Computer News Middle East by Computernews Middle East

WHERE TECHNOLOGY MEANS BUSINESS issue 261 | october 2013 WWW.CNMEONLINE.COM

ARCHITECTING YOUR FUTURE

Enterprise architecture (EA) tools allow CIOs complete infrastructure visibility

GITEX 2013 PREVIEW 6 TIPS FOR FINDING MOBILE APP TALENT

Masters of mobility

KPMG keeps employees on the move

public cloud: the time is now?

CIO insight

We spotlight Farid Farouq, CIO of GITEX organiser’s DWTC

Get SMART Etisalat CEO Saleh Al Abdooli on how technology is making the world a ‘smarter’ place

don’t bring your own disaster: fixmo educates on mobile risk management

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EDITORIAL Publisher Dominic De Sousa

It’s that time of the year

Jeevan Thankappan Group Editor Talk to us: E-mail: jeevan.thankappan@ cpimediagroup.com

Group COO Nadeem Hood

The summer lull is over and there is frenetic pace of activity in the regional IT landscape again as we brace ourselves for the 33rd edition of GITEX. Personally, this is going to be my 9th GITEX and I am still surprised at the way this show is going from strength to strength. In my 15-odd year career as a technology journalist, I’ve covered many technology shows around the world. And some of these trade shows are either dead, dying or taking their last gasps. But, Gitex is a different story as it keeps getting bigger and better. There are more than 3500 ICT companies from 54 countries participating in the show, comprising 80 percent of the top IT brands in the world. The conference, which runs parallel to the exhibition, is also a top draw and a must-attend one for anyone looking to gauge the hottest IT trends, not just regionally but globally as well. As technology trade hacks, we couldn’t have wished for more as this is the ideal platform for us to meet almost the who’s who of the regional IT industry. CPI Media Group, publishers of CNME, will be at the show with a huge presence, and we are doing 60 Minutes — our hourly show daily — this year as well. On a different note, as we enter into the fourth quarter, it is a good time to take stock and reflect on the last three quarters. Though this year started out on an optimistic note, IT budgets have remained largely flat, making it real difficult for CIOs to innovate. However, there have been some bright spots. Outsourcing has finally gained traction, which I think will eventually pave the way to public cloud. Security, thanks to some of the high-profile breaches we have seen in the region, has become a boardroom discussion, with many companies budgeting for it for the first time. A recent GBM survey indicates companies are spending up to 10 percent of their total budgets on security, and in some verticals it might go up to 25 percent over the next couple of years. Once the security concerns are ironed out, I am sure more and more CIOs are going to look at the option of off-premise IT or a hybrid model. All this bodes well and if you want to get your finger on the vibrant pulse of the Middle East IT industry, make your way to Dubai World Trade Centre on October 20. On the evening of the same day, we are hosting our most coveted ICT Achievement Awards ceremony at the elegant Godolphin Ballroom in Jumeirah Emirates Tower. Keep an eye out for the November issue of CNME which will feature this tech elite. See you on the show floor.

Editorial Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan jeevan.thankappan@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 4409109 Editor Ben Rossi ben.rossi@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 4409114 Online Editor Tom Paye tom.paye@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9103 Contributor Mary Brandel ADVERTISING Commercial Director Rajashree R Kumar raj.ram@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 4409131 Sales Managers Michal Zylinski michal.zylinski@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 4409159 Antony Crabb antony.crabb@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 4409108 Circulation Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh.nair@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 4409147 Production and Design Production Manager James P Tharian james.tharian@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 4409146 Designer Analou Balbero analou.balbero@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 4409104 DIGITAL SERVICES Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy P Maagma Web Developers Erik Briones Jefferson de Joya Photographer and Social Media Co-ordinator Jay Colina webmaster@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9100 Published by

WHERE TECHNOLOGY MEANS BUSINESS issue 261 | october 2013 WWW.cNMeoNLiNe.coM

ARchitectinG YouR FutuRe

Enterprise architecture (EA) tools allow CIOs complete infrastructure visibility

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GiteX 2013 pReView 6 TIPS FOR FINDING MOBILE APP TALENT

Registered at IMPZ PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE

Masters of Mobility

KPMG keeps employees on the move

public cloud: the time is now?

Cio insight

We spotlight Farid Farouq, CIO of GITEX organiser’s DWTC

Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Printed by Printwell Printing Press Regional partner of

Get SMARt Etisalat CEO Saleh Al Abdooli on how technology is making the world a ‘smarter’ place

don’t bring your own disaster: fixmo educates on mobile risk management

© Copyright 2013 CPI All rights reserved While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

EDITORIAL

A matter of privacy

Ben Rossi Editor Talk to us: E-mail: ben.rossi @cpimediagroup.com

I’m quite the advocate of privacy. In a world where people crave fame and seem hell-bent on sharing every detail of their lives on social media, I personally find this modern obsession a little uncomfortable. Isn’t it weird that you know intimate details on someone you went to school with but haven’t spoken to in 10 years? Perhaps more importantly, do they really think anybody cares? Privacy aside, there certainly seems to be an underlying narcissism to this fascination from where I’m sitting. No, it’s not my cup of tea. Only my family and close friends have any real knowledge on my life, and that’s how I think it should be. Personal information and feelings should be sacred, cherished even — not something you nonchalantly give away to the public at the click of a button. There is a point to this rant, believe it or not. Or perhaps a question: in the world of enterprise IT, should privacy be just as important? Two big technology companies last month decided it was. Shareholders at Dell voted to approve a $24.9 billion buyout of the company by founder and CEO Michael Dell and investment firm Silver Lake Partners, whilst a consortium led by Canada’s Fairfax Financial Holdings has offered to acquire struggling smartphone-maker BlackBerry for $4.7 billion. Of course, the reasons behind these decisions aren’t positive at all. Going private is seen as an opportunity to rebuild and restructure away from the prying eyes of Wall Street. Both companies are in transition phases, and doing it behind closed doors is a smart move. Why? Well, because of people like myself; the press. You see, both companies are healthily growing their competencies and market share in the enterprise solutions space, and they should be praised for this success. But they’re not, because unfortunately people are too busy bashing their downfalls in markets they previously reigned supreme in; namely, Dell’s PC division and BlackBerry’s mobile phone business. So I applaud Dell and BlackBerry as they close the curtains and get working on turning around their fortunes. If or when they do go public again, I’m sure they would have fully appreciated, and taken advantage of, the little bit of privacy they sought. CIOs are another private bunch — when it comes to their data, anyway. And its these sensitives towards data privacy that is driving much debate in the rising cloud market. Few people now need convincing on the benefits of cloud, but the model that is deployed is what is causing new headaches. Do you go private, public or hybrid? It’s a question still filled with much ambiguity. Capitalising on this uncertainty is EMC, which has revealed it will launch its complete Web-scale storage infrastructure for the data centre in the first half of 2014. According to EMC, the appliance will boast all the main selling factors of public cloud — elasticity, simplicity, speed to deploy etc. — but will allow organisations to keep everything in-house. It’s a good move by EMC, but, despite my previous championing of privacy, I personally believe the future of IT is public. That is where the true potential of cloud is realised, and as offerings allowing regional enterprises to store their data locally increase, I do see public prevailing over private in this space.

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

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Contents

Our Strategic Partners Strategic ICT Partner

Strategic IT Transformation and Big Data Partner

Strategic IT NetworkingPartner

Strategic Technology Partner

ISSUE 261 | october 2013

56 68

Etisalat CEO Saleh Al Abdooli on making the UAE ‘smarter’

The emergence of enterprise architecture (EA) tools

The public-cloud conundrum

10 Public enemy number one EMC goes after Amazon and Microsoft with the ultimate public-cloud alternative.

14 A force for flexibility CNME gathers IT decision makers to discuss how to embrace current IT trends to make their data centres more flexible and efficient.

19 Securing the enterprise Information security leaders gather in Dubai, Doha and Riyadh to learn how to protect against malicious attacks. 29 Get smart Etisalat CEO Saleh Al Abdooli speaks exclusively to CNME on how the UAE’s biggest telco and ICT service provider is partnering with the government to help make the nation ‘smarter’.

93 Riding the wave Kevin Kennedy, President and CEO, Avaya, met with CNME to talk Middle East innovation.

A look at DIFC’s secret weapon; its own dedicated infrastructure

Computer News Middle East

109 6 tips for finding mobile app talent To understand what’s hot in the IT job market today, just ask yourself a simple question: When is the last time you checked your mobile device or used the mobile Web? october 2013

www.cnmeonline.com

Our Strategic Partners

Contents

Strategic ICT Partner

Strategic IT Transformation and Big Data Partner

Strategic IT NetworkingPartner

Strategic Technology Partner

ISSUE 261 | october 2013

It’s back: The GITEX 2013 preview.

Features 56 Architecting your fortune Enterprise architecture (EA) tools have emerged to allow CIOs the complete infrastructure visibility they require.

62 The virtual network What is this new breed of network virtualisation that VMware is talking about? 68 Going public Public cloud continues to progress leaps and bounds, but can Middle East CIOs overcome security concerns? 74 Big Data: Big threat? Do businesses need to adjust their security strategies if they’re going to get serious about Big Data?

80 SI Hall of Fame 2013 It’s the time of the year where CNME appreciates the work of SIs in the Middle East by inducting the top achievers into its Hall of Fame.

KPMG Lower Gulf embraces mobility with gusto.

Avaya President and CEO Kevin Kennedy talks Middle East innovation.

In the month of GITEX, we spotlight DWTC CIO Farid Farouq.

86 The state of spectrum Are the region’s telecoms spectrums not yet working at their peak speeds and capacities?

Regulars

22 Infographic A survey of UAE IT pros has revealed the expected impact of Big Data in the coming years. 24 Short takes We round up the top stories to take our eye in the last month

38 CIO Spotlight Farid Farouq, Head of IT, DWTC, has accepted every challenge that has come his way — even if it meant shaking up his career to do so. 96 Analyst Corner App stores: coming to an enterprise near you.

116 Product Watch This month was all about Apple’s highly anticipated launch of the 5s and 5c devices, but Samsung, Sony and BlackBerry were also busy.

118 Column CNME’s man about town, Tom Paye, looks at industry reactions to the new iPhones. 8

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

www.cnmeonline.com

LEADING EDGE IN

in depth EMC

Public enemy E number one EMC unveils preview of Web-scale storage infrastructure as it prepares to attack Amazon and Microsoft with the ultimate public-cloud alternative.

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

www.cnmeonline.com

MC plans to take on Amazon, Microsoft and Google when it launches its complete Web-scale storage infrastructure for the data centre in the first half of 2014. The storage giant unveiled the new product initiative, currently called Project Nile, at its Speed To Lead event in Italy at the beginning of September. The machines will provide an â&#x20AC;&#x153;elastic cloud storage platformâ&#x20AC;? that is focused on delivering private cloud control, security and flexibility, with the scale, economics and ease-of-use generally associated with the public cloud, EMC said.

They will boast a fast and simplified buying process — with customers receiving a complete system within 48 hours — and will directly challenge public cloud offerings. EMC will utilise technologies from its software-defined storage platform, ViPR, and unified storage family, VNX, in Project Nile, which will do block, file and object at Web-scale. President and COO David Goulden called the initiative “revolutionary”. As data continues to explode, organisations around the world are looking for ways to store it in an easy and affordable way. Amazon has taken a clear lead in the public cloud space by providing an online platform for such functions. However, many customers have cited security and trust concerns as holding them back from entrusting more sensitive corporate information to the cloud. Until now, there hasn’t been a product which fully encompasses the productivity and cost benefits of Web-based services, whilst allowing customers to keep their data in-house. With Project Nile, EMC is taking a huge bet to combat Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft’s attempts to lure customers away from its high-end storage products, by offering a legitimate alternative to the more security-conscious CIO. With the products not set to be launched until next year, it may be too early to speculate on economics. However, Jeremy Burton, Executive VP, Product Operations and Marketing, EMC, has already predicted the new range of products will cost 40 to 60 percent less than public cloud options. “To be competitive, we plan to deliver these systems at a lower price point than Web-scale providers do today,” Burton said. “And we plan to make them as easy to buy, and as easy to consume, as public cloud services. “So a CIO will be able to implement this infrastructure at a lower cost than handing over company data to Web-scale public cloud providers. And service providers will be able to stand up their own services to compete with the big guys.” Burton added that public cloud offerings can actually be a lot more costly than people

“Even customers who use them today will acknowledge that public clouds are not cheaper over the long run. Their attractiveness is quick and convenient deployment, which we plan to offer with a new go-to-market model for EMC: go online, order what you need, buy it, and use it in your data centre.”

presume, and, on price point alone, there is an opening in the marketplace for what EMC is planning to offer. “Even customers who use them today will acknowledge that public clouds are not cheaper over the long run,” he said. “Their attractiveness is quick and convenient deployment, which we plan to offer with a new go-to-market model for EMC: go online, order what you need, buy it, and use it in your data centre."

The next frontier The man behind Nile, Amitabh Srivastava, President, Advanced Software Division, EMC, said it should be considered as the next stage of ViPR, which launched back at EMC World in May and was made generally available on 27 September. “It was kind of a foundation we laid out,” he said, listing heterogeneous arrays, EMC and non-EMC commodity underneath, automation going on through the controller, and building and layering data services on top of it. “Nile focuses on one segment of the market.” According to Srivastava, EMC found that a lot of its customers liked the cloud storage provided by Azure and AWS. “They like it for two reasons; the simplicity to get it and use it, and the price,” he said. “But there are a lot of constraints. If you want block, you’ve got to go here, if it’s object, you’ve got to go here, and if it’s file, you’ve got to go there. It’s silos, even in the public cloud today. You’ve also got to go off-premise.” www.cnmeonline.com

The aim with Nile, he emphasised, is to provide cloud storage without these constraints, giving block, file and object in the same box, and configurable by the user. “It’s got all the properties of elasticity, dual distribution and high availability that you expect from a cloud,” he said. “It’s also clickand-go, so we leverage ViPR’s automation and things like that, so that it’s all automated and simple to order and consume.” With the movement into this new market, EMC will likely be aggressive in accentuating how CIOs are feeling conflicted over moving critical amounts of data to the public cloud. However, Srivastava was keen to do exactly the opposite, calling the solution “just another choice” for organisations looking to embrace cloud models. “If it is cheaper for them to move to the public cloud, go for it — and ViPR will connect you to the public clouds also because it is agnostic,” he said. “But Nile gives our customers the choice that we wanted to give of what is the best way they want to run their business. “The whole reason we built this project is because we really believe our customers need something like this. The customers who want the simplicity and pricing structure from the public cloud, but do not want to take their data off-premise, can turn to Nile.” He was also eager to stress that, despite Nile seemingly tempting end-users away from the public cloud, EMC is not for or against the model. October 2013

Computer News Middle East

in depth EMC

The man behind Project Nile, Amitabh Srivastava, President, Advanced Software Division, EMC “The way I like to think about our stuff is, we’ve got to do everything we can to help our customers,” he said. “If customers need X, we’re going to go do it. Remember ViPR works on EMC, non-EMC and commodity. “It’s not in our interest to support our competitors’ arrays with ViPR, but we did it — not because it’s good for EMC, but because that’s what our customers need. All our customers have heterogeneous environments, so we have to do what our customers want.” Going all flash EMC also used its event in Italy to announce advances in its VNX line of mid-range storage, which will now be built for flash first, and new capabilities for its VXPEX Proven Architecture portfolio. Goulden said the new announcements provide customers and partners with the

After ordering, customers will receive a complete Nile system within

48 hours 12

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

“essential building blocks they need” to build cloud environments. “Customers are demanding more performance and efficiency from their current data centre infrastructure while, at the same time, exploring new architectures for their next generation mobile and Web applications,” he said. “By fully embracing and exploiting disruptive technologies such as Intel MultiCore, virtualisation and flash, EMC is providing customers with the products and solutions they need to help transform their IT department — not only delivering unprecedented levels of performance and efficiency, but also providing the agility needed for their business to remain competitive.” At the heart of the new announcements was the launch of the new range of VNX unified storage systems — VNX5200, VNX5400, VNX5600, VNX5800, VNX7600, VNX8000 and VNX-F. Goulden said the advancements “shatter the definition and economics of mid-range storage”, as well as “raise the bar” for application performance, storage efficiency, data protection, data availability and ease-of-use. The new VNX utlises MCx software and flash memory to accelerate www.cnmeonline.com

application and file performance by up to four times. According to EMC, the new platform also delivers an unprecedented value-offering by costing a third of the price as the same performance in the previous generation. Further value will come from the new VNX now being used to power all EMC VSPEX reference architectures, which will deliver double the amount of virtual machines and a broader spectrum of choice for workloads at the same prices, the company announced. VSPEX is the world’s fastest growing reference architecture with 3,600 shipments adopted by 3,000 customers and 1,500 partners, EMC added. It also announced that new EMC XtremSW Cache 2.0 software will offer deeper integration with EMC arrays, including the new VNX Series, which will further driving down latency by 65 percent. The advanced caching software delivers greater interoperability, it said, with VMware vCenter, industry-first IBM AIX support, and distributed cache coherency for Oracle RAC environments — which are scheduled to be available in the fourth quarter of 2013— as well as increased support for any server flash SSD or PCIe hardware.

in depth Infrastructure Strategies

A force for flexibility CNME gathers IT decision makers from across the region to discuss how they can embrace current tech trends to make their data centres more flexible and efficient.

ver 100 Middle East-based IT professionals filled the Habtoor Grand Hotel’s Andalus Ballroom to bursting point, as Infrastructure Strategies 2013 kicked off the local tech event season with a bang. The event, presented by IBM and organised by CNME, aimed to outline how Middle East organisations should be approaching their IT infrastructures in the

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

face of emerging trends such as cloud, BYOD, Big Data and virtualisation. To kick off the day, Hossam Darra, Chief Technologist, MEMA, HP, delivered a welcome note. He explained the demands that are currently being made of IT infrastructures, and how IT is now turning into a big business driver. He also made references to the emerging generation of tech-savvy customers, and how IT www.cnmeonline.com

departments should be preparing for their arrival on the IT scene. “AOL took nine years to get to 1 million users, Facebook took nine months, and Draw Something took nine days,” he said. Darra also talked about the importance of convergence in modern infrastructures. The way HP saw it, he said, was that enterprises needed to consolidate and converge, allowing for more efficiency and flexibility.

