​Whether your business is in marketing, IT, retail, the services industry or another sector, and whether it’s small or large, GDPR will have made life just that little bit harder. Since coming into force in May 2018, the new rules have hit every company and industry that deals in data, in other words, everyone.

Designed to give data subjects far greater control over how their data is collected and processed, and to provide regulatory alignment across the EU, companies now need to be far more careful when it comes to data.

GDPR dictates what, how and when data can be collected and processed. It requires companies to be far more transparent about the ways they use customer data for their services, and imposes far stricter rules about the disclosure of data breaches.

One of the sectors most affected by the changes is the financial services industry, particularly as it already has to comply with a number of existing regulations that may not always complement responsibilities under GDPR.

Below we look at the various responsibilities a company now has as part of GDPR, and how they pertain to the financial services industry.

Complying with GDPR and other financial regulations

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has advised that GDPR does not contradict any existing regulatory requirements that financial services firms need to adhere to. There are exceptions to the new regulations that allow data processing specifically where it is necessary to comply with other legal obligations. Regulators such as the Financial Conduct Authority also work closely with the ICO and account for data protection rules when releasing their own guidance.

Consent

Consent is one of a number of legal justifications for processing data, however, outside of marketing industries, it is arguably the weakest legal basis. Organisations should consider carefully what legal basis fits best for their processing needs, a list of which is detailed on the ICO’s website. Provided you are able to justify the processing of data in other ways, explicit consent is not always needed.

Right to be forgotten

The ‘right to be forgotten‘, as set out under article 17 of GDPR, gives data subjects the right to have their data removed from a company’s systems and excluded from marketing material and data collection.

This is not an absolute right, however, as the article stipulates criteria on what data can be removed, and the defences a company can use to reject a request. For example, data must be removed if consent is withdrawn, unless the business has an alternative legal basis for collecting it.

Each request needs to be considered carefully and judged in isolation. If any company refuses a data deletion request, it must be prepared to justify this decision.

The need for a data protection officer (DPO)

Some companies are unsure whether they need to appoint a DPO or not, but the ICO guidance on the subject is quite clear and offers a checklist to assist businesses in meeting their GDPR obligations in this respect. 

«The GDPR introduces a duty for you to appoint a data protection officer (DPO) if you are a public authority or body, or if you carry out certain types of processing activities,» the ICO states. 

«DPOs can help you demonstrate compliance and are part of the enhanced focus on accountability.»

A DPO can be an existing or newly appointed employee and can also work in this role across multiple organisations, according to the ICO. However, they must be an absolute expert in data protection, have the resources available to them to help them do their job – of monitoring compliance, informing and advising of obligations and providing the necessary advice – and report directly to the highest level of management in the organisation. 

Data breaches

GDPR regulations stipulate that organisations report any data breach to the supervisory authority of personal data within 72 hours. This should contain details about the breach, the categories and estimated number of people impacted, and contact details of the DPO. 

ICO guidance states: «From 25 May 2018, if you experience a personal data breach you need to consider whether this poses a risk to people. You need to consider the likelihood and severity of any risk to people’s rights and freedoms, following the breach. When you’ve made this assessment, if it’s likely there will be a risk then you must notify the ICO; if it’s unlikely then you don’t have to report it. You do not need to report every breach to the ICO.«

It’s important to also reassure customers, partners and employees that you are following the necessary procedures and certain certifications to ensure continued GDPR compliance in order to avoid a data breach occurring in the first place or at the very least minimising its impact. The information security standard ISO 27001 is one such certification. 

The ICO states: «You must have appropriate security to prevent the personal data you hold being accidentally or deliberately compromised. You should remember that while information security is sometimes considered as cybersecurity (the protection of your networks and information systems from attack), it also covers other things like physical and organisational security measures.

«You need to consider the security principle alongside Article 32 of the GDPR, which provides more specifics on the security of your processing. Article 32(1) states:

Taking into account the state of the art, the costs of implementation and the nature, scope, context and purposes of processing as well as the risk of varying likelihood and severity for the rights and freedoms of natural persons, the controller and the processor shall implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risk’

«Poor information security leaves your systems and services at risk and may cause real harm and distress to individuals lives may even be endangered in some extreme cases.»

Managing vendors

Financial firms will have client data passing through several applications. GDPR means that firms will need to understand how data flows through these. Personal client data can also be exposed to external vendors, such as outsourcing partners. GDPR enforces accountability right across the data flow to ensure that personal data stays protected.

​Cloud accounting software is one of the many types of cloud-based software that can help businesses both big and small process their accounts without having to buy costly perpetual licenses for on-prem packages that need updating and patching regularly.

Amid all the different services on offer, it can be difficult to determine which is the best cloud accounting software for you. Here we run down some of the things you should consider before deciding on one service or another – including Making Tax Digital – as well as some of the options that are available to you.

How much does cloud accounting software cost?

For microbusinesses and SMBs, cloud accounting software is a blessing. Most providers have tiered offerings with prices based on criteria such as the number of users or the amount of data you process.

For example, Xero’s base level plan is 10 per month, allowing you to send five invoices and quotes, enter five bills and reconcile 20 bank transactions each month.

Zoho Books, meanwhile, has an entry-level tier that costs 6 per month, allows two users, five automated workflows and 50 contacts, as well as Bank reconciliation, custom invoices, expense tracking, projects and timesheets, recurring transactions and sales approval.

Most providers also offer a free trial period, which may help you make up your mind as to which service to choose – just don’t forget to cancel before the time’s up if you decide it’s not for you!

Does cloud accounting software replace normal accounting software?

Yes. Cloud accounting software is a standalone product and doesn’t require you to keep any software you have already.

There are several advantages of this type of software versus normal buy-once products too. First, you can scale up or down to fit the needs of your business – as you grow, you can move up tiers depending on your needs. Or, should you need to scale back, you can move back down tiers too.

Second, you don’t need to create independent backups of your data. The beauty of the cloud is that everything is stored off site with redundancy built in. So if all your computers suffer from a ransomware infection, for example, or the building you work from floods and your IT hardware is destroyed, at least your accounts will be safely held off site.

