Although coronavirus continues to dominate the headlines I’m pleased to have had a number of positive and, indeed, optimistic conversations with some of those providing products and services in this industry. This ‘can do’ attitude will go a long way in ensuring a speedy recovery.

 

In this issue’s Question Time we return to a subject that has been a cause for concern for as long as I can remember. The skills shortage and lack of people choosing to build a career in this sector is an ongoing problem – and one that is clearly not being successfully addressed.

 

Although some organisations are doing a huge amount to try to rectify the problem, clearly more needs to be done. To find out what, we’ve asked a panel of experts to identify how to attract high calibre people and whose responsibility it is to raise awareness of the opportunities on offer. You can read their responses by CLICKING HERE.

 

The current climate, along with the growth in online streaming, the internet of things and the huge amount of data being produced means that edge data centres are on the rise. We have two articles on this subject and, in the first, Manfred Berger of Western Digital explains how demands on bandwidth, latency and storage mean that the traditional data centre is being challenged. In the second and old friend of Inside_Networks, Alberto Zucchinali of Siemon, takes a look at the IT infrastructure required to best support edge data centres. CLICK HERE to read Manfred’s article and CLICK HERE to read Alberto’s.

 

We also have a special feature dedicated to security and access control. Mark Campion of NGD explains why there’s much more to data centre security than meets the eye, while Iain Moran of ATG Access looks at the importance of physical data centre security in protecting information and assets. You can CLICK HERE to read Mark’s article and CLICK HERE to read Iain’s.

 

Rob Shepherd Editor