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PA G E S 5 2 VOLUME O4 | ISSUE 02 SEPTEMBER 2016 WWW.ENTERPRISECHANNELSMEA.COM

GREGG PETERSEN, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, MEA AND SAARC, VEEAM SOFTWARE

PUTTING THE CIOs TO A GOOD NIGHT’S Closing Q2 on a high growth note, Veeam states that an organization’s and a CIO’s life before and after Veeam is not just a journey, but a ‘Transition’. /30

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EDITORIAL

Time to Revisit the Strategy

S A N J AY M O H A PAT R A S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M

Time has come that the entire ecosystem of partners along with the technology providers to sit down and create strategy around the entire go to market, products and solutions as there are a lot of activities going in the background. Apart from the geopolitical situation in the region, US elections and Brexit are other factors which are putting the entire world under pressure. Most of the large US companies have commercial presence in every region and when there is a little uncertainty in their own land, it obviously impacts the offshore operations. So therefore, the existing state of movement would continue till the mid fourth quarter until the US elections get over.

Once the election gets over, the situation would be slightly different to some extent. I know the local and regional geopolitical condition in Saudi or Iraq or Syria, Turkey, Iran, etc. is also impacting the performance. At the same time, there is a huge patch of the region which awaits investment for development or pursuing modernization. It is the nature of the region. If it goes down, it also rises with a flash. Great people say that when market goes down, the intelligent people start investing. Therefore, this is the time the enterprises invest in infrastructure solutions. Even today large solutions are available in small format – not exactly in small form factor but in a modular and scalable format. The entire infrastructure starting from servers, storage, networking, etc. are available as a hosted or cloud services. Even these solutions come in single boxes with high capacity converged or hyper-converged infrastructure.

Most of the infrastructure vendors are offering solutions in on-premises, cloud and in converged or hyper-converged infrastructure. It is a fact that even in slowdown, enterprises cannot stop offering quality services to the customers. For example, FSIs, government, retail, hospitality, healthcare, cannot slowdown their activities. In order to remain competitive, all the organizations in this category or beyond the categories have to keep investing in solution and application. If they find the traditional approach of on-prem solution or complete owning of technology is no more viable, they can take the alternative strategy, which the rest of the word has started adopting long time back to stay competitive without pressurizing their finance.

At the same time, I feel good for the ecosystem that their role is far more important now. They need not to stay in seclusion anymore; rather be aggressive with their consultative approach. ë

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THE SUCCESS JOURNEY We take this opportunity to thank all our readers and supporting partners who have bestowed their trust on us and believed in our potential to carry their visions across the market. Through our magazine, summits, awards and networking events we have always attempted to bring the synergies of the industry on a single platform and we continue our journey with the same aspiration.

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STEPS INTO THE SECOND YEAR

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3000 7,000 TITLES IN 2013

THE MEGA YEAR

10,000 50,000

PRINT

ONLINE

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Will be readership as each copy will be passed onto three people at least.

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33,000

IMPRESSIONS

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(7 COUNTRIES) ONLINE

THE SUCCESS HAT TRICK

2015

PRINT

23,000

2013

2016

CONTENTS VOLUME 04 ISSUE 02 SEPTEMBER 2016 W W W. E N T E R P R I S E C H A N N E L S M E A . C O M

2016 COVER STORY

DATA CENTER TREK

SURVIVAL OF THE

INTEGRATED

Big data, security, virtualization and IoT have been prompting modern data centres to rethink their performances... /24 MY VIEWS

/21

A CLOUD STEP TOWARDS POST MODERN ERP THEORY

INNOVATIONS /49

HONEYWELL HIGHPERFORMANCE WIRELESS RING SCANNER

SABBY GILL,EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, EPICOR. CIO SPEAK

/28

DELIVERING REAL VALUE TO THE BUSINESS MR. SAJI, OOMMEN, DIRECTOR, IT AND BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION, JAIDAH GROUP, QATAR

FEATURE STORY Storage of Tomorrow, Begins Today! /34

Honeywell released its new highperformance 8670 Wireless Ring Scanner with Bluetooth® technology,

/46

EDITORIAL :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 04

INNOVATION IN THE DNA

OUR JOURNEY ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 05

CIO SPEAK

THOMAS STEELE-MALEY, DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION, GEMS EDUCATION

CHANNEL STREET ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 08 NETWORKING AND SDN

::::::::::::::::::::::: 38

INNOVATIONS :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 49

ADVERTISER INDEX: GEC AWARDS 02, DARKMATTER 03, EMITAC 07, BITDEFENDER 09, GENETEC 11, BULWARK 13, ESET 15, FINESSE 17, UNIFY 19, , GITEX 22, RITTAL 23, GEC OPEN 41, GITEX IN HOUSE 45, HID 47, OMA 51, VEEAM 52

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CHANNEL

STREET PURE STORAGE CROWNED AS LEADER, THREE YEARS OF GLORY

Pure Storage has retained its position in the Leaders Quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Solid State Arrays (SSAs) by Gartner.

For the third straight year, Pure Storage is positioned furthest along the “Completeness of Vision” axis in the Leaders Quadrant.

Government, Travel & Transportation, Oil & Gas, Telco, Healthcare, Banking and Retail. The company’s customer-centric EvergreenTM Storage business model, recently expanded to include the Right-Size Guarantee and Capacity Consolidation, changes the way storage is built, sold, and also managed and maintained over time.

In 2016, Pure Storage continued to open new markets with the unveiling of FlashBlade, the first all-flash array for unstructured data.

Historic Dell and EMC Transaction Set to Close

Dell and EMC will close transcations and operate as a combined company from September 7, 2016. “Combined, we will be exceptionally well-positioned for growth in the most strategic areas of next generation IT including digital transformation, software-defined data center, converged infrastructure, hybrid cloud, mobile and security,” said Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies. “Our investments in R&D and innovation, will give us unmatched scale, strength and flexibility, deepening our relationships with customers of all sizes.”Joe Tucci, chairman and chief executive officer of EMC said, “The combination of Dell and EMC creates a new powerhouse in the industry - providing the essential technology for the next era in IT.”

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SHADI SALAMA, CHANNEL LEADER – MIDDLE EAST THEATRE, CISCO

Cisco Unveils New Data Center Innovations Cisco unveiled its data center technology innovations in three key areas: networking, hyperconverged infrastructure, and hybrid cloud orchestration which will enable applicationcentric hybrid cloud deployments. Cisco continues to lead data center innovation with SDN-ready Nexus switches that deliver cloud scale 10/25/40/50/100Gpbs, with up to 10 times performance improvement at industry leading price points.

The new switching platforms provide the scale, telemetry, security, and performance needed for distributed containers and microservices, as well as the lossless traffic needed for IP storage and hyperconverged infrastructure. The new switches give Cisco customers a two-year innovation advantage over competitive technology.

Cisco also unveiled Cisco HyperFlex Systems, built on Cisco’s UCS compute platform, which

brings a new architectural approach to hyperconverged infrastructure. Cisco HyperFlex Systems simplify policy-based automation across network, compute and storage for the widest set of enterprise applications. Cisco HyperFlex surpasses first generation hyperconverged solutions, which were severely limited in terms of the performance, flexibility, and operational simplicity required by today’s IT environment of microservices, containers, new applications and clouds.

“Cisco’s new data center and cloud solutions will enable our partners to help their customers as they evolve to application-centric data center infrastructure and also address the requirements for DevOps and application developers. We believe this will expand the opportunity for new revenue streams and professional services for Cisco partners,” Shadi Salama, Channel Leader – Middle East Theatre, Cisco.

CHANNEL STREET

Sophos Email Goes Cloudy

META BYTE INKS PARTNERSHIP WITH PLANVIEW

BRYAN BARNEY, SVP AND GM OF NETWORK SECURITY GROUP AT SOPHOS

Sophos Email is now available in its cloud-based Sophos Central management platform. Customers and partners can now manage their email protection solution alongside Sophos endpoint, mobile, web and wireless security products from a unified, simple to use console. Bryan Barney, SVP and GM of the Network Security Group at

Sophos. “Security provided within cloud-based email packages is just not enough for businesses who have a genuine challenge in preventing malicious and suspicious email content from entering their network.” Sophos Email boosts security for cloud-based business email applications from leading providers.

POLYCOM RECOGNIZED BY GARTNER AND IDC MARKETSCAPE AS A LEADER IN VIDEOCONFERENCING MARKET Gartner and IDC, have separately recognized Polycom as a Leader in the videoconferencing market. Polycom has been positioned as a leader in Gartner’s July 2016 Group Video Systems Magic Quadrant for the second consecutive year while also being named a “Leader” in the IDC MarketScape Worldwide Enterprise Videoconferencing Equipment 2016 Vendor Assessment report for the third straight year. “We believe the recognition of two of the industry’s most influential analyst firms provides validation of our vision, strategy and solutions in the video collaboration market,” said Jim Kruger, Chief Marketing Officer of Polycom.

SALIL DIGHE, FOUNDER AND CEO AT META BYTE

Meta Byte Technologies has partnered with Planview to maximize their business opportunities by optimizing the capacity of their people and financial resources “We are delighted to partner with award-winning PPM solution provider, Planview, and look forward to forging an enduring partnership to successfully meet the requirements of our customers in the region.” said Salil Dighe, founder and CEO at Meta Byte Technologies. In addition to selling Planview’s products and solutions, Meta Byte as a Planview Partner, will also be responsible for implementation and integration services, project management consulting, process change and best practices consulting, product development process expertise, and much more.

CAREEM’S FIRST PARTNER DEAL WITH ETISALAT FOR ITS NEW PAYMENT PLATFORM CAREEM has partnered with Etisalat to launch its new payment platform – CAREEM Wallet – for booking car rides.

CAREEM Wallet allows the company’s customers to pay for car rides using Etisalat’s Reward points

10

or choose to earn Etisalat Reward points as they use CAREEM services.

Khaled ElKhouly, Chief Consumer Officer at Etisalat said, “We are excited to offer our Rewards members an innovative means to earn and burn Etisalat

S E P T E M B E R 2016

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Reward points in partnership with CAREEM. Now our members can enjoy free taxi rides by simply redeeming their accumulated reward points or earn more reward points every time onboard a CAREEM taxi.”

KHALED ELKHOULY, CHIEF CONSUMER OFFICER AT ETISALAT

genetec.com/synergis

© 2014 Genetec. All rights reserved. Genetec and Synergis are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Genetec.

Nothing happened today In a perfect world, no one thinks about access control except you.

The hundreds of people coming and going don’t think about you, or what a good job you’re doing, or how they always manage to get seamlessly where they need to go. Because you chose Synergis access control, it was another great day.

