Most companies, at some stage throughout their existence, undergo a major relocation of their headquarters. This can happen for a variety of reasons. While this is rarely a simple process, for firm Schroders this was being plotted alongside a monumental digital transformation project.

The “slightly adventurous task”, as the company’s global head of communications IT Paul Baird describes it, involved moving approximately 2,500 people over several weeks last summer, while aiming to keep up with its ambition to reinvent itself with the times.

The now 205-year-old firm pitches itself as a technology company that sells financial services, Baird tells Cloud Pro, and keeping up with this characterisation required the company to keep up-to-date with the latest workplace technologies.

“It’s quite a big change for somebody who’s been sat at the same desk for five or ten years,” he continues, “all of a sudden to have to move into another building, to present them with a whole array of blistering new tech, at the same time, may have just gone a step too far.”

The solution, therefore, was to start the first wave of transformation some 18 months before the move was scheduled to take place in September last year. The key motivations were to drive technological change both by ridding the firm of obsolescence and also to innovate on day-to-day workplace operations.

This was all overseen by a strategy that demanded employees have access to their work data anytime, from any place and from any device. Meanwhile, Baird’s team “tried enormously” to meet the demands made by human resources (HR) leaders, who themselves wanted to really push for a flexible work strategy. The overall aim was to reduce the physical barriers to work.

Baird says he and his team decided to start the process so early in order to “de-risk it, make people more comfortable, and also just avoid that horrible kind of unsettling feeling, because people ultimately just don’t like change”.

The project involved rolling out new technology like video conferencing systems to mobile services, as well as new services from Microsoft, such as Office 365. For the provisioning of the virtual desktop fundamentals that everything else would sit atop of, including the dedicated networks, dedicated storage and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), the company turned to Citrix.

The main roadblock to moving the tech, however, came in the form of the company’s data centre, which sat in its previous head office. Nothing could be done without first moving this.

“It was difficult and we were a new team by-and-large. It was a process of discovery and what we were trying to do as well with that data centre move was not move legacy, but move and transform at the same time.”

This was exciting, Baird says, because the company had everything from new storage services, to new switching infrastructure, to new server platforms. There was a “whole big set of transformation changes” that was done as part of that, and it finished up in a virtual desktop environment.

Naturally, this invited a lot of pressure. “The actual move itself was nerve-wracking as a global technology department because everything is riding on you,» he says.

“All the facilities people and all the programme managers involved in all the building and everything else sat back. And we built the networks before we even completed the building. So everything had been tested.” Nevertheless, Baird couldn’t help as the migration was going ahead but constantly think: “What have I missed?”

Another major challenge was introducing this technology in an accessible way that didn’t alienate and frustrate staff, all while ensuring the principles of flexible working were being adhered to. Working in financial services and in the City of London, Baird says, is “by its very nature quite old-school” so his company really had to break the mould

The changes now encompass employees working from home one or two days per week, job-sharing, people working three days per week, among other practices, and Baird feels the company has truly met these needs. Now he hopes that by 2020 the entire global estate will model itself on what he has done with the new London offices, with locations in 27 countries all clamouring to get in on the action.

“When I started we had just less than 30 video conference rooms globally and now we have 230. And they’re used all the time,” he says.

“Now people will do a video call instead of a telephone call and will ask everyone to switch on their cameras, and that’s going to become more prevalent. As we expand globally as well, there’ll be a far greater amount of global working that we’ll be able to do through the technology. That’s ultimately the biggest thing that I see in two or three years.”

Salesforce has unveiled a range of improvements to its AppExchange marketplace, each designed to help its ecosystem of customers and partners make data-driven, informed decisions much more efficiently. 

There are two key tenets to the changes, one focused on consultant acquisition and the other designed to provide better insight for partners. 

The first, dubbed Consultants on AppExchange, is essentially an enhanced search functionality that matches customer requirements with the appropriate results – whether that be location, expertise, rating and so on.

