SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

StorMagic and Supermicro have agreed to sell a joint edge infrastructure offering that bundles Supermicro servers with StorMagic’s SvHCI virtualisation software.

The package is aimed at edge, remote office and branch office, and small datacentre environments. It is built around a two-node architecture rather than the three-node model often used in high-availability deployments.

The approach is designed to reduce hardware requirements for organisations running IT across distributed locations. Target customers include businesses in retail, manufacturing, healthcare, education, hospitality and remote industrial operations, where local IT staffing, space and power can be limited.

Under the agreement, Supermicro’s compact edge systems will be offered within its validated infrastructure portfolio alongside StorMagic’s software. The bundle will be sold through the companies’ global channel partners and distributors.

StorMagic positions the software as a lightweight virtualisation layer for smaller sites that still need resilience for business-critical workloads. Supermicro supplies the server hardware, giving customers a combined procurement and support route instead of buying and integrating components separately.

Edge focus

The move reflects wider pressure on companies to simplify infrastructure outside central datacentres. Edge and branch deployments often face tighter physical constraints than core IT estates, while still being expected to support applications that cannot tolerate extended outages.

Two-node systems are drawing more attention as companies review the cost of adding redundancy to smaller sites. Traditional three-node designs can add expense and operational overhead in environments with little room for extra equipment and no dedicated engineers on site.

In the new offering, customers can run high-availability infrastructure with a smaller footprint and lower power use than more conventional designs. The package is also positioned as a practical fit for businesses seeking to standardise deployments across many sites.

A senior StorMagic executive linked the deal to changing customer spending priorities.

“As organisations rethink infrastructure investments at the edge, the economics of high availability are under greater scrutiny than ever,” said Scott Mann, SVP of Global Sales, StorMagic. “Customers are increasingly focused on the hardware cost savings that come from deploying a resilient two-node architecture instead of a traditional three-node configuration – especially at a time when we’re seeing hardware prices increase by as much as 300% in some scenarios. The ability to reduce infrastructure footprint, power and procurement costs without compromising availability is becoming a major differentiator for edge and ROBO environments, and Supermicro with StorMagic will help customers achieve it.”

Channel route

The companies are relying on the channel to take the product to market globally. That gives resellers and distributors a pre-packaged option for customers that want virtualised infrastructure at smaller sites without building a stack from separate parts.

For channel partners, the attraction is likely to be a simpler sales motion around a defined hardware and software combination. For end users, the appeal is a lower integration burden in environments that can be difficult to support remotely.

StorMagic has built its business around virtualisation software for smaller-scale and edge use cases rather than large core datacentre estates. Supermicro, meanwhile, has expanded its reach in edge computing as customers seek compact systems for stores, factories, clinics and branch offices.

The agreement also comes as some organisations reassess the cost and complexity of virtualisation in distributed environments. Businesses with hundreds or thousands of smaller locations often need a different balance of resilience, cost and ease of management from that used in centralised datacentres.

By focusing on a narrower hardware and software configuration, the two companies are targeting that gap in the market. The joint offer is available immediately through StorMagic and Supermicro’s global channel partners and distributors.

SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

HCLTech and Nokia have launched four jointly developed AI-driven rApps on Nokia’s Service Management and Orchestration Marketplace, expanding their partnership in radio access network automation.

Designed for operators managing 5G networks, the applications target automation tasks at the network edge. They cover anomaly detection, energy use, massive MIMO interference mitigation and traffic balancing.

The tools will sit within Nokia’s autonomous networks portfolio and be available through the vendor’s open, standards-based marketplace. The arrangement is intended to make deployment easier for communications service providers operating in multivendor environments.

The software focuses on operational issues that network operators face as traffic patterns become harder to predict and radio environments grow more complex. One application, the Anomaly Detector rApp, monitors key performance indicators and network signals to identify and correlate irregularities across cells and users.

Another, the Energy Optimizer rApp, adjusts base station resources during periods of lower traffic. Its aim is to improve energy efficiency without affecting service quality, an issue that has become more prominent as operators seek to curb electricity costs while maintaining network performance.

The mMIMO Interference Mitigation rApp addresses inter-cell interference that can weaken signal quality, particularly for users at the edge of a cell. The software is designed to ease that interference and improve network efficiency.

The fourth tool, the Traffic Balancer rApp, analyses network conditions and redistributes traffic across available paths to reduce congestion and latency in areas where demand fluctuates rapidly.

