Award Winners and Runners-up from 2024

AI & Intelligent Automation Project of the Year

Sponsored by

WINNER

Celfocus

Vodafone Ireland partnered with Celfocus to create TOBi, a virtual assistant that offers a comprehensive set of features designed to enhance customer interactions and streamline operations. Our primary aim and challenge were to deploy an industry-leading chatbot to revolutionize customer engagement and improve our agent handover experience. This chatbot facilitates seamless account management across web, mobile, and retail platforms. Leveraging advanced AI and Large Language Models (LLMs), we delivered a highly responsive, context-aware, and personalized experience for customers. The integration of cutting-edge AI and LLMs empowers our chatbot to conduct natural, efficient conversations and manage accounts effectively. This initiative seeks to redefine customer interaction, setting a new benchmark for convenience and personalization within the Telco industry.

Adapting a natural language model to a telecom-specific context, which includes young people and early adaptors of innovative technologies as well as older individuals used to speaking with a human agent and placing their trust in them, presents significant challenges. The Tobi Conversational Language Understanding (CLU) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) modules need to accurately identify customer intentions, adapt responses appropriately, retrieve and create customer information within milliseconds, and meet demanding customer expectations that do not tolerate pauses or delays in conversation.

In the telco industry, accurately measuring customer satisfaction and addressing service challenges are pivotal for enhancing customer loyalty and operational efficiency. As a telecom company, Vodafone Ireland also faces some difficulties in this realm, including the difficulty of determining the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which currently captures feedback from only a small percentage of customers. Addressing the main customer complaints, such as calls with unfulfilled agent callback promises (a key churn catalyst), repeated contacts for the same issue, and pinpointing deep detractor issues, is essential. Vodafone’s commitment to innovation and continuous improvement in customer support is underscored by the strategic integration of cutting-edge technology in Tobi. Initiatives like Tobi, which are technologically advanced, not only promote but also strengthen Vodafone’s culture and image as an innovating enterprise.

From an operational and technical perspective, Tobi is using a micro-modular strategy that includes various modules such as frontend, AI Watson, VDF Composer and Microsoft CLU, Java Business logic, VoIP and Gateway and Speech To Text/Text To Speech (STT/TTS), each delivered by specialized teams within the Tobi structure.

The micro-modular strategy involves breaking an application into numerous pieces, allowing a specific squad to focus on each part. The approach enables the full reuse of parts both internally and externally with other markets. In an innovative way, we have instantiated Core AI modules in a multi-tenant AWS centralized account, reusing crucial components and services that serve both Voice and Chat.

We can say that there are already applications isolating intentions using CLU and micro APIs for CRUD operations on the data. The technical challenge was to design an event-driven approach where, in milliseconds, CLU understands customer intentions, Composer guides and defines the next steps for both the bot and customer, and a common API layer manages the data in a secure and authenticated way. This centralized module is then plugged in with extensions for Voice and Chat, as well as adapters for each local instantiation, bridging different technologies and protocols, such as VOIP, SIP and RTP but also REST, JSON and OAuth. It accommodates various development patterns such as MVC and MVVM.

Having each squad work on its own module raises accountability issues, as well as challenges in managing the whole picture, not only from a people’s perspective but also from a technical perspective. Working in an agile mode, each squad has its own priorities, velocity, its own definition of done and ready, and more important, their deliverables. Innovations sprout in the way everything is glued together with an E2E Agile team merging and testing all the modules to create a unique user experience as a whole, essentially forming one Agile team out of agile squads. This approach enhances scalability and module reusability within Vodafone Ireland and extends to other Vodafone markets.

For Business, Tobi plays a crucial role as it represents the first step towards fully automated customer care systems, reducing call centre costs, while still focusing on delivering a truly unique customer experience across all channels.

The evolution of the solution is being tackled through an augmented customer support framework, designed to enhance multi-channel interactions in customer service. Advanced analytics are also being employed to address complex use cases, ensuring a more personalized and efficient service. This approach focuses on dialogue-based multi-channel interactions, ensuring a seamless and integrated experience for customers across various platforms. At the heart of this framework is a unified canonical data model for all interactions, which standardizes data across channels. By leveraging generative insights from this unified data, the solution is not only highly scalable but also capable of providing more robust use cases. This allows for a detailed comparison across channels, enabling a more comprehensive 360º view of all dialogue-based customer support interactions.

Through this innovative framework, we aim to elevate the quality of customer service by offering more personalized and effective support, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Our chatbot has achieved a noteworthy milestone, handling 100% of our 500K consumer chat contacts. Notably, 60% of these chats require no human intervention, underscoring its efficiency in autonomously addressing user queries. Monthly, we facilitate over 50,000 chats, illustrating consistent and robust user engagement. Our user base has exceeded 336,000 users, indicating widespread adoption and platform popularity. Additionally, we proudly announce that our top-up journey received the highest Customer Experience score across the EU market from Gartner, solidifying our commitment to delivering exceptional service. This accomplishment reflects our dedication to providing seamless and efficient customer interactions through cutting-edge technology.

Calls to the Call Centre in voice have seen a 65% reduction in relevant call types since the introduction of Tobi Voice and have seen a reduction of 61% of chats reaching a live agent.

Together, both channels handled an average of 70K interactions per month, with 43% via Voice and 57% via chat. This prevented the same amount of traffic from reaching a human agent or IVR, achieving an outstanding 58% full resolution rate and a 99,9% uptime.

Customers tend to endorse Tobi directly by expressing their recognition of the AI. Conversation analysis has yielded some interesting comments, such as:

-“I really appreciate that you talk now (over previous IVR experience); it is much easier to get what I was after.”

-“Thanks for providing me with this information; you were much more useful than your colleague (human agent).”

The integration of generative AI into Vodafone Ireland's service framework promises transformative impacts on customer service management. It offers the potential for real-time NPS evaluation across all customer interactions, promising a deeper understanding of satisfaction levels. The system is poised to automatically detect and address unfulfilled callback promises, potentially streamlining customer resolutions. Furthermore, it anticipates enabling rapid root cause analysis for repeated contacts and significantly speeding up the identification of deep detractor issues from weeks to minutes. This technology allows the business to identify new automation journeys or optimize existing ones, and also reduce the gap between experienced and new operators, combating turnover.

These advancements suggest a future where customer experience and operational efficiency are greatly enhanced, showcasing the promising capabilities of generative AI in the telecom industry as part of the solution's evolution.

RUNNER UP

PC7 d.o.o.

The PandaChat Live project, meticulously designed to tackle significant business and technological challenges faced by companies in today’s fast-paced, ever-evolving environment. A primary concern for businesses is effectively managing the substantial volume of customer interactions across various communication channels, including phone calls, web chat platforms, and email.

The complexity of these interactions often leads to issues such as increased operational costs, inefficiencies in handling customer queries, and slower response times. These challenges can negatively impact customer satisfaction. With PandaChat Live, we aim to not only address these challenges but also enhance the overall customer experience, fostering better communication and satisfaction in an increasingly competitive market.

PandaChat Live is a vital component of this solution, offering businesses a powerful tool to optimize customer support across three main channels: phone, web chat, and email. This tool enhances efficiency by delivering automated responses around the clock, functioning as a 24/7 employee. The automation not only ensures quick and consistent customer support but also allows the chatbot to engage in conversation and generate responses from database and websites, creating the feeling of interacting with a live agent. Additionally, it can trigger actions and assist customers with tasks such as hotel reservations or finding items on a webpage.

Integrating PandaChat Live into a company\'s existing infrastructure is seamless and requires minimal configuration. This facilitates rapid implementation without significant technical adjustments, allowing businesses to quickly adapt and utilize this advanced solution. Additionally, PandaChat Live can connect with internal databases and documents containing essential customer information and reading websites in real, enabling chatbots to provide accurate, relevant and up to date responses tailored to each customer\'s needs.

The platform also supports multilingual capabilities, allowing companies to offer assistance in their customers’ native languages. This feature enhances satisfaction and reduces the likelihood of miscommunication, particularly in a globalised context. Moreover, PandaChat Live can be customised to meet specific business needs, ensuring flexibility and control over data security. Consequently, it transforms from a mere customer support tool into a strategic partner in enhancing business operations.

Throughout the development of PandaChat Live, the team encountered several significant challenges that required innovative solutions. One major hurdle was developing speech recognition and text-to-speech models for local languages, particularly Slovenian. Accurately capturing local dialects and pronunciations necessitated collecting diverse speech samples from native speakers, which facilitated effective model training. Continuous testing and refinement ensured the output was both accurate and natural sounding.

Another challenge involved customising data extraction to accommodate the varied structures of client websites. The unique layouts complicated information retrieval: thus, the team developed flexible data extraction protocols that adapt to different formats, ensuring efficient information retrieval without manual adjustments. Additionally, the organization of large volumes of unstructured data presented a risk of confusion and inaccuracies. To address this, structured data approaches were implemented, categorising information into logical groups to maintain clarity and relevance.

The implementation of PandaChat Live brings significant benefits to the organisation, enhancing operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. One of the primary advantages is the improved response times. By automating responses across communication channels, phone, web chat, and email, PandaChat Live significantly reduces customer wait times, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty.

Additionally, the project drives a notable increase in efficiency within the customer support team. With routine inquiries automated, team members can focus on more complex issues, resulting in cost reductions and a more effective allocation of resources. This shift leads to higher-quality service and overall improved performance. The seamless integration of the tool into existing systems ensures minimal disruption and maintains business continuity.

Furthermore, PandaChat Live’s multilingual capabilities enable the organisation to cater to a diverse customer base, reducing the chances of miscommunication and expanding market reach.

In terms of productivity, automating routine tasks allows the team to manage a greater volume of inquiries without compromising quality. The tool’s scalability ensures the organisation can easily adapt to changing customer needs and business growth.

Pax8

Pax8 is transforming the way Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and IT solution providers manage, market, and deliver cloud solutions. As a cloud marketplace leader, Pax8 stands out for its commitment to empowering partners through its channel-centric approach.

Impact on the Channel:
Pax8’s vendor channel program has been instrumental in enabling its partners to successfully navigate the digital transformation journey. By providing the tools, technology, and training necessary to adapt to the cloud-first world, Pax8 is reshaping how channel partners deliver cloud solutions, driving increased profitability and operational efficiency.

The continued expansion of Pax8’s partner network and their high satisfaction scores reflect the effectiveness of Pax8’s channel-centric approach. In 2023 alone, Pax8 expanded its partner base globally, added significant new vendor partnerships, and introduced enhanced automation and integration features to improve service delivery.

Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) Innovation of the Year

WINNER

CSL Group

Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery Project of the Year – Voicelink: Futureproofing Emergency Phones ahead of the PSTN Switch-Off.

The ‘business continuity’ problem

In 2027, the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) will be switched off, disrupting many industries and affecting lives and businesses. Traditional landlines and voice services currently supported by PSTN must be switched to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) before the deadline or systems will stop working. One area that will feel the impact more than most is emergency phones found along motorways. Each emergency phone must be fitted with a two-way communicator, for use in an emergency.

There are emergency phones approximately every 1 mile on the motorways, so you can imagine how many there are that will be impacted. Breaking down on the side of the motorway is already stressful enough, but now what if there was no phone service, your phone's battery is dead, or you don’t know who to call? This is why these emergency phones are in place, but now imagine if the phone doesn’t work and there's no one on the other end of that emergency call. Without the Voicelink upgrade, after the PSTN switch-off, emergency phones will not be able to make these vital calls and people could be left stranded. Not knowing if someone is coming to assist you when you break down can cause you to panic. If you can speak to someone on the emergency line, you can relax a bit more, because you are aware that other people know you are stuck and are coming to help. Without this comfort, you will instantly fear the worst. That you may be stranded. This could cause panic attacks or worse.