CHANNEL STREET IN PUBLIC

“The UAE government has made strong progress in taking citizen transactions online.

TAYFUN TOPKOC, MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR THE UAE AT SAP

6

SECONDS

SIEMON EQUIPS EGYPT PARTNER WITH DATA CENTER DEMO UNIT Siemon has supplied its distribution partner

Epicor Continues Cloud-First Strategy Rollout with the Middle East

MBK with a set of fully equipped VersaPOD data centre cabinets. MBK installed these at their training facility in New Maadi, Cairo to help educate and train end users, consultants and channel partners on Siemon’s comprehensive WheelHouse advanced data centre solutions.

In addition to showcasing the latest data centre infrastructure, the VersaPOD cabinets demonstrate the ability to address critical aspects in the data centre, including the need for increased equipment density, ease of installation, accessibility and thermal efficiency.

EMS AND OMANTEL PARTNER FOR FREE WI-FI HOTSPOT SERVICES EMS partnered with Omantel to bring free Wi-Fi internet hot-spot service for internet user in the Sultanate of Oman. This Wi-Fi service is available in various public places across Oman and users can connect to these internet hotspots and surf the internet for free.In addition, the solution will enable advertisers to strategically

SABBY GILL, EXECUTIVE VP FOR EPICOR INTERNATIONAL

reach target audiences to serve them with quality advertisement based on customer’s interest and location. Businesses that offer Omantel’s free Wi-Fi service at their premises will have

Epicor Software Corporation revealed its new cloud-first strategy for Epicor ERP deployments in the region. This follows an earlier announcement where Epicor said that it had chosen the Microsoft Azure Datacenter in Singapore to support new cloud deployments in Asia.

Sabby Gill, Executive VP for Epicor International said, “Over the last couple of years, we have seen a growing appetite for cloud solu-

tions from existing and new customers. Rolling out our cloud-first strategy in the Middle East means ERP customers in the region can now leverage cloud deployment benefits including business consistency, worry-free security, hassle free upgrades, reduced risk and faster time to value. Perhaps most importantly, given the current economic climate with depressed oil-prices, cloud solutions also offer lower total cost of ownership (TCO)”.

the option of monetizing the service by allowing advertisements through Omantel Wi-Fi network.

ZAINCASH’S FIRST ONLINE PAYMENT SOLUTION IN IRAQ Iraq Wallet, the first licensed mobile wallet company in Iraq, expanded its ZainCash services by introducing an online payment solution, “Pay with ZainCash”. This service will allow sellers to accept online payments through their websites and mobile applications in a simple, fast, and

JACKY’S BUSINESS SOLUTIONS AND JACKY’S RETAIL ROLL OUT SAP BUSINESS ONE Aiming to achieve better consistency and increase profitability across its subsidiaries, Jacky’s has partnered with WMS Middle East, one of SAP’s partner in the region, to implement SAP Business One for SAP HANA. To ensure an increase in overall operational efficiency, we have decided to consolidate our business operations across Jacky’s Retail and Jacky’s Business Solutions,” said Ashish Panjabi, COO of Jacky’s Group of Companies. “Rolling out SAP Business One for SAP HANA enables us to integrate all areas of the two subsidiaries, provide insights within different departments and boost customer satisfaction through better control over costs and enhanced profitability.” Available both on premise and in the cloud as well as an intuitive mobile app, SAP Business One for SAP HANA will be implemented across Jacky’s Retail LLC and Jacky’s Business Solutions LLC.

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secure manner and, on the other hand, enables customers to buy products and services online.

AUTODESK INDUSTRY COLLECTIONS MAKES WAY TO MIDDLE EAST MARKET Autodesk notified about the availability of three Industry Collections, offering a convenient and flexible new way to subscribe to a wide selection of the most essential Autodesk software by industry. To complement collections and address more specialized needs, customers can subscribe to individual products or cloud services, such as simulation or data management tools.

Stop malicious, targeted email attacks with Mimecast Targeted Threat Protection - a cloud solution that: • Scans every email hyperlink in real-time, as you click • Protects against CEO Fraud/whaling attacks • Adaptive cloud security service that easy to deploy for all organizational sizes • Includes granular security monitoring and reporting • Supports end user security education

For further details, please contact: Bulwark Technologies LLC Phone : 04 333 5040 |E-mail : info@bulwark.biz www.bulwark.biz

Add

CHANNEL STREET

HID Global Acquires DemoTeller to Broaden Portfolio

STEFAN WIDING, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF HID GLOBAL.

HID Global has acquired DemoTeller, a provider of instant issuance solutions for the financial market. With this acquisition, HID Global is now able to address the needs of financial institutions and retailers for instant issuance of personalized financial or payment cards, such as a “chip card,” with a fully integrated solution.

DemoTeller adds solution, installation and maintenance services to broaden HID Global’s secure issuance business beyond printers and consumables.

“HID Global’s entry into the instant issuance market for financial institution-issued cards with the acquisition of DemoTeller is significant for our secure issuance business,” said Stefan Widing, President and CEO of HID Global. “We will now be able to improve the user experience with more convenience and seamless integra-

tion across hardware, software and services, providing a one-stop shop for a solution that already ties into core banking infrastructure.”

DemoTeller’s offerings expand HID Global’s secure issuance portfolio to include financial instant issuance software, hosted distributed printers and HSM hardware.

“DemoTeller’s reputation for high quality is a perfect match with HID Global’s reputation for high-quality, trusted identity solutions to best serve the needs of financial institutions,” said Charlie East, the head of DemoTeller.

“DemoTeller’s customers can have great confidence that HID Global is customer-centric and will invest in the instant issuance portfolio to future-proof customer deployments, as part of its well-established position across the financial market.”

NEW CLOUD-BASED SERVICE TOOL FOR ALE BUSINESS PARTNERS AND CUSTOMERS ALE is offering business partners and customers an opportunity to discover easier operations and management of the network, realize risk reduction, and proactively consider future options to optimize network usage.

With the new ProActive Lifecycle Management cloud-based service application, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Business Partners and customers are able to see Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise switches and controllers on a customer’s network through a single, secure web portal.

ProActive Lifecycle Management (PALM) works in conjunction with Alcatel-Lucent OmniVista 2500 Network Management System.

Business partners and/or customers can get a complete view of the network in one click, gathering model number, serial number, MAC address, and the operating system version of Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise LAN and WLAN products securely via the cloud. These details correlate to the product lifecycle, both software and hardware, and include warranty and support entitlement status.

Philippe Bletterie, ALE lead for Network Business Division Solutions said, “We are focused on building a stronger community between our customers and business partners to assure the network brings value to the customer’s business.”

GCC RETAILERS LEAPFROG EUROPE IN CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Virtual kiosks, interactive mirrors, and hologram advertisements are among the many ways that GCC retailers are leapfrogging Europe in enhancing the customer experience, according to industry experts.Boosted by strong tourism growth, new and expanded malls and theme parks, and mega-events such as World Expo 2020 and 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar, GCC retail sales are set to reach USD 285 billion by 2018, according to a recent report by Alpen

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Capital.

“Immersive technology such as digital signage, interactive kiosks, hologram ads, and audio and lighting are now the competitive advantage for GCC retailers to attract and retain shoppers,” said David Macadam, Chief Executive Officer at the Middle East Council of Shopping Centers, the industry trade body that helps to facilitate and promote the MENA region’s shopping center development.

“In order to meet the demands of highlyconnected shoppers, GCC retailers can leapfrog many European retailers in using professional audiovisual technology to bring innovations and online technology into the in-store experience,” added David Macadam.

The Middle East Council of Shopping Centers will be one of the key partners of InfoComm Middle East and Africa 2016, the region’s largest and most prominent pro-AV events.

CHANNEL STREET

Oracle Studies EMEA Cloud Adoption While many companies in EMEA are embracing the move to the Cloud, nearly half are struggling, wrestling with increases in Cloud integration costs and data silos according to a new study sponsored by Oracle. A key reason: more than 60% of a company’s overall IT spend is being driven by individual business units versus traditional IT departments making it difficult for companies to fully leverage the Cloud services they are subscribing to.

WEB CLIPS LENOVO REVEALS FIRST FISCAL QUARTER RESULTS Lenovo Group revealed results for its first fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2016. Quarterly revenue was US$10.1 billion, a six percent decrease yearover-year (or four percent decrease in constant currency). Lenovo in EMEA had consolidated sales in the first quarter of US$2.5 billion, a yearover-year decline of 7.3 percent driven by a mix of operational and macroeconomic challenges.

EMEA accounted for 24.5 percent of Lenovo’s total worldwide sales.

MICROSOFT AZURE SCORES A HAT TRICK

HIDIR MAG, REGIONAL VP SYSTEMS SALES MEA, ORACLE

Gartner has identified Microsoft Azure as a leader in the analyst firm’s Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), for the third

VMWARE NAMED A LEADER IN GARTNER MAGIC QUADRANT 2016

year in a row, with the company placed favorably

VMware is positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of Gartner 2016 Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure for the seventh consecutive year.

“Since VMware originally pioneered virtualization for x86 systems, our customers have embraced VMware vSphere® broadly across their infrastructure to deliver IT efficiency and business agility,” said Mark Lohmeyer, vice president of products, Cloud Platform Business Unit, VMware. “We believe being positioned as a leader in the Magic Quadrant underscores the value of our innovative offerings to customers around the world today and recognizes our strategic vision for the future.”

honored that Microsoft Azure named a Gartner

based on both completeness of vision and ability to execute. “We are, of course, thrilled and Magic Quadrant leader for the third year in a row,” said Necip Ozyucel, Cloud and Enterprise Business Solutions Lead, Microsoft Gulf.

GLOBAL SMART CITY LEADERS PRAISE DUBAI Global government and technology experts set to speak at GITEX Technology Week have praised Dubai for developing new Smart City

ESET DETECTS ‘TWITOOR’ ESET researchers discovered an Android backdoor Trojan controlled by tweets. Detected

by ESET as Android/Twitoor, it’s the first malicious app using Twitter instead of a traditional command-and-control (C&C) server.

After launch, the Trojan hides its presence on the system and checks the defined Twitter account in regular intervals for commands. Based on received commands, it can either download malicious apps or change the C&C Twitter account to another one.

“Using Twitter to control a botnet is an innovative step for an Android platform,” says Lukáš Štefanko, the ESET Malware Researcher who discovered the malicious app. According to Štefanko, communication channels based on social networks are hard to discover and impossible to block entirely– while simultaneously being extremely easy for the crooks to re-direct communications to another account.

benchmarks.At GITEX Intelligent Cities, govern-

NUMBER GAME

7.9% Gartner Says Worldwide Information Security Spending Will Grow 7.9 Percent to Reach $81.6 Billion in 2016

ment leaders and technology companies will have an opportunity to see, hear, and experience the next wave of innovative, integrated technologies that are already helping cities around the world become more connected.