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in depth Infrastructure Strategies

100+

IT decision makers gathered to discuss data centre trends.

The next speaker was Paul Rogers, Data Centre Service Leader, Global Technology Services, IBM MEAI, who delivered the first full-length presentation of the day. His topic focused on creating a flexible design for an infrastructure, and he used IBM’s recent data centre study as backing for the opinions he provided. At one point, Rogers spoke about the differences between a highly efficient data centre and an ageing, inefficient one. He asked the room for a show of hands — how many of the 100-or-so IT pros in the room believed that they were running highly efficient data centres? Only five hands were raised. Encouragingly, though, when the audience was asked to show how many people were running inefficient data centres, again, only four or five hands were raised. Presumably, then, the majority of visitors considered their data centres to be in the

middle of the spectrum, meaning they were on the way to greater efficiency. Rogers also spoke about the importance of aligning IT plans with business plans. “We see IT building these empires, but is that in tune to the business’s plans? How do we link infrastructure growth to the business?” he asked. Following Rogers’ presentation, the day was then dominated by end-user speakers. The next presenter was Indranil Guha, Head of IT Infrastructure, Commercial Bank of Dubai, who spoke about approaching disaster recovery in banking. While a slightly technical presentation, Guha provided plenty of food for thought, and gave sound advice to do with DR that could easily be applied to other industry verticals. Mobile me The next presentation covered WiFi challenges in hospitality, and was delivered by Mahmoud Kamal, Group

“We see IT building these empires, but is that in tune to the business’s plans? How do we link infrastructure growth to the business?” 16

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

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IT Manager, Habtoor Hotels. Giving a pragmatic, to-the-point talk, Kamal advised the audience on the importance of Wi-Fi — everyone expects free Wi-Fi wherever they are, he explained. And this presented a considerable challenge for IT. Kamal then went about explaining how to solve these problems — he even gave advice on how to pick vendors and technology partners. “If one vendor offers the best infrastructure in the world, but there isn’t local support readily available, I’d go for plan B,” he said. Following Kamal’s presentation and a quick coffee break, it was down to Ibrahim Al Najjar, Senior Manager, IT Governance and Solution Delivery, DP World, to take the stage. He presented a case study entitled The Mobile Data Centre, while also explaining the importance of efficiency. To close out the day, the event saw Joseph Aninias, Manager of IT and Telecom Services, University of Wollongong in Dubai (UOWD), deliver an entertaining and informative presentation. The thrust to his talk covered jumping ahead when it comes to virtual infrastructure, and he talked at great length about the benefits behind doing so. He then explained what UOWD had done in this sphere, before fielding questions about his slick presentation slides. When it came to the audience, the main topic of interest was cloud. Many noted the contrast from last year’s Infrastructure Strategies conference, when the audience of IT decision makers were still unconvinced on whether cloud could or should play a part in their businesses. However, if this event showed anything, it was that many Middle East CIOs and heads of infrastructure are now convinced cloud is a vital technology for them, and are looking for the best way to go about it.

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in depth Enterprise Security 360

Securing the enterprise Information security leaders gather in Dubai, Doha and Riyadh to learn how to protect against malicious attacks.

alk to any security expert today, and he or she will tell you the same thing: The threat landscape is changing and businesses are at more risk from cyber-criminals than ever before. Smart mobile devices (particularly Android-powered ones), BYOD initiatives and the still-young cloud computing industry are all contributing to this risk. Because the trends are still emerging, cyber-criminals are every day finding new and innovative ways to breach enterprise networks. Often, a breach wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even be

www.cnmeonline.com

October 2013

Computer News Middle East

in depth Enterprise Security 360

recognised until months after the event, causing big headaches for IT departments. In the Middle East, businesses are beginning to wake up to the dark realities of cyber-crime. It is in this vein that, in September, CNME organised a regionwide roadshow to tackle the big security issues faced by the enterprise today. With events happening in Dubai, Doha and Riyadh over the course of a week, the Enterprise Security 360 roadshow aimed to gather the region’s security pros to give them an idea about what threats they face — and how to defend against them. The agenda was packed with leading information security experts. To kick off proceedings was Mohammed Ismail, Middle East Director, Enterprise and Access, Gemalto, who covered end-to-end solutions for on-the-go executives and privileged users. In this field, he ran through a number of illuminating use-examples that Gemalto had completed recently. One example covered the satellite TV provider Sky. Ismail explained that the company wanted to combine several security and convenience functions, and so did this through a mobility programme. He also covered an unnamed oil and gas company, which wanted a mobile solution to communicate access codes via text messages. The result for both companies, he said, was that they could guarantee

“One of our security experts says that he would never do online banking on a PC, but would on a phone. The mobile app is more secure than the Internet browser."

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

much better security for their resources — only the people who were meant to see the data could access it. Such moves are now becoming essential, said Isamil, who explained, “The problem is sophisticated, persistent, determined and motivated attackers. People are doing it as a business; not just to make a point.” The following speaker was Neil Thacker, Information Security and Strategy Officer, Websense EMEA, who covered the methodology of an attack and how to re-think your security strategy. “We need to be more focused on our data. We need a data-centric view, and we must perform a risk reset on our security strategies,” he advised. Following Thacker’s presentation, there was short networking break, in which attendees could digest and discuss the information they’d just been given. And then the event moved onto an enduser presentation. The speaker in question was Ahmed Baig, CSO, Dubai World Trade Centre, and he gave an illuminating talk on the importance of security analytics and forensics in the enterprise. “It’s very important to have an incident response and investigation team in place," he said. "I’m yet to see a dedicated investigation and digital forensic team in the Middle East." Baig’s presentation highlighted the importance of highlighting a dedicated security team — especially in a large enterprise environment. He explained that a combination of anti-virus solutions and Internet traffic-monitoring solutions could go a long way in helping to protect the enterprise when in the hands of a dedicated digital security team. “How many times and how many servers restarted automatically?” he asked when running through typical breach scenarios. “Normally, we don’t look at why systems crash, but we need to investigate if it keeps happening. And if you don’t have a dedicated team, you should still have people making downtime reports.” www.cnmeonline.com

Of the main talking points, none sparked more debate than

BYOD

Baig then explained how to log this information and turn it into intelligence. "At the perimeter level, you can look at router and file logs, and the IPS logs," he said. "Start logging your internal systems. What about authentication server logs? "This would give you information on how many users were logged out, how many users were providing incorrect passwords, and how many log in after hours or on weekends. If you start looking at all this info you can start to build real intelligence." Baig then explained the importance of coupling this intelligence with a good SIEM tool, giving an example of a company that had seen the limits on hundreds of its corporate credit cards raised by an intruder. He explained that this could have been prevented if logged information had been turned into intelligence. “You could have said that the maximum limit should be this amount, but limits got raised to thousands of dollars.” After Baig’s presentation, Chris Taylor, Senior Product Manager, Entrust IdentityGuard, took to the stage to close out the day. He dealt with whether BYOD was really a security risk, or whether it could be a business opportunity. What he explained was startling — in many cases, with secure applications, mobile working could actually be more secure than working through a Web browser on a laptop. “One of our security experts says that he would never do online banking on a PC, but would on a phone. The mobile app is more secure than the Internet browser,” he said, leaving the attendees with much to think about. No doubt many of them will be entering the next months with new views on how to secure their networks.

Infographic

Big plans in the UAE

Whilst Big Data may still be in its infancy in the Middle East, a survey of UAE IT decision makers found that they believe the technology will have a big impact in the coming years, and also identified the factors currently holding back adoption.

DOES BIG DATA BENEFIT BUSINESS? In the UAE Big Data gives rice to:

better decision making

87% Agree

Industry winners & losers

Competitive EdGe

45% Agree

67% Agree

Preventing, indentifying cyber attacks

67% Agree

In the UAE

BUDGET

Is the most important Factor in decision-making

64% 27%

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stopping companies from deploying big data technology

ROI

Say they are not planning on implementing

big data technology

Understanding accomplishments

Lack of Knowledge

THE UAE’S TOP BUSINESS PRIORITIES DRIVING I.T.

BUSINESS EFFICIENCY PROCESS

GOVERNANCE & COMPLIANCE

ENHANCING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

SAY TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT LEADS TO REACHING GOALS

79% 75% 86% HAVE THE RIGHT Skill & knowledge

SAY COMPANY CULTURE IS HOLDING THEM BACK

79%

CHALLENGED TO KEEP UP WITH TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

I.T. MATURITY IN THE UAE STEPS COMPLETED: PRIVATE CLOUD

85%

BELIEVE DATA CENTER AUTOMATION IS CRUCIAL OVER NEXT 3 YEARS

31%

ALREADY CREATED SOFTWARE DEFINED DATA CENTER

64%

Hybrid CLOUD

ARE VIRTUALISING PUBLIC CLOUD MISSION-CRITICAL APPLICATIONS

IN I.T. TRANSFORMATION JOURNEY

Source: EMC surveyed 237 IT decision makers at its EMC Forum event in the UAE

short takes Month in view

Iran accused of hacking into US Navy computers Hackers backed by Iran penetrated an unclassified US Navy network in one of the most serious incidents of cyber-crime yet by the Middle East nation, according to reports. The US doesn’t believe important data was stolen, but the attacks showed a new level of Iranian hacking power, including the ability to access

ACQUISITION WATCH

military data, US officials told The Wall Street Journal. Either agents working directly for the Iranian government or an outside group with Iran’s approval allegedly carried out the attacks. Cyber-security experts have said China and Russia have more sophisticated hacking abilities than Iran or North Korea, but the smaller countries are more volatile

threats, seeking retaliation rather than economic gain. The US carries out its own share of cyber-warfare, according to reports in the Washington Post based on documents leaked by former NSA employee Edward Snowden. Those documents showed the US engaged in 231 attacks on foreign targets in 2011.

RTA partners with Etisalat and du to launch NFC service

Dell has assured it will invest in additional acquisitions and remain committed to its struggling PC business once the $24.9 billion deal to go private is complete, according to company officials.

Organisations warm to Big Data

In its second annual Big Data Insights and Opportunities study, CompTIA, the non-profit association for the IT industry, found that 78 percent of organisations feel more positive about Big Data as a business initiative than they did last year, and 42 percent said they were engaged in some sort of Big Data initiative already.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer strongly hinted that the company is working on a version of Office for the iPad and Android tablets when he addressed Wall Street analysts.

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

WHAT’S HOT? Apple is hot again after smashing records by selling 9 million of its new iPhone 5S and 5C devices, compared to the 5 million it sold in the same time period for the iPhone 5 last year. It also emerged as the most valuable brand in the world after Coca-Cola held the position for 13 years, according to brand consultancy Interbrand.

Apple Dell shareholders approved a $24.9 billion buyout of the company by founder and CEO Michael Dell and investment firm Silver Lake Partners. They will be paid $13.75 per share, an increase from the original offer, as well as an additional cash dividend of $0.13 per share. For Michael Dell, the vote marked a victory in a long and gruelling fight to take the company private.

Dell

In partnership with Etisalat and du, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has launched the ‘Smart Nol’ service for Dubai commuters utilising public transport. Smart Nol enables smoother travel and accessibility via NFC (near-field communication)-enabled mobile phones. Commuters can use the RTA’s Smart Nol technology by placing their mobile devices against the card readers at the passing gates of metro stations, or validator devices on public buses and water buses. “We are providing this service for NFC-enabled mobile phone users via a special SIM card to use Nol services for public transport and in future for micropayments in UAE,” said Abdulla Ali Al Madani, CEO, RTA CTSS. “Customers will have a similar experience to Nol cards and there is no major change in using it. Currently we have more than 6 million Nol cards and we are expecting good adaptation."

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BlackBerry recorded a $965 million net operating loss in the second quarter. Revenue was approximately $1.6 billion, down 45 percent from the same period a year earlier. The company announced around 4,500 lay-offs, and cut the number of phone models it sells from six to four. Then it revealed it was preparing to sell the company to Fairfax Financial Holdings.

BlackBerry In another sign of trouble at HTC, the Taiwan-based smartphonemaker started downsizing its US operations, cutting an undisclosed number of staff. The move is meant to “streamline and optimise” the company’s US organisation “after several years of aggressive growth,” said HTC, whose net profit plummeted 83 percent year-overyear in the second quarter, despite strong reviews for the HTC One.

HTC

WHAT’S NOT?

MEA enterprise hardware market stagnates The Middle East and Africa (MEA) enterprise hardware market, comprising servers and external storage, continues to stagnate, with year-on-year growth of just 2.8 percent recorded for Q2 2013, according to IDC. Referencing its ‘EMEA Quarterly Server and Disk Storage Systems Tracker’, IDC revealed that enterprise revenue in MEA totaled $663.4 million for the quarter. The MEA region’s x86 server market witnessed a 5.2-percent year-on-year increase in value, but a 5.4-percent decline in unit terms during the second quarter of 2013. The region’s external storage market experienced subtle growth of 3 percent year-on-year. The enterprise hardware market in the GCC countries registered mixed results with the UAE and Saudi Arabia seeing a decline while smaller countries like Oman and Bahrain posted exceptional growth, bolstered by projects in the oil and gas and telecommunications verticals. Qatar and Kuwait also witnessed healthy growth, owing to infrastructure investments across various verticals.

Chief digital officer role on the rise

ACQUISITION WATCH

PayPal’s parent company, eBay, plans to acquire payments start-up Braintree for approximately $800 million in cash to enhance PayPal’s mobile capabilities.

Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha score highest in ICT index Ericsson released the first edition of its Networked Society MENA City Index, scoring Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha as the top three in the rankings. The report analysed the levels of ICTdriven benefits created in 11 of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s largest cities. One of the key findings was that, in general, the 11 cities studied showed high ICT maturity levels in terms of infrastructure development and usage of ICT services when compared to major cities in the global City Index report. In parallel, the report pointed to considerable opportunities, yet to be seized, to leverage the socio-economic benefits of this high ICT maturity level.

Smart Link completes phase one of Saudi contact centre project Smart Link BPO Solutions & Contact Centers, a member of Al Khaleej Training and Education Group, announced it has successfully launched and completed the first phase of the National Contact Center (NCC) project for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s e-Government programme. Smart Link revealed it deployed its technologies and multi-channel contact centre systems for the mega-distributed infrastructure project. The two facilities located in Riyadh and Jeddah will be operated exclusively by male and female Saudi youth. The Supreme Supervisory Committee selected Smart Link after a thorough assessment and vetting of proposals that took more than a year.

Attendees of Oracle OpenWorld weren’t best pleased when CEO Larry Ellison skipped his final keynote to watch Oracle Team USA’s stunning comeback to win the America’s Cup sailing trophy.

According to a study by CA Technologies, 47 percent of senior leaders believe the role of chief digital officer (CDO) is growing in importance, a trend likely to affect the role of CIOs. The report noted that around 45 percent of organisations currently have a CDO, with 14 percent expecting to fill the position within the next few years.

ADCB, Emirates NBD speak out on cloud ventures Two of the UAE’s leading banks have gone public with initiatives that embrace cloud computing. Emirates NBD turned to the cloud when it was making efforts to cope with the effect of rapid growth on its ability to accumulate and analyse customer and transaction data, according to its VP of Application Management, Fuad Mohamed. Emirates NBD opted to employ database software that could keep up with the complexity of the challenge, including reducing the time required for analysts to receive reports. This approach also helped the bank minimise storage expenses, which became an important issue as the database grew to 14 terabytes in size. After implementing SAP Sybase IQ software, Emirates NBD was able to cut the average time required to traverse five years of data down to two minutes, whereas a compression algorithm reduced the 14-terabyte database down to four terabytes and the number of servers from eight to one. ADCB revealed it is currently running the Ariba Sourcing software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, which enables it to handle the majority of its spend through online negotiation, including complex categories like legal services. This has resulted in savings of millions of dirhams, according to its Head of Procurement, Maher Zebib. The bank also runs the Ariba Procure to Pay SaaS, which allows it to scale resources to dynamically manage suppliers, processes, budgets, approvals, and payments on a global basis, Zebib added.

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October 2013

Computer News Middle East

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Analysis: Blunders lead to Ballmer’s demise

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Reviews: Cisco, Ubiquiti access points top out at nearly 400Mbps

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What the first 64-bit iPhone chip means for you (hint: not much)

Review: VMware Workstation 10 turns to tablets

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Blogs:

Insight:

The dos and don’ts of OpenStack Frederik Bijlsma, EMEA Cloud Business Unit Manager, Red Hat

What the iPhone 5S and 5C and iOS 7 offer the enterprise

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Exclusive virtualisation roundtable As the Middle Eastâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ICT industry prepares to discover the winners and losers of this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ICT Achievement Awards, CNME and Riverbed will be hosting a very exclusive gathering. Join other CIOs and IT decision makers at this thought-leadership roundtable to discuss the delivery of services in virtualised environments. The interactive event will include an expert virtualisation workshop, before the floor opens to the attendees around the table to discuss, debate and challenge this rapidly evolving trend.

