The Need For Speed

ISSUE 35 \ OCTOBER 2021

THE NEED FOR SPEED

The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention embraces digital transformation to redefine the patient experience

Copyright © 2021 Fortinet, Inc. All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

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PRODUCTS

THE UAE MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND PREVENTION EMBRACES DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION TO REDEFINE THE PATIENT EXPERIENCE

THE NEED FOR SPEED

30

42

6

NEWS

FIVE APPSEC TRENDS THE PATH TO 30 16 TOP YOU CAN’T IGNORE RESPONSIBLE AI RISE OF SOCIAL 20 THE ENGINEERING ATTACKS 22 THE EVOLVING ROLE

HOW TO EMPOWER 36 CONNECTED WORKING

OF THE CRO

OW TO SPOT GENUINE 40 HSTORAGE-AS-A-SERVICE

THREATQUOTIENT TO HIGHLIGHT THREATQ SOLUTION AT GITEX 2021

24

TRAVERSING THE MULTI-CLOUD WORLD

42

THE RISE OF MACHINES

DWTC REVAMPS NETWORK CAPABILITIES WITH EXTREME NETWORKS

HOW FAR CAN 46 WE GO WITH COPPER?

RUBRIK ANNOUNCES RANSOMWARE RECOVERY WARRANTY

FUTURE OF 30 THE URBAN LIVING

PUBLISHED BY INSIGHT MEDIA & PUBLISHING LLC

OCTOBER 2021

CXO INSIGHT ME

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EDITORIAL

IT’S TIME TO RESET

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he much-awaited Expo has started with a bang, and the region’s biggest tech show is just around the corner.

With almost all Covid-19 curbs lifted, I am excited to meet the key industry players face to face and get insights into the trends shaping the future of the technology landscape in the region. This year’s Gitex is also going to be a special one for us because we have our inaugural ICT Leadership Awards on the first day of the show. Rifling through some of the transformative IT projects to pick winners has been an eye-opening experience for me. True to the saying that adversity can be the mother of invention, the pandemic has fueled tech innovation in a scale never seen before. From cloud to automation to mobile applications, we have seen an accelerated adoption and modernisation of technologies, which helped make businesses in the region more resilient in the face of pandemic-induced disruptions. It would be fair to say every business is a digital

business today, and these new technologies will have a lasting impact even after the pandemic.

With life slowly returning to normal, many of us have already started speculating about the new norms in a post-pandemic world. The crisis has pushed many businesses over the technology tipping point, and no one can afford to go back to the old ways of doing business. As many of our Award-winning projects illustrated, digital transformation has made it possible for businesses to achieve unprecedented growth in speed and productivity, and now they have to redefine their business operating models and reassess growth opportunities. This year’s Gitex is going to highlight innovations in AI,5G, cloud, blockchain, cybersecurity, to name a few, allowing IT leaders to see first-hand how some of these technologies create new opportunities for efficiency and innovation. The CXO Insight ME team will be on the show floor and give us a shout when you are around. The coffee is on me.

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Designer Anup Sathyan

While the publisher has made all efforts to ensure the accuracy of information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors

OCTOBER 2021

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NEWS

THREATQUOTIENT TO HIGHLIGHT THREATQ SOLUTION AT GITEX 2021

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hreatQuotient will be showcasing ThreatQ, their Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP), at GITEX 2021 to be held from October 17-21. With ThreatQ, ThreatQuotient will be demonstrating a range of solutions that support datadriven approaches such as Extended Detected and Response (XDR) and Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) platforms.

ThreatQ is an open and extensible tool that empowers organisations to automate the intelligence lifecycle, quickly understand threats, make informed decisions, and accelerate detection and response. It supports both standard and custom integrations, with feeds and security systems.

ThreatQ also enables data-driven

Firas Ghanem, Regional Director, Middle East & Pakistan at ThreatQuotient

Extended Detection & Response (XDR).

Its adaptive data engine imports and aggregates external and internal data, curates and analyses it for decision

making and action, and exports a prioritized data flow across the infrastructure. Moreover, ThreatQ’s SOAR harmonises disparate systems to orchestrate and automate response.

“At GITEX 2021, we plan to increase the visibility of our ThreatQ platform,” said Firas Ghanem, Regional Director, Middle East & Pakistan at ThreatQuotient.

“We hope to engage with CISOs and CTI heads from across the region, as well as international visitors, to explain how ThreatQuotient can assist them in enhancing their security operations and CTI practice.

GITEX is an important platform for ThreatQuotient; as the Middle East’s largest, most anticipated, and influential exhibitions, there is an excellent opportunity to connect with industry professionals, be it with our partners, existing or potential customers, or individual experts.”

DWTC REVAMPS NETWORK CAPABILITIES WITH EXTREME NETWORKS Extreme Networks has successfully completed a large-scale network overhaul for the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) increasing the network capacity of the venue tenfold.

As a result of deploying Extreme solutions, such as Extreme Fabric Connect and ExtremeAnalytics, DWTC can offer a variety of next-generation digital applications, including media displays and contactless engagement technologies, more robust security and improved health and safety measures.

Maan Al-Shakarchi, Regional Director META, Extreme Networks, said, “The Dubai World Trade Centre is demonstrating how the events industry can emerge stronger and more resilient following the pandemic by leveraging technology to help them broaden their 6

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Maan Al-Shakarchi, Regional Director META, Extreme Networks

reach and innovative services. While many have waited on the sidelines, DWTC has made confident investments to futureproof and advance its IT infrastructure.

The solutions we’ve provided have not only built a solid foundation for DWTC to continue to innovate, but to achieve the infinitely distributed connectivity required to stay at the centre of the region’s events calendar.”

To make Dubai the world’s leading destination for major exhibitions, conferences and events, including GITEX GLOBAL 2021, and in anticipation of a 50% year-on-year

increase in network traffic, DWTC turned to Extreme. Together, they have designed a converged IP network infrastructure powered by industryleading solutions, such as Extreme Fabric Connect and ExtremeAnalytics.

By leveraging ExtremeAnalytics, the team at DWTC will gain greater visibility into foot traffic patterns, congregation areas, concessions traffic and overall app usage throughout its events. These insights will allow them to optimise venue operations and provide more personalised experiences for all attendees.

RUBRIK ANNOUNCES RANSOMWARE RECOVERY WARRANTY

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ubrik has announced a Ransomware Recovery Warranty to further assure customers that their data will be available to keep their business running. Rubrik allows companies to recover their data from cyber attacks and operational failures, and this first-ofits-kind ransomware recovery warranty underscores Rubrik’s deep commitment to data security for its customers. The Rubrik Zero Trust Data Security platform is designed to protect business data against surging ransomware attacks, enabling IT teams to rapidly recover their applications and resume normal business operations.

“With this new Ransomware Recovery Warranty, our customers have our commitment that we care as deeply about protecting their data as they do,”

NUTANIX AND CITRIX COLLABORATE TO DRIVE FUTURE OF WORK

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utanix and Citrix Systems are announcing a strategic partnership through which they will provide secure, on-demand, and elastic access to apps, desktops, and data from any device, in any location, at any scale through Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and hybrid multicloud deployments of Citrix DaaS and Virtual Apps and Desktops services.

“Organisations continue to look for IT solutions to support the agility, flexibility and reliability required for a hybrid workforce,” said Tarkan Maner, Chief Commercial Officer at Nutanix.

“Together, Nutanix and Citrix can deliver remote work solutions which can be deployed across private and public clouds, combining the simplicity of the Nutanix Cloud Platform,

Bipul Sinha, CEO and Co-Founder of Rubrik

said Bipul Sinha, CEO and Co-Founder of Rubrik. “With ransomware attacks increasing more than any time in history, having a recoverable copy of your data has become a top agenda item for CIOs and CISOs, and we understand how important data security is to ensuring the security of a business.”

powered by the industry-leading HCI software, with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops services, to empower workers, wherever they happen to be.”

The partners have a successful track record of doing so, jointly powering remote work environments for thousands of customers, including large enterprises such as Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation, large public institutions such as Arizona State University, and across vertical industries including healthcare, financial services and more.

Under the planned partnership: • Nutanix will become a Citrix preferred choice for HCI hybrid and multicloud deployments. The Nutanix Cloud Platform delivers an ideal IT environment to support Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops services in a hybrid multicloud environment. Customers will be able to take advantage of Nutanix industry leading HCI – whether on-premises or in the public cloud – delivering simplicity, cost advantages, and a unified management plane enabling

This offer will be available for Rubrik customers running Rubrik Enterprise Edition and working with a Rubrik Customer Experience Manager (CEM) to ensure industry data security best practices are in place. This strategic collaboration and offering will enable the highest standards of data security excellence.

“With this bold move, Rubrik’s Ransomware Recovery Warranty proves they’re putting their money where their mouth is. This warranty underscores Rubrik’s confidence in their data security products and in their ability to recover their customer’s data after a cyberattack. This sets the standard for what it means to be a strategic data security partner and shows Rubrik fully supports customers.” — Matthew Day, CIO of Langs Building Supplies

Tarkan Maner, Chief Commercial Officer at Nutanix

workload portability across clouds.

• Citrix will become the preferred enterprise end user computing solution on the Nutanix Cloud Platform. Delivered as part of Citrix Workspace, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops enables organizations to serve up personalized access to the systems, information and tools their employees need in one, unified experience and dynamically apply security policies based on a user’s behaviour and environment so they can work when, where and how they want with the confidence that their applications, information and devices are safe.

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NEWS

VMWARE UNVEILS EDGE PRODUCT PORTFOLIO

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t VMworld 2021, VMware outlined how it is helping customers make sense of a more complex, multi-cloud environment and unveiled its vision for how it will help customers navigate the shift to the edge. It also introduced VMware Edge, a product portfolio that will enable organisations to run, manage, and better secure edge-native apps across multiple clouds, anywhere.

“A new type of workload is emerging – edge-native apps – that must run at the edge to perform as intended. AR/ VR, connected vehicles, and immersive gaming are becoming mainstream. 5G has made the use of collaborative robots, drone fleets and digital twins a reality,” said Sanjay Uppal, Senior Vice President and General manager, Service Provider and Edge, VMware. “VMware delivers a trusted foundation – a multi-cloud edge – to help organisations move forward in the new edge reality.”

VMware Edge brings together products from across VMware that will enable organisations to run, manage

and better secure edge-native apps across multiple clouds at both near edge and far edge locations. VMware Edge solutions are purposefully designed for edge-native apps and their unique performance and latency requirements.

VMware Edge solutions include: • VMware Edge Compute Stack, unveiled today at VMworld 2021, is a purpose-built, integrated VM and container-based stack that will enable organizations to modernize and secure edge-native apps at the far edge.

VMware Edge Compute Stack will be available in Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise editions. VMware also has plans to develop a lightweight version of VMware Edge Compute Stack to provide an extremely thin edge for lightweight apps.

• VMware SASE combines SD-WAN capabilities with cloud-delivered security functions, including cloud web security, zero trust network access, and firewalling. These capabilities are delivered as-a-service across both the near and far edge locations from a global network of points of presence (PoPs).

• VMware Telco Cloud Platform has been delivering near edge solutions to the largest communication service providers in the world from their

Sanjay Uppal, Senior Vice President and General manager, Service Provider and Edge, VMware

4G/5G core all the way to the radio access network (RAN). By helping service providers modernize their network underlay, VMware enables them to deliver overlay edge services to their consumer and enterprise customers.

