We gathered industry professionals on 24 May at Shangri La Singapore for an exclusive roundtable discussion on how enterprises in the Manufacturing, Transport and Logistics sectors can unlock real-time visibility, minimize disruptions and streamline operations with a cloud-smart, AI-driven supply chain strategy.

Topics covered:

• Getting real-time visibility into your operations: Make smarter decisions by gaining insights into operations, including proactive monitoring and management of supply chain disruptions
• Eliminating capacity guesswork: Optimize and integrate ERP systems to enhance inventory planning and forecasting accuracy
• Unlocking innovation & agility: Streamline and automate logistics workflows for greater efficiency, speed, transparency
• Harnessing AI-powered insights: Integrate disparate data from various sources and utilize AI/ML to identify areas for process improvement in real-time

With Cloud Kinetics, you get the insights and strategies you need from our industry experts to become smarter, faster, leaner, and more responsive in your daily operations. Contact our team of cloud experts if you have any questions on these strategies or need a no-obligation discussion for your organization.

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Given that inertia in the industry, is there any innovation to look forward to? Yes. One of the region’s leading airlines embarked on a unique, blockchain-based project to revamp its frequent flier system as a pilot before rolling it out to other business units (BUs).

Blockchain, based on the distributed ledger technology, allows organizations to streamline shared work streams – such as supply chains, logistics, and multi-modal warehouse management – by exchanging and tracking assets and transactions on a shared ledger. Blockchain is a transparent and verifiable system. As a shared, secure ledger of transactions distributed among a network of computers, blockchain limits waste, reduces the risk of fraud and enables the creation of new revenue streams.

Tech & Talent

“We wanted to try out this new tech, initially with our frequent flier program, which has a few hundred thousand customers across multiple tiers,” the airline’s CTO said. “Since we were on the Microsoft platform, we wanted to work with a partner with proven expertise on Azure and blockchain technology. We went through the trough of vendors and zeroed in on  Cloud Kinetics (CK).”

In enterprise use, blockchain networks are often distributed among a group of partners (called a consortium), giving each partner real-time visibility into every transaction. Each partner also can reject incorrect transactions before they’re applied to the ledger, which simplifies auditing and dramatically reduces the risk of fraud.

The CK team went through the requirements and complexities. “We proposed a scalable blockchain model based on the utilization and consumption of resources,” Karthik Santhanam, CK’s co-founder, said. “We have been working with this airline since 2018. We knew how their BUs worked and the level of precision they wanted in the solution.”

CK chose ACL (Azure Confidential Ledger), a distributed ledger but one where the business logic is not centrally controlled. ACL uses Azure confidential computing capabilities, running on hardware-backed secure enclaves. It provides tamperproof data storage in scenarios where critical metadata records must not be modified, including in perpetuity for regulatory compliance and archival purposes.

“We found the Ethereum-based blockchain on Azure as the ideal platform for this,” Santhanam said. “We proposed a custom development keeping the airline’s objectives in mind. We worked initially with Microsoft to build the development and quality assurance environment, then with the airline to move the system into production and offer our suite of managed services.”

Innovation & Outcome

The outcome? “The solution worked like a charm,” the airline CTO said. “It was well integrated with production. We could scale it with multiple BUs in due course. We were glad that CK provided systems operations and support as well. Moreover, CK had to align with our IT governance and service delivery model for seamless integration.”

The result? “ The project led CK to win Microsoft’s Innovative Partner of the Year award,” Santhanam said. “The airline had other partners for other projects. But for this project based on Azure blockchain, CK was the only vendor. We also provided support for development, systems operations, and maintenance.”

New tech may help airlines bounce back from the pandemic once the recovery phase kicks in. “While curbs are easing, a full return to normal operations is a long way off,” Reuters reported on Oct 13, 2021. “IATA estimates global aviation industry losses from the pandemic will be a towering US$200 billion for 2020-2022. Losses in Asia alone were close to US$50 billion in 2020. International travel in the Asia-Pacific region was at around 4% of 2019 levels in August 2021.”

