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CIO credibility on the line in the
boardroomchief executives want to invest in it but see cio role
in a technical not strategic capacity page 4
Shared IT services save millionspooled it resources offer route
for public sector cios to cut costs page 5
Cloud-scaled database managementMicrosoft catches up with coMpetitors
with the release of sQl server 2012 page 14
the week onlineHighlights from
premium content
Oracle sues Google for $1bn over Android OS
Apple criticised for slow response to Flashback Trojan
Scott Thompson restructures Yahoo
Apple takes novel approach to killing Flashback Trojan
HP losing grip of EDS’s Ministry of Defence contract
Schools must replace ICT lessons with business IT
Chant slams CIOs ‘hiding behind comfort blanket’
Denise McDonagh takes over G-Cloud
The top seven mistakes IT executives make
HMRC saves £50m with SME IE6 upgrade contract
Get the latest it news via rSS feed computerweekly.com/rSSFeeds.htm
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> CW500: HMRC CIO Phil Pavitt on IT transformationHM Revenue & Customs CIO Phil Pavitt introduced a strategy to reduce the IT budget by £161m – a target he is well on the way to achieving. In this CW500 video, Pavitt talks to Computer Weekly editor in chief Bryan Glick about HMRC’s IT Transformation Programme and the benefits it is delivering for UK taxpayers.
opinion bloGS
> Adrian Bridgwater: Hybrid cloud’s big question: will it blend?California-based Eucalyptus Systems has coined a new term to describe part of the developer’s imperative to now help move and migrate (some) cloud computing-driven applications from public cloud infrastructures to new hybrid models. “Blending Clouds” is the firm’s take on emerging usage patterns and the architectural principals behind this approach.
> Philip Virgo: Is EURIM about to become the Digital Single Market champion?The draft Data Protection Regulation contains “necessary ambiguities” in order to achieve agreement on “harmonisation”. Those ambiguities create yet more legal and regulatory uncertainty confusion of the type that make it easier to organise cross-border transactions via services based in the USA. The consequences get in the way of the Digital Single Market.
> Kayleigh Bateman: Dear Mr Zuckerberg... where are all the women?Facebook’s all-male board of directors has been the recent target of women’s group Ultraviolet, which recently launched an anti-sexism campaign against the social media giant. The group, which describes itself as “a new women’s group fighting to expand women’s rights and combat sexism” is pressuring Facebook to place at least one woman on its board of directors before its IPO.
> Mark Ballard: Proprietary lobby triumphs in first open standards showdownSoftware patent heavyweights piled into the first public meeting of the Cabinet Office consultation on open standards on 4 April, conquering the meeting ballot with a resounding call to scrap the government’s policy on open standards. Open source and open standards campaigners complained they hadn’t been invited to the roundtable event.
photo Story
> Test drive: SQL Server 2012Tim Anderson looks at the enterprise features in Microsoft’s latest relational database management server.
> Transforming IT at HMRCHMRC CIO Phil Pavitt talked to the CW500 club about IT transformation, take a look at his slides here.
> BATS software bug hits businessA software glitch hit the market debut of BATS Global Markets, leading the company to completely withdraw its initial public offering of shares – an extremely rare and embarrassing event. The software bug that hit BATS is just one example of public-facing glitches and outages that negatively impact millions of customers and brand confidence.
> The implications of identity assurance for public servicesThe government’s approach to identity should be based on a trust framework in which the citizen will be able to choose their identity provider from an open and competitive marketplace. In return, government organisations will be mandated to accept assurances of identity from appropriately accredited providers.
> Making the cloud work for UK enterprisesCloud computing offers businesses a revolutionary model of pay-as-you-go, on-demand IT services, helping organisations meet growing and unpredictable capacity and performance needs. Discover how IT leaders can weigh the risks and benefits of cloud computing, and take steps to engage a reliable and secure cloud services provider in this exclusive resource. Access a practical six-point plan that helps you easily migrate to the cloud.
> Special report on IBMIBM is transforming its business to take advantage of shifts in the way technology is used. Strong globalisation is propelled by a faster flow of information, making it easier for businesses to collaborate. The computerisation of everything from kitchen appliances to power lines is making the planet smarter. And customers seek to innovate more than ever before with technology.
> Accelerate time to revenue with infrastructure test optimisationNetwork infrastructure is the foundation for all applications and services, even in virtualised and cloud computing environments. Today’s businesses rely on that infrastructure in some way for nearly every business objective they have. This creates the need for the entire network infrastructure to have high levels of performance, availability, scalability and security.
2 | 24-30 APRIl 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com
the week in IT
3 | 24-30 April 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com
IT servIces & ouTsourcIng
Home Office IT director Denise McDonagh takes over G-CloudHome Office IT director Denise McDonagh is to take over the govern-ment’s G-Cloud programme when current incumbent Chris Chant retires. McDonagh will combine the two roles at the end of April, ready for the next release of the CloudStore online cloud services catalogue launched by Chant in February. McDonagh is seen as a reformer in Whitehall IT and is likely to pursue a similar drive as her predecessor.
BusIness applIcaTIons
HP losing grip of EDS’s Ministry of Defence contractHP’s grip on a flagship Ministry of Defence deal (MoD) could be weak-ening after rival CSC took over the pay and pensions administration services of the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA). The SPVA contract is part of the Defence Infor-mation Infrastructure (DII) deal that EDS, since acquired by HP, has held since 2005. The overall DII deal is worth about £1bn a year and includes a wide range of services, including training for military personnel.
operaTIng sysTems sofTware
Microsoft beats analyst Q3 estimates with $17.41bn revenuesMicrosoft has reported $17.41bn in revenue for the third quarter of its fiscal year, up 7% on the previous year and beating analyst estimates of $17.16bn. According to the software firm, this is a record for third-quarter revenue, up 6% from the same pe-riod last year. Operating income was up 12% to $6.37bn.
DaTaBase sofTware
Financial companies leading race to digitisationFinancial services companies are significantly ahead of other sectors of the economy in their take-up of digi-tal technology, according to research from Booz&Co. Banks and insurance companies are investing heavily in big data analytics, mobile payments, and electronic trading and e-com-merce systems, to digitise virtually every aspect of retail banking.
moBIle apps & sofTware
Nokia loses €3bn as Windows Phone partnership strugglesNokia has reported a €3bn loss due to what it describes as greater than expected competitive challenges and seasonality. Its Q1 2012 sales after tax was €7.4bn compared to €10.4bn for the same quarter in 2011. The troubled phone maker said the losses were primarily due to charges related to restructuring activities.
prIvacy & DaTa proTecTIon
GCHQ releases Alan Turing code-breaking papersGovernment intelligence agency GCHQ has released two 70-year-old papers by Alan Turing on the theory of code breaking. Turing is best known as the father of modern com-puter science and his work at Bletch-ley Park on the Turing-Welchman Bombe to mechanise the process of breaking the German Enigma cipher. The papers discuss mathematical ap-proaches to code breaking.
