Computer News Middle East March 2016

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EDITORIAL

Publishing Director Rajashree Rammohan raj.ram@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5685 Editorial Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan jeevan.thankappan@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5678

A tale of two worlds At the beginning of this month, I’d the opportunity to attend Gartner IT Symposium in Dubai, which attracted top-tier CIOs and their IT teams in the region. One of the oft-repeated themes heard at the conference was bimodal IT, a term Gartner coined couple of years ago. Ever since, bimodal IT has been bandied around as a panacea for all common IT challenges and as a way to distinguish operational IT from strategic one.

The idea behind bimodal IT or two-speed IT is rather simple – one group is tasked with traditional, keeping-the-lights-on functions while other handles innovative tasks and contributes to business success. The research firm predicts that around 75 percent of organisations will adopt bimodal IT in some form by next year, but I don’t think that would be a realistic projection in the case of the Middle East. We We may not have may not have much legacy from an IT perspective but much legacy from the fact remains that most CIOs are still hands-on with an IT perspective operational issues, which leaves little room to focus on but the fact business strategy. Besides, it would be real hard for any remains that most CIO to draw a line and make a distinction between CIOs are still two teams focused on innovation and maintenance. hands-on with If Gartner’s vision of bimodal IT becomes a reality, operational issues. it means traditional IT is going to face a very bleak future and it might also lead to conflicts between these two camps for influence, resources and power. What is for sure is that as businesses wade deeper into digitalisation, IT is going to be much more crucial to respond faster to market and customer demands, and we might see more and more enterprises experimenting with different models of IT operations.

The good news, according to Gartner, is that in our region, we are moving away from an over reliance on telecom service providers being primary technology spenders to businesses building out their infrastructure and spending more on software platforms. The notion of digitalisation sounds good on paper, but executing it might be a lot harder than you think.

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EDITORIAL

Our events

Virtually there Before I get started, let me preface this editorial by saying that I think Virtual Reality is pretty cool. I’ve tested out a few VR kits and I see an enormous potential for beneficial use.

From business conferencing, to healthcare applications to simply epic gaming sessions, VR is certainly going to change the way we consume our data. That being said, as with all technology, I start to become concerned with I consider who is going to be controlling, paying into and reaping the benefits of VR technology.

Earlier this month a picture circulated the Internet of Mark Zuckerberg – founder of Facebook and acquirer of leading VR technology Oculus Rift – entering an auditorium populated by attendees strapped into VR headsets. The participants were experiencing the conference virtually, their reality augmented by the visors over their eyes. It is remarkable that this technology is available.

However, was a bit of an eerie sight to see that no one noticed Zuckerberg enter the room. Their vision obscured by the Virtual Reality in front of their eyes, they were unable to take note of the actual If our reality will be reality around them. augmented, albeit If our reality will be augmented, albeit occasionally and occasionally and with our consent, my question is with our consent, my question is what what will be in this virtual reality and who will be controlling it? Looking down at my phone, which will be in this virtual is as close to a VR situation as we get on a regular reality and who will basis, the benefits are undeniable. I’ve got my be controlling it? email, my games, social media, all in front of me.

On the same tiny screen, I see advertisements.

Some of these pop up ads are invasive, some small, some through SMS and some simply in the corner of an app, but they are there. Companies have paid to intrude my little screen space. I am not always against it, but I don’t really have a choice beyond a total opt out of my smartphone, and those who know me know that isn’t going to happen any time soon.

As place our screens closer and closer to our faces with VR, and increasingly unable to see beyond our data engagement, we risk opting to view ad content over the world around us. Maybe I sound like an old timer worried that TV is going to rot the brains of the youth. I simply think that “who is controlling our content and technology?” is a question that needs to be asked – and asked loudly – as we move forward.

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Contents

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Strategic Technology Partner

Strategic Innovation Partner

ISSUE 290 | march 2016

20

Etisalat's mobility exclusive workshop

26

14 InterConnected world

48 Open season

18 The rise of Smart hotels

60 Seamless capture

40 Pre Integrated OSS-BSS

68 The new IP

44 The new network

78 Mobile moments

32

RAK Electronic Government Authority

36

Dr Sulaiman Al Habib Hospital Medical Group

www.cnmeonline.com

Americana GROUP's Hatem Manawy

We bring you the highlights of IBM's InterConnect conference held in Las Vegas.

Middle East IT hospitality decisionmakers joined CNME and AlcatelLucent Enterprise to discuss the future of technology in hotels.

We look at the value of OSS/BSS ina-box and what should be considered before making the leap to these solutions.

As Wide Area Network demands increase, the IT department searches for a new solution in softwaredefined WAN.

An increasing number of enterprises are leveraging open source solutions for business growth.

Kodak Alaris' Emma Isechei discusses how the company’s Info Input solution can help businesses improve productivity.

Christine Heckart, CMO, Brocade, shares insights on why classic IP networks are no longer sufficient in supporting today's connected world.

A look into how the enterprise world can catch up to the maturity level of the consumer market when it comes to mobility. march 2016

7

The Top 10

• S t r at e g i c • Technology Trends

The device mesh “a mesh of devices extending well beyond traditional mobile devic es” -david cearley

Ambient user experience a user experience thaT works across:

t h e d e v i c e m e s h t i m e & s pa c e

3D printing materials there will be steady 3d printing expansion over the next

30 years

causing a rethink of assembly line & supply chain processes

information of everything information issues: isol ated incomplete

unavail able unintelligible

the solution: information of everything

advanced machine learning Deep neural nets Make machines appear intelligent Such as: Machines will automously learn to perceive the world

Gartner have identified the top ten strategic technology trends for 2016 T h e s e a r e t h e t r e nd s w i th the pote nti al to mak e a si gn i f i c ant i mpact on bus i ne s s e s

autonomous agents and things Machine learning offers: virtual personal assistants autonomous vEhicle smart advisors robots

adaptive security architec ture threats have

increased improve security must

advanced system architec ture high demand computing requires neuromorphic architectures which work like a

human bra in

mesh app and service achitec t ure app design needs:

m o n o lit h ic & lin e a r d e si gn app design needs to be:

internet of things pl atforms pl atforms constitute the

behind the scenes

work that is needed to make

the internet of things and the digital mesh possible

S OU RCE : LUCA S B L AK E

Agile - f le x ib le - d y n ami c

HPE Hyper Converged 250 for Microsoft CPS Standard Hyper-converge your IT, get ready for hybrid cloud

Fast: Pre-configured appliances are easy to buy, manage, deploy, and scale • Accelerated time-to-value with workload optimized mobility and cloud solutions • Scalability to meet ever-changing business needs • Speed troubleshooting and problem resolution • Ability to deploy in minutes using HPEOneView InstantOn wizard Simple: One integrated infrastructure with modular building blocks

A new way to manage change and challenges The marketplace is evolving. New opportunities are emerging. Competitive pressures are increasing.

Managing all these changes and demands is too much for traditional IT to handle. Instead, today’s enterprises are looking for something new.

Hyper-converge to support a hybrid infrastructure, hybrid cloud At Hewlett Packard Enterprise, we feel that hyper-convergence is the perfect way to begin your hybrid IT transformation. By following this approach, you can integrate compute and storage in a single x86-based appliance that can be deployed in scale-out clusters.

• Familiar management console

Working together, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Microsoft® developed an all-new, highly efficient, and very flexible hyper-converged system called HPE Hyper Converged 250 for Microsoft Cloud Platform System (CPS) Standard. This factory-integrated modular appliance is easy to use, hybrid cloud-ready, scalable to four appliances in the same cluster, and managed from a single interface/console.

• Single-vendor accountability, global support

This fast, simple, and efficient Azure-consistent cloud in-a-box is optimized to handle a variety of virtualization workloads—from on-demand IT infrastructure to business-critical applications to virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

• Easy expansion; deploy up to four appliances in the same cluster

Efficient: Purpose-built for virtualization • Built-in proven resiliency • Improved operational efficiency • Support for a wide range of workloads and environments • Flexible expansion; open and extensible to heterogeneous environments

Microsoft Integration capabilities Software configuration • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2—Virtualized, multi-tenant infrastructure based on Microsoft Hyper-V HPE OneView for Microsoft System Center—Single pane-of-glass for day-to-day management tasks across physical, virtual, and cloud environments • Windows® Azure Pack—Microsoft Azure technologies running in your data center Add-on Microsoft cloud services • Azure Backup—Protect critical assets wherever they are; compelling alternative to tape; secure and always available; efficient and flexible • Azure Site Recovery—Full-featured disaster recovery; automated virtual machine protection and replication; one-click orchestrated recovery; remote health monitoring and extensibility

Learn more at http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/cs-solutions/product-detail.html?oid=1008622496#!tab=features

Contact QDS for more information: Sales@qdsnet.com / +974 44439900

James Dartnell Deputy Editor, CNME

Column

Antisocial media I

t’s recently emerged that Google has hired the founder of the notorious Internet forum 4chan.

The move has raised eyebrows given Chris Poole’s – who goes by the alias ‘moot’ – role in a website that has been a platform for publishing images of nude celebrities following the 2014 iCloud hack, and worse still, images of child abuse.

While Google may be synonymous with its search engine, social media is an area where it has undoubtedly been anonymous so far, its Google+ platform unable to contend with competitors Facebook.

Nonetheless, it’s not hard to see why Google have taken this step.

Founding 4chan aged 15 from his bedroom, Poole has gone on to be named the “Mark Zuckerberg” of the online underground by Rolling Stone magazine.

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That tag is backed up with impressive numbers for a site that has made its fame off the back of trolling and Internet memes.

4chan is a website that has seen success – 22 million unique visitors per month are a testament to that - and has also been a platform for hacktivist group Anonymous, as well as a springboard for political dissent and satire.

This could well indicate that Google is taking a fresh, and maybe slightly darker approach to its social media strategy.

Google+ might be colourful, but its tame approach to social topics is sure to be shaken up by Poole.

In fact, you could even interpret this appointment as a reflection on what it really takes to succeed with

social media platforms. Maybe the most clean cut, mainstream platforms are regarded as dull by users?

Google could be onto something by recruiting Poole, both by hiring a specialist in the darker arts of social media, and someone who has overseen one of the world’s most popular forums.

What’s more, 4chan’s subversive nature content could be what has made it so appealing to users.

Granted, it’s hard to see Google creating a platform that deviates too much from the mainstream, but they’ve always been a company that encourages thinking outside the box.

Their success in social media could well depend on whether Poole turns out to be a success, or a square peg in a Google-shaped hole. march 2016

11

short takes

Month in view

Huawei puts spotlight on 4.5G and 5G

Huawei Deputy Chairman and Rotating CEO Guo Ping

During last month’s Mobile World Congress, Huawei encouraged players in the mobile industry to put more focus on 4.5G and 5G technologies, which they coined the "backbone of today’s digital economy."

Huawei Deputy Chairman and Rotating CEO Guo Ping noted that industry players must ensure they do not miss out on these opportunities in the coming five years. “Three things should be done before 5G arrives: increase connectivity, enable verticals, and redefine network capabilities. These initiatives will help address the uncertainties brought about by new technologies and new business models,” he said.

At the summit, Huawei extended its global open partnerships on 5G technologies with more than 20 operators, including Etisalat, Vodafone, Telefonica, TeliaSonera and more.

On a regional level, Ooredoo has now teamed up with Huawei to open a next-generation Innovations Lab in Qatar to pioneer broadband solutions and infrastructure. Saudi operator Mobily has further announced plans to optimise its network performance and investments through a network managed services agreement with Huawei over the next five years. In Oman, Omantel is enhancing and expanding its mobile broadband coverage by delivering the Sultanate’s first Smart Street Lamppost solution together with Huawei.

12

march 2016

Carlos Domingo, du; and Steve Tzikakis, SAP South Europe and MEA

du, SAP launch cloud services in the UAE du and SAP signed a strategic partnership agreement that will enable UAE government enterprises to gain access to smart applications in 2016.

According to both companies, the partnership works to support the commitment to nationwide digitisation and innovation. Combining du’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service with SAP’s Software-as-a-Service creates a unique off-the-shelf product – helping the UAE evolve to a cloud-based model, in line with global market trends.

In line with the UAE Vision 2021, and as a result of this strategic partnership, du will support UAE federal and local government agencies, and private enterprises, with SAP’s innovative private cloud-based applications hosted on a data centre in the UAE. Organisations using these applications, the agreement highlights, will be able to leverage the advanced network infrastructure of du, combined with the real-time analytics capabilities of the SAP S4/HANA business suite, which runs on the real-time SAP HANA platform.

Steve Tzikakis, Senior Vice President and General Manager, SAP South Europe, Middle East, and Africa, said, “With the market demand for private cloud applications growing in the region, SAP is further driving our co-innovation

partnership with du to support the UAE’s digital agenda. By leveraging global best practices and solutions, SAP is committed to using the power of the cloud to allow employees and customers to more easily engage with organisations.” du will offer organisations a wide range of back-end and customer-facing SAP solutions, including enterprise resource planning, human capital management for human resources, customer relationship management, marketing, and analytics and business intelligence.

18.1% projected growth in the public cloud services market in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in 2016 Source: Gartner

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Yahoo has announced that it will cut its workforce by 15 percent with the aim of reducing its expenses by $400 million by the end of 2016. The Internet company reported a loss of

$4.4 Bn for Q4.

xerox announces split into two companies Xerox announced plans to separate Xerox into two independent publiclytraded companies.

“Today Xerox is taking further affirmative steps to drive shareholder value by announcing it will separate into two strong, independent, publicly traded companies,” said Ursula Burns, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Xerox. “These two companies will be well-positioned to lead in their respective rapidly evolving markets and capitalise on the opportunities that now exist to expand margins and increase market share.”

The Document Technology company will continue to be a global leader in document management and document

Samsung wins appeal in patent dispute with Apple The US Court of Appeals recently tossed a nearly $120 million judgement against Samsung, ruling that two disputed patents held by Apple were not valid.

The nullified patents in question include one that covers the ‘slide to unlock’ mechanism on the iPhone.

As a result of this latest ruling, a Bloomberg report stated that ‘Samsung doesn’t have to write another check to Apple’ on these particular patent claims, and won’t have to modify the software on new or existing Galaxy devices in order to avoid infringing on these nowvoid patents. Reports also noted that Apple owes Samsung $158,400 ‘for infringing a Samsung patent on video compression.’

The companies have been locked www.cnmeonline.com

outsourcing with approximately $11 billion in 2015 revenue. Meanwhile, the business process outsourcing company will be tasked with helping clients improve the flow of work by leveraging its expertise in managing transactionintensive processes and applying innovations to automate and simplify business processes. With approximately $7 billion in 2015 revenue – more than 90 percent of which is annuity based – the company is focused on attractive growth markets including transportation, healthcare, commercial and government services The leadership and names of the two companies will be determined as the separation process progresses.

