NEWS

DIFC LAUNCHES AI AND CODING LICENSE IN COOPERATION WITH UAE AI OFFICE

Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the global financial centre in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region has announced the launch of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) and coding license, in cooperation with the

UAE Artificial Intelligence Office.

The license, which is a UAE first, will advance the country’s Artificial

Intelligence Strategy 2031, which aims to enhance the UAE’s reputation in this field by attracting AI companies and coders from around the world.

Companies holding the license will be able to work within a stimulating environment at the DIFC Innovation Hub, which is the largest cluster of FinTech and innovation companies in the region. The Hub hosts more than 500 firms, ranging from start-ups to global unicorns, representing over 60 per cent of all GCC FinTechs. In addition, the license provides an opportunity to obtain UAE Golden Visas for employees working in those companies.

Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, said, “Such initiatives reflect positively on the country’s readiness to become a global destination for pioneering the industries of the future by adopting advanced technology and stimulating innovation in various fields. The UAE Government is keen to support digital transformation processes that embody of the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. This is being achieved by developing digital activities and providing innovative solutions that contribute to improving the performance of governments and the lives of communities. DIFC has opened new horizons for leading global companies that aspire to enhance their efforts in the field of AI and expand their businesses further.”

His Excellency Essa Kazim, Governor of DIFC, said, “Dubai and DIFC are global ambassadors for AI. Financial Services companies in DIFC and a broad spectrum of other industries across the emirate are setting the standard which is also contributing to the UAE’s ambitious goal to have an internationally competitive, knowledge-based economy. DIFC is proud to be collaborating with the UAE AI Office, confirming our commitment to the country’s Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031 and leveraging the potential of AI to drive the future of finance.”

GARTNER: 25% OF PEOPLE WILL SPEND AN HOUR PER DAY IN THE METAVERSE

By 2026, 25% of people will spend at least one hour a day in the metaverse for work, shopping, education, social and/or entertainment, according to Gartner.

“Vendors are already building ways for users to replicate their lives in digital worlds,” said Marty Resnick, Research Vice President at Gartner. “From attending virtual classrooms to buying digital land and constructing virtual homes, these activities are currently being conducted in separate environments. Eventually, they will take place in a single environment – the metaverse – with multiple destinations across technologies and experiences.”

Gartner defines a metaverse as a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical and digital reality. It is persistent, providing enhanced immersive experiences, as well as device independent and accessible through any type of device, from tablets to head-mounted displays.

Because no single vendor will own the metaverse, Gartner expects it to have a virtual economy enabled by digital currencies and nonfungible tokens (NFTs). The metaverse will impact every business that consumers interact with every day.

It will also impact how work gets done. Enterprises will provide better engagement, collaboration and connection to their employees through immersive workspaces in virtual offices. Businesses will not need to create their own infrastructure to do so because the metaverse will provide the framework. In addition, virtual events that have gained popularity over the last 18 months will offer more collaborative and immersive networking opportunities and workshops.

“Enterprises will have the ability to expand and enhance their business models in unprecedented ways by moving from a digital business to a metaverse business,” said Resnick. “By 2026, 30% of the organisations in the world will have products and services ready for metaverse.”

The adoption of metaverse technologies is nascent and fragmented, and Gartner cautions organisations about investing heavily in a specific metaverse. “It is still too early to know which investments will be viable in the long term, but product managers should take the time to learn, explore and prepare for a metaverse in order to position themselves competitively,” said Resnick.

TREND MICRO RECOGNISES UAE’S MOI FOR EXCELLENCE IN CYBERSECURITY

Trend Micro Incorporated has recognised the Ministry of Interior (MoI) of the United Arab Emirates, based in Abu Dhabi, for its astute execution of cybersecurity strategies in their pursuit of enhancing the digital capabilities of the country.

The Cyber Defense Challenge (CDC) aims to strengthen the nation’s digital infrastructure and raise awareness of cybersecurity. Over 30 participants took part in a single-day hands-on workshop led by IT experts from across the UAE. They were exposed to simulated cyberattacks and challenged to determine the best course of action to demonstrate their capabilities in protecting their digital assets. Contestants collaborated to develop and execute strategies to effectively detect and block attacks while competing against each other during the event.

