Big data is big business and one of the fastest growing areas of the ICT market. But why should you care about the network when you are planning you big data application deployments? As long as you have the right connectivity and ‘enough’ bandwidth then what more is there to consider? Well, quite a lot as it turns out.

TMX Atrium’s secret sauce is not one thing; it’s a combination of things. It’s all built around our ability to deliver connectivity and bandwidth in a format and a style focused purely on the financial services community.

While the vast majority of our clients are brokers, an increasing proportion of our customer base or connectivity base, are the venues themselves. The ever-increasing number of non-cash equity venues can be attributed to the increasing use of machine to machine trading across multiple asset classes; what has been applied in cash equity is now being applied to other asset classes. As machines act faster and think quicker than humans, they produce more volume, which requires more bandwidth; putting added load on machines and the networks that transport them. Our job as an infrastructure provider is to transport all of this data to interested parties and to ensure that as the demand continues to increase, the infrastructure continues to scale accordingly.

Read all about the press coverage, social media exposure and analysts comments, Juniper Networks recieved at a recent EMEA QFabric press and analyst event.

Someone wrote that they could not work out whether Big Data was a problem or a solution and I guess many people would agree with that. The one thing that is true is that Big Data is a godsend for those who organise events and conferences, as the appetite for yet another Cloud event wanes suddenly there are new things like SDN and Big Data to fill the calendar (note to those organising such events I have allocated my budget for this year already so please don’t call).

Ok, that’s a very flippant title I grant you, but it came to me after reading some research from Freeform Dynamics¹ about the perceptions of cloud security and the impact on an enteprises’ security posture as a result of the adoption of a cloud based IT service model.

On Wednesday 27^th June 2012, Juniper Networks hosted a press and analyst event at its executive briefing centre in Amsterdam, with the audience consisting of European press and analysts from organisations such as Data Centre Dynamics, IDC, The Register and many more.

The event was opened by Trevor Dearing, Head of Data Centre Solutions, EMEA at Juniper Networks who talked about the evolution of the data centre and current trends. One analogy from Trevor when describing the security of the data centre, was that the old model is like a "castle with perimeter security" a physical separation where you had a separate key for the drawbridge, drawing room and pantry to a "hotel model" with virtual security, where your key card allows you to access you room, gym and car park.

This article will describe how a QFabric deal in Belgium by Securelink was secured. You will see who was the competition and what we think where the weaknesses and strengths of them.

I love meeting and hearing from customers, their stories always bring to life Juniper Networks’ products and solutions adding that human element, aiding further understanding of what we are capable of achieving. On Wednesday I heard from a QFabric customer; Francky Deleu, ICT Manager at Jan Yperman Hospital. He started his presentation at Juniper’s PoC Lab (Proof of Concept) by stating that Jan Yperman Hospital is entering into a new LAN era. A thought provoking presentation title that led the audience to delve into a very sophisticated hospital network.

BYOD is causing many organisations to look again at VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) as a way of simplifying the management of desktops but also to be able to deliver applications and services to tablets and other devices. Historically VDI was handicapped by the performance of the infrastructure as the way it works is to effectively create an instance of the remote device in the data centre and then communicates screen information to and from the user device. The challenges were in the performance of the network between the user and the data centre, the fact that the storage was remote to the application on a disk and the performance of the network in the data centre. Add into that any security controls that were required and it became a bit of a suboptimal solution.

Digital London is not just about London. Any city with an ambition to thrive in the new environment can learn lessons from this event.

That time just after Christmas once the dust has settled and you start to take stock of the year ahead can be one of quiet confidence or utter panic. Have I over spent? Do I have enough money to pay for holidays and all the other things that are rapidly approaching? How do I reduce my household spending and how do I stay in control?

The G-Cloud is a fantastic opportunity to drive down cost and radically change how UK citizen's experience public services The technology exists and there are plenty of examples in private enterprise from which government can learn. But, it takes more than just getting the technology right. Neil Pound argues coordination, cooperation, thinking ahead, and leadership have an equally important part to play.

The New Network Technical Forum 2011 in Barcelona is almost upon us (25/26^th October).

As the lead marketer at an event that targets the technical leaders from our key EMEA customers and partners, I feel like the guy that was invited to a fancy dress party only to turn up and find everyone soberly dressed whilst I am left looking for the safety pins to hold my toga together.....

.An old and wise sales man once said to me that it is much easier to sell things that people can count. For many years I pondered on this and recently I realised that it actually means that people understand the need for things they can count. For example, if you need more storage you buy some more disks, if your computing is slowing buy more and bigger servers. The contribution of the network is basically limited to what you need to plug your servers into and so does not always equate to more equipment.