Cisco to acquire Jasper Technologies

in a legal battle for years now, with Apple alleging that Samsung infringed on multiple iPhone-related patents with its Galaxy line of smartphones.

In 2012, a US District Court ruled that Samsung owed Apple over $1 billion in damages. The amount owed was later cut to $930 million, and in May 2015, an appeals court ruled that Samsung would not be on the hook to pay the total amount.

In December last year, Samsung agreed to pay Apple $548 million, with the condition that it ‘gets the right to collect reimbursement if there are any further developments in the case.’ A few days after the said settlement, Samsung asked the Supreme Court to hear an appeal on a separate patent infringement payout it would otherwise have to make.

Cisco has announced its intent to acquire Jasper Technologies, a privately held company that delivers a cloud-based IoT service platform to help enterprises and service providers launch, manage and monetise IoT services on a global scale.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay $1.4 billion in cash and assumed equity awards, plus additional retention based incentives.

“I am excited about the opportunity for Cisco and Jasper to accelerate how customers recognise the value of the Internet of Things,” said Chuck Robbins, Chief Executive Officer, Cisco.

“Together, we can enable service providers, enterprises and the broader ecosystem to connect, automate, manage, and analyse billions of connected things, across any network, creating new revenue streams and opportunities.”

The proposed acquisition will allow Cisco to offer a complete IoT solution that is interoperable across devices and works with IoT service providers, application developers and an ecosystem of partners. march 2016

13

EVENT

Ibm

InterConnected World

IBM’s annual conference, IBM InterConnect was held in Las Vegas this year, filling the meeting rooms of Mandalay Bay and MGM Grand with IBM partners, customers, experts and enthusiasts from 21st-25th February. Annie Bricker reports.

14

march 2016

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he theme of this year’s IBM InterConnect invited attendees to “Out-think limits” which, over the course of the week, translated into a number of exciting and innovative ways to use existing IBM solutions, and the announcement of new partnerships and solutions from the technology giant.

The line-up of IBM evangelists was interesting and varied, including a blind ultramarathoner, an innovative

T

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highschool science teacher, a 12-yearold developer and a master inventor all demonstrating the abilities of IBM solutions such as Watson, Bluemix and, more generally, the Internet of Things. General sessions at IBM InterConnect this year were determined to focus on real-world applications of new and existing IBM technologies, giving tangible inspiration to customers and wouldbe customers alike.

Day one's General Session saw tens of thousands of participants pour into the arena at the MGM Grand to face leaders from Wastpac, Alpha Modus, and Siemens. However, the star of the moment was VMWare with the announcement of a strategic partnership with IBM as well as the announcement of Apple Swift.

As for VMWare and IBM, the companies plan to market new offerings for hybrid cloud deployments jointly. “We are reaching a tipping point for cloud as the platform on which the vast majority of business will happen,” said Robert LeBlanc, Senior Vice President, IBM Cloud. “The strategic partnership between IBM and VMware will enable clients to easily embrace the cloud while preserving their existing investments and creating new business opportunities.”

IBM also announced that Swift, Apple’s young programming language, would be receiving an IBM Cloud twist. “Modern digital apps require a modern programming language. Swift is easy-to-learn, reliable, fast and interactive, the key traits that CIOs look for when building the next generation of enterprise mobile apps,” said Michael Gilfix, Vice President, IBM MobileFirst Offering Management. “Swift on the cloud is

an opportunity for enterprises to radically simplify the development of end-to-end applications and therefore reach new levels of productivity.”

The second day of InterConnect was a day for real-world applications.

IBM experts Tom Rosamilia and Harrier Green outlined actual use cases and showed attendees how global leaders are using solutions like SoftLayer, Watson, IBM Security and IBM Cloud Data services to keep businesses streamlined, scalable and safe. “Twenty-nine billion. That’s how many devices will be part of the Internet of Things by 2020. It literally touches everything – a digital fabric that connects the physical world around us,” said Harriet Green, GM, Watson IoT, Commerce and Education.

The conference was the stage for a number of announcements, in both the solution and partnership arenas.

In terms of new partners, the crowd heard from a few familiar names, including URL truncating site Bitly.

During the morning of the fourth day of the summit, the CEO of Bitly addressed the crowd to discuss how the company plans to leverage IBM’s new tools to serve the end-user.

“I’m thrilled to be here to announce that we have selected IBM Cloud as our preferred cloud platform,” said Mark Josephson, CEO, Bitly. “We are migrating our platform of 25.6 billion links to the IBM Cloud.”

The EXPO floor was populated with exhibitors and sponsors from around the world, all demonstrating their IBM-enabled technology and solutions. InterConnect 2016 wrapped up at the end of the week with last-minute knowledge from InterConnect Academy and entertainment from the legend Sir Elton John. march 2016

15

gisec

Secure connections GISEC returns to the Dubai World Trade Centre in March. This year expect experts, vendors, innovations, and perhaps a bit of fun.

T

his year’s regional security conference, GISEC, will be held from 29th to 31st March Dubai World Trade Centre. Aiming to provide “security innovation for a connected future,” GISEC is the leading conference for IT security professionals throughout the GCC. The conference will feature keynotes, case studies and panel debates on the best practices to defend against the increasingly complex attacks faced by organisations in the region.

GISEC is the region’s only dedicated, large scale IT security event, connecting international and regional companies with senior buyers from 10 core industries.

This year’s line-up of speakers will feature security experts from around the globe, including Nigel Gibbons, Microsoft Global Advisory Board

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Member, and Brigadier General Jim Jaeger, former Director of Intelligence for the US Air Force Atlantic Command, Member of the Road Island State Cyber Commission and Chief Cyber Strategist.

Vendor experts from DarkMatter, Microsoft, Cisco, BT and more will guide attendees though the latest in security solution offerings.

Industry specific panel sessions will allow participants to engage with the region’s top Chief Security Information Officers.

Education and awareness will be key for GISEC this year, with sessions such as the Malware masterclass bringing security experts up to date on the latest in cybersecurity defences.

(ISC)2 will be hosting free educational sessions based on the (ISC)2 CBK for Certified Information System Security Professionals coursework.

EVENT

GISEC is aiming to prove that information security does not have to be all doom and gloom. The second annual Hackathon, this year exclusively sponsored by Microsoft, will allow up-and-coming developers, designers and entrepreneurs to pitch, hack, build prototypes, play and compete. For the first year, GISEC will also play host to an elaborate game – a cyber Capture the Flag. This security competition invites enthusiasts to take part in various categories of challenges including reverse engineering, network security, cryptography, web security, network security, digital forensics and others.

This year, GISEC will be co-located with other technology shows IoT, GEMEC and the Big Data Show to create the first Future Technology Week at Dubai World Trade Centre.

The Expo floor will be packed, as every year, with vendors and experts demonstrating new security solutions and related technology. In 2015, over 5800 trade visitors attended the exhibition and with over 90 percent of visitors planning to attend again in 2016, this year’s GISEC may prove to be the biggest in history. march 2016

16

EMC

Quantum leap EMC recently made major additions to its storage portfolio at a slick event in London, where it announced an ‘inflection point’ in the flash storage market.

David Goulden, CEO of Information Infrastructure, EMC

E

MC made the rather apt selection of East London’s Tobacco Docks – a now defunct warehouse – for the global launch of some of its exciting new storage products, executives announcing an ‘inflection point’ in the market.

The firm’s CEO of its Information Infrastructure division, David Goulden, got things underway by framing the ‘Quantum Leap’ launch in the context of EMC’s journey in recent years. “Today’s event is a moment we’ve been looking forward to for the last eight years; we’ve been working towards this stage ever since we introduced flash to the market in 2008,” he said. “We’ve arrived at a point where price points on new drives with compression are now as cheap over time from a TCO point of view.

“By 2031, computers are expected to be 1,000 times more powerful than they are today. We are now at the tip of the fourth industrial revolution, where 50 billion connections will exist in the years to come. The pillars of the www.cnmeonline.com

“We’ve arrived at a point where price points on new drives with compression are now as cheap over time from a TCO point of view.” future data centre will be flash storage, software-defined, scale-out and cloudenabled. This will be driven by secure, available and well supported services.”

Goulden went on to announce the launch of EMC’s VMAX All Flash enterprise data services platform and DSSD D5 rack-scale flash solution.

The VMAX All Flash consolidates mixed block and file workloads, rich data services, IBM mainframe and iSeries support, and scalable storage growth.

EMC is extending VMAX data services to VMAX All Flash, its appliance-like packaging now containing both hardware and software.

The array has been re-engineered to offer two models: the VMAX 450 and EMC VMAX 850. It offers 150GB/S throughput, conducts 4 million IOPS and has half a millisecond of response time.

“Between our Xtremio and VMAX All Flash offerings, there aren’t any

EVENT

type of workloads that we can’t address from a storage point of view,” Goulden added.

The DSSD D5, meanwhile, fits in the 'rack-scale flash' storage category which is designed for real-time analytics for Hadoop and Oracle, being used as a data analytics platform.

It offers shared flash storage for up to 48 connected servers. EMC is promising “latency as low as 100 microseconds, throughput as high as 100 GB/s, and IOPS of up to 10 million in a 5U system.”

DSSD’s co-founder and CTO Jeff Bonwick gave a demonstration showing how Smart City monitoring could be made simple with the appliance.

Jeremy Burton, EMC's President of Products and Marketing, said, “Today’s enterprise customer wants to enable their business with modern data centres that deliver agility, efficiency and speed. We’re expanding upon EMC’s primary storage strengths and all-flash leadership, built with XtremIO. With the introduction of VMAX All Flash and DSSD D5 there is virtually no data centre use case we’re unable to address from traditional high-end enterprise workloads, to use cases that people haven’t even dreamt about in the data centre of tomorrow.”

Burton announced EMC’s estimate that by 2020, all storage used for production applications will be flashbased with traditional disk primarily being used for bulk and archive storage only.

He added, “We have now reached an inflection point, where it is more economical for organisations to use flash storage. The period from 200816 was defined by flash-HDD hybrid models, but 2016 is the year of flash.”

EMC is also extending its Xpect More programme to offer customers planning, deployment and management for the VMAX All Flash array. The program offers the combination of a lifetime flat-price maintenance model and flash endurance protection. march 2016

17

EVENT

smart hotels roundtable

The rise of Smart hotels Some of the Middle East’s top IT hospitality decision-makers joined CNME and experts from Alcatel Lucent Enterprise at Emirates Towers for an engaging discussion on the future of technology in hotels.

Ken Hu, Deputy Chairman and Rotating CEO, Huawei.

18

march 2016

f all the industries that now necessitate excellent IT and Internet services, hospitality arguably has the most demanding customers. Hotel guests have come to expect a level of service in the quality of IT that is becoming very difficult for hotels to match. As the saying goes in the hospitality industry "When things are fine, guests say nothing, but when there is a problem, you'll definitely know".

A selection of some of the Middle East’s top hospitality industry CIOs joined representatives from AlcatelLucent Enterprise and CNME for a roundtable discussion on the ‘rise of Smart hotels’. One of the hot topics of the day was the prospect of IT departments delivering a converged network in order to provide enhanced services for the guests.

The discussion was split into two parts – the operations side of IT in

O

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hospitality, and “Information has to converged solutions had the importance flow everywhere; fantastic potential, of the guest but would need to experience. the customer swerve a range of Alcatel Lucent should only have challenges to be Enterprise’s to ask once and truly successful. regional director for travel, that request should “It’s important that we consider these hospitality and be consistently options property leisure Xavier distributed by property, and Mongin set project by project,” the tone of the across hotels and he said. “In many discussion by facilities.” cases, IT decisionhighlighting some makers try to stats regarding combine things under one umbrella, but IT consumption in hotels today. it all depends on systems and brands.”

“Around 75 percent of guests travel Roy Verrips, Director of IT, with two mobile devices, and 40 Hyatt Hotels Dubai, said that pricing percent go with three or more,” structures were his main concern he said. “Meanwhile, 32 percent with potential solutions. “We’re of travellers today are part of not keen on paying upfront costs,” Generation Y, but this number will he said. “There’s no longer the hit 50 percent by 2025.” option of providers managing the Joseph Fayad, IT Director, Time solution and taking a share of the Hotels Management, said that www.cnmeonline.com

revenue – now we have to build IT costs into the price of our rooms.”

Verrips went on to underline his concerns around short, demanding technology lifecycles that necessitate frequent updates. “If I have to reinvest every two to three years, my spending doesn’t look like CAPEX to key stakeholders,” he said. “The bigger challenge, however, comes in having to spend $1 million more on applications and switches, then needing to ask for further investment dollars five years down the line.”

The discussin moved on to the importance of the guest experience with technology in hotels, and Ajay Rathi, Director of IT, Meraas Holding, highlighted an important issue that could require converged IT services.

“Information has to flow everywhere; the customer should only have to ask once and that request should be consistently distributed across hotels and facilities,” he said. “This means that visiting different hotels across the same brand necessitates the reporting of a problem, and a centralised database. There needs to be personalisation in the experience.”

Jeroen Wisse, IT Director, Accor Hotel Services Middle East, echoed this sentiment, saying that the importance of recording guest attitudes – and distributing this information across an organisation – would be key in driving better service. “You have to catch customer sentiment whenever possible,” he said. “This allows you to react properly. A problem is a challenge, and the reaction to it is key.” march 2016

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etisalat

EVENT

Mobility on-demand Etisalat recently hosted its ‘Mobility Exclusive’ workshop, which brought together more than 150 IT decision-makers looking to raise their enterprise mobility game.

T

o be successful, organisations today are encouraged to integrate mobility initiatives into their business strategies, a sentiment that was echoed by Ragy Magdy, Vice President/ES Private, Etisalat, during his keynote presentation. “Mobile devices are among the most essential tools of businesses today," he said.

"Mobile World Congress recently had the theme of ‘mobile is everything’, which suggests that mobile is more than just devices and wireless connectivity. For enterprises to maximise the benefits of technologies such as cloud, Big Data and Internet of things, they must be able to adapt in the mobile world.”

Customers and employees alike expect to access what they need, when they need it, from anywhere in the world. However, with a large gamut of platforms, updates and solutions, trying to piece together a winning enterprise mobility strategy can be daunting for IT leaders.

“Etisalat has been providing mobile services in the region for almost 22 years now. Through the robust set of services we offer in the market, we are prepared to help you leverage mobility to give your organisation a competitive edge and maximise www.cnmeonline.com

productivity gains,” Magdy said.

