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THE WAY YOU WANT IT It is the age of intent-based networking. Networks have the intelligence to capture the intent of your business and render it as policies. / 24

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EDITORIAL

The Net Worth of Network

ANUSHREE DIXIT EDITOR A N U S H R E E @ G E C M E D I A G R O U P. C O M

We, today, are a highly mobile workforce. Our data-driven business models need to be supplemented by high capacity bandwidth and uninterrupted network. Without an iota of doubt, one can say that agility would drive the way ahead for digitization. Like we had a blockchain flavored July, August is peppered with various delightful innovations around 5G and the road ahead for enterprise networking in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. Recently, Etisalat and Ericsson successfully conducted a live on-air trial of Ericsson Radio System and Massive MIMO technology in the United Arab Emirates, paving the way towards 5G deployment. Ericsson also announced later that the company has increased its U.S. footprint by expanding its 4G partnership with Verizon to include new markets. There was also news of T-Mobile and Nokia entering a $3.5 billion agreement to accelerate the deployment of a nationwide 5G network under which Nokia is gearing up to provide T-Mobile with its complete end-to-end 5G technology, software and services portfolio. So, our cover story this month is weaved around the enterprise networking market (p24), and some of the leading players in the domain. For our readers, we have also put together some vivid stories from a channel and vendor perspective on the evolving data center infrastructure. Read about how Panduit’s good science and wide market presence is helping them redefining data center architectures. While Arya from our team sat with Arcserve (p36) and Royal Data Systems (p41), Divsha interacted with Sangfor Technologies (p35) and Jaber Al Mas (p48) that covers multiple facets of Data migration, HCI infrastructure, structured cabling and DRaaS that are redefining modern data centers. Happy Reading! ë

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AUGUST 2018 | VOLUME 06 | ISSUE 01

CONTENTS 30 INTERVIEW

CREATING A STATE-OF-THE-ART PAYMENT SOLUTION GEORGE GORDON, DIRECTOR, AFRICA MASTER BLOCKCHAIN COMPANY

INTERVIEW

VEXED OF DATA THREATS? RPO IN SYNC WITH YOUR BUSINESS IS THE BEST BET MICHAEL ORANGE, SALES MANAGER, ARCSERVE

COVER STORY

NETWORK THE WAY YOU WANT IT

It is the age of intent-based networking. Networks have the intelligence to capture the intent of your business and render it as policies. The time is ripe to maximize the digital initiatives. ADVERTISER INDEX:

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04 EDITORIAL

INNOVATIONS

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STREET Expo 2020 Becomes First 5G Customer in MEASA The UAE has set another benchmark for the early adoption of advanced new technology, with Expo 2020 Dubai becoming the first major commercial customer in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region to access 5G services, through its partnership with Etisalat. Etisalat connected Expo 2020 Dubai to its 5G network, making the site of the next World Expo the first commercial location in the MEASA region to experience 5G. The milestone reinforces

the reputation of both UAE and Dubai as leaders in innovation and infrastructure. At around 20 times faster than 4G and with ultra-low latency, 5G technology will enable users to stream live 4K resolution video anywhere at any time, with virtually no lag. Etisalat’s network will provide the most advanced digital and telecom services to Expo 2020 Dubai and its millions of visitors, supporting an expected 300,000 users on peak days. It will be a key component of the Expo

2020 ‘smart site’, that will deliver a unique and memorable experience for the millions of visitors and 200 participants, while also enabling business and raising public awareness of sustainability. Mohammed Alhashmi, Senior Vice President, Innovation and Future Technology at Expo 2020 Dubai, said, “At Expo 2020 we plan to optimise every visitor’s experience by digitally connecting them with their surrounding environment and enriching their interactions throughout the Expo

journey. Etisalat’s 5G network will play a significant role in supporting this overall goal and providing a seamless digital experience to all visitors.” Saeed Al Zarouni, Senior Vice President, Mobile Network at Etisalat, said, “Our ability to provide 5G services to Expo 2020 is only possible due to our commitment to invest in line with our strategy to ‘Drive the Digital future to empower the society’ with solutions and services that are at the forefront of the digital journey.”

MICROSOFT TRAININGS BEGIN AT UAE AI SUMMER CAMP In its efforts to support the UAE government in its strategy for Artificial Intelligence, Microsoft this week began its training sessions at the region’s first AI Summer camp, a unique initiative that aims at developing mechanisms to apply the UAE Strategy for

Artificial Intelligence, positioning UAE as a leader in adopting artificial intelligence technologies in various vital sectors. The UAE AI Summer Camp, is a one of its kind initiative that is built to support the efforts of knowledge transfer and building a generation

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capable of adopting advanced technology in developing solutions for various future challenges. The camp’s objective is to promote the concept of artificial intelligence and build capacities of government staff and national youth in the field of AI. This is in collaboration with

Learning Partner Koenig Solutions, as Microsoft kicked off sessions at the Summer camp’s Dubai Future Accelerators Hub, hosted by Dubai Future Foundation that is being held at Jumeirah Emirates Towers. The workshops, continued from 8 – 12 July, divided into two batches.

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Global Businesses turns to Oracle Blockchain Service Businesses around the world have been deploying an early adopter version of Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service, which becomes generally available now. The service allows organizations to easily build blockchain networks to drive more secure and efficient transactions and to track goods through supply chains on a global scale. Arab Jordan Investment Bank, CargoSmart, Certified Origins, Indian Oil, Intelipost, MTO, Neurosoft, Nigeria Customs, Sofbang, Solar Site Design and TradeFin are among the many global organizations that already have adopted Oracle’s blockchain platform. Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service provides customers with a development platform to build their own networks, and to quickly integrate with Oracle SaaS and third-party applications they already use,

JUNIPER EXPANDS ITS CAMPUS PORTFOLIO

as well as other blockchain networks and Oracle PaaS services. It also enables users to provision blockchain networks, join other organizations, and deploy and run smart contracts to update and query the ledger. “Blockchain promises to be one of the most transformative technologies of our generation,” said Amit Zavery, executive vice president, Oracle Cloud Platform. “We are excited to announce the availability of Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service. It is the result of years of R&D alongside our valued partners and customers. With Oracle’s platform, enterprises can enhance their business, eliminate unnecessary processes, and transact with their distributed networks more easily, transparently and securely than ever before.”

POLYCOM GOES ALL-IN ON MICROSOFT TEAMS AT INSPIRE 2018 Polycom launched its RealConnect Service, the first cloud-based video interoperability solution, now supports Microsoft Teams, as does the Polycom Trio and the Polycom MSR Skype Room System. “Polycom is going ‘all in’ to create the best Microsoft Teams experiences across a full and growing range of communications devices and solutions, and something I see expanding to the full Plantronics family of solutions,” said Joe Burton, president and chief executive officer, Plantronics. “Plantronics values our strategic partnership with Microsoft, and we are committed to creating the best audio and video experiences for customers using Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, or Office 365.” Polycom RealConnect, Polycom’s video interoperability service, will support Microsoft Teams meetings. RealConnect enables standards-based endpoints like Polycom and Cisco to seamlessly join Microsoft Teams meetings.

Juniper Networks expanded its campus portfolio, including extending EVPN-VXLAN fabric to the campus, enabling a common architecture for campus and data center fabrics by unifying disparate architectures. Through this unification, Juniper Networks is providing the building blocks for an enterprise-wide fabric, a key component in building a simple, secure and automated multicloud. Juniper also announced enhancements to its branch portfolio with new capabilities in its Contrail SD-WAN solution, utilizing NFX Series, SRX Series and vSRX Series WAN Edge devices combined with Contrail Service Orchestration. With Juniper’s new EVPN-VXLAN campus architecture, enterprises can build campus networks using the same protocols that are popular in the most stable and efficient data centers that exist today. “The transition to multicloud doesn’t have to be a long and drawnout process. Through our 5-step multicloud migration framework, Juniper Networks is also providing enterprises the required building blocks that facilitate the transition and bring best practices to each stage along the way.” said Michael Bushong, Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise Marketing at Juniper Networks

CODING INITIATIVES TRAIN 16,000 EMEA YOUTH FOR DIGITAL CAREERS SAP along with Galway Education Centre and around 50 partners trained more than 16,000 youth in coding across the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. According to a survey by the job search platform Indeed, 84 percent of employers believe that coding boot camps provide as much or more prepara-

tion for careers as compared to computer science degrees. 16,201 youth did coding training across coding initiatives in Egypt, France, Greece, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, Sweden, and Turkey, the United Nations. Aiming to diversify the technological workforce of the future, among Refugee

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Code Week 2017 participants, 57 percent were refugees and 50 percent were female. “As the pace of technological change advances, Middle East countries face a short timeline to support youth in learning the coding skills needed for innovative digital careers,” said Gergi Abboud, Senior Vice Presi-

dent and General Manager for Middle East South, SAP. “While youth are digital natives, their skills do not necessarily match business needs. Refugee Code Week shows how youth can be empowered and inspired to take on high-value digital careers.” Top participants can leverage the resources of the One Million Arab

Coders initiative, which aims to support 1 million Arabs in becoming professional software developers. Participants can access career opportunities, internships, certifications and “nano-degrees”, entrepreneurship accelerators, and cash prizes through the program’s ecosystem.

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Toshiba rewards MEA sales toppers with FIFA World Cup 2018

SECONDS

TRANSSYS SOLUTIONS PARTNERS WITH NIVO1 TTransSys Solutions partnered with Nivo1 in the ECEMEA region. AP Express by Nivo1 provides a native integration with your ERP system. AP Express can provide real-time data exchange with integrations designed specifically for your ERP. Native integration also means that Nivo1 has the domain expertise to be a strategic partner in your ERP environment. The solution allows users to process and pay invoices faster and removes the wait for batch processing for your data to move between your AP automation solution and your ERP. MATTEX SELECTS INFOR CLOUDSUITE Dubai-headquartered, Mattex Group has selected Infor CloudSuite Fashion, Infor CloudSuite HCM and the Birst business intel-

Some 30 top distributors and channel partners of Toshiba Gulf FZ took part in a FIFA World Cup tour to Moscow organised by the Storage Division of the regional sales and marketing subsidiary of the Japanese digital and storage giant in the last week of June. The FIFA tour reward programme was a sequel of the annual Toshiba Stars Award Ceremony held in Dubai on May 7 at which Toshiba honoured top performing distributors, retailers and resellers in the Middle East and Africa region as part of Toshiba’s

annual MEA Conference of Distributors of Hard Disk Drive. Santosh Varghese, General Manager– MEA, Toshiba Gulf FZE, who led the delegation to FIFA World Cup, said team members watched the Portugal Vs Morocco match. “The FIFA tour was indeed a celebration of Toshiba’s outstanding sales performance in FY 2017 as the brand’s storage products had a YoY growth of 47% in FY 2017 in the Middle East and Africa region with Saudi Arabia claiming the highest 52% share, followed by the UAE at 31%.

ligence solution as part of the firm’s digital transformation journey. When completed, this new cloud-based platform will help Mattex scale its operations for future growth. Mattex will adopt Infor CloudSuite to simplify complex processes, workflows, and systems with sophisticated yet intuitive technology. OMANTEL PARTNER WITH EQUINIX Equinix and Oman Telecommunications Company have entered into a joint venture to deliver data center and interconnection services to customers in the Middle East through the development of a new network-dense

DU REVEALS PLANS TO BECOME ICT SERVICE PROVIDER du from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), in collaboration with Cisco, unveiled a white paper outlining its transformational journey towards becoming an ‘ICT service provider’ by 2021. Titled ‘EITC Infrastructure Outlook 2021’, the white paper sets the framework for the company’s digital transformation in terms of technology adoption, transition to digital services, as well as customer centricity and uniformity of experience. It describes how adopting a software-defined approach will help du deliver innovative services, ensuring its longer-term success, in line with supporting the UAE Vision 2021 strategy. “As du drives its transformation agenda to spur expansion into new growth areas, we have been working diligently towards bringing next generation technologies such as 5G, IoT, AI, and blockchain into our network,” said Saleem AlBlooshi, Chief Infrastructure Officer, EITC. “We are collaborating with Cisco to map out how we will power a new breed of solutions and services for our customers over the coming five years, and are excited about the opportunities this will bring to the UAE’s ICT ecosystem.”

data center that will be located in Barka, near Muscat, the capital of Oman. This joint venture will establish the carrier-neutral hub in Oman where carriers, content providers and cloud providers colocate critical IT infrastructure. MALL.GLOBAL TO GIVE ONLINE SHOPPING A FACELIFT Online shopping will become a lot more exciting with the launch of Mall.Global. The USD 500Mn debut venture of the Dubai based tech firm revealed the project outline that is all set to give traditional e-commerce a facelift by incorporating immersive technologies and operational practices. The platform is due to go live by 2020 with over 2500 brand stores and sequential launches across the GCC, India, North Africa, Europe, CIS and China.