This search element is live as of now on the AppExchange and was delivered in response to growing demand from customers wanting the information it now presents – previously, the data was only easily located internally, meaning customers had to contact their Salesforce account managers. Now, however, it is very much self-service, Woodson Martin, general manager, of the Salesforce AppExchange told Cloud Pro today during an interview at Salesforce World Tour London. 

The second element, called AppExchange Partner Intelligence, provides higher levels of insight into how customers and potential customers are interacting and consuming what the app marketplace has to offer. For example, partners can see if someone has downloaded a trial version but not used it.

Martin, who has been with Salesforce for 14 years but was appointed to his current role in March, told Cloud Pro: «One of my early observations in the role is that the ecosystem is vast and incredibly rich. One of the questions I’ve been asking is ‘What can we do to open up and make visible more of the richness of the ecosystem to make it easier to do the job of TrailBlazing. 

«Our customers are trying to solve problems in their business and we just need to make it easier for them to do that. So, everything that we’re announcing today is aimed at that objective. Customers are very excited about it and the partners are also excited because in an ecosystem as rich as this one, how do you find your way? And how do you stand out? This is a great opportunity for all players.»

Given that there have been 6.5 million installations from the AppExchange thus far, the ability to derive greater insight into what happens post download will be of great value to many. The app-specific analytical element will be made generally available – with security approved apps – from June, while wider marketplace analytics will arrive this summer. 

«Magnet360 has long been dedicated to ensuring our customers can succeed on the Salesforce Platform, and as the Salesforce economy grows, so has the demand for implementation expertise,» said Matt Meents, CEO and Founder of Salesforce Platinum consulting partner Magnet360. 

«With nearly 90% of Salesforce customers using at least one AppExchange app, making our consulting services available and easily searchable through AppExchange opens the door for us to help more companies with their Salesforce needs.»

While the 6.5 million download figure was – correctly – quoted at the time of Salesforce’s AppExchange announcement, during Martin’s interview with Cloud Pro he said that the firm had celebrated the 6.8 million mark this week. The next milestone? Seven million downloads, which is fast-approaching, according to Martin. 

«If you go to the homepage of the AppExchange – down at the bottom – it will tell you exactly how many people have installed applications. You can actually see, in real time, what’s happening in the ecosystem,» he said.

«It’s pretty exciting because last night it crossed 6.8 million. That’s a milestone and we’re excited about getting to seven pretty soon.»

With more than 5,000 listings – ranging from apps to solutions, components, templates and more – the AppExchange has evolved considerably in its decade-plus life so far. There are more than 65,000 Salesforce-accredited consulting professionals providing guidance to the Salesforce ecosystem via the AppExchange and other routes and the cloud giant is hoping to swell this figure to 250,000 by 2022 – the continued evolution of the AppExchange will play a critical role here, according to Martin. 

If you deal with networking technology, there’s one trend that you’ll almost certainly have heard more about than any other, and that’s SD-WAN. It’s been labelled as ‘the next big thing’ for a few years now, with everyone from IT admins to vendors and providers extolling its virtues.

Short for software-defined wide-area network, SD-WAN technology is used to simplify the management of wide-area networks which connect remote locations like data centres or regional offices across large geographic distances. It does this by abstracting the control and management from the network and hardware layer onto a separate layer of software.

This abstraction means that various elements of WAN management can be centralised. For example, MPLS, standard broadband and 4G LTE services can all be bundled together as part of an SD-WAN to provide an overall pool of network capacity to be portioned out. Hardware management can also be policy-based, allowing for zero-touch provisioning and remote configuration. Network virtualisation is employed too, as is a flexible approach to traffic routing.

These capabilities – many of which were previously not available to businesses – are what make SD-WAN so transformative when compared to traditional WANs. Standard WAN deployments are usually very rigid in terms of how they’re configured, and any changes or updates often need to be made locally. They’re expensive too, and often require the installation of specialised hardware throughout the network.

SD-WAN solutions, by contrast, are far more versatile in how they’re configured. Because the control plane is abstracted from the data plane, changes to the network architecture can be made remotely through software, rather than having to reconfigure on-site hardware or invest in additional capacity.