Graham Whitehead, a telecoms, technology and IT futurist, and owner BowZer Productions, then took to the stage to share his insights on the future of the telecoms and mobility landscape. “Before we can harness the opportunities brought by mobility, we must first understand the different complexities of the devices related to it," he said. "Subsequently, vendors and innovators should start looking at how they can make the technologies they bring to the market so simple that people will want to use them.”

Third on the stage was Oscar Garcia, SVP, Business Marketing, Etisalat, who discussed how mobility can enhance workforce productivity.

“Hyperconnectivity is happening with or without us, so it is important to equip ourselves with the right capabilities. Etisalat is always on the look-out for opportunities to support and enable organisations to increase productivity through mobility.”

Garcia also highlighted Etisalat's product 'Business Quick Start'.

The offering combines broadband Internet, fixed voice and a device (laptop, tablet or smartphone) bundled with free minutes, helping businesses easily open up a new branch office.

The primary highlight of the event was the presentation by N Vishwas Dharmadhikari, Director, Business Marketing, Mobile Services, during which he introduced Etisalat’s newest offering – EAGLE. “Enterprises are facing multiple questions due to a wide variety of critical communication needs. EAGLE is an integrated enterprise mobile solution which can give IT leaders the capability to easily manage mobile connectivity within the organisations and optimise the costs it entails.”

EAGLE entails a corporate plan with a range of tariff discounts and benefits. It aims to provide IT decision-makers with a 360-degree view of the company’s mobile subscriptions. The solution also allows more visibility and control over the accounts through its self-service and expense management features.

The final presenter of the day was Etisalat’s Digital Channel Manager Florentina Parcalabu, who delved into the use and benefits of their Business Online Portal. “The purpose of the portal is to make your lives easier, avoid standing in queues for bill payments, and save time and energy. It offers a more convenient and secure way of managing your accounts with just a few clicks.” march 2016

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CIO Speaker series

Dubai Police accelerates and sharpens enforcement HPE IDOL and the path to Safe Cities Dubai Police, one of the best security institutions on a local, regional, and global scale, has deployed a new type of scanner mounted to the top of their patrol cars, capable of “reading” vehicle license plates and rapidly detecting those whose owners are wanted by the authorities.

Associated crimes range from traffic violations to criminal activity.

At the heart of this new Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system is HPE IDOL, a secure search and analytics engine that delivers actionable intelligence from both structured and unstructured data.

Within 18 months after the roll out, the system has helped Dubai Police capture 2,739 people locally and internationally. Given the success of ANPR, the Dubai Police will soon be expanding their capability with version 2 of the system, which will offer a much wider range of detection for wanted plates and incorporate 360 degree video surveillance, all embedded discretely in the patrol car’s roofmounted lightbar.

Read more at www.cnmeonline.com/hpe

“The Dubai Police are very forward thinking. They see the vision, and because they are known as leaders in municipal security, we have a number of other police forces in the region who are keenly discussing similar implementations of this technology.”

— Russell Hammad, CEO of Zenith Gulf Security

Ditto Machine

This month’s Vintage Tech delves into the occasionally overlooked office equipment space. Before printers, copiers - and well before scanners that can digitise thousands of sheets of paper onto a flash drive the size of a stick of gum - there was the humble, albeit massively clunky, Ditto machine. Originally produced by the Illinois-based Ditto Corporation in 1923, the Ditto Machine transferred ink on to a master copy made of wax paper. Then, an alcoholbased fluid was applied to transfer the ink on another sheet of paper to make a copy. Few of us remember the waxy, smelly, purpled-inked copies spat out by Ditto machines, but those that do were thankful for the rise of the photocopier.

The victim of new technology, the Ditto’s sales tanked in the 1970s and by 1990 were largely banished to the basements of rundown schools and community centres.

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CIO

Spotlight

Food for thought At the age of 11, Hatem Manawy, now Regional IT Director, Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia at the food and hospitality giant Americana Group, fell in love with technology. More specifically, it was the unboxing of his first Atari game console that sparked what would become a life-long relationship with all things tech.

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It was amazing,” he recalls opening the gift.

“The Atari was the best thing at the time.” Later that year, the young Manawy watched a show on television about computer programming, and he knew that he wanted to be involved in the profession. “It was the automation that interested me. It was a complete mind shift,” he says.

His hometown, Giza, just outside of Cairo, was small but bustling.

“When I began travelling later in life, I was surprised at how quiet other cities were,” he recalls his first trip abroad. His family was relatively small, with just one sibling, his sister. “Now I also have a son and a daughter,” he says. “I guess it is kind of a family tradition.”

Half way through his 10th grade studies, Manawy decided to take what would be the first in a series of calculated risks. “I decided to study for my General Certificate of Education instead of completing high school,” Manawy explains. “My parents were against it at first, but I insisted. When they saw I was serious, they supported the idea. I had a private tutor, and studied constantly.

When the exams came round, I passed with high marks.”

In 1988, Manawy went on to study at Cairo University. “I knew I wanted to work with computers, and at the time, that was under the faculty of Electronics and Communication,” he recalls. “I had a professor, Dr. Ahmed Darwish, that had a huge impact on my studies. He taught us in a way that was completely new at the time, using real-world scenarios and applications.” Dr. Darwish had such an effect on him that, years later, Manawy would dedicate his graduate school thesis to his mentor.

"

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Manawy completed his bachelor’s degree, and in 1993 was hired at Giza Systems, as a UNIX Systems Specialist. He hadn't intended to begin his career at the time. “I wanted to take some time off, but a friend of mine was going to turn in his CV, and he convinced me to come.

When I got to the offices, it turns out that the two systems specialists in charge of the UNIX department – a man and a woman – were getting married. They needed someone to start immediately. A few days later, I started.” There, he configured and supported UNIX networks and their associated products. “It was a learning experience,” says Manawy, “it was the first time that I felt real responsibility in my career. When I had a problem, I couldn’t call the people that I replaced – they were on their honeymoon!”

It was during his time at Giza Systems that Manawy travelled for the first time. “I went to Birmingham for some training,” he recalls. Before going, Manawy did a bit of planning.

“This was so long ago, before Google.

I had to go to the British consulate in Cairo and photocopy maps.” When he arrived in the UK, the culture shock set in, “I just couldn’t believe how quiet it was. I was used to Cairo with all the noise of that city. It was amazing to experience a place so different from my home.” It was this experience that began a love of travel. “I don’t like to go and just stay in a hotel and take taxis. I want to experience other cultures,” he says.

He decided to continue his education, this time focusing on Intranet security. “I was working during the day and studying at Cairo University at night, it was a very busy time for me,” he recalls. At this time, Manawy was convinced he wanted to be a university professor and an IT

consultant. “I eventually wanted to study for my PhD.” In 1995, Manawy decided it was time to move on from Giza Systems.

He took a position at NCR Corporation – an organisation that would be a breeding ground for many up-andcoming IT experts at the time. “I was only there for a year, but I learned a great deal about supporting the customer,” says Manawy of his customer-facing Computer Services Engineer position. In the end, he determined that his position was a bit narrow, and returned to Giza Systems, this time as a Senior Pre-Sales and Networking Engineer. “I was glad to be back in Giza,” says Manawy, “but I admit it was then that I learned that sales was simply not my thing.” After nearly two years, he moved on again, this time to a multi-national company.

Manawy completed his master’s degree in 1997, but quickly learned that IT consultancy may not have been best at the time. Instead, he went looking for the next step in his career. “I started at Energizer in 1998 as an Information Systems Manager.

It was around that time that everyone was becoming concerned with Y2K. It was my job to prepare the company for the change-over.” He also worked on the iScala ERP system as well as planning and operations for a number of infrastructure and applications.

During this time, Manawy decided to take on an MBA at the American University of Cairo. “I thought I had been busy during my master’s but this was even more so,” he says.

Manawy had been working during the day and studying at night, but he was now a father. “I had a young daughter at the time, and then my son was born in 2003," he says. "I was worried I couldn’t do everything to be a good employee, a good student, march 2016

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CIO

Spotlight However, a few years later, he was a good husband and a good father.” approached to join Americana. “It Thankfully, he says, his wife was would be the first time that I would exceptionally supportive, and in 2004 live overseas – I had always lived in he graduated with his MBA. Egypt,” says Manawy. He had visited Manawy moved up the ladder Dubai for work in the past, but taking at Energizer, taking on the role on the “expat” life would prove to be of Regional Information Systems very different. “Everyone in my family Manager for Africa and the Middle was on board. We wanted to have East. “It was at this time that I became new surroundings.” With his wife and truly familiar in the art of working children prepared for the move, they with different cultures,” he says. “The shifted houses – and Manawy shifted way people interact – particularly jobs – to Dubai. with their boss – is very different Though he admits to having little from culture to culture,” he says. “In free time these days, the few moments one place it may be acceptable to be he does have, Manawy spends with casual with your manager, in another his family. “My daughter is always place people may be so polite that it is changing what she difficult to even wants to be when tell when they are “I had a young she grows up. Right upset.” now she wants to In 2008, daughter at the be a dentist, I think.

Manawy moved time, and then My son loves video companies my son was born games, but I admit again, but still he always beats remained in in 2003. I was me, so it is a bit Egypt. This time worried I couldn’t humbling.” he would take on do everything to be Though nothing the Regional IT may be as exciting Manager position a good employee, as opening his first at pharmaceutical a good student, a gaming console at giant Eli Lilly. “It good husband and a the age of 11, there was a completely are still elements different game,” good father.” of technology says Manawy. “I that seem just as had a Romanian magical to Manawy. “I think what we boss at the time, and he used to are doing with virtual reality is really say ‘We run IT as a business.’” This exciting. We could be having this was a significant departure, says interview in different parts of the Manawy, from his previous positions. world, and it would feel like we are “Beforehand, we used to ask whether just sitting across from each other,” or not we had a budget for the he quips. “It is a game-changer for project before we started. Now, if the the consumer.” company needed something from IT, As for the advice he would give we would create the budget for it.” an up-and-coming CIO: “Never stop Having a direct line between IT and learning. Technology doesn’t stop the end goal of the company gave changing, so you should always be Manawy renewed purpose and a learning something new.” wider view of the business side of IT. 28

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TIMELINE 1993 Earns BSc from Cairo University

1995 Joins NCR Corporation

1996 Returns to Giza Systems

1998 Joins Energizer

2000 Completes MBA from American University of Cairo

2008 Joins to Eli Lilly

2010 Moves to Dubai

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ADVERTISEMENT

Strength in consolidation Modern IT environments need to be agile, scalable and future-proof. At the helm of the latest wave of IT modernisation is the data centre. To greet the future and remain powerful, consolidation is often the first step.

In an increasingly digitalised and virtualised world, it can be difficult for organisations to deal with the resulting flood of data. IT experts, in response to emerging technologies and demands from employees, have been pushed forward by this wave of data, obligated to make their IT environments more flexible and powerful. Data centre consolidation should be top of the list for IT professionals tasked with increasing power and efficiency, while keeping data both physically and virtually secure. Security should be built into the data centre’s architecture from the ground up.

Data centre consolidation is just one aspect in a larger movement aimed at modernising overall IT infrastructure.

The expectation to “do more with less” is increasing and the solution for many enterprises begins with data centre consolidation. The process results in a number of benefits, including CAPEX and OPEX reduction, increased agility and a short application and service deployment cycle.

“Enterprises today are battling against costs associated with power and space in terms of their data centres,” says Nader Baghdadi, enterprise regional director, South Gulf countries and Pakistan. “Virtualisation and software-defined data centre projects can optimise what is already there, but achieving a 99.95 percent level of reliability needs a certain level of investment.”

Most importantly, data centre consolidation plays an important role in keeping IT systems up to date, and enterprises competitive on a global level. Organisations that keep their infrastructure current are able to react swiftly to constantly changing business needs and meet their customers’ demands in a timelier manner.

“Data centre policies now need to address the environment, components and the right vendors,” Baghdadi adds. “There’s no perfect solution, but you need a homogeneous environment for the right updates. FortiGuard Labs looks at the threat and environment landscape and pushes this policy down to technology components.”

In the past, to achieve the twin goals of power and agility, data centre design turned to faster or more powerful hardware components. However, these days, virtualisation is taking over the data centre landscape. SDN and other increasingly common technologies are used to optimise network configurations in virtual environments.

Though IT professionals may be keen to push forward with a data centre consolidation project, it is important to consider security in every step of the consolidation process.

Security is an integral part in the design and implementation of a consolidation project.

During the assessment phase, a baseline of security should be created. This includes looking at the enterprise’s existing security strategy, infrastructure, services, policies and overall security posture and thereby identifying existing and potential gaps. The planning phase takes the decisions made in the assessment phase and moves them forward.

This period should also include reaching out to vendors in the RFI, RFP and PoC to understand their offerings; security should be top of the necessary criteria.

The implementation process is a critical phase in terms of security. This phase brings together different aspects of the data centre, including applications, computer, storage, network as well as security, into a live, integrated and functioning ecosystem that serves the enterprise’s business objectives and growth. In this highly complex environment, security in all domains must be made a priority.

Finally, once the data centre consolidation process is complete, the management phase begins. The phase is more accurately a continuous process, enabling the data centre lifecycle by providing tools and procedures to monitor, asses and evolve services, SL and overall functionality in all domains. In a hybrid environment, it is important that these tools in place provide complete, end-to-end configuration, monitoring, analysis and reporting capabilities.

Of these four phases, it is arguably the planning phase that will have the most profound effect on security. It is at this point that the actual security needs, architecture and policies will be defined for implementation. Without a solid plan in place, data consolidation projects can easily lose a security focus.

The data centre is the scaffolding upon which private and hybrid cloud schemes can be built. It not only provides the computing power and storage space for applications, but is also the linchpin of interaction and transactions with partners, suppliers and customers. Potential bad actors are not unaware of the importance of the data centre and therefore they become the primary target of malicious attacks.

In the complex environment that makes up a data centre, there are a number of potential threats. It would be difficult to achieve continuous security with a single product of technology. Instead, the security of a data centre must be considered as adaptive and is best equipped with bespoke solutions that shield the data from attacks.

With this in mind, consolidated data centres must be more adaptable and agile to take on specialised security technology. This must remain true in the face of large data volumes in both hybrid and private environments. Firms that specialise in security, such as Fortinet, can make formidable partners in a data centre consolidation process.

case study

Electronic Government Authority

Backing RAk Struggling to efficiently backup its 650 virtual machines, Ras Al Khaimah’s Electronic Government Authority opted for a solution that could save time and ensure the safety of mission-critical public sector data.

hen it comes to securing data concerning a nation’s citizens, there really is no margin for error. Whether it’s a question of securing private records from a country’s – or in the case of Ras Al Khaimah, an emirate’s – legal system, or ensuring that citizens’ identity details are easily accessible, high standards are paramount.