GULF AIR’S CONTINUITY MANAGEMENT WORKSHOP Gulf Air conducted a two-day interactive awareness workshop on Business Continuity Management (BCM) which was delivered by industry experts. The workshop was attended by more than 30 employees from various departments of the airline. The main objectives of the awareness workshop were to increase the knowledge of the participants and to explain the main reasons and benefits of implementing a (BCM) program within large corporations. The workshop also highlighted “ISO 22301” framework and common methodology of preparing and exercising recovery plans, to resume business operations in the event of a disaster as quick as possible with minimum losses.

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Visit us @ Hall 7 - 704 Gitex Technology Week 16-20 October 2016 | DWTC, Dubai

300+ Professional Team | 175+ Enterprise Clients | 20+ Nationalities | 20+ International Awards | 10+ Global Locations

CHANNEL STREET

Gulf Air Organizes Business Continuity Management Workshop

Gulf Air recently conducted a 2 day interactive awareness workshop on Business Continuity Management (BCM) . The main objectives of the awareness workshop were to increase the knowledge of the participants and to explain the main reasons and benefits of implementing a (BCM) program within large corporations. The workshop also highlighted “ISO 22301” frame-

work and common methodology of preparing and exercising recovery plans, to resume business operations in the event of a disaster as quick as possible with minimum losses.

Participants had the opportunity to form a direct dialogue with the experts to share their thoughts and past experiences in an interactive approach.

GIGAMON GEARS UP FOR TWME 2016 Gigamon will use the Telecoms World Middle East to focus on solutions and technologies that enable customers to streamline the introduction of new technologies to their networks especially in the telco industry. Andy Huckridge, Director of Service Provider Solutions, Gigamon said, “Gigamon has redefined effective security through the power of pervasive visibility and, by extension, empowered our partners to lead the market in delivering holistic, multi-tiered defenses that scale better and detect threats faster. Telecoms World Middle East 2016 is an ideal platform for us to showcase our service provider infrastructure solutions and reiterate our position as a top Traffic Visibility Fabric vendor in the industry.”

STME OFFERS VERITAS – NETAPP COMPREHENSIVE ARCHIVAL SOLUTION STME launched an integrated solution from two vendors- Veritas and NetApp. The bundle, based on Veritas Enterprise Vault in conjunction with NetApp FAS storage arrays, integrates solutions from both vendors to provide clients with a comprehensive archival solution.

The combined Veritas and NetApp bundle is a fully customizable archiving solution for customers from any vertical industry. It works as a drop-in system for existing IT environments. By bundling archiving licenses and physical storage together, the bundle helps reduce overall information management costs.

“Archiving is the ideal tool for protecting, organizing, and searching data, helping to meet compliance and eDiscovery requirements. The combined Veritas and NetApp solution complements an organization’s existing backup implementation. Archives are for discovery, while backups are for recovery,’’ said Ayman Al Bayaa, CEO of STME. The combined solution automates many labour-intensive data management tasks, including data de-duplication within archives, policybased archiving of leading information sources, as well as enabling seamless end user access to archived emails and files.

SENNHEISER & NEUMANN TO SHOWCASE A BROAD PORTFOLIO FOR CONTENT PRODUCTION AT IBC 2016 At IBC 2016, Sennheiser and Neumann will show the full bandwidth of their audio solutions.

Themed areas from ‘Mobile Journalism’ to ‘Field Production’ will showcase future-oriented products such as the AMBEO virtual-reality microphone, a special microphone for action cameras or the brand-new 27 series broadcast headsets. These headsets combine a closed, circumaural design with very low weight and outstanding comfort for the user.

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“Whatever the application, at IBC, we want to show users how they can record top-notch audio – whether they are looking for a microphone for podcast productions or a solution for professional ENG work,” said Achim Gleissner, Commercial Manager Broadcast & Media at Sennheiser. “By creating themed areas, visitors can experience the products in their own familiar working environments, from consumer to pro level.” A virtual-reality demonstration

recorded with Sennheiser’s upcoming AMBEO VR Mic will envelop visitors with totally immersive, natural sound – almost eliminating the boundaries between playback and the real experience. All models feature a closed, circumaural design while remaining lightweight and compact – a definite advantage over other models on the market. The new headsets fulfil the EU directive on protection against noise at the workplace.

Connect.

Share.

Give.

Take.

Solve.

Save.

Smile.

Unify.

Introducing Unify.

Unifying business communications for the new way to work. unify.com

Copyright © Unify Software and Solutions GmbH & Co. KG 2016

13481_Unify_Ad_Channel Arabic_275x240_v1.indd 1

25/01/2016 14:09

CHANNEL STREET

EMC Expands ‘Data Protection Everywhere’ Portfolio EMC Corporation revealed new products and support that optimize the protection of VMware workloads across the spectrum of VMware environments to enable protection everywhere.

Beth Phalen, Senior VP and GM of Data Protection and Availability Solutions, EMC “Businesses need data protection everywhere – and that’s as true with virtual machines and converged appliances as it is for traditional storage arrays. EMC’s portfolio approach to data protection, and deep integration with VMware, means that we’re able to offer solutions that can protect data wherever it is and empower

our customers to manage their data protection through the native VMware management consoles.

EMC’s investment and leadership in data protection for VMware environments is a true testament to EMC and VMware’s better together strategy.”

Yanbing Li, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Storage and Availability Business Unit, VMware “Data protection has quickly become a mainstream requirement now that the majority of Virtual SAN customers are running business-critical applications.

COMMSCOPE TO DISCUSS FUTURE OF NETWORKS AT GITEX 2016 Trends that will shape the transformation of networking across the Middle East will be the focus of CommScope’s participation at GITEX Technology Week 2016.

“We are in the early stages of what may be the greatest transformation of networking yet, driven by mobility, video consumption and cloud. These consumer behaviours and technology trends are straining networks globally and require new thinking regarding infrastructure requirements of the future,” said Ehab Kanary, vice president of Enterprise, CommScope, Middle East and Africa. “The new CommScope is well positioned to address bandwidth needs through a convergence of network technology, including outdoor cellular infrastructure, small cells, distributed antenna systems, fiber optic connectivity and data centre infrastructure.”

“CommScope is taking the complexity out of managing networks that are changing faster than ever before,” said Joseph Habib, vice president of Service Providers, CommScope, Middle East and Africa. “Video-on-demand, online gaming, teleworking and e-Health services will undergo increased reliability as telecommunications companies invest in improving their networks’ capability of carrying large amounts of data.”

IBM & VMWARE ENABLE EASY HYBRID CLOUD ADOPTION VMware and IBM revealed the availability of industry-first cloud services that enable organizations to quickly and easily move enterprise workloads to the cloud.

Earlier this year, IBM and VMware set out to tackle one of the industry’s most pressing challenges: extending existing VMware workloads from on-premises environments to the cloud without incurring the cost and risk associated with retooling operations, re-architecting applications and re-designing security policies.

“Enterprises need fast and easy ways to deploy and move workloads between on-premises and public cloud environments,” said Robert LeBlanc, Senior VP, IBM Cloud. “Our collaboration with VMware is becoming the glue for many organizations to scale and create new business opportunities while making the most of their existing IT investments in a hybrid cloud environment.”

In addition to new services, IBM is training more than 4,000 service professionals with the expertise required to provide clients with VMware solutions. This expansive team of sellers and advisers will provide clients with the expertise to extend VMware environments to the cloud.

“IBM and VMware share a common vision for providing customers with an easy path from the data center to the cloud,” said Pat Gelsinger, CEO, VMware. “This collaboration has been so successful that we’re investing more deeply so our customers can quickly deploy software-defined solutions in just hours to IBM Cloud with all the sophisticated workload automation they have within their own data centers.”

ROBOTICS TO RULE THE ROOST BY 2020 The six-fold growth in mobile robotics by 2020 will dramatically enhance Middle East and global business productivity, workplace safety, and daily lives, according to an exclusive new report by Frost & Sullivan prepared in collaboration with GITEX Technology Week.

20

Shipments of mobile robotics will grow from 4 million in 2012 to 25.4 million in 2020. The fastest growing sector in this expansion is predicted to be logistics, with unit shipments of logistics-related robotics increasing from 1,400 in 2012 to 95,000 in 2020. The largest

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absolute growth will be in personal and household robotics, growing from four million in 2012 to 25 million in 2020. “As robots get inexorably smarter with advances in Artificial Intelligence and know more about the world around them through access to the Internet of

Things and Big Data, they will make more informed decisions and be able to adapt to the environments they inhabit,” said Paul Clarke, CTO at the United Kingdom-based Ocado, the world’s largest online-only grocery retailer.

MY VIEWS

A ‘Cloud’ Step towards Post Modern ERP Theory

It is the age of consolidation and organizations are in the need of immense flexibility and scalability like never before. With the release of Epicor ERP 10.1, the vendor is all set to redefine ways in which the cloud can be a strategic enabler of connected, consolidated and dynamic economies.

H

ard work is no more a key to success. It is smart work that can lead you to success. As we enter into an age of increased connectivity and a dynamic economy, organizations no longer want to be ‘Stagnant and Static’ with their business models. Flexibility is the call of the hour.

A scalable cloud architecture and a robust partner ecosystem is what makes Epicor lead the game at this moment.

With its recent announcement of ‘Cloud first’ strategy for Epicor deployments with Epicor ERP version 10.1, Epicor is taking a giant leap in the industry specific enterprise software platform.

While the cloud brings with it all the regular benefits package, what makes it different is its unique scalable model. In conversation with Sabby Gill, Executive Vice President, Epicor and Hesham El Komy, Senior Director, Channel, Epicor.

SABBY GILL

HESHAM EL KOMY,

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, EPICOR.

SENIOR DIRECTOR, CHANNEL, EPICOR

because it comes down to user experience.

A Niche above the Competition Leading players in ERP are changing the game with anywhere access to information and building their own app marketplace with leading mobility partnerships. Sabby says that though all this may fancy a customer, Epicor would like to stick with what a customer actually needs, rather than what they fancy. “It is not about having access to all the information, but about making that information relevant to the user. Every individual accessing the data has very different expectation of the data. Providing relevant information to the right individual and ensuring the industry experience you bring is relevant is our prime concern.”

is all set to bring in some new enhancements to its partner programs. As the market moves on from Commodity based partners to value added partners, Epicor is striking the right chords.

“There has been a reduction in our partner size.