Benefits of SD-WAN

This introduces a number of attendant benefits; because the control of the networking hardware is abstracted, companies aren’t required to make sure all of their equipment is from the same vendor in the interests of compatibility, but can instead invest in more cost-effective generic equipment. Pooling network connections also increases resiliency. If the MPLS connection goes down, for example, 4G or broadband links can automatically pick up the slack without outages.

Remote provisioning and management of equipment also means that network engineers and administrators don’t need to have an on-site presence in every location in order to carry out maintenance and upgrades, thereby saving on travel time and staffing costs. Scaling is easier and cheaper, too; networking equipment for new branches can be shipped directly from the factory to the new location, plugged in and then rapidly and remotely configured based on predefined policies.

This makes it particularly relevant for fast-growing businesses who need to expand without IT concerns causing a bottleneck. Rather than having to ensure every location has in-house networking staff to handle troubleshooting, most problems can be dealt with remotely. SD-WAN also enables a much greater level of network automation, which allows companies to scale the size of their network without vastly increasing the management and administration overheads for the network team. This, in turn, allows small teams to manage a large SD-WAN network which would normally require a much larger headcount to cope with if it were a traditional WAN.

Potential barriers

However, SD-WAN is not without its challenges, and while managing an SD-WAN system is often simpler and less time-intensive than managing a normal WAN, the same is not always true of setting one up. There are barriers to rolling out an SD-WAN infrastructure that can place it out of the reach of smaller and mid-sized organisations.

Cost is often a key factor here; SD-WAN solutions from large blue-chip vendors are often charged at a high premium, and when combined with existing software licenses and rental fees for the MPLS, broadband and LTE connections that make up the core of the networking stack, this can lead to a high cost-of-entry for companies looking to start their SD-WAN journey.

On top of that, deploying and managing an SD-WAN requires specialised knowledge. Certifications and courses in how to operate SD-WAN systems can cost thousands, and IT professionals who possess said certifications are in high demand and can command significant salaries.

The time investment required for an SD-WAN rollout should not be underestimated, either. Aside from the training necessary to set up and operate it, SD-WAN systems should be thoroughly planned out before deployment. Not only that, but the actual switch-over from regular WAN to SD-WAN takes time – and for over-stretched, time-poor IT teams (who are often the ones who stand to gain the most from SD-WAN) this is time that they’re already spending on the day-to-day needs of their existing network.

Managed SD-WAN solutions

Growing companies can overcome these challenges, however, and the best way of doing so is by working with a partner to deploy a managed SD-WAN solution. Partnering with an experienced, battle-tested SD-WAN provider bypasses the need for investing time and money in up-skilling existing employees, as they already have a team of qualified technicians at their disposal. And, because these technicians will also work with you on designing the architecture, as well as taking on the heavy lifting when it comes to rolling out the network, your staff can focus on the business-critical tasks of maintaining your network without taking time to handle the migration.

Managed SD-WAN services have advantages beyond the initial rollout, though. In this model, the partner is responsible for operating and maintaining the network, rather than the customer. This allows internal IT staff to focus on extracting value from their SD-WAN deployments without having to worry about managing the network as a whole. In practice, this means IT teams can spend their time working on using the enhanced visibility and granular control offered by SD-WAN to improve the stability, performance and optimisation of their networks rather than getting bogged down in tasks that don’t deliver value, offering all of the advantages of SD-WAN with none of the complexity.

Moreover, choosing Zen Internet as their managed SD-WAN provider allows businesses to reduce the cost of their SD-WAN deployments by bundling all of the costs together into a single package from a single provider. This includes not only the software-based control platform, SD-WAN networking hardware, associated licenses and circuits that make up an SD-WAN network, but also the underlying MPLS, broadband and 4G LTE connectivity that powers it. These technologies are bundled into a single managed service, allowing you to consume SD-WAN on a cloud-style as-a-service basis.

Zen has a rich and proven heritage in business and carrier-grade networking, including large-scale WAN estates, making Zen an ideal partner to both deploy and manage large, complex SD-WAN projects. Zen customers also benefit from award-winning service and support, with a plethora of experienced technical engineers on standby to ensure that problems are resolved rapidly.

