EC-MEA August 2022

PREPARING FOR THE

Channel METAVERSE

While the real Metaverse is years way, big players will jump into the fray before 2025, leaving channel partners little time to prepare, test, and build.

BRILLIANT OP TICS. AMA ZING DESIGN.

Increase in video meetings in 20201

Information workers who rarely or never use video in meetings3

Growth of UC meetings with video from 2019 to 20202

Information workers who use video at least once a day3

ADVANTAGES OF R ALLY BAR

Superior Audio and Video: A video bar engineered for midsize rooms, featuring a motorized PTZ lens, adaptive beamforming mics, support for two

Flexible Deployment Options: Run meetings in appliance mode without a computer for Microsoft Teams, Zoom, GoTo, Pexip, or RingCentral Or, connect to a computer or laptop and use with any software.

Simple Setup and Cable Management: Place on a table or credenza, or add a wall or TV mount for a sleek space-saving set up Integrated cable management keeps connections tight.

Easy to monitor, manage, and support: Stay informed and ahead with metrics like people count.

MAKE EVERYONE LOOK AMAZING.

Medium room solution with Logitech Tap for Microsoft Teams Rooms.

M-worlds and channel partners

There are just a few things about the Metaverse that the industry is unanimous about. The first is that it is a significant disruptive movement in select areas of social and business engagement. The second is that it is a convergence of select technology platforms, many of which are not ready as yet. And the third is that it cannot be ignored since the catchup game may be too challenging at a later date.

In this month’s lead feature, we adapt and excerpt from BCG’s The Corporate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Metaverse and apply it to the dynamics of the channel partner community.

Similar to many previous disruptive technology events, like the dot-com meltdown that was the basis for the global e-commerce market worth almost $5 trillion today, it is difficult to fathom where the beginnings of today’s Metaverse will finally lead to.

Enthusiasts see Metaverse as the next generation of the Internet, a virtual, interconnected reality woven into the physical world. Gamers are familiar with this notion, usually in two dimensions, but games are only the beginning. Mobile augmented reality, which leverages smartphone cameras and processing power to superimpose information helps bridge the transition.

More than half of 6 billion smartphones in use today are sufficiently powerful to enable mobile augmented reality. According to ARtillery Intelligence, 800 million users actively use mobile augmented reality, a number it projects will grow to 1.7 billion in 2025. Clearly the Metaverse tomorrow will be a mobile world and not a desktop world.

The use cases for the mixed reality Metaverse span consumer and business applications. One of the current inhibitors is the cost of high-quality headsets essential for the immersive display. When you get to 10 million VR units active, that is kind of a magic number. At that point, you have a self-sustaining ecosystem.

Moving forward, major business and start-up players are creating their own Metaverse worlds or M-worlds. These immersive applications offer brands the possibility of reaching new audiences notably.

In particular we engage with channel partner Omnix Intrenational on their go to market around solutions for the Metaverse. Omnix is preparing to enter the Metaverse solution space by leveraging vendor partner relationships in mixed reality and its digital twin building skills. Clearly every channel partner needs to build competency in vendor partner solutions that are targeting immersive experiences and business models in the Metaverse.

Channel partners need to invest in proofs of concept and how they can align with future business models of their end users. Turn these pages for more on Metaverse and our top notch thought leadership contributions.

As business prepares for the best months of the year ahead, good luck in your preparations and innovations. ë

ARUN SHANKAR, EDITOR

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THREE CLOUD TECHNOLOGIES TO MANAGE DISTRIBUTED WORK

Cloud-powered workplace technology enables work from anywhere while also optimising costs, improving processes and increasing technology performance.

The pandemic has strained on-premises digital workplace solutions, accelerating the shift to cloud-hosted technology and services. As infrastructure and operations, I&O leaders look toward technologies that support the future of work, they are increasingly investing in cloud-powered technologies that can deliver services to employees in any location.

The shift to hybrid work affords I&O leaders an opportunity to deliver meaningful changes in the ways that services are delivered and increase their focus on employee experiences. Cloud-powered workplace technology enables work from anywhere while also optimising costs, improving processes and increasing technology performance.

Here are three cloud-powered digital workplace technologies that you will increasingly rely upon to serve employees in a distributed enterprise and support the future of work.

#1 Digital employee experience tools

With remote and hybrid work, employees predominantly interact with peers, vendors and customers through technology. This demands deeper visibility into and management of the end-user experience.

