A two week trip around Europe by train #MarkAndBensExcellentAdventure

Posted on By Mark Wilson

My June/July 2024 retrospective was written as I was preparing to head off for a couple of weeks’ travelling with my youngest son, Ben. Well, after a few weeks back at work and with August’s roundup on the horizon, I thought I’d look back over what we got up to on #MarkAndBensExcellentAdventure.

A few words about Interrail/Eurail

Ben and I travelled by train, using a ticket called an Interrail pass. Interrail has been around for years and works across 33 countries. It’s also known as Eurail. Confusingly, European residents use Interrail and international visitors use Eurail. I know. It’s counter-intuitive. I just had to get over it, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference in practice. Oh yes, and “European” is defined by geography, not politics (so the UK is still European).

There are various passes available – either global (which is European, not global!) or single country passes. Passes can be valid for a block of time, or for a certain number of days over a period. I spent €833 on two 15-day second class global passes (one youth, one adult). For reference, one train journey in the UK can cost hundreds of pounds, so that seems very good value. The passes can’t be used in your home country, except for one outbound and one inbound journey. For us that was a CIV journey on any UK operator from Bedford to St Pancras International and onwards by Eurostar to Amsterdam, and the return back from Lille to St Pancras International and on to Bedford.

When I first “interrailed”, in the early 1990s, you couldn’t use Interrail on high speed rail services (e.g. TGV). Now you can, but you’ll pay a supplement for a seat reservation. Interrail reservation space on some trains is limited (so book ahead). Interrail/Eurail will sell you the reservation, for a premium, or you can buy it from the in-country train operator.

Professional me was interested in the “digital transformation” of Interrail since I last used the scheme. Basically, instead of a dog-eared piece of paper with journeys filled in by hand, it now uses an app. The app is pretty cool actually and shows where you are going/have been (in map or list form) as well as helping to plan and activate journeys on your “pass”.

There is a paper option, I think, but I didn’t use that. I also needed to download separate apps for various cities’ public transportation services. Normally they have a day pass that can save money but it varies from city to city.

One final point, in some places, an Interrail pass will provide other discounts. For example, in Interlaken, our travel on the BLS ferries was included if we added it as a rail trip, and the funicular to Harder Kulm was half price. Other discounts can be seen in the Interrail/Eurail app.

The trip

Here we go, day by day, with a brief summary of what we got up to. It’s in bullets, because if I write it in prose you’ll never read it all!

Day 1

  • Not the best start: East Midlands Railway train from Bedford cancelled; jumped on a Thameslink service, which was delayed at Luton because the relief driver was delayed (presumably stuck on the cancelled EMR train); then switched trains again and made it to St Pancras International in time.
  • Huge queues for the Eurostar but well-managed and we made it through security, and were the first passengers onto the platform (thanks to Real Time Trains telling us which door to wait close to).
  • Comfortable, but delayed journey to Amsterdam.
  • Tram to our hostel (more on that later), then into Amsterdam.
  • Wander around the city soaking up the atmosphere.
  • Frites!
  • See the incredible Stationsplein bike park with over 7000 spaces at the station.
  • Dinner and back to the hostel. Dutch food is better than its reputation suggests. Well, I suppose it wasn’t really Dutch food, but we found an excellent Hummus Bistro.
  • Cityhub is the most incredible hostel:
    • Miniature pods provide privacy, and meant that this hostel was not cheap but was far less expensive than any city centre hotel.
    • It’s like something from a sci-fi movie.
    • Everything is controlled with an RFID tag on your wrist, including access to the bar, so self-served drinks go on your bill.

Day 2

  • More wondering around the city, including a boat trip on the canals. There are many operators but we chose Flagship.
  • The XXX is the city logo, not what you might otherwise think…
  • The view with the church is the Zuiderkerk, as featured in Claude Monet’s 1874 painting viewed from across the river Amstel.

Day 3

Day 4

  • The Nightjet “sleeper” to Vienna:
    • Delayed leaving Berlin (it disappeared from the departure board for a while, which was disconcerting), not yet upgraded to the new stock, but I really wanted to do this!
    • ÖBB/Nightjet provides a little goodie bag with things to help passengers sleep. Slippers, ear plugs, eye mask, face cloth, water and snacks. There’s also a breakfast order to complete (and a pen to complete it).
    • A while after leaving Berlin, the steward took our tickets (which have to be printed on A4 paper), took the breakfast orders, and converted our cabin from seats to beds. I’d thought we’d use the seats for longer (and convert it after dark), but the bed is still comfy.
    • Our room has a wash basin, mirror, etc. but I realised there’s only one shower for the whole carriage. Not much chance of getting in there in the morning, so I tried it in the evening instead. As to be expected, water pressure is limited, but it’s warm and it did the job!
    • I spent the rest of the evening relaxing on my bed, watching the trains as we called at a variety of stations, and my son said it felt a bit like the scary Thomas story when Oliver and Isabel hide from the diesels as they run away to Sodor!
    • Part way through the night I gave up on the tiny pillow and used the duvet instead. I think I woke every time the train stopped. So much for the “clickety-clack” (or modern continuous welded rail version) helping me sleep.
    • Shortly before 6, an electronic alarm woke me… set by the steward. After getting dressed and repacking all my gear, I ate my breakfast, though our order was incomplete as the catering had no working facilities to make hot drinks.
    • So that was the end of my Nightjet odyssey. I finally got to experience a sleeper train! Perhaps, if we do it again on a budget trip, I’d go for a couchette… but I might have to try the full experience again one day with the new Nightjet coaches…

Day 5

  • If Berlin is full of character but not the most attractive place, Vienna/Wien is beautiful but a little bit dull.
  • Ben had tracked down a coffee shop for me, as he knew I was missing good coffee.
  • We visited some “palaces” – one was a government building, another an auction house – but they were open to the public and had amazing architecture.
  • Lunch was a Wiener Schnitzel, of course. (When in Rome… or at least in Wien…)
  • I was exhausted so went back to the apartment for a while, then met up with Ben again in the evening… and introduced him to weiss beer.

Day 6

  • We’d realised that heading west across Austria to Swizerland would be slow… but we could squeeze in a quick trip to Munich/München:
    • I booked us a pitch at The Tent. When I stayed 30 years ago it was just a space on the floor of a big marquee but now there are various accommodation options.
    • After wondering around a bit, and a visit to a beer garden, we headed to the Hofbräuhaus for an authentic Bavarian meal and entertainment. Great fun!
    • I loved the short time we spent at the bar next to Pfistermühle – chilled house and a bottle of beer!
    • Then back across the city to catch a tram back to The Tent.

Day 7

  • Up early to travel to Switzerland.
  • Bern is stunning but we stayed on the train and headed for Interlaken.
  • Camping again. A last minute two night reservation at the excellent TCS site, which is ideally located across the river from Interlaken Ost station.
  • Then onto a bus to Bönigen for a swim in Lake Brienz/Brienzersee.
  • Interlaken itself is nothing special, but the scenery around the area is stunning.

