Cloud champions

We walk the journey with you to the cloud and create the IT infrastructure platform for the future that supports your business transformation.

SECURITY

We deliver Interconnected Security to support and defend the business and promote responsible information security behavior.

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

At the beginning of the year, I’d picked AI as one of the trends to watch out for this year and beyond. This transformative technology may not have lived up to the hype, but tech behemoths like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are pouring billions of dollars into AI research. A recent Gartner survey found that organisations are evolving the use of AI as part of their automation strategies and some of them are ‘shifting away from a purely tactical approach to AI and beginning to apply AI more strategically.’

However, the same survey reveals that only 54 percent of AI projects make it from prototypes to production because enterprises struggle to tie the algorithms they build to a business value proposition. Gartner says this makes it difficult for IT to justify its investment to operationalise AI models. The only way CIOs can get the nod from business leadership is to treat AI as an opportunity to transform business processes with a huge impact on the bottom-line. It is folly

to expect immediate transformational wins and return on investment from AI projects as it is not a plug-and-play technology.

Contrary to popular belief, the Gartner survey reveals talent shortage is not a significant barrier to AI adoption. Seventy-two percent of survey respondents reported that they have or can source the AI skills they need and use a combination of in-house development and external hiring.

Why do most AI projects fail, then? It has nothing to do with technology as most enterprises don’t have clearly defined business objectives for AI projects and neglect organisational changes required to create data-driven decisions. Tapping the power of AI technologies requires strategy and execution in the business context and an appetite for experimentation. After all, AI is all about creating new capabilities and business models and sparking the next wave of innovation. Are you ready to take the leap of faith?

SALESFORCE ANNOUNCES FIRST EVER CARBON CREDIT MARKETPLACE

Salesforce has introduced Net Zero Marketplace, a trusted platform that makes carbon credit purchases simple and transparent, and allowing organizations to accelerate climate positive impact at scale.

The global voluntary carbon market is estimated to grow to $50B by 2030 as many organizations race to achieve their net zero commitments. Yet, organizations may not always know how to build a carbon credit portfolio — or even where to start. What’s more, the path to purchasing carbon credits is complex, and buyers want to trust that the carbon credit projects have a positive impact.

Net Zero Marketplace, built on Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud,

connects buyers and ecopreneurs — environmentally-focused entrepreneurs who lead and drive climate action worldwide — offering a catalog of third-party rated carbon credits and a seamless ecommerce experience for purchasing them. Net Zero Marketplace also features a climate action hub where anyone — businesses or individuals — can learn about climate issues.

“The uptick in extreme weather events shows that no one is spared from climate change — we need smart climate solutions now,” said Suzanne DiBianca, EVP and Chief Impact Officer, Salesforce. “Businesses aiming to achieve long-term emission reductions can complement their efforts with high-quality carbon credits. Net Zero Marketplace brings together Salesforce’s values, technology, and commitment to ecopreneurs to accelerate climate action.”

TENABLE APPOINTS PATRICIA GRANT AS NEW CIO

transformational initiatives for both employees and customers. During her tenure, Grant built the “Women in Tech” program–an internal mentorship group dedicated to empowering women in the industry and served as a mentor and advocate. Prior to ServiceNow, she worked at Symantec for 11 years and PeopleSoft, an Oracle Company, for nearly nine years.

“Patricia joins Tenable at a pivotal moment for the company,” said Amit Yoran, chairman and chief executive officer, Tenable. “Patricia’s proven track record of building highfunctioning programs will help further accelerate our growth and profitability.”

Tenable today announced that it has appointed Patricia Grant to Chief Information Officer (CIO). Grant will drive digital transformation, innovation and modernisation to support the company’s ambitious business objectives.

Grant has dedicated nearly 30 years in the high-tech industry to building, optimising and leading transformations across IT. Grant joins Tenable from ServiceNow, where she was the vice president of digital technology operations, leading multiple

“Tenable is at the forefront of the cybersecurity industry, supported by passionate people committed to our work, teams and customers,” said Grant, “I’m excited to join Tenable and help translate the company’s vision and strategies into transformational action, driving efficiency and innovation.”

CLOUDFLARE MAKES R2 STORAGE ACCESSIBLE WITH NO EGRESS FEES

Cloudflare has announced that Cloudflare R2 Storage, the distributed object storage that eliminates egress costs, is now generally available. Cloudflare R2 Storage offers a better way for developers to store and access everything they need. Whether its storage for large media files, logs, or delivery of web assets, Cloudflare R2 offers flexibility with zero egress fees. R2 gives developers both an S3-compatible API, making for seamless migration and a powerful integration with Cloudflare Workers, Cloudflare’s highly scalable serverless computing platform. Developers can focus on innovating—building the applications and websites they need—instead of worrying about high storage costs or vendor lock-in.

“Egress fees are nothing but a tax on developers, stifling innovation

and creativity. We are redefining the standard of how developers work with object storage, allowing them to focus on innovation, rather than the costs of accessing their data. That is why R2 Storage will never have egress fees,” said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare. “Cloudflare’s mission is to build a better Internet, which means we’re focused on making the Internet faster, safer, and also more affordable for everyone. We have been blown away by the initial interest in R2 Storage, and we encourage any developer that wants a better type of storage to sign up and switch to R2 today.”

In order to build websites and applications, developers need a place to store large amounts of unstructured data, photos, videos, and graphics that is quickly and easily accessible. However, many cloud

TRELLIX ESTABLISHES ADVANCED RESEARCH CENTER FOR THREAT INTELLIGENCE

providers today charge increasingly egregious bandwidth pricing for developers to access their data, resulting in unnecessarily expensive cloud storage, vendor lock-in, and an inability for developers to easily use the data they have stored. Cloudflare R2 Storage frees developers from this vendor lock-in with automatic migration of data from S3-compatible services to Cloudflare’s highly performant, object store—minus the egress fees.

Trellix announced the establishment of the Trellix Advanced Research Center to advance global threat intelligence. Comprised of hundreds of the world’s most elite security analysts and researchers, the Advanced Research Center produces actionable real-time intelligence and threat indicators to help customers detect, respond and remediate the latest cybersecurity threats.

The threat landscape is scaling in sophistication and potential for impact,” said Aparna Rayasam, Chief Product Officer, Trellix. “We do this work to make our digital and physical worlds safer for everyone. With adversaries strategically investing in talent and technical know-how, the industry has a duty to study the most combative actors and their methods to innovate at a faster rate.”

In coordination with the launch, Trellix Advanced Research Center also published its research into CVE-2007-4559, a vulnerability estimated to be present in over 350,000 open-source projects and prevalent in closed-source projects. It exists in the Python tarfile module which is a default module in any project using Python and is found

extensively in frameworks created by Netflix, AWS, Intel, Facebook, Google, and applications used for machine learning, automation and docker containerisation. The vulnerability can be exploited by uploading a malicious file generated with two or three lines of simple code and allows attackers arbitrary code execution, or control of a target device.

“When we talk about supply chain threats, we typically refer to cyberattacks like the SolarWinds incident, however building on top of weak code-foundations can have an equally severe impact,” said Christian Beek, Head of Adversarial & Vulnerability Research, Trellix. “This vulnerability’s pervasiveness is furthered by industry tutorials and online materials propagating its incorrect usage. It’s critical for developers to be educated on all layers of the technology stack to properly prevent the reintroduction of past attack surfaces.”

ORACLE SETS UP INNOVATION HUB IN ABU DHABI

Oracle has announced the opening of an innovation hub in Abu Dhabi to help foster digital innovation and support the growth of the Emirate’s knowledge economy.

Located at Oracle’s Abu Dhabi office on Al Reem island, the new facility has been named the ‘Al Mustaqbal Oracle Innovation Hub’. The hub was inaugurated by His Excellency Dr. Mohamed Abdelhameed Al Askar, Director General, Abu Dhabi Digital Authority at an event that was attended by key Abu Dhabi Government leaders and Oracle executives.

H.E. Dr. Mohamed Abdelhameed Al Askar, Director General, Abu Dhabi Digital Authority said: “The Oracle Innovation Hub is the perfect place where countless minds will join hands to share knowledge, inspire, collaborate, innovate and empower new creations in Abu Dhabi. The hub is also an ongoing commitment towards creating an

EL NILEIN BANK UAE PICKS NETWORK INTERNATIONAL AS TECH PARTNER

Network International (Network) has been selected as payment and technology partner for one of the leading Sudanese banks in the UAE, El Nilein Bank.

Building on its significant experience of enabling card solutions for the region’s leading banks, Network will support El Nilein’s debit card offerings along with instant issuing as well as ATM services. The collaboration will include enabling El Nilein’s customers to make purchases using e-wallets as well as digital commerce transactions.

El Nilein Bank aims to offer a unique and fully digitalised experience to individual consumers and small businesses alike through focused,

enabling ecosystem for the youth to succeed and contribute to the growth of the digital economy.”

“We look forward to seeing the newly inaugurated hub as a platform for organisations across public and private sectors, including SMBs, to accelerate their digital transformation and benefit from the most recent innovations.”

The ‘Al Mustaqbal Oracle Innovation Hub’ will act as a platform for Abu Dhabi’s public sector entities, Oracle customers and partners to

better understand the potential of emerging technologies. The hub will also offer training and upskilling programs in latest digital technologies for Abu Dhabi’s Emirati students, entrepreneurs, and women in tech.

“At Oracle, we are committed to supporting Abu Dhabi Digital Authority’s mandate to leverage emerging technologies to simplify the lives of the Abu Dhabi community and deliver a digital government that is proactive, personalised, collaborative, and secure”, said Leopoldo Boado Lama, senior vice president – Business Applications, ECEMEA, Oracle. “The Al Mustaqbal Oracle Innovation Hub is designed to serve as a centre for knowledge sharing, collaboration, and exploration of numerous growth possibilities that can be achieved with latest cloud technologies including Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, and Internet of Things (IoT).

innovative products, holistic services, and a lean operating model to support banking transactions, savings, and investments. Licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE, it also envisions becoming a trendsetter in stimulating and driving community banking activity in the UAE, ensuring digital access, scalability, resilience, high performance, and compliance anytime, anywhere.

Collaborating with this payment solutions company empowers El Nilein with access to Network’s advanced digital infrastructure, robust security protocols and value-added services, avoiding the need for major investments in card management infrastructure.

Commenting on the partnership, Navneet Dave, Managing Director & Co-Head of Processing – Middle East at Network International said, “We are thrilled to support El Nilein in bringing seamless and innovative digital

payment solutions to consumers and SMEs in the UAE. The alliance advances over two decades of Network’s expertise in creating robust digital payments infrastructure for the region’s leading banks. We remain committed to leveraging best-in-class tech to enable financial inclusion and memorable customer experiences in the UAE.”

