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A London-based private equity fund manager that advises RBS asset managers overcame the IT nightmares associated with an office move by migrating its entire in-house IT infrastructure to the cloud.

SOF Investments did so primarily to minimise downtime, avoid business loss and make the move seamless.

But the cloud project, which was completed in two weeks, has yielded other benefits for the company, such as overcoming legacy IT challenges, boosting productivity and saving thousands of pounds.

The financial services firm’s IT team made the decision to refresh its legacy technology infrastructure with a cloud-based service when the business was looking for a new IT solution that could support the business after it moved away from its parent company, Special Opportunities Fund.

“As we began to look at moving offices, we soon realised that by moving away from our parent company, we would be without its IT system and support, and we would have to do something new,” said Ian Gascoigne, partner at SOF Investments.

“This prompted a number of questions, including what to do with the present data? Where should we house it, and what systems would be required for maximum efficiency at the new office?”

SOF's management had heard a lot about cloud computing services and their benefits, such as agility, scalability, flexibility and savings on capital expenditure, said Gascoigne.

The IT team decided to move to the cloud because the on-premises systems were causing inefficiencies. “There were a number of day-to-day problems, especially with regard to version controls, and limited access,” he said. The legacy system meant collaboration on documents was difficult, and IT had no control over the infrastructure because it was a shared system.

So SOF’s IT team approached IT consultancy TechQuarters, a Microsoft cloud specialist.

“We got in touch with TechQuarters because of its status as the 2013 Microsoft Cloud Partner of the Year,” said Gascoigne.

The IT team decided to adopt a variety of Microsoft cloud services based on advice from TechQuarters. It chose Microsoft because the “price was right”, said Gascoigne.

First, it moved email from an on-premises system to Office 365 and collaboration data to SharePoint. It also decided to set up a domain controller to manage the new network in Azure, while providing a repository for legacy data.

Microsoft Office 365 suite is a cloud-hosted, online version of the traditional installed version of Microsoft Office software. It is subscription-based and includes Office, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online and Microsoft Office Web Apps.

TechQuarters began by auditing the data and systems that SOF was using on its legacy network. “It became apparent that most of the day-to-day data could be moved to SharePoint Online, part of Office 365, so they could collaborate on documents with version control,” said Chris Dunning, founder of TechQuarters.

The IT consultant then migrated SOF’s entire on-premises email system to Exchange online, giving each employee a 50GB mailbox, increasing email capacity and accessibility.

TechQuarters then migrated SOF Investments staff to Office 365 before they moved offices.

The next step was to implement a Windows Azure domain controller server that would give SOF networking control, legacy data storage and flexible access from any location.

Once the migration was complete and the cloud systems were up and running on the solution in the firm's old offices, the IT team was confident it could make the move to the new premises seamlessly, said Gascoigne.

As part of the IT refresh and to support the cloud platform, SOF also decided to install a new switch and firewall at the new offices and roll out new desktops, laptops, devices and printers.

The whole migration took just two weeks and the new cloud-based systems were in place before the moving day. “This meant that no business productivity was lost,” said Gascoigne. “We kept the business up and running, with minimal impact on day-to-day activity.”

The changes brought other unexpected benefits, such as improvements in staff productivity, with the cloud infrastructure giving employees access to business data any time, anywhere.

Because cloud-hosted IT means SOF employees can work from anywhere, whenever someone is out of the office for the day, they can still get their work done on time, said Gascoigne.

Before the migration, essential tasks, such as adding a new user, took time and planning, but with the Microsoft cloud solution, this can be done with the click of a button, according to the IT team. This has allowed SOF staff to focus on doing business, rather than contacting IT support staff to solve technical issues.

Most importantly, the IT team can now have complete control over the infrastructure. Previously, SOF's infrastructure was managed by its parent company, leaving it with little control. “The new infrastructure has restored control back to SOF, which means we can tailor the system to our own needs,” said Gascoigne.

Because the system can be managed remotely, a lot of maintenance has been outsourced to TechQuarters.

SOF has also saved £7,000 in IT costs by using cloud services such as Office 365. Not only did its electricity bill shrink because it no longer has to power an on-premise database, but it also saved on the costs of installing on-premise hardware and software.