Day 8

  • Another day in/around Interlaken, starting with a train to Brienz then a ferry (paddlesteamer!) to Giessbach falls.
  • We swam in the falls, and hiked to the top, then headed back to Brienz and on to Oberried am Brianzersee for some more lake swimming.
  • Ben left his phone behind on the station but, because this is Switzerland, it was still there when we returned!
  • After eventually getting back to Interlaken, we found the funicular to Harder Kulm was open (it had been closed in the morning due to technical issues). The views are incredible… though a rainbow on the Jungfrau was an extra bonus.
  • Then, back down to the campsite for a simple meal and some sleep.

Day 9

Day 9 was a travel day, in two parts:

  • Then, a few hours to take a look around Luzern. This was one of the places Ben had particularly wanted to visit.
  • It is beautiful, even when the sun didn’t shine for us!
  • Then it was time to catch another train to Lugano, and on to Milan/Milano.
  • This took us through the Gotthard base tunnel (not the more scenic pass) and also gave some glimpses of the Italian Lakes, though nothing that made a good photo.
  • We had enough time in Milan for a couple of hours in the city centre and a very good meal (Italian, of course).

Day 10

  • Up early, to catch the train to France, via Genoa.
  • We set up camp near Nice, at Parc des Maurettes. I was a little shocked that the floor was stone (I literally had to bash the pegs into the ground with a rock), but that was to be our home for the next three nights…
  • After pitching the tent, we caught the train to Juan Les Pins and walked back to spend the evening in Antibes.

Day 11

  • 34°C and still very warm overnight. Gravel floor. Noisy neighbours. I didn’t sleep. In fact, I spent most of the night in a chair close to the campsite reception, where I had access to power and Wi-Fi for some photo editing and battery charging.
  • In the morning I did some washing, and booked into a hotel for the next two nights. One with air conditioning.
  • Ben was visiting a friend in a nearby village, so I had to move all our luggage (two large packs and two daysacks) on my own. Luckily it was downhill to the station at Villeneuve-Loubet and the hotel was immediately adjacent to Nice-Ville station.
  • After checking in, I got a couple of hours’ sleep, before Ben came back and we explored Nice. Which was nice.

Day 12

  • Monaco Monte-Carlo. Boats, cars, a visit to see the Prince’s cars, lunch, the foyer at the casino, a look at the racing circuit. Cool.
  • But Monaco is just, not real somehow. It’s dripping with wealth but, after a few hours, it was time to go.
  • We stopped off at Cap d’Ail for a swim, and then at Eze, where I was charged €20 for two cans of Coke.
  • Then we waited for a bus to Eze village, that didn’t come. So we caught the train to Villefranche-sur-Mer, which was lovely. I later found that, at one point, I had been just a few metres away from a friend, staying there with his family, but we had missed each other!

Day 13

  • We left Nice and caught the train to Cassis, and a bus down the hill from the station towards the town.
  • Cassis was probably my favourite destination on the whole holiday. I’m planning a return visit with my wife.
  • Somehow, even thought it was last-minute, Ben and I had managed to book two spaces in a shared dormitory at Cassis Hostel. We lucked out there. It was cool enough, even without air-con, and the infinity pool was the icing on the cake.
  • But the highlight was that afternoon’s walk – to the Parc National des Callanques – which had some of the most stunning scenery I’ve ever seen, albeit a challenging walk in the heat:
  • In the evening, I’d earned a swim in the hostel pool, and a lovely steak dinner (washed down with a local red wine) along with soaking up the atmosphere in Cassis:

Day 14

  • After catching the bus to the station, and then waiting around there for a while, we finally caught a train to Marseille and then on to Avignon.
  • Avignon is pretty, but not as impressive as I remember. And you have to pay to go on the bridge now. We didn’t. You get a better view from above anyway! Look carefully towards the horizon (in the other direction) and you might also see Mont Ventoux.
  • Another piece de boucher (steak) dinner, then back to our accommodation.
  • I was glad we’d switched from camping to an aparthotel next to the TGV station as a huge thunderstorm came through that night…

Day 15

  • Up early to catch the 7:15 TGV to Lille. Four and a quarter hours to cover the entire length of France. This is why high speed rail is such a benefit for those countries that have invested in it…
  • The trains from Paris were full (at least for Interrail) – probably something to do with the Olympics – but I’d booked a TGV that bypassed Paris and then we were getting a Eurostar that came through from Brussels. That meant a few hours hanging around in Lille. Ordinarily, that’s no problem but we had our luggage and were tired.
  • We found a cafe and hung around there for a bit before heading back to the station.
  • Then, onwards towards the UK, through the channel tunnel and back to the land of poor phone signal.
  • The last leg back to Bedford was uneventful, and we were re-united with Mrs W!

4755 kilometres; 44 trains; 42 places; 10 countries

(The 8 countries the app shows is wrong. We passed through Belgium and Czechia. We also travelled to Monaco.)

On reflection

I was the one who wanted to take the sleeper train; I was the one who suggested Amsterdam would be a good first destination; and I was the one who insisted on booking our trains out and back a couple of months ahead of time; but the rest was all down to Ben. We quickly realised that it wouldn’t work to go to Copenhagen on the way to Berlin, and he wanted some flexibility in the second half of the trip, but what we did is remarkably similar to my trip, 30 years ago.

For me, this was a trip down memory lane, but wonderful to share it with Ben. For him, new adventures, a sense of what travelling can be and, I hope, some lifetime memories of a trip with his Dad.

Photos: all the author’s own

How to communicate in Teams: channels, or chats; standard, private or shared?

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Love it or loath it, over the last few years Microsoft Teams has emerged as the dominant collaboration tool for companies, large and small. But, let’s face it, how much has the typical organisation invested into getting the most out of Teams? The same can be said for most of Microsoft 365 – we buy the licences and expect people to just get on and use it.

I could, and probably should, write a post about technology adoption, but this one is about Teams. Specifically about when to create a chat and when to use a channel. And what sorts of channels to use when. And if you want a post about technology adoption, here’s one I wrote several years ago…

You see, a few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to attend the Commsverse conference. And one of the talks I found insightful was Robert Mulsow (in/robert-mulsow)’s “How to select the right communication in Teams: Feedback from the field”.

What’s the problem?

Teams has two forms of text-based chat:

  1. Chats, created from a conversation. Informal. Ad-hoc. No real management.
  2. Channels, created as a shared space within a Team. Designed to scale, supported by SharePoint.

My (organisational) team has both! And no-one knows where to post:

  • We have a “chat”, but that’s been problematic since one of the team (who probably created the chat) left the organisation. And there’s not much that an admin can do to support a chat – it’s all down to users.
  • We also have a Team, with some channels. But some people in the team prefer to use the chat (something to do with notifications). Oh yes, and we currently work across four Microsoft 365 tenants. That will change, but for now it’s not easy (that’s mergers and acquisitions for you…)

Which to use when – chat or channel?