IT TechnIcal skIlls
IT skills shortage a global issue says recruitment firm HaysA lack of IT talent is a global issue, according to recruitment group Hays Information Technology. The recruit-ment specialist has compiled a list of top 10 skills that are lacking globally, with IT pinpointed as one of the top “hard skills” in demand. Hays said candidates with knowledge of Java, .Net and C++, as well as IT skills specific to individual industries, are particularly hard to come by.
clouD compuTIng servIces
Banks and SAP collaborate on cloud platformCitibank and the Royal Bank of Scot-land are working with SAP to de-velop a cloud platform that will en-able businesses to link their systems directly to their banks. SAP’s busi-ness software expertise and cloud technology will harness the business expertise of the banks as well as their global networks to enable businesses to integrate ERP and finance systems directly to banks.
smarTphone Technology
Mobile e-commerce soars 254% in the UKThe number of customers using smartphones to make purchases has soared by 254% since March 2011, according to research for the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales index. Mo-bile retail has so far averaged 300% year-on-year growth for the first quar-ter of 2012. However, the conversion rate of shoppers that visit a retailer’s site via a mobile device and make a purchase remains low at 0.7%.
IT for fInancIal servIces
Royal Bank of Scotland CIO Ian Alderton steps downIan Alderton, chief information of-ficer at the corporate division of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), has left the bank this month, Computer Weekly has learned. Since joining the part taxpayer-owned bank in No-vember 2010, Alderton managed its 400-strong corporate banking tech-nology division under a global remit.
Sensor sticker for NFC paymentsBarclaycard is providing contactless payment on mobile phones using a stick-on sensor, which it hopes will familiarise consumers with making contactless payments using near-field communications (NFC) technology.
The company already offers embedded mobile payment technology through a deal with Orange but believes the free card, known as PayTag, will drive the take-up of contactless payments.
Tom Gregory, head of digital payments at Barclaycard, said PayTag will accelerate the take up of mobile payments because of its simplicity.
“The driving force for supercomputers is to stay competitive as a nation”
Hans Werner Meuer, supercomputer Top 500 initiative co-founder
IT harDware
Source: Computer People
IT vacancies in February by sectorSector breakdown of permanent and contract IT vacancies in February 2012
Banking, insurance
and finance
1,528
Retail691
Telecoms514
Media, new media
and creative
445
Public sector
+0.2%
-10.19%
+27.91%
-0.65%
+11.81%
+1.06%
+7.31%
-3.7%
+5.98%
-1.28%
Sector % change on 2011
Permanent Contract
78
95
152
165
194
772
news analysis
Gartner: CEOs want to use IT to boost business growth
4 | 24-30 April 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com
Growth is the number one priority for CEOs surveyed by Gartner, writes Cliff Saran
By more than a two-to-one ratio, CEOs are inclined to increase IT spending this year rather than to reduce
it, according to analyst Gartner.Growth is the number one priority
for the 229 CEOs Gartner surveyed in its CEO Survey 2012. CRM is the technology of choice to help busi-nesses leaders achieve this objective, according to Gartner. The firm urged CIOs to improve IT-related competi-tor intelligence to help the business navigate the difficult economic climate ahead.
Gartner analyst Mark Raskino said the 2:1 ratio reflects IT’s resilience to change. “During the boom we did not see people throwing money at IT, and during the recession, they did not shut down datacentres, but they did close factories.”
CEOs are inclined to increase IT spending this year
IT STraTegy
more online› Gartner: $44bn less spending on IT in 2012
› Gartner BI Summit: Time to get back to basics with analytics
› Business process optimisation and the CIO role converge
CIOs ‘not cut out for the board’Company bosses view CIOs as itinerant technology specialists, rather than candidates for the boardroom, writes Bill Goodwin.
Most CEOs believe CIOs lack what it takes to move on to business roles, according to Gartner’s survey of 229 CEOs worldwide.
The findings will put pressure on CIOs to rethink their roles, to build credibility with business leaders and influence business strategy.
The survey shows that CEOs do not regard CIOs as key contributors to innovation or board-level strategy. Most view CIOs as technical specialists who are more likely to move to another CIO role than a business role.
But, Gartner warned, the CIOs’ lack of credibility with CEOs is likely to damage businesses at a time when digital technology is a key business differentiator. Developments such as the internet of things, will have profound implications for businesses, which will need the input of a CIO into company strategy, said Gartner analyst Mark Raskino.
“As soon as devices start reporting their status, it changes the dynamics of an industry,” he said. “The money companies make starts to come from services as well as the product.”
Without the input of their CIOs into top-level strategy, companies risk missing out on digital technology, he argued.
“When I see the results of the survey, I am not surprised that Kodak went out of business. The people with the technology insights were not close to the top,” he said. “There are going to be a lot more Kodaks.”
Gartner advised CEOs to invest in coaching and mentoring their CIOs, to develop them into more of a business role. “We found CEOs have a high expectation for what technology will bring to their business, this decade and the next. If they believe that, they need good technology leadership,” he said.
And CIOs should switch their focus away from technology to focus on the wider information needs of the business, said Raskino.
“CIOs should start focusing on, and talking about, information. I don’t mean talking about big data and analytics, because those are tools. I am talking about understanding the information set of the firm,” he said.
Growth is slowingHe expects 2012 will be a slower year for growth. “Things might get better, but the gut feeling among business leaders is that Chinese and Indian
growth is slowing. There is a lot more headwind, and this will impact the propensity to increase IT invest-ment,” he said.
“CIOs and CEOs should discuss with each other what new informa-tion would help them manage the business better through uncertain economic times. We know most com-panies have weak management for-malism over information strategy and governance; however, information variety, complexity and volume are rising exponentially. Muddling through without discipline will soon start to leave major companies vul-nerable to new entrant competition.”
The perception that there is a slow-down in growth is reflected in the lat-est Ernst & Young ITEM Club study. The ITEM Club forecasts that UK GDP growth will be 0.4% this year, before rising to 1.5% in 2013 and 2.6% in 2014. According to the Club’s spring forecast, it is now up to UK plc to drive the recovery forward and prevent any relapses.
According to the Gartner report, any paranoia CEOs have about a company such as Google or Amazon coming after their industry one day probably has some validity. “CIOs should spearhead the development of an information strategy for their firms, concentrating, in particular, on new kinds of information that might lead to industry disruptions and transformations,” it said.
Innovative use of ITWhile there are plenty of individual examples of smart use of IT – such as the pay-per-use financing of aircraft engines pioneered by Rolls-Royce – Raskino said CEOs had very few examples of businesses that have changed through the innovative use of IT.
“There are far less case studies than in the 1990s,” he said. This was
the time many traditional businesses first started using IT to improve busi-ness processes and optimise supply chains.
Raskino said CEOs today should be worried about issues such as the demise of Kodak because of digital photography, as it showed how a business that sticks to its core values can fail to adapt to changing business conditions. Kodak not only pio-neered low-cost, convenient film photography, it also invented the world’s first digital camera. He warned, “It is not good enough to make one small part of your com-pany innovative.”
Part of the problem for companies is that they lack true innovation pro-grammes, said Raskino: “The finance director is closest to the CEO on strat-egy. But it is not the CIO or CFO who leads innovation programmes.”
