Computer News Middle East May 2015

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EDITORIAL

GROUP CEO Nadeem Hood

Container kills the VM star

Publishing Director Rajashree Rammohan raj.ram@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9131 Editorial

Talk to us:

I can’t think of any data centre in the Middle East that doesn’t run virtual machines these days. Application virtualisation is so deeply entrenched in today’s data centres and it’s difficult to recall the time when we had just one operating system and application per server.

Now, with the Docker wave sweeping across the enterprise IT landscape, we are probably looking the beginning of the end of VMs. For the uninitiated, Docker is an open source project that enables users to package any application in a lightweight, portable container so that you can move apps easily across different server environments or cloud. Introduced in March 2013, Docker has literally caught the IT world by storm and has been downloaded more than 200 million times. At the last count, there are more than 72,000 apps that are Docker-ready. Within a very short span of time this app containerization start-up has garnered support from the likes of Red Hat, and IBM. Microsoft has recently partnered with Docker to create a version of lightweight container Remove technology that runs on Windows.

Containers technology is nothing new; in fact it has technical been around in Linux code for a while now. But only wizardry, and recently has it captured the attention of developers. If you containers at remove the veneer of technical wizardry, containers at its their core run core run on a simple principle – while VMs divide a server on a simple into multiple OSes, containers run atop the OS so that you principle. don’t require an OS to boot it up when they are developed.

Bryan Cantrill, one of the Docker proponents and the CTO of cloud player Joyent, has famously remarked that, “container technology is now doing to VMs what VMs did to physical machines.”

By the look of things, Docker is all set to become an important ingredient of IT infrastructure soon and a word to the CIOs: get yourself involved with any deployment of Docker within your enterprise because there aren’t many geeks out there who grok it at the moment.

E-mail: jeevan.thankappan@ cpimediagroup.com

Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan jeevan.thankappan@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9133 Editor Annie Bricker annie.bricker@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9116 Deputy Editor James Dartnell james.dartnell@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9140 Online Editor Adelle Geronimo adelle.geronimo@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9160 ADVERTISING Senior Sales Manager Michal Zylinski michal.zylinski@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9119 Circulation Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh.nair@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9142 Production and Design Production Manager James P Tharian james.tharian@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9136 Designer Analou Balbero analou.balbero@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9132 DIGITAL SERVICES Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy P Maagma Web Developer Jefferson de Joya Photographer and Max Poriechkin Charls Thomas webmaster@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9100

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Our events

EDITORIAL

Email insecurity Talk to us:

Nothing feels as intrusive as realising your inbox has been opened by an unauthorised party. We spend as much as 80 percent of our working day in our email, and services like Google acted as cloud storage before there was even such a phrase. We save our upcoming flight information, our appointments, and even passwords to other accounts. We receive sensitive things like bank statements and let them live in our inboxes for the foreseeable future. Sure, my electronic bank statement comes in the form of a password protected PDF, but in the body of that email, there are instructions on how to access the PDF itself.

This month, I detected unauthorised activity on my primary Google account. I immediately changed my password and then activated a dual-authentication protocol with a non-static PIN. Still, the mind reels – what did this person see, and to what end? I scoured my account – the bank statement, my interview calendar, the contacts that I sync to my Android device, my Uber receipts, even the order confirmation for the pizza I ordered last week. All passwords need I asked him what we to be changed, all security protocols need to be could do to protect reinforced. Nothing feels safe anymore. our data. His advice I am only an individual and my data is relatively - don't have it in the boring.

Recent email hacks of celebrities and first place. companies have been much more scandalous.

Companies have lost credibility and politicians have lost face. The month before I was breached, I interviewed a somewhat outspoken security expert. I asked him what we could do to protect our data. His advice – don’t have it in the first place.

As soon as we strengthen our security protocols, a potential bad actor will figure out how to breech them. The only sure fire way to protect our email is to stop hoarding it.

I never considered myself an email hoarder before the incident, but when the cards were down, it turns out I am. The cleaning out of my inbox was not easy – I had to ask ask myself if there is any reason to keep an email that is over ten days old. In the end, I deleted most items.

Is this a case of letting the criminals win? Perhaps. However, at the end of the day I feel safer with a clean inbox than I will with any kind of security protocol. It is good to know that if my email is ever accessed again, the unauthorised party will find dust.

E-mail: annie.bricker@ cpimediagroup.com

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ADVERTORIAL

HP Helps Emirates Palace Hotel Maintain 5-Star Customer Experience with Dynamic IT Services Virtualizing IT environment with HP servers and storage ensures business continuity, reduces energy consumption, saves space HP Helps Emirates Palace Hotel Maintain 5-Star Customer Experience with Dynamic IT Services Virtualizing IT environment with HP servers and storage ensures business continuity, reduces energy consumption, saves space Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, date, 2015 – HP today announced that it has helped the 5-star luxury Emirates Palace hotel speed up check-in, facilitate reservations and eliminate downtime for guest services by consolidating and virtualizing its IT environment. As a result, the hotel can ensure that its guests enjoy the best experience possible.

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“With their proven experience of large virtualization projects, HP and MDS have enabled us to increase the reliability, flexibility and availability of our IT platform while containing costs and saving space” Mehmet Akdeniz, Director of IT/AV, Emirates Palace the hotel’s administrative staff by allocating more space for server databases and storing more guest details.

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Applications such as Exchange Mailbox, Opera, PABX and Micros run on dedicated HP servers.

“HP helps businesses like the Emirates Palace transform their legacy infrastructure to achieve tomorrow’s goals,” says Herbert Zierl, HP UAE Managing Director. “HP simplifies the data center, making it more energy- and space-efficient while being less expensive to operate.”

Contact MDS now to hear how HP can help you transform your business with innovative IT solutions: +971-2-6130700 / mdsauh@mdsuae.ae ©Copyright 2015 Hewlett-Packard Development company, L.P. Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon, and Xeon Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries

Our Strategic Partners

Contents

Strategic ICT Partner

Strategic Technology Partner

Strategic Innovation Partner

ISSUE 280 | may 2015

14

Etisalat Digital Conference

Emirates Airline CIO Patrick Naef

20

22

CeBIT 2015

18 GISEC

42 BYOD

28 Public progress

48 Application optimisation

The Middle East’s premier security conference returns to the Dubai World Trade Centre with an array of expert speakers.

Irfan Khan, CTO, SAP GCO, took time out to discuss the company’s role in transforming the public sector on a recent visit to Dubai.

30 Ericsson evolution

36

Helena Norman, CMO and CCO, talks about the firm’s long-term transition to growing service provision.

32 Future Pipe Industries National Commercial Bank

www.cnmeonline.com

The fibre glass pipe-producing company needed a range of new solutions to optimise efficiency, and opted for IBM.

Key decisions must be taken when it comes to optimising an organisational Bring Your Own Device strategy.

A lagging application speed can be costly for businesses, but diagnosis must be followed up with smart solutions.

64 CXO Corner

Bocar Ba, CEO, SAMENA Telecommunications Council, touches bases on a number of crucial telco issues, and what they mean for his business.

68 H.E. Dr. Saeed AL Dhaheri

The formal advisor to H.H. The Minister of Foreign Affairs discusses his views on the future of Smart government services.

MAY 2015

5

THE STATE OF

* *Software as a Service THE GROWTH IN THE SaaS INDUSTRY - in Billion $ -

Global SaaS

REVENUE 2010 to 2015

12.1

10

2011

2010

16

14.5

2012

21.3

19.6

2013

2014

2015

SaaS vs. PACKAGED SOFTWARE

S AAS is growing 3.16%

$

316

BILLION

2010 Source: staff.com

but is still a PACKAGED SMALL PERCENTAGE SOFTWARE of Sales

3.65%

$

311.5 BILLION

2011

4.11%

$

352.7 BILLION

2012

4.25%

$

376.5 BILLION

2013

4.87%

$

402.3 BILLION

2014

4.94%

$

430.9 BILLION

2015

TOP 10 SaaS COMPANIES

Salesforce

Salesforce.com

is thought of as

THE FOUNDER

$

OF

SAP

SaaS Industry

1

1

BILLION

5

6

#

Microsoft

$

BILLION

#

4

ORACLE

1

$ .14

AND IT’S STILL

#

2.27

BILLION

Workday

7

#

#

Intuit

Zoura

8

9

#

#

Pardot

#

NetSuite

10

Marketo

LARGE ACQUISITIONS OF SaaS COMPANIES $

3.5

$

BILLION

$

525

MILLION

1.8

$

BILLION

1.5

$

BILLION

743

MILLION

Success Factors

Taleo

Technologies

RightNow

Tivoli Systems

SAP

ORACLE

ORACLE

IBM

$

426.9 MILLION

$

274.42 MILLION

$

110

MILLION

$

50

MILLION

Aprimo

Demand Tech

Convio

Jobs2Web

Assistly

Teradata

IBM

Blackbaud

SAP

Salesforce.com

Column

James Dartnell Deputy Editor, CNME

IoT: Invasive, invaluable, inconceivable?

L

ast month I was in Hong Kong for the Trade and Development Council’s annual Electronics Fair and ICT Expo.

As you’d expect at Asia’s largest Spring tech show, all the major bases of enterprise and consumer IT were covered; cloud, mobile devices and other electronics were ever-present throughout the vast Convention and Exhibition Centre.

However, the amount of technology dedicated to one particular trend – the Internet of Things – was what really grabbed me.

I spoke to a number of CEOs and technology leaders whilst in Hong Kong, who are all licking their lips at the prospects of what Big Data and IoT can bring to their businesses.

The marketing opportunities are staggering. With forecasts ranging between 50 to 100 billion connected devices by 2020, the amount of data – structured and unstructured, trivial and critical – is even more mind-boggling.

There were a couple of vendors in particular that truly stood out as having www.cnmeonline.com

a very broad range of offerings in the connected home space. Chinese vendor Wulian seems to have created every home-connected product imaginable, from traditional luxury and powersaving devices as well as arguably invasive objects, including a people counter and pinhole camera.

The latter is nothing new, but is still a microcosm of the privacy questions that are raised by IoT. Several other issues are also raised by its building momentum in the Asian market.

For those who want to, will they be able to opt out from the trend’s influence?

How long will it be until IoT is ubiquitous, and, most importantly, how will the Middle East react to its rise?

Although the region continues to make remarkable progress in technology adoption compared to more mature markets, my gut instinct tells me that IoT – in particular the connected home space – may face prohibiting obstacles.

Ask a range of IT professionals in the

region about local cloud adoption and you’ll get mixed answers. Some will say it’s advanced, others that the region has a long way to go before it’s fully embraced.

Judging by early sentiments in the Gulf, I believe that IoT will face the same problems.

There are numerous hurdles that need to be overcome before IoT will be truly ubiquitous. Interoperability is a key challenge. Samsung executives have recently been at pains to stress how they are striving to unify IoT standards, but fresh infrastructure and vendor collaboration will take time to fully install.

Security is the other big one. The multiplication of endpoints will only increase the amount of targets open to attack.

Still, none of this should take away from a trend that holds vast business opportunities and could propel daily life into a futuristic, automated era.

Get these things right, and who knows, within years Cisco’s ‘Internet of Everything’ may not be so inconceivable. may 2015

9

CIO Soundbites What Green IT measures does your business use?

Vinay Sharma, Group IT Manager, Gulftainer

Green IT has always been about cutting costs as well as saving the environment. In the last couple of years, many energy efficient solutions have been deployed by Gulftainer, including data centre virtualisation, auto turning off unused equipment - printers, copiers, phones, desktop, servers and network equipment – has also been employed. We’re taking advantage of cloud computing, O365, managed print services, intranet portals with smart e-services and engagement with SAP ERP on HANA platform, which are allowing us to reduce printing and paperwork.

M.N. Chaturvedi, Director of IT, Oasis Investment Co.

We’re motivated to make the use of IT towards a reduced carbon footprint. Our centralised data centre houses equipment of electro-mechanical, lighting, electrical and computer systems, and is designed for maximum energy efficiency and minimum environmental impact.

Our lighting systems, PCs and printers feature an auto shut policy if not used for 10 minutes, and shut fully immediately after the user leaves the office. Our data centre cooling systems are designed to run with low power consumption, and auto shifts to use balance power as per the day’s temperature requirement. All new data processing equipment purchases have been towards solid state technology where possible, and, if not, then high power efficiency is one of the main criteria for selection of that equipment.

Shrikant A. Kabboor, Senior Director IT, Emaar Properties.

Aligning ourselves to the best technology standards and frameworks has been a major step towards Green IT. We at Emaar technologies make sure our data centres are energy efficient, the coding algorithms are written efficiently, paperless initiatives are in place and effective, the IT systems are energy efficient and properly recycled after the end of life. This is a continuous process and largely depends on the support from the ecosystems.

10

may 2015

www.cnmeonline.com

short takes

Month in view

Gartner predicts ‘1.1 billion’ things connected in 2015 smart cities Smart homes and smart commercial buildings will represent 45 percent of total connected things in use in 2015, due to investment and service opportunity, and Gartner estimates that this will rise to 81 percent by 2020.

“Smart cities represent a great revenue opportunity for technology and services providers (TSPs), but providers need to start to plan, engage and position their offerings now,” said Bettina Tratz-Ryan, Research Vice President, Gartner.

The firm predicts that residential citizens will lead the way by increasingly investing in smart-home solutions, with the number of connected things used in smart homes to surpass 1 billion units in 2017.

It also says that smart home security and safety will represent the second largest service market by revenue in 2017, and that by 2020, the smart healthcare and fitness market will have grown to nearly $38 billion.

Smart LED lighting is forecast to record the highest growth of IoT consumer applications, from 6 million units in 2015 to 570 million units by 2020.

12

may 2015

65 percent of malware aimed at Middle East Symantec researchers observed a new information-gathering tool, Trojan.Laziok, this January and February, targeting primarily oil, gas and helium companies in the region.

The United Arab Emirates saw 25 percent of the infections, while Saudi Arabia and Kuwait experienced ten percent, and Qatar and Oman receiving five percent each.

According to Symantec, the infection begins with a phishing email that contains an infected attachment – typically, an Excel file.

The attachment uses a known ActiveX exploit to get in, an exploit that had been patched in 2012.

The exploit code in the attachment then installs the Trojan.Laziok, which collects information about the computer and sends it back to the attackers.

That includes information about what kind of antivirus is present.

Once the Trojan.Laziok attackers have a good picture of the system, they can customise additional tools to avoid detection.

The next step is a back door, Backdoor.Cyberat, and an informationstealing Trojan, Trojan.

Zbot.

This malware can monitor audio by turning on the audio on the computer, or capture video using the webcam.

It can also log keystrokes and install additional malware.

There isn’t enough information yet to determine whether the goal is espionage, sabotage, or cybercrime, Symantec said.

The attacks against Lebanese political groups, using malware codenamed Volatile Cedar by its discovers, is probably unrelated, Symantec said.

According to researchers at Check Point Software Technologies

Ltd., that campaign dates all the way back to 2012.

It also uses a new, custom informationgathering Trojan, which Check Point named Explosive.

Smartphone shipments to the Middle East and Africa saw unprecedented year-on-year growth of

83

percent in Q4 2014. - IDC www.cnmeonline.com

Huawei registered record revenue and net profit for 2014 with global financial performance up across all business areas. Overall global revenue reached $46.5 billion, an increase of 20.6 percent from the previous year, with group net profit reaching $4.5 billion, up 32.7 percent.

UAE managed and outsourcing services ‘$972m’ by 2018 An increasing number of organisations in the UAE are seeking out specialised IT services providers to manage their IT infrastructure, according to the latest insights from IDC. The market for managed and data centre services markets in the UAE is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 19.8 percent between 2013 and 2018 to reach a total of $971.8 million by 2018.