Third, if you decide the service you’ve chosen isn’t right for you then you can move over to a different one without the burden of knowing you’ve sunk a lot of money into your initial purchase and will have to do so again, as is the case with traditional software.

Does cloud accounting software replace my accountant?

No. Cloud accounting software helps you manage your accounting workflow and keep track of transactions. A professional accountant helps you make sense of all this information and make sure it’s all in order before you submit it to the tax authorities or take it to your bank if you’re seeking a business loan, for example. So it’s best for you to retain the services of the person who deals with your accounts now, as you would with any other accounting software.

Is cloud accounting software good for larger businesses?

That largely depends on how large your business is and how many users you would like to add. Some offerings cap out at around a dozen users even on the most expensive plan, which might not be enough for a large business, or even organisations sitting at the top end of medium-sized.

Other products, however, offer unlimited users, although they may have other limitations that make them unsuitable for your needs. Whatever size business you are, it pays to shop around, but this is especially the case for bigger organisations.

Will cloud accounting software help with Making Tax Digital?

It can do. Making Tax Digital (MTD) is the government’s initiative to modernise the way businesses submit their tax records. It wants to move all tax filing – including VAT, Corporation Tax and Self-Assessment – to electronic systems by early 2020. This means that whatever the size of your business, from micro through to enterprise, MTD is something you will need to get to grips with sooner rather than later.

Some services pitch themselves as being «MTD-ready», especially at the top tier, but it’s worth familiarising yourself with the requirements of Making Tax Digital, if you aren’t already. Take into account what each product offers, how comfortable you are with the needs of MTD and how helpful (or convenient) something that’s MTD-ready will be for you.

More information on Making Tax Digital can be found in our guide to MTD preparation, but it’s worth speaking to your accountant to work out what’s best for your individual business needs.

Which is the best cloud accounting software for me?

As alluded to above, this will largely depend on your situation. Consider your needs – not only things like the number of users you have or the number of contacts you can add, but also what you can really afford. Remember, as your business grows you can always move up a tier to unlock those extra bells and whistles that were a nice-to-have but are now more necessary to your operations.

To help you make your decision, check out these reviews of some of the major cloud accounting software offerings, including details on pricing, features and configuration, over on our sister site IT Pro.

• Zoho Books review: Everything but the kitchen sink
• Sage Accounting review: A capable but imperfect accounts package
• FreeAgent review: Financial software you can count on
• Intuit QuickBooks review: Quick to impress
• Xero review: Xero to (almost) hero
• FreshBooks review: Slick, but shallow

​In what has become a regular feature here at IT Pro, we’re back again to take a look at some of the year’s most dramatic security stories, many of which were scarily similar to those we saw in 2018.

What’s clear is that businesses continue to face the same old threats, although you’ll see from our picks that there are plenty of examples of attackers using ingenious methods to breach systems.

Here’s our pick of 2019’s scariest security stories.

VFEmail’s nightmare year

The first entry on our list, and one of the earliest of 2019, involved an attack on US email provider VFEmail. In what was described as a catastrophic breach on VFEmail’s systems in February, the company’s infrastructure had been virtually wiped out overnight, with every disk on every server, including its backups, being destroyed.

Perhaps the most chilling part of the story is that there appeared to be no apparent motive behind the attack and that VFEmail may have been targetted randomly. No ransom was ever offered in exchange for the data, nor was there any evidence that the attacker was even interested in stealing the data.

Despite the loss, VFEmail remained committed to staying operational, although the company would come under repeated attack throughout the rest of 2019. Customers would face phishing attacks over the following few months, only for the main service to be hit by three consecutive DDoS attacks in late October and early November. To date, work is still ongoing to restore full functionality to its services.

NASA narrowly averts catastrophe

Next up we have one of our most widely read stories from the year, and an example of how the miss-handling of relatively new hardware can pose a serious threat to legacy systems. In June, NASA revealed that a Raspberry Pi device had been blamed for a 2018 data breach that saw the theft of 500MB of mission system data.

An employee was said to have brought a Raspberry Pi into work without permission and connected it to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory network, which a hacker later targetted to gain access to adjoining systems.

The incident sparked a wider investigation into the organisation’s systems and networks, which found myriad flaws in its database management techniques and methods used to track devices and applications using internal networks. It was ruled that the JPL network was, in fact, incapable of detecting whether an unauthorised or unsecured device was attached to its network.

The report issued ten urgent recommendations for fixing NASA systems, all but one of which were implemented immediately. NASA was fortunate in this instance, as the relatively minor security incident revealed far greater problems plaguing its systems, which were mercifully fixed before disaster could strike.

Hackers at the door

For our next entry, we fast forward to November, where a vulnerability in Amazon’s Ring doorbells was discovered that could allow hackers to intercept their owner’s Wi-Fi passwords.

Researchers at Bitdefender discovered that by accessing a Wi-Fi network’s credentials, criminals could launch much larger and far more sophisticated attacks against a household. This was possible as the device stored passwords in plain text which were then communicated between a smartphone app and the doorbell using HTTP rather than the far more secure HTTPS.

The news prompted further calls for tougher legislation around the manufacture of connected devices, particularly when they are destined for the home.

King’s Cross, we barely recognise you

In what will likely set a precedent for the use of cutting-edge technology in public spaces, August saw an investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office into the use of facial recognition technology at King’s Cross.

Private owners of the 67-acre site, which houses 50 buildings and is home to major companies such as Google, said they had introduced facial recognition technology alongside their CCTV system to improve the on-site public experience. However, both campaign groups and the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan criticised the decision as it was unclear precisely how the technology was being used. It also raised serious concerns about the capturing of personal data without consent.

The technology was eventually scrapped at the site, however, the owners have not ruled out the possibility of the technology returning at a later date.

The Collection Folders

What’s unusual about 2019 is that it only took 17 days before we saw what would be one of the largest data leaks of the year. Between late January and early February, a group of researchers determined that around 600GB worth of personal data had been leaked and was circulating online in caches known as «Collection» folders.