VMware has key partnerships across the broad edge ecosystem to deliver seamlessly integrated solutions to customers. Its broad partner ecosystem spans public cloud providers, service providers, edge-native app developers, network services providers, system integrators, network equipment providers, near-edge hardware manufacturers, and far edge hardware manufacturers.

SAFE SECURITY TO UNVEIL MARKET PLANS AT GITEX 2021 Building on the momentum of its recent entry and investments in the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) market, Safe Security, a Cybersecurity & Digital Business Risk Quantification company, has announced its presence at GITEX Technology Week 2021. The company will use the event as a platform to showcase its brand and enter into high level discussions with the regional channel community and potential customers around its vision, strategy and roadmap.

Dr. Cherif Sleiman, Chief Revenue Officer, EMEA at Safe Security said, “As organisations across the globe are becoming increasingly impacted and crippled by cyberattacks, our mission is to make the world a safer place. Traditional cybersecurity tools besides being costly, 8

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complex and resource-heavy, give a sense of security but lack visibility of enterprisewide and real-time cyber risk posture.

Our ‘SAFE’ platform is a game changer, bringing a shift from detecting to predicting cyber breaches. It offers a unique way to manage, measure and mitigate cyber risks proactively and enable Security and Risk management leaders to not only make cybersecurity an informed business decision, but also helps them communicate more effectively with all stakeholders.”

“GITEX presents us with a great opportunity to evangelize C-level management that bear the onus of risk within a company and expound the importance of a change in mindset from reactive to proactive and predictive cybersecurity strategies, policies and

Dr. Cherif Sleiman, Chief Revenue Officer, EMEA at Safe Security

procedures. Channel partners will be key to our success in this endeavour. As such, we will be announcing several exciting initiatives and partnerships, which we believe will help us develop a robust channel ecosystem that will act as an extended arm of our company,” Dr. Sleiman continues.

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NEWS

MIRAL ROLLS OUT ANALYTICS POWERED DIGITAL STRATEGY

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bu-Dhabi based Miral has announced the launch of its Decision Analytics strategy; the Noor Initiative. The all-new and bold strategy is in line with Miral’s digital transformation strategy for Yas Island, and part of its ambition to become the region’s most dynamic and influential leisure and entertainment developer by 2025.

With the rollout of the new strategy, Miral will enhance its current investment in big data and predictive data analytics to build a digital

foundation and integrate innovation across both internal business streams and external, customer facing projects.

The Noor Initiative will strengthen business efficiency and productivity, whilst delivering better personalised experiences for local and international visitors to Yas Island’s award-winning attractions and experiences.

Mohamed Abdalla Al Zaabi, CEO of Miral, said, “Today, businesses need to invest in innovative digital tools to equip and empower its people, decision making and performance.

Evolving into a data-driven organisation is an ambitious and bold strategy, launched within a defining year for Miral as we mark our 10-year anniversary. Big data and predictive analytics solutions are already central to Miral’s strategy for Yas Island, in use every day by visitors to our award-winning attractions to enrich

SOFTWARE AG TO DEMO CONNECTED ENTERPRISE AND SMART CITY SOLUTIONS Software AG has announced its continued patronage and participation for a sixth consecutive GITEX. Under the theme ‘Empowering the Truly Connected Enterprise’, the tech provider will showcase its latest technologies and bring to life connected enterprises, breakthrough silos and accelerate innovation within organisations. The interconnectedness will transpire through its suite of solutions that include Integration & API management, IoT & Analytics, and Business Transformation in addition to AI models for enterprise level businesses.

The highlight showcase is a ‘360-degree Immersive Video Experience’ – a visual 10

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Rami Kichli, Vice President, Gulf and Levant, Software AG

and sensory experience depicting how people & technology can be connected for a smarter tomorrow. It highlights how every ’thing’ can be connected, both cloud and on-premise with the ability to master and convert data into business value. The stand also boasts a gamified Smart Bike showcase built with Cumulocity IoT and Edge AI capabilities combined. The fully connected Smart Bike will convert data into value by analyzing the rider’s information such as posture impact on cycling speed, and

their experiences and reinforce the island’s position as a leading global entertainment, leisure and business destination.”

The Noor Initiative builds on successful digital projects and customer-facing tools already implemented by Miral for guests to use on Yas Island. Harnessing big data analytics has led to the deeper customisation of products and services accessed by visitors, driving a strategic customer-centric and integrated approach to offer personalised experiences.

The initiative also supports Abu Dhabi’s economic vision to become a centre of innovation, whilst advancing its position as a prime location for international investment and partnerships. The leisure, entertainment and tourism sectors are key pillars to this vision, with Miral enabling growth amongst these strategic priority areas and further contributing to Abu Dhabi becoming a truly data-driven destination.

other KPIs such as average speed, power and total distance. This reiterates how IoT and AI can also help in sporting/ fitness endeavors and transform overall quality of life through usable data on hand. The combined showcase advocates Dubai’s competitiveness in innovation, services, technology and the connected ecosystem as a foundation that has fueled a futuristic, robust and secure ‘Smart City’.

“Software AG at GITEX is a winning combination, year on year”, said Rami Kichli, Vice President, Gulf and Levant, Software AG. “We are back, once more reiterating that data will be everywhere and in any ‘thing’. The amount of data generated is expected to grow constantly and rapidly leading to continuous decoupling between physical assets and data, which will power all types of devices.

AI and analytics will dominate the life one leads in the future and will accelerate digital transformation and seamless interconnectedness spurring smarter economies. The future is clear: break down silos and get connected.”

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NEWS

CISCO UNVEILS VISION FOR DIGITAL AND SUSTAINABLE FUTURE AT EXPO 2020

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isco, the Official Digital Network Partner of Expo 2020 Dubai has unveiled The Cisco Grove – an immersive environment designed to demonstrate how intelligent networks can enable new possibilities for a sustainable, inclusive future.

Located at Expo 2020 Dubai’s Partner Hub, Cisco’s digitally powered environment takes inspiration from natural groves and their intelligent underground systems. Aligned with Expo 2020’s theme of ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’, The Cisco Grove illustrates how smart, intuitive networks can create greater connectivity, forge opportunity and power an inclusive future for all.

Cisco shares the vision of Expo 2020 Dubai to deliver the most digitally connected and immersive event in World Expo history. Cisco technologies and innovations help power digital experiences throughout the Expo site. Various Cisco teams have spent already more than 2.5

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million hours supporting technology rollout at the Expo 2020 Dubai site across 30 technology areas.

“Working in close collaboration with Cisco since 2018, we have witnessed the transformative nature of digital technologies firsthand. We are proud of the experiences on offer at Expo 2020 Dubai today and believe that visitors to The Cisco Grove will also share in our enthusiasm for building a future which is both green and digital,” said Mohammad Alhashmi, Chief Technology Officer at Expo 2020 Dubai.

At The Cisco Grove, invited guests can explore the ‘Universe of Data’ – a state-of-the-art projection and hologram-based experience. They can select one of three interactive experiences and engage with the network to learn more about: • The City of Tomorrow – A look at how smart cities can deploy digital technologies to connect, protect and enhance the lives of citizens. Use cases on show include solutions for government, transport and logistics,

and smart buildings.

• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning – The experience showcases how Cisco applies AI and ML to solve real world problems, such as identifying and defending against cyberthreats, building autonomous networks that heal themselves and developing smart collaboration solutions for the future of hybrid work.

• The Multicloud Universe – Symbolizing the wealth of connected data moving through space, where the right cloud strategy can connect any device to any application and any cloud, securely.

“Our digital future requires the use of intelligent networks which constantly learn, adapt and protect. This is exactly why Cisco’s technology was selected as the foundation for secure connectivity at Expo 2020 Dubai. We look forward to welcoming our partners and customers to Expo and to The Cisco Grove, demonstrating how our network can bring human and digital connections to life,” said Shukri Eid, Managing Director, Cisco Gulf Region.

COVER STORY

T THE NEED FOR SPEED THE UAE MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND PREVENTION TRANSFORMS THE PATIENT EXPERIENCE WITH DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES.

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he Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP) is responsible for the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) healthcare policy and implementation. Since its inception in 1970, MOHAP has strived to enhance the health of its citizens by providing comprehensive, innovative healthcare services at a world class standard. It also acts as a regulator and supervisor of the wider healthcare sector through the UAE’s integrated health legislative system.

Driven by the UAE’s wider mission to turn government entities into digital service providers, MOHAP continued to develop effective health information systems and apply global standards in the management of health facilities and infrastructure. IT operations is a key success factor in this mission and they have continued to improve their systems to be always ready and in line with the wider mission of the organisation.

“We wanted to keep up with the government’s plans to go fully digital and exceed customer expectations. As always, we put our patients first and focus on satisfying their needs. So, we decided to invest in a new technology foundation to ensure the continuous patient satisfaction,” says Mubaraka Ibrahim, IT Director at MOHAP.

NOTICEABLE IMPROVEMENTS HAVE ALREADY BEEN EXPERIENCED AND REPORTED, AND MOHAP IS STILL SEEING THE BENEFITS OF ITS NEW SD-WAN SOLUTION. FOR EXAMPLE, CUSTOMERS HAD LONG BEEN REQUESTING WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY INSIDE THE HOSPITALS SO THEY COULD STAY IN CONTACT WITH THE OUTSIDE WORLD AND KEEP THEMSELVES ENTERTAINED WHILE THEY WAIT FOR THEIR APPOINTMENTS. THIS IS NOW POSSIBLE, THANKS TO THE SUITE OF NEW FORTINET PRODUCTS DEPLOYED. MOHAP’s Internet and MPLS network was always heavily used by all medical staff from within the organisation and patients from outside the organisation. This very high demand necessitates the need for more speed in a new more agile way.

Thus, MOHAP was looking for a new technology that provides a reliable, fast, and highly available connectivity, with adequate security and strong coverage across all sites. An overhaul was necessary, but the solution they chose would have to meet a strict set of criteria.

In addition to the solution required, it was essential that its new IT partner offered enterprise-level support and had experience dealing with sites of a similar size and sector.

The offering needed to be easy to manage and maintain across a wide area network (WAN), with high security standards to protect its growing realms of sensitive customer data. It needed to be able to identify and close gaps in the system, be thoroughly tested to avoid any

problems and, of course, it needed to be highly rated and trusted by the industry.

After finding out about Fortinet through third-party consultants and squaring it up against other network and security solution vendors, Fortinet passed MOHAP’s proof of concept testing.

Fortinet proved that they were able to provide the standard of support MOHAP would require –and in some areas, even exceed expectations.

“The level of service Fortinet provided has been excellent. We’re delighted to continue to work with them on modernising and expanding our IT services,” says Sameer Khoory, IT Advisor at MOHAP Fortinet Professional Services provided the overall architecture and solution design and deployed the solution in MOHAP’s data centre and 16 major sites and hospitals. MOHAP is still in the process of rolling out these changes to all 160 locations, but has already begun to reap the rewards of this digital transformation.

With the introduction of Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN, MOHAP has been able to ensure a high performance MPLS. The IT team has more visibility over the network and can manage issues more effectively, all with the built-in security of FortiGate next-generation firewall.

Secure SD-WAN also enabled MOHAP to load balance the MPLS and avoid overloading its corporate network.

The network itself is faster and more resilient. Thanks to the clear visibility provided by FortiAnalyzer, managing the network and deploying changes has become second nature. The automatically-generated reports have helped with this too, making it simple to track bug fixes and reduce errors from occurring. The reduced manual troubleshooting process, and increased automation, have resulted in a quicker time to resolving errors.