IBM TO ACCELERATE SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES IN SAUDI

“This agreement would allow us to leverage IBM’s expertise in technologies like artificial intelligence,” Eng. Ahmed Al-Zahrani, Ministry of Energy’s Assistant Minister for Development and Excellence, said, “which will play a key role in promoting the adoption of the Circular Carbon Economy, achieving the goals announced during the Saudi Green Initiative.”

Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) and IBM have announced the signing of a strategic agreement to drive adoption of artificial intelligence in the carbon capture and industrial domains across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Announced at the second Global AI summit in the Kingdom, the first use case under this agreement will be in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy in Saudi Arabia. SDAIA, Ministry of Energy and IBM will use artificial intelligence technology to

detect, map, and eventually reduce carbon emissions across the country.

Dr. Majid Al-Tuwaijri, the CEO for the National Centre for AI, said,” This agreement with IBM will contribute to creating opportunities by addressing key challenges in circular carbon economy, petrochemical and industrial domains, through the development of innovative solutions in the field of data and artificial intelligence, and the exchange of shared experiences and investment opportunities in this vital area to support achieving the goals of Vision 2030.”

AVEVA ANNOUNCES STRATEGIC LICENSING PARTNERSHIP WITH ARAS

AVEVA and Aras have entered into a strategic OEM partnership to deliver industrial “Asset Lifecycle Management” solutions.

AVEVA will license the Aras Innovator platform to deliver a series of scalable, Asset Lifecycle Management solutions, which will integrate Aras’ open and flexible portfolio of applications with AVEVA Unified Engineering and AVEVA Asset Information Management.

“Lifecycle management capabilities play a critical role in the large-scale digital transformation of all the industries that we support. By unifying

data, they provide the basis for automating many business processes and, because they are based on accurate, real-time information, they also provide customers with assurance and trust in the accuracy of the engineering digital twin. Our partnership with Aras takes this a step further, by enabling customers to take advantage of innovative cloud-based Asset Lifecycle Management solutions to accelerate their digital transformation,” said Peter Herweck, CEO of AVEVA.

The integration of Aras’ cloudnative technology and AVEVA’s

The management of greenhouse gas emissions is critical to the Kingdom’s reaching its objective of net zero, “said Dina Abo-Onoq, Managing Partner, IBM Consulting Saudi Arabia. “Using “multiple satellites and different types of imaging technologies, we will train an AI model to recognise and pinpoint different forms of gas across the entire country. By doing so, this will help with earlier and better visibility of the problem which has not been possible with conventional measurement approaches.”

As part of the overall agreement, IBM will work with SDAIA to identify high value applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning to solve challenges in public and private sector organisations in the Kingdom, with a focus on supporting the Kingdom’s sustainability and industrialisation objectives.

hybrid cloud solutions will provide customers with new capabilities for change and configuration management, requirements management, and whole asset visualisation across the breadth of AVEVA’s industrial software portfolio.

VIDEO-MEETING FATIGUE

on making the move within two years citing video meeting habits.

Commenting on the findings of the report, Ahmad Zureiki, Head of Collaboration Business, Cisco MEA, said: “The modern work environment is not confined to a single space or device anymore. It’s flexible, it’s mobile, it’s hybrid. Business leaders in today’s world know that their employees are their #1 asset, and that means finding ways to both accommodate employee priorities and reimagine the workplace to improve remote work.”

Arecent study focused on executives and knowledge professionals commissioned by Cisco and conducted by Dimensional Research showed that more than half (56%) of employees spend most of their time in meetings when working remotely with 33% saying that it takes up half of their workday. This has resulted in 95% of employees experiencing video meeting fatigue.

OMNIX LAUNCHES INNOVATIVE CENTER OF EXCELLENCE

Omnix has announced the launch of its state-of-the-art Centre of Excellence (XOC), an innovative managed service offering that was conceptualised to support businesses in their digital journeys.

Omnix’s XOC includes a unique combination of a Security Operations Centre (SOC), Network Operations Centre (NOC) and Operations Control Centre (OCC) with managed services aimed to assist organisations accelerate their digital transformation initiatives and overcome challenges relating to security threats, network issues and performance, as well as

The overall fatigue is attributed mainly to technological issues, which comprise of background noise, poor sound, and video quality. These elements have actively contributed to physical ailments with 81% employees reporting headaches, neck and shoulder strains and eye strains over time. In the long run, this has also made employees consider leaving their current employers, with 42% planning

He added: “With the hybrid working model becoming the new normal, we had to create new techniques where employees are not overworked or drained out at the end of each workday. We believe that the best technology is also the most intuitive, which is why our Webex platform is using new technology-enabled solutions to constantly improve and reduce fatigue and stress.”

Cisco has been tackling these pain points with its Webex platform that is continuously innovating to limit videomeeting fatigue by introducing targeted solutions and software.

operations-related tasks.

The XOC, equipped with the skilled resources and tools, will enable customers to identify cyber threats and analyse network performance, with the goal of enabling organisations across sectors to remain focused on turning their

aspirations into reality. It is designed to provide a centralised and coherent view of the users’ network, security, and operations challenges.

“At Omnix we understand our customer needs and are committed to provide both strategic and tactical offerings, especially at a time when they are looking to strengthen their digital transformation journey.

The newly launched XOC builds on Omnix’s strength as an industry leading solution provider, and we are committed to providing an environment powered by best-inclass tools and highly qualified resources. Our XOC is the ideal solution for businesses who want to reap the benefits of technology, while remaining focused on their business objectives,” said Walid Gomaa, CEO of Omnix International.

TO DRIVE CLIMATE ACTION IN SAUDI

agriculture, climate and nature protection, water, & food security. In the first phase of the program, scientists from SDAIA and MEWA are relying on the earth observation data and climate insights provided through Google Earth Engine to help measure the impact of water on vegetation and agriculture at field, country and regional levels.

Google Cloud announced a collaboration with the Saudi Data & Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture (MEWA) and Climate Engine to launch the Earth Observation and Science Program. The program will help address environmental, water and agricultural challenges resulting from climate change, and paves the way for SDAIA and MEWA to lead climate action using artificial intelligence.

The Saudi government has placed environmental protection as one of the strategic components under its Vision 2030. Agriculture is also one of the key drivers shaping the

Kingdom’s economic landscape. In addition to the Saudi and Middle East Green Initiatives that aim to improve quality of life and protect future generations.

Accordingly, SDAIA, MEWA and Google Cloud established the Earth Observation & Science Program, which relies on earth observation technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide sustainability solutions that will address climate change risks and enhance the protection of the environment in the Kingdom and the region.

The program focuses on five key areas to create a more sustainable environment and will address these areas in phases: environment preservation, pollution monitoring, sustainable

SDAIA and MEWA in collaboration with Google Cloud and Climate Engine are launching the first sustainability research centre in the Kingdom and the Middle East. The centre will use AI technologies to develop impactful use cases and knowledge transfer through a series of trainings and workshops. Google Cloud and Climate Engine are developing a platform for the centre with user interfaces that will showcase former environmental case studies in water and agriculture and will enable scientists from SDAIA and MEWA to develop more use cases utilising data sets and AI tools via the platform.

“We are at a time where sustainability and climate action are at the top of many governments’ agendas,” said Elie Tabchouri, Head of Public Sector, Middle East, Turkey and Africa at Google Cloud.

“The scientific research around climate change is highly dataintensive and increasingly cloud-based. Google Cloud’s sustainability solutions can help governments better understand climate risk, reporting and help communicate environmental impact authentically. We are optimistic that our collaboration with SDAIA will encourage more organisations to leverage technology in their climate action roadmap”.

RESHAPING BUSINESS STRATEGIES

Imagine if you could hold up a mirror to every conceivable process within an industrial plant and then collate all that information within a single window? In extremely simple terms, that’s what a digital twin is capable of.

Digital twins are broadly defined as realtime virtual representations of physical assets – whether they are factories, power plants or even entire cities. By visualising the asset in its entirety, a digital twin provides an understanding of the asset’s state and its ability to respond to changes. When this asset data is combined with additional analytics – typically using artificial intelligence and machine learning

– it helps add value to business operations.

The US space agency NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was among the earliest users of a digital twin. The failure of the Apollo 13 spacecraft led NASA engineers to add a digital dimension to their physical models to understand events that led to the accident and prevent similar occurrences in the future.

More than 50 years later, digital twins now use advanced technologies such as the industrial internet of things (IIOT), virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to deliver real-world gains. From oil and gas to the casting of auto parts and

wastewater treatment, digital twins are used across the industrial economy in many different ways. Gartner estimates that the aggregate market size for digital twins will cross $183 billion in revenue by 2026, with composite digital twins presenting the largest investment.

That volume growth is a result of the way digital twins support decision making, unlock value gains and deliver sustainability benefits. Digital twins deliver a return on investment in many ways.

Streamline project execution

The process of executing a new project carries several challenges, many of

FROM NEW REVENUE STREAMS TO SUSTAINABILITY GAINS, DIGITAL TWINS ARE SUPPORTING DECISION MAKING ACROSS A VARIETY OF USE CASES, SAYS EVGENY FEDOTOV, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND HEAD OF EMEA, AVEVA

which only become apparent during the construction phase. With a digital twin, users can assemble a project virtually and share it with colleagues and partners before creating it physically. This process enables engineers to identify and fix potential failures well in advance – leading to lower costs, less rework and minimal resource use.

Aker Carbon Capture uses a digital twin as the base of its unified engineering approach to create efficient and replicable designs for the facilities it builds for carbon-intensive-industry customers. By integrating all its process simulation and engineering (1D, 2D and 3D) data into a single data-centric hub in the cloud, the Norway-headquartered company slashed the cost of its medium-sized offerings by 90%, improved operational efficiency through collaboration in the cloud, and reduced time to market by over 50%.

Optimise value chain efficiency

When existing assets are replicated, digital twins can optimize production lines and deliver efficiency gains. Extended across a company’s operations, such organizational digital twins optimise for higher, businesslevel outcomes.

Taking the concept of the unified, singlewindow view further is ADNOC, the oil and gas leader based out of Abu Dhabi. In line with its view that digital strategies are an extension of business needs, ADNOC uses its Panorama Digital Command Centre to gain a unified, integrated, and real-time visualization of operational key performance indicators across its installations. With the help of 10 million tags and 120 dashboards, operators can view the performance of all assets within the ADNOC network – at one glance. The project has helped drive savings estimated between $60-$100 million.

Create new revenue streams

In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, manufacturers must find new ways to differentiate themselves from the competition and stay abreast of customer demands. Besides speeding up product design, digital twins can also augment service delivery, providing new revenue streams in the process.