RAK’s Electronic Government Authority (EGA) is no different.

Formed in 2004, EGA serves as a hub for the emirate’s 22 government departments, providing end-to-end projects and support services.

“As the entity responsible for providing the IT infrastructure which helps all of Ras Al Khaimah’s government entities - including the Economic, Justice and Land departments - access information and collaborate effectively, the reputational and monetary impact of downtime on our organisation is immense,” Alia Al Kindy, Manager IT Services, EGA, says.

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As EGA set itself on a path to implement more integrated solutions with modern technology, it focused its attention on virtualising its environment. Opting for VMware vSphere, EGA established 400 virtual machines for its virtual desktop infrastructure, and a further 250 for its mission-critical applications, together counting towards a 95 percent virtualisation rate for the organisation.

However, although progress had been made on this front, EGA lacked a reliable backup solution for its virtual servers.

“Backups regularly failed and by the time we uncovered the issues and found solutions, we had fallen behind our backup objectives,” Al Kindy says. “Our inability to drill down into the cause of slow backups was

frustrating. We had to ensure high availability for all our critical servers and applications.” She also saw this as an opportunity to cut IT overheads, as the licensing structure of EGA’s existing backup solution was complex and expensive. EGA’s previous backup solution was “very costly” and needed a proxy server for virtualised environment backups. Furthermore, Al Kindy was keen to test EGA’s backup capabilities, but had no virtual lab in which to do so.

EGA undertook a POC process in which it evaluated a series of vendors, and carefully considered individual specifications before presenting their ideas to senior management. “We have to evaluate what each department wants, and

“Backups regularly failed and by the time we uncovered the issues and found solutions, we had fallen behind our objectives.” www.cnmeonline.com

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Electronic Government Authority

what solutions will suit their needs,” Al Kindy says. “At the end of the day they are our customers, so it’s important that we can provide a protecting shield for any of their confidential data.” EGA eventually opted for Veeam’s Availability Suite for its backup, restore and replication capabilities.

Although EGA had very minor configuration issues, the overall implementation was carried out without incident.

Al Kindy attributes this to the level of support she received from the vendor.

“The product only took one week to integrate and was seamless, with no issues,” she says. “Veeam’s support made the whole process easy.” Now the process has been completed, Al Kindy finds it easy to pinpoint the project’s successes.

“One of the best things about Veeam’s solution is its automated backup and avalability capabilities,” she says.

For Al Kindy, two features that stand out are Instant VM Recovery and Virtual Labs. “With Instant VM Recovery, we can recover virtual application servers within just five to 10 minutes, while Virtual Labs allows us to safely test and develop applications,” she says. This has given EGA the confidence to run missioncritical applications including VDI, email exchange, databases, mobile device management, ERP, Sharepoint, video conferencing, and endpoint protection on its VMs.

While EGA’s main data centre is based in Dubai, it maintains multiple server rooms at the offices of each of the government departments it serves across Ras Al Khaimah. Despite the distributed nature of its server infrastructure, the IT team is now able to centrally manage all its VMs from a single console. “It allows us to easily identify any potential reasons for backup failure, and won’t make a virtual machine heavier,” Al Kindy says.

“The reporting aspect of the solution is absolutely fantastic, and a major time saver.”

Al Kindy takes great pride in the effect that her work has had on RAK’s Government.

“It’s allowed our department to have greater impact on the Government’s operations,” she says. “In the case of data loss, we can easily react, and with backups in place we can easily carry out data restoration.” The solution has proved to be a major time saver in this respect, where virtual machine backups previously took two hours to complete, but are now finished in less than half an hour. Veeam’s Availability Suite also has its own proxy server for virtualised environment backups, satisfying EGA’s previous need. In-built deduplication and compression have been major boons. “Prior to Veeam, our backup windows were significantly longer and due to failures and issues, required active monitoring every

“RAK’s Government departments are our customers, so it’s important that we can provide availability for any of their confidential data.”

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half an hour or so. This meant that every day, at least one or two of our team members were spending time on a non-productive task,” says Al Kindy.

RAK Government’s Economic and Public Prosecution departments have been major beneficiaries of the new solution, with both being heavy users of VDI. “This contains critical data, which has to be backed up,” Al Kindy says. Over 200 users from the Economic Department are now using VDI, and are experiencing “quick” and “safe” backup. The Land department, which has 40 users, is now also interested in using the solution.

In terms of cost, EGA has also made “impressive” savings on software licencing. “We can now monitor all devices and virtual machines – a greater number than we’d previously had – for the same cost,” Al Kindy says. “One resource was also dedicated to backup, but now has been automated, we can put this employee to better use elsewhere.” EGA estimates it has recovered 30 percent of the project investment in just the first eight to 12 months and expects to achieve full ROI within 24 months.

Looking forward, Al Kindy believes the upgrade has the potential to act as a springboard for future related projects. “We hope to virtualise our network, and we’re certainly keen on upgrading to the latest set of Veeam features,” she says. EGA is now also considering implementing a disaster recovery site in Ras Al Khaimah, and Al Kindy is keen to continue the new partnership.

“Veeam has helped us drive efficiency, productivity, resource and time conservation and most importantly, customer satisfaction.

In short, it gives our IT department total peace of mind.” www.cnmeonline.com

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case study

Dr Sulaiman Al Habib Hospital Medical Group

Mobile medicine With 10,000 outpatients and 1,300 doctors passing through its doors daily, Dr Sulaiman Al Habib Hospital Medical Group has a whole host of complex and vital applications, which require high quality Internet.

Realising it was falling short in terms of mobility, the Group opted for a fresh Wi-Fi solution to power its hospital information system. octors aren’t the only agents under strain at Dr Sulaiman Al Habib Medical Group (HMG).

With 14 facilities, including six hospitals and four medical centres in Saudi Arabia and one hospital and medical centre in Dubai, HMG receives 10,000 outpatients per day, and has a 1,400 inpatient capacity. This vast quantity of people passing through its doors means that HMG’s network was incapable of delivering services up to the Group’s high standards.

Adding to this pressure, over the course of the next two years, the firm is also planning to open facilities in the As Suwaidi district of Riyadh, and in eastern city Al Khobar, as well as increasing bed numbers by 800.

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The Group’s operations are centralised to its Riyadh office, with support offices in its branches across the region. At the core of operations sits the hospital information system (HIS) which has a series of critical and bandwidth-heavy applications that are mandatory for the dayto-day work of doctors. “Our HIS – ‘Vida’ – contains inpatient and outpatient modules, which includes critical core data from the emergency and operating rooms,” IT director Irshad Ismail says. “It also contains pharmacy and laboratory data as well as the financial side of things including billing and insurance.”

The Group’s Oracle ERP system is also “tightly integrated” with Vida, while a mobile app and self-service

“and the role of IT in this process is evident. Take a scenario where a patient is in an intensive care unit and their blood pressure increases.

The bedside monitor is integrated with Vida and able to message a doctor or nurse to allow them to proactively manage the situation.”

In addition to this service, there are a range of dashboards and analytics platforms that hospital staff need to access which allow them to optimise resources, which in turn has a clear impact on patient health.

The Hospital’s core systems are run on HP, while the core network and telephony were provided by Avaya. “We have a lot of state-of-theart apps that serve both our staff and patients,” Ismail says.

“Our existing infrastructure could not support BYOD, and to our staff this was a non-existent concept; they only knew of wired services.” kiosks are available for patients to book appointments and access their medical history. Collectively, all these applications and systems take on huge importance for HMG. “Patient safety is obviously of paramount importance,” Ismail says,

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The ethos of high quality service at HMG extends from doctors and nurses to the IT department. “Our mission is to provide innovative healthcare services and state-ofthe-art medical facilities,” Ismail says. “An important part of this is ensuring that staff and patients can take full advantage of mobility, and are not bound to physical places. Our nurses in particular need to be able to move around the hospitals and have constant access to information.”

However, in spite of the advanced technology that was in place at the Hospital, there was one thing that was conspicuous by its absence. In an age where mobile devices are at the march 2016

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Dr Sulaiman Al Habib Hospital Medical Group

centre of enterprise IT, Ismail and his team came to the realisation that they were lagging on this front. “We had no BYOD offering for patients, so it’s fair to say that we weren’t meeting their needs in that respect,” he says.

“Our existing infrastructure could not support BYOD, and to our staff this was a non-existent concept; they only knew of wired services.”

Convincing other figures of a new solution’s benefits was not difficult.

“Once the CEO understood the potential value of the project, we had no issues in obtaining the appropriate budget,” Ismail says. “The technology infrastructure – the physical layer – was already there from day one so we had a good foundation for the change.”

In addition to the host of applications and systems that the network would have to power, one key concern could not be avoided in the process. “Confidentiality is paramount in the healthcare industry,” Ismail says. “Our Wi-Fi provider would have to provide a secure and easily managed solution.”

Furthermore, against a backdrop of fast growth, the Hospital’s new network would need to meet rigorous requirements. “Suffice to say that it would have to be scalable and robust,” Ismail says. “The progress

that the Group has made suggests that further IT expansion is inevitable, and that’s something we had to be prepared for. With that in mind, we did not want to be tied up with vendor licenses, and the new solution would have to work end-to-end with all our products.”

Ismail and his team set about the task by removing the existing access points and controllers, and replaced them with 1,800 new Aruba access points spread over 22 buildings, and 10 Wi-Fi controllers.

“The firewall configuration was straightforward,” Ismail says.

Having completed the project, Ismail and HMG are already highly satisfied with the solution.

“It’s provided a whole host of benefits to the Group, including scalability, robustness, enhanced network monitoring and the ability to segregate traffic.”

Crucially, the solution has been fully integrated HMG’s HIS, which has had a fundamental impact on the quality of services for patients and staff.

One of the biggest gains HMG has experienced is the ability to leverage Vida’s applications at greater speed.

Ismail and his team have designed a mobile application for staff that gives them access to patient information and medical records, which is already

“Say a patient is in an intensive care unit and their blood pressure increases, the bedside monitor is integrated with our HIS and messaged a doctor or nurse, allowing them to proactively manage the situation.”

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proving to be a fantastic time-saver and boost for HMG’s healthcare services and operations.

Aruba’s ClearPass access management system has allowed the Group to provision Internet services across a range of networks, including the guest service as well as provisioning access control for corporate figures. The new solution also allows for enhanced monitoring capabilities, reducing frustration amongst staff and patients before problems occur. “At any time, we know how well apps and services are behaving and being used,” Ismail says.

“We can monitor services end to end – from our servers to the end-users.

Proactive endpoint monitoring has reduced the burden on the service desk, which is also good for morale.” HMG is now able to control and block malicious applications, as well as having efficient granular controls. “If access points are down, we can know in advance and take action before users complain.”

The solution has also provided an increased element of user satisfaction.

“It is now scalable and flexible for BYOD,” Ismail says. HMG has added a customised greeting feature for patients when they log in to the HIS via a mobile device. “This enhances the BYOD concept for patients.” HMG is already experiencing positive feedback from patients, receing a number of positive comments on Twitter. “It’s important for patients and their relatives to have this Internet access, if nothing else to ensure that they don’t waste their time while waiting for doctors.”

Ismail is in no doubt that the addition of Aruba’s access points and controllers will play a key role in HMG’s digitalisation strategy. “Our long-term vision is for a paperless hospital,” he says. “We are not only obliged, but are driven to provide innovative patient care.” www.cnmeonline.com

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Telecoms World OSS-BSS

Pre Integrated OSS-BSS Pre-integrated OSS and BSS is said to be crucial for telecom operators to achieve agility and flexibility as they roll out next-generation networks and introduce multi-media services. We look at the value of OSS/BSS in-a-box and what should be considered before making the leap to these solutions.

ver time, pre-integrated OSS-BSS has grown from being a support system to one that is now regarded as providing a competitive edge for service providers. Supporting demand for high bandwidth multimedia applications is a tough task, with a range of datasets needing effective monitoring. These range from measuring revenue to monitoring customer usage.

Is a single OSS-BSS suite now a must for telecom providers? Henrique do Vale, Head of Sales, Applications and Analytics, MEA, Nokia Networks, believes it is an important element in keeping them on their toes what may be around the corner. “Service providers typically have networks that are constantly evolving to add new capabilities that support new services,� he says. “A single integrated OSS/BSS suite that enables

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service providers to manage all network domains is key to achieve the agility and cost efficiency necessary to address the volume and pace of customer demand.”

Farrukh Ahmed, Chief Technology Officer, Vodafone Qatar, however, believes that although it may present a fantastic opportunity for certain vendors, but could force others into a corner.

“Vendor-specific suites such as Oracle have the advantage of being on an evolution path that will theoretically always offer bigger and better capabilities over the lifetime of the licence agreement,” he says. “On the other hand, there is a distinct disadvantage in the form of a CSP being tied into a skillset – such as application development services - that comes with a premium price. However, to provide speed and agility in provisioning and network management, the better integrated these domains are, the better the outcome.”

With technology lifecycles becoming increasingly shorter, telco operators are increasingly obliged to optimise their CAPEX by building services with resources across network domains. The ability to deliver these services across domains will be key for future success.

By the same token, omnichannel architecture will help get the best out of future solutions.

“If customer asset data is stored in your CRM system, it doesn’t matter how accurate or up-todate that information is, unless it can be delivered to the customer in real-time, across digital channels and be accurate,” Ahmed says. “A fully integrated solution can then take advantage of the BSS capabilities to deliver more timely and accurate customer executions and experiences.”

In spite of the promise that awaits adopters of the solutions, there are naturally a number of obstacles that must be overcome in implementation. “These are not new challenges,” Ahmed says, “and even the world’s biggest vendors have not always successfully delivered this. Additionally, it depends on the capabilities that a CSP has implemented in each domain.

It is also influenced by the choice of BSS/OSS architecture. A COTS approach will present a very different challenge to a solution that is bespoke. The key is to ensure that the coupling is flexible, extensible and easy to implement. www.cnmeonline.com

“A single integrated OSS/BSS suite that enables service providers to manage all network domains is key to achieve the agility and cost efficiency necessary to address the volume and pace of customer demand.”

Henrique do Vale, Head of Sales, Applications and Analytics, MEA, Nokia Networks

do Vale, meanwhile, sets store in availability and and visibility of information. “First and foremost on the list of challenges is a comprehensive data modelling approach,” he says. “This has to enables all facets of the environment to be available and exposed to the systems so that all of the various applications can benefit from all of the underlying information to operate seamlessly end-to-end. Whether it is a fulfilment or assurance or billing application, the ability for the application to see all of the relevant ingredients in order to operate at a comprehensive level is critical.”