MOHAP prides itself on providing excellent customer satisfaction, and this area has increased exponentially since the new system was deployed, allowing

Business Impact • Ensured customer satisfaction and reduced number of complaints • Improved network connectivity and speed for a better guest wireless experience • Aligned organisation’s standards and progress with government’s vision

more customers to receive the service they need, exactly when they need it.

MOHAP expects this will be reflected in its annual customer satisfaction survey.

Noticeable improvements have already been experienced and reported, and MOHAP is still seeing the benefits of its new SD-WAN solution. For example, customers had long been requesting wireless connectivity inside the hospitals so they could stay in contact with the outside world and keep themselves entertained while they wait for their appointments. This is now possible, thanks to the suite of new Fortinet products deployed. MOHAP was also able to add more than 20 new locations to its system within a week to help cope with COVID-19 – something that wouldn’t have been possible had it maintained its legacy connectivity.

“Fortinet’s solutions have allowed us to be able to put our patients first as always and focus on satisfying their needs,” says Mubaraka.

MOHAP looks forward to deploying its new system changes across all corners of the organisation. The organisation is well on its way to offering fully digital, cutting edge services that are accessible to all, not just those fortunate enough to live near a location with connectivity.

Easier to reach, easier to use, reliable 24/7: MOHAP’s mission statement has been realised with help from Fortinet’s solutions and the guidance of Fortinet Professional Services.

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VIEWPOINT

TOP FIVE APPSEC TRENDS YOU CAN’T IGNORE IBRAHIM AZAB, REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR, MEA, CYBERRES, HIGHLIGHTS KEY APPLICATION SECURITY TRENDS THAT IT TEAMS SHOULD CONSIDER TO ACHIEVE HOLISTIC SECURITY AT THE APP LEVEL.

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mplementing and maintaining the most optimal security to guard your mission-critical data and raise your cybersecurity posture must begin from the development stage of applications. Application security (AppSec) is vital in ensuring the resilience of software applications against evolving threats.

Identifying the urgent need for organisations to secure their IT architecture at the app level, tech pioneer Micro Focus recently released a list of key AppSec trends to watch out for.

Ibrahim Azab, Regional Sales Director, MEA at CyberRes, a Micro Focus line of business, says, “The constant evolution of modern development is compounded by increased velocity and complexity.

Customers are looking for holistic AppSec strategies, one that includes broad and accurate language coverage, an ecosystem that can be easily integrated into legacy tools and the capability to extend across SaaS or on-prem environments. This the vision that Micro Focus operates on.”

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AppSec Tooling Becomes Embedded in the DevOps Toolchain Increasing number of commercial vendors are now offering hyper-convenient scanning, reducing the influence of AppSec teams in SAST tooling.

While this embedded security scanning uncovers only a small proportion of the vulnerability issues compared to what a robust AppSec tool can find, it brings convenience and cost savings to the table. This significantly helps organisations meet compliance requirements.

Azab adds, “Cloud platform vendors are also offering integrated security tools that

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chance of security risks, which is why it is important to follow best practices.

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make it effortless for development teams and helps avoid using AppSec tools.

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Container Security Is the Battleground for Securing the Software Supply Chain Cybersecurity incidents such as the Solarwinds hack in 2020 coupled with Equifax data breach and Struts vulnerability in 2017 have considerably raised awareness of the software supply chain.

“As several different software supply chains converge when developing containerized apps, containers have emerged as the biggest battleground.

Security teams must handle container security challenges around vulnerabilities and compliance.”

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IaC Security Adoption Grows Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is defined as overseeing a company’s IT infrastructure by using configuration files. These are the files used to setup the initial parameters of computer programs. Increasingly organisations are adopting IaC solutions for automation and provisioning of cloud deployments.

This also means that there is an increased

Vulnerability Management Takes a Step Forward Azab says, “Organisations can offer more holistic AppSec analysis and reporting by gathering all vulnerabilities from different assets and parts of the IT environment into a single pane of glass.”

Tools that aggregate information from multiple sources and present that risk in a rollup view have an advantage over tools that offer one perspective about a focused area of the software.

Combining dynamic, static and composition analysis into a single integration point, whether that’s in the IDE or CI/CD pipeline, simplifies the vulnerability management process.

“AppSec tools will face pressure to natively offer this functionality at enterprise scale,” he adds.

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Cloud Native App Security Requires a Continuous Application Security Approach Cloud native technologies allow customers to deploy scalable applications across public, private and hybrid cloud environments. Most cloud providers make it easy for customers to leverage the benefits of cloud. However, the enduser organisation must take responsibility for ensuring data security in the cloud – and this requires a relentless application security approach customised for different environments.

Azab says, “Application security cannot be an afterthought. It must be embedded right from the first step of the software development lifecycle. These trends indicate that security is now increasingly developer-driven.”

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VIEWPOINT

UNLOCKING IOT VALUE WITH EDGE

TIM LOVEJOY, VP GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE CLOUD, RACKSPACE TECHNOLOGY EMEA, EXPLAINS HOW EDGE COMPUTING CAN HELP UNLOCK THE COMPLETE POTENTIAL OF IOT SOLUTIONS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR.

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loud technology has long been accepted as fundamental to the way the modern world operates, with even the most sceptical and reluctant sectors now embracing the value it offers. What comes next, as IoT devices proliferate in our work and home lives, is a move towards edge computing, which has particular advantages for the region’s public sector.

For example, IoT presents vast opportunities across the public sector.

Autonomous transport, health monitoring devices, traffic and lighting applications, better law enforcement, as well as smart bin sensors to ensure rubbish never overflows are all possibilities.

These functionalities require low latency applications, which are processed at the edge of the network in order to maximise the functionality. Ultimately, as IoT decentralises computing infrastructure, edge computing looks set to hold an advantage over cloud or centralised computing. Yet in reality, they will have to work closely, in tandem.

This hybrid approach will have many benefits. Not least is in convincing some of the more cautious decision makers within the public sector of the role of IoT, and in turn edge computing, in making operations more efficient.

Living on the edge To fully harness the potential of IoT and smart devices, edge computing needs to be embraced. Data from the edge is processed in real time, eliminating even the tiniest lag.

This speed is everything. The latency is reduced, in turn decreasing the time taken to get actionable insights from any live data.

In short, it allows for highly informed, realtime decision making.

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Again, the Middle East’s public sector benefits are apparent. Emergency and crisis situations in particular require decisions to be made almost instantly.

The combination of IoT and edge computing will allow these decisions to be informed by real-time information, potentially saving lives. As such, there is a promise of improved efficiency – which can in turn lead to cost savings, revenue-making opportunities, or simply better services.

A more secure solution But what are the risks in terms of compliance and security when exploring edge computing today?

Concerns around the security of the cloud can be rationalised, especially where strict regulations are in place to protect citizen data and prevent potentially dangerous disruption to services. And to date, the primary way of reducing the apparent risk posed by hosting data in the cloud is to keep it local – at present, mainly meaning on a private server.

Edge computing enables data to be kept locally for decision making in real time. This is why it could be a real gamechanger. It can limit the distance travelled by any data, and therefore reduces some of the security risk associated with moving it to the cloud or another data centre.

And there is a smaller window in which anything can be disrupted or corrupted as data remains highly localised. For data that needs to persist for longer term information gathering, this is sent back to the cloud for retention, so the art of the possible is virtually endless.

Cutting costs The bottom line is the most important one for the majority of businesses. This is certainly true in the public sector.

Budgets tend to be tighter, and digital transformation projects can be limited by financial concerns.

Edge computing can actually bring cost savings. This is especially true with regards to data ingest charges where only sending the data that needs to persist into the cloud reduces data movement charges.

With data essentially being processed on site rather than in the cloud, organisations can reduce their cloud capacity requirements and associated costs.

Smarter use of cloud infrastructure also offers cost optimisation benefits. Cloud in tandem with edge is a great example of how the architecture can work more flexibly and offer improved savings based on actual usage and requirements, while being fully scalable.

Opportunities ahead As all organisations in the region become even more data heavy, using the right combination of technologies is essential.

Whether it is bringing expertise in house, co-sourcing, or taking counsel from expert partners, the benefits of harnessing the right combination of edge and cloud to complement the increasing deployment of IoT is becoming essential.

The good news for the public sector is that we are only at the start of the IoT revolution. But with immense opportunities for it to improve the services that we interact with every day, now is the time to think smartly about how to embrace its potential.

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Whether it’s standards, product testing, certification or training that you need, we’ll help you achieve your security goals.

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INTERVIEW

THE RISE OF SOCIAL ENGINEERING ATTACKS DUANE NICOL, CYBERSECURITY AWARENESS EVANGELIST AT MIMECAST, TALKS ABOUT THE NEW SOCIAL ENGINEERING TACTICS THREAT ACTORS USING TO GAIN ACCESS TO DATA.

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ow are cybercriminals exploiting human behaviour?

Cybercriminals tend to capitalise on basic human nature, for example by sending emails to people announcing that they’ve won a prize and simply need to click on a link to redeem it, or by sending fake offers on highvalue items in mails that look like they come from legitimate brands.

These types of attacks are effective even when end-users are aware of the potential risks. In Mimecast’s latest Brand Trust research, 82% of consumers in the UAE and 80% in KSA said they understand the risks of phishing and 81% in both markets agreed anyone can be a victim of cybercrime. However, three-quarters (75%) in the UAE and more than half (57%) in KSA admitted to still opening a phishing email, and twothirds (67%) of UAE and half (48%) of KSA respondents said they received a phishing email forwarded from a friend or family member.

Our natural excitement at winning a prize or gaining access to an amazing deal on a product or item we really like creates gaps for cybercriminals to exploit.

Our research found that the most common phishing emails or texts that people in the UAE receive include notices of prize winnings (39% in UAE 20

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and 58% in KSA), too-good-to-betrue special offers (26% in UAE and 27% in KSA) and, unsurprisingly in light of the pandemic, notices that the person now qualifies to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, reported by 28% of respondents from the UAE. Although only 12% reported the same in KSA. In addition, messages from trusted suppliers such as banks or insurance

ONCE IN, THE CYBERCRIMINAL CAN DO UNTOLD DAMAGE TO THE BANK’S NETWORK, ACCESS CONFIDENTIAL FILES, IMPERSONATE KEY STAKEHOLDERS WITHIN THE ORGANISATION, COMMIT FRAUD ON A MASSIVE SCALE AND EVEN INFECT THE NETWORK WITH MALWARE THAT COULD TAKE SERVICES OFFLINE AND LEAD TO CATASTROPHIC FINANCIAL LOSSES AND SEVERE DAMAGE TO THE BANK’S REPUTATION.

firms that highlight supposed issues with the security of one’s account or issues with account payment are also common. Around one third (30% in UAE and 34% in KSA) of respondents to our research have received phishing mails about someone supposedly trying to access an account, while 27% in UAE and 36% in KSA received a message telling them to check their account immediately.

Unfortunately, many consumers simply react to the message by clicking on the link provided and give the cybercriminals a welcome gap to exploit, with sometimes devastating consequences for the consumer and often their employer.

Do you see an increase in phishing attacks during this pandemic?

Cybercriminals thrive on disruption and confusion, and with the initial impact of the pandemic and its subsequent lockdowns, organisations across the region have experienced higher volumes of attacks across all types.

As organisations start transitioning workers back to the office on a full-time or part-time basis, threat actors again sense an opportunity to capitalise on uncertainty by launching waves of phishing, ransomware and impersonation attacks.

In Mimecast’s State of Email Security 2021 report, three-quarters

vaccine administration in his region. The link in the email seems legitimate, the branding is on point and the information about his vaccination record is all accurate, so Bob goes through the steps to set up an account.

