Cisco unveiled intent to acquire Working Group Two (WG2) for $150m, as the company believes this will enable it to help operators simplify the mobile network architecture and unlock 5G monetisation opportunities.

Currently run as a joint venture between Cisco and Telenor after the Norwegian telco group spun it out in 2017, WG2 is set to be fully owned by Cisco after it completes the transaction of buying Telenor’s 44.6% stake in the entity.

WG2 is focused on offering a cloud-based core network platform to mobile operators, which pledges to increase product innovation and reduce time to market.

Masum Mir, SVP and GM for Cisco Networking’s Provider Mobility business, described WG2 as “a natural fit” for Cisco’s Mobility Services Platform for its shared approach to simplify the mobile network architecture to deliver “a radically innovative mobile service”.

“WG2 and Cisco have a unique synergy. We share a common ambition to deliver a global, programmable mobile core as a service, and are remarkably aligned to this shared vision. The goal? To enable our communication service provider customers to cover ground faster, as we work together to monetise their 5G investments”, Mir wrote in a blog announcing the move.

He further explained that WG2 is “fully API consumable and highly programmable”, which comes in handy for telcos that seek simplicity, innovation and efficiency.

The acquisition, which is expected to finalise in the first quarter of Cisco’s fiscal year 2024 (its fiscal Q1 is until end-September), will also drive the company’s efforts to deliver “the most advanced mobile IoT use-cases at scale”, Mir added.

In a separate statement, Telenor touted the progress of what started as its own development project in 2013, with WG2’s team growing from around 5 to more than 90 employees.

Dan Ouchterlony, EVP and head of Telenor’s company that manages its portfolio of adjacent business and companies, Telenor Amp, described WG2 as “a Norwegian technology success story that we are proud of being part of”.

“Cisco is an excellent future home for Working Group Two with a shared vision for how the industry should evolve. This transaction represents another milestone on our strategy of realising value in the Telenor Amp portfolio”, he added.

In another blog, WG2 CEO, Erlend Prestgard, and CTO Werner Eriksen noted that the entity’s addition to Cisco’s portfolio as “one of the world’s leading communications technology companies” will help it reach “scalability and credibility to the mission we’ve been on for the better part of a decade”.

According to Network World, this is the fifth takeover Cisco is announcing since June and the ninth in 2023. Some of its recent purchases include its network performance monitoring partner Accedian and broadband network monitoring company SamKnows.

Watch out for an exclusive interview with WG2 CEO, Erlend Prestgard, as part of TelecomTV’s Cloud Native Telco summit next month.

- Yanitsa Boyadzhieva, Deputy Editor, TelecomTV

Cisco has revealed its intent to acquire Working Group Two (WG2), a Norwegian company that is said to have pioneered a cloud-native mobile services platform that’s fully application programming interface (API)-consumable and highly programmable.

Emerging from a Telenor laboratory in 2013, WG2 began after being frustrated with the inability to use mobile networks to conduct innovation, prompting a rebuild of the mobile network for a new age. The overarching goal of the firm was to create a “radically innovative, radically simple and radically affordable” modern mobile core, something the company said was a key component in advancing the mobile industry.

WG2 said there’s at least one reason why mobile users haven’t seen much product innovation coming out of their telecom operator over the past few decades. It claimed mobile network machinery is “not just a beast, it’s also a beauty”, adding that mobile telephony is perhaps the most successful, distributed and standardised technology the world has ever seen. The big idea behind WG2 was to “bring out the beauty in the mobile networks and revitalise the entire industry”, making connectivity truly valuable again.

Backed by Telenor Group and Digital Alpha, a fund with a long-standing, strategic Cisco partnership, WG2 was spun out as an independent entity from Telenor in 2017. Today, the company comprises a team of 90 dedicated professionals, primarily software engineers based in Europe, Japan and the United States. In 2022, it helped customers deliver 527 million SMSs, make 354 million voice calls and transfer 33 petabytes of data.

To grow and prosper, WG2 said the telecom industry must strive for simplicity, global scale and programmability, and that it must also nurture marketplaces and ecosystems of developers to build global platforms, just like the tech industry at large.

