Computer News Middle East May 2014

WHERE TECHNOLOGY MEANS BUSINESS issue 268 | may 2014 WWW.CNMEONLINE.COM

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EDITORIAL Chairman Dominic De Sousa

Beefing up security

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

CEO Nadeem Hood

Last month, I anchored a panel discussion at our annual Security Strategist event, which discussed some of the burning issues related to information security in the region. One of the common themes at this conference was the evolving threat landscape and the rise of threats that we couldn’t even possibly imagine a few years ago. How do you combat these threats and keep ‘bad guys’ at bay, who seem to be always two or three steps ahead of us? What kind of defensive posture can help companies to protect their valuable assets? Or are we really helpless against this new breed of targeted and sophisticated attacks?

As one of the panelists pointed out, the nature of attack itself has changed; it has shifted from a target of opportunity towards a target of choice. The rising wave of cloud, mobility and social media has exacerbated the risk factor further, and the mandate is now clear for security professionals – how do you actually harness the power of these technology while maintaining a robust security posture? One simple answer would be to increase security spending. Despite all the hype and hoopla, the security spending as a percentage of the total IT budget still hovers below 20 percent in most enterprises, except some verticals such as banking and finance. But, this alone wouldn’t help you mitigate the risks. Though firewalls, intrusion prevention systems and vulnerability scanners can help you fight malicious attacks, what is needed is a complete rethinking of security approach and commitment. Very often, you’ll see companies with great security plans and strategies in place but where they fail is in execution. This disconnect between strategy and execution comes as a result of companies focusing on devices and date, not people. The focal point of any good security strategy should be people and awareness about the strategic importance of information security across the organisation.

It’s also important for business leaders to recognise the need for a multi-layered approach to security and have dedicated security heads with a strategic role to play in the business. In other words, it’s time to get a CISO on board and elevate her or him to a seat at the table.

COO Georgina O’Hara Publishing Director Rajashree Rammohan raj.ram@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1511 Editorial Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan jeevan.thankappan@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1513 Editor Annie Bricker annie.bricker@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1499 Online Editor James Dartnell james.dartnell@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1501 Contributors Randy Bean Mary Brandel ADVERTISING Senior Sales Manager Michal Zylinski michal.zylinski@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1505 Circulation Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh.nair@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1645 Production and Design Production Manager James P Tharian james.tharian@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1643 Designer Analou Balbero analou.balbero@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1504 DIGITAL SERVICES Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy P Maagma Web Developers Erik Briones Jefferson de Joya Photographer and Social Media Co-ordinator Jay Colina webmaster@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9100

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EDITORIAL Our events

Hitting the Heartbreaks

Annie Bricker Deputy Editor Talk to us: E-mail: annie.bricker@ cpimediagroup.com

6

It would be strange to publish this month’s issue with no mention of the word that is on the tip of every IT professional’s tongue—Heartbleed.

Not a virus, not a piece of malware, not even an organised attack against OpenSSL, Heartbleed is simply a bug. It is just a big, bleeding wound in the open-source created OpenSSL code. With thousands of lines of code to be written, bugs are bound to occur every once in a while and patches and fixes are released all the time to remedy such errors. What has made Heartbleed stand out is that it was a bug in a code that sat there unnoticed for two years. The bug was introduced to OpenSSL in December 2011 and has been out in the wild since the OpenSSL release 1.0.1 on 14th March, 2012. The bug only received a fix on 7th April of this year. Have you been affected by Heartbleed? Probably, either directly or indirectly, simply because of the length of exposure. More than half a million servers were exposed and the list of websites affected is exceptionally long.

My question isn’t how did this happen or who was exposed—those answers have been made as clear as they ever will be. What I have to ask is who is responsible? The answer brings up a number of concerns on open-source coding in general. I like the idea of open-source coding—there are coders out there that are so dedicated to making the Internet a better place that they use their free time to build open-source code. The code is built out by volunteers. To be fair, these volunteers are some of the best in the industry, but at the end of the day they are spending their nights and weekends creating this code with little or no monetary motivation. With so much code to go through it is easy to see why Heartbleed bled out for years before a team of security engineers found the vulnerability by chance while improving the SafeGuard feature in Codenomicon’s Defensics security testing tools. Like the bug itself, its discovery was a total fluke.

If a mistake that resulted in a security breach of this magnitude was discovered in a business, heads would undoubtedly roll. However, with Heartbleed, there are no heads and there will be no rolling. No one can lose their jobs because open-source coders are not employed by those that utilise the code they are creating. The companies that use the code don’t feel the need to audit the code because they assume the coders are creating a solid product. The consumers that utilise websites that employ the code are putting their trust into the companies. At the end of the day, no one is held responsible.

I think Heartbleed should be a wake-up call for us all. It isn’t that no one is responsible for protecting privacy on the Internet, we all are. As we pump more and more data into the cloud and create endless streams of information with our everyday transactions, cyber security should be on the minds of the coders, the companies and the consumers. As consumers we need to educate ourselves on how to better protect our data and identify solid encryption and trusted sites, and companies need to take responsibility for the code they utilise and support more detailed audits.

As for the coders, all I can say is I’m impressed by their dedication in spite of Heartbleed. I can only hope that these builders of the Internet we use receive more support soon to avoid future failures.

Computer News Middle East

may 2014

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Contents

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Strategic IT Transformation and Big Data Partner

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ISSUE 268 | may 2014

30

Security Strategist

Rubbish rebooted

64

80 8

Virtual Lock Down

Fearless Digital Leaders

Computer News Middle East

may 2014

36

30 Security Strategist

CNME played host to Security Strategist 2014 bringing together the leading security practitioners in the region to discuss IT's latest topics.

58 Storage and the Cloud

Cloud storage is the way forward for most enterprises. Rather than grappling with the deluge of data, CIOs are looking to the cloud for help.

36 Rubbish Rebooted

Amin Al Zarouni and his team at Bee'ah are redefining how we deal with our waste. With talking trash bins and more, we take a new look at garbage.

64 Virtual Lock Down

Virtualisation has made the data centre a more flexible and agile place, but not without a price. Enterprises must reconsider their protection strategy.

44 Building Hybrid Clouds

When it comes to cloud computing, there is rarely a one-size-fits-all solution. What does it take for enterprises to join the hybrid cloud bandwagon?

70 Wi-Fi to the Rescue

Wi-Fi promises many benefits for cellular operatios looking to meet the everincreasing bandwidth needs and ease congestion on their networks.

50 Harnessing Gigabit Wi-Fi

The fifth generation of Wi-Fi is here.

Organisations need to decide whether to transition to the lasted networking standard or to stick with the old standby.

74 Smart Devices Experience

Younes Abad from Ericsson Middle East discusses smart devices as they become the access devices of choice, and mobile user behaviour has shifted from voicecentric to app-centric.

54 Staying Current in the Cloud

As the region moves forward with cloud computing, SI specialists and IT consultants will need to reexamine their roles. WHile some may be nervous about change, staying current with emerging technology is key to staying relavent.

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80 Fearless Digital Leaders

Annie Bricker sits down for a face-toface with David Aron of Gartner and discusses the future of IT management and leadership and what it takes to be a fearless digital leader.

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P O W E R E D B Y S E C U R E WAY

in depth IBM

Framing the future On 8th April 2014, IBM celebrated the 50th anniversary of System/360, its mainframe system which transformed the computing world. James Dartnell reports from the Mainframe50 conference in New York City where the infrastructure giant celebrated the milestone with the release of new cloud and Hadoop services.

I

n 1961 IBM was in the midst of a crisis.

It was selling a number of successful yet disparate computer lines, but they were becoming increasingly difficult to maintain and update, and the company was collapsing under the weight of the task.

On 8th April 1964, IBM announced the computer that would drag it from the mire—the System/360.

It became a huge success for the company.

IBM’s president at the time, Tom Watson, killed off other IBM computer lines and put the company’s full force behind the system. IBM’s revenue swelled to $8.3 billion by 1971, up from $3.6 billion in 1965.

The System/360 ushered in a revolutionary way of designing and building computer systems. Before the introduction, manufacturers built each new computer model from scratch.

Software designed to run on one machine

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would not work on others, even from the same manufacturer. The operating system for each computer had to be built from scratch.

Over the last 50 years, the Mainframe has transformed the world of computing, and today houses 80 percent of the world’s corporate data, and processes 1.1 million global customer transactions every second. The foundations for many of today’s cornerstone technologies have their origins in the mainframe: real time transaction processing; DB2 software which was a forerunner to today’s Big Data analytics; and the ability to share notes, messages and updated calendars which inspired email.

IBM used the anniversary event in the Big Apple to launch a range of new products, with its Enterprise Cloud System taking centre stage.

Built upon open standards, the integrated platform features a utility pricing model which will give service providers the ability to pay for

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Linux-based mainframe cloud infrastructure based on compute consumption, and comes in private, hybrid or public models. ECS will be able to support up to 6,000 machines in a single system, and combines System z hardware, IBM storage and IBM cloud management software into a single Infrastructure-as-as-Service solution.

It will also introduce a range of mobile, storage and Hadoop offerings for the mainframe.

Working with IBM, Veristorm is providing commercial Hadoop for Linux on System z; its new zDoop software, which IBM says will help clients to avoid staging and offloading of mainframe data to maintain existing security and governance controls. Continuous Integration for System z is a new introduction that compresses the application delivery cycle from months to weeks. For businesses running more than 1 billion transactions per day, IBM has introduced a new version of CICS

Transaction Server, which delivers enhanced mobile and cloud support for CICS. On the security front, Security zSecure SSE has been introduced, which aims to prevent malicious attacks through enhanced security intelligence and compliance reporting. It can direct security events to QRadar SIEM to provide integrated security intelligence dashboard reporting.

Meanwhile, WebSphere Liberty z/OS Connect aims to ensure secure enablement of web, cloud and mobile access to z/OS assets. In terms of mobility, a System z mobile workload pricing plan has been introduced, where up to 60 percent can be saved on incremental growth from mobile transactions, and no infrastructure changes will be needed.

Speaking to CNME, keynote speaker Pat Toole, General Manager, System z, IBM, discussed how IBM is confident of consolidating its reputation as a comapny that offers a highly

trustworthy and scalable mainframe. He said, “With the unprecedented emergence of the third platform of computing; Big Data, mobile, cloud not to mention social media and security any platform has to be adding value for new workloads, and what we offer is no different. We aim to add value by exploiting these new trends, and to ensure that our mainframe remains in-step with the emergence of new technologies which grow every few years.”

Toole went on to underline the important role the mainframe plays in powering Middle East business and government, “Take Emirates airline for example,” he said. “All of Emirates’ system runs through our mainframe, and not only has it served them well, but with the amount of users now who carry out mobile transactions, it is important to integrate mobile applications with their systems of record, and through this insight they can create new client experiences. We’re also strong in public and financial services in the Middle East, and we aim to add insight to the UAE government and boost its Smart City initiatives.”

IBM called upon representatives from corporations including Citibank, Visa, the Met Office and Walmart, who all lauded the impact the mainframe had had on their business.

Jim McCarthy, Global Head of Innovation & Strategic Partnerships, Visa, praised its impeccable consistency. “In the last 20 years we have had no downtime whatsoever during the holiday season through the mainframe, which is remarkable,” he said.

Elijah Paintsil, Professor of Paediatrics and Pharmacology, Yale University, told the audience how IBM had enabled the wheels of a remarkable project to be set in motion.

Healthcare workers in Ghana are using mobile devices to collect data that is analysed on the mainframe, which is being used to

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provide insights for treatment and prevention programmes. Paintsil said, “Every day 1,000 babies are born in Ghana with HIV,” he said.

“Before we looked to IBM, we had no system of cognitive insight, but the mainframe has given us hope that we can achieve our aim; reducing the rate of HIV infections to one percent of the population by 2020.”

John Kelly, Senior Vice President and Director, IBM Research, shared his vision for the future for the mainframe. He discussed how the speed of analytics workloads would be seven times as fast, and that 5.5 Ghz processors would be introduced. He also discussed emerging technologies that will define IBM, “We see quantum technology as holding the key to the future,” he said. “Mechanical learning, nanotechnology and advanced cryptography will all go into future mainframes. Cognitive systems that can reason will be a part of the future. We have seen the era of tabulating and then programmable systems, but the future is one of cognitive systems. Our mainframe is one of the few technologies that will be able to leap into the new era and flourish.”

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Computer News Middle East

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in depth Dell

Turning the corner Attendees of the Dell Enterprise Forum were treated to a peek at Dell’s latest gear for enterprises. The Forum provided an open environment, not only for networking among participants, but for discussions with top-level Dell representatives and experts.

T

he Dell Enterprise Forum, held in Frankfurt the second week in April saw hundreds of customers, channel partners and other leading IT professionals come together to take a peek at the wealth of new offerings from Dell, hear some first-hand success stories and tinker with Dell’s latest offerings in hands-on labs.

Participants from around Europe, Africa and the Middle East gathered with the collective goal of exploring the potential of Dell’s new solutions to optimise their enterprises. The conference provided open access to Dell C-level executives, real-time conference information and interaction via a mobile app, as well as educational sessions with Dell experts.

The conference opened with an engaging keynote address by Aongus Hegarty, President, EMEA, Brian Humphries, Vice President, Enterprise Solutions, EMEA; Forrest Norrod, Vice President and General Manager, Server Platforms; Alan Atkinson, Vice President and General Manager, Storage, and Tom Burns, Vice

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President and General Manager, Networking.

The address set the stage for the entire conference as CIOs were given first glance at the new gear from Dell and encouraged to leverage business moments with Dell solutions.

The top brass at Dell made it clear that the company is quickly turning a corner from what once was a bare-metal vendor to a provider of both equipment and long-term serviced solutions. Hegarty in particular emphasised that Dell was transforming into a “hardware, software and services company.”

Global trends that have been on everyone’s minds were key points of discussion at the Forum. Cloud, mobility, and Big Data were brought centre stage as Dell tempted potential customers with data centre monitoring mobile applications, security solutions and a revamp of traditional storage software.

The conference’s focus was, of course, on the release of new work solutions from Dell.

Centre stage was the much anticipated release of Dell’s Fluid Cache for SAN. Fluid Cache for

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SAN addresses existing performance issues common to enterprises that require fast access to data, such as online transaction processing, data warehousing, virtual desktop infrastructure and cloud. According to Dell this technology helps organisations speed up access to data by pooling and utilising Dell PCI Express Flash drives for low-latency data caching inside traditional servers.

Also showcased at the event was Dell’s expanded suite of endpoint security solutions—Dell SecureWorks. “In today’s evolving technology landscape, organisations face an unprecedented number and variety of security threats. Only a connected approach to security protects an organisation’s entire IT environment without compromising access, collaboration, performance or cost,” said John McClurg, Chief Security Officer, Dell.

“Our portfolio updates shared today will help customers implement a holistic security strategy to protect their businesses from the outside-in and inside-out. Ultimately,

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in depth Dell

Dell’s differentiated security approach allows businesses to defend all technology touchpoints from the device to the data centre to the cloud.” In short, Dell is pushing an all-inclusive suite of solutions for enterprise security with SecureWorks.