We wanted the right number of partners and this step has helped us in staying a step ahead in the contemporary market. The inspired partner program has been an integral part of Epicor since a long time. The key focus is how to get the partners to act, behave and work as an extension to Epicor.

We are trying to migrate from the historic version of partners and change the whole mindset of what is expected from partners. At Epicor, we are working with the partners and training them to see the value that we expect from them.The evolution of partners started 5 to 7 years back when newer technologies like open source, cloud, and virtualization came into existence.Partners have to add value and services is a part of that.” ë

THE DIFFERENTIATOR Sabby Gill—The one key differentiator that sets us apart is our architecture.. Version 9 was an application written on a progress database.

When we went from version 9 to version 10 we re-architected our application. We went from a progress database to a full Microsoft stack.

Another key decision that was made was, we rewrote some of the key components with cloud in the forefront of our minds. It means that we don’t have the legacy of the old code, old software that is traditionally written for onpremise. The benefit is that you can chop and change. Tomorrow if you want to move from on premise to cloud you can use the same software, the same database and move it to the cloud and do vice versa and move back to on premise. Today, no other vendor offers this scale of flexibility.

So as ERP vendors we have to evolve and use and benefit technologies as much as we can in the way that we deploy and create applications

THE ‘INSPIRED’ PARTNER ECOSYSTEM Hesham El Komy: Epicor has been heavily focusing on their partner ecosystem and the company

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COVER STORY

MODERNIZING DATA CENTER

DATA CENTER TREK

SURVIVAL OF THE INTEGRATED

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S E P T E M B E R 2016

COVER STORY

Big data, security, virtualization and IoT have been prompting modern data centres to rethink where their performance and strength lies. Highly scalable modular data center systems are the need of the hour that centralizes management for a future ready organization and takes the worries off the CIO’s brow. n B Y: A N U S H R E E D I X I T < A N U S H R E E @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M > n P H O T O : S H U T T E R S T O C K

I

nfrastructure silos have gradually given way to highly sophisticated virtual pools with the advent of the converged and the Hyperconverged infrastructure. The rise of modern enterprise computing technologies has driven the need for organizations to build up on their ‘smart infrastructure’ that is not only agile and scalable, but cost effective too. The regional enterprises are under tremendous pres-

sure to rethink their core infrastructure from the automation point of view and this…. has become the norm of the techno town.

MODERNIZATION— THE WAY TO GO The previous year also saw a dynamic makeshift in the IT service providers role. New skills sets emerged as business were further willing to unlock business value with technology.

“We continue to see huge uptake in our Oracle cloud offerings but at the same time we have a lot of customers who cannot take advantage of the public cloud because of a lot different challenges, whether this is to do with location, network latency or complex application migration. So what we are now doing at Oracle is to take our public cloud offerings and allow our customer to have their own Oracle cloud on their premise.” ” says Ilteris Sule, MEA Systems - Private Cloud Strategic Sales Director, Oracle.

As we all agree, data center is no more brick and mortar. It extends to the cloud, to the hypervisor and the SDN. Server consolidation and virtualization is touching new benchmarks with every passing year. Aging data centers fall behind coping up to the structural demands of the infrastructure. . The traditional role of IT Department as a service provider and cost-center has undergone a transformation towards being more of a service-broker and technology facilitator.

“IBM helps enterprises simplify this complexity by providing holistic and vendor-agnostic consultancy and expert advice that weighs in technical, administrative, legal, and financial aspects of data center strategy in order to accelerate business results while reducing costs,” says Mohamed Mousa, Global Technology Services Regional Executive, IBM Gulf and Levant.

According to Gartner, megacities are on the rise.

“As the urban population grows and increasingly centers on a small number of locations, the data center will have to adapt. Gartner refers to this as “megacity gravity,” says Henrique Cecci, Research Director at Gartner.

THE HYPE AROUND THE

NEXT GEN DATA CENTER SOLUTIONS ORACLE: The new Oracle Cloud Machine makes available Oracle Cloud’s infrastructure as a service (IaaS), including compute, storage, networking, and platform as a service (PaaS), including Oracle Java Cloud Service, Oracle Integration Cloud Service, Oracle Database Cloud Service, and others, accessed in a cloud-oriented subscription model that’s priced the same as public cloud services SCHNEIDER: StruxureWare for Data Centres is designed to plan, monitor, and operate the datacentre from server to rack to row to room to building, providing a holistic approach to datacentre. StruxureWare for Data Centres also provides the organization with clear visibility into physical infrastructure requirements and utilization, power usage overall performance IBM: Focused on shaping new IT architectures and technologies that provide a better way to address current challenges. IBM is a Platinum Member of Open Compute Project (OCP) alongside Facebook, Google, and Microsoft to name a few. The project aims at spurring development of more efficient and high performance computers and infrastructure, particularly in data centers.

EQUINIX: Equinix is working with security vendors such as F5 to also allow customers to add cyber security. We announced the F5 availability in May to provide customers with direct, scalable and reliable access to its F5 Silverline cloud-based DDoS protection solution inside Equinix data centers across the Americas, Europe and Asia.

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COVER STORY

JEROEN SCHLOSSER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, EQUINIX MENA

ILTERIS SULE, MEA SYSTEMS - PRIVATE CLOUD STRATEGIC SALES DIRECTOR, ORACLE.

“We are seeing enterprises re-architect their networks to distribute their IT and compute to be closer to the edge of the network.”

“No other vendor in the market can provide the same level of integration from application to the disk to the cloud as we are offering in Oracle.”

MOHAMED MOUSA GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY SERVICES REGIONAL EXECUTIVE, IBM GULF AND LEVANT

“Options such as ITaaS provide an inviting promise in optimizing TCO and enabling organizations to be geared towards predictable and controllable OPEX model.”

FOUR TRENDS ARE DRIVING CHANGE IN THE DATA CENTER MARKET Demand: Changing requirements

New technologies

Big data Cloud Digital products and services Internet of Things Social media Industry 4.0 Wearables Augmented reality

Big data technology Security technologies In-memory storage Virtualization technology Internet of Things Power-efficient cooling “Rack on a chip“

Low impact

Medium impact

High impact

Supply: Changing delivery models Cloud (14% to 39%) Outsourced (37% to 36%) Internal (49% to 27%)

Public Private Standard

4% 11%

16%

19%

23%

Customized

18%

Standard

28%

Customized

21%

Today Source: A.T. Kearney analysis

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24% 12% 18% 9%

2020

DETA CENTER 2020

Low impact

Medium impact

High impact

More budget for investment Higher data center budgets 150% budget compared to today Same as today Less than today

49% 44% 7%

Willingness to pay more for security 50% more

20%

20% more

64%

Not prepared to pay more

16%

COVER STORY

ZIAD YOUSSEF VICE PRESIDENT OF IT BUSINESS – GULF COUNTRIES, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC

“The next wave of data center improvement will be driven by the increasing need for constant connectivity and the necessity to effectively manage inherently complex environments.”

HENRIQUE CECCI RESEARCH DIRECTOR AT GARTNER

“CIOs need to develop talent to build a strong digital core, based on a modern and solid data center”

HYERCONVERGENCE

STRUCTURE GROWTH

2015 saw the cloud playing a great role in shrinking the data centers. The market witnessed a kind of paradox where data centers were shrinking to expanding. “There was plenty of competition and plenty of debate on this topic, but most people generally agree on one thing,” says Jeroen Schlosser, Managing Director, Equinix MENA.“These type of hyper-converged services will thrive at the network edge, where the enterprise, Internet and public cloud converge, and interconnection is key and ecosystems flourish. It is the digital marketplace of the future.

A recent survey conducted by EMC found out that, to reclaim full control, CIOs and their IT teams need to stop spending so much time building and managing different infrastructure components.

Data is the center of all business. The faster you recover or acquire your data, the better it is for business goals. This requires a data center that is agile and automated.“With more organizations needing on-demand access, there is strong Middle East demand for all-flash storage, such as the recently-released EMC Unity, and softwaredefined data centers, which are automating processes to free up IT staff from time-intensive maintenance, to work on mission-critical tasks,” says Savita Bhaskar, COO, Condego Protego.

As we all agree, data center is no more brick and mortar. It extends to the cloud, to the hypervisor and the SDN. Server consolidation and virtualization is touching new benchmarks with every passing year. Aging data centers fall behind coping up to the structural demands of the infrastructure. “To avoid inaccessibility, power failures, management difficulties, or lapse of operating security softwares, one must be careful to

AUTOMATION AND THE DATA CENTER INFRA-

SAVITHA BHASKAR COO, CONDO PROTEGO

“While cloud solutions are seeing strong takeup, we advise against white box servers, which can be unnecessarily complicated, especially compared to pre-assembled hyper-converged infrastructure.”

choose infrastructure that acts as a skeleton for an IT system, protecting its inner components from external threats or interruptions and keeping it functional. There are several features of datacentre ” says Ziad Youssef, Vice President of IT Business – Gulf Countries, Schneider Electric. Oracle sees two main growth areas around automation; DBaaS - database as a service and JaaS - java as a service. “So our customer are now leveraging these technologies so they can move away from just keeping the lights on to doing higher value tuning and development. “ says Sule.

FINALLY If CIOs wish to recelaim full control of IT, having a robust and 360 degree view of the infrastructure is the only option. Integration and convergence are the way to go forward. Convergence can power more agile development and increased speed to market, addressing directly some of the top IT challenges identified. ë

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CIO SPEAK

platforms. Business implications of Social Media is also changing at a fast pace.

What are the current IT implementations done by your organization?

Currently we are going through ERP implementations, which will definitely help in our business operations. Along with that we are also implementing CRM solutions, digital marketing tools etc.

MR. SAJI OOMMEN,

DIRECTOR, IT AND BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION, JAIDAH GROUP, QATAR

Delivering Real Value to The Business IN HIS NEW ROLE AS AN IT DIRECTOR FOR THE QATAR BASED JAIDAH GROUP, MR. SAJI OOMMEN BRINGS WITH HIM TWO DECADES OF EXPERIENCE IN PIONEERING THE INTRODUCTION OF TRANSFORMATIVE TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATIONS. HE

What are the IT implementation challenges in the Middle East?

The first challenge I see is the kind of support which most of the international technology providers provide in this region are limited. Even if you want to deploy a leading edge technology solution, the solution providers are not ready enough to provide those solutions. Secondly, finding a right partner in this region is a major challenge and sometimes we may have to bring in partners from outside the region which obviously leads to increase in the overall cost. Thirdly the skills shortage is a problem, we do not have right resources available to hire. Today, corporates are more demanding in terms of technology solutions than ever before which is a challenge in itself.

What are the qualities your organization looks for while having new partners on-board?

