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DR. AHMED SAEED BIN HAZEEM, COO, DUBAI COURTS

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BIG DATA AND CLOUD Cutting through the confusion of the past 12 months

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HOLDING THE FORT Dubai Holding’s Oracle ERP venture

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GOING GLOBAL Foreign affairs ministry uses technology to ensure a unified view of the nation

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FINDING A CURE

Medmark improves health services with technology

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BIG DATA AND CLOUD Cutting through the confusion of the past 12 months

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FAMILY VALUES How MBC’s Ali Radhi used his passion for technology to keep up with a high-achieving family

PLUS: TELECOMS FOR THE SMB | BLACKBERRY: SINK OR SWIM? | THE EVOLVING ROLE OF ETHERNET

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The no-nonsense guide to network simplification in the Middle East

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SMALL CELLS

Addressing cellular coverage woes

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Saudi Airlines’ $1 billion King Abdullah Economic City IT deal could transform the nation

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PLUS: SEHA’S MALAFFI SYSTEM | THE DRAWS OF NAS | DEATH OF INTERNET PRIVACY

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Prasanna Rupasinghe, Kempinski MoE IT Director, wishes you a pleasant stay

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GLOBAL CONNECTIONS Anakbut takes shape to connect regional universities with the world.

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FRENCH TWIST Paris-Sorbonne Abu Dhabi upgrades infrastructure while remaining a classic

MARKETING MIND CNME sits down with former Apple CEO John Sculley

Ducab safeguards data and device with a mix of security solutions

Anakbut takes shape to connect regional universities with the world.

Enterprise architecture (EA) tools allow CIOs complete infrastructure visibility

city of tech Ajman Municipality and Huawei partner to support the quality of urban life in the Emirate

GITEX 2013 PREVIEW

order in the court Dubai Courts streamlines services

6 TIPS FOR FINDING MOBILE APP TALENT

SLIM BOUKER, COO OF QFIB

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Waha Capital overhauls their technology infrastructure

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Hybrid is proving the most popular cloud model, but how should you approach it?

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RETAIL RICHES

The LuLu Group CIO redefines retail

SMART CENTRES The data centres of the future

MIND AND THE

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How Fady Sleiman went from flying pensioners around Europe to CIO of General Electric

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

Emirates’ tablet rollout proves a winning move in battle of the airlines

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MAST OF MOB

KPMG keeps employees

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CHECKMATE

QFIB rides the cloud to new heights

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SIEM | UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS | VENDOR TRAINING PROGRAMME | CONTRACTS AND SLAS

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DRIVING INNOVATION

The Jumeirah Group profits with centralisation and shared infrastructure

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250th

GOING GLOBAL Foreign affairs ministry uses technology to ensure a unified view of the nation

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EDITORIAL Our events

Tri-centurions Here we are. Three hundred months - 25 years, our silver anniversary - of keeping the region updated on the latest and greatest in the Middle East’s enterprise technology scene. I'd initially wanted to base this magazine cover on the concept of the 2006 blockbuster 300, but no one from the CNME team was an obvious substitute for a topless, spearwielding Gerard Butler. I’ve had the pleasure of being involved with 39 of the 300 CNME issues – with nine of those as editor. It’s been a privilege to produce the region’s best enterprise technology magazine a publication that gets fantastic access to the inner workings of the global industry. Print publications around the world are shutting up shop left, right and centre, and that makes this milestone even more impressive. While I’m not daft enough to claim that print media is the future, it's interesting to see a tech magazine – a topic that should, theoretically, dictate the demise of a It's great to see print product – still thriving in a world where online news and a technology content have prevailed. magazine still Meanwhile, the next 12 months will continue to see exciting thriving in a technology developments in the GCC, whose countries are world where putting emphasis on transforming their economies with various long-term strategies. At the heart of these shifts sit technology online news and innovation. They know that energy reserves will not last and content have undeniably forever, and that thinking outside the box is the only way to move forward. Technology may not necessarily be a realm that prevailed . is ‘outside the box’, but it certainly has the means to expand it. Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be making a number of exciting announcements of our own. Dominic de Sousa's name appears throughout the course of this issue. No CNME tribute would be complete without him. He not only launched CNME, but also used it as the flagship product of the company that continues to carry his legacy. I have no doubt that Dom would be delighted and immensely proud to see CNME reach its 300th issue, a milestone that makes it one of the longest-running magazines in the GCC. Dom’s sister Maria – now owner of CPI – pays tribute to his work later on in this issue. The CNME team is extremely grateful for the way she has continued to support us, as well as Dom's legacy. A few quick thank yous. First of all, to all the sponsors who have supported us over the years. We are enduringly grateful to be associated with the world’s leading technology companies. To those behind the scenes at CNME, whose fantastic work ethic and talent have made our continued success possible - not just editorial and sales teams, who have a habit of taking the credit. Special mentions in particular to Analou Balbero, Shweta Santosh and Siobhan Jensen. Above all else, to the CIOs, end users and business leaders who share their stories of success with us. You are the lifeblood of this magazine. Here's to the next 300. Talk to us:

E-mail: james.dartnell@ cpimediagroup.com

Our online platforms

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Innovation That Drives Manufacturing Growth “We have grown since 2008 at a rate of about 30% a year every single year. I can’t imagine how this could have been done without having a very robust software system and partner, like Epicor.” Carey Smith, CEO Big Ass Solutions

See the video at epicor.com/growth

Copyright ©2016 Epicor Software Corporation. All rights reserved. Epicor, the Epicor logo, and grow business, not software are registered trademark or trademarks of Epicor Software Corporation in the United States and certain other countries. The results represented in this testimonial may be unique to the particular user as each user’s experience will vary.

What does progress look like for you? Infor software delivers last mile functionality to help eliminate the need for costly customization, scientific insights for select industries, and a user experience that is fun and engaging.

Designed for progress

Contents ISSUE 300 | JANUARY 2017

The connected world

Experience is everything

In the hotseat

CNME hosted the inaugural edition of its IoT World conference to discuss one of the biggest trends that is transforming IT – the Internet of Things.

Avaya Engage highlighted how the company’s solutions are helping partners achieve their digital transformation objectives.

Past editors of CNME share their fondest memories of working for the magazine, as well as the lessons they learned while on the job.

34 The Direct approach

Strategic Innovation Partner

OF CNME

Strategic Technology Partner

YEARS

CASE STUDY: DUBAI MUNICIPALITY

CASE STUDY: MEDCARE

Our Strategic Partners Strategic ICT Partner

INTERVIEW: ALE CEO JACK CHEN

Fahad Al Gergawi, CEO of Dubai FDI, discusses the criticality of technology in developing the emirate’s business environment.

44 Ringing in VoLTE

Voice over LTE (VoLTE), which enables better quality voice calls on 4G networks, is a winning proposition for both operators and users.

48 Needle in the haystack

What should CIOs be looking for in a log management solution if they are to capitalise on the exponential growth in Big Data and analytics?

52 Out with the old

As the Internet evolves, organisations must consider migrating to the IPv6 standard to support and facilitate growth in the market.

56 Ibtikar imbibed

James Dartnell - also a contest judge - reports from National Bank of Oman's third annual Ibtikar innovation day in Muscat.

Published by FOUNDER, CPIMEDIA GROUP Dominic De Sousa (1959-2015)

EDITORIAL Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan jeevan.thankappan@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9129 Editor James Dartnell james.dartnell@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9153 Online Editor Adelle Geronimo adelle.geronimo@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9135 Deputy Editor Glesni Holland glesni.holland@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9134

ADVERTISING Group Sales Director Kausar Syed kausar.syed@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9138 Sales Manager Merle Carrasco merle.carrasco@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9147 CIRCULATION Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh.nair@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9119

PRODUCTION AND DESIGN Production Manager James P Tharian james.tharian@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5673 Senior Designer Analou Balbero analou.balbero@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5680 Designer Neha Kalvani neha.kalvani@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9159 Operations Manager Shweta Santosh shweta.santosh@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9107

DIGITAL SERVICES Web Developer Jefferson de Joya Abbas Madh Photographer Charls Thomas Maksym Poriechkin webmaster@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9100 Publication licensed by Dubai Production City, DCCA PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409

Regional partner of

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

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ISSUE 256 | MAY 2013 WWW.CNMEONLINE.COM

OWNING THE CLOUD

THE BIG ISSUE

From buzzword to necessary investment, CNME tackles Big Data head on

‘I didn’t touch a computer before college’

SURRENDER OUR TELECOMS

The Jumeirah Group profits with centralisation and shared infrastructure

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ISSUE 273 | OCTOBER 2014 WWW.CNMEONLINE.COM

The two-and-a-half year project to build Tejuri.com’s infrastructure from scratch

Saeed Al Dashti, CIO, Jumeirah Group

LOST AT C-LEVEL: THE EVOLVING ROLE OF THE CIO

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I P S | B U S I N E S S I N T E L L I G E N C E | O M A N O I L C O M PA N Y | C H O O S I N G PA RT N E R S

CNME sits down with former Apple CEO John Sculley

city of tech

order in the court Dubai Courts streamlines services

Ajman Municipality and Huawei partner to support the quality of urban life in the Emirate

capital innovation

PAPER CHAINS

Setting up shop

Ericsson’s Middle East President, Anders Lindblad, speaks out on the rise of Huawei

INSIDE

MARKETING MIND

Ducab safeguards data and device with a mix of security solutions

Delving into the new IT job that everybody’s talking about

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Paris-Sorbonne Abu Dhabi upgrades infrastructure while remaining a classic

How Saji Oommen’s long-term tenure as CIO of Al Batha Group has allowed him to push the envelope.

So you want to be a data scientist?

INSIDE: WORKING THE WEB | BANKING TECHNOLOGY | VIRTUALISATION ROUNDTABLES | CONTENT THEFT

FRENCH TWIST

Standing GEARED tall FOR BATTLE

Al Rostamani’s Group CIO, Wael A. Abdel-Qader, tells his story

STRATEGIC ICT PARTNER

ISSUE 283 | AUGUST 2015 WWW.CNMEONLINE.COM

Waha Capital overhauls their technology infrastructure

How the Ministry of Labour freed itself from paper archiving

Raihan Aamir, IT and systems manager at Ducab

download the free cnMe app and explore your favourite magazine

PLUS: DARK DATA | GITEX PREVIEW | CRM | BYOD

CIO ROUNDTABLE | SAAS | BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE | OUTSOURCING | CLOUD COMPUTING

INSIDE:

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WHERE TECHNOLOGY MEANS BUSINESS

Big Data WHERE TECHNOLOGY MEANS BUSINESS

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Which one will you be?

BALANCING ACT BYOD: WHO’S IN CONTROL?

THE

SPAGHETTI INCIDENT SEHA, DP World and Ooredoo implement enterprise architecture to align their ‘spaghetti-like’ infrastructures

WHERE TECHNOLOGY MEANS BUSINESS ISSUE 269 | JUNE 2014 WWW.CNMEONLINE.COM

ROBERT BIGMAN

MOBILE MALWARE SLIM BOUKER, COO OF QFIB

SETTING STANDARDS

!"#$%&&'()* &+,*(,-*+,'.&*

THE 4GOTTEN STATE NO MORE Iraq’s huge push for 4G LTE

!"#$%&'(%)*+ $%&,*-,.+#/+%0!1

INSIDE

C L O U D A N A LY S I S | O U T S O U R C I N G

PLUS: THE PROGRESSION OF LTE | MOBILE MALWARE AND MDM | CIO SPOTLIGHT: ZUBAIR AHMED

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THE BIG DEAL

The key to Big Data projects

How Abdulsalam Al Bastaki brought stateside lessons and values to the Middle East IT scene

MAHMOOD SHAKER, CIO AT QFIB

| D ATA A C R O S S B O R D E R S | S E C U R I T Y T H R E AT S

Former CIA CISO talks security

SPECTRUM REFARMING

HOT PROPERTY

QFIB rides the cloud to new heights

First Energy Bank of Bahrain invests in data loss prevention

IN-MEMORY OF DISK STORAGE: THE RISE OF IMC

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Adopting virtualisation and the challenges that come with it

Legacy vs. innovation

ENTERPRISE APP STORES: ARE THEY THE FUTURE OF IT?