Also on deck for the conference was the PowerEdge VRTX. Touted as an integrated solution that can fit under the desk, the PowerEdge VRTX is designed as a single, compact chassis that integrates servers, storage, networking and management. This unit is especially interesting to enterprises that

run remote offices as it can be, more or less, operated and maintained by non-IT staff.

Representatives of Dell also spoke at the conference about their relationship with Red Hat. The duo announced the availability of co-engineered, enterprise-grade, private cloud solutions based on OpenStack, simply named the Dell Red Hat Cloud Solution, powered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform. The two companies further announced that they have extended their collaboration to Platform-as-a Service offerings that enterprise customers will rely on as they build public, private and hybrid

“In today’s evolving technology landscape, organisations face an unprecedented number and variety of security threats. Only a connected approach to security protects an organisation’s entire IT environment without compromising access, collaboration, performance or cost.”

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cloud environments. For example, a new “Proof of Concept Configuration,” in which developers can establish a test and production environment while tinkering with OpenStack. These new Platform-asa-Service offerings are aimed to better serve Red Hat’s OpenShift PaaS community as well as other enterprise app developers.

More than just a sales pitch, partners and potential customers had access to hand-on labs with product experts. Participants were able to dabble with the new technology with the help of the Dell team. Countless sessions allowed participants to hear first-hand accounts of successful implementation from Dell customers and partners.

The message, driven home time and again throughout the conference is that the face of IT is changing. No longer is the IT department simply a provider and maintainer of equipment.

As technology progresses and develops into X-asa-Service, so too must every enterprises provide IT-as-a-Service. The aim of Dell is to equip IT professionals with the tools and services to become the industry’s new intrepid leaders.

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in depth Alcatel-Lucent Roundtable

Unified decision makers In association with Alcatel-Lucent, CNME hosted a roundtable on Unified Communications at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Dubai. IT executives from a range of industries gathered to share their views on a technology that polarises opinion, and awaits widespread adoption.

U

nified Communications throws up a number of questions, and is something that would prompt 10 CIOs to give 10 different answers as to its definition. Its benefits are seemingly intangible, but is nonetheless regarded as a driver of productivity. This is perhaps the main reason why, in spite of its presence on the market for over a decade, adoption is still relatively slow.

The roundtable served as a forum which raised a number of issues among participants, with security threats and usability issues high up on the agenda.

Baher Ezzat, Regional Director, AlcatelLucent Middle East, set the ball rolling with his view on the trend’s definition and issues with adoption, “Unified Communications is a common interface for all interactions,” he said. “There are three important aspects to it—mobility, business alignment, and how to

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make it human.” Ezzat went on to underline the increasing importance of using a blend of vendors when implementing UC. “People used to rely on a single vendor, but now there’s a lot of disagreement on proprietary platforms.

Everyone comes from a different starting point, and manoeuvering integration takes time, but is not rocket science.”

With most drivers of productivity, the end user experience is key. The participants highlighted how confusion and lack of usability had stunted their attempts to convince employees and customers that their implementations were straightforward.

Abdullah Al Shamsi, Head of IT, Dubai Aviation Engineering Projects, drew on his own experience to highlight a number of concerns with UC implementation and maintenance, “A main problem I have encountered is training employees to use the tool,” he said. “In my previous experience,

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in depth Alcatel-Lucent Roundtable

users have complained. On top of that, maintenance isn’t easy, and it is challenging to keep up-to-date with the latest technology; by the time you have purchased it, you have to be thinking about an upgrade.”

David Horton, Chief Technology Officer, Mashreq Bank, discussed how Mashreq has implemented a video conference system for outdoor ATMs to give customers easier access to customer service assistants. “The service became fully operational about three or four months ago, and we currently receive about 200 calls per week,” he said. “The bank is taking a digital direction; we’ve equipped 27 of our branches with soundproof pods, but we’re finding that our call centre staff still need training when it comes to dealing with customers via video.”

Participants discussed the impact that UC has on existing infrastructure, and the overriding response was that this was a key hurdle in pushing through adoption.

Al Shamsi framed UC in the context of a demanding industry—aviation, “We’ve been looking at UC since 2006,” he said. “It’s always been a challenge to implement it within a running airport.

The first challenge is marketing the idea and deploying it across the airport; there are a lot of technology and infrastructure limitations. One thing that I believe is crucial is not to overwhelm customers or employees with UC; it should be tailored to an organisation’s needs.”

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Concerns over reliable security are endemic in the IT realm, and delegates highlighted how careful steps would need to be taken to ensure a UC solution would not fall victim to a range of attacks from outside sources.

Alok Srivastava, Head of IT, Masdar, drew attention to the need for robust security within UC, “We operate in a free zone, and so we have a need for enhanced collaboration with customers, and across the organisation as a whole,” he said. “An issue that I believe is crucial is to get a balance between the benefits of mobility with UC, but also the threats of weak security.”

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The need for collaboration tools to operate together was also a hot topic, and Hatem Manawy, Regional IT Director, Gulf, Levant and Central Asia, Americana Group, told the group how he believes the introduction of UC should be gradual and not a wholesale replacement for other communication channels. “A problem—or indeed reality—of communication is the segregation between what is verbal and what is written,” he said.

“I think that somewhere between the two a compromise can be found. UC is a useful addition to an organisation, not a complete replacement for all other channels.”

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in depth Brocade

Flat networks are the future CNME, in conjunction with Brocade, hosted a roundtable discussion in Riyadh on Ethernet fabric technology that provided insights into the current thinking and interest levels in the technology.

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T

he roundtable, which brought together key IT decision makers, was hosted by Samer Ismair, Network Consultant-MENA, Brocade and Ahmed Aamer, CEO of Riyadh-based consulting firm Sky Computing. The attendees got down to business and discussed the practical steps and opportunities around this important technology topic, which is a key factor in the evolution of next-generation data centres in the region.

According to industry analysts, 40 percent of organisations in the Middle East have already adopted some form of cloud computing, with private clouds more common than public or hybrid cloud models.

As the Middle East enterprises move towards cloud computing, creating a data centre networking architecture that is simple, flat and virtualised is a top priority for the region’s IT decision makers. This coupled with the increasing use of server virtualisation is driving enterprises towards Ethernet fabric technology, which promises to help them fully realise the benefits of business agility, operational efficiencies and lower costs.

Providing a perspective on the future of data centres, Ismair said the Ethernet fabric technology represents an evolution in the architectural landscape of the data centre network. “At its purest form, Ethernet fabric

is a flatter, simpler network that is optimised for virtualised workloads and horizontal traffic flows. Unlike legacy networks, which have three or more tiers, fabrics have no more than two tiers, and traffic moves horizontally across the network and virtual machines,” he said.

Compared to traditional hierarchical Ethernet architectures, Ethernet fabrics provide higher levels of performance, efficiency, availability and operational simplicity to meet the business needs of virtualised data centres.

Responding to questions related to return on investment, Ismair highlighted the benefits of transitioning to this new model by quoting a recent study by Forrester Consulting that examined the potential ROI enterprises may realise by deploying fabric technology. “The study found that fabric technology significantly reduces opex and improves agility for business, he said. It showed that there is a 30 percent difference between the cost of upgrading existing legacy network equipment and purchasing our VCS fabric technology to achieve similar bandwidth capabilities.”

As is the case with anything in IT, there are several considerations to mull over before deploying fabric technology to converge data and storage networks in data centres. Ismair explained some of these key aspects that IT decision makers should consider while evaluating cloud network fabrics. “Based on

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Lippis report, which did a comparative study on Ethernet fabric performance, you should consider implementing a two-tier leaf-spine Ethernet fabric to reduce equipment cost and boost application performance. Also, consider vendors that support all types of networking, as this is a fast moving target.

Auto provisioning of networking with compute and storage is increasingly important and you have to look for vendors that support network configurations via SDN controllers plus virtualisation and cloud orchestration systems.”

He added that Brocade is the only vendor that has a clearly defined strategy to combine the best aspects of physical and virtual networking to increase business agility, reduce complexity and scale virtualisation to new levels within and across data centres. “We have made a number of significant advancements to our VCS Fabric technology and VDX switching portfolio, offering capabilities that provide native multi-tenancy, storage-aware networking and 10GbE performance for the most demanding data centre environments.”

After a half-day of deliberations, the participants left with valuable insights on Ethernet fabrics and deployment options, and all were in agreement that organisations should leverage the simplicity and flexibility of this technology before heading down the SDN path.

may 2014

Computer News Middle East

21

short takes Month in view

Bloomberg: NSA secretly exploited Heartbleed bug for years

Huawei predicts eight billion smartphone users by 2025 Eight billion people will use smartphones and 100 billion terminals will be interconnected via the internet by 2025, according to Chinese ICT multinational Huawei.

This is an eight-fold increase in the number of smartphone users— one billion—today.

Speaking at the firm’s annual global analyst summit, William Xu, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Huawei, said, “Mobile has changed everything…the world cannot move on without connectivity. We increasingly rely on it to enable our work and lives, and we expect ubiquitous, high-speed, secure, no-wait connections.”

In his opening address he told attendees, “ICT is propelling society into the next wave of development.

Connection has become a new element of production alongside land, labour and capital.

“We will see machines connected with machines on a massive scale.

For example, there will be connected cars with insurance informed by technology that monitors driving habits. Everything and everyone will be connected through cloud computing; hotel rooms, cinema seats, classrooms. An era of massive traffic is around the corner. And we need to figure out how to transmit, handle and analyse huge volumes of data.”

The small error in the open-source OpenSSL implementation of the SSL encryption protocol that opened a gaping hole in the security of hundreds of thousands websites and networking equipment across the Internet, has

Cisco announces security service, operations centres venture Cisco has announced Managed Threat Defense, a set of security services for the enterprise that it is providing through two new operations centres to remotely support intrusiondetection, incident response and forensics, among other services.

Managed Threat Defense requires the enterprise to deploy an appliance on its internal

Lenovo tops world PC market with massive growth

WHAT’S HOT?

Lenovo enjoyed solid shipment growth across Q1, according to Gartner. HP retained top spot in the EMEA market, and its shipments grew 15.3 percent in the first quarter of 2014.

Lenovo experienced the strongest growth among the top five vendors, its shipments growing 10.9 percent, extending its position as the worldwide leader.

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allegedly been exploited by the NSA for two years, Bloomberg has claimed.

Leaked NSA documents provided to reporters by Edward Snowden have revealed an agency casting a wide - and often domestic surveillance dragnet, spying on American emails and web searches, gobbling up metadata from smartphones en masse, and even tapping into the internal communication infrastructures of Internet giants like Yahoo and Google.

A September Snowdensupplied revelation revealed that the NSA can easily defeat many of today’s encryption technologies, and in an aside that now seems precognizant, the SSL protocol was then rumoured to be a particular favoured target for the agency.

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network so that telemetry information can be collected and securely shared with Cisco staff involved in analytics at the two new operations centres. The Cisco appliance for Managed Threat Defense includes a number of Cisco security capabilities, such as Cisco Advanced Threat Detection based in its anti-malware FireAMP technology gained in the Sourcefire acquisition.

Android tops mobile ad traffic for first time Android has dethroned Apple’s iOS as the biggest driver of worldwide mobile ad traffic, according to a new study.

Almost 43 percent of mobile ad impressions came from an Android device in Q1 2014, the latest State of Mobile Advertising report found, but Apple’s devices are still more profitable—Phones and iPads accounted for more than 52 percent of mobile monetisation in Q1.

EMC: Digital universe data to grow tenfold by 2020 EMC’s seventh Digital Universe study reveals how the emergence of wireless technologies, smart products and softwaredefined businesses are playing a central role in catapulting the volume of the world’s data.

Due in part to the Internet of Things, the digital universe is doubling in size every two years and will multiply 10-fold between 2013

and 2020 from 4.4 trillion gigabytes to 44 trillion gigabytes, EMC says.

According to IDC the number of devices or things that can be connected to the Internet is approaching 200 billion today, with 7 percent (or 14 billion) already connected to and communicating over the Internet.

The data from these connected devices represents 2 percent of the world’s data today.

IBM develops online cloud marketplace IBM’s Cloud online marketplace has gone live and now enterprises can find the full range of IBM’s offerings behind a single gateway.

The marketplace has more than 100 hosted IBM applications, as well as middleware components from IBM’s Bluemix Platformas-a-Service. It also serves as a portal to IBM’s SoftLayer Infrastructure-as-a-Service and houses a collection of services from IBM partners.

The new online marketplace ties together a number of new initiatives from IBM within a single portal.

For IT managers, IBM will offer IaaS virtual machines that can be easily copied between IBM’s cloud and an organisation’s private cloud.

It will also offer a number of new services around big data, disaster recovery and managed security.

IDC now forecasts that, by 2020, the number of connected devices will grow to 32 billion, representing 10 percent of the world’s data.

In 2013, only 22 percent of the information in the digital universe was considered useful data, but less than 5 percent of the useful data was actually analysed - leaving a massive amount of data lost as dark matter in the digital universe.

Intel looks to Android for tablet growth Intel and Microsoft are no longer joined at the hip. Intel is trying desperately to grow its share of the tablet market, and with Windows flunking out on those devices, Android is the flavour of the month.

Intel hopes to see its processors used in 40 million tablets this year, and 80 to 90 percent

of those will be running Google’s Android OS, CEO Brian Krzanich has said.

Most Intel-powered tablets running Android today use the older Medfield and Clover Trail+ chips. More Android tablets running the latest Atom processor, called Bay Trail, will ship later this quarter.

Wearables sales tripled in a year and will grow 500 percent by 2018, study says In its just-released forecast analysis, IDC reported that total global wearables sales will exceed 19 million units this year. By 2018, international sales will hit 111.9 million units, resulting in a year-over-year, compound annual

growth rate of 78.4 percent, according to IDC projections. In simpler terms, the sales jump over four years projects out to a total increase of just under 500 percent.

The IDC study classifies three different

Gartner: Worldwide PC shipments declined 1.7 percent Worldwide PC shipments totalled 76.6 million units in the first quarter of 2014, as the market continued to be tough for many vendors.

The EMEA PC market saw positive growth after eight quarters of decline. Shipments in EMEA totalled 22.9 million units in the Q1 2014, a 0.3 percent increase from the same period last year.

types of wearable gadgets. Activity-tracking wristbands like the Jawbone UP24 and various Fitbit devices are considered "complex accessories," in that they require, to varying degrees, smartphone pairing.

WHAT’S NOT?

IBM profit suffers

Falling hardware sales and the cost of layoffs hit IBM’s profit hard in the first quarter, sending it down 21 percent to $2.4 billion.

The quarterly results include an $870 million writeoff for workforce rebalancing. IBM has been cutting parts of its workforce as it shifts its focus to cloud and analytics services.

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23

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Analysis: Dell Roundtable discusses network vitualisation

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Reviews: Review: Samsung Galaxy Note 3

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Brocade goes beyond with Ethernet fabric

Acer takes on the Nexus 7 with 7.9″ Intel tablet

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IBM making push for Power server chips

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FireEye offers Heartbleed resistance tips

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*IBM Sole Distributor in the GCC excluding selected products and services, excluding Saudi Arabia. Š2014 Gulf Business Machines. All rights reserved. GBM, the GBM logo, START LOADING THE FUTURE are trademarks of Gulf Business Machines. IBM and the IBM logo are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) in the United States and other countries and used under license. IBM responsibility is limited to IBM products and services and is governed solely by the agreements under which such products and services are provided.