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Dell EMC launches IDPA for mid-size organizations

MICHEL NADER, REGIONAL DIRECTOR PROTECTION SOLUTIONS, META DELL EMC

Dell EMC launched its latest Integrated Data Protection Appliance (IDPA), the Dell EMC IDPA DP4400, providing simple and powerful converged data protection to help mid-size organizations transform IT while combatting data sprawl and complexity. Comprehensive data protection has been a challenge for mid-size organizations. Enterpriseclass products come with higher cost and complexity, while lower cost products that have traditionally targeted these organizations sacrifice performance, efficiency and application support. Dell EMC built the IDPA DP4400 from the ground up as a simple, yet powerful, solution for mid-size organizations—featuring enterpriseclass capabilities for backup, deduplication, replication and recovery. IDPA DP4400 also offers built-in cloud readiness features with disaster recovery and long-term data retention to the cloud. “With the new Dell EMC IDPA DP4400 we have integrated the best of breed components to offer better time to value and cloud-tiering for long term retention, enabling mid-size organizations to greatly simplify and automatically adapt to the changing needs and requirements of their business, while keeping performance high and costs down,” said Michel Nader, Regional Director, Data Protection Solutions, Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META Region), at Dell EMC.

NEC AND DOTDATA USE AI TO ACCELERATE DATA SCIENCE NEC Corporation and dotData declared the provision and full operation of “dotData” platform for the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group in order to strengthen the Group’s analytical capabilities. dotData platform is now commercially available globally. NEC has obtained an exclusive license from dotData to provide this software across Japan. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, NEC and the dotData team have actively worked to incorporate AI into banking operations in order to create new service offerings since 2016. Following this success, the SMBC Group is now expanding the provision of dotData platform throughout five Group companies, thereby capitalizing on the experience and know-how gained through the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation deployment. SMBC Group aims to utilize dotData platform in order to address a variety of business issues, including the marketing of various financial products, such as credit cards and housing loans. Moreover, dotData platform eliminates most of the manual steps in a data science process, allowing data scientists to focus on higher value creation initiatives and tackle more business challenges.

MOHAP LAUNCHES ‘MAHARATI’ SYSTEM AND INTRODUCES VR The Ministry of Health and Prevention has launched the ‘Maharati’ system, a healthcare learning and management system, at the Training and Development Center in Sharjah as part of its continuous efforts to improve the health system and nurture a culture of innovation in the work

environment through globally accepted training. Apart from strengthening the UAE’s health industry, ‘Maharati’ also seeks to build a smart e-learning system and sustain effective local and global partnerships to keep up with future changes. Present during the launch were H.E. Awadh Seghayer

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Al Ketbi, Assistant Undersecretary of Support Service; H.E. Dr. Yousif Al Serkal, Assistant Undersecretary for Hospitals Sector; H.E Dr. Amin Hussain Al Amiri, Assistant Undersecretary of Public Health Policy & Licensing Sector; H.E. Dr. Hussein Abdel-Rahman Rand, Assistant Undersec-

retary for Health Centers and Clinics; Saqr Ghanim AlHemeiri, Director of the Training & Development Center; Adnan Al Riyami, Director of Human Resources Management, and members of the project team. ‘Maharati’ is a unified smart platform for e-learning and an integrated Learning Man-

agement System designed according to the highest international standards. It automates the management of the training courses, from measuring individual development training needs to registration, planning, attendance and absence management to certification and program evaluation.

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27 government entities in 2018 International Esri User Conference The Government of Abu Dhabi, composed of 27 government entities and companies, is participating at the ‘2018 International Esri User Conference.’ organized by the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri). The Abu Dhabi Smart Systems and Services Authority (ADSSSA), the government entity overseeing the ICT agenda in the UAE capital, organized and managed the government entities’ participation, reflecting Abu Dhabi’s leading role in the digital transformation process which will enable various government entities to provide integrated and comprehensive services, as well as enhance the business environ-

ment and increase customer satisfaction and happiness. In line with the conference’s agenda, Dr. Rauda Saeed Al Saadi, Director General of ADSSSA, showcased Abu Dhabi’s comprehensiveness in the field of advanced geographic information systems (GIS), which the authority has been working on in collaboration with all government entities. ADSSSA also allowed these entities to use GIS to develop businesses, services and the decision-making process in various sectors, which helped in offering services and projects with high standards of quality and accuracy of geospatial data.

WEB CLIPS TELR PARTNERS WITH CREATIVE ZONE Telr has partnered with CREATIVE ZONE. This partnership creates an ecosystem for CREATIVE ZONE’s clients to easily enter the market with a comprehensive one-stop shop for all their setup needs, from business registration to premises and now, through Telr, the addition of a payment gateway. CREATIVE ZONE is known for bringing the dreams of aspiring entrepreneurs and SMEs to life, and this association with Telr will allow its clientele to obtain access, with a single integration, to a feature-rich payment gateway. BEYONDTRUST PARTNERS WITH SINEVIS BeyondTrust, signed a strategic partnership

NOON CAPITAL LAUNCHES BLOCKCHAINBACKED REAL ESTATE PROJECT NOON Capital, plans to establish strategic real estate investments in second-tier Southeast Asia cities. The Company’s first properties have an accumulated value of US$20 million. The first tower is complete and fully operational, while the second is due for completion in 2019. NOON Capital is also shifting the financing and management of new investments onto blockchain – making it the first real estate developer in Southeast Asia to build, manage and drive individual and institutional investment with blockchain technology. The Company’s clear focus on second-tier Southeast Asian cities, where there is more room for bringing about market efficiencies, lowers barriers to entry and creates more room for growth and value creation for shareholders.

with SINEVIS. Through the global reach and IT services delivery expertise of SINEVIS, this partnership expands opportunities for BeyondTrust and helps scale delivery capabilities, particularly in Europe, Middle East, Africa and India regions, to meet growing customer demands for a world-class Priviliged Access Management (PAM) solution. EMERSON COMPLETES AVENTICS ACQUISITION Emerson completed the purchase of Aventics. The acquisition will significantly expand the company’s reach in the growing $13 billion fluid automation market and solidify Emerson’s

NUMBER GAME

MOVEMENTS Microsoft MEA appoints IBRAHIM YOUSSRY as General Manager

VUCLIP Appoints ABE SHADY ABOUL NAGA SCHUCK as Reional Manager Middle East & Cental Africa

Waseela Appoints BILAL AL ANANI as CTO

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122mn

UAE drone market is expected to reach $122 million by 2023: TechSci Research

automation technology presence in Europe. Aventics is a strong complement to Emerson’s capabilities and solutions in key discrete and hybrid automation markets. The acquisition creates one of the broadest portfolios of fluid control and pneumatic devices that incorporate sensing and monitoring capabilities to improve system uptime and performance, enhance safety and optimize energy usage. CRITEO INVESTS €20M IN PARIS AI LAB Criteo launched the Criteo AI Lab, a center dedicated to the creation, experimentation and at-scale deployment of machine learning technology. Backed by an investment of €20M over three years, the lab will be involved in research related to building deep models that are interpretable, transparent and user-centric.

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Workshop to unify Abu Dhabi Customer Service Centres Abu Dhabi Smart Solutions and Services Authority (ADSSSA) organized a special workshop aimed at unifying the Emirati’s government customer service centres through its TAMM initiative, which looks towards achieving service excellence across Abu Dhabi Government by moving the service delivery model to a more ‘journey-focused’ approach. The workshop falls in line with the ongoing move to establish customer service centres across the emirate while also bringing various government entities under one umbrella to achieve Abu Dhabi Vision 2030. The workshop was attended by H.E. Sheikh Abdullah Al Hamed, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Health Authority; H.E. Dr. Rauda Saeed Al Saadi,

General Director of ADSSSA, senior executives and employees from various government entities in Abu Dhabi. TAMM is the first of its kind government platform in the region to provide unified and comprehensive services that enrich customers experience and enable government entities to exchange government documents digitally via secure channels. The model includes sectors such as real state, education, health, entertainment, family, community and others. The first phase of the initiative is set to be launched on November 1, 2018, which will be highlighted with the opening of three centres to be located in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Al Dhafra–covering 80 per cent of transactions from government entities.

DANUBE INVESTS IN INFOR FOR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Danube Home has invested in Infor SCE and Infor OS to accelerate its digital transformation as the company expands across the region. Infor’s implementation partner involved in the implementation is Vinculum, the warehouse management and logistics experts. In an effort to enhance its supply chain, Danube Home chose Infor SCE to increase efficiency, throughput, and service levels of its operations– reducing costs and providing greater visibility for both clients and staff. “Ultimately, increased customer satisfaction is what we are looking to achieve. From a management perspective, we have also invested in a dedicated resource to oversee fulfillment in our Danube Home showrooms. With a strong track record and reputation in the Middle East and around the globe, Infor was the right fit for us. Its warehouse management system required no customization and could easily be configured to our needs,” said Sachin Khosla, Head of Logistics at Danube Home. “The year ahead will be a busy one for Danube Home, with plans to increase our presence across India and the Arabian Gulf over the next 12 months, so it was especially important to select the most capable partner possible.” “This is a fantastic win for Infor – Danube is such a respected brand in the region. We anticipate a productive partnership moving forward as we accompany the group on its digital transformation journey,” said Alaa Hewedi, VP of sales, Infor, Middle East.

OMANTEL PARTNERS WITH EQUINIX TO OPEN DATA CENTER Equinix and Oman Telecommunications Company have entered into a joint venture to deliver data center and interconnection services to customers in the Middle East through the development of a new network-dense data center that will be located in Barka, near Muscat, the capital of Oman. This joint venture will establish the first world-class, carrier-neutral hub in Oman where carriers, content providers and cloud providers colocate critical IT infrastructure. Oman is strategically positioned between Asia, Africa and Europe, and the new Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data center will create a regional interconnection hub with ultra-low latencies between global business markets. Based on demand and requirements, customers in the GCC and wider MENA region can also leverage other Equinix data centers in the region for dual access to content providers, allowing carriers, content providers and cloud providers to further build resilience into their IT and network infrastructure.

BLOCKPASS TAPS INFINITO WALLET FOR 2M PASS TOKEN AIRDROP AHEAD OF LISTING In the lead-up to PASS token’s listings on Lykke, HitBTC and Gatecoin exchanges, Blockpass is conducting an airdrop of 2 million PASS tokens, starting 12 July. The airdrop is being implemented through Blockpass’ joint venture partner Infinito

Wallet – a universal cryptocurrency wallet. Infinito will have an airdrop link on the wallet dashboard on 12 July. The wallet is available in both Android and iOS app stores. Infinito Wallet natively supports the PASS token as well as a long list of

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leading cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Litecoin, GAS, Dash, ETC, and Dogecoin. It also supports tokens of ETH ERC20 and NEO NEP-5 standards, with more planned on Infinito’s roadmap. Blockpass is a

KYC identity application for bringing the blockchain industry into compliance and mainstream. As a self-sovereign identity platform, Blockpass users can establish, verify, store and manage their identities, maintaining full control over all data involved.

With an initial focus on human identity, Blockpass will provide a reliable and cost-effective Know-YourCustomer (“KYC”) and Anti-Money-Laundering (“AML”) service for regulated industries, blockchain merchants and service providers.

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Patcham selects Epicor ERP to Grow Business

ANDY COUSSINS, SR. VP & HEAD OF SALES INTERNATIONAL REGION, EPICOR

Patcham has chosen enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution Epicor ERP to serve as a catalyst for business growth. In addition to automating processes and implementing best-practice and process improvements across departments, Epicor ERP will support business expansion for Patcham. Epicor ERP will allow Patcham to avoid duplication of data and improve data integrity, accuracy, and real-time access by breaking down

information silos between departments. Commenting on the decision to select Epicor ERP, Parth Patel, Operations Manager at Patcham said, “From a business point of view, it was essential that the ERP solution has the right industry fit and is flexible enough to cater to the changing market landscape and needs of our business. In parallel, we require the ERP solution to be scalable and integrate easily with our non-UAE offices, while accounting for the local regulations for business in those countries. From a technology standpoint, we want the solution to include the latest programming and DBMS techniques to ensure speed, security, and hardware compatibility with other data capturing mechanisms within our organisation. Finally, from a user perspective, we require the system to be minimally disruptive and easy to use in terms of layout and design. Epicor ERP checks all these boxes, making it a good fit for our business.” “By leveraging Epicor ERP, organisations now have the platform they need to ensure that their business is not only fit for growth, but able to grow profitably,” concluded Andy Coussins, senior vice president and head of sales, international region at Epicor.