WHERE TECHNOLOGY MEANS BUSINESS

DRIVING INNOVATION

GULF AIR BECOMES ONE OF THE REGION’S FIRST IMPLEMENTERS OF BIG DATA. AND IT DID IT ALL ITSELF

THE 4 NEW CIOs

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DIGITAL HOTELIERS

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two-way traffic

HABTOOR HOTELS fALLS TO THE ALLuRE And mAkES THE SHifT

SMART RECOVERY

FINDING A CURE

RTA IT Director Abdulla Al Bastaki drives customer interaction

ON CLOUD NINE

See inside for KYOCERA's Quick Reference Guide

Medmark improves health services with technology

AW Rostamani invests in a disaster recovery site to protect the business

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FUEL EFFICIENT

GOING GLOBAL Foreign affairs ministry uses technology to ensure a unified view of the nation

ENOC'S PAPER PAINS ARE A THING OF THE PAST

Iraqi firm International Smart Card Jordan’s Ayla Aviation Academy NSN Murthy

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KODAK ALARIS APPOINTS NEW CEO

Kodak Alaris has announced that Marc Jourlait will take over the role of chief executive officer (CEO) of Kodak Alaris Holdings Limited, effective 1st January 2017 and will be based in Rochester, New York. Interim CEO Jeff Goodman will return to his role as chief operating officer to support Jourlait during the next few months. “Marc is an inspirational leader with a track record of driving sustainable and profitable growth for international technology companies,” said Mark Elliott, chairman of the board of Kodak Alaris. “I am thrilled that he will join us as CEO as his experience spans both consumer and enterpriseoriented companies. In his most recent role, Marc was the deputy CEO of Navico – the global leader in marine electronics for recreational and commercial use.” Jourlait said, “It is an honour and privilege to join and lead Kodak Alaris. We have all of the necessary ingredients to successfully deliver on our plans: an iconic brand heritage, cool technology and innovative portfolio, new growth initiatives, and dedicated and passionate employees around the world. I cannot wait to get started at Kodak Alaris.”

JANUARY 2017

AMAZON WEB SERVICES ANNOUNCES MENA OFFICE The world’s largest cloud computing provider, Amazon Web Services (AWS), has finally announced plans to open an office in Dubai. The office, which will represent the Middle East and North Africa region, will open on 1st January 2017, with the support of the Dubai Investment Development Agency (Dubai FDI), an agency of the Department of Economic Development. The new office will provide account managers, solutions architects, partner managers, professional services consultants, support staff, and various other functions. “The decision to open an AWS office in Dubai marks our continued investment in supporting cloud adoption in the region and the appetite from organisations across the Middle East looking to get started with AWS,” said Werner Vogels, CTO and vice president, Amazon. com. “We are excited to work with even more Middle Eastern businesses and government organisations to help them expand their operations while maintaining industry-leading levels of reliability, privacy, and security.” AWS counts Dubizzle, Careem, flydubai, Souq.com and Middle East

Broadcasting Center among its regional customers. “Dubai is a global hub for business, and at DED, we are committed to strengthening the investment environment further, and welcoming global companies to expand their presence in the region,” said His Excellency Sami Al Qamzi, director general, Dubai Department of Economic Development. “The new AWS offices in Dubai will serve the growing demand for cloud technologies and accelerate the contribution of entrepreneurship and innovation to the UAE economy.”

DATA CENTRE TRAFFIC WILL GROW

440%

TO REACH 451 EXABYTES PER YEAR BY 2020, UP FROM 105 EXABYTES PER YEAR IN 2015. Source: Cisco

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NEDAA, NOKIA TO LAUNCH ‘INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY LAB’ Nedaa, a government corporation specialising in the deployment of wireless communications technologies for Dubai, has announced that it has forged a strategic partnership with Nokia to establish an Innovation and Creativity Lab in Dubai, set to open in the first half of 2017 at Dubai’s Internet City, The firm highlighted that the technology incubator will support ongoing efforts to transform Dubai into a Smart City under the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. “Dubai will require continuous

and extensive improvements to its ICT infrastructure and capabilities to fulfill the Smart City project’s objective of providing better connections and maximising interaction and cooperation between the emirate and its residents,” said Saeed bin Abed, CEO, Nedaa. “Our alliance with Nokia and the support of our trusted partner Esharah Etisalat Security Solutions will enable us to explore innovative and world-class tools and practices for hastening Dubai’s smart transformation without compromising on quality. This is indeed a watershed moment in Dubai’s efforts to harness technology to ensure the prosperity and peace of its people.”

DEWA ACHIEVES COBIT5 CERTIFICATION IN GOVERNANCE

During the MoU signing

DEWA has recently received the COBIT5 certification in governance and information technology operation control. According to the firm, as part of the process of getting the title, DEWA passed a series of auditing and monitoring process evaluations, becoming the first government entity in the UAE to fulfil all requirements of the system, in all five fields. “This achievement is a result of DEWA’s efforts to achieve a reflection of its excellence in cybersecurity, and leading position in different technical www.cnmeonline.com

fields in the Smart Dubai initiative, launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to manage the city’s utilities and services using smart and connected services," said HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, CEO, DEWA. "We strive to improve our services through adopting the latest techniques and solutions, and applying them across all administrative and operational levels at DEWA." DEWA has implemented the COBIT5 framework of the certification in five fields. These include human resource management, risk management, infrastructural management, management of outside threats, and service security management. Marwan bin Haider, executive vice president of innovation and the future at DEWA, said, "DEWA strives to become a leading government entity through strategic planning, to improve services, and overcome technical obstacles and risks. This achievement is a unique step for DEWA’s IT Department."

SAUDI ARABIA’S LARGEST TELECOMMUNICATIONS FIRM, STC, HAS ANNOUNCED PLANS TO BUY A 10 PERCENT STAKE IN CAR BOOKING FIRM CAREEM FOR $100 MILLION, ACCORDING TO A BLOOMBERG REPORT.

DUBAI POLICE, UL DISCUSS RISKS OF 3D PRINTING Global safety science firm, UL, has partnered with Dubai Police to outline the risks and potential criminality posed by 3D printing. The not-for-profit organisation kicked off the collaboration with a twoday workshop covering the emerging industry as well as various safety considerations. With many GCC countries confirming that they intend to invest heavily in the technology in the next ten years, UL is encouraging a diligent and responsible approach to ensure the technology is understood and adopted in the correct manner. Hamid Syed, vice president and GM, UL Middle East, said, “3D printing, or additive manufacturing, will change the world in years to come, offering huge steps forward in manufacturing, construction, medical care and many other sectors. However, as with all new technology, it must be understood in order to be implemented safely. By understanding why the necessary training is important and what type of training individuals need, we can safely move this innovative technology in the right direction as it is applied across different industries and applications.”

JANUARY 2017

25 years: Windows 3.1

quarter of a century ago, in 1992, Dominic de Sousa unveiled the debut edition of CNME, CPI Media Group’s firstborn and longeststanding publication to date. That very same year, Queen’s renowned ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ topped the charts as a re-release, future US president Barack Obama married Michelle, Brazilian superstar footballer Neymar was born in São Paulo. In technology, 1992 was the year that Larry Agran pioneered the first (albeit unsuccessful) online campaign in the US presidential bid; Fujitsu presented the world’s first plasma display screen, and the first ever photographic

JANUARY 2017

image was uploaded onto the world-wide-web by Tim Berners-Lee (it was a photo of ‘Les Hombles Cernettes’, a girl band founded by CERN employees, in case you were wondering). More importantly, 1992 also saw the launch of Windows 3.1, a version not too far thrown from the likes of Windows 95 in appearance (minus the ‘Start’ menu). It became the first version of Windows to be widely distributed with new PCs, cementing the dominance of Microsoft’s operating system on the IBM PC platform. 3.1 introduced a TrueType font system as well as a set of highly legible fonts, which effectively made Windows a viable desktop publishing platform for the first time. It was designed to be compatible with old Windows platforms, but instead of using ‘real-mode’ like its predecessors, this version required a minimum of an Intel 286 PC with 1MB of RAM to run. TrueType font support for Windows applications meant there was no longer a need to use third-party font technology such as Adobe Type Manager. Users now had the choice of the Arial, Courier New, Times New Roman, and Symbol in regular, bold, italic, and bold-italic font versions. Prior to Windows 3.1, users had to install third-party screensavers or simply switch off their computer if they were to prevent a CRT burn-in. The introduction of 3.1 came hand-in-hand with a grand total of four builtin screensavers, with the option for users to download more (should they fancy something a little more extravagant than assorted Windows logos soaring across their screen). The fun didn’t stop there. Solitaire – which was part of Windows 3.0 - and Minesweeper were responsible for thousands of wasted office hours, and were launched on version 3.1 in place of 3.0’s Reversi. Further enjoyment could be had via Windows with Multimedia Extensions, which when released in 1991 was only available to new machines. However, the release of 3.1 saw Microsoft making these additions standard, which allowed users to play high quality, digitised audio and video files via Soundblaster Pro and Media Player. www.cnmeonline.com

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ANALYSIS

IoT World 2016

The connected world Last month, CNME hosted the inaugural edition of its IoT World conference at the Habtoor Grand Hotel in Dubai, to discuss one of the biggest trends that is transforming the IT landscape – the Internet of Things.

he Internet of Things has the promise to make everything more intelligent and efficient. Smart grids, meters and cars are just a few examples of innovations that will transform our societies in years to come. While the concept of connected things is nothing new, there is undoubtedly a huge amount of work to be done in the Middle East. With 150 IT decision-makers, analysts and tech aficionados in attendance, the IoT World conference delved into how IoT can transform the way people live and work. The first speaker of the day was David Garcia-Torre, director, solution marketing IoT, Etisalat, who discussed the importance of machine to machine (M2M) learning and IoT, and how organisations can better utilise information to make better business decisions. “As the line between physical and digital worlds continues to blur, we believe that M2M solutions and IoT technologies are key for enterprises to succeed in the impending digital era,” he said. 14

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Torre then highlighted Etisalat’s plans to create a dedicated IoT network to power various smart initiatives in the UAE. “We are working on a low-powered wide area network technology that will enable us to offer large scale reliable and secure connectivity for IoT services, as well as pave the way to build a Smart UAE,” he said. “This technology will enable Etisalat to introduce IoT solutions for mass connectivity of various machines and devices, ranging from smart meters to multiple sensors for vertical industries to fulfil requirements of the country’s Smart City vision.” Sania Abbas, business unit executive, IBM Watson Internet of Things, then took the stage to share insights about ‘the cognitive era’. “We are living in a fast-paced environment where everything is constantly evolving," she said. "Businesses everywhere are increasingly becoming digital, and IoT technologies are speeding up that process even more. Subsequently, this also means that competition is growing across various verticals, which pushes today’s IT and business leaders to be

more active in finding and creating new growth opportunities.” According to Abbas, a key element to successfully finding these new opportunities for growth is digital intelligence. “Digital intelligence is centred around data. There is a tremendous amount of data, both Photo: IBM World of Watson 2016 structured and unstructured, that exists in the market today and understanding that data is crucial to be able to fully harness the vast potentials it brings. The cognitive era is your response to that new potential. It’s about outthinking challenges, competitors and limits by sensing opportunities you’d never before imagined. Cognition enables organisations to gain insights to better engage with their customers, gain a significant edge over their competition, and develop new innovations.” IoT is expected to change the way organisations can do business, as well as the way that consumers experience various products and services. This idea is fuelled by the fact that the physical world is increasingly becoming more digitised, a notion that www.cnmeonline.com

was underlined by Shamel Janbek, chief enterprise architect, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Middle East. “We are now in the ‘idea economy’ where digital is everything, and everywhere, every day, everyone is becoming more connected,” he said. He also highlighted that while IoT is not a new concept, industry leaders still haven’t come up with a precise definition of what the Internet of Things is all about. “We can all agree that IoT focuses on three major aspects – devices, data and connectivity,” he said. “First and foremost, it’s about devices - and not just the typical computing devices, it includes everything from tiny sensors to singleapplication embedded devices like ATMs, smart meters, personal health trackers and so on. Secondly, IoT is also about data. In fact, it’s useful to look at IoT as a new source of data. All of those devices have something to say; their output is data. And the primary value of IoT is in that data because the convergence of analytical insights enabled by connected devices can be used for enhanced decision making, automation, continuous improvement of business processes, and much more - if we can learn how to harness all of that data and transform it into business intelligence. “Lastly, IoT is about connectivity, because as we’ve all seen, incredible things happen when you connect the unconnected.”

www.cnmeonline.com

Mehrdad Taherzadeh, CEO, HAL Technology, was next up, and discussed the widespread potential value-adds that could result from fully connected Smart Cities. “Based on IoT technologies, a Smart City will utilise advanced sensors to monitor and improve numerous functions within a city including transportation, water and waste management, safety and security, even the delivery of education and healthcare,” he said. “Data gathered from these sensors will help city leaders to make better decisions as to how they can advance infrastructures, and, ultimately, the way people live and work.” Next on stage was Husni Hammoud, CEO, Cradlepoint, who continued the discussion on Smart Cities, highlighting the challenges and opportunities surrounding the different projects in this space. “Public sector leaders across the globe are increasingly implementing IoT technologies like sensors, M2M devices, wireless connectivity and the like,” he said. “The ever-increasing prevalence of the Internet of Things in community operations is taking many Smart City ideas from being a dream to reality. The appetite for intuitive, predictive technology is rising, and forward-thinking executives and IT professionals don’t want to be left behind.”