In the Gartner survey, 30% of CEOs said they were primarily responsible for innovation programmes. Other directors, senior management and business unit heads took on some of this responsibility. However, only 4% of CEOs directly mention CIOs, while CFOs were never mentioned, Raskino said.
Under-investment in CIOsIn the survey, most CEOs said their CIOs do not report to them. The rea-sons given for reporting lines to the CFO and COO were things such as cutting the cost of IT or because it is not seen as strategic, Gartner stated in the report. In an age of such digital disruption to business, and when six of the world’s 10 most power-ful brands are technology firms, we are left wondering why the CIO role remains so under-invested, said the analyst. Perhaps it’s because many of today’s CIOs are not perceived as capable of general business leader-ship, Gartner stated (see box).
Raskino blames the industry for hyping IT: “In every airport in the world there are banner adverts for cloud computing.” ■
This is an edited excerpt of the original article. Click here to read the full version online
news analysis
How public sector can save millions with standardised shared IT services
5 | 24-30 April 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com
Government CIOs must be discerning in how they invest to get the best out of shared IT services, writes Kathleen Hall
The prize for public sector savings through shared ser-vices is substantial. Some re-ports estimate it could slash
budgets by hundreds of millions of pounds. With such significant cost reductions to be made, what makes these projects work?
Shared services can take various forms, including projects delivered entirely by third parties; single au-thorities leading arrangements; each organisation taking responsibility for one particular function; or even mu-tualised arrangements.
But despite the sizeable estimated savings, central government’s recent £1.4bn purpose-built shared services centres have failed to achieve value for money, according to a report from the National Audit Office (NAO).
John Collington, the Cabinet Of-fice’s chief procurement officer, is overseeing the government’s next-generation shared services strategy. He said central government is learn-ing from previous mistakes in imple-menting shared services.
“We have taken on board the rec-ommendations of the NAO, over-cus-tomisation being one of the central criticisms,” he said. “We will be look-ing at more standardised solutions.”
This will include creating two in-dependent shared services centres: “This will include the introduction of tier two suppliers,” he said.
Tola Sargeant, analyst at TechMar-ketView, said the uptake of shared services has been disappointing to date, but central government depart-ments are coming under increasing pressure to adopt the model.
“Larger departments may well be able to justify setting up their own shared services offering but smaller entities will increasingly be obliged to tag on to an existing shared servic-es arrangement,” she said.
One major central project is the De-partment for Transport’s £750m deal for a shared services centre expected this year. The centre will provide HR, finance, payroll and procurement services to the DfT and its four agen-cies. The idea is that it will become one of a handful of shared services centres used across government.
But there remain cultural barriers,
“We will be looking at more standardised solutions” John Collingtonchief procurement officer
Government & public sector
more online› Cabinet Office calls for move to shared services model
› London NHS trusts sign £4m shared services deal
› Government’s shared services strategy failing, says NAO
with some departments retaining the uniqueness of their IT, said Sargeant: “There remains work to be done to standardise and simplify corporate processes for finance, HR and pro-curement across government.”
Localised arrangementsOutside central government, shared services are expected to grow faster, with local authorities encouraging other public sector organisations to piggy-back on their back-office and IT outsourcing deals, said Sargent.
Ed Garcez, CIO at Lambeth County Council, is doing exactly that with an ERP shared-services deal set to in-clude six London authorities. This is expected to grow to a total of 10 au-thorities, but Garcez said even more could eventually join Project Athena.
The key will be to take an iterative approach, he said: “The aspiration is to move to shared services to trans-form the ERP performance. Original-ly three authorities committed to the project, and at the time we estimated £12m in savings, but across six local authorities this could rise to £20m.”
The project has a good chance of
success because of the strong com-mitment from all partners, he said.
“The political priority is that we all have resources for front-line services, and things are done collectively.”
Although headcount reduction is a likely consequence, in the long term it could result in more IT jobs, as au-thorities already outsourcing services might choose to buy from a London consortium, once their contracts are up for renewal: “It could lead to a growth in jobs as demand for our shared services increases. We’ve al-ready had approaches from authori-ties outside of London.”
Flexible approachesSarah Burnett, public sector out-sourcing director at consultancy firm NelsonHall, said setting up shared services is complicated because of differing cultural requirements.
“Organisations really need deter-mination to push them through and not let a bigger, dominant partner in another organisation fit requirements to their needs, as opposed to finding a mutual solution. They can often end up with an in-between solution,
rather than making the most of the ef-ficiencies,” she said.
It is not uncommon for organisa-tions to drop out of shared services arrangements before they even start.
“There are certainly economies to be made if organisations get it right. But the arrangement must be flexible instead of being a heavy machine. Rather than starting from scratch with a new service, it may be worth-while for an organisation to join an-other that is successfully running that same service,” she said.
In future, shared services need not necessarily take the form of long-term contracts, said Burnett, but delivered on a utility basis, with more elasticity built in through using cloud services.
“The cloud makes it easier for a more standardised and commod-itised model. They could be more flexible and cheaper through pre-ne-gotiated prices,” she said.
TechMarketView’s Sargeant agrees, adding that a compelling business case is a prerequisite for success, par-ticularly where adoption is not man-dated: “Where shared services pro-jects have succeeded in the past, they’ve had strong leadership with good buy-in from all the organisa-tions involved, including private sec-tor partners.”
Public sector austerity means more organisations will have to team up and share services and systems to save money to protect frontline ser-vices. However, it is crucial arrange-ments are not made in haste. Organi-sations must take time to fully consider the various solutions on offer. But in the current climate, ig-noring the savings available through shared services is not an option. ■
All names, manufacturer names, brand and product designations are subject to special trademark rights and are manufacturer‘s trademarks and/or registered brands of their respective owners. All indications are non-binding. Technical data is subject to change without prior notifi cation.
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news analysis
7 | 24-30 April 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com
Businesses fear shortage of IT-literate school-leavers as budget concerns limit school equipment, writes Karl Flinders
R isk-averse schools must share their experiences of IT if they are to benefit from the opportunities it
offers, according to an expert panel at a recent roundtable discussion held by IT industry body Intellect.
While higher education organisa-tions are harnessing technology to support teaching, schools are cau-tious in investing in IT equipment.
The experts agreed that, while IT should be harnessed by teachers of all subjects, there remain challenges ahead in allaying schools’ anxieties.
Peter Twining, programme director at the Open University’s Vital pro-gramme, said schools are risk-averse
“The iPods personalise learning” Stephen Fahey,education publisher Pearson
education & training
more online› Government scraps ICT curriculum for GCSE
› A-level IT curriculum needs urgent review to prevent skills gap
› Teach cybercrime at GCSE, says Symantec
when it comes to spending their lim-ited budgets and fear the unknown.
“They need good evidence of what works and examples of where it has worked. We need to educate them with really good examples of schools like them that have done it,” he said.
Students’ success storiesThe panel of technology and educa-tion experts gave examples of schools successfully embedding technology across the curriculum.
Stephen Fahey, learning technolo-gies director at education publisher Pearson, cited Essa Academy in Bol-ton, which converted to academy sta-tus three years ago.