During the Cyber Defense Challenge (CDC), Trend Micro presented the MoI with a prestigious award acknowledging its leadership in cybersecurity intelligence and practices, protecting the country’s digital agendas. The award was presented by Salah Suleiman, Sales Manager, UAE, Trend Micro, to Colonel Dr. Ibrahim Humaid Al Mayahi, Director of the Digital Security Directorate, Ministry of Interior, who led the delegation from the ministry.

Adding to the significance of the event, Trend Micro along with the Ministry of Interior was recognised by Aqdar for its exceptional cybersecurity practices and services fortifying the UAE’s digital infrastructure. The prestigious award was presented by Lieutenant Colonel Sultan Harib Alkatbi, General Coordinator of Khalifa Empowerment Program, Aqdar.

“Platforms like the Cyber Defense Challenge (CDC) competition provide an invaluable opportunity to raise awareness and recognise excellence in cybersecurity,” said Majd Sinan, Country Manager, Trend Micro UAE. “In alignment with the country’s vision, the MoI has been instrumental in demonstrating stability through a higher standard of cybersecurity practices and transforming the nation. A recognition of this stature from Aqdar is a testament to our efforts and motivates us to further continue our movement in supporting organisations from the private and public sector in their pursuit of achieving a stronger security posture with state-of-the-art solutions, expertise, and industry-leading insights.”

In addition, the Trend Micro Security Predictions for 2022: Toward a New Momentum, states that threat actors in 2022 will focus on ransomware attacks on datacenter workloads regardless of their location, as well as exposed services, to take advantage of the large number of people continuing to work remotely. Therefore, avenues like the CDC provide the perfect opportunity to strengthen the country’s digital ecosystem to combat modern-day threats.

HUAWEI RELEASES INTELLIGENTRAN WIRELESS ARCHITECTURE

Huawei has unveiled IntelligentRAN, its new wireless network architecture, at the Pre-MWC Briefing and Product and Solution Launch event. This architecture is designed to help carriers build autonomous networks using service operation intelligence, experience optimisation, and simplified O&M.

Huawei’s Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Wireless Solutions Gan Bin spoke at the launch, explaining how key technologies were incorporated into the architecture to support ADN over wireless networks: “Intelligence improves wireless networks greatly by supporting correlative data analysis and prediction to make decisions more adaptive. This is where IntelligentRAN comes in. It will enable networks to realise zero service waiting, consistent experience, zero network faults, and optimal experience and energy efficiency. Using Mobile Intelligent Engine (MIE), it will better coordinate data, models, and decisions between base stations and networks, paving the way to wireless intelligence.” 5G has caused a huge increase in the number of personal, industry, and home applications available in the wireless market. As these services increase, network performance requirements are similarly diversifying in terms of coverage, capacity, and latency.

Huawei’s new IntelligentRAN allows intelligent air interfaces to use key technologies such as smart grids, scheduling dictionaries, and channel graphs. With these tools, they can intelligently configure air interface resources and achieve optimal user experience and capacity. Service prediction with IntelligentRAN also guides non-real-time spectrum and channel selection on the network side and realtime symbol scheduling and transmit power configuration on the base station side. This significantly reduces energy consumption across the entire network.

In addition, IntelligentRAN enables intelligent SLA site planning, where parameters are dynamically configured, and models can be adjusted flexibly in response to service changes.

Networks with IntelligentRAN also benefit from intelligent O&M. They can self-learn the features of faults to improve fault detection accurately and root cause analysis. This replaces passive responses with proactive maintenance, bringing us a step closer to zero-fault wireless networks. Intelligent minimum drive tests (MDTs) can also work with Massive MIMO to build an all-round high-precision map for network performance.

KYNDRYL, AWS ESTABLISH STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP TO ACCELERATE CLOUD ADOPTION

Kyndryl has announced a strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) that brings together their respective expertise, skills, and global resources to help customers transform their businesses through Industry-focused enterprise cloud services and solutions. In addition to collaborating with AWS to provide solutions for Kyndryl’s top enterprise customers around the world, Kyndryl plans to build out their own internal infrastructure in the cloud, leveraging AWS as a preferred cloud provider. As part of this announcement, AWS will become a

Kyndryl Premier Global Alliance Partner.

