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CIONET - What's next

Connecting ambitious digital leaders and businesses around the globe.

Catch up on the upcoming CIONET Events

             
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Germany Sep 9, 2025 Country Members Physical german

Frankfurt: AI Driven Logistics

Vom ersten Use Case zur strategischen Neuausrichtung CIONET lädt bereits zum vierten Mal zu einem exklusiven Roundtable für CIOs und Digitalverantwortliche aus Logistik und Handel ein. Im Mittelpunkt des Abends steht die Frage, wie Unternehmen ihre KI-Initiativen erfolgreich skalieren und aus ersten Use Cases echten strategischen Mehrwert schaffen. Microsoft 365 für Frontline Worker: Moderne Tools, die Mitarbeitende im Tagesgeschäft entlasten ServiceNow für Prozessintegration: Automatisierte End-to-End-Workflows – vom Schadensfall bis zur Retourenabwicklung KI-gestützte Disposition und Planung: Mit smarten Algorithmen zur optimierten Supply Chain Digitale Lieferketten und letzte Meile: Transparenz, Effizienz und Kundenzentrierung durchgängig gedacht

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Belgium Sep 13, 2025 All Members Physical english

CIONET Cycling Event

Join us for a wonderful ride. The ride is accessible to all levels of riders and doesn't require extensive technical skills. More information will follow soon. Looking forward to ride together!

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Germany Sep 17, 2025 Country Members Physical german

München: Cyber Security Fatigue

Cybersecurity ist längst kein reines IT-Thema mehr – sie betrifft das gesamte Unternehmen. Doch während die Bedrohungslage zunimmt, geraten viele Security-Verantwortliche an ihre Belastungsgrenzen: zwischen 24/7-Verantwortung, wachsenden Anforderungen und dem ständigen Innovationsdruck.

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Germany Sep 17, 2025 Country Members Physical german

Köln: CIO & CISO, das Rezilienz-Power-Duo

IT-Betrieb und Cybersicherheit stehen heute unter extremem Druck: steigende Komplexität, wachsende regulatorische Anforderungen (NIS2, DORA, KRITIS), chronische Ressourcenknappheit – und gleichzeitig eine Bedrohungslage, die keine Verzögerungen duldet. Trotzdem agieren viele IT- und Security-Teams noch immer in Silos. Die Folge: ineffiziente Abläufe, Tool-Wildwuchs, langsame Reaktion auf Vorfälle und unklare Verantwortlichkeiten.

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Germany Sep 18, 2025 Country Members Virtual german

Online: Nachhaltige IT - CIDO Priorität

Nachhaltigkeit ist für CIOs nicht nur ein „Nice-to-have“, sondern eine strategische Priorität – sie beeinflusst direkt die finanzielle Performance, die operative Effizienz und die langfristige Wettbewerbsfähigkeit.

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Belgium Sep 18, 2025 Country Members Physical french

Les Rencontres: La dette technique : Un défi stratégique pour les entreprises

La dette technique est comparable à la négligence des réparations d'une maison. Ignorer un toit qui fuit peut faire gagner du temps aujourd'hui, mais cela pourrait conduire à l'effondrement du plafond plus tard. Pour remédier à la dette technique, il faut trouver et réparer ces fuites dès maintenant et mettre en place un plan d'entretien de la maison afin qu'elle soit prête pour les extensions futures. Pour résoudre ces problèmes, il faut définir des priorités stratégiques, communiquer clairement avec les parties prenantes et établir une feuille de route à long terme pour la modernisation. Cet événement se déroulera entièrement en français.

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Recent Cases

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Burns & McDonnell reduces costs by 30% by following AWS well-architected framework best practices

Reduces costs by 30% by following AWS well-architected framework best practices

 

OVERVIEW

Consulting solutions firm Burns & McDonnell may be well over a century old, but its adoption of cloud infrastructure for both customer and internal use cases shows that it is focused on the future. The firm has been using Amazon Web Services (AWS) since the early 2010s. But by 2019, it wanted better visibility into its cloud practices to tighten security and identify cost savings through more efficient use of AWS services.

Burns & McDonnell turned to the AWS Well-Architected Framework, which helps organizations review the state of their workloads and compare them to the latest AWS architectural best practices. To better use this framework, Burns & McDonnell worked alongside AWS Advanced Technology Partner Trend Micro, which provides security services for organizations that are building in the cloud. By using Trend Micro Cloud One – Conformity (Conformity), Burns & McDonnell obtained a full report containing cloud security recommendations and opportunities for cost efficiency in just 20 minutes. Conformity is an AWS Well-Architected Partner Solution that uses AWS Well-Architected APIs to automate much of the risk discovery process when a company runs an infrastructure review. By using Conformity and adopting the AWS Well-Architected Framework, Burns & McDonnell has seen significant benefits, including a 50 percent reduction in mean time to resolution using the database to remediate cloud service misconfigurations. It has also reduced costs by 30 percent year over year.

 

 

"We saved about 30 percent of our overall AWS bill in the first week by taking action. We drastically reduced waste by identifying whether any instances were overprovisioned."

Jason Cradit

Principal Cloud Architect, 1898 & Co.,
a subdivision of Burns & McDonnell

 
 

THE SOLUTION

Flipping the Old-School Information Technology Mentality on Its Head

Founded in 1898 and 100 percent owned by employees, Burns & McDonnell is an engineering, architecture, construction, environmental, and consulting solutions firm based in Kansas City, Missouri. Its 1898 & Co. subdivision builds and implements digital solutions for customers, often using AWS. In 2019, the newly formed 1898 & Co. recruited Jason Cradit as principal cloud architect to enhance its cloud architecture following his AWS re:Invent 2019 presentation on how older businesses can use the cloud to differentiate and build products.

