The UK Cloud Summit is now in its third year. What made Ingram Micro put the event on in the first place and how has the event itself evolved in that time?

The UK Cloud Summit 2019 is the perfect opportunity to showcase the great advancements our partners in cloud solutions have made over the past year – which we’re excited to recognise at our Gala Awards ceremony – and to acknowledge the evolving technologies that will take us into the future of cloud.

To those that joined us last year at The Institution of Engineering and Technology in London, we thank you for being part of an exciting year for us and invite you to join us again in 2019 for an even bigger event and year.

The UK Cloud Summit 2019 promises to be a game-changing event in the UK, as we bring together over 300 executives, industry disruptors and fellow thought leaders. You can find more information and sign up here. 

Why should people attend this year’s event?

This year’s Cloud Summit will be over two days and brings together both our cloud and advanced solutions partners to discover new, disruptive technologies fueled by the cloud (Infinite Possibilities), explore ways that they can benefit from category-leading cloud solutions (Infinite Ecosystems), and grasp the challenges of transforming their business in the digital economy (Infinite Growth).

By attending, people will: 

• Gain actionable tactics from practical learning sessions
• Network and idea share with top industry experts
• Discover the latest cloud solutions
• Hear world-class speakers explore the infinite possibilities of cloud
• Learn how to streamline cutting edge SaaS, IaaS and IoT technology
• Discover how CloudBlue accelerates XaaS monetisation

What industry trends and changes have you witnessed in the same period?

With the surge of AI, IoT, Big Data and other emerging technologies, we are ensuring that we not only have the people with the right expertise, but also the capability to deploy these solutions through our platforms. Ingram Micro Professional Services is then there to support partners in their conversations with end-users and to enable them to deliver these solutions from start to finish.

Conversely, what opportunities have you witnessed/harnessed? Either as a company or in terms of your customers?

IaaS continues to explode. We’ve seen our Azure Accelerate Elite partners drive growth of over 270% YoY, however, we see SaaS also continuing to accelerate.

Cyber Security isn’t something new however more and more clients are looking at this as a key priority, whether it’s securing the cloud or simply securing business. Ingram has invested heavily in this area to transform how we bring value to channel (VAD to Solution Provider).

Ingram Micro Services is a key focus area for us and our partners. Whether that be Professional or Managed Services or other services such as Financial. All of which continue to grow across our partner base.

Can you provide a bit more detail for those not familiar with your company?

Ingram Micro Cloud (IMC), a division of Ingram Micro UK Ltd, was established in 2014 to help its partners realise their share of the cloud market opportunity. Ingram Micro Cloud is a master cloud service provider (mCSP), offers channel partners and enterprises access to the leading global Cloud commerce platform, expertise, solutions and enabling programmes that empower organisations to realise their potential in the digital economy.

Ingram Micro Cloud is the leading Cloud aggregator in the UK and powered by CloudBlue, a foundational cloud software and services platform destined to transcend every aspect of the new, as-a-service economy.

What does cloud mean to you and what benefits do you think it brings to businesses?

I heard an expression which for me sums up the cloud well. Cloud is an experience, not a destination. Initially might sound anti-cloud however it’s about supporting clients on their digital transformation journey. Benefits include enabling clients to win more business, drive differentiation and reduce complexity from daily IT tasks across AI, ML, Big Data and IoT by harnessing the power of the cloud.

Are there any stumbling blocks to success?

Businesses require correct tools, people, industry knowledge, systems and training programs to capitalise on the digitalisation opportunity. This lends itself to an immense challenge for the channel to fulfil yet with the right mCSP partner, solution and business plan it’s possible to embrace the infinite potential of Cloud to infinite reality.

How is your company helping customers address key challenges in these areas and take advantage of opportunities?

We are helping in a number of ways:

1.              Training

Upskilling and training staff is key to ensuring growth in 2019 with fresh and more advanced technology emerging via the channel. While talent can be difficult to obtain with the challenge of a digital skills gap in the UK, current staff can acquire new skills as well as perfecting existing abilities, helping fill these skills shortages.

Making one employee proficient in multiple roles increases their value to the business by enabling them to take on extra tasks with new technologies should they be required to. We provide a number of technically and commercially led training and enablement for our partners across a number of solution areas and cloud categories. Whether a fundamental level or advanced in knowledge, we have a team of experts on hand to help upskill our customers’ businesses.  