Workers on a Critical National Infrastructure site require an emergency phone to ensure immediate communication in case of any incident that threatens the safety, security or functionality of the site and its workers. Given the essential nature of these facilities any disruption can have severe consequences for public safety and national security. Having an emergency phone means that these workers are able to quickly alert authorities to minimise the impact of whatever emergency there is. This rapid communication is vital for mitigating risks, preventing escalation and ensuring the quick resolution of critical incidents and to maintain the safe operation of the infrastructure. These emergency calls are essential to keeping these workers, public safety and national security safe.

The solution

Voicelink is the ideal solution for emergency phones, found across motorways, national grid sites, petrol forecourts, airports, retail, local councils, hospitals and business premises. It can also upgrade emergency phone lines that are present in many high-risk environments such as motorways, national grid sites, and petrol forecourts.

This solution will maintain business continuity and ensure public safety is not compromised. Voicelink converts PSTN calls to 4G VoLTE (Voice over Long-Term Evolution), ensuring analogue systems are future-proofed and can continue to make voice calls. The solution creates a bridge between the old and new technology and allows existing devices to continue working after the PSTN Switch-Off.

With VoLTE, users can call and have fast data transfer at the same time, which leads to cost savings and increased efficiency. Moreover, sound quality is often an issue in many high-risk sites. VoLTE enables high-definition voice quality which is essential to providing reassurance for whoever is making an emergency call.

Voicelink also offers a lower upfront investment compared to alternative solutions. As with a mobile phone contract, the cost is spread out over the lifetime of the solution, making it easier for businesses to invest in futureproofing systems. Many of the alternatives require a full replacement of the existing communication device which is likely to be built into the system – costing money and time.

Voicelink simply plugs into the existing system, mimicking the PSTN connection. It’s so easy to install that engineers need no extra training. It can be installed in just 15 minutes! We provide a simple online guide, and our customer support team are on hand if any challenges arise. Most installations take place as part of the standard maintenance checks completed by engineers every 6-12 months.

Voicelink is provided with a CSL roaming SIM as standard, meaning there is additional resilience included with 2G and 3G backup in case of loss of 4G.

In the event of power loss, Voicelink has a battery backup. This includes 8 hours of standby or 2 hours of talking time. Providing extra safety and comfort in knowing that even without power there is still someone to help.

Innovation

Due to the urgency of this project, with all systems needing to be upgraded by January 2027, we utilised all our experience and expertise in product innovation to deliver this solution to market. In total, the solution took 3 months from design, manufacturing, testing and delivery. With 30 years of experience in critical connectivity across the fire, security and telecare markets, we were perfectly placed to deliver this solution to this adjacent vertical.

Customer feedback

Steve Riley, Division Director of Comelit-PAC: Trust is paramount in the digital landscape. We've chosen CSL as our connectivity partner because they embody the highest standards of reliability and security. This partnership marks a significant step forward for us, and we're beyond excited to bring our customers the benefits of this collaboration. Stay tuned for more updates as we embark on this incredible journey with CSL by our side!

Matt Gilmartin, Managing Director, Concept Smoke Screen: “We chose CSL as our connectivity partner to ensure the secure end-to-end transmission of data. We are deploying our systems into high-risk sites and, as with any security application, we must use the best available connectivity, adding the highest levels of security to each connection and giving our customers peace of mind that the overall solution is fit for purpose”.

Conclusion

Voicelink ensures that there is always someone at the end of that emergency call button, a clear voice assuring you that someone will be there to help soon. Often there is the issue of sound quality in emergency phones, VoLTE enables high-definition voice quality which is essential to providing reassurance for whoever is stuck. You don’t need a muffled, quiet voice at the end of that call not providing that comfort of ‘someone is coming’. So, when you have no service and are stuck, with Voicelink, there is still someone to help, and assistance will be with you. As frustrating as getting stuck may be, at least you have the comfort of knowing help is on its way.

The same goes for Critical National Infrastructure sites, the emergency phones at these sites will need the same updates to ensure they can continue to work. If there are any emergencies at these sites, they need to be able to use the phone to report these immediately to minimise the impact of the emergency. It could be the difference between life and death.

With Voicelink when this situation arises, there is still help on the emergency call points.

Voicelink makes sure that it puts the end customer’s mind at ease knowing that there is a solution to an impending problem. Systems will remain uninterrupted, ensuring business continuity and that public safety will not be compromised.

For more information, please visit: https://www.csl-group.com/uk/voicelink/

RUNNER UP

Bridgeworks

In ways that other tech can't, WAN Acceleration technologies accelerate data transfers that eliminate data management challenges are known as ‘WAN acceleration.’ Bridgeworks patented artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies accelerate organisations existing technologies and dramatically accelerate their Wide Area Networks (WANs). AI underpins the patented technology to provide process intelligence, mitigating latency and mitigate packet loss. Our solutions, such as PORTrockIT, dramatically improve data throughput up to 98% of bandwidth – regardless of distance.

Accelerating BlackPearl, Securing Data

Spectra Logic: “In our tests, PORTrockIT accelerated BlackPearl’s replication performance significantly – in one case, completing the job more than 5 times faster.” BlackPearl is a Spectra Logic platform that aims to make it easy for organisations to preserve data simply, affordably, and safely. It provides a RESTful interface that allows users to store files as objects and uses an onboard cache to accelerate the movement of data on and off long-term storage media, such as disk arrays and tape libraries.

One of the key use cases for BlackPearl is to enable geographically dispersed archiving, where data is preserved at multiple sites to reduce the risk of data loss in the event of a disaster. BlackPearl makes this easy to achieve by simply connecting two BlackPearl devices across a wide area network (WAN) connection.

However, whenever data is transferred across a WAN, it is subject to the effects of latency and packet loss, which can have a dramatic impact on data throughput. Using BlackPearl together with PORTrockIT can transform the performance of data replication across the WAN by counteracting the impact of both latency and packet loss. In every scenario we evaluated, PORTrockIT was able to increase transfer rates significantly. In one case, it reduced the total transfer time from 247 minutes to just 47 minutes, completing the job more than five times faster.

A complete complement

BlackPearl can help businesses to create and maintain geographically dispersed archives, while PORTrockIT adds value by mitigating the risk of losing valuable data and making it easier to demonstrate compliance with data retention regulations.
To demonstrate the results that PORTrockIT can deliver for BlackPearl customers, Bridgeworks conducted a set of performance tests at a testing facility in the UK. The test infrastructures mimicked a real-world BlackPearl architecture, using an “Injector” server to inject or extract files from BlackPearl, and a WANulator to simulate different levels of latency across a wide area network. Performance figures were taken from the BlackPearl console and recorded.

The tests assessed WAN data transfer performance at various simulated levels of latency. The WANulator also simulated a nominal packet loss rate of 0.1%, representing a typical service-level agreement from most WAN providers.

Test 1 and Test 2

Test 1 and Test 2 were run first with PORTrockIT set to bypass mode, to simulate an unaccelerated network architecture. The tests were then rerun with PORTrockIT in active mode, to simulate an accelerated network architecture. The figures from the two test runs were then compared to assess the difference in performance between the unaccelerated and accelerated architectures.

Test 3 - a slightly different setup

Test 3 used a slightly different setup, with a pair of Bridgeworks WANrockIT appliances in place of the PORTrockIT appliances. This is because WANrockIT is specifically designed to enable the transfer of SAN block-level protocols across a WAN, which is necessary for testing the specific use case of transferring data between a local BlackPearl and a remote tape library that are linked by a fibre channel connection.

Across all three tests, the most important metrics to consider are:
• Average transfer rate, measured in megabytes per second. This allows us to assess the speed at which files can be transferred across the WAN.
• Total time to completion, measured in minutes. This allows us to judge how long the entire file transfer job takes.

Test 1 assessed the performance of transferring a 1 TB payload of files from the local BlackPearl cache to the remote BlackPearl cache and back again at 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 ms of latency with 0.1% packet loss.

Test 2 extended Test 1 by adding a tape library connected to the BlackPearl appliance at the remote end of the WAN. This simulated a scenario where BlackPearl is used as a distributed archive for long-term data retention.

In Test 3, one BlackPearl appliance was placed on the local side of the WANulator and connected via a fibre channel connection to a remote tape library, using WANrockIT as the accelerator. This would evaluate the speed of reading directly from tape across the WAN.

Accelerated Results

Without PORTrockIT - For the unaccelerated network architecture, the results of Test 1 and Test 2 show a negative correlation between latency and performance. As latency increases, average transfer rates (ATR) decline and we see a longer total time to completion (TTC). For example, in Test 1, the TTC was 119 minutes when there was 20 ms of latency but rose to 246 minutes at 100 ms of latency – more than twice as long.

The results of Test 2 were similar: the TTC was 78 minutes at 20 ms of latency, but 157 minutes at 100 ms of latency – again, more than double the time to complete the transfer. In a real-world scenario, this variability in TTC would be a major concern, as any unexpected increase in latency could cause transfers to time-out or overrun their scheduled window – putting valuable business data at risk.

With PORTrockIT - When we look at the architecture accelerated by PORTrockIT, the results are very different. At all levels of latency, the ATR improves dramatically when PORTrockIT is activated. For example, in Test 1, the worst-case ATR of the accelerated architecture (365 MB/s at 100 ms of latency) is still more than 2.5 times as fast as the best-case ATR of the unaccelerated architecture (145 MB/s at 20 ms of latency). We can also see that PORTrockIT keeps TTC stable, regardless of latency.

In Test 1, the shortest TTC was 39 minutes at 20 ms of latency, and the longest was 46 minutes at 100 ms of latency. In Test 2, the fastest TTC was 36 minutes and the slowest 43 minutes. In both cases, that’s a difference of just 7 minutes between the slowest and fastest transfers – which suggests that real-world users can expect their transfers to complete on time, even if latency increases.

Test 3 demonstrates that Bridgeworks WANrockIT, a WAN acceleration product for SAN protocols, Spectra Logic customers cannot only geographically separate their BlackPearl instances, but also use a third geographical site for air-gapped tape storage facilities without suffering the performance penalties associated with latency and packet loss.

Accelerating IT security

The project with the major IT security firm is also a game-changer. Between November and December 2021, a storage subject matter expert within this company came to Bridgeworks with details about a file transfer problem on a 2Gbps WAN circuit between Colorado, USA, and Bangalore in India.

Problem:
With data equating to 700TB storage estate, backups are only as good as the ability to restore the data. In order to allow an acceptable transfer time of this data requires a robust solution. There were 2 NetApp units involved in the data migration: one in Bangalore and another in Denver. The transfer was performed using the inbuilt NetApp Snap Mirror feature. It involved migrating data in a follow the sun requirement, and critical data and security was paramount. The allocated WAN bandwidth for transfer was a 1Gb/s controlled by a SD-WAN. But the raw WAN bandwidth was 2 Gb/s. Before PORTrockIT, throughput was typically equating to 2MB/s using Incumbent technology WAN-Optimisation with only 2% unitisation of WAN, and the time to transfer the data was 8.4 days.

After installing and configuring the Bridgeworks PORTrockIT virtual instances, the transfer speed increased to 80MB/s – a 40-fold increase and the time taken was reduced to under 6 hours. In this case the benchmark figure we were given was that the customer was only able to move data at around 2 Mega Bytes per second.”

Results

A spokesperson from the IT security company remarks: “The rate of throughput was incredible. PORTrockIT from Bridgeworks is a game changer. I am a storage engineer with limited networking knowledge. I was able to configure and deploy PORTrockIT in less than 2 hours”. The IT security firm believes that with ‘unthrottled’ conditions and utilising their full 2 Gig WAN, they would be able to transfer data at 200 MBs per second. PORTrockIT is working over a SD-WAN, and they required no other changes to the LAN or WAN configurations.

Speaking about the project, Kevin St. Cyr, Tributary Systems inc. of Dallas, Texas says: “We have always impressed with the capabilities of PORTrockIT product, but what they have achieved with the IT security company’s installation takes it to another level. It is a showcase for the capabilities of PORTrockIT. The beauty is, it’s easy to install and it shows the performance that can be achieved over a WAN that was once thought impossible.”