Where? Jumeirah Emirates Towers When? 20 October 2013, 5.30pm (followed by the Awards) How to sign up? Email CNME Editor Ben Rossi at ben.rossi@cpimediagroup.com

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in depth Saleh Al Abdooli

Saleh Al Abdooli, CEO, Etisalat

he traditional metric of urban performance is gradually losing its clout in favour of a slicker, technology-driven approach. Yes, physical infrastructure will always be vital to city competitiveness, but ICT, and its use to generate social and environmental capital, is what is defining the power states of tomorrow. Such a transition has afforded the opportunity for emerging regions like the Middle East to leapfrog their Western counterparts in leading the next generation of global influencers. As the business and technology hub of the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, the UAE is naturally pushing ahead with its own impressive plans to lead this charge. Technology vendors from across the world are lining up to grab a piece of the action, but at the front of the queue is none other than Etisalat, which has achieved the admirable transition from flagship telco to national ICT enabler and service provider. “With evolving market dynamics, changing ICT trends, and the need to meet government aspirations, Etisalat is committed to transform from a national, telecommunications-centric flagship carrier

Get smart Cities around the world are in a race to become the ‘smartest’. Etisalat CEO Saleh Al Abdooli speaks exclusively to CNME on how the UAE’s biggest telco and ICT service provider is partnering with the government to elevate the country on the global stage.

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October 2013

Computer News Middle East

in depth Saleh Al Abdooli

to a regional ICT experience provider, proactively initiating and spear-heading progressive plans to benefit the national economy,” says Saleh Al Abdooli, CEO, Etisalat, who took the top UAE job last year after leading the group’s Egyptian operations for five years. He says the UAE possesses key fundamentals that can foster ICT industry growth and competiveness. He’s not wrong. The nation boasts a world-class telecoms ecosystem, which has been supported by continuous investments by Etisalat over the years, including over Dh19 billion to lay out the Fiber to the Home (FTTH) network. Coverage currently stands at 80 percent of households with high broadband penetration (65 percent), which along with broadband speeds are considered to be amongst the highest rates worldwide. Furthermore, the UAE is among the countries with the highest mobile penetration in the world, currently exceeding 170 percent. “Keeping up with this trend,” Al Abdooli says, “Etisalat realises that the future is based on services available via smart devices.” The UAE government is already playing an active role in creating a ‘smarter’ environment by promoting digitisation initiatives across key sectors, including health, education, energy and financial services. And Etisalat’s contribution has already been felt. With the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), the company recently launched the ‘Smart Nol’ service, which gives Dubai commuters smoother travel via NFCenabled mobile phones.

Such a service, Al Abdooli explains, is in line with Etisalat’s long-term strategy to support mGovernment and initiatives raising the profile of the country, as well as impacting the lives of the people of UAE. “In terms of smart living, we are at the start of an exciting journey,” he says. “As more and more businesses adopt M2M (machine-to-machine) technology, we will all start living smarter. “We are already living in the world where Etisalat SIM cards gauge how much energy is being utilised in a building and reduce consumption through efficiency measures.” Al Abdooli is talking specifically of Etisalat’s Emirates Energy Star (EES) programme, in which buildings signed up currently enjoy average energy savings of 18 percent, and to date a reduced carbon footprint of approximately 23,698 tonnes of CO2. Bee’ah is among the organisations to have already implemented Etisalat’s fleet management solutions. The waste management company implemented M2M solutions across its fleet of 400 vehicles, which eliminated vehicle misuse and reduced fuel costs by 20 percent. Another successful example of the EES programme is Sheikh Khalifa Medical City, which registered energy savings of 2,488 MWh and cash savings of Dh373,214 in 10 months. “From smart cities to smarter mobile government, M2M solutions form the core technology that enables a vast number of potential smart business applications,” Al

“In terms of smart living, we are at the start of an exciting journey. As more and more businesses adopt M2M technology, we will all start living smarter. We are already living in the world where Etisalat SIM cards gauge how much energy is being utilised in a building and reduce consumption through efficiency measures.”

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

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The UAE is among the countries with the highest mobile penetration in the world, currently exceeding

170%

Abdooli says. “M2M is still a relatively new technology that still has an immense amount of application and growth potential." Currently, there are 83 buildings in the UAE using energy-efficient M2M solutions, with many more buildings targeted this year. As more and more businesses are exposed to the technology, and realise the cost benefits to their business, Etisalat anticipates M2M adoption will increase rapidly. The influence of smart technologies spreads far and wide, with solutions catering to every vertical, helping organisations to increase workforce mobility, employee productivity and network efficiency, while reducing cost and complexity. The proposed vision would increase ICT industry employment, investments and exports, boosting the creation of new ICT companies and sustaining profitability. “Etisalat has been working closely with the government and has continuously invested in creating a first-class institutional framework that defines these dimensions,” says Al Abdooli, adding that Etisalat will continue to pursue partnerships with both public and private entities to further leverage the opportunities of smart technologies. All these efforts are in line with the national vision for the year 2020, which the government sees as essential to retain the lead in encouraging youth and economy. To create such an ecosystem, leading IT and telecom organisations like Etisalat must come together to drive digitisation and encourage innovation and entrepreneurship to develop an export-focused ICT industry. “In addition,” Al Abdooli concludes, “we must consider how ICT can enhance citizens’ inclusion and participation, increase social welfare and cohesiveness, and improve access to knowledge and opportunities.”

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on location DIFC

Raja Al Mazrouei, Head of IT, DIFC

Taking centre stage The IT team at Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) has a big task on its hand. As well as looking after its own infrastructure, the free zone also serves 30 of its clients, which happen to be some of the region’s biggest financial organisations. This isn’t an easy vertical to please, but DIFC has a secret weapon; it’s the only organisation outside of the telcos to own, manage and operate its infrastructure.

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

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inancial organisations are a sensitive bunch. With all that money to handle, there’s little wonder why they are ranked as one of the top industries when it comes to security and data-privacy concerns. In the UAE, no organisation is more aware of this fact than DIFC, a financial free zone which occupies 110 acres of Downtown Dubai. The centre is naturally the financial heart of the UAE, and provides a platform for institutions to reach into and out of the emerging markets of the region. As well as offering the necessary business and legal requirements for operating in this market, it also provides the physical infrastructure for its clients to set up shop quickly and easily. Amongst this infrastructure are four data centres, which operate on a space of about 1,000 square metres and are dedicated entirely to DIFC’s clients. Each client has the option to leverage DIFC’s data centres to host their systems, with 30 big names currently taking advantage of this service. The centre also offers an IT support service — telephones, Internet, printing, hosting etc. — for those in the region to explore the market and see if it will fit into their bigger plans, making it easier for them to come in and start working straight away. With uptime of paramount importance for financial organisations, DIFC delved into a unique project to develop a dedicated infrastructure, meaning it owns, manages and operates it by itself. “It is not owned by Etisalat or du — it is owned and managed by DIFC, and we can plug in any operators that we want,” says Raja Al Mazrouei, Head of IT, DIFC, who has led the centre’s IT team for three years. Currently, DIFC has both Etisalat and du providing services to its clients. “That’s unique to DIFC,” Al Mazrouei says. “Everybody else’s infrastructure was built by either Etisalat or du, not by them. “This provides our clients with high redundancy and resilience because if any of the telecom providers go down for any reason, they are covered. Also, the master telecom ring covers all of DIFC’s own buildings and third-party buildings, and it has full diversity to each building.” Furthermore, DIFC manages more than 370 telecom rooms between its buildings that it also manages, and it has created a standard called ‘Meet Me Points’ (MMPs), which the client can plug their cables into, instead of pulling the whole thing back to the telco. The initiatives have been a success, with a record of zero downtime since inception around 10 years ago. Quite a feat, considering DIFC’s IT team operates at a lean 12 staff, set to rise to 14 next year. However, an outsourcing model — for example with Boeing for cabling — helps reduce the head count, whilst security is taken care of by the infrastructure facilities’ team. “It was not much of a challenge,” Al Mazrouei says of the dedicated infrastructure. “DIFC didn’t want to rely on a certain service provider, and they wanted to create something different than what’s available in the UAE, and also so that we maintain the

DIFC’s four data centres operate on a space of

1,000m²

highest standards of the infrastructure and ensure availability to our clients.” Whilst DIFC’s clients are given the freedom to opt for a different service provider, Al Mazrouei says they prefer the proximity of the data centres onsite. “They want to be close to their data centres as they are running their banking and financial systems and they don’t want to risk putting data anywhere else,” she says. “They like us to be here. But we have spoken to Equinix and are trying to explore options with them and other providers to create a managed-services platform in DIFC for the DIFC clients. “But with managed services, as you know, the location does not matter. If you want to host your systems on the cloud, you don’t really care where it is. But I think our clients prefer to keep it within DIFC because they are protected by the data protection law that we offer here, and they have a proximity to the data centres.” Indeed, DIFC’s unique position as a federal free zone gives it independent jurisdiction to a range of areas including corporate, commercial, civil, employment, trusts, and securities law matters. In a world where CIOs worry about the relevant regulations and trusting others with their data, such a position affords DIFC a large advantage over other infrastructure providers. “In DIFC, we are dealing with mainly banking and financial service companies,” Al Mazrouei says. “They’re people that do not trust the cloud easily. “I have been going to hundreds of sessions on the cloud because I wanted to be convinced to put my systems on the cloud, but my limitation was data protection. “In terms of savings, it really would work for bigger organisations, but we’re about 180 people so the saving will not be significant compared to somebody with a lot more staff.”

On the inside Speaking internally, in 2011, DIFC re-did its whole infrastructure set-up, reducing 195 servers to 59 with virtualisation. In terms of cloud, despite looking at different options, the only thing it hosts on the cloud is its website. “In terms of Big Data, it is not much relevant to DIFC because we are the landlords and regulators for the financial centre, so we don’t maintain a lot data that is related to the businesses — we just enable them,” Al Mazrouei adds. www.cnmeonline.com

October 2013

Computer News Middle East

on location DIFC

With regards to its own security, Al Mazrouei says the first thing she did when she joined DIFC three years ago was set up a dedicated team. “There was no such department and the IT security was not known as a topic to a lot of people,” she says. “So I had to go and educate them about what information security is, why it is important, and how important and involved they are in terms of IT security, governance, standards and policies. “We do have a lot of external access from different parties that are working with us on different implementations and we need to make sure that we have a very secure channel so that people aren’t able to access things they are not supposed to.” DIFC is also working on signing an MoU with aeCERT to make sure that it is up to date with all the security updates that are happening. This year has seen Al Mazrouei and her team work on DIFC’s business continuity plan, which was enhanced with the creation of a disaster recovery (DR) site in Al Ain. “The IT part is ready in terms of infrastructure and set-up,” Al Mazrouei says. “We’ve done three tests this year, we’ve switched off all the systems and all information was up to date and accurate.”

“DIFC didn’t want to rely on a certain service provider, and they wanted to create something different than what’s available in the UAE, and also so that we maintain the highest standards of the infrastructure and ensure availability to our clients.” And looking forward, the centre’s biggest IT project for next year is creating a mobile-friendly client portal. “We want a mobile portal which they can access and do all of the services that they actually do right now in DIFC through their mobile devices,” Al Mazrouei says. “This is in alignment with a Sheikh Mohammed initiative to have all the services available 24/7. I have the management’s support and we’re looking at different solutions.”

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CIO Spotlight Farid Farouq

Farid Farouq, Head of IT, Dubai World Trade Centre

Challenge accepted Having made a habit of stepping outside his comfort zone, Farid Farouq, Head of IT at Dubai World Trade Centre, has accepted every challenge that has come his way â&#x20AC;&#x201D; even if it meant shaking up his career to do so.

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

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he relatively new Head of IT at Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), Farid Farouq, doesn’t talk about challenges in the same way that a thrill-seeker might. Like any successful C-level exec, he likes to be tested, but because of the matter-of-fact way in which he speaks about the challenging points in his life, he seems like he’s immune to large amounts of work-life pressure. This is not to say that Farouq has had a particularly easy ride on his road to taking the top IT job at DWTC in 2012. Throughout his career — and further back to his days at university — he’s consistently stepped outside of his comfort zone to advance his skills and experience. Yet while some might glorify their conquering of life’s little challenges, Farouq simply explains them away as matters of record. This sort of humility is difficult to find in any C-level exec, yet the level-headedness that Farouq displays must surely have gone a long way in securing his success. Perhaps it’s Farouq’s beginnings that give him such a humble outlook on his achievements. Having grown up in 1970s and 1980s Dubai, he lived a life that most current residents of the city would find difficult to imagine. “When we were here, going from Deira to Jebel Ali was a trip. There was no Sheikh Zayed Road, you had Burj Rashid — which is the Trade Centre here — nothing was there; no highway, no high-rise buildings on the road, no new Dubai actually,” he recalls. “Yes, Dubai has changed. I was living in the old part of Dubai. Not close to the Creek, but we used to get there by walking. We’d go around with friends, have a sandwich or a juice

and continue walking, take the Abra, go to the other side, and walk in those old souks. It’s a big change.” Farouq’s childhood points to a much more laid-back lifestyle than what’s considered the norm today. However, he had no intention of simply going with the flow and seeing where he’d end up. Early on, while studying at Dubai Secondary School, Farouq developed a keen interest in computers. And it was this interest that would eventually go on to define his later life. “Back in the ninth grade, there was a computer club in the school. This is where I started really taking programming courses. I loved the logic of programming — it made my thinking logical. This is where I started my career in computing,” he says. By the time he had graduated from Dubai Secondary School, Farouq had developed solid enough computing skills to be accepted onto a computer sciences course at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, United States. However, taking the course wouldn’t be as simple as it sounds. Farouq would have to completely uproot himself, leaving friends and family behind at the other side of the world. As ever, though, this was just another challenge for Farouq to take in his stride. “It was thrilling and challenging as well. In our culture, we live with our families, so we’re at home, we have our parents, our brothers, sisters, and you have that sense of security that there are people around you. You have your relatives all over Dubai. To, all of a sudden, majorly switch over there, I had to look for an apartment to live in. I know it might sound easy, but given where I was — I was living with my family until I was 17 or 18, until I graduated from high school — and all of a sudden I had to do that shift, it was major,” Farouq explains. Another problem arose in the destination itself — the United States, where English is the national language. Farouq says that he was fortunate in that he could speak relatively good English, meaning he could integrate fairly easily. However, because he had been taught everything almost exclusively in Arabic, he’d still have to do a year of studying English before embarking on the course properly. And warnings about the dangers of American life weren’t exactly music to Farouq’s ears, either. “During the orientation in Richmond, they were telling us, ‘Please, at night, after 6 o’clock, do not go to that street. It’s dangerous.’ It made me even more worried. You have that stereotype that it’s dangerous, there are gangs and so on — things that you read or you see in the movies, and it sticks in your mind! I thought, ‘What did I put myself into?’” Happily, Farouq adjusted to life in Richmond quickly, completing the English course in just six months and then going on to take the computing classes he had originally come to study. Halfwww.cnmeonline.com

October 2013

Computer News Middle East

NOT ALL IT SERVICE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE SOLUTION PROVIDERS ARE THE SAME

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CIO Spotlight Farid Farouq

way through, however, perhaps due to a desire to step our of his comfort zone, Farouq moved universities, seeing out the rest of his qualification at the University of Texas, Austin. “I experienced two different areas in the US; I had the East Coast and the South, as Texas is on the Mexican border. It was a really good experience. I enjoyed being in the US, and just being independent,” he says. After his time at university, Farouq came home to Dubai, and almost immediately began work at Emirates Bank, one half of the entity now known as Emirates NBD. His first job there was as a programmer, but it didn’t take him long to move up the ranks. “I’m glad I went to Emirates Bank because, first of all, it was an IT-savvy bank. They had the vision that they always wanted to be different at that time, and probably even now. My boss was a great support, and he helped me to move up the career ladder. I went from being a programmer to a systems analyst to project leader, where I had a few small projects under me and a few programmers, to being project manager,” Farouq recalls. By the time his career at Emirates Bank was coming to close, Farouq had been working there for around eight years. He had moved out of the IT department and began heading the projects department, and was helping to decide on strategic plans that the bank could embark on. However, sensing that he was becoming perhaps a little too comfortable, Farouq decided it was time to leave, so he took a new position at Dubai Islamic Bank. “I was the head of IT International. At that time, Dubai Islamic Bank had a plan to expand internationally. They had a licence in Pakistan, so I was part of the team to set up the bank, and I was in charge of the IT side of the set-up. In a short period of time, I had to hire the Head of IT, I had to build the organisation’s infrastructure, how it will support the new bank, I had to build relationships with the business counterparts, and we had to establish the projects needed for the launch — especially the banking system,” he says. Farouq’s new job also took him to Sudan and Jordan, where Dubai Islamic Bank had acquired existing local banks. His job was to get their IT departments up to scratch so that they could keep up with what the head bank in Dubai demanded. For another seven years, Farouq would head up the international IT teams, setting up new ones when needed, ensuring that they were running smoothly. However, Farouq’s life took a large turn when, in 2012, he was offered the position of Head of IT at DWTC. A completely different environment to the banking one he had become used to, Farouq decided that he simply had to jump at the offer. After all, he’d pretty much conquered the world of IT in banking, so it was time to move on to new challenges. “I thought about it, and I said, ‘Maybe it’s an opportunity to move out of my comfort zone.’ Banking has been a comfort zone, so here it’s a new environment, a new culture — new kinds of work activities happen here,” he explains. “I wanted to really challenge myself to do something else and see if I can really do it or not.