Although telco providers are making every effort to upgrade their legacy technology, there will always be systems and applications that are not exactly green field. What is key here is that legacy technology can accommodate common services, and not depend on point-to-point integration. do Vale believes integration with legacy systems to be imperative, “Integration with and co-operation with legacy systems is a must,” he says. “Brown-field operations are the norm. The important strategy is how to architect the new systems to overarch the legacy ones to create a comprehensive ecosystem. All of this starts with an abstraction layer at the bottom and an orchestration layer across the top of all of the network environments, legacy and new, physical and virtual.”

On the other hand, as well as looking back, the issue of pre-integrated OSS-BSS raises questions looking forward. One such technology trend that ties in with this is network function virtualisation - one particular concept that will keep service providers on their toes. The ability march 2016

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Telecoms World OSS-BSS

to virtualise network nodes for communication purposes stands to provide increased speed of services and reduced costs on hardware, and, looking forward, is sure to be adopted by all providers in time. Some might argue that preintegrated OSS-BSS is a necessity in delivering a successful move to NFV. do Vale believes that a well-integrated approach between past and present technologies will satisfy both camps in this respect. “The important systems strategy to incorporate NFV will be one that enables operators to get a single over-arching control of a hybrid environment consisting of legacy and virtual resources,” he says. “The transition to NFV tends to be an evolutionary approach, where certain parts of the network ecosystem are converted to virtual resources, while other parts of the network will require more time to convert to NFV.” While NFV is a relatively new concept, knowledge on the subject is relatively limited in terms of the importance of pre-integrated OSS-

“In order to make the right BSS/ OSS strategic decisions, it has to evolve with the flexibility and speed with which NFV does.”

Farrukh Ahmed, Chief Technology Officer, Vodafone Qatar

BSS in its foundations. “NFV has to evolve more and become more stable before we know whether pre integrated OSS-BSS is a prerequisite for service providers,” Ahmed says. “But, in order to make the right BSS/OSS strategic decisions then that has to evolve with the flexibility and speed with which NFV does. However, in order to take full advantage of NFV and deliver the benefits that NFV offers, the quality and breadth of the BSS/OSS integration is very important. It’s not a prerequisite, but really helps to delivery at scale and at quality.”

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network World WAN

the new network As Wide Area Network demands increase, the IT department searches for a new solution in software-defined WAN.

S

oftware-defined 'X' is certainly not a new concept. In the past few years, the focus of software-defined technology has been on the data centre – transforming once dated and clunky equipment in to the sleek, streamlined data centres of today. Ultimately, softwaredefined technologies have transformed the way IT leaders manage their networks, and have changed the bottom line of many IT budgets. The next move in the world of software-defined technology: softwaredefined WAN. WAN has been changing over the years, however slowly. MPLS is now the standard instead of frame-relay, and the optimisation

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of WAN has moved up the to-do list into a priority for many organisations. However, the traditional WAN that enterprises have become accustomed to is due for a full overhaul.

Software-defined WAN may seem like a technology caught in its infancy, however it is simply the next step in a journey that began with software-defined networking. The two are related, however, SD-WAN take the concepts of software-defined networking and applies them to WAN. “SDN is an architecture, whereas SD-WAN is a technology you can buy,” explains Gartner analyst Andrew Lerner, who tracks the SD-WAN market closely.

Simply, software-defined WAN is a new approach to creating and rolling-out enterprise WANS. The goal is to move

www.cnmeonline.com

from a traditional branch router system to applications that leverage virtualisation, application-level policies and network overlays to stitch together consumer-grade Internet links into one enterprise circuit. The end result is that an employee will simply need to connect whichever device they prefer to automatically receive configuration from a central controller. In short, the device would behave as if it were connected to the company’s on-premise WAN. The adoption of software-defined WAN has been slow thus far. Gartner estimates that SD-WAN has less than 1 percent market share today. However, experts agree that the potential for the technology is robust.

Gartner again predicts that up to 30 percent of users will be managing their WAN through software within three years. In short, it is only a matter of time.

The main driver of adoption, it would seem, is similar to that of software-defined networking. IT professionals looking to cut their costs will inevitably look to software-defined WAN. Enterprise wide area networks can be a drain on both budget and broadband. The amount of bandwidth consumed by an increasing volume of users and devices can hardly keep up these days.

Software-defined WAN

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“People always want to believe in Santa Claus and magic. They want to believe that there is new stuff that you can just deploy and it works - and then the reality sets in, unfortunately.”

Ivan Pepelnjak, Network Architect, ipSpace.net AG.

can address challenges faced by increasingly demanding, and complex WAN in a number of ways. Chiefly, automating ongoing configuration of WAN edge routers, running traffic over a hybrid of public broadband, private MPLS links and other WAN links such as LTE will result in an improved enterprise network edge.

The first, and likely most immediately noticed, improvement to this enterprise network edge will likely be the cost.

Enterprises should be able to rely more heavily on broadband and less on private links using a software-defined network setup. An automated SD-WAN should actively take stock between endpoints to assess if the broadband link is capable of the task at hand. As a result, enterprises will be able to dedicate their budges to more extensive, cheaper broadband links.

As businesses move to a hybrid cloud model and more company resources are

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shifted off premises, it will become increasingly important to connect workers to applications.

Where in the past, legacy networks connected locations, now WAN needs to address workers on the go. Software-defined WAN fills that need, allowing employees to access content and applications from any location.

There have been a number of vendors to come out from all areas of the networking market to provide solutions for softwaredefined WAN. Most notably, networking giant Cisco delivers their take on softwaredefined WAN, promising improved security, experience and compliance. Entering the market as well are Silver Peak Systems, Talari and a few new names such as CloudGenix, Velocloud and Viptela.

“It’s a technology that I think is going to begin replacing MPLS if MPLS doesn’t get cheaper,” says John Shaffer, CIO of Greenhill and Co., an investment banking firm based in New York that’s in the process of deploying Vitpela’s SD-WAN boxes at its 15 offices. “A lot of our offices work independently of each other aside from email. You start wondering what you’re using MPLS for and why you’re paying so much money for it.”

However, there may be a few bumps in the road to streamlined software-defined WAN. These new appliances can seem a bit abstract, and make traditional hardware-jockeys a bit

“The whole SDN movement opened up the market’s eyes to the fact that there are better ways to solve longstanding challenges. Although SD-WAN is not SDN, that whole mindset and cultural shift brought in with SDN had an impact on the entire market.”

Andrew Lerner, Analyst, Gartner

“It’s a technology that I think is going to begin replacing MPLS if MPLS doesn’t get cheaper. A lot of our offices work independently of each other aside from email. You start wondering what you’re using MPLS for and why you’re paying so much money for it.”

John Shaffer, CIO, Greenhill and Co.

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sceptical. Ivan Pepelnjak, an independent network architect in Slovenia who operates ipSpace.net AG, a consultancy that provides software-defined networking (SDN) training and services contends that the softwaredefined WAN trend may be little more than well-marketed, albeit slightly improved, old news. “People always want to believe in Santa Claus and magic,” says Pepelnjak, “They want to believe that there is new stuff that you can just deploy and it works - and then the reality sets in, unfortunately.”

Whether it provides marginal improvement or is a complete game-changer, one thing has already been proven by software-defined WAN. The world is hungry for softwaredefined solutions and virtualisation, and is now willing to take some risks and think outside of the traditional network parametres.

“The whole SDN movement opened up the market’s eyes to the fact that there are better ways to solve longstanding challenges,” says Lerner. “Although SD-WAN is not SDN, that whole mindset and cultural shift brought in with SDN had an impact on the entire market.

“And while all the early talk about SDN was in the data centre,” Lerner continues, “if you actually talk to end customers, a big percentage of their spend on the network is typically on telecom - in MPLS and branch connectivity.” www.cnmeonline.com

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solutions World Open source

Open season

For any enterprise, reducing operational IT expenditures while increasing security and software capabilities is a top priority. With advantages such as cost-savings and ease of use, open source solutions continue to pick up steam across multiple organisations around the world. ccording to research by Black Duck Software, more than 78 percent of global companies are using open source solutions. Tech giants like Google, Facebook and Microsoft have been adopting a more open source-oriented approach, which has been evident in their latest software releases.

Open source solutions can be modified to fit the specific needs of various companies, a characteristic that is often not possible with proprietary software.

“In the open source world, there is ‘collaborative innovation’ where ideas and inventions are shared,” says Lee Miles, General Manager, Middle East, Africa and Turkey, Red Hat. “Technologies built this way offer transparency, accountability, and participation from citizens, and are particularly appealing to various organisations. Open source software has really driven a major element which the business community is benefiting from – the democratisation of software. This means that anybody can contribute to an open source project. Also, as proprietary software vendors tend to have a limited resource pool with a set number of developers, many years of

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experience have shown that the open source model can deliver superior technology faster, and end products that suit users better.”

According to Massimo Capoccia, SVP, Product Management and Development, Infor, functionalities of proprietary software do not need to differ from OSS per se. “However, the big difference is that OSS software is backed up by a big community of developers who can innovate much faster. The innovation, openness, and the fact that it is unbound to any commercial agenda allows OSS engineers to develop at a quicker pace than engineers inside an enterprise.”

As the popularity of open source technologies grows, so have the misconceptions around it. Fallacies surrounding OSS range from security concerns to quality and availability issues.

“First, enterprises assume they can simply move to open source without changing their own internal operating model,” explains Deepak Narain, Senior Manager, Systems Engineering MENA, VMware. “As an IT vendor, we constantly run into customers who’re trying to replace their commercial software with open source, without thinking about its possible implications for their organisation www.cnmeonline.com

and internal processes. If you treat open source as you treat vendor supported software, you’re not only leaving yourself open to a number of unknowns, but you’re also missing out on the whole OSS value proposition. It is imperative that organisations get senior executives' buy-in to champion changes to their internal governance, audit and operating processes to deal with this new horse in their stable.”

Narain further notes that organisations need to research and build up a body of processes to deal with the same issues in the OSS world.

The quality and security of software are often deemed as the biggest issues regarding open source. Since the technology allows users to modify the source code of open source software, it tends to create a notion that it is unsafe to use. However, Miles emphasises that over time that view of OSS has changed. “There was a time when people would worry about security or the effectiveness of open source software,” he explains. “That question never comes up anymore. By providing customers with the source code, open source companies actually provide them with two key advantages that proprietary vendors cannot. By having access to the source code, you are able to verify all of the claims, be it around security or any other feature. With proprietary software, there is no way to verify these claims.”

Miles further clarifies that with open source software, users can also have the ability to adapt technology to suit their businesses. “This aspect has helped the National Security Agency of the United States' Department of Defence to decide to use Linux as the platform for their security environment,” he says. “They saw the ability to effectively define their own architecture, and then work with other market forces to develop this component as critical. Also, in true open source style, they decided to provide this security infrastructure to the world as part of the operating system, and element we now know as security enhanced (or SE) Linux.”

Although the technology is now more widely accepted, cases of security dilemmas and even legal disputes tend to arise from time to time. That is why it may be ideal for enterprises adopting open source solutions

www.cnmeonline.com

“The innovation, openness, and the fact that it is unbound to any commercial agenda allows OSS engineers to develop at a quicker pace than engineers inside an enterprise.”

Massimo Capoccia, SVP, Product Management and Development, Infor

to create an OSS board to stipulate licensing rules. “Developers should validate the licensed methodology with legal before starting developing, and any development should include a validation phase of the code at the end of the project,” emphasises Capoccia.

“In addition, the OSS board should publish approved licences and rules on how to incorporate the OSS software in their codes.”

More and more large companies are utilising both OSS and proprietary software to tap into open source’s diverse, creative, cooperative community of developers and users.

“For an organisation to be more successful, they must be ‘open to open’, but they shouldn’t be ‘closed to closed’," says Narian. “Of course, the most important thing is knowing what fits your organisation’s needs and choosing the platform that best enables business agility.

When faced with multiple options on both open and closed solutions, businesses need to look at their own competitive landscape, their business priorities and their own strengths and weaknesses before deciding.”

According to Narian, an organisation may seek a competitive edge via a highly differentiated solution on a customised OSS platform. But it first needs to evaluate whether they have the capabilities in-house to do this. If they have to ramp up an internal team or go outside to an OSS partner, it may cause them both time and money. “Even more importantly, they need to evaluate whether they are comfortable with the operational risks of running a bespoke solution. If the market follows a set of robust standards, the OSS is mature enough and has a vibrant community or vendor support, this may well be an ideal scenario. However, this is a question that march 2016

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solutions World Open source needs to be asked and answered as part of the governance model, not as an afterthought or post-mortem.”

Capoccia complements this statement, explaining that there is always a mix of OSS and proprietary software in a commercial solution. “Ideally, functionalities that have been commoditised are covered by the OSS part and the value-add, IP and functionality sit in the proprietary piece,” he says. “For example, for a service that calculates complex pricing for e-commerce, database drivers, user interfaces libraries or a PDF converter could be the OSS while the algorithms that calculate the pricing would be proprietary to the software.”

Meanwhile, Miles highlights that having both OSS and propriety solutions is not entirely expected of an organisation and may vary on their preferences. “It really comes down to customer choice,” he opines. “But when deciding the mix between proprietary and open source solutions, companies need to consider balancing the cost of delivering what they want against the speed with which they have to deliver it. I believe there will always be a place for both OSS and proprietary software.

There is some good quality software but what we’ve seen is that customers who have standardised on Enterprise Linux will want to utilise that with their other environments.”

Undoubtedly, open source is prevalent and transformational. Beyond the benefits it can bring to enterprises, it can also foster good collaboration between different organisations utilising this technology.

“Because adopting OSS accelerates

“If you look at some technology companies today that are making a difference in the world like Google, Facebook and Microsoft, they are becoming much larger contributors to open source communities and working together in a collaborative model.”

Lee Miles, General Manager, Middle East, Africa and Turkey, Red Hat

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the development of commercial software, enterprises can deliver it faster to the market,” says Capoccia. “This can potentially make enterprises that use OSS faster and more competitive in contrast to enterprises that build entirely proprietary software. Sometimes OSS initiatives can bring commercial enterprises together, even when they are competitors, as they also share the same challenges. They join forces to develop a certain solution and then offer it to the developer community as an OSS component.”

Miles agrees with this, saying OSS can even spark greater collaboration and bring some of the world's largest companies together. “If you look at some technology companies today that is making a difference in the world like Google, Facebook and Microsoft, they are becoming much larger contributors to open source communities and working together in a collaborative model,” he says. “Open source, is, in fact driving change and fostering partnerships.”

Open source is continuously picking up steam and shows no signs of slowing down. It is being utilised by organisations everywhere be it private or public to enhance their respective digital experience offerings.