WAN Acceleration: Accelerating cloud metro cluster deployment

WAN Acceleration technologies accelerate data transfers that eliminate data management challenges are known as ‘WAN acceleration’. Bridgeworks patented artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies accelerate organisations existing technologies and dramatically accelerate their Wide Area Networks (WANs). AI underpins the patented technology to provide process intelligence, mitigating latency and mitigate packet loss. Our solutions, such as PORTrockIT, dramatically improve data throughput up to 98% of bandwidth – regardless of distance.

Hybrid cloud, object storage and metro clusters

Steven Umbehocker (SU), CEO and CTO of OSNEXUS Corporation explains why this is important to organisations that are accelerating their adoption of hybrid cloud strategies: “This can be in the form of object storage for backup, disaster recovery sites, and all this puts a greater importance on efficient use of the WAN. This is important across all sectors. However, it is especially important in sectors such as healthcare to protect data like PACS images.”
Before implementing Bridgeworks PORTrockIT OSNexus was facing performance challenges in deploying metro clusters and disaster recovery (DR) sites over WANs – suffering with particularly high latency over large distances. There was a 200-700% boost in performance by implementing PORTrockIT which is a game changer. The highest performance improvement was 7 times higher than without any WAN acceleration.”

Critical: Recovery Time objectives

Recovery time objectives (RTOs) are critical to IT organisations, so it is imperative to have adequate WAN bandwidth and throughput to keep the remote replication to DR sites within the required RTO. OSNexus is also seeing increase demand for metro clusters where the storage is distributed across multiple sites to achieve zero downtime in the event of a site outage.

Umbehocker therefore adds: “That’s only possible when the latency is low enough to provide sufficient and adequate performance for the workloads. PORTrockIT solves these latency issues so that metro clusters and DR sites can be deployed across a much larger geographic area. If you have an earthquake in one zone, that larger metro cluster offers benefits. You can avoid downtime, enabling organisations to link their disparate sites together. There is much latency between New York and Tokyo, and so you need something like PORTrockIT to mitigate latency.”

With high latency and packet loss, he explains that data transfers are delayed and may need to be resent which reduces performance – the transfer rate. WANs are typically spanning portions of the public internet and/or shared dark fibre infrastructure that IT organisations don’t have much control over, and simply upping bandwidth doesn’t address the latency issues. What is required is a different approach to boosting WAN performance that is designed to specifically address the inherent latency issues and packet loss.

Before approaching Bridgeworks, OSNexus experimented with various network tuning options, including adjusting the frame sizes and queueing techniques, but these adjustments do not come anywhere close to the range of benefits offered by PORTrockIT. The three biggest benefits were the reliability of the link, the visibility of the performance, and increased performance with PORTrockIT.

Joshua Blake (JB), Regional Support Lead – EMEA at OSNexus Corporation therefore says: “It definitely increased performance, but I couldn’t tell you if there was more smoothness. It was easy to set up once you understand it. There were some things I needed to read up on, but it was otherwise easy to set up.”

The company has a disaster recovery site between Seattle and Las Vegas, and so it found it helpful to include PORTrockIT into their automated test systems. To that extent, PORTrockIT is now certified for use with QuantaStor, and this enables OSNexus customers to leverage it for disaster recovery sites and metro cluster use cases.

Performance improvements

The QuantaStor VM endpoints shown in Figure 1 use the PORTrockIT virtual appliances as gateways for replicating data from a ZFS file system. For the data payload, OSNEXUS used a randomly generated 5,124 MB test file. The ZFS data was sent and received via SSH on TCP port 22.
By using WANulator to simulate the scenarios presented in Table 1, the OSNEXUS team was able to test transfer speeds both with and without PORTrockIT data acceleration and make direct comparisons between the two data transfer strategies. The test was conducted five times for each different latency, and the average transfer time in seconds can be seen below. Packet loss equated to 0.1%, and latency ranged from 0 milliseconds to 160 milliseconds.

At 0ms the unaccelerated the unaccelerated transfer time equated to 107.0 seconds. When accelerated this amounted to 105.6 seconds, with an improvement factor of -0.01. At 20ms the unaccelerated transfer time was 333.6 seconds, while the accelerated time was 117.6 seconds – leading to an improvement factor of 2.83. At 40ms the unaccelerated transfer rate was 1,724.6 seconds, and the accelerated transfer time was 245.0 – an improvement factor of 7.03. At 80ms the unaccelerated transfer time sat at 2,945.4 seconds, while accelerated it stood at 454.6 seconds – an improvement factor of 6.47. Lastly, at 160ms the unaccelerated transfer time was 3,789.0 seconds. Yet when accelerated it stood at 871.6 – an improvement factor of 4.34.

Blake therefore comments: “Aside from the performance benefits, being able to identify as a complementary product – architecting it with storage – adds another string to our bow effectively. We have mentioned PORTrockIT as a goal. We go in to speak about it, and then they see the benefits themselves – it’s like planting a seed.”

OSNexus has clients that are implementing hybrid cloud strategies who want or need the benefits that, according to Umbehocker, need to the benefits that PORTrockIT solves. This is because PORTrockIT allow data to be moved over WANs quickly and efficiently is a core challenge in implementing hybrid cloud strategies.

He concludes: “We have already started adding more features like automatic tiering from file to object storage and these new features around replication and tiering of data are putting an increased importance efficient use of customers available WAN bandwidth. PORTrockIT enables organisations to get increased value and performance out of their monthly WAN bandwidth investment, with an increase in throughput up to a 700%.”

National Institutes of Health

The NIH was originally a PORTrockIT 400 customer. However, it found an additional need to add two of Bridgeworks’ new high end PORTrockIT 800’s last year. They are moving four protocols over the WAN at ‘breakneck speed’.

A spokesperson from BKJ Works - New York comments: “This is a non-engineering group, but they have had no problem in installing the devices (each in under 1 hour!). Don't be surprised if they come up with future needs on an even grander scale in the future. I cannot thank Bridgeworks enough for their continued support, fast turn around and meeting all and any of our requests with a willingness to say, ‘Yes we can’. This relationship will only deepen going forward.”

WAN Data Acceleration powers the National Institutes of Health’s global data transfer requirements at the U.S Department of Health and Human Services. It is also the world’s largest biomedical research agency. One Bridgeworks' healthcare customer, US-based CVS Caremark, connected two virtual tape libraries over 2,860 miles at full WAN bandwidth. This achieved a performance gain of 95 times the unaccelerated performance.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has gone from never being able to achieve fast datacentre replication over a distance between sites of 2,000 miles, to be able to attain it. The difference between doing it between two machines in the same datacentre and in two machines across two datacentres was 6 MB/s on NetApp Snap Mirror replication. So, they now lose only this amount of time.

The NIH wasn’t able to address this issue for a couple of years. NetApp and Aspera couldn’t achieve this. Bridgeworks was brought in to conduct a quick POC that took a couple of days to set it up, and then that was it. The savings come from not having anything previously to protect their data. Bridgeworks has also helped NIH to resolve network infrastructure issues. Although successful, the results aren’t yet in the public domain. Yet it is a substantial multi-million U.S. dollar contract.

Accelerating IT security

The project with the major IT security firm is also a game-changer. Between November and December 2021, a storage subject matter expert within this company came to Bridgeworks with details about a file transfer problem on a 2Gbps WAN circuit between Colorado, USA, and Bangalore in India.

Problem:
With data equating to 700TB storage estate, backups are only as good as the ability to restore the data. In order to allow an acceptable transfer time of this data requires a robust solution. There were 2 NetApp units involved in the data migration: one in Bangalore and another in Denver. The transfer was performed using the inbuilt NetApp Snap Mirror feature. It involved migrating data in a follow the sun requirement, and critical data and security was paramount. The allocated WAN bandwidth for transfer was a 1Gb/s controlled by a SD-WAN. But the raw WAN bandwidth was 2 Gb/s. Before PORTrockIT, throughput was typically equating to 2MB/s using Incumbent technology WAN-Optimisation with only 2% unitisation of WAN, and the time to transfer the data was 8.4 days.

Phil Hill, Customer Solution Architect at Bridgeworks explains: “Our PORTrockIT solution for this company mitigated the effects of Latency and Packet loss. He says the latency between Denver and Bangalore at 350ms is a lot of latency! The biggest single factor causing latency is distance - even though the speed of light is around 186,282 miles per second – this figure is actually around one third lower when going through fibre optic cables.

Although the units can be hardware, sometimes virtual images or cloud machine images are more useful. As time was of the essence and the customer had real looming deadlines, the IT security firm opted for a Virtual Machine (VM) running in VMWare ESX. This made the turnaround for the evaluation-solution really quick. The following table shows the technical specification of the virtual products which would server the customer best.

After installing and configuring the PORTrockIT virtual instances the transfer speed increased to 80MB/s – a 40-fold increase and the time taken was reduced to under 6 hours. In this case the benchmark figure we were given was that the customer was only able to move data at around 2 Mega Bytes per second.”

Results

A spokesperson from the IT security company remarks: “The rate of throughput was incredible. PORTrockIT from Bridgeworks is a game changer. I am a storage engineer with limited networking knowledge. I was able to configure and deploy PORTrockIT in less than 2 hours”. The IT security firm believes that with ‘unthrottled’ conditions and utilising their full 2 Gig WAN, they would be able to transfer data at 200 MBs per second. PORTrockIT is working over a SD-WAN, and they required no other changes to the LAN or WAN configurations.

Speaking about the project, Kevin St. Cyr, Tributary Systems inc. of Dallas, Texas says: “We have always impressed with the capabilities of PORTrockIT product, but what they have achieved with the IT security company’s installation takes it to another level. It is a showcase for the capabilities of PORTrockIT. The beauty is, it’s easy to install and it shows the performance that can be achieved over a WAN that was once thought impossible.”

WAN Accelerating F1

A Formula 1 (F1) team undertook an evaluation, a proof of concept (POC), which showed the ability of PORTrockIT to make their WAN data transfers 60 times faster than before. The trial was so successful that the team ended it early. Bridgeworks’ brief was to help them speed up data the transfer of data from the Cotswolds in the UK to New England, in the USA.

A new Partnership with Prodec Networks was formed in the process, and a spokesperson from Prodec comments: “Regarding the F1 team, from wind tunnel analysis to engineering documents, Formula 1 teams accumulate significant volumes of data. The cars’ sensors (over a hundred of them) tell their own story about the race for the duration of the race and for referral later.”

“Needless to say, up to date revisions of the cars’ specific designs need to be easily accessible. How the teams deal with the pressures of reacting quickly to the vast amount of information is often the difference between winning and losing each race. With race data exceeding 150Gb per race weekend, it’s easy to see how our F1 team needed a fast data-transfer solution.”

Bridgeworks continues to keep its customers on track by enabling them to mitigate latency and packet loss. Even organisations that are implementing SD-WANs can benefit from a WAN Acceleration, which is data agnostic, and which permits the transmission of encrypted data at speed over large distances. This is something that tools such as WAN Optimisation will never be able to achieve.

Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) Project of the Year

Sponsored by

WINNER

Schneider Electric and RMD UK

Since its establishment 25 years ago, the University of Lincoln has rapidly grown and evolved into one of the leading academic institutions, listed in the world’s top 130 in the Times Higher Education’s (THE) Young University Rankings 2022. Each university has an important IT infrastructure that is heavily relied upon to support academic and administrative operations in their central data centre and distributed edge computing spaces. With Lincoln University adding a new building to their roster in the city-centre every year, it enriches the city’s economic, social and cultural life, each housing a critically important IT infrastructure, essential to university through its connectivity and digital progression.

As the university has grown to be heavily IT dependent and their students becoming more tech literate, each campus building is distributed with edge environments providing internet connectivity for students and staff, it is important that systems have a longer life cycle in order to minimise their carbon emissions and continue its processes.

But many of the standard applications used by students and the university itself have moved towards a Software as a Service (SaaS) or cloud-based delivery model. Darren Coy, Senior Infrastructure Analysts and Team Leader for the Compute and Storage team at Lincoln University said: “In times past we could arrange to shut down IT systems on, say, a Thursday morning to carry out essential maintenance and upgrades, and of course our weekends were completely free,” he said. “But today many of our buildings are open all day and every day. So, we have to make sure that everything is up and running all the time.”