Digital employee experience, DEX tools are an evolution of digital experience monitoring, unified endpoint management UEM, and remote monitoring and management tools. DEX tools offer new capabilities, including the collection of employee sentiment data, integration of team and organisational structure data, and actionable insights driven by improved analytics and machine learning ML engines. These new capabilities have exponentially increased the use cases supported by DEX tools.

Gartner expects DEX adoption to rapidly increase in the coming years: By 2025, 50% of IT organisations will have established a digital employee experience strategy, team and management tool, an increase from 5% in 2021.

#2 Unified endpoint management

UEM provides the ability to manage a broad range of devices, the policies applied to those devices, and the distribution of applications, patching and updates from a cloud solution. This is critical for maintaining device security and compliance across the enterprise, no matter where employees are located.

UEM simplifies endpoint management by consolidating disparate tools and streamlining processes across devices and operating systems. UEM has expanded beyond management to offer deeper integration with identity, security and remote access tooling to support a zero-trust security model that enables the anywhere workforce.

STUART DOWNES

Senior Research Director.

Leading UEM tools are also using analytics and ML to enable intelligence-driven experience automation to reduce IT overhead and improve employee experience.

According to the Gartner Employee Impacts of Anywhere Operations survey, 87% of organisations plan to maintain or increase UEM investment. By adopting UEM, you can streamline operations and improve endpoint management in the distributed enterprise.

#3 Desktop as a service

Hybrid work requires an increased focus on security and more endpoint flexibility. Desktop as a service, DaaS provides a virtual desktop or application in the cloud, enabling you to increase security by removing the need to store applications or data on endpoints. It also allows rapid increases in the number of users without the need to provision high-specification, enterprise-owned endpoints.

DaaS has found a niche among organisations that want to enable distributed work without the need for data to reside on endpoints in the home. As such, Gartner forecasts DaaS spending to more than double by 2024. However, lack of skills and complexity remain a significant barrier to DaaS adoption. When selecting a DaaS vendor, balance the level of configuration available, the services offered by the DaaS vendor and the desktop virtualisation skills available inhouse. ë

Gartner

50% IT organisations will have established a digital employee experience strategy by 2025

AUTOMATING THE IT ORGANISATION THROUGH INFRASTRUCTURE AS CODE

Through Infrastructure as Code, IT teams will be freed from manually provisioning and managing servers, storage, OS, every time they need more resources.

Traditionally, setting up IT infrastructure has been a manual affair which sees an organisation’s IT team having to configure every virtual machine, operating system and application in addition to discrete pieces of hardware.

This has proved a major source of friction for most IT departments, with any new business application or attempt to scale an existing application requiring time for the infrastructure team to procure, install, and configure new infrastructure.

Over the past few years, however, organisations have embraced cloudbased infrastructure that draws heavily from virtualisation and containers. As opposed to a few large machines and a monolithic infrastructure to deploy, teams instead have a vast and dynamic constellation of components and devices to handle. This scope of provisioning means that doing it manually is no longer viable for many.

This has helped to popularise Infrastructure as Code, or Infrastructure as Code. Under Infrastructure as Code, teams use human readable configuration files that contain their infrastructure specifications. This makes it much easier to edit and distribute their configurations, while also helping ensure that their configurations are fully consistent, standardised and documented. This also allows teams to break down infrastructure into modular components whose deployment and integration can be automated.

And it is through automation that Infrastructure as Code offers a major value-add, as it means that developers and IT teams will be freed from the task of manually provisioning and managing their servers, storage, OSes, and other components every time they need more resources and can focus on more valuable tasks.

In principle, the configuration files used by Infrastructure as Code are similar to many programming scripts that are already used by developers to automate IT processes. Infrastructure as Code sees teams develop a script in a YAML or JSON which can be executed on demand to manage the installation and configuration of new in-demand infrastructure.

This means that one of the major benefits of Infrastructure as Code is that it allows infrastructure to be subjected to the very same version control, CI CD pipeline, and automated testing that teams are already using for their applications. It also helps automate interactions between developers and operations teams, reducing both of their workloads and removing room for errors or inconsistencies.

From this, we can see that Infrastructure as Code perfectly comple-

ments the adoption of a DevOps culture. Infrastructure as Code can serve to break down a major silo between developers and IT admins through standardising processes between both and encouraging them to use the same practises and language when it comes to their infrastructure. And Infrastructure as Code also encourages the adoption of a CI/CD pipeline when it comes to managing those infrastructure scripts, which is a key practice that’s needed to make DevOps a success.