Hammoud also highlighted that there are currently a multitude of connectivity options for Smart City applications, and choosing the correct solution to increase efficiencies, streamline work process, and enable central management will be key to keeping up with these innovations. The last presenter of the day was Zoho Corporation's director of WebNMS, Prabhu Ramachandran, who talked about the importance of IT/OT convergence in succeeding in the IoT era. “Information technology and operational technology were typically viewed as two separate domains of business,” he said. “Smart offices and buildings are expected to make big strides in the next few years. That’s an aspect where we believe IT/OT convergence will play a big role. The IoT era presents an opportunity for enterprises to monitor office utilities in real-time. The data gathered from sensors and applications used by OT systems will enable organisations to increase efficiency and potentially reduce the cost of their operations.” The event concluded with a lively and thought-provoking panel discussion led by CNME Editor James Dartnell. Panellists included Raees Shaikh, Key Account Manager, Infor; Hammoud; Saadi Kawkji, SE Director, Aruba Networks, an HPE company; Abbas; and Youssef Saidi, COO, Bahri & Mazroei.

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ANALYSIS

Avaya Engage Forum

Experience is everything Avaya Engage, held at Atlantis, The Palm, from 5th-8th December, gathered company executives, industry leaders and key decision makers to discuss how the company’s technology solutions are helping customers and partners achieve their digital transformation objectives.

ith the objective of exploring different key technology trends and opportunities in today’s digital business landscape, the four-day event gathered over 1,300 customers and partners from 70 countries across the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Asia-Pacific, bringing the firm's technology and partner forums under one roof. Farid Farouq, director of IT, Dubai World Trade Centre, kicked off the annual gathering by sharing an overview of the different innovative accomplishments that Dubai has achieved over the last few years. “Dubai has been characterised by constant change, led by the vision of our leader, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and the ruler of Dubai,” he said. “HH has enabled us to think big, and be bold in every government 16

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initiative that we come up with. The emirate prides itself on having ready infrastructures and platforms to support further growth and innovations of various industries.” Farouq then highlighted that among the key qualities that Dubai has is its commitment to leveraging technology to improve the efficiency of its government services. “I have received excellent feedback from several multinational companies operating here in the emirate,” he said. “They are extremely happy about how easy and efficient our visa processing is, and I believe that’s very important in further developing Dubai and attracting more business here. That’s just one example of how technology is playing a key role in the continuous growth of our nation.” Next up was the keynote presentation of Nidal Abou-Ltaif, president, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, Avaya.

In his presentation, Abou-Ltaif emphasised the need to deliver differentiated experiences to encourage customers to establish Photo: IBM World of Watson 2016 loyalty and confidence to an organisation in the digital era. “In today’s digital business world, just about every organisation, company and industry sector has access to digital technologies – the gap now is between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have mores’: those that are already equipped with digital capabilities and have remained stagnant versus those that are using their digital capabilities more effectively to further innovate and transform their operations," he said. "We are witnessing a new digital divide: the DX divide." He further underlined that organisations need to ensure that digital transformation (DX) projects are supported by the workforce, and that workers www.cnmeonline.com

The digital gap is now between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have mores'.

have the right training, tools and technologies to properly implement them. “Companies also need to understand that DX projects are extremely complex, and involves change at all levels of the organisation. Accordingly, organisations need to be aware that these can’t be delivered alone, or by a single vendor, and they www.cnmeonline.com

should create an open environment to drive innovation.” He added that organisations need to “democratise” digital transformation. “A top-down from the boardroom approach won’t work if it doesn’t engage the people it is supposed to help,” he explained. “DX projects should be: user-defined, bringing together customers, employees, and partners; and platform-driven, with organisations creating an ecosystem for innovation. As an ICT company, we are committed to helping organisations achieve their DX objectives. We promise to work closely with our customers across different industry verticals to help them achieve their goals.” During his presentation, the Avaya EMEA President also dispelled the negative rumours regarding the company’s financial uncertainties.

“Avaya’s primary focus is taking care of and continuing to serve its customers, partners, employees. Our Q4 2016 financial results have been very positive, and it is business as usual at Avaya.” Abou-Ltaif put the spotlight on the success stories of two of its customers: Emirates NBD, whose customer-centric strategy and DX initiatives enabled them to deliver superior customer experience. The bank also successfully embraced technologies like analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to create the blueprint for banking in the future. Meanwhile, dnata embarked on a DX project using Avaya Private Cloud Services (APCS) to create a seamless, personalised experience for its customers and partners across every communication platform in the customer journey. JANUARY 2017

Ex-editors' tributes

In the hotseat A magazine editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s job carries notorious pressure. Taking the wheel at CNME, in particular, has always demanded a diverse set of skills, chief among them being able to eloquently relay the complexities of technology. Past editors of CNME share their fondest memories of working for the magazine, as well as the lessons they learned while on the job.

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www.cnmeonline.com

Annie Bricker At first, I was, to a certain extent, in the dark regarding Dubai. I had spoken to Raj and Jeevan over Skype, but aside from that, I knew little of the city. Suffice to say, I was nervous. That feeling all but disappeared when I met the team. My first day of work was not in the office – instead I walked directly into the CIO 50 Awards (which has since expanded to the prestigious CIO 100 Awards). Not only was I to meet my new colleagues, but after a bit of chit chat, Jeevan told me, “Go meet some CIOs.” He must have

As a 22-yearold journalism graduate who had just returned to the UK from a year of backpacking around the world, I shocked my family with my first career decision. Soon after, I flew to Dubai to write for the Middle East’s leading technology magazine, CNME. This was not just surprising because of the location of the job – 4,000 miles from home – but because technology was never a particular interest of mine growing up. Five years on, I count the move among the best decisions I ever made. My editor, who was aware of my lack of technology knowledge, made it clear from day one that I wouldn’t be eased into the role.

www.cnmeonline.com

seen my trepidation, and followed up shortly with, “Don’t worry, they’re all good people.” Over the next few years, I would learn how right he was. During my time at CNME, I was consistently impressed by the level of professionalism and insight of the region’s IT leadership. Taking a peak behind the proverbial curtain, the team has always been given unprecedented access to the development of IT in this emerging market. The result of this trust between the CNME

“Sink or swim,” she said as I was sent out to interview seasoned business leaders and IT directors on the latest tech trends, innovations and challenges. Needless to say, I learned quickly. I also learned that the Middle East is a very fast-paced, transient place. Six months into life in the desert, an internal restructuring saw me offered the editorship of CNME. I was young for the role, I knew that, but I also knew that changes in technology are so rapid that innovation is young to everyone, no matter your age or experience. The rest, as they say, is history – to me, anyway. While CNME continues its legacy, chronicling the innovation that drives regional business, I’ll always

journalists and CIOs is inarguably the best, most unique industry coverage in the region. At CNME, I grew professionally, developed a network of colleagues that are at the top of their game, and learned of the tasks that IT professionals take on to build the backbone of a city on the rise. Moreover, the team at CNME became more than my co-workers, they became my friends. Although I’ve moved on, we all still keep in touch, and to this day we can still rely on each other.

Ben Rossi remember it for exposing me to the power of disruption. I use the word ‘disruption’ because, truthfully, five years as a tech journalist hasn’t really boosted my interest in technology itself, but it has sparked my passion for the innovations that dare to challenge. Technology doesn’t always disrupt, but disruption is nearly always driven by technology. And all of the most significant changes in the world – whether they be political, economical or cultural – are powered by disruption. Congratulations on your 300th issue, CNME – and I know there’ll be more disruption than ever to fill the pages of 300 more.

JANUARY 2017

Ex-editors' tributes

Brandy Scott I arrived at CNME mid-tech boom, toward the end of the ‘90s – an exciting and surreal time to be an IT journalist. Computer companies were making front page news, there was nothing strange about flying first class to Las Vegas for the launch of a blade server, and everyone was scared of missing the boat on this exciting new thing called the World Wide Web. Technology was having its moment in the Middle East, and CNME was at the heart of it. Millennials would be horrified. We had a dial-up modem. We all used Hotmail accounts. I bought my first cell phone – a pink Ericsson

The first issues of Computer News Middle East were published out of London, featuring English, Arabic and Farsi content. I joined shortly after as editor. Dom and I did everything we could to make CNME a success, with him in Dubai selling ads and me in London writing and editing content. We went on to add a range of titles, including Network World Middle East, RAM (Resellers, Assemblers and Manufacturers, now Reseller Middle East)

JANUARY 2017

flip device – from the fantasticallynamed King of Mobile. Still, for us, it felt like we were on to something special. At the heart of it all was Dom, our big banana-driving, chimploving, soft rock-singing, largerthan-life publisher. It’s impossible to have a CNME memory without Dom in it. Everything was an opportunity to Dom: the man would go to a hairdresser (“he’s a trichologist - he does tricks with your hair”) and come back swearing to launch a magazine (“Saloon Middle East”). Visitors would leave his

and – ten working days before GITEX Technology Week – PC World Middle East. We somehow managed it in such a short timeframe. Before Dom was more versed in the ways of corporate culture, his desk was a towering heap of scraps of paper, old magazines, faxes and more. He’d sit at his desk, stick his hand at random into the pile, pull out a piece of paper and call the number of the tech company

office looking starry-eyed, almost hypnotised by his plans; we used to say they’d been ‘Dommed’. Not all of his ideas came off. A lot of them did. One that definitely did, and has stood the test of time, was his original baby: Computer News Middle East. I’m proud to have been a part of it, at a time when tech was truly changing the world. I still draw on those experiences and interviews today. I think fondly of my time on Bank Street, and of Dom standing in his office doorway, warning us that when monkeys learned to type, we were all out of a job. I’m sure he didn’t mean it.

Dave Reeder on it. Nine times out of ten, he’d make a sale. Would he understand the IT industry today? Probably not, but then he was never technical. His skill lay in understanding what technology could deliver, not how it delivered it. Although I retired earlier this year back to the UK, I’m extremely proud to have been a part of the CPI legacy and to see that Dom’s contribution to the Middle East continues in such strong hands.

www.cnmeonline.com

Jonathan Howell-Jones Working on CNME was fun to say the least. Having cut my teeth on one of the best IT publications in the UK, I arrived in Dubai to discover there was no such thing as normal when it came to journalism. I was just as likely to be bombarded with press releases and phone calls about pet products as I was to be invited to meet technology luminaries including Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer in Redmond, Intel’s Dr Craig Barrett in Beirut or Wipro’s Azim Premji in Dubai. However, I have CNME – and Network World Middle East, for I edited that too – to thank for the press trip from hell. The client, a well-known network equipment manufacturer who shall remain nameless and blameless, arranged a trip to Cairo. The day before I had been told to go, I started getting frantic calls at the airport from the PR flack who was organising the trip. “Why? It’s tomorrow?” I told him. “No Jonathan, it’s today.” Sure enough, he had put the date down incorrectly and I had to bolt from the office, my wife rushing there from home along with a bag and my passport. Her haste was in vain. I missed the flight, and caught another plane soon after. The event was interesting enough, but more hassle beckoned, my return ticket cancelled because I failed to board the original flight. The only available return was an early-hour change in Abu Dhabi, as flights direct to Dubai were full because of the Hajj. The flack, meanwhile, had travelled back in business class. The taxi to the airport picked me up, and then proceeded to break down shortly after. I helped push it into a layby, and to thank me for my trouble, the cab driver unexpectedly twisted the wheel and ran over my foot. Hopping with agony, I waved another ride back to the hotel. On arrival, I was then told my flight had been delayed by a day. Fast-forward to the next day. My flight to the UAE has a fault and we land in Al Ain. Hours later, I arrive in Abu Dhabi, only to learn that my connecting “flight” coupon was in fact a bus ticket. Short on cash, I found just enough money to buy a phone card and called the flack. Most of what I said was unprintable. On Sunday morning, I received an email informing me that I would be docked a day’s wages for not turning up on Thursday, the bus having arrived too late. Let’s just say that the matter was sorted, after a great deal of grovelling by the red-faced flack. I have long since forgiven him.

www.cnmeonline.com

In 2004, I walked into CPI’s bright yellow office as a newly appointed editor, expecting to be part of a team filling magazine pages. Truth be told, my expectations were at odds with what lay in store. My initiation had begun in true CPI style – in your face, open and full of surprises. I distinctly remember the moment when Dave Reeder, then editorial director (and Dom’s long-standing aide) slapped three magazines in my hand – CNME, Reseller World and Network World – and asked me to select which ones I wanted to manage. I chose CNME, and opted to co-edit Network World with my colleague Colin Edwards. This was followed by a hurried meeting with the company’s much-loved founder, Dom. During my very first hour in the company, I had already learnt that CNME was particularly close to Dom’s heart, and was the magazine that he had founded the company on. And here I was, sitting in front of him confirming that I wanted a piece of his heart. The meeting was shorter than short, to put it one way. The cat got my tongue, and he had just one thing to tell me – “Have fun. Take care of CNME and make it something that I can be proud of.” From then on, I never looked back. There were many exciting moments during the eight years I spent with the company, overseeing the production of over 72 issues of CNME, 24 issues of Network World, and close to 60 issues of the previous edition of Security Advisor Middle East, that we added to the portfolio. I was given a free rein to build a team that I wanted to work with, which gave me my first team member, Jeevan Thankappan. As a young editor, I had innocently taken on the game thinking I was just taking on a magazine job. What I really got was the opportunity of a lifetime to build a future for the title and for myself. To say that I’m pleased to see the magazine celebrate its 300th issue would be putting it mildly. I feel privileged and thankful to have been part of its journey. Happy 300th issue, CNME. Way to go!