SD-WAN can be a daunting prospect for growing businesses, but it doesn’t have to be. Partnering with Zen allows companies to offload the work of setting up and managing a complex, highly-sophisticated SD-WAN model to a company with a strong background in the intricacies of business networking, as well as a broad portfolio of network and connectivity technologies. Supported by Zen, companies are empowered to get the maximum value from their SD-WAN solutions, transforming and future-proofing their organisations without the added headaches and cost that SD-WAN often entails.

To learn more about how an SD-WAN can revolutionise your business, download Zen’s free buyers guide.

Microsoft Teams is a relative newcomer to the world of online business communications, but although the client interface is all-new, the underlying protocols and technology are really the latest evolution in Microsoft’s long legacy of communication suites.

It’s likely because of this that Teams provides far more comprehensive VoIP telephony support than most business chat clients. It even has internationally available direct phone number support: a feature that’s vanishingly rare among its rivals. Calling plans and integration options with a limited range of local VoIP telephony hardware and systems are available, but there are typically extra costs involved.

Teams is the replacement to Skype for Business, which itself replaced Lync in 2015. Existing Office 365 customers are being gradually moved from Skype for Business to Teams, with staggered automatic transitions having begun in 2018. Skype for Business Server 2019 will continue in parallel as Microsoft’s on-premises communications solution.

This surprisingly short life cycle of Microsoft’s unified communications products is actually one of the strongest points against using them: at this point it’s hard to be sure that you won’t have to retrain your users on yet another new system in three years’ time. However, it’s a core Microsoft Office product, which means that, if you already use Office 365, it won’t cost you anything extra.

Microsoft Teams review: Pricing and features

In the UK, you can sign up to Teams and create a workspace using its standalone free service, but its paid-for tiers are only available as part of a Microsoft Office 365 Business Premium, Business Essentials or enterprise E3 subscription. The positive side of this is that an entire Office 365 suite – and especially the service-only Essentials subscription – costs less per user than a Slack subscription and puts up reasonable competition against Google’s G Suite and its Hangouts communication service.

Office 365 Business Essentials costs £3.80 per user, per ​month (exc VAT) and provides Microsoft’s core online services – Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams – for businesses that don’t need a subscription to its Office software suite. Office 365 Business Premium adds desktop licences for Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access on top of that service package and costs £9.40 per user, per month (exc VAT). Both of these are charged monthly with annual subscription commitment.

Free users get 2GB of file storage per user and 10GB shared, unlimited message history searching, screen sharing, one-to-one and up to 250-person group video calling, and up to 300 members. Upgrading to Office 365 from the free version of Teams gets you extra administration features including the ability to add more admins, 1TB of storage per user, scheduling and recording of video meetings, extra security features including multi-factor authentication, integration with Microsoft’s VoIP telephony calling plans if you subscribe to them, and one year’s free domain hosting.

If you upgrade to a paid tier, you’ll never again be able to downgrade. You also can’t merge Teams free into an existing Office 365 paid subscription, and you can’t have any free users in your paid-for organisation.

Both free and paid versions store your data in your local region, so UK businesses’ data will not be stored in the US.

Microsoft Teams review: Clients

Teams clients are available for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and web browsers. Unlike rivals Slack, Google Hangouts, and Mattermost, Teams does not have a Linux desktop client. While that’s unlikely to concern most businesses, those in some development and industrial sectors may want to look elsewhere.

Web browser support is also limited. In contrast to its rivals, Teams’ web interface doesn’t work very well in Firefox. There’s no support for Meetings – group video, audio or screensharing sessions – and font and whitespace rendering is unflattering and a little difficult to view.

Its appearance in Edge and Chrome – as well as the desktop clients – is significantly better. We particularly appreciated the inclusion of dark and high-contrast modes, which Slack has yet to implement on web and desktop platforms.

The general layout of Teams is rather Slack-inspired, with a large message and content pane on the right that by default loads your team’s general group chat and a narrow left-hand pane with tabs that let you view your files, teams, private messages and notifications.