“CIOs are under constant pressure to drive IT innovation and achieve higher agility,” said Saurabh Verma, Research Manager, IT services, IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey. “As the

availability of skills remains a major challenge and as up to 70 percent of IT teams spend their time on processes related to ‘keeping the lights on’, CIOs and IT managers are under constant pressure to create incremental capacity for strategic IT projects.

“Given the flexible engagement models of managed services, smart CIOs are discretely identifying workloads that can be outsourced.

Additionally, the service provider landscape from a maturity, availability, and service-level agreement (SLA) commitment point of view has also improved over the years.”

Teletask launches Dubai showroom

Nokia to buy Alcatel-Lucent Nokia has said it has entered into a memorandum of understanding to acquire Alcatel-Lucent in a deal that would value the French telecommunications equipment maker at $16.5 billion.

The Finnish firm is also considering a possible divestment from its Here mapping and navigation business.

Under the all-share deal, Nokia will make an offer for all of the equity securities issued by Alcatel-Lucent, through a public exchange offer in France and the U.S., on the basis of 0.55 of a new Nokia share for every AlcatelLucent share.

After the transaction, Nokia shareholders will hold 66.5 percent of the equity of the combined company, while Alcatel-Lucent investors will hold 33.5 percent. www.cnmeonline.com

The combined company will be called Nokia Corporation and have its headquarters in Finland and a strong presence in France, which will have some key business locations and research and development centers.

Current Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri is expected to continue in this position in the combined company, while Risto Siilasmaa, current chairman at Nokia, will also remain in the post. The boards of both companies have agreed on the merger, which is expected to be completed by the first half of next year.

The expanded company had net sales of nearly €26 billion in fiscal year 2014, giving it the scale after the merger to better compete with top-tier players.

Teletask has officially opened its first showroom in Dubai’s Silver Tower through its regional office in the Middle East.

The Belgian home automation company has also signed a memorandum of understanding with UT Technology, a Smart City subsidiary of Etisalat.

Teletask’s solutions allow customers to control things including lighting, curtains and security cameras from a control panel and although through smart devices.

The company’s main offering is its eight-button AURUS-OLED touch panel, which its MAIOR touch screen comes in 10”, 15” and 19” options.

Ahmed Al-Ahmed, Managing Director, Teletask Middle East, said, “Our solutions are ideal for the real estate sector, and we already have a number of development firms who are deploying our solutions.

“Teletask’s main strength is its ability to save power by remotely monitoring electricity. If we are able to save a business five percent on their energy bill, then that makes a massive difference both on their OPEX and carbon footprint.” may 2015

13

EVENT

14

Etisalat

may 2015

www.cnmeonline.com

Government Enabled Last month, Etisalat, in association with CNME, organised a conference targeted at both local and federal government entities, demonstrating its leadership in the digital services space. he leadership of the UAE has defined a vision of transforming the nation into a digitally empowered, smart economy and has laid out a clear roadmap for the nation to move forward in this direction.

Government entities in the UAE are assigned the task of ensuring this vision is delivered in a timely and effective manner and are working on transforming public sector operations to align with smart governance initiatives.

In a world of ever-increasing digital demands and shrinking budgets, government CIOs are under immense pressure to plan a framework that enables them to roll-out large-scale IT projects that are on time, within budget and deliver ambitious expectations. It has become imperative for government CIOs to give greater focus to the faster, more agile digital aspects of IT, including cloud, mobility, increased information sharing and new service delivery models that maintain the high level of security required for government operations.

With this in mind, Etisalat organised a half-day workshop targeted at government IT decision makers, showcasing the service provider’s secure ICT and digital solutions to empower the nation.

“In the government’s smart transformation journey, nothing is more inspiring than the UAE leadership's vision, which has raised the bar for all of us to become competitive on a global scale,” said Basim Darwish, Director, Abu

T

www.cnmeonline.com

Dhabi Government Sales, Etisalat, who got the ball rolling.

It is a vision we need to work hard to realise, and ICT services play a key role in the transformation to become a more smart and agile government, he added.

The keynote address was delivered

by Abdulla Ebrahim Al Ahmed, Senior Vice President, Government Sales, Etisalat, who stressed the importance of innovation to sustain future growth.

This was followed by a presentation on Etisalat’s new service model by the company's Senior Director of Customer Support and Service Delivery, AbuBaker Mohamed Al Marzooqi.

“We have a completely new value proposition to address the needs of our government and enterprise customers," he said. "Our aim is to become the trusted adviser and preferred supplier for government entities as well as private companies, providing all ICT services from the cloud."

Etisalat, as part of its new customer engagement plan, has implemented a consistent end-to-end customer care model, which includes personalised services, consistent customer services and clearly-defined service level objectives. The service provider’s new customer service centre is now the single point of contact for customers to lodge and follow up on complaints.

Mohannad Hijazi, Director, Business Marketing, Managed Services, Etisalat, took to the stage next to speak about how managed services can enable agile government. “We need to keep pace with what is happening outside

and also market dynamics," he said.

"Customer satisfaction, whether external or internal, is important, as well as the collaboration between public and private sectors."

The event also featured a case study presentation from one of Etisalat’s key customers in the government sector. Khaled Al Ameri, Senior Analyst, Infrastructure Design, ADSIC, praised the role of Etisalat in establishing a government-wide network - ADNET that provides highly secure and reliable connections between all of Abu Dhabi’s government entities.

With an increasing number of breaches targeted at government entities, the importance of securing government services was highlighted by Kamran Ahsan, Senior Director, Security Services, Etisalat. “Delivering security services in a rightful manner is a huge responsibility," he said. "The UAE has seen a 400 percent increase in targeted attacks, and government is a prime target; around 27 percent of attacks in 2014 were targeted at governments.”

Etisalat currently manages 58 government entities from a DDoS perspective, and runs an SOC that offers unrivalled access to threat intelligence for its customers.

Etisalat’s offerings in the cloud space were explained by Omran Mansour, Senior Manager, Product Management, Data Centre & Cloud Service.

“Digital is reshaping all industries, and the digital space is changing the physical world of business," he said.

"Whether you are government, retail or enterprise, for your organisation to be competitive you have to utilise the digital space."

The event was wrapped up by a panel discussion on key digital services for government transformation, featuring Etisalat executives Murat Ethem Eldem, Senior Director, M2M Services; Amol Natu, Director, Product Management Digital Commerce Services and Francisco Hernansanz Ruiz, Senior Manager, Technical Architecture, Data Centre & Cloud Services. may 2015

15

EVENT

SMARTWORLD

Get Smart

deal to consider before leveraging digital solutions. Managed services, he explained, can alleviate many of those challenges. “With managed services, governments can rapidly penetrate new markets, increase agility, and let departments focus on core business.”

Regional governments have a mandate to smarten Safder Nazir, Regional Vice up their services. If managed correctly, these smart President, Smart Cities and IoT, Huawei, services can go far in breaking down barriers between then took the stage to outline the government agencies and their citizenship. changing and evolving demands on the CIO in a smarter world. "These days," Nazir explained, "the “I” in CIO stands a collaborator and facilitator,” he ith initiatives in place for much more than “information.” explained, “and from a problem solver throughout the region to “Innovation, integration, internalisation to a solution enabler.” As to what is create smarter cities with and implantation,” he said, “are now all driving this shift, Al Dhaheri points to projects that enable both part of the CIO role.” The key in fulfilling four factors: demographic changes, citizens and government agencies, CIOs all of the demands laid on the CIO is to economic improvements, technological of regional government agencies have foster partnerships that can support innovations and societal contributions. their work cut out for them. new government Ahmed Baig, The future of digitally enabled initiatives.

Senior Director – government services will determine “The government is The take-away Corporate Strategy, shifting from a passive how the government interacts with from the day’s Risk and Excellence, citizens and vice versa. As disruptive service provider to event was clear – Smartworld, then technologies become common a collaborator and government needs shed some light place, citizens demand contact with facilitator.” to adapt with the on the integration government agencies be incorporated changing needs of of the Internet of with the technology with which they are their economy and their citizenship.

Things and the role of managed services already comfortable.

Participants agreed that the goal is to in future digital governments. Managed The event kicked off with a keynote “bring down the wall” between citizens services and public private partnerships address from His Excellency, Dr. Saeed and their governments. If governments will play a key role in the transition Al Dhaheri, Former Director General of truly digitise their services, the goal is and maintenance of government digital Emirates Identity Authority and Formal to shift the perspective of government services.

Advisor to His Highness the Minister services as slow and inconvenient, and “There are a number of challenges of Foreign Affairs. Al Dhaheri outlined open up a dialogue between citizens that we face when moving into the the changing role of the government, and government. To achieve this goal, Internet of Things,” Baig explained. From and what factors are driving that managed services from private entities security, to a lack of global standards, change. “The government is shifting are a must. he said, IT professionals have a great from a passive service provider to

W

16

may 2015

www.cnmeonline.com

EVENT

GISEC

Securing the future The third edition of GISEC, the largest IT security knowledge event in the region, gathered topnotch experts in Dubai to discuss megatrends that CISOs can’t afford to take for granted. Topics included cybersecurity management, mobile security and enterprise security among others.

While we are in the path of technological advancements, we cannot ignore information security.” This was the statement underlined by H.E. Eng. Majed Sultan Al Mesmar, Deputy Director General, UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, during his opening keynote address at the recently held GISEC 2015.

He added that the Internet has made the world a global village where information can flow freely and easily, providing more opportunities for businesses to flourish. “Technology has been an instrument that allows

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entrepreneurs and small businesses to evolve. This generation has witnessed how even the smallest ideas can turn to massive businesses.

However, this doesn’t rule out the threats involved in data security.

“As we are approaching the age of Smart Cities, it is important to understand that the risks involved in Big Data are unprecedented, just as the data revolutionised itself. Data is the air that Smart Cities breathe, and there is a great opportunity for us to strategically tackle the challenges involved in this area. After all, data is considered to be the oil of the 21st century,” he added.

He also emphasised that as the regulatory body tasked to lead the UAE’s mGovernment initiative, the TRA is tactically handling issues on cybersecurity and will implement legislation that considers the security, privacy, and the rights of individuals and companies.

Farid Farouq, VP, Information Technology, Dubai World Trade Centre, then took to the stage and discussed how the role of CIOs has evolved over the years. “CIOs are no longer limited by the boundaries of their departments. We no longer live in isolation, the world is more www.cnmeonline.com

connected than what it used to be.

An occurrence in one region can significantly affect another, hence we should be aware of the turbulences that are happening around the globe.

We are living in a world of rapid change which will only continue to increase, therefore as leaders we need to learn how to react to changes even faster,” said Farrouq.

He also pointed out that IT leaders are now under a great deal of pressure to keep their security strategies in check due to the vast level of connectivity. This connectivity requires them to deal with an environment that is becoming more vulnerable to cyber attacks.

Calling upon his experience as a former CSO of the State of Michigan, Dan Lohrmann, now the Chief Strategist and CSO, Security Mentor, identified different cybersecurity challenges present today as well as the skills CSOs need battle these issues. “There is no one solution against cyberattacks," he said. "A risk assessment and understanding of an organisation’s baseline must be conducted in order to find a solution that applies to specific experiences.”

Lohrmann also revealed four strategic response goals that should be part of a cyber disruption strategy. These include an improved situational awareness among critical infrastructure owners, creation of specific operational plans for the response to and recovery from cyberdisruption events, training of key staff and exercising communication and response plans, and thorough risk assessment to identify vulnerabilities.

He also underlined the importance of public and private sector partnerships, stating that the collaboration between the two can create a good defence against cyberattacks.

Steve Williamson, Director IT Risk Management, GlaxoSmithKline, discussed the importance of developing a security culture and making this a responsibility for and www.cnmeonline.com

panel discussions. The first explored every employee within a company ways to effectively secure data and to adhere to. “Our job as security avoid future attacks, and involved professionals and risk managers experts Manal Masoud, Principal is not to hinder our companies in Consultant, Paramount Computer exploring new technologies, but Systems; Amit Bhatia, Head of instead to help them in adopt it Information Security Governance, effectively and securely.”

Oman Insurance Company; Jonas Highlighting the prevalent Zelba, Senior Research Analyst challenges on privacy protection, ICT MENA, Frost & Sullivan; Hadi Niraj Mathur, Manager Security Jaafarawi, CISSP, CISA, Managing Practice, GBM, delivered a Director Middle East, Qualys, Inc.; presentation on the different privacy and Nader Baghdadi, Regional concerns and threats in the Gulf Enterprise Director South Gulf & region. “Every year, statistics related Pakistan, Fortinet. to connectivity are increasing, and The second devices such as panel session smartphones CIOs and CSOs should included that enable Ahmad Baig, this growth are implement mobile Director, continuously security best practices Senior Corporate changing the way to ensure data Strategy, Risk we do business.

BYOD, while protection within the & Excellence, advantageous company. Creating a Smartworld; Nick Pollard, in terms of policy is one practice. Senior Director enhancing mobility and Such a policy should Professional Services, EMEA & productivity for clearly identify who APAC, Guidance employes, poses can access which data Software Inc.; a significant and Sandra Baer, amount of risk as as well as when and Director, Smart well.” where he can Cities Council.

He access it.

The discussion mentioned that assessed how their research one can identify insider threats. shows that around 90 percent of The second day of the conference organisations that implement BYOD started with an address by security policies in the region do not adopt guru Bruce Schneier, who took the appropriate security measures to audience through the events of the protect their data. This makes them Sony hack. "Sony couldn’t have vulnerable to security breaches. prevented the attackers from getting “CIOs and CSOs should implement in but they could have managed their mobile security best practices to response better,” he said. ensure data protection within the Next, the audience heard from company. Creating a policy is one Kamran Ahsan, Senior Director, practice. Such a policy should clearly Digital Security Solutions, Etisalat. identify who can access what data “We need an ecosystem of as well as when and where they can shareholders, business custodians access it. Next is containerisation, and trusted security service partners which entails the segregation of the to jointly safeguard our business corporate and personal data on your environments; government, device by means of virtualisation." enterprise and SMBs,” he said.

The conference also featured two may 2015

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EVENT

CeBIT

Bit and byte Widely renowned as one of the top technology trade shows in the world, the 2015 edition of CeBIT played host to a range of internationally acclaimed companies and insider experts in Hannover, Germany. Among the highlights were SAP’s CEO Bill McDermott and a video link Q&A with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. lthough the show’s somewhat gimmicky theme of ‘d!conomy’ may suggest that CeBIT would be awash with wacky and trivial offerings, the reality of it was very different. Among the 3,300 exhibitors were the industry’s big hitters, who announced a number of key advancements for the enterprise.

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Making the trip from the company’s Southern German HQ was SAP's Bill McDermott, who got the conference underway with a Q&A session covering a number of today’s omnipresent IT trends. “Cloud is becoming a pervasive theme of our generation,” he said. “It’s important for companies to change, and make bold moves.” When asked about

the increased prominence of digital technologies and potential subsequent changes in the job market, McDermott said that organic shifts would ensure that people would not be left out of work. “I have an optimistic view of jobs and dreams,” he said. “Ultimately, people need to deal with people; human currency is vital, whatever age we are in. The digital march is certainly on, but people need to be retrained for the digital economy. We have not had the opportunity to create certain jobs, but they will emerge in different areas.

“Companies have to be able to relate to consumers via any channel and through any device. When a company interfaces with a customer, we need to know who they are via a 360 degree view.”