For the record

Due to a printing error, three winners of Networks World ME Awards 2014 were missed out in the April edition of CNME.

Managed Services Provider of the Year Winner:

eHosting DataFort

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Cognizant Technology Solutions

Editor’s Choice Winner:

African Eastern

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27

COLOR, VALUE, & EV How big businesses use colors to affect your em

RED

is associated with the intensity of blood and fire

LOGOS INFLUENCE US EARLY IN LIFE A University of Amsterdam study used famous logos without word-marks like McDonald’s or Nike to measure brand recognition in early childhood

what you feel

Active, Emotional, Passionate, Trust Love, Intensity, Aggressive

BLUE

is associated with the depth and stability of the sky and sea what you feel

Comfort, Faith, Conservative, Clarity Understanding, Confident, Calm, Trust

GREEN

3-5 Years 7-8 Years

Age when you start to recognise that a logo stands for a product

Age when we can consistently recall the logo

Percentage of Children able to match logos and products correctly

2-3 yrs old kids

8 yrs old kids

67% 100%

234 two-to-eight-year-olds from daycare centres in Netherlands

is associated with the harmony of nature what you feel

Calm, Relaxed, Trust, Peaceful, Hopeful

YELLOW

is associated with the energy and joy of sunshine

what you feel

Joy, Alive, Energetic, Fresh

BLACK

is associated with the formality and mystery of night what you feel Bold, Serious, Luxurious

A few elite logos so valuable they don’t need word-marks

OLUTION OF LOGOS otions and why some top logos can be dirt cheap HOW MUCH IS A LOGO?

CREATING LOGOS COSTS A LOT

Whether expensive or cheap to make logos create value

The most iconic logos were conceptualised for millions of dollars employing teams of professional creative directors, art designers and focus groups

10

Most valuable Brands in the world $ 104.3 Billion $ 56.7 Billion $ 54.9 Billion $ 50.7 Billion $ 47.3 Billion $ 39.4 Billion $ 34.2 Billion $ 30.9 Billion $ 29.5 Billion $ 28.4 Billion

SOME LOGOS COST

NOTHING

2012 London Olympics

$665,400

Its creator, Wolff Olins, believes it echoes “London’s qualities of a modern edgy city”.

For millions of critics it’s a bunch of blocks having a seizure. The common joke about one of the .m.ost expensive logos in the world.

Pepsi new logo

$1,000,000 The million-dollar logo change in 2008 was crticised to be an Obama logo rip-off. To warrant the cost, the design agency is rumoured to have produced a 27-page document “Breathtaking Design Strategy.” explaining the new logo replete with references to Da Vinci, yin-yangs, and Mobius strips.

BBC new logo

$1.8 Million The broadcasting giant straightened up its slanting logo in 1997 to look better on screen and used Gill Sans script. The typeface was invented by Eric Gill, an English typeface designer (1182-1940) who was the key sculptor for the original BBC edifice in 1932.

OTHER LOGOS COST A FEW BUCKS These iconic logos were created by their owner or company The redesign was developed by an in-house design team in 2012 and the first in 25 years for the company.

Design experts said it would have cost between $250-500,000 had a branding firm designed it The original logo was created by Google co-founder Sergey Brin on the free graphics program, GIMP. He’s said to be proud of it, not the design, but the fact that he was able to use GIMP, a fairly difficult program to use The original logo was created by the company’s co-founder and bookkepeer, Frank M. Robinson, who suggested that the two Cs would look good in advertising. Today, Forbes estimates the Coke brand value to be $55 B.

Twitter bought this logo from iStockphoto.

The artist, Simon Oxley, is said to have received $6. Professional agencies in the U.S. charge about $5,000 for a logo design. Its latest logo, a simplified bird version, is created from overlapping circles

In 1971, Nike co-founder Phil Knight offered a graphic design student to create charts graphs, and eventually, the famous swoosh after learning the student needed money to buy oil paints. On seeing the swoosh for the first time, Knight didn’t like it but hoped “it would grow on him”

Analysis Security Strategist

Rethinking security for the new world With information security taking centre stage in the wake of new threats, CNME’s Security Strategist 2014 conference, organised in association with aeCERT, brought together the leading security practitioners in the region to discuss trends, concerns and solutions.

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I

nformation security is changing rapidly.

Security incidents are occurring more often and with increased financial or reputational impact. At the same time, resources for security and IT remain nearly constant. How do we do more with less, how do we govern in a rapidly changing environment?

How can we be more in-tune with the needs of the business and make security a driver of change rather than a box to check?

With a packed agenda, including two specialised roundtables covering the banking and finance, and aviation and logistics sectors, the halfday conference provided attendees with insightful and valuable information that is vital to proactive security measures in the regional enterprises.

The event was kicked off by Sudhir Menon, Senior Manager, Product Marketing and Security, Etisalat, who gave the audience practical tips on developing a credible security strategy to combat the new breed of threats.

“The motivation and sophistication behind attacks have changed, and there is a paradigm shift in the security landscape. For CIOs, there are many challenges from increased sophistication to lack of budget to maintaining security and

integrating multiple systems from multiple vendors. To deal with these challenges, you need to bring security to the board room and go back to basics,” he said.

Ahmed Baig, Manager, Information Security and Compliance, DWTC, gave a lowdown on how exactly the threat landscape is changing in his presentation. “In the past decade, attackers targeted companies at random, but today the identification mechanisms have changed; they know exactly who they want to attack. And many compromised organisations realise that they have been attacked only after 6 months.”

The evolving role of CISO as a C-level executive, who needs to strike a balance between technology and business needs, was also a hot topic of discussion at the conference. Biju Hameed, ICT Security Manager, Dubai Airports, put matters into perspective and said there are three Cs to corporate infosec intelligence - collaboration, correlation and communications. “There is a necessity for people in specific business lines to start talking to each other. Contextualising information within the organisation itself is important from a security viewpoint and focus is shifting to applications and people,” he added.

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In the wake of many highly-sophisticated, targeted attacks in the region, Middle East organisations are paying much more attention to data leakage prevention. It’s something that business and IT must work on together. This hot topic was tackled by Illyas Kooliyankal, CISO, ADS Securities.

“To start with the data leakage process, there needs to be a holistic approach based on a risk assessment - cost and benefit analysis. You need to understand existing security architecture and create use cases. You need to get the right people on board, define the right approach - not IT or information security requirement - but business value,” he said.

Developing an incident management plan, and ensuring that it aligns to the organisation’s goals and needs, as well existing policy and compliance regulations, can be a daunting task for security professionals. Hariprasad Chede, Senior Manager, Information Security, National Bank of Fujairah, gave attendees practical tips on incident handling, and said, “Information flows between people through organisations and networks in much the same way that water flows through a metropolis. You need to be able to access and trust the information you need. If information doesn’t flow and is not fresh, we need to flush it out. When an incident happens, trust your technical leaders and do not second guess technical decisions.”

The in-depth presentations were followed by a panel discussion on the evolving threat landscape and steps to a proactive security strategy. With the ever evolving threat landscape and changing nature of attacks, panellists agreed unanimously that there is an urgent need for enterprises to rethink their defensive postures.

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CIO Spotlight Dr Jassim Haji

Bridging the Gulf Dr Jassim Haji is far from single-minded. The Gulf Air IT chief used an early passion for electronics as a platform for studying abroad, and learning a series of valuable cultural lessons that impact his leadership style to this day.

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I

t seems only fitting that Jassim Haji is a cultured man. The Gulf Air Director of IT has spent eight years working for the airline in two spells, and has a PHD in improving working relationships across nationalities. Born in Bahrain in 1962, Haji has enjoyed a steady rise to the pinnacle of Gulf Air’s IT operations, in which the United Kingdom has played a key role in his journey.

As a youngster, Haji had a passion for electronics, and used to help local businessmen to repair a variety of devices, “I used to love playing around with telephone cabling, diodes, things like that,” he says. “I would fix things like TV sets, and troubleshoot circuit boards.

At school we had no opportunity to learn skills like that, so I occupied myself learning them in my free time.”

Haji insists that IT was not what initially stoked his interest in technology, “When I was growing up, telecoms was a bigger industry than IT in Bahrain,” he says. “Multiplexors and modems were f lourishing. Given that Bahrain was the financial hub for the Middle East, there was an increasing demand for better communication within the banking industry within the country. I was fascinated by the intricacy and importance of networking, and my interest grew from there.”

Bahrain’s lack of specialist universities forced Haji to leave the country in 1980 for Cable and Wireless’ college in Cornwall, United Kingdom, where he would simultaneously work for C&W whilst studying for a degree in Telecommunications. He graduated in 1986, and returned to Bahrain to launch his career with Gulf Air as a Network Engineer. He relished the prospect of working for an airline, where he had the opportunity to travel as well as studying the logistical side of a complex business, “Being able to travel with a job is fantastic, it allows you to see different parts of the world and experience different cultures,” he says. “Furthermore, once you can understand the different facets of the airline business—passenger services, the logistics of an airport, cargo—you can understand pretty

“Too many people are focused on their own glory while they are in charge, but the most important thing a leader can give—rather than instant success—is a positive legacy of team building that will last for years; continuity is key.”

much any business. Other companies can be purely technical, but not an airline, it gives you a greater understanding of a business as a whole.”

After a fruitful five years with Gulf Air, Haji moved to Kuwait to head Gulfnet’s network operations team, where he recalls a need for vast innovation of infrastructure. After one year he took on the same role at Sprint International, whose head office was based in London.

He would go on to enjoy three years in the English capital, and still has a soft spot for the city’s West End, “I loved London; my time there sharpened my cultural awareness, and I developed a love for darts,” he says. “I even beat [darts legend] Jocky Wilson in a match while I was there.”

He returned to Bahrain in 1995, again as Manager of Network Operations, this time for SITA. He spent three years at the IT and telecoms firm before joining Sabre as Data Centre and Network Operations Manager. Three years on, in 2001, he became an Executive Director at service provider EDS. “My time at EDS was a great learning experience,” Haji says. “Working there gave me the chance to interact with a different type of customer to what I’d been used to, and that was fantastic.” In the midst of his seven year stint at EDS, Haji undertook a Master’s degree in Information Technology Management at the University of Sunderland, United Kingdom, which he completed in 2004.

Haji rejoined Gulf Air in 2008 as Head of IT Infrastructure, and having quickly made an impact upon his return, was rewarded with a promotion to the Director of IT role in 2011. In spite of the satisfaction he has gained from the job, he is acutely aware of the pressure that comes with the territory, “When you are the CIO, you do stand alone to a certain extent; if something goes wrong, you have nowhere else to go,” he says. “We are deeply involved in KPIs, and the strategies of the business. You have to develop your own technology strategy that is aligned with that of the business, and, crucially, you must be able to convey that in business terms to the executive management.”

In 2010, Haji completed a PHD in ‘Cultural lessons learned by American Companies in International Countries’ at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle. He would visit his course supervisor in the northern English city four times a year, using all his holiday time in the process. He used EDS as a case study of how US working culture was failing in Bahrain, and he is a firm believer that the culture of an organisation stems from that of the nation in which it resides. “I believe that by gaining an improved understanding of other cultures, we gain a better understanding of each other, which makes us more adaptable and cultivates a more prosperous working culture,” he says.

“Take religion for example. Generally speaking, in the West, religion is a part of life. However in Arabic countries, life is a part of religion.

The way we behave, the hospitality we offer and certain restrictions

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CIO Spotlight Dr Jassim Haji

TIMELINE 1962

“Once you can understand the different facets of the airline business—passenger services, the logistics of an airport, cargo—you can understand pretty much any business.

Other companies can be purely technical, but not an airline, it gives you a greater understanding of a business as a whole.” to our lives are all defined by religion, and that defines us.” Haji has since presented his thesis to delegates of the British and American embassies in Bahrain, and continues to write culture and technology articles for the Daily Tribune, and Akhbar Al-Khaleej newspapers.

In the last four years, Haji has scooped an impressive twelve regional awards for IT achievement, collecting honours for his work on cloud, Big Data and security projects amongst others. “Gulf Air was the first company in the Middle East to successfully design, implement and support a private cloud system with local resources,” he says. “That was my first huge project. We are also one of the first to take advantage of Big Data analytics in Arabic. We used Hadoop to gain valuable insights from social media via in-house developers, and across a range of dialects.” He is also a well-renowned keynote speaker, and in recent years has spoken at over 50 conferences across the Middle East and Europe.

So who has Haji looked up to? “My father has always been my one inspiration,” he says. “He died when I was 25, and he couldn’t read or write, but he taught me the value of discipline and self-reliance. I remember that during the school holidays the other children would be outside playing, but he would send me to workshops to learn about electronics. I may not have understood why at the time but in the long term it has taught me so many invaluable lessons.”

Haji has a clear philosophy of what constitutes a good management style, and believes that the organic growth of a positive work culture is the best way to foster success, “Leaders should always look to build a generation beyond themselves,” he says. “Too many people are focused on their own glory while they are in charge, but the most important thing a leader can give—rather than instant success—is a positive legacy of team building that will last for years; continuity is key.”

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Born in Bahrain

1980 Begins Telecommunications degree in United Kingdom

1986 Graduates and joins Gulf Air as Network Engineer

1992 Joins Sprint International in London

1995 Takes Manager of Network Operations role at SITA

2001 Becomes a Director at EDS

2008 Rejoins Gulf Air as Head of IT Infrastructure

2011 Named Gulf Air CIO

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On location Bee’ah

Rubbish Rebooted There are hundreds of daily processes to keep a city running that go unnoticed by the average citizen. Waste has been managed in the same way with the same technologies for decades. Amin Al Zarouni, Head of ICT, Bee’ah, and his team have taken the traditional idea of waste management and turned it on its head.

W

hen one thinks of garbage and IT, it is usually in reference to old useless files or a poorly organised database.

However, the waste management team at Bee’ah is now bringing technology to our trash. The Middle East’s leading fullyintegrated environment and waste management company believes that the key to optimising the country’s resources is to streamline and maximise the use of the UAE’s waste.

Amin Al Zarouni, Head of ICT, Bee’ah, and the company’s entire IT team are always searching for new and cutting edge ways to improve the way waste is managed in Sharjah. Not to be satisfied with the status quo, the team has leveraged technology to cut down on the company’s environmental footprint and reduce the amount of waste that must be taken to landfills. “We are simply the best waste management company in the Middle East,” says Al Zarouni, “I can easily say that.” This may seem bold, but the claim is well backed up

by Bee’ah’s numerous awards and, more objectively, their statistics.

Established in 2007, Bee’ah is the result of a partnership between the Sharjah municipality and a Canadian private investor. At the moment it is owned 50 percent by the municipality and 50 percent by the royal family of Sharjah. Through their four waste management facilities that process anything from tires to medical waste, the company manages to recover over 60 percent of solid waste and package it for reuse or sale.