Italpresse Gauss, a builder of machines and automatic work cells for light alloy casting in the global automotive industry, overlays a digital twin with AR and VR layers so customers can view and resolve asset problems virtually – from a tablet device anywhere in the world. The discrete digital twin solution also connects the OEM with customers by adding interactive remote support for maintenance engineers and operators in training. The concept’s success has prompted Italpresse Gauss to invest more than 50% of its research and development budget in enhancing its machines with the new software.

Connect the hybrid workspace

The pandemic demonstrated how remote workforces could maintain business continuity, presenting new ways to streamline value chains and rationalize costs. Because digital twins reproduce real-world assets in 3D, organisational silos can be broken, and broken remote workers obtain a connected view of project and asset information. Overall, teams benefit from highly efficient and effective decision support capability for capital projects and operations environments.

Norway-based Lundin, which builds and operates offshore rigs in the North Sea, has been able to move a significant portion of its workforce away from onsite locations with a 3D visualisation solution that presents asset information on one screen. Using this composite digital twin, operators can now view the different parts

of a plant and plan and schedule tasks from the comfort and safety of their offices – or homes. Their onsite colleagues can then execute these jobs more quickly.

Deliver sustainable outcomes

As industrial enterprises work to achieve their net-zero goals, digital twins are being leveraged to deliver sustainability gains in both greenfield and brownfield assets. Unified insight, founded on a digital twin, can offer engineering teams a limitless range of operating scenarios to reduce emissions and optimize risk.

Veolia Water Technologies, a French transnational utility, implemented a next-generation, cloud-based engineering platform to drive business agility and collaboration across 260 accounts on five continents. The unified engineering solution has helped engineers enhance operational insight and improve process efficiency. An immediate result was a 20% improvement in IT agility. Veolia’s teams can now harness their collective expertise with unified data to identify opportunities for resource efficiency and energy savings while fostering innovation and sustainability.

Digital twins have never been more important

As we have seen, digital twins can support a wide range of use cases depending on how they are deployed. They play a central role in uncovering opportunities to unlock business ingenuity, while also driving efficiency and environmental gains. These are essential goals for companies looking to deliver resilient and sustainable growth in a net-zero economy.

Yet for the most part, current industry applications focus on replicating single –or discrete – uses cases within a digital twin, such as engineering, maintenance or operations. When those views are combined into a single, unified interface, this integrated, organisational digital twin can drive significantly greater value gains. Put another way, if business leaders are able to see all the different factors that shape their business within one model, they might make a very different decision – with a very different business impact. Context, it has been said, is everything.

HOW CLOUD

STORAGE WORKS

INDUSTRY EXPERTS WEIGH IN ON WHAT CLOUD STORAGE TRENDS SHOULD YOU EXPECT TO SEE

Data is increasingly getting digitised, and new workloads such as AI require enterprises to stay on top of their storage game.

According to a recent report from Future Market Insights, the data storage market in the Middle East and Africa is forecast to total $5.65 billion this year. Today, MEA data storage represents around 5 percent of the global data centre market. Though 65 percent of enterprise data remains on-premises, there is a big surge in cloud-based storage, which is beneficial in terms of cost, accessibility, recovery, and advanced security.

Is cloud storage most cost-effective than on-prem? The jury is still out on this one.

When it comes to deciding whether cloud storage or on-premise is more effective, it all depends on the needs of your business,” says Talal Shaikh, Associate Professor, Director of Undergraduate Studies for the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University Dubai. “Either option will have trade-offs, so managers should evaluate according to their requirements and be fully informed before deciding. Overall, most businesses will discover that the cloud is less

expensive than on-premise infrastructure. However, it is worth noting that there are elements that impact the cost difference.”

Martin Tarr, Chief ICT Officer at du, adds that cloud propositions offer limitless scale, agility, and efficiency for larger volume deployments. Premise solutions can be specifically targeted toward a use case and present fixed and predictable pricing against a reliable performance.

“Depending on the use case and access frequency of the user data, a cloud solution can present hidden charges per GB such as Puts, Gets, Ingress and Egress charges which whilst seemingly

insignificant can often build into quite substantial costs for transactional requirement,” he says.

Ramzi Itani, Regional Director, Middle East, Veritas, offers a similar perspective: “Cloud storage offers a range of attractive benefits to businesses such as improved scalability, flexibility, and security. But even though cloud storage is becoming an increasingly popular today, it’s not always the most cost-effective option. Various factors will affect how much a business pays for both cloud and onpremise infrastructure. For example, the nature of their legacy systems and the volume and types of data to be stored will determine how much their storage costs.”

This is an interesting question with several elements involved in the response, says Patrick Smith, Field CTO EMEA, Pure Storage. “The cloud promises pay-as-you-go pricing that makes it an Opex running cost whereby reducing your data consumption lowers your cost. Often, levels of capacity and performance are not underwritten by SLAs which means costs can quickly spiral out of control as requirements change, forcing the consumption of more expensive services. Cost is one of the catalysts for adopting hybrid cloud architectures allowing applications to be hosted in the public cloud or private cloud based on suitability.”

He says that typically deploying storage in a private cloud means a

Capex investment. Fortunately, another option has emerged, a potential bestof-both-worlds, Storage-as-a-service (STaaS). This consumption model turns storage procurement into a servicelike experience. Customers commit to a minimum capacity level, with a facility for extra “buffer” capacity and the ability to increase the minimum level if required. Monitoring allows the vendor to present a bill for storage used which means bills and usage are more predictable, especially without costly cloud peculiarities such as charges for egress or extras like snapshots which can mount up and result in unexpected costs. On top of all this, STaaS can be treated as a true Opex cost despite being on-prem.

Adrian Pickering, Regional General Manager, MENA, Red Hat, says cloud services—functionality that is hosted and managed in the cloud—provide a clean separation of the service’s features and effort that goes into administering the service. They provide the best of both worlds if you are looking at them through the lens of a development team under pressure—they provide the technology you want with none of the hassles of acquiring hardware, managing uptime, or updating software.

What are the key features to look for in a cloud storage service?

Selecting a cloud storage provider can

be tricky because you need to establish specific and measurable evaluation criteria.

“Ultimately, the optimal storage strategy is one that aligns with the goals of the business. Organisations need to assess their existing environments, select the best infrastructure for the next stage of digital transformation, identify workloads that could run better in the cloud, and optimise the cloud mix for maximum efficiency,” says Tarek El Araby – Digital Solutions Director at Gulf Business Machines.

Some key features to consider in a cloud storage service are the costs, speed of access, backup and recovery capabilities, security and privacy policies, flexibility to scale, and application support and integration with other software. Accessibility is also important, as easy access to cloud data, without hidden fees, from different locations is essential for a hybrid workforce, he adds.

Smith from Pure Storage says core to consumption model offerings is the ability to deploy storage capacity on-site and be billed for consumption. The key to watch out for here is that this is truly being delivered as a service. Most vendors offer something that’s more like a leasing agreement, in which their products are deployed on a three, or five-year cycle, with forklift upgrades at the end. By contrast, the best STaaS offerings work to guaranteed service levels with automated upgrades to meet performance

Ramzi Itani

Martin Tarr

Talal Shaikh

and capacity guarantees without extra cost and which are triggered by AI-based monitoring and telemetry.

According to Shaikh from HeriotWatt, when it comes to cloud storage, the first thing to examine is its security. Cyberattacks will be one of the most significant dangers to organisations over the next decade, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2020. In today’s world, cybersecurity should be prioritised since compromise might result in significant losses.

“Furthermore, examine how effectively your cloud storage interfaces with other software solutions—for example, One Drive, Zoom, Microsoft, and other applications that your team often utilises. Furthermore, while comparing cloud storage services, data backup is an important element to consider. Depending on your job, you may need to be able to keep deleted data for a certain period of time. Finally, since many of us work remotely with foreign teams, collaboration elements must be considered. This includes the ability to collaborate on document creation, tag others to notify them of changes, and more,” he says.

Is cloud storage more secure? Security takes many forms when thinking about storage; the security of the storage itself whereby data may be read or destroyed by criminals, the physical security of the whole environment or the consideration of vulnerabilities that may put storage and the associated data at risk.

“Misconfiguration and human error are often cited as the most common issues leading to leakage or malicious destruction of data in cloud storage environments. In addition, not understanding where your data resides may be considered a security issue given common concerns around data sovereignty and its impact on business regulations,” says Smith from Pure Storage.

Cloud providers are making massive investments around security; be that operations, software and services and the underlying technology infrastructure. Despite that, cloud storage customers need to take care to ensure they aren’t

ACCORDING TO RESEARCH CONDUCTED BY VERITAS LAST YEAR, ALMOST TWOTHIRDS (65%) OF THE OFFICE WORKERS SURVEYED IN THE UAE THINK DATA IN THE CLOUD IS SAFER FROM RANSOMWARE BECAUSE THEY ASSUME THEIR CLOUD PROVIDERS ARE PROTECTING IT. FURTHER, NEARLY ALL UAE-BASED RESPONDENTS (96%) THOUGHT THEIR CLOUD PROVIDER WOULD BE ABLE TO RESTORE THEIR FILES FOR THEM IF THEY WERE ACCIDENTALLY DELETED.

the cause of any security incidents as well as taking steps to recover data quickly if they suffer a breach, he adds.

Tarr from du adds: “With the availability of advanced encryption algorithm for data in motion and at rest, when deployed correctly, provides similar levels of security on cloud or on premise. The factors that differentiate premise to cloud are known as the residency and sovereignty of your data. For the majority of businesses this should not present issues, however where an organisation has sensitive data and strict compliance

requirements (government institutions), extra diligence should be performed as all cloud storage offerings may not meet such compliance standards.”

Misconceptions exist around where exactly the responsibility lies between the organisation and cloud provider when it comes to how their data is protected in the cloud.

According to research conducted by Veritas last year, almost two-thirds (65%) of the office workers surveyed in the UAE think data in the cloud is safer from ransomware because they assume their cloud providers are protecting it. Further, nearly all UAE-based respondents (96%) thought their cloud provider would be able to restore their files for them if they were accidentally deleted.

“Unfortunately, this is not the case. As part of their standard service, most cloud providers only provide guarantee of resiliency of their service, they do not provide guarantees that a customer, using their service, will have their data protected,” says Itani from Veritas.

In fact, many cloud providers even include shared-responsibly models in their terms and conditions, making it clear that protecting the data is the customer’s responsibility. Storing data in the cloud doesn’t automatically make it safe, it still needs strong data protection. That’s why we recommend working with a third party to ensure the data remains safe, he sums up.