Samsung used the show to officially launch its ‘Samsung Business’ division, unifying the company’s business solutions, including KNOX www.cnmeonline.com

for security and enterprise mobility management, SMART Signage solution, the company’s printing solution and other business offerings.

Company President and Chief Marketing Officer Won-Pyo Hong also echoed the Samsung’s recent drive to merge Internet of Things standards.

“Significant advancements can be made in the business process through the application of IoT in inventory management, energy efficiency and more,” he said. “However, we first have to overcome the challenges of platform compatibility, data analysis and security in order to accelerate IoT adoption.”

Elsewhere, Huawei took the opportunity to make bold statements about its assault on the enterprise IT market. The firm has become an increasingly influential worldwide player, boasting a 20 percent revenue hike in 2014, up to $46.5 billion. With an increasing number of partnerships with German firms, Huawei used CeBIT to unleash four new solutions into the market. eLTE Broadband Trunking, Agile Wide Area Network, OceanStor 9000 and Next Generation Anti DDOS were the packages on offer, and the former stands out as the one that could be ideal for this region.

Following Dubai’s mandate to become a Smart City by 2020, the eLTE solution seems first in line to gain adoption in the Middle East. “What is eLTE?” Swift Liu, President, Switch and Enterprise Communications Product Line, posed to CNME. “It’s LTE on an enterprise scale, and that’s what the ‘e’ stands for. It brings 4G and LTE technology together with adaptations that can meet enterprise market needs, and is prime for supporting smart city development.”

The solution supports connections to intelligent video systems, telepresence, IP call centres and thirdparty applications, aiming to improve the efficiency of inter-department collaboration and emergency response of governments overall. www.cnmeonline.com

huge volume and diverse interfaces.

Norman Frisch, the company’s The Enterprise Business Group Head of Business Development, focuses on IoT Gateways, which Government and Public Sector can make devices and gateways Services, said the broader impact virtualised. Smart IoT gateways allow of eLTE could unify and catalyse the capacity to connect more devices.” the processes of data reception and He discussed how ‘LTE-M’ – ‘M’ analysis. “‘Smart’ means being able standing for ‘machine’ – is a concept to intelligently react to something the company is keen to push, a high that happens to you,” he said. “Using quality network that encompasses the analogy of a human body, which machine devices. has sensors; skin, fingers, eyes and National Security Agency ears, all of which are receiving data whistleblower Edward Snowden and going from the spine to the brain. This journalist Glenn Greenwald ensured is how the enterprise works. eLTE the conference centre remained collects this data and takes it to brain. packed until the very end of the show, “Traffic lights, cameras, anything with the fugitive needs cables that joining for a are connected “‘Smart’ means being video link Q&A to control session. centres, which able to intelligently Snowden is expensive. react to something discussed eLTE wireless that happens to you. the ethical separates technology Using the analogy of implications his decision islands that a human body, which of to out the U.S. exist between has sensors; skin, government for public sector mining private departments, fingers, eyes and allowing them ears, all of which are information on its citizens, to coordinate, receiving data going along with the which can transform lives.” from the spine to the impending reality members of The concept brain. This is how the for the public. of ‘Industry 4.0’ enterprise works.”

Citing draft is another idea legislation that is that Huawei is being pushed in the U.K. as a prime pushing, and could stand to bring example of government control, huge change to Middle Eastern IT. Snowden revealed who he believed The concept entails connecting up to were the true targets of snooping 100 billion industrial machines which laws. “Organisations like the NSA will be able to communicate with and GCHQ in Britain use ‘equipment one another – thus standardising and interference’ laws because it gives enhancing production processes – and them a means to hack people as well Lida Yan, President of the company’s as targets,” he said. “The reality is Enterprise Business Group, outlined they are looking to spy on the types the concept in a keynote. “The core of people who are in this very room requirements for this are guaranteed – highly skilled IT professionals; latency, reliability and quality of the people who have access to service and bandwidth,” he said. “A systems, the people who control major challenge of Industry 4.0 is that and have access to IT and critical the current ICT infrastructure needs infrastructure. It’s vital that we to be reconstructed, with connections come together to prevent them from becoming increasingly important. doing that.”

Industry 4.0 will be characterised by may 2015

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CIO

Spotlight

Flying home Patrick Naef, Divisional Senior Vice President of IT, Emirates Airline, did not spend his entire career in the aviation industry. However, when he was offered a position at Emirates, he knew he had found his new home.

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As he moved forward, his father atrick Naef, Divisional advised him not to make his hobby Senior Vice President of his profession. “I’m not sure that I IT, Emirates Airline, may took that advice,” says Naef, “but have been predestined to I did diversify my hobbies.” Naef work for the aviation giant. “It is in my split his time between technology blood,” he quips, “both my mother and and rigorous training for volleyball. my father worked for Swissair and met “Unfortunately, I tore my Achilles while working for the company.” Naef tendon and was unable to play for himself was born and raised mostly in many months,” he says. The time off his native Switzerland but lived for the volleyball team pushed him to three years in Dakar, Senegal when he dedicate more to programming and was very young. “We returned from technology, and when his injury had Africa when I was eight years old, and healed, his interest in technology moved to a small town outside of had surpassed his drive to succeed Zurich. The population was only in sport. around 12,000 people,” he recalls.

After graduation in 1989, he Around the age of 17, technology came was eventually employed with HP into his life. “I remember that I had a in Zurich as a Senior Consultant. programmable pocket calculator to use Working at HP, he says, felt almost in my maths class,” he says. like working Shortly for a start-up. thereafter, in 1982, “As long as we “No one would Naef made his first were able to bill 80 really tell us major technology what to do, purchase. “For percent of our time, or ask where roughly 500 Swiss we were really left to we were,” he Francs I bought recalls. “As long a Sinclair ZX81 ourselves.” as we were computer,” he says. able to bill 80 “The machine only percent of our time, we were really came with 1KB of RAM, which wasn’t left to ourselves.” He spent most of even enough to fill the screen of the that time managing projects and television. I had to buy an expansion consulting with client companies. that held another 16K of RAM.” With He considers his time at HP as his Sinclair, he and a friend began another form of schooling. It was the programming in BASIC. second half of the 1990s and many Naef turned his fascination with of the projects that his team took on technology into a career path when were completely new. “We set up he was accepted at the Swiss Institute the first Internet banking structure, of Technology in Zurich in 1984. and we were managing large-scale, “At the time, the Computer Science multinational roll-outs,” he says. It programme was under the umbrella of was an inspiring time in the history the engineering department. There was of technology, he recalls. The entire only a master’s programme, so I studied industry was changing, and Naef and there for five years to earn my degree,” his team were taking on projects that says Naef. His graduating class was the would change the way people interact first in what would prove to be one of with businesses. the top Computer Science departments His time at HP also served as a in the world.

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lesson in good management. “There was an entrepreneurial spirit there,” he says “They called it the “HP Way.” Even now there are books written about it. It was like everyone in the company was working for the success of HP, not the success of themselves.

The culture was just very inspiring.”

In 1998, after four years with HP, Naef moved to Swissair. The company was well respected, and was looking to leverage IT to provide a better customer experience to passengers.

Swissair had recently created their first CIO position, and Naef was asked to come in as a consultant to develop their overall IT strategy. “They realised that as a smaller airline, their competitive advantage would be in customer intimacy and customer care,” says Naef. “To support that, we kicked-off a project to develop seamless customer care, using IT as an enabler.”

Eventually, Naef went from a consultant to a full-time employee of Swissair, first as the deputy to the CIO and later as CIO. After a year, Swissair decided to join the likes of Travelocity and develop an online travel portal.

The company, owned by Swissair, was started up by a team of three people, including Naef. Beyoo.com, the first Internet travel portal in Europe, was to become a huge success in his care.

Unfortunately, Swissair had troubles elsewhere. “The company was acquiring a number of other airlines and businesses,” says Naef.

When the attack on the World Trade Center in New York crippled their North American sales, the company simply couldn’t take the pressure.

Swissair eventually went bankrupt.

Naef was with Swissair until the last day that the company operated under that name. He then joined SIG Group, a global industry manufacturing group headquartered may 2015

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CIO

Spotlight in Switzerland. As the CIO of SIG Group, Naef took a lesson in finances.

“In the manufacturing business, the margin is so small,” he says.

“I remember sitting in meetings deciding to reduce the temperature on the manufacturing line by two degrees to save costs on heating and air conditioning. This gave me a real appreciation for finances,” he says.

After three years at SIG, the company restructured and Naef went in search of a new home. With a young family, Naef needed to find a position in his field quickly.

He then made the decision to join Zurich Insurance. “The work environment was completely different to what I was used to,” he says. “The politics of the insurance industry dominated everything.”

Naef stayed with Zurich Insurance for a little over a year before he received a call from a recruitment agent. “I remember I was on vacation in Spain when I heard that Emirates Airline was interested in me,” says Naef. In 2005, the airline was still relatively small, but there was clear potential.

“My wife and I had actually visited Dubai before,” says Naef, “and, to be honest, she didn’t really like it. We had come in February for a beach holiday, and it was cold and dusty and she did not want to move here.” Still, Naef went to Dubai for an interview.

“They brought my wife out as well.

The company showed us schools, amenities and other things that would be a part of our life,” says Naef.

Still, Naef and his family were on the fence until one, singular moment. “I was flying through Frankfurt, and I saw an Emirates Boeing 777 jet. I simply knew at that moment that I wanted to be a part of that company.” With his family convinced, he settled into what he would eventually call his home. www.cnmeonline.com

“When I came to Emirates, we first needed to fix the IT basics,” he remembers. “Everything relies on a solid IT infrastructure and we needed to make sure that our foundation was robust and solid.” These days, as any Emirates passenger can see, the airline has moved far beyond basics. From booking, to in-flight entertainment systems, Emirates strives to be the best in the business.

After taking on mobile computing with a hugely successful tablet roll out, and leveraging other disruptive technologies to their benefit, one wonders what could be next for the company. “These days we are looking ahead,” says Naef. “We are looking at companies like Uber and AirBNB and discussing what that type of business will look like when it hits the aviation industry.”

His father may have advised not to make his hobby his career, but instead of changing his employment path, he diversified his hobbies. “These days I love scuba diving,” he says. “My daughter is becoming certified now, so we can go diving as a family.”

Still, he has not left tinkering with technology behind. “I still enjoy playing with new gadgets and technology. I recently bought an “Internet of Things” starter kit with different kinds of sensors, so that is what I am working with now – monitoring the temperature and things like that in my home.”

The advice Naef gives to anyone who asks – “First, everyone has a different experience, so don’t take my advice simply on face value. Second, don’t plan your career. Do things that are good for your company, not necessarily that are just good for your career. If you keep your company’s goals in mind, your career will follow.”

TIMELINE 1989 Graduated from Swiss Institute of Technology

1998 Joined Swissair as CIO

2000 Created Beyoo.com

2004 Began with SIG Holding

2006 Joined Emirates Group

may 2015

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Cellular

Motorola MicroTAC Elite Long before we began to carry tiny mobile computers in our pockets, the world’s tech elite were strapping massive, clunky mobile phones to their belts. Motorola’s line of MicroTAC mobiles, first released in 1989, sat proudly on the high-end of mobile technology for the time. The family of phones was the first to feature a flip design. At first glance it would appear that the mouthpiece of the handset folded over the keypad.

However, the plastic flap was actually functionless – the actual microphone was in the base of the unit. Still,this was a sleek new feature that became a standard design for flip phones in the future. In 1994, the company released the MicroTAC Elite – the smallest and most lightweight mobile phone on the market at the time. As if the moniker 'Elite' wasn’t enough, Motorola also released the MicroTAC Elite VIP the same year, which featured black casing, gold lettering and an orange LED display. The software was the most advanced for its time, and boasted multiple applications including a phonebook, timer, tone control, and even an answering machine. The Motorola MircoTAC Elite was the first mobile phone to offer a voicemail service and also the first to use a Lithium Ion battery.

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INTERVIEW Irfan Khan, CTO, SAP GCO

The digital destiny Irfan Khan, CTO, SAP GCO, recently met with government CIOs in Dubai to discuss the role of Big Data analytics in transforming the public sector. He spoke to CNME on the sidelines of the event about digilatisation and the company’s HANA platform.

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ell us about your session Let’s talk about Hana. Going by the during the event. feedback from some of your user It concentrated on the groups around the world, it appears digitalisation of the that many of your customers still economy and the world around us. don’t really understand what HANA The essence of the points that I shared is, how it works and its benefits. was that if we look back and think How do you deal with this? of the physical items and activities We work very closely with all of our that we do, how are these things now user groups. Recently I have met with turning from atoms into bytes. the CEO of Deutsche User Group A case in point is books - before (DSUG), and what I found out was we used to go to the library, borrow that majority of its members, without a book, take it home and read it. Now, exception, are all fully embracing we consume digital content more SAP’s direction. The direction is to often than not. We now have these take a look at the entirety of SAP’s new engagements with technology applications from end-to-end. If and the way we do things before is we’re really going to be successful in just obsolete. helping our customers, we felt that When talking about Big Data, SAP should take on the ownership what we need to understand is of a platform where the applications that we will be dealing with a lot are running. HANA has been created of complexities. Some of these and pioneered into the market to complexities are man-made, in allow the creation of innovation. This terms of the environment is why SAP’s customers are that we’ve been now embracing HANA. creating, such Regarding the as the various feedback from the I recently met generations of IT. surveys, I think with the CEO of On top of that, it’s safe to say Deutsche User Group, we also need that with SAP is and what I found out to understand working closely was that majority of that the way with these its members, without citizens are various user exception, are all fully expecting to groups; we have embracing SAP’s deal with data, now managed direction. has to be much to solve some of more real time and the misconceptions intuitive. that may have been out 28

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there. Some of those things are maybe regarding the types of hardware that HANA can support. Very recently, in terms of extending the support and the availability of HANA, we’ve introduced this notion of the tailored data centre initiative. Which means that SAP currently has more than 500 hardware vendors where it is supported to run on. On top of that, all of this hardware runs on Intel processors, which means you don’t need specialised hardware to run HANA. We have recently introduced the S/4 HANA initiative in order to help customers address their pain points. This has speciality extensions and new business value-adds on top of those existing applications and, in some instances, it has created completely new solutions, all residing natively on top of our HANA platform.

Tell me more about S/4 HANA, does it have a new database, new interface and so on?

S/4 HANA as the name suggests runs on HANA, it is a core business suite which has now been transformed to run more natively on HANA and the factors adding value to that include three things – first is the elimination of the complexity; second, through this we can provide you with a beautiful user experience like Fiori; and third, we can provide a much more guided configuration to help customers install and manage SAP environments in the future.

Can you have this on cloud as well?

Yes, we have the distribution opportunity of S/4 HANA to run natively on premise, on a managed cloud where SAP manages this, or SAP can run this as software-as-a-service type of model as well. www.cnmeonline.com

ADVERTORIAL

Issa Al-Dhafiri, Information Security Senior Manager, VIVA Kuwait

Founded in 2008, VIVA is the mobile communications subsidiary of the Kuwait Telecommunications Company. VIVA has invested in the creation of a high performance network with advanced 4G LTE and high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) services, with the result that VIVA operates the most modern mobile network in the country.

As a telecommunications company, computing and
 networking play a central role in the way VIVA operates. VIVA has an IT business unit that delivers internal information technology services to the business and a telecommunications unit which is focused on providing communications services to consumer and business customers alike. VIVA works closely with several outsourcing partners to deliver these technology services and has a number of internal operations managers working with the outsourcing partners to enable this.

