IT Life: Governing The Flow Of Data

Mark O’Neill is vice president of Innovation at data specialist Axway. He was previously CTO and co-founder of Vordel, which was acquired by Axway in 2012. Mark holds a degree in mathematics and psychology from Trinity College Dublin and graduate qualifications in neural network programming from Oxford University.

Tell us about your company, how long have you been in IT and what are your areas of expertise?

Axway is a global company providing software for governing the flow of data, whether that data is sent between mobile apps and businesses, between hospitals and insurers, between banks, or even between governments. Security for this data is very important, and is one of my areas of expertise.

At college I studied cryptography as part of a maths degree and in the early 2000s I wrote a book called “Web Services Security”, about how security can be applied to the (then) new field of using the technologies of the Web for integration. I’ve been in IT since 1996 and co-founded two companies which were since acquired: Delphium Technologies, a services company, and Vordel, an API Management company.

What’s the favourite IT project that you’ve ever worked on?

There have been many interesting government projects which I can’t talk about! But, one project which stands out is a recent project related to the connected car. It was fantastic to see a mobile app come to life giving us a taste of the future when it comes to transport. We were able to interact with a car, remotely turning on and off the lights and opening the doors, all through APIs managed by our own products at Axway.

What technologies were you involved with ten years ago?

Ten years ago, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) was all the rage. But, with more and more mobile projects it was clear that SOA was too cumbersome and heavyweight. So I instead turned to innovating more lightweight mobile-friendly approaches, which I’m happy to say were adopted by many of our customers.

What do you expect to be using in ten years’ time?

With ubiquitous always-on Internet, cloud will be, like electricity, taken for granted and not even worth mentioning. However, all of the cloud usage means that security will be more important than ever. So I expect to still be working on defining security technologies for data flows.

What do you think is the greatest challenge for an IT company or department today?

IT companies must engage with new employees who expect to use cloud services side-by-side with their own IT. They may ask “Why can’t I login with my Facebook ID?” or “Why can’t I just send this file using Dropbox?”  The challenge is to enable new employees to use the technology they are familiar with, without compromising security.

To cloud or nor to cloud?

I don’t think that is even an option anymore. Any company that ignores cloud is, at the very least, losing out on cost savings.

Who is your tech hero and who is your tech villain?

It’s hard to pick a hero, but I would say Bruce Schneier for having the insight to say that security is not actually about encryption algorithms (after he wrote the definitive book on encryption algorithms!) and for the courage to point out “security theatre” flaws in airport and building security. For a “villain”, I think that even people who attack computer systems show ingenuity and indirectly help to move security thinking forward, so it is impossible to pick a villain.

What’s your favourite device ever made and what do you use the most?

My favourite device ever made is the Amstrad CPC464 which, as a teenager, I spent many hours experimenting with BASIC and playing games like Dizzy and Commando. When I saw C at college, my first thought was “Where are the line numbers?!” Nowadays, my go-to device is a Nexus 5 phone, which I use everywhere on a worldwide data roaming plan.

Apart from your own, which company do you admire the most and why?

I admire companies like Roku who compete against the big boys with a well-designed product and great customer service.

What did you want to be when you were a child?

Growing up on a farm in Ireland, I wanted to be a farmer of course. But once I got that Amstrad CPC464, there was no turning back!