Putting the acquisition into context, WG2 noted that Cisco will build on the as-a-service model to realise benefits for the full mobile industry, having already seen success with internet of things (IoT) and private networks. It said the as-a-service delivery model allows for consistent deployments, reduced complexity, global scale, programmability, and continuous innovation and security management.

By expanding this model to cover the entire spectrum of mobile use cases, WG2 was confident Cisco could provide simplified access to the company’s technology while enabling customers to focus resources on their core business and deliver new use cases faster.

For its part, Cisco said millions to billions to trillions of connected devices coming online was making IoT the single greatest digital business transformation that most of us will see in our lifetime. It said communication service providers must scale to support it, which means connectivity must be simplified for both deployment and management, and the mobile business service must evolve to become a much more lucrative offering.

Cisco noted that WG2’s platform uses the web-scale playbook and operating models, which makes it a natural fit with its Mobility Services Platform.

“WG2’s technology and team beautifully align with the same approach: simplifying the mobile network architecture to deliver a radically innovative mobile service,” said Masum Mir, senior vice-president and general manager at Cisco Provider Mobility, in a blog post. And with WG2 and the Cisco Mobility Services Platform, we’ll be able to boost our service edge deployment and API-first strategy for application development partners, enterprise customers and service provider partners.

“WG2 and Cisco have a unique synergy,” he said. “We share a common ambition to deliver a global, programmable mobile core as a service, and are remarkably aligned to this shared vision.

“The goal? To enable our Communication Service Provider customers to cover ground faster, as we work together to monetise their 5G investments,” said Mir. “The consumption model is simple and comprehensive, supporting all stakeholders. The end result is a mobility services platform that can dramatically simplify mobile network deployments, provide enhanced edge experiences, enable new and advanced use cases, as well as support simple application development.”

August 10, 2023, 05:39 PM EDT

In its ninth announced acquisition of 2023, the tech giant revealed plans to buy Working Group Two to “turbo charge” the recently announced Cisco Mobility Services platform.

Cisco Systems on Thursday announced its intent to acquire cloud native mobile core developer Working Group Two (WG2) for $150 million.

Cisco, no stranger to its pending acquiree, partnered with WG2’s parent company and telecommunications giant Telenor Group for its launch in 2017. The technology will help “turbo charge” Cisco’s Mobility Services platform, which was announced in February, according to Masum Mir, senior vice president and general manager for Cisco Networking’s Provider Mobility business.

Norway-based Telenor Group said that via the terms of the deal, Cisco will acquire all shares in the company for an enterprise value of $150 million.

The deal marks Cisco’s ninth announced acquisition of 2023 as the company continues its shopping spree to round out its cybersecurity and mobility portfolios.

[Related: Cisco Scoops Up Internet Monitoring Startup Code BGP ]

WG2 got its start as a development project within Norway-based telecommunications company Telenor Group before it was spun out with Telenor as a cornerstone investor in 2017 alongside digital infrastructure investment firm Digital Alpha. WG2 offers a cloud-based core network platform for mobile operators.

WG2 in the last six years has grown to more than 90 employees with a global customer base in Europe, North America, and Asia, according to the company.

Cisco’s Mobility Services platform, meanwhile, provides a full-stack cloud-native converged core network and distributed edge support. WG2’s technology will complement the platform, said Mir in a blog post on the planned acquisition.

“Built for simplicity, innovation, and efficiency, WG2’s platform uses the web-scale playbook and operating models, which makes it a natural fit with our Mobility Services Platform. WG2’s technology and team beautifully align with the same approach: simplifying the Mobile network architecture to deliver a radically innovative mobile service. And with WG2 and the Cisco Mobility Services Platform, we’ll be able to boost our service edge deployment and API first strategy for application development partners, enterprise customers and service provider partners,” Mir said in his blog post.

WG2 will join Mir’s Provider Mobility organization within Cisco Networking. The acquisition is expected to close during the first quarter of Cisco’s 2024 fiscal year, which ends in October.