Adrian Pickering

Patrick Smith

STREAMLINING

QATAR STOCK EXCHANGE DELIVERS BETTER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE WITH A REVAMPED WEBSITE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) is part of a comprehensive national strategy that aims to establish Qatar as a world-class international market and reinforce the country’s position as a regional financial centre. When the Exchange’s website approached end-of-life, it used the opportunity to look for a solution that would have all the features, functionality, and security they needed to serve their diverse audience.

QSE’s old website was only available as a desktop version and at a standard screen size, so users on mobile and other devices had trouble accessing content. It also experienced backend integration issues with thirdparty apps like e-Tender, the trading platform, which meant the platform was sometimes down or inaccessible. Moreover, the site wasn’t compatible with all browsers, had performance problems, and lacked effective search, so it was difficult for users to find what they needed.

The reimagined website, using the Liferay solution, is now a central hub for the latest news, trading reports, and stock exchange activities. Investors are able to:

• Receive notifications for changes in stock prices

• Quickly check the market and latest news

• Create favorite stock lists

• Configure account settings on their own, all on the website.

Additionally, QSE has been able to go beyond the original scope of the website to host virtual events like webinars to attract new investors and companies.

QSE’s future roadmap includes introducing features and services to offer users an even more customizable experience, giving users the flexibility to tailor the content and presentation they see. As QSE continues to innovate with Liferay technology, the stock exchange will play an integral part in maintaining the health of the Qatari economy.

“We saw a potential opportunity in achieving its vision by utilising the various functionalities and features that Liferay as a platform provides. We have achieved several milestones using Liferay technology, including trading reports with interactive and dynamic screens; easy and simple management of content such as posting news and announcements by our business; and certifying our website as per Mada Standards that is granted to organisations that maintain a standard defined for accessibility features,” says Hamed Al-Shaibani, IT Development Manager, Qatar Stock Exchange

“Additionally, Liferay’s technology was adoptable to our requirements with

minimal changes, we also noted that the solution is scalable to accommodate our future roadmap of introducing additional features and services to our customers such as custom experiences per users, defined content per each user and the flexibility to allow users to edit and modify the presentation and content to be tailored per their needs and therefore it was an easy decision to choose Liferay as our partner in this project,” he says.

Post-implementation, QSE has witnessed 273 percent increase in users and 53 percent increase in site traffic. Now that the website is faster, compatible with any device or browser, and accessibility certified, more people are flocking to the site. After revamping architecture and addressing bottlenecks, QSE has also improved availability of the website by up to 10% in the first year since launch.

“We are continuously working on ensuring the security of our website and provided services, this covers services such as user registration and account validation. From the application level, we ensure data security and privacy by using different tools and services including encryption and security tools offered within Liferay platform,” says Al-Shaibani.

Moussalam Dalati, General Manager, MEA, Liferay, adds: “Qatar Stock Exchange was a unique project for Liferay with multiple challenges and business needs, with an imminent need of an upgraded website in a very short period. The Liferay team managed to turn around this project in a very short span of 100 days keeping the existing website continually operational in the interim. This was key to Qatar Stock Exchange; being a key financial center in the region, they could not afford any disruption in its platform.

“The Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) supports the Qatari economy with a platform where investors can trade efficiently and fairly and therefore this was a very prestigious project and the entire Liferay team is proud of the seamless execution with a satisfied client.”

STRIVING FOR EXCELLENCE

VISIBILITY

Established in 1976 and located in the heart of oasis city Al Ain, 140km east of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) is the oldest university in the UAE. With a commitment to academic excellence and continuous research, and a student body of around 15,000 and nearly 3,000 employees, UAEU consistently ranks as the secondtop university in the UAE, and fifth in the Arab region. Courses range from business and economics, IT, science and engineering to law, medicine, agriculture, education, and humanities; notable alumni include numerous high-ranking politicians, as well as business pioneers, artists, and writers.

Moving away from manual processes

Managing the IT commitments of a large-scale university such as UAEU is no easy feat – especially when the IT department has such a broad range of responsibilities and a large IT estate. “We provide infrastructure services, network services, application services, and also end-user technical support for around 6,000 end-point devices,” explains Mariam Al Khili, Head of IT Support at UAEU. “We also allow student, staff, and faculty members to bring their own devices if they need help.” The IT division comprises around 120 employees, of whom 72 are dedicated to end-user support. Managing workflows and assigning tasks within a unit of this size is a complex task.

“Everything was manual,” adds Aysha Al Meqbaali, Head of UAEU’s IT Helpdesk. “If we needed to assign tasks or escalate them to other teams, it was all done by hand and handled by the helpdesk. It was easy to lose track of each ticket. A relatively simple process could sometimes take as long as ten days, but we wouldn’t know why or where it was in the system.”

End-to-end visibility

UAEU needed more visibility and easier control, and a tool that would allow its IT staff to focus on core tasks rather than lose time navigating through unclear workflows. ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) was selected to provide a single platform capable of

handling UAEU’s diverse needs. Elite ServiceNow partner, Quintica, played an instrumental role in the successful implementation and go live of UAEU’s ServiceNow ITSM solution. “We have a very good relationship with the Quintica team,” says Mariam, “who even made proposals that helped our IT division in introducing new tools to address some existing IT challenges.”

ITSM allows UAEU to define and automate workflows, provides necessary granularity within broader processes, and improves visibility into individual tasks and requests. Sitting on top of ITSM is Service Catalog, providing a user-friendly portal that enables users to initiate requests and track their progress to completion. Survey Management tracks the user

experience and provides important feedback while a suite of reporting tools also enables the IT department to deliver key information to the university’s senior management.

Reassurance through clarity

ITSM’s workflow automation has enabled a fundamental transformation in the IT division’s operations.

Employees have a clear overview of a request’s status and ITSM allocates tasks automatically, freeing employees up to focus on essential work.

“Individual tasks within each request are saved and updated automatically,” explains Mariam. “Employees only need to concentrate on their part of the process; once their job is done, it’s automatically assigned to the next team. There is no need for people to go backwards and forwards trying to work out what needs to happen next.”

The improvements in clarity and visibility also extend to the service’s users. “They can just go to the portal and create an incident,” adds Aysha. “Key fields are populated automatically from their account information; all they need to do is select the service they are looking for from Service Catalog.”

Users are then automatically updated on their request as it progresses through the system. “With our old system, the only information users received was that a job was completed,” says Mariam. “With ITSM they can see instantly whether

it’s pending approval, approved, in process, or at any other stage. The knowledge that someone is working on their request, and that it’s receiving the necessary attention, gives users a lot of reassurance.”

Improved focus on service Completion of customer satisfaction surveys from January to February 2022 increased by 7.72%

demonstrating higher levels of user engagement. Citing a user approval rating of 95.8% from nearly 2,300 survey respondents, Mariam adds that moving from UAEU’s previous on-premise solution to the cloud was also an important factor. “We used to handle all the patching and updates internally. Moving to ITSM and the cloud frees us from that and allows us to really focus on the services themselves.” ServiceNow’s influence is spreading beyond the IT division and its users. UAEU is now considering implementing the same user experience it currently delivers with ITSM with its students, providing them with automation, real-time visibility, single sign-on (SSO), and a unified platform.

With Mariam able to access previously unavailable levels of detail, accuracy, and speed into her reporting process, she and UAEU’s senior leadership are now able to pinpoint problem areas and plan their resolution and longer-term strategies.

“The reporting function lets you dig into the data as far as you need to,” Mariam says. “You can then use it to make better-informed decisions and improve the services even further.”

UAEU’s ServiceNow journey continues, with Mariam and the team now planning to move to ServiceNow IT Operations Management, along with trusted ServiceNow partner, Quintica: “Due to the team’s indepth knowledge of both ITSM and ITOM modules and the existing infrastructure at UAEU, Quintica will be a most capable partner to ensure the success of this new implementation.”

WE USED TO HANDLE PATCHING AND UPDATES INTERNALLY. MOVING TO ITSM AND THE CLOUD ALLOWS US TO FOCUS ON THE SERVICES THEMSELVES.

10 WAYS TO QUICKLY REDUCE IT COSTS

such as expense accounts, and key balance sheet accounts, including expense accruals and prepayments. Use this view to identify specific cash reductions that will immediately have an impact.

No. 6: Target unspent and uncommitted expenses

Amid inflation and the threat of recession, many organizations face demands for short-term cost reductions, even if they plan to deploy technology in the longerterm to sustainably reduce the cost of doing business and create a competitive advantage. The question for CIOs is how to cut costs while inflicting the least damage on the mid- and long-term health of the business.

Gartner research shows that while most CFOs have been relying on pricingfocused strategies to offset inflation, 39% will zero in on cost cutting if inflation remains persistently high in 4Q22. That will soon turn into explicit demands for rapid cost cutting.

Despite the urgency and pressure, pause and remember that there’s little value in cutting or stopping projects or services where costs have already been spent or incurred. Also, you’ll hurt the organisation’s ability to ramp up when conditions improve if you cut in areas where you have already invested or are ready to deliver — and in key initiatives that can’t be easily restarted.

10 rules for rapid IT cost reduction

Instead, assess your IT cost reduction options with these rules in mind.

No. 1: Target immediate impact

Eliminate, reduce or suspend items that will deliver an impact in weeks or months, not in years. For example, target expenses that are incurred and paid monthly or quarterly on a pay-as-you-go basis, rather than annually.

No. 2: Reduce, don’t freeze

Focus on costs that can truly be reduced or eliminated. You don’t want simply to freeze costs for the current period only to have them reappear later.

No. 3: Cash is king Target items that will have a real cash impact on the profit and loss statement rather than noncash items like depreciation or amortisation. For example, cost savings in cloud services have a real cash impact, as opposed to reducing on-premises software licenses or owned assets like hardware. Selling and leasing back assets can provide real cash savings as well.

No. 4: Plan to do it once Most organisations don’t cut deeply enough the first time, which means they often need to revisit costs and do it again. This creates a destructive and unproductive cycle of uncertainty, effort and lost productivity. This is particularly relevant for staff cuts, where cycles of ongoing reductions can be especially dangerous.

No. 5: Carefully inspect accounts

Work with your finance partner to obtain a solid view of the expense-level detail,

Unless payments (or commitments) can be recovered or prepayments returned, the most immediate impact will be on unspent or uncommitted payments. Evaluate contracts for renegotiation and termination clauses.

No. 7: Address capital

Typically, operating expenditures (opex) are the easiest to impact, but capital expenditures (capex) can also be reduced.

Gartner IT Key Metrics Data shows that 25% of the average IT budget is spent on capital, so ensure that the complete range of IT spend is considered for rapid reductions.