Like many universities, Lincoln works with third-party companies on research projects and academic initiatives, as well as providing incubation services for innovations to possibly appeal to the wider market. From this, the IT infrastructure supported has to be robust and resilient, therefore power reliability is an important challenge for the university. Due to intermittent disruptions that can occur to the main power supply, and that there is no secondary power generation because of its city centre location, these can present a threat to continuous uptime.
The university depends on Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) systems to build resilience into its network, which provide battery backup in the event of a disruption to mains power so essential functions can still operate normally. To address these challenges in maintaining the IT power across their expanding campus, Lincoln partnered with Schneider Electric and RMD UK for their Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) project over a decade ago after Schneider Electric’s partner won a tender for the replacement of aging AP Smart-UPS SRT units on site. These system implementations aimed to bring modernisation of the university’s power infrastructure for efficiency. These systems are spread out across the university buildings to provide necessary essential power backup to IT assets and protect from future potential challenges that could impact the teaching, researching and administrative operations of the university. Darren Coy added: “In many respects, Schneider Electric is a victim of its own success – the UPS were so reliable and worked so well we hadn’t really realised that many of them were well past their use-by date!”

For maximum efficiency in addition to the 110 APC Smart-UPS SRT systems, the university also implemented Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure IT Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software. This presents monitoring and control over infrastructure elements, including power infrastructure, and cooling. Integrating both of these systems has allowed the university to have more insight and better visibility into its IT environment, helping to speed up response times for any possible incidences.

For this project to succeed, the RMD UK and Schneider Electric partnership was crucial in working with Lincoln University and ensuring upgraded existing UPS systems were maintained according to their condition to optimize performance and its long-term use. RMD UK ensured and supported new construction projects to ensure that every newly constructed building is equipped with the latest UPS technologies.

The RMD relationship has made for a more systematic and regular approach to maintenance. “RMD knows us and our requirements and how we work,” said Darran Coy. “Now, instead of waiting until something dies before replacing it, we have an ongoing system of regular maintenance and of replacing batteries and UPS units in accordance with their condition rather than their age.”

In addition to the Smart-UPS SRT system, Schneider Electric installed monitoring software using Data Center Expert, a part of Schneider’s EcoStruxure Centralised data centre infrastructure management solution. With this, Darren Coy is now able to centrally manage and monitor all elements of the data centre infrastructure to ensure maximum operational efficiency. The system is designed to collect, organize and distribute critical device information to show a complete view of the equipment, whilst also providing instant fault notifications for quick assessment and resolution of critical infrastructure events. Having this software implemented into the IT infrastructure allows for full visibility of the equipment that are spread across their growing campus edge buildings and respond quickly to future events.

Looking towards the university’s net zero goals, supported by NetBotz devices, has contributed to the success of this BC/DR project. In this, tracking temperature, humidity, and airflow in the server rooms constantly, it reduces cooling energy costs and UPS metrics for greater air conditioning efficiency and enhancing cooling processes, all of which leads to a better alignment with the Lincoln University’s sustainability goals. In these software modernisations, it also included improvements to the power availability and serviceability of the infrastructure, as well as allowing the university to save energy through its increased temperature setpoints – the first step to move towards becoming a net zero carbon for IT services.

The partnership between Schneider Electric, RMD UK, and University of Lincoln will play an important role in the future of its IT sustainability strategy and overall performance. Leveraging the latest energy-efficient technologies into the already existing system, with the addition of data analytics and forward-thinking maintenance, the university is well positioned to support upcoming research and academics plans for the future.

For these reasons, the work between Schneider Electric and RMD UK with Lincoln University stands out for effective modernized IT infrastructure, deserving the BC/DR award recognition in the industry.

RUNNER UP

Node4

What was the driving force behind the project - what business or technology challenge needed to be addressed?
West Midlands Trains (WMT) is owned by Transport UK. Operating London Northwestern Railway and West Midlands Railway franchises, it runs over 1,300 services to and from some of the UK’s busiest and most well-known stations, including Liverpool Lime Street, London Euston and Birmingham New Street.

A small IT team with wide-ranging responsibilities
With less than a dozen staff, West Midlands Trains has a relatively small IT team but an extensive remit. It is responsible for all IT assets and infrastructure at 160 stations. This includes ticket machines, customer information screens, CCTV, help points, and IoT sensors. To give an idea of scale, the smallest stations have 20-30 IT assets, while the largest can have up to 800.

The IT team is also in charge of each site's data centre and network connectivity, plus its centralised storage, backup and disaster recovery capabilities. In addition, it maintains the back-office systems and applications that ensure trains and drivers are where they need to be at the right time—keeping services running smoothly for customers.

A wake-up call to improve backup, DR and redundancy
Before engaging Node4, West Midlands Trains had three data centres. One provided centralised internet connectivity and disaster recovery, one housed the production servers that supported all the IT assets, and one contained all the network interconnectivity infrastructure to 3rd parties.
The Birmingham data centre was located within WMT’s HQ building. It was a purpose-built space with cooling and fire suppression but no backup power. The building suffered a major electrical fault a few years ago, and the data centre lost power for around five hours.

Relying on an external generator, the operator’s IT team recovered quickly and with no significant impact on train services. However, the incident fast-tracked a decision to move the servers and storage infrastructure to a managed data centre with the latest security, backup, disaster recovery and redundancy capabilities.

How did the solution address the challenges, and were there any particularly innovative aspects that made it stand out?
A local managed services provider within easy access of the M6
West Midlands Trains migrated all one hundred of its servers to Node4’s main data centre. It also houses the perimeter firewall, provides the base for WMT’s centralised internet connectivity, and is the origin point for all site-to-site VPNs. The fact that Node4 was a Midlands-based company was important as the operator wanted a data centre within an hour’s drive from Birmingham. This would give Steve Roberts and his team fast emergency access to the site and the ability to replace any network or storage components with minimal impact on train services.

Boosting data storage availability and redundancy
To ensure availability and redundancy, WMT’s servers are backed up to one of Node4’s secondary data centres with auto-failover in place. They’re connected by two independent internet links delivered by different telco providers.
These low-latency, resilient links enabled West Midlands Trains to reduce its recovery time objective by at least 50%. This has a direct and positive impact on the speed at which station IT and storage infrastructure can be brought back online in the event of a failure—helping to maintain a consistent service and meet operational targets. Additional redundancy infrastructure includes N_1 generator backup, N N power and UPS system, and N N cooling systems.

“To put some metrics behind this, we’ve gone from 99.97% reliability to 99.99%. Had we not moved over to Node4, it’s possible our availability would have dropped to around 95% due to planned and unplanned power outages.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

“Our legacy data centres had just one link from one telco carrier—and even getting access to that had been challenging. By contrast, Node4’s data centre delivers access to multiple carriers, improving our resiliency and business continuity capabilities. In addition, our old data centres required manual networking changes to implement failover procedures and processes. West Midlands Trains, with the support of Node4, completely automated this process, which boosted the resiliency of our data storage and network infrastructure.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

A data centre that runs on 100% renewable energy
Additionally, Node4’s data centres run on 100% renewable energy, which is good for WMT from an ESG and sustainability point of view. “We’re always trying to reduce our carbon footprint. As I’m sure you’ll appreciate, that’s not easy when operating a fleet of diesel & electric trains. So, this is definitely a bonus and helps with our carbon offset work.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

A proactive, can-do approach
West Midlands Trains also has access to Node4’s highly skilled support teams. They assist with storage kit installation, as well as patching, connectivity, and monitoring tasks.
“Node4 is integral to our organisation. Their data centre supports our commercial operations—enabling customers to buy tickets from vending machines or counters—as well as our customer information and safety infrastructure. Importantly, it also houses the rail operation and train management systems that ensure drivers, crews, and services are in the right place at the right time.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

Accommodating data and storage infrastructure that didn’t suit a cloud environment
“After assessing our IT, network and storage infrastructure, it became clear we could only move around half of it to a cloud environment—far less than we had planned. Node4’s team understood this issue from the outset, which prevented costly cloud adoption mistakes that could have jeopardised application uptime. Instead, they created a hybrid cloud environment utilising their data centre infrastructure to seamlessly connect cloud and non-cloud storage and network infrastructure components.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

What major challenges were faced during the project, and how were they overcome?
A tiny window to relocate to Node4’s data centre
Time was of the essence for this storage transformation project: The last West Midlands Trains service enters the depot at approximately 1 am, and the first departs at around 4 am. Every second had to count.
11:00 pm: Non-critical servers shut down.
Midnight: UK Rail Control approved critical server shutdown. All servers were wrapped and transported to Node4’s data centre.
1:00 am: The last service enters depo.
2:00 am: All servers unloaded and racked. Power cables connected.
4:00 am: Business critical servers are back online, and the first train departs the depo.
pressure we were under that night, but Node4’s team were professional, calm and exacting in their approach at each stage. As a result, everything went according to plan.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains
What tangible benefits has the organisation seen as a result of the project's implementation?
Storage transformation costs kept under control

“Node4’s team took on an important project management role right from the start. Too often, you hear of spiralling storage transformation costs due to poor planning and execution. This was not the case with Node4. They worked behind the scenes to keep the two internet providers on track, ensuring links between the primary and secondary data centres were installed as scheduled so that the project stayed on track and on budget.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

Excellent onsite support, customer service and positive attitude
West Midlands Trains has also experienced an incredible contrast in onsite support and general customer service compared to the previous storage and data centre provider.
“Node4’s data centre ‘hands and eyes’ service is helpful and obliging. If a drive fails in a server, I can log a ticket, ask Node4 to check it, send a part if necessary, and Node4 will fit it. This is part of Node4’s wider can-do attitude that we all recognised during our initial site visit. Instead of putting up barriers, causing delays and becoming a bottleneck, Node4 finds solutions, solves problems, and generally makes my life much easier. It’s an absolute pleasure to work together.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

Channel Champion Individual of the Year Award

WINNER

Angus Shaw - Sales Director

Angus is dedicated to the success of Brigantia. As Sales Director, one of his greatest achievements to date is leading and growing the sales team from just nineteen people in 2019 to forty-two at the start of 2023.

Angus is focussed on the future and the continued growth of the business, working hard to grow Brigantia to a £25million turnover and expanding the team to 100 employees.

The reason Angus had been so successful in growing his team is down to how much he enjoys his role. Working with people and seeing them develop as a team over months and years is something he takes pride in.

Angus’s colleagues would describe him as fair and willing to give people time, as well as a very driven and focused individual, which is understandable when looking at the success of the team.

RUNNER UP

Raymond Parkinson - Manager, International Sales - UK/EMEA

Ray is a seasoned professional with 9 years of experience working closely with Managed Service Providers (MSPs). He is passionate about collaborating with European MSPs, leveraging their expertise to drive success and foster strong partnerships within the industry. Ray's knowledge and insights have made them a sought-after speaker at the prestigious MSP events.

Outside of work, Ray embraces personal challenges and recently accomplished a significant milestone by completing his first marathon in Rome. Additionally, Ray has shown incredible commitment to learning by maintaining an impressive 465 day streak on Duolingo, actively studying the Dutch language. With their extensive experience, passion for MSPs, and dedication to personal growth, Ray continues to make a positive impact in the industry.

Channel Company of the Year

HCL Technologies Ltd.

Infinidat

Infinidat has supercharged the channel in EMEA in 2024, with the industry’s strongest commitment to channel partners. The company has leveraged all of the channel program initiatives, enhancements and extensions that it made in 2023 to drive significant new revenue opportunities for channel partners in 2024. Infinidat continues to invest heavily in providing support for partners globally. New additions include a significantly enhanced EMEA and APJ channel program and a new sales enablement and training program − the Infuziast Certified Partner Program − along with regional program enhancements, such as channel partner advisory boards.