Cisco’s shopping spree so far this year has included cybersecurity and cloud-focused purchases. Among those deals was its acquisition of Code BGP, a privately held Border Gateway Protocol monitoring company that the tech giant announced earlier this month. Cisco also in May announced its Armorblox purchase, a company that has pioneered the use of large language models (LLMs) and natural language understanding in cybersecurity. In February, Cisco unveiled plans to buy cloud network security startup Valtix and then in March, Cisco said it would acquire Lightspin, a cloud security software company.

The tech giant is expected to announce its full-year 2023 earnings on August 16.

• Cisco is adding recovery to the response process by expanding its extensive set of third-party XDR integrations to include infrastructure and enterprise data backup and recovery vendors
• With its new integration with Cohesity, Cisco XDR will automatically detect, snapshot, and restore business critical data at the very first signs of ransomware

Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Cisco, the leader in enterprise networking and security, is dramatically enhancing its Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solution. By adding recovery to the response process, Cisco XDR is redefining what customers should expect from security products. Today’s announcement brings near real-time recovery for business operations after a ransomware attack.

Cisco continues to drive momentum towards its vision of the Cisco Security Cloud—a unified, AI-driven, cross-domain security platform. With the launch of Cisco XDR at the RSA Conference this year, Cisco delivered deep telemetry and unmatched visibility across the network and endpoints. Now, by reducing the crucial time between the beginnings of a ransomware outbreak and capturing a snapshot of business-critical information to near-zero, Cisco XDR will further support that vision, while enabling new levels of business continuity.

“Cybercrime remains a present risk that cannot be ignored for individuals and organizations across our region. In the last quarter, we have seen ransomware continuing to be one of the most-observed threats. To drive fightback against these cyber-attacks, a platform approach has become crucial. That is why we are consistently striving to build a resilient and open cybersecurity platform that can withstand ransomware attacks,” said Fady Younes, Cybersecurity Director, EMEA Service Providers and MEA.  “Our innovations with automated ransomware recovery are a significant step towards achieving truly unified detection and response data, turning security insights into action.”

During the second quarter of 2023, the Cisco Talos Incident Response (IR) team responded to the highest number of ransomware engagements in more than a year. With the new capabilities in Cisco XDR, Security Operations Center (SOC) teams will be able to automatically detect, snapshot, and restore the business-critical data at the very first signs of a ransomware attack, often before it moves laterally through the network to reach high-value assets.

"Cisco is quickly disrupting the security landscape across their entire portfolio and their XDR solution could become the de facto reference architecture organizations turn to,” said Chris Konrad, Area Vice President, Global Cyber, World Wide Technology. “Not only does it provide broad visibility by integrating data across endpoints, network, cloud, and other sources - this extensive attack surface insight allows for superior threat detection using advanced analytics. Organizations should strongly consider the implementation of Cisco XDR to bolster their security posture and safeguard assets effectively. Cisco undoubtedly is contributing to the overall resilience of any organization.”

Cisco is expanding its initially released, extensive set of third-party XDR integrations to include leading infrastructure and enterprise data backup and recovery vendors. Today, Cisco is excited to announce the first integration of this kind with Cohesity’s DataProtect and DataHawk solutions.

“Cybersecurity is a board-level concern, and every CIO and CISO is under pressure to reduce risks posed by threat actors. To this end, Cisco and Cohesity have partnered to help enterprises around the world strengthen their cyber resilience,” said Sanjay Poonen, CEO and President, Cohesity. “Our first-of-its-kind proactive response is a key piece of our data security and management vision, and we’re excited to bring these capabilities to market first with Cisco.”

Cohesity has a proven track record of innovation in data backup and recovery capabilities. Cohesity’s products provide configurable recovery points and mass recovery for systems assigned to a protection plan. The new features take this core functionality to the next level by preserving potentially infected virtual machines for future forensic investigation, while simultaneously protecting data and workloads in the rest of the environment. Cohesity’s engineers worked alongside Cisco technical teams to dynamically adapt data protection policies to offer organizations a stronger security posture. This complements Cisco XDR’s robust detection, correlation, and integrated response capabilities and will enable customers to benefit from accelerated response for data protection and automated recovery.