Security and compliance are major focuses, and for this reason VIVA has established an Information Security division that is independent of internal business units and reports directly to the CTO. This independence has been created to ensure that the business units have the unique perspective necessary for effective risk management. The Information Security division worked closely with the various business units to develop processes and procedures. Initially, each team was independently responsible for managing their parts of the infrastructure, but due to the fast growth of the company, it was becoming a challenge to unite all the information. Additionally, decentralization of event logs often caused the Information Security team to struggle with identifying and responding to issues. A centralized, holistic view of their entire IT & Telecom infrastructure was needed.

Maximum security Viva Kuwait achieves compliance and threat protection with HP ArcSight

An internal audit review revealed concerns regarding the effectiveness of current governance and oversight policies when log collection and analysis were the responsibility of individual teams. Manual collection took significant time and effort and collection procedures varied between teams, resulting in unpredictable timelines, inconsistent data quality, and ultimately concerns regarding the accuracy of their compliance audits. The review also identified the need to improve monitoring of access to sensitive data assets by privileged users, such as administrators.

Without proper monitoring, compromise or abuse of these accounts would be more difficult to detect, increasing the risk of data loss or worse.

The audit review feedback caused the Information Security division to initiate a centralized log file collection project. The initial scope focused mainly on Enterprise Log Management to consolidate the logs from more than 250 different sources in their IT and telecom infrastructure. However, it soon became clear that the ability to analyze the logs for suspicious behavior and trends was as important for meeting the audit requirements as log centralization. This led VIVA to expand the requirements beyond the ability to import any type of log file to include correlation and analysis to identify possible threats.

The enhanced requirements led VIVA to shortlist HP ArcSight solutions alongside two other leading competitive solutions.

The selection process took two months, during which time each of the vendors was asked to set up an initial proof of concept demonstrating their capabilities on a range of use cases and rules. HP ArcSight was

chosen as the preferred solution due to the ability to collect log files of any type and for the maturity of the analysis and correlation capability. In addition, HP ArcSight could be configured to manage VIVA’s specific business requirements and use cases, such as centralized log management and sensitive data asset monitoring.

The HP ArcSight solution provided VIVA with several key benefits. The principle benefit is the ability to efficiently and accurately meet strict audit and governance requirements.

In addition, VIVA IT teams are able to focus on other business-critical initiatives since they are no longer responsible for manual collection activities. On top of this, VIVA now has the ability to quickly and accurately detect threats and suspicious activities through analysis and correlation of all security events as well as a solid foundation upon which to build a security operations center (SOC). Now the Information Security division has complete access across all the IT departments, seeing the full picture and delivering on the objective of independent oversight by the Information Security division.

This end-to-end visibility has also seen a 60% reduction in the rate of false positive results. Where previously individual log analysis yielded warnings that required unnecessary intervention, the analysis of key performance indicators (KPIs) across multiple log files has enabled a much more sophisticated and realistic approach to warnings. This has had the effect of boosting service quality and customer satisfaction, while reducing the amount of time and personnel wasted on researching false alarms.

INTERVIEW Helena Norman, CMO and CCO, Ericsson

Shifting gears Helena Norman, CMO and CCO at Ericsson, talks about the telecom behemoth’s transformation plans and changing dynamics of the mobile industry.

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ricsson has been talking about the company transformation and transition to a software and services company. So what are you trying to achieve – to become more of an IT player than a telecom one?

Well actually, the lines are blurring between the two. A lot of things have changed in the industry. Sectors such as IT, telecoms and media are coming together to create big things. Having said that, that doesn’t mean that everyone will play the same role and that will take some time to hash out.

Maybe we’ll also find different names for different parts of this growth, but I don’t think that the existing boundaries between IT and telecom will be relevant.

Also, what we sell and what customers buy is no longer following the old logics.

Almost one third of your revenue still comes from hardware. How do you actually plan to transition to a software and services company, given that you do not have an IP in that space?

I think that if you go back 15 years, 70 percent of our sales were hardware and today it’s just the opposite. Now, 70 percent of our revenue is from services, so the transition is definitely happening. We started our service offerings 10 years ago, which today contributes over 40 percent of the total revenues. The hardware aspect 30

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is still important, especially on the mobile side for the simple reason that no one has figured out a way to create a performance that is needed unless we have a propriety hardware. As long as that is the case we still need to focus on hardware.

If you talk about the thought leaders in the mobile world, the main ones that come to mind are Google, Apple and Facebook.

How do you plan to take on competition from these players?

The first time we came to the Consumer Electronic Show five years ago, the entire thing was all about connecting stuff. But no one talked about connectivity so we started to go around asking people ‘how is this going to work?’ Then they just responded “it’s going to have to work”, but it doesn’t really work that way - it requires a lot of systematic thinking, standards, technologies and so on, otherwise it will fail.

Although we are not as strong as the Google and Apple brands, we have had a lot of interactions with them and we are now very much present with the discussions in Silicon Valley. For instance, we have a lot of collaborations with Facebook.

Internally, how has the transformation been? You have announced around 2,000 job cuts.

Why is that?

If we look at last year, we have had

19,000 people coming in to the company globally and 15,000 are leaving, that’s a normal year. That’s the transformation in action from a competence perspective. The force of the change that we have now has never been this fast. Yes, there are lay-offs but these are of course part of divesting. We both insource and outsource employees.

Back in November we announced a cost and efficiency programme because we saw an opportunity to grow margins and reduce costs, all because of the transformation.

You are planning to go beyond your traditional telecom market and branch out into other areas. Is this because the global telecom spending on infrastructure is declining?

First of all we don’t see global spending on telecom going down. We see it growing at a slower pace, so if we look at our traditional core of mobile infrastructure related services we see that growing with a couple of percentage points per year and we have a high market share. And we know from experience that holding on to what you’re strong at right now in a rapidly developing market over time is not going to do the trick.

Then we said that we have these five key areas that we would invest into IP networks, cloud, TV & media, OSS/ BSS. These were selected because of the high degree of professional services, software, recurring business and higher growth. That’s the reason why we chose this. If you look at M&A we do a lot of that in these areas. We do organic R&D here as well but we complement that with acquisitions and partnerships, like the Intel agreement, MetraTech acquisition and others.

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FPI CASE STUDY

F

uture Pipe Industries has rapidly grown to become a global leader in anti-corrosive fibre glass pipe system design and manufacturing. Founded in 1984, the company has played an integral part in the building of the region's foundations. The company to date has installed more than 160,000 kilometres of pipe worldwide and bespoke pipe solutions for some of the world’s biggest companies. With operations in 16 countries across four continents, as well as 3, 300 employees and 300 customers, FPI has a great deal of data to manage.

From firefighting in Germany to Line Pipe projects in Oman, FPI has put their stamp on pipe implementations throughout the world.

Regionally, the company has been expanding as well. What began as two plants – one in Al Ain, and the other in Dubai – has expanded beyond the UAE borders into Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar. Recently the company has opened a location in Dubai – a state of the art factory that will use the latest in technology.

Saeed El Halal, Vice President of Business Systems, Future Pipe Industries takes the company’s mission – to deliver water and energy to the world – seriously. When efficiency is essential, the IT department is tasked with streamlining administrative processes so that the job can be done. As the company grows, proper business planning and smoother budgeting cycles can make an enormous difference.

“Our plan for growth, and the necessity to have strong governance and visibility during and after that growth,” says El Halal, “were

Saeed El Hala, Vice President of Business Systems, Future Pipe Industries the main drivers that pushed the company and the IT department to look for ways to update our systems.”

FPI needed a robust, enterprise level solution to support the growth efforts of the company. “We needed to have a solid foundation and tools to move forward,” says El Halal. In short, FPI needed to improve its financial governance processes as well as its ability to analyse finances accurately and instantaneously.

Our plan for growth, and the necessity to have strong governance and visibility, were the main drivers that pushed the company and the IT department to look for ways to update our systems.

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“As the business grew,” explains El Halal, “our group structure became more complex, with many legal entities and holdings. We had a variety of financial systems and processes in different subsidiaries, and without a standardised approach, it was difficult to get an accurate view of our finances at an entity, holding or group level.”

The level on which FPI was performing was acceptable for the time, but with an enormous growth map in front of them, El Halal knew that would not be the case for long.

The drive to increase efficiency began FPI’s hunt for the perfect IT partner. “Our main criteria were availability in the market, availability of resources, accessibility to specialists and solution architects, and the need to have an international partner with enterprise level solutions,” explains El Halal. It goes without saying that there were a number of solutions to choose from in the market. After much research, El Halal and FPI determined that IBM was the best fit to their needs.

“In the end,” says El Halal, “IBM had everything we needed in terms of both solutions and service.” In addition, IBM provided resilient enterprise level security and consistency across all of FPI’s operations, he says. The company opted to take on solutions from IBM’s Watson foundations portfolio.

The crux of the solution was analytics. FPI took on Cognos Businss Intellegence, Cognos Controller, Cognos Planning and Cognost TM1 from IBM as well as their MEA Solutions services.

With IBM as a partner, El Halal and his team set to creating a new, robust analytic platform. The implantation was both swift and complete. “The team that we worked with was fast and responsive,” recalls El Halal, “We were able to roll out the may 2015

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CASE STUDY

FPI

solutions with confidence, always keeping the end goals in mind.”

The results were both dramatic and immediate. “Before the IBM Watson solutions, monthly closing took a few weeks. Now we can complete the same task in only a few days,” says El Halal. With Cognos Controller specifically, FPI’s inhouse automated monthly group consolidation is now possible.

Before Cognos Controller, group consolidation was only occurring once per year. External auditors are also able to use to tool as the basis for financial audits.

FPI was finally able to see a snapshot of their financial situation at any time. Rather than creating reports and then massaging the numbers until they were palatable, the IT and financial departments were able to automate those processes and let the solutions do the work. “We can get reports from Cognos Controller at the click of a button, which allows us to monitor our financials and make fast, informed decisions,” says El Halal.

Not only is the process much faster, but it has enabled the CFO

“Our Group CFO can manage the finances across the whole organisation from our headquarters. He can see the same information as the finance managers of our subsidiaries in their individual companies.”

of FPI to manage the finances of this multi-national company with ease. “Our Group CFO can manage the finances across the whole organisation from our headquarters,” says El Halal, “He can see the same information as the finance managers of our subsidiaries in their individual companies.”

FPI’s budgeting process has been dramatically improved since the implementation of the Watson solutions. Prior to the implantation, the annual budgeting process required, at minimum, four months, and the physical collaboration of multiple departments.

Now, the same process can be completed in fifteen days, with interested parties able to access all of the information they need to contribute their piece to the puzzle.

The information that the company is able to glean

“The budget and forecast progress monitoring is now possible from a central office. The Planner gave us the opportunity to deploy a standard, automated budgeting and forecasting model across all of our operating units.”

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using the IBM solutions is not limited to current data. With Cognos Planner, FPI was able to deploy a standard, automated budgeting and forecasting model across all operating units around the world. “The budget and forecast progress monitoring is now possible from a central office,” explains El Halal. “The Planner gave us the opportunity to deploy a standard, automated budgeting and forecasting model across all of our operating units.”

Other benefits of the implementation may be more difficult to quantify, but have had an enormous impact. “With the analytics solutions in place, our departments can concentrate on core business operations,” explains El Halal. No longer do departments need to dedicate days and weeks culling data from legacy systems, only to get a snapshot of financials that are dated by the time they come into play.

The company is also able to comply more easily with changing reporting and compliance standards throughout the world. This directly supports the company’s roadmap for growth. With the ability to take on more stringent governance requirements, FPI can look to moving into new markets.

“The end result is simple,” says El Halal, “we are able to see what we have.” Through data analytics the company can see a real time report on their finances and operations. The data analytics allow the company to make solid decisions for their future and will prepare them for whatever comes down the pipe next. www.cnmeonline.com

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CASE STUDY

NCB

Ease of endpoints

As the oldest and of the most trusted banks in Saudi Arabia, there’s a lot riding on National Commercial Bank’s IT security. The company’s Vice President of Business Continuity, Technology Risks and Information Security, Rasha Abu AlSaud, recounts how the firm sharpened its network monitoring with a powerful and transparent end user analytics solution.

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n assets alone, National Commercial Bank ranks as pack leader not only in Saudi Arabia, but in the entire Arab world.

With 7,000 employees on its payroll – not to mention an additional 3,000 consultants and third party associates – keeping track of IT activity between staff endpoints has never been straightforward.

Reporting to the company CIO, Rasha Abu AlSaud is responsible for a range of functions, covering IT security and business processes, but protecting customer data always remains a top priority. In few other industries is the threat to that data as relentless as in banking, where vast sums of customers’ cash – as well as the vital bond of trust – are at stake.

AlSaud was all too aware of the need to implement a solution that could track her employees’ activity, from their endpoints to the cloud, thus tightening security processes.

“There’s always a great deal of pressure when it comes to securing customer data,” AlSaud says. “Any sort of breach will inevitably impact our relationship with them, so our controls protecting customer

“There’s always a great deal of pressure when it comes to securing customer data. Any sort of breach will inevitably impact our relationship with them, so our controls protecting customer information have to be of the greatest transparency and quality.” www.cnmeonline.com

information have to be of the greatest transparency and quality.”

On top of her duty to monitor an array of security issues across NCB, AlSaud is also mandated to do the same for NCB Capital - NCB’s newlyformed investment subsidiary - which shares NCB’s IT infrastructure.

A key concern for AlSaud had been the lack of visibility over employees’ outbound web traffic. “We were unable to track the end user to the cloud, and that was a concern,” she says. “We also used to see a lot of botnet traffic from the previous proxy that we had. We were unable to go down and see where the user was connecting to.”

An additional pain point for AlSaud had been connectivity limitations that had hindered NCB’s attempts to push certain software updates to endpoints across the vast land mass of Saudi Arabia. “One of the challenges we’ve faced in terms of security is pushing agents to endpoints, and the bandwidth constraints impeding that transfer,” she says. “Considering the vast numbers of endpoints to which those agents must be pushed, we needed a solution that was light. Saudi Arabia is a varied country, and we have a presence across all regions and in every city – including rural areas that often use a dial-up connection.”

After NCB’s IT security and risks teams conducted their necessary research, they eventually opted for Nexthink’s Security and Integration modules, which could provide visibility compliance, network activity monitoring and IT analytics.

AlSaud always insists on her selected vendors implementing their software at NCB, and any resultant may 2015

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CASE STUDY

NCB

error in this process would not only be costly for the Bank, but would have terminated the entire project.

“If one device had become corrupted because of Nexthink, that would have been the end of their involvement with us,” she says.

The implementation of Nexthink lasted five months, from November 2011-April 2012. To date, 9,000 endpoints have been covered by the solutions, with 1,000 still to be completed. AlSaud says it has given NCB a much-improved starting point for diagnosing network difficulties and potential security threats. “Now, if an incident is raised, we can tell where the user is connecting to on the cloud, which gives us a great advantage when looking for a resolution,” she says.

The lack of visibility NCB had suffered through its proxy is now confined to the dustbin, with changes easily made and information easily available. “We are now able to change the proxy – with limitations, as it is dealing with large volumes of data – and it tells us all kinds of information; the username or host name that is connecting to a site and what sites they are visiting, all kinds of information,” AlSaud says.

NCB had previously experienced issues keeping track of the number of users who had admin privileges, which served as a security threat to the organisation. “I had asked my team for a list of local admins in our network, and they replied ‘which month do you want it by?’ which shows you the scale of the task we faced,” she says. “It would require a major effort to scan and get all the necessary data, to implement the necessary scripts on every device in the network.” The changes have 38

may 2015

“We are now able to change the proxy – with limitations, as it is dealing with large volumes of data – and it tells us all kinds of information; the username or host name that is connecting to a site and what sites they are visiting, all kinds of information.” now rendered this process a breeze.