“It was critical to find a network solution that could offer the data security, business continuity and disaster recovery that are essential to a regulated financial services business, while maintaining flexibility and cost-efficiency,” said Gascoigne.

The cloud gave SOF the opportunity to achieve enterprise-level storage and flexible-working functionality without needing significant capital expenditure on servers, he added.

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HP posted revenue of $27.6bn for Q3 2014, driven by growth in commercial PCs and the company’s x86 industry standard service business.

In a transcript of the earnings call on the SeekingAlpha financial site, HP CEO Meg Whitman said: "In personal systems, we had an excellent performance, with revenue up 12% from the prior year period. In industry standard servers, we saw 9% growth from the prior year period, which represents our fourth consecutive quarter of revenue growth."

HP’s converged storage grew by 9% while traditional storage declined by 14%. Overall storage revenue fell by 4% year-on-year. "3PAR returned to double-digit growth, and we continue to gain share in the mid-range," said Whitman.

Revenue in networking products grew 4% and Whitman added: "We  saw good growth in switching, where we once again outperformed Cisco."

In its services business, outsourcing revenue was $3.5bn, down 8% year-on-year, while applications and business services revenue was $2.1bn, down 4%.

Whitman also discussed HP's public cloud offering. “By the end of October, we expect to deliver commercial versions of HP Helion OpenStack and the HP Helion Development platform, which will help enterprise customers build and deploy OpenStack-based clouds,” she said.

The  HP Helion Network, announced in June, is a global public cloud platform for the enterprise supported by AT&T, British Telecom, Intel, Synapsis and Hong Kong Telecom.

Commenting on the results, analyst firm TBR said: "We believe HP is taking the necessary steps towards performance improvements over the long term. We anticipate HP Services will return to more stable and consistent revenue growth in 2016 as Helion becomes more widely adopted and HP continues to make R&D investments in growing areas of technology – cloud, analytics, security and mobility."

Whitman also discussed new areas of research at HP. "Martin Fink has focused the HP lab researchers on memristors, photonics and a new operating system at the heart of this once-in-a-generation project," she said. "I believe we are clearly demonstrating what I said many times before, that innovation is alive and well at HP. Over the next several months, you can expect to see the introduction of game-changing products in personal systems, servers, cloud and printing, that are going to bring some real excitement to these markets."

The company has benefited from the end of support of Windows XP to drive the replacement of PCs. HP expects server growth to be impacted positively by the end of support of Windows Server 2003 in July 2015.

In the transcript of the earnings call, HP CFO Cathy Lesiak said: "We think the Windows Server 2003 upgrade is an opportunity for us. There is a significant number of servers in the installed base and they are going to have to upgrade. So there is some similarity between the XP upgrade and the server upgrade, and so we’re following the same programme from a marketing perspective."

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Security experts at the IEEE Center for Secure Design (CSD) have published a report on the top 10 software security design flaws.

The report is based on real-world data collected at the world’s top technology companies and includes information on techniques to avoid the most significant software security design flaws.

According to the IEEE, practical advice ranges from encouraging the correct use of applied cryptography to validating each individual bit of data.

The CSD is part of a cyber-security initiative launched in 2014 by the IEEE Computer Society, an association for computing professionals.

The broader initiative is aimed at escalating the IEEE’s involvement in the field of cyber security.

The CSD was set up to shift some of the focus in security from finding bugs to identifying common design flaws in the hope that software architects can learn from others’ mistakes.

Its main aims are to provide guidance on recognising software system designs that are likely to be vulnerable to compromise, and on designing and building software systems with strong, identifiable security properties.

CSD founding members include Cigital, EMC, Harvard University, HP, Intel/McAfee, RSA and Twitter.

Its members believe proper security design has been the Achilles’ heel of security engineering for decades.

“The CSD will play a critical role in refocusing software security and security engineering on the most challenging open problem in security,” said Bob Lord, chief security officer at Twitter.

“By getting past the myopic focus on implementation bugs in code and talking about security design, the CSD does even the most advanced companies in the space a huge service.”

Gary McGraw, chief technology officer at Cigital and author of the book Software Security, said bugs and flaws are two very different types of security defect.