Between them is an index pane that lists your teams, files, message contacts or notifications, depending on which tab you’re in. This felt a little too broad on our 1,920 x 1,080 display, both at full screen and windowed modes. While the client interface feels like it could do with more polish and extra features such as topic hashtags, it does everything it’s supposed to – as long as you stick to fully supported browsers.

We’re fans of the ability to open up an advanced composition field that lets you add subject headers, use enter for carriage returns, add HTML formatting and insert code, lists, tables and other custom text features in a manner that’s reminiscent of Microsoft OneNote.

In this context, the decision to give each chat message its own box in the main pane, rather than have contiguous IRC-style discussions, suddenly makes sense. You can also share animated GIFs via Giphy and use a limited set of custom Microsoft emoji and stickers including a rather old-school DIY meme creator, because that’s absolutely what modern business users require from their communications tools. (These options can be disabled in the paid versions.)

Microsoft Teams review: Configuration

For both free and paid-for versions of Teams, you’ll have to create an organisation for your users to join. However, you’ll use different administration interfaces to configure them.

The free version of Teams has extremely limited management capabilities, accessible from the Manage org option in the pulldown that appears when you click on your own profile as the workspace’s sole administrator. You can see all your members, remove them if you want to and control whether or not they’re allowed to invite others. That’s it: you can’t even add an extra admin.

For that, and much more, you’ll have to upgrade to Office 365 Business Premium or Business Essentials. All your users will need a paid-for Office 365 email address and sign-in profile, but your existing data and conversation archives will be ported across seamlessly.

If you’re starting from an Office 365 subscription, you’ll similarly have to create a team for members of your organisation to join, and you can easily add individuals, groups or every member of your organisation to your team. Larger companies can have dedicated teams for every department.

Administration is carried out via the new dedicated Teams admin portal, although legacy settings for both Teams and Skype for Business can still be found via the main Office 365 admin pages. If you’re familiar with Office 365, Microsoft Server or Microsoft Azure interfaces, you’ll feel right at home with the Teams admin interface. For everyone else, it may take a bit of getting used to.

In stark contrast to the free tier, there are huge numbers of highly granular options here, allowing you to create policies controlling which features and apps users and teams can have access to, how meetings are handled down to email invitations and QoS traffic shaping for video, call handling for Microsoft Phone System integration, analytics and device management for webcams and IP phones registered to your users.

For both free and paying users, there’s a surprisingly wide range of extensions available in the Teams Store, allowing you to integrate third party services including GitHub, Trello, Google Analytics, Zendesk and Zoom. As you’d expect, there’s also an API that you can use to develop bespoke extensions for internal use.

Microsoft Teams review: Verdict

Teams is obviously going to be widely used, simply because it’s what you get bundled with Office 365 and provides an easy way to connect everyone in your organisation for instant group and one-to-one communication.

It does what it’s supposed to and shares the familiar user interface styling of other Office products. It has better telephony support than its rivals, stores data in your local region, includes some genuinely innovative message formatting tools and provides very useful meeting recording features.

The fact that its overall interface lacks polish is rather secondary to all that. It’s not the nicest or most comfortable business communications tool to use, but its interface does the job well enough and will hopefully be given the opportunity to improve to meet its full potential in the coming years.

If you subscribe to Office 365, Teams is the best and most obvious communications choice for your business. If you don’t need any of Microsoft’s other services, however, Teams isn’t worth getting into the Office 365 ecosystem for in its own right unless you specifically need a cloud-based, archiving communications system with UK data centres.

With its move to the Xeon Scalable architecture, Intel began a revolution in its enterprise processors that went beyond the normal performance and energy efficiency selling points. Combined with new storage, connectivity and memory technologies, Xeon Scalable was a step change. The new 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors don’t just continue that work but double down on it, with a raft of improvements and upgrades – some revolutionary – that add up to a significant shift in performance for today’s most crucial workloads. Whether you’re looking to push forward with ambitious modernisation strategies or embrace new technologies around AI, 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors should be part of your plan. The revised architecture doesn’t just give you a speed boost, but opens up a whole new wave of capabilities.