Bob, who easily forgets passwords, uses the same password he uses to log in to his company network. What he doesn’t realise is that he’s entering his personal information into a fraudulent website. Now Mr Cybercriminal can use Bob’s credentials to access the network of the bank he’s targeting.

Once in, the cybercriminal can do untold damage to the bank’s network, access confidential files, impersonate key stakeholders within the organisation, commit fraud on a massive scale and even infect the network with malware that could take services offline and lead to catastrophic financial losses and severe damage to the bank’s reputation.

of organisations in the UAE said they expect an email-borne attack to damage their business in the next twelve months.

The most common types of emailrelated attacks in the region include phishing with malicious links or attachments (reported by 55% of organisations), impersonation fraud or business email compromise (47%), and fraudulent use of a company’s brand via spoofed email (40%).

Can you give us some examples of social engineering in action?

Social engineering attacks can take several weeks or even months as criminals need time to get to know their victims. However, the more information you share the easier you make it for cybercriminals.

The recent excitement over people getting their COVID-19 vaccinations

and then posting their vaccine record cards to social media offer a good example of how cybercriminals can use the information you put in the public domain for social engineering.

Let’s say Mr Cybercriminal wants to target a bank. He goes to LinkedIn to see who works there, finds a few candidates, and goes onto their Facebook and Twitter accounts to get more information.

One of the candidates, let’s call him Bob, recently posted a photo of his vaccine record with his name, date of birth, first vaccination date, vaccine manufacturer and date of the second scheduled vaccination.

From here, Mr Cybercriminal sends an email to Bob’s work address asking him to confirm his second vaccination date.

The email appears to be coming from a trusted source such as the health authority or service responsible for

What are some of the prevention techniques against social engineering?

Organisations need layers of protection, including regular and effective cybersecurity awareness training to equip employees with the knowledge they need to avoid risky online behaviour. Cybersecurity awareness campaigns should also extend to an organisation’s customers and partners to keep them from being duped by opportunistic cybercriminals.

The accessibility of personal information on social media also arms cybercriminals with tools they can use in the service of fraud and other crimes.

Even simple likes and comments can provide criminals with important information that makes the victim – and ultimately their employer - vulnerable.

End users in the region need to take heed and maintain safe social media habits to limit the opportunities for cybercriminals.

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INTERVIEW

THE EVOLVING ROLE OF THE CRO KONSTANTINOS KONSTANTINOU, CHIEF RISK OFFICER AT ASBIS MIDDLE EAST, ON WHY RISK MANAGEMENT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER IN IT DISTRIBUTION.

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an you talk us through your career journey?

Having graduated from Middlesex University, I have tried my luck in the UK entering the accounting profession. However, I soon realised that I was not much interested in penetrating the profession of an accountant/auditor, I decided to move back home and look for more opportunities. At that time, six years ago, I was introduced to the ASBIS Group and joined as a Credit Control Assistant. During that period of significant changes in the group in 2017, there was an opening for a Senior Credit Risk Manager in our subsidiary in ASBIS Middle East in Dubai. I was offered the opportunity there. Ever since I have been evolving in this role and have been enjoying my role as the company’s risk manager. I sincerely believe that I have found what I was looking for, and I see myself in this role for a long time to come.

If there is something I have gained from my experience, I have a strong “ethical muscle” and continue developing and strengthening every day. This is so important as it teaches you how to evaluate risks and, if necessary, to say “no”. it is not about being adaptive to change, but being strong for the decisionmaking of the whole business. This is a really rewarding place to be!

Is the role of the CRO in IT distribution different today from what it was ten years ago?

The role of a CRO in IT distribution has changed significantly throughout the last ten years. The world financial crisis of 2008 has forced things to change drastically. In the past, being a CRO meant that you were sitting in an office, analysing your risks and making decisions based on these analyses. This has radically changed since unless someone understands their client from A to Z, they cannot make the best decision for both parties. Currently, there are multiple tools, and access to 22

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information is much easier, making the life of a CRO easier and more educated.

How does a CRO create value, specially when the current market is slow?

The creation of value has always been a major subject of discussion. Especially for us, who are not at the sales/marketing divisions of our organisation and we are dealing with the risk management and other aspects of the financial welfare of our organisation, it is tough to ascertain the value added. However, it is there where ASBIS has invested heavily and made the role of risk manager significant and forced all members of risk management to add value in the chain of our operations. The constant training, the commercialisation of risk services as well as the constant upgrade of the tools used allow a modern CRO to add significant value by enhancing the credit availability and therefore, increasing safe trading What do you love most about your job?

Working in a multinational environment, getting to know so many different customers from so different ethnic, cultural, and financial environments, makes every day at work exciting. The challenge of each day is by itself a unique driver which is very rare to find. If there is a perfect job satisfaction level, I strongly believe that being a risk manager in ASBIS is very close to perfection.

How do you evaluate market risks and the best approach a distribution company can have for risk-free transactions?

There is no such thing called risk-free transactions, especially in IT distribution. The appropriate risk management is the name of the game. Each and every competitive organisation is trying the utmost to increase its revenue and profitability by engaging the less possible risk. In ASBIS, we know how to manage risk very well. We are one of the pioneering organisations utilising credit

insurance since 2002. We have always been focused on all possible tools to assist us in making the best credit decisions.

Managing risk in less developed countries entails very good market knowledge as well as working with strict rules and conditions, without pushing customers into undertaking huge cost burdens. This is why in ASBIS we know our customers very well, and we accommodate the risk-taking according to the profile of each customer.

Finance is an integral part of any organisation. How do you see the role impacting business decisions in a technology company?

As correctly stated, finance is the backbone of any organisation. It is like the oxygen which cannot be absent from any alive business. Its role, has been growing, especially after the credit crunch emanated from the world’s financial crisis.

Especially at a time where cash has been a scarce resource and financial institutions were reluctant to grant credits, the role of financial management has been of immense importance. Allocation of cash and ensuring proper capital rationing has been significant and led to companies succeeding out of crises or leading them to bankruptcy. We are currently in an era where balance sheet lending is no longer attractive, but cash flow from operations is now ruling the game. All decisions made in a technology company like ASBIS, are based on the cash availability and the ability of the group to generate cash from operations.

FEATURE

TRAVERSING THE MULTI-CLOUD WORLD HERE IS A HANDY CHECKLIST FOR YOUR MULTI-CLOUD STRATEGY

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or many enterprises, the move to multi-cloud environments is inevitable as they seek to avoid vendor lock-in and accelerate innovation and better failover options.

According to the latest IDC forecast, over 90 percent of enterprises worldwide will be relying on a mix of on-premises/ dedicated private clouds, multiple public clouds, and legacy platforms to meet their infrastructure needs.

Distributing workloads across multi-cloud environments offers IT organisations an opportunity to optimise costs, negotiate favourable SLAs and customise capacity.

While uptake of multi-cloud architecture has started to gain momentum, IDC notes that not all businesses are sufficiently prepared to implement cloud roadmaps due to migration and skills-related challenges.

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The research firm advises businesses to take stock of their applications and develop a phased modernisation roadmap for each one, thereby enabling them to make appropriate cloud decisions for the multi-cloud era.

What are the top challenges in the adoption of a multi-cloud strategy? The key challenges in adopting a multi-cloud strategy include lack of testing, cost control, and poor governance.

“A common pitfall during cloud implementation is to migrate several business areas at once, without testing applications first. For instance, it is wiser to begin migrating a smaller area, such as the business’ email system, before shifting large volumes of sensitive data.

Another common blunder is trying to force fit on-site applications for use on the cloud, which may eventually prevent them from running at full

capacity. Instead, it may be logical to thoroughly consider how an application functions and how the cloud may be able to support this,” says Stephen Gill, Academic Head of the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University Dubai.

He adds that handling ongoing subscription and ad-hoc service costs can be quite challenging with just a single cloud approach. Ensuring control over costs and cloud service usage is even more when relying on multiple cloud providers. A multi-cloud environment can be expensive if not managed effectively. A successful multi-cloud strategy is only realised when the enterprise has visibility over consumption patterns for optimisation of resources and cost savings.

Paulo Pereira, Senior Director, Systems Engineering – METI at

Stephen Gill

Nutanix, says moving to a hybrid cloud system from a private or public cloud infrastructure or an in-house data center is a time-consuming and resource-intensive process. “The current applications and workload should be seamlessly portable and operable across an on-premises framework as well as a third partymanaged public cloud. Many organisations do not have the in-house IT skills required for analysis and deployment and need to call in external consultants or use a managed service provider,” he says.

According to James Petter, VP International, Pure Storage, managing and migrating data and applications between different locations is essential.

Increasingly, organisations that are adopting modern applications are more reliant on the individual clouds that house their workloads and data. Using multiple providers in this way can cause issues as data is stored in multiple, disparate silos. This will make it harder to extract value and meaningful insight from that data. Organisations should develop a data architecture strategy that incorporates the right tools, technologies and partnerships to ensure flexibility and agility to avoid silos.

“Using more than one cloud can make governance hard to navigate.

Compliance rules are often governmentmandated and can mean certain data like personally identifiable information

cannot leave the country. A robust strategy needs to be in place for what data is stored in different clouds before,” he says.

The Rightscale State of the Cloud report found that cloud governance was the top challenge in 2019, with 84% of enterprise respondents listing it as a concern, especially because they have a multi-cloud strategy in place.

Gill says governance of cloud computing is tricky even in the case of a single cloud provider but becomes more challenging multi-cloud. Multicloud providers present on-demand, self-service resources with infinite capacity, which makes it challenging for organisations to gain visibility into, and manage, what is being used.

Without visibility into consumption, it is impossible to oversee and control the environment and also challenging to ensure that data is stored in the ‘correct location’ as per the security protocol.

Paulo Pereira

Multi-cloud security challenges There is also an increasing concern about securing the multi-cloud architecture as it adds new complexities into the enterprise security models for CISOs. Avinash Gujje, Practice Head – Infrastructure, Cloud Box Technologies, says multi-cloud security enforcement is difficult, especially at this point where there is a huge jump in remote workers accessing IT systems from outside the firewall. Additionally, SaaS adds another layer of challenges since customers are unaware of data storage locations. Yet another element of security hinderance relates to set policies that may not be applicable with the ever-changing IT environments and makes it difficult to adhere to a single set policy.

“Given that the multi-cloud environments typically focus on the business and IT factors driving it (intentional or not) and that organisations tend to first provision the services they need to address, security and governance becomes an afterthought and hence proves

Avinash Gujje

Moussalam Dalati

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Morey Haber

Giuseppe Brizio

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difficult more than anticipated,” says Moussalam Dalati, General ManagerMiddle East, Liferay.

This makes the multi-cloud strategy quite challenging because it involves testing, replicating, and documenting policies that were implemented with another provider. And making sure that, differences, are well mapped internally for any further use such as business continuity plan, disaster recovery layers (and understand if they differ between providers), access control, SDLC workflow, data privacy, incident management and many others. This humongous list of tasks makes it difficult to implement security in a staged or process by process fashion, he says.

Morey Haber, chief security officer, BeyondTrust, comments that enforcing security policies in multi-cloud environments is difficult because the entitlements, permissions, rights, and corresponding features differ between cloud service providers. In addition, the terminology used to describe an entitlement is likely different between providers (even though they do the same thing), requiring manual mapping by end-users to ensure consistency between multi-cloud environments.

