Equinix Multicloud ME

Transform your business with multicloud

Contents

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A DIRECT CONNECTION

Amazon Web Services’ Head of Commercial Sector for the MENA region Vinod Krishnan on the benefits of having a direct connection.

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ALIGNED LEGAL SOLUTIONS FOR DIGITAL SUCCESS

Paul Allen, Partner and Head of Intellectual Property & Technology at DLA Piper, discusses the importance of legal solutions for a successful digital transformation journey.

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Jeroen Schlosser, Managing Director at Equinix MENA gives his take on why the future of digital economy lies within interconnection.

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HOW TO CUT COMPLEXITY FROM MULTI-CLOUD MANAGEMENT Gustavo Alvarez, Hybrid Cloud Services Leader at IBM Services Middle East and Africa, shares three key steps for a successful journey to cloud.

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THE ANSWER IS CLOUD Cloud is the right answer to the increasing demand for scalable, flexible and secure solutions, says IDC’s Group Vice President and Regional Managing Director for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa Jyoti Lalchandani.

THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL ECONOMY

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THE HYBRID CLOUD JOURNEY HPE’s Strategic Alliance Business Manager Craig Evans explains how to successfully adopt hybrid cloud.

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THE PILLARS OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SAP’s Senior Vice President and General Manager for Middle East South Gergi Abboud believes digital transformation can only be achieved through new technologies such as AI, machine learning, IoT and Blockchain.

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Editorial

The multicloud revolution

The future of business architecture lies within multicloud.

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loud is on everyone’s mind nowadays. What was just a buzzword ten years ago, it’s now the main game changer to achieve business goals. No matter the size, any organisation that wants to lower costs and achieve lasting success knows that moving to the cloud is inevitable. Cloud computing has unleashed a whole host of innovation, on-demand usage and collaboration options that companies are looking to take advantage of. But that’s easier said than done. With any revolutionary technology, there come risks and concerns. Security, flexibility, scalability, latency – you name it. As the lines between infrastructure-asa-service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) continue to blur, it has become clear that a single cloud environment can only be the start for an organisation. The future of business architecture lies within multicloud.

In-country datacentres are vital to support this change, so it doesn’t come as a surprise to see major cloud players, the likes of Microsoft, AWS or SAP, investing more and more in the region. Thanks to this, organisations are presented with a plethora of options to choose from when it comes to cloud service providers – providers that will keep their customers’ data stored in the cloud safely in the region.

In this issue of Multicloud ME, we hear from some of the top cloud players in the Middle East who discuss the benefits, implications, and future of a multicloud strategy for organisations in the region.

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Amazon Web Services

A direct connection Amazon Web Services’ Head of Commercial Sector for the MENA region Vinod Krishnan highlights the benefits of having a direct connection, such as AWS Direct Connect, for better cloud performance.

I Vinod Krishnan, Head of Commercial Sector, MENA, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

n this era of fourth industrial revolution, where everything is moving towards digitisation, the need for edge services is becoming increasingly apparent. Edge services can reduce the amount of data transmitted and stored in the cloud and reduce the lag time in data transmission and processing.

Last year, AWS launched AWS Direct Connect location in Dubai and Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. AWS Direct Connect makes it easy for customers to establish a dedicated private network connection between AWS and their datacenter, office, or colocation environment. With AWS Direct Connect, customers in the Middle East can connect to all their AWS resources in any global AWS Region and transfer their business critical data directly between their on-premises infrastructure and AWS.

The need for a direct connection Most companies procure only enough bandwidth to meet web and email needs and share that Internet connection across the entire enterprise. When companies

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Amazon Web Services

AWS Direct Connect makes it easy for customers to establish a dedicated private network connection between AWS and their datacenter, office, or colocation environment.” use the cloud, they find that transferring large data sets can be slow because the business-critical network traffic is contending for bandwidth with another Internet usage. To decrease the amount of time required to transfer the data, companies could increase the bandwidth to the Internet service provider, which frequently requires a costly contract renewal and a minimum commitment. However, with an option such as AWS Direct Connect, companies can transfer business critical data directly from the datacenter, office, or colocation environment into and from AWS bypassing your Internet service provider and removing network congestion. Further, AWS Direct Connect’s simple pay asyou-go pricing, and no minimum commitment means companies pay only for the network ports they use and the data they

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transfer over the connection, which can greatly reduce a company’s networking costs.

