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NEWS
HUAWEI PARTNERS WITH MORO HUB TO LAUNCH OPEN CLOUD
His Excellency Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), witnessed the signing of a collaboration agreement between Moro Hub (Data
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Hub Integrated Solutions), a whollyowned subsidiary of DEWA, and Huawei, a multinational technology company, to launch the multi-tenant Huawei Cloud
Stack hosted in the UAE at Moro’s
Green Data Centre, the first of its kind in the Middle East. NEW INNOVATIONS TO DELIVER INTRINSIC SECURITY VMware has unveiled new innovations to deliver intrinsic security to the world’s digital infrastructure. The solutions are designed to advance security for the public and private clouds, security operations and distributed workforces as organisations accelerate cloud
The newest developer-friendly, secure, and resilient Cloud Platform provides a range of futuristic managed cloud services with multi-availability zones while contributing to the sustainability objectives of governments and Enterprises. The agreement was signed by Eng. Marwan Bin Haidar, Vice Chairman of Moro Hub, and Jiawei Liu, CEO of Huawei UAE.
The latest announcement is in sync with Moro Hub’s launch of Green Data Centre to invest its efforts in offering the latest adoption to build resilient, future ready digital infrastructure.
“Amid global disruption, the key to survival for many companies has meant an accelerated shift to the cloud and ultimately, bolting on security products in their data centres,” said Sanjay Poonen, Chief Operating Officer, Customer Operations, VMware. “But legacy security systems are no longer sufficient for organisations that are using the cloud as part of their computing infrastructure. It’s time to rethink security for the cloud, organisations need protection at the workload level, not just at the endpoint. The future of cloud must be met with a better way to secure data and applications.”
As organisations continue their journey towards cloud transformation and application modernisation, they require modern security solutions that are both powerful and easy to technologies and services to its clients yet be a responsible corporate citizen to the environment and its community. The new cloud offering reflects the share vision of both Moro Hub and Huawei to reduce carbon emissions and enhance environmental sustainability.
HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer said, “At Moro Hub, we are committed to the vision and directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to make the UAE the world’s leading nation, and the Dubai 10X initiative, which mandates the Government of Dubai to Position Dubai 10 years ahead of all other cities. Moro Hub’s vision is to be the digital transformation hub of choice. Therefore, its latest Cloud Platform with Huawei provides a full suite of modern, highly scalable and flexible infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) system capable of addressing the needs of prospective clients. CIOs are now seeking to extend their application capabilities by leveraging cloud-native and developer-friendly features with
such unique platforms.” operationalise. Unveiled at VMworld 2020, VMware Carbon Black Cloud Workload, delivers advanced protection purpose-built for better securing modern workloads to reduce the attack surface and strengthen security posture. This innovative solution combines prioritised vulnerability reporting and foundational workload hardening with industry-leading prevention, detection and response capabilities to protect workloads running in virtualised, private and hybrid cloud environments.
The solution combines Carbon Black’s security expertise with VMware’s deep knowledge of data centres to build security into workloads. VMware customers can experience the advanced new solution with a six-month unlimited free trial of VMware Carbon Black Cloud Workload Essentials, available for all current vSphere 6.5 and VMware Cloud Foundation 4.0 customers.
AVEVA TO DRIVE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION STRATEGY AT SHELL
AVEVA has signed an agreement to help accelerate Shell Global Solutions International B.V’s digital transformational strategy by deploying AVEVA’s cloud software solutions.
AVEVA will provide Shell with its Engineering Data Warehouse technology, which is one of the building blocks of the digital twin. This will enable a common digital thread across Engineering, Operations and Maintenance and the ability to securely deliver information in context from a single source to decision makers across these critical functions.
AVEVA’s Engineering Data Warehouse will enable Shell through its Digital Twin to drive asset reliability, enhance efficiency and reduce unplanned The human factor is widely recognised as an essential component to digital transformation success. In fact, over a quarter (27 percent) of companies acknowledge that despite being key, people are often overlooked when planning and executing transformative projects, according to a research study from global enterprise applications company IFS. downtime. The solution will also support in providing actionable insights right from the site operator to the Asset Leadership Team.