The initial discovery of the Collection #1 folder unearthed 773 million unique email addresses and 22 million passwords, figures that were then dwarfed when Collection folders 2 through 5 were then found. In total, it’s believed that around 2.2 billion emails and passwords were in the complete cache, now being shared around hacking forums.

It’s also believed that the data is an amalgamation of various leaks sourced from high profile data breaches, such as the enormous Yahoo hacks of 2013 and 2014. Despite the age of the data, security experts believe that criminals have relied on a lax approach to password hygiene and that many of the email and password pairs could still be exploited.

Citrix vs IRIDIUM

In March, Citrix revealed that it was working with the FBI to look into a breach on its systems after a number of documents had been reported stolen. Initial reports were light on detail, mainly as only very brief statements were issued by the company, and it would only be through the release of a report by cyber security firm Resecurity that we’d learn that around 6TB of data had been swiped in the raid.

The company had a number of high-profile customers at the time, including large corporations and both the US military and government.

Resecurity had traced the attack back to an Iranian hacking group known as IRIDIUM, which had bombarded a number of Citrix accounts with commonly used passwords, known as password spraying, before gaining a foothold. After this, the group was then able to methodically bypass each additional security layer, including two-factor authentication.

The IRIDIUM group had reportedly targetted hundreds of thousands of people at more than 200 companies during the previous two years leading up to the hack on Citrix, according to figures provided by Microsoft.

Microsoft: «We told you so…»

One of our most-read stories of the year actually surfaced at the beginning of December.

According to Microsoft threat researchers, 44 million of its customers were still using passwords that had been compromised in the past by large scale data breaches. This included both general users of Microsoft Service Accounts, as well as Azure Active Directory accounts owned by businesses.

Following a check on a database of three billion credentials sourced from public accounts and law enforcement, it was found that the 44 million customers were using the same compromised passwords across a number of online services.

The discovery forced Microsoft to issue a password reset to all affected customers, including an alert to business admins to reset user credentials. The company also urged customers to turn on multi-factor authentication.

Despite the shocking figure, the news potentially served as a great PR for Microsoft – the company has long been attempting to move customers away from passwords onto more secure passwordless authentication. The company revealed to IT Pro in November that it had managed to move 100 million customers to biometric authentication, although it would take at least three more years to move the remaining 700 million users.

It’s no secret that the workplace is evolving, with advancing technology and our changing expectations enabling new ways of working that were simply impossible before the advent of Wi-Fi, file sharing and online collaboration. As meetings form such a large part of many people’s jobs, it was inevitable that the way we organise and participate in them would transform, too.

Indeed, these shifting paradigms – particularly agile working – have placed new demands on meetings, as colleagues who no longer occupy the same building rely on them more and more as a way of catching up and sharing important updates. This means that, more than ever, it is vital to get the best out of our meetings, which – let’s face it – are vulnerable to disorganisation, and can easily be a waste of time rather than a productive exercise.

Let’s take a look at the best practices and tools that will ensure your meetings live up to their potential.

Planning and organisation

One key element of executing a productive meeting is the same as it ever was: organisation. Knowing why you’re having the meeting, what you need to cover and what the outcomes are will leave you in very good stead.

You undoubtedly know the basics, but just because they’re simple doesn’t mean they aren’t vital. Before you even begin the meeting, make sure you’ve set and shared an agenda to define your objectives and keep the meeting on track. Assign someone to take minutes as a record of what was discussed and what ideas and plans were generated. The minutes will also help inform action points which can be given out at the end of the meeting so that the relevant people can follow-up on anything discussed. Sticking to the allotted time will help keep people focused. These simple processes remain as important and effective as ever, and are the best place to start to boost productivity.

Your guest list should also be scrutinised. We’ve all attended meetings where we’ve found ourselves staring into space and wondering why we were invited at all. Limiting your invitations to people who have something relevant to input will avoid wasting your colleagues’ time as well as creating smaller and more focused meetings (Google, for instance, suggests avoiding any meetings of more than 10 people). Consider which colleagues will be better served by being updated on the meeting’s outcomes rather than attending.

On a related note, assure your colleagues that, if they genuinely believe that they have nothing to contribute, they can decline their invitation without penalty. That will make sure that everyone in the room is engaged and ready to contribute, rather than sitting in silence and wishing they were getting on with something else.

Environment

The advent of Wi-Fi and agile working practices has meant that meetings can technically be held anywhere – but that doesn’t mean they always should. Although it’s very useful to be able to call in from a cafe or park bench if you have to, optimised meeting spaces are still the best place to communicate with your team.

The setup of you conference room can have a major effect on productivity by creating a space free from distractions and – as conference calling and remote working become more prevalent – one in which you can communicate clearly with colleagues who are unable to attend in person. Consider soundproofing rooms in which ambient noise from air conditioning, passing traffic or noisy colleagues can be heard filtering in from outside. Bad acoustics can render audio communication incomprehensible, so take steps to limit reverberation with carpets, panelling and soft furnishings.

A quality audio-visual system is naturally vital for conference calls. It is worth employing the assistance of an AV expert in setting up microphones and speakers in the best way to minimise feedback and ensure that communication is as clear as possible. Think about the positioning of cameras and screens so that everyone can easily see each other. Weak and unreliable lines of communication can rapidly eat into your time and overshadow the matters that the meeting was called to discuss.

Meeting management tools can be used to perform data analysis that can also help you refine your meeting room usage and conference spaces, and plan better strategies in the future.

Technology

Advances in technology have enabled many of the changes to how we communicate and conduct meetings, and the proper use of the tools available can greatly boost productivity.

Selecting the right collaborative platform, such as the Intel Unite® solution, can help significantly streamline processes, keeping internal and remote team members on the same page, as well as serving as a tool to crunch the aforementioned meeting data. Intel Unite is an open platform that supports plugins for popular collaboration tools such as Skype for Business, Zoom and Cisco Webex, as well as in-room controls, whiteboarding and other systems, so that you can select and seamlessly combine the best tools for the job under one roof. The classic Intel Unite® solution requires a hub computer based on an Intel® Core™ vPro® processor in every meeting space, an on-premises PIN server and the Intel Unite app on users’ devices – there is also the new Intel Unite® Cloud Service that offers the option for you to access a cloud-hosted PIN service instead of requiring an on-premises server.