More cores and higher speeds meet AI acceleration

It’s not that this latest processor doesn’t bring conventional performance improvements. Across the line, from the entry-level Bronze processors to the new, high-end Platinum processors, there are increases in frequency, while models from the Silver family upwards get more cores at roughly the same price point, not to mention more L3 cache. For instance, the new Xeon Silver 4214 has 12 cores running at a base frequency of 2.2GHz with a Turbo frequency of 3.2GHz, plus 16.5MB of L3 cache. That’s a big step on from the 10 cores 2.2GHz and 2.5GHz of the old Xeon Silver 4114, which had just 13.75MB of cache, and one that’s replicated as you move on upwards through the line.

At the high-end, the improvements stand out even further. The new Platinum 9200 family has processors with up to 56 cores running 112 threads with a base frequency of 2.6GHz and a Turbo frequency of 3.8GHz. By any yardstick that’s an incredible amount of power. What’s more, these processors have 77MB of L3 cache and support for up to 2,933MHz DDR4 RAM – the fastest ever natively supported by a Xeon processor. Put up to 112 cores at work in a two-socket configuration, and you’re looking at unbelievable levels of performance for a single unit system.

From heavy duty virtualisation scenarios to cutting-edge, high-performance applications, these CPUs are designed to run the most demanding workloads. Intel claims a 33% performance improvement over previous-generation Xeon Scalable processors, or an up to 3.5x improvement over the Xeon E5 processors of five years ago.

Yet Intel’s enhancements run much deeper. The Xeon Scalable architecture introduced the AVX-512 instruction set, with a double-width register and double the number of registers over the previous AVX2 instruction set, dramatically accelerating high-performance workloads including AI, cryptography and data protection. The 2nd generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor takes that one stage further with AVX-512-DL (deep learning) Boost and Vector Neural Network Instruction; new instructions designed specifically to enhance AI performance both at the data centre and the edge.

Deep learning has two major aspects – training and inference – where the algorithm is first trained to assign different ‘weights’ to some aspect of data being input, then asked to infer weights for new data based on what the AI learnt during that training. DL Boost and VNNI are designed specifically to accelerate the inference process by enabling it to work at lower levels of numerical precision, and to do so without any perceptible compromise on accuracy.

Using a new, single instruction to replace the work of three of the old ones, it can offer serious performance upgrades for deep learning applications such as image-recognition, voice recognition and language translation. In internal testing, Intel has seen boosts of up to 30x over previous-generation Xeon Scalable processors. What’s more, these technologies are built to accelerate Intel’s open source MKL-DNN Deep Learning library, which can be found within the Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit, TensorFlow and BigDL libraries. There’s no need for developers to rebuild everything to use the new instructions because they work within the libraries and frameworks DL developers already use.

With AVX-512, VNNI and DL Boost more enterprises have the power to harness the potential of deep learning. Workloads that would have pushed previous processors to their limits, like image analysis or complex modelling and simulation, run at much higher speeds. The end result is a lower barrier to entry for cutting edge DL applications, while significant research, financial and medical applications could expand to bring in more organisations and run at truly practical speeds.

The next-gen platform

Of course, the processor isn’t all that matters in a server or system, which is why 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors are designed to work hand-in-hand with some of Intel’s most powerful technologies. Perhaps the most crucial is Intel® Optane™ DC Persistent Memory, which combines Intel’s 3D XPoint memory media with Intel memory and storage controllers to bring you a new kind of memory, with the performance of RAM but the persistence – and lower costs – of NAND storage.

Optane is widely known as an alternative to NAND-based SSD technology, but in its DC Persistent Memory form it can replace standard DDR4 DIMMs, augmenting the available RAM and act as a persistent memory store. Paired with a 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor, you can have up to six Optane DC Persistent Memory modules per socket partnered with at least one DDR4 module. With 128GB, 256GB and 512GB modules available, you can have up to 32TB of low latency, persistent RAM available without the huge costs associated with using conventional DDR4.