Ravi Gopinath, Chief Cloud Officer and Chief Product Officer, AVEVA
The study goes on to identify poor change management as one of the key reasons digital transformation projects fail. When implementing new digital transformation projects, businesses are focused on implementing the key technology and solutions but aren’t considering the importance of staff buy-in and acceptance of the project, which is intrinsically linked to its overall success.
When asked about the reasons for failure in past projects, businesses also cited lack of employee engagement among the top four reasons. In addition, respondents named past experiences of low employee buyin as one of the top two reasons
AVEVA’s solution supports Shell’s ambition to empower staff across Shell’s manufacturing sites and to keep frontline industrial workers safe while ensuring business continuity and operational resilience.
“We are delighted that Shell has chosen to extend its long and robust existing strategic partnership with AVEVA to support in enabling the digital twin cloud-based services,” said Ravi Gopinath, Chief Cloud Officer and Chief Product Officer, AVEVA. “This deployment is part of Shell’s recently announced strategy to deploy digital twin technology across its manufacturing sites. Implementing new technologies like IIoT, extended reality, and artificial intelligence has huge advantages with the digital twin of an operating environment and this cutting-edge technology is guaranteed to deliver immediate improvements for
HUMAN FACTOR CONTINUES TO BE A KEY ELEMENT IN DX: IFS
Shell’s operations.” for hesitating to launch new digital transformation projects. This can potentially have a great impact on the overall development of a business, as in times of downturn many believe innovation is the key to business resilience.
“Through continuous dialog with our customers as well as first-hand experiences from our own digital transformation, we have always known that people can act as both an enabler and a barrier in transformation projects,” IFS Chief Human Resources Officer Jane Keith said. “This report drives home the point that if digital transformation is kept human centric and if change management is handled effectively and employees are aware and inspired to support the transformation, the business is much more likely to reap success. Staff involvement should not be seen as a just a tick-box exercise but as the secret sauce that will ultimately determine the outcome.”
FINESSE TEAMS UP WITH CAPILLARY TECHNOLOGIES
Finesse has joined hands with Capillary Technologies, a cloud-based Loyalty platform, Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) and Omnichannel
Customer Engagement solution for retail and consumer brands. Capillary
Technologies will power Finesse’s clients with an engagement-based loyalty platform. The platform increases brand recall and repeat sales by incentivising customers in real Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the global financial centre in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region, announced that Ripple, the enterprise blockchain solution for global payments, has established its regional headquarters in the Centre.
Ripple has chosen DIFC for its innovative regulations, expansive
time for their transactional and nontransactional (likes, shares, reviews, and more) brand interactions.
Capillary’s platform leverages AI and Machine Learning to automatically create high-conversion campaigns. This even allows brands to customise engagement for different segments of customers, and offer personalised rewards to ensure premium customers keep coming back.
Gaurav Mehta, VP & Global Head of Alliances & Ecosystem, Capillary Technologies, said, “Since a few quarters back, when Capillary embarked upon strengthening our strategic alliances, we have been on the lookout for partners who recognise Digital Transformation as a core approach to their future growth and are hungry for more, Finesse came in as a natural choice for us. Finesse is a leading Technology Solutions and Services company at the forefront network and reputation as a leading global financial centre. Ripple and DIFC are aligned in their vision to shape the future of finance. Established in 2012, Ripple builds financial solutions and services to move money at the same speed and standard that information moves today. By joining Ripple’s global financial network, RippleNet, customers can process their payments instantly, reliably, cost-effectively and with end-to-end visibility anywhere in the world. Hundreds of financial institutions already use RippleNet in more than 45 countries, making it one of the leading providers of blockchain for payments. of providing innovative business and technology solutions in the GCC, APAC region and beyond. We are happy to associate with Finesse as one of our strategic partners in the region, and I’m confident that clients will benefit from the deep domain and product expertise of Capillary and the strong regional presence of Finesse.”
Eljo J P, Director & Chief Business Officer, Finesse Global, said, “Capillary Technologies enables us to offer full-stack personalised customer engagement, omnichannel loyalty marketing and consumer analytics solutions that help our Clients understand their consumers at a granular level. Today, with global customers using both digital and physical channels, Capillary will help our clients improve marketing effectiveness and ROI by enabling a unified connected customer
FINTECH FIRM RIPPLE SETS UP REGIONAL HEADQUARTERS AT DIFC
engagement strategy.”