“It’s a dream to have dashboard that can easily report on this, to have a button that says ‘you have x number of admins.’ Our COO has now asked us to reduce the number of privileged admins for security purposes, which reduces the number of potential internal threats to the business.”

Although AlSaud draws great satisfaction from NCB’s improvement under the software, she still feels the company can reap greater rewards from the change. “We’re still learning about the module, ways we can get the maximum out of it. We’re working with the vendor to find out what more it can provide.”

www.cnmeonline.com

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Blog Tom Kaneshige

Digital wipeout Though the world of digital marketing is currently on a high, it seems like the trend may be too good to last.

End-user habits change faster than marketers can keep up, which can make campaigns look dated and campy in the blink of an eye – or click of a mouse.

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s marketers ride the digital wave to higher salaries, greater roles and bigger budgets, will it all come crashing down? Do marketers really understand the technology that has upended their profession? If they don’t improve their digital IQ in a hurry, they’re risking a wipeout.

Consider this new Forrester report about marketers, 2015: The Year of the Big Digital Shift, which found swathes of poorly prepared marketers: “A particularly surprising finding is that despite the increased spending, confidence and future expectations for digital marketing, respondents admitted they don’t completely understand today’s marketing environment,” writes Forrester analyst Jim Nail in the report.

Time and again, Forrester found a disconnect between a marketer’s optimism and reality. For instance, almost two-thirds of marketers claim to have created an effective digital marketing strategy. After pressed, though, more than half admitted that their digital marketing is more tactical than strategic.

This finding in particular mirrors the theme at the MarTech Conference in San Francisco earlier this month.

Attendees, mostly techies, lamented a marketer’s penchant for making impulsive, tactical decisions. Speakers talked at length about architecting 40

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the technology stack and crafting a marketing tech strategy, in order to avoid shadow technology and the dreaded frankenstack.

Nearly everyone in Forrester’s marketer survey - 97 percent - agrees measuring digital marketing’s impact on business goals, such as revenue growth, is important. Yet only 60 percent say they’re effective at doing so. Marketers face an attribution problem when it comes to their digital investments. For instance, a consumer might conduct an initial product search on a mobile device while waiting for a bus after work, watch an advertisement for the product on television at home, and then execute the order on a tablet at midnight. Each marketing interaction may have played a role in the sale, but it’s impossible to tell.

Similarly, everyone - 96 percent - says the idea of “creating digital experiences that will build a stronger relationships between customer and the brand” is a top priority. Yet only 62 percent rated their firm as effective. Even worse, marketers claiming to be effective are probably overly optimistic. Forrester probed deeper into this group and found that more than half admitted not investing in the technology they need to build these relationships.

The problem is the lack of technology know-how or access to technology expertise. Less than

40 percent of marketers claiming to be effective at building digital relationships say their marketing and technology teams work well together or that their technology management team has the right skills, Forrester says. The rest have a lot of work to do.

The good news is that investment in marketing tech is on the rise. The marketing budget grew 3.4 percent last year and should grow four percent this year, Forrester says.

Priority investments include mobile, social, search, display advertising and email. The digital marketing budget has caught up to the traditional marketing budget.

Although marketers face a steep learning curve, they should not attempt to climb it alone, Forrester advises. Marketers should enlist finance colleagues to educate them on measurement tools and building the business case. They should seek the help of CIOs in creating a strategic marketing technology plan and agenda, including a technology requirements list.

“B2C marketing leaders mustn’t allow the latest gadget-du-jour to distract them from developing an adequate level of mastery of digital programs that have become essential to their marketing mix,” Nail says.

“Rather than single-mindedly chasing new opportunities, the time has come to build a stronger foundation of core digital marketing disciplines. " www.cnmeonline.com

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solutions World BYOD

Bring Your Own Decision As mobility becomes essential in business operations, enterprises need to decide how to handle their employee base when it comes to device usage in the workplace. Be it employer-provided devices or BYOD, enterprise mobility plans need to be both robust and adaptive.

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s the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend settles in and becomes the norm in enterprises, and employees demand more flexibility, businesses are tasked with the management of a growing variety of mobile devices operating on all platforms. Simply allowing employees to bring their device in to the workplace and use it for business can lead to a number of issues.

Even when the devices used are employersupplied, breaking the bounds of the office space can create unforeseen problems. To avoid potential mobility pitfalls, enterprises need to develop a comprehensive mobility management plan.

This trend is growing traction in the Middle East as well. “Our Middle East survey reflected that organisations are not shying away but are, in fact looking for solutions to help them implement BYOD in their organisations.

"Research found that nearly 60 percent of Middle East organisations either already support BYOD or intend to do so in the near future,” says Nawar Hasan, Channel SE Manager, Middle East & Turkey at Aruba Networks.

Companies can begin to address this mobile conundrum by implementing a few basic policies to set a standard across all devices and employees. These policies should be flexible companies say they will increase their BYOD budgets enough to allow the necessary in the next 12 months. autonomy employees require to function efficiently, but firm enough to be effective.

The biggest fear for the company is, of course, loss and misuse of data and information that may be be stored on an employee's device. Ashish Dass, President, 3i Infotech MEA, suggests, “Any devices storing and transferring company data should be password protected to avoid data theft. Any business applications running on the devices should have the ability to encrypt and decrypt data transfers.” However, password protection and data encryption simply aren't enough.

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solutions World BYOD

Dass goes on to say, “All personal and company devices should be regularly updated to the latest operating systems to stay one step ahead of malwares. In addition, employees should be made to keep their business and personal data separate through use of business applications.”

Partitioning personal data from company data is an important step, but one that may not be practical in the case of some businesses.

Depending on the sensitivity of the data, some companies may need to implement slightly more drastic policies. Guurprit Ahuja, Director, Middle East and Africa, Acronis, agrees, “In order to keep the company’s and employee’s resources secure, policies should be focused on protecting and managing the device and the data stored on it in the event that it’s lost or stolen.” However, acknowledging that there are cases when company and personal data may not be able to be partitioned, he says, “It should be expected that in these cases, a policy must be in place that puts the security of company data as the first priority, in which the device would be potentially erased or secured if a breach or loss occurs.”

Of course, one way to minimise the potential pitfalls of BYOD is for enterprises to provide their employees with devices.

Deciding on a BYOD policy is an important decision for any enterprise and the pros and cons must be weighed out accordingly. Ashley Woodbridge, Customer Solutions Architect, Cisco UAE, sees the positive side of BYOD.

“Any devices storing and transferring company data should be password-protected to avoid data theft. Any business applications running on the devices should have the ability to encrypt and decrypt data transfers.”

Ashish Dass, President, 3i Infotech MEA

“In order to keep the company’s and employee’s resources secure, policies should be focused on protecting and managing the device and the data stored on it in the event that it’s lost or stolen.”

Guurprit Ahuja, Director, Middle East and Africa, Acronis

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“BYOD offers employees mobility, enhanced productivity, and a better work-personal life balance,” he says.

“On the other hand,” he continues, “employer-owned devices may help the organisation retain full control of the device, which is of course a great asset to data security.”

There is, however, the factor of desirability and comfort with the device to consider. To this end, Woodbridge adds, “If the device is under the control of the company's IT department, employees may not feel comfortable using it, which might prompt them to bring in their own devices anyway, thus creating even more problems for IT.” Clearly, there is no easy answer for an enterprise when it comes to developing its BYOD policy. As Chester Wisniewski, Senior Security Consultant, Sophos says, “It’s risky to assume that prohibiting personal devices solves the problem, because employees end up using their own devices anyway, unmonitored and undeterred by company security policies.

IT managers should treat BYOD the same as any introduction of new technology: with a controlled and predictable deployment.

All organisations have the flexibility, based on their corporate culture and regulatory requirements, to embrace BYOD as much as they deem reasonable.”

As with the introduction of any new technology, companies should seek out and implement the best practice for BYOD. This can be difficult as the trend is still emerging and changing at the rate of the growth and www.cnmeonline.com

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solutions World BYOD diversity of the mobile devices themselves.

In order to make a responsible decision on BYOD and to implement the policy effectively, enterprises must keep a weathered eye on the trend and continually seek the best solutions.

Sebastien Pavie, Regional Sales Director, MEA, Gemalto, suggests that unity may be at the heart of best practice policy when it comes to BYOD. “Unity of a company's management and policy enforcement are key to addressing budgetary and security concerns,” he says.

Pavie continues, stating, “It is essential for security administrators to have a centralised, unified way to manage authentication across smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and a wide range of other IT arenas.”

When it comes to data, security is always the elephant in the room. BYOD policy is no different, and in fact, may very well be exacerbating existing data security issues.

Often, security of the device itself is considered sufficient, but Mathivanan V, Director, Product Management, ManageEngine, assures us that this is not the case. “Securing the device alone does not prevent data theft. Data may be lost when employees download sensitive enterprise information from a company system to a mobile device or while copying information from a corporate app to a consumer app,” he says.

Mathivanan describes what a company needs in order to truly secure data within a BYOD framework. He says, “IT teams need a security strategy that of smartphone users check their email outside of creates a strong segregation business hours. between the employee's personal information and the corporate data.

A safe partition between personal and company apps and data provides robust information integrity, prevents data leakage, and blocks unauthorised devices from your network.” He goes on to explain that the benefit is that employees can easily switch between personal and professional use without compromising data.

Partitioning of personal and company data may prove to be a growing trend and hurdle for both companies and employees as mobile devices continue to grow more and

70%

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“Securing the device alone does not prevent data theft.

Data may be lost when employees download sensitive enterprise information from a company system to a mobile device or while copying information from a corporate app to a consumer app" Mathivanan V, Director, Product Management, ManageEngine

more integrated with each facet of personal and professional life. This means that IT and employees will need to work together to develop better policies to ensure the safety and security of all data on their devices.

When seeking to develop an enterprise mobility plan, CIOs need to ask the right questions. As Dan Smith, Head of Integrated Marketing, MEA Region, Xerox, explains, “Younger and younger users who have already established familiarity with technology are joining the workplace these days. Not only are they familiar with the latest technology but their preferences are also set and most of them choose to use the BYOD facility. This can lead to a more productive and rewarding workforce if you allow that trend to be adaptive rather than trying to enforce some policy.”

The right questions for a CIO to ask when implementing an enterprise mobility plan centre around how to take an already tech-savvy workforce and utilise their pre-set preferences, knowledge and productivity on their own devices for the good of the company. Considering employee preference, device capability and future goals of the company can help a CIO determine the right policy to implement.

As mobile device use continues to grow and become an integral part of everyday life, both professional and personal, companies have a decision to make about BYOD policies.

This choice can determine the effectiveness and productivity of employees as well as the safety and security of company data. www.cnmeonline.com

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GBM brings the power of the world’s most renowned technology providers, IBM from its outset and the addition of the Cisco portfolio in 1999. GBM today holds both the Master Collaboration and the Master Security Specializations from Cisco, the only partner across Gulf to be awarded these distinctions.

GBM lives the ever-evolving culture of the local IT landscapes in which it operates, continually investing in training and development to ensure its experts can fully understand and interpret the growing needs of their clients. As a result, GBM is always well-equipped to address the everevolving, industry-specific IT demands in every market. www.gbmme.com ABU DHABI • BAHRAIN • DUBAI • KUWAIT • OMAN • PAKISTAN • QATAR

network World Optimisation

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Strategic Innovation Partner

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Speed up

When applications lag behind, businesses will pay the price. However, when it comes to determine the cause of the slowdown, the waters can become a little bit muddied.

The key to optimising applications is to assess where the issue lies, and determining the appropriate solution. www.cnmeonline.com

n consumer and business sectors, slow software means obsolete software. The days of watching loading screens, buffering bars, and endless hourglass icons are rapidly fading to newer, faster, and more productive applications that value the user's time as much as the user does. If an application falters for even a few seconds, potential users are already searching for a faster alternative. "The speed of loading of an application, the ease of use of the interface, and the few "touches" the application requires all improve the "stickiness" of an application once it is adopted," explains Nisith Naik, Regional CEO - UAE, Asia Pacific and Australia, Focus Softnet.

It is important, however, to be a savvy speed seeker, and ensure that delays are indeed due to the application, and not a problem with the device or network on which it is running. This can be a tricky task, akin to finding the one burned out bulb in a string of lights that causes the whole line to go dark. It is vital for companies to know when to optimise a current program or application, and when to check the system for other potential problems.

Fortunately, there are solutions to determine when and how to optimise applications that are slowing down to the point of damaging the end-user experience. Sridhar Iyengar, Vice President, ManageEngine, explains, “The way to detect slowness or poor availability for applications is to use an application performance monitoring (APM) solution. Ideally, the APM solution should have application dependency mapping and root cause analysis capabilities, which can help users understand dependencies between the application and underlying infrastructure components like the server.� He goes on to explain that an APM tool can monitor both the application and the server availability and health, and can therefore determine if the problem is due to the application or the underlying server.

By using an APM solution, a company’s IT department can quickly and effectively determine the cause of any problems a may 2015

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network World Optimisation programme may be experiencing. As Iyengar states, it is vital that the APM solution utilised includes dependency mapping and root cause analysis in order for companies to differentiate between problems with applications and the servers on which those applications are running.

Vimal Sethi, Managing Director, Synechron Middle East agrees, suggesting that companies take a more holistic approach to finding solutions. “The amount of time users spend interacting with applications and the devices is critical to success,” he says. “Some evident symptoms include application slowness, frequent application crashing and freezing.

The reason why it requires a holistic approach is that these symptoms do not explicitly indicate whether the issue is occurring because of the application or the device where it is installed or hosted.”

As with any problem a company faces, there is more than one way to resolve issues of slow application speed and performance.

In terms of solutions to such problems, Sethi has this to offer, “For web and mobile apps, reducing page size, total number of requests and page rendering time are some of the techniques for performance optimisation.

Media and streaming applications can leverage CDN technologies. With the advent of cloud computing, CDN solutions have now become cheaper as compared to the past.”

When looking under the hood of an application in order to optimise its performance, IT may find problems that previously remained hidden. Symptoms such

Ideally, the APM solution should have application dependency mapping and root cause analysis capabilities, which can help users understand dependencies between the application and underlying infrastructure components like the server.

Sridhar Iyengar, Vice President, ManageEngine

“The reason why it requires a holistic approach is that these symptoms do not explicitly indicate whether the issue is occurring because of the application or the device where it is installed or hosted.”

Vimal Sethi, Managing Director, Synechron Middle East

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as slow performance can be indicators of many different problems, and bottlenecking is certainly one of them. Optimising an application has the potential to help eliminate this problem.

“Sometimes application code could be badly written and hardware resources not leveraged in the most efficient way,” says Zaher Haydar, Senior Regional Manager, Systems Engineers, Turkey, Africa and Middle East, EMC. “An application might be making redundant read/write cycles to the storage, a fast thread might be dependent on a much slower one, some lengthy sequential scans are being done where a sort of indexing would be the better approach, etc. A thorough application optimisation is needed in these cases to spot the bottlenecks and fix the code accordingly.”

However, optimisation may not always be a perfect fit for the problems at hand.

Once IT starts investigating, it is possible that the program is so complex that to optimise it is not a cost effective solution. In cases like these Haydar suggests a potential work around. “Bringing flash into this picture could have the effect of alleviating the situation relatively quick,” he says, “since flash will improve latency and response time even with non-optimised queries. This solution of “hiding” the software problem with higher performance hardware might not be ideal but

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works practically and the overall cost impact could be lower.”

