DCN April 2017 | Page 12

industry news R&M invests and strengthens its position in Brazil R&M has announced the acquisition of the fibre optic activities of the Brazilian group Peltier Comércio e Industria LTDA (PETCOM), headquartered in Santa Rita do Sapucaí in the state of Minas Gerais. The company, founded in 1990, is a developer and provider of advanced fibre optic solutions. PETCOM will remain in the regional market providing turnkey solutions for CCTV and optical fibre communication. With this acquisition, R&M is looking to reinforce its market position in the area of structured cabling systems for data centres in Brazil. In addition, R&M will be given access to the strongly growing public networks market. ‘Our communications solutions enable us to make an important contribution to the country’s further development through an increase in broadband capacity for mobile and Internet communications,’ said Roger Keller (pictured), EVP Europe and Latin America. ‘Local production also enables R&M to optimally meet the requirements of the customers’ regional needs.’ With its combined solution portfolio, R&M is ideally placed to cover the strategic segments; data centre, LAN and public networks. Mario César Moreira, owner of PETCOM, commented, ‘I am convinced that we have found a competent and highly innovative partner in R&M. R&M is an international player with a strong focus on local customer orientation and flexibility. With R&M as our partner we can further develop our existing relationships in the long term and also win new clients. We are convinced that the new partnership will bring benefits to the employees and also to the local and regional authorities.’ Security is the biggest deterrent to storing data in the cloud, but mass cloud migration continues globally Security is the number one concern amongst senior business executives when it comes to cloud data adoption, yet more than half of business critical data is likely to reside there by 2019. According to the findings of a new study released by Teradata, eight out of 10 executives cite security as a concern when storing data in the cloud, but that has not stopped a huge rise in the amount of critical data being sent there. Looking ahead to 2019, executives predict that over half of IT (56 per cent), customer (53 per cent), and financial data (51 per cent) will reside in the cloud. The study highlights that although businesses want to invest in cloud storage and many plan to do so over the next two years, there are real concerns about security of information and data breaches. Marc Clark, director of cloud strategy and deployment at Teradata, said, ‘Our message to organisations around the world is that the cloud is actually one of the most secure means of virtual storage available. While our study finds widespread concerns, the fact is that cloud storage is growing rapidly, remains hugely cost effective, and that there are ways to manage it securely. ‘Cloud computing security processes should be designed to address the security controls that the cloud provider will incorporate, in order to maintain the data security, privacy and compliance with necessary regulations, as well as providing a business continuity and data back up plan.’ 12 | April 2017 IN BRIEF Romonet has announced the appointment of Danny Reeves as chief executive officer and Rick Skett as chairman of the board. The decision to move the former COO into the CEO role was driven by a shift in Romonet’s operating model as it gears up to deliver on new global customers who came onboard in the last quarter of 2016. Rackspace has announced that it has been positioned by Gartner in the ‘Leaders’ quadrant of its new, Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud Infrastructure Managed Service Providers, Worldwide. Rackspace was among the 20 providers assessed by Gartner and is one of seven in the Leaders quadrant. Commvault has appointed Ed Baker as director of alliances for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Ed will be responsible for developing the Commvault Alliances Programme and is tasked with strengthening partner relations across the region. He brings over 20 years of experience to the role, having held several senior sales and business development positions during his career. Secure IT Environments has achieved new internationally recognised quality management standards for ‘the design, construction and management and fitting out of data centres, including the infrastructure’. The newly accredited standards are SOHSAS 18001:2007 (ISO 45001), ISO 14001:2015 and BN ES ISO 9001:2015.