Arif Amiri, Chief Executive Officer of DIFC Authority said, “Leveraging DIFC’s world class platform, laws and regulations, our FinTech firms are able to work with other DIFC’s clients, who form part of the region’s largest financial ecosystem, to contribute to the development of the global, regional and local finance industry. During this postpandemic recovery period, we recognise how digital agendas are being prioritised. Ripple and the other 230+ FinTech related companies in the Centre are key to driving the future of finance.”
Navin Gupta, Managing Director for South Asia and MENA at Ripple said, “Ripple already has a significant client base in the MENA region and the opportunity to co-locate with our customers made DIFC a natural choice. Our regional office will serve as a springboard to introduce our blockchain based solutions and deepen our ties with even more Financial Institutions in the region. We feel very welcome in our new regional home at DIFC.”
COGNIZANT TO ACQUIRE BRIGHT WOLF
Cognizant has announced it has agreed to acquire Bright Wolf, a privately-held technology services provider specializing in custom Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions for Fortune 1000 companies. Bright Wolf is certified by all major cloud providers and acknowledged as an expert in IoT. The company is a Microsoft Gold Partner and has been named an Amazon Web Services Advanced Technology Partner, IoT Competency. With the close of the acquisition, Cognizant will establish its newest IoT innovation lab in the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., Research Triangle, with the Bright Wolf team as its core.
“Combining Bright Wolf’s experience in production-class IIoT deployments with Cognizant’s expertise in foundational IIoT technologies will increase our clients’ resiliency, operational efficiency, and competitive advantage,” said Malcolm Frank, President, Digital Business, Cognizant. “Companies are increasingly embracing IIoT, and Bright Wolf’s team of senior IIoT architects have delivered the business value others have struggled to achieve. We look forward to this talented team joining Cognizant.”
“IIoT transformation can be a complex, high-stakes undertaking for any business,” said Peter Bourne, Chief Executive Officer, Bright Wolf. “Bright Wolf has helped leading companies across industries realize their IIoT vision through our Zero Waste Engineering approach. We help ensure clients make the right investments at the right time and have the ability to scale as dictated by business and market needs. Our unique capabilities, together with Cognizant’s deep vertical industry knowledge, scale, and expertise in predictive analytics, AI, cloud, and IoT, will provide clients with an unparalleled partner on their IIoT journey.”
Bright Wolf will enrich Cognizant’s smart products offering and expertise in architecting and implementing IIoT solutions. Bright Wolf delivers design consulting, development, and digital transformation services for clients such as Caterpillar and ITW Hartness in manufacturing, energy, transportation, water, healthcare, and agriculture, among other industries. For example, Bright Wolf recently introduced a solution for automation of cold chain transportation and refrigeration assets for one of the world’s largest logistics companies.
HELP AG PARTNERS WITH AVIATRIX
As enterprise cloud adoption accelerates in the face of COVID-19, Help AG, the cybersecurity arm of Etisalat Digital, has announced its partnership with Aviatrix, the cloud network platform, to help better enable secure adoption and usage of cloud services for businesses in a simplified manner.
Help AG’s partnership with Aviatrix enables both large enterprises and small businesses to easily integrate security tools in a public cloud environment such as the creation of encrypted tunnels between cloud services. Aviatrix also helps to efficiently connect legacy data centres to cloud while ensuring muchneeded infrastructure, operational visibility across deployment processes and networking technologies spanning different cloud providers and services.
Stephan Berner, Chief Executive Officer at Help AG, said, “Rapid digital transformation has been crucial to survival for businesses during the pandemic. But as more enterprises tend to shift to the cloud, the challenges around securely managing these environments and avoiding potential disruptions continue to grow. Cloud does not change the requirement for security, but it changes how we deploy cyber security fundamentally.
“When public cloud infrastructure was designed and built, it was done by technical experts who were looking for minimal acceptable functionality. However, enterprises have very specific requirements for infrastructure and Aviatrix fixes a set of unique problems especially when running multi-cloud environments or connecting to legacy data centres. Together, we help better enable secure adoption and usage of cloud services through the use of innovative solutions that address confidentiality and control of data, control of identity and mitigation of threats.”