Applications that use real-time data feeds can also benefit from a direct connection. For example, applications such as video perform best when network latency remains constant. Network latency over the Internet can vary given that the Internet is constantly changing how data gets from point A to B. With a direct connection, companies can control how their data is routed to provide a more consistent network experience over Internet-based connections.

Another advantage of having AWS Direct Connect is it can help enterprises build hybrid environments that satisfy regulatory requirements requiring the use of private connectivity. Hybrid environments allow enterprises to combine the elasticity and economic benefits of AWS with the ability to utilise other infrastructure that they already own.

The two Direct Connect locations in the UAE form part of AWS’s increasing investment in the Middle East. Last year, AWS also launched two Amazon CloudFront Edge locations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Located in Dubai and Fujairah, Edge locations give organisations in the region an improved experience for their end users, including faster content delivery and added cybersecurity protection.

This year will also see the launch of the AWS Middle East (Bahrain). The AWS Middle East (Bahrain) Region will have three Availability Zones, bringing flexible, affordable, reliable, and secure cloud computing technologies close to end users across the Middle East, helping organisations speed up their digital transformation initiatives and more rapidly innovate for the citizens of the region.

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DLA Piper

Aligned legal solutions for digital success Paul Allen, Partner and Head of Intellectual Property & Technology at DLA Piper, discusses the importance of legal solutions for a successful digital transformation journey.

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igital transformation, a form of radical change that is being enabled by exponential advances in technology, is attracting the attention of businesses and governments the world over. As DLA Piper’s European Technology Index 2018 indicates, over 60% of organisations view digital transformation as an imperative.

These organisations, have presumably seen both the opportunities that arise from digital transformation (Netflix is an excellent example) and the risks that arise from not doing so (nobody wants their own “Kodak moment”). The question for many then is not whether to digitally transform, but how to do so.

Digital transformation is not easy. As anyone who has read John Kotter’s seminal work Leading Change would know, bringing about any transformation, digital or

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otherwise, is hard work and fraught with challenges. Of course, digital transformation involves technology. A digital transformation program might involve moving a set of onpremise IT services into a cloud environment; forming a data lake

and procuring a data analytics platform to deliver better business insights; or deploying robotic process automation (RPA) to streamline backoffice processes and improve productivity. But to think of digital transformation solely as a

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DLA Piper

technology project is to grossly and dangerously oversimplify the challenge it presents.

Digital transformation is more complex. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, characterised by the convergence of physical, digital and biological domains, and exponential growth in computing capabilities (particularly AI), brings with it a world of opportunity on the one hand, and risks on the other. Organisations need a clear understanding of what opportunities they are positioned to pursue and what risks they will need to address in order to find their own strategy for creating a compelling competitive advantage in this new business environment. As part of that process, a range of legal needs will present themselves for attention. Attending to these needs in a commercial and pragmatic way will help to ensure that the organisation is empowered from a legal perspective to successfully pursue its strategy.

Digital transformation involves many legal issues. The legal issues which require attention in the context of a digital transformation program will of course depend on the scope of the program. For a traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ business looking to increase its digital footprint, it may be that the current lease for its premises need to be terminated. For a global financial services company looking to benefit from RPA, a sourcing activity will be needed to procure and contract

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Paul Allen, Partner and Head of Intellectual Property & Technology, DLA Piper

To think of digital transformation solely as a technology project is to grossly and dangerously oversimplify the challenge it presents.” with the RPA service provider.

It may also be that human resource issues arise to effect redundancies resulting from the implementation of the RPA. For an energy company establishing a data lake and data analytics capability, a whole plethora of issues arise in relation to cloudbased contracting, platform procurement, data protection and other data regulations.