The academy’s head of IT provided each student with an iPod Touch: “The iPods have benefits for person-alising student learning,” said Fahey.
The school had become a top per-former, with 100% of students achieving an A* to C grade in GCSE ICT. He said the use of iPods had a di-rect impact on student achievement.
“Students found free GCSE revi-sion podcasts, downloading and lis-tening to them in their spare time,” said Fahey.
“This appeared to be a reason for boys outperforming girls in ICT GCSE, because they could revise without drawing attention to it.”
Michelle Selinger, director of edu-cation practice at Cisco, cited the case of Silverton Primary School in Aus-tralia. Silverton is a multicultural school where English is a second lan-guage for many, but it gets the best re-sults in the state of Victoria.
She said technology is embedded for students: “Interactive white-boards were installed at child height. Students make choices about what technology they use and have a TV and radio studio available to them.”
Twining said that, while technolo-gy is important, schools must change their approach to teaching if they are to fully benefit from it.
“These schools are not succeeding purely because of technology. While this is a facilitator, change in schools and results come from an attitude and a vision for education,” he said.
The case for IT investmentTwining pointed out that more ex-amples like these must be brought to light to encourage schools to embrace technology to support their teaching.
“Schools are typically risk-averse and that is damaging their results. Schools lack evidence that investing in cloud is worth it. Instead they view students having their own de-vice as dangerous and may encourage stealing or bad behaviour,” he said.
Cloud computing is a good exam-ple. It offers schools the opportunity to cut costs and unite into groups to pool resources.
“Cloud computing helps schools reduce the cost of providing the ser-vices they need,” said Selinger.
“It allows students to work across a network of schools – cloud allows freedom and collaborative learning.”
But Twining said schools need to see evidence of what cloud comput-ing had done to benefit others. ■
The business perspectiveAn influential group of UK IT directors is calling on the government to replace ICT education with “IT in business” lessons, writes Cliff Saran.
The Corporate IT Forum’s Education and Skills Commission said it could harm the UK if the now-defunct ICT curriculum is not replaced.
Joanna Poplawska, spokeswoman for the commission, said it is worried the government lacks a grasp of business computing and is more interested in creating the next Facebook or Google, leaving a gap in business IT skills.
“Over 50% of IT professionals work in end-users’ organisations – IT does not necessarily mean working for Microsoft or Google,” she said. “Computing devices and basic programming skills need to be accommodated in education. But we also need experts who can apply IT for business.”
While schools teach business and economics, Poplawska wants to see these correlated with IT to show school children how IT drives business.
David Roberts, director at The Corporate IT Forum, said: “So much of a modern business depends on good IT, but it is not being taught at schools.”
John Harris, chair of The Corporate IT Forum and chief architect and head of IT strategy at pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline, said: “Technology is such an important component of business competitiveness, the UK must provide a workforce with in-depth knowledge of computer science and technical skills, at both a strategic management level and in the form of specialist technicians.
“If we do not, businesses will locate their IT centres elsewhere, where they can get the staff, and we will reduce the number of IT innovators and entrepreneurs produced in the UK.”
The commission is worried schools may provide no ICT education at all, as the subject is non-mandatory, leaving a shortage of IT-literate school-leavers.
Speaking at a recent Intellect event, Kevin McLaughlin, an ICT teacher, said: “Any IT curriculum should recognise all the great work that has been going on throughout schools in the UK, particularly among those innovative IT teachers who have been using things such as animation, blogging, film-making, podcasting, website-building even collaborating through social media and programming.
“So really an IT curriculum in the future has to build on what is already in place, use that as its foundation and ask innovative IT teachers in schools what they think the new curriculum should be.”
Risk-averse schools must be inspired with IT success stories, say experts
interview
Digital overhaul boosts efficiency at UK criminal justice system agencies
8 | 24-30 April 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com
CPS CIO David Jones tells Angelica Mari how his IT streamlining project is transforming six public sector departments
C rown Prosecution Service (CPS) chief information officer David Jones has a lot on. As well as leading a
comprehensive technology revamp at the CPS, there is also an IT-led trans-formation aimed at streamlining and modernising operations across the entire criminal justice system (CJS).
Criminal justice in the UK encom-passes six agencies, with core depart-ments including the police, the courts, the National Offender Man-agement Service, the Youth Justice Board and the CPS itself. These bod-ies are engaged in a project named CJS Efficiency Programme, which undergoes its first review this month.
Jones was appointed director of technology transformation for the CJS project last September, with a brief to reorganise the system’s operations and overhaul the use of digital and video technologies.
The programme was prompted by the realisation that the various agen-cies work towards similar aims and carrying out the work under a single plan would be far more efficient.
“The CJS, up to the door of the court, has been largely digitised and the aim is to be fully digital by April 2013. It is still work in progress but there’s been significant advance-ment,” says Jones.
According to the CIO, the project has been a success in moving the CJS from a paper-based system to a pre-dominantly digital service.
There is a wide range of projects in CJS bodies such as the police, with the aim of modernising key process-es, from taking statements to using CCTV-based evidence and exchang-ing information between forces.
“Nearly all police caseload is being served digitally to the CPS and on-wards to the magistrates’ court, with detailed plans in place to increase to full digital working over the coming months,” Jones says.
With the work on video, the goal is
“Last year we printed around
330 million sheets of paper
– that will go down rapidly”
David Jones
IT leadershIp
to use the technology in CJS in areas such as police-to-court links. This would allow staff to take part in court proceedings via video link and, for cases where physical presence is not mandatory, individuals at remand centres could also attend court ses-sions using video links.
But Jones remains tight-lipped on how much the CJS bodies are invest-ing in video-based technologies: “We are taking an agile approach to this and are not putting huge amounts of money in. We haven’t worked out the full monetary significance but we are testing what appear to be obvious ca-pabilities. We are not talking about a massive investment.”
Strict deadlinesThe initial meeting of ministers, senior government officials and the judiciary that originated the CJS Ef-ficiency Programme in December 2010 set “a very strong guideline” to get the initiative as far as possible by April 2012, says Jones.
Given the number of different CJS agencies and the various technolo-gies and investment cycles governing them, significant progress has been
made, says Jones. For example, 38 of 43 police forces will be interacting in a predominantly digital manner. In-formation exchange standards be-tween the CPS and Magistrates Courts will be assimilated and work on video links is well underway.
About 60% of CPS prosecutors will work on tablet computers by the end of April. Many are already using electronic preparation of evidence for complex cases under an agreement to allow evidence to be presented and shared digitally and coherently across the various agencies.
“We are moving pretty well, but there is still an awful lot to do. We have got to embed the technologies and ensure we don’t slip backwards, which happens too often in change programmes – once it’s over, people retrench too quickly and we are not allowing that to happen,” says Jones.
“We have gone as fast as we possi-bly could and will find out whether that is good enough for those who set the targets when they take a review towards the end of April.
“But I would hope they would look fondly upon us and not be too harsh about what still needs to be
done. But I am not underestimating that we have to press to ensure that we finish this job off.”
He says “all of the chunky pro-jects” should be concluded in a year.