It’s actually quite simple. Use chats for 1:1 or 1:few conversations. And then leave them behind, until you chat with that person or those people again. Chats are not intended to scale. They are for ad-hoc comms with small groups of people. They are absolutely not intended for groups of many people.

When you want to create a collaboration space, create a team. That team will have a “General” channel, and you can create more to suit the collaboration requirements of the team. 

Simple. All I need to do now is convince my colleagues to stop using the team chat. Hmm. Maybe not so simple.

But there are many different types of channel!

Channels inside teams can be standard, private or shared.

To understand these, it helps to understand the relationship(s) between Entra ID (ex-Azure Active Directory) and Teams. And that comes back to the concept of a tenant. I wrote about tenants a few years ago.

“[…] Each organisation has a Microsoft Online Services tenant […] each tenant has a single Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). There is a 1:1 relationship between the Azure AD and the tenant. […]”

Microsoft Online Services: tenants, subscriptions and domain names, markwilson.it, January 2020

Think of your tenant as an office block. When business partners visit from another office block, they come through the entrance area. If they have the wrong badge, they won’t get in. They are signed in as guest and escorted to a meeting space. That’s how it works in Teams when you are invited to a meeting.

Now, let’s go a bit further with this analogy. Regular guests may get their own badge and they can go directly to meeting without being escorted. They are not just authenticated but are authorised for access. Channels are the Teams version of rooms that guests can go in/out of.

Once upon a time, to switch tenants, we had to exit Teams and go back in with some different credentials. In our office block analogy that’s leaving the building and going into another. But now, it’s more like a bridge between (office blocks). You can access another tenant with your own “badge” – you don’t need guest access.

This is where Shared Channels work. It requires a trust to be established in Microsoft Entra ID and in technical terms it uses external identities and cross tenant access settings. This is more difficult to control as there are no specific badges to revoke – it relies on a trusted partner organisation to provide access. The key word here is “trust”.

In our analogy, shared channels really just show the corridor and the room, everything else in the office block is hidden from view (behind locked doors).

Confused?

All of this flexibility is potentially confusing so let’s bring it back a level – think about what you want to share. And it’s not as clear with external access and shared channels as it was when you had to exit/enter as a guest.

It gets even more complicated with sensitivity labels – they are inherited. You can’t drop down to a lower level of security later. Let’s just leave that to one side for a moment.

Which to use when?

Which to used depends whether you are collaborating or communicating.  

  • How many people are involved? You can add people to a chat but they don’t inherit the permissions on files. When you remove members they can access existing information but can’t add more.
  • Chats can get out of hand quickly so in most cases you’ll want to consider a team.
  • If you don’t already have a team, think about about future requirements and scope. You might just create a channel in an existing team!
  • If there is already a team in place, check if there is a channel for the topic and post there or create a channel as applicable. And what kind of channel will be driven by its intended use. And you must have policies to allow.

Here’s a flow chart to help the decision!

As you can see, it’s too complicated really. People just want to send a message. But, if the necessary Teams and channels are in place, with guidance, then it should be straightforward.

I’ve added a little more of Robert’s guidance to consider in the table below:

When creating a…Remember to…
Group chatRename the chat so it makes sense in future
Pin the chat
TeamUse a clear name
Provide a description
Create tags
Channel (any type)Use a clear name
Provide a description
Post in a channelUse the subject line
Use tags (if applicable)

And, in addition to all of that, issue some clear collaboration guidelines for people to follow.

Conclusion

Chat or channel is simple – if you want to collaborate, or to communicate with more than a few users, choose a channel. The type of channel is less straightforward – but in most cases you’ll want a standard channel in your Team. Only when you start sharing information across organisational boundaries (between tenants) will you need to think about guest access, shared channels and private channels.

Featured image: Microsoft Image Gallery

An updated approach to Virtual Desktop Infrastructure: Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Stack HCI

Posted on By Mark Wilson

With the general availability of Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) on Azure Stack HCI, organisations have a powerful new platform for providing virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) services. No longer torn between complex and expensive server farms, or desktops running in the cloud – the best of both worlds is here.

The complexities of managing an end user computing service

Over the many years I’ve consulted with IT departments, one of the many common themes has been around the complexities of managing end user computing services.

It used to be that their investments in standard PC builds had led to a plethora of additional management products. These days, Windows (or, more accurately, Microsoft 365) does that to such a level that the layers of added products are not needed. With a Modern Workplace solution, we can deploy a new PC from a factory image, log on with a username from a recognised domain (for example user@node4.co.uk), build that PC to meet corporate standards and get the end user up and running quickly with access to their data, all in a secure and compliant manner.

But there have always been edge cases. The legacy application that is critical to the business but doesn’t run on a modern version of Windows. Or the application with a licensing model that doesn’t lend itself to being installed on everyone’s PC for occasional use. For these cases, virtual desktop infrastructure has been a common approach to publish an application or a desktop.

For other organisations, the use of VDI is seen as an opportunity to abstract the desktop from the device. Either saving on device costs by buying lightweight terminal devices that connect to a farm of virtual desktops, or by using the secure desktop container as an opportunity to allow access from pretty much anywhere, because the device doesn’t directly access the organisation’s data.

I’m not going to advocate for one approach over another. Of course, I have Opinions but, at Node4, we start from the position of understanding the business problem we’re trying to solve, and then working out which technology will best support that outcome.

A shift in the landscape

Whilst Microsoft has had its own remote desktop offerings over the years, they’ve tended to partner with companies like Citrix rather than develop a full-blown solution. Meanwhile, companies like VMware had their own products – though with the Broadcom acquisition and sale of its VDI products (including Workspace One and Horizon), their future looks uncertain.

This makes customers uneasy. But there is hope.

Microsoft has not stood still and, for a few years it’s been maturing its VDI in the cloud service – Azure Virtual Desktop.

AVD provides a secure, remote desktop experience from anywhere, delivering a virtualised desktop experience that’s fully optimised for Windows 11 and Windows 10 multi-session capabilities. With various licensing options including within key Microsoft 365 subscription plans, AVD is now an established service. So much so that there are even products and services to help with managing AVD environments – for example from Nerdio. But, until recently, the biggest drawback with AVD was that it only ran in the public cloud – and whilst that’s exactly what some organisations need, it’s not suitable for some others.

A true hybrid cloud solution

(At this point, I’m tempted to introduce a metaphor about when cloud computing comes to ground. But fog and mist don’t conjure up the image I’m trying to project here…)

Recently, there has been a significant development with AVD. It’s largely gone unnoticed – but AVD is now generally available on Azure Stack HCI.

Azure Stack extends the robust capabilities of Azure’s cloud services to be run locally – either in an on-premises or an edge computing scenario. Azure Stack hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is a hybrid product that connects on-premises systems to Azure for cloud-based services, monitoring, and management. Effectively, Azure Stack HCI provides many of the benefits of public cloud infrastructure whilst meeting the use case and regulatory requirements for specialised workloads that can’t be run in the public cloud. 