SAUDI AIMS TO BE A WORLD LEADER IN AI BY 2030
Saudi Arabia has revealed its new National Strategy for Data & AI (NSDAI) which will make the country a global leader in Artificial Intelligence by 2030.
Saudi Arabia’s National Strategy for Data & AI intends to put AI at the heart of the country’s development and growth. By 2030, Saudi Arabia’s vision is to become the place where the best of Data and AI is made reality.
The NSDAI, which will be led by the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA), was officially launched today at the Global AI Summit in Riyadh. Under the strategy, Saudi Arabia will implement a multi-phase, multi-faceted plan that includes skills, policy and regulation, investment, research and innovation,
and ecosystem development. This will enable the country to become a global hub for data and Artificial Intelligence, and to rank among the top data-driven economies in the world.
HE Dr. Abdullah Bin Sharaf Alghamdi, President of SDAIA, said, “The National Strategy for Data and AI sets the direction and foundations upon which we will unlock the potential of data and AI to fulfil our national transformation priorities and establish Saudi Arabia as a global hub for data and AI.”
Saudi Arabia has a strong foundation for its Artificial Intelligence ambitions, based on the country’s unique scale in critical industries, and its position as an investment powerhouse with a focus on technology. The Kingdom also has a young population and a desire for large scale transformative programs such as Vision 2030. Upcoming Saudi mega projects including NEOM smart city, Qiddiya entertainment and leisure capital, and National Industrial Development and Logistics Program, will provide testbeds and living laboratories for advanced AI and datadriven concepts and applications.
The Kingdom has already implemented a unique data infrastructure with a centralised ecosystem of resources to support government agencies to successfully complete their AI initiatives, including a National Data Bank, G-Cloud, and a whole-government analytics and Artificial Intelligence platform.
Saudi Arabia also aspires to play an active role in the global dialogue on the use of AI to support economic and social development. The Global AI Summit has been inaugurated as an international platform to connect thought leaders and high-level decision makers in AI, and to host discussions on the most important issues related to this emerging technology.
SDAIA has been established to lead the National Strategy for Data & AI, to guide and support its implementation across key government agencies and entities, and to facilitate the deployment of the plan. SDAIA is also directly responsible for initiatives such as data consolidation, and creation and enforcement of AI policies.
The implementation of the NSDAI will follow a multi-phase approach, which will focus on addressing the immediate national requirements for Saudi Arabia until 2025, particularly the development of data and AI programs to support the Vision 2030 strategic development goals. From 2025 until 2030, Saudi Arabia will shift focus to establishing the foundations of a competitive international AI ecosystem, by developing specialisms in specific areas of AI, to become one of the leading AI and data-driven economies by 2030.
A CULTURE OF RESILIENCE
ALIA ALKINDY, HEAD OF DEPARTMENT, IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND TECHNICAL OPERATION DEPARTMENT, ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY OF RAS AL KHAIMAH (EGA RAK), EXPLAINS HOW THE ORGANISATION ACHIEVED A SECURE REMOTE WORKING ENVIRONMENT WITH MANAGEENGINE’S UNIFIED ENDPOINT MANAGEMENT SOLUTION DESKTOP CENTRAL.
The Electronic Government Authority of Ras Al Khaimah (EGA RAK) was established in 2004 as a result of Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah H.H. Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al-Qassimi’s aspiration to transform the emirate into an online community. The company has spent the better part of the past two decades gradually digitizing all aspects of RAK society by applying the latest technologies, integrated solutions, and comprehensive systems. EGA’s goal is to continue automating processes and systems at government IT and telecommunication departments, creating necessary technical infrastructure, and be recognized as a leader in e-government, including areas such as IT, telecommunication, services, and geography. As a technology-driven organisation, EGA RAK was wellprepared when the global pandemic compelled businesses to move work models online earlier this year. WHILE THE SOLUTION IMPROVED ALL FUNCTIONS, WE WERE ESPECIALLY IMPRESSED WITH HOW SEAMLESS AND QUICK THESE THREE TASKS BECAME – REMOTE AND DESKTOP SHARING OVER INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL NETWORKS, SOFTWARE INVENTORY AND SOFTWARE DEPLOYMENT, DASHBOARDS AND REPORTS.