Tablets of testimonyMore than 1,700 tablet computers have been provided to prosecutors so far, under a programme carried out by supplier Logica. The plan is to roll out 3,500 HP tablets running Adobe software by the end of May. The move will cost the CPS about £4m.
“The tablet roll out will enable court personnel to work in a remote fashion, meaning they will no longer carry vast quantities of paper. Last year we printed around 330 million sheets of paper and that will go down rapidly as we move to digital servic-es,” Jones says.
A focus on usability means the new technology has not taken a great deal of training.
“Prosecutors now have the ability to work with digital files which feel and act very similar to how you would use a manila file. From the outset we brought all the disciplines together – policy, process, training, people, technology,” Jones says.
“I am not underestimating the amount of cultural change and staff commitment that was necessary for this programme.
“But they have embraced it, worked through the issues with IT and were very pragmatic all along. Without that type of commitment, help, direction and learning we would have struggled.” ■
This is an edited excerpt of the original article. Click here to read the full interview online
more online› CIO interview: John Linwood, chief technology officer, BBC
› CIO interview: Gerry Pennell, CIO, London 2012 Olympics
› CIO interview: Steve Townsend, CIO, Transport for London
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Identity assurance design for online public services
Open standards lobby must find its voice
10 | 24-30 April 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com
As chairman of the govern-ment’s Identity Assurance Programme privacy and consumer stakeholder
group, I recently blogged about some of the draft principles that we hope will underpin the government’s ap-proach to identity. These principles are an important cornerstone of the work to rebuild trust between govern-ment and citizens and demonstrate how far thinking has matured fol-lowing the failed and costly national identity card programme. They place the citizen, rather than government, at the centre of the design.
The new approach to identity is based on a trust framework in which the citizen can choose their identity provider from an open and competi-tive marketplace. In return, govern-ment organisations will be mandated to accept assurances of identity from appropriately accredited providers.
The system will use open technical standards and make smart re-use of what already exists, rather than at-tempting to impose government re-quirements on the market. If success-ful, it will touch every part of the technical ecosystem spanning the de-livery of online digital services.
Since government first attempted to put an integrated portal of public services online in the mid 1990s, there has been significant progress in
tackling problems of identity, notably in the private sector. Online banking and retail services have developed a range of ways of tackling identifica-tion, verification and authentication, and even government’s own previous attempts, with for example the Gov-ernment Gateway, have supported the use of third-party credentials.
Designing and operating online public services will need to integrate with this new model. Some of that discipline already exists in the public sector, with departments such as HM Revenue & Customs and the Depart-ment for Work and Pensions using older technical specifications around
The old identity assurance model that placed government at its centre is obsolete
Bryan Glick leader jerry fishenden opinion
the Government Gateway. Others, such as the Student Loans Company and DVLA, have gone their own way, but in future all public sector organi-sations will be required to play by the same rules and place the citizen at the centre of their services rather than their own self-interests.
For “digital by default” to be suc-cessful, government must remove the historic complexity and duplication of everyone doing their own thing be-lieving that they are somehow “dif-ferent” or “special” and don’t need to adhere to a common set of standards.
The private sector will draw on its own experience of technical integra-tion with government services. The early days of the Government Gate-way saw third parties integrate their digital certificates with online public services to enable users to authenti-cate using credentials of their own choosing. That initiative waned when digital certificates failed in the marketplace, although more recently EMV cards – better known to con-sumers in their use as chip-and-PIN cards – have successfully been used on a small scale with online services.
There is a more pervasive cultural change explicit in the new approach that will have a significant impact on government organisations. The old model that placed government at its centre is obsolete and in its place is a model that places citizens and busi-nesses at the centre.
There is an assumption that citi-zens should have control over their own data and of data minimisation – that the minimum amount of data should be acquired and used. This is a significant departure from the old model that assumed the department owned the data – an assumption re-flected in a technical approach that captured and held citizen data in multiple places, leading to problems with information management, data quality, privacy and security.
Publishing the draft principles for review and comment is only one part of an iterative and inclusive ap-proach to designing public services. It’s another practical demonstration of how government IT is changing – from placing its own interests first, to those it is there to serve. ■
Jerry Fishenden is co-founder and director of the Centre for Technology policy research
There is a debate taking place in UK iT that has huge significance for almost everyone who buys iT.
it’s about open standards and, in particular, what definition the government will use for the open standards policy that will determine much future public sector iT procurement. This isn’t just an issue for iT chiefs in government - the implications will affect every iT leader in every sector.
it’s a complex and often emotional debate.Senior iT people in government want to
free themselves from the perceived lock-in associated with proprietary software - to cut costs, increase choice, and open up the market to a wider range of products and suppliers; to ensure a “level playing field” between large and small, proprietary and open source; to spend taxpayers’ money on the best outcomes, not the only product that is compatible. Few could argue that is not a good thing.
There is a consultation underway, led by the Cabinet Office, which is rigorous in ensuring it is open to, and seen to be open to, every side of the debate.
Nonetheless, there is a polarisation form-ing around the open lobby and the proprie-tary lobby. And there is a feeling that the pro-prietary lobby, with its greater resources, lobbying experience and its business mod-els at stake, is dominating the argument.
This has been the case for many years. Unfortunately, the open lobby spend too much time in the corner, huddled together saying to each other, “This is awful, dreadful, don’t they understand?”
Too many of them are not vocal enough in this debate. They can say they are right until they are blue in the face, but “right” does not mean they will win. This isn’t about being wrong or right. it is a complex and highly nuanced topic. But there is no doubt the open lobby needs to mobilise and organise as effectively as its perceived opponents.
There is only one community that should be the winner here - and that’s iT buyers. But we need every part of the supply side to be equally involved if that is going to happen. ■
editor’s blogcomputerweekly.com/editor
buyer’s guide
The issues businesses must consider to comply with EU data regulation
11 | 24-30 April 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com
Data-rich companies must assess how the EU data privacy regulation will affect them, writes Jane Finlayson-Brown
The European Commission’s proposal for a General Data Protection Regulation rep-resents the most significant
global development in data protec-tion law since the EU Data Protection Directive, a legal framework which has struggled to remain relevant in an age of mass information sharing.
A regulation – unlike a directive – will be directly applicable in all EU member states without the need for national implementing legislation. The Commission’s aim is to harmo-nise data protection law across those member states.
The legislative process is likely to take up to two years to complete. With any proposed regulation then taking a further two years to come into effect, it is unlikely that it will be in force before 2015.
While some of the current propos-als will undoubtedly be amended in the course of this lengthy process, there are some practical steps compa-nies could usefully consider now.
Move towards complianceOne of the main benefits of the pro-posed regulation is that companies should have only one regulatory authority that supervises its activities across all EU member states.
This is justice commissioner Vivi-ane Reding’s “one-stop shop” idea. Businesses with a presence across several European countries should consider which regulatory authority would be its supervisor. It is likely to be where the main decisions as to the purposes, conditions and means of processing of personal data are taken.
