Would early favourites Silver Cloud (last year's champions) walk away with the trophy? How would the rivalry - now in its fourth year - between Sprout IT and Exponential-e's team play out? On the big day, Vonage, The Phone Co-Op, Sprout IT, Natilik, Silver Cloud, Net Premacy, and Blue Saffron all came together to 'channel' their inner Messi.

Natilik's No.10 Omar was the standout player on the day, scoring the most number of goals and coming inches away from hitting the bar in the Cross Bar Challenge. No mean feat from the halfway line into the wind! Silver Cloud came close to another place in the final, but their dreams were snatched away by Natilik.

Clearly enjoying the glorious sunshine, our Head of Channel Alp Kostem stepped up for the Cross Bar Challenge in his linen jacket and Ray-Bans, much to the amusement of the players. A valiant effort,but the general consensus was that he ought to stick to his day job. Once again, Exponential-e's own Eric Ascott took control of the microphone and nimbly guided everyone through the day with matchless witty banter. A weekend radio DJ gig should definitely be on his bucket-list.

In the end though, Vonage were crowned the winners, looking on course for a campaign to rival Liverpool's recent success. We look forward to seeing the team next year as they mount a defence of their title -- no doubt training's already well underway.

Each year we sponsor a different charity. This year, we chose Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), a globally renowned centre of excellence in child healthcare founded in 1852. Working with the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, GOSH forms the UK's only academic Biomedical Research Centre specialising in paediatrics. A clear reminder of how precious life is, we're tremendously proud to have raised £7,500 to help the organisation with their mission to fund research into children's healthcare and to finding new and better ways to treat childhood illnesses.

As the game ended, the Crystal Palace Hospitality Team did not disappoint. Hot showers, cold beer, and solid meal were provided after the tournament. Our Managing Director Mukesh Bavisi wrapped up the day by handing out the well-deserved awards to the teams and, more importantly, the presentation of the cheque to Amy from the amazing GOSH. For die-hards, the evening rolled on atWesthow House pub in Crystal Palace, recounting tales of their sporting prowess and dreaming of playing in the Premiership next Season. No doubt there were some sore limbs and heads the morning after, but it was all worth it for such a successful day.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen and for their generous donations to such an important cause. The amazing life-changing operations and treatments GOSH carries out every single day to children is just outstanding. We are delighted to be able to contribute to this and help the many GOSH children patients and their families. Till next year!

When the Mayor of London recently quashed the building of The Tulip, it raised troubling questions for the future of architecture in the UK. The Tulip was set to be London's next iconic piece of architecture, joining a long, illustrious line of pivotal buildings that have lined London's horizon and kept the city at the leading edge of architecture since Sir Christopher Wrenn re-designed St Paul's Cathedral in 1710. But can the UK continue to host such iconic buildings in the shadow of the looming impacts of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss?

For any future-facing organisation, the importance of ample learning and development (L&D) cannot be overstated. A few months ago, our L&D team entered the Princess Royal Training Awards (PRTAs) -- and we are delighted to announce that we were successful in the following entries:

In our offices, businesses, colleges and homes, barriers exist between people that hinder free and easy communication. Physics undergraduates rarely mix with the Philosophy students, our accounts teams tend not to lunch with our account managers, and I almost never speak to the lady who lives in the flat below mine. It's a natural result of living, working and studying in cities with millions of strangers.

[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/zoom-doesnt-actually-have-300-million-daily-users/

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52392084

[3] https://www.businessinsider.com/china-zoom-data-2020-4?r=US&IR=T

The past few months have certainly been challenging for businesses all over the UK - from start-ups to established industry leaders. Organisations have found themselves adapting to the demands of a remote workforce virtually overnight, deploying communications solutions to enable their teams to engage with both each other and their customers. While it's true that this technology has been available for a while now, it has never been deployed at this scale before. This has presented a range of challenges when it comes to infrastructure, but these are only part of the picture.