To date, the company has invested over 300 million dirhams in updating and modernising the countries waste management infrastructure. Far from simply dealing with our rubbish in traditional and wasteful ways, Bee’ah is constantly inventing new and innovative methods to reduce, reuse and recycle the countries by-products.

Bee’ah’s plan to change the way we handle rubbish doesn’t stop with waste management and recycling. The company understands that awareness is key in encouraging families and communities to reduce waste that goes to the landfill. As such, Bee’ah invests in schools and communities by facilitating activities and literally going to door-to-door to get the word out about recycling and waste reduction. “Our awareness team has been to over 203 schools in

300

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I told my colleague that I was going to ‘make the bins speak’.

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On location Bee’ah

the Sharjah area,” says Al Zarouni, “with the objective of raising recycling awareness in children. Awareness like this must start with the youth, and we know that.”

In 2011 Bee’ah recognised that technology was going to have to play an important role in their value chain and began to dedicate more resources to the IT department. “When we talk about the value chain at Bee’ah,” explains Al Zarouni, “we are talking about going from where the waste is created, all the way to how it is disposed of.

There are a lot of processes that happen between those two points, and our goal was to leverage technology to streamline every one of those points.” In short, it was clear to Al Zarouni that it was in Bee’ah’s best interest to align the IT objectives of the company with the business objectives.

After taking an audit of the full value chain, Al Zarouni and his team identified three key initiatives that they determined would create a more efficient environment. Most notably, Bee’ah developed their award winning fleet and bins management system, which tackled the beginning of the value chain. To address the end of the value chain, Bee’ah looked streamlined and automated their waste processing. For the support functionalities that occur between those two points, Bee’ah has entered into a partnership with SAP to leverage their robust ERP systems.

Al Zarouni is dedicated to the partnership with SAP, “The goal is to move upwards with their CRM systems and analytics eventually,” he says. “We are building the foundations for good data so we can apply SAP’s HANA in the future for analytics.” Al Zarouni recognises that to properly leverage all that SAP has to offer in regard to analytics, first he must build solid databases. As they move forward with creating an information rich house, Al Zarouni hopes to mine that data using SAP to gain a deeper understanding of the waste management needs of Sharjah and eventually, the rest of the UAE. The fleet and bin management project is perhaps the most obvious and outward facing change that Bee’ah has implemented in their quest to leverage technology. With a fleet over 480 vehicles, outfitting each one with state-of-art technology was no simple task.

Not limited to GPS, the vehicles are also equipped with monitoring sensors that detect fuel consumption, harsh breaking and other driving behaviours. “The system is integrated with Google Maps and can analyse the data created during a route and can suggest to our control room which route the vehicle should take in the future for maximum efficiency.”

From there, Al Zarouni decided to leverage existing M2M technology to do something truly revolutionary. “I told my colleague that I was going to ‘make the bins speak,’” recalls Al Zarouni. To hear what the bins were saying, Bee’ah began a pilot project. A group 30 of bins were equipped with GPS sensors and GSM signals. It was no easy task to find the right equipment. As the sensors were to be installed into garbage bins, they had to be weather proof, highpressure washing proof, dust resistant and, of course, rubbish proof.

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“Our awareness team has been to over 203 schools in the Sharjah area, with the objective of raising recycling awareness in children.

Awareness like this must start with the youth, and we know that.”

Once the sensors were selected and installed, the bins, in fact, began to tell their story. The sensors capture the location of each bin.

Using ultra-sonic waves, the sensor can perform an analysis of the bin and report to Bee’ah what its current capacity is. “The sensor then triggers based on a limit we assign. For instance, if we tell it to trigger when the bin is 70 percent full, we will then get a notice with the bin is at that capacity. Alternatively, we can tell it to give us an update at certain times, for instance, every morning and every evening,” explains Al Zarouni.

Based on the data gathered from the bins Bee’ah can determine the most optimised collection route for an area or neighbourhood.

Instead of sending vehicles out to collect bins whether full or not, now only bins in need of servicing are collected. “Each bin pickup needs three minutes. With this system we are saving time, fuel, money and labour. It is good for business and good for the environment.”

Al Zarouni sees incredible potential for the bin management project. “We don’t want to stop at intelligent routing or automated scheduling. We hope to eventually provide this data to our awareness team. With this information, they will be able to determine, for example, what neighbourhoods are doing the most and the least recycling.” The awareness team will use that information to bring educational programs to areas in Sharjah that have low recycling rates.

The innovative thinking at Bee’ah is not going unnoticed. The company’s bin and fleet management project was mentioned in keynote speeches at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as the annual Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Dubai. Bee’ah will also begin servicing a handful of Emaar properties in the near future.

As Bee’ah expands both its IT initiatives and its service territory, the UAE is likely to see more success in the company in regard to its technology initiatives. “Though closing the gap between available technology and business processes is a challenge, in the end the positive ROI becomes obvious. In all our projects we ensure that we keep at least a 70 percent focus on business. I believe this is the key to our success. If business and IT continue to communicate and both stay involved in projects, I believe more projects will succeed.”

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On location mofa

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MoFA calling With the security and reputation of the UAE at stake, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ IT department knew it had to implement a secure communications channel for its delegates. A project that began in 2012 now sees 69 UAE foreign embassies connected to a secure WAN, which has made huge operational savings, and ensures sleepless nights for MoFA’s IT team.

S

ecurity and trust are essential when in terms of communication, especially when it comes to government business. Dr Saeed Al Dhaheri, Advisor, Information Systems, United Arab Emirates Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was all too aware of the need to modernise his department’s communications channels, and embarked on an eight month implementation of a secure global data network (WAN) in February 2012, that placed these concepts at the fore of his strategy.

MoFA set out with the aim of implementing the WAN in its head office in Abu Dhabi, and across 72 UAE embassies abroad—including those in the US, China and Japan—as well as a 24/7 centralised service desk that would continuously support it. Achieving secure voice, video and data communication was the goal, with the subsequent effect of reduced operational costs a welcome bonus.

A key part of the project was the implementation of a LAN in each mission, and to install desktop PCs connected with IP phones and a setup of video conference equipment at each site.

“The decision to implement the WAN was a gradual one,” Al Dhaheri says. “There was no secure communication channel for MOFA, so there was a necessity for it in the UAE. It was a dominant trend in advanced European MOFAs, and it has enabled us to reduce operational costs, and conduct secure diplomatic business.”

Before beginning the implementation, Al Dhaheri and his team visited some of Europe’s MoFAs to gain insights into SLAs on similar projects. Following the trip, MoFA opted to partner with local telecom operators Etisalat for the WAN. As part of the vendor evaluation process, a proof of concept was run for two weeks connecting various identified embassies.

The infrastructure that has been implemented provides encrypted communication over a hybrid mix between MPLS and satellite communication (V-SAT). The Cisco IP telephony network of MoFA was extended to the embassies so that each remote embassy site was considered an extension of the head office network, eliminating the high-cost of long distance calling charges. www.cnmeonline.com

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On location mofa

V-SAT was used in 16 countries; in those with weaker land communication infrastructure, while MPLS was used in countries with stronger telecom infrastructure. Bandwidth connections were chosen between 1-2 Mbps depending on the embassy connectivity needs with the head office, and are scalable as future needs change.

The implementation achieved its first major goal—to slash the cost of international calls to other UAE embassies by 50 percent. Since the project became operational in October 2012, over 5,000 calls have been made on the IPbased telephony component of the project, and this has saved MoFA over $240,000. It has eliminated the need for legacy encrypted fax systems that were used to transmit confidential information, and now uses the secure and encrypted email on the Global WAN network, which has resulted in a saving of around $70,000 per year. Furthermore, the video conference component of the project has evolved the way MoFA conducts its business with other embassies. Having experienced 600 sessions since it was introduced in October 2012, the VC system has saved over $50,000, and 3-5 business days in travel time per conference.

Once the global WAN network infrastructure had entered the second phase of operation, it provided embassies access to MoFA’s intranet portal and hosted core applications, such as its correspondence management system which is now active across 69 embassies. This has provided direct electronic correspondence between the ministry and its embassies, resulting in a faster and more secure information exchange. This in turn has eliminated the need to carry official correspondences through diplomatic pouches, which usually takes a week to be transferred between MoFA HQ and embassies around the globe. “This business enablement

“Although we may never be able to directly measure it, insuring that the security and reputation of the UAE isn’t compromised is absolutely essential. Allowing our delegates to communicate via secure channels is a huge step forward for MoFA and for our government.”

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“There was no secure communication channel for MOFA, so there was a necessity for it in the UAE. It was a dominant trend in advanced European MOFAs, and it has enabled us to reduce operational costs, and conduct secure diplomatic business.” increases the productivity of staff who communicate officially with the ministry and internal departments,” Al Dhaheri says.

“The embassies now are considered as ‘departments’ of the ministry and all are on the same network having access to the resources on the Internal MoFA network.”

Although the project has already reaped financial rewards, the peace of mind it gives Al Dhaheri—and the UAE—in terms of security and trust offers a vivid reminder that his team’s work has been hugely valuable. Al Dhaheri believes security was a paramount concern in the project, “Although we may never be able to directly measure it, insuring that the security and reputation of the UAE isn’t compromised is absolutely essential,” he says. “Allowing our delegates to communicate via secure channels is a step forward for MoFA and for our government.”

Only three of the 72 stations that Al Dhaheri set out to connect are not part of the network. Political unrest in Syria has stunted the implementation there, and two other sites have recently changed location and are awaiting integration.

This year Al Dhaheri has been the recipient of a CNME CIO 50 award, and the IDC Insight CIO award for Business Enablement for his work on the project.

Looking ahead, Al Dhaheri sees the move into mobility as the next step for the WAN. MoFA is looking to build iOS and Android apps for it, and aims to have this completed by late 2014. “Our diplomats are always on the move, and the ability to interact with any mission, anywhere, will be a vital addition,” Al Dhaheri says. “Allowing staff to communicate with our missions from anywhere is a necessity nowadays. The move into mobility will serve as a catalyst for our move into a fully virtualised environment, and the private cloud that we will employ to easily manage our infrastructure.”

FEATURE

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Hybrid clouds

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solutions World

Building hybrid clouds Bringing the strengths of public and private cloud together in an optimal fashion can help enterprises keep their core legacy systems and leverage existing investment. However, it takes careful planning to get started on the journey to a hybrid model. We find out what it takes for enterprises to join the hybrid cloud bandwagon.

T

he move to hybrid cloud can give CIOs the opportunity to evade the security concerns which act as a barrier from cloud adoption. It can save the associated costs of onpremises resources and bandwidth. Retaining control of data and applications, and reassurance of data availability and security are huge positives that come with the move, and the need for greater elasticity, agility and speed are key drivers.

To achieve these goals, a seamless shift between public and private models is a must. “The hybrid approach allows a business to take advantage of the scalability and cost-effectiveness that a public cloud computing environment offers, without exposing mission-critical applications and data to third-party vulnerabilities,” says Suraj E. Chandanani, Solution Architect, Gulf Business Machines. “In order to successfully deploy a hybrid cloud model, the focus should always be on minimising change as one moves between the public and private clouds. No matter how similarly public and private clouds are matched, www.cnmeonline.com

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Hybrid clouds

design differences will inevitably exist. The greater the differences between the cloud environments, the more difficult it will be to manage multiple clouds as a single entity.”

“It is important to offer the same platform for on-premises deployment, public cloud or hybrid cloud deployment,” says Lizardo Espinosa, Director, Product Marketing, Communications Solutions, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise. “This allows enterprises to deploy any kind of cloud architecture or do a stepped approach from CPE to cloud while maintaining the same user experience. From a technical standpoint, organisations can reduce training costs since they are using one unified platform.” In essence, the greater the agility between the clouds, the greater the control.

Forward planning is crucial in any new venture, and when it comes to building a hybrid cloud it is especially key. Initial CAPEX and ongoing OPEX costs need to be factored in, and aligning the cloud model with the organisation’s needs is a must. The recipe for success lies in a clear expectation of financial return and performance characteristics, and how the hybrid cloud will bring business value. This can be achieved by weighing up the strengths and weaknesses of each cloud platform based on what the organisation needs.

“The planning process should include a detailed IT portfolio analysis, selection of appropriate cloud platform, data centre migration, application migration

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The planning process should include a detailed IT portfolio analysis, selection of appropriate cloud platform, data centre migration, application migration and application and product deployment.”

Mahesh Venkateswaran, Executive Vice President, Emerging Business Accelerator, Cognizant

and application and product deployment,” says Mahesh Venkateswaran, Executive Vice President, Emerging Business Accelerator, Cognizant. “The deployment must be followed by ongoing monitoring and management of the cloud environment to ensure efficient, effective and secure delivery of services.”

In order to achieve the reward of agility, CIOs have to find a way to connect the two clouds; to create an infrastructure that enables flexibility for a transition across different cloud models. Transparency is key from the point of view of the user, and a bridge must be built between them and the IT department.

“CIOs need a mechanism to easily transport computing loads between environments, creating the flexibility to host applications and services as needs change,” says Anup Gopinath, Sales Manager, Cloud People. “For example, you can start a project leveraging a public cloud to gain the advantage of speed and flexibility, but move that project to the private cloud when it’s time for roll out, intense scalability and intricate disaster recovery options.”

“For enterprises seeking to start with their own hybrid clouds, there are many entry points to the process of cloud adoption,” says Den Sullivan, Head of Enterprise & Architectures, Cisco Emerging Markets. “How they move through the process, what applications and workloads they deploy to the cloud, what technologies they use, and the order in which they move services to the cloud may differ greatly from the approach of another organisation.”

Service Level Agreements are an essential part of hybrid cloud adoption, and will often define a lot of its aspects. Omar Alsaied, Middle East Carriers Sales Director, Ciena, is wary of this, “To build a seamless hybrid strategy CIOs need to consider a number of factors: the SLA requirements of the application; the

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FEATURE

Hybrid clouds

A Hybrid Cloud is often a function of building upon and improving what you already have – in this case, it’s a matter of adding public and/or service-provider cloud tiers to your on-premise data centre.”

Ahmad Muammar, Systems Engineer Lead, Gulf and Pakistan, EMC

physical location of the cloud data centre; and the performance, reliability and bandwidth of the WAN network,” he says. “As the move to the cloud becomes more widespread, the distinction between public, private and hybrid clouds will become driven more by the SLAs than by the service itself.”

In most cases, hybrid cloud deployment is a case of harnessing existing infrastructure, and using that as a starting point for what follows. “A Hybrid Cloud is often a function of building upon and improving what you already have—in this case, it’s a matter of adding public and/or service-provider cloud tiers to your onpremise data centre,”says Ahmad Muammar, Systems Engineer Lead, Gulf and Pakistan, EMC. Konstantin Ebert, Director Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa, NetApp, appreciates the importance of tailoring a hybrid cloud to the individual needs of each organisation, “When deciding to migrate to cloud storage, it is important to understand your business needs and then match them to the type of cloud that will best service them,” he says. “Deciding which cloud model to use depends on various factors such as workload type, application pattern, user cost, eventbased composition, or dynamic composition where the application workload could leverage both private and public clouds.”

There are several barriers to widespread hybrid cloud adoption, namely latency, the geographical location of data centres, and security concerns.