Just as navigating and delivering digital transformation

requires a holistic understanding of what is at stake, so too does the development and implementation of intelligently aligned legal solutions for the digital transformation journey.

With this understanding, it is possible to develop legal solutions that will support an organisation’s vision and strategy, and the associated change program required to deliver the transformation the organisation is working towards.

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Equinix

The future of digital economy A focus by governments across the region on transforming the oil economy into a strong diversified one is attracting global players to drive their services and platforms into the Middle East. It is here where Interconnection serves as a major catalyst, says Jeroen Schlosser, Managing Director, Equinix MENA.

Jeroen Schlosser, Managing Director, Equinix MENA

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s more and more businesses realise that leveraging the cloud is the most efficient way to solve emerging challenges to their critical IT infrastructure, these enterprises are also seeing it as a central element to their businesses.

For example, the integration of emerging technologies such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence and high-end robotics into the strategy of traditional industries and the strain it places on data traffic will only lead to enhanced demands for cloud services.

In the Middle East, cloud computing is ramping up, given the recent announcements from several global cloud service providers as well as an increasing investment from government in this technology, we seem to be approaching a tipping point.

IDC predicts spending on public cloud services in the UAE will almost quadruple over the next four years, from AED 439 million in 2017 to AED 1.51bn in 2022 and that the emergence of cloud computing will have a powerful effect on tech capabilities in the region. Another survey carried out

by Equinix recently among more than 1,200 senior IT professionals from across Europe and Middle East also show the rise of multicloud and the evolving role of the data center. According to the survey, more than seven in 10 (71%) organisations are likely to move more of their business functions to the cloud in the coming years. 60% of EMEA IT leaders cite proximity to cloud

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Equinix

service providers (CSPs) as an integral factor when choosing a data center in their local market.

Over the last year demand for cloud services has been very strong but the lack of ‘In-Region deployed’ cloud platform (when the infrastructure is physically located in the Middle East, closer to end user, which means any data stored in the cloud remains in the region) has been a barrier to adoption. 2019 will be the first year that both government and enterprise have choice in building hybrid cloud structures.

This year will see enterprises leveraging public cloud offerings from platforms that are located in the Middle East region, whilst keeping control over those workloads and applications that have specific requirements forcing them to remain private cloud

pursuing full-blown migrations, it has brought unprecedented scalability, flexibility and choice to enterprises. However, companies that use just one cloud provider tend to find their expectations met in some sectors but poorlyserved in others. A key selling point of multi-cloud is therefore its flexibility.

As multi-cloud adoption hits the mainstream, the scope of operations for IT organisations will increasingly extend to what is called the ‘digital edge’. This is where people (customers, employees, etc) and digital ecosystems (clouds, mobile, B2B partners, etc.) meet. Today the expectations of mobile and digital users have increased significantly, and they expect companies to deliver a high quality of experience, scalability

Interconnection is the gateway to truly optimised multi-cloud solutions; it is the future of the digital economy.” solutions. We see the enterprise and government markets using Equinix platform to connect to those services providers offering services to build their digital strategies. Equinix’s growth is driven by the steady focus across the full region on transforming the oil economy into a strong, diversified economy. These initiatives and trends are used by global players to drive their services and platforms into the Middle East.

It is no doubt that cloud is the lifeline of digital transformation.

From adopting cloud for hybrid IT deployments to

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and resiliency. Enterprises that rely on the public internet are increasingly finding it to be falling below expectation. To combat high-latency networks, expensive WAN connections and the inconsistent performance of private and public global networks, organisations in the Middle East need a more distributed and interconnected cloud strategy.

Enterprises that silo and centralise their digital infrastructure face not only security challenges but also the risk of falling behind their competitors. This is because the

latency issues of operating solely on the public internet affect an enterprises ability to process payments or communications at the speed or security offered by a private, direct connection.

This is where Interconnection comes into play - it is the gateway to truly optimised multi-cloud solutions; it is the future of the digital economy. Bypassing the public internet can eliminate many of the data security issues that are a constant source of concern for companies as well as cut latency times and boost infrastructure reliability.