Some of the benefits of running Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Stack HCI

There are many advantages to running software locally. Immediate examples are to address data residency requirements, latency-sensitive workloads, or those with data proximity requirements. Looking specifically at Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Stack HCI, we can:

  • Improve performance by placing session hosts closer to the end users.
  • Keep application and user data on-premises and so local to the users.
  • Improve access and performance for legacy client-server applications by co-locating the application and its data sources.
  • Provide a full Windows 11 experience regardless of the device used for access.
  • Unified management with other Azure resources.
  • Make use of fully patched operating system images from the Azure Marketplace.

What about my existing VDI?

Node4 will aid you in finding the best path from your existing VDI to AVD. Our consultants are experienced in using Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure to establish an AVD landing zone and to take a structured approach to assessing and migrating existing workloads, user profiles and data to AVD.

Why Node4 is best positioned to help

I’ve already written about how Node4’s expert Consultants can help deploy Azure Virtual Desktop to meet your organisation’s specific needs but that’s only looking at one small part of the picture.

Because, for those organisations who don’t want to invest in hardware solutions, we have hosted services for Azure Stack HCI. We also provide flexible and secure communications solutions. And we’re an Azure Expert Managed Services Provider (MSP).

I may be a little biased, but I think that’s a pretty strong set of services. Put them all together and we are uniquely positioned to help you make the most of AVD on-premises, co-located in one of our datacentres, on a Node4 hosted platform, or in the public cloud.

So, if you are looking at how to modernise your VDI, we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to get in touch using the contact details below – and let’s have a conversation.

This post was originally published on the Node4 blog.

Unveiling the real treasure: moving beyond ERP to unleash (and protect) the power of data

Posted on By Mark Wilson

In our rapidly changing world, sophisticated ERP solutions are becoming more crucial than ever for organisations looking to streamline operations and strive for operational excellence. But whilst the ERP plays an instrumental role in that, it’s vitally important to recognise that it’s not just the ERP system that holds value – the real treasure is the data within these systems.

For years now, IT leaders have been talking about a “data-centric world” and how to “democratise” access to the hidden treasure that an organisation’s data contains. And it’s still the case that the monumental value and potential of business data should not be understated. But since 2023, we’ve seen a shift. No longer is it just about the data – the rise of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools has moved the conversation on to how AI can be used to help us better understand and use the data that we hold.

When I’ve spoken to our clients, I’ve seen their thirst for AI-driven insights. AI, coupled with robust data, holds the potential to shift paradigms, drive smart decisions and boost operational efficiency. However, before we can unlock this vast potential, the data needs to be structured and labelled correctly.

The value of structured data and correct labelling

When correctly structured and labelled, data empowers organisations to accurately understand their operations, pinpoint potential bottlenecks and unleash the value nestled in their ERP solutions.

In refining this data, we allow AI models to consume it effectively, driving insights that empower organisations to predict trends, anticipate customer needs, enhance supply chain processes, reduce overhead and foster innovation. Essentially, we convert the commonly inaccessible gold beneath the ERP systems into a well-drilled, fully accessible mine that yields precious insights — the real treasure.

But there’s another source of data that exists outside the core business systems. The ERP holds a trove of operational data that we can index, query and search, but our unstructured data has potential, too. We can ingest it to a modern data platform where it can be cleansed and interrogated. The raw information, once difficult to analyse and gain insights from, becomes useful, and the rise of AI assistants like Microsoft Copilot means we need to think about how these new tools can and should be used.

Getting ready for Copilot

As one of the largest Microsoft partners in the UK, Node4 hears a lot of buzz about Microsoft’s Copilot AI Assistants (of which there are several).

Just as Delve taught organisations to think about what could be indexed and searched in SharePoint and elsewhere, there are some preparatory steps needed for Copilot too. Copilot can only see what an individual can see, but often that’s more than was intended.

Node4 can work with clients to assess readiness including privacy, policies, monitoring, integration and training. And, of course, we’re constantly monitoring developments so we can advise on new announcements, like Copilot+.

The spectre of ransomware

Another trend that we’re seeing is the rise in ransomware attacks. Cyber-insurance data from September 2023 showed not only a 12% increase in ransomware claims frequency; but that that 36% of claimants paid ransoms (often after negotiating down the amount). 

In 2024, ransomware attacks are expected to evolve with more sophisticated techniques. And, in the same way that more extreme weather events have demonstrated we really can’t ignore climate change, the rise in ransomware means we can’t say “they won’t go after us” anymore. Ransomware is not just an issue for large multinational organisations – it’s increasingly a problem for small and medium enterprises too.

What this means is that all that data that we’re talking about unlocking value from needs to be protected. Our clients are talking to us about resilience and immutability – the ability to protect their data from attack.

Data resilience and immutability: the cornerstones of a data-centric approach

Data resilience and immutability (the ability of data to endure and remain unchanged, respectively) are vital. They ensure businesses can withstand unexpected events and safeguard their strategic intelligence. This is particularly true in the light of today’s escalating threats, such as ransomware attacks, which have jeopardised many businesses’ operations globally.

Every data-generated insight within an ERP environment is a precious source of intelligence. This intelligence can provide an invaluable competitive edge, and so it’s not surprising that it’s become an enticing target for malicious attacks. Ransomware, in particular, can hold this treasure hostage, dramatically disrupting a business’ operations and possibly leading to insurmountable financial or reputational damage.

In this context, it’s crucial to secure data with impregnable defences against such threats. At Node4, we prioritise data protection, resilience and immutability as cornerstones of our service offerings. The prosperous mine of business intelligence in ERP systems demands top-notch security protocols and safeguards.

The critical necessity of securing data

Just as an ERP system is valueless without correctly structured and labelled data, the impact and efficiency of this data can be catastrophically neutralised without adequate backup and security measures. Recovering data after a devastating event like a ransomware attack can be a painful, costly and time-consuming undertaking. However, these hurdles can be significantly mitigated, if not entirely avoided, through effective backup strategies and stringent data security policies.

At Node4, we believe that securing and regularly backing up data is not just an option – it’s a critical necessity. That’s why we’ve invested in state-of-the-art data centres with high performance interconnects and immutable storage options. The fact that we run our own data centres, as well as being one of Microsoft’s strongest UK partners means we’re able to work with clients for private, hybrid or public cloud. Our business continuity and recovery solutions cover all aspects of data resilience, and this comprehensive protection is imperative to maintain the integrity and availability of data essential to ERP processes.

The journey ahead: from ERP to data-driven intelligence

ERP solutions are undoubtedly substantive components of a robust business structure. They serve as the backbone of operational processes and hold potential to streamline business workflows. Yet it’s crucial to shift our focus beyond the ERP system and unlock the real source of value residing within – structured, organised, and secured data.

