Public Health England (PHE) was established to consolidate health specialists from over 70 organisations into a single public health service. PHE's mission is to protect and improve the nation's health while reducing health inequalities. PHE's MS bioinformatics unit has been involved in the establishment of a NextGeneration Sequencing (NGS) Service that provides the means to sequence the whole genomes of pathogens. This sequence can be used to characterise and type pathogens, which in turn can be used, for example, to identify and monitor outbreaks locally and nationally. The same sequence may also help scientists better understand the evolution of bacteria and viruses or predict trends in the patterns of antibiotic resistance. To better support its NGS analysis service, PHE MS sought a High-Performance Computing (HPC) system that would enable simultaneous processing of hundreds of bacteria samples received from hospitals and other stakeholders.

Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) was faced with the challenge of speeding up data access times in parallel with continually improving algorithms that interact with data subsystems. They aimed to achieve this while maintaining optimal power consumption and system efficiency. The institution sought to break away from the conventions of the world's top supercomputers by incorporating elements and design points from containerization, cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), and Big Data.

The Toyota Technical Development Corporation had to use an IT Business Continuity Planning (BCP) in order to properly protect important data and ensure business continuity in the case of any disruptive event. As a result, TTDC decided on adopting a virtual desktop system (VDI), and faced the issues of migrating from the existing system, and securing stress-free operation at a cost effective price. Yasuhito Kurebayashi remarked that to resolve the issues surrounding the introduction of the VDI, they could see that it was first of all necessary to migrate the storage system currently in operation, and then expand its memory capacity and scalability as necessitated by the increased I/O speed.

The University of Queensland (UQ) is a leading academic institution with nine internationally recognized research institutes. The researchers at UQ are making landmark discoveries in various fields and depend on the IT infrastructure to deliver ultra-fast, multi-site data access. The University needed to ensure universal data access regardless of where researchers are based or data is created, manipulated, and archived. The University uses QRIScloud, a high-capacity cloud compute and storage node of the NCRIS national research infrastructure operated by the Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation (QCIF). Exchanging data between campus computing clusters and QRIScloud was done manually to date, which wasn’t the best use of valuable research time. Equally important was the proactive need to address constant, organic data growth resulting from increased research collaborations.

Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) was facing several challenges related to its storage infrastructure. The institute had fragmented storage pools for research and instrumentation data, which were costly, cumbersome, and lacked sufficient safeguards. The addition of high-powered, cryoelectron microscopy was anticipated to quadruple existing storage. There was an ever-increasing requirement to ingest, process, store, archive, and share research. A parallel file system was needed to address storage needs while providing enterprise data management capabilities. The organization began a thorough evaluation of next-gen HPC and storage solutions, including cluster and cloud computing, as well as parallel file and object storage.

The military has been using satellite, manned airborne, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) photography to gain insight into the battlefield. However, the challenge lies in obtaining rapid access to the information being collected, sharing it among analysts, planners, and decision makers, and using it to provide a decisive advantage. As sensors increase in numbers and analysis is performed in multiple spectrums, the amount of data being generated has grown tremendously, requiring new technologies to retrieve, store, move, and make sense of it. The Large Data Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (Large Data JCTD) project at NRL is designed to meet this challenge. The project requires handling massively large data files and total data sets. Even in trials, the data would reach nearly a Petabyte per site and require ingest and output rates exceeding 3GB/s. As data is acquired, it may need to be automatically replicated between each Large Data JCTD site. At the data rates required by the project, this presented challenges in both WAN transport and encryption technologies.

The Apparel Group Ltd., a company established in 1988 under a strategic partnership with TAL Apparel Ltd in Hong Kong, faced several challenges. The company, which operates over 30 department stores and MMRS, over 1,000 specialty retailers, and over 15 e-commerce retailers, sought to add more value to its customers, be more accessible to new business, and improve its operational processes. The company's change in its business model necessitated a change in its IT environment. The focus was to move to a single-sourced, multi-platform integration tool to save time, increase efficiency, and improve visibility.

Mount Vernon Mills (MVM) is a diversified manufacturer of textile and related products for various markets. They have a central philosophy of doing whatever it takes to satisfy the customer, which includes end-to-end automation of the exchange of complex business processes and transaction data. However, they faced challenges with their legacy EDI system which had become extremely expensive in terms of labor for the custom code needed to both use and maintain the software system. They also had to deal with 'Swivel Chair Integration', a time-consuming and error-prone process of manually transferring data from one application to another.

DART, the 14th-largest truckload carrier in America, was facing a challenge in improving its EDI communication speed, quality, and security to become more compatible with its trading partner systems. The company was looking for a solution to replace its current EDI integration system to reduce EDI transaction times and eliminate high VAN service costs.