“Latency and bandwidth are major considerations in any form of public cloud services, either as public cloud or as hybrid clouds,” says GBM’s Chandanani. “High latency has a direct impact on application performance 48

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and hence the productivity of an organisation.

However, when it comes to looking at public clouds, organisations are currently very wary about security and control over their data, and this is ultimately the principal barrier for public cloud adoption today.”

Jim Plourde, Vice President, Software-as-a-Service, Infor, believes that housing data closer to home is the answer, “Latency can be mitigated by leveraging cloud regions that are in closer proximity as well as leveraging solutions built on web technologies that are less affected by latency,” he says.

With the Middle East facing a unique set of challenges in terms of cloud requirements, the decision of choosing regional or foreign providers is not always clear-cut. With heavier regulation on telecom regimes, higher connectivity costs and cross-border data inspection, connectivity to international cloud providers is expensive, and has a high degree of latency.

Nevertheless, there is a reluctance to house data outside the region, and housing data within the Middle East is often mandatory for certain organisations. While global players bring the advantage of scale, there is always the worry that they are not flexible when it comes to Middle Eastern standards.

“The decision entirely depends on the size, type and industry of the enterprise,” says EMC’s Muammar.

“For instance, an SMB enterprise looking to leverage a public cloud network for emails may turn to a global service provider like Google or Microsoft, while a larger enterprise with more mission critical applications and data, like in the case of a large bank or healthcare provider, they may prefer a local provider who complies with local rules and data regulations and is able to grant a greater degree of trust.”

FEATURE

Wi-Fi

Harnessing Gigabit Wi-Fi The fifth generation of Wi-Fi has arrived. This has left organisations with the decision of whether to transition to the newer, faster, wireless networking standard. Is the new version of the 802.11 Wi-Fi standard ready for prime time?

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Strategic Innovation Partner

network WORLD LEADER IN SECURITY & APPLICATION DELIVERY

W

i-Fi is blossoming in the enterprise as organisations find new ways to leverage the wireless infrastructure and workers, having benefited from mobility, demand increased range and better performance - and support for all those devices they are bringing in from home. The industry is responding by introducing new products and technologies, including gigabit Wi-Fi— 802.11ac. And it’s up to the IT to orchestrate this new mobile symphony.

What is 802.11ac? This is the wireless standard that has replaced 802.11n at the top-end of the Wi-Fi market, and while uptake of this new standard has been somewhat slow, we are now starting to see more devices being released with support for the faster transfer rates that it can provide. Speeds available from 802.11ac wireless routers vary - starting at 867Mbps - but there are now products on the market that support rates of up to 1300 megabits per second (Mbps). The 802.11ac standard runs in the 5GHz frequency band, which means you won’t have to run it on the congested 2.4GHz band - though you can still run the 2.4GHz network simultaneously - and some routers that use the standard to also implement new features such as beamforming antennas, which can adapt to the way signals are sent depending on the environment.

While many IT shops are still digesting major investments in 802.11n, the next big upgrade in wireless technology has arrived in the form of 802.11ac. Apart from higher data rates, are there any other reasons for enterprises to transition to this new wireless networking standard, especially given

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FEATURE

Wi-Fi

the fact that many enterprises have just upgraded to 802.11n?

“Aside from the higher data rates, the 802.11ac standard also provides better range and is more efficient for battery-powered devices," says Mike Duin, Global Marketing Manager, Linksys. "The 802.11ac technology provides higher data rates which are beneficial to enterprises that are facing an increase in connected devices. Broadband speeds are increasing faster lately than the actual network transfer speed - in order to benefit from the available bandwidth companies need to make sure their network is fully up to date to provide high speed connectivity to employees and visitors."

Tariq Hasan, Regional Sales Manager, Motorola Solutions, says another good reason to deploy 11ac is Multi-User MIMO or MU-MIMO which supercharges the MIMO capabilities. “While 802.11n’s “single-user” MIMO will only benefit a single device at a time, 802.11ac MU-MIMO allows multiple streams to be assigned to different clients, increasing the effective bandwidth that can be transmitted simultaneously.”

Saadi Kawkji, Senior SE Manager, Aruba Networks, says the higher rates and increased capacity of 802.11ac will break down the last remaining barriers to the all-wireless office. “There should be enough capacity in an 802.11ac WLAN for users to see equivalent performance to wired Ethernet. 802.11ac is able to meet the performance and density demands of today’s mobile environment and the future. With achievable speeds reaching 750Mbps of TCP to a single 3 stream client and

There should be enough capacity in an 802.11ac WLAN for users to see equivalent performance to wired Ethernet.

802.11ac is able to meet the performance and density demands of today’s mobile environment and the future.”

Saadi Kawkji, Senior SE Manager, Aruba Networks

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up to 250Mbps to a single stream client like a smartphone, it is able to deliver a 3X performance boost to the network without demanding a large price premium.”

With over 100 Wi-Fi Alliance certified 802.11ac Wave 1 products shipping today, incorporating the Wi-Fi Alliance certified Wave 1 AP’s into the network architecture enables organisations to deliver high performance for these 11ac clients while maintaining backwards compatibility with the existing 802.11n devices. Leveraging the enhanced RF designs and faster CPUs in today’s 802.11ac products, even legacy 802.11n devices will see better range and performance from an 802.11ac access point. 11ac also offers a better performance at a lower cost in terms of power. One can get a lot of bandwidth for less power, so it’s a potential positive for green initiatives as well.

The price differential between .11n and .11ac products has also come down significantly, making it difficult for IT organisations to justify continued purchase of .11n products.

“The price difference depends on the AP model and the capacity model in terms of hardware because it is not only the radio which is affecting the price. But 11ac with the highest-end 11n model, it is approximately 20 to 30 percent more expensive,” says Kawkji.

Duin adds that the price premium isn’t that signified compared to high-end 802.11n routers. “In our consumer line-up we have upgraded the top end of our router line-up already to 802.11ac last year because the price difference was so limited.”

Another reason to make a case for deploying 802.11ac is backward compatibility. However, enterprises would need to change client adapters in order to make the move.

“Client adapters would definitely require a change because without 11ac adapters, an organisation will not be able to get a higher data rate.

It is not mandatory to replace all access points. We have seen some customers moving to 11ac partially for example, in all locations where high bandwidth is needed, and they only replace the access points supporting those locations,” says Kawkji.

What will be the impact of 11ac on edge switches and backbone networks? Do enterprises need to upgrade their network infrastructure to support 11ac?

“802.11ac Wave 1 is really the last generation of

LEADER IN UTM

While 802.11n’s 'singleuser' MIMO will only benefit a single device at a time, 802.11ac MUMIMO allows multiple streams to be assigned to different clients, increasing the effective bandwidth that can be transmitted simultaneously.”

Tariq Hasan, Regional Sales Manager, Motorola Solutions

Wi-Fi that allows IT departments to leverage their existing switching infrastructure without requiring major upgrades. With future Wave 2 speeds likely to reach 2 Gbps over the air, the uplink performance requirements will exceed the existing Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) ports and will require the use of either multiple GigE ports to the access point or even 10GigE,” says Kakwji.

In terms of power needed, the 11ac radio can work with full performance on both 802.3af and 802.3at enabled edge switches. 802.3at is recommended to enable full performance on the 11gn radio as well which is normally reduced to 1x1 MIMO in case of 802.3af power supply. On the other hand, 802.11ac needs high performance wired networks as it can support up to 1.7Gbps.

Having high-end edge switches and 10Gbps distribution switches will help in minimising bottle necks in the network.

“Each 11ac access point can, in theory, throw 1.2Gb of data on the switch. The wired network should not end up being a bottle neck. Any good enterprise switch with GE ports can handle such traffic,” says Hasan.

802.11n may still have roughly five years of strategic useful life ahead of it, but all IT shops should have at least pilot deployments of 802.11ac underway at this point, according to Farpoint Group.

Why? It’s simple. With dramatically increasing number of users, and the requirements for the wireless LAN to support every application, 11ac is arriving at what might be described as just the right time. www.cnmeonline.com

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FEATURE

Consulting

Staying Current in the Cloud As the region moves forward with cloud computing, Systems Integration specialists and IT consultants will need to reexamine their roles. While some professionals may be nervous about the change, staying current with cloud technologies is key to maintaining revenue streams.

I

t is undeniable that cloud computing is taking hold in the region. Though every enterprise might not yet be connected, it is only a matter of time before businesses jump in or get left out. Of course, one cannot leap into the cloud, the move takes premeditated planning and often, external support. We ask regional experts, as everyone moves onward and upward, how will traditional systems integration and IT consulting be affected?

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According to Gartner, worldwide spending on cloud services will grow 17.7 percent through 2016, with the MENA region expected to grow even more rapidly at an estimated 20.2 percent. The accelerated growth of cloud computing in the Middle East may be attributed to a late adoption on the part of businesses and enterprises in the region. Trends such as workforce mobility and Bring Your Own Device are pushing the move into the cloud further and faster as well. www.cnmeonline.com

Whatever the cause, it is clear that businesses in the Middle East are ready to move storage, data and other infrastructure in to public, private or hybrid cloud solutions. “The cloud systems allow for lower total cost of ownership, greater flexibility, increased accessibility and faster deployment of applications and help user focus on their core business instead of being impeded by IT obstacles—among other benefits,” says Mathew Boice, Vice President EMEA, Ellucian.

integration advisor

This rapid growth in cloud adoption will undoubtedly change the role of Systems Integration specialists in the region. Companies that are looking to adopt cloud solutions will rely on Software-as-a-Service and thus, SI specialists need to take a fresh look at their services. Companies will need long-term consultancy and maintenance.

SI specialists will need to upgrade their skills to implement and maintain integrated systems.

“Traditional or conventional system integration loses its potential dramatically when a company transitions to cloud-based systems,” warns Latik Gupta, Head, Jumbo Enterprise, “In addition, cloud services render the consultancy’s role as redundant, since it can be centrally managed by the service provider.”

The threat of redundancy may have SI specialists shaking in their shoes wondering if this is the bell tolling for their careers.

Far from the end times, SI specialists and integration consultants simply need to develop their roles alongside changing trends. “System Integrators can offer a number of services in relation to the implementation of a cloud system,” says Gupta, “including the establishment of secure connectivity to the cloud, as well as setting up a favourable environment for the client to interact with cloud-based services.” SI specialists can take their role even further by providing support for data migration from traditional systems to cloud solutions as well as provide longterm managed services for enterprises utilising the cloud.

Venkat Raghavan, General Manager, Al-Futtaim Technologies agrees that

there is still plenty for SI experts and IT consultants to take on when it comes to cloud technologies. “In my opinion the vast cloud ecosystem of numerous cloud services including SaaS, PaaS and IaaS can manifest as opportunities for consultants,” says Ragavan, “No doubt these categories form the backbone of the cloud universe. With the expansion of these cloud services, enterprise buyers are steadily realising that they need help, not only from pure technology providers, but also from IT consultants and Systems Integration specialists.”

Indeed, the leap into the cloud can be seen as an opportunity for IT consultants and System Integrator specialists if they simply re-vamp how they provide their services and what services they provide. Particularly in the data migration and system integration stages of a move to the cloud, many businesses find themselves ill-equipped to take on the task alone.

The cloud service filled world will still be in need of intermediaries to facilitate and manage change, particularly as cloud services will undoubtedly continue to change and evolve.

“When implementing cloud-based solutions, System Integrators need to ensure a smooth transition from legacy hardware to virtual network,” says Boice, “Enterprises have the opportunity to leverage both wired and virtual technology to create a multi-structure network. Creating this means that cloud solutions need to be deployed as part of the existing network and should cause as few interruptions as possible in the implementation process.” IT consultants and SI experts should turn

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Consulting

their focus to the facilitation of these moments to ensure minimal downtime for their clients.

Today’s savvy SI specialists may need to turn away from hardware sales and focus on Integration-as-a-service to stay current. “System Integrators these days make most of their profits from integration services and not off hardware margins,” says Raghavan, “Although the cloud may eliminate or curtail the sale of hardware, it does still require integration chores, as well as training support and maintenance - all of which can be translated into profitable revenue streams.” In short, the leap into the cloud will simply mean a shift in focus for consultants.

The opportunities for SIs and IT consultants are many, if they chose to embrace cloud technologies. Moving forward from simply providing integration and management services, SIs and consultants may consider providing cloud services themselves.

“System integrators can offer vertical services on the cloud, such as mail and database services,” advises Gupta.

Furthermore, SIs can focus their attention on becoming Cloud Service Brokers for cloud services offered by established application providers.

Applications provided by SalesForce, MS Office 365 and WebEx are in high demand and often need facilitation when it comes to their implementation in enterprises and medium-sized businesses.

SIs can also provide support for enterprises looking to implement Security-as-a-Service products, elastic clouds or virtual desktop infrastructures. Raghavan sees a number of opportunities for

The cloud systems allow for lower total cost of ownership, greater flexibility, increased accessibility and faster deployment of applications and help user focus on their core business instead of being impeded

by IT obstacles—among other benefits.”

Mathew Boice, Vice President EMEA, Ellucian

consultants. “Those are a few examples of emerging technologies that are delivered via the cloud and that could prove to be very channel friendly if managed and delivered properly,” says Raghavan, “SIs can explore those new technologies and others to find a ground floor opportunity that they can turn into new revenue streams.”

In short, System Integrator specialists and IT consultants must pay attention, but won't need to search for new careers. “System Integrators should be focusing on support and maintenance as long-term revenue opportunity is in being able to upsell and offer value-added services to the initial investment,” says Boice. As long as SIs and IT consultants can view their roles as facilitators in a new light, there is no reason to panic.

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FEATURE

Cloud storage

Storage and the cloud Cloud storage is just what doctor ordered for CIOs grappling with the deluge of data in their enterprises. Here is what you need to know before putting your data in the cloud.

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Strategic Technology Partner

storage advisor

T

he amount of electronic information organisations produce is staggering.

Storing all your digital data in your data centre can be expensive. That’s why cloud storage - which often comes at a fraction of the cost of storing the information on-premises - has become increasingly popular.

But before you think of storage in the cloud, you need to be sure to clearly identify your needs, says Chris Poelker, Vice President, Enterprise Solutions, FalconStor Software, a provider of data protection, virtualisation, backup, disasterrecovery and deduplication services. “Is high performance [and availability] important, or are you just looking to archive data?”

You should also do some research before choosing where to store your digital data, as not all cloud storage vendors and service level agreements, SLASs - are the same.

How do you determine if cloud storage is right for you?

Does it make sense for companies of all sizes?

“The popularity and uptake levels of cloud storage adoption as well as cloud services by companies ranging from SMBs to enterprises does suggest that cloud solutions have something to offer to businesses of all sizes. In the ME region, we’ve seen some of the largest companies embark and successfully complete this journey to the cloud (private cloud) and EMC’s Consulting arm has worked www.cnmeonline.com

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FEATURE

Cloud storage

closely with some of these organisations to develop a tailored roadmap suitable to their business goals and constraints,” says Hatem El Mohandes, System Engineering Lead, EMC. Shams Hassan, Enterprise Product Manager, Dell Middle East, adds that cloud storage offers many possibilities and alternatives for managing chaotic and fast-growing data. Balanced by corporate trade-offs, a company of any size can make use of the benefits possible through cloud storage. “Larger enterprises or enterprises with regulatory requirements may build private clouds where they can take advantage of control over company data balanced with challenges such as the need for a well-staffed IT operation to manage the setup. Whereas SMBs, SMEs, or enterprises that lack the scale or resources to set up their own clouds take advantage of similar cloud storage benefits through the public cloud.”