The partner should have proper skill sets available, the right resources and should have right experience in areas we have chosen them for. They should have the right processes to support our clients. Partners work closely with us which makes them an extension of our in-house team. I’ve experienced that some partners are technologically very strong however fail to deliver because of lack of skills to understand our business.

HAS A GOOD TRACK RECORD OF BRINGING ABOUT SIGNIFICANT TRANSITION FROM LEGACY APPLICATIONS AND MAKING THE ORGANIZATION REACH NEWER PINNACLES OF SUCCESS BY EXTRACTING MAXIMUM VALUE FROM IT INVESTMENTS. IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH SONAL LUNAWAT FROM ECMEA, HE TALKS ABOUT IT IN THE REGION, FUTURE PARTNER ROADMAP, CIO’S CHANGING ROLES AND MUCH MORE...

How do you anticipate the regional market trends in terms of IT? I haven’t seen a slowdown in IT, companies continue investing in IT since it is long term and not short term. I don’t see that changing irrespective of whatever happens in the market.

I think ERP solutions and mobility solutions

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are widely adopted in the region. There are a number of technology innovation solutions being implemented in this area. Enterprises will continue to consider Cloud and Big Data solutions for mission critical applications.

Many companies have exploited business opportunities created by new technology

How should a CIO resume look like?

CIO has a critical role to play for the growth and survival of modern enterprises. CIOs play a role of business transformation agents and they need to be more aligned with business than ever before.

CIOs need to understand the emerging technology innovations well and their implications on business. A lot of choices are available for technology solutions and CIOs need to identify the most appropriate technology for their business context.

Today, enterprises work with multiple technology partners and manage cost effective outsourcing model without compromising on innovation and security is a big challenge to CIOs. ë

MY OPINION

smart buildings, smart schools, smart hotels, smart hospitals etc.

How do you see the IoT trending in the Middle East region?

Well, there is a big trend in the market and its growing rapidly, I would say that the awareness is increasing and people are learning more and more about it.

How far has the concept of Smart buildings and connected buildings penetrated in the UAE? The concept is definitely growing, earlier people associated the smart buildings and connected buildings to luxury but now they relate it to safety, security, power saving and much more. We at Alayoubi define this concept differently, we feel smart buildings will do much more than just making life easier, it will make lives safer and secure.

We are at the phase of educating the community because unless people know what the outcome will be they will not demand it.

MUHANNAD ALAYOUBI,

CEO, ALAYOUBI GROUP

Opening Doors to a ‘Smarter’ World GCC COUNTRIES ARE ACCELERATING THEIR JOURNEY OF ADAPTING TO SMART SOLUTIONS FOR A BETTER INFRASTRUCTURE AND OVERALL GROWTH OF THE ECONOMY. IOT HAS GAINED MOMENTUM AND IS EMERGING AS ONE OF THE MOST PROMISING TECHNOLOGIES. ALAYOUBI GROUP HAS BEEN ACTIVE IN THE REGION WITH SOME INNOVATIVE SMART SOLUTIONS CRAFTED TO ACHIEVE THE VISION OF CONNECTED WORLD. MUHANNAD ALAYOUBI, CEO OF ALAYOUBI GROUP IS

What all solutions are provided by your company for the modern enterprises?

Apart from the ordinary IT common systems, Alayoubi is into enterprise automation. First we study and understand the enterprise needs and then customize a solution based on the organization needs and which is innovative and novel compared to the usual solutions, e.g. meeting rooms, conference rooms, audio visual systems, smart access control systems, monitoring systems, automation and much more.

OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED SOLUTIONS, SMART HOMES AND THE READINESS OF THE REGION TO ADAPT TO NEW HOUSING CONCEPTS. AS THE ORGANIZATION GEARS UP FOR EXPO 2020, THERE’S MUCH MORE IN STORE FOR ALAYOUBI APART FROM MAKING THE REGION A CONNECTED REALITY.

Give us a brief about your organization?

Alayoubi Group was established in 2003. The organization has been successful in bringing the latest global technologies to the GCC and especially to the UAE since more than a decade.

We believe in extensive research and therefore visit manufacturers worldwide and test their products before introducing it to the local market, this makes our client’s life easier since they can rely on our expertise of providing them the best.

We are into smart solutions like smart homes,

UAE has a proper roadmap for Expo 2020, How do you plan to prepare for it?

We are proud to host Expo 2020 in the UAE. UAE will excel and exceed the world’s expectation in Expo 2020, there is a clear roadmap laid to accomplish the goals.

The visionary leadership has been inspirational and we are motivated too, we shall have a share in the preparation to ease and secure the process of hosting such a grand event. ë

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COVER FEATURE

GREGG PETERSEN, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, MEA AND SAARC, VEEAM SOFTWARE

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COVER FEATURE

VEEAM

PUTTING THE CIOS TO A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP Closing Q2 on a high growth note, Veeam states that an organization’s and a CIO’s life before and after Veeam is not just a journey, but a ‘Transition’.

n WORDS: ANUSHREE DIXIT <ANUSHREE@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM>

S

eeing is believing, and as Robert Collier truly said, Every Desire is a Proof of the ‘Availability’. Drawing close attention to this here; A business which is up and running round the clock with its services and delivery models are the only ones that would survive. Today, nothing is the same. Not the data centre not the business models and nor the CIOs. The Availability gap is evident in organizations and the abyss would cause more than just loss of data.

Veeam recently released the reports of its 2016 Veeam Availability Report, which stated that organizations lost up to $16 million annually due to business downtime. Availability Gap was cited as the key reason for businesses not being able to meet the goals of an ‘Always-on’ enterprise. Gregg Petersen, Regional Director, Middle East and SAARC, Veeam Software says, “Veeam has always been about ‘Availability’. The trends were very similar all across the world. Veeam will continue to invest in technologies allowing customers to shorten the gap between what businesses expects and what IT can deliver.

Veeam is taking availability very seriously by adding new products and addressing the worries of the CIO. All CIOs

have one thing in common, how to keep their business up and running and this is where Veeam has the cutting edge over other vendors.”

ORGANIZATIONS’ LIFE BEFORE VEEAM AND AFTER VEEAM After major customer wins in the region, Veeam is all smiles and basking in the glory of the wide acceptance of its Availability solutions. Talking about the journey and the reception in the region, Gregg says “It was pretty easy. We like to speak to our customers and we like to understand their pain points.

We try to find out what is keeping our customers awake at night. Using features like Sure backup verification and Instant Restore from Veeam we are able to meet the backup and availability gap in the region. Most of our new or potential customers do not have an idea that their backupscould be corrupt.Veeam addresses this for them. We have already been very successful in the enterprise space. Especially in the Middle East, the major customers we are working with are the large banks, O&G and telcos. We are also closely working with major Governments in the region.” According to Gregg,

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31

COVER FEATURE

22%

38%

1.7K

40%

22 percent yearover-year (YoY) growth in total bookings revenue in the Middle East for Q2 2016

Globally the company announced a record 38 percent year-over-year (YoY) growth in total bookings revenue for Q2 2016

By the end of Q2 in ME: 1.7 K – clients, 778 pro-partners

40 percent YoY increase in total bookings revenue from enterprise deals and has surpassed 200,000 paid customers across the business.

GITEX FOCUS

VEEAM AVAILABILITY

PLATFORM FOR HYBRID CLOUD Private cloud and virtual server workload Availability with Veeam Availability Suite.

A cloud-enabled management console for service providers, managed cloud and distributed enterprise environments with Veeam Availability Console.

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Veeam has reiterated its commitment to helping Middle East enterprises meet the requirements for 24.7.365 availability and transition from legacy backup to ‘Availability solutions’. The company will be showcasing its NEW Veeam Availability Suite 9.5, an upgraded version of the earlier solution that delivers recovery time and point objectives (RTPO™) of less than 15 minutes for all applications and data, ensuring they are accessible whenever and wherever they are needed. A BIG focus at GITEX this year will be on building awareness about the newly launched ‘Veeam Availability Platform for the Hybrid Cloud’.

Public cloud and physical server workload Availability with Veeam Agent for Linux and Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows.

Disaster recovery orchestration with Veeam Availability Orchestrator.

COVER FEATURE

BY BRIDGING THE AVAILABILITY GAP VEEAM

• Helps businesses to save money and reputation • Makes data available to employees and clients 24.7.365

every failure is tantamount to a loss of time, and the situation is the same across the globe.

“Through Veeam’s verification technology we can reduce the downtime and reduce the loss of data.”

SIEVING THROUGH THE MEANINGFUL DATA Veeam definitely sees structured and unstructured data as characteristics of the data centre today. “A good example of a structured data use case is an enterprise database or an email system, an example of an unstructured data application would be something that does document scanning In either example, this data is critical to the applications of organizations today and it needs to be available. Backup is great, but the second most important thing is how quickly can I recover that data. As we say, ‘Backup the Vanity, Restore the Sanity’, says Gregg.

GEARING UP FOR THE NEXT GEN DATA CENTER “The tools are changing, the processes are changing, clouds are an option as well. These are indeed tectonic shifts and Veeam is absolutely responding to the market shift. The best key example are two of our newest products: Veeam Endpoint Backup and Veeam Agent for Linux.

These two products provide backup engines for workloads of virtually any Windows or Linux operating system, including those running in the

public cloud or which are physical.”

“We see this shift as a great way to take the Veeam experience in regards to availability to the public cloud or other areas. We’ve also been investing significantly in our cloud and service provider business; which allows enterprises to extend their business technology to a service provider yet get that same availability experience and have it powered by Veeam,” adds Gregg.

WALKING WITH THE CIO With a smile Gregg says that this is a question that he encounters on a daily basis— Why Veeam? “Minimizing Risk, Improving Visibility and Doing More with Less are the three areas of concern for any CIO. The CIO wants to have a 360 degree view of the virtualized data center. We monitor the virtual infrastructure, the backup, verify it, make sure it is not corrupted. CIOs can sit in one place and have complete visibility. Majority of non-Veeam customers are losing hundreds of dollars in their legacy backups. Veeam helps them to leverage this data for recovery and get better return on investments.”Always-on business is a demand of a modern world. Data being not available is just not acceptable anymore.

The Availability report has shown that apart from the money losses there also occurs damage to brand integrity (noted by 77% of respondents) and loss of employee confidence (70%).

PARTNER ECOSYSTEM Veeam has touched the 1000 partners milestone in the Middle East and is building on to its success spree. It is increasingly focusing on its Veeam Cloud and Service Provider (VCSP) program as the cloud adoption in the Middle East is gaining pace. “Enterprise customers are increasingly moving to hybrid cloud models.

We have 60 VCSP partners and we are seeing a major uptake in that. We are a 100% channel driven company and we pride ourselves in the profitability that we offer to the partners.”