From an organizational perspective, Infinidat has solidified, enhanced, and empowered a cohesive team of channel-dedicated sales, channel-dedicated SE and support personnel, and channel-dedicated marketing that are global (across Americas, EMEA and APJ). Infinidat achieved significant growth based on a directive, led by Steve Sullivan (CRO), and executed in collaboration with his Channel Leadership team, James JT Lewis (EMEA APJ) and Mitch Diodato (Americas) to co-sell with channel partners as often as possible. Infinidat increased our channel partner community and launched our new Infuziast certification program with over 75 and growing ‘Infuziasts’ in the field.

Infinidat enhanced its EMEA and APJ channel program with new tiering levels for partners; an enhanced deal registration process; new backend rebates; a redesigned criteria for MDF; a not-for-resell program; redesigned the enablement program on the InfiniVersity partner portal; and increased joint marketing efforts.
Infinidat continues, from a company perspective, to win awards that are channel centric.

The following outlines the major enhancements and extensions that Infinidat has done over the past year, putting Infinidat in the position to be recognized as Channel Storage Company of the Year: Enhancements to the EMEA and APJ channel partner program - Infinidat enhanced its EMEA and APJ channel program with new tiering levels for partners, an enhanced deal registration process, new backend rebates, a redesigned criteria for MDF a not-for-resell program, redesigned the enablement program on the InfiniVersity partner portal, and increased joint marketing efforts. Infuziast Certified Partner Program - Infinidat had a very successful rollout of its major new sales enablement and training program, starting in EMEA and APJ in the second half of 2023. Channel partners, ranging from sales consultants to technical personnel, can now earn certification through this new program, which also includes a rewards component. Partner Advisory Boards - Infinidat has established partner advisory boards for the channel in the Americas, EMEA, and APJ. Partner Tech Clubs - Infinidat has set up partner tech clubs for engineers, solution architects and solution advisors in EMEA and APJ. Infinidat’s channel momentum has steadily grown over the past year, fortified by the following accolades and advancements: Gartner named Infinidat a Leader in the Magic Quadrant for Primary Storage The Infinidat Partner Program earned a 5-Star Rating from CRN in the spring 2024 Infinidat’s channel leader was named a CRN Channel Chief for 2024 GigaOm recognized Infinidat as the industry leader in ransomware protection for block storage and file storage Infinidat was included on the prestigious CRN 100 list InfiniSafe technology was recognized in the 2024 CRN Tech Innovators Award competition Infinidat’s revamped partner portal has garnered rave reviews.

Partners are abuzz about Infinidat’s latest launch in May 2024 of the InfiniSafe Automated Cyber Protection (ACP) solution and the InfiniBox® G4 family of next-generation storage arrays for all-flash and hybrid configurations

“The slew of new solutions that Infinidat has launched is quite impressive. The enterprise storage solutions provider is dramatically expanding their offering with a next-generation storage solution as well as laying out a multi-phase plan to take their InfiniVerse platform to greater heights. The new InfiniSafe Automated Cyber Protection solution is on-point for today’s cyber threat landscape, and Infinidat’s expansion of support for hybrid, multi-cloud environments, with their addition of Microsoft Azure support is exactly what is needed. We are excited to educate and enable Partners across the UK&I, to better support their customers enterprise storage and cyber resiliency challenges, ” Liam Mugford, Head of Partner Development at CMS Distribution.

“The new InfiniSafe Automated Cyber Protection solution is very different then the way most organizations protect data today with more traditional backup and recovery methods. It’s immensely useful to be able to have a security team define a trigger to automatically connect to an Infinidat storage environment and instantly create immutable snapshots. This is vital for cyber resilience, and without it, companies are at a very high risk. Infinidat is making it so easy to integrate this automated cyber protection capability into Security Operations Centers and existing security applications - it’s a no-brainer to bring Infinidat into your enterprise data infrastructure,” said Matteo Cuius, Head of Sales at sysmind.

ExaGrid

ExaGrid works with its customers worldwide to include all aspects of security. We drive the majority of our security offerings through talking to our customers and resellers. Traditionally, backup applications have strong security but backup storage typically has little to none. ExaGrid is unique in its approach to backup storage security.

ExaGrid Tiered Backup Storage has the only non-network-facing tier (creating a tiered air gap) with delayed deletes and immutable data objects for ransomware recovery. Most recently, ExaGrid expanded its comprehensive security features to include dual roles to change policies from both IT and security, alert on large deletes for early attack detection warning and alert on deduplication change which could a precursor of data being encrypted at the primary storage side.

Data Management/Analytics Innovation of the Year

WINNER

VS Security Products Ltd

The MediaGone 500 by Verity Systems is a precision-engineered shredder that safely eliminates a variety of media at the push of a button, including SSDs, flash drives, cell phones, CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray discs, credit cards, and hard drive platters.
The MediaGone 500 ensures complete media destruction for users across various industries by shredding materials to less than 4mm in width. The MediaGone 500 can be operated in an office environment and started by following the instructions displayed on its main LCD screen.
Its clear polycarbonate dome cover, reinforced with glass, allows users to safely observe the live destruction process of SSDs, flash drives, discs, or phones.

The MediaGone 500, the most effective and user-friendly shredder created by Verity Systems, features the latest LED lighting technology. Its straightforward touch screen allows users to access all capabilities, including selecting fine or coarse cuts for specific shredded particle sizes.
Available as a tabletop model or mounted on a cabinet with casters for mobility, the tabletop version includes a 1-gallon drawer that is easily removable when full. The cabinet-mounted version features infrared sensing technology that alerts the user via the display screen.

Built with hardened carbon steel cutters and a high-torque slip-free drive, the unit delivers maximum power while operating on a standard electrical outlet (110-125VAC/60Hz). Thermal sensors protect the drive train from malfunction or damage. Multiple safety interlocks and an emergency stop button ensure operator safety at all times.
Media Handing:

Solid-State Drives (SSD)* including M.2/NVMes, Flash drives, USB Sticks, Smartphones, Cell Phones, Mobile phones, CD, DVD, Blu- Ray, Credit Cards, Hard Drive platters.

Destroy Time: Less than 1 minute

Throughput: Up to 100 SDDs / 500 Flash Drives / 45 mobile phones per hour
The MediaGone 500 comes with a standard 12-month manufacturer's warranty. Extended warranties are also available. Our product build quality ensures that whether you opt for an extended warranty or not, our factory-based technical support team can assist you with any unit-related issues. We are available with free phone support and can be contacted via email. This product support is available for the entire lifetime of ownership.

RUNNER UP

Kyvos Insights

Kyvos is a GenAI-powered semantic layer that supercharges data and AI initiatives for global enterprises. The platform enables conversational interactions with data and delivers end-to-end, hyper-speed analytics at any scale while reducing the time and cost to extract insights.  

As a critical building block of a modern data and AI stack, the cloud-native semantic layer simplifies enterprise-wide data analytics, strengthens data governance and standardizes data interpretation. With its innovative AI-powered smart aggregation technology, Kyvos supercharges analytics to deliver unmatched performance at scale on modern data and cloud platforms.  

Kyvos provides the following key value propositions:

Kyvos Copilot :
Kyvos Copilot is an exceptional innovation to enable Gen AI-driven analytics that can significantly reduce the time and effort needed for augmented decision intelligence.

Gen AI-Powered Semantic layer:
Kyvos’ semantic layer stands apart in the market as it offers simplified analytics, intuitive data modeling, democratized data access, three-tiered security architecture and interactive analytics.   

AI-Powered Smart Aggregation:
Kyvos’ AI-powered Smart Aggregation is unique due to its capability to eliminate the limitations of traditional OLAP and deliver hyper-speed analytics on billions of rows.

Creating Tangible Results and Competitive Advantage for Global Enterprises:
Today, organizations worldwide choose Kyvos to overcome critical BI and analytics challenges associated with ever-growing data volumes and complex environments. Our commitment to enabling faster cloud BI adoption and ensuring a superior ROI through multiple deployment modes and attractive pricing models reaffirms our dedication to optimizing costs and driving higher performance across the board.

Kyvos redefines how businesses derive value from 1000x more data for 100x faster insights and 3x lesser analytics costs than any other platform in the marketplace.   

Data Security/Compliance Innovation of the Year

Sponsored by

WINNER

Hornetsecurity

There is a data security problem hiding within SharePoint.

SharePoint has many options to give file permissions. But bad actors, like hackers or rogue employees, can actually expose all company secrets in SharePoint, without that company having a clue.

Folders within SharePoint conceal many items. SharePoint does not have hierarchical views. When you open a folder, there may be many more folders and files inside. You have to go through every folder and file, to locate what you need, and each one of these has its several screens and tabs that you need to access to comprehend permissions.

There is a lack of visibility within SharePoint: You can’t tell if users have permissions they shouldn’t. This allows attackers to:
* Conceal access by hiding it within complex and obscure folder arrangements
* Conceal access by placing it inside groups within groups.
* Conceal “full access” rights by disguising them with false permission levels.
* Conceal entire document libraries to duplicate and exfiltrate confidential files.

Even when you have identified a cyber attack, SharePoint makes it almost impossible to remove access rights.

Keep in mind that AI today is making it easier to fall for phishing emails. It can generate believable texts in any language with real employee data in no time. Plus, human error is still the main factor for cyberattacks being successful.

SharePoint has very poor visibility, but it is even more difficult to remove the permissions that pose a risk to your business.

The default M365 settings are not secure; they generate anonymous sharing links for sharing Teams files.
The M365 sign-in block can be very slow in removing access rights from disgruntled employees.
Within short amounts of time, permissions can run into hundreds of thousands. A company with about 400 employees can have 2 million files in SharePoint, and likely over 100,000 distinct access rights.

Identifying which users have access to what in SharePoint is exhausting. Literally no one within your organization is able to monitor this jungle of access rights; following that it is ever increasing and opening the doors widely for cyber criminals. Managers can’t see which users are in what group, leading to potentially wrong assumptions of data security.

This is why we developed 365 Permission Manager, launched last year. It is an admin-centred solution to manage permissions, enforce compliance policies, and monitor violations within M365. Launched in 2023, it brings ease and order to the tracking of employee access to M365 sites, files and folders, ensuring that critical permission situations do not occur.

365 Permission Manager offers a convenient and user-friendly interface for CISOs and M365 admins to minimize risk by properly governing assets and adhering to compliance standards by means of auditing.

It gives CISOs a more comprehensive view of permissions and whether items are shared with others, helping them to better protect sensitive information.

Thanks to 365 Permission Manager, CISOs get a more comprehensive view of permissions and whether items are shared with others, helping them to better protect sensitive information. It allows M365 admins to define compliance policies for sharing sites, files, and folders in Microsoft 365 and then easily monitor the states of policy compliance, and to audit policy violations – which helps organizations maintain compliance with internal and external regulations and policies.

This solution addresses the real and yet often overlooked problem that comes with the use of SharePoint. It can serve as a lifesaver to CISOs and IT Directors in any organization that uses M365.
Background:

It fits into our overall story as we have become increasingly aware that Managed Service Providers, VARs and customers are seeking a holistic solution that meets all their email security needs in one centralized package.

We had started out in this is direction by combining our state-of-the-art email security service 365 Total Protection, that protects against spam, viruses, phishing, ransomware, and advanced threats with high-performance backup and recovery for Microsoft 365 data in mailboxes, Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint. This service also provides automated email continuity and legally compliant email archiving. To this we added Security Awareness Service, which trains employees using realistic spear phishing simulations and AI-powered e-training, heightening awareness of cyber security risks and threats and helping create a human firewall to complement our next-gen email security service. But we saw that more building blocks were needed.

Last year introduced this innovative new service to the overall offering, alongside AI Recipient Validation is an AI-based, self-learning service that continuously analyzes a user’s email communication patterns in the background to prevent email misdirection.

Our services are managed via one central, multitenant Control Panel and are also available as stand-alone offerings. This provides convenience and flexibility, coupled with ease of use and 24/7 technical support as part of the package.

RUNNER UP

VS Security Products Ltd

The MediaGone 500 by Verity Systems is a precision-engineered shredder that safely eliminates a variety of media at the push of a button, including SSDs, flash drives, cell phones, CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray discs, credit cards, and hard drive platters.