CANON HIGHLIGHTS IMPORTANCE OF CUSTOMER DELIGHT Canon Middle East hosted the Service Partners’ Forum 2018, bringing together heads of the service function from partner organisations across the Middle East. Three directors from Canon Europe joined Canon Middle East executives to lead sessions during the forum, which took place in Dubai. Attendees learnt about Canon’s updated service solutions and products, and were introduced to various new tools and applications that improve service efficiency, reduce cost of repair, and increase engineers’ productivity, leading to overall customer satisfaction. The forum also saw interactive sessions in which service partner heads from across the region shared best practices with each other. Commenting during the forum, Shadi Bakhour, Business Unit Director, B2B, Canon Middle East said: “Canon relies on its partners across the region to get this right, and therefore we host this forum to spotlight service-related topics.”

TRRIPLE MWALLET STRENGTHENS ITS PRESENCE IN THE UAE Trriple adds new services and features to its mobile wallet application, which is available for download on Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. Users in the UAE can now top-up their Trriple mobile wallets with cash at approximately 3,000 top-up points across the UAE with no cost to the user, enabling its customers to use a range of newly launched in-app financial services such as local and international mobile air-time top-up, peer-to-peer local transfers, and secure and fast retail payments. Along with these added services, Trriple has also launched a loyalty program for the application which rewards its users in points redeemable for merchant vouchers. Additionally, the company is giving all customers a chance to win weekly prizes simply by using international airtime top-up service. Paolo Gagliardi, Chief Executive Officer, Trriple, said: “Following our testing phase, we are launching this app with one aim – to provide our customers with an easy, fast and safe payments solution. The FinTech industry is going through a phase of significant innovation, and our mWallet application, squarely focuses on empowering the unbanked and under-banked trailblazers with cashless, convenient, and secure payments. We see our application as aligned with the UAE Vision 2021 and we are rigorously and constantly working towards improving functionality and our partner network.”

UNIPER PARTNERS WITH PUBLICIS.SAPIENT TO ACCELERATE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Uniper appointed Publicis.Sapient to accelerate its business transformation strategy and set out to equip clients with a suite of digitally connected products and services. The company will evolve its energy and

engineering services with core competencies in plant operations, production support and asset and field services through the provision of a portfolio of fully digitized operations services and applications aimed at driving growth

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and efficiency for its generation asset based clients. Uniper, working with Publicis.Sapient, has unveiled the B2B portal ‘Enerlytics’ as the platform through which its client-centric digital

transformation will be realized. Enerlytics will host existing and future applications to support Uniper’s portfolio of value-adding client services, including condition monitoring, performance management, risk man-

agement and maintenance planning. The new platform will combine custom-built analytics and real-time reporting and personalised software tools. The portal is already being used by selected Uniper clients.

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Exclusive Networks to Distribute Pure Storage Solutions Exclusive Networks revealed a distribution agreement covering Europe and Middle East with Pure Storage. Pure Storage’s products will be added to Exclusive Networks’ security networking and infrastructure solutions portfolio and will enable companies to optimise the performance and availability of their applications, while retaining economic control over their infrastructure. Designed from the ground up to leverage allflash technology, Pure Storage’s offerings provide freedom from the technical constraints of hybrid storage solutions. At a time when datacentre infrastructures represent key challenges for companies, Pure Storage, with its FlashArray and FlashBlade solutions, addresses current and future requirements with the aim of reducing

the complexity inherent in more traditional solutions, in terms of both administration and the economic model. “We are proud to distribute Pure Storage, which meets the demand of our partners and enables Exclusive Networks to effectively assist them with their growth and the transformation of their clients’ data centres, while meeting the essential criteria for solutions in our portfolio: simplicity, upgradeability, performance and efficiency. The offering covers a market segment that is essential today and we firmly believe that Pure Storage is an ideal and complementary partner for our BigTec data centre solutions,” says Julien Antoine, VP of EMEA for Exclusive Networks.

PC SHIPMENT TO SEE FLAT GROWTH DUE TO PRICE RISE; GARTNER Worldwide shipments of devices of PCs, tablets and mobile phones are on pace to record 0.9 percent growth to reach 2.28 billion units in 2018, according to Gartner. The PC and tablet market is estimated to decline 1.2 percent in 2018, while the mobile phone market is on pace to record an increase of 1.4 percent. “The PC market is still hindered by the undersupply of the DRAM market for tall of 2018, due to the lack of new wafer capacity coming online. As a result, PC vendors will continue to increase their prices throughout 2018,” said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. “Larger screens and more graphic boards also mean rising costs, adding to the bill of hardware materials for businesses and household buyers.” While the PC market is price-sensitive, Gartner is witnessing business demand migrating to high-end PCs such as ultramobile premium devices, where value is seen as higher. Gartner estimates shipments of ultramobile premium units to increase by 12 percent in 2018.

H3 DYNAMICS LAUNCHES H3 ZOOM.AI FOR SMART CITIES H3 Dynamics Holdings launches H3 Zoom.AI, a new cloud-based and artificial intelligence enabled services platform that connects with camera drones to offer a safer, faster, and more accurate alternative to dangerous, difficult to reach, or mass-scale maintenance inspection activities around the world, improving worker safety, reducing downtimes and improving productivity. With a first focus on Smart Cities, H3 Zoom is launching Façade Inspector (video), a visual inspection tool that leverages machine learning and drones to transform the way high-rise building facades are inspected and maintained. Façade Inspector by H3 Zoom will be unveiled for the first time at the 2018 World Cities Summit – Singapore Pavilion. H3 Zoom’s Façade Inspector addresses the scalability challenge by introducing a fully digitized process that can scan a high-rise building within minutes instead of weeks, while avoiding gondolas and improving worker safety. H3 Zoom’s AI engine can sort through thousands of HD images and billions of pixels to precisely identify, qualify, and localize different types of defects, which are then represented through interactive inspection reports.

OOREDOO DONATES SEA AMBULANCES TO MINISTRY OF HEALTH Ooredoo donated three sea ambulances to Ministry of Health in the Maldives at a special ceremony held at Izzuddheen Jetty Area. The donation comes following Ooredoo’s earlier commitment to support the Government of the

Maldives work to provide quality healthcare to its citizens. The donation aims to support the nation’s existing sea ambulance fleet, which operates from across the country and plays a vital role in delivering health care to people living throughout

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the highly dispersed islands. The event was attended by Chairman of Ooredoo Group, HE Sheikh Abdulla Bin Mohammed Al Thani; Minister of Health, Hon Abdulla Nazim Ibrahim; Minister of Economic Development, Hon.

Mohamed Saeed; Minister of State for Defence and National Security, Mr. Mohamed Zuhair, Vice Chief of Defence Force, Brigadier General Ahmed Shahid; Deputy CEO of Ooredoo Group, Waleed Mohamed Al-Sayed; Chair-

man of Ooredoo Maldives and Ooredoo Group Chief Officer Small and Medium Business Unit, Khalid Al Mahmoud; and a number of key stakeholders from the government of Maldives, Ooredoo Group and Ooredoo Maldives.

INTERVIEW

SETTING THE RIGHT DIRECTION WITH A RESOLUTION TO SET THE COMPANY IN A RIGHT DIRECTION FOR ADOPTION OF MORE EFFICIENT USE OF TECHNOLOGY, ADITYA KAUSHIK, REGIONAL IT OPERATIONS MANAGER FOR INTERSERVE ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION, CO-ORDINATES WITH VARIOUS COMPANIES AND THEIR IT TEAMS TO MAKE SURE THAT OUTDATED TECHNOLOGIES ARE REPLACED TO OPTIMIZE COST AND BETTER SERVE THE BUSINESS.

their IT teams to enhance the IT Operations, Service Delivery and establish good IT governance practices covering User policies and Business Continuity. Of course, all this needs to be done with a keen eye on the IT Spend across the region and replacing outdated technology and design processes to better optimize the costs.

ADITYA KAUSHIK,

REGIONAL IT OPERATIONS MANAGER, INTERSERVE ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION

Tell us in brief about your role as CIO/IT Head at Interserve Middle East. I am currently responsible for the Regional IT Operations for Interserve Middle East. My responsibilities cover the IT infrastructure, IT Security, Service delivery and IT Operational effectiveness for Interserve in the region. I co-ordinate my efforts with various companies (subsidiaries and some of the associates) and

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What are your business models and how has digitization played a key role in your organization? Our businesses are focussed in the area of Construction, Oil and Gas, Fabrication and Maintenance Services. We also operate a FM team collaborating with our associates to deliver FM services to some of the key customers in the region. Our digitization efforts are still in their infancy and we are exploring areas where these can be adopted to bring better productivity within the workshop floor and deliver effectively on the customer promise. What kind of technology trends do you anticipate in 2018 for your organization? In the year 2018, we are looking to continue to migrate most of our critical systems into the cloud. This would be a mix of private and public cloud. However, as each company does have the independence to adopt the most optimum solution that meets their individual company needs, these solutions would be a mix of options. The adoption of IoT in our FM services will continue and allow us to enhance our Maintenance efficiencies. What is your 2018 resolution and what goals do you have for your organization? My resolution is to set the direction within the companies for adoption of more efficient use of technology within the business. Over the last year

we have identified key areas where fundamental changes need to be made to improve the IT Operations and Service Delivery framework. In the coming year we wish to consolidate and reduce our IT costs and set the stage for ongoing automation across the various business streams. How are you aligning your business with IT? And how has it helped you in optimizing your cost? While there is substantial focus on IT and the associated costs, very little focus is on the value that IT generates for the businesses today. IT is considered a necessity without real focus on productivity improvements and value in terms of time, cost of human effort which is not measured. We are trying to capture these values by associating downtime and issues with the productivity, cost of the process or employees. In addition to this we are also focusing on the cost savings that can be achieved from infrastructure optimization or migration to cloud and other apps that can help achieve better IT costs. Smart buildings utilize IoT and other supporting technologies to provide enhanced facility management as well as improved safety, comfort, security, and productivity for workers. How or what are your plans on implementing this? Our FM division is currently focusing on the use of sensors and later with IoT devices. We are currently exploring these and would be looking to deploy these over different areas of business. These devices would help us to proactively address maintenance issues in a faster and more effective manner. These devices would also help ease user experience, reduce costs in the long run. However, as we are in a nascent state of adopting this technology we hope to see better outputs in the coming year. ĂŤ

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COVER STORY

NETWORK

THE WAY YOU WANT IT It is the age of intent-based networking. Networks have the intelligence to capture the intent of your business and render it as policies. The time is ripe to maximize the digital initiatives. n B Y: A N U S H R E E < A N U S H R E E @ G E C M E D I A G R O U P. C O M > n P H O T O : S H U T T E R S T O C K

he future is smart. Enterprise networking solutions is already playing a pivotal role in strengthening the spine of the future smart workplace. Applications are transforming modern business and there is a dire need for networking to bring in more innovations than it is now to bring more agility to the applications and make it more intuitive. It was no surprise when there were rumors of Amazon entering into the networking business. The anticipated growth trajectory in the networking business is on a high radar and Amazonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rumored attempt was to gain a significant market share from the legacy players â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the likes of Cisco, Juniper etc. But, as various tech bloggers

noted, the gamble was of too high a risk.