In theory, this should lead to a har-monised approach, as the proposed regulation is directly applicable in all member states and contains a “con-sistency mechanism” to try to ensure a consistent approach is taken by su-pervisory authorities. In practice, however, there may well be diver-gences of attitude of national regula-
“Ensure you have a legitimate basis for transferring personal
data to jurisdictions unrecognised as having adequate
data protection regulation”
risk management
more online› EC publishes proposed data protection reforms
› Proposed EC data protection rules help cloud adoption
› EC data regulation will disrupt UK e-economy, warn lawyers
tory authorities (for instance towards enforcement). This may well lead to “forum shopping”, where companies centralise their decision-making in more business-friendly jurisdictions.
AccountabilityOne of the key themes of the pro-posed regulation is accountability (broadly, taking responsibility for your data processing).
This concept is likely to remain a key theme. In practice, it will entail establishing a culture of monitoring, reviewing and assessing your data processing procedures; aiming to minimise data processing and reten-tion of data; and building in safe-guards to all data processing activi-ties. Auditable data impact assessments will need to be conduct-ed to review any risky processing ac-tivities and steps taken to address specific concerns.
Many data-rich companies are at-tempting to de-risk their personal data processing activities by limiting employee access to data on a much tighter “need to use” basis and, where possible, anonymising and en-crypting data. As an added incentive, the obligation to notify data subjects of a data security breach is unlikely
to apply where the data has been ren-dered “unintelligible” to persons who are not authorised to use it.
Analyse the legal basis on which you use personal data. Do you rely on data subject consent to process per-sonal data or can you show that you have a legitimate interest in process-ing that data, that is not overridden by the interests of the data subject?
What data transfers do you under-take and how do you ensure that the transfer of data to countries that are not recognised as having adequate data protection regulations are none-theless safeguarded in a way that is compliant with legislation? Should you consider adopting binding cor-porate rules to facilitate intragroup transfers of data?
Third-party data processorsIf you provide data processing ser-vices to third parties, you are likely to find your customers will wish to ensure your services are compatible with the enhanced requirements of the proposed regulation, whether that is in relation to data minimisa-tion, helping them to comply with the right to be forgotten or reporting a data security breach.
You should therefore consider
whether your contractual documen-tation is adequate and, for existing contracts, check who bears the cost of making changes to the services as a result of the changes in laws or regu-lations. If you obtain data processing services from a third party, it is very important to determine and docu-ment your respective responsibilities.
Cross-border data transfersAs with intra-group international data transfers, it will be important to ensure you have a legitimate basis for transferring personal data to ju-risdictions unrecognised as having adequate data protection regulation.
This is not a new issue but, as fail-ure to comply with the proposed reg-ulation’s requirements in this respect could attract a fine of up to 2% of an-nual worldwide turnover, the conse-quences of non-compliance could be severe. The official line is that this is intended to be “effective, proportion-ate” and, pointedly, “dissuasive”.
While the proposed regulation is likely to undergo fairly extensive ne-gotiation and amendment, we expect the main concepts mentioned above to remain. Compliance with obliga-tions such as accountability take time to become part of a company’s DNA.
Given that the proposed financial penalties for non-compliance are se-vere, companies that start to take steps to address the proposed chang-es will be in a stronger position. ■
Jane Finlayson-Brown is a partner in the corporate department of law firm Allen & Overy
This is an edited excerpt. Click here to read the full article
CW Buyer’s guidedata seCurity
part 3 of 3
green networks
12 | 24-30 April 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com
Ensuring your network and datacentre are running ef-ficiently as part of a green networking strategy can cut
hardware and software costs, save on power and contribute to corporate environmental policies.
Organisations can improve their power efficiency through taking out redundant networking equipment that draws power. There is also the option of turning to cloud-based ap-plications and networking deploy-
Salmon says: “It can be easy for or-ganisations to claim improved ‘IT greenness’ but how many are achiev-ing this by outsourcing the problem?
“In many cases current reporting requirements do not require this to be factored into the equation, but this is likely to change. If and when it does, organisations may find themselves back to square one.”
Supply chain transparency is a key element in evaluating true green IT credentials, says Salmon, which is
Cut costs with a green networkAntony Savvas looks at how CIOs can make savings by reducing the carbon footprint of their networks and servers
also a big challenge for outsourcers.In one case, a KPMG client wanted
to understand the carbon impact of procuring wide area network (WAN) services from an international telco, and how that organisation planned to reduce impact over time.
This was a virtual environment, with networks being shared by multi-ple clients across a number of provid-ers. “It was a tough ask that couldn’t, at the time, be answered by the ven-dor,” says Salmon.
ments to cut energy consumption.Businesses that can afford it can re-
place network routers and switches with more power-efficient hardware.
Steve Salmon, principal advisor at KPMG’s CIO advisory practice, says green IT must make financial sense for organisations. He says legacy en-vironments are already being made as efficient as possible through virtu-alisation, for example in increasing server processing capacity use from below 10% up to 75% and over. »
green networks
Charles Darwin School is the largest secondary school in Kent and it was looking to replace its aging network with a more robust energy efficient one.
It chose D-Link kit for its new network. “One of the things we were looking at was saving money by becoming more energy-efficient,” says Paul Garrett, network manager at the school.
The school buildings had over 55 24-port switches to
give wired and wireless access in almost every class-room. These switches were up to nine years old and very inefficient. “We have replaced all these switches and installed 38 new D-Link Green switches, which were up to 66% more energy-efficient,” says Garrett.
He says the new switches can control power levels to each port – turning unused ports off – and have 48 ports per switch.
Consolidating network switches: Case studyMonitor energy consumptionBrian Murray, principal consultant at IT consultancy 2e2, says firms must first monitor and understand their energy use if they want to better manage costs and performance when moving towards green networking.
However, research from 2e2 shows 70% of IT departments don’t know how much energy their datacentre uses. “Without this knowledge actu-ally attempting to reduce energy bills and become greener will be difficult, if not futile,” says Murray.
Once organisations have a full overview of where energy is being used, from switches to servers, and how much it is costing them, they need to find ways to bring it under control. But Murray warns that im-mediately ripping out existing equip-ment may not be the most energy-ef-ficient way to proceed.
Organisations should first make sure they are using the datacentre management resources they already have to their best potential. They should then manage their assets so that equipment is replaced with more environmentally-friendly alternatives as it is retired. “This ensures a smooth and affordable progression without affecting the datacentre’s performance,” he says.
Cost of redundancyMurray Sherwood, managing direc-tor for worldwide professional ser-vices at Fusion Business Solutions, says that, until recently, many organi-sations emphasised redundancy to improve network availability in the event of component failures, through back-up equipment.
Such equipment uses large amounts of energy even while not in use and in some cases fails anyway – just as it did in last year’s worldwide BlackBerry network outage.
Sherwood says: “Now, with the availability of more robust networks, redundancy has become built-in to such an extent that there is a good
case for not implementing huge amounts of back-up equipment.”
In the BlackBerry outage it wasn’t so much the failure of the back-up equipment that was the problem, but the fact BlackBerry network owner RIM did not have an alternative net-work route for the international data traffic stuck in its UK datacentre.
Although network kit is now more reliable, firms must make sure they have an alternative traffic route to avoid outages.