Kavitha Rajasekhar JANUARY 2017

Ex-editors' tributes

Peter Branton Like many other CPI employees of a certain vintage, it is very hard to separate my memories of the company from my memories of the late, great, man himself – Dominic de Sousa, who was once described, extremely accurately, as an “unconventional boss.” Quite how unconventional I was soon to discover – an interview in London, conducted inevitably in a wine bar, gave me a taste, as he promised me not only a job but “the adventure of a lifetime.” On arrival in Dubai, I was somewhat disconcerted to find that the staff I had been promised to help run

When I first joined CNME, IDC, the research house, had just starting banging the drum about the third platform – the intersection of the major trends of the time, including Big Data, cloud, mobile and social. It was all well and good, I thought, explaining to Middle East CIOs how these trends would affect them, but no one in the region was actually going to use this stuff, were they? How wrong I was. During my tenure at CNME, I was fortunate enough to interview dozens of CIOs on how they were using next-generation technologies to gain competitive advantages. And these were large corporations, with thousands of employees and legacy applications 22

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the magazine had in fact left the company. Worse still, the departure of the previous editor of CNME, a popular figure locally, had been seized upon by competitors as a signal that the magazine was in trouble. Dom’s unconventional approach to life and management soon made itself evident. My first priority was to win over the market, and I thought the best way of doing that was to put my own stamp on CNME. While a great title, the design was lagging behind what I’d been used to in the UK, and with GITEX approaching, I felt that launching a look at the event would capture everybody’s attention.

dating back decades. Embracing these new technologies was tough, but there was a sense among the CIOs I spoke with that it was necessary in order to stay ahead. The airline industry will always stick with me in particular. Whether it was a case of Gulf Air using Big Data analytics to gauge customer sentiment on social networks, or Etihad Airways building out a brand-new, cloud-based architecture (watch out for that one – it’ll be a heck of a deployment), the airlines always seemed to be willing to pour vast resources into IT in order to improve customer experiences and drive efficiencies. And the results were amazing. Now, though, things are a little different. When I first started writing about IT, business was booming. With today’s difficult economic

Convincing Dominic that his beloved title needed changing was a challenge. One editorial meeting was rescheduled from the office to his villa. Dom wasn’t keen on wholesale change, but as the design team attacked the project with enthusiasm, he was eventually happy to be talked round. After a lot of late nights, many fraught conversations, and more than a few mistakes, the redesign went ahead. My first experience of the ‘delight’ that is GITEX shortly followed, and the redesign went down a treat.

Tom Paye climate, many businesses are reneging on their IT departments’ innovative plans. Costs must be kept down, line-ofbusiness heads say. Technology investments can’t be justified, they claim. As a result, we’ve entered into a period that sees many CIOs simply being tasked with keeping the lights on. I’m optimistic about things changing again, though. A new generation of business heads raised on the Internet are coming to prominence, and their attitude is that IT is key to the organisation’s success. They may not have the same ideals about what an IT department should be, but at least they understand the value in the department in the first place. Technology can be, and is, a serious business differentiator. www.cnmeonline.com

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Ex-editors' tributes

cur rent And... a quick word from our y. Group Editor of technolog

Jeevan Thankappan For a tech magazine to cross the quarter-century mark of publishing is a significant milestone, especially in the Middle East, where I have seen many publications mushroom and wither away quickly. When I joined CPI Media Group in 2005 as the editor of Linux Advisor (yes, we actually had a magazine on open source), the regional tech world was starting to turn a corner, and ERP implementations no longer made the headlines. Though we were far behind in the technology adoption curve compared to more mature markets, some enterprises were looking beyond basic plumping to advanced technologies to give them a competitive edge in the market. Virtualisation was fast becoming a gottahave-it technology, and converged IP infrastructure was on the radar of many. Wireless LANs were finding more acceptance as an alternative to wired networks, and telecom service providers started building optical networks to cater to ever-increasing demands for bandwidth.

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CIOs didn’t face any spending constraints back then, and blades and grids weren’t alien technology terms. It was also the time that the concept of utility computing was bandied around, which later metamorphosed into what we know as cloud today. Cybercrime, meanwhile was always something bad that happened to others somewhere else. Over the course of the last 25 years, CNME has been chronicling the evolution of the Middle East technology market right from its infancy, with a firm grip on changing dynamics and culture. Being the local franchise of IDG, the world’s largest tech publisher, we are in a unique position to bring global news to the local market, and local news to the global market, offering analysis and insight into technology trends. Our ability to influence the region’s most powerful tech buyers remains unmatched. We have an unwavering focus on regional issues, with the support and contributions of a global community. I have been fortunate to be part of the

team that propelled CNME to its premium technology magazine status in the Middle East, and over the last five or six years, we have branched out of print to engage with our audience on various other platforms, including digital publishing and events. The 300th issue of CNME is a glowing testament to our dedication and commitment to the Middle East technology industry, and we will continue to develop more intimate engagements with IT decision makers and thought leaders. When I look back, the only regret that I have is that our founder and chairman, Dominic de Sousa, is not around today to see us pass this milestone. His vision and passion for publishing will always be the guiding light for us as we continue to redefine technology publishing and leverage new opportunities provided by technology to deliver enriching content to our readers.

www.cnmeonline.com

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CASE STUDY

Dubai Municipality

Ahmad Mohammad Darwish Al Emadi,

Dubai Municipality is SDNready. Having evaluated a number of vendors that could deliver a transition to network automation, the government department tasked with urban planning and environmental health opted for a partner that was, until recently, unheard of in the Middle East and North Africa region.

e d i s t u O box e h t

IT infrastructure project manager, Dubai Municipality

Ahmed Mohammed Kajoor, head of IT infrastructure, Dubai Municipality 26

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www.cnmeonline.com

“

It’s always important to think outside the box when it comes to technology.” From the outset, Dubai Municipality’s IT infrastructure project manager, Ahmad Mohammad Darwish Al Emadi, knew that thinking differently was the only way that the organisation could hope to be innovative. His employer is tasked with providing a range of services that make Dubai a more livable place, including environmental health and waste disposal, and urban planning. The organisation features 30 sub-departments, encompassing over 5,000 endpoints and 3,000 end users, demanding a flexible IT environment. Like the emirate’s other government departments, Dubai Municipality is mandated to fulfill the ambitions of Smart Dubai. At the core of these aims is making Dubai a happier society through technological innovations, and by building an IT infrastructure for future generations that can meet increasingly tough demands. “Technology plays an important part in providing services that make citizens’ lives easier,” says Ahmed Kajoor, Dubai Municipality’s head of IT infrastructure. Although the government department had lofty ambitions in terms of its technology roadmap, it didn’t have the infrastructure to match. By mid-2015, Dubai Municipality had four data centres, which were “technically isolated”, according to Al Emadi. “Seamless www.cnmeonline.com

movement for our servers wasn't possible,” he says. Determined to modernise the organisation’s IT environment, Kajoor, Al Emadi and the IT team set about consolidating Dubai Municipality’s infrastructure into a new data centre site in Karama. “We wanted to consolidate

If you’re ever going to try something new or innovative, there has to be an element of risk.

our legacy platforms into a hyperconverged solution,” Al Emadi says. “Our biggest problem from an infrastructure perspective was that we were running 15-year-old networking technology that had never been replaced. We also had bandwidth limitations, with just 24 10GbE ports.” Adding complexity to the equation was the array of vendors

that Dubai Municipality had partnered with over the years, making data centre operations trickier than necessary. “We had a heterogeneous network environment, with different types of protocols,” Al Emadi says. “This was a huge challenge.” In June 2015, Dubai Municipality’s IT team began scouring the market for a solution that could tick a range of boxes. “We wanted to introduce open networking to the organisation,” Al Emadi says. A new solution would have to reduce complexity, as well as smoothing the migration process for the new site in Karama. After undertaking substantial research – and keen to avoid the associated perils with vendor lockin – Al Emadi was drawn to San Francisco-based startup Big Switch. One of the things that impressed him most was the firm’s strong track record, with the likes of American telecoms giant Verizon already among their existing customers, and Facebook among its partners. Big Switch’s Big Cloud Fabric – a leafspine clos fabric with centralised SDN control that operates as a single switch with a pane of glass for network management – in particular caught his eye. “When a company like Facebook has had success via partnering with this company, I found it hard to see how we could fail,” Al Emadi says. “Ultimately, it’s white box technology, so you’re not locked in from a hardware perspective.” JANUARY 2017

CASE STUDY

Dubai Municipality

After deciding that Big Switch would be the partner that could take them forward in developing their network, Al Emadi jetted out to California to undergo a training programme on how to make the most from the changes. “I was there for two weeks, give or take, but that was enough to give me an idea of what we needed to do,” he says. Following the training programme, Dubai Municipality deployed a version of Big Switch’s Big Cloud Fabric in its test environment, allowing the IT team to spot other challenges that may arise further down the line. “From risk and change management perspectives, this allowed us to leapfrog any potential stumbling blocks,” Al Emadi says. The senior management at Dubai Municipality had earmarked one year for the SDN project to be completed, but Kajoor, Al Emadi and the team successfully completed all the work in a matter of days. “It took us around a month to reconfigure the network, and eight days to deploy the Big Cloud Fabric, he says. Nonetheless, in spite of the huge optimism that began to sweep over Dubai Municipality, there was always an underlying concern regarding the risks that the project entailed. “Although we had been impressed by Big Switch in a number of ways, we were nonetheless about to become the first organisation to deploy their products in the MENA region,” Al Emadi says. “Add to the mix that they’re a startup that doesn’t have any members of staff on the ground in Dubai, then there was a 28

JANUARY 2017

degree of risk involved. However, if you’re going to try something new or innovative, there has to be an element of risk, and we felt that we had to take it to gain a long-term advantage. Not to mention that both of us were desperate for this to succeed.”

If you invest in the wrong hardware, you will ultimately be limited.

The changes have brought a whole host of benefits to Dubai Municipality, as well as a milestone achievement. “We are now the first fully-fledged, software-definednetworking-enabled organisation in the Middle East and North Africa region to have used Big Switch,” Al Emadi says. On a practical level, the shift has reduced complexity and increased network speed, with the data centres having been converged into a single fabric. “Latency is minimal. Any given server can now exist in data centre A, B, C or D. We can now seamlessly migrate virtual environments, with no complexity of changing IPs or re-architecting.”