TIMELINE 1973

Born in Dubai

1991 Enrolls at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond

1996

Graduates from University of Texas, Austin

1997

Offered programmer job at Emirates Bank

2005 Following strong career, joins Dubai Islamic Bank as Head of IT International

2012

Offered the top IT job at Dubai World Trade Centre

www.cnmeonline.com

October 2013

Computer News Middle East

on location African Export-Import Bank

Document sprawl When African Export-Import Bank kept growing and moved its headquarters, its document management was in disarray. Something had to be done before it lost it all. Enterprise content management (ECM) was the natural answer.

frican Export-Import Bank is quite an important institution. Established in 1993 by African governments, investors and other financial institutions, its purpose is to finance and promote intra – and extra – African trade. If you hadn’t noticed, despite some political turmoil, Africa’s economy has been rather booming in recent years, much of which has been driven by trade — keeping the bank very busy. Incidentally, the Middle East is a particular important market for African exports. Further to this, the growth looks to be accelerating even more. Only a few months ago, President Obama visited Africa to announce a $7 billion plan to further develop infrastructure and work closer 42

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

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with Africa heads of state, as well as a new programme to boost trade within the continent. There’s no surprise then that African Export-Import Bank — the trade finance bank for the continent — outgrew its previous headquarters and needed a move. And with all that trade going on, you can only imagine the amount of files and documents flying around the bank’s systems every day. “There was quite a backlog,” says Betty Lumu, Knowledge Manager at the bank. “The volume of records that had been accumulated, it was dangerous. “They could have just woken up and lost it all one day. It was a mountain of files which was not organised.

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on location African Export-Import Bank

“The space was costly but it wasn’t optimally used because there were files all over, active and non-active files were correlated where staff were, and there were so many multiple copies of documents from different departments.” Lumu was brought in to fix this and set up a knowledge management unit. Tasked with creating an information centre, Lumu was also given budget to find a suitable solution to present such a disaster from occurring. “Before the bank located to the building, it was operating without a filing policy, archiving system or electronic indexing,” Lumu says. “It had something in place but it wasn’t an appropriate document management system.” Perhaps unusually for such a technology-related project, it was not led by the IT team, but by Lumu and her knowledge management team. “We are nine in my department, which is separate from the IT team, which has about seven people,” she says. However, both teams work closely, she adds. “I do everything in consultation with them, they advise on the technical side.” Following a number of meetings with senior management, the team decided it was best to send an RFP (request for proposal) out to the market, which explained their requirements. Indeed, Lumu admits, they knew what they wanted, but they were not sure exactly what the solution would be and who could provide it. “So the vendor was expected to provide us with a software system that gives a centralised method of managing both the physical and electronic records,” she says. “We told them what we had in place and how the storage and document sharing wasn’t there — we told them everything.” After the vendors sent in their proposals, the bank decided to call them in to present their solutions, show samples of their work, and respond to queries. “It was better for us to actually look at something because it was something new to us,” Lumu says.

“There was quite a backlog. The volume of records that had been accumulated, it was dangerous. They could have just woken up and lost it all one day. It was a mountain of files which was not organised.” Betty Lumu, Knowledge Manager, African Export-Import Bank

The solution was implemented in

one month Following the presentations, the bank opted for Laserfiche, a software development company headquartered in California, but with offices across the world including, vitally, Cairo, where the bank is headquartered. “The presentation was okay and quite detailed, and the sums they gave us were quite good,” Lumu says. “We wanted somebody who had an office in Cairo because of post-implementation support — we thought it would be better if we had somebody here. “And the solution was quite good for us. Everything that we needed was there; automatic indexing, workflow, scanning, security, document storage, interface was beautiful, and it was easy to work with.” Whilst the implementation was relatively quick — around a month — like any deployment, it wasn’t without its challenges. With a delay in equipment delivery and issues around getting enough licences due to the sheer amount the bank wanted, the key challenges came back to the bank’s growth and transition. The ECM implementation wasn’t the only IT project going on, with the bank also deploying a big SAP solution at the same time. “I had a feeling that the staff were kind of overwhelmed,” Lumu says. “So we didn’t want to talk so much about the workflow of the system as it were.” Subsequently, the bank decided to initially leverage just the core modules of the ECM solution — i.e. the main archiving and creation of documents — before introducing more functions after 12 months. “We wanted to pilot it first with one department, then move onto others and allow them to talk about it so they could actually enjoy the workflow,” Lumu says. “So that is coming in slowly. We invested and so far it’s all good, but we still have to make more use in what we have invested in.” For the functions the bank has implemented, the benefits are clear and felt, she adds. “It’s very good. We can see all the files from 1994. When it came to sharing documents, it’s very easy for a department to have one central place to put their files. Whether I’m at my desk or not, somebody can actually go to that folder and view what’s in it. “You don’t have to go to somebody’s laptop. It’s safer in the Laserfiche system because on the shared drive some people can’t access certain folders or files. It’s easy for a department to all work together and not worry about why they weren’t seeing certain reports.” www.cnmeonline.com

October 2013

Computer News Middle East

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on location KPMG

Jaison George, CIO, KPMG Lower Gulf

K Going mobile Having decided to converge a number of its core business applications, KPMG Lower Gulf found that it could derive more value by going another step further — so it embraced the mobility trend with gusto, coming up with what it calls the trueMobility platform.

PMG is one of the world’s biggest professional firms providing audit, tax and advisory services. Altogether, the name is known across 156 countries, and there are more than 152,000 people globally working under a KPMG banner. But KPMG isn’t global in the sense that it has a head office, and then technology is filtered down to everyone else around the world. Given the size and scope of the operation, member firms in various regions are given their own say on how they run things. Indeed, each KPMG member firm is a legally distinct and separate entity, and it treats itself as such. KPMG Lower Gulf is one of these member firms that sees itself as an individual entity. And this year, it decided to undergo a massive technology overhaul to make its consultants and employees much more productive. According to Jaison George, CIO, KPMG Lower Gulf, this was much-needed, as the previous way of doing things was “not a very convenient situation” from the end-user’s perspective. “The scenario was that we had a number of applications — a number of technologies — which were point products. They

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October 2013

Computer News Middle East

on location KPMG

were serving a specific requirement that was identified,” he says. “If they wanted to access their voicemails, they had to go to this application; if they wanted to do a collaborative tool or share data with either their peers or with clients, they had a separate application; if they wanted to use the knowledge management research, then there was a third application. “There were some legacy ones, there were some new ones — they were all in that area. And not necessarily all of them talked to each other, not necessarily all of them integrated with each other. Also they had their own security and encryption requirements.” George’s idea to solve the problem, then, was to converge all of these services, while also making them available on-thego so that end-users could be more productive. He wanted a single sign-on to get access to everything, and interfaces that looked similar across every application. He also wanted to make information available to consultants in real-time, whereas before it took seven days to update the information. It was a tall order, no doubt, so to achieve all of this, George went about creating what he calls the trueMobility platform. He wanted to converge three main business applications and then make them available on either Android or iOS. “We said that everybody talks about mobility more in terms of voice and video, and mobility in terms of communication — your accessibility more to the general, Internet-based stuff. We thought that we could do the convergence on the mobility platform,” he says. “Typically, for a consultant or an advisor, there are three things that he has to have with him all the time; knowledge management and collaboration tools, practice management stuff,

“Typically, for a consultant or an advisor, there are three things that he has to have with him all the time; knowledge management and collaboration tools, practice management stuff, and client relationship backgrounds. If he’s got these three things on the go, he’s equipped to service the client to the quality and experience that the client is looking for — anywhere, anytime.”

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

www.cnmeonline.com

“There were some legacy apps, there were some new ones — they were all in that area. And not necessarily all of them talked to each other, not necessarily all of them integrated with each other. Also they had their own security and encryption requirements.” and client relationship backgrounds. If he’s got these three things on the go, he’s equipped to service the client to the quality and experience that the client is looking for — anywhere, anytime.” For the knowledge management and collaboration perspective, then, George wanted every consultant to be able to tap into KPMG’s global knowledge resources. KPMG holds a lot of collateral on thought leadership and domain-specific information, and the firm employs consultants who have been in specific domains for a very long time. To be able to tap that knowledge from previous reports and information was a necessity, and it’s something that George went about enabling straight away. George then wanted to integrate the firm’s CRM application. Previously, before approaching a client or going for a meeting, a consultant would have to run reports out of the CRM system and then read through them all individually. “Now we’ve said that you don’t have to do that. We have online, real-time information based on the latest meetings with the client, client intelligence, industry information, and contact details. And it offers things like who knows whom, what their relationships are, what was the last meeting, what’s in the pipeline, what are the projects, what is the client talking about, what are the client’s interest areas, what kinds of publications KPMG’s been mailing the client, and whether that’s been useful or not. All that client relationship information is now accesible on the trueMobility platform,” George explains. The technology mix was set to include Citrix, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and ASP.Net. In the process, George also decided to update the desktop phone system, too, so he did away with the Cisco Call Manager and CUC solution that KPMG had previously been running, and opted for Microsoft Lync 2013 coupled with Polycom Lync-enabled handsets. Many of these options were chosen because that’s what KPMG International uses, so it would be much easier to tap into global resources if KPMG Lower Gulf was running on the same technologies.

Preview GITEX 2013

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s back

The Middle East ICT industry is poised for the most comprehensive edition of GITEX Technology Week yet, as Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) prepares to host the notorious event for the 33rd time.

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

www.cnmeonline.com

A glimpse into some of the big players at GITEX 2013 Dell “Dell will unveil its latest array of enterprise solutions at GITEX, demonstrating how our cutting-edge technology can help Middle East businesses manage and scale their IT operations. We will demonstrate how Dell’s solution capabilities, which span the client to the data centre to the cloud, can help companies and organisations with the business and technology challenges they are facing. From a Dell perspective, we are excited at the potential for growth we see in the region, and GITEX is a living symbol of this potential. This is the main reason we’ve increased our investment into GITEX this year.” Basil Ayass, Marketing Director, Dell Middle East

Intel “This year, Intel will be showcasing 4th Generation Core processor products and tablet portfolios based on the Intel Atom processor. For us at Intel, GITEX is the ICT business gateway to the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia Region. On the one hand, GITEX enables exhibitors to reach a high ROI through direct business opportunities and interactions with decision makers. On the other hand, it is a key place to be seen and heard to increase our visibility.” Nassir Nauthoa, General Manager GCC, Intel

anked as the number-one ICT event in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA), and one of the biggest in the world, GITEX will this year run between October 20 and 24. With the Western world still lagging in the effects of the global recession, the Middle East market continues to surge, with the latest Gartner forecast predicted IT spend in the region to increase 5.5 percent this year to $192.9 billion. The organisers are confident GITEX 2013 will exceed last year’s edition, which attracted 139,000 ICT professionals from

Huawei “Those at GITEX can look forward to a number of exciting Huawei product launches seen for the first time in the region, including our latest BYOD solutions, SDN switches, and additions to our highend storage technology portfolio. Huawei will also be spotlighting its recently deployed e-classroom solution, along with its Safe City solution, in addition to its all new HD video-conferencing solution. We see GITEX as a strategic channel both in terms of business ROI and cementing our brand’s reputation when it comes to technology innovation.” Dong Wu, Vice President, Huawei Enterprise Middle East

www.cnmeonline.com

October 2013

Computer News Middle East

Preview GITEX 2013

A glimpse into some of the big players at GITEX 2013

Last year’s GITEX attracted

80%

of the world’s leading ICT brands.

144 countries and 80 percent of the world’s leading ICT brands. Research from the 2012 show revealed that 61 percent of C-Level executive visitors boasted procurement budgets of over $5 million, while 18 percent had budgets between $1 million and $5 million, 13 percent were prepared to spend $500,000, and 8 percent had up to $500,000. The average deal struck at GITEX 2012 either met or exceeded ROI expectations, DWTC claimed. Ninety-five percent of last year’s exhibitors have pledged to re-join the proceedings, whilst “a host of newcomers” from across the world have already signed up to attend, according to Trixee Loh, Senior VP, DWTC. “This year, we have done everything we can to give GITEX Technology Week a new edge and relevance,” Loh said. “Among other things, we’re ramping up our international reach, introducing incisive, trend-dissecting features like the Big Data Conference, as well as proactively

“GITEX is by far the most critical platform for the ICT community to engage, share and learn. For us, GITEX is the platform to interact with a wide range of stakeholders; customers, partners and alliances.” 52

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

HP “HP is participating at GITEX this year with a range of solutions from our business portfolio aimed at improving processes, reducing stress and cost, and streamlining operations. These solutions are designed to address business concerns in the areas of cloud computing, Big Data, security and mobility. GITEX is by far the most critical platform for the ICT community to engage, share and learn. For us, GITEX is the platform to interact with a wide range of stakeholders; customers, partners and alliances.” Eyad Shihabi, Managing Director, HP Middle East

Cisco “This year, Cisco will discuss current ICT trends such as the Internet of Everything, cloud and virtualisation, collaboration, BYOD, and security, to showcase how enterprises and governments throughout the region can leverage these trends to drive business success. GITEX remains one of the most important events in Cisco’s calendar. The event always creates great opportunities for us to stand alongside our peers, network with our existing and new customers, and to contribute in a forum that matters by providing an exceptional knowledge platform for the ICT industry to grow in the Middle East. Rabih Dabboussi, Managing Director, Cisco UAE

SAP “With the recent announcement that the UAE is moving towards a mobile government, the ability to provide new, highly-connected, scalable and adaptable solutions for government entities is more pressing than ever. Revealing how SAP can make a difference in this hugely exciting and game-changing space will form a central part of our GITEX presence this year. GITEX stands alone as the top event of its kind in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia region. It is absolutely one of the world’s best showcases for cutting-edge technology, so it is essential we maintain a high profile throughout the week to educate the market and connect with potential clients.” Sam Alkharrat, Manging Director, SAP MENA

www.cnmeonline.com

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Preview GITEX 2013

“GITEX stands alone as the top event of its kind in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia region. It is absolutely one of the world’s best showcases for cuttingedge technology, so it is essential we maintain a high profile throughout the week to educate the market and connect with potential clients.” unearthing and celebrating new talent through a series of competitions. “The buzz surrounding GITEX Technology Week 2013 has already begun, and I am confident that all the pieces are in place for this year’s theme of creation, disruption and re-imagination to leave a lasting legacy that we can continue to build on well into the future.” Joining the Big Data Conference on the programme is the well-established Cloud Confex, which will see leading experts chronicle how and why cloud has moved from hype to mainstream. Also returning is the Digital Strategies Forum, which will examine how mobile, social networks, Big Data and emerging customer touch-points

95%

of last year’s exhibitors pledged to re-join this year’s proceedings.

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

A glimpse into some of the big players at GITEX 2013

Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) “This is HDS’ inaugural appearance at GITEX — everything we launch will be new. Over the course of the week, HDS will be focusing on storage trends, maximising the use of IT, and the importance of information management and availability. GITEX is an important way for HDS to engage with existing and potential customers in the Middle East. During the week, HDS looks forward to meeting with customers, decision makers and other technology organisations in the region. GITEX is an excellent platform to exchange information, ideas and trends we are witnessing.” Aaron White, General Manager, Middle East & Turkey, HDS Google “GITEX is an amazing place to meet most of our customers and prospects in a very short period of time. We hope to welcome visitors interested to know about the latest in cloud technologies, enterprise search, geospatial technologies, and also to understand how our products such as Chromebook are changing the way we use the Internet. We have seen GITEX evolve year over year, and we are excited that it is now the top event of its kind in the MEASA region. GITEX Technology Week 2013 will certainly be a busy week for us, as we seek to further educate the market and generally move the needle in the local ICT industry.” Abdel Wahed Bendaoua, Head of Enterprise, EMEA Emerging Markets, Google

are changing the way enterprises and brands engage with customers. As usual, mobility is likely to prove a big draw, and Mobile, Apps & Content World will connect key players and educate attendees on the latest industry developments through forums such as the increasingly popular Mobile App Debates. Further telecommunications insights can be gleaned at the TRA-endorsed GulfComms, where representatives and thought leaders will brainstorm the region’s communicatory future. GITEX 2013, which will run under the www.cnmeonline.com

theme “Lets Create, Disrupt and Re-imagine Together”, will also introduce the co-located GSMA Mobile 360 Series, a new regional conference series for executives in the mobile industry, as well as key regulatory and government representatives. In addition to this, GITEX will welcome InfoComm MEA for the third successive year. This event assembles the widest range of audio visual (AV) systems and technologies found in hospitality, retail, architecture, entertainment, broadcast, corporate IT, or government sectors in the region.

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FEATURE

Enterprise architecture

Architecting your fortune

With new technologies seemingly always on the horizon, data exploding, and multiple solutions required to support all the intricacies of business, keeping a hold over your IT is becoming increasingly complicated. Enterprise architecture (EA) tools have emerged to allow CIOs the complete infrastructure visibility they require.

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

www.cnmeonline.com

STRATEGIC IT INNOVATION PARTNER

SOLUTIONS WORLD

ew innovations have never arisen at a faster rate than today. As these trends continue to take companies by storm, EA has emerged as a vital practice to align these technologies with older systems, and to translate business strategy into ROI. Whilst catching on in the West, EA tools have yet to fully take off on a large scale in the Middle East. Forrester research found that CIOs currently spend 60 percent of their time as “chief maintenance officers”, meaning they have to devote several hours a day to making sure that all the IT infrastructure and applications are running smoothly. However, with many industry insiders envisioning a shift to an era where business units are more involved in deciding what their technology needs are and how to achieve them, CIOs are expected to have more time available to managing the innovation at their disposal.

