Tag Archives: CEO

UK Home Secretary Opens Our Newly Expanded Data Centre

June 9, 2014 Sam Richardson

We are proud to announce that the UK Home Secretary, The Rt Hon Theresa May MP, has officially opened a £multi-million extension to one of our data centres.

The Home Secretary was given a guided tour of the new facility in Maidenhead, Berkshire, by Angus MacSween, the CEO of our parent company iomart. It was the first time Mrs May had been inside a data centre.

The Rt Hon Theresa May said: “Data centres are an important part of the global economy, so I’m delighted to be opening this new facility for iomart. The technology on show is impressive and will allow businesses to be better connected than ever. It is interesting to see that the cloud has a physicality to it and isn’t just something up in the ether.”

The 1500 square metre extension took 12 months to complete. It features the first major deployment of Cisco Dynamic Fabric Automation (DFA), which enables iomart’s network infrastructure and services to be dynamically and automatically provisioned alongside Cisco’s proprietary Bi-Directional (BiDi) Transmission technology, which allows 40 Gigabit Ethernet transmission over small form factor, duplex connectivity, which was previously only possible with more expensive MTP Fibre technology. The result is a greater level of scale-out without congestion points while providing optimised forwarding for all types of applications, and a network enabled for secure multi-tenancy at scale.

Angus MacSween, CEO of iomart, said: “We are delighted that The Home Secretary has officially opened our next generation data centre and seen first-hand the technology involved in creating the infrastructure needed to support the dynamic and ever-changing web hosting and data storage needs of SME and enterprise business.

“By investing in the latest Cisco technology, we are creating data centres that are not just software defined but customer defined. We are transforming our network to deliver the highest levels of agility, performance and flexibility.”

US Makes BitCoin arrests

January 30, 2014

US law enforcers have made arrests of two men accused of operating a Bitcoin exchange in connection with the Silk Road exchange. The Silk Road is part of an ongoing investigation.

Robert Faiella – known as “BTCKing” – and Charlie Shrem from BitInstant have both been charged with money laundering by The Department Of Justice.�The authorities said the pair were engaged in a scheme to sell more than $1m (�603,000) in bitcoins to users of online drug marketplace the Silk Road.

The Silk Road was shut down last October, and its suspected administrator arrested on charges of conspiracy to traffic narcotics. The site’s assets were later seized as part of the ongoing investigation

The United States Justice Department published a statement on their website Monday morning confirming that the two men, Robert Faiella and Charlie Shrem, had been arrested within hours of each other and both charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. If convicted, the men would face a maximum of 25 years in prison.

�As alleged, Robert Faiella and Charlie Shrem schemed to sell over $1 million in Bitcoins to criminals bent on trafficking narcotics on the dark web drug site, Silk Road,� Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in Monday’s statement. �Truly innovative business models don�t need to resort to old-fashioned law-breaking, and when Bitcoins, like any traditional currency, are laundered and used to fuel criminal activity, law enforcement has no choice but to act. We will aggressively pursue those who would coopt new forms of currency for illicit purposes.�

Shrem, the CEO of the Bitcoin exchange service BitInstant, was also charged with one count of willful failure to file a suspicious activity report, which carries a maximum sentence of five years.

There is no question that Bitcoin is growing more popular, with one UK university even beginning to use it as a form of payment for some courses, but will it grow into a more legitimate form of currency, or will it continue to be associated with illegal activity?

The iPad at Work � Can it replace a laptop?

November 6, 2013

With the launch of the latest round of iPad Generations including the iPad Air (aka iPad5) and iPad mini (with Retina display), Apple are once again showing their ability to dominate the market and convince their avid fan base to part with their hard earned cash.� (My iPad air arrived this morning!!).

Every time a new portable device arrives on my desk, fresh from the delivery man, I say to myself how can I be more productive with this.� How can I get more value to for money from this device?� I then find myself spending the next 20 minutes searching the app store to see if any new �wonder apps� have been released that are going me to allow to discard my laptop and spend the rest of my working days tapping away on the new shiny screen.

In reality what happens is you see the same apps, all of which specialise in one particular aspect of what you want, be it document editing or spreadsheet work.� Essentially the lack of the office suite is a massive disadvantage to the business iPad user.

Sure Apple have released their Notes, Numbers and Keynote software on the device, which are fantastic products, however, with no way to access folders directly on the company network, the whole process can become tiresome and convoluted. �There is certainly not a solution that you could document and expect the CEO to understand and follow every time he needed to make last minute adjustments to the presentation he�s giving when he gets off the train!

I understand that you can have everything sync�d between devices, using solutions like iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive etc.� However, enterprises invest huge sums of money in storage for their users, much to the finance departments resentment.� For an IT manager to then have to go cap in hand and ask for more money, so the sales boys can access their documents on the an iPad is quite simply asking for trouble.