Switching speed has increased by a factor of 42, while the change has allowed Dubai Municipality to scale down its infrastructure to exactly what it needs, reducing overspend. Data centre power consumption has also been reduced by a factor of 3.5. “The biggest improvement has undoubtedly been enhanced network performance, with our speed now up to 160 GbE,” Al Emadi says. Importantly, the change has also saved Dubai Municipality a large percentage of its CAPEX on networking technology. “Big Switch’s technology cost a fraction of that of its competitors,” Al Emadi says. “Big Cloud Fabric runs on QSFP cables, which means we don’t need other cabling structures.” The Big Cloud Fabric controller integrates directly with VMware vSphere to automate network application deployment on the physical SDN fabric, and enables changes in the vCentre to be “directly reflected” from a networking perspective. “It’s given us the bread and butter of SDN, which means being able to play with traffic however you like, without having to make physical changes,” Al Emadi says. “Once you can do that, it allows you to save cost across other tools.” Reflecting on the project, Kajoor believes that making carefully planned decisions that account for long-term change can help organisations avoid sticky spots further down the line. “If you invest in the wrong hardware, you will ultimately be limited,” he says. “It’s important to build technology that can enable current and future growth, and not be tied to boxes.” www.cnmeonline.com

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CASE STUDY

Medcare

Data DNA Determined to empower physicians and nurses with real-time information, as well as enhancing the patient experience, Medcareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s general manager for IT Naushad Mohammed opted for a fresh converged network solution. Naushad Mohammed, general manager, IT, Medcare

JANUARY 2017

www.cnmeonline.com

n a hospital environment, transmitting information to medical staff through necessary veins of communication, at speed, is imperative. Naushad Mohammed, general manager, IT, Medcare Hospitals and Medical Centres, knows from experience just how much physicians can benefit from technology that delivers this power. A part of the Aster DM Healthcare group, Medcare has three operational hospitals and 12 medical centres in its portfolio. A top-of-the-line women and children’s hospital is also due to be opened in July. “In terms of technology and patient services, we want to be a high-end hospital,” Mohammed says. “Most hospitals in this country don’t have specialist services, so in that respect we have an advantage.” Medcare also operates with a range of different insurance partners, allowing it to also target “Blue collar and middle income” workers. Joining Medcare 10 months ago, Mohammed immediately made converging Medcare’s network a top priority. “It made no sense to have information scattered across sites,” he says. “As with most organisations, there’s a degree of legacy technology in our infrastructure.” Mohammed’s approach was never purely centred around IT, however. He realised that the only way technology could provide value to the organisation was by improving the quality of patient care and services. “High quality patient care is available at Medcare,” he says. www.cnmeonline.com

“However, if patients experience issues such as unnecessary waiting times, their guest experience suffers. Hospitality is important.” What’s more, a range of missioncritical services within any hospital require powerful IT infrastructure. “Radiology, for instance, demands

If patients experience issues such as unnecessary waiting times, their guest experience suffers. a strong network and processing power,” Mohammed says. Mohammed also recognised that Medcare would have to make efficient use of the data it had at its disposal. “Physicians can do their best to help, but the tools they have to examine data are becoming increasingly important,”

he says. “Things are changing. Collating and distributing data is difficult; structured data is more straightforward, but faster analysis of unstructured data is the goal.” With Medcare’s physicians regularly moving across company sites, Mohammed realised it was imperative for a solution to ensure data could be easily transmitted across the network. “They regularly have to login to multiple systems and networks,” he says. “This presents a challenge from a healthcare point of view. There is a vast amount of raw data, but it has to be presented in such a way that guarantees quality patient care and user experience.” Physicians had previously been inhibited by a sub-standard network. “They would often move between floors and lose connectivity,” Mohammed says. “We have fantastic physicians and nurses, but we need to empower them in such a way that they can do their jobs in whichever way that they are most comfortable. It’s crucial that we do everything we can to set ourselves apart in that respect.” Recognising the need for enhanced communications tools, Mohammed decided that Medcare was in need of a converged solution that could encompass data, voice and wireless communication. Mohammed began the process of vendor selection, and, in February 2016, evaluated three companies’ products. He eventually decided to partner with Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise for the change, which JANUARY 2017

CASE STUDY

Medcare

would encompass three of Medcare’s sites. Medcare deployed a mix of the firm’s networking and unified communications products, including the OmniSwitch data centre and campus access switches, OmniAccess wireless LAN controllers and access points, and the OmniPCX enterprise communication server and Premium DeskPhones. “We began to lay the foundation to grow and use different sites,” Mohammed says. Although “connectivity and communication” were the main challenges that Mohammed anticipated prior to the implementation, the process itself was relatively painless. “This was a greenfield solution, so there was not much of a teething problem,” Mohammed says. “We only had about two hours of downtime, so that gives you an idea of the ease with which this was completed.” The relatively smooth implementation meant that work was completed by June 2016. As well as adding IP telephony, the new networking solution now gives priority network bandwidth to critical areas of hospitals and medical centres like the operating room, ensuring information is readily available so doctors can make potentially life-saving decisions. The changes have already smoothed over a range of Medcare’s processes, including a 50 percent reduction in support calls due to the enhanced telephony system. “Our Wi-Fi connectivity has been significantly enhanced,” Mohammed says. “Coverage across the hospital is now much improved.” Crucially, the changes have also 32

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made the exchange of information between hospital staff much more straightforward. “It is now much easier for physicians and nurses to communicate, wherever they are,” Mohammed says. “That’s undoubtedly a massive value-add.

We have fantastic physicians and nurses, but we need to empower them in whichever way they are most comfortable.

Communication is key for anyone; when dealing with patients, it’s imperative that they have the right information at the right time.” He is also grateful for the support of Medcare’s top stakeholders. “We’re lucky to have a senior management team that believes technology is a lynchpin for healthcare – that it’s part of our DNA,” Mohammed says. “They understand that it’s important to avoid repeatedly exposing patients to hassle.”

Nonetheless, throughout any technology change that Medcare undergoes, Mohammed believes it is imperative to avoid being swept up in digital hype. “The UAE has set its vision to develop world-class healthcare infrastructure, expertise, and services to deliver premium patient care,” he says. “The initiatives that we work on are not digital for the sake of digital. We’ve laid the foundations for digitalisation, but now we need to build upon them. It’s important to evaluate how changes can measurably enhance the patient journey, and that includes their experience at our facilities as well as the quality of healthcare.” Mohammed is also very conscious of the ways in which Medcare will need to empower its patients through the use of technology in the coming years. He believes that new innovations will make them more autonomous in the ways that they manage their own health. “Although it’s obviously important that Medcare professionals provide their professional opinion, we also need to enable our patients to collect and monitor their own data,” he says. “We’ve already taken steps in that respect, when it comes to our patient portal – which features lab reports and other information – but we also need to think about how we can use wearables to transform their experience.” He goes on to add that while the concept is “scary” on the face of it, the benefits of robotic surgery could provide huge benefits to the quality of healthcare. “There are a range of improvements that it can provide, including reduced loss of blood, as well as being minimally invasive,” Mohammed says. “We have to consider options that can help physicians to provide better services.” www.cnmeonline.com

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INTERVIEW

Fahad Al Gergawi, CEO, Dubai FDI

The Direct approach Speaking at the recent launch of Amazon Web Services’ presence in the Middle East and North Africa, Fahad Al Gergawi, chief executive officer of government agency Dubai FDI, discussed the criticality of technology in developing the emirate’s business environment, and how cloud can create unprecedented opportunities for SMEs across the region.

hat are Dubai FDI’s main objectives? We’re mandated to do a few things. We have to facilitate the business environment in Dubai, and help to enhance the city's positioning as a global hub for investment in different areas. It’s our job to market Dubai globally, and help companies here with their growth potential. Dubai is currently the main hub for the Middle East, Indian subcontinent and Africa. We provide growth potential for countries in this region. You can see numerous examples of these conditions, namely the vibrancy of the Indian business community that exists here. What role do you see cloud playing in terms of innovation? If you look at the handcraft market across the MENA region, it’s mainly made up of smaller businesses. Cloud gives them 34

JANUARY 2017

access to a market of 300 million people. Cloud is inevitable, with all this Big Data coming in. It’s a direct answer for storing all the data. You cannot rely on normal data centres from five or 10 years ago. The more data that you have, the bigger the problem if you don’t have the right storage solution. For the time being at least, cloud is that solution. If you talk about innovation and see all the IPs of startups setting up a footprint in Dubai, cloud allows them to grow in new markets. What do you think Amazon Web Services can bring to the region? I believe their portfolio of services and products is much greater than people realise. A lot of people associate them with online shopping, where the company is already a world leader. In truth, they’re just getting started. They’ve allowed us to see how we can connect

Dubai has decided to be in the front carriage in terms of technology adoption.

Fahad Al Gergawi, chief executive officer, Dubai FDI

www.cnmeonline.com

businesses and economies from different perspectives, from a government point of view, to the development of foreign direct investment. What are the most important initiatives you’re working on at Dubai FDI? We’ve been working with Amazon for almost two years now, and they’ve shown a keen interest to expand in the market. We’ve given them an idea of the ambition and growth that this market can offer, and the potential of the $200 billion ICT industry in

the GCC. We’ve also given them an idea of the different programmes and strategies that exist here, and how they can be tapped into, as well as how they can design special products for this region. We’re promoting Dubai’s logistical strengths, and how they can be used globally. Technology can be the difference in a number of our strategic objectives, including the fourth industrial revolution, Dubai’s Smart City ambitions as well as a host of other government strategies. SMEs can benefit as well as large companies. Dubai is becoming a knowledge-based economy, which allows innovative products to succeed. Citizens here are tech-savvy; they demand new services and products, and are the ones who verify the success of services. These conditions benefit technology companies that are new to the region. Is this region willing to take risks in terms of technology adoption? Technology adoption has long been a priority of Dubai. His Highness Sheikh Mohammed said that there’s a tremendous opportunity for emerging economies to play catchup in terms of Internet technologies, and this is an extremely exciting journey. It will be a fastmoving train, and Dubai has decided to be in the front carriage so that it can develop its economy – and society at large – at a fast rate. Dubai is always a fast mover, and we do ordinary things in extraordinary ways.

www.cnmeonline.com

JANUARY 2017

The FOUR V’s 2005

40 ZETTABYTES

2.5 QUINTILLION BYTES

(43 TRILLION GIGABYTES) of data will be created by 2020, an increase of 300x from 2005

It’s estimated that

(2.3 TRILLION GIGABYTES)

of data are created each day

2020

6 BILLION PEOPLE

have cell phones

Volume SCALE OF DATA Most companies in the U.S. have at least

100 TERABYTES (100,000 GIGABYTES)

WORLD POPULATION: 7 BILLION

of data stored

The New York Stock Exchange captures

1 TB OF TRADE INFORMATION

Modern cars have close to

100 SENSORS

during each trading session

that monitor items such as fuel level and tire presure

Velocity ANALYSIS OF By 2016, it is projected there will be

18.9 BILLION NETWORK CONNECTIONS - almost 2.5 connections per person on earth

STREAMING DATA

s of Big Data By 2014, it’s anticipated there will be

420 MILLION WEARABLES, WIRELESS HEALTH MONITORS

As of 2011, the global size of data in healthcare was estimated to be

150 EXABYTES

(161 BILLION GIGABYTES)

Variety

4 BILLION+ HOURS OF VIDEO

are watched on Youtube each month

DIFFERENT FORMS OF DATA

30 BILLION PIECES OF CONTENT

are shared on Facebook every month

400 MILLION TWEETS are sent per day

1 IN 3 BUSINESS LEADERS

Poor data quality costs the US economy around

$3.1 TRILLION A YEAR

don’t trust the information they use to make decisions

27% OF RESPONDENTS in one survey were unsure of how much of their data was inaccurate

Veracity UNCERTAINTY OF DATA SOURCE: McKinsey Global Institute, Twitter, Cisco, Gartner, EMC, SAS, IBM, MEPTEC, QAS

TRIBUTE

Maria de Sousa, owner, CPI Media Group

'Global to local, local to global' Maria de Sousa, sister of CPI Media Group founder Dominic – and now owner of the publishing company – congratulates the CNME team, and pays tribute to the legacy left by her brother.

Dom was particularly committed to forging strong friendships.

JANUARY 2017

’m absolutely delighted to see CNME, the Middle East’s leading IT magazine, releasing its 300th issue this month. The last 25 years have seen this premier platform for innovation embrace the burgeoning world of enterprise technology. CNME is the brainchild of my brother Dominic de Sousa, who held publishing and technology close to his heart. He moved to the UAE initially working for a publishing house, but, ever the entrepreneur, set about launching his own company. He was a visionary who grasped the concept of endeavour in a fledgling market, launching CNME as the first title when he set up Corporate Publishing International as a local IDG partner for IT news. Dominic launched the ‘IT Visions’ guide when Dubai Internet City was established, as well as pioneering the move to the online publishing platform which is now at the forefront for technology, intelligence and research. GITEX Technology Week was always at the core of his being, and filled him with excitement every year. He loved gleaning facets from the world of technology and innovation, and was particularly committed to forging strong friendships with people from the UAE, the Middle East and around the world. His gregarious persona, vivacity and scintillating disposition saw him pitched into the company of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Bill Gates and IDG founder Patrick McGovern, all of whom inspired him. I would like to extend my sincere gratitude and congratulations to the CNME team both past and present, on the successful launch of the 300th issue. I would also like to thank the sponsors and readers of CNME. Without you, we would not be in business today. “Global to local, local to global” was Dom’s mantra when he launched the first website for CPI in the early 1990’s. Long may CNME’s success continue. www.cnmeonline.com

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TRIBUTE

Dominic de Sousa, founder of CNME and CPI Media Group

Dominic de Sousa Twenty-five years ago, a driven young salesman from London was determined to build a publishing company that could set the standard for the Middle East. At the heart of that ambition, Computer News Middle East was born, becoming the first magazine of new kid on the block, Corporate Publishing International. A quarter of a century later, we have no doubt that our charismatic, larger-than-life founder wouldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been delighted to see us hit the 300-issue mark. Thank you Dominic de Sousa.