FINALLY One of the reason that drives the Veeam vision is the loyalty, passion and love that the ‘Veeam Team’ have towards their work and office. When you love coming to office everyday with the same enthusiasm, targets are no more numbers.

Sitting in an office as vibrant as the team spirit, Gregg says, “Veeam will deliver a very consistent product and message around the world. My job is to drive the same products that are offered from a global perspective. ME is always seen as a hypergrowth region. The 2016 Q2 results show that enterprises in the Middle East are embracing Veeam’s innovative approach of delivering availability solutions. This continued growth is a testament to the success of Veeam`s vision and execution, carrying the company towards its goal of $1 billion in annual revenue by the end of 2019.” ë

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FEATURE

MODERNIZING ENTERPRISE STORAGE

Storage of Tomorrow,

Begins Today!

Data is generated at the speed of light, with tonnes of structured and unstructured data, images and videos breathing in the enterprise repositories, this pile of information needs a systematic mechanism in order to enable a secured, methodical, reliable data management system to ensure file sharing and collaboration among workers in the most seamless manner. The market is flooded with storage solutions and products waiting to be deployed by the enterprises according to their requirements. Peeling the multiple layers of enterprise storage and its managementâ&#x20AC;Ś n W O R D S : S O N A L L U N A W AT < S O N A L @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

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FEATURE

CHRIS BURNET

SANTOSH VARGHESE

CLOUD SERVICES AND SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS MANAGER – MEEEAR AND CIS, NETAPP

GM, TOSHIBA

“The efficient performance of flash is accelerating applications and changing the whole storage narrative, both through all-flash arrays and hybrid flash arrays.”

T 20% The market of all flash array is expected to grow approximately five times in revenue compared to 2014. By 2019, 20% of traditional high-end storage arrays will be replaced by dedicated all flash arrays.

-GARTNER-

echnology once again comes to the rescue of enterprises, with ways and means to solve the big data storage challenges. It is a mandatory drill to have a centralized repository to cure the pinching point and enable data sharing through connections to numerous computer systems. As the enterprises revamp their styles and modes of functioning and adapt to the digital world of operations, means of storage have also gone through a considerable revival.

STORAGE SCENARIO- THE ‘FLASH’Y DRIFT The market has been ripe with some cutting edge technology paving way to smarter ways of storing data. As enterprises blend the art of management with storage there emerges a way to create, curate, customize and enable sharing of critical information.

The recent acquisition of EMC by Dell poses a very intricate situation, analysts are skeptical of the effect on the storage market as well as the competitors since the acquisition is happening at a time when three key storage revolutions- flash wave and integration of storage with networking and compute as well as innovations in server-based storage market are at its peak. This agreement is sure to raise eye brows and questions about the storage market.

“Flash Storage is a game changer; Toshiba is a pioneer in NAND Flash /Flash Storage having introduced this technology since 1984.”

Kartik Shankar, Senior Sales Manager, StorIT Distribution emphasizes that the enterprise storage needs have gained momentum due to big data, digital media and content, data protection, and archiving.

Talking about the trends in the storage market he said, “Software-defined storage is an important trend for companies looking to save on costs on storage infrastructure and most storage appliance vendors have announced SDS initiatives.” With Flash storage ruling the storage charts of 2015 every enterprise since then has been keen in deploying Flash Storage as it eases major storage problems and offers speed along with being compact. According to the market report “Data Storage Market: Middle East Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2015 - 2025,” that was published by Future Market Insights, the Middle East data storage market was valued at US$ 1,475.9 million in 2014 and is expected to register a CAGR of 14.4% from 2015 to 2025.

Key players of the industry have a very optimistic take on Flash Storage and its adoption rate in the region.Fujitsu’s Director of Channel Sales, ME, Mohamed Menakbi calls Flash as a technology which surfaced slowly and exploded in 2015 and was adopted by enterprises mainly due to its pricing on SSD drives, launch of drive sizes as big as 15TB and they are financially and technically viable. Pure Storage’s

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FEATURE

CHRISTIAN PUTZ

DIRECTOR, EEMEA, PURE STORAGE

“Flash has brought speed and efficiency to every aspect of computing: smart phones, web searches, social media, and more.

But cost has kept the broad deployment of flash out of the data center.”

Director EEMEA, Christian Putz sees Flash as a speedy and efficient technology, he said, “Flash has brought speed and efficiency to every aspect of computing: smart phones, web searches, social media, and more.”

Emitac Enterprise Solutions’ Senior Pre Sales Consultant, Enterprise Infrastructure, Venkat Subramanian said, “Large organizations would have a mix of both flash and SAS/ Near-line arrays in their datacenter while medium to small

MOHAMED MENAKBI

ANAND LAKHWANI

DIRECTOR OF CHANNEL SALES, FUJITSU, MIDDLE EAST

PRACTICE HEAD - INFRA SERVICES AT FINESSE.

“Fujitsu is focused on delivering the required services and the vertical subject matter expert to facilitate in the adoption of next gen workloads.”

“Finesse has the required skills set on Flash Storage and for Hyper-converged implementation and support services with shorter response time.”

organizations would adopt hybrid storage with about 30% Flash and remaining 70% SAS/ nearline hard disk drives in their storage systems.”

Flash Storage is gaining popularity because it helps improve the performance of core business applications and it can help achieve big improvements in processing time, reduce server hardware needed, lower database licensing costs, and lead to reduce requirements in terms of floor space and energy usage as per Chris Burnet – Cloud

Services and Software Solutions Manager – MEEEAR and CIS, Netapp.

CLOUD STORAGE VS ON-PREMISE The legacy disk market vendors have been impacted drastically due to the cloud storage systems as per Christian Putz. Mid-sized organizations or small setups are always in a state of confusion since they have to either settle for cloud or on-premise storage systems. Since the adoption of cloud is way cheaper compared to on-premise deployment, enterprises prefer cloud applications. “Large organizations are at advantage because they would not move their entire applications and workloads to Cloud. They mix and match and adopt non-critical workloads such as e-mail service, development environment and backup storage to Cloud while selectively choose to keep mission critical workloads on-premise,” said Venkat. The BYOD trend has also triggered the adoption of cloud storage that allows people to access data anywhere from any device, remarks Mike.

HYPER CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTUREDILEMMA

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FEATURE

KARTIK SHANKAR

SENIOR SALES MANAGER, STORIT DISTRIBUTION

VENKAT SUBRAMANIAN SENIOR PRE SALES CONSULTANT, ENTERPRISE INFRASTRUCTURE , EMITAC ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS

“Virtualization is gaining “Currently there is a lot of momentum and storage hype going around hyper virtual machines are geared converged infrastructure, up to provide application but eventually the hype will agility.” die down and customers will realize that there is no one solution for everything.”

CHALLENGES IN ESM DECODED BY ENTERPRISE STORAGE PROVIDERS n n n n n

Slowing global economy is shrinking budgets for IT managers Misconception that Flash storage is more expensive than traditional disk Many organizations are hesitant to make the switch from legacy disk storage Lack of required skill sets Application performance demands are continuously growing

MIKE CHEN

SALES DIRECTOR, SYNOLOGY

“Flash SSDs would be the ideal choice for those who are seeking exceptional performance of super high IOPS and minimum I/O latencies comparing hard disk drives (HDDs).”

What are the risks? Where does it fit? Does my organization have enough budget to spend on the expensive setup? These questions play on the mind of every CIO who is in a quandary to make a choice between hardware, converged or hyper converged infrastructure. Is Hyper converged infrastructure a technological fad or a stepping stone to the future of storage infrastructure?

According to Santosh Varghese, Hyper converged Infrastructure at the moment is very nascent and it’s very difficult to predict its future. SDN and SDS have contributed to the advancement of hyper converged infrastructure. Fujitsu’s Mohamed Menakbi has a delightful stand when he talks about Hyper converged infrastructure, he says, “Hyper converged infrastructure is nothing but another form factor of a data centre cabinet.

What’s Next? I won’t be surprised if in the future we see a full datacenter scaled down to the size of a USB stick!

FINALLY ...

“Compact storage means to store colossal data” is the new mantra for enterprises. There will be developments in the new storage infrastructure which will closely integrate with compute systems and provide innovative features that deliver greater value for less money. ë

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SPECIAL STORY

Wiring the internal

infrastructure by going ‘Wireless’ The year 2015 and the second quarter of 2016 saw a stir of new solutions and disruptive networking technologies coming in forefront.

The year saw a rise in SDN, network automation, Internet of Things and mobility. As enterprises embark on their journey of digitization and using 3rd platform computing and chalk out definitive IP networking strategies there is room for much more when it comes to the depths of ‘Networking’. n W O R D S : S O N A L L U N A W AT < S O N A L @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

E

nterprises need end-to-end software defined connectivity infrastructure to solve their networking worries.

The rise of SDN and hybrid WAN has served as the remedies to the loop holes organizations faced when it comes to networking. With mobility, virtualization and IoT taking the centre stage, the only question arises is What next? &How? The amalgamation of hardware and software to create a unique masterpiece for networking wants has already seen the light of the day…It’s time to open our minds and experience the next big step in the world of ‘innovative networking.’

FUELING THE NETWORK HUNGRY BUSINESSES IP based devices are breathing in the four walls of enterprises, making networks more complex to manage, measure, secure and adapt. As people’s lifestyles become increasingly connected and the mobile era giving a boost to the networking industry, there sure can be speculations about the unique ways to enhance networks with agility and flexibility. With the whole idea of ‘connected planet’ there are numerous applications which

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10%

By year-end 2018, 10% of enterprises will have replaced their WAN routing with SD-WAN-based path forwarding, up from less than 1% today.

-GARTNER-

help the enterprises drive a seamless business.

Remote users, extensive upgrades to mobile networks and enhancements of network infrastructure have led to the growth in the market.

The idea of wireless may have seemed like a dream few years back but with vendors providing contemporary networking solutions working in real time and also blending the solution with services, the increasing demands for customized solutions has only widened the scope of endless possibilities associated to networking.

Open Source is trending and analysts believe

SPECIAL STORY

SOFTWARE DEFINED NETWORK- THE DAWN OF THE FUTURE

HYBRID WAN

BENEFITS

FADY YOUNES

ACTING MANAGING DIRECTOR, CISCO UAE

“Cisco’s vision for SDN is to provide true network programmability, enabling developers to write applications that extract real-time intelligence from the network, and apply analytics and intelligence to determine the appropriate policy.”

n Allows the organization to get more capacity out of its WAN with lower costs. n Allows the organization to use direct internet access for employees to access the public cloud n Better application performance Greater business agility

that it is a part of enterprise IT mix and is here to stay. Cisco’s Fady Younes, Acting Managing Director, Cisco UAE describes open source as a new way to meet the customer demands and also help developers innovate in new ways without the barriers of vendor lock-in. According to Taj ElKhayat, Regional Vice President, Middle East and Africa at Riverbed Technology, “The biggest proprietary software companies on earth, including IBM and Microsoft, are among the key drivers, through contributions of money and developer resources, of major open source projects such as the Linux OS.”