2.              IaaS

While many organisations still perceive IaaS as a colossal move from what is considered a ‘traditional IT infrastructure setup’, IaaS is critical to realising the intelligent future of the cloud. Building confidence in selling IaaS, such as Microsoft Azure, and championing the innovation and growth it can bring – without being afraid of new technology – will be important this year and beyond. We’re supporting our partners with key advanced workload packages and plays to help deliver solutions quickly and easily in-market with a host of Solution Architects and consultants. In addition, supporting partners to find new opportunities across IaaS Lifecycle service categories. 

3.              Understanding vertical specialisation

Getting to know your own vertical is something that often gets little attention. It’s not only knowing about the sector, but it’s also knowing the surrounding environment too. Make sure you become an expert in your specialisation while also considering the global and international factors that affect economies and sectors and analyse the impact of customers, competitors and suppliers on that vertical.

Get under the skin of what makes your customers – and their industry – tick. We’ve recently created a series of 8 vertical eBooks to help understand the challenges and opportunities across industries such as manufacturing, finance, retail, media legal, healthcare telecommunications and education.

How do you think the cloud landscape has evolved in the past five years?

With a generation of millennials and centennials being born into a world of digital technology, their positive attitude to the escalation of AI, robotics and automation reflects an understanding of its potential to make working life easier, safer and more productive. Due to their familiarity with cloud-powered applications and collaborative tools, the younger talent is helping to push digital transformation drives of organisations across the world.

What do you think has driven this shift?

Their progressive attitude is proving essential in encouraging employers to embrace the future and ramp up investment in the technologies that can harness the power of AI and robotics and improve the modern workplace by enabling flexible and remote working for all staff.

What other trends and patterns do you see around cloud computing and related technologies?

Adoption of cloud-first strategies, cloud consolidation and Hybrid partnership motion across businesses.

Partner to Partner collaboration across ISVs, MSPs and VARs will help build more robust and commercial solutions which are transforming industries. Focus across IoT, AI and cyber security are where we see the best opportunity. Supporting clients on their digital transformation journey and ensuring complimentary cloud solutions are bolted together is where we see our channel partners succeed.

What technologies will be driving business change and success five years from now and why?

Key tech plays we believe will drive success in five years from now is IoT, AI and cyber security and UCC. These are the areas we see as transforming the cloud sector an opportunity for the channel to maximise.

IoT is empowering businesses to improve customer experience and make better-informed decisions based on connected “things”. AI is much more than just automation of processes and the real opportunity to leverage AI is across the IT environment to improve efficiencies and reduce risk. UCC for us is empowering people to collaborate, regardless of location to accelerate wider relationships.

Do you have anything else to add? 

Ingram Micro is dedicated to making partner transformation simple and by leveraging the Cloud Awesomeness Roadmap which highlights four key stages of partners in their cloud adoption journey we’re striving to bring value to our partners, vendors and clients with practical, business generating initiatives. Across three key unique investments in people, platform and portfolio we’re helping more partners win in the digitalisation era.

If you were to ask me exactly one year go what shape Citrix was in, I’d have answered ‘promising’ at the least. Towards the end of last year’s Synergy conference, analysts noted the cloud computing firm had managed to unify its family of products and business strategy to the point it could really attack the market.

But what a difference a year makes. Since then, Citrix’s share price has fallen and revenues have disappointed, especially when compared to the success of rival firms like VMWare and F5 Networks.

Then there’s the small matter of the massive 6TB data breach the company sustained earlier this year – catastrophic for a company that frequently stresses the importance of security at each conference.

All of this taken together means, in contrast to its outlook 12 months ago, the company finds itself with a point to prove going into its annual Synergy conference, hosted this year in Atlanta, Georgia. We’ll be especially keen to see whether Citrix addresses the data breach head on, or leaves it to mutate into the proverbial elephant haunting every room we float between over the next few days.

But gloom aside, Citrix has a chance to show off its new-look product portfolio after undergoing a major rebrand last year, and we’ll be keen to check in on how its cloud business is performing. Citrix Cloud has been growing gradually, and now accounts for a bigger slice of its business than the same time last year. But we’ll find out whether its adoption rate is growing fast enough for the firm’s own liking.

