Round up of the day two highlights from Cloud & 5G LIVE
And what a bumper two-day event that was!
Cloud & 5G LIVE came to a close today, 12 October, with nine engaging fireside, panels and keynotes guiding the global virtual audience through the topics of cloud & infrastructure and 5G network transformation.
Thirteen speakers graced the virtual stage for day two, including Christopher Marsh-Bourdon, Vice President of Global Financial Markets at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Nick McQuire, Director of Product Management, Strategic Missions and Technologies at Microsoft, Daren Vallyon, Head of Solutions at Hyve Managed Hosting, Karl Havard, Managing Director at Taiga Cloud, Melanie Benham, Solution Engineering Director Cloud Systems West Europe at Oracle, Isabelle Kemlin, Vice Chair Of The Board at the Swedish Data Center Industry Association, Chetan Shivakumar, Senior Director Of Engineering, 5G MEC; Private Networks; Edge computing at Mavenir Systems, Paul Gowans, Global Director Regional & Channel Marketing at VIAVI Solutions, Rohit Kanwar, Chief Transformation Officer at Accenture, Manish Mangal, Global Business Head, 5G & Network Services at Tech Mahindra, Steven Carlini, Vice President of Innovation and Data Centre at Schneider Electric, Andres Vasquez, Global Segment Director at Schneider Electric and Ken Urquart, Global Vice President, 5G Strategy, Zscaler.
Audiences can watch sessions from Cloud & 5G LIVE on demand via Mobile Magazine on YouTube, with videos appearing on the channel in due course.
A round up of day one is accessible here.
Highlights from day two of Cloud & 5G LIVE
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Strategy with Christopher Marsh-Bourdon, Vice President of Global Financial Markets, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)
Oracle Cloud’s strategy is different from other cloud providers’. Marsh-Bourdon’s keynote walked audience members through how Oracle’s Distributed Cloud Strategy enables the company to build clouds that have a range of deployment types for differing customer needs while all sharing the same OCI architecture, services, experience, and value.
Highlighting how training is pivotal to strategy and ensuring people have right skill sets to ensure successful cloud migration, Marsh-Bourdon said the key takeaway is making sure workforces are armed with the right knowledge to make informed decisions.
“It’s about keeping your finger on the pulse moving forward,” he shared, forecasting that the next two-to-three years will see multicloud being the driving lights for customers and CSPs thanks to the flexibility it offers. He stressed enabling customers to select the right cloud is another main driver for the industry.
Exploring the Future of Cloud Computing with Nick McQuire, Director of Product Management, Strategic Missions and Technologies, Microsoft
With the uncertainty in today’s economic landscape, innovation and disruptive technology take on heightened importance as the keys to resiliency and growth, McQuire took the Cloud & 5G LIVE audience on a journey through how you organisations can be prepared to thrive with the next wave of disruptive technologies that are shaping the future direction of cloud computing including, including modern connected apps, 5G and space, AI co-reasoning and quantum at scale.
Sharing Microsoft’s perspective on the core incubations of tomorrow, McQuire shared major innovation shifts coming down the line that will shape the future of Microsoft, and other businesses, with a three to five-year view. “The real impact of the cloud is yet to come,” he said.
Reducing tech debt and consolidating IT infrastructure with Daren Vallyon, Head of Solutions, Hyve Managed Hosting
Guiding audiences through the concept of technical debt, understanding what it is as how it can dampen innovation, Vallyon’s expertise shed light on how to fully embrace cloud. He shared key tips as to how by doing so, can drive business success, including considering cost, security, compliance, performance, scalability and portability.
One stand-out part of Vallyon’s presentation included using the analogy of kicking a can down the road. Using an analogy and relating it to delaying a difficult task until later, he stressed how delaying making actionable change may make savings in the long term, but can lead to issues with quality down the road.
And looking to the future, Vallyon advised that businesses can future-proof themselves from an architectural point of view by ensuring the right people are in place from the beginning.
“Having the right people in the room, you get to make the right choices in advance,” he shared. “If you make choices solely on one or two non-functional requirements, other problems are going to come out. You’ve got to map out what’s important.”
Building Europe's Largest Gen AI Cloud with Karl Havard, Managing Director at Taiga Cloud
Havard shed light on the journey of building Europe's largest Gen AI Cloud in his Cloud & 5G LIVE keynote, sharing behind-the-scenes intel on the motivations, strategies and implementation processes behind the large-scale project.
The keynote featured a key focus on ‘what, why and how’, sharing the drive behind the development of what has become an innovative cloud solution. Ensuring this major project also has sustainability at its core, Harvard explained how NVIDIA technology has been implemented in Taiga data centres to to configure high degrees of efficiency for the dual benefits of Taiga and its clients.
“Our aim is to be this engine that helps organisations to be able to have access, do what they need to do and move on. We know the conveyor belt of demand is large. We want to offer the access, hence the need to come up with a more accessible way of offering this to the marketplace.” As an ambitious project, challenges have been overcome and continue to crop up, with Havard stressing how the importance of partnerships with organisations that share the same values and visions, as well as having a dedicated and talented engineering team, ensure the project’s overall and ongoing success in what is a fiercely competitive market.