So, while much attention is rightly paid to Infrastructure as Code’s ability to boost a team’s raw productivity and performance, we should also remember Infrastructure as Code is also a powerful tool to help drive organisational and cultural change. If you want to either embrace or deepen your existing DevOps culture, you can’t go wrong by looking at how you deploy and configure your infrastructure and seeing if Infrastructure as Code may be a good fit for your needs. ë

ERICA LANGHI Senior Solution Architect EMEA, Red Hat.

Configuration files used by Infrastructure as Code are similar to many programming scripts already used by developers

CONNECTING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND SUSTAINABILITY

Implementation of digital technologies without a clear intent to transform the business capabilities, will result in underwhelming and short-lived impacts.

Digital technologies hold a great potential to enable and accelerate our transition to net zero, ample research and empirical evidence show. A recent report published by the Royal Society highlights how one-third of the reductions in carbon emissions required by 2030 could be achieved by digital technology deployment, citing the benefits of smart meters, supercomputers, weather models, and artificial intelligence, amongst other innovations.

However, technology alone will not achieve the transition to a lowcarbon economy. Technology–led business transformation, driven by purpose, can.

What transformation? Implementation of digital technologies without a clear intent and coordinated guidance to sustainably transform the business capabilities, will result in underwhelming and short-lived impacts.

Often, the deployment of digital technologies achieves footprint reduction only indirectly - as a by-product of other objectives asset or resources utilisation efficiencies, doing more, better, with less. There is a clear need to explicitly include net-zero contribution among the priority objectives for these programmes – and relentlessly measure and adjust towards them.

The mission for companies then is two-fold: defining transformation blueprints for sustainable change on business capabilities; translating these into plans with measurable targets to achieve net-zero goals.

At the same time, to enable systemic change, beyond single organisation, sector, regulators will have to do their bit.

The mission for regulators is then to provide the enabling policies, frameworks - especially in terms of data infrastructures, data exchange and data accessibility policies for net-zero reliable data, across sectors, integrating multiple sources. Many ongoing initiatives in that space, but still opportunities, ground to cover.

In the energy and utility industry, data-led platforms empowering companies to identify ways to minimise environmental impact and costs, are already available today; digital twins are operational in various parts of the world; predictive technologies and IT,OT integration are being already exploited. Companies that act now to integrate these technologies will be the ones that drive long-term value through to 2050 and beyond.

TAQA, one of the largest utilities companies in the region, is leading the way, and announced its 2030 sustainable and profitable growth strategy. The holistic approach to transformation which the company has adopted is an effective way to drive change, and the foundation to becoming an even more effective data driven organisation: it involves digital innovation alongside a change in mindsets, business processes, culture.

This foundation will allow TAQA to fully exploit the innovations and the digital technologies deployed within the physical infrastructure.

Bringing these programmes together, within the dual purpose of a more efficient and more sustainable business, will be a great testament to how the country is committing to the net-zero agenda. ESG principles and practices are now commonplace, and we want to see digital transformation as a core contributor in this area. Digital transformation efforts should explicitly incorporate net-zero, carbon reduction targets among the objectives their VROs would measure.

A world and businesses that are fit for the future, invest today in meaningful innovation in this space and integrate net-zero commitments into the strategic decision making, transformation planning and execution, to achieve the ambitious goals of the 2030 Agenda. ë

GIAMPIETRO SANNA SVP Digital Advisory Cross Industry, Injazat.

There is a clear need to explicitly include net-zero contribution among the priority objectives for these programmes

World CIO 200 Summit 2022 Road show begins with inaugural European Edition

The 40+ country roadshow, The World CIO 200 Summit 2022 started with the first event in Europe – covering the regions of Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, and France on 11th August 2022 virtually. The event followed the theme of #Lead X – Leading through transformation, where we were joined by thought leaders from across the Europe region to share their transformative journey in the EU Region.

The event was hosted by Gurleen Kaur, Community and Communication Lead; who further ahead gave the stage to Ronak Samantaray, CEO and Co-Founder Global CIO Forum and Anushree Dixit, Global Content Head, Global CIO Forum. They shared the collective vision of Global CIO Forum as a platform of knowledge sharing and networking for the like-minded CIOs globally, with the audience.