As we continue to take organisations on a digital transformation journey, the true winners will be those who understand and master the mechanism that turns raw data into decisive insights. These forward-thinking organisations will harness the power of AI effectively, backed by well-structured and secure data, to drive efficiency, innovation and competitive advantage, while diligently protecting their treasure from emerging threats. This is what we call AI transformation.

The journey from ERP to data-driven intelligence is underway. Embarking on it will not only shape the future of organisations across the world, but also dictate their survival in an increasingly interconnected and data-driven world. In the orchestration of this transformation, the ERP may conduct the score, but it’s the data that composes the symphony and, ultimately, steals the show.

This post was originally published on the Node4 blog.

Featured image by yatsusimnetcojp from Pixabay.

Retrospective: June/July 2024

Posted on By Mark Wilson

In 1999, I left the only company I’d worked at since graduation. After 5 and a half years (plus a year or so during my degree), I moved on from ICL and followed a colleague to Capita, to be part of a new Microsoft practice. I still remember the conversation on the night before I started: “so, what’s it like to be unemployed, Mark?”. Leaving a place where I was comfortable and respected to start again elsewhere was a big deal for me so I wasn’t amused. Even more so as I’d taken out a mortgage on a house a year or so earlier.

I can’t remember the timings but it soon became clear that a recent re-organisation had changed the focus. The Microsoft practice was no longer a priority. My colleague left Capita soon afterwards. I remained, in a strange organisation, like a fish out of water. I made the most of it, built up my technical skills, and annoyed a few people by taking an outsourced client through the Technology Adoption Programme for Exchange Server 2000. (I was told that “our standard is Exchange 5.5. – you can’t just put in a new version”. Well, I did.)

I stuck it out for 18 months before I left to travel and work in Australia. That was a shorter trip than originally intended (a different story, which involved returning to the UK to settle down with Mrs Wilson). The point is that I learned not to build my career around other people. If I moved jobs again, it would be for me (or in one case, redundancy).

So why tell this story? Well, I’ve written on previous posts about my journey into my current team – and I feel like I’ve found a place that suits me and where I can make a difference. But June was an unsettling month as we prepared for a change of leadership for the Node4 Office of the CTO. It’ll all work out – but I won’t pretend I found it easy. And it reminded me that, however much respect I have for my outgoing CTO, there’s only one person responsible for where I take my career – and that’s me.

Right, enough of the career history lesson. What did I get up to more recently?

At work

Work highlights included:

  • Renewal of my Microsoft Azure Solution Architect Expert certifications.
  • Attending the second and third modules of my level 5 leadership and management training (inclusive leadership; and driving and implementing strategic change). I missed the first module in April, so will have to go back next year to learn about developing my personal leadership brand.
  • Two days at Commsverse – a Microsoft Teams conference organised by, among others, two of my former colleagues (Mark Vale and Martin Boam), at a really cool venue (Mercedes-Benz World). I have a whole load of blog posts planned from that event, though the backlog is pretty huge now. In the meantime, here’s my Twitter thread:
  • I managed to get a couple of posts published on the Node4 site, even if my own blog has been a bit quiet:
  • I also got my paws on this one, though only as an editor:
  • A trip to the North East, to help a client define their future technology direction, including facilitating a workshop with around 15 of their team to identify the challenges that they face.
  • Preparing for the audit (and hopefully renewal) of Node4’s Azure Expert Microsoft Solution Provider competency in a few weeks’ time.
  • Time spent together as a team, planning the future for the Node4 OCTO.

At home (the tech)

CCTV

I’ve been looking to install some CCTV at home for a while. Whilst many would recommend I go down the Ubiquiti route (UniFi Protect), I decided to save some money, using Reolink cameras with my existing Synology NAS.

So far I’ve installed an RLC-811A, which was also my first foray into PoE-powered devices (with a UniFi PoE adapter). Despite the low price, it’s remarkably good camera, both day and night, with the added bonus that it’s supported by Home Assistant.

Correlation or causation?

Sadly, it wasn’t enough, but was it really just a co-incidence that, as I changed my addressable LEDs from blue to red and white, England scored a goal in the Euros final?

And some writing

One blog post that did make it out of the door:

Ignore the hype, but think about getting AI ready

At home (the rest)

Whilst I’m not getting to many of Matt’s cycle races at the moment, I did head up to Darlington with him for the British National Circuit Race Championships. The race didn’t end as we hoped – he crashed – but his on-bike camera footage has 2.8 million views on Instagram at the time of writing!

He was back on the bike the next night as we went down to London for the Via Criterium at the London Cycle Festival. Oh my. What an awesome event. And a good result for Matt too…

And he’s got some decent results in some of the other crits… here’s Otley:

That bike didn’t last much longer though… this happened a week or so later, but he did at least jump back on and ride it to the finish!

And only a couple of days ago, he got caught up in a crash at Sheffield. I’ll be glad when the crit season is over.

I’ve been just as busy travelling around the country with Ben, as he visits the universities he might like to apply to. I missed the Warwick weekend but with Exeter, Bath, Bristol, Nottingham and Cardiff it’s been full on. And, just as when I did the rounds with Matt a couple of years ago, it’s left me wishing I could do it all again, knowing what I know now!

And, as for that car that I spent lots of money insuring recently. Yeah, not what I had in mind…

Watching

I haven’t written much recently about our TV watching, but in addition to my Tour de France addiction that has to be fed each July, Nikki and I have enjoyed:

  • All the light we cannot see, on Netflix. Set towards the end of World War 2, this mini series shows how the paths of a blind French girl and a German soldier collide, guided my the medium of radio. As a bit of a radio guy, I found it quite magical, along with this (unrelated) tweet: Where was Hilversum, anyway?
  • Douglas is cancelled, on ITV. Episode 3 is difficult to watch, but persist – the twist at the end of Episode 4 is worth it!

Travelling

I wrote most of this post as I was preparing to head off for a couple of weeks’ travelling with my youngest son. In fact, that’s why the June retrospective is mashed up with half of July… I’ll be off travelling for the other half.