It’s vital to ensure that your employees are properly equipped with the most up-to-date hardware and software so that they can take full advantage of these systems and log into remote meetings with minimum fuss. High-spec cameras, microphones and speakers will allow them to see, hear and be heard, while new laptops with fresh batteries will prevent them from losing power and getting cut off halfway through your meeting.

With technology continuing to evolve at a rate of knots, it pays to keep abreast of the newest developments. Artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things are widely expected to further streamline meeting processes and offer new insights that will increase productivity in ways we are only beginning to understand. IoT promises increased connectivity to everything from projectors to climate control to make meeting management easier than ever. AI is projected to develop virtual assistants that can help with admin like managing calendars and scheduling meetings, as well as source relevant data to answer questions as they are raised and generate new ideas. By keeping up to speed on the latest cutting-edge tech developments, you’ll always be in a position to make informed decisions when it comes to adopting the best tools for the job.

Discover how the Intel Unite platform can help your business here

The world of work is changing. Businesses are becoming increasingly decentralised, with flexible and agile working practices on the rise and developments in technology revolutionising our jobs. Inevitably, this has had a huge impact on one key office ritual: the meeting.

So how do you make sure a modern-day meeting runs smoothly and efficiently? From technical difficulties to fears over security, there are plenty of collaboration challenges brought about by the evolution of the workplace. Ensuring your tech is helping, not hindering, discussions is essential to making the most of your time. And with technology now being specifically designed to make meetings more efficient and effective, you’re missing out by sticking to outdated, clunky systems.

The rise of agile working

One of the biggest business shifts in the last few years is the move towards more agile ways of working. Motivating employees with flexible working options has been proven to boost productivity while encouraging remote working has tangible financial benefits, from lower travel costs to reduced overheads.

Inevitably, the traditional meeting setup has moved with the times too. It’s no good allowing staff the flexibility to work from home if they have to physically come into the office for meetings. And busy employees are far more likely to be engaged and productive in a session if they don’t feel like their time is being wasted with mandatory office hours and pointless presenteeism.

It’s not just a case of adapting meeting arrangements to meet employee expectations, there are real business benefits too. Gone are the days where everyone has to be sitting in the same room to have a productive discussion. In fact, sometimes the most productive meetings bring together employees virtually from all over the world – some of whom may never have met in person. Once restricted to who you could physically get together, technology is making it far easier to get the right people together in one virtual space.

Getting the most out of the room

Bringing everyone together – remote and onsite – is a great step, but lack of productivity is a universal meeting gripe. When employees are taking an hour out of their busy days to meet, that time needs to be used efficiently to produce meaningful results. Basic tech tools have enabled more flexible meeting models, but for many businesses, the existing tech is more of a hindrance than an asset.

Slow, complicated equipment can take time to set up, different cables may be required to connect each attendee’s portable device and some devices may not be supported at all. Content sharing can also prove a challenge – when everyone’s using a different screen, time is easily wasted making sure everyone has access and is looking at the right part of the presentation or document. Plus there’s the chance that this flow of information inside and outside the office may not be secure – and with cybercrime on the rise and hefty fines for data breaches, this is a big worry for any business.

This is where businesses can benefit from making the most of the latest tech solutions. Designed specifically with collaboration in mind, tools like the Intel Unite® solution resolve common issues by using an open platform to bring applications, document sharing and presentations into one hub in each meeting room. From this hub, there are multiple means of joining the meeting and the option for up to four presenters to switch between their screens seamlessly.

The system is designed to work with the OS and applications organisations already have, supporting plugins for tools like Skype for Business and IoT equipment such as smart in-room control systems. It is also built to work seamlessly across all common devices, so there’s no need to invest in new uniform hardware. All you need are an Intel® Core™ vPro® processor, managed PIN service, and the app on whichever devices you choose to use.

To tackle the issue of security, the Intel Unite solution is encrypted with an SSL connection between the hub and client, ensuring content is only shared with approved participants. The Intel Unite hub is PIN protected and security codes are regularly refreshed.

With the mechanics of connecting easily and safely with your remote workers ironed out, you can turn your focus to the built-in features designed for enhanced collaboration, whether the meeting involves external participants or not. The system is touch-enabled so users can make the most of the latest touchscreen technologies and there is also an annotation feature, allowing the presenter to use their screen like a whiteboard. Unlike a whiteboard, this will be visible to anyone accessing the shared screen, allowing presenters to draw participants’ attention to precise areas of documents or add shared notes as they speak.

For businesses needing extra flexibility, Intel also offers the Intel Unite® Cloud Service. With this, you get all of the features of the original service, but with no need to manage an on-premise PIN server – everything is managed through an admin portal. As with the on-premise option, you’ll need an Intel Core vPro processor and the app on each device.

AI and the meeting room of the future

So where can this go next? Artificial Intelligence is evolving from an intriguing future technology into an office reality. While you’re not going to find a robot running your meeting any time soon, AI assistance technologies are on the rise in the workplace. In meetings, they can take out the monotonous admin tasks and free up time to focus on creative, meaningful discussion.

One ever-advancing AI technology is the voice assistant. Many of us are already kitted out with AI voice assistants in our personal lives, and the principle is largely the same when transferred to a meeting room environment. With voice control, you can run the meeting without the distraction of having to manually scroll through or share content on screen.

With the increasing sophistication of these applications, handy tools are becoming vital ‘co-workers’. AI technology is already able to perform basic admin tasks and offer voice control, and it is well on the way to being able to take minutes, distil action points, check schedules to set up follow up meetings and pull up data and information as participants speak.

With the right technology, you can not only solve your meeting headaches but get so much more out of your discussions. Plus, if you invest in the right flexible solutions, you’ll be poised to make the most of new cutting-edge technology as it’s released.