CHANGING THE GAME 2018 saw the rise of some significant start-ups in networking business. While some

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“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.” -MOHANNAD ABUISSA, HEAD OF SALES ENGINEERING - EAST REGION, CISCO MIDDLE EAST

“INSPIRED BY SHAKESPEARE, THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN APPLICATIONS AND NETWORKS IS SIMILAR TO THAT OF ROMEO AND JULIET. YOU CAN BUILD STATEOF-THE-ART APPLICATIONS BUT WITHOUT PROPER THE DELIVERY AND ACCESS MECHANISM IN THE NETWORK, THEY WON’T HAVE A MEANING AND CAN’T SURVIVE.” -CHARBEL KHNEISSER, REGIONAL PRESALES DIRECTOR, METNA AT RIVERBED

locked horns with the legacy vendors in the industry, pulling a good share from the market, the others simply tried to cut a niche in the market by offering something beyond the normal. The aim of those companies, primarily, was to simplify networking to the core and enhance the journey of the customers in application delivery and seamless performance of those, whilst making sure that the data flows through the networks without interruption. The core or the vision was to eliminate re-engineering hardware centric networking to SDN, rather designing it from the scratch for SDN. This is the age of micro molecular, modular and flexible data centers. Breaking down the silos and focusing on innovation is key to any organization today. Mohannad Abuissa, Head of Sales Engineering - East Region, Cisco Middle East says, “Among Cisco’s innovations are the Unified Computing System (UCS), which uses a Unified Fabric to converge both SAN and LAN connections into a single infrastructure and

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Cisco’s Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI), or SDN 2.0, which simplifies and accelerates the deployment of applications, reduces IT costs and operational errors, and helps make businesses more agile.” James Kelly, Automation and Multicloud Lead, Product Marketing, Juniper Networks says,“With the rise of micro-modular data centres, this means that a greater number of data centres for edge compute use cases will require scaled-down DC fabrics architectures (such as Virtual Chassis and Virtual Chassis Fabric), collapsed routing and switching to the WAN. In the end, simpler at-scale SD-WAN management are tied into such data centres so that they can be connected to users, the cloud and the greater enterprise.”

cost and complexity of network management. Whether apps are in the data centre or in the cloud, SD-WAN brings new levels of agility to the business, accelerating the delivery of all apps and steering them over the best network for the best

GOING MAINSTREAM WITH SD-WAN Majority of the networks today have the same characteristic they had ten to fifteen years ago. Hard coded with heavy routers. The age of digitization needs a complete overhaul to match the speed and scale required. Applications, as we discussed before, is becoming the core of all enterprises. With advancements in machine learning and BI, apps are evolving dramatically and hence demanding more from the existing networks. Unified connectivity, increased capacity and improved security defines the future of networking. Charbel Khneisser, Regional Presales Director, METNA at Riverbed says “SD-WAN’s basic premise is that it allows networking to be designed and orchestrated using business policies rather than being hand-configured in the field, and that it unifies connectivity across various networks (including cloud networks, WANs, and LANs, all hybridized). This technology and approach can greatly increase agility, improve performance and security, as well as reduce the

“VERY QUICKLY, YOU COULD BE SETTING UP AN OFFICE WITH HUNDREDS OF DEVICES INTERLINKED, ALLOWING YOU TO BETTER UNDERSTAND HOW THOSE DEVICES ARE BEING USED, AND CREATE NEW OFFERINGS FOR YOUR EMPLOYEES. IT MIGHT SOUND FUTURISTIC, BUT STEPS LIKE THIS ARE RELATIVELY SIMPLE AND I THINK, NEAR-TERM.” -MORTEN ILLUM, EMEA VICE PRESIDENT AT ARUBA, A HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE COMPANY

COVER STORY

“TRENDS IN THE MULTI-CLOUD SPACE AND THE MATURATION OF SD WAN TECHNOLOGY WITH LESSONS FROM EARLY ADOPTERS AND THE EMERGENCE OF MORE SD WAN SERVICE PROVIDERS HAS RESULTED IN A FASTER PACE OF SD WAN DEVELOP FOR ENTERPRISES IN THE REGION.” -JAMES KELLY, AUTOMATION AND MULTICLOUD LEAD, PRODUCT MARKETING, JUNIPER NETWORKS:

“IT DEPARTMENTS ARE INCREASINGLY CHALLENGED TO PROVIDE A HIGH QUALITY OF SERVICE FOR APPLICATIONS TO THEIR REMOTE LOCATIONS. AT CITRIX, WE FEEL THAT SD-WAN IS AN ENABLER OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND WITH ITS TECHNOLOGY, IS HELPING ORGANISATIONS EMBRACE NETWORK TRANSFORMATION AND MEET EVOLVING BUSINESS DEMANDS. -TAJ EL-KHAYAT, REGIONAL DIRECTOR FOR CITRIX MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA:

performance.” According to Cisco, in order to achieve and support a successful digital strategy, businesses must clearly identify the role, and highlight the value of the “foundation infrastructure”, which is an essential component of any digital technology. “We, at Cisco, refer to it as the “IT service delivery platform”, which provides agility and support for all the applications and services necessary to run the business and enable it to achieve its goals. Therefore, it must be designed to support the functionality and availability required by all business applications and services. Consequently, business agility cannot be achieved without having an agile IT infrastructure to enable it.Hence, the network remains the foundation upon which digital transformation is built so while organizations are keen to invest in upcoming technology areas such as cloud, IoT, and Artificial Intelligence, they realise the need to first

address the fundamentals of their IT infrastructure,” adds Abuissa. 2017 and 2018 reports so far have noted a skid in spending on networking, but this does not hamper the beliefs of solution providers that business will still continue to invest in novel technologies and would reduce cost and increase efficiency. SDN maturity and spending will be seen going hand in hand. The over exertion of SaaS applications in everyday office is demanding more bandwidth and increased quality from the wide area network. “Therefore, IT departments are increasingly challenged to provide a high quality of service for applications to their remote locations. At Citrix, we feel that SD-WAN is an enabler of digital transformation and with its technology, is helping organisations embrace network transformation and meet evolving business demands,” says Taj El-Khayat, Regional Director for Citrix Middle East & North Africa

NETWORK THE WAY YOU WANT IT - THE YEAR OF IBNS Intent-based networking- a revolutionary approach to the traditional way of networking is rising as the big wave today. It redefines the way in which networks and built and managed to make it more effective, optimized, resilient and intensive. The networks have the capacity to capture the business intent and render it as network policy. The policies are then architected around the business infrastructure so that business is able to deliver what it promises. “Cisco’s biggest innovation in 2017 was ‘The Network. Intuitive’, which is delivering a new era of networking with a more intelligent, secure platform for customers to maximize the digital opportunities. Cisco’s intent-based networking

platform represents one of the most significant breakthroughs in enterprise networking and uses Cisco products including DNA Center, SoftwareDefined Access, Network Data Platform and Assurance, Encrypted Traffic Analytics, Catalyst 9000 Switching Portfolio, Software Subscription, DNA Services, and Developer Center.”

APP DELIVERY IN ENTERPRISES Morten Illum, EMEA Vice President at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, “Access to a secure, reliable and fast Wi-Fi connection is essential for most job roles and industries now, especially for those who are office-based or working remotely. But if the future workplace is not just connected, but smart, it can become much more personalised for the workers who use it. Having user credentials that are recognised across any location or device, for example, removes the unnecessary task of repeated logins, which over the course of days, weeks and years is an enormous time saver.”

FINALLY - THE RACE TO 400GBE 2018 marked the commercial start of the 400 gigabit ethernet. Companies have been aggressively moving to integrate this into their networking portfolio. Few companies like Juniper Networks are now aggressively working to integrated the nascent 400 GbE technology into their portfolio to enable packet forwarding. Companies across the globe are trying to match pace with the accelerating demands of networking. 400 GbE can be the next major leap for networking speeds. I am sure, when we write the next story on this topic I would have a different story altogether to recite. ë

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QUANT COMP THE TREAS

M TING NEARTHED RE

The dawn of quantum era with Quantum Supremacy is something that all big tech industry is waiting for. To speed up the process of computation it goes into the unimaginable reality of quantum mechanics. But with many challenges to be stumbled upon, this era is expected to bring unmatched opportunities. n B Y: C V A R YA D E V I < A R YA @ G E C M E D I A G R O U P. C O M > n P H O T O : S H U T T E R S T O C K

t is said that if we do not crack open the quantum computing technology wide open, we will not have enough capability to power all the machines in the world by 2040. This technology is our best bet and future of

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computing. It promises a stronger security with faster speed. Sounds like a good package, Right? But, this is a technology we have not mastered yet. Let me put an oxymoron to explain this technology. Quantum Computing is a new but

old technology. This technology has been in place for over 50 years but we haven’t put the technology to maximum use. Niels Bohr says, “If quantum mechanics haven’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.” This shows

SPECIAL STORY

“Quantum computing is unlikely to replace or even make classical computers faster – at least that’s not the aim today. The field is very interesting because it allows some problems to be solved much faster on quantum computers compared to classical computers.” -A RAHEEM, HEAD OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AG MELCO

how much of depth of uses we can utilize from this technology. The most basic way quantum computing is differentiated from classical one is the way in which the information is stored. Using the technology of ‘superposition’, maximum space for storage is utilized by quantum computers. Instead of storing information as binary units of either 1 or 2 in classical computers, quantum computers use a superposition of both 1 and 2, which is known as a quantum bit or a ‘qubit’. “Qubits concept allows quantum computers to process billions of computations in a time interval allowing it to perform complex math calculations. Such intense power can be applied to research” said Mr Fawaz Shakralla, Head of IT Projects, Bahrain Institute of Political Development. He further said, “Google and IBM are leading the pack in research and development in Quantum computing. IBM released IBM Q, an online portal running a quantum computers in the backend to test intense mathematical calculations, it is also available for the public to test their specific use-cases.” A quantum computer is more than just its processor. As this is seen as a next-generation system, it will need new algorithms, software, interconnects and other yet to be invented technologies which can be used for the computer’s results to be shared and stored. A few years back, IBM made this idea of quantum computers accessible to the world. The IBM Q experience was a 5 qubit computer with over 70,000 users worldwide registered to it. This was not much useful for research purposes as there were not much of serious numbers with it. Now, IBM has

made quantum computers with 50 qubits and Intel with 49 qubits. Very recently, Google and Zapta Computing joined forces to advance quantum computing technologies. This initiative is seen as another example of growing investment in quantum computing by startups and big tech industries. According to IBM, the quantum computing market is estimated to be currently at $5-6 billion a year. Morgan Stanley research analysts predict this market to double reaching $10 billion by 2025. But with these numbers, future and use is still unclear to many. In simple way, it is said that a quantum computer is probabilistic. These computers will not give an exact answer, instead will provide a highly probable answer. Quantum computers is expected to “crack” certain widely used encryption methods. Also, it is expected to aid in various other fields like Artificial Intelligence. Quantum computers can analyze large quantities of data to provide artificial intelligence machines the feedback required to improve performance. This will in turn shorten the learning curve for artificial intelligence. These machines with the insights of quantum computers can learn from experience and self-correct. These computers can also sequence a person’s genes which will let analyze methods to produce personalized drug development. The development possibilities of quantum computing is immense. “Quantum computing creates new possibilities to approach problems that classical computing has difficulty in solving. Quantum computing is unlikely to replace or even make classical

“Qubits concept allows a quantum computers to process billions of computations in a time interval allowing it to perform complex math calculations. Such intense power can be applied to research in healthcare, self-driving cars, military etc.” -FAWAZ SHAKRALLA, HEAD OF IT PROJECTS, BAHRAIN INSTITUTE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT.

computers faster – at least that’s not the aim today.” said Mr A Raheem, Head of Information Technology, AG Melco Elevator. When an issue arises, instead of troubleshooting it bit by bit as in classical computers, quantum computers tackle the entire problem at once. This will open doors for developments in fields like financial services to national security. We are heading down to a new field of physics though discoveries, innovations and solutions. Even though people are making too many predictions about the impact quantum computers are expected to bring forth, in various fields of research and academics, how close are we to the actual results of it? We are still more into the idea of it rather than the whole structure. We do expect it to work much faster in computation than classical computers, but it will not be a simple process and how will it be beneficial for a layman in everyday use? ë

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INTERVIEW

CREATING A STATE-OF-THE-ART PAYMENT SOLUTION

ESTABLISHED IN 2015, THE VISION OF AMBC IS TO CREATE A CUSTOM DESIGNED BLOCKCHAIN AND DIGITAL CURRENCY SOLUTION FOR AFRICA IN ORDER TO ENABLE EVERY PERSON TO HAVE THE ABILITY TO TRANSACT FREELY AND EASILY AT VERY LOW FEES, THEREBY BOOSTING PEOPLE’S WELFARE.