Cisco XDR is now available globally to simplify security operations in today’s hybrid, multi-vendor, multi-threat landscape. To learn more, visit cisco.com/go/xdr

-Ends-

About Cisco 

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that securely connects everything to make anything possible. Our purpose is to power an inclusive future for all by helping our customers reimagine their applications, power hybrid work, secure their enterprise, transform their infrastructure, and meet their sustainability goals. Discover more on The Newsroom and follow us on Twitter at @Cisco.
 
Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Cisco is adding another company’s staff and technology to its Mobility Services Platform, paying a reported $150 million to acquire Norway-based Working Group 2. Why make the deal – and what’s the mobility platform all about?

Masum Mir  explains in this excerpt from a blog posted by Cisco:

IoT has come of age. Early adopters have proven its worth as the Internet of Things has made organizations more efficient, sustainable, and capable of realizing new business models and revenue streams. The sky is the limit in what we can do with IoT, as millions to billions to trillions of connected devices come online making this the single greatest digital business transformation that most of us will see in our lifetime. And now, more than ever, Communication Service Providers must scale to support it, which means connectivity must be simplified for both deployment and management, and the mobile business service must evolve to become a much more lucrative offering.

To turbo charge our recently announced Mobility Services Platform, Cisco is announcing its intent to acquire Working Group Two (WG2), a Norwegian company that pioneered a cloud native mobile services platform that’s fully API consumable and highly programmable. Built for simplicity, innovation, and efficiency, WG2’s platform uses the web-scale playbook and operating models, which makes it a natural fit with our Mobility Services Platform. WG2’s technology and team beautifully align with the same approach: simplifying the Mobile network architecture to deliver a radically innovative mobile service. And with WG2 and the Cisco Mobility Services Platform, we’ll be able to boost our service edge deployment and API first strategy for application development partners, Enterprise customers and Service Provider partners.

WG2 and Cisco have a unique synergy. We share a common ambition to deliver a global, programmable mobile core as a service, and are remarkably aligned to this shared vision. The goal? To enable our Communication Service Provider customers to cover ground faster, as we work together to monetize their 5G investments. The consumption model is simple and comprehensive, supporting all stakeholders. The end result is a mobility services platform that can dramatically simplify Mobile network deployments, provide enhanced edge experiences, enable new and advanced use cases, as well as support simple application development.

WG2’s expertise in the mobile space brings capabilities crucial to the enterprise market including complete authentication, provisioning, voice, messaging, and data services, all of which will be rolled into our existing Control Center offers. Together, our Mobility Services Platform, and the Cisco Networking Cloud, Assurance, Security, and Collaboration portfolios, deliver remarkable value to our Service Provider partners and address business critical use cases for our enterprise customers.

We can’t wait to welcome the WG2 team to Cisco and work with them to deliver the most advanced mobile IoT use-cases at scale. WG2 will join my Provider Mobility organization within Cisco Networking. The acquisition is expected to close during the first quarter of Cisco’s FY24.

Senior Vice President and Global Innovation Officer at Cisco, Dr. Guy Diedrich, in this interview with Emma Okonji, speaks about the recent launch of Cisco’s EDGE Centre in Nigeria and how it will enhance digital transformation and provide access to digital job opportunities in Nigeria and Africa

What are some of the benefits of the recently launched Cisco EDGE Centre in Nigeria, and how will Nigeria benefit from it?

The Cisco EDGE Centre was launched in Nigeria last week and it is located inside TD Africa’s Tech Experience Centre in Victoria Island, Lagos. The Cisco EDGE hub will function as an incubator, providing Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) with access to state-of-the-art Cisco communication and collaboration technology, alongside training and enablement programmes. In addition, SMMEs will be able to connect with global Cisco experts, who can support them develop business ideas and concepts in a digital world.

EDGE stands for ‘Experience, Design, GTM (Go to Market) and Earn’ and has the objective to share business knowledge to stimulate innovation, help develop small and medium businesses in the digital age, speed up their entry to market and as a result create new jobs for the local economy. The centre hosts three key functions under one roof: It provides a space where local partners can showcase technologies and host client events; it brings resources and tools to local innovators and entrepreneurs to help them develop more secure, intelligent, and connected solutions; and offers training programmes and education in the most advanced digital technologies.

