My Published Articles 2017

Telstra in the MooD for LTE-B

Computerworld Australia 22 December, 2017
Telstra has detailed what it claims is a world first trial of the Multicast Operation on Demand (MooD) feature of LTE-Broadcast technology as it gears up to have LTE-B enabled across its cellular network in early 2018.


KB Food accelerates ERP with hyperconverged infrastructure

Computerworld Australia 19 December, 2017
KB Food Group, Australia’s largest handler of fresh seafood, has replaced its ageing IT infrastructure with hyperconverged infrastructure built with DataCore’s Virtual SAN software and Lenovo x3650 servers, reducing its hardware footprint by 70 per cent and improving the performance of key processes by up to 14 times.


OpenStack Foundation launches open source Kata Containers

Computerworld Australia 06 December, 2017
The OpenStack Foundation has launched a new project to develop open source containerisation software, Kata Containers, by combining components from two existing container software projects: Intel’s Clear Containers and Hyper runV, the runtime version of the software behind HyperHQ’s Hyper.sh containers as a service.


ANZ Bank deploys Azure stack to keep processing in-house

Computerworld Australia 23 November, 2017
ANZ, the first — and so far only — named Australian customer for Azure Stack, Microsoft’s recently released on-premises version of its Azure public cloud service, is using the system to avoid having to move masses of data for a new application into the public cloud.


Broader role essential for OpenStack Foundation, says Mirantis’ Renski

Computerworld Australia 20 November, 2017
Boris Renski, co-founder and chief marketing officer of open source software company Mirantis, says the OpenStack Foundation’s plan to take a wider role in the open source movement is essential to the organisation’s survival.


What cyber insurers look for

Computerworld Australia 20 November, 2017
When he assesses a potential client for cyber risk insurance, Fergus Brooks, national practice leader of cyber risk at Aon, says he is much more interested in their operational approach to cyber threats than in their cyber threat protection technology.


OVH goes after Aussie SMBs cloud business with VMware HCX

Computerworld Australia 08 November, 2017
France-headquartered global cloud service provider OVH is hoping to leverage VMware’s recently announced HCX software defined networking technology to exploit what it sees as a huge market among Australian SMBs wanting to move their in-house IT to the cloud.


It’s AI versus AI in the cybercrime arms race

Computerworld Australia 07 November, 2017
Security experts are warning that the rising use of artificial intelligence by criminals will reduce both the time taken to breach a system and the interval between breach and exfiltration of sensitive data, and increase the effectiveness of phishing exercises by enabling the crafting of more personalised messages.


Intent-based networking: Essential for digital transformation?

Computerworld Australia 24 October, 2017
Underpinning every digital business is a digital network, and according to Gartner, unless some drastic changes are made to the way those networks are operated digital transformation will stall.


ANZ CISO presses for cybersecurity collaboration

ITNews 12 October 2017
ANZ Bank CISO Lynwen Connick has reiterated calls for a greater level of collaboration between government and all levels of the private sector to bolster Australia’s ability to defend against cybersecurity threats.


NBN Co to start charging for ‘no fault found’ callouts

ITNews 12 October 2017
NBN Co will begin charging retail service providers it if sends technicians out to investigate a potential network fault but no fault is found.


Small rural telcos surge as NBN misses mark

ITNews 11 October 2017
NBN Co is facing increased competition from a growing band of grassroots telcos that are bringing superior high-speed internet services to regional and rural communities.


Application specific networks now a reality, says NetFoundry

Computerworld Australia 11 October, 2017
What if you could set up, on demand, a global network with the bandwidth, latency, security and routing that your applications require, just as easily as you can today provision the storage and processing power in the cloud that applications require?


Cyber Threat Alliance says it’s good to share

Computerworld Australia 04 October, 2017
The Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA) formed earlier this year by Fortinet, McAfee, Palo Alto Networks and Symantec is taking cyber threat information sharing to a new level that it hopes will lead to all its members offering better protection against cyber threats.


Australian Navy trials sensor analytics on ship engines

ITNews 03 October 2017
The Royal Australian Navy will trial a data analytics application built by CSIRO’s Data61 to improve the performance of GE engines that power its fleet of ships.


Construction company streamlines operations with Dropbox

Computerworld Australia 03 July, 2017
When Australian construction company Built adopted Dropbox to enable the sharing of large files between its offices, construction sites and partners the wide usage of the file sharing software by individuals helped accelerate uptake. 