GEORGE GORDON, DIRECTOR, AFRICA MASTER BLOCKCHAIN COMPANY

Could you please provide a brief on Africa Master Blockchain Company? The main goal of AMBC is to create a digital payment system and platform across Africa using a publicly traded cryptocurrency to be used for international remittances, international payments, foreign investments as well as speculation in addition to having privately traded local tokens that will be at a constant fixed price for each African country enabling the use of these tokens as a payment solution for everyday purchases. Some of our key values include: l Transparency, l Ease of use and convenience for customers, l Cost effect and fast transactions, l State of the art security protocols. Take us through your products portfolio. What are your offerings for the modern enterprises? AMBC underwent a rebranding of our coin from

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Africa Master Coin to AfriUnion Coin in order to promote our main goal of creating an African digital currency more clearly. In that the main purpose of AUC is to create a payment platform for Africa as well as provide international accessibility both for foreign investors thinking of entering Africa as well as African investors wanting to branch out internationally. In addition we wanted to create an actual stable token that can be used for daily transactions without the risk of price fluctuations for each African country while also maintaining the opportunity for normal speculative trade for interested customers. This will be achieved through AfriUnion Coin which will be the publicly traded coin and Afri Nation Token (ANT) for each African country. The main service offerings will include: l Mobile payment services using AUC and ANT, l Remittance and international payment services across Africa as well as internationally, l ID management and assurance services through state of the art security systems, l Smart contracts which will enable multiple use cases from digital financial loan and other financial services to microgrid and smart metering for utilities and so on, l Multi cryptocurrency trading and exchange services across Africa. How do you see Blockchain as a disrupting power for the next-gen enterprises? How are your solutions backing up the same? Blockchain changes business as we know it at its core by providing not a new way of working that touches upon the essence of each enterprise: contracts, interaction with external entities and the way assets are exchanges. I wouldn’t call it a disruption as much as I would call it foundational change, a paradigm shift. With blockchain we start thinking of the world and business as one. The new ecosystems that blockchain will allow will the game changers. Our solutions are at the forefront of such change and thus not only are we addressing key issues and problems on a financial front but in addition

are evolving the environment for consumer interaction as well as business operations. Would you like to share some of your success stories so far? Most definitely. We have achieved some great feats by obtaining support from Kgaleme Motlanthe Foundation as well as becoming a legacy partner of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. In addition, we have been in preliminary discussions with Zimbabwe in terms of our solution and there is great interest as well as preparing for discussions with South Africa on a regulatory approach for cryptocurrencies in order to create a safer environment for the crypto industry. Which are the various industries that you cater to? Our focus at the moment is to create a state of the art financial solution and hence we are only looking at the financial industry at the moment, however that will expand in the future. What is your global go-to-market strategy, especially for the Middle East? Do you go with your partners or directly approach the customers? We believe that each country has its own specific business culture and thus local representatives are far more effective than us trying to do everything ourselves. Thus we have appointed agents in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa that we are working with in order to raise awareness for the project as well as promote it. We have additionally established a branch office in Dubai as we are looking at have a stronger presence in the Middle East in the near future. What does your 2018 roadmap look like? 2018 is a big year for us as we are finally ready to launch the project. This will be done in a phased approach. Currently we are in the private and presale stage of AfriUnion Coin, our ICO will be held later this year with having our multicurrency wallet and coin distributions happening towards the end of the year. ë

GUEST ARTICLE

Cyber Security for Startup Companies HOW VALUEMENTOR IS HELPING FINTECH AND OTHER START-UPS IN ACHIEVING CYBER SECURITY AND COMPLYING WITH REGULATIONS SUCH AS PCI DSS, GDPR ETC.

BINOY KOONAMMAVU, CEO & PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT, VALUEMENTOR

“ValueMentor is helping a number of startups and fintech companies in the Middle East and globaly to build a unified framework for cyber security and compliance requirements unique to the startup”

shakedown is happening in the financial world. The emerging fintech startups are gaining customers from the banks and traditional financial companies in large numbers. Similarly, a number of startups and/or new age services such as ever-changing e-commerce, are shaking the traditional way of doing business. Even though the new age companies are gaining customers and attracting the world attention, they all face a unique challenge: cyber security. The unregulated growth and unconventional and agile way of operations makes these entities uniquely vulnerable to security breaches. The innovations of the startup world are happening at lightspeed and part of their success is this speed in developing solutions to meet its users’ needs and expectations. However, regulations and global security standards are unable to keep up with the speed and thereby resulting in a gap between the regulatory environment.

The challenges of meeting the regulatory requirements and securing the technology stack along with personal data they serve are resulting in legal and operational risks for these businesses. We believe that those startups implementing the security and compliance layer, will have an edge among the peer companies. Good security is profitable for most startups, security that protects its users from breaches is a selling point. Most, if not all, users are worried about how their personal information is handled by these new companies. ValueMentor is helping a number of startups and fintech companies in the middle east and globally to build a unified framework for cyber security and compliance requirements unique to the startup. Each startup has their own security challenges and compliance roadblocks. The unified frameworks address these challenges resulting in a more secure environment that meets the regulatory requirements such as GDPR, PCI DSS etc.

These companies reach out to ValueMentor to utilize our experience in securing cloud environments such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and private cloud services offered by local companies. Our experience in providing consultancy towards PCI DSS, GDPR, ISO 27001 and various other regulatory requirements helps these startups build a strong techno compliance framework. Our primary focus is “Customer Success”. Every engagement we signup would have customer success team working with the customer, understanding the business requirements of the customer. We do not intend to provide just a point in service, but want to ensure that the customer is successful in the business they are in. Secondly, we focus on speed and agility where it is most critical for our client’s business. This helps our clients achieve competitive advantage against its competitors. Are you a startup? Let us discuss. ë

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FEATURE STORY

HANDS-ON JOBS NEED HANDS FREE TECHNOLOGY The consumer wearables market is putting immense pressure on the enterprise market to adopt and evolve. There are a few reasons for the enterprises being reluctant and skidding away but there are many more reasons why they should be on board for it. n B Y: C V A R YA D E V I < A R YA @ G E C M E D I A G R O U P. C O M > n P H O T O : S H U T T E R S T O C K

still explicitly remember the launch of Google Glass into the market for layman consumers. It came out as a big boom as it was something entirely new and a futuristic technology. But that in turn was not a big success to the market as expected. Most of the wearable technologies go unworn by the consumers. Even though these wearable technologies only last for few moments among layman consumers’ market, it sees a bright future in enterprise solutions. Various technologies to aid the workers in an industry are welcomed with open hands into the market whether it be launched by big tech industries or a startup.

WEAR IN ENTERPRISE A handful of enterprise wearable technology has gained popularity and made their way into mainstream business, thereby entering into the one trillion dollar market. A wearable device from 1MM Corp is being intensively used in warehouses to reduce workers’ injuries. The company’s kinetic wearable technology reduces unsafe postures in workplace to as much as 84%. Software platforms developed by APX Labs cre-

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ates augmented reality solutions for the industrial workforce. It promises to cut the production time by 25% and cut down the error to virtually zero. According to a research by ABI, adoption of smartwatches, smart glasses and wearable scanners is forecast to reach $55 billion by 2022. That is around 424% increase from $10.5 billion market value in 2017. Wearable devices and platforms that support them are seeing a large amount of growth within the enterprise market due to their ability to provide hands-free access to information and communication. Gartner Research expects the smart glasses market alone in the field services industry to have a $1 billion annual cost savings. “From a global perspective, the wearable technology market is a hot topic of discussion among many marketers, and the Middle East & Africa is nowhere behind. IDC expects the MEA wearables market to grow 20.9% YoY in 2017 to reach a total of 2.9 million units. The smart wearables segment will continue to be the prime driver of this growth, with shipments tipped to increase 52.0% YoY. In the longer term, IDC’s latest forecast shows the market expanding at a compound

annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.2% over the 2016–2021 period.” said Onur Altintas, Senior Product Marketing Manager - Surface, Microsoft Middle East & Africa. “Microsoft has been a significant contributor in enabling organizations to achieve more and create new ways to empower employees, optimize operations, engage customers and transform products. Hence, the introduction of different wearable technology such as mixed reality is aimed to optimize the customer experiences to the next level.” he further added

FEATURE STORY

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FEATURE STORY

“Microsoft has been a significant contributor in enabling organizations to achieve more and create new ways to empower employees, optimize operations, engage customers and transform products.” -ONUR ALTINTAS, SENIOR PRODUCT MARKETING MANAGER - SURFACE, MICROSOFT MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA.

“These devices are getting smarter and more common with support for a growing number of applications. If this continues, we should see wearable technology continue to enhance access control experiences.” -WISAM YAGHMOUR, REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR – HID GLOBAL.

CONSUMER MAY NOT BUT ENTERPRISE MAY Though , smartglasses didn’t gain popularity in retail market, it is seen as an asset by the enterprises in their warehouses. In stockrooms or storage facilities, smartglasses aid the worker to work efficiently. Google has initiated a “Glass At Work” programme with ten partners which includes APX and Augmate. The main vertical focus for startups in wearable glass technology was healthcare. Augmedix is one such company that specifically target healthcare industry with their solutions. These glasses are worn by the doctors during the examination of patients. It is said to make the relationship of the two as the doctors are not sitting infront of the system during examination process. Those doctors who used to spend around 1/3rd of their time in front of the computer need to hardly spend a minute or two. Not just the smartglasses, other techs like Smart Clothing is also gaining popularity in this field. These cloths embedded with sensors are connected to smartphones and can communicate with other devices. A report by Tractica says that the consumers will buy more than 10 million pieces of smart clothing yearly by 2020. But that is the case of retail market. How does it affect the

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enterprise market? The major potential market for manufacturers in smart clothing will be the construction sector. Worker safety and monitoring, one of the key focuses for many employers looks forth to the smart clothes. Smart cloths can help keep track and monitor vitals, location, environmental dangers etc. At present, the main focus is on the consumer market and many of the smart cloths are athletic wear. It is expected that in the next five years, smart clothing will look more like a casual o corporate wear rather than an athletic wear. “New converged identity models that use cloud authentication and mobile devices are also emerging, such as the ability to verify a person’s presence at a location, mobile IDs that validate physical citizen IDs, and smart cards that authenticate users to enterprise resources. We are seeing a maturity in mobile solutions and integration into other systems, coupled with mobile’s ability to enhance user convenience, improve operational efficiency and provide higher security will drive accelerated growth for mobile access and mainstream adoption” said Wisam Yaghmour, Regional Sales Director – HID Global. “Biometric devices are the most common wearables for use in the enterprise environment today, but the extended use of wearables for enterprise access solutions continues to be part of the conversation. These devices are getting smarter and more common with support for a growing number of applications. If this continues, we should see wearable technology continue to enhance access control experiences.” he added

NATURAL TECHNOLOGY Companies are seeing the benefits of wearables which includes productivity gains, improved worker safety, error elimination and reduced training costs. The long term challenges are also addressed as preventing fatigue, managing

inexperienced workforces etc. These technologies prove to make the overall working environment better. New focus is on meeting the comfort level expectation and making it easy to wear all day without any discomfort. Many employees are reluctant on using the wearable technology because 82% of employees fear privacy invasions. Employees are also hesitant to adopt employersuggested or mandatory devices because of the fear of being tracked or penalized and the interference of the personal lives. Yet there is a pressure faced by enterprises t adopt latest technology for the gain of both the employer and the employee. The proof that wearable technology sees its future in Enterprises is the “Enterprise Wearable Technology Summit” (EWTS) which would be held in Austin Texas in October. It is an event dedicated solely to the business and industrial applications for wearable including smart glasses, body worn sensors, wrist wearables or Augmented/ Virtual Reality. One of the main reason why the wearable devices has not yet reached its full potential in the enterprise market is the difficulty in producing customized apps. There is a need for customized apps with focus on the needs of the particular enterprise. This is one of the main criteria that differentiates the wearable technology for consumers and enterprises.

LOOK FORTH Adoption of enterprise wearables will create a need for new applications. The new technologies are trying to make information available in visual format at an eye level so that workers do not need to look down all the time. All these technologies are trying to make the working environment as natural as possible with the latest technology. Two contradicting ideas put together, right? Technology is playing its part in naturality and the end is yet to be understood. ë

INTERVIEW

SMOOTH RIDE TO DIGITIZATION

THROUGH CONSTANT INNOVATION, SANGFOR TECHNOLOGIES CREATES VALUE FOR ITS CUSTOMERS BY HELPING THEM ACHIEVE SUSTAINABLE GROWTH. ESTABLISHED IN 2000, SANGFOR WORKS CLOSELY WITH CHANNELS PARTNERS AND ALSO MAKES SURE THEIR CUSTOMERS GET THE BEST IN THE MARKET.

sales and product trainings, marketing resources and any other tools they require. In short, we give the best to our partners so that they can give the best to our customers.