Discover how the Intel Unite platform can help your business here

We live in an increasingly interconnected world, and the main driving force behind this is digital technology. Most of the top ten companies by market capitalisation focus on the digital space, and it’s now nearly impossible to do business without taking your corporation through some form of digital transformation. The advantages available are manifold, and how you can now work with colleagues and other companies remotely is one of the benefits that can be the most valuable of all.

There’s no denying that collaborating face-to-face still has significant value. But it can also have a major cost in both travel expense and time. The more you can do remotely, the less you need to meet up with collaborators to develop new projects and keep existing ones on track. However, effective digital collaboration tools can also enable business practices that weren’t economically viable before, such as working closely with colleagues in foreign countries. It’s also now possible to collaborate with those closer at hand where the logistics of needing to meet physically made this inefficient, and this can have a considerable benefit for productivity.

For effective collaboration, you need a powerful, flexible system that all your employees can rely on to deliver the features they demand. The Intel Unite® solution is the perfect basis for a cohesive but expandable and inclusive provision – it’s a wireless in-meeting room collaboration solution designed to improve meeting efficiency by enabling fast meeting start-ups.

The Intel Unite solution includes three components – at the centre is a hub computer based on an Intel® Core™ vPro® processor in every meeting room, a separate PIN server and the Intel Unite® app on the client devices. Now with the Intel Unite® Cloud Service the customers have the option of having the PIN server on-premises or hosted in the Cloud. This still relies on a local Intel Core vPro processor-based hub, but PIN services are provided via the cloud, meaning that your IT department doesn’t need to spend time and resources managing this function. Your company also won’t need to spend so much on infrastructure and administration.

Whether using an internal PIN server or the Cloud Service, Intel Unite is an open platform that supports plugins for popular collaboration tools including Skype for Business, Zoom and Cisco Webex video-conferencing solutions. There are plugins for in-room controls from Logitech and whiteboarding from Bluescape, FlatFrog and Nureva. Intel also offers its own plugins for functions such as analytics of room usage and service status, which can be used to keep track of how your employees are using Intel Unite to collaborate. There’s even an SDK so that companies can develop their own third-party plugins to further extend functionality.

Of course, an open and expandable platform also potentially creates greater security risk. But the Intel vPro platform based hub computer has security built in at the hardware level. All content shared on the platform is encrypted via 256-bit SSL, with access codes that refresh regularly for added security and the capability to lock a session for sensitive meetings.

The open extensibility and reliable security come together through a user experience that is seamless and transparent. It’s easy for users to join a conference and share content, whilst presenters can be switched over with a click. Each connected display can support up to four displays, facilitating document collaboration and comparison. Many legacy meeting platforms waste participant time whilst they try to get joining, sharing and switching presenter to work properly. Intel Unite takes all the stress out of these often-frustrating aspects of virtual collaboration.

Whether using your own in-house PIN server or the Cloud Service, the same Intel Unite app gives your local, remote and guest users their interface to the system. The touch-enabled interface makes starting and joining meetings a cinch on any device. There are clients for Windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome, iOS, and Android, with the latter two available via their respective app stores.

There is a range of options for the hub at the centre of an Intel Unite setup. Small form factors such as the Intel NUC 7 offer a cost-effective entry point. The ViewSonic ViewBoard and Prowise provide integrated Intel Unite support through display, whilst all-in-one PCs (like the Dell OptiPlex 7460) and small form factor systems from Dell, HP, Fujitsu and ASUS are certified for Intel Unite.

Intel Unite lets you turn your meeting and conference rooms into interactive collaboration spaces. The end result can have a significant impact on your business profitability. According to research by Forrester Consulting commissioned by Intel, investing in Intel Unite provided a 470% return on investment overall for the companies assessed, and they paid back the initial capital outlay in less than six months. In fact, this is a clear case of IT services becoming a revenue generator rather than a pure cost. Forrester calculated a net present value from the investment of $612,000 across the companies surveyed, compared to existing legacy solutions.

These returns came from a variety of sources. The lion’s share was the result of Intel Unite’s ease of use. The quick connection and rapid switching between presenters reduced meeting downtime by up to 15%. But meetings were also 5% more productive, saving 2.25 minutes on average per meeting. This may not sound like a lot, but if your employees have multiple meetings a day, it adds up. The final saving was from the use of a generic IT platform, which didn’t require the installation of any extra cabling or adapters.

Forrester also cites less quantifiable benefits. These include how telemetry data can be used to optimise workspace usage. If you know when and how your employees are using your collaboration spaces, you can reduce or increase them as required. The flexibility of Intel Unite can also be used creatively for additional functions when not in use for collaboration, such as displaying company metrics on a conference room whiteboard. The easily deployed security that meets existing requirements also makes for simple integration into a company’s architecture.

Online collaboration in all its forms has been one of the key features of internet connectivity. But businesses can benefit the most if they deploy the right technology – technology that makes the process easy, reliable, flexible and secure. Intel Unite provides all these features and more, allowing your company to collaborate more effectively, improving employee productivity.

Discover how the Intel Unite platform can help your business here

End user apprehension towards moving to the cloud is dissipating, according to an IDG Connect survey. Of those polled, half felt more confident in migrating workloads off-premise, a trend that can be attested to stronger security measures on both the vendor’s side and the end user’s side.

Since its inception, cloud computing has forged paths towards efficiency and enhanced customer experiences, enabling the digital transformation necessary to ensure businesses remain competitive. Storing data and applications in the cloud though, brought to the surface a host of security issues that have dissuaded many IT decision makers from transitioning.

Cloud providers do offer security layers that end users can take advantage of to shore up vulnerabilities, yet despite this, a lack of understanding and expertise within IT departments has led to many organisations struggling to deploy the security measures, which are often  complex and require specific knowledge. The result is vulnerable data and applications. Paired with severe breaches hitting the headlines regularly throughout 2018 and 2019, it is no surprise that many companies were hesitant to store their applications and data off-premise.

In response to end users’ fears, vendors are implementing stricter security controls which can restrict access to data centres, ensuring only those who need to access are granted access. This eliminates internal vulnerabilities by preventing the wrong employees stumbling upon information that wasn’t meant for their eyes.