‘API economy’ company Twilio coming to Australia

Computerworld Australia 21 June, 2017
Twilio, a US based, listed company that enables software developers to incorporate communications services via a set of application programming interfaces (APIs), is looking for a ‘developer evangelist’ and a country manager to give the company its first presence in Australia.  


Optus Satellite’s search for IT self-sufficiency

Computerworld Australia 20 June, 2017
Nick Leake, director satellite customer at Optus is a big fan of ServiceNow, the company that provides IT services, operations and business management. He says the cloud-based technology has enabled him to bring products to market much faster and give the business unit much greater agility, and much-needed independence from the Optus IT department.  


Global mobile data traffic to reach 71 exabytes per month by 2022: Ericsson

Computerworld Australia 13 June, 2017
Ericsson is forecasting rapid global growth in mobile broadband subscriptions as a percentage of total mobile subscriptions saying they will account for 92 per cent of an estimated 9 billion mobile subscriptions by 2022, up from 59 per cent of 7.5 billion subscriptions at the end of 2016.


Australia to get Dropbox proxy server to boost performance

Computerworld Australia 06 June, 2017
Dropbox is to install a point-of-presence, a proxy server, in Australia, at Equinix’s Sydney data centre — a move that it says will improve upload and download speeds to and from its US data centres for Australian and New Zealand customers.


Fibre networks to drive successful 5G rollouts, Nokia says

Computerworld Australia 19 May, 2017
With the hype around the upcoming 5G cellular technology growing every day, Nokia says it’s often forgotten that optical transport networks able to deliver sufficient bandwidth, flexibly and with minimal latency will be essential to 5G’s success.


HPE demos ‘The Machine’ – prototype 160TB memory-centric computer

Computerworld Australia 16 May, 2017
Hewlett Packard Enterprise has given a prototype of its new memory-centric computer architecture, dubbed ‘The Machine’ its first public airing, in Washington DC.


Edward Snowden calls for ‘protocol level’ protection of human rights

Computerworld Australia 11 May, 2017
Famed exposer of the NSA’s secrets, Edward Snowden, is calling for the development of technology that enables the protection of personal information at a fundamental, system, level, claiming this is not only possible but essential if future generations are to enjoy the rights and freedoms of today’s democratic societies.


OpenStack gathers momentum

Computerworld Australia 09 May, 2017
Survey results and user stories presented at this week’s OpenStack Foundation Summit in Boston show that use of the open source software for cloud computing is growing rapidly in the number, the scale and the significance of deployments.


NBN demos 1Gbps over fixed wireless

Computerworld Australia 26 April, 2017
NBN has demonstrated downstream bandwidth of 1.1 gigabit per second (Gbps) and 165 megabits per second (Mbps) upstream on its fixed wireless network, but says spectrum constraints make the chances of a commercial service very slim.


Meet the man charged with growing Australia’s cyber security industry

Computerworld Australia 21 April, 2017
Last December Craig Davies, former head of security for Atlassian, was named head of the government’s new Cyber Security Growth Centre launched with $31.9 million of funding over three years.


How Aussie innovation is helping secure IT

Computerworld Australia 21 April, 2017
Last September a report by US think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, commissioned by Intel Security, found that 88 per cent of Australian IT decision makers surveyed believed there was a local shortage of cyber security skills.


Bank deploys Dell Boomi to deliver omnichannel customer service

Computerworld Australia 11 April, 2017
Teachers Mutual Bank has deployed the Dell Boomi cloud based integration platform to help it achieve its goal of delivering an omnichannel customer experience, where customer service operators have a completely integrated view of all information relating to a customer.


Get ready for cognitive networking

Computerworld Australia 31 March, 2017
Separate announcements from optical networking vendors Ciena and Infinera bring the vision of a cognitive network one step closer.


NBN fixed wireless to get a speed boost to 100Mbps

Computerworld Australia 30 March, 2017
NBN will offer a 100/40 megabits per second wholesale service on its fixed wireless network from early 2018. NBN in 2015 boosted the maximum speed available on the service from 25/5Mbps to 50/20Mbps. The increased bandwidth will be made possible by aggregating four 20MHz carriers and will require new CPE and antenna at an end user’s premises.


IPTA threatens to ‘out’ abusers of 457 visa scheme

Computerworld Australia 29 March, 2017
The IT Professionals Association (ITPA), which represents some 7000 IT workers in systems administration and IT support roles, has called for greater transparency in the 457 visa scheme. The organisation says it has evidence that the scheme is being abused to hire people on lower salaries and into roles that could easily be filled locally.