We should also hear a little more on Citrix’s work with Microsoft in the form of Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) hosted on Microsoft Azure. The two companies went into this a little at Microsoft’s flagship Ignite conference in March, but ahead of its official release later this year, we’re hoping for a few more details next week.

Elsewhere, we will be chatting with a Sapho executive following its acquisition by Citrix for $200 million. We’re hoping to grasp some more details about their relationship in the coming months, and how Sapho’s employee portal will integrate into Citrix’s flagship products, namely the likes of Citrix Workspace.

Finally, with the General Data Protection Regulation’s (GDPR) one-year anniversary landing that same week – it’d be good to get some perspectives from Citrix customers based in the UK and Europe, as well as figures from within the company itself on how the regulations have changed their businesses and approach to data protection.

In 2018 Citrix executives outlined a vision for the ‘future of work’ – a term that essentially comprised an amalgamation of products we’ve seen knocking around in some capacity as far back as 2014. Next week we will discover whether there’s any substance to this vision, or if it’s just a nifty turn-of-phrase.

I’ll be live-tweeting the events and covering the latest news from Citrix Synergy 2019 for both Cloud Pro and our sister site IT Pro next week between 21 – 24 May.

Despite being rivals in the gaming world, Microsoft and Sony have entered into a partnership to work on cloud technology to support game streaming and AI services.

Both companies have signed a memorandum of understanding which will see them jointly work on future cloud services based on Microsoft's Azure infrastructure that will support more "enhanced entertainment experiences", notably centred on streaming content and games.

The partnership is an odd one at first glance, given Microsoft's Xbox division is a direct rival to Sony's PlayStation business. Sony also has an existing game streaming service, PlayStation Now, and Microsoft is poised to launch its own offering with xCloud.

At a base level, Sony could boost its PlayStation Now service with the reach and power of the Azure cloud, while Microsoft could gain another major customer on its world-spanning infrastructure.

But the partnership looks to be more about exploring and developing cloud technologies with Microsoft noting that it will involve "building better development platforms for the content creator community".

Sony's chief executive, Kenichiro Yoshida, acknowledged the rivalry between the two companies, but painted the partnership as one that will be more focused on the exploration and creation of new technologies.

"For many years, Microsoft has been a key business partner for us, though of course the two companies have also been competing in some areas. I believe that our joint development of future cloud solutions will contribute greatly to the advancement of interactive content," said Yoshida. "Additionally, I hope that in the areas of semiconductors and AI, leveraging each company’s cutting-edge technology in a mutually complementary way will lead to the creation of new value for society."

Speaking of semiconductors and AI, the partnership will see the joint development to new intelligent image sensor technology, tapping into Sony's work on image sensors for cameras combined with Microsoft's Azure-based AI technology.

This proposed work will not only involve Microsoft and Sony creating semiconductors and services that can be incorporated into their own products and services, notably cloud and edge computing systems, but will also be aimed at producing products for enterprises to use.

Furthermore, the joint venture will also explore how Microsoft's AI platform and tools can be integrated into Sony's consumer products to create "highly intuitive and user-friendly AI experiences".

By working together both companies could improve their overall gaming, cloud-based service, and smart tech portfolios. And while details of how exactly this will work are vague, it could see the development of new technologies that have an immediate benefit to both companies' consumer customers and yield benefits for their enterprise customers later on down the line.

Microsoft Azure has increased the character limit for passwords in Azure Active Directory from 16 to a massive 256 characters, making brute force hack attempts much more difficult.

It seems to be a hot topic for Azure customers who have been reminding Microsoft of its seemingly unsatisfactorily small limit for passwords.

«Many of you have been reminding us that we still have a 16-character password limit for accounts created in Azure AD,» said Microsoft’s Alex Simons. «While our on-premises Windows AD allows longer passwords and passphrases, we previously didn’t have support for this for cloud user accounts in Azure AD.»

«Today, I am pleased to announce that we have changed this limit, allowing you to set a password with up to 256 characters, including spaces,» he added.

Passwords must still meet three out of the four essential criteria as set out in Microsoft’s policy documentation.