No. 8: Sunk costs are irrelevant

When it comes to saving money, it is commonly said that “sunk costs are irrelevant,” meaning that future spend should be considered without relation to past spending or “sunk costs.” From a rapid cost reduction standpoint this is true, but it’s still worth considering whether the savings will be more than the benefits that can and will be delivered by continuing.

No. 9: Address discretionary and nondiscretionary cost

Discretionary spending, such as for new projects, additional capabilities or services, is often a seemingly easier place to cut. However, even nondiscretionary “run the business” expenses, such as IT infrastructure and operations, can be cut by reducing usage or service levels.

No. 10: Tackle both variable and fixed costs

Fixed costs are expenses that remain constant, regardless of activity or volume, such as office rent, subscriptions and payroll. For fixed costs, focus on elimination. Variable costs change with activity or volume, for example, telecommunications, contractors and consumables. For variable costs, focus on both reduction and elimination.

CHRIS GANLY, VP ANALYST AT GARTNER, ON HOW TO MANAGE THE PRESSURE TO REDUCE IT COSTS IN THE SHORT TERM WITHOUT HARMING YOUR ORGANIZATION IN THE MID-TO-LONG TERM.

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DELIVERING MAXIMUM VALUE

Everything-as-a-service (XaaS) refers to the remote delivery of tools, technologies, and services over the cloud. Enterprises worldwide are embracing the as-a-service model to boost innovation, flexibility and reduce costs. In addition, it helps to make IT budgets more predictable and eliminates technical debt.

According to a Deloitte report, some companies consider transitioning to a XaaS model because they can’t afford not to. As more and more customers demand more flexible payment models, the continued viability of many companies, and even entire industries, is being threatened. The report warns that those who fail to at least explore consumptionbased offerings may end up on the path to obsolescence.

“The fundamental benefit of everythingas-a-service (XaaS) is hidden in its business model itself where organisations have greater flexibility to deploy any solutions remotely which can be accessed on demand—i.e., cloud-based usage,”

says Manish Ranjan, senior program manager -software and cloud at IDC MEA.

“In a traditional IT space, deploying a solution will involve upfront Capex, a rigidconsumption model for products, services and tools used and is considered less flexible and scalable.”

According to the latest IDC MEA CIO survey, the topmost cloud triggers CIOs stated were that cloud is cost-effective and takes less time compared to traditional DC and Co-location. With XaaS, organisations can drastically reduce their operational cost, enjoy a flexible-consumption model paying only for what they use, access new and advanced technology features, and are more agile in terms of scalability.

Paul Hardy, Innovation Officer EMEA at ServiceNow, says the primary driver for XaaS model is customer demand for new or improved services! Traditionally, IT wasn’t very flexible; it took too long for decisions to be made, and as a result, IT was seen to stifle business innovation.

“Over the last few years, however, businesses have had to adapt and change

rapidly to meet the demand of customers, and it is time for IT to step up and offer the business the types of services they themselves have been using to run IT — services that can be changed easily, provide scalable offerings and that meet or exceed the business and customers’ expectations,” he says.

What are the benefits of everythingas-a-service?

“When an organisation shifts to everything-as-a-service by partnering with subject matter experts, they gain access to the right and requisite expertise as well as the latest technologies, as service providers are continuously investing in technologies, knowledge, and talent,” says Sudhir Menon, VP Product Management & Strategic Alliances, Help AG.

Additionally, the service provider team functions as an extension to the customers if they have in-house experts or operations, giving customers the benefit of having a collaborative model.

Everything-as-a-service also offers predictability, not only from a service

perspective but also from a budget perspective. Customers that utilise a service provider will know what their monthly rental charge is, whereas if they onboarded the technology themselves, they may have to consider unpredictable costs related to operational expenditures, upgrades, and increases in capacity, he adds.

Ranjan from IDC says one of the key business benefits every organisation achieves is the lower cost of ownership - significant cost savings from operating expenses, reduced employment and maintenance cost. With XaaS model, organisations achieve many strategic benefits as it enables them to drive innovation and fuels their digital transformation strategy, improve time to market, expand into new market segments and eventually improve customer experience.

Shaping the future of business

Hardy from ServiceNow says that digital and organisational transformation is now a priority for businesses in every geography and industry. As every product becomes a service, anything-as-a-service will be key to success.

On top of this, all services will have to be agile, transparent, and always-on, allowing people to focus on important business goals, such as customer satisfaction, increasing productivity, and attracting and retaining the best talent.

“This will permit people to do the jobs

they love, while the rest is automated using connected XaaS platforms,” he says.

Menon from Help AG says organisations are moving away from a combination of products and services to the flexible consumption-based model of Everythingas-a-Service (XaaS) – a shift that is opening up new avenues of opportunity.

“Nowhere is the shift toward a servicecentric model more evident than in the cybersecurity sector. In fact, 90% of security requirements are expected to be fulfilled through a service model three years from now, according to our State of the Market Report 2022,” he says.

Ranjan from IDC says eventually every business will start leveraging XaaS model to drive their digital journey by leveraging a service provider who will take the responsibility to procure both critical and non-critical IT infrastructure, and have their experts to manage and maintain the services.

“Almost 4-5 years before, cloud discussion was not very prominent in the region; however, given the growing investments within cloud space by some global hyperscalers, CIOs are not only evaluating the cloud implementations but going for some complex cloud migrations as well. The market ecosystem will advance in the future where XaaS will become a central part of the strategic discussions,” he adds.

The transition to a XaaS model is not without its challenges, especially around cybersecurity.

When it comes to anything as-a-service built in the cloud, the critical question is, how are privileged users authenticated to administer that service?, says Aaron Turner, CTO – SaaS Protect, Vectra AI. There are two schools of thought around building highly-resilient identity controls for privileged users in the cloud. First is isolation. Build a separate identity chain that is not subject to the same attack vectors or vulnerabilities that the rest of the organisation’s cloud services may be subject to.

“This approach can result in separation but also leads to additional investments that must be made in detection and response, which in my experience don’t get made. As the result, what began as an isolated highly-resilient design, ends up being an identity backwater with actually more potential for abuse and compromise than if the privileged identities were federated from the start,” he says.

Which leads us to the second approach - federation with enhanced MFA. By federating identities to cloud services through technologies like Azure AD, Okta or Ping, organisations enjoy better visibility into how identities are used (or abused).

“But, it is critical that organisations do not allow for privileged cloud identities for services such as backup-as-a-service to be used for daily tasks like reading emails. So, the best approach for federation is a dedicated privileged identity that relies on strong MFA such as a security key,” Turner concludes.

Paul Hardy

Sudhir Menon

Manish Ranjan

BACKUP FOR DATABASES

THOMAS LAROCK, HEAD GEEK, SOLARWINDS, ON HOW TO PLAN FOR DATABASE BACKUP STRATEGY

Data plays a vital role in any successful business. Protecting this data is mission-critical, and it falls to database administrators (DBAs) to organise, maintain, and secure it. The most effective way for DBAs to protect data is through database backups, a process designed to copy the data and schema from an existing database and save it elsewhere for future retrieval.

Like any process in IT, however, there are a few factors to consider when devising a database backup strategy to ensure it meets your business needs.

Set Clear Objectives

There are two objectives any organisation or DBA should know when backing up data: recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs).

RTOs refer to the amount of time needed to recover data, and RPOs refer to the point in time to which they must be able to recover. For example, the business might need DBAs to recover data to a backup made within the last day (the RPO) and may need it to be done within an hour of a disaster (the RTO).

Before a DBA devises a database backup strategy, they must be clear on these objectives and ensure the recovery strategy they devise will deliver on these goals. Backups by themselves are useless but restores are priceless. Start by planning a recovery strategy, and let it guide your backup strategy.

The cost-benefit analysis

When building a strategy of any kind, it’s important to conduct a costbenefit analysis for every aspect. For a database backup strategy, this filters down into the frequency of the backups and where the backups are stored.

Too much time between backups leaves data vulnerable. Businesses often lose track of the expanding data in their databases. If the recovery process isn’t tested frequently, you may find the backups are unusable or no longer meet the RTO/RPO requirements. This, of course, is when disaster will strike.

Another cost to consider is where your data is stored. A business can pay for offsite or cloud storage, both of which have their own, often large, price tags. Paying for a larger storage space and performing frequent backups will increase a business’s ability to recover and secure your data, but it comes with a cost. This is an essential consideration for businesses, especially as their data sets grow with their business.

Optimising Database Backup Strategies

Once the costs and benefits have been weighed, it’s time to optimise the database backup strategy.

First, and most importantly, DBAs should restore databases periodically to ensure they can perform recovery when it matters most, such as in the face of a ransomware attack. However, it isn’t feasible to constantly

test each backup. This is where statistical sampling comes in. With statistical sampling, DBAs can figure out how many databases to restore periodically to minimise cost and maximise their ability to restore all databases in case of disaster. Instead of wasting time, energy, and money testing every backup every day, implementing statistical sampling allows DBAs to be 95% confident all the backups can be restored.

In theory, a backup shouldn’t impact any other operations happening inside the engine. But backups are often stored within a business’s shared systems, causing a major bottleneck every time a backup is performed. To avoid this, stagger your backups, undertake some at 2 a.m. and others at 5 a.m., for example, to avoid throttling the network and interfering with other systems and the normal course of business.

Implementing an effective database backup strategy is a no-brainer. But for it to be successful, businesses must appropriately analyse costs, risks, and benefits to determine the scale of the strategy. It’s also important for IT managers to understand their backup strategies holistically, from a business and an IT perspective, to ensure a cost-effective and robust database backup strategy is in place.

CLOUD CHAMPIONS

CXO INSIGHT ME RECOGNISED OUTSTANDING CLOUD PROJECTS IN THE REGION AT THE SECOND EDITION OF ITS CLOUD CONNECT CONFERENCE AND AWARDS

Cloud is driving business transformation. Be it public or private or multi-cloud, it has become the platform of choice for enterprise applications today. The pandemic has boosted cloud acceptance and adoption in the Middle East and has become technology of choice for business transformation initiatives.

The region’s outstanding cloud projects, service provider and vendors were recgonised by CXO Insight ME at the second edition of the Cloud Connect Conference and Awards. The event was kicked off by Saad Ouchkir, head of customer engineering META at Google Cloud, who spoke about how to unlock innovation with Google Transformation Cloud. “We strive to be the trusted innovation partner of our customers and accelerate their digital transformation. We partner closely with organisations to help them become the best tech company in their industry,” he said.

This was followed by a panel discussion on why multi-cloud is a must-have for enterprises, featuring: Rahul Saraswat, cloud business unit head at Citrus consulting services; Aliasgar Dohadwala, CEO of Visiontech; Nader Baghdadi, senior regional director, Colortokens; and Arthur Dell, technology leader, Veritas.

