Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 20 | Page 79

EDITOR’S QUESTION GREGG PETERSEN, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST, AFRICA AND SAARC, VEEAM SOFTWARE The modern Smart City has a number of attributes that improve the experience of day- to-day life. There are innovative automation opportunities. There are incredible connectivity options. There are adaptive technologies that respond to changes in weather, traffic, people flow and more. Additional cooperation will come from many city forces combining efforts to introduce smart city capability elements in every aspect of the city experience. There will be challenges. The smart city will have to be on guard for security risks from a systems and data point of view. The risk of loss of human life is a serious possibility as technologies advance, especially if adjacent technologies (such as self-driving cars) become commonplace. In definition form, a Smart City functions as an automation extension of the experience of a city. Much like an airport is the first and last impression of a city, the modern Smart City can be an extension of that experience for visitors as well as residents. The strategic pillars of a Smart City infrastructure revolve around data and automation. This is a classic example in the Internet of Things where exploding technology capabilities have been applied to a practical problem of dealing with urban challenges. The infrastructure behind this is critical: communications networking, transportation systems and an intelligent yet adaptive approach to managing all of these data points. The capabilities of the smart city are only getting started, and more innovation will come. In particular, look for innovations still to come around camera technology, wireless networking and aggregated data management. The Veeam approach is to follow the smart city to its hub: The modern data centre. The modern data centre will drive the smart city and provide these city services to a new level. www.intelligentcio.com Aside from the security aspect, the availability challenge will grow. There will be no patience for downtime from these types of systems, further they will have strict 24/7 uptime requirements. The modern data centre that provides the adaptive automation engine for the smart city will be critical now and in the future as new smart city innovation techniques arrive. There is one challenge that the smart city has: Availability, and Veeam focuses on providing availability for the Always-On Enterprise specifically in the modern data centre. The Smart City has a need for a comprehensive integration technique. Specifically around communication. We’re in a time in the world where everything can be automated and interconnected. The integration of these components will be driven primarily by both wired and wireless communication infrastructure technology advancement. The CIO will focus on the smart city modern data centre as a hub to the experience. Availability, security and adaptive capabilities will define how the smart city will change. The data aspect will also be critical as this data centre will be a significant investment. With large investments, come large expectations for uptime. My advice is to invest in key characteristics in the modern data centre to help meet the need of the smart city. The key characteristics include leveraging virtualisation technologies, investing in modern storage systems and managing a cloud strategy to meet the needs of the smart city. This modern data centre becomes a platform to manage, scale and adapt. All the while ensuring high service levels in the data centre to not ruin the smart city experience. ¡ INTELLIGENTCIO 79