SDN is expected to see an increased uptake in 2016 from service providers and enterprises according to Fady.According to a recent IDC forecast, the global SDN market, which comprises physical network infrastructure, virtualization/control software, SDN applications, and professional services, will be worth nearly $12.5 billion in 2020 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 53.9% from 2014 to 2020. SDN and NFV technologies are set to redefine the IT market as these two technologies are gaining attention from stakeholders in networking, mobility and IoT related areas. SDN will act like a catalyst to provide speed to the networks who have undergone change due to virtualization, convergence and cloud. Taj ElKhayat said, “Software-defined networking (SDN) is an innovative architectural model that enables automated provisioning, network virtualization, and network programmability for enterprise and cloud datacenters. SDN uptake has been faster than expected.” Taj also thinks that the growth in the SDN market has largely been due to the cloud computing and virtualization. “Software-defined wide area networking, or SD-WAN, offers a new and better approach to networking across the global enterprise,” he adds.

The perfect blend of virtualization and storage

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SPECIAL STORY

SOLUTION SHOWCASE CISCO

NECIP OZYUCEL CLOUD AND ENTERPRISE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS LEAD, MICROSOFT GULF

“Both IoT and mobility drives billions of sensors or mobile devices that needs to reach IT services to send their data or demand for applications.”

TAJ ELKHAYAT

REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA AT RIVERBED TECHNOLOGY

“Cloud computing changes the cost structure of IT and improves efficiency, but also reduces an enterprise’s visibility into and control over its cloud-based applications.”

THE GLOBAL SOFTWARE- DEFINED ENTERPRISE WAN MARKET WILL REACH $1.3 BILLION BY 2020, GROWING AT A CAGR OF 100% OVER THE NEXT 5 YEARS Global Revenue (US$ Billions)

$1.4 $1.2 $1.0 $0.8 $0.6 $0.4 $0.2 $0

2015

2020

Source: IHS of modern data centre definitely paints a rosy picture of SDN, however enterprises need to be aware of the fact that SDN still hasn’t reached the stage of maturity, standardization of SDN will take time and the most crucial issue of security needs to be considered.

Talking about the Middle East region’s SDN adoption, Fady said, “The Middle East is very much at the forefront in adopting SDN. We are

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seeing strong demand for SDN from industries with complex networks that need to quickly process large amounts of data – especially service providers, banking and finance; energy, oil and gas; aviation and transportation; malls and retail; and safety and security.Currently Middle East companies rolling-out change across network infrastructure face a complex and time-consuming process by configuring networks box-by-box.”

Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI), which is a holistic architecture with centralized automation and policy-driven application profiles. ACI delivers software flexibility with the scalability of hardware performance. It also includes traditional SDN feature of 360-degree feedback loop that enables the monitoring of end-to-end application performance.IWAN, Cisco’s SD-WAN solution, provides a dynamic hybrid WAN that can helps IT abstract network complexity and design for business intent.

MICROSOFT

With Azure, Microsoft is providing IoT and mobility services to provide cost, scalability and agility. Microsoft Azure provides businesses with the data security and privacy, control, and transparency they require. Security and privacy are embedded in the Azure platform, using the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL). Moreover, with Azure Site Recovery, customers are offered an automated disaster recovery solution in the cloud. Azure provides built in enterprise grade protections so that businesses can be back online within minutes, even when faced with loss of data.

RIVERBED

WAN optimization appliance- Riverbed SteelHead, Riverbed SteelCentral provides end-to-end visibility across the hybrid enterprise from the cloud to the data center to the edge, and across all the infrastructure components and the entire chain of interactions involved in delivering an application. Riverbed SteelFusion is a hyperconverged infrastructure solution designed specifically for remote office and branch office environments and requirements.

Riverbed SteelConnect unifies softwaredefined connectivity across all enterprise networks, from the cloud to hybrid WANs to remote LANs.

FINALLY… The networking industry will be more elastic in the coming years. As BYOD and consumerization gains momentum so will the targeted attacks and advanced persistent threats. Li-Fi has also knocked the door of networking, with promising dreams for the future of networking, there are still speculations about the adaption and trust people invest in this new technology. More vendors will aim to diversify by providing networking-as-aservice. SDN and NFV will play a major role in the progress of 5G leading up to its availability beginning in 2017. ë

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FOCUS STORY

DATA BACKUP AND RECOVERY

Buck-up Your Backup The battle with the structured and unstructured data just does not seem to cease, giving the Data protection and Backup solution providers a high growth horizon in the region. While organizations are grappling with the uphill task of supporting complex Big Data environments, an upward trend has been witnessed in the backup and recovery solutions market in the Middle East region. n WORDS: ANUSHREE DIXIT <ANUSHREE@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM>

M

any organizations are still stuck in silos and struggling with multiple devices for storage and backup. Automated backup trends are gaining pace and that is the way the market would be moving on to. Leading vendors are of the opinion that contemporary automated backup solutions have played a great role in reducing business downtime.

THE UPWARD TREND

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According to Veeam, acceleration in cloud adoption and growing customer expectations would play a key role in boosting vendors to take that giant leap and redefine backup and recovery on the forefront of Data management. “The rise of mobile and connected devices demonstrates that there is zero tolerance for downtime. All organisations from a consumer facing business, a mobile service provider or the stock market – the days of organisations being able to suffer through any downtime are long gone,” says Gregg Petersen, Regional Director, Middle East and

SAARC, Veeam Software.

“With the recent trend of software-defined solutions, prominent vendors are offering an easy access window to manage the backup, restore, archive etc. Virtualization has enabled a group of start-ups to challenge the incumbent backup vendors that have controlled the backup and recovery market for decades,” says RanjithKaippada, Sales Director, StorIT Distribution.

PREPARING FOR THE M2M WORLD

FOCUS STORY

$159.6mn Total revenues for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 were $159.6 million, an increase of 6% year-over-year

NECIP OZYUCEL

CLOUD AND ENTERPRISE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS LEAD, MICROSOFT GULF

“The main challenge in using cloud services is realizing similar to on premises architecture, cloud architecture has to be built.”

VEEAM Criticality of Availability 24.7.365 Available Data Centre

StorIT Cloud Based Backup Virtualization giving way to start ups

BACKUP AND DR TRENDS MIDDLE EAST

MICROSOFT Real time information Artificial Information Machine Learning

FUJITSU Shift from Back up to Data Management Archiving and Analyses

According to an IDC research, the digital universe is doubling in size every two years and will multiply 10-fold between 2013 and 2020 – from 4.4 trillion gigabytes to 44 trillion gigabytes.

Thanks to the advent of the IoT, the challenges are just manifold. Though many organizations have still not come to terms with the M2M reality, the challenges are already visible. According to Fujitsu, in comparison to other markets, the local market is still a little way off in terms of their preparations for the M2M world. For example, we see the banking and service provider sectors

are still within the mindset that to solve the SLA problem of data availability, the solution is to keep throwing millions of dirhams’ worth of hardware at the problem in the hope that these simply fade away “Today’s data management issues need a different fundamental thought process that is slowly being adopted but I’d like to see this pace of adoption quicken. We hope that with time, the market will realize and convert to a true modernized next gen data management solution versus todays standard backup software and Tape/VTL technology,” says Mohamed Menakbi – Director

of Channel Sales, Fujitsu, Middle East.

Veeam on the other hand claims that they are fully ready for the M2M age. “Veeam Availability Suite leverages virtualization, storage, and cloud technologies that enable the modern data centre to help organizations save time, mitigate risks, and dramatically reduce capital and operational costs, while always supporting the current and future business goals of Veeam customers,” says Gregg.

DISASTER RECOVERY STEPUS UP THE LADDER Organizations are adding DR to their overall IT strategy as compliance requirements are escalating. The DRaaS market size is estimated to grow from USD 1.68 Billion in 2016 to USD 11.11 Billion by 2021, at an estimated CAGR of 45.9% from 2016 to 2021“As compliance requirements escalate, enterprises are adding disaster recovery improvements to their overall IT strategy. This approach controls costs by eliminating the need to invest in additional physical resources or to build an offsite datacentre,” says Ranjith. “For comprehensive data protection and recovery, particularly in case of disasters, organizations should follow the 3-2-1 rule; they should have three copies of the data, stored on two different kinds of media, with one of them stored offsite,” adds Gregg.

GOING CLOUDY

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43

FOCUS STORY

MOHAMED MENAKBI

GREGG PETERSEN

DIRECTOR OF CHANNEL SALES, FUJITSU, MIDDLE EAST

REGIONAL DIRECTOR, MEA AND SAARC, VEEAM SOFTWARE

“The market will realize and convert to a true modernized next gen data management solution versus todays standard backup software and Tape/ VTL technology.”

“We are in the midst of a digital transformation.

Everything is now driven by a data centre and that data centre must be available 24.7.365.”

FUTURISTIC MARKET OUTLOOK

44

11%

By 2018, the number of enterprises using the cloud as a backup destination will double, up from 11% at the beginning of 2016.

02%

By 2020, 10% of storage systems will be self-protecting, obviating the need for backup applications, up from less than 2% today

45%

The DRaaS market size is estimated to grow from USD 1.68 Billion in 2016 to USD 11.11 Billion by 2021, at an estimated CAGR of 45.9% from 2016 to 2021.

12.94%

Global cloud backup and recovery software market to grow at a CAGR of 12.94% during the period 2016-2020

S E P T E M B E R 2016

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RANJITH KAIPPADA SALES DIRECTOR, STORIT DISTRIBUTION

“Dependency on primary site or risk of physical server going down pushes for a redundancy, hence it is important to get the operation back on track really quickly.”

According to reports, many businesses find it nearly impossible to control the cost and complexity of tape and on-premises disk solutions to manage their backup archives. However, moving and integrating on-premises archived data, such as backups, to cloud-based platforms can be an overwhelming task. “Using cloud services does not mean that data is always secure and application is always available, but cloud does bring additional benefits such as data backup to distant locations, easily. With cloud, data can be backed up in another continent even. Same is the case for disaster recovery. Users can use cloud applications from one location and have another physical location for data, for recovery purposes,”Necip Ozyucel, Cloud and Enterprise Business Solutions Lead, Microsoft Gulf.

FINALLY...