A few years ago, cloud adoption was a low priority for businesses. This has changed dramatically with the potential of the cloud starting to be realised as a central force driving commercial services and regional economies. The conversation has now moved on from whether to deploy with a single cloud service provider, to how to implement a multi-cloud strategy that meets emerging customer needs for on-demand services. The key to successfully leveraging multi-cloud is robust, scalable and flexible digital architecture–one which allows direct interconnection to key partners, ensures security of critical digital infrastructure and streamlines the digital supply chain. We can expect multiple enterprises to build their IT infrastructure around these developments. The convergence of multiple clouds across the enterprise which includes data, applications and personal clouds, will fundamentally change the way people and businesses operate.

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HPE

The hybrid cloud journey HPE’s Strategic Alliance Business Manager Craig Evans explains how to successfully adopt hybrid cloud thanks to HPE and Microsoft’s solutions.

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oday’s organisations are increasingly moving to public cloud, but regulatory and other requirements require them to run some applications onpremises. To meet the needs of the organisation, IT is relying on a hybrid cloud model that complements the flexibility and scalability of public clouds with the security and privacy of private clouds.

One way to adopt this hybrid approach is to explore what Microsoft Azure Stack, powered by HPE ProLiant has to offer. Microsoft Azure Stack, powered by HPE ProLiant is an integrated system that is delivered preconfigured and installed on-site at the customers preferred location.

Challenges from not embracing a cloud ops approach Cost control– in the cloud or on premises. Because of the lack of visibility to usage and governance, customers can spend too much on cloud services.

On-premises clouds have been capital intensive, hand assembled, and have often seen “VM Sprawl” without visibility, governance and show back for accountability.

Unrealised agility and faster time to value – The main reason that customers use the cloud is to gain agility and speed up the business. Without automation and simple processes, operating the hybrid cloud is difficult.

The complexity and overhead may slow you down. Cloud Ops is different from IT ops, and traditional tools and processes inhibit the speed expected

No question, Hybrid IT can be complicated, and the landscape changes constantly.”

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from the cloud. As a result, customers on premises either overprovision or take the risk of running out of capacity, as growth is often unpredictable. In addition purchasing cycles can take 3-6 months which is often too long when a new project or customer comes along.

Complexity in IT operations – Overinvesting in traditional IT skills, processes and underinvesting in cloud ops.

IT may have invested in the right way to operate traditional IT, and with good results, but much of that may not apply to the cloud. Cloud ops skills are new, the tools are many, and because this is more automated, the processes will be different.

There will be a learning curve for the organisation, and time and money spent just building cloud ops. Cloud-native skills are at a premium, meaning that recruiting the right people make it even more expensive. Without automation, operating IT still takes 80% of IT’s resources, leaving little for business innovation.

Inability to control risk – Without a good “right mix” plan to start with, that explicitly identifies the risk and compliance needs for each workload, organisations are open to putting data into the wrong cloud service without the proper precautions, or in the wrong country, or into systems without the ability to audit. And this will get worse with time, because without proper control, cloud configurations drift and mistakes compound.

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HPE

The first and most important step is to find your right mix In a recent Frost & Sullivan survey, 51 percent of IT decisionmakers cited “assessing the optimal deployment model for workloads” as a difficult challenge in implementing their Hybrid IT environment. It’s complicated, and the landscape changes constantly. Not too long ago, traditional IT was the default platform. Here, the application, service, and workload were all nicely tied together. The terrain was familiar and mostly contained within your data center, whereas hybrid IT typically involves a more complex mix of environments and many variables.

Your right mix will be unique to you because your business is unique. For this reason, HPE offers advisory services to discover, assess, and migrate applications and workloads with our customers.

Operating the right mix: Cloud ops isn’t IT ops “CloudOps” is an emerging practice of continuous delivery and operations of cloud computing infrastructure, 24x7x365 with nonstop service, competitive performance and usability, and the scalability and security required for modern online services. Many people think the hard part is the architecture and implementation of cloud infrastructure, but we beg to differ. The hardest part is continuous, reliable operations that out-deliver on user’s expectations.