JANUARY 2017

www.cnmeonline.com

JANUARY 2017

SOLUTIONS WORLD

Log management

NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK Exponential growth of Big Data and analytics has sparked the need for businesses to collect, store and manage this data, as well as having the tools available to accurately analyse it in real-time. How can an efficient log management solution enhance this process?

hen looking around the data centre, it’s difficult to ignore the potential in all of the Big Data available from the array of systems. The importance of analysing unstructured data is undeniable, but in many cases, manually digging through huge volumes of information is overwhelming. “Take a common application like Microsoft Exchange, where larger Exchange deployments generate upwards of 1 GB of logs per day,” says Deepak Narain, regional presales manager, MENA, VMware. “According to LexisNexis, 1 GB is the equivalent of approximately 677,963 pages of text. Simply put; manually sifting through logs is time-consuming, complex, and often not worth the hassle.” Yet, to simply discard this volume of data could result in vital insights being missed, and this need to improve operational processes is one of the main drivers behind the increased implementation of log management solutions in this market. “When faced with troubleshooting, an IT administrator is sometimes forced to spend

JANUARY 2017

hours digging through and correlating logs, trying to find the needle in the haystack to gain insight into the specifics of what is going on,” adds Narain. “How many man hours are wasted that could be better spent achieving IT or business objectives?” Ensuring network security is another – and perhaps the most prevalent - driver for these implementations. “Detecting and mitigating security threats and protecting confidential data integrity largely depends on auditing devices and activities happening across the network,” says Manikandan T, director of product management, ManageEngine. “Though net flow data monitoring contributes to the aforementioned security analysis, log data is the primary source of information.” Whilst most of this information may be irrelevant, “a tiny anomaly could be the difference between preventing a security breach and seeing your name on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper,” says Narain. So how can CIOs look to ensure this fate is not their own when choosing a log management www.cnmeonline.com

“Simply put; manually sifting through logs is timeconsuming, complex, and often not worth the hassle.” Deepak Narain, regional presales manager, MENA, VMware

solution provider? One paramount feature should be ‘artificial ignorance’ - a method used by most log-management analytical solutions, which aims to minimise the possibility of missing out on high severity security incidents due to false positives. “Artificial ignorance provides the ability to validate the context and then declare an event as an anomaly,” says Manikandan T. “If a solution doesn’t have this capability, then security administrators will be overwhelmed with false alarms, and a real security incident would go unnoticed.” The need to comply with regulatory mandates is another main influence for a log management implementation. A proactive management system can help organisations avoid costly fines and restrictions imposed by failing audits, whilst helping them to adhere to internal best practices and mandated regulatory compliance standards. “Most compliance systems require organisations to collect, analyse and archive log data, as it is the footprint for every www.cnmeonline.com

event happening on the network,” explains Manikandan T. “Furthermore, investigating security breaches and attacks – one of the major requirements of most compliance mandates - requires conducting forensic analysis over the archived log data.” In other words, CIOs should be on the lookout for a comprehensive log management solution that not only performs log collection and analysis, but also archival and search if they are to fully adhere to compliance standards. “The ability to simply gather and archive certain log data is not a productive way of implementation,” adds Manikandan T. However, it is worth remembering that while most solutions offer compressed and secure storage techniques, archiving this data for a longer period of time will result in the need for secondary storage devices – involving additional costs and management. Enterprises in the Middle East are fastrecognising the need for log management solutions that tick all of the requisite boxes. The slow-but-steady adoption of cloud technologies in the region seems to be driving organisations towards a cloud-based platform for this service, which presents many benefits to the enterprise. “A huge benefit of moving to a cloud-based platform is not only low cost and affordability, but one predictable cost per user or per device,” says Narain. “With cloud-based solutions, an organisation is typically looking at shorter implementation cycles. But, more importantly, it will not need IT expertise within the staff to administer the solution.” Enterprises are now in need of features beyond simple log collection, and are instead looking to extend their support scope to JANUARY 2017

SOLUTIONS WORLD

Log management

include the cloud platforms in their list. “Support to platforms such as AWS and Azure is the need of the hour,” says Manikandan T. “Enterprises are now looking for exclusive predefined reports that can provide valuable insights into their cloud development, and alerts that help to find security loopholes in their cloud infrastructure.” These predefined reports help to extract the necessary and meaningful information from the data whilst meeting security, compliance and auditing requirements. CIOs should also be aware that a comprehensive log management solution should have the capability to collect, parse and normalise log data from various types of devices, including perimeter devices, critical servers and applications in real-time and in a central location. “The real-time alerting module of a log management solution will help in containing the security threats at the initial stage or even mitigate threats proactively,” says Manikandan T. Here in the Middle East, it seems that the benefits of a log management solution are becoming more apparent in the

“If a log management solution doesn’t have an artificial ignorance capability, then security administrators will be overwhelmed with false alarms, and a real security incident would go unnoticed.” Manikandan T, director of product management, ManageEngine enterprise. “Log management is something that is being adopted very rapidly across the region now, in the wake of security breaches and hacker attacks,” says Nairain. Enterprises are grasping the need for network security and are now actively looking for solutions that combine log management with security information and event management. “Such solutions enrich the log data even more with their threat intelligence and vulnerability management platforms,” says Manikandan T.

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NETWORK WORLD

IPv6

OUT WITH THE OLD

Despite the initial draft of 'The case for IPv6' being published by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) back in 1999, adoption of IPv6 is still lagging. As the Internet evolves, organisations must consider migrating to this standard in order to support and facilitate growth and continuity in the market.

JANUARY 2017

www.cnmeonline.com

n a world where billions of devices connect to the Internet on a daily basis, it’s really no surprise to learn that unique address exhaustion is a very real and prevalent issue. Internet Protocol (IP) defines how computers communicate over a network, and IPv4 is still the primary router of the majority of Internet traffic today. IPv4 provides approximately 4.3 billion unique addresses. However, depletion of available addresses is forcing enterprises to look at alternatives, and it seems there is only one option available. The adoption of IPv6 - version 4’s successor - demonstrates clear-cut benefits over its predecessor, namely its ability to provide unlimited address space, so why does migration progress seem slow? “IPv6’s large number of new IP addresses make it a foundational building block for the future of the Internet, especially as more devices are becoming connected as part of the Internet of Things (IoT),” says Mohannad Abuissa, head of sales engineering, east region, Cisco Middle East. “IPv6 expands the number of network address bits from 32-bits (in IPv4) to 128-bits, which provides more than enough globally unique IP addresses for every networked device on the planet.” Providing unlimited address space is just one of the many offerings that IPv6 brings to the table. Many enterprises have already established that IPv6 presents much greater capabilities for organisations looking to adopt

“IPv6’s large number of new IP addresses make it a foundational building block for the future of the Internet, especially as increasingly more devices become connected as part of the Internet of Things.” Mohannad Abuissa, head of sales engineering, east region, Cisco Middle East

“Enterprises have already adopted IPv6 without realising, and as a result, they are not effectively managing or securing their existing IPv6 deployments.” Tom Coffeen, chief IPv6 evangelist, Infoblox

www.cnmeonline.com

future technologies than its predecessor. “Enterprises deploying IPv6-enabled services are in a better position to capture market changes, be more competitive, increase their growth potential, and provide for improved business continuity,” says Abuissa. According to Tom Coffeen, chief IPv6 evangelist, Infoblox, IPv6 is already running in many enterprise networks without them even realising it. “It’s included, enabled and preferred by default in all modern operating systems, including Windows 7/8/10, as well as Server 2008/2012/2016, Mac OS X, and all flavours of Linux,” he says. “This means that all enterprises have already adopted IPv6 without realising, and as a result, they are not effectively managing or securing their existing IPv6 deployments.” He adds, “Both IT practice and the tools available to track addresses need to be enhanced and updated to support the effective management of IPv6, including security.” IPv6 promises a world full of new devices, new networks, and new security challenges. Organisations must ensure that the IT security solutions they trusted with IPv4 will continue to meet their expectations as they embrace IPv6. As Coffeen explains, enterprises may be unaware that they are operating on the IPv6 standard, and therefore must bear in mind the challenges that this could present to them. JANUARY 2017

NETWORK WORLD

IPv6

“As IPv6-enabled consumer devices such as smartphones and tablets enter your network, intended or not, you now have potential communication channels you need to worry about,” says Abuissa. “Identifying controls, solutions and policies that support IPv6 alongside IPv4 is essential to maintaining your organisation’s security standards. It isn’t safe to assume that current security controls will protect an IPv6 environment as well as an IPv4 environment, and network architects will need to develop a strategy to support this transition.” According to recent data from Akamai, Saudi Arabia and the UAE currently rank in the top 50 percent of 263 adopting countries, sitting at 46th and 75th respectively. Yet the percentage of IPv6 migration totals just 1 percent in Saudia Arabia and 0.1 percent in the UAE, demonstrating just how low the global state of adoption rates are. Abuissa puts this down to a number of reasons. “Planning, training, complexity of operations in some cases, and no clear regulatory direction are some of the key factors that have contributed to this slow adoption,” he says. With IPv6 claiming to provide unlimited IP address space, the question is then asked as to whether or not the process of NAT (network address translation) is still necessary. This method involves a network device, usually a firewall, assigning a public address to a computer (or group of computers) inside a private network. Abuissa says, “NAT is used with IPv4 more as a mechanism to overcome public IP address space shortage, which is no longer an issue with IPv6.” The main use of NAT is to limit the number of public IP addresses an organisation or company must use, for both economic and security purposes. “NAT and a private addressing equivalent (in the form of unique local addresses) exist in IPv6 but are not recommended for typical use,” says Coffeen. “IPv6 is designed to allow the use of public addressing in internal corporate networks.” Mohammed Al-Moneer, regional director, MENA, A10 Networks, says that IPv6, by default, was envisioned to provide enough 48

JANUARY 2017

“As IPv4 and IPv6 are incompatible without other solutions, the status quo has always been IPv4, due to its popularity, and the fact its simpler to run just one option.” Mohammed Al-Moneer, regional director, MENA, A10 Networks

addresses to remove the need for NAT. “Carrier-grade NAT (CGNAT) has become widely adopted to extend existing IPv4 address range,” he says. “The CGNAT standard addresses many of the limitations and incompatibilities of IPv4, but this is not the same scenario as the one we see in IPv6.” As the potential perks of IPv6 continue to present themselves, why is it that more Internet service providers (ISPs) have not progressed further with the migration? “As IPv4 and IPv6 are incompatible without other solutions, the status quo has always been IPv4 due to its popularity and the fact its simpler to run just one option,” says Al-Moneer. Global adoption of IPv6 by larger, wellknown providers continues to accelerate in the hope of creating a sustainable, scalable Internet to improve operations and meet customers’ needs. “Any ISP wishing to continue to grow its revenue stream by increasing its customer base will have to find a way to add new Internet users,” says Abuissa. “Migration to IPv6 meets this need.” However, Coffeen believes that there are multiple reasons as to why smaller or regional ISPs have not yet made the leap. “ISPs that continue to delay IPv6 adoption face great risks to further growth,” he says. “But the lack of demand from regional enterprises and the use of carrier-grade and large-scale NAT which has allowed some ISPs to continue dwindling on limited IPv4 resources are major factors in stumping migration progress.” www.cnmeonline.com

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TELECOMS WORLD

VoLTE

RINGING IN VoLTE

Voice over LTE (VoLTE), which enables better quality voice calls on 4G networks, is a winning proposition for both operators and users.