Stronger security measures are ensuring companies can reap the benefits of hybrid-cloud provisioning by optimising their application and service delivery. Find out more in this whitepaper.

Download now

Microsoft is taking a leap further: Integrating its Azure compute infrastructure with customised hardware components with embedded protection against unauthorised access, also reducing complexity by providing a one-pane solution. Additional security layers are provided by partner-companies feeding into the original vendor’s cloud offering. In the Microsoft example, Red Hat, the open source software specialist, is protecting workloads at the virtualisation and application application levels.

Vendors are also taking it upon themselves to test their security features regularly. Penetration testing has developed out of the ethical hacking concept, allowing vendors to realise vulnerabilities in their software before the chinks can be targeted by malicious hackers.

IDG’s survey reveals that these measures are feeding back to customers. In addition to the 50% reporting confidence in transitioning to the cloud, 58% indicated that they trust public cloud providers’ data security platforms and protocols rather than their own IT departments, while 54% implied they weren’t worried about losing control over application and infrastructure provisioning and management as a result of cloud migration projects.

For vendors, existing customers are happy and retained, and new customers are attracted. And with security remaining a top priority for software companies, cloud computing may continue it’s surge in popularity for years to come.

It’s safe to say that the cloud is one of the most important innovations in modern IT, with a huge number of organisations moving to take advantage of benefits such as flexibility, cost savings and ease of deployment. Fittingly enough, however, ‘the cloud’ is a broad and somewhat woolly term that encompasses myriad technologies, all of which serve slightly different purposes.

For organisations looking at cloud adoption, it’s important to know exactly what ‘cloud’ means to you. Migrating to the cloud without a firm understanding of your objectives can lead to over-investment in services which may not be necessary for achieving them – which can, in turn, result in the costly repatriation of workloads later down the line.

When is a cloud not a cloud?

First things first – when most people talk about the cloud, they’re generally talking about the three major public cloud platforms – Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure. These specialise in platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offerings, and are most commonly used for building and running applications. They essentially allow companies to command a virtual data centre, where the company is responsible for building and maintaining the software elements, and the provider takes care of the physical hardware they run on.

This is incredibly useful for any company that develops software (whether for internal or external use), but that’s not all they do. Public cloud platforms can also be used to host instances of business apps such as CRM systems, websites, mail servers and databases. These platforms are incredibly versatile, but the downside is that they generally require a relatively high level of configuration and management, with a complex set of skills needed to do so.

“It’s not as easy as people make it out to be. If you go to Amazon’s website, they tell you that you can be consuming cloud services immediately, just with a credit card,” says Lee Wynne, CDW’s public cloud architecture practice lead, “and you can’t. You just put your credit card details in and away you go, and that’s great if you’re a sole trader and you just want to do a couple of little things. If you’re a big organisation and you’re security conscious, then there’s quite a lot of design work required just around the account structure before you get anywhere near infrastructure. Then on top of that, you have good platform architecture – what regions are you going to use, what availability zones, what’s going to have access to the internet, what isn’t, subnets, all those types of things.”

File-sharing platforms, on the other hand, are much more user-friendly. These services – typified by the likes of Box, Dropbox and Google Drive – used to be known as ‘cloud storage’ services, but their growing feature-set has rendered that definition somewhat unhelpful. Although they still act as a cloud-based central repository for business files and folders, most providers now offer features beyond basic storage, typically geared towards enabling greater efficiency and collaboration within the business.

Common features of file-sharing platforms include the ability to leave comments on files, integrations with other SaaS tools (which we’ll talk more about later) and thorough version histories and audit logs, as well as in-depth permission settings to ensure that no-one has access to anything they shouldn’t. File-sharing is an essential tool for any organisation; not only does it help protect files from accidental loss in the event of a hardware failure, it also allows staff to access them from any location or device, improving mobility and enabling flexible or remote working.

It’s important to note that while file-sharing services can be used to back up documents and provide similar functionality to that of a backup service, the two are not interchangeable. Unlike storage platforms, backup providers focus on keeping a complete archive of all of your data, rather than just files and documents. This includes things like databases, server configurations and emails, to ensure that if anything disastrous (such as a ransomware infection or a flood) happens to your IT systems, you can quickly and easily restore them to their state before the incident.

There are many different backup options available depending on your needs; some specialise in server or VM-level backups, some focus on endpoint devices and others cover the full range of tasks. Dedicated backup services tend to concentrate on what’s known in the industry as ‘cold storage’ – meaning data that isn’t intended to be accessed on a regular basis. For this reason, many use snapshots to restore affected systems to a specific point in time. Backup platforms are an excellent disaster recovery tool to ensure you can get operational again as quickly as possible should the worst happen, but they’re also helpful for meeting regulatory and compliance requirements.

Collaboration station

Gone are the days when organisations were forced to rely on lengthy email chains to share knowledge and files with each other. Now, cloud-based collaboration platforms and communication services help employees to stay in touch. Instant messaging apps are among the most popular examples of this, with Slack and Microsoft Teams being leaders in the field. Combining the functionalities of a message board, a chat app and a digital workspace, collaboration apps support direct messages, private group chats, public channels and company-wide forums, allowing communication across many levels.

These services often include telephony tools like basic audio and video calling, but they also integrate directly with popular third-party conferencing tools like Zoom and BlueJeans for those that need more features. File-sharing, communication and collaboration tools are also frequently cross-compatible, allowing employees to, for example, share relevant files without leaving a video call.

Outside of the tools and services highlighted above, there are various types of standalone SaaS software to suit businesses specific needs; virtually every breed of business application has a cloud-based equivalent, whether it’s a CRM system, accounting package or database management tool. Organisations can cherry-pick which applications they need to build their ideal software stack, and many feature cross-compatibilities and integrations with other services to enable different workflows.

Some cloud services will suit every organisation. There are few organisations, for example, that wouldn’t benefit from the increased mobility and flexibility offered by a good file-sharing service. However, the combination of different cloud services is where businesses can unlock real value. We’ve already covered the way file-sharing, collaboration and unified comms services can work well together – a particularly effective mix for creative-driven organisations like marketing or design firms – but there are configurations to suit every organisation.