USA TRUCK, a company with over 30 years of experience in general commodities transport, was facing a challenge. They needed to better manage their transaction loads and ensure more efficient, secure communications with their trading partners. The company was looking for a solution that could replace their current EDI integration system with a system that has multi-threading capabilities and greater data visibility.

Rosenau Transport, a full-service transportation services company, was using manual processes such as telephone and email communication to issue tender documents. However, its customers requested the company to adopt EDI technology to streamline and improve their logistical requirements. Rosenau’s IT department consisted of a single programmer, so when the company began searching for an EDI solution to meet its needs, it sought one that was easy-to-implement and use while not requiring an extensive amount of custom coding.

Sleep Innovations, a multimillion-dollar manufacturer of foam bedding and sleep products, was facing a challenge with its legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. The software was not compatible with two of Sleep Innovation’s key customers, resulting in inefficient, and at times impossible, exchange of information. Furthermore, the company realized its existing ERP was inadequate for meeting the company’s growing demand. To meet its customers’ growing requests, Sleep Innovations implemented Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne ERP suite. However, its legacy EDI system could no longer manage all the transactions required in the company’s supply chain process. This was because the existing EDI system could not handle certain EDI transactions demanded by customers.

Woodstream, a provider of wildlife and pest control systems, lawn and garden products, and pet supplies, was informed by their legacy EDI system provider that their product would no longer be supported. This meant that Woodstream would have to go through a complete conversion and platform change to use the vendor’s supported solution. As the team was establishing requirements for a new system, they uncovered needs beyond traditional EDI. They needed an automated way to accept and integrate formats such as spreadsheets, flat files, and XML. They also pinpointed a need for A2A integration to automate and synchronize sharing of data between disparate applications and platforms for better reporting and improved internal business processes.

Dorcy, a company that has been marketing flashlights for over 55 years and supplies major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Lowe's, and Sears, faced a significant challenge. The company needed to implement an automated e-business solution to manage its global supply chain operations quickly and cost-effectively. The focus was to find a robust integration solution that could help reduce high VAN cost and be rapidly deployed with minimal staff involvement.

Burris Logistics, a family-owned business operating for 89 years, was facing a significant challenge. The company, which provides retail and food distribution, warehousing, and transportation solutions, was struggling with a time-consuming integration cycle. This cycle was negatively impacting the company's bottom line, eating into profits and reducing efficiency. The company needed to streamline this process to improve its operations and financial performance. The focus was to simplify and accelerate trading partner integration and efficiently manage complex data capture and transfer.

Citizen, a market leader in the mid-priced watch category in North America, was facing a challenge in responding to the demands of internal departments and external customers and partners quickly and cost-effectively. Their legacy EDI system was not efficient enough and required custom code for operations, which was time-consuming and lacked data visibility.

Mrs. T’s Pierogies, a small food producer, was facing challenges in meeting the complex EDI requirements of large trading partners with a small staff of just two people. Manual checks on automated orders were time-consuming, taking up to an hour a day. The company needed an efficient system to automate order taking and improve staff productivity. The company's customers ranged from small markets to the largest supermarket chains in the country, and they needed to comply with customer mandates for EDI.

Krispy Kreme, a global doughnut and coffeehouse chain, faced a significant challenge in its supply chain operations. The company needed to deliver millions of freshly baked goods to hundreds of stores every 2 to 4 hours. The challenge was to do this quickly and cost-effectively. The company's focus was to improve its supply chain operations by better managing high volumes of data transactions.

Challenge Dairy was facing a bottleneck to company growth due to their antiquated EDI system. The legacy EDI translator was unreliable, often losing data and lacking an error notification system. This led to missed orders, unreliable invoice transmission, and occasional charge-backs and penalties. The system required constant manual intervention and could not be customized or provide to other applications. It required one full-time-equivalent (FTE) to manage daily activities. End user departments did not have access to transaction and order data. Documents would get lost, and connectivity with customers was not readily verifiable by users due to inaccessibility to acknowledgements and transaction history. The company was also threatened with missing out on new revenue opportunities as new customers often waited weeks or even months to begin active trading.

Maines Paper & Food Service, Inc., the seventh largest broad-line distributor in the United States, faced a significant challenge. The company needed to meet new customer demands, which included the rapid adoption of new business processes and an increase in service level agreements. The challenge was to implement these changes quickly and cost-effectively. The focus was to implement a single B2B platform for all internal and external integration that Maines' existing IT team could easily deploy and manage.

Lipari Foods, a food distribution company with over 60 years of experience, faced a significant challenge. The company aimed to grow its trading partner base from 150 partners to 1,000 partners in under two years. This rapid expansion required a solution that could integrate with non-EDI trading partners to eliminate custom coding and error-prone manual data entry. The company needed a solution that could adapt quickly to partners' systems, reduce shipping errors and billing discrepancies, and minimize manual entry.