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Paul Allen, Partner and Head of Intellectual Property & Technology, DLA Piper

Get there faster with an end to end consumption approach No question, Hybrid IT can be complicated, and the landscape changes constantly. HPE GreenLake Hybrid Cloud provides a simplified path to hybrid cloud with a built-for-purpose Microsoft Azure Stack solution, enabling you to get up and running quickly, pay as you grow, and enjoy the flexibility to run your Azure-consistent workloads where they are best suited. Best of all, the solution is operated

for you by the experts in HPE Pointnext so you can focus on running your business.

HPE Pointnext services Included in HPE GreenLake Hybrid Cloud for Microsoft Azure Stack are tailored services from HPE Pointnext, including design and deployment, operations, management, and support.

Leveraging our global team of experts, you’ll save the hassle and the risk of implementing and managing your hybrid cloud platform and get there faster.

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IBM

How to cut complexity from multi-cloud management The journey to cloud is a competitive necessity for post modern businesses but it requires an effective environment to be successful, says IBM Services Middle East and Africa’s Hybrid Cloud Services Leader Gustavo Alvarez.

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Gustavo Alvarez, Hybrid Cloud Services Leader, IBM Services Middle East and Africa

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hen IT leaders were elevated to the C-suite, the changes went much deeper than a humble title change.

Suddenly, the entire team became the epicenter of the organisation, responsible for creating intelligent platforms that transformed the way customers were served and employees operated. But at the same time, all of the traditional responsibilities remained maintenance, troubleshooting, admin. Today, multi-skilled IT teams must oversee a complex web of workflows, all while protecting data and maintaining regulatory compliance.

Delivering red hot enterprise IT performance without sacrificing security and simplicity is a real challenge in this kind of environment, where success requires the careful management of a web of infrastructure,

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IBM

platform, and operating models.

As they grapple with this challenge, my clients often voice similar concerns: • How do I maintain my organisation’s DevOps culture while satisfying the desire to standardise our operating model for multi-cloud?

• How do I balance the economics of our infrastructure portfolio with our short-term performance goals?

The dilemma is not uncommon.

A recent report from IBM’s Institute for Business Value found that almost every company surveyed was using some form of cloud computing, with 85 percent using one or more cloud environment. Meanwhile, in our region, 70 percent of Dubai startups utilise cloud computing.

However, an Ovum study showed that 80 percent of mission-critical workloads and sensitive data are still running on on-premise systems, due to performance and regulatory requirements.

Although such reluctance to go all in multi-cloud is understandable, the pressures of competition means your company can’t afford to be tentative.

So, what can you do to enable and manage a broad spectrum of infrastructure, platform and operating model choices – across Private Cloud, public cloud and traditional IT – to maximum effect?

Here are three ways for starters.

Although such reluctance to go all in multi-cloud is understandable, the pressures of competition means your company can’t afford to be tentative.”

1) Prioritise standardisation and portability

3) Commit to IT-as-a-service

Making an investment in widescale standardisation and portability should be a priority if simplifying your environment is

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the goal. Standardisation creates a system where the processes, tools and management you need to succeed are consistent across all IT environments. Not only does this reduce the time to implement and understand, it also simplifies management while reducing compatibility and cost.

Similarly, portability creates a system whereby data and applications can automatically move from platform to platform – across multiple clouds and on-premise, depending on where the workflow will perform best.

Meanwhile, portability enables collaborative workflows to happen more easily, increasing your team’s agility.

2) Establish a data-driven system As for performance-based measures, establishing a datadriven system that capitalises on the vast swathes of information and insight derived from your operations has a hugely positive impact. By successfully marrying data insight with business strategy, you’ll help the C-suite, DevOps, and IT operations teams make decisions based upon deeper intelligence.

Finally, investing in IT-as-aservice (ITaaS) combines all of the above with the expertise of a specialist third-party to integrate and manage it all. Your internal

team is freed up to be deployed where they’ll be most effective as the drivers of transformative innovation and disruption.