Mail, Apple have pretty much nailed in my opinion, their integration with exchange is seamless, and easy to setup.� Providing your inbox management is good, I�ve seen no issues in sending and receiving mail on the road.

If Apple could get their suite to integrate with Windows file servers, or Microsoft could get an Office suite onto the app store, then I feel that the iPad could start to make the switch from being a consumer, or on the go device to a laptop replacement / fully operational working device.

Backup Technology Acquired by Publicly Listed Leading UK Cloud Company

October 1, 2013 backuptech

Backup Technology, ‘BTL’, is delighted to announce that it is now part of publicly listed leading UK cloud company iomart Group plc.

This is a major opportunity for BTL and our customers, as we will now be able to expand and develop knowing that we have the support of one of the fastest growing cloud and managed service providers behind us.
Simon Chappell, one of the founders of BTL, is moving on to pastures new but other than that it is very much business as usual.

Ritchie Fiddes, Sales & Service Director of Backup Technology, said: “As the growth of cloud services continues to gain momentum, iomart Group provides a perfect fit for BTL to be able to offer its customers additional complimentary services. Being able to plug directly into iomart’s expertise and its enterprise level data centres and fibre network means we can work with even bigger customers who require the big infrastructure and strong balance sheet that iomart can provide.”

Angus MacSween, CEO of iomart Group plc, stated: “We are delighted to welcome BTL to the Group as they have achieved ground breaking progress in the delivery of cloud backup and disaster recovery. BTL gives iomart a solid and well-established platform to grow further from, with a very good enterprise customer base and little crossover from the existing Group base. It’s a very good strategic fit, complementing our portfolio of existing products.”

iomart Group plc is one of the UK and Europe’s largest providers of cloud computing and hosting services, serving over 300,000 customers each day. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and is financially strong and profitable. It owns and manages 10 data centres across the UK connected via a high speed optical network with technical support provided 24x7x365. You can find out more about iomart Group at www.iomart.com

Iranian Government are Likely Culprit Behind BBC Hack

March 15, 2012

Simultaneous cyber attacks have been directed at the BBC with Iranian authorities thought to be the culprit.

Satellite feeds into Iran have been jammed as well as automated calls jamming their London phone lines.

The source of this type of attack is extremely difficult to pinpoint however the multiplicity of BBC broadcast feeds being jammed in Iran points a very convincing finger at the Iranian government.

The government have long been suspicious of western media and often the only people able to access BBC broadcasts have been those who own illegal satellite receivers.

In general the level of censorship means that the form of Internet the Iranian people have access to bares no resemblance to that available in the West.

In addition during troubled times the Iranian government have often being known to slow internet speeds to a point whereby it is impossible to send/upload evidential videos or even photos.

The attacks are nothing new and BBC Persian staff are forced to conduct their work outside of Iran with their families being the victim of harassment and even arrest.

Director General Mark Thompson stated on Wednesday �We regard the coincidence of these attacks as self- evidently suspicious,� but said no further details would be released at this time.

�Nation states are honing their cyber warfare and cyber espionage skills, and such activity can only be expected to increase. As a result, the accurate attribution of cyber attacks has never been more important,� commented Ross Brewer, CEO at LogRhythm.

LulzSec: A Drop in the Ocean of Cybercrime.

March 8, 2012

The LulzSec ring leader, 28 year old Hector Xavier Monsegur has been working closely with the FBI since he was secretly arrested last June. The type of deal he struck with the FBI has not been specified however it is assumed it will have reduced his jail sentence from 124 years.

The list of arrests on Tuesday included one in the United States, two in the UK and two in Ireland.

With the huge amount of hype and press coverage following the worst year of cyber attacks in corporate history, it is no surprise that 20,000 people showed up to the RSA conference last week in San Francisco.

Talks were to highlight the current cyber security crisis and review proposed legislation. During the presentations Robery Mueller, FBI director predicted that cyber threats were set to surpass terrorism as the country�s top threat.

Gregory Roll who went to the conference for advice on security procedures for his large corporate finance employer had this to say: �It�s a constant battle, and we�re losing.�

There appeared to be an overall negative vibe at the convention as people who tipped up for advice came away feeling more nervous, as they heard various CEOs tell their data breach horror stories.

Such stories included that told by James Bidzos, CEO of core internet infrastructure company Verisign, which lost data to hackers in 2010. In addition the CEO of Symantec, Enrique Salem told the audience how the company had recently had their 2006 source code stolen.

Art Coviello, Executive Chairman of RSA said he hoped that something positive could come out of his company�s misfortune through breaches being taken more seriously.

�People have definitely talked more seriously after our breach.