AW

GALADARI

CHANGE

AGENTS

Technology today is increasingly sophisticated, complex, and advanced, and it can be difficult for IT teams to keep up with the specialised demands and really capitalise on the tech they have available. Most organisations have a number of different systems to integrate – but a lack of niche insight and expertise can often mean that businesses are not fully exploiting their IT systems and improving their performance.

Many Middle East businesses have invested in performance management technology that provides data on how their networks and apps perform. This gives them the potential to optimise the user experience and provide a better

CHARBEL

service – essential for meeting the requirements of the region’s young, digital-savvy population. But to draw true value from this investment, it’s essential to have the specialist technical know-how to analyse the data and convert it into actionable insights – and many companies simply don’t have the expertise for this.

To enable companies to capitalise on the tech available, achieve better results and provide the service customers demand, we need an entire new role and job title – a performance management engineer.

Introducing the performance management engineer

In today’s complex technological world, it’s clear that the need has never been greater for employees capable of, and dedicated to, reading, understanding, and improving performance management. And analysing it as it relates to the enduser, independent of understanding the systems themselves.

With a new kind of IT employee in place – performance management engineers – companies will be empowered to transform their operations. For example, traditionally, IT staff were assigned to conducting network analysis when there was a specific issue that needed to be resolved. However, with dedicated experts carrying out ongoing monitoring,

businesses can minimise time to resolution when challenges emerge, by shifting from a reactive to proactive approach.

This is because time to resolution is made up of four key factors – mean time to know there’s an issue, mean time to identify where the problem is coming from, mean time to fix it, and mean time to verify the fix. To date, organisations have had the talent to address the third factor – resolving the problem – but not to tackle the other three elements. With performance management engineers in place, capable of reading telemetry across the whole network in real-time, this will no longer be the case as they will have the expertise to deliver on all four areas. Not only will this reduce downtime, with positive knock-on effects for staff and customers, but it will also save money. The time to resolve an issue is fixed, but the mean times to know, locate and verify can be reduced, unlocking efficiency with its cost-saving benefits. What’s more, if you can eliminate the time to know there’s a problem, you’re able to take a preventative approach, meaning the entire issue could be avoided and the cost of impact brought down to zero.

The role of universities and companies

The value of performance management engineers is self-evident but making them a common fixture in every business’ IT team will require a change in approach by both companies and universities.

To build the talent pipeline, it will be essential for universities to update their courses to include a focus on performance management, rather than continuing to bill everything around technology topics on specific domains. In practice, this will mean giving students the right foundation to understand key concepts across the board so they can be polished from a performance perspective. For instance, arming them with the ability to understand the basics of coding (without having to be an expert) and giving them the analytical skills to assimilate knowledge and understand the outcomes so they can effectively analyse application performance problems.

In tandem, organisations need to evolve their mindsets to appreciate that what employees need is the right knowledge base to evolve from, as the specific skills their staff require will constantly change. With this understanding in place, the value of introducing performance management engineers can be truly appreciated.

Tackling the great resignation

Beyond improving network and application performance, introducing a new category of employee could help businesses stave off the impacts of the great resignation. Notably, by offering staff the intellectual growth and strong financial remuneration to keep them motivated and retained.

To dive deeper into the first element, it’s undeniable that in the last couple of years there’s been a boom in innovation. However, IT staff have not been equipped with the skills needed to keep pace with this, due to a lack of time and investment being dedicated to training, as they were focused on firefighting issues instead. By offering IT employees the opportunity and training to become performance management engineers, companies will provide them with new career opportunities. What’s more, moving into this role will turn staff into a more highly valuable resource with an attached monetary benefit for them.

The investment will be worth the payoff Introducing a new category of employee dedicated to performance management will never be an overnight job. It will require universities and organisations to take active steps to cultivate this new group and prepare for their introduction to the workforce. Furthermore, if this effort is made, companies will be empowered to dramatically improve their network and application performance and achieve significant business benefits. These will range from greater employee and customer experiences, to reduced IT costs and an even better retention of employees. With this in mind, it’s time we pushed the button on introducing performance management engineers.

A ROADMAP TO SUSTAINABILITY

BJORN EWERS, MANAGING DIRECTOR & SENIOR PARTNER AND JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BERNARDINI, PARTNER & ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR AT BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP, ON DECARBONISING THE ENERGY SECTOR

The Oil & Gas (O&G) sector has been at the forefront of the technological curve at many points in time. O&G companies have always made use of technology, both physical and computational, to deliver production efficiently, remain cost resilient to navigate uncertainty, and reduce CO2 emissions to ensure operator’s sustainability and competitiveness.

The digital maturity of Middle East oil companies has advanced across virtually all sectors despite the challenges brought by the pandemic. For O&G companies, solutions such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) represent an advantageous opportunity for operations optimisation because these technologies can be leveraged across the entire value chain, including upstream, midstream, and downstream operations.

International Oil Companies’ decarbonisation programs are targeting approximately 15% – 20% of emissions reduction by 2025 and 30% - 50% by 2030. To reduce environmental impacts, O&G companies looking to take the next step in their decarbonisation efforts, optimise their operations in light of their abatement goals, and integrate digitallyenabled analytics into their DNA. Digital solutions such as AI and machine learning can help companies identify the sources and drivers of emissions (their own as well as those of suppliers and customers) to reduce energy consumption and optimise the energy efficiency across the overall value chain impacting Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions.

As societal pressure to address climate change continues to mount, O&G companies will face intensifying

Jean-Christophe Bernardini

slower than others, such as consumer goods and finance, to innovate with transformative data-driven solutions. But companies can achieve success if they treat

pressure from stakeholders— including investors, regulators, employees, and prospective employees—to decarbonise.

Oil companies have large

carbon footprints across the value chain where Low-Carbon Technologies are critical to reducing emissions. To support key investment decisions in technology, companies need to consider the key levers of scope emissions reductions across the energy value chain compared to their strategic objectives and ambitions, these are:

• Set up a holistic overview of core low-carbon technologies to minimise environmental impacts.

• Screen and benchmarks these technologies to identify the ones that will be adapted to the profiles of each asset to reach carbon-free emissions.

• Perform investment decisions in technology considering current and future business environment scenarios and companies’ portfolio evolution.

The O&G industry is not an easy place to go digital. Companies are project-focused and safety conscious, and they value execution excellence and predictability. And because the industry has used automation and data processing for decades, many believe they are already up to speed with digital technologies and almost consider themselves digital natives. Consequently, the sector has been

digitisation like any other fundamental business transformation. By adopting all seven imperatives outlined below, they can surmount the challenges and capture the full value potential of digital.

There are 8 key steps for companies to address these challenges and leverage new opportunities from transitioning to a low carbon future.

1. Set up accurate current emission baselines at an asset level

2. Prioritise ideas with a clear assessment of economics and feasibility

3. Set up robust business cases

4. Establish accurate and specific asset’s abatement curves

5. Build clear methodology and guidelines to set up a baseline, prioritise initiatives, build specific business cases, and monitor initiatives’ impacts

6. Adopt an integrated approach to evaluate and monitor impacts on operating model across the value chain

7. Create partnership and get access to external ideas to challenge/complement internal convictions

8. Build robust approach and plans to convince regulators and partners supported by strong business cases

Many O&G companies have already made meaningful strides toward decarbonisation. But they will need to do much more going forward as stakeholder demands and expectations continue to rise. Over the past two years, the pace of decarbonisation announcements has been astonishing globally and most specifically in the region. Nevertheless, despite multiple ongoing initiatives, the readiness level of companies to decarbonise exploration & production (E&P) assets is still very diversified. The pace will need to accelerate to reach Middle East operators’ Net Zero ambitions.

Bjorn Ewers

11am

Oct

10am

TRENDS IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

WHY THE FUTURE OF THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY WILL BE DRIVEN BY DATA AND DIGITAL EXPERIENCES

The automotive industry has witnessed an impressive transformation in recent years. Negotiations and transactions, traditionally completed in showrooms, can be done online. Vehicles connect to the internet, and with autonomous technology, can drive themselves. Under increasing pressure to invest in electric vehicles and prioritise sustainability, entire business models are being redesigned.

Yet, as an industry built on face-toface interactions transitions to digitalfirst, the combination of sky-high prices, low inventory, and new customer demands poses numerous risks and opportunities as companies plan for a profitable future.

The technology in the industry is speeding ahead, but the digital customer experience is falling behind.

According to Salesforce’s Trends in Automotive survey of 500 industry decision makers including Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), auto finance subsidiaries, and dealers worldwide, there are number of ways ensure a smoother, successful transition.

When it comes to digital journeys, companies aren’t as far along as they might believe. 73% of companies surveyed believe they are overperforming when it comes to digital transformation. Yet, just 26% of OEMs and 23% of dealers believe they have adapted well to selling online.

A complicated path-to-purchase has consequences for customers and the industry alike. For many customers, buying a car starts with figuring out what they can afford. Yet only 24% of respondents said website prices consistently match what customers end up paying for their vehicle.

According to Salesforce State of the Connected Customer research, 74% of consumerssay communicating honestly and transparently is more important now than before the pandemic. Customers want price transparency and streamlined lending, but companies aren’t delivering.

When it comes to making purchases, digital experiences within the automotive sector considerably lags behind others. Less than one in five industry experts believe their digital storefronts are engaging, mobile-friendly, and show accurate inventory data. The benefits of cutting customer journey congestion is clear not just for improving sales, but also wider industry growth.

Digital transformation entails everything from connecting with and serving customers, to building the right data architecture, to embedding an open data culture throughout the organisation. In many cases it is not technology that is holding companies back, but the ways in which companies have set up their systems to handle data.

Currently, 95% of automotive companies buy customer data from third-party sources to support marketing initiatives, however changing internet privacy regulations mean they must gather information directly from customers themselves.

Whilst a burden in the short term, first-party data collection strategies serve companies’ long-term interests. Having a complete view of the customer enables organisations to tailor communications to their specific needs and interests which will drive incremental sales and margins.

Although 73% of customers already expect personalised experiences, 78% of automotive companies surveyed report they cannot customise communications based on specific accounts or even customer complaints.

Given that first-party customer data is already being used in connected vehicles to improve road safety, improving customer service should be a natural next step for automotive retailers.

The race to develop reliable, safe, and affordable electric vehicles (EVs) is not without risks to the industry’s profits over the coming years. Take for instance the cost of research investments, transitioning to EVs, adapting to new environmental regulations and increasing customer demand.