JANUARY 2017

www.cnmeonline.com

oLTE, short for voice over LTE, refers to better quality voice calls for wireless customers and more network efficiency for services providers. In a nutshell, it is a way to route traffic over the 4G LTE network that carriers use to transmit data. VoLTE enables what’s called HD calling. It’s hard to quantify the higher quality of these calls, but they are a significant improvement over traditional calls made via cellular networks. However, there is a catch. To make an HD voice call, you need to use a phone that supports VoLTE, in an area with 4G LTE service, and the person on the other end must also meet the same requirements. Last year, many operators in the region announced the launch of VoLTE services including Etisalat in the UAE, Batelco in Bahrain, Zain in Kuwait and STC in Saudi Arabia. “VoLTE is attractive to Middle East consumers because of its high voice quality and very short call set up times," says Christian Bartosch, associate director,

“With VoLTE, consumers can have a seamless calling experience across access technologies based on VoLTE and VoWiFi.” Christian Bartosch, associate director, Boston Consulting Group Middle East

www.cnmeonline.com

Boston Consulting Group Middle East. "It is a telecom operator level VoIP implementation (carrier grade) and compares favourably to traditional circuit switched voice (CS Voice) in terms of quality. In addition, there is a high Wi-Fi penetration in homes, offices and in public spaces. With VoLTE, consumers can have a seamless calling experience across these access technologies based on VoLTE and VoWiFi.” Kemal Siram, head of network application and cloud, Ericsson region Middle East and Africa, says, "VoLTE is setting a new global standard for voice telephony over IP for 4G networks. “It delivers value to the operator in terms of cost efficiency and improved user experience, as well as laying the foundation for enriched communication services through its IMS core. VoLTE is revolutionising the way we make phone calls, and is capable of surpassing OTTs such as Skype, Viber and WhatsApp.” Operators’ investment in VoLTE as a continuation of the 4G modernisation introduces a more efficient way to utilise a scarce spectrum. A VoLTE call utilises only half the spectrum of a 3G call, and just one quarter of the spectrum of a 2G call. This means that more of the spectrum can be freed up for other data services, which in turn, can be converted into additional revenue. Moreover, while an operator’s 4G coverage can weaken or become spotty, VoLTE provides automatic call handover to 3G when the 4G signals isn’t strong enough. This mechanism, known as single radio voice call continuity (SRVCC), has been deployed by most operators thus far, with a handful of exceptions in countries where 4G coverage is uninterrupted. “For users, VoLTE provides faster call setup times ranging between 1.5 to 2.5 JANUARY 2017

TELECOMS WORLD

VoLTE

seconds, a de-facto HD quality, as well as the ability to switch between voice and video during a call," Siram says. "These improvements create a modern telephony experience on par with the quality users have been accustomed to from OTT service providers. Moreover, users retain full 4G data service while on a call, unlike with non-VoLTE capable networks, which trigger a downgrade to 3G.” Wi-Fi calling and VoLTE might eventually change the way voice calls are handled in the enterprise. The benefit of VoLTE, at least from a financial standpoint, is the ability to transition off VoLTE networks and onto Wi-Fi networks, which could reduce monthly wireless costs for voice and messaging. Some enterprises may eventually consider adopting Wi-Fi calling as a voice plan for in-office phone calls. This isn’t necessarily a bad idea – more and more people are replacing their home landline phones with cellphones, so why shouldn’t they do the same at the office? Employees would only need to list one phone number on their business cards, and would only receive voicemails on one device. Dropped calls for carriers that don’t use VoLTE won’t be an issue for employees who are taking calls at their desks, where they aren’t likely to wander out of range of the office’s Wi-Fi network. Bartosch says VoLTE will be attractive to companies if VoWi-Fi is an integrated, attractively priced part of the VoLTE offering. This will allow companies to eliminate fixed phones without a negative cost impact on call charges since nonoffice calls from mobile phones will be carried on the company Wi-iFi network. In terms of functionality, it can offer higher quality voice but will not replace industry standard unified communication solutions which integrate voice, text and video 52

JANUARY 2017

“It delivers value to the operator in terms of cost efficiency and improved user experience, as well as laying the foundation for enriched communication services through its IMS core. VoLTE is revolutionising the way we make phone calls, and is capable of surpassing OTTs such as Skype, Viber and WhatsApp.” Kemal Siram, head of network application and cloud, Middle East and Africa

across a variety of platforms and with customary mail applications. For telecom operators, VoLTE is an important step towards improving customer satisfaction. “It is also a major step in the evolution of the core network towards an enriched communication experience. Leveraging the multimedia, multi-device and access agnostic capabilities of IMS, the operator can take advantage of the initial VoLTE investment to introduce new communication use cases and enhance its relevance as a communication provider and to generate new revenues streams,” says Siram. With 60 live networks around the world to date and an anticipated subscriber volume of 2.1 billion by 2021, VoLTE – together with the add-on enriched use case – is further strengthening the telco operator brand as a credible, high quality communication service provider. www.cnmeonline.com

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CIO TRIBUTES

In their own words A selection of the Middle East's most esteemed technology decision makers pay tribute to CNME, and tell us what the magazine means to them.

JANUARY 2017

www.cnmeonline.com

Ahmed Ebrahim Al Ahmad CIO, Nakheel Congratulations. CNME bridges the gap between all industry stakeholders, including leaders in manufacturing, supply and corporate clients. I’m proud to be a CNME follower.

Ahmed Mohamed Askar CIO, Al Sahraa Group On CNME’s 300th issue, I would like to pay tribute to the most successful technology magazine that continues to lead ICT news coverage in the Middle East. CNME is one of the most important gateways that keeps me in touch with new technology, providing information on big ICT projects and future plans of top technology vendors. With CNME, I feel that I am touching technology. I’d like to wish CNME all the best for the future.

Ajay Rathi Director of IT, Meraas Holding Wow. It really is fantastic to see CNME coming out with its 300th issue. Congratulations to the entire team for bringing such a robust, technical and ethical magazine to the market. Way to go, I hope the same level of energy will be maintained until the 3,000th edition.

www.cnmeonline.com

JANUARY 2017

CIO TRIBUTES

Dr Jassim Haji Director of IT, Gulf Air Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to congratulate the esteemed magazine that is CNME on the publication of its 300th edition. It is without a doubt that CNME has presented significant value not only to the CIOs of the region, but also to the businesses and various industries in the market, showcasing the leading and latest technological trends, and helping organisations to deliver more exceptional products and services. The magazine has always presented key and influential case studies that define industries as they are, demonstrating that it is one of the top and leading IT publications, not only in the region but internationally as well. With that in mind, I must take the opportunity to wish you constant success and even more remarkable editions to come.

George Yacoub, CIO, SEHA (Abu Dhabi Health Services Company) Congratulations to CNME on reaching your 300th issue. I have been a follower of the magazine for the past few years and have seen how it has evolved over time, and how it has kept up with new trends in the technology business to keep me, as well as thousands of others, hooked. CNME continues to provide informative articles and updates on current and future technology topics and trends. The magazine also offers interesting information about industry leaders, which creates excellent opportunities for education and professional networking. We, as readers, should also take this opportunity to thank the editorial and management teams of CNME for their creative efforts and ideas, and to congratulate them on CNMEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s continued success.

JANUARY 2017

www.cnmeonline.com

Dr Alaeddin Al Badawna, Vice President of IT, Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company I am delighted to see CNME successfully publishing its 300th issue. Your magazine indeed stands as the most read and most popular publication among the IT community of the Middle East. Congratulations to the CNME editorial team for this success; may your magazine reach greater heights in the years to come.

Gopi Krishnan CIO, Al Hilal Bank Hearty congratulations to the entire CNME team on reaching your milestone 300th issue. Achieving this, along with maintaining an undisputed leadership in reporting technology innovations and transformation in the region is commendable. Wishing you all the best, and continued success.

Hamad Suwaid, Director of IT, Qatar Gas Transport Company (Nakilat) We are very happy to hear that CNME magazine has reached its 300th issue, and it is indeed a matter of pride for the IT fraternity across the region. Nakilat would like to congratulate CNME on the milestone achievement. We are proud to be associated with CNME, which is one of the leading IT publications in this region, and are confident that CNME will to continue to add value to the IT community across the Middle East and beyond.

www.cnmeonline.com

JANUARY 2017

CIO TRIBUTES

Madhava Rao CIO, Lulu Group International Many congratulations to CNME on achieving this milestone. In this Internet-information-explosion era, your work in bringing best-in-class content is commendable. Being the leading IT publication, and connecting IT leaders of various industries has undoubtedly been an important part of this milestone journey. Wishing you many more years of success.

Mario Foster CIO, Al Naboodah Enterprises On the occasion of reaching the 300th issue of CNME, please allow me to congratulate CPI Media Group in general and the CNME team in particular, on the effort that is put into producing this wonderful and informative magazine. CNME keeps the Middle East IT community informed of the latest market developments, new technologies, and also enables us as CIOs to share experiences and technology knowledge with each other. Good luck, and I wish the CNME team every success for many years to come.

Suhayeb Jaabo, Head of IT, Magnolia Restaurant Management Investments Today, CNME magazine is in the upper reaches, and is one of the most useful content platforms in information technology. Your success wouldn’t be possible without your team’s dedication to go above and beyond in terms of reaching out to people and researching technologies that will benefit businesses – and our beloved region – through their application.

JANUARY 2017

www.cnmeonline.com

Mubarik Hussain Head of IT, Petroserv Reaching the 300th issue mark; it is a great achievement. CNME is at the forefront of reporting technology innovation and transformation in the region. They give the reader access to high quality information regarding current technologies and vendors. They value relationships, and have a special personal touch with CIOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and IT leaders, which is an important source of information for the IT industry. I hope CNME continues the good work that they have been doing for the IT industry.

Saeed Al Ghailani Al Junaibi, Director of IT, Department of Transport, Abu Dhabi CNME is one of the biggest contributory factors in terms of shifting IT in the Middle East and North Africa region from being good to great. The award ceremonies organised by CNME have created a culture of excellence across a range of entities.

Sebastian Samuel CIO, AW Rostamani Group Congratulations to CNME for delivering messages of local relevance, business benefit and bringing technology into focus for the entire Middle East. It has been quite an amazing performance for the past couple of decades with the influential readership of CIOs, C-level executives and IT decision makers. Keep going!

www.cnmeonline.com

JANUARY 2017

CIO TRIBUTES

Faizal Eledath CIO, National Bank of Oman My congratulations to the CNME team on your 300th issue. I’d like to pay a big thanks for a quarter century of your service informing, educating and entertaining the region’s IT community. I wish you many more years of success.

M. N. Chaturvedi Director of IT, Oasis Investment Company I am delighted to have seen the growth of this technology magazine since its inception, which has enlightened and kept the IT community abreast with current affairs. CNME delves into the future, and has brought the technology community together through conferences and awards ceremonies. CNME has evolved as a beacon for the community, which has been hard for its organisers, who have kept it in top spot for decades. I hope it continues to grow in the coming years to remain as an invaluable partner of the IT fraternity in the Middle East.

Vinay Sharma Group Head of IT, Gulftainer CNME is plays a significant role in discussing the latest technology trends in this region. It covers the ways CIOs can drive growth by effectively leveraging the right technologies at the right time, with its authoritative content and awareness of how technology solutions and business strategies should work in harmony. CNME delivers real value for its readers by demonstrating best case studies, analyses of growing technology trends and how technology can be seamlessly integrated into a business.

JANUARY 2017

www.cnmeonline.com

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Anthony Tomai, CIO, Europe, Middle East, India and Africa, AECOM Congratulations to CNME on your 300th issue. I have always found CNME’s case studies and articles to be extremely insightful. They have strong knowledge of emerging technology trends and are extremely reputable across the Middle East. The team at CNME are a great bunch, and I’ve been extremely fortunate to be connected with such a world-class organisation. Thanks again CNME and l look forward to many more editions of your magazine.

Farid Farouq, Vice President of IT, Dubai World Trade Centre Congratulations on the 300th issue of CNME. Your continued commitment to providing readers with unbiased and professional coverage speaks for itself. What has always impressed me is the quality of the writing and the timeliness and insightfulness of the stories. I sincerely feel that CNME does a great service to its readers and to the genre. Hats off on this feat, and here’s wishing you many more successful issues ahead.

Jeroen Wisse Director of IT, Accor Hotels Middle East Wishing the entire team at CNME many more years of success. Congratulations on your 300th issue, and thank you for continuously keeping the industry informed on the latest news, trends and hot topics. Keep up the amazing work.

JANUARY 2017

www.cnmeonline.com

Celebrating tech innovation

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INTERVIEW

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise CEO Jack Chen

Changing course CNME caught up with Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise’s CEO, Jack Chen, during his recent visit to Dubai to discuss the communication company’s latest strategy change extending its approach to industries outside of the hospitality market.

Jack Chen, CEO, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise

hat are you hoping to gain from this trip to the Middle East? I’m here to meet our customers and partners in the hope of getting a better understanding of their needs. I’m also here to meet the team and appreciate how great they are. I’m based in Singapore, and this is my first time visiting Dubai, but what an amazing city; it’s so international. You’ve been in your current role since April this year – how have you found the step up from previous roles? What changes

JANUARY 2017

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have you been working on since being appointed? One of the best decisions I made was to join this company. I feel a lot of energy, and there are a lot of really good people on this team - full of many talents. This transformation period can also provide a lot of opportunity. We have defined our strategy in moving towards a vertical cloud service to run more efficiently in this market. At this point, I cannot say that we’re already really successful, but we are definitely on the right track to move forwards. Can you expand on what your latest strategy change involves? One of our strategies that we’re really focusing on is tackling the verticalcentric industries, moving from a general list providing communication to the enterprise, and become more specialised to enable our enterprise users to be more efficient in doing their business. In the meantime, the focus is more on providing more value-adding solutions to their business. So, that is the strategy that we are pursuing currently, and our marketing team are a major contributor to this implementation. Can you name some of your current customers in the region? What sorts of solutions are they demanding? I landed at Dubai Airport, which is one of our major customers here in the region. We have many other examples, including Dubai Metro, but we’re always looking for opportunities to expand and grow our capabilities here in Dubai. We have a communication and network business solution which we provide to our transport customers; one is a communication voice system known as the PBX phone system, and the other is a data system to connect switches. We have recently launched a cloud-based solution, known as Rainbow, as part of our strategy. www.cnmeonline.com

We’re using Rainbow on top of our existing premise (PBX) to enable cooperation within the enterprise. IDC predicts that 80 percent of IT infrastructure will be on a pay-asyou-go basis by 2020. Do you see this as a realistic expectation? Was this your basis for the Network on Demand platform? When you look at this industry, the main shift is from CAPEX to OPEX.