To enlighten the audience with the on going of the IT Landscape and future of IT in the Europe region the summit was joined by the following esteemed speakers and a short summary:

In the opening session, Enrico Maria Cestari, Chief Technology Officer, Jointly – Italy, shared his insights on Digital Transformation in current day and age. He spoke about the common misconceptions surrounding it, the hurdles and collective business oriented outcome of digital transformation. He dug deeper into the concept of the continued distinction between Business and IT as a mindset and how the paradigm shift of “There is No US VS Them” will only accelerate the transformation in the organisation.

Daniel Maestre Martinez, Head of IT Cash Germany and Asia; Prosegur Germany; spoke in depth about the “CIO Keys to Gain competitive advantage after the pandemic” The IT Industry and users have gone through immense change during and even beyond Pandemic, Daniel gave his expert advice to the audience on how to gauge through these times. With more process focused approach he Enlighted the audience about the working models and structural frame work along with technological and cultural transformation.

Dr Thiago Felipe S. Avanci, Lawyer, Professor of Law, Board Member, CEST/POLI/USP; IGOAI; GAIEI; FISP. introduced the panelist for a fan-

tastic knowledge fueled discussion around the most talked about topic of 2022: How Artificial Intelligence will Change the World. The panel powered by the IGOAI had the following names on board:

Dr Jamal Berrich Mohammed Professor and Memberof ‘Maison de l’intelligence artificielle’, Mohammed First University (Oujda); Dr Enrico Panai, AI Ethicist and Founder, Be Ethical; Dr Manal Jalloul Founder, AI Lab; Certified Instructor and University Ambassador, NVIDIA; Lecturer, American University of Beirut; Badr Boussabat, Co-Founder and President AI TOGETHER

Dr Milan Kumar, Chief Information Officer – Commercial Vehicles, ZF CV Systems Global GmbH-Switzerland; shared his expertise via the topic of “Leveraging Megatrends “Digitalisation for Sustainability” in Smart Factory” Showcasing how big corporates are taking even bigger steps towards sustainable choices for a positive global impact. He spoke in depth about how “technology mobility trends are interlinked with sustainability”. Dr Milan, mentioned ZF’s ambitious climate strategy; including but not limited to ‘reducing CO2 emissions by 80% with the help of green power until 2030.’

The event concluded with the CIO200 EU Edition Awards in the Four award categories Legend CIO, Leader CIO, Master CIO, and Nextgeneration CIO:

Legend CIO: Lifetime achievement awards.

Master CIO: Experience of more than 15-20 years and unparalleled technological experience in a career life span.

Leader: CIO: Experience of 10-15 years and multiple domain expertise.

Next-generation CIO: Experience of 5-10 years or less and undertaken mammoth projects in a less span of time.

Here is the list of the World CIO 200 Summit 2022 – Europe edition:

Award Category Name and Designation

Master Enrico Maria Cestari, Chief Technology Officer, Jointly

Leader Tobias Renk, CIO, Mobene Unternehmensgruppe

Legend Francesca Vergara Caffarelli, CIO, Esselunga

Legend Daniel Maestre Martínez, Head of IT Cash Germany and ASIA; Prosegur Cash Services Gmbh

Legend Dr Milan Kumar; Chief Information Officer – Commercial Vehicles, ZF CV Systems Global GmbH

Legend Sergio Garcia, Global CIO, AENOR

Legend Flavio Carvalho, CISO, Group Crédit Agricole

Global CIO Forum launches

BOTS digital platform targeting 15,000+ CIOs by 2023

With an aim to strengthen engagement and collaboration through next-generation networking platform, Global CIO Forum launched a new digital platform of the BOTS. The platform intends to feature 15,000+ CIOs by 2023, who shall be rewriting the policies and IT best practices of enterprises.

This initiative by the Global CIO Forum is going to create the nextgeneration networking and collaboration platform that is built for the Global CIO Community.

Speaking on the new initiative, Ronak Samantaray, Co-founder and CEO, GEC Media Group, said, “We are thankful for the continued support of our CIO community for the past ten years and we look forward to further strengthening the collaboration through this platform. We are extremely happy to be presenting BOTS that is a truly cutting edge platform and one-stop-shop solution for CIO career development and knowledge sharing. Disruption is just a BOTS away.”

Anushree Dixit, Global Head – Content and strategic Alliances said, “In today’s age, where we are exposed to multiple avenues and platforms for news, career coaching, leadership development and networking, there is a dire need for having a ‘SINGULAR’ voice or dedicated platform that addresses the needs and requirements of a modern CIO – Be it mentoring, attending events, researching on new tech or developing the next-gen CIO. Enter BOTS – A CIO’s world of infinite possibilities and wide range of resources, co-creation, knowledge sharing, and peer to peer networking possibilities. Join the platform today

Obituary: Firdaus Shariff

and unleash the power of targeted and content-driven networking.”

