I joined Platform.sh because the company and I have the same shared goal, to have a positive impact on the environment,” said Goldfarb. “While the ITC sector is estimated to be responsible for 4% of the global greenhouse gases emissions, it is also in a unique place to make a difference when it comes to the planet due to its forward- thinking approach and scale. At Platform.sh, we want to play our part in contributing to reduced emissions by curbing companies' emissions and helping them be more carbon conscious.” Aerospike Appoints Martin James to Lead EMEA Aerospike has announced the appointment of Martin James as VP of EMEA. He is responsible for driving regional growth and meeting customer demand for Aerospike in today’s Right-Now Economy. James brings 25 years of database sector expertise to Aerospike. James joined the company from Percona, where he trebled the business in EMEA and APAC. Prior to Percona, he was regional VP for Northern Europe at DataStax, managing enterprise sales to achieve double- digit growth. For Aerospike, James will develop regional sales teams that meet the exacting SLAs of today’s data-driven enterprise. Today, enterprises rely on mission-critical real-time applications to achieve business objectives. James will evangelise the Aerospike Real-time Data Platform to businesses seeking to build large-scale real-time applications that require predictable sub-millisecond performance at gigabyte-to-petabyte scale at an affordable cost. Jim Lodestro, Chief Revenue Officer at Aerospike, said: “Martin brings decades of experience to the Aerospike team. His depth of experience in the UK/ EMEA region and proven leadership ability will allow him to evangelise our Real-time Data Platform to businesses ready to modernise their data architectures. Now is an exciting time to lead the EMEA region as we extend our footprint across the UK and Europe.” Recently, Aerospike announced a record first half of 2022. This follows the announcement of record sales of its Aerospike Real-time Data Platform in 2021. The company doubled its 2020 growth, tripled sales outside North America, and grew Aerospike Cloud Managed Service by 450%.20 Years and Counting for International Connectivity Specialist Ground Control has celebrated its 20th anniversary. Alastair MacLeod, CEO, commented, “It says a lot about a business, that you stay in business for 20 years; the company is obviously good at what it does. But we’re also fresh; we bring the best of both worlds. Money can’t buy twenty years’ experience, but at the same time we’re fully focused on changing ourselves up, all the time, every year, something new, something better. How can we do a better job next year than we did this year?” Though officially founded in 2002 by Mark Wright, Ground Control today is the result of the merger of three companies – US-based Ground Control, and UK-based Wireless Innovation and Rock Seven. The Group was brought together by Phil Rouse, Founder of Wireless Innovation, and Horizon – a UK-based equity firm. Created to bring new compelling solutions to the market, Jeff Staples, President of North America stated, “We have great people in all three locations, so we’ve really been able to expand our knowledge base and collaborate, bringing our products to the UK and bringing their products over to the US. So now our customers have more choice.” Appointed CEO of the Group in 2020, MacLeod has made significant strides to amalgamate, while being careful to not lose sight of the relative, individual strengths of each business. MacLeod often describes Ground Control as a large company that feels small. All three companies were founder-led. That entrepreneurial spirit, creativity and additional care taken with customers when they are dealing with a smaller firm, is something all teams work hard to maintain, despite the increasing headcount. As MacLeod put it, “We start by listening. A lot of the time the real problem that needs solving isn’t necessarily the one they brought to us in the first place and we’re very good at figuring out the underlying issue.” Looking to the future, MacLeod credits Horizon Capital with empowering the company to build new things, grow the team, bring in new skills, as well as retaining and protecting existing experience and expertise. MacLeod concluded, “We’ve been able to leverage our history, our existing resources and investment to build new things, and what comes out of that is something which is genuinely great for the market, and great for customers.” Airedale Appoints Adrian Trevelyan as Data Centre Lead Airedale by Modine has announced Adrian Trevelyan as the Director of its Cloud Services Business Unit. Responsible for one of Airedale’s most significant commercial operations, Trevelyan will be accountable for a worldwide territory (excluding the US), leading the data centre cooling arm of the Airedale by Modine business as it accelerates its growth strategy. Trevelyan, who has achieved an MBA and Chartered Manager status during his career, brings a wealth of data centre knowledge and unwavering leadership skills to his new position. Having worked with Airedale by Modine for 32 years, most recently as Aftermarket Director, he has vast experience in the data centre industry, both at a hands-on and strategic level. Reporting to Trevelyan will be Airedale’s established data centre-focused engineering, project management and commercial teams. Replacing Trevelyan as Aftermarket Director will be John Board, who recently joined the company as Service Manager and has already impressed with his passion, knowledge and commitment. Board also has a wealth of business-critical cooling experience and holds an accreditation in Data Centre Management and Operations from The Uptime Institute, and will work closely with Trevelyan during a transition period to ensure service continuity for clients. Trevelyan will work alongside Airedale’s existing business unit directors, focused on Airedale’s strategic customer segments, to continue to accelerate Airedale’s ambitious growth strategy. MOVERS AND SHAKERS www.networkseuropemagazine.comwww.networkseuropemagazine.com 69 DataQube Announces Claude Sassoulas as New Chief Executive Officer DataQube has appointed Claude Sassoulas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to head up the company’s next stage of corporate growth and expansion plans. Sassoulas has over 25 years’ experience in building and running major B2B organisations within the ICT, telecom infrastructure, managed services, and cloud sectors. Prior to joining DataQube, he spent 4 years as COO at InterCloud. He was also the Managing Director Europe at Tata Communications for 13 years, where he grew the business from the ground up to a $500 million company. Under his leadership, DataQube is looking forward to building on the progress it has made so far in the edge computing space and continuing to establish its novel offering as the go to solution for localised data processing. Over the forthcoming weeks he will be bolstering DataQube’s commercial and technical expertise through targeted recruitment and overseeing the establishment of a global reseller and partner network. “I’m delighted to be joining this disruptive company during such an exciting growth phase,” said Sassoulas. “Demand for real-time data handling is growing now that 5G rollouts and the technologies they support are gaining momentum, and existing edge facilities are struggling to deliver. Our solution’s flexible architecture, HPC capabilities, green credentials, and compelling price point are set to be real game changers in the data centre industry.” “Claude’s proven ability to scale businesses in the telecoms and cloud infrastructure will be invaluable to the commercialisation and development of DataQube,” says Anne-Laure de la Roche, Head of Asset Management at RGREEN INVEST. “Global digitalisation is driving the need for sustainable data handling at the edge and DataQube is the optimal solution.” Next >