Kyndryl and AWS will invest in building a global AWS practice with the skills, services, and expertise to deliver a best-in-class customer experience. As part of the global partnership, Kyndryl will establish an AWS Cloud Center of Excellence (CCOE) to offer state-of-theart customer solutions and services for supporting mission critical infrastructure, next generation technologies and modernising applications and workflows across industries. The global AWS CCOE will enable Kyndryl services professionals across the globe to optimise their customers’ migration journeys with AWS, tapping into the availability, reliability, and security of the world’s leading cloud.

To offer differentiated value to customers, Kyndryl and AWS have announced they are developing an accelerator for VMware Cloud on AWS leveraging their deep partnerships with VMware. Through the accelerator, skilled practitioners from AWS, VMware, and Kyndryl will deliver deep expertise and custom solutions to help the world’s largest enterprises combine their existing VMware investments with AWS services. Given Kyndryl’s high concentration of customers running VMware on premises, this provides an expedited path to VMware Cloud on AWS and helps organisations to run their mission-critical workloads in the cloud.

ideas. By taking part in training courses, specialised workshops and knowledge exchange and transfer at our facility, they will be able to maximise their potentials and raise their global competitiveness. This will help transform our country in the next 50 years,” H.E. Mansoor Bu Osaiba added.

The Innovation Lab is equipped with modern communication technologies such as TETRA, 4G and other related solutions and will feature 5G network, the Internet of Things, smart sensors, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, cameras, drones and other autonomous devices. Nedaa will also provide an integrated system of tools, scientific materials and methodologies to support the development of key technologies and services that will benefit the community at large.

The newest facility will stimulate a culture of innovation and partnership, as well as strengthen cooperation among local, regional and global tech companies, universities, and government and semigovernment bodies. Countries wishing to benefit from the experiences of the UAE in the field of secure, mission-critical and specialised communication may do so via the Nedaa lab.

NEDAA INAUGURATES INNOVATION LAB FOR SPECIALISED COMMUNICATION TECH

In support of Dubai’s digital transformation acceleration, Professional Communications Corporation – Nedaa has announced the opening of its state-of-theart technology platform, the Innovation Lab, for the development of specialised, mission-critical communication technologies. The announcement was made as the country celebrates the UAE Innovation Month this February.

The Innovation Lab is the latest in Nedaa’s efforts to lead the way in deploying new technologies that will help build a thriving digital society and strengthen connectivity in the emirate. It is seen to complement the initiatives under the ‘Dubai Smart City’ program launched by H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

With the opening of the Innovation Lab, Nedaa aims to foster collaboration among entities and institutions, including technology firms and universities, while promoting capacity building, knowledge dissemination, and investments in modern communication networks. H.E. Mansoor Bu Osaiba, Chief Executive Officer, Nedaa, said, “The state-of-theart facility is the realization of our goal to provide an environment where new tools are created. These modern tools can reshape the future of local and global communication while providing sustainable solutions that matter to our society. Innovators and pioneers can utilise the lab to develop their systems, devices and applications and test how these can accelerate the efficiency and support the digital transformation of industries such as government, education, healthcare, public utilities and transportation.”

“The lab will also open new horizons and opportunities for UAE nationals to cultivate and present their innovative

BARRACUDA OFFERS LOCAL CLOUD DATA PROTECTION VIA UAE DATA CENTRE SERVICES

Barracuda Networks has announced that its Cloud-toCloud Backup solution will now be delivered to customers in the

United Arab Emirates from Microsoft’s local cloud data centres. This makes a total of 10 regions for the solution, and customers’ Office 365 backup data will be stored locally within the country, a key requirement for customers operating in regulated industries, and in complying with local regulations.

In a recent study conducted by

Barracuda, organisations disclosed that data protection is both a security and regulatory concern for them. A full 69% of respondents said they are concerned about storage of the data being backed up outside their geography (geo residency), and more than 7 in 10 respondents are concerned about compliance with data privacy requirements.