 “We believe there has been quite a bit more focus on common bugs than there has been on secure design and the avoidance of flaws, which is worrying because design flaws account for 50% of software security issues,” he said.

McGraw said the CSD had provided the opportunity for its members to refocus, gather real data, and share the results with the world.

The report contains a list of recommendations drawn from a workshop to help developers avoid the top security design flaws. Each technique is described in detail in the report.

Summary of recommendations:

Earn or give, but never assume, trustUse an authentication mechanism that cannot be bypassed or tampered withAuthorise after you authenticateStrictly separate data and control instructions, and never process control instructions received from untrusted sourcesDefine an approach that ensures all data is explicitly validatedUse cryptography correctlyIdentify sensitive data and how it should be handledAlways consider the usersUnderstand how integrating external components changes your attack surfaceBe flexible when considering future changes to objects and actor
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A leading developer of the open- source Tor browser for anonymous web surfing claims some UK and US spies are helping fix flaws exploited by state intelligence agencies.

GCHQ and NSA members regularly leak details of flaws found in the software to help users remain anonymous, says Andrew Lewman, executive director of the Tor Project, which maintains the code.

"There are plenty of people in both organisations who can anonymously leak data to us,” he told the BBC in an interview.

Internet users have increasingly sought ways to browse anonymously in the wake of revelations about spy agency internet surveillance by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The Tor Project claims its browser has been downloaded 150 million times in the past year, and that it currently supports about 2.5 million users a day.

Tor is typically used by journalists, activists, whistleblowers, business professionals and security-conscious individuals. It is also used by the military, government and law enforcement personnel.

But those spy agencies are now targeting Tor to undermine its protections on the assumption that anyone wanting to be anonymous must have something to hide.

Tor users are advised to take further measures to protect their privacy because although the browser can hide traffic within the network using multiple hops and encrypted tunnels, the end points can be observed. 

Lewman said the Tor Project regularly receives anonymous tips about bugs and design issues that could be used to compromise the service, which he believes are from security agency sources.

The assumption is based on the fact that no one outside spy agencies is likely to have the time and expertise to examine the Tor code closely enough to find “super subtle bugs” that could be used to compromise it.

Lewman believes that while spy agencies are trying to break Tor, some people within these organisations are trying to preserve it, either because they rely on it or because they disagree with spying on UK and US citizens.

But despite the legitimate uses of Tor, the software has also been employed for various criminal activities, including illegal drug sales, malware hosting, money laundering and illegal pornography.

In the light of this fact, the Tor Project claims it co-operates with law enforcement to “help understand how Tor works” to aid investigations.

In October 2013, the UK’s newly launched National Crime Agency (NCA) said criminals could not hide on the hidden internet, but legitimate business users of the Tor browser were safe.

The NCA vowed to pursue criminal users of the hidden internet – known as the deep web or dark web after the arrest of four UK men in connection with the Silk Road illegal online drugs market.

Andy Archibald, deputy director of the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU), said the investigation will provide further insights into how criminals use the hidden internet.

He said Tor represents a challenge to law enforcement around the world, but with Silk Road, the NCA has proved it can infiltrate that environment.

However, Archibald said the NCA recognises the benefits of communicating anonymously online, and those engaging in legitimate business using Tor need not worry.

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Server shipments grew marginally in the second quarter of 2014 – the first rise in nearly three years. Gartner’s server report for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) showed 0.8% growth in shipments for the quarter following falls in the 11 previous quarters.

Server revenue also grew for the second consecutive quarter of 2014 to touch $3.2bn, a 3.8% year-on-year increase after 10 consecutive quarters of revenue decline.

“The second quarter of 2014 marks a key milestone in the server market for many suppliers, as both shipments and revenue grew for the first time since this period in 2011,” said Errol Rasit, research director at Gartner.

But he warned: “Despite the steady improvement in the server market, these positive results highlight the end of a slump, rather than a return to growth. Server providers must continue to ensure that a focus on growth remains a top priority.”

Among the server suppliers, HP led the pack with 7.3% year-on-year growth to achieve a 34.7% server revenue share for Q2 2014.