• Lowercase characters
• Uppercase characters
• Numbers (0-9)
• Symbols (@ # $ % ^ & * – _ ! + = [ ] { } | \ : ‘ , . ? / ` ~ » ( ) 😉

While account and password security are of paramount importance to IT users, Microsoft still won’t force you to create an iron-clad password, keeping the minimum allowance at just a mere eight characters.

The difference between an eight-character password and a 256 character one is huge, according to howsecureismypassword.net, a website used to check how long it would take to brute force a password.

We took three different passwords of varying lengths to see how long it would take to crack each of them. First up is ‘Jazzily1’, the minimum character requirement that adheres to three of Azure’s four essential criteria. This would take just one month to crack, according to the website.

A middle ground 137-character password would take 29,511,750,324 octogintillion years (quite a lot) to crack, and the 253-character password we used at the upper limit of Azure’s allowance would take ‘forever’.

Another way to look at hyper-secure passwords is Professor Bill Buchanan’s take on things regarding 128-bit AES keys. He said that in order to break one of these, it would take the energy required to boil every single one of Earth’s oceans 16,384 times just to crack a single key.

In related news, Microsoft recently gained FIDO certification for its Windows 10 authenticator Windows Hello in the upcoming May 2019 upgrade, seemingly in an embryonic first step towards a passwordless Windows.

Windows Hello will use facial recognition, fingerprint scanning and a secure PIN number for more than 800 million Windows 10 devices starting next month – a service with cross-compatibility with other Microsoft services such as Office 365, OneDrive and more.

«Our work with FIDO Alliance, W3C and contributions to FIDO2 standards have been a critical piece of Microsoft’s commitment to a world without passwords,» said principal group program manager with Microsoft Yogesh Mehta.

«No one likes passwords (except hackers),» he added. «People don’t like passwords because we have to remember them. As a result, we often create passwords that are easy to guess – which makes them the first target for hackers trying to access your computer or network at work.»

In the same May update, Microsoft will also stop enforcing its password expiration policies which prompt users to change their passwords every few months.

The company’s logic behind this came from the idea that if users are frequently changing passwords, they will be more inclined to just make small changes or even start writing them down; a big security no-no.

County Hall in London last night played host to the sixth annual UK Cloud Awards, where accolades were awarded in a number of categories to showcase and reward the innovation and success of this country’s cloud industry.

The awards, which are put on by the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) and Cloud Pro, were supported by Platinum sponsors ScienceLogic and CDW, acknowledged and rewarded the best cloud providers, products and projects from the past year.

 “From the standard and sheer number of entries we received for the awards it’s clear that it’s an incredibly exciting time to be in the cloud industry,” said Alex Hilton, CIF’s CEO.

“Having served as a judge every year since we founded the awards, I can say that deciding the winners this year was the toughest one yet, and that making the shortlist is an achievement in itself. However, there can of course only be one winner in each category and a big congratulations is deserved for everyone that took home prizes on the night.”

The expert panel of independent judges was led by head judge Jez Back and despite the overwhelming number of submissions, just 17 were lucky enough to take awards home on the night.

“The UK Cloud Awards received yet another record number of entries this year, with a depth and quality which proves the health and strength of the UK cloud industry,” Back said.

“The judges and I were looking for examples of unrelenting focus on helping to transform the way organisations operate and delivering meaningful outcomes for their clients. I’m pleased to say that our winners delivered on both counts and I’d like to congratulate the finalists and ultimate winners on their achievements and successes.”

 The winners are as follows:

Best in Class

Most Innovative Enterprise Product

Cloe from Densify

Most Innovative SMB Product

GoSimple Tax

Best Cloud Platform Solution

SuiteCloud from Oracle NetSuite

Best Cyber Security Product or Service

OnDMARC from Red Sift

Best Fintech Product or Service

Float

Best AI / ML Enabled Product or Service

Data Science from SnapLogic

Best Data Management Product or Service

Cloud Data Services from Pure Storage

Best Cloud Enabled End User Experience

Dropbox Business from Dropbox

Best Digital Transformation Projects

Public Sector / Third Sector Project

Financial Conduct Authority in partnership with Sopra Steria

Private Sector Enterprise Project

Manchester United in partnership with HCL

Private Sector SMB Project

Media Matters in partnership with Chalkline

DevOps and Functions as a Service Implementation

HeleCloud

Best in Class, Service Providers

Best Cloud Service Provider (CSP)

Workiva

Best Managed Service Provider (MSP)

Unify Communications Ltd

Cloud Migration Partner / Technical Collaboration Project

Ensono at Guinness World Records

Personal Achievement Awards

Cloud Newcomer of the Year

Myles Clarke, Product Manager at Cloud Gateway

Cloud Visionary of the Year

Chris Dunning at TechQuarters

A raffle was held on the night for the UK Cloud Awards’ official charity partner, The Sick Children’s Trust, with prizes donated by Sennheiser and Corona/3 Monkeys Zeno and Dennis Publishing.