With its vibrant economy and young population, Nigeria stands to benefit from the promise of an inclusive digital future. Cisco is here to help Nigeria with digital skills development, innovation and incubation as well as cutting edge technologies. Cisco welcomes Nigeria to the Cisco Country Digital Acceleration program and look forward to working with businesses, government, and academia, enabling them to take the lead in shaping the future and driving social and economic inclusion.

How will Cisco collaborate with the federal government to further drive digital transformation in Nigeria?

On May 16, 2023, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), signed MoU with Cisco to help promote digital transformation and bridge digital skills gap in Nigeria. NITDA is also in talks with Cisco on how Cisco can collaborate with government to build public digital infrastructure in Nigeria in order to digitise some key sectors like agriculture and healthcare. Through our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme, Cisco will be investing in Nigeria to transform her digital transformation agenda.    

How will such collaboration help Nigeria to achieve its planned 95% attainment of digital literacy by 2030?

The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, had said that NITDA developed several initiatives that would help drive digital transformation in the country and that NITDA had gone ahead to sign the National Digital Literacy Framework that would help identify competency areas. Cisco is already in collaboration with NITDA though the Cisco Network Academy that is designed to develop digital skills among Nigerians. With such collaboration, Cisco can help Nigeria to achieve its planned 95 per cent digital literacy attainment by 2030.

A lot of Nigerian youths are migrating to other countries in search of jobs and better living condition. How will Cisco accelerator programme help Nigeria address the mass movement of youths?

Again the Director General of NITDA had said that the agency drafted the National Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) strategy that would allow companies outsource their non-core businesses to other companies, a development that will enable Nigerians with the required skills, to handle such outsourced jobs. The Director General of NITDA also said such strategy would help in engaging the youths and make them remain in Nigeria and work from Nigeria, for companies located outside of Nigeria.

On the part of Cisco, we will deliver Nigerians the opportunity to acquire digital skills that will enable them live and work anywhere from Nigeria. With technology evolution, people can work from their homes without going to the office, and this way, Nigerians can work for any company in the world, while living in Nigeria, provided they have the digital skills, which Cisco is offering through our various training initiatives.

How will Cisco Edge help address the dearth of digital skills in Nigeria?

The Cisco Edge centre is designed to provide comprehensive approach in building a sustainable innovation ecosystem here in Nigeria. The idea is to train people on critical digital skills like networking, cybersecurity, programming and management skills. The skills training will come in the form of entrepreneurship, where they will have access to mentorship. So Cisco recognises the potentials in Nigeria and through our Edge centre, will train more Nigerians on critical digital skills that will help address the dearth of digital skills in the country. The Cisco Edge centre will offer them the opportunities to start their own business and create job opportunities. Cisco is working with the United States of America in some forms of partnerships to offer entrepreneurship education to communities in Bauchi State and other states in Nigeria.

What is the duration of training at the Cisco EDGE Centre and what courses are available to Nigerians?

The duration of the training depends on the particular course that the student is interested in because different courses have different duration periods. For example, basic cybersecurity training for cybersecuriy technicians can be done in few weeks, but training in a more advanced cybersecurity course to get certification, like the top level security architecture, takes years. The CCNA and the CCNP courses could take months. The Cisco EDGE Centre allows candidates to continue in their education to get different categories of digital skills that will enable them get digital jobs.

We have different cohorts that can take between 20 to 25 persons for a training of 90 days duration, depending on the course.

How does Cisco intend to address gender balance among its instructors, giving the instance where Cisco currently has 336 instructors in the Cisco Networking Academy and only 10% is female?

Cisco is gender sensitive, both in recruitment and in admitting candidates into its training programmes. Among the 400,000 students already trained in the Cisco Networking Academy since its inception in Nigeria, 44 per cent of the population is female. The females get access to the same technology education and training that Cisco offers.  

Is Cisco going to merge the existing Cisco Networking Academy with the Cisco Edge Centre that has just been launched or one of them will be discontinued?

There is no plan for merger of Cisco Networking Academy and the Cisco Edge Centre because one is a sub-set of the other. The Networking Academy has been running for some time now, and we have trained close to 20 million students globally and currently, 3.6 million students enrolled in the academy, undergoing different trainings across the globe. So the Edge Centre is giving access to education to people who want to further advance the training already received at the Cisco Networking Academy. The Edge training will offer specialised and advanced training and offer access to Cisco mentorship and digital skilled job opportunities.