Using the cloud can bring advantages that could be enticing, especially for a small business. Instead of having to invest in hardware to store your files and applications, why not use the cloud? But, before you dip your toes in the cloud, it’s important for IT managers to find out if cloud storage can be integrated with the organisation’s existing IT infrastructure so that data can be moved seamlessly across on-premise and cloud platforms.

“Integrating existing infrastructure with cloud storage could be challenging if the transition is handled with a lack of skills and expertise," says Taj El-Khayat, Managing Director, Riverbed Technology. "However, achieving this will add the many benefits that cloud storage can bring to the companies, including cost reduction and data recovery,”.

The advantages and benefits of cloud data storage are quite obvious, and it is not hard to see why such services have immensely grown in popularity.

“There are many benefits of cloud storage such as cost savings with the pay-per-use model, scalability,

Alternatively, if you want to retain control of your business critical data but are happy to outsource non businesscritical elements of your operation, then a hybrid model is what you should aim for.”

Konstantin Ebert, Director, NetApp Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa

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The popularity and uptake levels of cloud storage adoption as well as cloud services by companies ranging from SMBs to enterprises does suggest that cloud solutions have something to offer to businesses of all sizes.”

Hatem El Mohandes, System Engineering Lead, EMC

easy accessibility, availability and to a very large extent security. The fact is cloud storage can be more securely locked down than an on premise storage,” says Ranjith Kaippada, Product Sales Manager, StorIT Distribution.

Sandeep Kumar Thakur, Practice Head–Servers, Storage & Virtualisation, CNS, lists out some of the other obvious advantages, “Cloud storage allows firms to shift to an investment model based on operational expenditure. There is no longer any need to go and buy a new server every time you need to increase capacity. Users can upgrade or downgrade their account according to need, with little lead-in time required. This provides the flexibility to adapt to changing needs and industry trends.”

Amit Mathur, Senior Regional Solutions Manager, Huawei Enterprise Middle East, offers another perspective, “By virtualising storage, an enterprise can inject flexibility to increase or decrease the storage space needed without having to invest in or waste opex on hardware. It can reduce power consumption, air conditioning costs and reduce the need for rack space, saving the business significantly on owned data centre management costs.”

Data storage needs differ from one industry to the next, and there are many things users to keep in mind while making the move.

“Organisations should especially focus on building trust in the cloud to achieve control over and visibility into the cloud’s infrastructure, identities, and information. Trust specifically means, deploying a set of Controls with Visibility to assess their effectiveness for Mitigating Business risk. For private and public cloud strategies, a clear framework for managing security and compliance is needed - one that enables businesses to realise the benefits of virtualisation for mission-critical applications without compromising on the security front,” says ElMohandes.

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FEATURE

Cloud storage

Hassan from Dell adds some critical actions towards achieving a cloud storage migration include choosing a service model that works for the business, selecting a deployment model for their workload and business requirements, acclimatising with flexibility in budgeting and funding, and adopting new mindsets and capabilities.

Another factor organisations should consider when deciding to migrate to cloud is what type of cloud to choose. “The choices are simple and based on a variety of factors, including costs and data use.

If you want total control of your data and how it is accessed, then you should build and manage your own virtualised IT platform and services. If you don’t want that cost and responsibility, then hiring a piece of someone else’s - public - cloud is probably your best option. Alternatively, if you want to retain control of your business critical data but are happy to outsource non business-critical elements of your operation, then a hybrid model is what you should aim for,” says Konstantin Ebert, Director, NetApp Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa.

Before migrating to cloud storage, the initial step for the organisation is to identify a provider and then re-engineer their on-premise storage needs by segregating the usage and type of data using the storage.

“The security parameters then need to be overlaid once the data to be migrated has been identified. The company then needs to engage an integrator to deploy the migration to cloud storage. The entire process can be simplified by engaging a consulting firm, who will evaluate the project, select the existing integrator or suggest new ones with expertise in integrating cloud storage within their environment,” says Kaippadi.

If you are choosing public cloud storage offering, it’s important to carefully read the provider’s SLA before signing up as they offer choices of storage service

Cloud storage allows firms to shift to an investment model based on operational expenditure. There is no longer any need to go and buy a new server every time you need to increase capacity.”

Sandeep Kumar Thakur, Practice Head–Servers, Storage & Virtualization, CNS

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There are many benefits of cloud storage such as cost savings with the pay-per-use model, scalability, easy accessibility, availability and to a very large extent security. The fact is Cloud storage can be more securely locked down than an on premise storage.”

Ranjith Kaippada, Product Sales Manager at StorIT Distribution

levels, and storage services should include on-demand scalability to keep applications running, snapshots for crash-consistent local and/or offline backup, available off-site backup and/or disaster recovery and high availability storage without disruption due to maintenance/upgrades.

“Proceed with caution when it comes to getting a service-level agreement from a cloud provider. That means reading the SLA closely before committing,” says Thakur from CNS. Mohandes adds security should also be a serious evaluation factor in the selection process, to reduce the risk of data compromise or application downtime and avoid business impact. The standards are shaping up, and will definitely mature over time and will allow organisations and providers to have a more structured and open way to carry on the needed assessments.

Before you commit your data to a vendor, find out how quickly you’ll be able to get it back in the event of data loss or disruption, what the restore process looks like and what kind of support you can expect to receive if you run into any issues. This will help you set expectations for the business and can help you minimise downtime.

Unlike traditional hosting models, cloud storage leverages the software functionality and the vast economies of scale of the large public cloud storage providers to reduce costs. “Not only can usable storage capacity costs shrink by 30 percent to 50 percent , but unlimited on-demand capacity makes budgets more predictable and track closely to actual storage utilisation.

Cloud storage gets at the root cause of the big storage challenge by severing the need to add more hardware in order to store more data. A new economic model with a lower base price and more predictability puts the CIO back in control of the IT budget,” sums up Andres Rodriguez, CEO of Nazuni.

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FEATURE

Virtual security

Virtual Lock Down Virtualisation has made the data centre a more flexible and agile place. However, the trade-off in this softwaredefined shift is a measure of complexity when it comes to protecting our data. Enterprises must reconsider their protection strategy to reflect the new, virtualised world.

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security advisor

V

irtualisation of infrastructure certainly allows for an easy in building and deploying patches, new releases and other changes. For more than a decade, businesses and enterprises have leveraged virtualisation to reduce costs and streamline systems. Service providers are able to provide instant provisioning and offer the manageability of dedicated hosting without the need to invest in expensive hardware. While virtualisation at one point was considered a cutting-edge, and perhaps risky move, today virtualisation is becoming a prerequisite to achieve the agility needed to keep up in the modern business landscape.

There are obvious advantages to virtualisation, most notably the freeing of the infrastructure from bare-metal hardware while achieving power and cost savings. As aspects such as multi-core processors advance, it is fast becoming the logical choice to virtualise. “According to recent figures released by the IDC, Middle East and Africa witnessed growth of 10.3 percent in virtual server unit shipments, year over year. This reflects growing maturity in virtualisation adoption, with the aim to consolidate the infrastructure by using a few servers to deploy more virtual machines and exploit existing hardware capacities to a greater extent,� explains Ray Kafity, Regional Sales Director, FireEye. Virtualised networks and devices are vulnerable to a variety of malicious attacks. Security breaches www.cnmeonline.com

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FEATURE

Virtual security

10.3 % growth in virtual service unit shipments in the Middle East this year

of virtualised environments have included social networking sites, false scam websites, viruses, phishing and malware. These breaches have occasionally been so large and devastating to a business that the business itself was brought to ruin.

Prior to the advent of virtualisation technologies, servers were static and, once created, did not move around the network. This made for a simple security situation with easy to implement policies and monitoring processes. Virtualisation changed the game drastically. The benefits of flexibility, scalability and ease of deployment created a new level of agility, however, along with this flexibility, some would say, has come reduced protection for virtual servers.

“Virtual machines are susceptible to Distributed Denial of Service Attacks as well as malware outbreaks,” warns Tareque Choudhury, British Telecom, “Virtual machines in a production environment are the active live systems on the network. They should be treated just like any production system.”

However, all of this agility brings with it some serious questions about security. “It would be fair to say that the main driver for companies today when looking at virtualisation is cost savings—simply less hardware to procure. However the investment on the security side is not always calculated as part of the overall analysis,” says Nicolai Solling, Director of Technology Services, Help AG. The question of how virtualised environments should be treated and protected is a hotly debated topic. “One of the most critical aspects of security virtualisation is the ability to manage the environment,” says Phillipe Ortodoro, Vice President

It would be fair to say that the main driver for companies today when looking at virtualisation is cost savings— simply less hardware to procure. However the investment on the security side is not always calculated as part of the overall analysis.”

Nicolai Solling, Director of Technology Services, Help AG

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According to recent figures released by the IDC, Middle East and Africa witnessed growth of 10.3 percent in virtual server unit shipments, year over year.”

Ray Kafity, Regional Sales Director, FireEye

of EMEA, WatchGuard, “However, policies must be assigned by VM, zone, or both, rather than by the traditional location or network connection.”

Some argue that there will always be an additional vulnerability to virtualised environments due to the hypervisor and virtualisation management layer. “So in theory some will argue that virtualisation will always be less secure. However, in practice, virtualisation and cloud have given us an opportunity to apply security and operation controls differently that could result in a significantly improved security posture when properly leveraged,” says Sebastien Pavie, Regional Sales Director, MEA, SafeNet. A major target for potential attackers in virtualised machines is, of course, the host. An attack on the hypervisor could provide access to all virtual machines running on that host and result in the compromise of an entire infrastructure. As such it is vitally important that they hypervisor is equipped with firewalls, IPS, endpoint security and encryption of all hard drives.

“The general rule,” advises Matvey Voytov, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Kaspersky Labs, “is that security should be implemented in all infrastructures, not only virtual. Large companies have different security solutions for very different environment —virtual, mobile and physical. It can be difficult to manage them simultaneously.”

In addition to threats unique to a virtualised infrastructure, virtualised machines are also vulnerable to the same attacks as their bare-metal counterparts. “A disgruntled technician could plant a logic bomb on your network, create sabotage, or steal customer information, and cause irreparable damage to your business and reputation. In fact, analysis of many cyber incidents reported in the past has revealed that misuse of privileged access had been

FEATURE

Virtual security

the root cause,” warns V. Balasubramanian, Marketing Manager, ManageEngine.

This speaks to the traditional security threat of access. As virtualised machines can be created with just a few moves, this gaps is compounded. As access is parsed out to administrators and virtualisation sprawl grows, the element of human error becomes a larger issue. If there is unrestricted administrator access to all of the systems and data in a virtualised environment, this presents a clear vulnerability to the system. Virtualisation has given use improved agility when it comes to deploying systems, but it also creates a larger and more accessible data trail.

“Any deployed hosts should have endpoint security enabled. In a physical network separate appliances are deployed to handle the network IPS, firewall and antivirus,” says Kalle Björn, Director, Systems Engineering – Middle East, at Fortinet.

In addition to these traditional gap in security, there are also unique challenges with managing virtualised security requirements such as logging, specific anti-virus applications and patching in a virtualised environment. As virtualisation becomes the norm, the industry is beginning to respond with original innovations and software to combat the specialised threats to virtualised machines.

Currently the market is flush with choices when it comes to virtual machine security, however, until recently many of the solutions can still leave virtualised machines vulnerable. Traditional security is not optomised for virtual environments and ends up consuming resources that should otherwise be conserved. Conversely, security products that are integrated into virtualised platforms fail to provide complete protection due to host platform limitations.

The challenge in virtualised security is to find a solution with low resource consumption and highlevel protection.

In light of both the traditional and unique security threats of a virtualised infrastructure, security should be at the forefront of the IT department’s priorities.

“It is essential that It departments of corporations recognise emerging security threats in order to adopt this new innovation without exposing their data. By mitigating the risks of VM, companies can achieve better protection and privacy than possible with older, stand alone servers,” says Anas Ali Al Naqbi, Senior Security Consultant, eHosting DataFort.

Security providers are beginning to close the gaps in virtualised protection with specialised products for virtual environments. These strive to provide equivalent 68

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A disgruntled technician could plant a logic bomb on your network, create sabotage, or steal customer information, and cause irreparable damage to your business and reputation. In fact, analysis of many cyber incidents reported in the past has revealed that misuse of privileged access had been the root cause."

V. Balasubramanian, Marketing Manager, ManageEngine

levels of security combined with minimised memory, processing and networking resource consumption.

“In a cloud computing environment, an assortment of virtual applications with different risk classifications and trust levels now reside on the same virtualised server, and can communicate with other applications within this server. Much of the network traffic move East-West , from virtual machine to virtual machine, and the communications must be inspected and segmented. Traditional physical security appliances deployed in the data centre are looking at North-South traffic coming in and out of a virtualised server, and therefore may not see this traffic, at least not without painful network provisioning,” says Saeed Agha, General Manager, Middle East, Palo Alto Networks.

The conflicts in providing full security in a virtualised environment can be a pain point for those managing such environments. “Before implementing a virtualised server solution, IT managers need to assess the potential risks and vulnerabilities their networks may face,” advises Sean Newman, Field Product Manager, EMEA, Sourcefire. The network security solutions can be implemented as guest hosts, but this still leaves the system vulnerable. Security solutions can be implemented on the hypervisor level, but this would require both a security vendor and a virtualisation vendor to coordinate and integrate the solutions. Vanja Svajcer, Principal Research, Sophos puts it succinctly, “A virtual machine will only ever be as secure as the sum of the security of the hypervisor.”

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FEATURE

Carrier Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi to the rescue Wi-Fi promises many benefits for cellular operators looking to meet the ever-increasing bandwidth needs and ease congestion on their networks.

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in association with

telecoms WORLD

G

iven the spiralling cellular data bandwidth needs fuelled by the explosive growth of smart devices and bandwidth-guzzling applications, mobile carriers are forced to look for alternative data solutions to relieve their already-strained networks. One such option is Wi-Fi offload, which is being embraced by carriers around the world as a practical part-time solution that is cost-effective and relatively easy to adopt without regulatory hassles.

To make Wi-Fi offload work, carriers are either reaching agreements with local/global hotspot aggregators, installing independent hotspot infrastructure, or doing both, just to facilitate Internet access for the hotspot-connected subscriber.

Once the subscriber is connected through a WiFi hotspot, the data load on the carrier’s cellular network is relieved, leaving more bandwidth to be shared by other customers.

The industry experts are also advocating carriers to make Wi-Fi an important and integrated part of their overall network infrastructure, even beyond offload.

Integrating sophisticated Wi-Fi solutions into their core networks would open up a number of opportunities for carriers, making it possible to attract more customers and provide better service to existing ones, thereby strengthening their position against competitors and even bring in more revenues.