Further research from Gartner has advised corporations to adopt a new style of EA called “emergent architecture”, which it says is necessary to respond to the growing complexity in markets, economies, networks and companies. “In today’s IT ecosystem, organisations are under pressure to become competitive, while maintaining profitability,” says Seyed Golkar, Director, Business Solutions, GBM. “Since IT serves as an enabler for the overall business, it is crucial for management to have visibility in this area. “From a cost perspective, especially for large organisations, the IT-related TCO is also critical because it has an impact over profitability. A company that has a clear view over its IT landscape — both assets and operations — is perfectly capable of deciding what needs to be kept under internal control www.cnmeonline.com

October 2013

Computer News Middle East

FEATURE

Enterprise architecture

“To select the right tool, organisations must understand the available tools’ capabilities and think through how they can be used in the EA programme. That means organisations must research the tools, find case studies of how they’ve provided value in a similar industry, and determine which features and functions would be of best use.” Stephen Fernandes, Assistant VP and Head of Middle East Operations, Cognizant

60%

of a CIO’s time is spent as “chief maintenance officer".

for strategic or tactical reasons, and what should be outsourced in order to optimise the TCO and maintain profitability.” Subsequently, businesses must rethink traditional ways of working and engaging with customers, employees and other stakeholders.. For any 21st-century business, speed and agility are key attributes. Organisations with a clear view of their IT take a more strategic and systematic approach to changes for greater competitive advantage, according to Stephen Fernandes, Assistant VP and Head of Middle East Operations, Cognizant. “These include developing more flexible business processes and technology infrastructures, and building stronger and fluid connections with internal and external customers,” he says. “A coherent view of EA guides organisations through their transformational journey, affording better focus on strategic use of emerging technologies and significantly reducing the time-to-market.” If everything works fine, and no proposed, planned, or ad-hoc changes disturb the status-quo, then CIOs don’t need a clear view of the architecture, says Peter Lakhegyi, GM, Atoll Technologies ME. But in any other case, he adds, they need an understanding of what builds up the company and how IT supports the business processes. “This information is vital to plan and successfully deploy any change.” Keeping discipline EA should be seen as a discipline and set of tools that helps an organisation better understand its business and IT, and address systemic redundancy, process gaps, technology gaps and other symptoms

Computer News Middle East

october 2013

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that generally result from misaligning business and IT architectures. As long as these gaps exist, Golkar says, the company’s overall performance is impacted, and this may lead, in the end, to wastage in technology investment and a lack of flexibility and competitiveness. Organisations that do not have a clear view of their EA can end up compromising their competitive edge, Fernandes adds. “Their inability to predict, plan and create the desired future of their business model can make it difficult for them to respond to emerging challenges and opportunities brought about by transformative forces.” However, Peter Lakhegyi, GM, Atoll Technologies ME, is keen to point at that EA tools do not “do magic by themselves”, adding that enterprises need to develop an “EA culture” to be successful. “Tools can, however, take it to the next level, but only on solid corporate cultural foundations,” he adds. The necessity of EA tools is therefore clear. However, despite big regional names like Ooredoo, DP World and SEHA invested in the technology — and indeed singing its praises — general uptake has remained slow. Whilst acknowledging that some clients in the region have already realised the potential of EA, Fernandes believes the key now is for the vendors to increase awareness of the big picture. “Clients are increasingly tapping our business consulting and strategic service offerings to define EA and implement roadmap services,” he says. Lakhegyi urges CIOs to not “sit in the ivory tower” and to always aim to deliver short- and longterm value to other departments. “Aim to achieve

FEATURE

Enterprise architecture

business outcomes and communicate results well,” he says.

Finding the tools Once an organisation has been sold on the benefits of EA, the next step is to find the right tools for them. When it comes to EA tools, the market offers two main categories: business intensive tools, which are more appealing to business people; and very technical ones, with strong competencies in terms of making conceptual models into something executable. In order to make decisions, Golkar says a CIO needs to clearly establish the EA focus and primary goals for his specific organisation. “Once this is achieved," he adds, "consulting will help assess the various tools, in terms of modeling capabilities, decision support, presentation layer, configurability, usability, frameworks and standards supported.” Fernandes agrees that the tool choice should be predicated on the organisation’s need and architectural complexity. Enterprise architects are challenged with numerous problems that are beyond the capability of regular office-productivity tools. “They need to manage a large number of artifacts, capture complex relationships between many elements across those artifacts, conduct gap analysis, impact analysis, scenario planning and modeling, and present information to stakeholders,” Fernandes says. “The tools should also integrate with project and portfolio management solutions for ensuring the best investment mix of projects to execute business strategy. “To select the right tool, organisations must understand the available tools’ capabilities and think through how they can be used in the EA programme. That means organisations must research the tools, find case studies of how they’ve provided value in a similar industry, and determine which features and functions would be of best use.” Some organisations may feel more inclined to opt for the industry-independent EA frameworks available, while others may go for the more ITdomain-specific options. Whatever they choose, they must keep in mind that EA must be defined in conjunction with their business strategy, and then placed in the overall business context. “A pragmatic approach is also recommended, based on incremental steps and accompanied by metrics, in order to measure the effectiveness of the 60

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october 2013

“In today’s IT ecosystem, organisations are under pressure to become competitive, while maintaining profitability. Since IT serves as an enabler for the overall business, it is crucial for management to have visibility in this area.”

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EA programme,” says Adela Cornescu, CEO, BPMWave. IT divisions should not see EA as a one-time initiative, she adds, but as an ongoing effort, and, for this to happen, an accurate governance programme is needed. Furthermore, organisations should consider the costs if a major project fails due to inappropriate architectural planning, or gets extended again and again for bad scoping. Or indeed the reputation loss if their systems are down in peak hours, or they fail to go to market with a new product before the competition. “Many times the direct financial losses on such are multiple times more than an EA tool. But again, an EA tool by itself is nothing — you need to have the down-to-earth EA practice, too,” Lakhegyi says. CIOs must be wary that investments in EA are more long-term in nature. Organisations must gather all information about the anticipated benefits of EA from the IT and business user perspective. Analysing the interrelationships between business and technology capabilities, and looking at the layers separately and together, will become increasingly important. “Even if this kind of analysis can be achieved manually, with great effort as a one-off project using simple Office tools, it will be impossible to maintain manual models in complex environments, and the value in the effort will be quickly lost as the information gets out of date,” Fernandes says. “An EA project can deliver a substantial return on investment in the longer term by making the organisation agile, fast and ready to embrace the changing market needs and trends. It enables more innovation and provides a strong technology infrastructure, increasing the reuse of existing system and system components, and reducing risks.”

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Network virtualisation

The virtual network At VMworld, VMware unveiled solutions that would virtualise networks to allow for fully virtualised infrastructures. But what is this new breed of network virtualisation all about? And is the network really a barrier to virtualised flexibility, as VMware claimed?

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that will ship later this year. NSX hasn’t yet been priced out publicly by VMware, but some customers testing it are said to be Citi, eBay and GE Appliances. Casado said NSX introduces a “new software layer” associated with network virtualisation to allow enterprise managers to quickly set up and automate network control and security policy in VMware-centric data centres, including distributed firewalling, in order to “create fairly complex networks on fairly static hardware”. He said NSX has no impact on routers or switches from vendors such as Cisco or Juniper. “The physical network still stays around,” he told reporters, but through NSX, VMware introduces a security policy oriented toward applications. VMware customers will want to adopt NSX because it will support instantaneous Layer 2 and 3 configuration of networks, Casado said during a press conference at the annual VMworld. “If the hurdle is the network, bringing it up in seven to 49 days, we’ll reduce it to zero,” he said. The argument for using NSX, when it’s available by the end of the year, will be “agility”. In a video shown to thousands of attendees as NSX was introduced, Sri Shivananda, eBay’s vice president at platform, infrastructure and engineering systems, said using NSX

“If the hurdle is the network, bringing it up in seven to 49 days, we’ll reduce it to zero. The argument for using NSX, when it’s available by the end of the year, will be agility.”

FEATURE

“What ESX was to server virtualisation, NSX is to network virtualisation.” Pat Gelsinger, CEO, VMware

Using network virtualisation helped eBay simplify management of

3,000 virtual machines.

virtualisation helped simplify infrastructure management of 3,000 virtual machines. But some analysts thought that VMware was downplaying how the NSX network virtualisation platform will compete against what Cisco is doing in its Open Network Environment (ONE) effort. “VMware and Cisco are battling,” said Gartner analysts Neil MacDonald at the time, adding VMware is “downplaying the true competition.” The arrival of NSX by the end of the year may ignite strong debate in the enterprise about adoption of software-defined networks, and the corporate VMware deployment team may find itself arguing with the Cisco networking group there on this topic. “The Cisco people will fight this,” said MacDonald. It may well be that smallto mid-sized companies will wonder why they need NSX software-defined networking at all. Server virtualisation has become widespread in the enterprise, and is gaining seriously traction in the Middle East. VMware is now holding out a path toward network virtualisation and softwaredefined networks. But MacDonald said that, because there’s no public pricing yet for NSX, it’s uncertain what the total cost of ownership of adopting VMware’s network virtualisation will be. MacDonald added that VMware, which is seeing a levelling out of server virtualisation adoption, appears to be pushing forward into network virtualisation as a means to generate new revenue growth. But the era of SDN is just beginning and it may take several years for any of this to gain wide-scale acceptance. To be sure, VMware and Cisco are cooperating

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October 2013

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Network virtualisation

on a number of technical areas associated with new VMware products, such as the early version of the VMware vSAN software-defined storage product — a “virtual SAN” that VMware also took the wraps off at VMworld 2013. VMware storage product manager Alex Jauch spoke at the VMworld conference session with Cisco product managers Roger Barlow and Kishan Ramaswamy to explain how vSAN can work on top of Cisco’s UCS products, including the Cisco ISR G2 and the UCS E-Series blades, to enable redundancy in storage clusters across the network. The vSAN offering is currently available free with VMware’s updated vSphere 5.5, also announced at the event, and customers can register to get involved in the vSAN beta. Raghu Raghuram, Executive Vice President for Cloud Infrastructure and Management, VMware, said in unveiling the company’s software-defined data centre strategy that VMware is focused on creating the path that VMware’s many enterprise customers can use to reliably transition into public and hybrid cloud deployments. To that end, VMware is opening new data centres in Santa Clara, Dallas and Sterling, in addition to its Las Vegas data centre for its vCloud Hybrid Service, while making vCHS generally available. In the future, VMware also expects to offer “disaster recovery as a service.” In addition, data centre and services provider Savvis is also supporting this VMware technology model in its Chicago and New York data centres. Taking on security with network virtualisation VMware’s NSX will also have a key security tool for deploying security software and services to VMware-based virtual machines, the vendor announced at VMworld. NSX Service Composer is a tool that will let administrators with responsibilities for VMwarebased networks based on NSX set up a centralised way to deploy anti-malware, vulnerability management, firewall, data-loss prevention and intrusion detection and prevention (IDS/IPS) from third-party vendors. These vendors have to support specific NSX APIs, and be officially accepted into the VMware

FEATURE

“NSX introduces a new software layer associated with network virtualisation to allow enterprise managers to quickly set up and automate network control and security policies in VMware-centric data centres.” ecosphere. Security vendors already active in NSX include Rapid7, McAfee, Symantec, Trend Micro, and Palo Alto Networks. But several more are at work to support NSX, including Fortinet and Check Point. VMware said the basic idea is to first “register” each security vendor’s NSX-supporting product with NSX Service Composer in what is supposed to be a simple process that basically makes NSX Service Composer the central authorisation point for decisions about what kind of security protection, such as anti-malware or IPS, will be applied to each NSX-based VM workload or cluster. This centralisation of security software and services will also allow the administrator to automate how each will be provisioned, VMware said. The demonstration at VMworld sought to show how Symantec anti-malware would be deployed on just one virtual machine or many, according to specific security policies. For VMware customers that already use the security known as vShield in current VMware products, it’s expected that NSX Service Composer will be able to accept and apply that rules base.

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October 2013

Computer News Middle East

FEATURE

Public cloud

Going public Public cloud continues to progress leaps and bounds, with all avenues pointing to mass adoption over the coming five years. Whilst the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Google continue to dominate the global market, regional offerings continue to gain momentum in the Middle East. But can Middle East CIOs overcome security concerns? CNME investigates.

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october 2013

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Strategic Technology Partner

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o technology has bulldozed its way onto the global scene and promised to revolutionise enterprise IT as much as cloud computing. Every CIO in the world has thought about it in one way or another, with many large organisations dabbling in the technology with regards to private or hybrid models, often with applications like email hosted on the cloud, whilst the more critical data remains in-house. Public cloud, however, is a completely different kettle of fish. Whilst the cost and efficiency benefits are clear, issues surrounding security and data privacy have largely held back adoption to date. Despite this, Gartner has predicted that 30 percent of IT companies from the Global 1000 organisations will integrate, aggregate and customise two or more cloud services for internal and external users by 2014, up from the current five percent. Closer to home, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are leading the trend with the adoption anticipated to grow up to 43 percent in the Saudi market and 40 percent in the UAE in 2013. According to Rajesh Abraham, Director, Product Development, eHDF, a local cloud-service provider, the trust concerns around public cloud can be attributed to the lack of understanding around the technology. However, he believes all these concerns can be addressed by implementing proper security controls and mechanisms.

Jatin Sahni, VP, Large Enterprise and Business Solutions, du, which also offers cloud services, says the uptake of the technology has been led by SMEs, followed by mid-marked and large enterprise. “Large enterprises are critically looking at public cloud computing services for services such as test labs, migration tests, and proof-ofconcepts, as well as their non-critical IT application requirements,” he says. “While organisations such as IDC are looking at an 18 percentage CAGR growth of public cloud services, we are seeing a rapid increase in the uptake of cloud services from SMEs and midmarket organisations.” Leading the offerings from the global players in the Middle East is Microsoft, which naturally claims that public cloud services will be the most popular cloud computing model for the foreseeable future. Over 81 percent of its enterprise customers in the Gulf region have already implemented a project on the cloud, which it touts as reducing the costs of purchasing and maintaining hardware. “In a nutshell, we have seen definite interest and willingness to virtualise from our customers across the region,” says Goksel Topbas, Server and Tools Business Group Lead, Microsoft Gulf. They do sometimes receive security and privacy questions with regards to data protection, Topbas admits, adding that they understand that unless they are responsive to customers’ and regulators’ questions about data protection in public clouds, they will not earn the necessary trust. Indeed, these concerns are more prevalent in the government and financial services sectors, where

81%

of Microsoft’s enterprise customers in the Gulf have already implemented a project on the cloud.

“While organisations such as IDC are looking at an 18 percentage CAGR growth of public cloud services, we are seeing a rapid increase in the uptake of cloud services from SMEs and midmarket organisations.” Jatin Sahni, VP, Large Enterprise and Business Solutions, du

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October 2013

Computer News Middle East

FEATURE

Public cloud

“They prefer having their data in-house or at a third-party data centre located within the same country where they have easy accessibility to their data. Keeping data locally would also make it easy to conduct things like periodic audits. With cyber-crime on the rise, it is probably good to keep the data within the region as it allows the enterprises to remain in control of it.” Rajesh Abraham, Director, Product Development, eHDF

CIOs feel pressured to stay in full control of their organisation’s data in order to adhere to the various regulatory requirements. “They prefer having their data in-house or at a third-party data centre located within the same country where they have easy accessibility to their data,” Abraham says. “Keeping data locally would also make it easy to conduct things like periodic audits. “With cyber-crime on the rise, it is probably good to keep the data within the region as it allows the enterprises to remain in control of it.” Currently, key government agencies are working to address these concerns, but no specific laws are in place at the moment. Generic compliances such as PCI, SAS70, ISO and HIPPA provide an umbrella assurance for customers, but these standards are international.

“Even if publiccloud providers are complying with security and operational standards, they are bound by national security laws from where they operate, as well as the laws that apply to where they are incorporated.” 70

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october 2013

“The key is the hosting of localised incountry instances of cloud to assure customers of data privacy and concerns relating to foreign governments getting access to their data,” Sahni says. “Offline capability remains a challenge, however, and technologies are fast-changing to remove this barrier as well.” Much of the problem to date has been confusion around the relevant laws and standards, especially when different locations are involved in the process. “Even if public-cloud providers are complying with security and operational standards, they are bound by national security laws from where they operate, as well as the laws that apply to where they are incorporated, which can sometimes override corporate security policies,” says Pappu R. Rao, Technical Support Services Director, GBM. As more data moves to the cloud, this uncertainty about legal and regulatory obligations related to that data could limit the growth of cloud computing, Topbas confirms. He believes the technology industry has an important responsibility to pursue initiatives that improve the privacy and security of cloud computing. The private sector, however, cannot build confidence in the cloud alone. A cooperative effort from all cloud stakeholders, including governments, is necessary. “Elements of a strong legal and regulatory framework for cloud computing already exist, but many aspects of this framework were designed for earlier technologies and leave important gaps in protection,” Topbas says. “Ultimately, the technology industry, users of cloud services, and governments must agree on certain core cloud privacy practices that span across industries and are harmonised across borders.

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The MENA market for public-cloud services is predicted to grow this year by

15.3%

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Public cloud

20%

“Elements of a strong legal and regulatory framework for cloud computing already exist, but many aspects of this framework were designed for earlier technologies and leave important gaps in protection. Ultimately, the technology industry, users of cloud services, and governments must agree on certain core cloud privacy practices that span across industries and are harmonised across borders.”

of all cloud services will be consumed via internal or external cloud service brokerages, rather than directly, by 2015.

Goksel Topbas, Server and Tools Business Group Lead, Microsoft Gulf

“Such agreements will provide greater clarity and predictability for individuals, customers, and cloud providers.”

Pulling the anchor However, despite these anchors currently holding back adoption, the fact remains that the gradual transition is still taking place. Rao attributes a lack of choice for Middle East CIOs as further contributing to the slow uptake, but with more providers looking to launch public-cloud offerings which allow data to be kept within the region, regional adoption is likely to increase considerably. Whilst eHDF and Injazat look to take a lead in this space, the UAE’s two telcos, Etisalat and du, already have an end-to-end portfolio of cloud services covering various managed services, complimented by relevant security solutions. Both telcos look to further add to these offerings, which are hosted at local data centres backed by leading certifications and SLAs.

“With availability of quality costeffective broadband, credible players offering secure, reliable products backed by SLAs, concerns and barriers are being peeled away one by one.”

