Cloud control crucial for firms

26 October 2011 Last updated at 23:12 GMT Are storm clouds coming? Cloud computing is cost-effective in many ways, but its security needs must be taken seriously Each week we ask high-profile technology decision-makers three questions.

Mark Darvill sees the cloud as one of the biggest security threats facing businesses

AEP Networks specialise in providing high-end IT security for companies and organisations dealing with extremely sensitive and confidential data.

As more and more executives and employees around the world put greater demands on using their own preferred devices, providing watertight security has never before been such a vast undertaking.

AEP Networks' Chief Technology Officer Mark Darvill told the BBC about how his industry is evolving rapidly.

What's your biggest technology problem right now?

We're finding that it's very tricky to manage the balance of consumerisation of IT in the workplace, while still addressing high-profile attacks such as the DuQu attack and Stuxnet before that.

We're having to develop products that can secure mission critical networks for governments, defence and critical national infrastructure.

We can't forget that it's often the user within the company or organisation who dictates how they access data and on what device, often to the dismay of the IT director.

One of our biggest technology challenges I guess now is developing clients that sit on PCs or tablets that allow access to corporate data from any device, anywhere in the world - and to do that in a very secure way.

What it really means is devices such as home PCs, tablets are all secured in a similar way to allow users to access data and applications, but while still adhering very strictly to the company's security policy.

The users really dictate their own IT policies in terms of what they're using. It's quite common now for board directors to come in with tablet PCs or even use home PCs to connect in.

I guess that one of the issues is that from a corporate perspective you have to maintain security across all of those devices - even though the company probably doesn't own at a lot of the devices that are connecting to use the network.

It's trying to keep one step ahead of people's behaviours around their access requirements. It's permanently changing. As new devices come on the market, people see different ways to do things.

If you've got a tablet PC, for instance, we would allow a user to connect into a network securely, run applications that they're used to, ensuring that any data created is left in the security of the data centre or the cloud. Which means that if they lose that device there's nothing on that device for anybody to intercept or read.

What's the next big tech thing in your industry?

It's trying to secure organisations and secure the transmissions of data.

The cloud we see as a big developing set of technologies used by a lot of companies.

Initially it's viewed as a way to reduce IT spend by pushing data and applications into either private or public virtualised environments, but the big point about that is it means the security of the cloud itself becomes the issue.

It's creating a challenge. In terms of the operational nature of data centres, it looks as if it's the answer to all evils - but it does create its own security challenges.

If you think about government clouds, when they start to be developed, you're talking about confidential data sitting in government data centres. They absolutely need to know where that data is and who's touched it. Those are the types of technologies that we're developing.

We've got cloud technologies which are very much around putting applications and data into either private or public clouds, and then we've obviously got this continuing threat around secure transmission of data and encryption.

It's about developing technology to ramp up those security measures used by organisations to deal with the more persistent and sophisticated cyber threats that we're seeing from international cybercrime.

What's the biggest technology mistake you've ever made - either at work or in your own life?

I have to cast my mind back a little bit!

I used to work for a now non-existent US computer manufacturer. We decided, in our wisdom, that we would create a set of products that would allow our customers to build OSI networks - which was an open, standards-based networking protocol.

We believed, I think, that it would probably super cede the TCP/IP which was the protocol being built around the internet at the time, and obviously is part of the internet today.

We built a set of products and we assumed that the rest of the world would adopt that OSI technology. It started coming home when we had to start bridging our networks into the network, and in turn the internet across our OSI networks. It became quite a mess.

I think it's very good example of not being market led, but trying to lead the world through some sort of purist technological view.

You look back and shudder. Five or six years worth of effort and it was like the tide coming in.

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OnLive cloud gaming comes to UK

22 September 2011 Last updated at 14:27 GMT OnLive said it would be making 150 games available for its UK launch. OnLive, the cloud based video game service, has launched in the UK.

The system, which went live in the United States last year, allows users to play games without owning a traditional console.

Instead, the applications are all run on remote servers with the video streamed across the internet.

Run in conjunction with BT, OnLive requires a broadband connection faster than 1Mbps and works on PC, Macs, Tablets and net connected TV's.

Because the system uses video streaming and players effectively remote control their game, bandwidth is a crucial issue.

Speaking to BBC News, OnLive's chief executive Steve Perlman said that the project had overcome numerous hurdles during its decade-long development.

"The first thing we had to do was come up with a new form of video compression," he said.

"We had to deal with the internet not working, the time delays that occur with different communication methods [e.g. wifi, broadband]."

Mr Perlman said that they had managed to get the limits down to 1Mbps for a tablet device, but a large screen HD TV would need a minimum of 5Mbps.

OnLive games can be played on a ranges of devices, including tablets.

Because the game is a video stream, rather than a direct link to the TV or monitor from hardware in the home, there are limitations on the resolutions it can display.

However, it allows games not designed for certain platforms, such as Windows PCs or Macs, to be played on those machines.

Gamers without a computer or connected TV can use an OnLive "micro console" to access the system. The box plugs into the back of a conventional television.

Cloud gaming

The games themselves are hosted on cloud servers. In Europe, these are based in London, Luxembourg, and Brussels.

Currently OnLive offers around 150 titles, but said it planned to expand that.

Joe Martin, Games Editor at Bit Gamer, told BBC News that OnLive posed a threat to both retail and hardware manufacturers.

"At present the threat is small, but it will grow. In fact the only drawback I can see is in terms of visual compression, which has been sacrificed to remove lag," said Mr Martin.

"From what I can see, the system works and it's not just retailers and console manufacturers who are going to be threatened. It's hardware firms like nVidia and ATI and every gaming platform," he added.

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