“From the customer’s point of view, in recent years, the general trend has been to do more with less,” says Miles. “This means that while IT budgets see little or no increase, enterprises still turn to their IT departments to help streamline processes and increase productivity. At a time when IT budgets aren’t growing sufficiently to keep up with growing IT demands, such cost savings are essential.”

Capoccia agrees, saying OSS will continue to grow and overtake proprietary software. “Believe it or not, there is still a lot of (legacy) proprietary software in commercial enterprises,” he says.

“Developers would like to adopt more OSS but are blocked by traditional managers who do not trust OSS and want to build everything. A new generation of software manager is forthcoming, taking for granted the adoption and empowering developers to use OSS in their daily job. With the right adoption rules, OSS will continue to grow and kick out proprietary dormant software. The growth is happening everywhere including in the Middle East region too.” www.cnmeonline.com

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mega trends

Iran: Open for business

The news of the end of sanctions against Iran in mid-January has sent the stock markets in the Middle East into a tailspin. As the GCC braces itself for changes to its economic climate, how can enterprise leaders exploit changes to one of the region’s most important emerging industries – technology?

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n 17th January, Dubai’s DFM General Index closed down 4.65pc to 2,684.9, while Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index, the largest Arab market, collapsed by 7pc intraday, before recovering to end down 5.44pc at 5,520.41, its lowest level in almost five years. While the markets themselves may recover, the technology industry constitutes an increasingly significant portion of the Middle East economy, spelling overall change for the region. Only time will tell exactly what the lifting of Iranian sanctions will mean for GCC markets, but for now at least, the signs do not seem positive.

Though the future may be unclear when it comes to the longterm effects of the elimination of sanctions against Iran, the short term fallout is already being felt in every sector. It seems that most industries, at least in the short term, will not escape unscathed. “Markets have already reacted negatively to the downturn. These are challenging times for enterprises in this region,” says Biswajeet Mahapatra, Research Director, Gartner.

Megha Kumar, Senior Research Manager, Software, IDC MEA, agrees that the region’s industries will be affected negatively by the drop in the stock market, but envisions a slowdown rather than a halt. The change in industry purchases will underscore the coming change, leading with a change in priorities by the government sector. “We expect a prioritisation of projects but governments will continue their investment around certain core social aspects around infrastructure, education, healthcare and more importantly Smart City initiatives,” she explains. “The commitment to economic diversification will be fuelled by innovation and technology and will play a major role in driving this vision forward.” march 2016

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mega trends

The latter is one sector in particular that will lead changes in the Middle East. Technology is one sector in particular to watch, as every industry depends on its solutions to function. Mahpatra sees a cautious path for the technology industry in the Middle East. “Most vendors have reported a slowdown in their sales and have redrawn their plans for 2016,” he says. He compares other industries in regions other than the GCC to highlight the difference.

“Other regions which are net importers of oil are actually seeing a boom, as the cost of manufacturing, logistics and operations go down.

Hence, they are comparatively doing better than the GCC oilexporting region.”

Though there are obviously hard times to be had, Kumar suggests that they may translate into a drive to think outside the box that may benefit technology vendors in the long run. “In a way, challenging times push organisation to innovate on utilising IT to meet business goals,” she explains.

“Organisations will seek solutions to optimise budgets and streamline operations.” This, she says, may drive sales in the IT industry. “There will be major demands in utilising software and IT services to meet the demands of the business,” she explains. “Even infrastructure investment is leaning towards software-defined solutions or converged systems.”

Again, Mahpatra takes a more measured look at the fallout, noting expenses that some businesses will simply opt out of in favour of potential upfront cost savings. “Until and unless the technology vendor can show that their tools do not require a huge capital expenditure upfront www.cnmeonline.com

and, in addition, help in reduction on operating expenses in the long run, I don’t see a boon for the tech industry.”

Kumar does see a potential upside, however, in terms of the opening up of Iran as a new market. “Iran has a lot of grey market shipments coming in from the UAE. Lifting of sanctions will severely impact ‘grey’ market sales for consumer hardware especially

"Iran will be a virgin market for many vendors.

In that sense, they should plan a sales strategy that addresses the Iran market. " for the UAE which has one of the largest re-export markets in MEA,” she explains. Demand will clearly change, she notes, with a dependency on oil sales in the region. “However, the extent of this demand will largely depend on whether global oil prices will rebound in the coming years.”

Mahpatra cautions that the introduction of a fresh market such as Iran may not be entirely positive. “Lifted sanctions will inevitably generate economic impact which is mostly negative, as it will raise competition,” says Mahpatra. While competition may be positive from the point of view of buyers and investors, vendors may not

see this as a benefit, as competition will surely drive down costs.

While the potential of a fresh new market is undeniable, there are some issues to address before venturing into Iran. “Vendors will need to build out new teams that can focus on the Iranian market,” Kumar says. “Depending on their country of origin, vendors will need to comply with legal operational requirements both from their country of origin and Iranian authorities.” For example, in spite of the sanction cessation, US companies still need permission to operate in Iran as compared to Asian firms. Regardless of national origin, the channel ecosystem needs to be built out to ensure partners are able to support projects in Iran.

There also needs to be skills training within Iran, to provide customers with local support.

Mahpatra agrees that prior planning is the key to entering the Iranian market. “Iran will be a virgin market for many vendors. In that sense, they should plan a sales strategy that addresses the Iran market. Any dip in the GCC market should be seen to be offset in Iran.” In short, vendors need to go in with their customers’ unique demands in mind.

It is clear that the lifting of sanctions on Iran will have an effect on all industries in this region and globally. Some of these changes may be positive, and some may signal a rocky road ahead. It is a unique situation, with an all but untouched market opening up in this region. No matter the short-term results, in the long-term, planning and caution may ultimately make or break the GCC’s economy in dealing with the changes Iran will bring to the climate. march 2016

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ANALYST VIEW

Jeff Vining, Research Vice President, Gartner

Governments Get Smart to the Digital Era

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echnology-driven job losses or displacements are creating pressure on governments.

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technology proliferation will enable government departments to autonomously develop or purchase IT services and solutions to address this conundrum. Take

smart machines for example. As they become increasingly capable, smart machines will become viable alternatives to human workers under certain circumstances.

www.cnmeonline.com

Web-based capture is evolving.

It’s faster, smarter. More productive, more secure.

Easy

Flexible

Simple to install, use and support.

Access anywhere.

Works with any browser, scanner or operating system.

Kodak Info Input is coming.

www.knowledgeshare.kodakalaris.com www.kodakalaris.com meaf-di@kodakalaris.com +971 (0) 4 347 5022

Secure

Cost effective

Efficient

High security.

Java based, uses existing servers, reduces mistakes.

Low deployment, maintenance and training costs.

Quick set up, offers on-the-go capture.

Thin capture, Thick performance.

ANALYST VIEW

That will lead to significant repercussions for businesses in all industries and create pressures on government services revolving around unemployment and reemployment. Gartner predicts that by 2020, more than 80 percent of CIOs in social services, education and labour departments will lead efforts to cope with technologydriven job loss.

The good news is that digital governments can leverage these same technologies to deal more effectively with emerging challenges. Given digital assistance, many educational, social service and other personnel will be able to provide services that were previously considered too expensive, or limited, due to a lack of specialists.

The rise of digital assistance in government will be rapid. By 2018, more than 50 percent of Tier 1 support services at government contact centres will be provided by virtual personal assistants. Such avatars can tirelessly act as a citizen’s personal agent, ensure programme performance metrics are met by navigating regulatory requirements, and negotiate other barriers until the request is fulfilled.

At the same time, encouraging employees to have greater input in the role of smart machines can help alleviate some of the anxiety that smart machines can provoke in the workplace, as well as develop tolerance for accuracy, reliability and privacy.

The growing availability of selfservice data discovery and business intelligence/analytic tools, and 58

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Jeff Vining, Research Vice President Gartner

the creation of a ‘consumerised’ digital work environment, will drive government agencies to actively seek the talent of workers who are encouraged to bring their proprietary intellectual property (IP) to work.

To ensure governments foster a culture of workforce-led innovation, the formulation and adoption of

Encouraging employees to have greater input in the role of smart machines can help alleviate some of the anxiety that smart machines can provoke. bring your own algorithm (BYO algo) policies in government will help address the competitive disadvantage that public-sector employers often face in the quest to recruit top talent.

By 2018, more than 25 percent of government agencies will adopt BYO algo policies to integrate multiple layers of knowledge to boost workforce-led innovation.

Just as some brick-and-mortar trades expect skilled craftspeople to bring their own tools to work, tomorrow’s knowledge workers will assemble and utilise their own virtual toolkits that include a wide

variety of computer algorithms and analytic techniques.

The term 'algorithm' is used here in the broadest sense to describe a set of problem-solving operations applied by humans, with the aid of personally developed algorithms, and algorithms embedded in commercial software and smart machines. Ultimately, government employers will offer monetary incentives to employees to place their personal algorithms in the public domain as a means to generate more choice and reuse.

Another opportunity lies in wearable devices, which will offer a wide range of new opportunities for governments to engage citizens and employees, and will create innovative experiences and digital offerings. By 2018, the deployment of wearable devices and technologies managed by IT will increase by more than 25 percent in local government.

The wearable era for government is just beginning, with widespread adoption of body-worn cameras. But soon, we expect increasing penetration of wearable devices such as bracelets, smartwatches, clothing, wireless headsets, glasses, medical/fitness devices and even pet sensors. These multiple endpoints will connect to the IoT ecosystem of networks of physical objects enabled to communicate, sense or interact with one another in roads, bridges, tunnels, fleet vehicles and drones, field service areas, public spaces, train stations, airports, schools, and other government buildings.

www.cnmeonline.com

interview

Emma Isechei, Category Director for Capture Solutions, Kodak Alaris Worldwide

Seamless capture More and more businesses today are moving their applications to Web-based platforms. Tedious tasks such as document scanning/ capturing are also being transformed into a Web-based process.

Kodak Alaris Worldwide Category Director for Capture Solutions Emma Isechei discusses how the company’s Info Input solution can help businesses reduce costs and improve productivity.

C

an you give us a brief overview of Kodak Alaris’ Info Input Solution?

Kodak Info Input Solution is a Web-based document capture application, it extends capture to any desktop throughout an organisation where there is a browser. The solution runs on the server and allows users to easily control their capture across multiple sites and scanners.

Web-based capture solutions such as Info Input eliminate complexities in scanning workloads and allow users to centrally manage scanning applications.

For example, an insurance agent wants to scan documents for an insurance application and some other files to verify the identity of the applicant. The agent may have to go to two different folders or applications to perform that task. It might also take a few more applications before the whole process is completed. With a Webbased capture, the user can simply choose the document and the type of workflow they need and perform the task using a single application. The job can be done through a mobile device, a scanner or similar systems. It also makes everything simpler for the users of that workflow to define where documents should be placed in the 60

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CRM system, electronic records system and so on.

The Info Input Solution is also HTML 5 compliant, which means that it works with different browsers.

This product lets users securely and seamlessly scan and index their documents. Now users can scan, index and send data to existing workflows they are working on. This reduces mistakes in the workflow and helps you avoid sending things through to the wrong place.

How is the Info Input solution different from its competitors?

What makes this solution different is it gives users the ability to work from the very basic system all to a more complex environment. A user will only need to press the scan button in their ERP systems and it will be scanned and saved to the relevant workflows or folders.

This eliminates the need of having to learn how to use multiple products.

Also, one of its competitive advantages is it only needs one licencing model that applies whether you are a mobile user or a scanner user. It is definitely a good aspect of the solution, with the complexities faced by IT departments it can be quite tedious for them to have to work with different licencing models.

Of course, it is secure, scalable, centrally managed, easily deployed and supported, and extremely cost-effective.

Leverage your investments in existing ECM infrastructure with a nimble capture solution ideal for mission and time-critical transactional applications. Make knowledge workers and customers happier by making information available faster.

How will Info Input ultimately save businesses money in the long run?

It is a server-based product so your overheads are less, you don’t need to purchase expensive high memory PCs. Users will also have less infrastructure to manage. IT departments do not need to deploy, support, and update software on each individual desktop. Instead, all administrative and maintenance functions are performed on a central server and pushed out to clients.

There’s also no need to hire and train more people to perform complex scanning tasks. Workflows of the documents can also be easily dictated, so that saves time as well.

What are the most attractive selling points for Info Input?

One of the biggest elements of Info Input is security. Since the management of the different capture processes is centralised, IT teams can monitor and control who can access the documents and when they can access it.

Also, with the mobile application of the Info Input that we are working on, users can see geo information – where and when a particular image has been taken. So, the chain of custody of that particular document can be monitored right from the time when you captured it all the way through to where you saved and used it. www.cnmeonline.com

Gulf Software Distribution, is the region’s smarter choice for reselling IBM’s world-class leading software. We realize that our network of IBM Business Partners is the heart of our mission. Each of our strategies will have positive impact to your business, and your success will be the index of our achievement.

Our experience of the market is incomparable and we build on it. We bring into the recipe all the ingredients required to proceed in this market. Our passionate team is ready to support during the full opportunity lifecycle, from building the solution to financing your deal, and much more. Take action now and join our network of success.

Dubai Internet City, Building 2, Premises 09 If you wish to become an IBM Software Business Partner, contact us on info@gulfsoftware.com | www.gulfsoftware.com

interview

IBM Studio

Think Design In an exclusive interview, the team leading the IBM Studio in Dubai gives CNME a low-down on the objectives of the company’s new venture in the region and the value-add it can give to its customers.

F

or many years, IBM has been very successful in the hardware and software space. However, as times change and industries evolve, the company has been increasingly moving its focus on the design segment.

IBM is building a global culture of design and is continuously expanding its design team. To date, the company has more than 1,100 designers globally, with the goal of reaching 1,500 by 2017.

Recently, the company has launched the IBM Studio - Dubai, which according to them, will be the new centre of experience design and digital expertise to help its clients transform.

The Studio extends the footprint of IBM Interactive Experience, blending experience design with the full spectrum of business transformation capabilities, from industry and strategy consulting 62

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through to systems integration. The Dubai Studio was inaugurated by His Excellency Abdulla Abdul Rahman Al Shaibani, Secretary General of the Executive Council.

“In IBM we have five main business lines,” said Mohammed Riaz, Managing Partner, IBM Global Business Services Gulf, Levant and Pakistan, “these include software products, hardware solutions, services, global finance, and research.

Under research, there are two main business areas - technology services and business services. Now, in the business services segment of the company, we have an area focusing on mobile and design called the IBM Interactive Experience (iX), and this is where the Design Studio falls under.”

According to Saudamini Dubey, Partner, iX and Mobile Leader (MEA), IBM IX has a strong practice both here in this region and globally. "We are very much focused on ensuring that the output produced by the Studios in

collaboration with our clients comes out as experience-led and designdriven products. The idea is to have a facility where members of IBM teams and clients can come together to cocreate and deliver tangible products in an agile fashion.”