Maple Leaf Farms, America’s premier producer of quality duck products, has thousands of customers, ranging in size and type from large retailers and food suppliers, to small Chinatown restaurants and markets. While the restaurant owners may not use EDI and business integration, most of Maple Leaf’s customers rely on it for accuracy, speed and efficiency. In fact, Maple Leaf has 100 trading partners, and sends and receives 2500 EDI transactions per month in more than a dozen different transaction formats. The challenge was to handle the high-speed exchange of B2B electronic trading documents and rapid set up of new trading relationships, but also facilitate automatic integration of these documents in the applications, systems and processes used by the company — without custom coded interfaces.

C.R. England, the largest temperature-controlled carrier in the world, was facing a challenge in providing frequent, real-time communication and shipment status reports within the supply chain. The company needed to find a way to improve communication between trucks on the road, shipping, and customers, while also automating day-to-day EDI operations. The challenge was to do this quickly and cost-effectively.

Glovo, an on-demand delivery service, was facing the challenge of securing their cloud infrastructure with limited resources. As the company grew its feature set and AWS cloud environment, Eloi Barti, Head of Platform Security at Glovo, wanted to scale security at the same rate. To do so, Barti sought to bring a culture of security to the forefront for engineering teams. However, when it came to security, Barti said Glovo used several different tools, and engineers didn’t know which security tool to look into when an incident occurred and required investigation. Engineers had to search through the various tools, quickly acclimate themselves to the context the tool provided, and manually correlate disjointed fields to understand if alerts were false positives or true security incidents.

The Materials Project, a research initiative at Berkeley Lab supported by the US Department of Energy, wanted to make its materials research more accessible to a continually growing number of users by updating its monolithic website. The project’s computations drastically reduce the time for researchers to invent new materials, saving months or even years of painstaking work. However, as it scaled to meet US and global demand, its on-premises, monolithic stack strained to power both user and internal needs. The project also lacked insight into service usage and faults. Because the Materials Project is publicly funded, it needed an affordable solution to go along with the modernization of all aspects of its infrastructure stack for a microservice architecture.

Aeroporti di Roma (ADR) relied heavily on digital systems for its efficiency, which underpinned all critical airport processes. However, the reliance on multiple systems and third parties, manual triaging, and the lack of a single source of truth complicated efforts to resolve issues quickly or optimize experiences. A single critical application being offline for a few minutes could lead to huge queues at check-in, border control, or baggage handling desks, risking travelers missing their flights. To create best-in-class airport experiences for passengers, ADR needed an in-house observability and security platform that could unify data from across its hybrid-cloud environment.

Fife Council, the third largest local authority in Scotland, was facing challenges with its third-party platforms used to manage a wide range of services and business functions. The council was undergoing a digital transformation, replacing legacy systems with modern solutions. However, the drive for efficiency was putting pressure on the IT service team, who had to support transformation while maintaining existing systems. Large scale project implementations and systems deployed to thousands of network users often faced error messages and performance issues. Without effective root cause analysis, it was difficult for the council team or its service providers to identify the source of the issues to resolve them.

Leeds Building Society, a leading UK provider of savings accounts and mortgages, was facing challenges with its IT environment monitoring strategy. The existing strategy was outdated, overly manual, and relied on multiple tools that failed to provide clear insights into the cause of service issues. This made it difficult for the operations team to resolve problems before they impacted customers. The building society needed a modern observability solution that supported a unified monitoring strategy across its multigenerational stack, which included purpose-built data centres, third-party services, and cloud applications.

Auto & General Southeast Asia (SEA) was keen to accelerate its digital transformation, to make quality coverage more accessible. The group strives to provide best-in-class customer service and frictionless experiences at every touchpoint in its customers’ digital experience. Auto & General SEA therefore needed to proactively monitor the performance of the applications supporting its brands’ digital services, so it could optimize the customer experience and maximize conversions. To enable this, it needed a solution that could simplify the complexity of its technology stack and integrate with all major cloud platforms. It was also essential that its teams had a single platform providing end-to-end observability and real-time insights into customer journeys across services for both its major brands. This would be critical to its teams’ ability to understand all application dependencies and access precise answers into the root cause of any technical issues, so they could be resolved before users were impacted.

Al Masraf, a leading provider of banking and trade finance services in the gulf region, embarked on a digital transformation journey to improve its back- and front-end processes through automation and was gradually migrating to the cloud to support this. However, teams lacked sufficient observability. They relied on siloed and lengthy manual log analysis processes to trace problems, often finding out about performance or availability issues through customer complaints. This lack of visibility meant teams could not identify and resolve issues quickly, putting them constantly in firefighting mode, which resulted in negative online and mobile banking experiences. To maintain a competitive edge and modernize its operations, Al Masraf needed to improve the availability and performance of its digital banking applications. It was imperative that customers could complete online and mobile transactions 24/7, which made service reliability a priority.