The MediaGone 500 ensures complete media destruction for users across various industries by shredding materials to less than 4mm in width. The MediaGone 500 can be operated in an office environment and started by following the instructions displayed on its main LCD screen.

Its clear polycarbonate dome cover, reinforced with glass, allows users to safely observe the live destruction process of SSDs, flash drives, discs, or phones.

The MediaGone 500, the most effective and user-friendly shredder created by Verity Systems, features the latest LED lighting technology. Its straightforward touch screen allows users to access all capabilities, including selecting fine or coarse cuts for specific shredded particle sizes.
Available as a tabletop model or mounted on a cabinet with casters for mobility, the tabletop version includes a 1-gallon drawer that is easily removable when full. The cabinet-mounted version features infrared sensing technology that alerts the user via the display screen.

Built with hardened carbon steel cutters and a high-torque slip-free drive, the unit delivers maximum power while operating on a standard electrical outlet (110-125VAC/60Hz). Thermal sensors protect the drive train from malfunction or damage. Multiple safety interlocks and an emergency stop button ensure operator safety at all times.
Media Handing:

Solid-State Drives (SSD)* including M.2/NVMes, Flash drives, USB Sticks, Smartphones, Cell Phones, Mobile phones, CD, DVD, Blu- Ray, Credit Cards, Hard Drive platters.

Destroy Time: Less than 1 minute

Throughput: Up to 100 SDDs / 500 Flash Drives / 45 mobile phones per hour

The MediaGone 500 comes with a standard 12-month manufacturer's warranty. Extended warranties are also available. Our product build quality ensures that whether you opt for an extended warranty or not, our factory-based technical support team can assist you with any unit-related issues. We are available with free phone support and can be contacted via email. This product support is available for the entire lifetime of ownership.

Data Security/Compliance Project of the Year

WINNER

Data Dynamics

For a Fortune 50 financial institution with a global presence, efficient risk management and stringent data compliance were imperative to safeguarding their vast operations. With data centers scattered across various countries and millions of files to scan, identifying sensitive information became a monumental task fraught with challenges. Recognizing the urgency and the potential risks, the institution turned to Data Dynamics, seeking their unparalleled expertise in streamlining sensitive data protection, governance, and compliance processes, ensuring not only regulatory adherence but also bolstering the overall security framework of the organization.

Business Need
Global Data Center Consolidation and Sensitive Information Identification

Data Center Consolidation: The need to consolidate data centers across multiple locations globally, optimizing operations and resources.
Sensitive Information Identification: The challenge of identifying sensitive information among the vast number of files scattered across the globe, safeguarding it against potential breaches.
Risk mitigation: Sensitive data protection and remediation for enhanced data compliance and governance

Challenges Faced
Unraveling the Complexity of Unstructured Data and Data Privacy Protection

Massive Unstructured Data: Dealing with a vast volume of unstructured data spread across geographical regions, including the US, UK, Europe, and Asia Pacific.
Data Governance and Privacy Protection: Inability to identify sensitive data and implement appropriate governance and privacy measures in compliance with regulations.
Classification and Audits: Difficulty in classifying data to meet regulatory requirements and conducting audits for effective risk management.
Transition Risks: Concerns about the risk involved in moving data to a new S3 platform.

Solution Offered
Intelligent Data Identification and Remediation for Enhanced Security & Compliance

Data Dynamics offered their innovative unified data management software with the following capabilities:

Intelligent Data Identification: Preliminary assessment and structuring of unstructured data, applying classification tags based on ownership, access, metadata, and content.
Data Analysis for Insights: Utilizing content analytics and a Data Science Engine for a Single Pane view of sensitive data, while employing industry-standard compliance and governance templates for risk classification.
Remediation and Data Protection: Implementing quarantine, secure storage, and an immutable audit trail supported by blockchain technology for identified sensitive data.
Role-based Access Control: Ensuring role-based access with intelligent file access control and file-re-permissioning to enhance data security.
Data Lifecycle Management - Data consolidation to drive continuous data protection, governance, and compliance

Business Impact
Strengthening Compliance and Centralized Data Management

Sensitive Data Detection: Twenty one thousand files containing passwords, security certificates, and API tokens were successfully identified from the 3M files scanned, mitigating potential risks.
Regulatory Compliance and Audit Reporting: Enhanced adherence to regulatory compliance requirements and streamlined audit reporting procedures.
Centralized Data Management: The implementation of a unified data management software, comprising of Data Mobility, Data Analytics, Data Security, and Data Compliance, enabled data consolidation and centralized management of sensitive data across multiple regions.

RUNNER UP

Fortinet

Juventus Football Club and Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT), the global cybersecurity leader driving the convergence of networking and security, have signed a sponsorship agreement through which Fortinet becomes the new Official Cybersecurity Partner for the next two seasons, through 2026. Juventus has also chosen Fortinet’s industry-leading Security Fabric platform to reduce complexity and streamline the identification and resolution of network and security issues across the club’s facilities.

Home to Juventus football and its fans, Allianz Stadium has been a leader in sustainability and serves as one of the premier entertainment hubs and tourist attractions in Turin. Juventus will implement Fortinet solutions within the Continassa Area, including Juventus Headquarters, Allianz Stadium Data Center, J|hotel, J|medical, and First Team Training Center – JTC Continassa.

Fortinet’s Platform Approach Wins Over Juventus
Fortinet’s Security Fabric platform and unique ability to converge networking and security helps organizations like Juventus reduce complexity by consolidating siloed security tools, increase visibility, improve performance, and decrease the mean time to respond to incidents.

Fortinet’s industry-leading Secure Networking portfolio was critical to Juventus’ decision to select Fortinet as its Official Cybersecurity Partner. A core requirement for the project included the completion of an entire LAN Edge infrastructure swap prior to the season’s start, which included replacing more than 50 switches and 160 access points (APs) across 10 locations.

As part of the agreement, Juventus will implement a central FortiGate next-generation firewall (NGFW) cluster to control their switches and access points. By adding FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer, Juventus now has a single pane of glass to help consolidate visibility and control for the full environment.

“This collaboration with Fortinet is a key milestone for Juventus as we aim to set new standards in technological advancement. We believe that together, we will be able to build a resilient network that will empower us to continue focusing on excelling on and off the pitch.” - Francesco Calvo, Managing Director Revenue & Institutional Relations at Juventus

“Integrating Fortinet’s next-generation firewalls and network security solutions into our infrastructure is a game changer for Juventus. These technologies offer us unparalleled control and visibility over our network, allowing us to secure our operations while optimizing performance across all our facilities.” - Mirko Rinaldini, Head of Information and Communication Technologies at Juventus

“As the Official Cybersecurity Partner of Juventus, we are thrilled to be a central contributor towards their goal of protecting one of the most technologically advanced venues in the world with the Fortinet Security Fabric. We look forward to collaborating with the team and finding new and unique ways Fortinet can help grow the fan and visitor experience across all of their facilities. - John Maddison, Chief Marketing Officer at Fortinet

Digital Transformation Company of the Year

WINNER

NinjaOne

iQuila

Our client a prominent global provider specializing in managed fixed wireless access solutions, faced a significant challenge in delivering full layer 2 services to its global carrier and telecommunications clients. The company\'s mission was to provide a solution that replicated the same quality and reliability as a physical Ethernet connection. However, the solution also needed to be highly scalable, enabling telecom firms to deploy it across thousands of enterprise customers scattered around the globe. This requirement presented a unique challenge, as the technology needed to seamlessly integrate with the existing infrastructure while ensuring scalability and reliability across multiple continents.
To address this challenge, our client evaluated several protocols and technologies, such as Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) and link layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP). These protocols are widely used in networking for various purposes, including network virtualization and device discovery. VXLAN, for instance, is a popular protocol for overlaying virtual networks on top of physical infrastructure, offering the flexibility to extend layer 2 networks across wide areas. However, despite the potential benefits of these technologies, our client encountered limitations that prevented them from fully meeting their objectives. These limitations included issues with latency, complexity in deployment, data fragmentation, inefficient throughput r a lack of support for the scale and reliability required by Our client\'s global telecom clients. As a result, the company found itself unable to deliver the desired solution without compromising on key performance metrics or customer experience.
In search of a better solution, our client turned to iQuila, a company specializing in innovative networking solutions. By collaborating with iQuila, our client was able to deploy virtual iQuila Enterprise servers at strategic points of presence (PoP) around the world. These PoPs served as critical hubs for delivering the network services to customers across different regions. In addition to the iQuila servers, Our client deployed Cradlepoint routers at every customer end location. Cradlepoint is known for its advanced wireless edge solutions, particularly for LTE and 5G networks. By utilizing Cradlepoint routers, our client could ensure robust and reliable connectivity for each customer.
To further enhance the solution, iQuila\'s Bridge software was installed on each Cradlepoint device. This software acted as a crucial link between the customer\'s location and the iQuila server infrastructure at the nearest PoP. By creating this link, our client could deliver a seamless layer 2 connection, which was traditionally only possible with physical infrastructure. This breakthrough allowed global telecom companies to provide their enterprise customers with the same level of service they would expect from a physical Ethernet connection, but without the limitations of geographic boundaries or the need for extensive physical infrastructure.
The impact of this solution was significant. Our client not only succeeded in delivering a new and innovative service to some of the largest firms in the world, but the company also realized substantial operational benefits. By streamlining their technology stacks at their PoPs, our client was able to achieve cost savings through reduced hardware requirements and lower energy consumption. This combination of cutting-edge technology and strategic deployment enabled Our client to remain at the forefront of the industry, delivering unparalleled service to its global telecom clients and their enterprise customers.

RUNNER UP

AtlasEdge Data Centres

The AgileEdge model was created from a recognition that the traditional, established data centre model is outdated and no longer adequately supports the expanding need for greater agility and connectivity at the edge. The fast-moving, complex IT demands being generated across advanced computing applications and business transformations are rendering long-established data centre strategies obsolete or unmanageable.

On-premises data centres are proving to be too inefficient and costly for a large number of users, and cumbersome software inhibits rapid innovation and reliable performance as the pace of data consumption ramps up. To remedy this challenge and pave a more efficient, powerful path for data and compute, AgileEdge transforms the conventional data centre design model and offers a new, standardised design and construction methodology.

Built on AtlasEdge’s already strong footprint of edge colocation deployments — the largest in Europe, AgileEdge amplifies AtlasEdge’s ability to support customers as they seek to establish true edge colocation and connectivity that combines low-latency access to enterprises and consumers, as well as direct access to the largest ISP and NSP providers.

By prioritizing smart supply chain management and cutting-edge design philosophies, AgileEdge delivers rapid site development that truly moves at the pace of digital transformation, making it the new leading edge of digital infrastructure. AgileEdge was built to deliver consistent quality across a range of deployment sizes alongside sustainability, tailoring data centres for the next generation of Big Data without sacrificing on long-term, industry-wide ecological goals.

By adapting to a new era of demand and refusing to compromise on any of the contemporary organization’s top priorities, AgileEdge is poised to be Europe’s leading edge platform.

As the only data centre platform designed and optimised using powerful machine learning tools to seamlessly support the next generation of machine learning applications, AgileEdge represents a stark departure from slow, complex, costly and capital-intensive data center design models. In this way, AgileEdge is a superior solution for a modern, fast-moving market that needs to expand its digital infrastructure quickly and powerfully.

What Makes AgileEdge Different:
Unique in its data centre design and construction approach, AgileEdge prioritises flexibility and rapid deployment at scale — without sacrificing the precision needed for empowering advanced IT. It delivers consistency through standard ‘packages’ tailored to a range of needs, offering greater accessibility to edge computing opportunities while streamlining the process of realizing that potential and rapidly assembling solutions that support specific project requirements.
AgileEdge sets itself apart by delivering innovative solutions rooted in these four strategic pillars:

Packaging: Each AgileEdge data centre is designed from a small number of pre-packaged elements, based on customer requirements and project scope, as well as AtlasEdge’s supply chain alignment. This ensures all the components that are needed are sourced and delivered together to be rapidly assembled on site.