IBM recorded the second-highest market share, but saw its server revenue shrink by 14.9% for the second quarter of 2014. All other server suppliers, including Dell, Oracle and Fujitsu, saw their server revenues rise in the second quarter.

Third-placed Dell’s recent momentum continued, with its revenue for the quarter up 13.5% and its shipments up 5.5%.

HP’s 7.3% growth is a strong result given its shipment decline of 5.2%, said Gartner. Although the EMEA market does not enjoy the same hyper-scale demand as North America, HP was able to benefit from strong multi-node server sales to boost its growth, the analyst added.

Second-ranked IBM recorded single-digit x86 growth, despite announcing the divestment of this business, but the company’s top-level result was hit by a cyclical low point in mainframe sales and ongoing weakness in its RISC systems business, said Rasit.

“Despite top- line positivity, mixed supplier and regional results during the second quarter highlight the ongoing challenges the server market faces in EMEA,” he added. “Demand is positive, but server customers are increasingly discerning regarding technology choice and cost. These two opposing factors could limit server market growth in 2014, although we expect continued improvement in the second half of the year.”

From a regional perspective, only Eastern Europe saw revenue and shipment declines, of 1.6% and 5.6% respectively. Server revenue and shipments in the Middle East and Africa region grew by 2.5% and 6%, respectively, while Western Europe saw revenue rise by 4.8% and shipments by 1.3%.

In the second quarter of 2014, x86 server revenue increased by 12.7% in EMEA, RISC/Itanium Unix revenue declined 23.6% and “other CPU” revenue fell by 17.8%, Gartner reported.

“It is not surprising to see the x86 segment driving growth in EMEA,” said Rasit. “However, double-digit declines in the RISC and Itanium Unix segments were weaker than expected, highlighting ongoing instability.”

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Virtualisation and cloud provider VMware has rebranded its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering vCloud Hybrid Service (vCHS) – popularly referred to as “vCheese” – to VMware vCloud Air.

The platform, built on VMware hypervisor vSphere, will remain the same IaaS hybrid cloud it has always been, but the name change illustrates VMware’s commitment to delivering value-added as-a-service systems, according to Geoffrey Waters, vice-president for channel partners at VMware.

The rebrand comes ahead of VMware’s annual virtualisation and cloud conference, VMworld 2014.

Launched in 2013, VMware vCHS is an IaaS offering featuring three cloud services – dedicated cloud, virtual-private cloud and disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS). It allows customers to extend applications, networking, management, operations and tools, over on and off-premise environments.

The hybrid service is aimed at enterprises' large cloud projects with resource-intensive workloads and provides 120GB of vRAM, 30GHz of vCPU and 6TB of storage. It also allocates a 50Mbps network by default and can burst up to 1Gbps during peak demand.

“We continue to see tremendous momentum for vCloud Air, as more and more businesses look to capitalise on the undeniable operational and economic benefits of hybrid cloud,” said Bill Fathers, executive vice-president and general manager of the hybrid cloud services business unit at VMware.

A study earlier in 2014, on VMware’s UK customers, found 65% of the respondents said hybrid cloud could help meet business demands more quickly. Another 81% said they needed a system that makes their public cloud as easy to manage as their own infrastructure.

However, commenting on the rebrand on Twitter, Gartner analyst Kyle Hilgendorf said: “It’s just a name, but clearly vCHS was messy, will vCloud Air resonate more?”

VMware launched vCHS in Europe in February 2014. Since its launch in the UK, more than 800 individuals at partner organisations have been accredited in Europe, according to the company. In July 2014, VMware opened its second UK datacentre in London’s Chessington to expand vCHS in Europe.

“Hybrid cloud is, in many respects, the most important part of our strategy,” said VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger, at the time of its launch in London.

Fathers said vCHS was formulated based on customer feedback that suggested third-party clouds were proprietary, hard to migrate to and disengage from, and eroded customer investments in skills and technology.

In addition to rebranding vCHS, VMware has also launched vCloud Air Network, the extension of its channel partner programme – VMware Service Provider Program (VSPP) – with more cloud service options.

“VCloud Air Network represents another key element of our cloud strategy – enabling customer choice and flexibility to find the ideal, local cloud service based on industry-leading VMware technology,” Fathers said.

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