This transformation period can provide a lot of opportunity, and we have now defined our strategy in moving towards a vertical cloud service to run more efficiently in this market.”

This platform is something that we have put a lot of time and effort in to, and where we have provided real economic value to our customers is that if they don’t use, they don’t pay. In terms of IDC’s prediction, I don’t think things will move that quickly. I think we are definitely heading in that direction, but not moving at that level. I personally believe that this is a start-up phase, and it will take time to get the industry adapting to this, because changing the ways the customer pays also causes a big change to a business’ planning cycle.

I also believe that reaping the benefits from this change will take time. These benefits include customers not having to make an upfront investment, as it is a pay-as-you-go service, as opposed to the traditional CAPEX and monthly license model. Secondly, this service puts more focus on the value of the end customer. Your Rainbow solution is branded as a communications Platformas-a-Service. For a product that seems quite complex, will the integration process for customer’s match that? Rainbow is actually quite easy; you just download the app to begin running it as a cooperation platform. The beauty of our solution is that it is connected back to our premise – the PBX – and this makes us unique. Our platform is also built on an open architecture, which allows the developer to have a creative application base known as the API. It also allows integration within the enterprise of third party apps and business processes, so that they can deliver better services to their customers. One example of CPaaS is seen in the switch from B2B to B2C, which is demonstrated by the use of social media within enterprise apps. Banks are a good example of how this has been used successfully. Today, you can chat through your banking app and not just Facebook or WhatsApp, and there are some real business incentives for these kinds of services as well. This is what we call people-to-people, and it puts more of the focus on the consumer whilst still fulfilling a business purpose. Chats that are within a banking business app are connected to their services, which makes it easier for business-to-consumer conversations to take place, rather than using another messaging application that has no bearing on the company. JANUARY 2017

EVENT

National Bank of Oman Innovation Day 2016

Ibtikar imbibed James Dartnell had the pleasure of representing CNME as the only external judge at National Bank of Oman’s third annual Ibtikar innovation day in December. He reports from the exciting event at the firm’s offices in Muscat, which saw NBO employees slog it out for the chance to see their technology innovations put into practice.

JANUARY 2017

ow in its third outing, each year, Ibtikar sees 15 teams of NBO employees from across the company compete for the chance to see their technology idea brought to life. The brainchild of NBO’s chief information officer, Faizal Eledath, Ibtikar was established to encourage a culture of thinking outside the box, with technology innovation at its core. With the company’s chairman Mohammed Mahfoodh Al Ardhi, chief executive Ahmed Al Musalmi and the board of directors in attendance, all entrants were eager to impress in order to get senior backing for their innovations. Al Musalmi kicked off proceedings by giving an idea of the direction the bank would have to take in the coming years. www.cnmeonline.com

Participants typically spend two months preparing and refining their ideas prior to Ibtikar, and the lengths they went to were evident in their varied and detailed presentations. As with last year’s event, no two ideas were the same, an extremely encouraging sign for the NBO leadership. With innovations ranging from slick uses of virtual reality, voice recognition and neat enhancements to NBO’s mobile app, fresh thinking is clearly in abundance at the company. While I’ve been asked to keep the ideas that were on display under wraps, I can honestly say that I was hugely impressed by

“Innovation around digitalisation will add an estimated $3.7 trillion – roughly the size of the German economy – to the global economy in the next 10 years,” he said. “It’s important that we, as a bank, continue to innovate in order to not only survive, but to thrive.” www.cnmeonline.com

the variety of pitches on display at the event. I also have to take my hat off to all the non-IT employees involved in the initiative, who proved themselves to be equally adept at understanding the relationship between enhanced technology and greater business value.

Events like this are an absolute must for any business that wants to be technology-led.

Events like this are an absolute must for any business that wants to be technology-led, and is currently claiming that innovation will be at the core of its strategy over the coming years. A lot of organisations still don't really don't know what innovation means to them - and it's certainly not to late to determine that - but NBO showed that they're on the right track. ROI was clear in terms of the ideas that were presented – a fair percentage of which I am certain would be a success for the bank if they were brought to life – but the way the event empowers staff also can’t be ignored. At NBO, there evidently exists a free-thinking, positive culture where staff are not afraid to fail, and have a clearly defined platform to express their ideas. Although there are many paths to success, cultivating that kind of culture strikes me as one that will make life easier for any company that intends to innovate. JANUARY 2017

TRIBUTE

Ringing the changes Two local tech providers take the opportunity of CNME's 25th anniversary to reflect on the development of technology in Middle East since our inception.

Sabby Gill, Executive Vice President, Epicor International Over the last 25 years, countries in the region have made a concerted effort to reduce their dependence on oil, and diversify their economies. As such, we have witnessed tremendous growth in the construction, manufacturing, and service industries. With the emergence of these industries, IT has transformed from being a back-office support function to a critical business enabler. Today, businesses in the region, across verticals, rely on IT infrastructure to see how operational efficiencies positively affect their bottom line and gain a competitive advantage. At Epicor, our focus is on helping customers grow their business by providing them with solutions that are tailored to their specific industries and business needs. Given the region’s appetite for adopting best-in-breed technology, the Middle East is a key market for us. Having established a presence in the region in 1996, we have witnessed strong year-over-year growth. Working with over 40 value added resellers and partners across the Middle East and Africa, we have over 650 customers in 40 countries across the region. These include some of the family conglomerates and leading organisations in the government, oil and gas, manufacturing and hospitality sectors. As we head in to 2017, between geopolitical unrest and depressed oil prices, many organisations in the region are looking to reduce capital expenditure. Having recently launched our cloud-first strategy for the Middle East, we are excited about the opportunity to help these customers take advantage of the benefits of the cloud to reap operational efficiencies and continue to grow their business. 68

JANUARY 2017

Nikhil Kothari, Director at Intertec Systems Intertec Systems has also recently celebrated 25 years of success in the Middle East. Founded in Dubai in 1991, we have grown from a local IT services provider to a global player with local presence in five countries. Today, we deal in managed IT services, and provide infrastructure, security and applications for numerous complex projects. We have worked with organisations from government, banking, retail, healthcare, conglomerates and facilities management, and for many organisations today, we are their strategic IT partner for transformation, and we value this partnership in its true sense of responsibility. The pace of change in technology and digital transformation in the near future will drive organisations to alter their business models and structure. Those who don’t take these decisions to move forward will fall behind and eventually become extinct. Research shows that organisations that adopt digital transformation are 26 percent more profitable than their peers that stray. Digital, for us, includes omni-channel experience, business process automation, paperless solutions, analytics, mobility and application performance. Cloud is another journey wherein we are working to be a leader in deploying and managing private and hybrid cloud for organisations. On transformational managed services, models and services are beginning to expand and evolve, and we are ideally positioned after taking a first move advantage in this space eight years ago. We believe that to be a strategic technology partner, you have to understand your customer’s business and determine how you can walk with them through their transformation. www.cnmeonline.com

PRODUCTS

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Launches and releases

Brand: Huawei Product: Mate 9

Brand: Sony Product:

Walkman NW-WM1Z As part of Sony’s flagship WM1 series, the Walkman WM1Z can play any music file from high resolution to low quality mp3, including support for DSD Native format (11.2MHz). It is equipped with the DSEE HX to support five modes, which ranges from standard, female vocal, male vocal, percussion or strings. According to Sony, this technology means it can carefully upscale lower bit rate files to near high resolution audio quality. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: WM1Z has a gold-plated, oxygen-free copper chassis. The cable used inside the WM1Z, from the amp to the headphone jack is a four wire braided cable engineered with Kimber Kable, which Sony has highlighted as being key for achieving a richly expressive and refined audio quality.

JANUARY 2017

The new Mate 9 is a 5.9-inch device, which features Huawei’s signature dual-lens rear cameras that has been co-engineered with Leica Camera AG. The new device’s battery life has been increased by 60 percent, and is equipped with SuperCharge technology that delivers a full day’s charge in 20 minutes, a 4000mAh high-density battery and a reimagined EMUI 5.0, all powered by the Kirin 960 chipset. It comes with 4GB of RAM and packs 64GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 256GB via a microSD card. It is equipped with a 20-megapixel primary camera on the rear and 8-megapixel front shooter for selfies. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: It comes with a three-month guarantee service offer at selected retailers across the country. The

Brand: Aruba Product:2540 Series switches The Aruba 2540 Switch Series is optimised for mobile users. The series, according to the company, is equipped with advanced security and network management tools — Aruba ClearPass Policy Manager and Aruba AirWave. Among the key features of the series is enhanced access security, ACLs, traffic prioritisation, sFlow, and IPv6 host support. In addition, to meet the demand for the rapid growth in IoT and connected devices in distributed enterprises, the Aruba 2540 series supports zero touch

brand is also offering a one-year standard warranty, one-time free screen replacement and one-time free phone replacement. The Mate 9 is available in space grey, moonlight silver, mocha brown, champagne gold, ceramic white and black in the GCC region, and is now available from AED 2299 at select retails outlets across the UAE.

provisioning and optional cloud-based management to allow enterprises to simplify and slash network deployment and management costs. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: The layer 3 switches (29xx/3810/5400) are capable of user-based and port-based wired traffic tunneling to an Aruba mobility controller, so that policies can be applied, advanced services can be extended, and traffic can be encrypted to secure the LAN. It also allows remote deployment with Aruba Central; wired and wireless experience with Aruba ClearPass Policy Manager and AirWave Network Management.

www.cnmeonline.com

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TRIBUTE

Rajashree Rammohan, former Publishing Director, CPI Media Group

Six of the best Rajashree Rammohan, former Publishing Director, CPI Media Group, fondly recalls her six-year stint leading the CNME team.

I draw huge satisfaction from having delivered a magazine that is so well received in the market.

JANUARY 2017

t gives me immense pride to offer congratulations to everyone celebrating the 300th issue of CNME. This is indeed a very special milestone; 25 years of publishing technology news for the Middle East. I, for one, know that it has not come without any hardship. The region has gone through several turbulent times during this period. I would like to commend all the editors and contributors over the years who have built CNME into one of the most prestigious technology publications in the Middle East. You can take great satisfaction in knowing that your efforts have made a lasting, positive contribution to the evolving technology industry in the region. It is both fascinating and inspiring to look back over a quarter of a century of achievement and progress in the Middle East tech sector through CNMEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes. It is such a powerful vehicle to carry global technology news and insight. It is an honour to write a few words on this occasion, and to have been involved with seeing the magazine thrive over time. Even writing this has given me the chance to once again reminisce about the great time Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had throughout my six-year journey at CNME. Having worked on all sorts of things of projects at CNME, from special editions to events and awards, I draw huge satisfaction from having delivered a magazine that is so well received in the market. While I miss Dom very dearly on this momentous occasion, it is with fierce pride that I offer my congratulations to everyone involved with CNME.

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Glesni Holland, Deputy Editor, CNME

RoboCop T

his time last year saw the release of the ‘The future of jobs’ report by the World Economic Forum, which discussed the potential impact of a Fourth Industrial Revolution on the working world as we know it. Since then, developments in artificial intelligence (AI) have begun to take considerable shape and the concept of workplace automation and industrial robots is now very quickly becoming a reality. Even our very own emergency services are jumping on the bandwagon. Following demonstrations at GITEX Technology Week 2016 last October, it was announced that Dubai Police plans to put its first robot into service this year. The robot can scan faces, and allows people to use the computer on its chest to report crimes and pay traffic 74

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fines. It goes without saying that there are certain tasks that a robot simply could not conduct in the police force, but when IDC predicted that 2017 would be the year we were likely to see the first signs of robots taking over ‘mainstream jobs,’ I didn’t necessarily perceive that category as including the emergency services quite so soon. According to research firm Frost and Sullivan, companies will soon be able to replace up to ten workers with just one robot, which could drive down costs by as much as 60 percent. A distant reality, you may think? Wrong. Japanese firm Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance has just announced plans to lay off 30 percent of its assessment department staff and replace them with an AI system based on IBM’s Watson. Whilst the system is expected to cost 200 million yen ($1.75 million)

to install, the company expects to see annual savings of $1.2 million as a result of cutting down on staff. It’s likely that many other firms will soon follow suit when you consider IDC’s latest prediction that by 2018, industrial robots will cost one-fifth of what they do today – but will have five times the capabilities. So what does this mean for the future of jobs? Will employees soon no longer resemble human form, but instead take the shape of an intelligent machine that has been programmed to fulfil a purpose? Like the revolutions before it, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has the potential to create numerous longterm benefits, yet only time will tell if this displacement of workers in favour of machines will instead result in a dehumanised dystopia. www.cnmeonline.com

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