JACKIE CHEN,

VP SALES EMEA, SANGFOR TECHNOLOGIES

Tell us in brief about Sangfor Technologies and your solutions. Sangfor Technologies is a leading global vendor of IT infrastructure solutions. We specialize in Cloud Computing & Network Security with a wide range of products including: HyperConverged Infrastructure, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, Next Generation Application Firewall, Internet Access Management, WAN Optimization, SSL & IPSec VPN and many others. Established in 2000, Sangfor currently has 3,500+ employees with 60+ branch offices globally. Could you please share with us your major partnerships and go to market strategy? Sangfor is a 100% Channel sales company, meaning we only sell through our channel partners. Our structure ensures that our customers get the best and most personalized technical support and services. We work closely with our channel partners to equip them for success with intensive

As technology matures, what are the benefits hyperconvergence can bring to businesses? Customers no longer need to test, stack and optimize products from different vendor – everything is ready when HCI arrives on site. You simply power on the appliance and it’s ready to go! TMM is reduced from months to days, allowing more time for business innovation. Sangfor HCI is the world’s very first 3rd generation HCI that natively converges compute, storage, networking and security, providing a simple and secure software-defined data center platform to help customers accelerate digital transformation in a cost-effective way. How is HCI a growing trend for today’s datacentres? By consolidating traditional DC building blocks into a commodity x86 server platform, customers enjoy an extremely simplified data center platform and a smooth ride to cloud. Software rules the world we can predict HCI will maintain its growth rate until it becomes the major approach to cloud. How is Artificial Intelligence driving the adoption of hyperconverged cloud infrastructures? Sangfor believes AI and machine learning will fundamentally shape the way we manage IT as the technology matures and we hope to proactively leverage this future growth. There are many ways to take advantage of AI on the HCI platform. HCI will use AI to analyze workload behaviors and intelligently configure the most suitable resources for the workload. It will be capable of predicting resource consumption and recommending the right resources at the right time for future expansion, while it automates most of the HCI management processes without any human intervention. Once configured, AI

will make HCI smart enough to take care of itself, running everything automatically and intelligently and reducing human intervention to a minimum. Of course, that will take a long time to develop, but adding AI capabilities to HCI step-by-step will benefit the HCI adoption rate by making it simpler and more agile. You have been recognized by Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Network Firewalls. Please share with our readers about the Sangfor NGAF Firewall Platform. Sangfor NGAF has been designed with our users in mind to protect them against all types of threats to business systems or and end-users, internal or external, existing or future, with an easy-to-use converged security solution. Sangfor NGAF is easy to understand, deploy and operate for the average IT employee. Sangfor NGAF provides security features including ACL, Anti-Virus, IPS, APT Protection, Unknown Threat Protection, WAF and a Report Center. Customer can use one console to manage all security operations including many unique security features like Risk Assessment, Web Scanner and Real Time Vulnerability. What is your roadmap for the year? In the second half of 2018 Sangfor plans to release several majorly updated versions of our existing products, providing users with some fantastic new business features they have been asking for. We are particularly looking forward to our upcoming Sangfor IAM “Business Intelligence” module release which will enable our users to leverage big data analytics to make pivotal business decisions. We want to put a finger on the pulse of organizations by making IT capable of doing everything from influencing intelligent decision making to having the granular control necessary to detect any PC’s after business hours and turn them off – reducing power wastage. The upcoming version of Sangfor NGAF has been integrated with Sangfor’s own innovative malware detection technology, leveraging AI to proactively detect threats in the network. ë

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INTERVIEW

Vexed of Data Threats? RPO in sync with your business is the best bet WHAT IF THERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO NOT LOOSE HOURS OF CRITICAL DATA IN CASE OF A DISASTER? ENTERPRISES WANT TO RECOVER WITH THE CURRENT DATA AND NOT YESTERDAY’S DATA. EVERYONE WANTS IT. QUESTION IS, IS IT POSSIBLE WITH MUCH LESS COMPLEXITY AND COST?

MICHAEL ORANGE, SALES MANAGER, ARCSERVE

“At Arcserve, we truly believe that any size organizations should be able to avoid IT disasters, making data loss obsolete.”

n B Y: C V A R YA D E V I < A R YA @ G E C M E D I A G R O U P. C O M >

oday, CXOs do not tolerate any loss of data in their critical business applications. They always search for data recovery methods with zero downtime and zero data loss. An interesting interview with Michael Orange, Sales manager of Arcserve, opened up options for all these and solutions worthy of trying out. Arcserve protects in real-time the critical applications and guarantees near-zero downtime and data loss while being non-disruptive, easilydeployable and affordable. “That is unique in the market. At Arcserve we truly believe that any size organizations should be able to avoid IT disasters, making data loss obsolete,” said Mr Orange. The most important parameters on which enterprises choose optimal disaster recovery plan are Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO). “RTO was the major

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focus of most of the vendors,” he said. “Now as C level executives understand that even though RTO is important, RPO is even more important because it shows how much data is going to be lost. An Osterman Research report pointed out that already nearly 50% of decision makers would not tolerate any data loss for their critical applications.” Mr Orange sees this as one of the biggest trend in the market. This trend came into existence primarily because organizations have to deal with more and more cyber-threats. “If we look at Ransomware alone, it is projected to sweep every 14 seconds in 2019. It is a major area of concern for any organization,” said Mr Orange. This is one of the many reasons Arcserve came up with the solution suite Arcserve Unified Data Protection (UDP). Arcserve UDP combine backup, high availability (near-zero data loss and

downtime), cloud protection and data archiving within one solution and unprecedented costeffectiveness. These unique Disaster Recovery features led to major partnerships in the region, including a strategic alliance with Saudi Telecom Solutions. Another interesting set of capabilities from Arcserve is UDP Cloud Direct. “It is the only cloud-first solution to meet both RTO/RPO requirements of minutes without extra on-premises hardware. It is ideal for customers who cannot afford to have an additional backup infrastructure onsite.” This way there is no additional infrastructure expenses while at the same time getting a tailor-made data recovery plan. To design a good Disaster Recovery plan, Arcserve recommends their customers to plan it carefully and keep it simple. “It is key to ensure a strategy which enables a quick and effective recovery through the correct use of backup and DR solution,” said Mohammad Banat, technical lead at Arcserve Middle-East. “Plan testing (manual or automatic), training and exercising should not be optional. Regular testing will help you to find any weakness on your plan, and adjust it before any unexpected failure."ë

IN THE LAND OF ZERO TRUST, ACCESS IS SECURE.

FOCUS STORY

Diversification is the Key (to Success)

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FOCUS STORY

With the surging oil prices, introduction of natural gas production, completion of the new International Airport in Muscat, we can witness a substantial uptick in Oman GDP growth. n B Y: D I V S H A B H AT < D I V S H A @ G E C M E D I A G R O U P. C O M > P H O T O : S H U T T E R S T O C K

hen I got an opportunity to write on Oman, I was excited. Now you may think why? It’s because I have been in this country for 5 years and seen it growing. It is so easy to interpret things that you have seen than heard. So, what kind of growth am I talking about here? Known as the ‘Pearl of Arabia’ for its stunning landscapes and cultural heritage, The Sultanate of Oman is also rich when it comes to the adoption of technology. The country has embarked upon

an ambitious journey in transforming itself by empowering its people through eOman initiative, besides opening up job opportunities for nationals in the IT sector within the digital society. Oman’s GDP is also set to grow at 5.2 percent this year after the country commenced natural gas production and also opened the new Muscat International Airport.

GOING DIGITAL In line with Oman Vision 2020, the country is transforming into a sustainable knowledge-based

economy. eOman bridges the digital gap between the public and the government by making eGovernment services available to people across the country. The Information Technology Authority of Oman (ITA) has launched various IT related infrastructure projects as well as an eGovernment portal which serves as a gateway to the online services. eServices have transformed the ways in which the citizens make government transactions. A few examples are online payment of electricity bills and e-visa services. At the recently held COMEX 2018, the

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FOCUS STORY

“TalariaX has been quick to adopt and leverage recent technological advances within our offerings to address the growing/changing needs of the market place,” -ASHOK KUMAR V, CHIEF OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, TALARIAX.

“Implementation of Blockchain governance shall give the agility required to respond to economic conditions and facilitate the 21st century growth” -MUHAMMED ARAFATH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, APLA.

Ministry of Information launched over 170 new eServices. It also included launching the updated website for Muscat Municipality that will offer more online services for users. Specialized workshops were also conducted which highlighted topics like digital transformation and smart cities. TalariaX sees the smart city initiative as a huge window of opportunity as there will a sea change in technology adoption in Oman. “A vital aspect of this will be efficient 2-way communication from Enterprises (Devices/Applications/Users) to its stakeholders. TalariaX is highly specialized in that space. TalariaX has been quick to adopt and leverage recent technological advances within our offerings to address the growing/changing needs of the market place. As an example, our sendQuick omni-channel gateway is now available on the cloud, as a subscription model and also on virtual platform (VMWare). With sendQuick, an organization can establish 2-way communication via SMS, email and social media messaging (new) as well,” said Ashok Kumar V, Chief of Business Development, TalariaX. COMEX 2018 Smart Cities and Industry 4.0 summit, entitled ‘AI & IoT for Advancing the National Economy’ discussed topics related to Artificial Intelligence, Li-Fi, Internet of Things, etc. Also, it covered Mwasalat’s new smart technology initiative that aims to enhance the public transportation services. Apart from

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this, the Sultanate also recognizes the power of blockchain and is undertaking every possible effort to harness it.

HARNESSING THE POWER OF BLOCKCHAIN Though the Sultanate of Oman has witnessed significant development in terms of blockchain adoption, the country believes there is more to unlock. Oman recently hosted it first successful Blockchain conference named – ‘Blockchain Oman 2018’, which discussed the potentials of Blockchain to transform its key economic sectors. The country also looks ahead to set up its first blockchain training centre in the near future. The initiative to train those living in Oman on the functions of blockchain is being spearheaded by Blockchain Solutions and Services Oman, which is under the State General Reserve Fund of the Sultanate’s Ministry of Finance. To expedite the process, it has brought in Trakinvest, a Singaporebased social investment and trade company, which specialises in blockchain reported Times of Oman. The country could benefit from this because it is not bound by certain legacy systems. The government of Oman supports the local communities and is upgrading its skills related to cybersecurity, e-commerce, and blockchain. Making processes more efficient will help generate more jobs, because the skillset for blockchain tech is lacking at the moment. Muhammed Arafath, Executive Director of Apla says – “For the betterment of economic conditions, newer business models has to be put in place. Implementation of Blockchain governance shall give the agility required to respond to economic conditions and facilitate the 21st century growth. We see great opportunities here as the government is committed in enhancing the current technology infrastructure.”

MOVING CLOSER TO A POST OIL ECONOMY The Sultanate’s non-oil exports grew more than

28% in the first ten months of 2017 as the demand for Omani products increased in Qatar and Saudi Arabia according to National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI). The NCSI figures also showed that Oman’s exports to UAE continued to remain its biggest non-oil trading partner followed by Saudi Arabia. Last year, the country also managed to achieve substantial growth in non-oil shipments to China and India. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that the Sultanate of Oman will see the fastest GDP growth rates in the year 2019 among the GCC countries followed by Kuwait and Bahrain. The IMF mission in its recent visit to Oman welcomed the measures taken by the Omani government to address the fiscal challenges. This year, Oman is in the middle of its five-year diversification strategy. This strategy has been built on its long-term vision to shift from an oil-based economy towards other sectors like tourism, manufacturing, fisheries and mining. From Muscat to Duqm to Sohar to Salalah, the country is revamping its ports infrastructure to adapt them for tourism and alongside increase industrial production and exports. The NCSI shows that Omani industries posted a huge growth, amounting to double digit in 2017 while the Omani economic zones of Duqm and Sohar reported huge investments by foreign investors. According to the Chairman of Duqm Economic Freezone, Oman has allocated $10 billion and is seeking another $10 billion in foreign investment by 2022.

OMAN VISION – TO BOOST FUTURE GROWTH It is known that Oman is busy preparing for a future less dependent on income from oil. Following the vision planned by His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the country is also investing heavily in educating its citizens and developing its industries. The Oman Vision 2020 will definitely put the country on the right track and reach its ambition of diversifying economies. ë

INTERVIEW

Compromise on Downtime or Migration. Or neither? IT IS COMMONLY SAID THAT FIVE MINUTES OF DOWNTIME IS ENOUGH TO CRASH AN ENTIRE COMPANY. BUT, DOES THAT MEAN WE SHOULD NOT MIGRATE OUR DATA TO A BETTER PLATFORM? READ ON.

ABDUL RAHMAN MOHAMMED, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF ROYAL DATA SYSTEMS

“All the projects that we have done has 99.9% success with no loss of information or data with zero downtime during migration. Downtime is the biggest part during migration process. ”

n B Y: C V A R YA D E V I < A R YA @ G E C M E D I A G R O U P. C O M >

igrating data is an unavoidable yet intimidating task for enterprises. Whether it is migrating to a new domain or finding a new host, downtime is a major issue faced by enterprises. Downtime can result in loss of revenue, customers or even the brand value. The bigger the enterprise, the more impact downtime causes. An interesting interview with Abdul Rahman Mohammed, Managing Director of Royal Data Systems opened up some new avenues on the critical data migration with zero downtime. The move over to new systems is generally a minefield: a simple configuration missed can put a system or business out of actions for hours, if not days. RDS promises zero downtime during migration process by project management, implementation and migration services, we give the complete solution to the business starting with consultation, sizing the datacenter to end client devices and accordingly implement and supplies.” “All the projects that we have done have 99.9% success with no loss of information or data with zero downtime during migration. Downtime is the biggest part during migration process.” said Mr Abdul.