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october 2013

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Topbas calls the technology a “complete game changer” and believes it is only a matter of time before the hype translates in increased uptake of services across the region. Gartner forecasts the market for public-cloud services will reach $378.5 million in the Middle East and North Africa this year, a growth of 15.3 percent. And whilst IDC’s projection that spending on public IT cloud services will reach $47.4 billion in 2013, and $107 billion in 2017, is a global figure, the growth is expected to be suitably reflected in the Middle East market. Furthermore, according to another report by Gartner, by 2015, at least 20 percent of all cloud services will be consumed via internal or external cloud service brokerages, rather than directly, up from less than 5 percent today globally. “With availability of quality cost-effective broadband, credible players offering secure and reliable products backed by SLAs, concerns and barriers are being peeled away one by one,” Sahni says. “Providers now offer a greater level of control of the cloud instance through informative portals and alerts, security certifications, and back-to-back SLAs to assuage some of the key concerns of customers around cloud. The situation can further improve in future” As the public cloud continues to demonstrate its business benefits, it has been adopted in various ways across the region and globally, Topbas adds. “We foresee this trend of virtualisation continuing to increase — according to recent research, over 70 percent of CIOs will embrace a cloud-first strategy in 2016.”

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Big Data security

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Big data: Big threat? With businesses now gleaning competitive advantages through Big Data and analytics, everyone wants to get their hands on as much data in some cases, the security The as risepossible. of cloudHowever, is providing a implications are often overlooked. Do businesses good fit for disaster recovery, but now needchanging to adjust the theirway security strategies if is it ultimately theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to get serious organisations should approach it?about Big Data? CNME broaches DR in the cloud era.

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Strategic IT BYOD Partner

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ollecting more and more unstructured data will open up another whole degree of attractiveness and may well lead to attackers seeing value in a form not previously recognised by the organisation that owns the data.” So says Sean Newman, Field Product Manager, EMEA, Sourcefire. For more than a year, Middle Eastern businesses have been told that they can glean valuable business insight from collecting and analysing unstructured data. However, in a rush to collect all of this data, some firms haven’t yet thought about the security implications that this may have for their networks. According to Irfan Verjee, Senior Manager, Cisco Consulting Services, Emerging Markets, there are big questions surrounding the security and privacy of the unstructured data the organisations are clamouring to get a hold of. This, coupled with employees using free cloud services such as Dropbox to store and share files, has created an environment where malicious files could easily find a way into a corporate network.

“As we move into an information-driven global economy, with over 50 billion devices connected by 2020, networks must be able to rapidly respond to attacks while maintaining availability and reliability. Rather than succumb, networks must be able to absorb attacks and remain operational, much in the same way the human immune system functions in the presence of infections,” he explains. According to Cisco’s recent 2013 Annual Security Report in the Middle East and Africa, the highest concentration of online security threats come from legitimate destintations visited by mass audiences, such as major search engines, retail sites and social networks. And given that these sorts of destinations are where social analytics and Big Data programmes are getting their data from, this could present a real problem for the enterprise interested in Big Data, Irfan says. The risks could be avoided, however, as long as there are clear policies on what sort of data is collected and retained. Chet Wisniewski, Senior Security Advisor, Sophos, says that, all too often, marketing and sales teams are holding onto useless data that could ultimately do more harm than good.

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Big Data security

FEATURE

“The consolidation of data such as security metadata, log files, and customer information into single, large-scale storage silos is a frightening proposition.” Nicolai Solling, Director of Technology Services, Help AG

“So many times you talk with an organisation, and their marketing or sales teams are collecting enormous amounts of personally identifiable information on the off chance it might come in handy in the future. Organisations should have clear policies on what type of data their departments are allowed to gather, how it must be stored and secured and for how long they should keep the information before it is securely erased,” he explains. That said, according to Sudheer Subramanian, Senior IT Solutions Manager, Huawei Enterprise Middle East, there isn’t actually that much risk associated with simply collecting lots of data. He says that the real risks come when businesses try to use that data without screening it properly first. “We believe that having an increased volume of collected data does not necessarily have to result in higher levels of data vulnerability. If the right technology framework is in place, organisations can stay protected regardless of how much data they are collecting,” he explains. “One of the concerns we see today is in regards to the actual use of data, with some organisations putting themselves at risk by not adequately screening the collected data prior to use in other parts of the business. Examining the

source of third-party data is equally important as different entities have their own level of security protection. In the context of Big Data, taking the time to make such assessments can be challenging as organisations acquire increasing amounts of information from an expanding list of sources.” Laurence James, Products, Solutions and Alliances Marketing Manager, NetApp, echoes Subramanian’s point about examinig data before it gets put into use: “The security analysis process must take account of legal, compliance and regulation requirements as the implications of deriving new information from multiple data sources can result in the unexpected sensitivities that were not considered at the outset,” he says. Most organisations dabbling in Big Data do consider the source of the data before putting it to use. Indeed, for most security experts in the Middle East, the collection of data isn’t the biggest issue. Instead, they say that companies could be at greater risk once they have accumulated these vast libraries of data, as such large data stores make for the perfect cyber-criminal target. “The consolidation of data such as security metadata, log files, and customer information into single, large-scale storage silos is a frightening

“As we move into an information-driven global economy, networks must be able to rapidly respond to attacks while maintaining availability and reliability.” Irfan Verjee, Senior Manager, Cisco Consulting Services, Emerging Markets

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Big Data security

proposition. While organistions are doing this in order that they may have a single data store that can then be subjected to analysis, what they are unknowingly doing is creating a prime target for attackers,” says Nicolai Solling, Director of Technology Services, Help AG. “Organisations without sufficient in-house processing capabilities and skills may even rely on third-party providers that offer analytics services. It is only logical that attackers will focus their efforts on targeting these providers.” Atif Kureishy, Big Data Spokesperson, Booz Allen Hamilton, shares these concerns. He also explains that companies without the propery security tools in place to protect such large amounts of data may be at risk not just from cyber-criminals, but from competitors or even law-enforcement agencies. “Without the proper data-level security, businesses run the risk of exposing sensitive information to competitors or violating regulatory and compliance acts associated with information protection (e.g. PII). Without the proper fine-grained security controls in place, adversaries may gain access to an organisation’s Big Data environment, then can easily move laterally across the various data sets, taking inventory without ever needing to escalate their privileges. Having a robust security architecture that protects more than just the perimeter is necessary to protect against these targeted attacks,” he says. When it comes to protecting the data you’ve already accumulated, however, the tables are somewhat turned. According to Sophos’ Wisniewski, it’s the structured data that will act as the biggest lure to cyber-criminals, as this is the data that will be most use to them. “In my experience, structured data is more likely to be attacked, while unstructured data is more likely to contain sensitive information that no-one was aware was buried in there. They both present risks, but with limited time and money, most organisations should

“If the right technology framework is in place, organisations can stay protected regardless of how much data they are collecting.” Sudheer Subramanian, Senior IT Solutions Manager, Huawei Enterprise Middle East

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october 2013

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“In the current scenario, it seems that unstructured data poses a bigger threat than structured data due to the complexity in automating access control processes.” Jatin Sahni , VP, Large Enterprise and Business Solutions Marketing, du

focus on the known sensitive information first,” he says. Jatin Sahni, VP, Large Enterprise and Business Solutions Marketing, du, however, disagrees. He claims that, because it is so difficult to limit internal access to unstructured data — due to the very nature of unstructured data — this is the part of the Big Data pie that will pose the greatest risks for organisations. “Traditionally, companies have struggled with manually enforcing authorisation protocols and accountability in their efforts to mitigate threats. In the current scenario, however, it seems that unstructured data poses a bigger threat than structured data, due to the complexity in automating access control processes, even though most companies keep spending considerable sums on data storage systems. Without adequate safeguards in place, unstructured data pose a threat of being misused within an organisation,” he says. Help AG’s Solling takes a similar stance. He believes that it is logical to assume that, the more information an organisation has, the larger the risk associated with that information will be. “Research firms IDC, Forrester and Gartner are all in agreement that unstructured data already accounts for at least 80 percent of all enterprise data. Gartner further predicts that data will grow by 800 percent over the next five years, with 80 percent of that growth coming from unstructured sources, such as emails, texts, pictures, log data, social media data and XML files. Unless properly managed, organisations can stand to suffer significant impact if this is the target of a data breach,” he says. There are a number of tools available to organisations wishing to secure their Big Data. Huawei’s Subramanian suggests that traditional software tools and virus-scanners make up the front line in protecting digital assets, but on the organisational level, security solutions become much more niche. Whatever an organisation chooses to go for, though, there’s no doubting that the security implications of Big Data need to be considered.

FEATURE

SI Hall of Fame

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the time of the year where CNME appreciates the work of SIs in the Middle East by inducting the top achievers into its Hall of Fame. We also take a look at the ones to watch in the coming year.

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integration advisor THE INDUCTEES Almoayyed Computers

Seven Seas Computers

After featuring as a ‘one to watch’ last year, Almoayyed Computers makes the leap into the Hall of Fame for its contribution to the Bahraini market. Operating within Almoayyed International Group (AIG), the company is the leading systems, solutions and technical services company in the Kingdom. The SI’s well-defined application, infrastructure and services portfolio caters to a variety of industries and business sectors, including government, financial institutions, educational institutions, real estate companies, and retailers. As well as systems integration, Almoayyed’s core competencies lie in IT infrastructure deployment, consulting, and outsourcing and support services. Some of its prominent solutions offerings include ERP, CRM, comprehensive banking, business intelligence(BI), retail point-of-sale, IP telephony, data centre, business process outsourcing (BPO), property management, and supply chain management. Its corporate philosophy is to apply the industry best practices to effectively address its client challenges by leveraging the latest in technology and developing integrated solutions that work specifically to address such challenges.

Seven Seas is a leading systems integrator and an ICT solution provider in the UAE. It has been an ISO 9001:2008 certified company since 1983 and delivers technology solutions and services in enterprise compute, data networking and security, voice and telephony, Microsoft licensing and solutions, value-added services, business continuity and disaster recovery, data centres, audio visual, access control, CCTV, video conferencing, and, above all, outsourcing and managed services. With over 300 trained and certified professionals, Seven Seas Computers delivers cost-effective and efficient design, project implementations and maintenance contracts across all industry verticals. It partners with leading technology vendors including HP, IBM, DELL, Microsoft, CA, CISCO, CITRIX, Websense, Stonesoft, RSA, Symantec, MessageLabs, Avaya, Mitel, Legrand, Brand Rex, Xerox, among others. Seven Seas’ own strategic intellectual property includes its flagship application, Momentohs, an innovative and integrated modular enterprise software for the hospitality industry. Its international projects group has successful references across the Middle East, as well as Eastern and Central Africa.

Alpha Data Alpha Data is one of the largest multi-disciplined systems integrators in UAE. Founded in 1981, Alpha Data has grown from two employees to a 700-strong workforce building ICT infrastructure solutions for thousands of organisations. Alpha Data works with its clients through a combination of deeplevel business and technical expertise, an extensive knowledge of today’s technologies, and a mature, highly capable delivery and services infrastructure. Alpha Data’s offerings help its customers improve processes, reduce data centre and infrastructure costs, manage risk and governance and enhance top-line revenue. Its business approach is based on establishing long-term partnerships that encourage success through mutual benefit. Alpha Data has established strong industry ties, with the highest level of accreditation achieved with HP, Microsoft, Avaya, Cisco, Belden and Juniper in addition to an eco-system of complementary vendors. This enables Alpha Data to deliver a breadth of best-of-breed solutions to its customers through its teams of pre-sales, post sales, project implementation and support experts.

CNS One of the region’s leading systems integration, IT solutions provider and managed services companies, CNS offers a host of turnkey IT solutions supported by a collaborative network of IT professionals and services to help its clients improve IT processes, optimise and reduce data centre and infrastructure costs. Founded in 1987 by the Ghobash Trading and Investment Group, CNS has steadily built a reputation for delivering quality, professional services alongside an innovative, enterprising approach. Its revolutionary new methods of defining and deploying technologies have been purposefully designed to align with the end user’s needs, while remaining progressive and dynamic in every sense. CNS currently has offices in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Muscat, as well as strategic partnerships with leading IT brands and best-of-breed OEMs across the region. Its offerings are increasingly focusing on optimisation through innovation, and keeps itself updated by monitoring trends and partnering with OEMs that are ahead of the development curve.

STME STME has established strategic partnerships with a broad range of IT system manufacturers, to enable the delivery of the best-of-breed solutions of any scale or complexity. Operating in 10 countries and from 14 offices around the region, STME has come to be known as a reliable partner by providers as well as the clients. Since 1982, STME has been built on a solid foundation of storage provision to provide turnkey integrated system solutions for some of the Middle East’s most important business-critical data. Acknowledged as the region’s premier end-to-end enterprise IT solutions provider, STME delivers unparalleled service through a team of highly qualified solution design specialists. STME has pioneered the implementation of groundbreaking IT infrastructure solutions, often being the first in the market to do so. It has introduced many cuttingedge technologies to the Middle East market and built strategic partnerships with other key players. As technology evolves, STME keeps abreast of ongoing innovations to ensure that its solutions employ the most advanced technology available.

Last year’s inductees

Al Rostamani Communications Emitac Enterprise Solutions EMW ME

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FEATURE

SI Hall of Fame

ONES TO WATCH

help AG

Al-Futtaim Technologies

Since its foundation in 2004, help AG has achieved an average 80 percent year-on-year growth rate, and 2012 was not an exception to this. It is now a $20-million company, which is commendable given that its focus is only on IT security and not on other forms of IT solutions. Last year, it also managed to double its staff strength and most of its new recruitments were for technical positions. In the last 12 months, help AG established an office in Qatar in 2011 and saw excellent revenue growth. It won 24 customers in Qatar alone, from both the government and private sectors, including Qatar National Bank, MOFA, Qatar Exchange, MOI, Qatar University and ictQatat. It completed the biggest data loss prevention (DLP) and desktop encryption project in the region for Symantec with over 8,500 users, closed a $500,000 project for a university in Qatar, which was one of the major wins for Riverbed in 2012, and implemented a fully fledged application delivery control (ADC) solution for one of the largest airlines in the world.

Al-Futtaim Technologies, one of the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading system integrators, is part of the Al-Futtaim Group. Founded over 70 years ago, the Al-Futtaim Group is a respected conglomerate in the Lower Gulf Region and comprises more than 40 companies â&#x20AC;&#x201D; all bearing the Al-Futtaim name. Al-Futtaim Technologies provides complete business solutions for large, medium and small customers. These include networking solutions, IP telephony, infrastructure, contact centre solutions, business applications, ELV systems, professional audio visual and broadcasting solutions, and managed services. The established success of Al-Futtaim Technologies has been largely attributed to its ability to understand customer business needs and provide workable business solutions through effective design and implementation. This has resulted in an impressive customer base where it has delivered a set of practical executable plans to reduce operating cost and free up resources for new business initiatives.

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FEATURE

SI Hall of Fame

Visionaire

Intertec Systems

Visionaire has successfully productised its more than 18 years of technology deployment and integration experience into a business model called ‘technomics’ — a proven single-integrated-system (SIS) approach. This demonstrated integration model provides organisations the ability to achieve perpetuity in transformational ICT by focusing on customer and business needs to gain market share and meet revenue objectives, rather than succumbing to single vendor-centred strategies and rely on vendor rebates and end-of-year handouts. Its mission is to work for the customer's benefit rather than over-engineer the customers’ trust and make wasteful or vendor lock-in proposals. “Our strategic goal is to establish Visionaire as the ICT partner of choice for customers in education, hospitality, enterprise and government,” says Aneeta Gupta, President and CEO, Visionaire. “As we pursue our goal, we shall continue to seek and adopt innovative technologies and services that will transform the organisations of today into the organisations of tomorrow. “Cloud computing, BYOD, telepresence, streaming video, immersive collaboration and next-generation services are just a few of the concepts, solutions and services that Visionaire is working on today to enable its customers to work more effectively and profitably tomorrow.”

Established in 1991, Intertec is a leading IT systems integrator and solution provider. The company over the years enjoys strong market credibility with its customers, employees and partners. It has 20-plus high-accreditation alliances with industry leaders, and annually invests in R&D, quality and capability development. The latter has resulted in products such as ERP, hospitality management, remittance management and SCM being in the market with over 150 references. Intertec has achieved 30 percent growth over the last 12 months and has moved to its 23rd year of performance. “The next 12 months are very critical due to current market dynamics,” says Naresh Kothari, Managing Director, Intertec Systems. “We plan to develop market segmentation deeper, and create consulting practice around the solutions Intertec wants to take to market. “We will also develop two to three IPRs in niche areas, which will help customers manage and analyse their business better, and increase revenue or decrease cost. The objective is to grow by 50 percent year on year.”

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FEATURE

The mobile spectrum

The state of

spectrum With news of Middle Eastern telecoms regulators unlocking additional radio spectrum sparse, it could be said that the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s telecoms spectrums are close to their peak speeds and capacities. And the issue becomes more pressing as the number of mobile broadband subscribers continues to skyrocket.