Security specialist UpGuard returns to Australia

Computerworld Australia 27 March, 2017
Australian-born, now US-based IT security company UpGuard (formerly ScriptRock) is ramping up its presence in ANZ.I t has opened an Australian office, appointed ACA Pacific as its exclusive distributor in Australia and South East Asia, Nextgen as its New Zealand distributor and is signing up Insentra to provide deployment and consultancy services to UpGuard channel partners in Australia and New Zealand.


Acquisition gives HPE access to Nimble’s secret analytics sauce

Computerworld Australia 13 March, 2017
Solid state storage manufacturer Nimble Storage, which is being acquired by HPE, is nominally, a storage manufacturer. However, its key differentiator, its ‘secret sauce’ according to the head of Nimble Storage Australia is its data analytics capabilities, which have applications wider than storage support.


Optus teams with Cisco for managed business communications services

Computerworld Australia 08 March, 2017
Optus has announced a range of Cisco-based business services covering contact centre, collaboration, managed Wi-Fi and video-conferencing to be provided under what the two companies say is a new intensive collaboration to deliver the workplace of the future.


GitHub ramps up ANZ and ASEAN focus

Computerworld Australia 02 March, 2017
GitHub, the global service that provides Git-based online source code repositories accessible by multiple developers, announced its regional presence for ASEAN and ANZ, co-incident with the global launch of a software-as-a-service version of its enterprise product.


Optus launches commercial 4.5G service, trials pre-5G technology

Computerworld Australia 22 February, 2017
Optus has announced the upgrade of its mobile network to the LTE-Advanced Pro standard (aka 4.5G) in the area around its headquarters in Macquarie Park, Sydney, saying the technology will be rolled out to provide 70 per cent coverage in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide over the next 12 months.


Data61 CEO says Australia poised to lead the digital revolution

Computerworld Australia 22 February, 2017
Data61 CEO Adrian Turner has warned that the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ will destroy 40 per cent of Australian jobs over the next 15 years but says he is confident that new jobs will emerge to replace them. However he concedes it will be a case of under-employment rather than full employment.


From submarine searching to subsea cable surveys

Computerworld Australia 09 February, 2017
RV Geo Resolution, a hydrographic survey vessel owned by Hong Kong base EGS Survey, will leave Sydney’s Glebe Island wharf in the next few days to commence surveying the seabed between Australia and the US in search of the optimal route for Southern Cross Cable’s new submarine cable, Next.


Telstra launches 1Gbps LTE data service

Computerworld Australia 31 January, 2017
Telstra has launched the world’s first commercial Gigabit LTE service, available via a portable hotspot from Netgear. The device, based on a Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 modem, will go sale for $360 on 14 February and will also be available on a range of contract plans. The service is supported by an upgrade to Telstra’s LTE network supplied by Ericsson.


DNS: The ‘Achilles’ Heel’ of the Internet

Computerworld Australia 24 January, 2017
Arbor Networks has released its twelfth annual Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report (WISR), singling out the Domain Name System (DNS) as one of the Internet services most targeted by DDoS attacks and saying it remains the Achilles Heel of global Internet infrastructure.


Your phone: smarter in 2017, says Deloitte

Computerworld Australia 24 January, 2017
Deloitte, in its annual Technology, Media and Telecommunications Predictions, is tipping smartphones to get on-board machine learning capability in 2017. Other predictions include a sharp increase in the size and frequency of DDoS attacks and rapid growth in IT-as-a-service.


Mission impossible? Preparing Australia for digital disruption


Computerworld Australia 18 January, 2017
Data61’s Strategy and Foresight team advises businesses and government bodies on how to prepare for the future digital economy. Dr Stefan Hajkowicz, a principal scientist in the team, says Australia’s prospects are not good.


Vodafone taps Ericsson and Cisco for full-scale network virtualisation

Computerworld Australia 17 January, 2017 
Vodafone Hutchison Australia has named Ericsson as prime contractor with Cisco as the main subcontractor for a five-year project to virtualise both the core of its mobile network and the IP network supporting services and applications.


Juniper envisages self-driving networks

Computerworld Australia 09 January, 2017 
Kireeti Kompella, CTO of Juniper Networks’ Development and Innovation team, is pursuing a grand vision: To develop a network that is fully autonomous, that is able to monitor itself and configure itself to the demands of the applications it exists to serve, with no human intervention.