The benefits almost speak for themselves. With such lavish quantities of RAM available, there’s scope to run heavier workloads or more virtual machines; Intel testing shows that you can run up to 36% more VMs on 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors with Intel® Optane™ DC Persistent Memory. What’s more, this same combination opens up powerful but demanding in-memory applications to a much wider range of enterprises, giving more companies the chance to run real-time analytics on near-live data or scour vast datasets for insight. Combine this with the monster AI acceleration of Intel’s new CPUs, and some hugely exciting capabilities hit the mainstream.

Yet there’s still more to these latest Xeon Scalable chips than performance – it’s the foundation of a modern computing platform, built for a connected, data-driven business world. Intel QuickAssist technology adds hardware acceleration for network security, routing and storage, boosting performance in the software-defined data centre. There’s also support for Intel Ethernet with scalable iWARP RDMA, giving you up to four 10Gbits/sec Ethernet ports for high data throughput between systems with ultra-low latency. Add Intel’s new Ethernet 800 Series network adapters, and you can take the next step into 100Gbits/sec connectivity, for incredible levels of scalability and power.

Security, meanwhile, is enhanced by hardware acceleration for the new Intel Security Libraries (SecL-DC) and Intel Threat Detection Technology, providing a real alternative to expensive hardware security modules and protecting the data centre against incoming threats. This makes it tangibly easier to deliver platforms and services based on trust. Finally, Intel’s Infrastructure Management Technologies provide a robust framework for resource management, with platform-level detection, monitoring, reporting and configuration. It’s the key to controlling and managing your compute and storage resources to improve data centre efficiency and utilisation.

The overall effect? A line of processors that covers the needs of every business, and that provides each one with a secure, robust and scalable platform for the big applications of tomorrow. This isn’t just about efficiency or about delivering your existing capabilities faster, but about empowering your business to do more with the best tools available. Don’t let the 2nd generation name fool you. This isn’t just an upgrade; it’s a game-changer.

Discover more about data innovations at Intel.co.uk

Moving any aspect of an organisation’s work to the cloud is a serious undertaking. It takes time, it costs money, it needs to be justified to the big bosses and justified to the coalface workers. Workflows, roles and day-to-day activity will change. It can take many months to get everything organised, in place and working well.

The work does not stop once the job is done, either. Managing cloud, like managing any other aspect of IT, is an ongoing commitment. This is about more than just tinkering around – it’s about ensuring your cloud strategy remains fit for purpose and keeps pace with the needs of your business. In order to do that, your strategy will need the occasional makeover.

But how do you know when that time has come?

Strategy? What strategy?

We’re beginning with the assumption that your organisation has a good cloud strategy in the first place, yet this isn’t always the case.

A strong cloud strategy is built on solid principles. It isn’t about the detail of specific business processes or workflows – it’s about why you use cloud, what you expect it to bring to the business, how you evaluate its delivery on those expectations and how you will ensure cloud implementation meets your data governance and security requirements.

If parts of your organisation’s workload are in the cloud and you don’t have a cloud strategy that does these things, then Step 1 is to revise what you have and get a good strategy in place.

Be wary of technology-leads

Assuming there is a sound strategy in place, then «any pragmatic strategy should be able to incorporate additions, modifications or removal of services or business processes,» according to Tony Lock, distinguished analyst at Freeform Dynamics.

One sign that your cloud strategy may be faltering is if it is almost entirely technology driven. A move to the cloud can’t just be dictated by the organisation’s technology, as it will ultimately fail to take key parts of the business into consideration. After months of implementation, you might find you have a superbly well-functioning and well-specified platform, but an enormous hole in your people skills. The longer this goes on, the harder that hole will be to fill.

Leaving the tech too late

Conversely, cloud strategies can flounder if the technology element gets left behind. While a strategy needs to be based on the whole business, including its workflows and business processes, it is, of course, imperative that the technology element is specified, planned and delivered in a timely way.