This of course brings to mind the potential pros and cons of optimisation. Haydar goes on to explain what the trade-off could potentially look like. “Application optimisation generally focuses on multiple aspects of performance, such as execution time, memory usage, disk space and more,” he says. “In most cases, there will be multiple bottlenecks in a given system – if you make the storage faster, the compute or the network - or the application itself - might become the next bottleneck. It is an iterative exercise to identify and fix one bottleneck after another.”

A company must weigh the costs and benefits of optimisation in order to know if it is the right move. If a company does decide to move forward with optimisation, it is key to determine the specific part of a program that needs to be optimised. “For programmers,” Shadi Alkhatib, SE Manager, Levant, Aruba Networks, explains, “the most important thing to optimise is the application protocol. The programmers should use a common protocol, not a proprietary application protocol.”

Sethi also weighs in on the subject. He says, “As a general practice, programmers should always look for efficient algorithms for achieving the task at hand. Some general techniques like hot-spot analysis and application profiling assist programmers to identify the areas which have bottlenecks.”

“An application might be making redundant read/write cycles to the storage, a fast thread might be dependent on a much slower one, some lengthy sequential scans are being done where a sort of indexing would be the better approach.”

Zaher Haydar, Senior Regional Manager, Systems Engineers, Turkey, Africa and Middle East, EMC

www.cnmeonline.com

For development, programmers need to have certain benchmarks established for different use cases. In execution environments, violation of these benchmarks can indicate the need of code path optimisation.

The ultimate goal of optimisation is to increase an application's speed and efficiency.

There are several ways to make this happen, including bypassing optimisation all together.

Flash storage presents another option for improving a company’s operations. It has the potential to increase efficiency, and help applications operate more productively.

Vimal goes on to say, “SSD leads to faster reading and writing time for application data, which translates to dramatic improvement in application performance. So, SSDs can be better for hosting application databases or persistence storage.”

Iyengar agrees adding, “Flash storage support will help to improve the read operations. Programmers can determine what data is read many times and written just a few times – like user profiles – and make use of flash storage support to improve performance for read-intensive applications.”

Flash storage certainly has the potential to increase performance and aid in the optimisation process. Hayder concludes, “The high level message is that flash can help with increased throughput if the application asks for increased throughput and faster response time.”

This means websites will load faster and OLTP transactions will complete more efficiently.

Traditionally, code optimisation to improve application performance is a time consuming and costly exercise resulting in marginal improvement in performance. A much more efficient approach is to look at the entire application development environment and see if new innovations in technology can improve not only the application performance but the entire application lifecycle.

There are a number of options when it comes to application performance optimisation. They key is first to determine what is slowing down the application, and then choose the appropriate solution for the underlying issue. may 2015

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Security AdvisEr Big Data

Strength in numbers It can be painful for an organisation to admit that their systems have been breached by a cyber-criminal. However, as cyber-attacks become more aggressive, it is essential that data on cyber-criminality is shared and analysed. It may be that sharing this data, even among competitors, will be the key to protecting our most sensitive information.

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B

ig Data has become a dominant topic in discussions of Internet security today. It has an enormous potential to help security providers predict threats rather than simply reacting to breaches in progress. As the tables are turned and organisations begin to collect data on bad actors, the potential for stopping cyberattacks before they even begin is enormous.

The idea is simple – cyber-criminals are becoming more and more organised, and sharing data among themselves. To combat this aggressive approach, the answer is to beat them at their own game. Organisations need to share data collected from breaches with each other and with governing authorities.

Although this practice is beginning to take hold, it is essential that the data shared stays secure as well.

Though Big Data can sometimes seem like just another hot button buzz word, the collection and analysis of data created during cyber-criminal activity is invaluable to the fight against cyber-attacks. Just as it is important to differentiate data collection for company growth and development, the type of data collected can also help protect companies and their sensitive information. With a rapidly evolving threat landscape and ever-tightening budgets, it can be difficult for in-house IT of users in the Middle East departments to keep up. Knowing faced web-related threats in what to look for within the pools Q1 2015 of data collected can help shift the battle for data security in favour of the good guys.

Dr. Tamer Aboualy, CTO, Security Services, IBM Middle East & Africa, helps to point out the important things to look for when fortifying a company’s data security. “To successfully navigate security issues and establish cost-effective protection,” he explains, “it is necessary to understand the nature of vulnerabilities and how threats target them.”

This means, of course, staying up to date with the latest threats and tools that potential bad actors may use implement attacks.

21%

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may 2015

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Security Adviser Big Data

Aboualy continues, saying, “Security vendors collect vital security data like IP reputation, URL health, vulnerability insights, and application risk scores to provide customers with a comprehensive evaluation of global threat conditions and detailed analyses tailored to the unique needs of each customer’s environment.” By sifting through data lakes and selecting the information vital to the specific needs of a company's clients and customers, an enterprise can find better, more effective data security.

Big Data analysis can provide great insight on how to best secure sensitive data, however, it is essential that the collection process and access to that data are secure as well. Sebastien Pavie, Regional Sales Director, MEA, Gemalto explains, “Using strong authentication solutions to ensure the correct people have access to the data is a prerequisite to using Big Data.” To go one step further, he continues, “Sensitive data should be encrypted so that data is rendered useless in the event of a breach.”

Even with the most effective security measures in place, problems can still occur.

“IT decision makers need to take into account that if someone is motivated enough they will breach a network, no matter how well it is protected,” says Pavie.

Securing and encrypting Big Data is certainly a critical step, but how to use the information

“By having the majority of an organisation’s platforms send their logs to a centralised platform, Big Data techniques can be used to understand attack trends and types in a rapid fashion.”

Tareque Choudhury, Head of Security, BT Middle East and Africa

“To successfully navigate security issues and establish cost-effective protection, it is necessary to understand the nature of vulnerabilities and how threats target them.”

Dr. Tamer Aboualy, CTO, Security Services, IBM Middle East & Africa

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collected to increase security for both company and client is an equally significant task. Tareque Choudhury, Head of Security, BT Middle East and Africa, adds, “By having the majority of an organisation’s platforms send their logs to a centralised platform, Big Data techniques can be used to understand attack trends and types in a rapid fashion.”

Companies that can effectively use Big Data have the opportunity to not only predict potential threats, but to defend more effectively against them. Aboualy explains, “By integrating Big Data analytics with existing security intelligence solutions, organisations can keep safe, anticipate new attack vectors and act before it’s too late.”

Big Data offers companies an opportunity to build a better offense in the fight against cyber-threats. This is an invaluable tool in a business landscape that continues to move towards cloud integration. As Essam Ahmed, Director System Engineering, FireEye, Middle East, Turkey and Africa, explains, the way each company utilises this information is going to vary from vendor to vendor. “All the Big Data vendors have proprietary ways of ingesting, understanding and enriching this information to help customers get a sense of what is really going on and help them improve their security visibility for their business,” he says, adding, “Ultimately,the information should be able to address several questions: have I been may 2015

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Security AdvisEr Big Data

attacked? If so when? How? What’s the impact?

How quickly can we contain the attack?”

Intelligence has always changed the tide of war, and in the fight to secure sensitive data, companies find an invaluable ally in Big Data when collected and analysed correctly. The ability to know when, how and where an enemy attacks gives companies the tools to strengthen their security networks and protect their data with increasing effectiveness.

Increasingly, private businesses and public entities are joining forces to share and analyse cyber-security related data. Organisation in the collection and sharing of this important information is vital to of users in the Middle East the success of its effective use. saw incidents related to local Companies need to keep abreast networks and removable of effective centralised platforms media for collection and sharing information among security vendors and authorities.

To this end, Essam reveals that there are several centralising platforms currently being utilised by the industry. “Probably the largest, “ he explains, “is Virus Total, which allows security vendors and researchers to track malicious code across the industry.”

Most cyber-threats are not singular in nature. They will seek out and find the weakest link in any system, throughout an entire industry. Therefore, these collaborative platforms are key in the battle against potential threats and breaches.

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“Using strong authentication solutions to ensure the correct people have access to the data is a prerequisite to using Big Data.”

Sebastien Pavie, Regional Sales Director, MEA, Gemalto

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As Big Data continues to grow, so does the ability for companies to strengthen security measures by sharing information.

“Intelligence sharing is expanding rapidly across the world,” Essam says. “There are numerous data-sharing programs sponsored by governments.“ Simon Bryden, Systems Engineer, Fortiguard, Fortinet agrees stating, “Collaboration is very important, and information is regularly shared between vendors and other organisations.

Associations such as the Cyber Threat Alliance allow different vendors to share intelligence to provide the maximum level of protection for the customers of each. It's a win-win situation.”

Bryden goes on to explain some of the techniques used to process through Big Data that might reveal information about cyberthreats and the bad actors who make them. He says, “The collected data includes detection of exploits, malware, web requests and email spam. These detections can be analysed using Big Data techniques, allowing correlations to be observed, such as an email campaign linked to a family of malware. This kind of correlation is essential for tracing the origin of attacks and providing links between different incidences and ultimately attribution to a particular threat actor.”

Aboualy explains, “First, it lowers risk, helping users to understand potential threats before they happen and to act in real time. Second, it helps detect fraud, identifying baseline behaviours and immediately highlighting anomalies when they occur. Third, it monitors the organisation’s security status at all times.

This intelligence allows users to react in order to prevent crime.”

Big Data offers companies unprecedented fire-power in the war on cyber-threats. The ability to collect, analyse and ultimately share data on threat actors and the continuing array of threats is an invaluable resource to companies and consumers that will ultimately make the digital world a safer place. www.cnmeonline.com

Telecoms World Spectrum

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in association with

The spectrum conundrum The rapid growth in mobile broadband means operators need access to a sufficient amount of spectrum and the right bandwidth to achieve the required quality of service. pectrum is said to be the lifeblood of the wireless industry and the amount of spectrum operators control determines network speeds and capacity. The research firm Deloitte has recently predicted a spectrum and broadband shortage around the world on the back of growth in smartphone shipments and global 4G rollouts.

This looming spectrum shortage will impact on network performance, such as lower speeds and dropped calls and sessions as demand exceeds supply.

Samena Council, the regional operatordriven industry association, points out that mobile services throughout the region are undergoing rapid growth, causing telecom networks to experience unprecedented device connections, which result in high data traffic. This is generating a need for access to more airways among telecommunications operators and highlights the essential nature of efficient spectrum allocation and spectrum harmonisation for the future success of global mobile services. “With massive growth being experienced in mobile data, the need for additional spectrum, dedicated specifically to International Mobile Telecommunication (IMT), has become severe.

Additional spectrum is a mission-critical

S

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business requirement that telecom operators simply cannot afford to keep unfulfilled, as both private and public sectors work extensively to bring benefits of advanced connectivity to their people," says Bocar BA, CEO of Samena Council.

He adds that in many countries, current availability of spectrum may appear to be sufficient for meeting short-to-medium term requirements posed by the increasing connectivity of mobile devices and data flows. As a result, this may not prompt immediate attention from policy-makers to revisit spectral efficiency needs and current frequency allocations, but at the speed in which the industry is transforming along with the challenges to the networks in terms of consumer data consumption, the inevitability of allocating more spectrum to operators will soon become more evident. “In the best interests of consumers and service providers, bands such as Sub 700MHz UHF Band, L-Band, 2.7GHz - 2.9GHz, and C-Band offer the best combination of coverage and capacity, both of which are required to ensure that mobile networks are capable of providing cost-effective, high-speed services in both rural and urban areas. Moreover, with the emergence of a new marketplace, driven

by Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-tomachine (M2M) technologies, considerations for more harmonised licensed spectrum at may 2015

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Telecoms World Spectrum

affordable prices must be recognised and applied promptly,” says Bocar.

By allocating sufficient additional spectrum to telecom operators, governments will be able to continue supporting existing services for as long as necessary, while also ensuring they have the flexibility to gradually increase the amount available for mobile broadband. In the absence of new allocations, their ability to react swiftly to make new mobile spectrum available as data traffic rises will be limited, resulting in a degraded user experience and impeding the realisation of economies of scale. As it takes several years to assign, reallocate, re-assign, and re-license spectrum, it is essential that administrations act now rather than react later, when it may be too late to meet the growing consumer demand through market-healthy initiatives, according to Samena Council.

What are the ways for operators to gain optimum efficiency out of their spectrum assets? “Operators obtain spectrum for their exclusive use by buying it on auction from their country’s authorities. The amount of spectrum available in a geographical area is limited, and how much bandwidth operators are able to deliver to their customers is dependent on what is called ‘spectral efficiency’. Different technologies offer varying degrees of spectral efficiency,” says Balakrishnan Shanmugham, Vice President and Practice Leader for Communications, Cognizant.

From Dr. Mohamed Nadder Hamdy, Director Wireless Network Engineering, Commscope , adds: “When we talk about improving our spectral efficiency, we mean squeezing more “bits per second” into the same Bandwidth “MHz”. This can be achieved by a number of techniques, like migrating to a higher technology from 3G to 4G for instance - deploying higher MIMO schemes (4x4, 8x8, Massive MIMO), Reducing interference - UL/DL CoMP - broadcasting instead of unicasting www.cnmeonline.com

“The amount of spectrum available in a geographical area is limited, and how much bandwidth operators are able to deliver to their customers is dependent on what is called ‘spectral efficiency’. Different technologies offer varying degrees of spectral efficiency.”

Balakrishnan Shanmugham, Vice President and Practice Leader Communications, Cognizant

(eMBMS) and introducing Beam-forming technologies.”

There are also other ways to optimise spectrum. This includes Carrier Aggregation technology that comes into play through LTEAdvanced, which allows the aggregation of different, non-contiguous chunks of frequency, like combining two 20MHz blocks into one 40MHz block, and thereby offering greater bandwidths to more users.

Another method is a combination of large - macro - and small - femto - cells. Small cells can offload or relieve the macro cells of the traffic burden, thus allowing the macro cell to be used by subscribers who aren’t near any small cell.

Industry experts say it is imperative for operators to consider spectral efficiency while buying new radio equipment. “Operators need to develop and design their longer term technology strategies, which cover spectrum, features and technology adoption plans.

Having such strategies on the ground enables smarter investment into equipment that can simply last longer. For instance, base stations hardware that support technology upgrades by software, and antennas with sufficient ports and future bands support will result in longer EoL,” says Hamdy. may 2015

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Telecoms World Spectrum

“When we talk about improving our spectral efficiency, we mean squeezing more “bits per second” into the same Bandwidth “MHz”. This can be achieved by a number of techniques.”

Dr. Mohamed Nadder Hamdy, Director Wireless Network Engineering, Commscope

Spectrum is a valuable and scarce resource, and one of the emerging techniques in the industry to address the spectrum crunch is combining licensed spectrum with unlicensed bands in the network.

“Combining licensed and unlicensed bands, such as Wi-fi that falls in the ISM band, is an important part of improving the efficiency of spectrum utilisation. Wi-fi suffers from certain drawbacks with respect to quality of service.

Another concept is to use LTE in the unlicensed band in place of Wi-fi. This allows for better efficiency and quality of service in the unlicensed band,” says Shanmugham from Cognizant.

The premise of unlicensed LTE or LTE-U is that the connection is initiated in the licensed spectrum, and once established, it spreads itself to the unlicensed part of the spectrum to allow simultaneous downlink over licensed and unlicensed spectrum. There are concerns around allowing operators to offer services over unlicensed bands and the fact that standards haven’t been fully established in this area. But with the current state of technology and regulation, this seems to be one of the better ways of addressing the spectrum crunch.

In some developed markets, industry regulators have started to propose spectrum sharing as a potential solution to meet the demands for more spectrum for data services.

“Over the last 3 years there have been lots of debates concerning spectrum sharing, especially between different services, such 62

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as mobile networks and TV broadcasting.