Any organisation that has a substantial software development practice, for example, would be well-served by adopting a cloud platform such as Microsoft Azure and combining it with comprehensive VM backup and code-sharing tools – allowing them to develop and deploy applications rapidly and at scale without the risk of sudden loss of work.

“Things like core productivity tools complement themselves well with some business analytics in terms of data sharing,” Wynne says. “So PowerBI, for example, on Microsoft Office 365. All those things are very complementary in terms of providing people key data within the business so they can make good decisions.”

Finding the right blend of cloud services – as well as the best way to combine them for maximum efficiency and cost savings – can be a real challenge for organisations looking to start exploring the world of cloud. By partnering with CDW, organisations can get a helping hand with this complex and often daunting process, giving them access to a trusted advisor with the expertise to accelerate their journey to the cloud.

To find out more about CDW visit www.cdw.com

Cities of the world are buckling. The UN estimates 55% of the planet’s 7 billion people live in urban areas and it’s believed a million people join this list on a daily basis. Infrastructure is feeling the strain, there’s unrest, congestion is polluting our lungs and crime is prevalent. What’s more, if this rise continues as expected, cities will be home to some 6.1 billion people by 2050. Something has to give.

The answer lies in making cities work smarter. Of course, the promise of smart cities isn’t new; it’s a concept that’s been celebrated on screen for decades and has seemingly been on the periphery for years, yet today we’re finally on the verge of achieving this truly connected utopia. Companies across the globe are using technology and analytics to make city life a breeze; preventing traffic jams, solving crimes, boosting tourism and more.

Speed and safety

In the UK, the economy as a whole lost £8 billion due to staff being stuck in traffic jams last year, or 178 hours per driver, according to research by Inrix. As cities become saturated, authorities and industry are turning to big data and tech to ease this load. In London, for instance, Transport for London’s (TfL) Open Data project provides more than 80 data feeds through a free API. These feeds share details about air quality, tube times and delays, the number of passengers flowing through the network as well as data on live traffic disruptions. Some 600 third-party apps are now being powered by these feeds, used by 42% of Londoners, and it’s reported to be putting £130 million a year back into the capital’s economy. On a wider scale, it’s estimated that by using open data effectively, 629 million hours of waiting time could be saved on the EU’s roads and energy consumption could be reduced by 16%.

«Open data is changing our everyday lives and how organisations like TfL work,” said Jeni Tennison, CEO at the Open Data Institute. “Data is becoming as important as other types of infrastructure, such as roads and electricity, which means building strong data infrastructure is vital to economic growth and wellbeing.”

Beyond roads, tracking pedestrians is key in keeping a city moving. In Glasgow and London, mobile phone data can be used to track passenger numbers on public transport, while sensors in lampposts can track footfall. The Netherlands has even begun trialling smart traffic lights that give the elderly extra crossing time or change automatically when they detect an approaching cyclist.

In China and Singapore, authorities are taking things a step further. Through the use of IoT devices and sensors, alongside advanced 4G data networks and AI, not only are they monitoring and improving traffic flow, they use the data to track road violations and even predict crime. Singapore, for instance, uses data from RFID-equipped travel cards, CCTV and anonymised phone data to identify problems before congestion can take hold. Its AI can spot patterns and run algorithms that highlight issues some 10 or 20 steps down the line.

Elsewhere, the Chinese province of Zhejiang is using 1,000 sensors to capture more than a terabyte of data every month. Stored on Intel servers running on Intel Xeon processor E5 series and holding an incredible 198TB, this data is easy to access and analyse by large numbers of users who can search for a licence plate on the network in less than a second, from 2.4 billion records. In particular, products such as those developed as part of Intel’s Vision Accelerator Design use deep neural networks to analyse such video footage quickly and accurately.

It’s not just traffic violations being caught using next-level technology and analytics. CCTV video link-ups, license plate scanning, smart mapping and even real-time facial recognition are also helping save lives, cut down on vandalism and prevent robberies. The London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) recently partnered with Greater London Authority’s Strategic Crime Analysis team to launch SafeStats. By feeding more than 20 million crime and safety records from the police, ambulance, fire brigade and transport authorities into advanced AI software, emergency services can detect patterns and identify crime hotspots. This AI can even offer solutions and guide authorities on policy. For example, when cross referenced with records from 25 hospitals, it can be used to create heat maps that help steer local policing strategies and funding.

The connected city

Once crime is being tackled, and transport delays are managed, cities become more attractive to tourists; another area in which big data, AI and analytics are playing a significant role. In Manchester, the Beacons for Science app lets tourists use virtual and augmented reality to unlock experiences at landmarks across the city. In London, Mastercard has been hired to produce a series of smart city initiatives including the Visit London Official City Guide app. This app taps into real-time data feeds to help tourists navigate the city, using geolocation to flag nearby places of interest and transport routes.

Elsewhere, the West of England Combined Authority was recently awarded £5 million in funding to trial a 5G network at tourist destinations in Bristol and Bath. This network complements the Bristol Is Open smart city scheme designed as a city-wide private network testbed, powered by an Intel® Xeon® equipped Blue Crystal II supercomputer, on which companies and organisations can test smart city solutions.

«The vision behind Bristol is Open was to see how we could make the city smarter and quicker than any other,» explained Julie Snell, Managing Director of Bristol is Open. «We can offer a test network that’s run on gigabit fibre. It’s got everything from Wi-Fi to 2G, 3G, 4G, massive MIMO (multiple-in multiple-out), LTE and even some 5G. We also have 1,500 Wi-Fi meshed network lamp posts, allowing us to bounce signals around the city without us needing constant fibre connections.»