Cloud cuts powerOrganisations using the cloud should be able to benefit from more efficient and greener network equipment used by their suppliers, while at the same time those providers will often have
alternative network routes planned for their customers’ data if a connec-tion failure happens.
“Cloud can reduce carbon con-sumption because applications are run in a dedicated environment and with a more sophisticated datacentre infrastructure,” says Sherwood.
KPMG’s Salmon agrees, up to a point. He says: “On the surface, out-sourcing appropriate infrastructure and application services to cloud providers can provide consumers with an optimal green IT footprint.”
If the providers’ services meet the cloud characteristics of pay-per-use and on-demand capacity, then the consumer will only pay for the stor-age, compute and application service provision they use. Their carbon foot-print should be reduced accordingly.
But Salmon says efficiency comes down to the design and operation of cloud datacentres and suppliers’ ca-pability to provide this level of detail in reporting to consumers. “The cloud providers are lagging behind in many cases,” warns Salmon.
Power usage effectivenessPower usage effectiveness (PUE) is a metric used to determine the energy efficiency of a datacentre. It is in-creasingly considered by firms look-ing to improve their own datacentres or finding an outsourced facility.
PUE is determined by dividing the total amount of power used in a data-centre by the power used to run the
computer infrastructure within it, after taking account of cooling, light-ing and other energy factors. PUE is expressed as a ratio, with overall effi-ciency improving as the value de-creases towards 1.
The current PUE industry average is around 1.8, according to some esti-mates, so there remains a way to go for some datacentres. PUE was creat-ed by industry body Green Grid, which focuses on finding energy-effi-cient datacentre systems.
Sentrum, a datacentre operator, re-cently published a survey of 100 sen-ior IT executives involved in their firm’s datacentres. Most say PUE is now an important factor in running their own datacentre or choosing ex-ternal datacentre capacity.
The survey found 62% of compa-nies are now measuring the PUE of their datacentre projects, with 72% setting targets for power usage and associated power cost reductions. ■
13 | 24-30 April 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com
more online› Green technology offers network managers cost-reduction
› Free tool measures how green your datacentre is
› Green IT tutorial: Offering green networking services
»
1. Remove large amounts of unnecessary data from your network. Using data compression, de-duplication and releasing unused storage can help reduce energy consumption.2. Measure how much power is used by your servers and identify inefficient hardware through monitoring the useful activity across physical and virtual servers.
Most servers are estimated to be used less than 15% of the time they are powered on, with idle hardware using as much as 90% of operating power consumption. Virtualisation allows a business to power off any physical servers that are not in use.3. Consider fanless switches when used in open smaller scale deployments such as classrooms, retail outlets and
open plan offices.4. Consolidate server rooms and datacentres with larger switches when appropriate for data demand.
With a 10 Gigabit switch, for instance, fewer switches are needed to aggregate the same bandwidth to servers, which would otherwise be provided by teaming network cards in a server.5. Consider power over Ethernet (PoE) networking deployments. PoE devices enable the IT manager to decide power-rationing centrally for all PoE devices, by configuring the application through the switches to give greater control over energy consumption.
PoE can be used for voice over IP (VoIP), CCTV, entry systems, intercoms and a number of other applications.
Five tips to improve network energy efficiency
review
14 | 24-30 April 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com
M icrosoft has released SQL Server 2012, the name suggesting that this is the biggest update since SQL
Server 2008. The product has a long history; its first release was in 1989 (a joint project with Sybase and Ashton Tate) and this is about the eighth major edition, depending on how you count the versions.
Although not the most advanced database manager, SQL Server has a good track record and its scope and scalability have steadily improved. Performance is good, it is reliable, it is well integrated with Microsoft’s platform and development tools, and its business intelligence features are particularly strong. SQL Server has become a multi-faceted product, or family of products, and with new fea-tures and enhancements across every area, this is a significant release.
Microsoft’s recent efforts with SQL Server have been focused as much on re-engineering it for the Azure cloud as on enhancing the on-premise
advantage of its services, while main-taining compatibility with applica-tions designed to work with files.
Enterprise scaleSQL Server 2012’s biggest new feature for enterprises is called AlwaysOn and is a new approach to high availability. You can specify up to four secondary replicas within an availability group, which can be within a datacentre or across data-centres. Secondary replicas are not idle, but can be used for backup, reporting and queries in order to make efficient use of hardware.
Another scalability enhancement is ColumnStore indexes. This is for data warehouses, and indexes each column in a separate set of disk pages rather than storing multiple rows per page. If your query requests only a few columns from a table, this is far more efficient, and Microsoft claims performance improvements of hundreds-fold for large datasets that do not fit in RAM, and from six to
Cloud-scaled database managementWith the release of SQL Server 2012, has Microsoft now caught up with its key competitors, asks Tim Anderson
10-fold improvements in cases where the working set does fit in RAM.
Microsoft has partnered with Hortonworks to enable connectivity between SQL Server and Hadoop databases. The open source Hadoop can also now be installed on Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform. Hadoop is excellent for big data storage, but weak for reporting, so the advantage is that you can use SQL Server’s business intelligence features to mine Hadoop data. “Microsoft is taking a more realistic approach by embracing rather than resisting Hadoop. With their relationship with Hortonworks, they are ensuring that Windows won’t concede the market for Big Data processing to Linux without a fight,” says Ovum analyst Tony Baer.
SQL Server 2012 can now be installed on Server Core, a configura-tion of Windows Server without a graphical user interface. This is in tune with Microsoft’s new emphasis on scripting and command-line
version, although that scalability work benefits both scenarios. “We are deploying and maintaining database clusters of thousands of nodes,” said Microsoft’s technical fellow Dave Campbell at an SQL Server 2012 press workshop. SQL Server 2012 includes a Deploy to Azure wizard, as well as high availability features aimed at private cloud deployments.
SQL Server also scales down to small local deployments. LocalDB is a new feature that replaces the old user instances, which are now depre-cated. A LocalDB deployment does not require an SQL Server service. Instead, the process is started on demand by the SQL Server native client and closed when no longer required. Database files are attached at runtime as specified by a connec-tion string sent to the client.
An intriguing new feature in SQL Server 2012 is the ability to publish tables as Windows file shares. The idea is to allow existing file shares to be migrated to SQL Server, to take »
SQL Server 2012 is a suite of products, as the feature selection during setup demonstrates
An Azure deployment wizard simplifies moving a database to Microsoft’s cloud platform
New Filestream options let you publish a database table as a Windows file share
review
support, and is complemented by improved PowerShell support.
Web-based reportingA new feature of SQL Server 2012 called Power View offers rich web-based reporting. Power View hooks into SharePoint, Microsoft’s collabo-ration platform. Microsoft describes it as “a feature of SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Edition”, which is good for SharePoint integration but also means it has multiple dependencies. Power View is an ad hoc reporting tool and not a replacement for Report Designer or Report Builder.
You can also analyse data in Excel using the PowerPivot add-in, which is enhanced in this release.
New SQL Server toolsMicrosoft has revamped SQL Server Management Studio to run in the Vis-ual Studio 2010 shell. It has also intro-duced a new approach to database development called SQL Server Data Tools. The thinking here is to focus on the code that defines the database schema. Using the Data Tools, you can create a database project, import or build the schema, and then test it using a local database instance. Since the schema is text-based, it can be checked into version control. There are also tools to compare and refactor schemas, with warnings where incon-sistencies may be introduced.