Are Middle East mobile operators waking up to the opportunities of an integrated Wi-Fi approach? “Many operators realised early the benefits of integrating Wi-Fi into their service offerings and started deploying Wi-Fi as a hotspot service for public access," says Rabih Itani, Technical Manager – Service Providers, Aruba Networks.

"Wi-Fi access then quickly transitioned from manual web authentication into auto-logon SIM based authentication and started to be integrated with the operator mobile backend systems for authentication, policing and charging. This opened the door for more operators to adopt Wi-Fi for offloading their cellular networks, reducing churn, or even adding new revenue streams."

Nick Chadwgan, Carrier Wi-Fi Marketing Lead at Alcatel-Lucent agrees: “We are seeing operators turn their attention to carrier Wi-Fi as an integral component of their mobile broadband strategies as the

potential for new revenue generation is compelling, and in many markets competitive positioning really demands it.

“Mobile and converged operators are looking to integrate carrier Wi-Fi with their cellular networks to provide their users with a seamless mobile broadband experience, which is best derived from secure and trusted connectivity across both carrier Wi-Fi and cellular radio access networks. On the other hand, fixed operators are approaching carrier Wi-Fi from the perspective of community Wi-Fi, venue coverage and extended hotspot strategies. We have seen cable/MSO operators leading the way as a competitive strategy versus mobile operators to improve their overall customer experience and reduce churn.”

Sherry Zameer, Vice President, Telecommunication Solutions, Gemalto, says another reason to integrate Wi-Fi is the number of devices with built-in Wi-Fi is close to 100 percent, and highly performs in Wi-Fi, especially indoors. “Further, with more and more new types of devices being designed specifically as 'Wi-Fi only' carrier can decrease churn and make subscribers more “sticky” by offering Wi-Fi.” Apart from the inherent benefit of data offload, Wi-Fi offers many other benefits, including a consistent customer experience. Once sophisticated and integrated hotspot solutions are deployed as part of a carefully planned Wi-Fi strategy, tight integration means simplified, seamless handovers to Wi-Fi from cellular and vice-versa. Also, the integration would allow customers to seamlessly access regular carrier services, including voice, messaging and other valueadded services.

Providing managed Wi-Fi services to businesses could be a new business model for carriers that are seriously considering Wi-Fi. The services would be ideal for SMBs, such as small-scale retail outlets, hospitality enterprises or branch offices, all of which are becoming increasingly reliant on Wi-Fi for efficiency, but lack the budget to install and maintain quality Wi-Fi services. “Operators are starting to integrate Wi-Fi in managed service offerings as a serious revenue generating business or simply to increase the user traffic over leased Internet links. Operators soon then started collaborating together and bringing to the market solutions to enable seamless Wi-Fi roaming capabilities

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FEATURE

Carrier Wi-Fi

between different operators, also known today as Hotspot 2.0,” says Itani.

Deployment of sophisticated Wi-Fi infrastructure will also allow carriers to neatly resell excess WiFi capacity to third parties, such as other carriers, hotspot aggregators or MVNOs. This would ensure that available Wi-Fi capacity is utilised at its best and further justify the Wi-Fi investment.

Though many cellular operators are starting to adopt an integrated Wi-Fi approach, there are many challenges that need to be addressed to maximise the gains.

“One of the key challenges for the operators is the necessity to support a range of carrier Wi-Fi market applications from a common carrier Wi-Fi core.

This drives new requirements and focus around key elements such as the WLAN gateway which anchors the multi-vendor carrier Wi-Fi access infrastructure, while also providing the gateway to the IP-based wireless and wireline services networks,” says Chadwgan.

He adds that some networks are reporting as many as one million Wi-Fi end points and are continuing to grow. This means that the carrier Wi-Fi needs carriergrade platforms and systems in order to make unlicensed radio access available with similar qualities as licensed radio access. Flexible, scalable, high performance carrier grade WLAN gateways that efficiently integrate into an operator’s IP network and business strategy are key to the deployment of carrier Wi-Fi. Zameer lists out another key challenge: “Maintaining session continuity when handling off between Wi-Fi and other access technologies can be challenging when integrating Wi-Fi into the mobile core. More than just offloading subscribers to available access point, operators needs to manage the best

Many operators realised early the benefits of integrating Wi-Fi into their service offerings and started deploying Wi-Fi as a hotspot service for public access.”

Rabih Itani, Technical Manager, Service Providers at Aruba Networks Middle East & Turkey

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We are seeing operators turn their attention to carrier Wi-Fi as an integral component of their mobile broadband strategies as the potential for new revenue generation is compelling, and in many markets competitive positioning really demands it.”

Nick Chadwgan, Carrier Wi-Fi Marketing Lead, Alcatel Lucent

connection available.”

Operators will also have to overcome some of the challenges associated with Wi-Fi such as fragmentation and variable QoS. “We have seen this improve vastly with the ongoing amount of investment in carrier Wi-Fi infrastructure. We have seen various reports trying to quantify numbers, but really what is important is the continued commitment around the deployment of carrier Wi-Fi in its various market applications and the ability that these carrier Wi-Fi networks can now be securely accessed and managed with new industry standards and technology. An adoption of the Wi-Fi standards set by IEEE under 802.11e for Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) is one way to help with QoS,” says Chadwgan.

How to effectively backhaul the Wi-Fi traffic from carrier-backed access points is next in the list of potential hurdles. Various locations can have different backhaul constraints. Moreover, depending on which route you go, you may need another box that requires an additional power outlet, mounting place. Ideally, the carrier-grade Wi-Fi AP should provide a host of integrated backhaul options, one or more of which are suitable for most locations.

The adoption of carrier-grade and integrated Wi-Fi can be quite complex and demands careful planning and appropriately designed carrier-grade Wi-Fi solution.

However, once executed, the strategy can be leveraged in multiple ways. Ultimately the distinction between the cellular and the Wi-Fi networks will disappear from customers’ perspective and they will simply enjoy a reliable brand experience irrespective of the radio access technology used.

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opinion Younes Abad

Younes Abad, Director –MBB Performance, Ericsson Middle East

Smart devices experience Smartphones and tablets have become the access devices of choice, as mobile user behaviour has shifted from being predominantly voice-centric to app-centric, writes Younes Abad, Director, MBB Performance, Ericsson Middle East 74

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E

xpectations for premium quality Mobile Broadband services are on the rise as people increasingly rely on smartphones, applications, video content, cloud-based services and connectivity anywhere, anytime.

Consumers have come to expect a consistent, high quality and seamless Mobile Broadband experience wherever they are.

Therefore, providing the right customer experience has become a top priority for operators. Successful operators will understand the evolving end user expectations and deliver the experience accordingly. They also adapt quickly to changes in user behaviour as well as the smartphone ecosystem.

Ericsson Consumer Lab’s Global Network Performance Study 2013 reveals insights about what drives customer behaviour and expectations on Mobile Broadband, and what users consider as important aspects to their satisfaction with the provided services.

Here are some of the findings: • Only about 50 percent of the users are satisfied with the quality of service provided by their operators. Although users admit that sometimes apps or devices contribute to their dissatisfaction, they still mainly blame the network.

• Satisfied users are strongly loyal to their operators and are even willing to actively promote the service to others. However, the other 50 percent of users are unsatisfied with a high likeliness of churn.

• Users are willing to use more and pay more if operators provide the expected experience.

• Network Performance is the number one loyalty driver, followed by Value for Money.

Price as a driver is only ranked fourth.

The good thing is that users are providing clues to where they expect operators to focus their strategies, processes and investments in order to deliver the expected experience. As the environment of devices and new applications is changing, the end user’s expectations are changing too, making it a ‘moving’ target. A ‘typical’ user doesn’t exist anymore; users have different needs and different expectations depending on what apps they are using and where they use them. This new reality presents a challenge for operators as well as an opportunity for those who decide to take the lead and focus on the end users’ experience as a differentiator.

In order for operators to deliver the expected experience, a deep understanding of users’ expectations is crucial. In today’s smartphone environment, many factors interact to create the customers experience at any given time, i.e. device type, app, the network and the user’s behaviour itself. Coverage and speed are highly correlated with users’ level of satisfaction.

However, coverage and speed, from the user perspective, are subjective and highly dependent on the context of the user, i.e. which application, where and when.

Traditional network KPIs were developed for voice services with clearly defined customer expectations, but these KPIs do not reflect the end user experience anymore. It is important to devise new ways to measure service quality from the user perspective.

Smartphone users’ expectations are much more complex to define and very hard to predict. Therefore, KPIs nowadays should be designed to measure what matters to the user.

Pro-active Performance Management: Ericsson developed a Proactive Performance

“As the environment of devices and new applications is changing, the end user’s expectations are changing too, making it a “moving” target. ” www.cnmeonline.com

Management Methodology aimed at improving the end users’ experience in an effective as well as profitable way for the operator.

This methodology covers four stages: a. Understand: In order to better understand the users’ needs and expectations, segmentation should be performed in terms of usage patterns, applications, devices used as well as geographical areas. b. Measure: KPIs today are still networkcentric instead of user-centric and are domain-centric instead of end-to-end. Going forward, KPIs should be designed to measure what matters to the user. For example, in a web browsing scenario, user satisfaction should be impacted by how long it takes for a page to load. Therefore, in this scenario, we measure time to content instead of the traditional accessibility KPI. It is also important to consider that average measured values do not give the right perspective unless combined with standard deviation.

Consider an average download speed of 1Mbps. This value can give different satisfaction levels to users browsing the web, listening to music or viewing HD video, due to their different requirements. c. Optimise: User-centric KPIs will give operators the right insights to optimise what matters to users, make the right conclusions and accordingly take the needed corrective measures. In the example of web browsing, it will be more effective to focus optimisation activities and processes towards minimising the time to content instead of maximising accessibility KPI. d. Invest: Invest where it matters for the highest impact on customer experience and where it provides the best return on the investment for the operator.

The rapid change in user traffic profile due to an increasing number of apps and devices with different capabilities and network requirements requires accurate predictions to design the network accordingly. This will ensure that quality issues are anticipated and pre-empted before they impact user experience, and will help reduce reactive investments, which are generally more costly and less effective.

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Analyst corner Guriq Sedha

I

n a recent Gartner vendor management survey, “regulatory issues” and “defining vendor management program value” topped the list of challenges for people in vendor management roles. This suggests that organisations need better processes to handle these challenges. The third most chosen challenge is “internal politics and friction,” which suggests a need to increase professional effectiveness of vendor management space or to better delineate vendor management roles within organisations. To successfully address these challenges vendor management leaders need to collaborate with key stakeholders to build processes and a shared vision.

The challenges faced by different organisations vary. Resource constraints often hamper the efforts of vendor managers to derive benefit their strategic relationships with suppliers. However, the need to have collaboration among various key stakeholders to successfully address these challenges is common.

Nine steps to better vendor management The impact of cloud computing, increased consumer mobility, app stores, the Internet of Things and widespread use of social media are changing business models and processes in companies and government agencies alike. Business leaders want to deliver integrated services and develop flexible delivery models that can be modified to adapt to technological, social or political preferences in the future. To accomplish this, vendor management leaders must develop and maintain their ability to select, engage, manage, retain and disengage with vendors continually.

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The need for collaborative dynamics in vendor relationships Contracts are designed to reinforce trust and reduce risk. Unfortunately, when they’re too detailed or rigid, or when they send mixed signals, they can exacerbate the very problems they’re supposed to prevent. At a time when trust is already in short supply managers can’t afford to make these mistakes.

Organisations that manage vendors solely though rigid contract management practices do not have collaborative relationships that are good enough to resolve ongoing challenges in terms of performance of products and services. Frequently, in most organisations the responsibilities required of vendor managers overlap across departments and roles, or are overlooked. This is often because no one seems to have specific responsibility for individual vendors, and vendors are managed by IT, finance and other units only. This situation allows vendors to “divide and conquer,” and reduces the negotiating power of the client organisation.

In a collaborative relationship, vendor management cannot be static or guided by one set of rules. There are now many instances of organisations writing contracts that require collaborative approaches with vendors. These are written to allow for SLAs to be amended as business needs change, and to offer the

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flexibility needed for vendors and clients to engage and develop solutions together. This addresses the challenges of changing market dynamics for both parties. However, for this to work, client organisations must first collaborate within their organisations before engaging with vendors, to assure alignment in addressing the underlying challenges of the business.

Vendor managers should: 1. Obtain sponsorship and launch an education program to explain the results that can be driven by stakeholder engagement models and vendor collaboration models.

2. Engage with key stakeholders to explore how vendors can help create and maintain differentiation from the competition. Also engage with them to show how IT vendors impact the organisation’s ability to deliver world-class services.

3. Develop a stakeholder collaborative strategy by identifying suppliers that can be leveraged through this process and key stakeholders who will be involved to manage them.

4. Implement the stakeholder collaborative strategy by using the nine steps described below 5. Review at regular intervals to ensure relevance and make adjustments that are needed to achieve having a strategic vendor management program.

Vendor management leaders can’t rely on only one section of the department to possess all the skills and knowledge needed to manage vendors. Procurement, IT, business units and finance each have pieces of the puzzle—the knowledge and skills to manage the complexities of strategic vendors who have significant potential to impact your organisation’s ability to deliver products or services. Without true collaboration among internal client resources, vendors will get confusing messages and goals. This will result in additional costs, less efficient vendor management and unpleasant vendor relationships.

Develop a Collaboration Strategy to Harness Extended Resources in Your Organisation Once you’ve raised awareness of the importance of collaboration across the organisation, vendor managers should use the nine steps in Figure 3 to develop and execute a collaboration strategy.

1. Identify the strategic vendors that will form part of your collaboration strategy.

2. Identify core team members for each strategic vendor. Look for those with commercial, operational, business and financial expertise whose skills are critical for effective vendor management. In addition, look for special experts, such as Individuals who have experience working with the vendor organisation (former employees of the vendor or other direct experience) or staff from other departments who are likely to consider using this vendor.

3. Develop a charter for each strategic vendor relationship on an annual basis that allocates responsibilities based on the expertise and collaboration required to drive results. Use a workshop or similar platform to engage the team and leverage their expertise. Determine the current relationship with the vendor, discuss the role of the vendor in the value chain in your organisation and identify the goals for the vendor relationship - in terms of cost reduction or management, risk containment and value enhancement - through process efficiencies or collaborative initiatives.

Choose individuals with specific skills, experience and personal attributes to lead your key initiatives.

4. Share goals with the vendor contacts once agreed internally and encourage them to find individuals in their organisation to match and collaborate with the individuals/teams in your organisation. This is to drive specific goals and establish targeted collaborations between you and the vendor.

5. Ensure vendor management becomes an integrated part of the jobs of the individuals

“Vendor management leaders can’t rely on only one section of the department to possess all the skills and knowledge needed to manage vendors. ” 78

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on your teams, rather than just an added task of lesser importance. Also ensure that contributions are acknowledged and rewarded by managers and leaders.

6. Build an identity through branding for these extended teams and promote collaboration through wider communication, appreciation and rewards for excellence. Use existing HR policies to develop a reward methodology within your organisation. A simple signature tag line to be used on email signatures is a good starting point. This could be: “Member SVM—driving value though collaborative vendor management for [your organisation].”