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strategic telecom partner

telecoms WORLD

TE, we are increasingly told, is central to the regional operators’ growth strategies. Indeed, some go as far as to say that the widespread adoption of super-fast mobile broadband is central to the overall growth prospects of the region. . However, while every operator wants to be able to offer high-speed mobile broadband to all of its customers, the Middle East is still suffering from a lack of spectrum. According to Abhinav Purohit, Senior Telecom Analyst, Middle East, Africa and Turkey, IDC, the problem has caused no end of

hinderence to the operators’ LTE-related plans. That being said, operators are finding ways around the issue. “While additional spectrum remains elusive, operators have found others ways to support their LTE ambitions. One of the most popular and flexible approaches for such LTE launches is spectrum refarming. Spectrum refarming relates to re-using existing 3G spectrum licences for launching new technologies such as LTE. The costs associated with this approach are significantly lower than acquiring new LTE spectrum licenses,” Purohit recently wrote in a blog post on the subject. “By adopting this approach, operators free up a part of their spectrum (usually to the tune of about 30 percent) and use it to support LTE services.” The Middle East’s operators have cottoned on quick to the prospects that refarming can offer. In the UAE, the country’s two operators, Etisalat and du, have both refarmed part of their spectrums for LTE. Etisalat, for example, launched its FDD-LTE (frequency-division duplexing) network in 2011 using the 2.6 GHz spectrum, according to Purohit, who added that the operator will next year begin refarming its 1.8 GHz spectrum to ensure better LTE coverage for customers. Likewise, in June 2012, du announced the launch of its own FDD-LTE network www.cnmeonline.com

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FEATURE

The mobile spectrum

on the refarmed 1.8 GHz spectrum. In Saudi Arabia, possibly the regions biggest growth area for mobile, the three operators have gone down similar routes, according to Purohit. “The LTE networks of STC and Mobily, which operate on the 2.3 GHz and 2.6 GHz spectrum bands, respectively, are based on the time-division duplexing (TDD) version of LTE (TD-LTE). The third operator, Zain, operates a FDD version of LTE in the 1.8 GHz spectrum band. All three are refarming existing spectrum for their rollouts,” he wrote. That said, refarming hasn’t been the option of choice for other Middle Eastern operators. In September 2013, Bahrain’s industry regulator was forced to award more radio spectrum for LTE networks to the Kingdom’s three mobile operators, after scrapping an auction that could have led to even more competition in the crowded communications sector. The three operators — Batelco, Zain and Viva Bahrain — had all announced that they would launch LTE services this year, but analysts described the announcements as largely symbolic, simply because of spectrum capacity constraints. The three operators could have refarmed parts

“The Middle East region has already witnessed a wave of spectrum refarming. In KSA, all three mobile operators launched LTE services in September 2011. Within the UAE, Etisalat launched its FDD-LTE network in December 2011.”

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of their existing spectrums. However, this would have come at the detriment of their other services, such as 3G. In the case of the UAE and Saudi, the operators were able to refarm without affecting their other services. “The key to an efficient refarming of the 1.8 GHz band for LTE is to ensure that the quality of experience for 3G subscribers is not diminished. The main concern with refarming is that operators find it challenging to clear enough spectrum to efficiently deploy LTE while maintaining adequate capacity in the remaining spectrum to support non-LTE traffic,” explained Purohit. For those with established mobile infrastructures — the operators who can comfortably refarm spectrum without affecting their other services — the trend seems to be going towards making LTE available at the lower end. In the UAE, while LTE was first available on the 2.6 GHz spectrum, the 1.8 GHz spectrum has been taken on as the new standard. “Launching LTE on the refarmed 1.8 GHz band is very advantageous for operators. As this spectrum is usually reserved for 3G services, large chunks of this spectrum are easily available. Operators can make use of this available spectrum to offer LTE and therefore enhance the revenue potential of their spectrum (as LTE services are usually more expensive than 3G services),” wrote Purohit. Regulators, too, are looking to expand the reach of mobile broadband. Earlier in 2013, the UAE’s TRA decided to allocate the 700 MHz and 800 MHz (the digital divided) spectrum bands

FEATURE

The mobile spectrum

to mobile, making it easier for mobile broadband penetration. With this move, the TRA has gone about maximising “spectrum harmonistation”, which, according to the GSMA, a body that represents the interests of mobile operators, is a significant step forward for the Middle East. “Combining the 800 MHz band plan for Europe, Middle East and Africa with the lower portion of the Asia Pacific (APT) 700MHz band is a significant step forward. Spectrum harmonisation delivers multiple advantages, including generating much-needed economies of scale, facilitating near-global roaming and limiting interference along borders. This will ultimately provide a broader choice of devices and more affordable mobile broadband services to the citizens of the UAE and across the Arab States,” said Tom Phillips, Chief Government and Regulatory Affairs Officer, GSMA, in a statement that came as a response to the TRA’s move. It’s little wonder that both governments and operators want to capitalise on the prospects of mobile broadband. According to the GSMA, the mobile broadband market in the Arab States is set to

“While additional spectrum remains elusive, the Middle East’s operators have found other ways to support their LTE ambitions.”

142m

The number of mobile broadband connections expected in the Arab States market by 2017.

increase by 255 percent to 142 million connections by 2017. This could potentially generate $108 billion in GDP between 2015 and 2025. Whether or not these new lower bands will be refarmed for LTE remains to be seen. In Europe, however, there is growing pressure for these lower bands to be made available for mobile as LTE demand continues to rise. It stands to reason that the same trends will continue in the Middle East. Indeed, in some areas, where mobile infrastructure is growing at a faster rate than fixed-line infrastructure, there will be enormous pressure to open up as much lowerband spectrum for mobile as possible. What’s more, making the 700 MHz and 800 MHz bands available for LTE would no doubt please roaming customers. In Europe, operators have traditionally been assigned the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz bands for LTE, while in the US and Canada, operators have been using the 700 MHz and 2.1 GHz bands. Given that the Middle East frequently hosts travellers from both regions, it would make sense that its operators accommodate their LTE needs. The UAE is leading the way in making more mobile spectrum available, then. However, the rest of the Middle East is still struggling with the problem of accommodating LTE growth with the spectrum already available. According to Purohit, refarming will play a definitive role in LTE growth across the region in recent years, so it is encouraging to see operators already making use of the technique. “As LTE services gain further momentum, more and more subscribers will upgrade from non-LTE to LTE connections. Refarming has emerged as a key solution to help achieve this LTE migration in a network-efficient manner that reduces not just the overall investment required, but also the speed of the LTE rollouts themselves,” he concluded.

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Face to face Kevin Kennedy

Kevin Kennedy, President and CEO, Avaya

Riding the wave W As part of a round-the-world trip to various markets, Kevin Kennedy, President and CEO, Avaya, visited Dubai to see how the company can help the Middle East ride the next big waves of innovation. CNME goes one-onone with the CEO to see how he found meeting some of Avaya’s biggest regional customers.

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ould you say that customers from this region are quite demanding? I do. First, they have very specific initiatives, and secondly, they want to be respected for having made investments and created outcomes that are recognised to be the best. It’s not every day that you have a customer who just says, “Please bring me more ideas.” That’s an open door for great conversation. People are looking for more collaboration October 2013

Computer News Middle East

Face to face Kevin Kennedy

in development resources or ways that we can show people what we have so we can figure out how to support some of the e-government initiatives and such. But, in the end, all of those conversations help absorb our new technologies. I think the visit allowed me to hear what was important to the ministers and the leaders here. It allows us to figure out how we can align with their initiatives, and if we do it right, we’ll see the benefit of technology being absorbed that isn’t being absorbed elsewhere.

What kinds of improvements can Avaya make in this region, and what improvements can end users over here make? I think most of the conversations we had were about expanding the services that are offered either to the public or employees, and making them more reliable. In no case was there a situation where we were reflecting upon what’s not working. I think these conversations were all reflections upon things that have yet to be done and probably not implemented in other places in the world. Have you seen any mind-blowing implementations over the course of your visit? We saw some surveillance operations that were brilliant, and the scale is brilliant. Yeah, I’ve seen some things that I’ll remember when I go home. You previously highlighted surveillance as a big growing point over here. What do you attribute that growth to? One is new infrastructure — airports everywhere in the world are putting cameras all over. Two is that people want to manage risk, and so in the hospitality sector, and in banks, you see increasing amounts of cameras. And it’s just the security of nations. I think it’s a growing market. For us, it’s the realisation that, today, those networks have been separate, those networks tend not to be on IP-based networks, and so for us to be able to handle that kind of traffic simply, scale it quickly 94

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and actually move that traffic onto an IP network, that’s a new market for us.

In your short time here, what kind of appetite have you seen for cloud in the Middle East? Almost every conversation we had here started with innovation and new outcomes that leaders wanted to create. In the rest of the world, people often lead with cloud because they’re trying to solve their financial mechanisms first. In the industrialised world, you don’t want to spend this money, so you’ll amortise it over the next five or seven years. Here, it will be about innovation first, or new outcomes, and then decisions on how human resources are best used. In other parts of the world, it’s an economic alternative that you start with and then the outcomes are sometimes secondary.

things when they want them. For this technology, we bought a company called Radvision, which is really a mobile video solution. It rolls out in less than a day, everybody’s using their mobile devices, it’s very high-definition, but it works over a 128 kb/s or 256 kb/s line.

Aside from being the CEO of Avaya, you also serve on the United States National Security Telecoms Advisory Committee. Has the controversy surrounding Edward Snowden and the PRISM programme affected either role, or has it created a conflict of interests? Neither. This committee is a collection of CEOs, and the Department of Homeland Security will come in, too. There may be questions such as should there be a separate network built in the country for

“There’s a reality that most of our discussions here were about driving change. In other regions, sometimes it’s people reacting to change.” You have big customers like the RTA, Emirates NBD and Etisalat in this region, and presumably you met with all of them. So what are they looking for? There’s a reality that most of our discussions here were about driving change. In other regions, sometimes it’s people reacting to change. Avaya says there’s a large appetite for video-conferencing and video-calling in this region. Who are you targeting with such offerings? It’s ready for anyone. Let me remind you, in our parlance, we’re talking about SMBs anywhere from, say, 25 or 50 users all the way up to 5,000 users. Those are pretty big companies, and it’s a pretty big range. The big thing about the SMBs is that they don’t have a lot of time to hire out IT resources. They don’t have big staffs, and they want www.cnmeonline.com

emergency capabilities — in the event of a hurricane or a big fire — or how can we encourage businesses to protect themselves more against cyber-criminals? These are very big topics, so Homeland Security and this group of CEOs will work to try to build a consensus on prudent directions, and give a recommendation to the President. It’s very focused, it’s very specific, and it’s really not very political. It’s really about the directional investments of how to approach big problems. Sticking on the topic of PRISM, have you heard any regional customers voicing concerns about the allegations? No. With the level of hospitality, the focus on what outcomes the leaders here want to create, and whether we can have the technology to assist — customer by customer — that was the conversation.

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analyst corner Brian Prentice

App stores: coming M to an enterprise near you The sheer number of mobile apps, and the success of the appstore model in delivering them, has piqued the interest of many enterprises. The dynamics that drive public app stores are consistent with those that will ultimately drive private app stores in the enterprise, writes Brian Prentice, Research VP, Gartner. 96

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obile app stores will see annual downloads reach 102 billion in 2013, according to Gartner’s latest forecast, and we’re beginning to see signs of interest in establishing app stores within the enterprise. The interest is coming from several directions. Some organisations believe that implementing an app store can bring some of the engaging experience people have in the consumer IT landscape into the enterprise. Others see app stores as a natural extension of their mobile device management (MDM) efforts, particularly when their MDM providers offer this type of functionality.

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analyst corner Brian Prentice

“Enterprise app stores require a dramatic increase in the app options available to internal stakeholders. Enhance enterprise app stores with the addition of thirdparty apps, links to public app stores and enterprise content.” Brian Prentice, Research VP, Gartner While there is growing interest, actual internal enterprise app store implementations are still in the early-adopter phase. If you are considering implementing your own app store, there are some best practices to keep in mind. Choice is a fundamental feature of an app store. Individuals can research a catalogue of options and make selections based on their

In 2013, mobile app stores will see annual downloads reach

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own preferences and reviews. They can make bad choices without serious consequences (just find a better $2 app). But there is no choice where there is nothing to choose from. A clear analogy is the retail experience of the old Soviet Union. Soviet central planners were quite confident that citizens had a choice of products. However, when people were able to see the differences between the paltry offerings in their shops compared to those in the West, resentment toward those central planners rose and black markets flourished.

Not spoilt for choice Therefore, enterprise app stores require a dramatic increase in the app options available to internal stakeholders. Enhance enterprise app stores with the addition of third-party apps, links to public app stores and enterprise content. This degree of choice is antithetical to decades of enterprise application best practice. However, effective application management and freedom of application choice are not mutually exclusive, due to the boundaries created under a curation model. After choice, the second foundation for a successful enterprise app store is to frame it as a component of an organisation’s application, rather than infrastructure, strategy. Even for organisations like Apple, Microsoft and Google, app stores are an integral part of a larger platform strategy. For organisations that are struggling to rationalise out-of-control application portfolios, an app store will be unwelcome because its existence will expand the portfolio. However, those organisations that are trying to rationalise by creating a managed www.cnmeonline.com

Prentice likens enterprise app stores to the retail experience of the old Soviet Union, where black markets flourished.

application ecosystem — often a large ERP system — are more likely see a great deal of synergy with an app store. The reason is that discrete applications that create management headaches today can be redesigned as collections of smaller, focused applications that users can select from based upon their needs. In addition to corporate apps, ensure that your app store can support solutions from citizen developers — your employees — whether it is an Excel spreadsheet or a link to a cloud-based application. Finally, remember that the operative word in “app store” is “app”. Apps are fundamentally different expressions of software than traditional applications. Apps are simple, purposeful solutions that, if well managed, can be created en masse without impacting efforts to rationalise the application portfolio. The more application development teams can redirect their development efforts toward apps, the more options will be available to users.

Insight Uber

Ryan Graves, Head of Operations and Board Director, Uber

Rides and drives The Uber app, which provides high-end taxis to users’ GPS locations, launched in Dubai this September. But in the face of growing legal concerns, will the impressive technology behind Uber’s service be enough to secure regional success?

he birth of the Uber service hasn’t been easy. Though the company was valued at $3.5 billion in July 2013 as it sought another round of funding, it has seen a disproportionate amount of controversy for a three-yearold company. This is because, while Uber claims to simply make an app that connects passengers with luxury car drivers, it has seen no end of run-ins with local law enforcement agencies, many of which have accused it of running an unlicensed taxi service.

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Insight Uber

It’s easy to see where the confusion comes from — the Uber app essentially allows users to order high-end, licensed cabs, with the smartphone’s GPS signal being sent to the driver. Payment for the journey is made via credit card to Uber, which then compensates the driver after taking a 20-percent cut of the fare. It sounds an awful lot like a taxi service, but according to Ryan Graves, Head of Operations and Board Director, Uber, the company plays a much more subtle role in connecting customer and driver. “We don’t run a taxi service — we don’t even run a limo company. We run a tech platform that partners with those guys, so you can think of us like Expedia,” he says. At the heart of Uber’s business model is its app, which contains a number of algorithms that help to predict demand in different areas. As the company gains more and more data about the city in which it’s operating, the algorithms help to better understand peak travel times, where people want to be picked up from, and where they’re likely to want to go. This information is then passed onto the driver, who can make informed decisions about where his or her next customer is likely to come from. “That gets pretty accurate — that’s why ETAs are low, and that’s why the experience is awesome,” Graves says. The Uber service launched in Dubai this September. It’s the company’s first foray into the Middle East, and within 48 hours of launch, Uber had already garnered plenty

In June 2013, when it was seeking another round of funding, Uber was valued at

$3.5bn 102

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“You take on these really big cities, and then you go to smaller cities to see if it works. If it does, it gives you a lot of confidence.” of new customers. The service works well in the more populous areas of the emirate — and being able to track an incoming car’s real-time location on-screen will no doubt have technology fans swooning. But should the company be gearing up for success, or a run-in with the UAE’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), which regulates the country’s taxi services? According to Graves, there are no issues around licensing. Expanding on his comparison between Uber and flight-search site Expedia, he says, “The FAA regulates all of these airlines, and the RTA regulates all of these taxi and limo companies. We just provide value, we provide demand, which means revenue for those existing businesses that are all locally owned and locally operated. They run the businesses, and we just make them more productive.” Essentially, then, Uber simply outsources its driving services to existing taxi companies. In Dubai, it’s the guys who own those expensive hotel taxis. And with many of them sometimes experiencing hours of downtime per day, Graves is convinced that partnering with Uber can make them more money. So with the licensing issue apparently a moot point in the UAE, Graves and his team is focusing on business development. In a city like Dubai, where cheap cabs are easy enough to hail on any street, it needs to trumpet its main selling points: convenience and comfort. Uber wants to promise better response times than, say, the Dubai Taxi Corporation could provide. www.cnmeonline.com

What’s more, its fleets are made up of Lexuses, BMWs and Audis, so Uber adds an extra layer of luxury that should play well in this region. Whether customers will go for it is another thing. The service needs to be tried and tested, but Graves claims that early responses are good. “I think the trajectory looks like it’ll be very strong. The response, not only from riders but from the partners, has been very strong. They’re loving how the technology works, and they’re loving how the business fits into their existing model.” Should Uber’s experiment in Dubai succeed, Graves wants to see the service be made available in other cities around the region. He points out that Uber takes things on a city-by-city basis — first it launched in San Francisco, then New York, then Seattle. For Europe, the company took a similar track, taking on Paris first, then London and Amsterdam. If Dubai goes well, Graves highlights Abu Dhabi, Jeddah and Doha as prime targets for Uber in the region. “You take on these really big cities, these huge opportunities, and then you go to smaller cities to see if it works. And if it does, it gives you a lot of confidence. We just try to understand how to do business in the region, and develop an expertise,” he says. Barring any run-ins with the RTA, Uber looks set to succeed in Dubai. The technology behind the service is sound, so Uber’s job really does come down to making sure that it knows how to do business in this region.

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Face to face Ahmed Marouf

Ahmed Marouf, Global Technology Services Leader, IBM Middle East, Saudi and Levant

The data centre W of tomorrow With new technologies providing unprecedented opportunies to transform organisations, the traditional data centre is being phased out in favour of a new generation that embraces these trends. Ahmed Marouf, Global Technology Services Leader, IBM Middle East, Saudi and Levant, talks about what Big Blue believes modern data centres are capable of.

hat do you identify as the key trends influencing the next generation of data centres? Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s data centre is changing rapidly. Many enterprises are integrating new technology solutions to modernise and evolve their organisations. Most are pursuing a path to ensure appropriate levels of IT service delivery and cost efficiency and alignment to business goals. For some data centres, this means providing state of the art levels of availability, flexibility and scalability, while for others the goal may be to provide sufficient levels of services while keeping new capital expenditures to a minimum. Either way, data centres can be placed on a spectrum of efficiency and flexibility. With so many new technologies transforming both IT and enterprise,

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what are the foundations CIOs should lay when designing data centres that can be responsive to that change? It’s more urgent than ever that CIOs push data centre efficiency. According to the 2012 IBM Data Centre Operational Efficiency study, only one in five clients have highly efficient IT infrastructures and are able to allocate more than 50 percent of their IT budget to new projects. This leaves room for alignment between business need, workload management and infrastructure design.