Giuseppe Brizio, CISO EMEA, Qualys, offers another perspective on the challenges that multi-cloud presents: “Due to the wide variety of APIs involved in multi-cloud environments, it is hard for customers to build automation to control security, utilisation, inventory, and remediation. Therefore, having the capability to build user-defined workflows for security and compliance policies — either standard or custom — and execute them on-demand, becomes extremely important in increasingly complex multi-cloud and hybrid IT environments.”

Sam Curry, chief security officer, Cybereason, suggests the best recommendation for those seeking to enforce security policies in multi-cloud environments, or to monitor them and protect them actively, for that matter, is to invest in dedicated DevSecOps. “Policy enforcement is a critical first step to helping the security department

do what it should by partnering with IT and DevOps and by using automation as much as possible to get the policy right, audit correct policy adherence and focus on the humans in the stack as the attackers are the real subjects for the security department. This is done by developing tools, translation layers, services, new protocols, instrumentation and much more.”

The cost conundrum Many companies move to the cloud for the cost-savings its on-tap model can bring, but the multi-cloud model complicates things without enough guidance. It is important for enterprises to understand and manage the costs and needs associated with their multicloud strategy.

“The easiest way to safeguard budgets when workloads are bound to fluctuate is with flexible consumption models that allow you to pay for only what you use. In fact, according to recent IDC data, as-aservice models are the ticket to solving one of IT decision makers’ top concerns — accurate capacity planning. In addition to the financial benefits, comprehensive as-a-Service offerings build in a package of services to support customers with all their business needs,” says Petter from Pure Storage.

Pereira from Nutanix agrees that as IT and cloud teams grow their multicloud adoption, technology budget owners are often surprised by unexpectedly high cloud bills. To prevent uncontrolled spending, cloud teams need tooling that provides unified visibility across on-prem and public clouds, along with automated cost governance policies to keep their cloud spend within budgets “In order to ensure that the benefits of using public clouds are not overshadowed by a huge increase in spend, there are three key things that cloud admins need to ensure. Gain visibility into the cloud spend across teams, business units and, most importantly, cloud boundaries, and track the cloud spend against allocated budgets with real-time alerts to notify admins when the budget is exceeded,” he sums up.

www.siemon.com

EVENT

THE CHANGING FACE OF RETAIL RIVERBED WEBINAR THROWS LIGHT ON HOW TO ENHANCE DIGITAL USER EXPERIENCE FOR THE RETAIL INDUSTRY

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ustomers expect a seamless, always-on experience across all available shopping channels and from any device in today’s digital age. They are focused on self-service and determine what they would buy based on the lowest cost and convenient delivery options.

As online sales grow, many retailers are compelled to spend heavily on new digital capabilities, websites, mobile, and web apps. The retail sector needs to achieve rapid transformation that enables fast, secure user experiences at optimum cost to succeed in a highly competitive business environment. However, delivering a high-quality digital experience for customers can be a daunting task given the broad variance in customer device types and network connectivity.

In association with CXO Insight ME, Riverbed organised a webinar to discuss how retailers can take control with full fidelity visibility and accelerated performance while enhancing the digital user experience.

Samer Bounasreddine, regional sales manager-retail at Riverbed, kicked off the webinar by stressing the importance

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of digital transformation for retail enterprises and citing a Riverbed Retail Digital Trends Survey which showed that 89 percent of consumers say a positive digital experience is just as important as prices. He then drew attention to another recent Riverbed survey, which revealed 51 percent of organisations in the region are planning to migrate their workloads to the cloud, and 28 percent of employees would work remotely even after the pandemic.

“We are uniquely positioned to meet the digital transformation objectives of retailers. Most of these organisations need to move to the cloud and enhance the digital user experience. We address this in our latest product portfolio, which includes an advanced visibility solution that helps visualise, measure, and monitor end-toend digital experience across applications to websites to the underlying network infrastructure. Through a single portal, powered by AI and ML, you can optimise and troubleshoot any performance issues before impacting your user experience. We are also ready to support and accelerate the performance of your applications whether it is on-premises or the cloud with our application accelerator solution.”

Continuing in the same vein, Meraj Mohammed, regional pre-sales consultant – retail at Riverbed, said retailers across the GCC are leveraging advanced technologies such as AI and ML to drive business outcomes. “IT decisions have a direct impact on revenue and the customer experience. So, it would be best if you made the right technology decisions at the right time across the whole app delivery model. We have solutions that can scale from local branches to data centre environments, and all the way up to the cloud. In addition, we support our retailer customers in enhancing, optimising and

prioritising the performance of their business-critical applications.”

He added that Riverbed provides a unified network performance management solution that examines at every packet on the network and helps create a holistic and correlated view of end user experience and track every business transaction. “We provide tools that can help you monitor end user experience across web services and custom apps and troubleshoot more quickly with end-to-end visibility across applications and the network to uncover hidden performance issues and pinpoint their causes. We can help retailers build networks of future with Riverbed network and acceleration solutions which combine WAN optimisation, SD-WAN and security.”

The event also featured a panel discussion with some of the leading retailers in the UAE around digital transformation initiatives.

“The pandemic has accelerated our digital transformation plans. We have pushed forward our plans to have more digital channels and provide an omnichannel experience to our customers in the last two years. As a result, we have a digital-first strategy now,” said Tabish Asifi, group IT governance lead at Majid Al Futtaim.

Santosh Sundaram, senior IT manager at AW Rostmani Group, said: “We started our digital transformation journey in 2018, and we have a cloud-first approach. We are focused on building digital products to enhance the customer experience and moving away from our traditional brick-andmortar model to a hybrid approach. We are also leveraging AI and ML to build predictive models and reduce risks from the changes in the technology landscape.”

Participating in the discussion, Lalit Sujera, team leader of the infrastructure solutions group at GBM, shared some of the common pain points of the retail enterprise.

“During the pandemic, all retailers increased their bandwidth as a short-term fix, but optimising network performance and reducing latency are still the major issues they face. Also, most of them have adopted hybrid cloud environments to enable business continuity, where visibility is absolutely critical. They need full-stack visibility into their IT estate, and this is where Riverbed and GBM can help.”

FEATURE

Richard Bellingham

THE FUTURE OF URBAN LIVING EXPERTS PREDICT THE TRENDS AND TECHNOLOGIES SHAPING THE CITIES OF THE FUTURE.

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ities worldwide are deploying new technologies to create sustainable urban areas and enhance the quality of life of their inhabitants. Many countries in the MENA region are developing smart cities, either from the ground up or upgrading the existing infrastructure.

Some examples include Saudi Arabia’s mega NEOM project, Egypt’s new capital city, and Zayed smart city project in Abu Dhabi, which leverages AI and the Internet of Things. Dubai already ranks in the list of the top 50 smart cities in the world.

According to Deloitte, over the last decade, smart city initiatives have leveraged technology in many different ways. Data platforms and cloudbased systems enable cities to gather comprehensive data and make datadriven decisions, mobile applications allow residents to more easily communicate with local government, and sensor technology and predictive analytics help cities better align services 30

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with resident needs and proactively respond to crises before they arise.

“Given widespread digital transformation acceleration and the strong emphasis governments have placed on successful smart city development, the emergence of several important smart city technology trends is not surprising. Firstly, digital infrastructure and nationwide 5G rollouts are already enabling mass internet of things (IoT) deployment in smart cities, as well as mission-critical use cases like autonomous driving, which is considered crucial for long-term sustainability in transport,” says Thibault Werle, Managing Director and Partner, Boston Consulting Group.

Richard Bellingham, Director, Institute for Future Cities, University of Strathclyde, says growth in the availability of data from multiple systems and devices, sampled at high frequency, across millions of individuals, systems, and assets – combined with the

development of data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning techniques – allows cities and citizens to be understood in new and much more detailed ways.

“Across the world, we see an effective application of smart city technologies to make our cities better places to live –where key public and commercial services work and are easy to access. However, recognising that the technology is not an end in itself, successful smart cities are aligning the deployment of smart city technologies to meet their individual and distinctive needs and opportunities,” he says.

Vinod Krishnan, Head of Middle East and North Africa, Amazon Web Services, says the technology in this space is evolving faster than ever before. By working in the cloud, organisations are revolutionising cities across the world, improving the lives of citizens and the communities they live in.

He cites the example of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in India, which launched its Smart Cities Mission with the goal to develop 100 smart cities using a central platform hosted on AWS. The platform helps analyse real-time and archival data to deliver actionable insights for cities, from up to half a million datasets.

“Ideas needn’t be expensive, either.

For example, the City of Cagliari in Italy built a robust solution supported by AWS to give citizens real-time and resilient

Vinod Krishnan

online access to local election results.

This was deployed, from scratch, within 20 days of the election, supporting over 7 million requests (more than 200 per second) - all for a total cost of €125.

There really has never been a better time to harness the power of IoT, open data, machine learning,” he says.

Which digital technologies are crucial for smart cities?

Smart cities are essentially connected cities and work in conjunction with everything from IoT, sensors to data collection.

For a city to be termed as a ‘smart city’, it must meet the basic criteria

WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY

Dr Tariq Aslam

of providing efficient and sustainable management of its resources, enable interconnectivity of its institutions and ensure infrastructures to be technologically prepared to make life more convenient for citizens, according to Dr Tariq Aslam, Head of Middle East and Africa, AVEVA. Smart city technologies are used to enhance the quality, performance, and interactivity of urban services, reduce costs and resource consumption, and increase contact between citizens and the government. The development of Smart Cities worldwide is supported by technologies such as the Internet of

Nasri Nassereddine

Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and blockchain, he adds.

Nasri Nassereddine, Regional Sales Director, UAE, Software AG, says IoT enables components across the city to connect and impact every layer of a city. Data from all segments is simultaneously analysed and patterns derived for cities to be able to respond in real-time, thereby creating self-aware cities. Augmented reality and Digital Twin is another key technology that helps enhance the quality of life in smart cities by elevating government services and citizen welfare. AR plays a vital role in providing constant feedback and

“IoT and 5G technologies are key components in creating smart cities, where data from sensors, cameras, and specialised connected devices must be processed in real-time to provide insight and assistance with traffic congestion management and asset and property maintenance. But smart cities are just one symptom of a growing challenge facing public sector organisations.

“With unprecedented user demand driven by new technologies, navigating this unfamiliar landscape can be a significant challenge for public sector organisations that want to be next-generation ready but also want to remain committed to open technology standards that internal IT teams can maintain.”

“For the amount of data that will be flowing, IoT 5G and all smart IoT devices will play a crucial role in any developing smart city. Simultaneously, Smart Mobility where AI will control and drive transportation technology will also be vital in the way smart cities operate.

Smart Infrastructure will push not just the way cities are built but will also collect, analyse and use this data to make very meaningful changes to future expansion plans. As we are aware, there is a very strong focus on Smart Energy where governments are promoting energyefficiency for greater sustainability as well as driving down costs.”

Adrian Pickering, Regional General Manager, MENA, Red Hat

Ranjith Kaippada, Managing Director, Cloud Box Technologies

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Marwan Zeidan

Saleem AlBlooshi

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showcases clear visibility within smart cities of how a city is running, enabling everyone to make informed decisions in their day-to-day life.

Marwan Zeidan, Real Estate and Healthcare Segment Director, Middle East and Africa, Schneider Electric, says connectivity is one of the core enabling components in a smart city, as we will have massive amounts of data that needs to be communicated efficiently and in as near-real time as possible. Big Data solutions and Artificial Intelligence allow us to manage this immense amount of data, analyse it, and provide actionable insights while the system is continuously learning, adapting and improving.