Crucially, ITaaS also negates many of the hazards that a multicloud environment can bring – loss of insight, increased risk, and greater inefficiency. IBM’s own approach does so by mapping out prescriptive customer journey paths to multi-cloud, getting you to your infrastructure target as painlessly and cost-effectively as possible. All the solutions you need (platform, automation, managed services, and more) are also pre-defined and integrated with each other, nullifying complexity and further simplifying the management process.

And, while end-to-end multicloud services are ready for your organisation, you also gain the flexibility that comes with a modular construction. You can quickly add and remove services such as planning, migration, management, and governance to suit your ever-changing priorities.

Let’s be straight – the journey to cloud is a competitive necessity for most modern businesses, but it’s also not without its potholes.

Implementing an effective environment is only half the battle, as it then requires diligent, expert management and control from your team of IT experts to ensure the investment is worthwhile.

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IDC

The answer is Cloud Jyoti Lalchandani, Group Vice President and Regional Managing Director for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa at IDC, explains why cloud is the answer to the increasing demand for scalable, flexible and secure solutions.

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DC’s recent Middle East CIO Digital Transformation Survey for 2019 revealed that the region’s IT decision makers are coming under mounting pressure to meet the growing expectations and service needs of users while simultaneously spearheading their organization’s quest for innovation.

This means they are increasingly on the lookout for technology solutions that offer flexibility, scalability, openness, security,

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and access to innovation. Ticking all these boxes, cloud presents itself as a viable answer. And perceptions around its use are beginning to shift across the Middle East.

Previously, cloud’s detractors would highlight security as a major weakness of the technology. However, as cloud use has spread across industries, so too has the idea that cloud can actually help improve an organization’s security posture.

The reason for this shift in perception is simple – all the

major cloud players have a strong incentive to place data protection at the very heart of their platforms, and they are continually evolving and improving their security practices.

The result is that, according to a global IDC survey of 5,740 respondents, security now ranks among the top three reasons for adopting cloud, regardless of whether the architecture is public, private, or hybrid in nature.

However, the shifting perceptions around cloud security have been accompanied

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IDC

by an increased focus on data sovereignty, with many governments and regulators in the Middle East requiring organizations to keep certain types of data in-country. In many cases, IT decision makers have indicated that their ability to use cloud would improve considerably if properly defined data regulations and data-classification standards were put in place.

A number of sectors, including government and banking, have shown a clear preference for using in-country datacenters from hyperscale providers. As such, the major cloud players have begun to invest heavily in the region so that CIOs in the Middle East are more at ease with where their data is stored. The likes of Microsoft, Oracle, AWS, SAP, and Alibaba have all launched – or are planning to launch – datacenters in the region to meet the growing demand for cloud services.

The scale of investment in these platforms will enable organizations across the region to leverage the very latest in innovation-accelerating technologies, including Big Data analytics, AI, IoT, and blockchain.

In turn, these technologies will help facilitate the goals of broader national projects, such as Smart Dubai in the UAE and Neom in Saudi Arabia.

This is not to say that growth in the cloud market will be driven

Jyoti Lalchandani, Group Vice President and Regional Managing Director Middle East, Turkey & Africa, IDC solely by public cloud adoption – or that this growth will be completely unfettered. Rather, as organizations around the world begin to acknowledge that no single architecture is built for all workloads, it is clear that the future lies in hybrid cloud and multi-cloud architectures.

Throughout 2019, we expect to see organizations spending large amounts of time and effort on cost-optimization projects, ensuring OPEX is justified and delivering results and exercising caution in any further spending.

Digital transformation and the adoption of cloud are interwoven and interdependent.”

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However, as digital transformation gathers pace, and the adoption of 3rd Platform technologies and innovation accelerators ramps up, so the demand for skills relating to these new technologies will increase.

Similarly, new jobs and career paths will emerge; for example, organizations will require people to train AI or govern AI, and meeting these demands of tomorrow is a concern that must be addressed today.

Digital transformation and the adoption of cloud are interwoven and interdependent. As such, the increasing level of cloud adoption in the Middle East bodes well for cementing the region as a global leader in the digital transformation journey.