Cradit’s job was to maximize the agility and performance benefits that Burns & McDonnell could gain from using cloud services. “We were already using the cloud, but we wanted to improve our governance framework around it,” Cradit says. “We were treating cloud and AWS services like on-premises servers and networks, controlling access and using some highly regimented processes. I wanted to flip that on its head.” Cradit believed that using the AWS Well-Architected Framework and Conformity together would enable Burns & McDonnell to gain visibility into security risks and inefficiencies within the cloud environment and perform better by filling those gaps. In addition, he hoped it would free employees to innovate without the fear of committing security breaches or creating cost inefficiencies.

Reducing Costs and Mean Time to Resolution

When Cradit signed Burns & McDonnell up for a Conformity trial, he received a full report with cloud security recommendations and opportunities for cost efficiency in just 20 minutes, rather than waiting days for the results. To generate data-rich reports, Conformity scans an organization’s cloud infrastructure and scores it against approximately 800 best practices, including the design principles outlined in the AWS Well-Architected Framework. This approach enables customers to evaluate their architecture based on the AWS Well-Architected Framework’s pillars of operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, and cost optimization. Conformity rapidly sorts the results according to the risk level of each misconfiguration.

Every recommendation in the report links to Conformity’s knowledge base, which describes how to remediate it using the AWS Management Console—a web interface where users can manage their AWS accounts—or command line interface. Conformity customers also get frequent updates on new configuration checks within the application and new cloud services best practices.

Burns & McDonnell immediately used the visibility and contextual insights Conformity produced. “We saved about 30 percent of our overall AWS bill in the first week by taking action,” says Cradit. “We drastically reduced waste by identifying whether any instances were overprovisioned.” By using Conformity to better adhere to the AWS Well-Architected Framework, Burns & McDonnell has reduced its AWS bill by 30 percent year over year. In addition, it’s seen a 50 percent reduction in mean time to resolution when using Conformity’s knowledge base and step-by-step guides to implement recommendations.

Using the AWS Well-Architected Framework and Conformity in tandem has given Burns & McDonnell freedom to innovate and gain new customers by saving time and money. “When we save money, we can spend it elsewhere and explore new things. That helped us win a large utility contract because we were able to reuse our funds to help that customer,” says Cradit. “Likewise, by building efficiencies into our practice, we have more time to explore. We don’t have to worry about micromanaging our infrastructure because we’ve delegated that to Conformity.” In addition, Cradit says sharing Burns & McDonnell’s cloud assessment reports with customers provides transparency into its cloud environment, giving customers peace of mind. Using Conformity also helps Burns & McDonnell comply with many regulatory requirements, such as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation Critical Infrastructure Protection standards that energy and utility customers must adhere to.

Developers at Burns & McDonnell have more freedom to innovate because of the guardrails Conformity provides. The application has also been useful for training purposes. “The daily active user count has gone up,” says Cradit. “More people can build without the worry of a data breach or similar fears. For people who don’t have a lot of experience, it provides a great educational mechanism because when you want to resolve an issue, it walks you through the step-by-step procedure to get you there. One team member just passed the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate test, and he attributes a lot of that to using Conformity.”

Achieving More through Enhanced Visibility

Looking toward the future, Burns & McDonnell plans to further embrace cloud computing by architecting a cloud center of excellence. “In the last year, we’ve used AWS to determine how to build data warehouses more efficiently or ingest Internet of Things data and the like,” says Cradit. Burns & McDonnell also wants to help its energy and utility customers achieve more sustainable solutions by using AWS services for efficient, agile performance.

After experiencing the cost-saving and security-enhancing results of using the AWS Well-Architected Framework and Conformity together, Cradit recommends the solution to any business seeking better visibility into its cloud infrastructure. “By using the design principles of the AWS Well-Architected Framework that Conformity automates, you’re going to save money,” he says. “No matter how good you are, this solution will show you that you can do more.”

 About Burns & McDonnell
 

Founded in 1898 and 100 percent owned by employees, Burns & McDonnell is an engineering, architecture, construction, environmental, and consulting solutions firm based in Kansas City, Missouri.

 

 Benefits of AWS
 
  • Reduced AWS costs by 30%
  • Reduced mean time to fix misconfigurations by 50%
  • Identified and quickly remedied security vulnerabilities and cost inefficiencies
  • Assisted with regulatory compliance requirements
  • Provided a high level of transparency
 

Checkout our CIONET COOKBOOK

cookbook

Embark on a culinary journey through the ever-evolving world of digital leadership with our third edition of the CIONET Cookbook: Recipes for Digital Success. Unveiling the intricate trilemma faced by today’s Master Chefs, our trailblazing European CIOs address a challenge at the nexus of customer interests, digital transformation strategies, and IT modernisation. Their secret? Synchronising the gearing between customer, business, and technology to create a frictionless movement through the digital landscape.

The CIONET Cookbook uses the analogy of a five-star restaurant to explain the importance of optimally integrated technology, with the CIO as Master Chef. In order to provide the best service to its customers, a top restaurant must have the right atmosphere, an inviting menu, a well-equipped kitchen, talented and committed front-of-house and kitchen staff and smooth-running processes that ensure an enjoyable experience for diners.

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Geopolitical tensions have dominated the headlines for over two years now. In this context, the cyber threat landscape is also evolving rapidly. The protection and security of critical infrastructure – both physical and digital – is becoming increasingly important.

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CIONET’s mission is to help IT executives become more at ease and above all more successful in their jobs. So they can do more than just keep up with change but ultimately define it. CIONET opens up a whole new universe of opportunities in IT management.

With the largest membership of corporate digital leaders across Europe, Latin America, US and Australia, CIONET has the expertise and pioneering vision to solve or address any IT management challenge.

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