The Cloud & Sustainability Forum with Melanie Benham, Solution Engineering Director Cloud Systems West Europe at Oracle and Isabelle Kemlin, Vice Chair Of The Board at Swedish Data Center Industry Association
This engaging panel saw the collective expertise of Kemlin and Benham delve into the intricate and intersection of cloud computing and environmental responsibility. Strong ESG advocates, their talk revolved around strategies for reducing carbon footprints, optimising energy usage and promoting sustainable practices within cloud infrastructure.
Highlighting how, in the UN’s words, sustainability means “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”, Benham advocated for how cloud computing can create a sustainable future by providing organisations with efficient and flexible ways to scale compute resources based on demand. This, in turn, reduces energy consumption and an organisation’s carbon footprint.
Kemlin added that data centres should be highlighted as the heart of digital infrastructure, with facilities themselves not the core of energy efficiency problems but the content they facilitate.
“It’s all about control, and we can’t control what we can’t measure,” Benham added. She also called for more efficient cooling systems and energy saving measures to be put in place, and shared that organisations can collaborate on energy efficient strategies to improve sustainable output. With both speakers stressing the importance of partnerships and communication, audience members benefited from insights into sustainability and ESG.
“It’s imperative that we work with partners and suppliers to be on the forefront of this,” Benham continued. “You don't want to be behind with regulation. We need to work together. This is a journey to the cloud.
“There’s lots we can do now to get our house in order for that move to the cloud where there are additional benefits to the environment”
Kemlin added: “We are part of digital infrastructure which is an enabler for a lot of sustainable applications, making others’ lives so much better. Data centres have bad reputation, but we need to show decision makers and stakeholders and private persons that this comes down to each and every one of us”
5G Transformation Explored: A Fireside Chat on Empowering the Future with Next-Generation Connectivity with Chetan Shivakumar, Senior Director Of Engineering, 5G MEC; Private Networks; Edge computing at Mavenir Systems
Exploring 5G MEC, private networks and edge computing, Shivakumar highlighted the benefits, implementation challenges and societal impacts of the technology and how it can best be harnessed. Shivakumar’s fireside chat shared valuable insights into ongoing 5G transformation with Cloud & 5G LIVE’s global virtual audience, and his true passion for
5G communications, edge & cloud computing networks, IoT, data analytics & machine learning shone through.
He shared insights into the benefits of private networks, sharing new use cases driving innovation, the importance of keeping the end user in mind when cultivating new technology, the importance of edge computing and how it plays a crucial role in the deployment and optimisation of 5G networks and the key challenges of 5HG transformation.
The 5G Transformation Forum with Paul Gowans, Global Director Regional & Channel Marketing at VIAVI Solutions, Rohit Kanwar, Chief Transformation Officer at Accenture and Manish Mangal, Global Business Head, 5G & Network Services at Tech Mahindra
Benefitting from more than 70 years of industry experience between them, the trio of Gowans, Kanwar and Mangal delved into the transformative power of 5G technology across a variety of industries and sectors.
With 5G having the potential to revolutionise connectivity, drive innovation and unlock new business opportunities, Gowans said: “5G enables much more than previous iterations of mobile” with better services set to become available as 5G Advanced becomes available. Mangal echoed this with saying 5G is equivalent to oxygen, with its absence disastrous and need required 24/7.
With 5G addressed in so many industries — whether that be media, smart cities, connected cars — 5G was highlighted as an enabler with a plethora of capabilities, with industries affected positively and a key importance of understanding the potential 5G can unlock emphasised.
Kanwar pinpointed talent as a key challenge for organisations on 5G transformation journeys, with it not only being about procuring the right workforce, but ensuring said talent is integrated to ensure it is best utilised.
“We have to simplify, simplify, simplify everything we do,” Mangal said, reflecting on how Tech Mahindra is on a journey of simplification for its clients to ensure they harness 5G’s full potential, with the trio giving use case industry examples to highlight that 5G can truly transform all elements of industry. Engineers by training, they addressed how they have to put their desire for complexity aside to allow transformation to take place.
“It’s hard to predict future user behaviours,” Kanwar said, “but we’ve got to ensure networks are ready for whatever comes next.”
Unleashing the Power of 5G: Transforming Industries and Accelerating Innovation with Ken Urquart, Global Vice President, 5G Strategy, Zscaler
“The revolution is turning into the evolution, and that is going to benefit everyone,” is how Urquhart closed the final session of Cloud & 5G LIVE on transforming industries and accelerating innovation thanks to the power of 5G. “Think what this can do for your business.”
He explained in his punchy keynote how, as 5G is more than just a faster wireless data connection, with wireless speeds that match fibre transmission 5G is poised to transform industry. He talked through industry use cases — portable robotics, smart grid, asset tracking, drones, remote controlled cranes and machines, predictive maintenance — that are seeing unprecedented demand for the technology, and harnessing its power.
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