Many believe software-defined data centres are the way forward for large organisations, but vendors appear to be defining it in different ways. How does IBM define it, and what is your stance on it? IBM has created a Software Defined Environment (SDE) which optimises the entire computing infrastructure — compute, storage and network resources — so that it can adapt to the type of work required. In today’s environment, resources are assigned manually to workloads — that happens automatically in a SDE. In a SDE, workloads are dynamically assigned to IT resources based on application characteristics, bestavailable resources, and service-level policies to deliver continuous, dynamic optimisation and reconfiguration to address infrastructure issues. Underlying all of this are policy-based compliance checks and updates, in a centrally managed environment. IBM’s approach is to support the complete stack of the data centre set-up along with backing the open-source SDE efforts for OpenStack Foundation. With an inflection in the data centre industry appearing imminent, how is IBM positioning itself to lead this charge? In tackling the inefficient use of IT resources, IBM’s advantage is its ability to design nearly every component of an IT system — from the chip, to the software layer, to the server, storage system and network — and to tweak a client’s business processes and even business model to garner further efficiencies. To that end, IBM has been marshalling its server, storage and data centre designers, 106

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researchers, chip designers, software developers and industry consultants around the globe on the IT utilisation challenge. Analytics and Big Data also contribute to the IT utilisation challenge for IBM and its clients. Data analytics requires much more intensive computation, but IBM systems enable clients to run these workloads more efficiently, allowing them to benefit from IBM’s smarter-planet strategy.

What should CIOs in the Middle East be doing now to prepare for this new paradigm? Utilisation. Utilisation is the new metric for IT efficiency. It’s not about measuring energy used; it’s about measuring the amount of work performed from the energy used. Environmental responsibility is important in the technology industry, but it’s

of innovation throughout the industry. Developers now have access to an expanded and open set of server technologies for the first time. This type of ‘collaborative development’ model will change the way data centre hardware is designed and deployed. The Consortium intends to build advanced server, networking, storage, and GPU-acceleration technology aimed at delivering more choice, control and flexibility to developers of next-generation, hyper-scale and cloud data centres. The move makes POWER hardware and software available to open development for the first time, as well as making POWER IP licensable to others, greatly expanding the ecosystem of innovators on the platform. The consortium will offer open-source POWER firmware, the software that controls basic chip functions. By doing this, IBM and

“Utilisation is the new metric for IT efficiency. It’s not about measuring energy used; it’s about measuring the amount of work performed from the energy used.” not just about saving electricity. One aspect that’s often overlooked is how companies make the most of their IT resources. Data centre underutilisation is preventing organisations from innovating and growing. We must innovate to reduce the global footprint of data centres, because the world will continue to create mountains of data and the demand for power will not go away.

A recent development by IBM was its open development alliance for data centres, called OpenPower, with Google and Nvidia. What was the thinking behind this alliance, and what do Middle East CIOs need to know about what it can do for them? The founding members of the ‘OpenPOWER Consortium’ represent the next generation in data centre innovation. Combining our talents and assets around the ‘POWER’ architecture can greatly increase the rate www.cnmeonline.com

the consortium can offer unprecedented customisation in creating new styles of server hardware for a variety of computing workloads.

With cloud such a prominent part of the data-centre industry, what are you doing for Middle East customers that may be more inclined to opt for a regional cloud provider who will store their data locally? IBM has recently announced the official opening of its 10th global security operations centre (SOC) in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, designed to support the alliance of Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) and IBM to provide customers in the Saudi business sector with managed and cloud security services. The new SOC is hosted in Mobily’s data centre and certified by the data centre authority, Uptime Institute. This is a completely self-contained SOC where logs and data do not leave the Kingdom.

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Insight Mobility

tips for finding mobile app talent

To understand what’s hot in the IT job market today, just ask yourself a simple question: When is the last time you checked your mobile device or used the mobile Web?

ccording to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index, the number of mobile Web-connected devices will exceed the world’s population in 2013. As for mobile apps, the global market is expected to make $25 billion in revenue this year, up 62 percent from a year ago, according to Gartner. It’s no wonder, then, that mobile development (for both iOS and Android) hit the No. 1 spot in a recent study by tech recruiter Cybercoders that looked at today’s hottest tech skills. Tech pros with mobile development skills were getting an average of four to five job offers, according to the company, which analysed more than 10,000 tech companies and their hiring requirements. The trouble is, given the fast growth in mobile, market demand exceeds supply. The question for companies is how to acquire mobile skills quickly enough to fulfill their mobile strategies. “We’re definitely seeing a lot of pain in trying to find mobile developers these days,” says Scot Melland, CEO, DICE Holdings. One of the fastest growing areas, he says, is

HTML 5, a mobile optimised language that is seeing a 52 percent year-over-year increase in demand on Dice, Melland says. Additionally, demand for IT professionals with iPhone development experience is up 20 percent from last year. Interestingly, he adds, Android demand is up just 8 percent, despite Android being a bigger market, globally. One idea is to simply buy the talent, as Walmart did last year, in its acquisition of mobile agency Small Society. But that strategy isn’t feasible for everyone. Here are some ideas from recruiters and IT professionals who have tackled this challenge head-on.

Team up with marketing: Much of the interest in mobility stems from the marketing function of the business, which Gartner has famously projected will outspend IT departments on technology investments by 2017. “It’s a significant shift,” says Michael Kirven, Founder and CEO, Mondo, a technology resource provider. “For the first time, marketing is spending on technology solutions to drive revenues and shareholder value. We’re seeing a tremendous amount of www.cnmeonline.com

competition at the marketing level for these technology resources.” In-demand skills, he says, include front-end user interface developers who understand how the user experience needs to appear on the mobile Web, as well as experience with HTML5. In many cases, he adds, CIOs can find themselves competing with chief marketing officers for the same resources. “Each has the same deliverables, and this is driving up the froth in the market for these high-demand skill sets.”

Be ready for action: With a skill set as hot as mobile, Kirven advises hiring managers to be ready to pounce. “We advise companies to make decisions quickly,” he says. “You’ve got to be prepared to move fast, have your budgets aligned and people ready to make a decision quickly.’’

Mine your networks: For Prime Lending, mobile apps will be a focal point in 2014, according to CIO Tim Elkins. With just one mobile developer on staff currently, it will also be October 2013

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a focus for hiring. The mortgage company currently has one mobile app designed for business partners to track loan status, and another is being developed to improve the mortgage experience for customers. In order to find developers, Elkins says, “We’ve had to get very creative.” After working with major tech recruiters, “We couldn’t find anyone, and if we did, they already had three offers.” As Elkins puts it, he’s now “going old-school” by tapping the networks of current staff, peers and colleagues. “You’ve got to get people who aren’t looking,” he says.

Motivate current staff: Elkins is also providing his own staff with opportunities to explore mobile development, and several have become motivated enough to get up to speed on their own time. “Where we can, we’re giving people that opportunity, as long as it can happen in a timely fashion,” he says. Last year, for instance, as part of its annual Halloween celebration, the development team built a mobile game app that people could play. “It gave them a chance to tinker and experiment,” Elkins says. 110

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Encourage a staff-wide mobile mindset: At Needham Bank, the skills and overall mindset required for mobility extend beyond the development team, according to James Gordon, Vice President of IT. With an increasingly mobile workforce, Gordon is implementing an infrastructure that enables his staff to support remote workers using Apple iPhones and iPads who increasingly need access to corporate applications. The infrastructure components he has implemented include Mobile Iron’s device management system and Accellion’s secure mobile file sharing system. “We’ve moved from supporting remote email to mobile device management, and that has given rise to out-of-office productivity,” Gordon says. “Now, people want to access content from their device of choice without a series of log-in steps. And that requires a skill set to architect that in a completely different way.” For instance, SharePoint doesn’t work directly on the iPad, he says, and it’s clunky for workers to use a VPN to access the system. “It takes a crafty administrator to enable that in a secure way while keeping the user experience pristine.” With Accellion, remote workers can use native versions of corporate

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applications on their mobile devices, within a secure “workspace”. To build and support the new infrastructure, Gordon believes it’s more expedient to augment the skills of his current staff rather than hiring. “When you create a professional discipline internally, you can be right with it as opposed to taking time hunting down skill sets that are a hot commodity,” he says.

Stay ahead of corporate needs: When Gordon walks around the bank, he sees users increasingly using their iPads rather than their large-screen monitors. Still, not everybody is aware yet that they can work just as efficiently outside of the office as in it. And that’s fine — he wants to be a step ahead of the mobility onslaught rather than catching up later. “There’s this unrecognised need that users haven’t quite gotten that they can be just as productive out of the office, and we’re laying the groundwork so the groundswell doesn’t happen after they need it,” Gordon says. “We’ve been mobile since 2008 and have supported tablets since 2010, so we’re living it as opposed to trying to catch up.”

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Face to face Tyler Lessard

Tyler Lessard, CMO, Fixmo

Bring your own disaster? Fixmo are amongst a new breed of international players making moves into the Middle East to capitalise on the security concerns around the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend. We caught up with its CMO, Tyler Lessard, to quiz him on just how important it is for Middle East enterprises to both embrace this trend and keep secure at the same time.

t Fixmo you use the term mobile risk management. The concept of mobile device management (MDM) is more familiar in the industry. Do you define these as the same thing? We define it quite differently. When we started looking at the mobility space a number of years ago, we recognised that because the market was starting to shift with things like BYOD and consumerisation, the market was quickly becoming a place where IT could no longer command and control the environment, and continue this paradigm of saying no, or restricting employees as a

way of maintaining security. So we saw that it was starting to shift to a market where managing risk was really where mobility was going. It was all about the risk-reward ideas of how you can allow employees to do as much as they can on these devices, while mitigating their risks of data leakage, compliance breaches, expense issues and things like that. So we really fundamentally believe that enterprise mobility continues to move towards this risk management idea of how to allow employees to do more while mitigating the risks that come along with that. Then ultimately, part of a risk management www.cnmeonline.com

strategy for mobility, it does encompass technologies like MDM, because you want to be able to have some level of control over devices in your environment. But it has to go way beyond that and more focused on technology that protects the data, how organisations maintain compliance, and other things that actually represent those serious risks related to security and compliance breaches. There are still a lot of CIOs in the Middle East who are not convinced that the benefits of embracing BYOD initiatives

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Face to face Tyler Lessard

outweight the costs and hassles of supporting it with IT. How can you convince them that is the wrong approach? We’re actually finding that many customers are seeing that saying no to employees for BYOD introduces more risk to the organisation because more and more employees, especially in the younger generation, are coming in with iPhones and Samsung devices. If you’re going to tell them that they must use the device you are providing them and they can only use it for business, they’re going to carry that other device in their other pocket. And if they need to access a document to edit it on the fly, they’re not going to do that on their BlackBerry Bold, they’re going to put that in Dropbox so they can download it to their iPad and access it on a full-sized tablet. So we really believe that saying no and doing that command-and-a-control framework isn’t going to last very long, and more and more employees are going to demand other kinds of devices for different reasons. Organisations need to think about that now to make sure they’re ready for that change as it happens, so they’re not caught off guard. They don’t want the breach to happen first before they take action; they want it the other way around - the framework in place, so they can start to embrace it, before the security breach happens.

The vast majority of mobile malware is located in the Android operating system. With that in mind, should CIOs avoid Android and embrace the other operating systems? I don’t think that avoiding Android solves the real issue. I do think that organisations need to be smart about which devices they do allow. We don’t see many companies allowing employees to bring in whatever they want, but we do see most organisations looking at a subset of devices in the market that they can do their diligence on and have a good degree of confidence over. The trap you fall into is by thinking that malware and OS vulnerabilities are the real risk of these devices. That’s really not the case anymore. If you are an organisation that’s worried about data security, it doesn’t take much for somebody to steal an iPad off the table at a coffee shop, pull the sim card, jail-break that 114

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device, and all the data on it is their’s. So for companies that are worried about those kind of potential attacks to their data, iOS is just as vunerable as Android and other platforms. They need to be looking at more than just where there malware is. If I’m really worried about targeted attacks, I need to think about how I’m going to protect my data on consumer-grade devices that can be easily compromised.

Do you think the Middle East reflects the global trends when it comes to things like BYOD and mobile security? We generally see the same trends in the market that we’re looking at, and the main markets we focus on are government

“We’re actually finding that many customers are seeing that saying no to employees for BYOD introduces more risk to the organisation.” and regulated markets, such as financial services and oil and gas. Much like every other region, whether it’s BYOD or not, we do see the need to go beyond BlackBerry and start to embrace and allow employees to use iPhones, iPads, Samsung devices and others. So it’s not necessarily a BYOD trend; it’s more about allowing employees to use a broader range of devices, even if they’re company owned. In the area of when it is company owned, MDM is still not the solution if you want to heavily protect your sensitive data on that device. So we do see in these markets growing demands beyond BlackBerry for lots of other devices, but they don’t want to sacrifice the level of security and compliance they’re used to with BlackBerry, and that’s where we come in. www.cnmeonline.com

How can CIOs prove to management that investing in mobile risk management will bring return on investment? On the downside, these things need to be looked at within the context of risks in the organisation. And I don’t think that companies have really looked at it from that perspective in the past because it’s been assume that the devices are fairly locked down and perhaps only accessing corporate email. They haven’t adjusted into this mode where these new tablets are going to be accessing everything on the Internet that a desktop does. They’re going to accessing documents, going into SharePoint and accessing the Intranet. There is obviously the return on mobility; there’s the enhanced productivity, sales competiveness in the field, and all the things that come with mobilising your workforce. But the biggest issue right now is the potential costs of not implementing a proper security solution. That’s where you need to look at it from a risk management perspective and weigh that against the cost of protecting that information. It’s not a new thing to look at risk verses reward, but it’s something we haven’t seem people do in the mobile space much — it’s time to come back around to that. Just how expensive can making a BYODready network be? Generally we haven’t seen it to be something significant in terms of redesigning or rethinking your architecture. But what you do start to look at in particular is your enterprise Wi-Fi infrastructure because that’s where you are going to start to see a much greater load as you have employees using two or three devices at the same time. As an employee comes onto campus, they’re not turning their Wi-Fi off so they may actually have multiple devices connected to the Wi-Fi network at the same time. You do have to look at things like if they are using those devices for personal use as well, are you allowing that to go through the corporate network? That’s the biggest from an infrastructure standpoint — the Wi-Fi and network access control (NAC) infrastructure — and then outside of this are software solutions to manage those devices and secure and protect the data.

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Column The word on the street

Tom Paye

Low-hanging fruit

t’s been a good month for Apple. Not only did it announce record sales for the newly launched iPhone 5S and 5C — 9 million units sold in three days — but the vendor also snatched the accolade of most valuable global brand from Coca-Cola. That said, such promising news still hasn’t stopped some pundits from trying to rattle Apple's cage. For some people, no matter what Apple does, it is heading on a downward spiral towards impending doom, despite the mountains of evidence suggesting quite the opposite. For example, one writer for Forbes in the US stated, “Apple announced the new iPhones recently. And mostly, nobody cared.” If 9 million people equals “nobody”, this would be a fine statement. But there’s a big difference between nobody and 9 million — it’s 9 million, in fact. Another article I saw on ABC News was headed, “Why record iPhone sales might be rotten for Apple". I promptly added it to my shortlist for the most ridiculous headline of the year. It’s favourite to win, actually. Unfortunately for these Apple scaremongers, the facts aren’t on their side. Shares are up, sales are excellent, and brand perception is at an all-time high. And yet still they write this drivel. I would have thought that, if you’re going to indulge in some vendor-bashing, you’re better off talking about BlackBerry, which actually is in as big a mess as the headlines say. Why not go for the low-hanging fruit? That’s what I’m going to do, anyway. I think that BlackBerry is in its current predicament because it lost the consumer market. It was always a business-centric company, and it thrived on selling devices

CNME’s man about town gives his spin on the latest IT news and trends. 118

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to organisations wanting to make their staff more productive on the go. But in 2007 — when the BlackBerry Pearl was the world’s best-selling smartphone — Apple released the iPhone. It rendered almost every other device obsolete. It provided emails through a simple app, and did the same thing with calling and texting. Before long, there was an app for everything. And BlackBerry couldn’t keep up. But aside from the fact that BlackBerry was completely outgunned by Apple’s technology, there was something even more important at play — Apple was always a highly regarded consumer brand. Even before the iPhone, cool and trendy media types acted as MacBook evangelists, and the company had seen utterly stellar success with the iPod. By the time the iPad was released, Apple was one of the coolest brands in the world. BlackBerry, on the other hand, stumbled on with flop after flop. Even loyal business types began to defect to the iPhone, or else to the very capable Android devices peddled by the likes of Samsung, hence the rise of BYOD. No-one wanted a BlackBerry anymore — they wanted something that was not only more capable, but cooler, too. It’s a shame that BlackBerry hasn’t been able to save itself because its new generation of BlackBerry 10 devices isn’t bad at all. You could even say that, for a business user, the new Z30 might be better than a new iPhone. But BlackBerry still hasn’t managed to fix its image, and image still matters. Because Apple’s got such a good image, it can sell 9 million devices in three days. At the rate BlackBerry is going, I’d be surprised if the vendor sold 9,000 of its new Z30s in three months.

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