A number of techniques were developed that can protect the primary spectrum owners from interference. For example LSA (Licensed Shared Access) can release spectrum based on location and/or time.

Nevertheless, this trend has weakened recently and we hear more talk for using TV white spaces and unlicensed bands.

However, such techniques are not adding to “Spectral Efficiency” but rather fall under the “Spectrum Addition” dimension,” says Hamdy from Commscope.

However, operators are balking at the idea of mobile sharing. According a report commissioned by the GSMA, mobile operators’ trade body, the sharing of new mobile broadband spectrum will not generate enough cash for economies.

The report written by Deloitte says that "shared spectrum can complement but in no way replaces the need for exclusive-access spectrum in the provision of mobile broadband".

The report, "The Impacts of Licensed Shared Use of Spectrum", highlights "how shorter terms, build obligations, lack of certainty and small allocations can significantly reduce the likelihood of a mobile operator to invest". This means, says the report, "that the potential economic benefits derived from spectrum sharing are ultimately lower than those achieved through exclusive-access spectrum" operators having their own exclusive spectrum bands to provide services.

While the jury is still out on spectrum sharing, one thing is for sure – we are on the verge of a massive wireless spectrum shortage if the industry fails to find ways to enhance spectral efficiency and local governments need to act fast to free up more spectrum for mobile broadband.

A spectrum crunch, for sure, will stifle innovation and economic growth, and cost the Middle East region to lead the world in mobile communications. www.cnmeonline.com

CXO Corner

Common grounds

Telecommunications and connectivity are becoming hot political topics. As both sides debate regulation versus market freedom, Bocar Ba, CEO, SAMENA Telecommunications Council is tasked with reminding parties with different interests of their common goals.

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I

t is no secret that the world of telecommunications is becoming increasingly political.

Discussions on telecoms are now dotted with questions on government legislation - whether or not connectivity is a human right, or perhaps should be treated as a utility. At its worst, this conversation can disintegrate into an all-out battle with telecoms operators on one side and government agencies on the other, leaving the everyday consumer to deal with the aftermath.

No one knows the back and forth of the battle of telecommunication regulation better than Bocar Ba, CEO, SAMENA Telecommunications Council. Headquartered in the UAE, SAMENA Council was launched in 2006. SAMENA is driven primarily to represent telecommunications operators and service providers in the region when it comes to policy development. However, as a not-for-profit, it holds no political affiliation. The members of SAMENA are telecom vendors, technology companies, cellular and fixed-line operators, consultancy groups and telecom regulatory bodies.

“The goal of SAMENA,” says Ba, “is to bring people together to have a conversation.” Essentially, the hope is to strip away some of the potential animosity, and allow two parties compromise. Though SAMENA has a mandate to voice the interest of telecommunication service providers to policy-making entities, the true goal, says Ba, is working together to build a consensus.

A major issue on the table is that of Big Data. Users are creating more and more data, and with the Internet of Things most certainly coming in to play, that trend is only set to accellerate. As users rely more heavily on smart devices, the burden lies on the telecoms providers to

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manage this flood of data. “We are spending more on bigger fatter pipes to accommodate the flow of data,” says Ba. “The question is, as we expand these networks to deal with this flow of data, who will be responsible for funding the infrastructure. The question is whether or not the telecom operators will keep spending, or will the expansion of the network be funded by a third party – either governments, or someone else.”

The conversation now, says Ba, is between telecoms and Overthe-Top users that are directly benefitting from the the expansion of the network. “The question is, who should pay for having access to the network. The capex has to be shared by someone.”

This issue leads directly into the discussion on net neutrality.

The question of how connectivity should be regulated, and by whom, is a hotly debated topic with opponents arguing for the freedom of broadband service providers to manage their own networks, and supporters pushing that ISPs should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source.

“Many telcoms operators want to treat connectivity like commercial aviation – you have economy, business and first class depending on how much you pay,” explains Ba. “However, the legitimate concern of telcoms operators is that someone, eventually, must pay for the expansion of the network.” In short, there is some concern as to whether or not net neutrality is sustainable in the long term.

Many of these issues come down to a matter of government regulation. “We are not against government regulation,” says Ba, “but regulation is like cholestoral – there is good and bad. What we want

is to ensure that all stakeholders have a voice in the development of any guidance or regulation that will affect business.

“Of course, SAMENA represents the interests of the telecoms providers,” says Ba candidly, “but in these situations there should be no losers. Everyone should walk away with some level of satisfaction.” To that end, Ba sets to outline the common goals of each party. “We want to bring people who have different interests together,” says Ba. The common goal in the Middle East is progress, says Ba. “In the Middle East we see enormous growth,” he says. “We aim to support the development of smart cities and the building of digital economies.” To support this growth, he says, the region needs to deal with a number of issues, including an inevitable broadband spectrum crunch.

“The SAMENA Council calls for positive collaboration on these issues,” says Ba. “There is not currently one solution on the table, but instead we have many avenues that we can choose to go down. We are only going to be able to make the right decisions for the region with good will from all parties.”

Telecommunications and ICT in general are no longer industry verticals. Moreover, connectivity is the backbone of all industries.

As this layer penetrates all aspects of daily life, ICT becomes the enabler of the enablers.

“Telecommunications supports all activities for the good of society,” says Bocar. As we become more reliant on connectivity enabled services, however, it is important to keep in mind how all this activity will be funded and regulated in the future.

MAY 2015

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Insight

Saad Maniar, Managing Partner of Crowe Horwath UAE

Treasury tech talk Saad Maniar, Managing Partner of Crowe Horwath UAE, explains how modern technology and software can be utilised to maximise finance business performance.

R

ecently, I was invited to join a high profile roundtable event where the key discussion points included a review of systems that provide full transparency and real time transactional frameworks for treasury functions and the strategic and logistical advantages that new technology brings for areas such as predictive accounting, cash flow management and financial exchange governance. Also on the agenda was the evolving role of treasury management and how the new technology capabilities enhance the raft of banking relationships.

Since 2008, credit risk and liquidity management have been at the forefront of corporate overhaul strategies, leading to a transformation in both the profile of treasury and the role it fulfills, and in the technology that facilitate visibility and control over cash and risk.

Despite the dynamic changes in financial technology, the treasury function stubbornly continues to use some archaic systems and in some cases, paper-based solutions in the way they prepare their financial statements and reports, and this continues to pose great challenge.

Granted, treasuries have remained traditional for good reasons as well. They don’t want to join the bandwagon of disruptive technologies. Look at how technology like smartphones, mobile wallets, voice print, cloud computing and the like are changing every day, with 66

may 2015

more functionalities. Treasuries may look archaic, but remaining traditional has its positive side, as it guarantees security of data and minimises the chance of errors.

While modern technology and software makes treasury functions easier in the area of preparation of financial statements, they also come in handy when dealing with fraud.

Cash and liquidity are the key treasury operations that include global cash management, forecasting, payment controls, bank relationship management and the funding structure of the business. Risk management is a core treasury activity to manage financial risks such as foreign exchange, interest rates, commodity prices and counterparty risk.

There’s no doubt technology has improved the way accounting and treasury functions, however it has not cured all ills.

The world is increasingly global in the level of connectivity and, every day, the pace of information moves faster than the one before.

Organisations operate on a progressively global basis. As a result, it becomes increasingly challenging to manage a central view of all financial arrangements.

As finance professionals, we are constantly bombarded with new tech compliance procedures.

However, even with the increased investment in treasury technology to comply with the procedures, the primary challenges facing treasuries

still exist. These include inadequate systems, financial exchange management, and visibility to global operations continue to be difficult.

We have seen organisations getting hacked because they thought they were compliant but they were not adequately amenable. Treasury departments are now being targeted in elaborate hacking attacks. With the growing complexity of technology infrastructure, data storage surface, and multiple access points for cyber threats, many treasury management systems are still supported with the use of traditional homegrown approaches, which may pose greater cyber and operational risks.

The range of risks that the treasury function is now expected to cover has expanded. As well as traditional risks such as foreign exchange volatility, liquidity and counterparty risk, the treasury function frequently manages complex, high-value transactions under tight time constraints, which can create the potential for operational errors leading to significant financial loss.

As finance professionals, measuring and monitoring treasury security must be an ongoing process.

As effective as we are, criminals are equally savvy. Security processes have to be dynamic.

Keeping up with modern technology will definitely help the treasury professionals perform their job more securely, efficiently, more cost effectively and in a timely manner. www.cnmeonline.com

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• Implementing network monitoring?

Dramatically improve your monitoring and security capabilities. www.gigamon.com/campaign/security

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Look closer. Go further.

INTERVIEW H.E. Dr. Saeed AL Dhaheri

the digital future of the middle east With a mandate to create smart services, regional governments have their work cut out for them. CNME sat down with H.E. Dr. Saeed AL Dhaheri, Former Director General of Emirates Identity Authority and formal advisor to H.H. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, to discuss the future of smart government services.

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hat is driving the adoption of smart government services in the region?

We in the UAE are lucky to have a visionary leadership that is dedicated to looking forward and adopting new technologies. People want to use services whenever and wherever they are. Our leadership recognises these demands and is striving to provide customised services to the public. Not only that, but regional governments see the opportunity to stand out as global leaders in terms of technology enabled services.

This, along with a young, tech-savvy population is enabling the adoption of these services. We also see a focus on the journey of the customer and have the drive to provide an experience that is satisfying. We see this as an opportunity to serve the country. www.cnmeonline.com

How can governments meet the increasing demands of this techsavvy population?

The government cannot do everything by itself. There are a number of factors that will slow smart service roll-outs if the government is left to take them on alone – cost can be a barrier, as well as a lack of specific IT skills within the agencies. Governments need to collaborate with private entities to realise their technology goals. This should begin with outsourcing managed services.

and the agency will email a PDF. It is much easier for people to get services from the government now.

Now, and in the future, I can see smart services enabling citizen engagement. We are relying more and more on social media to communicate and engage with our communities. I think that all governments are going in this direction.

There are solid plans for modernising government services delivery. When it comes to using technology to provide services the key Where does this move to smart government services is to make sure that leave populations that they are easy to use are unwilling to adopt such technology? and satisfying to We cannot get rid of face to face customers. interactions, and I don't think that

How will outsourcing managed services support the implementation of smart government services?

Outsourcing managed services can benefit governments in a number of ways. First, it allows a team of professionals to take care of the implementation and issues. Often, government agencies simply do not have the employees to support their goals. Second, outsourcing such projects can translate into major cost savings for governments. Finally, outsourcing these types of projects and services allows agencies to concentrate on their core business and functions.

What are some barriers that might slow the adoption of smart government services in the region?

I think that there needs to be awareness of what services are available and how to use them. A service may be available, but if it is not used, or if it used improperly, it loses its value. If the application isn't familiar, or if people aren't www.cnmeonline.com

comfortable using the service in a new way, they are less likely to use it. Nearly 60 percent of apps in the Apple Store have not been downloaded. This just goes to show that we can make the service, but that does not mean that people will be comfortable using it. Also, users are concerned with privacy and security – there needs to be some amount of assurance from service providers.

How do you see citizens interacting with government agencies differently as we adopt smart services?

Citizens are already using smart services in the UAE. For example, before, when someone needed a certificate from the government, they would have to go to the office, wait in a line, fill out paperwork and even take fingerprints. Then they would have to wait for the certificate to be mailed to them. Now they can request the form online,

we should try to. We will always have citizens that want to interact with government agencies using traditional methods, either because of age or inability to adopt such technology. For some, they just need to be educated about the services and how to use them, but still we need to maintain traditional methods of engagement.

What do you think the future of digital governments will look like?

To put it short, I think we are going forward. There are solid plans for modernising government services delivery. When it comes to using technology to provide services the key is to make sure that they are easy to use and satisfying to customers.

The goal is to make people happy.

The GCC is also moving toward modernisation with government service provisioning to lead this transformation. You can see this shift even in our government summits which have become a platform for the government to discuss how it can improve operations.

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www.mindware.ae

Diana Bersohn, Managing Director, IT Strategy and Transformation, Accenture

Three steps to CIO success

New CIOs must be ready to go live on day one, learning the company’s agenda and positioning themselves as architects of innovation, says Diana Bersohn, Managing Director, IT Strategy and Transformation, Accenture.

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ew CIOs have about 90 to 120 days to make their mark on an organisation. The transition also creates a tremendous opportunity for CIOs. But it is not an easy task. The lines of demarcation in companies are blurring.

New CIOs must read between the lines - between industries, customers and product developers - as they move swiftly to learn the business, find their niche and make an impact on the enterprise. Speed - or multiple speeds in the world of IT, given legacy systems and the arrival of digital - is the focus as digital drives the rate of innovation and business leaders’ expectations.

But new CIOs are not the sole masters of their enterprise’s technology.

As reported in the Accenture 2015 Technology Vision, only 34 percent of executives expect the IT organisation to be the main generator of innovation in the next two years, down from 71 percent just two years ago.

That compounds the challenges faced by new CIOs who walk into the job fully aware that the average tenure of a CIO tends to be shorter than that of their other C-suite colleagues. Still, the opportunities are great for those CIOs who heed four imperatives.

1. Know how digital demand affects every area of the business To technology and business strategies intertwine, successful CIOs ground www.cnmeonline.com

themselves in the business strategy, challenges, financials and trends. They familiarise themselves with industry dynamics, gaining an understanding of how the company’s partners and competitors use technology to drive their digital agendas.

A metrics-driven plan sets markers that allow the IT organisation to show tangible progress towards the future digital state vision. For example, one CIO embarked upon a multiyear transformation to modernize their company’s application architecture and migrated to a shared services operating model to increase efficiency, using metrics that would allow him to demonstrate progress at each “value drop” throughout the program.

2. Embrace the ‘we economy’ As leading organisations adopt a ‘we economy’ that taps into digital business, customers and networks to shape experiences and outcomes in new ways, CIOs would be well advised to do the same across the enterprise.

That means working collaboratively across departments, identifying techsavvy executives in finance, marketing, sales or research & development, etc. to forge alliances with executives who they can work with to propel the company’s digital transformation forward. To do so, they will need to show real business chops - converse about the business and the vision for it.

INSIGHT

The conversation also should move beyond optimising costs and streamlining processes to drive innovation and top-line growth.

While CIOs are known for their IT prowess, they also need superb communication skills. CIOs must listen astutely and convey complex digital concepts to energise internal stakeholders and build support for their views.

3. Rally the whole IT team to support their IT agenda Within a couple of months, a new CIO should have a clear picture of their team’s talent and where capability gaps exist. A successful CIO will act promptly and decisively to make changes, and recruit new talent and ideas sooner, not later. They will shape a team that, like them, is conversant in the business as well as technology.

Doing so may involve training, rewarding team members to take measured risks and experiment sensibly as they change the IT culture as well as investing in new career tracks. Creating the dream team also may require looking beyond their organisation to create a network of talent.

However daunting the challenges seem, new CIOs who rise to meet them and quickly learn the company’s agenda, positioning themselves as architects of innovation, can make a significant and sustainable impact on their enterprise.

To do so, they will want to embrace the ‘we economy’ and build a team of digital dynamos who can support them as they move along the path to success.

Diana Bersohn is a managing director in Accenture Strategy, which operates at the intersection of business and technology. Accenture Strategy brings its capabilities together in business, technology, operations and function strategy to help its clients envision and execute industry-specific strategies that support enterprise wide transformation. may 2015

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Analyst view

Denise Ganly, Research Director, Gartner

Postmodern ERP Gartner’s Denise Ganly explains why the ERP ‘megasuite’ is dead and why ‘postmodern ERP’ is a vital foundation for digital business.