7. Communicate the successes, achievements and progress to key stakeholders in the vendor management initiatives to ensure engagement and collaboration.

8. Reward stakeholders for their collaborative approach and contributions to improve vendor management using the HR-prescribed award system, if it exists. If there are no such guidelines then work with your HR department and your leader to allocate a budget that can help achieve this objective.

The awards be can “certificates of appreciation with or without cash prizes,” and promotional products such as plaques for desks that are personalised, or other items of personal use.

9. Review on a periodic basis to ensure relevance to the business objectives and make adjustments to fine tune the program and renew stakeholder engagement.

Implement in Phases and Review Regularly Vendor management leaders should take a measured approach to building stakeholder confidence and securing sponsorship, and start with only a few strategic vendors. Start by developing a plan for engaging the extended organisation in strategic vendor management.

The initiative should proceed in phases such as planning, approval, piloting, implementation (a few strategic vendors at each phase) and review of the implementation (at least annually). Ensuring that key stakeholders are involved in all the phases and that sponsors are kept updated with phase results and new developments. Also, vendor managers should incorporate what is learned from each phase into the next, to establish a continuous improvement cycle.

Face to face David Aron

David Aron, Vice President, Gartner

Fearless digital leaders David Aron, Vice President, Gartner, keeps his eye on the top-brass of business.

A thought leader on IT, management and leadership, Aron has almost 30 years of experience in the IT industry. CNME caught up with Gartner’s 2009 Fellow of the Year at the research firm’s Symposium conference and discussed regional leadership, changes in business and how to tackle the oncoming digital future.

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n the Keynote Speech that kicked off this year’s summit, you said that we all need to be “fearless digital leaders.” What makes a “fearless digital leader?”

In 50 years, when we look back on the last decade we will see that although we felt like this decade has been extremely productive, all we really have done is put our existing business models on the internet. Take e-books for example. We have taken a 200 page highly textual book and simply moved into a digital medium.

Why can’t we take this further? Eventually an e-book will be an interactive, highly-hyperlinked medium. Every industry has an example like that.

Occasionally, however, you see businesses taking the next step and acting as “fearless digital leaders.” For example, there is a mobile phone company in Kenya called Safari Com. They looked around at their market and realised that while many people have no access to banks in Kenya, the majority of them have access to mobile phones. In what can only be termed a huge risk, Safari Com decided to become a bank. People were extremely sceptical and as such the regulators only let them take on a small part of their overall plan. The risk paid off and the venture was met with exceptional success. The last time I looked 25 percent of Kenya’s GDP now goes through their system. Risk-taking like this cuts across traditional industry boundaries and power silos. You have to cannibalise yourself before someone else does. It is scary, but you need new skills and new ways of making profit.

What can the CIO of today start doing to become the CIO of tomorrow?

The question should actually be, “What can the CIO do to become the Chief Digital Officer?”

The Chief Digital Officer is actually a strategist in a digital context. It’s not IT, it is business strategy enabled by IT. As such, the position of Chief Information Officer may not be a shoe-in to transfer into the role of the CDO. If CIOs do want to make that transition, they must then lead initiatives that are outside of their control which can be uncomfortable for many CIOs. They also need to develop a great deal of additional skills.

For instance digital design and anthropology— which is the understanding of human behaviour and how technology fits in. Also agility, this new role needs to be able get things done quickly.

In addition they need to develop the ability to partner with start-ups which is a skill itself. The fact is that all these exciting innovations have left the big technology vendors stuck in the past. As it turns out it is a very unnatural act for a large vendor to partner with a small company. Those

“The Chief Digital Officer is actually a strategist in a digital context. It’s not IT, it is business strategy enabled by IT.” kinds of talents aren’t in IT departments right now so if we want to make these transitions we have to foster those skills in our CIOs. In this region, we see a significant skills gap when it comes to IT. With that in mind, do you think we will have the local talent we need to move forward in IT in the future?

I can’t claim to be an expert on the Middle East, but I can tell you a few things that I have observed while here. First, there is an enormous humility and willingness to learn that is simply not there in all the geographies of this industry. There is also what I would term a “leap-frogging” potential. The rest of the world has an attachment to legacy IT that may end up weighing them down. I believe that the Middle East is becoming an attractive place for foreign employees to come to find work. I think that there is an opportunity to leverage the skills that are coming in from surrounding areas. For these reasons I don’t see the skills gap as a huge issue.

In fact I see a huge potential for the region to move ahead beyond global competitors.

What is really the difference that we are looking at as far as digital strategy vs IT strategy?

It really is two different situations. When it comes to IT strategy, the question is how do we deploy IT to do business the best we can? It is a technical answer to a business question. Digital business strategy is really the opposite. The question with digital business strategy is given all the digital potential in the world, what can we do as a business or a government agency?

What can we do with the digital potential that is out there? It is a business answer to a technical question. The Chief Digital Officer doesn’t have to panic when taking such a huge step—they can simply decide to partner with another company to make, for example, a mobile phone company into a bank. For us when we look at technology practices we look at two things. Renovate the core and exploit the new. Renovate the core is the IT stuff. However, we can’t wait for the core to be renovated before we begin exploiting the new.

As such you may have to partner with outside entities to begin to do things in different ways.

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We can’t wait to renovate the core either, we have to do both at the same time. That is my worry for the future of the region - there is humility which can be good, but I hope that it doesn’t translate into an overdose of caution when it comes to taking on both tasks simultaneously.

There are an increasing number of Chief Digital Officers globally, but virtually none in the Middle East region. Why do you think that is?

I think it is because IT professionals in the region are focusing on fixing IT. Additionally, most people who might advise companies in the Gulf don’t really know what they mean by the word digital. There is a lot of confusion. Digital strategy can take on so many forms, there just isn’t a blueprint for how it should be done. I think people in this region are waiting for concrete advice as to how to move forward which may never come.

If we do begin taking on CDO roles in the Middle East, do you see some of the other C-Level positions phasing out or merging?

In the last 100 years there has been a lot of product and process innovation but hardly any management innovation. If you look at how management works, it is kind of the same as 100 years ago. We are still stuck in these traditional hierarchies and we desperately need management innovation. With all of the C-level roles, there are many that overlap and some that are becoming obsolete. It can really look like a mess, but I believe it is just a case of growing pains. I think that the Chief Digital Officer will be important in the interim. However, eventually, digital will just be a part of what we do and the role will be unnecessary, or rather, integrated into everyday business activities. I think we will see companies customise their C-roles. There is no reason that every company should have the same management roles. Of course there are some that will be necessary across companies—the CFO and the CEO for example—but each company needs different management leadership. I think it will be a mess for a while, but a mess is better than staying needlessly in these traditional roles that don’t serve the business as well as they should.

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Insight Analytics

Big Data analytics: the future of IT security?

Enterprises only at the ‘tip of the iceberg’ with data science, claims RSA.

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ig Data analytics tools will be crucial to enterprise security as criminals deploy faster and more sophisticated methods to steal valuable data, according to security firm RSA. “We are really at the beginning of intelligence-driven security: it is just the tip of the iceberg. Looking forward we are going to have to be smarter [to deal with threats], and we are going to be looking at better data science,” said RSA’s head of knowledge delivery and business development, Daniel Cohen.

“It’s not ‘if’ we are going to be breached, but ‘when’ we are going to be breached, so there is a need to focus more on detection. We saw with the Target breach it was the human factor that slipped there, so we have to be able to bring in more automation.”

The number of successful attacks against high-profile businesses have clearly increased in recent years, with the compromise of Target’s point of sale systems just one example of the variety of methods that cyber criminals are using to steal data on a large scale.

Businesses are threat from a number of sources - from criminal gangs, to hacktivist and insider threats, as evidenced recently by the theft of payroll data for thousands of employees at Morrisons in the UK last week, and more famously, Edward Snowden at the NSA. 82

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Businesses slow to adopt data analytics However, the adoption of Big Data analytics within businesses for security—and the maturity of offerings from vendors—remains at an early stage.

While banks are already deploying analytics for fraud prevention purposes, and have begun engaging with Big Data start-ups for security services, there are few wider businesses that have adopted new techniques and tools to monitor threats.

A recent Gartner study highlighted that adoption of Big Data analytics currently stands at only eight percent of large enterprises, though this is set to grow to 25 percent by 2016 as businesses get to grips with the information being generated across their business.

“We are still at the stage where we are collecting huge amounts of data, and we need to improve the mining of that data,” said Cohen.

According to the RSA’s security analytics director Dr Alon Kaufman, the current siloed detection processes employed by businesses and the large volumes of data generated across an organisation make swift threat detection difficult.

“Investigation today is something very time-consuming, and adding or removing rules is a very manual process,” he said. “To have a good analysis you need people with very good knowledge and experience. www.cnmeonline.com

“Big Data can improve the analyst’s abilty to deal with the more human intellignce tasks, and not have to do a lot of the optimisation and statistical work that machines can do.”

Large firms are likely to generate terabytes of data each day which can be monitored for the anomalous behaviour that may indicate malicious activity. This can be external and internal information, such as monitoring user profiles to identify changes in location, device used to access the network, or visits to high risk domains which are flagged up to security analysts, who can then make decision whether to take further action.

Sifting through these large volumes of information at speed is not possible for for humans, but by using Big Data analytics tools to process risk in real-time business can react more quickly, which is vital if there is any chance of stopping an attack in progress.

“If you look at search engine data science—for example, how does Google find a needle in the haystack in 0.1 seconds—the difference is in our world is that the search results are actually acting against us: they don’t want to be found,” said Cohen.

“The cat and mouse game we are playing is going to call for better data science, and so we have to be able to detect these anomalies much faster, and that means better use of Big Data.

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Launches and releases

PRODUCTS

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH

PRODUCT WATCH A breakdown of the top products and solutions to be launched and released in the last month.

Product: Curved UHD TV Vendor: Samsung What it does: Flat screen TVs are so 2013. This year, Samsung is changing the way we binge-watch shows by introducing the UHD (that’s Ultra High Definition) curve-screened TV. The curved screen, positioned with a curvature of 4200R provides a panoramic like viewing experience. To provide an even sharper picture, Samsung has introduced an Auto Depth Enhancer, which automatically adjusts contrast. In addition, the UHD dimming technology processes each block of a picture and renders deeper blacks for a higher contrast and, thus, richer display.

What you should know: New technology always comes with a price and the UHD series from Samsung will not be an exception. Samsung Curved UHD line up (U9000) will be available from May onwards across leading retail outlets across the Middle East in the following sizes: 105”, 78”, 65”, 55” & 50”. The first size to go on sale in the UAE will be the 65” which will retail for a whopping $6850.

Product of the Month: Galaxy K Zoom Vendor: Samsung What it does: Though the Samsung Galaxy series is known for their quality cameras, the company has taken their shutterbuggery to a whole new level with the Samsung K series. While the user experience is very similar to the Galaxy series in many ways, the major difference is the camera. The Zoom features a 20.7 megapixel sensor with optical image stabilisation, a xenon flash and support for 1080p video capture at 60 fps.

It also features a retractable lens system with nine elements that supports 10x optical zoom. Yes, that is optical zoom.

The addition of the lens makes the phone a bit thicker than its brethren, but at 20.2 millimetres thick, it is a small price to pay for those that are trying to up their selfie game.

What you should know: Speaking of selfies, the Galaxy K Zoom comes with a variety of features to assist users in snapping the perfect pic. Most notably, the “Selfie Alarm” feature has taken the guess work out of the trendy frame job.

Line up where the subject’s face should be in the display and then turn the phone around. As the face reaches the designated point, the Selfie Alarm will sound allowing the user to take a full 20 mega pixel selfie. By way of specs, the Galaxy K Zoom is decked out with Samsung Exynos hexa-core processor that combines a 1.3GHz quad-core chipset and a 1.7GHz dual-core processor, as well as a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display with 720p resolution, 2GB of RAM, 8GB or 16GB of internal storage, microSDXC support up to 64GB, a 2,430 mAh battery and Android 4.4 KitKat.

Product: Nokia X Vendor: Nokia What it does: Nokia has announced a new, affordable smartphone in their family. The Nokia X runs Android apps, popular Microsoft services and proprietary Nokia experiences. Out of the box, the smartphone offers Nokia’s HERE Maps, MIXRadio and cloud storage using Microsoft’s OneDrive. In addition the Nokia X features two screens—a home screen modelled after the Lumia series, Fastlane. Fastlane is meant to enhance the user experience by simplifying app transitions and providing a record of recent activity.

What you should know: The Nokia X is a fine product, but the big draw is the price. Retailing for AED 439 in the UAE the Nokia X is a perfect price point for those who need a smartphone but don’t want to empty their wallets. With all the change left over, Nokia X owners in the UAE can opt into an operator billing payment option for Etisalat and du.

Etisalat and du customers will have the option to purchase apps and other premium content from the Nokia store and pay directly with their mobile account.

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Column The word on the street

James Dartnell

Microsoft Mobile: Restored glory?

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

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icrosoft has finally closed its $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia’s handset business, and now has an added opportunity to impose its ‘Microsoft Everywhere’ approach on technology.

In spite of evolving technology markets, Microsoft had retained its dominance in the PC arena, though the acceptance that its failure to tap into the smartphone market has been addressed with the acquisition.

Meanwhile, Nokia’s gradual decline from being the go-to company for mobile handsets in the early 2000s has now seen its fourthquarter handset revenue take a 29 percent hit from a year earlier to €2.63 billion.

Former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has been appointed as the new head of Microsoft’s Devices Group. That group, Microsoft has said, will add Lumia smartphones and tablets, as well as Nokia mobile phones, to its existing portfolio, which already included Microsoft’s Surface tablets, its Xbox gaming console, and hardware accessories such as keyboards and mice.

Following the deal, speculation has increased that Nokia could finally be the recipient of smarter hardware and software, which will equip it for a battle with Android and iOS in the smartphone market.

The deal sees

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Microsoft take control of more than 90 percent of all Windows Phones with Nokia’s Lumia lineup, and the company will also acquire the low-end Asha brand, Android-based Nokia X handsets, and feature phones.

Although Nokia is not the powerhouse it once was—particularly in the smartphone arena—it remains the No. 2 seller of mobile phones in the world behind Samsung, but the vast majority of these are not smartphones.

Nokia sold 251 million mobile phones last year, only a small portion of which were running Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system.

The move will see Microsoft take a more aggressive—and necessary—move into the ever-increasing smartphone market, which Huawei predicts will have eight billion users by 2025.

New Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has indicated a greater willingness to work with platforms other than Windows, and will be working closely with new Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri, Nokia’s former Networking unit head.

Closer to home he’ll look to extend his company’s software-and-services reach, and with any luck will engineer a move away from Windows 8, the operating system that hasn’t done much for the behemoth’s popularity.

By selling the handset unit, Nokia is turning its attention to wireless-networks gear, mapping technology and advanced technology, which includes a substantial patent portfolio. But parts of those businesses were weak in the fourth quarter and the near-term forecast is bleak.

Whatever direction they take, it promises to be an exciting move that hopefully see the two knock up some fresh and innovative products that could allow them to compete with the likes of Apple, Google and Samsung.

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