“While wired connectivity could be prevalent in a smart city, 5G gives much more flexibility to deliver more services with devices that are in locations difficult to wire, or even to add new services that were not initially thought of. 5G also opens the door for bandwidth heavy services that are required on the move, without limitation to speed and latency,” he says.

Saleem AlBlooshi, Chief Technology Officer, du, comments that smart city technologies are intended to help cities achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency while also addressing longterm social and environmental concerns.

“Smart utility meters are being utilised to properly monitor energy flows, smart grids are reducing energy consumption through resource conservation, and smart waste management systems help with recycling and cost reduction.

Furthermore, none of the above technologies or innovations would work without a very solid connectivity technology either via fibre technology or on the move with mobile technologies such as 5G, which offers high-speed connectivity and low latency, allowing smart city networking to be streamlined while existing services are upgraded,” he says.

Talal Shaikh, Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt

University Dubai, throws lights on the dark side of smart cities. “The IoT’s crucial role in unleashing smart city benefits such as traffic monitoring and environmental sensing means more exposure to cyberthreats.

Cyberattacks can result in data breaches and have a cascading effect on numerous other areas, such as the disruption of water networks. As a result, smart cities need to adopt and invest in stronger cybersecurity strategies in order to mitigate the risks associated with connected environments.”

How can CIOs add value to smart city projects?

Government CIOs have a key role in smart city projects, but they should have a clear understanding of what the smart city is and its key drivers.

“The CIO can play an integral role in helping stakeholders understand the numerous benefits smart initiatives create. For Smart Cities to be efficient, they must be able to connect, collect, analyse and act from disparate data sources. This transformative approach spans across various applications, including facilities management, utilities, telecommunication, transportation, health, and e-Governance,” says Aslam from AVEVA. Shaikh from Heriot-Watt University says as smart city projects involve a consortium of organisations with varying degrees of priorities and resources, CIOs can’t simply work in silos within their own teams, and hence play a crucial role in fostering effective collaborations. This includes teaming up and co-creating tech solutions with pioneering start-ups and aligning with the goals of the city leadership.

“Because strategic planning is required on a holistic level, CIOs can ensure more effective collaborations as they have visibility over several components of a smart city project. In other words, CIOs are deeply involved in bringing smart cities to life in layers that include device and component level technology, a robust communication layer, and the digital application layer,” he concludes.

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VIEWPOINT

TOUCHLESS HOSPITALITY SUZY TREECE, HEAD OF GLOBAL HOSPITALITY AT ARUBA, A HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE COMPANY, ON HOW TO TRANSITION TO A SMARTER, MORE INTUITIVE DIGITAL HOTEL.

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s with many other industries, the hospitality sector has been massively disrupted by the recurring lockdowns.

As we come closer to the reality of everyone being vaccinated, this is now the time for the sector to really consider how they will get back on track and bring their customers back over the threshold.

When a lot of these shifts happen, technologists typically look at new tech for a quick fix. Interestingly, post Covid it’s not new tech that’s making a change in the long-term, but rather technologies that have been around for quite some time already.

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As hospitality brands move further along the path of digitalisation, IT networks have an important role to play as the data highway for IoT devices and services. From converging guest Wi-Fi and multimedia content, comfort controls, lighting, and touchless room keys – now more than ever guests expect a seamless and safe experience.

This means bringing together a fully automated, digitised, collaborative solution. But to meet the needs of converging IT/IoT, lodging needs to deliver robustness and reliability across the network, and as such, they must look towards Edge technologies to bring everything together.

Laying your network foundations The hospitality sector has historically been ahead of the curve when it comes to investing in and activating digital transformation. IoT, in particular, is driving innovation. Yet as these businesses move their IoT initiatives from pilot to large-scale production, they ultimately have to ensure their underlying infrastructure is ready to scale.

For many, implementing an additional overlay network that supports employee safety, guest experiences and other IoT use cases is simply too expensive - and unnecessary. Instead, hoteliers can look at deploying a single platform

to orchestrate seamlessly across the entire network.

One example of where this is already being applied is Nobu Hospitality who uses the foundation of Aruba ESP - a combination of Aruba wired, wireless and security solutions - to enable highly secure and reliable Wi-Fi, as well as a range of IoT applications that help provide a superior experience for its guests. This infrastructure allows for hotels to easily layer services and applications that will deliver the customer experience that guests are seeking and to support employees become more efficient.

The foundation doesn’t just rely on one platform, it also needs a strong and stable Wi-Fi connection.

Hospitality leaders need to assess their wireless infrastructure, and look for more advanced Wi-Fi solutions, to support their IoT platform.

Increasingly businesses are looking at Wi-Fi 6 - the latest wireless technology designed to provide a powerful user experience even in busy mobile environments - as the connectivity foundation for IoT. This provides enough bandwidth for seamless connectivity between a multitude of devices capable of enhancing guest experiences and in-house efficiencies.

Whether it is app-enabled navigation, frictionless mobile check-in/checkout options, mobile-enabled in-room media connectivity, preferences based

HOSPITALITY LEADERS NEED TO ASSESS THEIR WIRELESS INFRASTRUCTURE, AND LOOK FOR MORE ADVANCED WI-FI SOLUTIONS, TO SUPPORT THEIR IOT PLATFORM. INCREASINGLY BUSINESSES ARE LOOKING AT WI-FI 6 - THE LATEST WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY DESIGNED TO PROVIDE A POWERFUL USER EXPERIENCE EVEN IN BUSY MOBILE ENVIRONMENTS - AS THE CONNECTIVITY FOUNDATION FOR IOT. on dining suggestions, proximityenabled housekeeping or lost child location service - skillfully blending digital capabilities and physical processes are critical for providing a reliable, safe and seamless guest experience.

The data-driven experience Driving consistent and personalised guest experiences requires making sense of collected data quickly - and responding accordingly. That’s why simply deploying Wi-Fi solutions for connectivity alone is no longer enough.

Hoteliers also need to look at how their Wi-Fi solutions can enable additional innovations through an ecosystem of network partnerships that help turn the infrastructure into a powerful personalisation platform.

This is where the Edge comes into play, serving as a foundation for leveraging actionable analytics from an integrated network, business applications

and guest preferences. From there hoteliers can deliver new on-property experiences from wireless check-in/ check-out to voice-controlled concierge services.

For example, when guests check in with the hotel’s mobile app, a digital key is sent to their phones, which communicates with the smart door locks. The guest is then automatically checked in , preventing the need for human contact at check-in desks . From their mobile app, guests then choose their preference on dining time, turndown services, laundry or cleaning.

They can also look at the hotel’s services including gym or spa facilities to gauge how busy they are before leaving the comfort of their room.

As guest expectations change in this new era, hoteliers can and should look at how they can leverage data to elevate the entire guest experience.

In doing so, they can not only provide a safe and seamless experience but add that layer of personalisation that drives brand loyalty and affinity in the long-term.

Rapid evolution is key to survival The past year has proven how rapidly things can change and now, as we look to the future, we know that customer preferences and expectations are going to continuously differ. The hospitality industry has been one of the hardest hit sectors, so for them it’s even more important that they ready themselves to bounce back as much as possible.

The sector is now prepared to constantly evolve. That also means being able to harness legacy technology whilst being ready for new technology innovations that will help them adapt to new circumstances. From facial recognition check-in and room key locking to service automation, robots and VR, to name a few. Having the right foundation and network solution in place, is the right starting point to enable this transition to a smarter, more intuitive digital hotel and for hoteliers to get ahead of expectations around future guest experiences.

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HOW TO EMPOWER CONNECTED WORKING VANESSA ERICKSON, CAPITAL PROJECT PORTFOLIO EXPERT, AVEVA, EMPHASISES HOW A DATA-CENTRIC ENGINEERING APPROACH CAN EMPOWER THE COMPLETE PROJECT EXECUTION PROCESS.

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he average capital project today is delivered 80pc over budget and 20 months late, according to US research consortium the Construction Industry Institute (CII). These overages can dramatically impact the financial viability of a project and put investments such as ExxonMobil’s proposed carbon capture hub—with an estimated price tag of $100bn—under immense pressure to minimise project risk by maximising predictability.

CII research also says that, within a typical capex project, procurement and construction make up 80pc of the costs, while engineering represents only 10pc.

Considering this, is it logical to focus on your engineering technologies and workflows to address budget overages?

The answer is unexpectedly, yes. Why? Because the engineering and design phase is where design errors take place, and their impact can be catastrophic to the entire project.

Problem: Engineers waste up to 50pc of their time looking for and validating engineering information. This slows capital project progress and drives up the risk of errors, rework and further cost and schedule escalations that result in late and over-budget projects.

The industry has made headwinds in addressing common project inefficiencies through increased adoption of collaborative practices such as advanced work packaging, collaborative contracting and scheduling, and integrated project delivery. However, without addressing the challenge of siloed teams and disconnected technologies and workflows, these

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practices can leave teams swimming in a pool of unstructured, messy data that may cause more problems than it solves.

Solution: Create a single source of truth that all project teams can access and trust to make decisions and act upon them.

To keep a competitive edge, owneroperators and engineering, procurement and construction companies must drop their manual tracking processes and adopt one unified, integrated, datacentric system that can autonomously flag updated information and store it in one place for consistency. A data-centric approach allows for everyone working on the project to see what is going on. Everyone sees the same real-time information so they can easily locate the right data to make confident decisions and take action.

Future-focused companies are adopting new ways to leverage their data by unifying the entire simulation process and engineering and design workflow within one single, cloud-based environment.

When all engineering disciplines can compile, view, share and manage all their data within one central location, the value

is tenfold. Process simulation can be used to test a variety of design iterations for optimal sustainability and operational efficiency, downstream effects of design changes can be considered across all engineering disciplines in a matter of minutes, and design clashes are easily identified and mitigated far before they are noticed onsite.

A critical step in any digital twin journey A data-centric engineering approach empowers the complete project execution process—from concept to completion—and creates high-quality, trusted engineering information management, the primary building block to any effective digital twin strategy.

A clear, validated view of your engineering information tells you everything you need to know about your plant’s physical make up—from how it was designed to how it stands today (which may or may not be the same). It can then be layered with machine-learning and AI mechanisms to contextualise, and even visualise, the model with behaviour over time, effectively becoming a living, breathing digital twin of your plant.

To maximise the value of your integrated, data-centric engineering efforts, consider deploying on the Cloud.

Cloud deployment further democratises your data and turns it into intelligent, actionable information available at the fingertips of those who need it.

And storing and maintaining engineering data in the Cloud allows engineers to work on their projects both in the office or from remote locations for business continuity reassurance across a global workforce. It also reduces reliance on internal IT teams and infrastructure by allowing you to match deployment and licensing to your needs as the project progresses or your business needs change.

By delivering your project using data-centric engineering in a single environment, ideally on the Cloud, you can reduce rework and time wasted verifying information in engineering and design, while also unlocking the ability to leverage that information to make decisions you can trust at later stages of the project.

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VIEWPOINT

HOW TO FUTUREPROOF YOUR UTILITIES BUSINESS MICHAEL OUISSI, CHIEF CUSTOMER OFFICER AT IFS, URGES UTILITIES COMPANIES TO EMBRACE DIGITAL SERVICES TO NAVIGATE THE INCREASINGLY EVOLVING LANDSCAPE

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tilities companies should be used to the occasional existential threat. Today, electric utilities are facing an Amazon moment with the arrival of a vast array of digital newcomers and increased complexity, from blockchainenabled electricity trading platforms to smart neighborhoods. Across the board, utilities are facing decommoditisation that requires them to fight for relevance to the customer.