Cloud adoption has been rising year by year for some time now, with Gartner predicting this trend to accelerate beyond 2020. It has long moved on from its earliest days, where it was largely regarded as an intriguing concept but unsuitable for enterprise-level applications. Now, with a wide range of options available - including Public, Private and Hybrid solutions - it has become a highly attractive prospect for organisations at all levels, especially against the backdrop of COVID-19 and the resulting advancement of remote working. While these trends are very much the latest stage in a long process of transformation, the pandemic has undoubtedly been the catalyst behind much recent Cloud adoption, as organisations accelerate their journeys towards a distributed workforce. 

So, where does that leave us in terms of the biggest question: "Is Cloud right for my organisation?"

Throughout the past few months, we have seen organisations' internal teams forced to adapt their processes, infrastructure and strategies in ways that would previously have been inconceivable. Key to the success of this process has been the support of external service providers, who have complemented companies' internal expertise and freed IT teams to focus their attention where it is most needed. As it becomes clear that the distributed workforce is here to stay, such partnerships are going to be more important than ever moving forward.

Our lives are more interconnected than ever, with everything from televisions to fridges, kettles, cars and even doors and windows now able to be linked together over the internet. Having long since moved on from being just an intriguing concept, the Internet of Things (IoT) is very much here to stay, with devices like Bluetooth headphones and the Amazon Alexa now omnipresent in many people's lives. But while these 'smart' devices are often convenient and fun, they do present a number of concerns regarding security.

Over the past few months, video calling has exploded in both our personal and professional lives. We not only rely on regular calls to stay connected with our loved ones during this time of lockdown, but have come to depend on it as a primary mode of communication at work, in order to maintain the same standards of collaboration and interaction that we experienced in the office. Indeed, the number of people using video calling on a regular basis has increased by 87% over the past two years[1], and shows no sign of slowing down.

The level of performance and resilience organisations demand from their networks has increased several-fold in the wake of COVID-19. The rapid transition to a fully distributed workforce has not only placed considerable demands on networks in terms of raw performance, but also the resilience needed to adapt to the unexpected with minimal disruption to data security, internal processes or the customer and user experience.

While we have certainly seen some considerable successes in this area, there is still work to be done if this new way of working is able to provide companies with the agility, security and scalability they need to adapt and thrive going forward.

We see over and over again how COVID-19 is transforming the way we work and connect with each other. Employees across virtually every industry are now working effectively from home, even if such an arrangement would have been unthinkable at the start of this year. It's been extremely heartening to see the range of innovations that have been embraced in response to the crisis, but it's important not to forget the foundations of your IT infrastructure as you explore these solutions. For example, consider how you are backing up and storing the lifeblood of your organisation: your data.

With research from the IDC estimating that 80% of the data created by 2025 will be unstructured [1], businesses need to ensure they have an affordable storage solution for such high volumes of data. A simple, cost-effective solution that businesses can utilise to this effect is Cloud Object Storage, which stores petabytes of data in the Cloud as 'objects'.

The move towards Hybrid Cloud infrastructures - with on-premise solutions systems connected to Public and Private Clouds to maximise the benefits of each solution - has been in progress for a number of years now. Indeed, in 2019 it was reported that 69% of organisations were already utilising some form of Hybrid Cloud solution¹. Since then, the move towards a distributed workforce in response to COVID-19 has accelerated this process, with 82% of organisations reporting that they have accelerated their Cloud adoption strategies as a result of the pandemic².

It's well-established that security is an essential part of all infrastructure. With data protection more of a concern for customers and end users than ever - particularly in light of regulations like the Cloud Act and GDPR - it's vital that organisations demonstrate a clear commitment to the security of their networks, Cloud applications and physical devices.

No matter how sure you are that your network is secure, you may still be at risk of cyberattacks. It's no exaggeration Cybercriminals are constantly working to stay one step ahead of organisations and security professionals, exploiting any vulnerability they can in even the most sophisticated systems.