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SAP

The pillars of digital transformation The Middle East is at the centre of digital transformation, but this can only be achieved through new technologies such as AI and machine learning, IoT and Blockchain, says SAP’s Senior Vice President and General Manager for Middle East South, Gergi Abboud

A Gergi Abboud, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Middle East South, SAP

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cross the Middle East, people and society are relying ever more on Smart City solutions and autonomous devices with builtin intelligence – from autonomous cars and drones, to connected refrigerators capable of ordering their own groceries.

But in terms of enabling such a connected society, there is much work to be done behind the scenes. A large part of this digital transformation – of organisations, cities, and countries – will involve combining Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), and Blockchain.

When these elements – each complex in their own right – are brought together within a cloud

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SAP

environment, their combined value increases dramatically. Not just for organisations that need to adopt them, but also for society – across government, the business world, and our personal lives.

In our discussions with Middle East customers, we understand that many organisations need to overhaul their established processes and re-invent their systems for a new, burgeoning digital age. For example, while 84 percent of organisations say digital transformation is critical, Oxford Economics research shows that only 3 percent of organisations have completed digital transformation.

Industry Verticals Benefit from Integrated Technologies Thankfully, Middle East organisations across all industries are now able to benefit from the power of AI, IoT, and blockchain through tailored solutions and cloud-based digital platforms that can simplify processes, optimise costs, boost efficiency, and can scale up as organisations grow.

2019 is shaping up to be a major year for cloud adoption. For example, new YouGov research shows that the majority of IT decision-makers in the UAE are increasing their cloud spend and

will be partially or fully on the cloud this year.

By tech investment, in the Middle East and North Africa, our research with Oxford Economics shows that more than threequarters of IT decision makers agree on investing in ‘future technology’ solutions including artificial intelligence, blockchain, and the Internet of Things to drive digital business success.

We are increasingly seeing a new breed of solutions that can transform core operations and services - from digital oilfields to connected malls and ports that companies can provide to their customers.

Our Co-Innovation Lab in the UAE is piloting many innovations.

Emirates NBD’s “Really!” app can provide prospective realty buyers with an immersive home buying experience. DEWA has a pilot project for faster, safer, and more cost-effective utilities maintenance combining virtual reality and IoT. EOH International’s EnerClever Smart Waste Management sees connected trash trucks optimise routes.

SAP’s Investments in the Region’s Cloud Future In the Middle East, we are committed to enabling

We are increasingly seeing a new breed of solutions that can transform core operations and services - from digital oilfields to connected malls and ports - that companies can provide to their customers” www.equinix.ae

digital transformation and we have been investing in the infrastructure to power these innovations. This philosophy has been at the heart of one of our major investments in the Middle East region last year: The public cloud data center that we opened in the UAE, as part of our 5-year, USD 200 million investment.

As the first multi-national business applications provider to launch cloud data centers in the UAE, SAP is fast-tracking digital transformation with business solutions tailored to the needs of specific industry verticals and lines of business. Our cloud data centers are open to organisations across the UAE, and also to any organisation in the region or even throughout the globe.

As cloud, AI, IoT, and blockchain projects must be designed, deployed, and managed by highly skilled IT professionals, our Training and Development Institute is developing young talent and the workforce of the future across the region.

We’ve already seen more than 750 graduates from our Young Professional Program and Dual Study Program across educational institutions in the MENA region.

As we approach mega-events such as Expo 2020 Dubai, for which SAP’s S/4HANA real-time business suite can optimise an expected 25 million visits, and as the region’s nationwide visions accelerate, 2019 serves as the key year for organisations, cities, and countries to digitally transform on the cloud.

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feature

Huge demand driving cloud computing growth in MENA region When US technology conglomerate Microsoft opened their very first data centres in the Middle East, it represented another significant milestone in the growth of cloud computing in the region. In this feature, I’ll attempt to examine the burgeoning cloud computing market in the MENA region, and explore some of the predictions being made for its future growth.

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n June 2019, Microsoft opened new data centres in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and its management said that the sheer demand in the Middle East provided them with the confidence they needed to invest billions in data centres’ right across the MENA region.