2016 really turned up as the year for the virtual datacenter as more and more OS and applications turned virtualization ready. Virtual machines have been changing the physical hardware game with server virtualization becoming a commonsight in all enterprises. A common demand that is surfacing is a different approach to disaster recovery and backup. As a critical part of any business continuity.....all that the enterprises and the vendors have to do sis Buckup the Backup. ë

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CIO SPEAK

‘Innovation’ in the DNA With Nations Academy on the rollout, GEMS Education is building that perfect bridge between technology and next gen education. While creating future leaders, the global education chain is making sure that technology is readying its student to be the next ‘Global Digital Citizens’. In conversation with Thomas Steele-Maley, Director of Technology and Innovation, GEMS Education n B Y: A N U S H R E E D I X I T < A N U S H R E E @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

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hile varied sectors across the globe and digital citizens across the world embark on new digital realities every day, the educational sectors have to play a crucial role in not only preparing the next generation of leaders to compete and thrive in a digital world but also to make them familiar with the technologies at disposal by implementing it into the roots and veins of the classroom, campus and the pedagogy.

Thomas Steele-Maley, Director of Technology and Innovation, GEMS Education states that the implementation of technology in education sector may be low, but it is not because schools don’t have the technologies in place , it is because they do not have the processes of innovation to recreate education with those tools.

FROM TODDLERS TO TECHIES: PREPARING STUDENTS ALL THE WAY ´Thomas believes that when we think of connectivity for the young people we need to give them the direct experiences of building cloud enabled devices or actually coding internet of things based product themselves and understand how they connect to a larger grid. Taking that knowledge we can move to the community, we can start to realize some of Sheikh Mohammed’s goals of the connected Dubai and the city of the

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future. We take it very seriously, right from our preschool programs, we have a device called ‘SPEC’ which is an air quality sensor that gives students an opportunity to directly sense their air quality and put that back in the form of data to the class as early as the first grade. We take that and move on to a very advanced program of IoT in the middle school where kids actually build the infrastructure of the IoT. We want them to understand the sensors as much as move through the sensors so that they can be effective consumers and global citizens and we see this push across the world.”

SECURING WHAT THOSE LITTLE HANDS CLICK ON Large enterprises encounter security threats on a daily basis owing to malicious activities that come in due to one wrong click or one lethal yet unknown virus. So how to ensure the safety and security of the devices that the kids lay hands on?

Thomas explains, “We have an interdisciplinary innovative technology program which is actually a curriculum that deals with digital citizenship and deals with data security. So, kids from an early age do understand basic pieces of what to click or what not to click and evaluate a website for authenticity. We are one of the pioneers to start this program to actually look at ‘acceptable use policy’ as a code of conduct. What the students understand is that, the environment that

THOMAS STEELE-MALEY

DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION, GEMS EDUCATION

they are moving around in the school is the same everywhere. It reflects how you act and behave in the world.”

NATIONS ACADEMY: THE LIGHTHOUSE FOR INNOVATION Talking in detail about the Nations Academy, which is all set to be unveiled to the world, Thomas says that they have a special project going on in GEMS and that is building student’s that would empower the students to learn in the 21st century in an international school with a unique American curriculum where students are highly literate in the traditional subjects.“We are giving them a 360 degree view of what it means to live in the 21st century.”

TEACHER’S PET OR TECHNOLOGY’S PET? iPads and tablets are an integral part of a student’s life and pedagogy now which has somewhat alienated the student from the teacher. Thomas agrees to disagree. He says, “Information is ubiquitous but teachers can’t be replaced. Technology is actually used as a part of the teaching and learning process but the relationships that are built between the teachers and the students are directly enabled within the culture of the school.

The best teachers cannot be replaced by technology. If it could have, it would have by now.” ë

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MY VIEWS

Organizations are very keen about the security and privacy of their data and their environment.

What are the key parameters to be kept in mind while deploying data centric solutions?

The key parameters to keep in mind while deploying data centric solutions are as follows: 1- is your data classified? Is it tagged? Is there metadata associated with it that will identify it when it’s crawled by a DLP solution or when somebody else opens up that data?

2- How do you need to use your businesscritical data (e.g. to process transactions, deliver customer service, perform market and customer analytics, etc.)?

3- Where is all of your data being stored and used?

4- Do you have clearly defined policies and rules in place to govern the handling, processing and storage of data?

5- Do you have a comprehensive knowledge of everyone who has access to your sensitive data?

6- is your critical and sensitive data being backed up , how often do you back it up and how quickly can you recover it?

GUURPRIT AHUJA,

DIRECTOR – MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA, ACRONIS

Value Defined Backup ACCORDING TO ACRONIS, THE MOST CRITICAL PARTS OF DISASTER RECOVERY PLANNING ARE THE DISASTER RECOVERY STRATEGY AND THE DETAILED RECOVERY PLAN. IT IS HERE THAT YOU WILL CODIFY THE NECESSARY STEPS TO TAKE TO GET UP AND RUNNING AGAIN FOLLOWING AN UNPLANNED OUTAGE.

How has BaaS adoption and reception been in the region? Tell us about the newly added enhancements to the Acronis Backup Cloud?

As the Cloud market is increasing, Acronis has been innovating in its Acronis Backup Cloud solution to meet customer demand. Currently, Acronis has more than 3000 Petabytes of customer data on its cloud with over 500.000+ of consumers. Acronis Backup Cloud v6.0 supports backing up a wider range of platforms and applications with granular recovery of the items including Office 365, Microsoft Azure and Amazon VMs and mobile devices backup.

GUURPRIT AHUJA, DIRECTOR – MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA, ACRONIS TALKS ABOUT HOW THE NEWLY ADDED ENHANCEMENTS TO THE BACKUP CLOUD WILL SUPPORT GRANULAR RECOVERY AND BRING ADDED ADVANTAGE TO THE CUSTOMERS.

Enterprise backup volumes increase as greater number of devices and data types are incorporated into backup sets.

How prepared is the regional organizations for the M2M world?

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In the M2M market development that is moving towards an Internet of Things (IoT) future, security will require a holistic approach and must become a core component of an enterprise’s consideration when using M2M to achieve business objectives.

How would Ingram Micro training platform add value to Acronis channel? What would be the key add ons?

Ingram Micro, our Distributor for both On premise and cloud solutions offers trainings to all Acronis Partners to educate them about Acronis products, and to give them background knowledge to engage potential customers and answer their questions. The training Ingram offers covers Acronis’ patented data protection technologies, value propositions and positioning of the backup, cloud and access product lines, as well as details about licensing models and main benefits of partnership with Acronis. ë

INNOVATIONS

KEY CAPABILITIES n Ergonomic, rugged design thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s comfortable to wear and optimized for use in harsh environments n Excellent motion tolerance and fast decode speeds for omnidirectional 1D and 2D barcode scanning boosts productivity n Improved scanning performance on poor-quality or damaged barcodes saves you time

HONEYWELL HIGH-PERFORMANCE WIRELESS RING SCANNER Honeywell released its new high-performance 8670 Wireless Ring Scanner with Bluetooth technology, designed to allow workers in the Middle East to keep both hands free whilst completing tasks.

The new compact, lightweight scanner fits comfortably on a finger and uses Bluetooth technology to connect to a range of computing devices such as PCs, laptops, tablets,

vehicle-mounted computers, rugged mobile computers and smartphones.

Because the scanner is separated from the Bluetooth and battery module, the 8670 Wireless Ring Scanner is lightweight and comfortable for workers. The soft, elastomeric finger and wrist straps provide comfort, are impervious to moisture and are easily cleaned.

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POWERMAX PDU LINE Siemon has expanded its line of PowerMax power distribution units (PDUs) in the Middle East to include a full range of intelligent PDUs. The new intelligent PDUs deliver real-time power information with varying degrees of intelligent functionality to help reduce energy costs, prevent downtime and improve power usage effectiveness (PUE). . This helps data centre managers manage and optimise power capacity, make informed decisions regarding density and consolidation and identify and prevent potential problems such as high and erratic power consumption, underutilised equipment and other critical situations including overcooling or overloading.

KEY CAPABILITIES n SIP address sharing that allows up to four intelligent PDUs to share a single IP address in a master-slave hierarchy n integrated USB port for connection to the wireless network or for software upgrades n Sensor ports for monitoring temperature, humidity and other environmental conditions at the cabinet level. n Horizontal PDUs mount easily in any standard 482.6 mm (19 in.) rack n Industry leading accuracy of Âą1% and feature highly robust construction with soldered connections for maximum reliability

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INNOVATIONS

Canon image FORMULA Cheque Scanners Canon Middle East launched four new imageFORMULA cheque scanners, the CR-190i II and CR190i II UV, and the CR-135i II and CR-135 II UV.These high performance devices extend Canon’s cheque scanner range and provide a wider choice for banks, retailers and financial institutions looking for greater speed, reliability and security. The CR-190i II and CR-190i II UV are successors to the popular CR-190i cheque scanner range, while the CR-135i II and CR-135i II UV are new models intended to deliver the same reliable performance in installations with lower transaction volumes.

KEY CAPABILITIES n UV light source that enables sophisticated fraud detection by capturing regular and UV images in a single pass. n UV-ink capture technology to minimise the risk posed by cheque fraud n speeds of up to 135 and 190 cheques per minute n capture and automatically process both image and MICR data in a single, seamless workflow n built-in jogger to enhances feeding reliability, especially when scanning mixed cheque sizes n utilise new Canon inkjet cartridge (PG-445, PG-445XL, PG-545 or PG545XL) for imprinting both bitmap and text endorsements on cheques while scanning

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Synology Router RT1900ac Synology has unveiled the Synology Router RT1900ac, a high-speed wireless router featuring robust connectivity for homes and offices, advanced networking tools, rich add-on software packages, as well as a user-friendly software experience. The RT1900ac is now available for customers in the UAE as well as in KSA and Jordan.

Synology Router RT1900ac is powered by Synology Router Manager (SRM) operating system, which boasts professional-level networking tools at a consumer-friendly price point. SRM expands the possibilities of the already versatile Synology Router RT1900ac wireless router, allowing users to enjoy intelligent Wi-Fi connectivity, detailed network management and analysis, strengthened security, and more.

KEY CAPABILITIES n With Synology’s Smart Connect Wi-Fi technology, user devices are automatically connected to the most appropriate band – 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz – according to customizable criteria. n Smart WAN enables you to designate a secondary WAN interface and set up automatic network failover or load balancing. n Application Layer QoS (Quality of Service) n Users can now generate comprehensive reports detailing traffic and bandwidth usage over a specific period of time n DNS based Web-filter and Parental Control n Rich selection of add-on software packages n Equipped with three adjustable long-range antennas and the latest 802.11ac wireless technology

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