With the UAE’s landmark personal data legislation that places new regulations around the processing of personal data for individuals in the UAE coming into effect this year, such concerns around georesidency will no doubt be amplified for businesses in the country.

“At Barracuda, we continue to invest in our global infrastructure in order to help local organisations get access to protection against emerging threats,” said Chris Ross, SVP International, Barracuda. “As more organisations move to the cloud, they are looking to protect their data, while being able to handle and store data locally. Microsoft advises customers to use a third-party backup and recovery provider, and with these new regions, we will be able to serve our customers while helping them comply with data regulations and policies.”

Barracuda’s latest version of Cloudto-Cloud Backup delivers a fast search and restore experience for Office 365 data, including Teams, Exchange Online, SharePoint, and OneDrive. Compared to traditional backup and recovery solutions, it is a cloud-first solution that provides scale and resiliency, fast performance, and wide global coverage to protect Office 365 data born in the cloud.

Necip Ozyucel, Cloud and Enterprise Business Group Lead, Microsoft UAE added, “We are excited about Barracuda making Cloud-to-Cloud Backup available on the Azure UAE Regions to provide data residency. Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup provides a flexible and scalable backup solution with its cloud native features running on our local datacentre regions in the UAE.”

Chris Ross

SNOWFLAKE ANNOUNCES LOCAL CLOUD DEPLOYMENT IN THE UAE

Snowflake has announced its increasing presence in the UAE with general availability on the Azure region in Dubai. The new deployment meets increasing regional customer demand for Snowflake’s Data Cloud, enabling local enterprises to maintain proximity to their data, while enabling strict compliance with local data regulations.

“We launched in the region knowing the importance of local data residency for organisations in UAE and ensuring that data held locally is met with the utmost governance protocols,” said Mohamed Zouari, General Manager, Middle East, Turkey, and Africa, at Snowflake. “Our Dubai office launch, matched with the latest regional Azure cloud deployment, signals our commitment to the region’s data innovators, who can now mobilise their data through Snowflake’s Data Cloud, to drive

Mohamed Zouari, Snowflake

both business value and agility.” Customers using Snowflake’s Data Cloud can discover and securely share data, as well as execute diverse analytic workloads. The platform is a cloudnative powerhouse of business intelligence capabilities, including data warehousing, data lakes, data engineering, data science, data applications, and data sharing. Snowflake uses an innovative, per-second pricing model, enabling customers’ access to almost limitless capacity while only paying for the resources they consume.

Snowflake UAE is focusing on local and global systems integrators that are building data strategies and platforms that leverage the power of its Data Cloud. Chosen to spearhead the strategy, the local team focuses are public sector, finance, retail, telecom, media, gaming, fintech, insurance, healthcare and oil and gas. The Snowflake Middle East team is supported by local channel partners to bring Snowflake’s Data Cloud capabilities to a wider set of organisations across those key industries.

“With Snowflake, every company can finally become a data-driven enterprise,” Zouari said. “Many customers such as banks, telecom providers and governmental organisations are tapping into Snowflake’s Data Cloud to accelerate their digital transformation with data at the very heart of this. Data collaboration across these organisations will help achieve their goals of delivering the best citizen experience in the world.”

Snowflake’s rapidly growing customer base of leading regional enterprises includes Emaar, PropertyFinder, Kitopi, Mondia, and ArabyAds.

VEEAM: 88% OF UAE FIRMS TO INCREASE DATA PROTECTION BUDGETS IN 2022

Veeam Data Protection Trends Report 2022 reveals that 67% of businesses are relying on cloud-based solutions to protect their data. It also states that the ability to recover data from ransomware attacks continue to fuel business continuity strategies. 89% of organisations are not protecting data sufficiently while 88% of IT leaders expect data protection budgets to increase at a higher rate than broader IT spending.

The Veeam Data Protection Trends Report 2022 surveyed more than 3,000 IT decision makers and global enterprises to understand their data protection strategies for the next 12 months and beyond. The largest of its kind, this study examines how organisations are preparing for the IT challenges they face, including huge growth in use of cloud services and cloud-native infrastructure, as well as the expanding cyber-attack landscape and the steps they are taking to implement a Modern Data Protection strategy that ensures business continuity.