Open ecosystem

Placing the software on Nokia’s marketplace reflects a broader push in telecoms towards open radio access network architectures and software-based operational tools. Operators have long pursued greater automation in network management, but implementation has often been slowed by integration challenges among equipment providers, software vendors and existing operational systems.

By using a standards-based marketplace model, the two companies are positioning the applications within an ecosystem that extends beyond a single-vendor setup. That may appeal to operators seeking to avoid lock-in as they introduce more software-led control across 5G infrastructure.

The partnership also includes a longer-term co-innovation plan to develop additional rApps for 5G and later network architectures. Neither company disclosed commercial terms of the expanded arrangement.

HCLTech is a large technology services group with more than 227,000 employees across 60 countries. It reported revenue of USD $14.7 billion for the 12 months to March 2026.

Nokia has been expanding its Service Management and Orchestration platform as operators look for ways to manage increasingly complex radio networks through applications rather than manual intervention. The use of rApps, designed for the non-real-time RAN intelligent controller layer, has become a central part of that strategy.

For operators, the practical question is whether such applications can move beyond limited trials and deliver measurable gains in live networks. Energy savings, interference management and congestion handling are among the more immediate use cases because they can directly affect operating costs and customer experience.

Hari Sadarahalli, Corporate Vice President and Global Head, Engineering and R&D Services at HCLTech, commented on the partnership.

“Autonomous networks require a strong ecosystem approach built on openness, intelligence and innovation,” said Hari Sadarahalli, Corporate Vice President and Global Head, Engineering and R&D Services at HCLTech. “Our partnership with Nokia enables us to bring scalable, AI-driven rApps to the forefront, helping operators accelerate network automation, improve efficiency and confidently advance toward self-driving networks.”

SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

Wavestone has published its seventh annual Cyber Benchmark of large organisations, finding a wide gap between AI security policy and protection against AI-specific attacks.

The consultancy assessed more than 200 large organisations representing nearly 7 million employees against the NIST CSF v2.0 and ISO 27001 cybersecurity standards. Average cybersecurity maturity reached 55.3%, up 1.3 points from the previous year, though year-on-year progress slowed.

The report comes as the UK faces a higher volume of serious cyber incidents. According to the National Cyber Security Centre, the country is now experiencing four nationally significant cyber attacks each week, more than double the level recorded a year earlier.

AI emerged as the clearest weakness. While 76% of organisations surveyed have a dedicated AI security policy, only 10% have deployed defences against attacks aimed specifically at AI systems, including prompt injection.

That leaves a large gulf between governance and operational readiness as companies adopt AI tools more widely. The benchmark warns that attackers are using AI to automate phishing and refine attack methods, increasing pressure on organisations that have set rules but not deployed technical safeguards.

Dedicated teams focused on AI incidents also remain uncommon. The study describes the emergence of such teams as an early trend, reflecting the need for organisations to build more specific responses to AI-related risks.

Regulation effect

The strongest results came from sectors with heavier regulatory obligations. Finance recorded cybersecurity maturity of 67.6%, up 5.1 points, which Wavestone linked to rules such as the Digital Operational Resilience Act and continued spending on security.

Elsewhere, progress was weaker. The gap between regulated and non-regulated sectors reached 8.8 points and widened by 2.1 points, while non-regulated organisations showed no significant improvement.

The findings also suggest that compliance with the European Union’s NIS 2 framework remains difficult even for large organisations. None of those assessed could yet meet NIS 2 requirements fully and sustainably, and average maturity against those requirements stood at 60%.

This has relevance in the UK as lawmakers consider the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill. The benchmark indicates that a substantial compliance gap remains at a time when regulatory expectations are rising alongside the threat level.

Slower progress

The overall increase in average maturity was modest compared with the scale of the threats identified in the report. For businesses, that suggests security improvements are continuing, but not at a pace that matches changes in the attack environment.

Wavestone’s methodology covered large organisations across sectors and used internationally recognised standards as the basis for assessment. The overall picture is one of uneven preparedness, with some industries pushed forward by regulation while others lag behind.

The contrast is especially sharp in AI security, where written policy is moving faster than practical controls. As more organisations use generative AI in internal systems and customer-facing services, that gap may become harder to defend.

Florian Pouchet, Partner and Head of Cybersecurity and Operational Resilience at Wavestone, commented on the findings.

“The threat environment is changing faster than most organisations can adapt. Geopolitical tensions and AI-powered attacks are intensifying precisely as regulatory pressure mounts. What the benchmark tells us is that the market knows this. The next step is to accelerate security measures,” said Pouchet.