“It is kind of scary for those of us representing the incumbent player,” Tronder Energie Chief Digital Officer, Svein Erik Jorgensen said in a recent IFS MindFuel event on the energy and utilities industry. “Behind-the-meter technology for local production and storage of energy optimisation is really advancing at a rapid pace while the prices for these local authorities are steadily declining.”

Power companies need to maintain reliable service even as distributed generation obscures supply and demand dynamics that drive their capital investments. According to the Solar Energy Industry Association, 4 percent of households in the U.S. get electricity from rooftop solar panels with a projected 13 percent by the end of the decade. This means power utilities must figure out just and transparent ways to communicate to rate payers about what they generate and sell back, what external power they consume during times of high demand and what they pay for that peak-hour consumption. Other consumers may want to purchase green energy or shift consumption to times when it can be more easily met by renewables.

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How should electric companies respond?

Part of the answer may come through deep insights on usage bundled in with the monthly bill, either in the mail or online. This requires heavy investments in omnichannel communication, however.

Utilities providers can also tap into innovation to provide digital services and new physical service lines such as electric vehicle charge point installation or wireless charging. To do this profitably, they must bone up their enterprise project management and field service capabilities.

A data-driven future As things stand today, utilities providers by and large still own the customer relationship. And they have the financial muscle—sometimes backed by the ability to rate base investments—to invest in new technology platforms and recruit skilled IT professionals. What kinds of technology platforms should be considered? This will depend on the specific requirements of the organisation and what it already has in place. But some pointers might include: • Prioritising data collection and technician/service portals. Data on

what customers and rate payers consume can be used to create net new value by capturing data from the internet of things (IoT) and making it visible to end users in usable formats.

And this data should be available to field service techs and the call center so they can use it to deliver successful moments of service.

• Making sure your enterprise software makes the most of your human resources. With more shifts towards clean power and the possibility of a skills shortage in the industry, managing talent is more vital than ever.

• Improving project and asset management. Utilities will always be dependent on long-lived, expensive assets, but consumption patterns are changing multiple times over the lifecycle of each asset, which means more lifecycle extensions and refits that must be managed profitably and with minimal disruption to service.

• Creating an airtight customer experience.

All utilities will need to get serious about omnichannel communication that unites communications across text, email, phone and in-person settings into a single version of the truth while harnessing artificial intelligence to get more out of contact center employees.

The new enterprise software platforms adopted by utilities—most likely in the cloud, although with the option for on premise deployment if rate-basing requirements demand it—should pave the way for a new utility model. In this model, utilities companies will no longer just provide basic services such as power or water. Instead, they will be able to offer a range of service packages, potentially spanning areas as diverse as carbon trading and urban mobility services.

Omnichannel communication systems that share data with operational technologies, and the enterprise project management and asset management systems used on the capital equipment that delivers value will enable a utility to leverage highly granular knowledge of customer habits and needs. They will also provide transparency about usage, impending stoppages and pending new capabilities.

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VIEWPOINT

HOW TO SPOT GENUINE STORAGE-AS-A-SERVICE JAMES PETTER ,VP INTERNATIONAL, PURE STORAGE, ON HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT CONSUMPTION MODEL FOR YOUR STORAGE

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ver the past 12-18 months, technology decisionmakers have rightly been preoccupied with how to economise their IT environments in the face of external tumult.

Irrespective of whether they chose to operate fully in the cloud, on-prem or hybrid, they sought IT models that could deliver cloud benefits — flexibility in consumption, a simplified user experience, lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and support options.

This has significant implications for infrastructure, which is a mission-critical IT component for any business looking to compete in a

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digital economy. IT decision makers increasingly demand infrastructure models that look more like the new world of cloud, not the old world of multiyear purchasing, operational overhead, and the responsibility of delivering SLAs landing on stakeholders. Today’s savvy CIOs want to get away from legacy issues such as up-front expenditure, vendor lock-in, risky forecasting, and unpredictable overheads.

A recent study by IDC predicts that by 2024, 43% of organisations expect consumption of -aaS models to increase as a direct result of the most recent economic crisis. Additionally,

half the world’s datacenter infrastructure will be consumed in as-a-Service offerings. Unfortunately, when it comes to storage, not all of those who go looking for a true Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) model will find the real deal.

Not all STaaS is built equal Procurement teams that settle on a STaaS goal are likely to be disappointed with the limitations of some providers. The same pressures that are pushing customers to new operational models are dragging legacy vendors to the realisation they need to adapt their offerings.

management may be pushed onto the customer, requiring them to be proactive in planning and requesting increases. In the end, these changes may not be possible under the contract, because a given capacity may only be changeable at the date of expiration and renewal. Contracts can sometimes even include clauses that commit the provider to a mere fraction of the required capacity. And on asset management, customers frequently find that they must make explicit requests and even shoulder the cost of shipping and installation.

However, some are doing this by concocting offerings that merely pass for flexible consumption models during the specification-and-selection process, but crumble in the face of modern real-time business needs. The long-term lock-ins, cost fluctuations and disruptive upgrades of old remain.

The modern CIO is out to smash legacies. They need to be looking for the signs of “Broken Subscription on Demand” passing for STaaS. First, let us agree that -aaS should be about more than subscriptionstyle cost models. Regaling business stakeholders with tales of the virtues of OPEX versus CAPEX may win over some, but CIOs now need commitments to meet more requirements than cost. In implementing true STaaS, IT leaders are in search of business partners, not suppliers.

Providers that dress up legacy models as new-and-shiny answers to emerging demands will be reticent to participate in an SLA designed for the customer. Under their terms of engagement, the “S” is removed from “-aaS”. There will be a concerted effort to avoid including penalties in contracts as they relate to performance or downtime.

The responsibility for capacity

What good looks like True STaaS offers the OPEX model, of course, but it goes way beyond this to a business-partner approach that concentrates on delivering value and flexibility. STaaS providers build their offerings around SLAs and SLOs, and design agreements with the needs of CIOs firmly in mind. In order to offer a real service, there needs to be data, observability, and telemetry of workloads to manage the tight SLOs offered to customers. They put the “Service” back into “as-a-Service”.

For a start, because of their servicecentered business models, true STaaS providers should have no doubts about including penalty clauses in contracts that are tied to performance and downtime, having carefully designed their operations to be nondisruptive. Capacity management is a tight collaboration between provider and customer, where extra storage is set aside up front to allow for rapid, on-demand expansion; and the contract will allow for these changes to be done at any time, with no penalties for the “breaking” of clauses. With the right agreement, providers will also anticipate asset requirements, shipping as needed and installing at no extra cost.

Perhaps one of the greatest hallmarks of cloud-like models is

not so much the ability to move with the times, but the ability to do so automatically. STaaS carries with it the upgrades of hardware and software as they become available rather than when they are asked for and paid for. Additionally, these upgrades are 100% non-disruptive as opposed to the legacy 3–5-year forklift processes, which not only require planned downtime/maintenance, but also add unnecessary and undesirable risk. It is this feature, more than any other, that establishes the bona fides of any provider claiming to offer STaaS. Reap the rewards True Storage-as-a-Service is, quite simply, the model customers demand rather than the model some legacy providers want to foist upon them.

At a very minimum, the STaaS offering selected should offer a cloud experience; no business disruptions when migrating (or thereafter); easy installation; proactive management; flexible options for entry, expansion and exit; transparent pricing; flexibility of architecture, from cloud to on-prem to hybrid; automation capabilities, especially in upgrades and maintenance; and a seamless experience that does not vary whether the solution is delivered directly or through a partner.

STaaS has the power to accelerate organisations’ digital transformation efforts and help them do more with their data. CIOs can better align technology with business goals and reshape operational units so that the people responsible for storage can leave mundane management monotony behind them and become more creative and innovative: cost-effectiveness follows; productivity follows; innovation follows; business growth follows. And in today’s global digital economy, could there be any stronger case than that for true STaaS?

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THE RISE OF MACHINES MICHAEL BYRNES, DIRECTOR – SOLUTIONS ENGINEERING, IMEA, BEYONDTRUST, ON THE FIVE MANAGEMENT ‘MUSTS’ OF M2M IDENTITY SECURITY

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arly adoption of new technologies is something of a regional tradition, especially among the Arab Gulf states. Lately, 5G — and its propensity to support a slew of exciting new use cases for the Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-toMachine (M2M) — has become a hot topic. GSMA Intelligence predicts that the GCC will lead growth in 5G across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in the coming years.

By 2025, its nations will be home to 20 million of MENA’s 50 million connections, with 16% of all mobile connections in the Gulf being 5G, ahead of the global average of 15%.

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Major telecoms providers such as Zain, Etisalat, STC and du already have IoT and M2M platform offerings, and IoT revenue is set to more than double in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) by 2023, according to one estimate from GlobalData — another strong indicator that an M2M revolution will soon be upon us.

As the Gulf’s economic visions continue to gather steam, vast smart city projects like Saudi Arabia’s The Line and NEOM will rely heavily upon IoT and M2M communications. But what of the security of these projects?

One report found that the UAE alone is hit by a daily average of 304 attacks on IoT infrastructure. To ensure the

region’s smart city dreams do not become nightmares, we must address the security of the apps, bots, servers, desktops, websites, containers, service accounts, and other IoT elements that could potentially be the source of our undoing.

A way forward All these machine elements must identify themselves to others, and while we spend a lot of time talking about human identity management, we must never forget that our machines can also be weak links. Whether we use hardware-specific data to authenticate machines and processes, or digital certificates, reserved IP addresses, or

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plain old usernames and passwords, we must pay due attention to the pros and cons that can arise from each.

In general, however, there are five management “musts” that should be part of any machine-identity security strategy.

Manage remote-access capabilities Here, we are not talking exclusively about remote working. We are addressing the business partners and other third-party organisations, such as external IT support companies, that authenticate to the corporate environment daily. Tools need to be leveraged to remove their access to privileged accounts. Secure remote access solutions can also remove their direct connectivity to the network.

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Manage vulnerabilities If bad actors gain access to user credentials with high-level permissions, then this presents a significant problem. So it is with machines.

Vulnerability management systems (VMS) may be becoming more popular, but we still see large numbers of attacks each year that stem from known, preventable vulnerabilities yielding access to prime credentials.

A VMS gives information on known exploits for each vulnerability it finds.

Addressing and patching the obvious holes on machines is a fundamental starting point, and yet often these holes lie gaping, waiting for an exploit kit to do its worst. The resultant costs can be considerable.

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Manage the privileges of endpoints We cannot, in our pursuit of M2M security, forget the user entirely. Endpoint privilege management tools adjust user privileges at runtime for applications and processes. They apply policies to the process, taking the user out of the equation, and so we are again dealing with machine identity. Such tools apply the policy of least privilege (PoLP) approach to each application or process and can leverage multi-factor authentication without constraining the user experience.

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Manage passwords When they cannot compromise a privileged account or a key machine directly, attackers will move on to standard accounts and shared privileged accounts, like those of default superusers and support teams. These credentials are often used by low-level users to make life more convenient for an under-resourced IT team.

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ONE REPORT FOUND THAT THE UAE ALONE IS HIT BY A DAILY AVERAGE OF 304 ATTACKS ON IOT INFRASTRUCTURE. TO ENSURE THE REGION’S SMART CITY DREAMS DO NOT BECOME NIGHTMARES, WE MUST ADDRESS THE SECURITY OF THE APPS, BOTS, SERVERS, DESKTOPS, WEBSITES, CONTAINERS, SERVICE ACCOUNTS, AND OTHER IOT ELEMENTS THAT COULD POTENTIALLY BE THE SOURCE OF OUR UNDOING. compromised, provide access to a key machine or critical system. Privileged password management (PPM) can ensure that privileged accounts for users and machines are independently policed. Embedded credentials are replaced by API calls to the PPM platform. And the PPM solution also automates password changes, in some cases after every session, thereby stymying brute-force attacks.