Tell us more about the Cisco Digital Accelerator Programme?

The Cisco Accelerator Programme provides access to connectivity, healthcare, education, among others, and connectivity is key to everyone. It is about connecting the unconnected and providing inclusive feature for all. What Cisco is doing with Accelerator Programme is consistent with what the Nigerian government is doing through NITDA. Countries are investing in the Cisco Accelerator Programme and Nigerian government is investing in it also. Access to connectivity will create next generation jobs, build a sustainable innovative ecosystem and contribute to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.

The EDGE Centre is part of Cisco’s Digital Accelerator (CDA) program in Nigeria. CDA was founded in 2015 and has since evolved into programs in 49 countries, and Nigeria making it 50 countries, with over 1,600 active or completed projects – encompassing over two-thirds of the world’s population and 75 per cent of global GDP. The focus areas for Cisco’s CDA programmes are in education, transportation, security, health, connectivity, among others. In May this year, under the scope of CDA, Cisco and NITDA signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the aim to support the nation’s digital transformation agenda and contribute towards digital skills training and development.

A key pillar of the CDA program in Nigeria is Cisco Networking Academy, which currently trains over 120,000 students at 228 academies across the country. Cisco Networking Academy, one of the longest-standing IT skills-to-jobs programs in the world, has over the past years, equipped over 400,000 people in Nigeria with digital and cybersecurity skills.

Tells us about the Cisco Social Justice Programme and how it aligns with the global awareness initiative on social justice?

The Cisco Social Justice Programme started as US Central Justice Programme in 2020 to address what is going on in US. It is about providing education to the people, offering economic empowerment and increasing number of SMEs for US and later we decided to take across the world. We encourage our team members to volunteer service offerings around the world and developing schools around the world. We focus on entrepreneurial development with the goal to uplift communities in the areas of education, empowerment and critical human needs and around climate.

With the Cisco Social Justice Programme, we ensure that every employee identifies his or her role to develop communities.   

What are your views about the digitisation and digital transformation, in relation to perceived loss of jobs?

It is obvious that the ongoing digital transformation and digitisation of processes across globe will displace jobs by 2025. In fact digitisation will displace as much as 85 million traditional jobs, but it will also create as much as 97 million digital jobs by 2025.

New digital jobs will be created and companies should begin the process of retraining their workers that are trainable and place them on the jobs that have demand for digital skills and higher pay. Digitisation will create opportunities to train millions of workers with digital skills from now till 2025. In Nigeria, there are youths who are young and determined to learn. So the Cisco EDGE Centre will offer them access to training and education that will lead to digital transformation.

How will you describe Cisco’s training programme and its goals at the global level?

Since the inception of Cisco Networking Academy, we have trained millions students around the world, and we are inspired by the achievements of those trained by Cisco. We get reports how they are developing their economies and creating digital jobs across the world. I am proud about the technology innovation going on in Nigeria. With its youths population and determination to learn new skills, there is no question that Nigeria will grow to become one of the leaders in the global technology space.

Our goal at Cisco is to empower an inclusive future for all in order to bridge the existing digital divide by giving access to technology education, healthcare and connectivity. One of our basic commitments is to focus on the digital divide from the education perspective.

Another area that is key for Cisco, is the sustainability initiative of Cisco where we think of how to use our technology to develop and sustain development globally. Cisco has a $100 million grant to drive its sustainability programmes and to support startups to scale up in their sustainability projects. I see tremendous growth in Nigeria and Africa and in communities.       

So Cisco is the worldwide technology leader that securely connects everything to make anything possible. Our purpose is to power an inclusive future for all by helping our customers re-imagine their applications, power hybrid work, secure their enterprise, transform their infrastructure, and meet their sustainability goals. 

What are the building blocks for Cisco’s digital skills training initiative?

The building blocks are many and are centered on networking, cybersecurity, programming and management. The first is about inclusive infrastructure that is designed to connect several applications from libraries, systems, hospitals, homes and government entities, followed by education, security and resilient critical infrastructure where data is kept and stored.