Procurement: AgileEdge’s collaborative and cross market insights underpins this package-based approach, supporting the creation of locally designed data centres.

Production: AgileEdge projects are aligned through its centralised multi-purchase production and logistics tracking platform. This captures availability of various AgileEdge packages from the ecosystem of AtlasEdge vendors.

Planning: AgileEdge’s overarching approach ensures rapid test-fits for new sites, reducing time to market for customers.

AgileEdge leverages powerful machine learning tools to optimize design and support next-generation machine learning platforms within data centres, employing real-time performance testing and reporting, energy-efficient cooling methods, and energy storage solutions to contribute positively to sustainability efforts within the data centre industry.

AgileEdge is integrated with a robust supply chain management system, which ensures efficient procurement, stocking and visibility into data centre packages — a significant advantage in a market constrained by long lead times. Delivering collaborative insights to customers alongside its unique package-based approach, production can be accelerated and more optimally aligned with local market demands as needed.

These advantages are taken further thanks to AgileEdge’s focus on standardisation.

Built for applications that require real-time, instant communication and agility, AgileEdge’s model mirrors those requirements and delivers a data centre model that is built to suit these demands.

With a uniform operational, people and support model, AgileEdge’s model is capable of significantly streamlining operating costs while providing customers with enhanced reliability and value. These data centres can be constructed with consistent quality compared to traditional sites across all sizes of deployment, and with interchangeable packages, new technologies and infrastructure upgrades can be easily adopted for greater efficiency and more impactful customer outcomes.

Finally, in the pursuit of making advanced applications more sustainable, AgileEdge positions customers to be positive energy contributors.

Agile edge enables energy storage with large-scale batteries that can be integrated as needed, improving interoperability with the electrical grid. The use of fan walls and liquid cooling also result in 10x less electricity required for cooling when compared to a traditional data centre, and AgileEdge’s cutting-edge design allows for 100% reuse of our waste heat. These facilities participate in demand response, contributing excess generated energy back into networks, while surplus production from renewables can be stored locally within the data centre to enhance renewable economic schemes.

From efficiency that supports sustainability to advantages that shorten time to innovation for aggressively growing customers, AgileEdge\'s standardized model reduces operating costs, offers consistent quality across deployments, and allows for easy adoption of new technology upgrades.

AgileEdge was created to empower organizations pursuing a range of advanced data centre and connectivity use cases to more effectively harness a new model of edge building for a new era of compute and networking demands, offering an ideal method for expanding digital infrastructure resources at scale while remaining agile, sustainable and ahead of the curve.

StorPool

StorPool Storage offers a myriad of benefits for organizations, including cost savings, optimized infrastructure costs, simplified management, and straightforward scaling. With StorPool’s latest release, the company introduces major improvements to its award-winning data protection, efficiency, availability, and compatibility expertise.
StorPool Storage is designed for workloads that demand extreme reliability and low latency. It enables deploying high-performance, linearly scalable primary storage systems on commodity hardware to serve large-scale clouds\' data storage and data management needs. With StorPool, businesses streamline their IT operations by connecting a single storage system to all their cloud platforms while benefiting from its utterly hands-off approach to storage infrastructure. The StorPool team designs, deploys, tunes, monitors, and maintains each storage system so that end-users experience fast and reliable services while its customers’ tech teams dedicate their time to the projects that aim to grow their business.
The StorPool block storage software platform was developed to help service providers, enterprises and other public/private cloud builders build efficient clouds and eliminate the need for expensive and inefficient stand-alone storage arrays. The latest version introduces new capabilities and features including fast and efficient Erasure Coding, cloud management integration improvements and enhanced data efficiency – some of which have never been previously available from any block storage vendor.
StorPool is a software-defined storage solution that runs on standard x86 servers, converting them into high-performance and highly available virtual storage systems. StorPool’s distributed storage software is installed on a cluster of servers, which aggregates the performance and capacity of all the servers’ local drives into a single shared pool of storage that can then export block volumes over the StorPool Block Protocol, NVMe/TCP, or iSCSI, as well as NFS file shares. The storage system scales linearly in capacity and performance, meaning that making a cluster 10 times bigger would increase the performance of the cluster by 10 times. When deployed with Linux KVM-based workloads, StorPool services can run beside compute workloads on the same set of servers in a hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) manner. StorPool is a direct replacement for traditional SAN storage boxes, all-flash arrays, and other storage software. It provides highly reliable, scalable, high-performance data storage, built out of standard x86 servers. The data is “sliced”, and copies are distributed between a chosen number of servers or racks. This provides high levels of reliability, speed, and fast recovery times.StorPool is the superior alternative to mid- and high-end SANs and All-Flash Arrays (AFA) and other Storage Software solutions. Especially when it comes to mid- and large-scale deployments (hundreds of terabytes or petabytes of storage). With its comprehensive set of data management functionalities, StorPool’s software-defined storage solution goes above and beyond what is possible with other SDS products.StorPool Storage, by supporting both HCI and a traditional storage model, gives customers choices in selecting their overall infrastructure architecture.

Storage Hardware Innovation of the Year

WINNER

ExaGrid

In January 2024, ExaGrid released the EX189 appliance, The largest ExaGrid system configuration, comprised of 32 by EX189 appliances in a single scale-out system, can take in up to a 6PB full backup with 12PB raw capacity, making it the largest single system in the industry that includes data deduplication. In addition to the increased storage capacity, the EX189 is four times more rack space efficient than the previous 4U versions of ExaGrid appliances.

One of the key highlights of the updated product line, including the EX189, is is that all ExaGrid appliances are available in 2U models, offering rack space efficiency which allows organizations to save on rack storage and cooling costs while accommodating large data backups and future data growth.

Each ExaGrid appliance has processor, memory, networking, and storage so that the backup window stays fixed-length as data grows, eliminating expensive and disruptive forklift upgrades. Up to 32 appliances can be mixed and matched in a single scale-out system. Any age or size appliance can be used in a single system eliminating planned product obsolescence.

In addition, ExaGrid provides a 5-year price protection on all of its appliances. Whatever the customer pays for the appliance up front stays the same for 5 years. This allows customers to know what the long-term price will be for scalability, data growth, and long-term planning.

RUNNER UP

Infinidat

On May 22, 2024, Infinidat launched the InfiniBox® G4 family of next-generation storage arrays for all-flash and hybrid configurations. The new InfiniBox G4 solution is a breakthrough with its leap ahead in performance, delivering an improvement of up to 2.5x.

The InfiniBox SSA G4 all-flash solution provides a scale-up architecture with 60%, 80% and 100% populated models, while the InfiniBox G4 hybrid system continues as a fully-populated offering. The InfiniBox G4, the hybrid offering, offers a new capacity point with the F4420, which provides up to 8.5PB of effective storage. The new all-flash storage solutions also now include the small footprint InfiniBox SSA G4 F1400T model, requiring only 14RU that starts at 155 terabytes (TB) usable capacity (387TB effective capacity) at a very affordable price, while delivering all the InfiniBox SSA capabilities and InfuzeOS features. The SSA G4 F1400T family can be installed in a customer’s existing data center racks or those at a colocation facility.

The InfiniBox G4 series introduces a new set of foundational elements, powered by InfuzeOS, which is Infinidat’s software defined storage operating system. The G4 pushes the boundaries of enterprise-class storage solutions by leveraging the next generation of powerful and energy efficient CPU technology. InfiniBox SSA G4 and InfiniBox G4 controllers are now built on the AMD EPYC server architecture, utilizing a single socket 64 core CPU along with PCIe 5 bus infrastructure. PCI Express 5.0 supports faster devices with massive bandwidth and blistering I/O speeds. Latency continues to be the unmatched leader in performance with latency as low as 35 microseconds. The new solutions are backed by the company’s SLA-driven, enterprise-proven guarantees: performance, 100% availability, cyber resilience, and the enhanced data services built into InfuzeOS.

InfiniBox G4 delivers price, performance, capacity, features, and the desired outcomes for enterprises. Infinidat’s software-defined operating system, InfuzeOS™, drives a 3-way active controller architecture and Neural Cache resulting in exceptional workload performance, 100% availability, and cyber resilience. With 31% more cores per controller node, power can be reduced by 20% per core, on average. InfiniBox is ideal for diverse workload consolidation, lowering both OPEX and carbon footprints.

While Infinidat’s InfiniBox solutions are known for delivering large rack scale solutions, Infinidat has expanded its solutions with its new F1400T InfiniBox SSA G4 family with 14RU form factor that fits into a customer\'s industry standard racks. The F1400T family scales up to 3PB of effective storage capacity. A smaller footprint doesn’t mean less capability; it is an enterprise InfiniBox SSA through and through − same low latency performance, availability, and cyber resilience with all the same guarantees.

In support of the new InfiniBox series, Infinidat is also introducing a new lifecycle management controller upgrade program − InfiniVerse Mobius. Over the lifecycle of an array, the customer will have the option to upgrade the controllers to level up the storage system and seamlessly extend its life in their data infrastructure.

One of the many industry analysts who have been very positive about our G4 launch is Rob Strechay, Managing Director & Principal Analyst at theCUBE Research. After evaluating the new InfiniBox G4, Strechay stated, “With a large installed base of InfiniBox of sophisticated enterprise users, the new InfiniBox G4 should delight. Infinidat has shown us the performance numbers, and they are blazing fast. The flexibility of the different options and features built into InfuzeOS benefits customers, and I’m delighted to see the introduction of the controller upgrade program – InfiniVerse Mobius. Infinidat’s InfiniBox G4 should be a powerful contender in the all-flash storage segment of the industry, and it’s perfect for storage consolidation or an enterprise refresh.”

Walter Rival, CTO at Eastern Computer Exchange, an Infinidat partner said, “Infinidat is blazing a new path with their next-generation InfiniBox G4 system, their InfiniVerse platform, and their InfiniSafe Software for cyber storage resilience and recovery. The company is solving performance issues for enterprises, equipping customers with smart hybrid multi-cloud solutions, creating new cloud-like experiences with increased control for IT managers, and protecting data that is vulnerable to cyberattacks. Introducing these next level solutions to our global customer base strengthens the elevated data center architecture we strive to deliver.”

Storage Software / Management Innovation of the Year

WINNER

StorMagic

StorMagic SvHCI™ combines a hypervisor and virtual networking with the provider’s proven virtual storage technology used by thousands of customers around the world. This full-stack HCI (hyperconverged infrastructure) solution is purpose-built for edge and small to medium-sized business (SMB) environments and includes StorMagic’s in-house 24x7x365 customer support. StorMagic SvHCI saves customers up to 62% over VMware.