Another new tool is called Data Quality Services. This lets you test data quality and perform de-duplication by
With new features and enhancements across every area, this is a significant release
comparing your data against a Data Quality Knowledge Base, such as a list of valid city names.
LicensingMicrosoft has made a number of changes to the way SQL Server is packaged and licensed. The big change from SQL Server 2008 is that Microsoft has dropped the per-processor licence, which allowed unlimited clients and unlimited cores per processor. SQL Server Enterprise, into which the old Datacenter edition has been sub-sumed, is now licensed per core only. There are two other generally available commercial editions. The Standard edition can be licensed either per core or on a server and CAL (Client Access Licence) model. The Business Intel-ligence edition, which adds features including Power View, PowerPivot and Data Quality services, can only be licensed on a server and CAL model.
The workgroup and small business editions have been dropped, but there is still a web edition available to hosting companies. The free SQL Server Express continues, with a
10GB maximum database size.There are some key changes for vir-
tual deployments. The most flexible deal for enterprise deployments is to license all physical cores on a server, which allows unlimited virtualisation. This requires Enterprise Edition with SA (Software Assurance). Another option is to license the virtual cores in each virtual machine (VM), with a minimum of four core licences per VM. This is available for both Enter-prise and Standard editions. Finally, you can use a server and CAL model, with one VM per server licence.
SQL Server licensing is complex, and there are transitional options for existing customers.
Parity with Oracle and DB2?Historically, SQL Server has been less costly but also less advanced than its key competitors – Oracle and IBM’s DB2. Has it now caught up?
Gartner analyst Donald Feinberg says that SQL Server, based on Microsoft’s information, is now a close competitor for Oracle and retains its cost advantages. “Each new release of SQL Server brings Microsoft closer to parity with Oracle in functionality, stability and scala-bility. One strong reference for SQL Server is that it is certified for general use as a platform for SAP. With SQL Server 2012, Microsoft has added AlwaysOn, a feature that allows for much less complex management for a high-availability environment. The only major function of Oracle still missing from SQL Server is an equiv-alent to Oracle RAC [Real Applica-
tion Clusters] for a clustered server environment. Finally, although SQL Server 2012 is now priced by core and not by chip, it is still far less costly than Oracle. So other than an application environment requiring a large, scale-out environment (sup-ported by Oracle RAC and DB2 pureScale), SQL Server should be able to compete now.”
The strength and weakness of SQL Server is that it is Windows-platform only. Microsoft has taken full advan-tage of its platform integration, with features such as Visual Studio for development and management tools, PowerShell for command-line man-agement and scripting, and Share-Point and Excel for business intelli-gence. In a Microsoft environment, this makes SQL Server the obvious choice for many applications. The disadvantage is that it looks corre-spondingly less attractive in more diverse environments. Nevertheless, this is a big release which offers solid improvements for SQL Server deployments of every scale. ■
15 | 24-30 April 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com
more online› Big data a big deal for SQL Server 2012, users say
› All the information you need on Microsoft SQL Server 2012
› No-risk SQL Server upgrade for SSRS no problem
»
Above left: Power View is a rich web reporting client which runs on SharePoint. Above right: PowerPivot, enhanced in SQL Server 2012, enables data analysis in Excel
Above: Part of the new AlwaysOn feature is simplified database mirroring via a management tools wizard
Right: New Data Tools let you design a schema in Visual Studio, with
schema compare and refactoring support. Far right: Data Quality Services lets you perform data cleansing using a specialised
knowledge base as a reference
16 | 24-30 April 2012 Daily news for IT professionals at ComputerWeekly.com
Men are the biggest multi-taskers in bedWho said men are not good at multi-tasking? Nearly three-quarters of people who work on computers in bed are men, according to a survey by Infosecurity Europe (see data below right).
More than a third of those polled on London’s streets admitted that they or their partners work in bed – probably without thinking about what that says about them and their partners.
In fact, 5% of people who work from bed admit to averaging two hours a day.
“Mobile devices and laptops have delivered great freedom by enabling people to work when they are out of the office or on the move, but surely the fact that so many people are now working from bed is just going too far,” said Claire Sellick, event direc-tor for Infosecurity Europe.
But there is a darker side, she said, referring not to the lack of doing more exciting things in bed than work, but to the fact that the survey reveals the scale of the problem for IT security departments that have to secure sensi-tive communications or transactions, wherever they are being made.
“Of people who work from a mobile device, more than one in four admitted they don’t use strong security – so they are leaving them-selves vulnerable to security breaches,” said Sellick.
Downtime takes comfort in the fact that 65% of those polled said they or their partners did not work in bed. Perhaps the majority are more secu-rity conscious, but Downtime sus-pects they simply have better things to do.
Royal Mail is putting a nail in its own coffin via TwitterRecent months have seen the poor old Post Office and its Royal Mail mothership suffer a couple of techni-cal problems. But what Downtime found most interesting was how the
organisation has harnessed Twitter to keep people up to date with the problems it is experiencing.
So not only is the company telling them that its systems are not work-ing, but also that there is a far better mechanism to communicate than
letters, for example.
It’s a student’s lifeAs if technology, like the inter-net, wasn’t making students’ lives easy enough, a university is making the kind gesture of allowing students to attend lectures in their own time.
The University of the West of England is harnessing technology that will not only allow students to attend lectures from anywhere with an internet connection, but actually watch them at a later date.Unified communications software,
networking equipment and video conferencing are just some of the technologies being used by the uni-versity to stream lectures to multiple locations and make them available to watch later.
While Downtime supports this type of development, we do worry about the messages this will send to students. Festering in bed after a
hard day and night socialising will no longer bring on the guilt.
What about the lectures? Typically only attended by half the students, this is likely to result in lecturers talk-ing to a camera.
We hope the university has taken into account the paranoia effect, which hits you at 4am when you suddenly start to worry about the lec-ture you missed. This is when the bandwidth will be put to the test. ■
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They don’t make ’em like they used toWhile the digital age may be a forward-looking one, Downtime is glad of the connections to the past captured in the various formats of Web 2.0. For example, this backwards glance – the worst album covers of all time – bears witness to trends of yesteryear which, without record, would beggar belief were they mooted today.
Downtime is a big fan of music hall burlesque, so it was gratifying to discover, with the very first search, a YouTube recording of Faye Richmonde’s eponymous track of the album My Pussy Belongs To Daddy. From there it was but a single click to La Richmonde’s follow-up masterpiece of single entendre, Sadie’s Still Got The Rag On.
It is comforting to know the mugshots of artistes Ken, Joyce (surely Tootsie?) and Devastatin’ Dave (the turntable slave), have been digitally rendered on servers across the globe for posterity.
Indeed, Downtime intends to trawl YouTube and the like for more of this stuff, so was very grateful for the government’s U-turn on plans to spy on internet users’ online activity before tapping in searches for the likes of She Sits Among The Cabbages And Peas.
downtime
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