Attendees dug deep in their pockets to raise money to support the charity’s efforts in keeping sick children and their families together.

Paul Franklin, group publisher of Channel Pro, Cloud Pro and IT Pro, added: “This year’s UK Cloud Awards was our biggest and best event yet so a huge thanks is owed to our Platinum sponsors CDW and ScienceLogic, and our Award sponsors, Fujitsu, Navisite, TechData and Veritas.

“We established the UK Cloud Awards to champion excellence and highlight the cloud innovation and leadership taking place in the UK, but they wouldn’t be possible without the backing of the industry. We fully expect to repeat the success of this year’s awards in 2020, so watch this space!”

A misconfigured Bluetooth pairing protocol in Google’s Titan security keys could allow attackers to bypass encryption and hijack user accounts, the firm has revealed.

Google has said it will start offering replacements of what it once called the «strongest, most phishing resistant method of two-step verification (2SV) on the market today», following the discovery of the flaw which exposes account information to those within Bluetooth range.

The company has assured customers that the keys, the technology for which was first launched in 2017, would still do their job and provide multi-factor authentication built to a FIDO-standard that’s stronger than regular 2SV, but that the $50 cost would be waived if they wanted a replacement unit.

«This bug affects Bluetooth pairing only, so non-Bluetooth security keys are not affected,» said Christiaan Brand, product manager, Google Cloud. «Current users of Bluetooth Titan Security Keys should continue to use their existing keys while waiting for a replacement, since security keys provide the strongest protection against phishing.»

When attempting an account sign-in, a Titan user is required to press a button on the Bluetooth key to authenticate the log-in attempt. It was discovered that immediately after this button press, attackers have a narrow window to connect their own device to the security key, which could result in the attacker logging into the user’s account from their device, provided they already had said user’s email and password.

Titan keys work by acting as another authentication step and are linked with a user’s device, such as a phone or laptop, via a Bluetooth connection. A flaw in this connection means that an attacker could trick the phone or laptop into thinking the attacker’s own device is the security key. If this is achieved, the attacker could bypass the authentication process and start to make changes to the user’s device by mimicking an external keyboard and mouse.

It could be argued that a situation where an attacker that has your account credentials, knows you use a Titan key and is within 30m of your location would be unlikely to occur, but it’s still serious enough to prompt Google into taking action by replacing all affected keys. Others are less sceptical, though.

«The fact you must be within 30 feet of the security key isn’t an issue, especially when you consider how fast compiled and scripted software can run,» said Mark Miller, director of enterprise security support at Venafi. «In addition, lots of people conduct business in public places like coffee shops and airports, so connecting a dongle to a device isn’t that farfetched.»

«From a technology perspective, these keys are amazing; they make security a lot easier to consume», he added. «However, there is no such thing as perfect technology, so I’m glad Google is taking the initiative and recalling these keys.»

Most recently, Google announced that a new form of its Titan Security keys would be made available to all Android phones running Android 7.0 or later, with its line of Pixel phones getting a slightly more secure version too.

The phone as a security key (PaaSK) standard was announced at Google Cloud next 2019 and instead of having an external Titan Security key to hand, all that would be required is to unlock your Google account-linked Android device and press a button to approve the log-in in real time.

The Titan key was originally introduced to combat phishing attempts that exploited vulnerable 2SV methods such as confirmation codes delivered by texts – a method of communication that can be hijacked with relative ease.

In other Google news, a privacy flaw was found in Google Pay’s settings on Wednesday. Optional settings regarding a user’s ability to share their creditworthiness, personal information or Google Pay account information were hidden behind a special URL and not directly through the Google Pay account settings page.

Google has since attributed this error to fault left over from an update and has now fixed it so that the three privacy settings now appear as normal.