Manage complexity The region has seen a lot of technology sprawl as COVID-19 forced people to migrate to the cloud. When perfecting the M2M security model, it is important to keep it simple. This principal should be adhered to during design, maintenance, management, and update phases, as well as in the heat of incident response.

PAM can help Endpoint privilege management, privileged password management, and secure remote access are all core solutions areas in privileged access management (PAM), a branch of cybersecurity that will become increasingly important to the region as governments and enterprises continue with their digitisation ambitions.

Safety from malicious outside forces requires that we examine all aspects of our environment.

Automation is gathering steam everywhere, and each day machines take on more responsibility for business operations. Whether physical or virtual, those machines need to be assigned identities, but we must ensure that their credentials cannot be hijacked for nefarious purposes. By adopting a multi-layered strategy like the fivepoint plan described here, regional organisations ensure that identities are not stored locally, and that they can use their machines with confidence to build the solutions of the future.

VIEWPOINT

HOW FAR CAN WE GO WITH COPPER? PIERS BENJAMIN, EMEA IN BUILDING NETWORKS (IBN) MARKETING MANAGER, CORNING OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS, ON THE FUTURE OF COPPER CABLING

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he stunning growth of the global cybercrime industry is putting strain on organisations and their security teams. Mimecast’s latest State of Email Security Report 2021 found that 45% of organisations in the UAE reported an increase in the sophistication of incoming cyberattacks, while 41% cited a growing volume of attacks.

While copper cables are still widely used for in-building networks, the rise in wireless traffic and the demand for bandwidth and faster connections has raised doubts if copper networks can’t truly keep up. The question is: How much further can copper twisted pair cables realistically go in terms of performance and what does the future hold for cabling technology?

In the LAN environment, the reality is that many companies still aren’t dealing with the kinds of bandwidth demands that would make most copper classes and categories ineffective. CAT6A, which supports data rates of 10G up to 100 metres, has seen a growth in popularity as a minimum requirement for many hospitals and universities. For most businesses however, CAT6 and a 1G maximum speed is sufficient.

In higher speed environments, the advent of Category 8 and associated solutions has provided an attractive option for installers. This supports up to 40G across copper twisted pair - the fastest data transmission local networks with structured copper cabling can achieve today. Category 8.1 cabling systems, unlike Category 8.2, are backward-compatible as they are based on the standard RJ45 plug-in format.

Where CAT8, quite literally, falls short however is in its reach with a

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maximum distance of 30m. Due to length restrictions, copper solutions in building cabling often reach their limits and the 90m provided in the standard for the permanent link or 100m for the channel is not always sufficient in practice to connect devices installed far away.

While we’re yet to see 40G speeds extended to a meaningfully large distance over copper, there are vendors that are enabling 10G over 120m. These must meet the requirements of the applicable cabling class. In Europe, these are primarily the ISO 11801 and EN 50173 standards. However, only measuring the channel allows an assessment of the entire transmission path from end to end.

Buildings are getting smarter Smart networks need to be reliable, responsive, and resilient. From offices to retail structures, the most important factors when considering commercial buildings are no longer physical attributes such as location, aesthetics, and amenities. Instead, advances in technology have emerged as key differentiators between effective and ineffective

infrastructures. Individuals across industries are recognizing the need for commercial buildings to have holistically equipped network capabilities. In a digitally driven age, connectivity has become the lifeblood of all modern businesses.

It’s no secret that when it comes to high-speed transmissions and capacities, copper cables are reaching their limit.

As fiber infrastructure evolves to meet increasing demands for more dependable networks, traditional copper networks are becoming severely outmoded. Copper networks have limitations on speed, distance, and reliability. Traditional structured wiring requires a proliferation of cabling in the horizontal pathway, creating network congestion that is hard to manage over time. With 400 or more cables in a ceiling, it is likely that a variety of contractors and end-users have added and/or removed wiring over the years.

This typically contributes to significant clutter and makes improvements in network infrastructure even more challenging to implement. Therefore, using large quantities of horizontal copper cables may not be the best way to distribute data throughout businesses – and it certainly will not be able to support tomorrow’s technologies permanently.

Fibre is the future, but there’s still a place for copper Ultimately, while emerging smart, connected building infrastructures will become more and more reliant on fibre, but there is still a place for copper in connected building infrastructures.

Copper remains a compelling media for the last point-to-point connection to a device. However, limitations of copper solutions in bandwidth, power handling, and distance mean networks should be designed to push the fiber-to-copper transition point deeper into the network or to the edge of it.

The best path forward is to build a strong, reliable fibre backbone and keep copper for point-to point connections.

This approach empowers multiple stakeholders within a building – including the owner, tenants and service providers – to access a single passive infrastructure to deploy the applications they need or prefer.

PRODUCTS

CommScope Touchstone CommScope has released its new Touchstone TG644x DOCSIS 3.1 cable gateways.

With the use of online gaming, video conferencing, AR/VR and other delay sensitive applications on the rise, the opportunity has never been greater to bring low latency broadband services to market. The TG644x gateway supports the compnay’s end-to-end Low Latency DOCSIS (LLD) solution, that establishes a fast lane for delay sensitive traffic from the home to the headend and back, and the enhanced capabilities of Wi-Fi 6 reduces latency and jitter in communications to the end device.

The gateways support high split with a switched diplexer for flexible deployment capabilities to meet the demand for increased upstream capacity, such as using video conferencing for working and learning from home.

The TG644x gateways allows service providers to deliver multi-gigabit data rates to and around the home and small business

WD Red SN700

Leveraging its strength and leadership in flash, Western Digital has announced the new WD Red SN700 NVMe SSD, a high-endurance, fast-caching solution that accelerates NAS performance for SMB customers.

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and enables reliable ultra-HD videos over Wi-Fi. These innovative Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6gateways are intended to serve as the hub of a subscriber’s network and connect all IP capable devices (i.e., internet, data, voice, and video) throughout the customer’s premises.

If additional coverage is required to light up dead spots, the gateways may be supplemented with CommScope’s X5 WiFi 6 extender to deliver high-performance and managed Wi-Fi coverage throughout the home.

The gateways can also be managed with CommScope’s HomeAssure Managed Wi-Fi solutions, providing optimised, high performance Wi-Fi coverage throughout the home.

Furthermore, the TG644x gateways also support SNMP and TR-069 remote management protocols for reducing service providers costs and can be managed with CommScope’s ECO Service Management solutions. It provides service providers visibility into the home network, and the ability to automate and control subscriber devices and experiences. CommScope is a global leader in these areas and has millions of devices under management.

This new drive is engineered to support 24/7 NAS environments and always-on applications with the ultimate in reliability and endurance. Its fast system responsiveness and I/O performance are perfect for multiuser, multi-application environments, letting SMBs tame their toughest projects from virtualisation to collaborative editing to intensive database storage. Its slim “gum stick” design slips right into the NVMe-ready M.2 slot that is available in many of today’s leading NAS enclosures.

Key features of the WD Red SN700 NVMe SSD drive include: • High Performance – Delivers up to 3,430 MB/s performance (500GB and 1TB models) – more than 5 times the sequential read capability of SATA drives • High Reliability and Endurance – Optimized for 24/7 NAS workload environments offering high reliability and endurance of up to 5,100 TBW (4TB model) to handle the constant caching of read and rewrite cycles • High Capacity – Offered in capacities from 250GB to 4TB to help cover present and future caching needs The new WD Red NVMe SSDs join Western Digital’s WD Red portfolio of storage solutions that include WD Red HDDs and WD Red SATA SSDs – all purpose-built for NAS.

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THE RISE OF AI IN THE MIDDLE EAST SUNIL PAUL, MD OF FINESSE, ON HOW AI WILL SHAPE THE LANDSCAPE OF THE FUTURE

R

esults of a survey conducted at the end of 2016 – a time when the Middle East was still trying to embrace artificial intelligence (AI) – were as perplexing as they were a great indicator of the region’s hunger for the technology.

Over 11,000 people in 12 countries were asked if they could replace human doctors with AI and robots. A staggering 66% in Saudi Arabia and 62% in the UAE said yes.

How did so many people trust machines over human beings for a region well known for a culture of faceto-face interactions?

The two main reasons PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which commissioned the survey, could offer were the very young population in the Middle East and their digitally savvy.

AI has been around in scholarly circles since the 1950s, but it was only late in the 2000s that it started becoming part of our daily lives. Unfortunately, the Middle East was slightly late in coming to the party compared to many countries. In fact, when Oxford Insight published its 2017 AI Readiness Index, the region was unrepresented in the top-50.

Once the UAE and Saudi Arabia governments decided to adopt AI – often called the ‘new space race’ and the ‘new oil’ – there was no looking back. In just four years, UAE is now ranked 16th globally (with 100% points for vision), while Saudi is No38 in Oxford Insight’s annual index.

‘Vision’ is a keyword here. It is the biggest reason the UAE and Saudi Arabia have surged ahead while other countries are lagging. The UAE launched

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the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, with an explicit intent to make the country a world leader in AI by 2031.

Saudi Arabia also announced its own strategy – part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud’s Vision 2030 – to reduce dependence on oil and become a technology hub. It also established a dedicated authority to drive the national data and AI agenda last year.

Deloitte pointed out three major factors that inhibit AI adoption across the globe – extreme concerns about AI risks, including lack of governance and regulations, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and moderate to extreme skill gaps.

The UAE and Saudi have made sure these concerns are properly answered.

The UAE has appointed a worldfirst Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence and also introduced a framework, appropriately called BRAIN (Building a Responsible Artificial Intelligence Nation). It is a precursor to mandatory regulations.

The two countries have also taken concrete steps to reduce skill gaps.

In 2019, the UAE established the Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, offering MSc and Ph.D. programs in AI. In addition, in July this year, UAE announced 100,000 golden visas for coders.

Saudi, on the other hand, established a joint international innovation centre for AI and precision medicine between King Abdul Aziz University and Oxford University.

Both have also managed to convince AWS to set up a Region in their country, which goes a long way in securing

data and keeping it inside their own geographical territories.

There has already been impressive progress made. Government agencies in the UAE like DEWA and telecoms company Etisalat are on the verge of achieving 100% adoption of smart services, most of them AI-driven.

Dubai Health Authority (DHA) and the health authorities in Saudi Arabia have highlighted how AI programs helped them with testing, vaccinating, and finally containing COVID-19.

One of Saudi’s ambitious projects is Neom – a smart city 33 times the size of New York City and built from the scratch at a cost of $500 billion.

Everything in this futuristic city will be linked with IoT sensors and AI. A PwC study evaluated that AI would have an impact to the tune of $320 billion by the end of 2030 on Middle Eastern economies. For example, the UAE GDP is expected to increase by 14% only because of AI, while its contribution to Saudi’s GDP in 2030 would be 12.4%.

AI will touch almost every aspect of life in the Middle East – smart cities (resources and energy), the financial sector, education, healthcare, cybersecurity, defense, logistics and transport, and manufacturing.

Poor datasets, lack of focused approach and resources, and political instability may be holding back some countries in the region. Still, UAE and Saudi have definitely made the Middle East the hotbed for AI activities and implementation.

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