Yet new opportunities to boost competitiveness are emerging. More companies are turning to subscriptions and partnerships as revenue generators, for example. Almost half (44%) of surveyed companies are already heavily investing in subscription models for connected vehicles and 41% are exploring personalised finance bundles for commercial offerings.

Emerging technologies are also improving profitability. 40% of respondents strongly agree that digitising operations and using AI can help identify bottlenecks and areas of redundancy throughout the operation. In addition, 38% strongly agreed they could drive incremental sales and margin with better targeting, attention, and marketing.

From connected to electric vehicles, the future of the automotive industry will be driven by data and digital experiences. Investing in the right platforms to unlock this data, creating new revenue streams and matching customers’ expectations for efficiency and personalisation will be key to success.

Sebastian

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CLOUD

Ihave a fondness for philosophy. I’m about three classes short of a degree, and every few years I tell myself one day I’ll finish it. I’ve passed my fondness onto my oldest, who did get a degree in philosophy to complement his degrees in computer science and data science. Yes, our text conversations are often quite interesting, thanks for asking.

Thus, I am very familiar with what is known in statistics—and logic—as a post hoc fallacy, from which we get the saying “correlation is not causation.” This is the logical error of assuming that if event Y followed event X, event Y must have been caused by event X. The most famous callout of this fallacy came from Bobby Henderson, who illustrated the absurdity of assuming causation from correlation with his chart demonstrating that global

warming was caused by the declining number of pirates in the world.

Yeah, that doesn’t make sense, but neither do a lot of charts that people draw causality from. Just because two data points are mapped against each other does not mean one caused the other. In many cases, it doesn’t even make logical sense to correlate the two. After all, pirates and global warming? No one actually takes that seriously.

But it’s an important point to make as we dive into the question of the relationship between site reliability engineering (SRE) operations and cloud repatriation.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that adopting SRE practices causes cloud repatriation. But I am suggesting that there is a close and meaningful

relationship between the two. The fact that Google—a cloud provider—created SRE as a practice is not a mistake. The model, mindset, and skillsets associated with SRE are integral to successfully operating cloud infrastructure and services.

Cloud repatriation is real

Public cloud repatriation itself is a somewhat taboo topic in certain circles. Consider the controversy raised by Andreessen Horowitz when it published “The Cost of Cloud, a Trillion Dollar Paradox” and suggested companies were repatriating from the cloud and realising significant cost savings as a result. Some would have you believe it’s not happening, but there’s enough data and anecdotal evidence to indicate that yes, it is.

For our 2021 State of Application

LORI MACVITTIE, PRINCIPAL TECHNICAL EVANGELIST, OFFICE OF THE CTO AT F5, ON THE CURIOUS CONNECTION BETWEEN CLOUD REPATRIATION AND SRE OPERATIONS

Strategy Report we asked the market about public cloud repatriation. A mere 13% had repatriated apps and another 14% were planning to. One year later, that combined total rose 40 percentage points to 37% and 30%, respectively. This is not an anomaly, as there are multiple credible analyst firms reporting similar results. Interestingly, the rate of repatriation is not globally universal. APCJ and LATAM are both far less likely to repatriate than EMEA and NA.

I maintain that companies are repatriating apps from the public cloud and the question isn’t ‘are they?’ but rather ‘how many workloads are they pulling out—and where are they going?’ That’s a question we’ll try to answer next year when we complete our State of Application Strategy 2023 research.

For now, we’ve been digging into a possible enabler of repatriation—SRE operations. Because even if the increasing cost of cloud is a driver of the desire to repatriate, if you don’t have the skills to operate as efficiently elsewhere—and thus benefit from lower cost—then why would you repatriate?

And we posit that it is SRE operational practices and skills that enable companies to repatriate and maintain the efficiency and cost savings needed to justify the decision—whether they’re moving those workloads to another public cloud, on-premises, or to the edge.

Digging into the data

On the surface, there is a strong correlation between the adoption and application of SRE practices with cloud repatriation that seems to indicate that organisations with the ability to operate in a cloud-like manner, i.e., they’ve adopted SRE practices, effectively pick up their toys (apps) and go home (on-premises or elsewhere) because they can.

Cut another way, only 4% of organisations that have not adopted SRE practices have repatriated apps from the public cloud. A whopping 73% of those who have adopted SRE practices have also repatriated apps.

Of course, adopting practices does not necessarily mean applying practices.

ON THE SURFACE, THERE IS A STRONG CORRELATION BETWEEN THE ADOPTION AND APPLICATION OF SRE PRACTICES WITH CLOUD REPATRIATION THAT SEEMS TO INDICATE THAT ORGANISATIONS WITH THE ABILITY TO OPERATE IN A CLOUD-LIKE MANNER, I.E., THEY’VE ADOPTED SRE PRACTICES, EFFECTIVELY PICK UP THEIR TOYS (APPS) AND GO HOME (ONPREMISES OR ELSEWHERE) BECAUSE THEY CAN.

So, we looked at how organisations are actually operating applications, systems, and infrastructure. Specifically, we looked at the percentage of their operations that use SRE practices. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that generated similar results.

Of those who operate 0% of their apps, systems, and infrastructure using SRE practices, 81% are not repatriating. Conversely, of those who use SRE practices for 76%–99% of apps, system,

and infrastructure operations, 54% have repatriated. The point at which repatriation appears to begin picking up steam is when organisations surpass using SRE practices to operate more than one-quarter (25%) of their apps, systems, and infrastructure.

Remember I noted that APCJ and LATAM were far less likely to repatriate? They’re also far less likely to be leveraging SRE practices to operate their apps, systems, and infrastructure. In fact, over one-quarter (26%) in LATAM and APCJ (29%) were operating ZERO percent of apps, systems, and infrastructure using SRE practices. In EMEA? That’s only 5%. And in NA, even lower at 2%.

Meaningful relationship or curious coincidence?

There appears to be an inarguable correlation between organisations embracing SRE as an operational practice and public cloud repatriation rates. But is it a meaningful relationship or merely a curious coincidence?

I’m going to argue, because this is my blog, that it’s a meaningful relationship.

The practices and skillsets associated with SRE are wholly suited to operating a cloudy environment—at scale. As I said before, it’s no mistake that it was Google who created SRE and has literally written the book on it. And I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again—the value of cloud is in its operational model, which can dramatically lower the cost per transaction, whether measured by HTTP exchanges or customer sessions. That enables cost-efficient scale of applications and digital services.

The use of automation and practices that tend to focus on meaningful incidents rather than non-disruptive occurrences provides cost-efficient scale of the people (and thus their expertise) who are tasked with maintaining a high level of availability and performance.

The adoption and use of SRE practices enables organisations to efficiently scale operations whether in the public cloud or on-premises or at the edge. And what the data tells us is that organisations appear to be using the capability to do just that.

CHECK

From virtual meetings to immersive 3D customer experiences or even property tours, the Metaverse will transform the way that companies operate. Gartner predicts that by 2026, a quarter of us will spend at least one hour a day in the Metaverse for work, shopping, education, social media and/or entertainment. Some brands are already there today, such as Nike and Coca-Cola, who are using it to drive brand awareness and the purchase of physical products. With so much buzz around the Metaverse, it’s easy to see why more and more companies will start to do business there. But are they thinking about the risks? We will certainly need a different approach to security in a virtual world compared to the

physical, but what will that entail? Let’s take a look at what the risks are and how to start getting prepared (because you do need to start now).

The biggest hurdle to the Metaverse being a secure environment is in its foundations. The Metaverse is built on blockchain technology and we have already seen serious security gaps in NFT marketplaces and blockchain platforms such as OpenSea, Rarible and Everscale. Due to the sheer amount of malicious activity that we already see exploiting services based on the blockchain, we believe it won’t be long before we start to see initial attacks in the Metaverse too. It will likely be based on authorisation, and user accounts will get hijacked, so we

expect that identity and authentication will sit at the heart of everything we want to do. It is tricky though, as people might want to have multiple identities within the Metaverse, perhaps one for transacting work conversations and another for personal shopping and entertainment. This adds another layer of complexity because there’s then no single identity that says it’s definitely you. The answer could be in chained identity so, will blockchain then help us understand where we’re transacting and who with? This is a major challenge. And since blockchain technologies are decentralised and unregulated, this makes things like policing the theft of virtual assets or preventing money laundering, very difficult indeed.

RAM NARAYANAN, COUNTRY MANAGER AT CHECK POINT

EAST, DEMYSTIFIES

Redefining reality

Another key security challenge is in the safe spaces needed to conduct business. Imagine you’re on a Zoom or Teams call. It’s a private meeting space, right? But what will that be like in the Metaverse? How do we know that a chair someone is sitting on isn’t actually an avatar and we have an impostor in our midst? You may think that can’t possibly happen, but it’s a virtual world. Of course it can. We need to be able to discern between what’s real and what’s fake, and having a safe space to meet and transact will be crucial.

When the Internet first came out, threat actors exploited the average human’s unfamiliarity with the tech by creating malicious sites that impersonated banks to obtain financial details. Phishing scams like this still occur, albeit we now see more sophisticated forms of social engineering. The Metaverse is like a whole new Internet, and you can guarantee that people’s unfamiliarity with it, both businesses and consumers, will be exploited.

Interestingly, every transaction that happens on the blockchain is fully traceable, so this will become far more important, especially when it comes to having an audit trail of what has been discussed and any decisions made in a business context. But that leaves a question over how that information is taken from the virtual world to the

physical. Are contracts going to be legally binding in the Metaverse? Or will they need to be brought into the physical world to be signed and then pushed back in? How will that be done securely?

Researchers have discovered security gaps within blockchain and crypto projects which are part of the Metaverse. The vulnerabilities that been exploited by cyber crime are focused on vulnerabilities with smart contracts that allows hackers to exploit and drain crypto platforms and around application vulnerabilities inside blockchain platforms that allows hackers to attack through the platforms and hijack users’ wallets balance. There is a danger that we rush headlong into the Metaverse without considering these types of implications.

A lot of the concerns around security in the Metaverse are exacerbated by the huge skills shortage in the cybersecurity sector. According to the 2021 (ISC)² Cybersecurity Workforce Study, we are lacking almost 3 million cybersecurity professionals and the current global cyber workforce needs to grow by 65% to effectively defend organisations’ critical assets. That percentage is likely to be a lot higher if we also consider the new virtual world.

Is it worth it?

Other cybersecurity risks within the Metaverse abounds such as cyberattacks via the use of vulnerable AR/VR devices, as an entryway for evolving malwares and data breaches. These devices inherently collect large amounts of user data and information such as biometrics, making it attractive to hackers. Concerns around data privacy are also a growing voice amongst Metaverse sceptics, with additional data being collected through avenues like Second Life, potentially violating user privacy.