Sayed Hashish, General Manager of Microsoft Gulf said there was a phenomenal scope for cloud business with new data centres driving digital transformation, economic growth and job creation in the region.

Hashish said, “We are investing billions of dollars across our data centres. Huge demand is giving us confidence to invest.

For regional enterprises, moving to a cloud system hosted by a specialised company proves cheaper than creating their own infrastructure of servers, hardware and security networks.

“As all data stays in the UAE, it will enable government organisations to comply with local regulatory frameworks,” Mr Hashish added.

It is anticipated that the new cloud services delivered from

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the UAE will have a seismic impact in terms of job creation, entrepreneurship and economic growth across the region.

International Data Corporation have projected that cloud services could potentially create 500,000 jobs in the Middle East, with more than 55,000 of these expected to be in the UAE by 2022.

In addition to the establishment of big data centres, the increased adoption of emerging technology

by SME’s and startups has also contributed to the proliferation of cloud computing in the MENA region.

These developments are hugely encouraging for the MENA region, but it is important to note that the cloud computing market is not as mature or advanced as it is in other parts of the world. However, the infrastructure development is growing rapidly, governments are increasingly becoming more aware of its importance and are funding public initiatives and programs as a result.

The combination of all these factors is good for economic development in the MENA region, as cloud technology has both the processing and data capabilities to extract the value from transformative and disruptive new technologies such as AI and blockchain.

However, a comprehensive report by Gartner found that the MENA region is still trailing its global peers by a considerable distance when it comes to cloud spending, even though the global research advisory firm projects that the MENA region will increase its spending by 1.8% to an estimated $160 billion by the end of 2019.

“There are insufficient local hyper-scale and large-scale data centres to support cloud systems, which cause local organisations to derive cloud offerings from abroad,” explained Peter Sondergaard, executive vice president and global head of research at Gartner. “Moreover, latency, legal and local currency makes this option problematic and limits cloud adoption among businesses in MENA.” One another factor given for the delay in cloud expansion in the region is the acute skills gap, with currently more demand than supply of workers with cloudcomputing related expertise. This accentuates the need for upskilling and re-skilling workers in jobs affected by automation and emerging technologies.

However, experts have pointed out that if the skills gap is quickly addressed by governments, businesses and other stakeholders

“There are insufficient local hyperscale and large-scale data centres to support cloud systems, which cause local organisations to derive cloud offerings from abroad.” www.equinix.ae

in the Middle East, over half a million new jobs could be created in different industries and verticals across the region in the period 2017-2022, according to research from IDC and Microsoft.

Industry experts at Gartner have predicted that the Middle East will not reach the level of cloud usage the US enjoyed in 2017, until the end of 2022. However, as aforementioned above the landscape of the cloud computing ecosystem in the region is evolving and growing.

The change in mindset on cloud computing has been led by the progressive vision of a whole number of governments right across the Middle East.

Governments are actively encouraging cloud adoption and have become engaged in a series of innovative programs in a bid to drive its growth.

The leadership within these governments recognise the power cloud computing possesses in terms of unlocking the potential in disruptive new technologies that can completely transform their economies and drive new growth.

In the United Arab Emirates, Smart Abu Dhabi and Smart Dubai are investing huge capital into cloud technology as they see it as a critical component in the continued development of smart cities. This approach is being adopted and followed in other countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

While the cloud computing industry still has a long way to go in the Middle East in comparison to other markets, the future certainly does looks bright.

Multicloud ME

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By 2021 interconnection bandwidth is predicted to be

10X THE VOLUME OF INTERNET TRAFFIC

Today’s digital business leaders are leveraging interconnection to solve for the complex integration and control challenges of an increasingly distributed infrastructure.

To better understand and track how industry leaders are driving business advantage with digital-ready infrastructures, Equinix developed the Global Interconnection Index (GXI), which tracks, measures and forecasts the explosive growth in digital business.

Learn more at Equinix.ae/GXI Contact us at +971.4.4493880 or contact-uae@eu.equinix.com