This network, consisting of hundreds of Internet of Things connections, can help people in areas of poor connectivity get online easily, and cheaply. Data from this network can be fed into a 4K, 180-degree ‘data dome’ and used to track Met Office weather patterns in the region, monitor mobile usage, and record air pollution levels as part of a feasibility study by the University of Bristol. This could see the city become the first to let people identify their individual exposure to pollution, and it’s a similar setup to that used by the Sensing London project which used Intel Galileo-based end-to-end Internet of Things infrastructure to measure local air quality and human activity. Beyond the sensors, Intel and Bosch recently teamed up to develop the Air Quality Micro Climate Monitoring System (MCMS) which takes the data from such sensors and uses software to measure air quality, providing councils with meaningful insight.

Looking to the future, the global rollout of 5G is expected to accelerate not only the adoption of smart city technology but its capabilities. It will exponentially increase the number of sensors, the strength of the connections and the speed at which data can be sent and analysed. Combine this with the ongoing advances in data collection and analysis, and the expansion of the IoT, and it looks like we’re at a critical juncture in the pursuit of a truly connected utopia.

Discover more amazing stories powered by big data and Intel technology

>A technology revolution is transforming the healthcare industry, changing everything from how patients are diagnosed and treated to our battle against some of the world’s most serious diseases. It’s a revolution fuelled by new sources of healthcare data and powered by big data analytics – and it’s being pushed even further by new developments in AI. Between growing populations, ageing populations, drug-resistant microbes and pressures on staff and budgets, healthcare faces some enormous challenges. Yet with data, analytics and AI – supported by new cloud, storage and processor technologies – the industry is moving in the right direction to meet them. This revolution will change and save patients’ lives.

Its foundation is the growth of healthcare data. On the one hand, initiatives like the SAIL (Secure Anonymised Information Linkage) Databank are collecting, pooling and anonymising data, ready for research through analytics. Operating in Wales, SAIL has collected over 10 billion person-based data records over a period of 20 years, using it in projects finding links between social deprivation and high mortality rates following a hip fracture, or uncovering relationships between congenital anomaly registries and maternal medication use during pregnancy. Similarly, projects at the Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust are finding operational uses for their own large datasets, using them to monitor time lags between referral and treatment or ensure staffing levels meet demand during peak periods.

On the other hand, clinicians are finding ingenious ways to make use of the wealth of data collected by fitness trackers, smart watches and healthcare apps on smartphones – not to mention information being freely and publicly shared over social media. While privacy concerns won’t melt away overnight, researchers hope that, given assurances, the public will back the wider sharing of health information, particularly if it can help us fight diseases or make more informed choices about our diets, our sleep and our exercise regimes. With anonymisation and other appropriate safeguards in place, plus the legalities dealt with, there are endless applications.

From precision to prevention

Many of these harness the power of big data analytics, using these massive datasets to spot patterns or even predict outcomes based on certain factors or criteria. One large study combines genetic information with data from other studies and canSAR, the world’s largest database for cancer drug discovery, to identify pathological mutations and match them to potential drugs. Such studies are finding that, by picking out new genes involved in the development of, say, prostate cancer, they raise the chances of creating bespoke drugs to battle specific mutations. Similar studies hope to isolate the impact of diet and exercise on diabetes, so that sufferers get more motivation to make potentially transformative lifestyle changes.

Clinicians and data scientists refer to this approach as ‘precision medicine’ using analytics to find out what fuels specific variants of a disease in specific individuals, then identifying the right individual treatment path to manage or cure it. Nor is this the only way analytics is transforming healthcare. Researchers fighting antibiotic resistant superbugs hope that analytics could find answers there in the long term, and that, in the shorter term, mathematical modelling could help estimate the global impact of antibiotic resistance and make a powerful case for increased funding.

Meanwhile, new healthcare apps, like Sentimento Ltd’s My Kin, are working to help prevent illness. They do so by bringing in information from smartphones and wearable devices, including physical and social activity, sleep and environmental factors, and then using analytics to pinpoint behavioural changes that could help reduce health risks and prevent the users from developing serious conditions later.

Putting AI into practice

These approaches are only being improved by developments in AI and machine learning, as clinicians and researchers use new techniques to spot patterns faster or get a more accurate diagnosis in less time. At both MIT and the University of Pisa, smart algorithms are enabling MRI image scan comparisons that used to take up to two hours to be done in one thousandth of that time, or to cut down the time patients spend in discomfort during vital MRI screenings. Similar work is being done by Intel and the AI company, MaxQ, to analyse CT scans of stroke and head trauma patients to reduce error rates, or by Intel and the med-tech company, Novartis, to analyse thousands of images of cells during drug research and identify promising drug candidates. By augmenting manual analysis, the technology can reduce screening times from 11 hours to 31 minutes.

It’s even hoped that by combining data analytics and AI, the kind of cancer drug treatment research mentioned earlier could go on to not just target the right treatment but prevent the disease from establishing a foothold. Machine learning and deep learning techniques could spot molecular drivers or mutations early and suggest appropriate action.

These developments make heavy demands on today’s technology; whether you’re working on large datasets in memory or pulling data from disparate sources in the cloud, storage speed and processing power count. Here fast flash storage arrays and persistent memory, like Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory, is delivering the kind of high-performance, high-capacity storage these applications need – and making it more affordable and accessible.

Much the same is happening on the processing front, where Intel has teamed up with Philips to show that Intel Xeon Scalable processors can perform deep learning inference on X-rays and CT scans without the specialist accelerator hardware usually required. Using AI in medical imaging has been challenging up to now, because the imaging data is high-resolution and multi-dimensional, and because any down-sampling to speed up the process can lead to misdiagnosis. New deep learning instructions in Intel’s 2nd Gen Xeon Scalable processors enable the CPU to handle these complex, hybrid workloads. Through this research, Intel and Philips are bringing the use of AI in medical imaging down to a lower cost.

In doing so, Intel is helping supercharge the new technology in healthcare revolution, providing the industry with the compute and storage performance it needs to transform raw data into personalised treatment plans and great patient outcomes. What’s more, it’s doing so in forms that will only grow more affordable and accessible with time. Combine that with the explosion in healthcare data and there’s potential here for something truly special. Technology might not kill the world’s superbugs or defeat cancer straight away, but it could forge major breakthroughs in these and many more of the world’s biggest healthcare challenges.

Discover more amazing stories powered by big data and Intel technology