It’s also meant a very busy week getting ready. New purchases from outdoor shops: lightweight sleeping bag; new walking trousers; new trainers. And cleaning my down jacket (because it might still be cold at night in the Swiss Alps). Rab Equipment are ace:

Tomorrow morning we should be catching the Eurostar to Amsterdam. Or we will be if today’s Microsoft Azure/Microsoft 365 outage and the separate but still severe Crowdstrike/Windows outage don’t affect my journey! I really must stop catastrophising…

Photographing

Elsewhere

A few things that caught my eye over the last few weeks…

  • Improving your messaging:
  • Milton Keynes Geek Night:
  • Wellbeing:
  • Initial view on Copilot-generated meeting notes:
  • Lazy coding:
  • It’s going to get harder to buy a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement:
  • More on getting your message across:
  • Tech life in China:
  • AI image generation:
  • Business strategy planning:
  • It seems I have a new soapbox… more on Copilot meeting notes:
  • And this is what two professional writers think of AI (and more):
  • Another post where I suggest that AI may not be very good for society…
  • Especially when senior Microsoft personnel seem to “forget” that we have copyright laws:
  • I do get cross when people suggest that a company running Microsoft software is somehow making bad choices and should be avoided:
  • A thread on how AI was amazing. And then it started making things up. It’s not much help if I have to check the output…
  • I feel this discussion will continue to run on for a very long time yet:
  • It affects employee engagement too:
  • You did read the terms of service, right?
  • Customer service calls in real life:
  • It seems that we really are spending more time in meetings:
  • Apparently I’ve spent over 15 years scrolling through Twitter…
  • A slightly different take on introversion:
  • Just imagine if AI did become self-aware:

Featured image: author’s own

Ignore the hype, but think about getting AI ready

Posted on By Mark Wilson

AI. AI. AI. It’s everywhere. And I’m sorry, this is another Artificial Intelligence post, but it’s more a “hold your horses” sort of post…

You see, yesterday, I was helping a colleague review slides for an upcoming AI presentation. He wanted to make sure he gets past the hype, but was suggesting we’re coming out of that phase now as we’re seeing some negative press about generative AI.

I disagreed. Generative AI in particular feels like it’s right at the peak of inflated expectations…

Why I think generative AI is at peak hype right now

I know Gartner is just one (albeit influential) analyst firm, and Hype Cycles aren’t everything, but their Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies (Aug 2023) shows GenAI approaching the Peak of Inflated Expectations and 2-5 years from productivity.

I don’t have a Gartner subscription but the diagram is taken from an article by The Next Web (and also available directly from the Gartner website). Quoting the TNW article directly,

“Gartner’s warning echoed across our conversations with European tech insiders. In 2024, they expect a cautious and pragmatic approach to AI adoption.”

The Next Web: After a year of breathless hype, AI will face reality in 2024

Another source (which is freely available) is the Gartner Emerging Technologies and Trends Impact Radar for 2024. This contains several AI techs, but shows Generative AI starting to break through:

So what does that mean? To answer that question, we look at another Gartner resource – their Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2024. There are several AI-related trends mentioned, but the TL;DR is that now is the time for strategic planning.

It’s time to get AI ready

Move fast and break things is an often-used phrase suggesting agility. But sometimes, breaking things is less than ideal. And moving fast is great – as long as you’re moving in the right direction.

It’s a good time to increase your awareness of trending technologies (including the democratisation of generative AI) and think about how they can provide benefit to your organisation. But don’t worry if you’re not implementing AI right now. You’re not the only one, despite what you might think from reading around.

To take one example, yes, Microsoft Copilot is huge. The productivity benefits could be significant. But consider your AI readiness before turning on features that could expose data and information that you didn’t even know was there. Think about:

  • AI Principles: How will your organisation use AI. What are your boundaries? Can you clearly articulate and have you articulated what you will (and will not) do with AI?
  • AI Ready: Data: This is a good opportunity to examine the data you have, what you use it for, and who can access it. Making sure your data is AI ready means that it is ethically governed, secure, free of bias and accurate.
  • AI Ready: Security: Understand and prepare for new attack vectors that AI makes possible. Create an acceptable use policy for public-facing generative AI products.

Then, when you’re AI Ready, you’ll be in a position to move fast, hopefully without breaking anything.

Featured image: generated with AI, in WordPress!

Monthly Retrospective: May 2024

Posted on By Mark Wilson

May’s update was late, and June’s is in danger of rolling into July, so here’s a few highlights from my life in and around tech…

At work

On the work front, it was a short month – I was on holiday for the last week and with public holidays too there was lots to cram into a few short weeks. Nevertheless, I still managed to:

  • Continue to develop Node4’s new ransomware scanning service.
  • Finalise a dozen product data sheets for our public cloud services.
  • Submit some blog posts to our marketing team to support upcoming campaigns.
  • Keep pushing some pre-sales activities forwards.
  • And mine and Bjoern Hirtenjohann (/in/BjoernHirtenjohann)’s internal Node4 podcast on public cloud was released:

But the biggest activity in the month was presenting at Node4’s Infrastructure Symposium. One of our Practice Directors brought all his teams together to learn about the products and services that we jointly deliver. With four (or five, depending on how you look at it) companies all merged, there’s been a lot of change at Node4 over the last year or so. Getting everyone together is a great way to break down boundaries and understand the direction we’re headed in. And for me it was a chance to outline that our cloud offers span public, private and hybrid delivery models – and that we will deliver what’s right for the client, not for us. We call this Pragmatic Cloud (and I freely admit we didn’t come up with the term, but it I like it a lot).

I also celebrated my 9 year anniversary of joining risual/Node4 in May. And, for those who were confused by my comments last month, I was saying that my recent move has been overwhelmingly positive and I’m in a better place than I have been for a long while!

Elsewhere

Away from work…

  • My youngest son, Ben, passed his driving test. I was ready for a big insurance bill, but what I wasn’t ready for was: a) no decrease on the bill for the 19 year-old’s insurance (now with 2 years’ experience); and b) a 350% increase in premiums between him passing his test 2 years ago and the 17 year-old passing now. Even with a black box, parents as named drivers, etc. the car insurance bill for the two old cars that our family share with the teenagers was around £4500. For contrast, the bill for my Volvo (with just me and Mrs W as drivers) actually fell and is now back under £500. Public transport is just not reliable enough where we live, so the choices are: a) drive the teenagers everywhere; or b) pay the money. I’m still getting over this assault on our savings… some families just won’t have that money and I dread to think how many uninsured cars there are on the road as a consequence.
  • My eldest son, Matt, continues to race his bike up and down the country. After a catastrophic failure of the fork steerer tube, his Canyon road bike was hastily replaced. That meant a drive to Wakefield to collect the new bike, but it is rather lovely. I don’t get to all his races these days but I did manage to watch him in Ixworth and I was in the team car again for the Lincoln GP. Unfortunately, when he went to Ireland to race the Rás Tailteann I had to make do with watching for updates on Twitter!
  • Ben and I have been planning our Interrail trip – and now we have bought our passes along with inbound/outbound travel. Plus, we’re going to be taking the NightJet sleeper train from Berlin to Vienna! There were a few challenges with seat availability (things have changed since last time I went – we can use high speed rail, but there’s limited availability and we need to pay a supplement). This is more of a problem when dates are fixed so we had to change our route a little. On the flip side, with the start and end locked in, the middle section of the holiday is now free for us to be flexible.
  • I completed the home network upgrade. Was the switch from AmpliFi to UniFi worth it? Time will tell. It’s certainly more flexible but it’s cost me more and my house does not lend itself to structured cable runs. Maybe I should have just replaced the broken AmpliFi mesh point but it felt like I could fall into the trap of the sunk cost fallacy.
  • On the home automation front:
    • Octopus Energy sent us a Home Mini, which should give more granular data on electricity consumption, once I get the Home Assistant configuration right (I’m still tweaking).
    • I’ve also continued to play around with Home Assistant, including a bed occupancy sensor (which I can link to turning off the lights). I will admit that’s probably a step too far into nerd territory.
  • The month ended with a short break in Spain. Originally scheduled for May 2021, we never did get to go on a family holiday to Barcelona and the Costa Brava, though Matt made it out there on a training trip to Girona earlier this year. So, half the holiday, with only one of the “children” (though he is now twice the size!), Nikki, Ben and I spent a glorious few days in an around Begur.