The results from the region mirror global sentiments as 88% of UAE organisations and 86% of Saudi organisations plan to increase their data protection budgets during 2022 – spending an average of around 7% more than in 2021.

Interestingly, 52% of UAE businesses’ data infrastructure is currently located in the data centre, with 48% now hosted in the cloud. 49% of Saudi firms’ data infrastructure is currently located in the data centre, with 51% now hosted in the cloud.

Claude Schuck, Regional Director, Middle East at Veeam Software, said, “It is clear from the survey that businesses in the Middle East are investing more and taking steps to ensure that their organisations’ data protection strategy is fit for purpose given the continual increase in data criticality and constantly evolving threat landscape. To provide a strong foundation for Digital Transformation, IT leaders must implement robust Modern Data Protection strategies at the lowest possible cost.

When it came to ransomware, 86% of UAE organisations and 84% of Saudi organisations suffered ransomware attacks, making cyber-attacks one of the single biggest causes of downtime for the second consecutive year. According to the report, per attack, businesses in the UAE were unable to recover 34% of their lost data on average, while Saudi firms were unable to recover 37% of their lost data on average. And 81% of UAE organisations and 81% of Saudi organisations were unable to recover at least some of the data they had lost.

Schuck said, “For businesses in the Middle East to win the ransomware battle, they must possess the capability for education, implementation and remediation. The best remedy for a security breach is prevention. This can be improved through education of employees, ensuring that cyber-attackers

Claude Schuck, Veeam Software

SAP RECOGNISES MAJID AL FUTTAIM FOR OPTIMISING CX IN REAL-TIME

Global technology company SAP, has recognised Majid Al Futtaim as one of its most distinguished customers as a part of the Customer Experience (CX) Annual Event, for their ground-breaking and innovative contributions toward enhancing customer experiences with real-time technology across the organisation.

Majid Al Futtaim was identified for its valuable partnership with SAP, enabling are not being gifted access to the data and systems they need to initiate a ransomware attack.” The report also identified protection and availability gap in the Middle East – 80% of UAE organisations and 82% of Saudi organisations have a protection gap between how much data they can afford to lose after an outage and how frequently data is backed up. While 80% of UAE organisations and 76% of Saudi organisations have an availability gap between their expected SLAs and how quickly they can return to productivity. 98% of UAE organisations and 97% of Saudi organisations experienced unexpected outages within the last 12 months.

On average, 17% of UAE firms’ and 18% of Saudi companies’ data is left completely unprotected.

The timings for the courses are between 8:30 AM and 5:00 PM AST, including breaks.

Additionally, those registering for SANS Secure Middle East 2022 are eligible to join an exclusive NetWars Tournament, a suite of hands-on, interactive learning scenarios that give participants the opportunity to practice in-depth cybersecurity techniques, regardless of their skill level, in isolated and monitored environments.

an overall impactful customer experience as well as its collaboration for the OneView program.

Majid Al Futtaim was also recognised as a finalist in the Business Transformation Cloud category for the SAP MENA Quality Awards 2021 for its successful implementation of digital solutions in accordance with principles of quality and excellence set by SAP.

USERS

TRANSFORMING HOSPITALITY

ANANTARA WORLD ISLANDS DUBAI RESORT REDEFINES THE GUEST EXPERIENCE WITH AN ADVANCED WIRELESS NETWORK.

Digitalisation is causing a sweeping transformation across all verticals, including the hospitality industry, which was the first to bear the pandemic’s brunt. In the last two years, the industry has accelerated its digital transformation initiatives to reshape customer experience and reduce operational costs.

Traditionally, IT in hospitality was focused on providing solutions to employees. Now, it has become all about enhancing the guest experience to gain a competitive edge and evolve into a digital-first world. A recent study by Aruba reveals that the hospitality sector is in a healthy position in adopting advanced technologies, with over half of hospitality IT leaders already implementing trials in areas such as artificial intelligence, IoT, and machine learning.