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RP technology has evolved during the past 30 years from a collection of stand-alone, best-of-breed applications to an increasingly comprehensive end-toend integrated suite that many buyers believe "does it all." However, this technology vision has been killed by external market forces and the fact that, for most organisations, a "one size fits all" approach does not work.

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this, the most important being the availability of cloud services.

Cloud vendors are selling the vision of easy-to-use and manageable applications with new modern user interfaces in edge areas such as sales force automation, talent management, and travel and expense management.

Many users who found their ERP applications hard to use have dictated their own paths by departmental purchasing of cloud applications.

Vendors now offer core elements of ERP and even full suites in the cloud. Cloud services offer not only new user functionality and a different buying model, but also the reality of faster feature updates and enhanced technical scalability due to the underlying cloud infrastructure.

As organisations look to extend their ERP to support mobile access, multi-enterprise working and better decision making, they're forced to reimagine the role of ERP, its provision, and which vendors will dominate.

Gartner uses the term "postmodern ERP" to describe the deconstruction of suite-centric ERP into loosely coupled applications that are indifferent to the source of process provision that will enable innovation instead of stifling it. The concepts and benefits of an ERP should be www.cnmeonline.com

preserved where it makes sense to do so, but what changes is that there is no automatic quest for on-premises, or a single instance, or for a single megavendor, or for operational efficiency over business agility.

Many traditional ERP deployments stifle innovation, because they are rigid and slow, and they value integration and standardised processes over agility.

Gartner predicts that heavilycustomised ERP implementations will soon be referred to routinely as "legacy ERP". Within five years, hybrid ERP environments will be the norm, with a mixture of on-premises, cloud and outsourced components.

Postmodern ERP has emerged at the same time as many CIOs have focused on ERP investments. It is vital that CIOs making investments in ERP understand the impact of postmodern ERP and don't throw more good money after the bad old way of doing things.

Postmodern ERP changes the way ERP systems will be sourced, implemented and managed. However, it doesn't change the fundamental value proposition of ERP. Gartner categorised enterprise resource planning as having four systems back in 1990: financials, human resources, order management and manufacturing. These modules were meant to be integrated and work together seamlessly.

Gartner still hears clients saying, "We're not doing ERP," because they associate the term with a megasuite they feel will be 'too big' for their needs. This is wrong, because every organisation does ERP in some form. Given the confusion that has arisen, Gartner now takes a broader view of ERP. Although we define ERP as consisting of functional areas for the purposes of tracking market size and share, we do not recommend that users adopt this fixed definition. When considering an ERP strategy, ERP should not be defined in terms of modules. www.cnmeonline.com

Gartner now defines ERP as "A technology strategy that integrates a set of business functions, such as finance, HR and purchasing, with operational aspects, such as manufacturing or distribution, through tight linkages from operational business transactions to financial records."

ERP creates a stable core, the systems of record that in Gartner’s view, should not be customised.

It is then coupled with specialist applications from the cloud. This gives a more agile architecture to enable digital business models.

Many organisations have "inherited" their ERP through a combination of tactical decisions made at the business unit level and merger and acquisition activities.

Senior executives often see standardising on a single, monolithic ERP suite as a way to rationalise, delivering operating and process efficiencies and forming a foundation for future growth. Although this approach can deliver significant benefits, it is a high-cost, high-risk initiative that could compromise the business if it is ineffective.

The biggest mistake many ERP projects make before the implementation starts is failing to define and agree on a business-led ERP strategy. Instead, executives get excited about the potential benefits of ERP and encourage IT to rush straight to vendor selection, hoping that a vendor's ERP suite will solve all their business process and change management issues. Although this can work - more by luck than anything else - in some organisations, in most cases, it causes end users to resist using the ERP system.

Consequently, CIOs and application leaders must work with business users and senior executives to define and agree on an ERP strategy before considering any technological choices.

This is one of the foundations for ERP success: 83% of the organisations that exceeded the business payback identified in their original business case had an ERP strategy that was approved by the business.

The real future of ERP lies in inmemory computing (IMC). It breaks down the wall between ERP and business intelligence. By 2018, at least 50% of global companies will use in-memory computing to deliver significant additional benefits from investments in ERP. Gartner defines IMC as an architecture style where applications assume all the data required for processing is located in the main memory of their computing environments.

Broadly speaking, IMC technologies in ERP and CPM applications will deliver three types of benefits: performance improvements, advanced analytics and process innovation.

These potential benefits - and the hype around them - may make IMC seem like a 'must have' technology investment, but the benefits will vary by organisation size, functional domain and industry. The potential benefits of IMC will not be restricted to large organisations, because midsize organisations will benefit from advanced analytics and may be able to innovate processes faster than larger, less nimble organisations.

Postmodern ERP using IMC will be a key technology enabler in digital business because organisations will be able to react to business moments in near real time by identifying their potential impact on strategic business objectives.

Using a traditional ERP system in digital business is like building a house on sand. As a first step, understand your business’ appetite for digital transformation and what processes will change, and start to renovate your ERP systems for the digital age.

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opinion

Dave Brooke, Executive Director, Client Solutions Emerging EMEA, Delll

Embracing mobile

Dave Brooke, Executive Director, Client Solutions Emerging EMEA, Dell, on why mobility no longer scares us.

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nterprise mobility strategies have dramatically changed during the last few years and as a result, the IT industry’s perception of mobility is significantly more positive. But what is behind this shift in perception? A driving factor is the continual evolution of security innovation, which has been working its magic to reassure organisations that the biggest asset after its people — its data — is more secure than ever.

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Industry perception of mobility five years ago In 2010, the device market was still developing – with fewer device options, less familiarity and higher price tags. Combined with the impact of the global economic recession, this meant that organisations were cautious about introducing mobile devices to the enterprise environment and deploying mobility strategies. Instead they were

focused on reducing IT spend and streamlining resources.

Businesses were unclear about the extent to which mobility strategies and personal devices could affect security of their businesses. 44 percent of organisations surveyed by Goode Intelligence did not have a specific security policy and 68 percent of CIOs felt there was no general awareness of mobility security.

www.cnmeonline.com

opinion IT teams were not always equipped to handle the pressure of coordinating mobility strategies, requiring a dedicated enterprise mobility management team to handle network integration and connectivity and to cover any related security issues. If a mobility strategy was not properly implemented, there was a serious risk of introducing threats to the network or the technology becoming outdated and redundant in a few years because it was not future proofed.

Only five years ago, a lack of understanding and restricted IT capability meant implementing a mobility strategy was costly and required significant time and resources.

Besides having concerns about security issues, businesses were not convinced of the productivity benefits mobility claimed to afford and feared the negatives would outweigh the positives.

So what changed?

As technology advanced, the next few years saw organisations faced with an overwhelming number of regulatory, compliance, security and privacy issues. Moreover, there were a number of high profile security breaches that highlighted the importance of keeping sensitive data safe.

In an effort to reduce the barriers to adoption and solve customer pain points, technology companies focused on developing and promoting innovations to ensure devices met customer security requirements and that data was protected in the data centre, over the air and on devices.

A prime example of this was the introduction of a new category of tablet that was designed to meet changing customer needs and provide enterprise-level security, data encryption and network connectivity.

In this case, the numbers said it all – worldwide tablet sales in 2010 sat at 19 million, whereas the 76

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79 percent of employees in the UAE admit that the latest technology plays a vital part in how they feel about their working. environment.

global shipment of tablets in 2015 is estimated at 321 million.

Current industry perceptions Modern employee expectations are now governed by their consumer experiences and they want the same choice and functionality in their work life as they have become accustomed to at home.

Additionally, innovations in end user technology and the explosion of wireless Internet has created a new generation of mobile workers who became accustomed to a certain level of constant connectivity, allowing them to work while on the move. Increasingly, the idea of a secure, fast and reliable network reinforced this lifestyle, improved productivity and ultimately enhanced workplace collaboration.

The 2014 Evolving Workforce Study highlights that the secret to happy employees is not such a mystery after all, with 79 percent of employees in the UAE admitting that having the latest and greatest technology plays a vital part in how they feel about their working environment. Additionally, as the lines between work and personal blur, consumer technology will continue to infiltrate the corporate environment.

For example, 78 percent of UAE employees already use or expect

to use personal devices in the near future and this figure is still growing.

Mobility has become one of the most important technology trends for businesses, with a recent IDC study stating that more than two thirds of companies already implemented tablets in the workplace, and nearly 70 percent plan to purchase tablets within the next two years.

A 2013 survey highlights that 83 percent of companies say they plan to support tablets; 77 percent say they plan to support two or more mobile operating systems and 45 percent plan to support three or more mobile operating systems. This is in addition to desktop operating systems.

However, there is still an underlying concern that organisations are still not entirely convinced mobility has overcome the fundamental types of security risks enterprises face.

Looking forward Improvements in biometric security technology may provide an extra layer of security, as we have already seen with fingerprint readers, smart authentication and the beginnings of facial recognition with mobile banking. As such, mobility security will become an important feature in IT strategies with 72 percent of enterprises committed to enhancing security for future mobility initiatives.

Awareness and education, now more than ever, also has a key role to play in ensuring companies are aware of the benefits of a mobility strategy within an enterprise environment, with 31 percent of employees stating that technology has increased their productivity.

As mobility strategies become more commonplace, new challenges will inevitably arise, and it will be the responsibility of technology vendors to combat these new issues. Security concerns need to continue to be addressed so that trust and confidence can continue to be built over time. www.cnmeonline.com

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PRODUCTS Launches and releases

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH

Product: 3G Brand: LG What it does: The 3G is LG’s latest heavy hitter in the world of high-performance mobile devices. With a slightly larger screen than its predecessor, the LG G2, the G3 boasts a 5.5 inch true HD display with a 1440 x 2560 resolution. The phone itself is a hefty 146.3 x 74.6 x 8.9 mm, following the trend of larger handsets. Other notable features include a 13MP camera with a range of shooting modes, as well as 4K video capabilities. The device runs on a Quad Core 2500 Mhz Krait 400 processor with 32GB of internal storage and the option to extend up to 128GB with microSD. What you should know: The LG G3 is the first handset to offer Quad HD. As the name implies, this means the display offers four times the normal 720p, with 538 pixels per inch. To accompany the powerful camera, the G3 has infrared lasers used to auto-focus. LG claims that the lasers allow the G3’s rear camera to lock on its subject in 276 milliseconds, compared to 300+ for most phone cameras. LG has also shifted the placement of the power button to the back and made it multipurpose.

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Product: Fidelio NC1 Headphones Brand: Philips What it does: Philips has advanced the already popular Fidelio line of premium headphones by launching the NC1, an over-the-ear, active noise cancelling product aimed for travellers and home listeners alike. The NC1 boasts quality construction with gold-plated connectors, closed back design, memory foam cushions and a single-side removable cable. Philips designed the headphones with travel in mind, evident in the compact foldability of the headset. The NC1 uses active noise cancellation. A rechargeable inner battery powers four separate microphones located both in and out of the ear caps for capturing and processing a wide range of external noise. As far as the sound the user intends to hear, the NC1 offers a dynamic stereo output with a sensitivity up to 107dB and a frequency response of 7Hz. What you should know: Philips claims that the active noise cancellation battery lasts up to 30 hours, which should cover most trips. Unlike some of its competitors, the headphones still function even after the internal battery dies, without the noise cancellation feature, of course. Even with the on-board battery, alumiminium ear-caps and durable design, the NC1 weighs only 191 grams which translates to comfort for extended periods. The focus is on comfort and style, as well as sound quality and noise cancellation. There is also an in-line control and mic for using the NC1 with mobile devices, and the 40mm high definition drivers offer consistent high fidelity sound with zero hiss.

Product: Surface Pro Brand: Microsoft What it does: Microsoft aims to bridge the everclosing gap between tablet and laptop computers with the Surface Pro series. The company’s latest “missing link” tablet includes features that beckon comparisons to a hybrid car - not fully electric but not fully gas powered.

Built around Windows 8, the Pro model has an Intel processor and runs the full version of the Windows 8 OS. On the tablet side of things, the Surface Pro weighs in just under two pounds, with a 10.6 inch full HD touch screen, 4 GB of RAM and sits about half an inch thick. The base model comes with 64 GB of internal storage with an option for additional storage through Micro SD cards. Microsoft also offers a 128 GB internal storage model that also includes additional Micro SD optional storage. The device is equipped with two stereo speakers, and both forward and rear facing cameras, each with a resolution of 720p.

What you should know: Far and away the most unique feature, and the one that begins to close the gap between tablet and laptop are the Surface Pro’s ports. In addition to the standard 3.5mm headphone jack on all mobile devices, the Surface offers a full-sized USB 3.0 port, microSDXC card slot, and a Mini Displayport for connecting to HD monitors and projectors. The device also has a built-in kickstand and when combined with the optional Microsoft Touch Cover (a thin keyboard and trackpad) the transformation from tablet to laptop is almost complete. There are still issues to work out, such as the need for a hard surface to work on when in “laptop” mode, but the Microsoft Surface Pro is a solid step in the right direction.

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may 2015

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Final thoughts

Overcome three hybrid cloud integration challenges Understand and work around individual SaaS API limitations Surprisingly, not all APIs offer full create, read, update and delete operations on all of their entities, often exposing just a subset of the full data model. Always be sure to know what data entities are available and what operations you can perform on them before committing to any hybrid integration project, even when the API exposes the entity you are looking for and the operation you want.

Also be aware that SaaS applications typically exercise rate limiting, either through well-defined rules and policies or through poor performance exhibited under load, and plan accordingly.

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Plan for large data migrations You will likely need to come up with new strategies for moving on premise data to public/private cloud stores or SaaS applications. Three options include: • Parallel processing, which allows you to break large data migrations into separate processes that can be run in parallel. Just make sure you understand how the entities you are migrating are related, how your data itself can be segregated and doublecheck that you won’t run into a rate limiting issue.

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• Incremental loading, which takes the 'slow and steady' approach. Time available for a given data migration is typically based on how long you can have users off the system. By taking an incremental loading approach, data is moved based on change date from oldest to newest so the two systems eventually sync up to the point that down time for cut over is only based on the data change rate, not the size of your data.

• External key cross referencing. This last strategy is perhaps the strongest. It involves building a cross reference of keys between the systems on a fast local data store, which then means the integration never performs costly searches on the slow/rate limited SaaS application to relate entities.

Ensure data governance Once you start integrating systems, you introduce the risk of losing data integrity if your data flow isn’t designed to observe and maintain target applications’ data governance rules. The two places we often see this become an issue are record ownership and auditing.

• Record Ownership. In the on-premise world, you could add additional users as part of your migrations/integrations, so the proper data was related to the proper principles on each side.

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By Eddie Cole, VP of Engineering, Scribe Software

SaaS applications often pose API issues around adding users, making maintaining these relationships difficult. Add SaaS users as needed, and maintain an external cross reference to map the users between the systems.

• Auditing. Integrations between systems based on periodically polling for changed data are notorious for causing anomalies in audit logs. If a record changes multiple times within a polling period, the details of the interim changes are lost, so if auditability is core to your integration, look for or build integration solutions triggered by data being changed instead of relying on polling.

Companies adopting a hybrid cloud approach have the chance to maximise their infrastructure’s scalability, price, control and flexibility. Large companies, and those with deep technical expertise, can follow the steps above to successfully overcome these integration challenges, but the connected cloud isn’t limited to just them.

Any business can achieve their hybrid integration goals by enlisting systems integrators and/ or leveraging third party integration tools specialising in cloud integration.

Regardless of your approach, be sure to plan for the cloud-specific challenges outlined here, and take the time to realistically assess your company resources and project timeline before diving in. www.cnmeonline.com

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