Writing

These retrospectives are a bit of a blogging catch-all, but I did write a post on LinkedIn that turned into a blog in its own right. You can read it at the link below:

Photographing

Bits and pieces

  • 300m short of 200km!
  • Choose your PIN wisely:
  • Commentary on technical debt and the British Library’s ransomware attack woes:
  • Who doesn’t love a bit of Top Gun?
  • Thoughts on location tracking for family members:
  • Why it’s better to find a real application compatibility fix instead of just giving users admin access:
  • And why encrypted messaging is difficult:
  • Finally, shipping sunlight for green energy. Not as bonkers as it sounds!

Featured image: author’s own

Monthly Retrospective: April 2024

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Another look back at some of the things I’ve been up to over the last few weeks…

At work

April marks a year since I started my transition to a new role at Node4. I didn’t move over full-time until July, but that’s when I stopped running what was formerly risual’s Architecture team and joined the Office of the CTO. This is not the forum to share the full details but suffice to say I had manouevred myself into a position where I was very unhappy – neither close to the tech nor able to best use my skills to provide value to the organisation and to our clients.

The change in role has been a breath of fresh air: the focus has changed a few times and there have been some bumps on the road; but one thing is core – I get up each morning and think about how best to add value. Whether that’s building out collateral for our public cloud portfolio, developing a new offering to guard against ransomware, helping clients with their IT Strategy or getting some structure around our “thought leadership” outputs.

The month ended with Node4’s “Go To Market” conference, in Nottingham. It’s an opportunity to set the agenda for the coming year and make sure we’re all headed in the same direction. This was the first time I’d attended and it was also a brilliant opportunity to meet some of my colleagues from across the business.

I managed to get myself into the video somehow, despite not officially being one of the presenters…

After two days of socialising, I was completely wiped out and needed some time to decompress. It’s left me thinking a lot about introversion. On the flip side, I also need to work on my FOMO… being one of the last to go to bed on the first night was not smart. At my age, I should know better.

Blogging

As usual, I didn’t find much time to blog this month, but I did write a thing about Enterprise Architecture, based on Dave Clark and Sophie Marshall’s good work…

The Enterprise Architecture Stack

Away from work

It’s not often that I go to the theatre but I saw the 1990s TV sitcom Drop the Dead Donkey was returning in theatre format with the original cast. I then failed to book tickets, missing it in Milton Keynes by a week. I asked myself if I could be bothered to go to Birmingham instead? Well, why not… I had a birthday so that was an opportunity to do something different!

I loved it, but it’s definitely written for an audience of a certain age (and I fit that demographic). For those less familiar with the original TV programme, it’s still amusing, but it does help to understand the characters and how they have developed over 30 years.

A matinee theatre show in a major city gave us an opportunity for a day out. So, afterwards we wandered down to The Custard Factory in Digbeth, for food and drink at Sobremesa and Rico Libre.

Oh yes, and I couldn’t help but be amused when I spotted that the image on the vinyl wrap in the train toilets contained an empty vodka bottle…

Playing with tech

If last month was about Meshtastic, this month has been Home Assistant. After initially installing on a Raspberry Pi to try it out, I quickly moved to a dedicated device and bought a Home Assistant Green. There was nothing wrong with the Pi installation, but I could use a Raspberry Pi 5 for other things. I’m still getting to grips with dashboards but Home Assistant has pulled all of my various smart devices together into one platform. This thread tells some of the story:

Annoyingly though, iCloud’s “was this you?” messages are not very helpful when you have automated services using your account:

I’ve also been upgrading the home Wi-Fi, moving from a consumer AmpliFi mesh to a solution based on UniFi equipment. That’s been an adventure in itself and will probably be a blog post in its own right.

And, I “went viral” (well, certainly had far more engagement than my normal tweets do), with a family service announcement for Wi-Fi updates…

Elsewhere on the Internet

  • On the need for critical thinking:
  • On outdated anti-WFH rhetoric:
  • On brilliant advertising:
  • On the decline of reporting:
  • On the value (or otherwise) of a degree:
  • On blogging:
  • On whether or not it’s useful to refer to “cyber”:
  • On the reasons that things sometimes cost more than you think they should:

    Travel

    As is usual, supporting Matt with his cycling races has meant a fair amount of travel and this month’s Premier Inn destinations have been… Tiverton and Stockton-on-Tees. Stockton was the overnight stay for the East Cleveland Classic, where I was in the team car all afternoon – and what an experience that was!

    There was also a race in Leicestershire where Matt was in the break for 2 hours before getting caught and then boxed in on the final sprint.

    But the big one was supposed to have been the CiCLE Classic in Rutland, until it was unfortunately cancelled on the day due to biblical rain. I do feel for the organisers in these scenarios, but even more so for the teams that had travelled from overseas.

    Away from cycling, but very exciting, is starting to plan an Interrail trip with Ben this summer. I only have two weeks’ leave available, but i’m pretty sure we’re going to have a brilliant time. It’s not the first time for me – I went solo in the early 1990s – but things have changed a lot since then.

    This month in photos

    Wrap-up

    That’s all for this month… May’s nearly over now but I have some notes ready for a review – hopefully not too long after the end of the month!

    Featured image taken from Node4’s Go To Market video, on LinkedIn

    Some thoughts on the hype around artificial intelligence

    Posted on By Mark Wilson

    A couple of weeks ago, I wrote something on LinkedIn. It was only supposed to be a short piece. It ended up long enough for a blog post, so I’m re-publishing it here…

    In a week that seems to have had more than its fair share of truly bad AI ideas (including GPT employment vetting and making a single image “sing and talk” from audio), I’m as AI-jaded as anyone right now. So please bear with me on my yet-another-AI-post-on-social media.

    You see, earlier today, someone shared Molly White‘s article about how AI isn’t useless – but is it worth it? It’s a long read (so I recommend listening instead – a great feature of Molly’s website) and there are many parts of the article that resonate for me.

    First up, she compares the current AI hype with Blockchain before in that “they do a poor job of much of what people try to do with them, they can’t do the things their creators claim they one day might, and many of the things they are well suited to do may not be altogether that beneficial”.

    But Molly goes on to talk about some of the use cases where AI is helpful, which I’ll pick another quote from: “I like it for getting annoying, repetitive tasks out of my way; I don’t worry it’s going to take my job.”