“The hospitality industry is vast in the

MESA region. Digitalisation of the hotel industry has been steadily advancing in the region of late, and recent events, including the Coronavirus crisis and changes in travelers’ expectations, have rapidly accelerated this trend.

Technology drives the future of guest experience in hospitality as the industry looks to balance staff and guest safety,” says Jacob Chacko, regional director –

Middle East, Saudi & South Africa,

HPE Aruba.

He adds that hoteliers will need to reimagine the guest experience and reengage, which is where Aruba has played an instrumental role for global hotels to build loyalty. “At the same time, they will

Mohamed Saed, Head of IT at Seven Tides International

need to improve their operational agility and financial resilience to adopt new technology and manage their networks as demands change.”

An example of how this sector has quickly adapted to this transformational change to fuel long-recovery from the effects of the pandemic is Anantara World Islands Dubai Resort, which opened its doors to guests in December last year. As the first hotel to open in this archipelago of small artificial islands in the shape of a world map, Anantara has more than 70 rooms, suites, an aqua sports, outdoor cinema and 3 outlets, and is one of the most technologically advanced hotels in the region.

“When it comes to digital transformation, Dubai government is our role model,” says Mohamed Saed, Head of IT at Seven Tides International, the developer of Anantara and NH Palm hotels in the UAE. “We have a multipronged digital strategy. First, we have to think outside the box to reduce costs and

Jacob Chacko, regional director – Middle East, Saudi & South Africa, HPE Aruba

carbon footprint and at the same time, elevate the guest experience with new technologies.”

In line with the Dubai government’s strategy, Anantara has gone completely paper-free for registration and check-in at the hotel, and digital room keys are provided to guests for unlocking doors. “Digital innovation has also reached our guest rooms. To meet the expectations of today’s tech-savvy travelers, we have integrated smart technologies into hotel rooms, in addition to customer care chatbots and a mobile app that lets them avail guest services and interact with hotel staff. All these help us to give our guests a greater choice and control over their experience.”

Delivering a seamless guest experience

Wireless connectivity is one of the critical components of the guest experience in hotels. This is why Anantara has deployed an advanced Wi-Fi 6 network from Aruba, which supports HD streaming services, IoT applications, and back-office systems such as PMS.

“Travelers today have more devices than ever, and we must meet their needs - or even exceed their expectations - when it comes to Wi-Fi. We ensure our guests have 24/7 seamless and uninterrupted connectivity both indoors and outdoors. Our wireless network infrastructure, managed centrally with two controllers, is designed to support a high density of devices without impacting quality. As a result, guests and staff can roam the hotel property with consistently great performance,” says Saed.

For Anantara’s IT team, its Wi-Fi network is not just about connectivity alone but a powerful platform that drives consistent and personalised guest experience. “With Aruba’s solutions, we have insights into traffic patterns and network usage, and it helps us understand where there might be WE ENSURE OUR GUESTS HAVE 24/7 SEAMLESS AND UNINTERRUPTED CONNECTIVITY BOTH INDOORS AND OUTDOORS. OUR WIRELESS NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE, MANAGED CENTRALLY WITH TWO CONTROLLERS, IS DESIGNED TO SUPPORT A HIGH DENSITY OF DEVICES WITHOUT IMPACTING QUALITY. AS A RESULT, GUESTS AND STAFF CAN ROAM THE HOTEL PROPERTY WITH CONSISTENTLY GREAT PERFORMANCE.

connectivity issues to alleviate any unplanned downtime and optimize the performance of critical applications.”

Saed says Anantara chose Aruba’s wireless network because of its proven track record in the hospitality industry. “We faced many challenges while designing our Wi-Fi network because of the hotel’s remote location, weather conditions, and external interferences. We wanted a robust wireless infrastructure that can autoadapt to changing environments and applications and eliminate all dead spots. Aruba fits the bill. Also, we deployed this project during the peak of the pandemic, and Aruba and its partners ensured that supply chain issues never impacted us.”

With its phase three development currently underway, Anantara’s IT team is now bracing for coming innovations in the industry such as service automation, robotics, and VR, to name just a few. “We need to evolve constantly with customerfacing technologies and get ahead of guest expectations to enable a truly smart digital hotel,” Saed concludes.