Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 28 | Page 20

NEWS A silver lining for the modernisation of European businesses Juniper Networks supports Dutch broadcaster and partners to deliver cloud- based productions T he cloud is set to dominate communication strategies for European businesses, with more than half of current ‘on-premise’ telephony set to be transferred to the cloud by the end of 2022, according to new research from Communication-as-a- Service leader, Voxbone. A survey of over 300 IT and cloud decision makers from enterprises across France, Germany and the UK found that: • Only 31% have fully migrated their telephony infrastructure over to the cloud, indicating that telephony is likely to be a key area for cloud investment in the near future • Businesses are prioritising cloud communications in the next three years, with over eight in 10 expecting spending on cloud communications to increase by at least 25% in the next three years • In fact, 98% of all expenditure on telephony services among medium-to- large sized companies is spent on cloud- based services • Almost half of IT and cloud decision- makers (45%) said that they find the flexibility of the cloud to be its greatest benefit to their business, while a quarter (26%) believe it is its ability to keep data more secure “Flexibility is the biggest reason why decision makers are transferring their communications to the cloud, with security and scalability also top of mind. It’s this flexibility – where large established companies have a natural disadvantage to smaller, younger competitors – that is encouraging big European businesses to move away from on-premise telephony and towards cloud communication services. Cloud communication companies that provide businesses with increased flexibility, embedded security and the potential to scale quickly will become crucial players in the business landscape across Europe over the next few years,” said Matt Brown, VP of Product at Voxbone. 20 INTELLIGENTCIO J uniper Networks, a leader in secure, AI-driven networks, has announced that VPRO, an independent Dutch broadcasting organisation, has deployed Juniper’s solutions to modernise its data centre network in support of the video-heavy requirements of three public broadcasters using a shared infrastructure. VPRO deployed QFX Series switches and EX Series Ethernet Switches from Juniper to set up a world-class data centre network that can deliver a superior experience to content editors, producers and staff creating thought- provoking documentaries. As viewers’ appetite for VPRO’s distinct perspective has grown internationally, the organisation needed a more powerful IT infrastructure to support its editorial and production teams as they create content for websites, mobile apps, television, radio, live events and print. The VPRO team also needed to support the technology needs of NTR, a Dutch educational public broadcaster and BNNVARA, a youth-oriented public broadcaster. Valentijn Flik, Lead Architect, VPRO, said: “Editing, storing and transferring high- definition video places big demands on the network nowadays and video and audio files get bigger and bigger, so we needed more bandwidth to support our day-to-day activities. “The powerful data centre network, enabled by Juniper, can easily scale to support the objectives of the three public broadcasters as well as the work of sales and marketing, finance, human resources and legal.” The technology solution will provide a host of operational benefits including faster service delivery as a result of automated, programmable fabric architecture. VPRO’s production environment supports applications that move hundreds of gigabits per second of uncompressed video every day. n www.intelligentcio.com