    Some of the other quotes that resonated with me were that: “[AI tools] are handy in the same way that it might occasionally be useful to delegate some tasks to an inexperienced and sometimes sloppy intern” and that “ChatGPT does not write, it generates text, and anyone who’s spotted obviously LLM-generated content in the wild immediately knows the difference”.

    I found it interesting when Molly writes about AI-generated images too: “AI-generated images tend to suffer from a similar bland ‘tone’ as its writing, and their proliferation only makes me desire real human artwork more”.

    She also writes about where LLMs are “good enough” – although sadly that seems to be industrialising some of the less desirable behaviours of the Internet (e.g. keyword stuffing and content farms).

    Most importantly, Molly writes about the environmental and human costs of AI – and touches on the truth of it all. Many AI technologies are solutions looking for problems – and really about boosting profits for investors in tech companies.

    And then the final paragraphs nail it for me – I recommend you read Molly’s post instead of me quoting them in full here (or ask an LLM to summarise it ?) but here’s the last sentence, which absolutely matches how I feel about so much technology right now. “We need to push back against endless tech manias and overhyped narratives, and oppose the ‘innovation at any cost’ mindset that has infected the tech sector.”

    I’m not a Luddite. But I do pride myself on my ability to look past the hype and be strategic when it comes to tech. AI’s a long way from its plateau of productivity – and just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.

    Oops. I appear to have written enough here for a blog post… oh well, at least it was genuine opinion and not generated by an LLM. And thanks for the inspiration, Molly White.

    The Enterprise Architecture Stack

    Posted on By Mark Wilson

    Over the years, I’ve written several posts about IT architecture. Whilst it seems that there is an increasing trend to call experienced IT folks “architects”, one of my core beliefs is that Enterprise Architecture is not the same as “architecting” IT at enterprise scale. Yes, creating an IT architecture that will scale to support a global organisation with thousands of users is “enterprise scale” – but it’s not Enterprise Architecture.

    So what is Enterprise Architecture?

    Like so many things in life, an illustration can really help describe a point. And, a few years ago, I came across an excellent Enterprise Architecture diagram from Dave Clark and Sophie Marshall. You can see it as the featured image at the top of this post and one of the reasons I like it so much is that it’s clear that the technology is only one of several factors in a whole stack of considerations.

    I adapted it (under Creative Commons) but the basic premise of the diagram remained the same – step back from the problem and understand the organisation to consider its needs and requirements. We need to know what is needed before we can can consider solutions! Then, we should ask what good looks like. Don’t just dive in with technology.

    Let’s take each layer in turn… and you’ll see that, right away, I added another layer at the top.

    Purpose

    The purpose is about why an organisation exists. It should be straightforward to answer but is hopefully more than “to deliver value to our shareholders”. A Council may exist to provide services (statutory and otherwise) to citizens. A retailer may exist to (make money and) provide the best selection of fashionable clothing at affordable prices. It’s entirely logical that the organisation’s culture will be strongly linked to its business motivations.

    Many organisations will give an indication of their purpose on their website, or in their company report. For example, the IKEA vision, values and business idea sets out the organisation’s purpose in the form of:

    • A vision: “To create a better everyday life for the many people”; and
    • A business idea: “to offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”

    Strategy

    Strategy supports purpose by providing business ambition and goals – a direction in which to head. Storytelling and visualisation are techniques that can be used to communicate the strategy so that it’s well understood by everyone in the organisation. They can also help others who need to work with them (for example business partners). A useful tool for defining business strategy is the Business Model Canvas, based on the book by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur.

    Looking briefly at visualisation, Scott Berinato (@ScottBerinato)’s 2016 article for Harvard Business Review on Visualizations [sic] That Really Work stresses the need to understand the message you want to convey before you get down into the weeds. This blog post is a case in point – I want to show that Enterprise Architecture is much more than just technology. And I found a good visualisation to illustrate my point.

    As for storytelling, I’ve seen some fascinating presentations over the years on how to tell a good story to bring a presentation to life. One of the most memorable was at a Microsoft MVP Event in 2017. Tony Wells used this example of how we tell stories to children – and how we (too) often communicate at work:

    (I’m still practicing my storytelling technique, but Hubspot also has what it calls The Ultimate Guide to Storytelling.)

    What, Who and How

    What we do is a description of the products and services that the organisation offers – the business’ capabilities. These may be the value propositions in the Business Model Canvas but I would suggest they are a little more detailed. Strength/Weakness/Opportunity/Threat (SWOT) analysis can be a useful tool here too for identifying what could be done, though the emphasis is probably more on what is currently done, for now.

    Who we do it for is about the consumers of the organisation’s products and services – understanding who the “users” are. Tools might include stakeholder maps and matrices, empathy maps, personas.

    How it’s done is about understanding the methods and processes that deliver “the what” to “the who”. Journey maps, process flow diagrams, storyboards and SWOT analysis can all help.

    Who does it is about the people, where they are located, and how the organisation is structured. In a world of remote and hybrid working it’s even more relevant to understand the (human) network and how it works.

    Software, data and technology

    Only after we’ve understood “the Business layers” (purpose, strategy and the what, who and how) can we move onto the IT. And that IT is more than just infrastructure:

    • The data models that support this. (There may a discussion to be had there about data, information, knowledge and wisdom but that’s a topic in itself.)
    • The software applications that are used to access that data.
    • And the underlying technology infrastructure.

    Why is this important?

    For many years, I was part of and then managed a team of people who were labelled “Enterprise Architects”. During that time, I argued that the term was aspirational and that most of the work we did was Solution Architecture. Maybe that was splitting hairs but we rarely got the chance to drive strategy, or to get involved in designing the organisational structure. Whilst we were experienced at IT, we still operated at the lower levels in the stack: business requirements driving software, data and technology decisions. We wanted to become trusted advisors, but for the most part, the work we performed for our clients was transactional.

    My colleague Ben Curtis (/in/BenCurti5) has an excellent analogy built around perception and perspective. I hope he won’t mind me borrowing it:

    • Perception is about what meets the eye. Imagine you’re walking through a forest and come across a single tree. Your first impression of that tree – its size, shape, colour, and surroundings – is your perception.
    • Perspective is seeing the Forest and the Trees. Now, let’s say you climb to the top of a hill and look down at the entire forest. Suddenly, you see how all the trees are connected, how the sunlight filters through the leaves, and how animals move through the undergrowth. This bigger view – the perspective – gives you a deeper understanding of the forest as a whole.

    Whilst this can be used to show the difference between an individual system and the complete view of an IT environment, I’d suggest that its also about how the IT environment is part of something much larger – an organisation of people and processes, supported by technology, that exists with a purpose and a strategy to make it happen. And that, is the Enterprise Architecture.

    Related posts

    Here are some posts I’ve written previously on IT architecture. I think this is the first time I’ve properly outlined what Enterprise Architecture means though:

    Featured image: The Enterprise Architecture Stack, by Dave Clark and Sophie Marshall [source: Dave Clark on LinkedIn]