RUNNER UP

StorPool

The StorPool block storage software platform was developed to help service providers, enterprises and other public/private cloud builders build efficient clouds and eliminate the need for expensive and inefficient stand-alone storage arrays. The latest version introduces new capabilities and features including fast and efficient Erasure Coding, cloud management integration improvements and enhanced data efficiency – some of which have never been previously available from any block storage vendor.
StorPool is a software-defined storage solution that runs on standard x86 servers, converting them into high-performance and highly available virtual storage systems. StorPool’s distributed storage software is installed on a cluster of servers, which aggregates the performance and capacity of all the servers’ local drives into a single shared pool of storage that can then export block volumes over the StorPool Block Protocol, NVMe/TCP, or iSCSI, as well as NFS file shares. The storage system scales linearly in capacity and performance, meaning that making a cluster 10 times bigger would increase the performance of the cluster by 10 times. When deployed with Linux KVM-based workloads, StorPool services can run beside compute workloads on the same set of servers in a hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) manner.
StorPool is a direct replacement for traditional SAN storage boxes, all-flash arrays, and other storage software. It provides highly reliable, scalable, high-performance data storage, built out of standard x86 servers. The data is “sliced”, and copies are distributed between a chosen number of servers or racks. This provides high levels of reliability, speed, and fast recovery times.
StorPool is the superior alternative to mid- and high-end SANs and All-Flash Arrays (AFA) and other Storage Software solutions. Especially when it comes to mid- and large-scale deployments (hundreds of terabytes or petabytes of storage). With its comprehensive set of data management functionalities, StorPool’s software-defined storage solution goes above and beyond what is possible with other SDS products.
Further, StorPool enables the implementation of converged/integrated infrastructure solutions, known as hyper-convergence. Users can run compute (virtual machines, applications, databases, etc.), on the same servers as the StorPool storage services. This is because StorPool is highly efficient, taking just 5-10% of the resources of each server and leaving the majority of resources available for running apps. This convergence of storage and compute loads allows customers to increase levels of utilization, thus significantly reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), and therefore boosting Return on Investment (ROI).
With its newest version, StorPool introduces major improvements to its award-winning data protection, efficiency, availability, and compatibility expertise. Chief among the highlights of v21’s improvements is the unique implementation of Erasure Coding that extracts greater usable capacity from a set of five or more servers while protecting against drive or node failure or corruption with virtually no impact on read/write performance.
When deployed on at least five all-NVMe storage servers, StorPool’s state-of-the-art implementation of Erasure Coding provides four key capabilities:
1. Cross-Node Data Protection – information is protected across servers with two parity objects so that any two servers can fail and data remains safe and accessible.
2. Per-Volume Policy Management – volumes can be protected with triple replication or Erasure Coding, with per-volume live conversion between data protection schemes.
3. Delayed Batch-Encoding – incoming data is initially written with three copies and later encoded in bulk to greatly reduce data processing overhead and eliminate impact on latency for user I/O operations.
4. Always-On Operations – up to two storage nodes can be rebooted or brought down for maintenance while the entire storage system remains running with all data remaining available.

StorPool Storage, by supporting both HCI and a traditional storage model, gives customers choices in selecting their overall infrastructure architecture. Tangible impacts on the market and customers include:
● Lowest Upfront Cost: StorPool Storage significantly reduces upfront hardware costs, saving organizations up to 30% on startup hardware expenses.
● Optimized Infrastructure Costs: With fewer systems to manage and simpler network topologies, organizations benefit from reduced infrastructure costs and streamlined management, leading to enhanced operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
● Simplified Management: StorPool Storage simplifies storage management by offering a unified platform with fewer systems to manage and simpler logical, physical, and network topologies. StorPool is tightly integrated with leading cloud management platforms such as CloudStack, OpenNebula, OpenStack, and Proxmox, with support for both HCI and disaggregated deployments.
● Simplified Hardware Inventory: StorPool Storage’s standardized approach to hardware provisioning ensures consistency and reliability across the infrastructure, further enhancing operational efficiency and management simplicity.
● More Straightforward Scaling: StorPool Storage facilitates straightforward scaling of compute and storage resources, allowing organizations to seamlessly increase capacity and performance by adding new servers to the cluster.
● Ability to Scale Up: With the right storage platform, organizations can easily scale up storage capacity, with capacities in the petabytes. By adding storage drives to existing HCI servers, organizations can meet evolving storage demands and ensure optimal performance and resource utilization across the infrastructure.

Storage Transformation Project of the Year

Sponsored by

WINNER

Node4

What was the driving force behind the project - what business or technology challenge needed to be addressed?

West Midlands Trains (WMT) is owned by Transport UK. Operating London Northwestern Railway and West Midlands Railway franchises, it runs over 1,300 services to and from some of the UK’s busiest and most well-known stations, including Liverpool Lime Street, London Euston and Birmingham New Street.

A small IT team with wide-ranging responsibilities

With less than a dozen staff, West Midlands Trains has a relatively small IT team but an extensive remit. It is responsible for all IT assets and infrastructure at 160 stations. This includes ticket machines, customer information screens, CCTV, help points, and IoT sensors. To give an idea of scale, the smallest stations have 20-30 IT assets, while the largest can have up to 800.

The IT team is also in charge of each site's data centre and network connectivity, plus its centralised storage, backup and disaster recovery capabilities. In addition, it maintains the back office systems and applications that ensure trains and drivers are where they need to be at the right time—keeping services running smoothly for customers.

A wake-up call to improve backup, DR and redundancy

Before engaging Node4, West Midlands Trains had three data centres. One provided centralised internet connectivity and disaster recovery, one housed the production servers that supported all the IT assets, and one contained all the network interconnectivity infrastructure to 3rd parties.  

The Birmingham data centre was located within WMT’s HQ building. It was a purpose-built space with cooling and fire suppression but no backup power. The building suffered a major electrical fault a few years ago, and the data centre lost power for around five hours.

Relying on an external generator, the operator’s IT team recovered quickly and with no significant impact on train services. However, the incident fast-tracked a decision to move the servers and storage infrastructure to a managed data centre with the latest security, backup, disaster recovery and redundancy capabilities.

How did the solution address the challenges, and were there any particularly innovative aspects that made it stand out?

A local managed services provider within easy access of the M6

West Midlands Trains migrated all one hundred of its servers to Node4’s main data centre. It also houses the perimeter firewall, provides the base for WMT’s centralised internet connectivity, and is the origin point for all site-to-site VPNs. The fact that Node4 was a Midlands-based company was important as the operator wanted a data centre within an hour’s drive from Birmingham. This would give Steve Roberts and his team fast emergency access to the site and the ability to replace any network or storage components with minimal impact on train services.

Boosting data storage availability and redundancy

To ensure availability and redundancy, WMT’s servers are backed up to one of Node4’s secondary data centres with auto-failover in place. They’re connected by two independent internet links delivered by different telco providers.

These low-latency, resilient links enabled West Midlands Trains to reduce its recovery time objective by at least 50%. This has a direct and positive impact on the speed at which station IT and storage infrastructure can be brought back online in the event of a failure—helping to maintain a consistent service and meet operational targets. Additional redundancy infrastructure includes N_1 generator backup, N N power and UPS system, and N N cooling systems.

“To put some metrics behind this, we’ve gone from 99.97% reliability to 99.99%. Had we not moved over to Node4, it’s possible our availability would have dropped to around 95% due to planned and unplanned power outages.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

“Our legacy data centres had just one link from one telco carrier—and even getting access to that had been challenging. By contrast, Node4’s data centre delivers access to multiple carriers, improving our resiliency and business continuity capabilities. In addition, our old data centres required manual networking changes to implement failover procedures and processes. West Midlands Trains, with the support of Node4, completely automated this process, which boosted the resiliency of our data storage and network infrastructure.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

A data centre that runs on 100% renewable energy

Additionally, Node4’s data centres run on 100% renewable energy, which is good for WMT from an ESG and sustainability point of view. “We’re always trying to reduce our carbon footprint. As I’m sure you’ll appreciate, that’s not easy when operating a fleet of diesel & electric trains. So, this is definitely a bonus and helps with our carbon offset work.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

A proactive, can-do approach

West Midlands Trains also has access to Node4’s highly skilled support teams. They assist with storage kit installation, as well as patching, connectivity, and monitoring tasks.

“Node4 is integral to our organisation. Their data centre supports our commercial operations—enabling customers to buy tickets from vending machines or counters—as well as our customer information and safety infrastructure. Importantly, it also houses the rail operation and train management systems that ensure drivers, crews, and services are in the right place at the right time.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

Accommodating data and storage infrastructure that didn’t suit a cloud environment

“After assessing our IT, network and storage infrastructure, it became clear we could only move around half of it to a cloud environment—far less than we had planned. Node4’s team understood this issue from the outset, which prevented costly cloud adoption mistakes that could have jeopardised application uptime. Instead, they created a hybrid cloud environment utilising their data centre infrastructure to seamlessly connect cloud and non-cloud storage and network infrastructure components.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

What major challenges were faced during the project, and how were they overcome?

A tiny window to relocate to Node4’s data centre

Time was of the essence for this storage transformation project: The last West Midlands Trains service enters the depot at approximately 1 am, and the first departs at around 4 am. Every second had to count.  

11:00 pm: Non-critical servers shut down.

Midnight: UK Rail Control approved critical server shutdown. All servers were wrapped and transported to Node4’s data centre.

1:00 am: The last service enters depo.

2:00 am: All servers unloaded and racked. Power cables connected.

4:00 am: Business critical servers are back online, and the first train departs the depo.

6:00 am: Non-critical servers back online.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget the pressure we were under that night, but Node4’s team were professional, calm and exacting in their approach at each stage. As a result, everything went according to plan.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

What tangible benefits has the organisation seen as a result of the project's implementation?

Storage transformation costs kept under control

“Node4’s team took on an important project management role right from the start. Too often, you hear of spiralling storage transformation costs due to poor planning and execution. This was not the case with Node4. They worked behind the scenes to keep the two internet providers on track, ensuring links between the primary and secondary data centres were installed as scheduled so that the project stayed on track and on budget.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

Excellent onsite support, customer service and positive attitude

West Midlands Trains has also experienced an incredible contrast in onsite support and general customer service compared to the previous storage and data centre provider.

“Node4’s data centre ‘hands and eyes’ service is helpful and obliging. If a drive fails in a server, I can log a ticket, ask Node4 to check it, send a part if necessary, and Node4 will fit it. This is part of Node4’s wider can-do attitude that we all recognised during our initial site visit. Instead of putting up barriers, causing delays and becoming a bottleneck, Node4 finds solutions, solves problems, and generally makes my life much easier. It’s an absolute pleasure to work together.” - Steve Roberts, Head of IT, West Midlands Trains

RUNNER UP

Kingston Technology

Dash Pictures, the UK based film and television production company, has turned to Kingston Technology to help it solve delays during production and post-production. Upgrading from HDDs to Kingston SSDs has not only transformed the speed with which the company can upload film footage, but also expanded capacity, allowing production teams to collaborate more efficiently.

Problems came to light during shooting for a recent travel show with Oliver and James Phelps, the actors best known for playing the Weasley twins in the Harry Potter franchise movies. On season one of their show ‘Fantastic Friends’, Dash found that they were struggling to back-up the footage overnight on traditional hard drives after a long day of filming.

“We had spent a long time developing the workflow for ‘Fantastic Friends’ so we could execute it to a very high standard and make it cost efficient,” said Daniel Sharp, Director at Dash Pictures. “But it’s not great to start a new day of shooting knowing that everything we did the previous day is not yet safely backed up and it was compounded further down the line causing limitations in our production pipeline.”

Dash Pictures turned to Kingston Technology, which specified XS2000 external solid-state drives (SSDs) with a 10 Gb connection capable of supporting multiple activities and enabling lightning-fast transfer speeds. These portable drives, equipped with a detachable, ruggedised sleeve for drop protection and the ability to withstand water and dust, are exceptionally well-suited for on-location film and TV productions. They enabled Dash to efficiently duplicate camera media onto multiple drives simultaneously, significantly improving the time required for this task.

Having improved the management of their data during filming, Dash then evaluated how they could speed up the process of uploading on-location footage on the drives into the post-production studio. Kingston Technology worked with Dash to provide data centre-grade SSDs that would connect directly into the company’s centralized QNAP Network-Attached Storage (NAS) device.

Matt King, Head of Post Production at Dash Pictures said: “We plugged 12 Kingston SSDs into our RAID-array QNAP Network-Attached Storage (NAS) device and almost instantly saw a change in how quickly our data could be uploaded and how it could be accessed without delays, drop-outs and with the ability to bring in grades. It meant that film editors, graphic designers and visual effects teams could all work from the same server simultaneously without any degradation, vastly improving efficiency.”

Kingston assisted in setting up the system to meet Dash Pictures’ current requirements but ensured that the system was future-proofed so they could easily expand it with new Kingston SSDs in the future to add capacity as and when it was needed.

“Our processes, both during filming and in post-production, are now much slicker,” said Daniel Sharp. “Using HDDs, we might have been able to work on two shows at the same time, but now we have multiple shows overlapping. We are growing more quickly and if we need to expand our data capacity, we can just add another SSD into our system, plug it in, and off we go.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj0CjuXFmIU

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