Andie Brodowski, Head of Studio, IBM Studios Dubai, explained, “In our studios, we have a team with specific capabilities, which include customer service key strategists. These people are tasked to understand and assist IBM clients to achieve the experience they want to create for their respective customers in both the digital and physical channels. We also have on-site designers who specialise in user experience (UX) as well as in user interface (UI).”

IBM has been well-known for most of its recent history as one of the world’s largest computer companies.

For many years, it has been viewed as exactly that – a computer maker. Over the years, the firm has transformed www.cnmeonline.com

interview

its focus into new business drivers such as mobile, cloud and analytics.

“With the unprecedented growth of the mobile transformation across all industries, we wanted to stay on top of how enterprises and endusers are consuming services,” said Riaz. “IBM has always been very committed to providing its customers with quality IT solutions.

Now, the objective in starting the design studio was to provide our customers with interactive designs for these solutions that will enable them to create better customer experience; and “The key value they interact this service is a proposition of the with their very important Studio is agile design customers part of IBM’s and long-term and delivery. Our top employees.” growth two methodologies Located strategy.” include IBM Design in the Dubai Dubey Design District, highlighted Thinking and IBM the studio will that the launch Agile Principles.” serve as a hub of the Studio for IBM Design in could not have the Middle East and come at a better will host local teams from time. With the recent IBM Interactive Experience (IBM iX). challenges the Middle East market “The key value proposition of the is facing, companies will be on the Studio is agile design and delivery. look-out for innovations that will Our top two methodologies include give them an extra edge over their IBM Design Thinking and IBM Agile competitors. “The Studio can help Principles,” said Brodowski. “What’s them gain the design capabilities great about the space that we built that give the best experience for is that clients can come and actually their customers,” she explained. see what the applications look “Moreover, if you look at the like. We have fitted out the space Middle East and Africa region as a to accommodate both teams from whole, a majority of its population IBM and our clients to co-create consists of millennials. That factor the applications and solutions. We also translates into new areas of also have a facility where we can opportunity for companies, as demonstrate the prototypes of the they will want to keep pace with apps we have developed to our the rising expectations of how 64

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customers. Everything is designed to be collaborative in terms of design and prototyping. It is also designed to be fun, inviting and inspiring.”

The Studio will be focusing on providing solutions and services to various verticals starting from government, telcos, healthcare, financial services, retail and more. “We’ve already had a lot of engagements from government agencies in the business to consumer (B2C) side,” said Dubey. “However, from 2016 onwards business to employee (B2E) is going to drive a lot of demands. An increasing number of companies will also want to boost employee engagement, so we are expecting to get more inquiries from players in the travel and transport sector.”

IBM’s studio in Dubai joins the growing network of more than 20 IBM Studios in locations including Austin, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Toronto, Groningen, Melbourne, Mexico City, Hursley, London, New York, Dallas, Sao Paolo, Madrid and Shanghai. www.cnmeonline.com

70% SMBs adopt business process automation tools IDC*

*IDC white Paper September 2015 - Are your Business Processes Stifling Your Market Opportunity? Cost-Efficient Print and Document Management Through Smart MFPs.

Smart SMBs use Smart MFPs Smarter working requires smart technology and processes. IDC has found that at a time when many companies are prioritising the need to increase efficiency and employee productivity, 70% of SMBs are looking to adopt business process automation tools to help.

To facilitate this change, IDC defines the latest smart multifunction printers (MFPs) as ‘digital transformation tools’ that make the leap from ‘dumb device to

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smart solution’, helping SMBs transform their businesses, driving productivity, increasing security and reducing costs.

Download IDC's white paper and discover how the simple implementation of smart MFPs can help redefine workflows within your business, saving time and money while keeping your data secure.

MB700 Series

MC700 Series

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Insight

Graham P. Waller, Research Vice President, Gartner

Transforming digital leadership

D

o you have the skills necessary to thrive as a leader in the digital era?

What worked for leaders in a more industrialised economy — a craving for certainty, a love of detailed plans and an affinity for control — can be the enemy in a digital business economy, where the driving forces are innovation and speed. Digital business doesn’t just disrupt markets. It disrupts tried-andtrue management behaviours.

Any change in leadership style can be challenging, particularly if it involves tried-and-true practices that have anchored past success.

Rather, consider remastering your behaviours to fit the new styles of digital leadership. The following six digital leadership personas distil common traits of today’s digital business leaders.

Adventurer Pioneers at the digital frontier often work to design and deliver new products, services and even business models in uncharted seas. Leaders in this space require an adventurer’s outlook to exploit digital frontiers in the face of uncertainty. They start outside, using customer-centricity as a compass, and define a digital vision of what’s possible that inspires others to move forward and take calculated risks.

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Ambassador Often, peers are blind to market forces and potential disruptions that threaten your space. An adventurer’s zeal and vision alone won’t be enough to navigate through inevitable highly disruptive change.

Employ an ambassador’s art of persuasion, anchored in a loyalty to the enterprise’s ultimate purpose, to bring others along on the journey.

Clarifier As the level of industry disruption increases, it becomes more critical that digital leaders are clarifiers of what matters most, including both the digital threats and opportunities.

Clarification is needed around how digital disruption fits into the context of your enterprise and the big bets that might need to be made. In today’s volatile climate, the leadership insight to separate reality from hype will be disproportionately rewarded.

Educator In addition to being clarifiers, effective digital leaders must also be educators to amplify digital savvy members of the C-suite and board, and to upgrade the digital DNA of the wider enterprise. This persona encourages the new mindsets and skills needed to lead in this persistently uncertain, high-velocity

and innovation-driven era. Employ immersive learning and visualisation to enable others’ personal discovery to help them find the digital opportunities they cannot yet see.

Attractor Digital leaders remake themselves to become attractors of both the best talent and the best ideas. This entails radiating a compelling digital business purpose that enables others to contribute to something bigger than themselves. They create, or reset, an optimal work environment, and then use it to attract and unleash the power of top talent.

Cartographer As the tidy grids of linear processes and rigid industry verticals give way to the fluid dynamics of digital business, enterprises must be able to swiftly remap structures and capabilities to remove friction and move at digital speed. This persona is as much about visualising new paths of opportunity as it is about showing the business where and how to outmanoeuvre the competition and master the natural contours of the digital terrain.

It is ideal to put your focus first on one or two of the personas that aren’t your strengths and apply to your enterprise’s current phase in digital transformation. It is also equally important to recognise that no individual leader will ever have the perfect blend of all needed leadership behaviours. Also, you must build a balanced and cohesive leadership team around you to complement gaps in your leadership style. www.cnmeonline.com

Insight

Christine Heckart, CMO, Brocade

Out with old and in with the new

T

he technology industry operates on micro and mega cycles of innovation. Micro cycles happen every hour, day, week and year. Mega cycles are far more rare, occurring every 20 years or so, like the leap from mainframes to client-server computing.

The classic IP networks that support everything today were simply not designed to meet the needs of the connected world that is emerging.

When our IP networks were engineered 20 years ago, few contemplated today’s IT realities. Most of us had a mobile phone back then but it only handled voice calls. Old IP infrastructure wasn’t designed for billions of people using their phones to stream music and video, do email, shop online and do banking. It wasn’t designed for connecting billions more sensors and IoT devices that monitor our homes and businesses, or track our luggage and pets.

It wasn’t designed for virtualisation, or applications and datasets that live in the cloud. Old IP networking, now entering its third decade of life, is struggling to keep up, and is simply not equipped to deal with the network demands that we’ll quickly face as 25-50 billion devices and sensors come online in the next decade.

Security is perhaps the biggest concern of all. At the dawn of IP networking, nobody really worried about cyber thieves. They were more or less an afterthought in old IP networks. Today, simple firewalls and password-based security protections, in the context of the modern IT world, aren’t just merely outdated – they’re downright dangerous.

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The next mega-cycle in networking is the new IP. Like old IP, this modern version is based on the same basic and enduring IP protocol. Unlike old IP, which is hardware-based, closed, and labour intensive to manage and maintain, new IP networks are highly virtualised, agile, flexible, and incredibly cost efficient. Even more important, they are designed from the ground up to meet the modern compute environment of cloud, Big Data, social, mobile, IoT, and the need for pervasive, behaviouralbased security.

In old IP, the vendor is at the centre of the ecosystem and in control. With new IP, the customer is at the centre, and can mix and match hardware and software. A key hallmark of new IP is choice. In a new IP environment, IT organisations can use commercial offthe-shelf (COTS) or workload-specific hardware. Provisioning network resources is automated and can be done in a self-service model, further reducing costs.

In a new IP environment, security is built into the network from the ground up, not just bolted on at the periphery. It is based on behaviour, not just identity. It federates across silos, bringing a broader picture of the behaviour that only a network can provide. It’s self-learning, not static, so it can keep pace with the hacking economy and the innovators within the dark web.

However, nobody is suggesting that we toss out all the old IP networks. These legacy infrastructures served us well and are the foundation of most businesses and organisations today. But they’re

limited in how much further they can be stretched to adapt to the increasing demands on today’s IT infrastructure for many organisations. New IP architectures offer massive benefits, and also go a long way to help close the growing relevance gap that most IT and networking professionals currently face.

We have no way to predict how the current mega innovation cycle will end up. These things have a way of percolating for years, and then coalesce through some magic combination of social shift, economic need, and pure engineering brilliance. But one thing is certain, networks are the hidden elixir that make everyday life possible. Without a network, the fancy smartphone in your pocket is just a brick and the credit card you swipe to pay for lunch is just a piece of plastic.

Without a strong and secure network, the highly anticipated Internet of Things is just a cool term with little purpose or impact, or worse, a security and privacy nightmare in waiting.

Mega-disruptions do tend to roil markets but they also bring with them mega-benefits for businesses.

Companies that make the transition early, or are born from it, tend to win and lead their industries. On the flip side, those that transition late, or not at all, can miss out completely. Transitions are also a unique opportunity for those heroes who lead the change in their organisations. Careers will be made by leaders who take networking from the tactical basement, where it’s seen as a cost centre, to the strategic corner office, where it’s a business driver and enabler of new services and growth.

New IP, in this higher sense, isn’t just a useful network architecture – it’s a critical transition tool and platform that will help the modern business world truly move to the next level, and help us all achieve more than we ever thought possible. www.cnmeonline.com

Insight

Mark Brazeau, CEO, SkySync

Securing the bridge Examining four ways to manage migration or synchronisation with the Cloud.

C

loud storage revenue is forecast to grow more than 28 percent annually to reach $65 billion in 2020. The driving force is the substantial economies of scale that enable cloudbased solutions to deliver more costeffective primary and backup storage than on-premise systems can ever hope to achieve.

Most IT departments quickly discover, however, that there are significant challenges involved in migrating and synchronising many thousands or even millions of files from on-premise storage systems to what Gartner characterises as enterprise file synchronisation and sharing (EFSS) services in the cloud. According to the research firm, by 2019, 75 percent of enterprises will have deployed multiple EFSS capabilities, and over 50 percent will struggle with problems of data migration.

In a newly-published report titled, 'How to migrate file shares, SaaS and ECM to EFSS' Gartner identifies four ways organisations can manage migration to and/or synchronisation 70

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with EFSS services - custom integration, rudimentary copy, EFSS import services and specialised third-party tools.

Custom integration Every file has a unique set of properties associated with it, and most file systems treat at least some of these file properties differently. The properties include the basics, such as file name, format and metadata, along with the more advanced, such as versioning, ownership preservation, and permissions.

In a hybrid storage environment, file names might need to be normalised.

Versions might need to be tracked manually. Different security models might be needed for each file system, potentially creating problems for users - and placing a significant burden on the help desk. In any complex custom integration, there are bound to be mistakes. And the biggest problem in a hybrid storage environment is often an inability to detect file transfer corruption or version problems before they cause problems for the organisation.

Consider the experience of

Shawmut Design and Construction, a construction management firm with offices throughout the U.S. The company uses BIM 360 software from Autodesk for construction management, and the ShareFile platform from Citrix for collaboration with the team in the field.

Change orders are common in construction projects, and using outof-date information can cause costly mistakes. So the superintendent in charge of the project took great care to ensure that all of the files were accurately synchronised daily. Using the file management capabilities built into BIM 360 and ShareFile, the effort required three project managers - two full-time and one part-time. Every day, the staff compared the versions of the many files in both systems, copying the latest from one to the other as needed to keep everything in sync.

If three people are needed to handle synchronisation between just two file systems, it is not surprising that complexity can increase exponentially in an organisation with a dozen or more.

Shawmut did not attempt to have IT resources automate the file synchronisation task, but other companies have - normally with unsatisfactory results. Getting bi- or multi-directional file synchronisation to work well is not a trivial

www.cnmeonline.com

Mark Brazeau, CEO, SkySync

endeavour. Indeed, successfully navigating the different 'file logistics' of multiple incompatible storage systems can become a Tower of Babel that is fraught with potential peril.

Making a mistake when comparing just one of the file’s properties involving the last accessed/modified date, user/group access permissions or locking can result in a file becoming corrupt or over-written by an older version. And if the custom integration application lacks robust error detection and reporting - something that is deceptively difficult - the mistake will remain undetected - until a user complains.

For a one-time migration or a one-way backup, a custom integration effort, consisting of a combination of manual and automated procedures, may work well enough. This is especially true if the differences among the storage systems involved are relatively minor and manageable.

Rudimentary copy Using familiar, proven and low-tech 'brute force' bulk copy commands, such as xcopy in Windows/DOS and rsync in Linux, is certainly simple and, therefore, might seem to be fairly foolproof.

Applications like the File Explorer in Windows and the file management applications offered with most EFSS services also provide bulk file and folder copying capabilities.

For brute force bulk copy to work well, though, the storage systems involved either need to be compatible or must be made interoperable at their 'lowest common denominator'.

Import services Various forms of import services are available with virtually all EFSS platforms. Each has its own file management application with an online file import function, and some www.cnmeonline.com

Insight

connectors normally support a wide providers recommend using a physical range of both on-premises storage disk drive when importing more than systems (such as NFS/SAN/NAS, 100GB of data.

SharePoint, and various enterprise While these online applications content management solutions) and services shift responsibility to the and EFSS platforms (such as Box, EFSS provider, they can suffer from Dropbox for Business, Google Drive the same potential complexities and/ Office 365, OneDrive ShareFile, or limitations such as lost permission and Syncplicity). The depth and models and structures, user-defined breadth of support makes these metadata, file ownership, and versions tools suitable for supporting most as encountered in custom integrations enterprise applications. and rudimentary copy mechanisms.