We have Solid business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) procedures during migration of any platform and to their users, As for as Exchange users they can still work on their mailboxes. The programme does not block mailboxes or put limitations on users in terms of working with emails while their data is copied to another Exchange Server. One of the major migration project done is the implementation of hybrid cloud technology for a University. “Our major objective is to access most of the corporate clients so that we can fulfil their environment and IT requirement and put them to optimal use. We also have the expertise to fulfil end to end cloud solutions. We did hybrid cloud implementation for a University. We carried out their data migration and exchange and they have over 3000 users.” added Mr Abdul. “It is quite challenging to put our hands into these environments as we have to tackle data very accurately and there should be no loss of data. But we have the expertise to migrate any legacy version to the latest platform. We did the high available infrastructure implementation in may projects which obviously saves the client’s cost, data and keeps them 99% safe and up and running uptime and It help the companies to achieve set

RTO and RPO. And a budgeted DR solutions to their infrastructure” he said. The company believes that IT platform is the core of any infrastructure, and planning and decisions made in this area effect the overall strength and success of the infrastructure as a whole. They advise to pay careful attention to ensure Server platforms and highly available platforms are configured to meet both Microsoft and RDS best practice methodologies. Royal Data Systems also started a separate division for online sales and Services three years back by the name of www.lastbestprice.com. “For a new company it is hard to reach out to the suppliers and to reach out the products and services. So with that in mind we started the online platform where major vendor’s products published complete range of IT infrastructure hardware and software licensing. For example, Dell has the complete data center hardware to the user desktop hardware with price, availability, deliverable timeline etc.” he added. Mr Abdul Rahman said that he started the company in March 2011 with his Brother Mr. Osman Mohammed farm background of Information Technology. “Keeping that knowledge and background of Information technology in action we started this company to gratify to the Gulf region. ë

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INTERVIEW

RE-THINKING BUSINESS WITH RPA

IN THE RECENTLY CONCLUDED KAPOW RPA WORKSHOP HELD BY KOFAX FOR ALL THEIR PARTNERS, FINESSE WAS DECLARED THE WINNERS FOR CREATING A ROBOT USING WEB AUTOMATION TECHNIQUES. WE SAT WITH MR. SUNIL PAUL TO GET INTO THE DETAILS OF THE SAME AND EXPLORED THE GROWING SIGNIFICANCE OF RPA IN MODERN ENTERPRISES.

(EXCERPTS)

How is your partnership with KOFAX enhancing the service delivery to regional customers? Kofax comes with decades of experience in Digitalization. Our partnership with Kofax is half a decade long and Finesse see them as a natural partner for our Digital story. We have extended the relationship to further level with their end to end Digitization story which includes Multi Channel Data Capturing, Case Management, Workflow and Process Automation, Robotic Process Automation & Digital Signature. This combined with industry focussed and cross vertical solutions gives a cutting cut advantage to serve our customer effectively and with quick turnaround time and low TCO. Finesse uses new technologies like Kapow along with our managed services, thus increasing satisfaction significantly among our client base with the automation of processes. A combination of big data, analytics, visualisation, mobility and machine learning drive more value through a human-digital collaboration. This redefines performance, capacity, and capabilities in business performance reporting.

SUNIL PAUL,

CO-FOUNDER AND COO OF FINESSE

How do you see RPA changing the current business landscape in the region? RPA has evolved from being a simple mimicking by robots of repetitive human activities to a highly seamless collaboration of human and digital. It now involves Cognitive AI to a large extent in driving RPA. The new result is performing processes with superior speed while adding analytics to bring more value. The benefit has also changed dramatically -from a pure optimising of 24X7 capacity and

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cost reduction of both software and resources to a process redefinition. The outcome is enhanced in terms of agility, adaptability, speed and customer experience. The use of analytics are being used to drive business strategies, all of which combined reduce work and costs drastically. With this regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thrust to automate the processes and activates, RPA provides lots of momentum together with Process improvements, Machine Learning along with Artificial Intelligence.

Tell us in brief about the web automation technique that you used for the challenge. Automation of Corporate Trade license KYC and Annual Statement Validation against Company Register This robot can be utilized by financial institutions to automate the corporate trade license validation check. The robot shall be triggered once the existing corporate data available locally is subjected for renewal update. The robot shall go the company registration portal and automatically pull the last updated renewal details for the corporate which include new expiry date, shareholders, annual statement summary, address and other KYC information of the corporate. This information shall be locally updated and a notification will be send to the customer to submit document that requires double verification. The corporates that are not renewed against the company register will be put on follow up list to be requiring manual action. ĂŤ

INTERVIEW

STRUCTURING TOMORROW’S GREEN DATA CENTERS

ACCORDING TO PANDUIT, EACH MARKET HAS ITS OWN CAPABILITIES AND EACH COUNTRY HAS EFFICIENTLY DEVELOPED ITS OWN TRENDS. WITH ITS HEAVILY EQUIPPED CHANNEL ECOSYSTEM AND SOLID INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTIONS, PANDUIT IS SET TO ADDRESS THESE KEY TRENDS WITH QUALITY THAT IS DEFINED BY SHEER GOOD SCIENCE.

VIPIN SHARMA,

BUSINESS DIRECTOR - MEA, PANDUIT

Data center modernization has led the way for innovation in various key areas. How has Panduit evolved with the trend in the past 5-6 years? Panduit is a global leader in physical enterprise and data centre infrastructure manufacture – the Panduit Laboratory, is a research and development centre for structured cabling infrastructure systems and associated cabinet and rack systems and connectivity accessories that enable the data bridge. The expansion of data traffic in the enterprise and data centre cannot be achieved without the on-going development of fibre optic cables that are compliant with the latest International Standards, and continue to develop, with additional benefits to customer. To this end, Panduit developed OM4 Signature Core and OM5 Signature Core fibre optic cabling systems.

Panduit’s standards compliant OM4 SC cabling systems extend the cabling reach on average by 20% compared to the defined OM4 standard. Panduit played a leading role in the development of OM5 fibre within the TIA Joint Task Group on WBMMF (Wide Band Multi-Mode Fibre) as Chair during the standards development process, and was first to market with wideband multimode fibre that provides extended reach for systems operating at multiple wavelengths. OM5 Signature Core, Panduit’s brand OM5 outperforms the standard OM5 fibre for any SWDM application, providing on average 15% extended reach, while maintaining high and reliable performance. Inside the cabinet Panduit led the way with a 28-gauge copper cabling system that offers up to 50% space savings and reduced cost over 24-AWG cabling system in data centres. When used in hot contained rack systems the cabling system allows improved airflow through the cabinet reducing the server/storage fan speeds, which again reduces power needs. How are your key offerings around physical, electrical and network infrastructure benefiting the modern enterprises that are increasingly becoming OPEX-savvy. Energy use in the technology space in enterprises and data centres is the one of largest single OPEX costs. Panduit is heavily involved in energy efficient cabling and enclosure and cabinet systems. Today’s trend is to operate the server space at manufacturer’s optimized operational levels, equipment operates at higher temperatures and reduces the requirement for additional cooling technology, which is a major energy cost saving. Panduit’s sealed rack enclosures guarantee high-volume air-flow across cabinets maximizing cooling efficiency. Hot exhaust is vented away from the compute space. Panduit’s G5 iPDU provides comprehensive, accurate, energy measurement data to allow data centre operators to efficiently use power resources, make informed capacity planning decisions, improve uptime, help measure PUE, drive green data centre initiatives to save energy

and costs, and provide physical security to prevent unauthorised cabinet access. Talking about the MEA region, how has your go-to-market strategy been and what kind of demand have you seen coming from the end users? Panduit’s MEA strategy is to continue to develop our Channel Partnerships, which we believe provides us with the most complete exposure across the region. Our offer includes world leading infrastructure technologies, that are international standards compliant ensure the channel and end user the highest quality products and services. Each market within MEA has developed different key trends, Saudi – entertainment industry and Telcos infrastructure has expanded massively, in Dubai Smart Building infrastructure projects are being driven by Expo2020, Panduit’s product and service offering corresponds to those trends. How does your channel ecosystem look like? The Panduit MEA channel has develop in to tiered alliance of companies, that hold similar values to Panduit, in that quality, technical expertise and customer service are highly valued. Our Channel Offer, provides a tiered partner program that provides specific support for all sizes of channel operators, Our Partner 1 Program provides a complete eco-system platform to provide our channel with the physical and digital resources, product and volume incentives to offer an optimized solution to their customers. At Panduit, how do you define the words ‘Quality’ and ‘Value’? Panduit has been a leading manufacturer of structured infrastructure for 50 years, and has a hard earned reputation for high quality products, developed from research investment. Quality to Panduit is defined by good science and a wide market presence that allows us to communicate with customers and learn from them. Value is delivery quality products that exceed our channel and end user expectations. ë

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SPECIAL STORY

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS HOW FIRM IS THAT HANDSHAKE? Mergers and Acquisitions have become a popular business strategy for organizations looking to expand into new regions, to gain a competitive edge or acquire new technologies. Whether the acquisitions and mergers are beneficial or not, can only be done by analysing.

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9tn

Companies spend more than $2 trillion on acquisitions every year

SPECIAL STORY

ductivity and efficiency. In fact, there are many advantages of growing your business through M&A’s. For instance, a business with good management and process systems will be useful to a buyer who wants to improve their own. Also, if an organization is looking to expand regionally or internationally, it will be less expensive to buy an existing business. With the advancement in technology, the IT department also have a significant impact with the M&A’s. During the merger and acquisition stage, CIOs are responsible for continuing dayto-day business functions for employees as well as combining the IT departments that provide company functions such as HR, finance and operations. What may seem as a simple task of taking stock of the inventory of both companies is a huge task for the IT departments. The task includes new standard applications for deployments, sorting software licenses, potential audits, procurement processes, securing the environment from cyber threats, and more.

CHANGING ROLE OF CHANNEL PARTNERS

n B Y: D I V S H A B H AT < D I V S H A @ G E C M E D I A G R O U P. C O M > n P H O T O : S H U T T E R S T O C K

t is an undeniable fact that every industry is affected by the digital technologies like Internet of Things, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and so on. How do enterprises rapidly access these technologies that can drive their business towards successful operations? For an increasing number of companies, the answer is to buy rather than build. Recently Facbeook acquired Redkix, a start-up that provides tools to communicate more effectively by combining email with a more formal collaboration tool. As is often the case with these kind of acquisitions, Facebook bought the technology itself along with the team that created it. Last year, in a continued effort to give cars the capabilities to drive autonomously, Ford acquired Argo – an AI company. During the next 5 years, Ford will invest $1 billion in Argo AI - combining Ford’s autonomous vehicle development expertise with Argo AI’s robotics experience. Going back to 2017 – the year indeed saw a

major number of mergers and acquisitions. With Cisco’s purchase of AppDynamics to Verizon’s acquisition of Yahoo and Apple purchasing Shazam are few of the deals to mention. The Middle East was no less. From notable acquisitions such as Souq.com by Amazon, to the National Bank of Abu Dhabi and First Gulf Bank merger to form First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), 2017 was undoubtedly a year of mergers and acquisitions in the U.A.E. While mergers and acquisitions can be path to growth, this also creates a unique challenge for the business landscape. An organization should first understand the odds of succeeding and if the challenges are worth the effort. It may be profitable, but what impact does it have on the business and IT?

IMPACT ON BUSINESS & IT A working paper by Harvard Business Review states that M&A’s do not have any effect on pro-

For the channel partners who have an established territory, M&A’s can be of concern. The stakeholders will defend the significant investments they made in the past and relationships they have established. When the merged entity depends on these stakeholders, planning of how future territory lines are drawn can be a struggle. The strengths and weaknesses of these stakeholders will determine their role in the delivery of the expected value. Talking about stakeholders, Dell recently announced about acquiring a trading stock DVMT and said that it will offer DVMT shareholders “significantly” more DHI common stock than cash. The deal, which was also reported by The Wall Street Journal, will eliminate the tracking stock but will leave VMware unaffected. It temporarily concludes months of deliberation about strategic options from Dell and its board.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2018 AND INTO 2019 Deloitte predicted that mergers and acquisitions would speed up this year mostly driven by technology acquisitions. 6 months past 2018 some of the big announcements have already caught the attention and surprised the market. The acquisitions and mergers are not only signing a piece of paper. It allows industry leaders to watch and forecast where these companies will be heading to and how it will affect consumers in the years to come! ë

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INTERVIEW

Adaptive Business Model is Fundamental of Sustainable Business Growth! THE DECLINE OF INVESTMENT IN INFRASTRUCTURE NETWORKING DID NOT SEE THE END TO IBT TECHNOLOGIES. THE

COMPARATIVELY

NEW

BPO

BUSINESS

STANDING

NECK-TO-NECK

WITH

THE

INFRASTRUCTURE

IMPLEMENTATION BUSINESS.