You might be reading this thinking well, why bother if there are so many risks involved? But it is absolutely worth putting the time in now, to get ready for moving across to the Metaverse. Unfortunately, any company (no matter the size) that doesn’t, may find itself in a place where it’s playing catch up and potentially losing out

Top Metaverse security considerations right now:

1It’s coming. You can’t put your head in the sand and pretend that it isn’t. Business leaders and security professionals need to talk about it and understand what it might mean for them. Understand the landscape by looking at what competitors are doing in that space.

2Have a look at how you are currently running services now in the physical world and understand if these services map in any way to the Metaverse. You may find that some of them don’t and aren’t even secure in this world, such as mobile devices, tablets, cloud and multi-cloud.

3Understand how to get your identification and authentication done correctly. The answer to that isn’t just having a password or two factor authentication. Companies need to really start upping their game around these two issues. People tend to do things without thinking about security, whereas they should be thinking of security first.

on business or engaging in processes that put the business at risk. You can transition slowly, just like many have done with cloud migration.

Organisations will need to be much more reliant on their partners around the world to help mitigate risk, as this is very much a global phenomenon. But there will always be some risk and for those that take them and get it right, there will be huge rewards. At the end of the day though, businesses won’t be able to do it themselves, it will take a great deal of partnering with organisations that work within that space.

The Metaverse will hit everyone, and there’s no denying that mistakes will be made, similar to those that were made in the early days of the Internet.

HONOR Pad 8

The all-new HONOR Pad 8 delivers unrivalled entertainment experience in a sleek and compact design. Boasting an impressive 12-inch 2K HONOR FullView display, 8 Speakers with DTS: X ULTRA, and Multi-Screen Collaboration, the HONOR Pad 8 pushes industry benchmarks to help users stay entertained to the maximum.

Additionally, the HONOR Pad 8 comes with the latest HONOR Magic UI 6.1 based on Android 12, offering a range of

enhanced, customized features to provide a smart experience to users like Multi-Screen Collaboration, HONOR Share, APP Extender and Multi-Window Viewing.

Inspired by the sky at dawn, the HONOR Pad 8 is available now in classic Blue Hour in UAE markets via HONOR Online Store and Sharaf DG at an affordable price of AED 1199 with free gifts worth AED 248 including HONOR Flip Cover and HONOR CHOICE X2.

Kingston IronKey Keypad 200

Kingston Digital Europe today announced the release of the Kingston IronKey Keypad 200 (KP200), the industry’s first drive to deliver the latest FIPS 140-3 Level 3 security for your data.

The IronKey Keypad 200 is built with robust protection and flexibility of use in mind — offering XTS-AES 256-bit hardware-based encryption in a feature-rich and OS-independent alphanumeric keypad. KP200 incorporates a built-in rechargeable

battery, so users can unlock the drive using the keypad for easy-to-use PIN access, without using software. Once unlocked, users can access their data by plugging the drive into any device that supports USB Type-A Flash storage, making it a plug-and-play device across IT ecosystems.

KP200 is FIPS-140-3 Level 3 (Pending) certified for military-grade security, and the drive’s circuitry is coated with tamper-evident, tough epoxy to prevent access to its internal components without damaging them. For another level of protection, the keypad is coated with a protective polymer layer to prevent the analysis of fingerprints on the keys.

KP200 supports a multi-PIN option, allowing the use of separate Admin or User PINs. KP200 locks the User PIN after ten failed login attempts, but if both PINs are enabled the Admin PIN can be used to restore a User PIN and access to the drive. If the Admin PIN itself is incorrectly entered ten times in a row, the built-in Brute Force attack protection will crypto-erase the drive, permanently destroying the data and resetting the device. Additionally, KP200 can safeguard against malware from untrusted systems with two different Read-Only modes, empowering Admin to write-protect the drive during a specific session or globally across all User sessions.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series

NVIDIA unveiled the GeForce RTX 40 Series of GPUs, designed to deliver revolutionary performance for gamers and creators, led by its new flagship, the RTX 4090 GPU, with up to 4x the performance of its predecessor.

The world’s first GPUs based on the new NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture, the RTX 40 Series delivers massive generational leaps in performance and efficiency and represents a new era of real-time ray tracing and neural rendering, which uses AI to generate pixels.

Additionally, the RTX 40 Series GPUs feature a range of new technological innovations, including:

• Streaming multiprocessors with up to 83 teraflops of shader power — 2x over the previous generation.

• Third-generation RT Cores with up to 191 effective raytracing teraflops — 2.8x over the previous generation.

• Fourth-generation Tensor Cores with up to 1.32 Tensor petaflops — 5x over the previous generation using FP8 acceleration.

• Shader Execution Reordering (SER) that improves execution efficiency by rescheduling shading workloads on the fly to better utilise the GPU’s resources. As significant an innovation as out-of-order execution was for CPUs, SER

LOGITECH RIGHTSIGHT 2

improves ray-tracing performance up to 3x and in-game frame rates by up to 25%.

• Ada Optical Flow Accelerator with 2x faster performance allows DLSS 3 to predict movement in a scene, enabling the neural network to boost frame rates while maintaining image quality.

• Architectural improvements tightly coupled with custom TSMC 4N process technology results in an up to 2x leap in power efficiency.

• Dual NVIDIA Encoders (NVENC) cut export times by up to half and feature AV1 support. The NVENC AV1 encode is being adopted by OBS, Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve, Discord and more.

Logitech is creating more equitable work experiences for hybrid workers with RightSight 2 software that now simultaneously presents both a close-up view of the individual speaker and a view of the entire meeting room during video calls. With RightSight 2 auto-framing technology, far-end participants can follow the active speaker while also getting situational context from the group, such as one person gesturing to another or writing on a whiteboard. As the workforce adapts to a long-term hybrid environment, Logitech continues to advance its software

intelligence to deliver the immersive, inclusive experiences that remote participants would have if they were physically in the room. RightSight 2 is Logitech’s latest innovation in an ongoing goal to make meetings more equitable now and in the future.

RightSight 2 combines audio and video intelligence to detect people’s placement in the room and the location of their voices. Speaker View is a new mode that uses the two-camera system in Rally Bar and Rally Bar Mini to render a picture-in-picture view of the active speaker and the whole group. The active speaker is framed using the main camera that pans and zooms smoothly as the speaker changes, while the wide-angle AI Viewfinder frames the room, ensuring remote participants can see and hear all meeting exchanges clearly. IT admins have the flexibility to toggle between Speaker View and Group View (RightSight’s original implementation of auto-framing) to best suit their teams.

RightSight 2’s Speaker View is compatible with all of Logitech’s major cloud video conferencing partners, giving IT teams assurance that their Logitech video collaboration ecosystem will adapt to the evolving needs of their hybrid workplace. The feature will work as picture-in-picture mode with Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android and Windows, and seamlessly integrates into Zoom Rooms multi-stream technology—which shows each of the speaker and room streams in separate, individual tiles.

SUNIL PAUL, MD OF FINESSE, ON HOW THE REGION’S BIGGEST TECH SHOW – GITEX – HAS EVOLVED OVER THE YEARS THE SHOW GOES ON

When one sees the sprawl and dazzle of GITEX today, it is hard to believe that the most important ICT event of the region started life in the previous century as a predominantly hardware exhibition spread across two halls of Dubai’s exhibition centre. Over the years, it has come to occupy 10 exhibition halls of Dubai World Trade Centre, comprising a million feet of exhibition space

Along the way, it has earned many other superlatives - the oldest and largest tech show in the Middle East; the longest-running ICT event in the region; the world’s third largest ICT fair; one of the most influential tech events on the planet, and so on. Last year, amid the Covid-19 wave, the 40th edition of Gitex Technology Week earned the sobriquet of the world’s only live, in-person tech show while reinforcing Dubai’s success in combating the pandemic and steady return to normal.

GITEX expanded in scope and space since 1997, so has Dubai, solidifying the emirate’s standing as a tech hub for the Middle East and Africa region. From hardware to software to cutting edge areas like AI, 5G, Blockchain, Cloud, Big Data, Cybersecurity, what one sees in GITEX is, in a short span of time, embedded into the city’s processes. For example, it didn’t take long for block chain to jump off the presentation screen at GITEX into the processes of the City’s land department. In 2017, Dubai Land Department became first government entity in the world to carry out all of its transactions through the Blockchain.

GITEX reinforced Dubai’s role as a hub

for cutting edge ICT as evidenced by initiatives like Smart Dubai, and more recently, the creation of the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority to control digital assets like non-fungible tokens (NFT) and crptocurrency.

Over the years, GITEX has served as a launching pad for important technologies and breakthroughs. In 2018, UAE’s telecom giant Etisalat allowed visitors to experience 5G with the world’s first flying car as a showstopper. Virgin Hyperloop One showcased how its technology –which features electromagnetically levitated pods travelling through low-pressure tubes at speeds of up to 1,223kmph – can improve mobility across the world. In 2016, when Virtual Reality was all the rage, GITEX achieved a Guinness World Record for most participants riding in a virtual reality roller coaster in one hour. In 2009, Microsoft chose GITEX and Dubai for the global launch of Windows 7. Last year’s GITEX offered a peek into the world of home robots with cognitive abilities,

GITEX also mirrors the growing techdriven entrepreneurial space in Dubai, and its growing stature as a fertile ground for small businesses and startups with friendly policy environment and funding. The 40th edition of GITEX last year hosted the region’s largest tech start-up event - this year, UAE was the top-funded and most transacted market in MENA in the first half, accounting for 50 per cent of all the investment accumulated by the region, according to MAGNIT.

GITEX is also responsible for attracting the global IT giants to

set up their regional headquarters in Dubai, and last two years, many emerging players have shifted lock, stock and barrel to the city and the UAE, thanks to its successful handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to multiple media reports from India have said that between 8,000 and 10,000 members of the Indian Web 3.0 startup ecosystem, including workers, founders, and investors, have relocated to Dubai. In fact, the City is on its way to becoming India’s proxy IT capital in emerging IT technologies.

Beyond the technology extravaganza, there are also hard numbers of how GITEX has contributed to Dubai’s economy and sustainably supported the country’s diversification agenda that has been identified as a strategic priority in the UAE Centennial 2071 Strategy. The GITEX Technology Week Economic Impact Assessment 2019 Report, issued by Dubai World Trade Centre, showed that for every AED 1 spent by an attendee at GITEX, 4.5 times the revenue impact was generated across Dubai’s wider economy. The 2019 event, generated AED 1.6 billion economic output and added AED 919 million to Dubai’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

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Ensure business continuity with 5G backup for non-stop connectivity and protect your data from cyberthreats with the high-performance security features of the multi-core firewall.