Increasing frustration So if the import service with its manual fails to adequately synchronisation accommodate To provide the motivated the underlying agility desired Shawmut to pilot file property a third-party differences in a hybrid storage hybrid content between or environment, the management among the connectors normally tool, and the different support a wide range improvement storage was immediate. systems, the of both on-premises With connectors results are storage systems and for both destined to be less EFSS platforms.

Shawmut’s onthan satisfactory. premises storage system and Citrix Third-party tools ShareFile, the tool automatically The growing popularity and synchronises files every night based inherent complexities of hybrid on just a few “point-and-click” storage architectures have created a instructions, which has eliminated demand for specialised 'middleware' the need for painstaking manual software designed specifically to comparisons. Now the project manage storage system migration superintendent spends only a few and synchronisation. While designs minutes at the end of each workday vary, the more advanced file logistics to set up the synchronisation. systems use a custom 'connector' for After confirming the tool worked each storage system supported. The as desired, the three project connectors provide a common set managers previously responsible of functionality that enables every for synchronising the files were storage system to interoperate with reassigned to more productive tasks. all others, without sacrificing the The journey to deciding which of advanced capabilities of any. The these four alternatives might be the result is a hybrid content management best and most cost-effective in any system capable of serving as an particular situation begins with taking intelligent intermediary between or an inventory of all the storage systems among many different storage systems. being used enterprise-wide both onTo provide the agility desired in premises and in the cloud. a hybrid storage environment, the march 2016

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Opinion

Sunay Tripathi, CTO, Pluribus Networks

Debunking sdn myths

W

hat if your network was more than just a collection of hardware and cables strung together over the years to solve specific problems? What if your network was agile enough to empower your business today and offer deep insight into the flow of information throughout your data centre? What if this network could adapt to your changing business needs at the drop of a dime and help ensure no opportunity slips through the cracks?

Sounds like a dream, but in fact it is very much possible today.

Today, SDN is a pivotal technology capable of supporting your business agility goals and enabling private cloud experiences. As is typical with any new technology, however, marketplace hype and outright misinformation can overshadow the facts. Here are three major misconceptions about SDN that needs to be put to rest.

1. SDN is interesting academically, but not essential in today’s world. SDN takes many forms, but each shares an important characteristic – they allow data centre networks to be built prior to the selection of the applications to be run, and provide a standardised approach to adding capacity, with the ability to carve-out resources with the click of a button whenever a new application is required.

The public cloud, after all, has demonstrated that when elastic compute, storage and network architectures are built properly, any combination of these resources can be applied to new problems in minutes rather than months and with the touch 74

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of a button (and the charges associated with that luxury). The elastic principles seen in the public cloud are what’s fuelling the desire to replicate the capabilities internally in private clouds, and SDN is critical to private clouds.

2. Virtualisation of the data centre and its applications make network monitoring expensive and impractical. IT organisations are obligated to uphold a quality of experience, which includes application performance tracking.

It needs to be acknowledged that traditional approaches to network analytics have had limitations and drawbacks, which seemingly become worse as the workloads are virtualised across the data centre.

While it is true that traditional packet-level network monitoring is no longer representative of true application performance, the technology exists today to monitor flows of information, rather than packets. With advanced SDN solutions, the deployment of a single network that includes flow-level analytic capabilities already baked in, avoids unforeseen complexities and can cut monitoring overhead and CAPEX by roughly 70 percent to 80 percent.

3. SDN is the death knell for network jobs. SDN actually helps network engineers deliver results faster and allows them to focus on forward-thinking projects capable of positively impacting the wider business. IT organisations have always been under pressure to deliver new business services quickly. With traditional network technologies, a network professional’s best-case

scenario is to simply complete projects on schedule, even with those schedules that sometimes span as long as six months or more.

SDN transforms networks from complex and fragile structures to drivers of performance through smarter use of segmentation, automation and fabric-level visibility. It allows network IT pros to accelerate the delivery of projects and in turn new business revenue streams and enhance their own business-oriented skillsets and careers by focusing less on manually configuring hardware, and more on critical thinking and strategic problem solving.

As SDN continues to see investment by vendors and endusers alike, and various trendsetters continue to champion the business value it provides, the noise surrounding the space and its potential benefits will only continue to grow. When considering any type of major capital investment, IT decisionmakers would best be advised to do what they already do best when it comes to potentially engaging a solution provider and deploying a new technology – undertake research, demand reference requests and trust your gut feeling.

As technologists, our interest is naturally drawn toward discussions of protocols and speeds, however, in today’s digital-centric environment, understanding the business value technology delivers is just as urgent.

By moving past these misconceptions about SDN, that process should become a little bit easier. www.cnmeonline.com

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Paddy Srinivasan, VP and General Manager of IoT, LogMeIn

The not-so connected world

A

ll the hype, the Internet of Things (IoT) are very real and will impact how we work, live and play. In working with customers to develop connected businesses, we’ve found out a few myths about IoT which reshaped how we look at the IoT. It is a connected world. When talking about IoT, one of the first questions I ask people is whether or not they believe we currently live in a connected world. Most people answer, “Of course it is – I’m connected through my phone, tablet, laptop. I can’t escape if I try.” But I would argue the opposite is true.

It’s really not a connected world – at least not yet. While today the average household has five Internet-connected devices, a number that is expected to skyrocket to over 500, according to Gartner – chances are those devices don’t really talk to each other. The true vision of IoT is when literally everything is connected – when your lightening system can talk to your security system which can talk to your garage door opener, which you control with one singular app. And, of course, the promise of IoT extends way beyond connected smart homes to healthcare, manufacturing and everything in between.

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The Internet of things is all about the ‘things’. The true innovation of IoT comes not from simply connecting products, but rather from what we do with the data the ‘things’ create. The companies that really come out on top will leverage this data, developing strategies around what this new connectivity allows them to do, from enhancing customer experiences to optimising business processes and product development.

Why is this so important?

Believe it or not, most companies have no idea who their customers are. IoT will fundamentally change this scenario by providing the manufacturer with the ability to connect directly to the person who uses the product to provide a personalised customer experience, support and service offerings. IoT will give products a voice and will help manufacturers have a direct link to their customers to better understand who is using their products and how.

It’s all about creating new products. Despite all the new gadgets we saw coming out of CES this year, innovation won’t be about invention but about re-invention. Taking products that already exist and connecting them for a new approach to an old business or market. While

there will always be room for the inventors, it’s the ‘re-imaginers’ that will make the biggest business impact, as companies across categories reimagine legacy products through the lens of connectivity.

It’s all about time to market. The days of ‘ship-it and forget it’ products are over. In addition to learning who your customers are and how they use your product, you can also take the data from your product to continually make improvements. We experience this phenomenon every day with our smartphones where we regularly receive operating system and application updates that take care of bug fixes and add new features all in an effort to evolve the product. The ‘constant improvement’ model will hold true for any connected product company and those that make the effort will find that time in market yields more essential feedback than pre-launch focus groups ever could.

The IoT will turn every company into a software company. We’ve all heard the idea that every company will become a software company.

Tech luminaries have been saying that for years. While that is definitely true, I’d argue that IoT will actually turn every company into a software as a service company. www.cnmeonline.com

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Mobile moments

A

ccording to Gartner, by the end of 2017, market demand for mobile app development services will grow at least five times faster than internal IT organisations’ capacity to deliver them.

In other words, unless something changes, organisations won’t be able to keep up with the customer expectation for mobile applications. It is great news for enterprise app developers, but the reality is that most people’s experiences of enterprise-specific mobile apps have often been a little underwhelming.

In the consumer world, mobility progressed in three general phases: initiation, evolution, and maturity.

Initiation was the initial influx of mobile devices, seven or eight years ago, when smartphones and tablets finally caught on. Evolution saw websites designed to be mobile-friendly and the development of mobilespecific applications. In the final phase, maturity, we saw the introduction of mobile-first and even mobile-only apps such as WhatsApp and Snapchat.

Although the consumer marketplace is now enjoying the benefits of the maturity stage, the enterprise world is still stuck somewhere between initiation and evolution. Businesses must catch up.

www.cnmeonline.com

Defining the ‘mobile moment’ In research by Forrester, it has been identified that nearly half (48 percent) of business decisionmakers are already implementing productivity mobile apps. A further 42 percent are implementing or have implemented web/video conferencing mobile apps. Similarly, 42 percent are implementing or have implemented document collaboration mobile apps.

For the most part, however, these applications rarely offer users anything more than a mobile-optimised website would. The corporate world still lacks truly mobile-first services, such as Waze, WhatsApp, Google Maps or Evernote, which can help to create positive experiences, or ‘mobile moments’ for users.

Take Waze for example, a social media traffic app which uses GPS data and user input (warnings and advice from other drivers) to help you avoid traffic jams. For many users, the app is of value only at that point in time and at that location this is Waze’s mobile moment. Its instantaneous nature – made possible by smartphone technology – is vital; if you needed to fire up your laptop, find a Wi-Fi connection, and search

blog

for alternate routes, the app would be relatively useless.

While there aren’t currently many corporate mobile-first apps, it seems that investing in mobile does pay off. In July 2015, VMware conducted a survey of 1,200 business decision-makers and IT decisionmakers worldwide. Among other things, they found that 73 percent of customers who had executed a business mobility plan had reduced IT operational staff time by an average of 29 percent, and that 34 percent had reduced IT costs by an average of 20 percent. What’s more, those that had fully implemented a business mobility strategy saw a return on investment two times greater than those not executing a business mobility plan.

Imagine how those numbers might increase if enterprise business mobility apps were actually compelling - and perhaps even genuinely fun - to use.

Glimpses of what’s to come We need to find new ways to create those mobile moments, and that starts with businesses realising that this space needs organic innovation. Your employees are getting used to having amazing mobile software experiences outside of their daily workflow, and smart companies that want to keep them happy - and productive - should pay attention to what that means. march 2016

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PRODUCTS

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH

Launches and releases

Brand: Linksys Product: Max Stream EA7500 AC1900

Brand: Samsung

Product:

Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge What it does: The newest additions to the Galaxy lineup, the 5.1-inch Galaxy S7 and 5.5-inch Galaxy S7 Edge are equipped with Android Marshmallow.

Both devices sport 3D glass and metal and are powered by Octa core (2.3GHz Quad + 1.6GHz Quad), 64 bit; and Quad core (2.15GHz Dual + 1.6GHz Dual), 64 bit processor respectively.

Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, according to Samsung, can deliver brighter and sharper images, even in low light with their Dual Pixel cameras.

The Dual Pixel technology enables the devices with brighter lens, wider aperture, and bigger pixel.

The two devices have also been enhanced with both hardware and software updates to optimise gaming performance. The processors and battery capacity have been improved to ensure longer playing time, and an internal cooling system has also been upgraded to keep the device from overheating.

What you should know: Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge also features IP68 water and dust resistance. The devices also have the new AlwaysOn Display, which allows zero touch experience where users need not worry about missing a call or any important notifications. www.cnmeonline.com

What it does: Linksys’ latest device is powered by a 1.4 GHz dual-core processor and can deliver speeds of up to 1.9 Gbps; it can also provide two dedicated Wi-Fi bands.

According to the company, the AC1900 provides Next-Gen Wi-Fi AC technology capable of handling three simultaneous data streams to multiple screens and Wi-Fi devices without lag or buffering.

What you should know: Delivering speeds up to twice those of current routers, the Max-Stream

Brand: SanDisk Product: Ultra USB Type-C What it does: SanDisk Ultra USB Type-C Flash Drive is designed specifically for ‘next-generation’ devices. The new drive features a USB Type-C connector for quick file transfer between USB Type-C enabled mobile devices, laptops, tablets and future devices.

AC1900 can connect as many as 12 devices at the same time to your Wi-Fi, including six screens streaming 4K video. You can also control your home Wi-Fi from anywhere on you mobile device using the Smart Wi-Fi app.

The new drive, according to SanDisk, can deliver USB 3.1 performance of up to 150MB/s2. The USB drive features a slim, retractable design to protect the reversible connector. The new drive complements the company’s suite of USB Type-C flash memory solutions which range from dual USB drives to portable SSDs. What you should know: The SanDisk Ultra USB Type-C Flash Drive is the company’s first dedicated USB for Type-C ready devices. It is compatible with the SanDisk Memory Zone app for Android, which is available for free through Google Play. The app autolaunches upon insertion of the drive into a compatible device, allowing immediate access to the user’s content and easy file management. march 2016

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Backlog

5

reasons you need to hire a Chief Privacy Officer

B

usinesses are increasingly relying on data, but they're overlooking another key aspect of it – privacy. In order to keep up with the growing regulations surrounding data privacy, it may be time to hire a Chief Privacy Officer.

Changing business landscape The rate at which data has become important to companies is growing as quickly as technology is changing.

Businesses are starting to realise how data can revolutionise the way they operate. Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad; and the bad with data is protecting and securing sensitive information.

And it's not as easy as just hoping IT will take care of ensuring data is protected. Businesses need to invest in privacy regulations, especially as new rules and regulations arise. For most companies, that means hiring someone who knows the ins and outs of data privacy – a CPO. Europe's General Data Protection Regulation In the coming year, Europe will have a big impact on the way businesses around the world need to evaluate 82

march 2016

privacy. A new initiative, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) out of Europe, is implementing regulations that will impact any company operating in Europe.

It's aimed at giving citizens more control over their personal data by implementing regulations for the way businesses handle private data.

Mandated CPO On the heels of Europe's GDPR comes another reason to hire a CPO. You might be legally required to have one. Part of the regulations include mandating that companies have a CPO, so if you do business in Europe, you may be on the hook to hire one of these professionals. It is best to prepare now, as things are finalised and implemented across two years, instead of playing catch up. By then, it will be too late.

Rising number of highprofile breaches It's been hard to miss the number of high-profile data breaches over the last couple of years. Companies from Sony to Target to Home Depot have faced PR nightmares thanks to data breaches. Although much of the enterprise world hinges on technology, there is still a lot of

room for human error behind each computer screen. That's why it is vital that companies hire a CPO to implement a strong and successful security strategy to help ensure business and customer data stays safe and secure.

A CPO helps develop strategies to support how personally identifiable information is protected from these types of incidents, and can fully brief the c-suite on the issues – both technical and business – which could arise from a breach.

Avoid a PR nightmare Having a proactive strategy in place to protect against a security breach isn't only smart to protect data, but also your brand reputation. Data breaches are national news these days, and one bad data breach can mean a world of hurt when it comes to damaging your company's reputation. Since CEO's can't have their eye on everything, and CIOs are busy enough with IT, a CPO is the next logical step to help prevent a PR nightmare before it happens. Worst-case scenario, a CPO can at least work to diminish the effects of an attack and create a strategy to avoid future problems. www.cnmeonline.com

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