JAI MULANI, CEO, IBT

“The call-center and IT outsourcing business which is 5-years-old, is competing with our IT business which is 9-years-old.”

n B Y: C V A R YA D E V I < A R YA @ G E C M E D I A G R O U P. C O M >

ith increased adoption of cloud storage, cloud infrastructure is being more popular. This popularity may be due to the cost and management problems faced with traditional enterprise infrastructure. There is an opportunity to move Enterprise Architecture to cloud and reduce cost significantly which many companies grab onto. Cloud computing which offers efficiency, performance, reliability, security, scalability, and speed to its customers is gaining popularity at a booming pace. This in turn has reduced the investment to traditional IT infrastructure and data center. This led to the rise of vast ‘hyperscale’ cloud data center, a large-scale public cloud data center. It is expected that there will be 628 hyperscale data centers globally by 2021, compared to 338 in 2016. An interview with Jai Mulani, the CEO of IBT took us through the difference in the market of traditional infrastructure implementation. “6 to7

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years back if the infrastructure for a new office costed AED 0.5 Million, today the same size of office will need to spend only AED 30,000 on Cloud Subscription. This is because the technology has grown. Earlier an office would need 10 servers, but virtualization reduced it to 3. Today, with the advent of cloud, servers are being eliminated. With the evolution of technology, the investment cost has gone down drastically.” said Mr Mulani. IBT, which started in 2009 with main focus on infrastructure implementation, has now moved on to Business Process Outsourcing with the reduced investment in infrastructure. Mr Mulani said, “In UAE, infrastructure market is saturated and stagnated. In 2014, we started a new company for outsourcing. The major activity we do under that is call center outsourcing, process outsourcing and IT outsourcing.” He further added that the company is seeing immense growth in this market because it is a people-oriented business. “The call center and IT outsourcing business

which is 5 years old, is competing with our IT business which is 9-year-old. The new division is neck to neck with IT.” he said. There are a lot of misconceptions about the BPO business. With new emerging technologies like robotic process automation, the industry is breathing in a new dawn. “Business is moving towards people centric sector. Everyone is moving to cloud, everyone is talking about AI. We also have migrated from that sector, from Infrastructure company to a BPO company.” added Mr Mulani. New technologies are influencing BPO business. Technologies like cloud computing, analytics software, social media platforms etc. are now being used in it. A chatbot is one such technology which is a computer programmed or an AI which conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods. A question that arises with these technologies is whether it will replace humans in the workplace. “At the first level, yes, it has already started replacing. At level one chatbots have already replaced people.” But Mulani sternly says that it will never replace humans as a whole. “If a client is asking common questions than it can be easily taken care by automated chatbots. As soon the person in charge sees that the chatbot has not responded or the question is out of the SLA of chatbot, then the human intervention starts.” Human intervention is always needed for any of these technologies. ë

Discover it – the new world of IT solutions. Discover it – the new world of IT solutions.

The digital transformation in business, trade and industry offers a whole host of opportunities but also throws up new challenges for IT infrastructures. Dealing with complex tasks and huge volumes of data calls for increasingly fast, ﬂexible and efficient IT solutions. The digital transformation in business, trade and industry offers a whole host of opportunities but also throws up new challenges for IT infrastructures. Dealing with complex tasks and huge volumes of data DISCOVER THE POSSIBILITIES WITH RITTAL. calls for increasingly fast, ﬂexible and efficient IT solutions. INNOVATIVE DATA CENTRE ARCHITECTURES

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Accent Infomedia_EMEA_GITEX 2017 - Handbook - 220X310mm(bleed) 200x290mm(trim)

INTERVIEW

TURNKEY SOLUTIONS FOR ENTERPRISES

JABER AL MAS TRADING LLC IS ON A MISSION TO IMPROVE THEIR BUSINESS PROCESS AND PRODUCTIVITY TO ACHIEVE A LEVEL OF EXCELLENCE SUPERIOR TO THEIR COMPETITORS AND DELIVER THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF SATISFACTION TO THEIR CUSTOMERS. ENTERPRISE CHANNELS MEA IN AN EXCLUSIVE CHAT WITH THOMAS SAM, GM - IT.

importance as a measure to prevent massive data breaches. What trends do you expect for 2018/2019 I anticipate a number of key trends to characterize the video surveillance data storage market in 2018/2019 Surveillance-as-a-service takes off Last year, we saw service providers and customers testing the market with surveillance-as-aservice, and in 2018 we should watch for it to gain momentum and acceptance with a wider audience. As surveillance-as-a-service goes mainstream, we’ll also see devices becoming more intelligent.

THOMAS P SAM, GM - IT, JABER AL MAS TRADING LLC

Tell us more about Jaber Al Mas and how do you stand apart as an IT Specialist? Jaber Al Mas Trading LLC established in 2002 is a leading IT solution provider in the country with over 10 years of successful history in the field. As pioneers in providing the most sophisticated telecom solutions, we also offer state-of-the art security and surveillance system. With a skilled team & an end-to-end solution driven approach JAM is the ideal partner. What are the key market trends impacting the growth of storage and surveillance market this year? In the previous years, the video surveillance community saw the emergence of video surveillance as a service. As predicted, we also witnessed an increase in intelligence in cameras, greater adoption of analytics, and more content aggregation. In addition, biometrics assumed increasing

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Increase in analytics In 2017, normal networks, machine learning, real-time analytics, and artificial intelligence all got significant airplay. These forward-looking technologies are rapidly turning into real offerings for 2018, with implications for the security community such as more integration of a variety of sensor analytics. More data will be created and retained longer Retention times aren’t shrinking, and LTO (Liner Tape Open) tape is increasingly viewed as a vital element in surveillance storage architectures. With more data being produced that is vulnerable to cyber-attack, people are also recognizing the advantage of the air-gapped protection against ransom ware that is inherent with tape. The multi-tier storage architecture Quantum has articulated as an enabling technology for video surveillance is clearly seeing traction going into the New Year. There are market challenges – both political and technical – but the overall trend is one of progress. It’s pretty clear that people and businesses will continue the trend of reducing their need to rely on costly hardware and infrastructure by placing files and applications in the cloud. Given the multitude of cloud storage providers out there, you must take care in choosing a provider who will offer the maximum amount of low-cost storage and bandwidth, while still

keeping your data safe. What is your go to market strategy and tell us about your major partnerships Our mission is to continuously improve all our business process and productivity to achieve a level of excellence superior to our competitors and deliver the highest level of satisfaction to our customers. To be regarded as a leader in every sphere of our activity and become the first choice and trusted name to our customers by providing world class products and services. We would achieve this by building a dynamic organization and committing ourselves to the highest ethical and professional standers. We have partnered with all the major brands in our line of IT Solutions, giving our customers the best of solutions for their requirements. How are cloud applications and the rise of cloud data centres driving the need for further acceleration in structured cabling? What I see is that the future of Data storage is in Cloud which will reduce the investments. People and businesses will be reducing their need to rely on costly hardware and infrastructure by placing files and applications in the cloud. Structured Cabling will have a long way to go as of now. Customers rely more on the wired connectivity than on wireless connectivity. Inside the premises we will see the structured cabling and the storage and Data center storage will move to cloud storage with DR centers. How can structured cabling solution providers reduce the complexities to allow IoT to thrive safe and secure in the data centre? Data centre being the heart of any organization a great precaution has to be taken on wireless connectivity as there are possibilities of data hacking. Now with the the 1- wire technologies, we have significantly reduced the cost of structured cabling. Further reduction can be done by using internal Wifi access points solutions connected to a main server. ë

INNOVATIONS

KEY CAPABILITIES n Hybrid solution with natural cooling when conditions are suitable n Includes refrigerant circuit (DX- direct expansion); separate water circuit (CWcold water) n Cost-effective solution for locations with low to moderate ambient temperatures n Automatically makes use of indirect free cooling when outside temperatures are low n Efficient and space saving refrigerant-based solution n LCP DX solutions- outputs of 20 kW and 35 kW n Suitable small and midsized environments n High-performance cooling with water n Use in environments with high air humidity n High degree of redundancy n Ensures high uptime required for edge solutions

RITTAL- REFRIGERANT BASED IT COOLING SOLUTION Rittal has added 20 and 35 kW output classes to its portfolio of refrigerant-based IT cooling solutions. As a result, solutions are now available throughout the 3 to 55 kW range. They include a world first: a 35 kW hybrid version that activates indirect free cooling where conditions are suitable, making it very energy-efficient. Compact cooling systems are also available in high redundancy configurations. These meet the need of todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s IT infrastructure for high uptime of particular importance for state-of-the-art edge computing solutions where it is necessary to ensure the uninterrupted flow of data.

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ZEBRA TECHNOLOGIES- ZQ600 MOBILE PRINTERS Zebra Technologies Corporation launched the new ZQ600 series of label and receipt mobile printers designed to help businesses increase productivity in stores, backrooms and warehouses. Building off the success of Zebraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most successful mobile printers, the QLn printer series, the new ZQ600 mobile printers offer a color display screen with a customizable menu for easy operation, as well as advanced battery and wireless capabilities that enable peak performance for applications such as pricing management and faster checkouts in retail stores. KEY CAPABILITIES n High-volume label and receipt printing applications n Useful in the retail, transportation and logistics, and manufacturing industries. n Ideal for click and collect, inventory/price display compliance and management. n Ideal for POS, queue busting, picking, packing, shipping, direct store delivery (DSD), and reverse logistics applications. n Easy-to-read color display n Features user-friendly interface n Reduces employee training requirements n Signals alerts, printer status and errors for the immediate resolution of issues. n Highest capacity battery in class n Power Smart Print technology (PSPT) n Maximizes battery efficiency by calculating and delivering the exact amount of power required n Save an estimated 20-30 percent of their battery power n Includes the latest Wi-Fi capabilities n Equipped with instant-wake over Wi-Fi feature n Automatically wakes up the printer if it goes into sleep mode when idle

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INNOVATIONS

Siemon Lighter Cabinets Siemon’s cabinet solutions and accessories are now available in white and light grey in the Middle East, improving visibility and delivering a clean, modern look for today’s data centres and telecommunications spaces. In addition to existing black (RAL 9011), Siemon’s VersaPOD, V800, V600 and wall-mount cabinets are now available in white (RAL 9003) and light grey (RAL 7035). Cabinet accessories are also available in white and light grey to ensure a seamless look throughout the cabinets, including VersaPOD zero-U and end-of-row panels, cable managers, blanking panels and PDU mounting brackets. Vertical patch panels, cable trays, cable managers and brush guards used with V800 and V600 cabinets also come in a white or grey, as well as common cabinet accessories including equipment shelves, filler panels, exhaust chimneys, lid dividers, casters and mounting rails.

KEY CAPABILITIES n Clean and modern look n Reflect up to 75 percent more light than black cabinets n Improved visibility while making critical network connections and equipment n Networking spaces may be reduced for potential operational cost savings n Less prone to visible scratches n Blend well into surrounding décor n Leverage the vertical space between cabinets n Reduces stranded power outlets by 75 percent resulting in 46% power saving n Saves valuable floor space

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Trove Access and Power Integration Solutions Altronix added Paxton Access to its expanding portfolio of Trove Access and Power Integration Solutions, which simplify board layout and wire management, greatly reducing installation and labor costs. Altronix Trove2PX2 seamlessly accommodates Paxton controllers providing a scalable, cost effective access control solution. Altronix Trove access and power integration solutions easily combine Altronix power and accessories with access controllers available from the industry’s leading manufacturers. A variety of backplanes offer a wide range of scalable access and power configurations. This solution simplifies board layout and wire management, while reducing installation and labor costs. Customize your access control with Trove. KEY CAPABILITIES n Removable backplane n Accommodates up to 12 Paxton Net2 plus series controllers n Allows installers to test and configure the access system prior to installation n Includes a tamper switch, mounting hardware and cam lock n Ample room for wiring and to accommodate back-up batteries n Dimensions: Trove1: 18”H x 14.5”W x 4.625”D (457mm x 368mm x 118mm) Houses up to four (4) 12VDC/12AH batteries. Trove2: 27.25”H x 21.5”W x 6.5”D (692.15mm x 546.1mm x 165.1mm) Houses up to four (4) 12VDC/12AH batteries. Trove3: 36.12”W x 30.125”L x 7.06”H (917.5 mm W x 768.1 mm L x 179.3 mm H). Houses up to four (4) 12VDC/12AH batteries.

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