Jason Stewart-Clark, managing director of Cloud Native Architecture at Accenture, told us that it’s common for an organisation to overly focus on building out its staff skillsets and embed the idea of cloud into the business, but will have failed to build the «technical foundations, perhaps expecting the ‘next big project’ that comes along to build them out». He says «this is normally sub-optimal.»

Worry about replication

A third potential problem that can occur is if an organisation has been too conservative in planning its first workload transition.

«A big mistake is trying to replicate existing datacentre approaches on the cloud,» explains Stewart-Clark. «Not only will this not allow you to realise the business agility and delivery pace benefits of cloud, it will almost always mean you end up spending a lot more money than you need to.»

Review, review, review

It’s important to remember that these signs of a faltering cloud strategy may only surface when an organisation is already deeply committed to delivering its first cloud implementation, or perhaps even when cloud has been in place for a while. The trick is to avoid serious issues like these surfacing. They will take time to put right, cost more money, and could well result in a loss of faith in the cloud concept throughout the organisation.

A strategy review is therefore essential. This isn’t just about regular, scheduled reviews as part of the board’s risk management agenda – something which should happen as a matter of course. This refers to what Accenture’s Stewart-Clark called «regular light-touch reviews», which «take into account changes in each of the domains as well as the interconnects between them».

Your cloud strategy will almost certainly need a makeover if a new business unit is created or acquired, or if one is divested, if there is regulatory or compliance change, and if the organisation considers new business alliances or a move into new territories. It’s also worth keeping an eye on developments in cloud technology and service offers and considering key developments as part of the review process.

‘No action’ is a valid outcome

Importantly, regular, light touch reviews might frequently result in no action being taken at all. If everything is functioning as required and the horizon looks smooth and untroubled, then the appropriate response could well be ‘no action necessary at this time’. This is no different to any other business review that the organisation’s board will undertake as a regular part of its work.

The goal is avoiding serious issues like the three signs of a faltering cloud strategy. Regular review with an eye on the horizon is the way to a smoothly developing cloud strategy rather than coming up against the need for a radical makeover.

Virtualisation firm Citrix has built on its partnership with Microsoft to launch a desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) tool that aims to give employees access to a virtual desktop loaded with Windows-based apps.

Citrix Managed Desktops, jointly built with Citrix and Microsoft technology exclusively on the Azure public cloud platform, offers remote Windows sessions managed by Citrix. Moreover, the project aims to cut down the proximity between users and their data by tapping into Azure cloud data centres.

«While Citrix provides a broad range of powerful, flexible virtual app and desktop solutions, Citrix Managed Desktops is all about simplicity and speed of delivery,» said Citrix product manager Kireeti Valicherla.

«This cloud-hosted solution is a turnkey service that enables any organization with any level of IT expertise to quickly deliver Windows-based applications and desktops to their workforce.

«Architected as a one-stop, pay-as-you-go service, it includes everything you need to securely deliver desktops and applications to any device from the cloud with simplicity.»

The DaaS platform, announced at the company’s annual Synergy conference, also comes in addition to day-one support for the widely-touted Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) platform that Microsoft has been teasing for several months.

Citrix’s own DaaS tool will be based on a Windows Server desktop ahead of Microsoft’s WVD release in order to give a seamless transition to customers. This innovation is described as the only license on the market where businesses can host Windows 10 desktops on the public cloud.

Microsoft’s corporate vice president for enterprise experiences and management Brad Anderson and Citrix’s chief product officer PJ Hough walked conference delegates through the service in an on-stage demonstration.

They showed audience members how Citrix Managed Desktops allows IT administrators to create a new catalogue, assign users, select an Azure region, pick out a Windows 10 image, add custom applications to it, and then invite users to the newly-created virtual desktops.

Meanwhile, the DaaS platform is being primed to appeal to Citrix’s channel business, with the service being built for partners to repackage and deliver to their own customers.

«We know that’s going to be really important,» Hough added. «We’ve also thought about contingent workers, mergers and acquisitions, so we expect enterprises to receive a mixture of traditional apps and desktops and Citrix Managed Desktops.»