As a footnote, Azure Blockchain Service was retired on Sept 10, 2021. “Customers are recommended to use ConsenSys’ QBS (Quorum Blockchain Service) as a direct replacement, which offers expanded features and flexible deployment options for managed blockchain networks,” Microsoft reported. “QBS is a managed service built on technology acquired from JP Morgan Chase. It automates the deployment and management of a cloud-based blockchain network. It is a fully managed ledger service that gives enterprises the ability to operate blockchain networks at scale.”

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“Vertrax was created by truckers, for truckers,” the company proudly states. “We took our insights from across the industry and developed products that help fleets deliver smart and swift results.” Its specialty: supply chain management solutions for the bulk oil and gas distribution market, akin to an economy’s blood circulation.

“Our solutions drive optimization and never-seen-before visibility, value-added analytics, and insight,” says Rob Ljunggren, Vertrax’s Head of IT. “With built-in Amazon Web Services (AWS) integration, Vertrax stands out against the competition in terms of breadth of solution and native cloud benefits.”

The firm used Veeam to back up its core data on Microsoft 365. Until a ransomware attack threatened to ground everything to an abrupt halt. “The hackers not only encrypted our files on OneDrive, but they also corrupted our backups which were on-prem,” Rob says. “We were placed in an impossible situation.”

The complication? Vertrax’ contract with a data center to manage backups didn’t include support, stifling his staff’s ability to make changes or retrieve backups. Moreover, different Veeam consoles were operated independently, so Rob’s team had little visibility of what was being backed up. And with Covid-19, staff were forced to work remotely, which required additional layers of data security.

The status quo couldn’t continue; we had to find a solution – fast. We went through the options and zeroed in on Druva. It offered simple and reliable data protection and management-as-a-service. For implementation, we selected Cloud Kinetics, who had the experience and expertise to get us back on track. Rob Ljunggren, Head of IT, Vertrax 

Sunnyvale, California-headquartered Druva enables cyber, data and operational resilience with its Data Resiliency Cloud, the industry’s first SaaS solution. It allows enterprises to simplify data protection, streamline governance, and gain visibility and insights into their data on the cloud. Druva pioneered a SaaS-based approach to eliminate complex infrastructure and related management costs.

CK set up a team to help Vertrax get its siloed data centralized, its multiple backups organized, and its numerous management consoles focused on a single pane of glass. “With Veeam, it took us 30 minutes to restore a file; Druva helped us do this in three minutes,” Rob said. “My team had previously no insight into what was being backed up. Now we have everything in one management console. I even get automated email updates, so I always know where we stand.”

We helped Vertrax implement Druva across the enterprise with a single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, role-based access, and controls to guard against cyberattacks. The result: 10x faster data restoration compared to Veeam, 4x reduction in management time, and 50% cost savings compared to Veeam. Wen Chi Li, CTO, Cloud Kinetics

Ransomware is taking a toll on companies globally. The threat landscape is a moving target – and so are the sums demanded. The average ransom demand in 2021 is US$5.3 million, up 518% from an average of US$847,000 in 2020, according to data collated by Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42.

According to a recent study by ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association), the Asia-Pacific region is a hotspot for ransomware attacks. In its State of Cybersecurity 2021 report, ISACA states that 33% of IT leaders in Singapore and Malaysia expect their organization to experience a cyberattack in 2022.

Almost 30% of respondents indicated that their enterprises were getting hit more often than a year ago. ISACA provides security training and advisory services. In late 2020, it surveyed 3,659 executives, including 154 from Malaysia and Singapore, 65% of which represent organizations with more than 1,500 employees. The key reasons: organizations in Asia take 1.7 times longer than the global average to detect a breach; 70% of organizations lack a good understanding of their cyber posture, and investments in cybersecurity are 47% lower than in North America.

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