Alia Alkindy, HOD, IT Infrastructure and Technical Operation Department at Electronic Government Authority of Ras Al Khaimah (EGA RAK), says, “During the pandemic lockdown, we were able to make the required changes quickly, thanks to the inherent management philosophy we follow at EGA. As a company, we have always pushed for developing new services and adopting agile IT models. With every new service we offer, we also consider how the support can be effective and flexible. It is challenging to test new approaches continuously, but eventually, these new ways of functioning enhance our overall performance and also helps us not to rest on our laurels.” As a company that made it a priority to stay ahead of the curve, EGA RAK recently deployed enterprise IT management software leader ManageEngine’s unified endpoint management solution – Desktop Central – further enabling the firm to cope with any unexpected circumstance that the pandemic brought on.
MANAGEENGINE’S DESKTOP CENTRAL OFFERED EGA RAK BENEFITS SUCH AS:
Alkindy explains, “Few months before the COVID-19 pandemic, EGA’s technical teams were researching and testing solutions to expand its reachability to support users outside RAKGOV network such as users on travel, users at home, and even users working on restricted and limited access networks. We approached ManageEngine and after seeing the many benefits of the offering in a detailed PoC, we were convinced that their Desktop Central was the perfect solution suiting to our requirements.” The ManageEngine team was given
HOW EGA RAK ACHIEVED
A SECURE REMOTE
WORKING ENVIRONMENT
WITH MANAGEENGINE’S
DESKTOP CENTRAL
• ManageEngine’s Desktop Central supported secure communication over HTTPS and SSL, rolebased access and multi-level authentication, encryption and checksum. • EGA engineers were also able to enforce a high level of security for network and servers, without compromising on the product features. • All these security layers helped to ensure safe and secure working environment. • Smart buildings IoT solution • Veeam Backups for servers/
Office 365 the green light to immediately start working on EGA’s system architecture and project implementation. The solution addressed all the core requirements that EGA RAK had, enabling the firm to deploy a secure remote working environment for all types of users. The solution supported secure communication over HTTPS and SSL, role-based access and multilevel authentication, encryption and checksum. EGA engineers were also able to enforce a high level of security for network and servers, without compromising on the product features. EGA RAK’s primary objective was to reach and serve users outside of its managed network securely. The Desktop Central’s Remote and Desktop sharing feature over internal and external networks, addressed this requirement. Another major challenge the customer faced was the overhead of conducting the inventory for thousands of computers manually. “This not only cost time but also the efforts of a large number of personnel,” explains Alkindy. Automating this task through ManageEngine’s solution made EGA RAK’s operations much more efficient. “We were also excited about the solution’s Dashboard and Reporting feature, which offered a comprehensive view to our management. We were now able to see our vulnerability areas and accordingly address it.” Post the implementation, EGA RAK was able to significantly reduce • Reduced overhead on IT teams • Automatic inventory reporting and monitoring
• Remote software installation the overhead on IT teams, automate inventory reporting and monitoring and achieve remote software installation, among other benefits. “All these security layers helped to ensure safe and secure working environment for us,” adds Alkindy. “While the solution improved all functions, we were especially impressed with how seamless and quick these three tasks became – Remote and Desktop sharing over internal and external networks, Software Inventory and Software, Dashboards and Reports.” According to Alkindy, the ManageEngine team went the extra mile to ensure they delivered support services beyond the managed environment. “We had a great experience with ManageEngine. Right from understanding our needs to post-deployment support, the team was efficient and highly skilled. The solution also featured an easy and friendly user interface and minimised the out-of-reach device situations and the need for relying on multiple thirdparty tools.” Speaking about future plans, Alkindy concludes, “At EGA RAK, we are in constant pursuit of new technologies that can enhance our services. Our IT budgets and investments have been on a steady increase. In fact, we have begun to explore emerging IT innovations and industry trends to future proof our operations, ensure business continuity and most of all to be able to offer excellent digital customer services.”