Benefits of BOTS for members:

l Network and collaborate with like-minded CIOs across the globe

l Join country chapters and other groups to create best practices

l Have value passes for GCF summits and awards round the year

l Member benefits to IT solutions and services with GCF preferred partners

l Loyalty programs and benefits

l Access to over 50+ tech whitepapers and resources as Value add

l Create events and town halls with regional and global CIOs

l Stay up to date with latest news and happenings in the tech world related to CIO community, including job openings across the globe, project availability etc.

BOTS is a unique platform that not only helps the IT leaders to connect on a singular platform, but also encourages dialogues between thought leaders, write and share bylines, thought leaderships, host townhalls for peers, learn from cross-country best practices, benefit from user-specific and industry-specific assets and much more.

Today, CIOs are leading the organisation from the front with technology becoming the spine and business enabler in modern enterprises. It is extremely important that CIOs should also walk hand-in-hand with their peers and partners and disseminate knowledge on a global platform to ensure that leadership is seamless and borderless.

It is with regret and pain, that we announce the passing away of a well-known and respected industry executive, Firdaus Shariff. At the time of her passing away, Firdaus was the Vice President of Marketing, Communications and Digital Customer Experience at Schneider Electric. She had been working at Schneider Electric since 2019. She had also worked at SAP and Cisco prior to that.

Her presence will be missed by the industry, her family and friends. May her soul rest in peace.

Global CIO Forum launched a new digital platform of the BOTS

Schneider Electric University announces updates to Datacentre Certified Associate

Schneider Electric, announced a series of updates to its vendor-agnostic and CPDaccredited digital education platform, Schneider Electric University. Available in 14 languages and accessible globally for free online, the dedicated professional develop-

ment platform directly addresses the datacentre sector skills gap, helping industry stakeholders to upskill and stay up to date with the latest technology, sustainability, and energy efficiency initiatives affecting the sector.

To-date, Schneider Electric University has

Delinea and Authomize partner to provide privileged access in cloud and SaaS platforms

Delinea, a provider of privileged access management solutions for seamless security, and Authomize, a provider of Cloud Identity and Access Security, announced a strategic partnership to co-sell their products. When combined with available integrations, this robust solution provides consistent privileged access security across multiple cloud infrastructures and SaaS applications through a Zero Trust approach.

According to research from Authomize, less than 10% of privileged roles and 37% of admins are active based on a study of organisations between one and ten thousand employees. These unused privileges increase risks associated with privilege creep and excessive privileges that open the door to exploitation of credential abuse and exposure.

Delinea and Authomize have partnered to create joint use cases which will enable organisations to gain better control over who can access cloud applications and services. By deploying both products together, organisations can securely store credentials while automating access governance, thus reducing credential theft and lateral movement in all cloud

delivered more than one million courses to over 650,000 datacentre users, with +180 countries represented by its global user-base.

The new updates to the Schneider Electric University Datacentre Certified Associate DCCA qualification include fundamentals of power, cooling, racks, and physical security, and guidance on how to optimise datacentre designs to drive resilience, energy efficiency and sustainability. It’s newest courses, for example, include Optimising Cooling Layouts for the Datacentre; Fundamental Cabling Strategies in the Datacentre; Examining Fire Protection Methods in the Datacentre; and Fundamentals of Cooling II – Humidity in the Datacentre.

Furthermore, its curriculum addresses key focal points for the industry such as Datacentre Site Selection and Planning, which offers guidance on how to select brown and greenfield sites for access to renewable energy; Alternative Power Generation Technologies, which helps drive the implementation of renewable energy strategies, on-site power generation and use of technologies such as microgrids; and Battery Technology for Datacentres, which evaluates the sustainability impact of different types of UPS batteries, the benefits of Lithium-Ion technology, and offers an analysis of the associated lifecycle costs.

environments including Infrastructure-as-a-Service IaaS, Softwareas-a-Service SaaS, and more.

Delinea’s suite of modern PAM solutions provides the baseline of secure access to IaaS and SaaS environments, empowering organisations to securely manage their credentials and access throughout their cloud applications and services. Authomize delivers a protective layer of security for cloud identities that continuously monitors access, validating, alerting, and providing actionable insights to remediate risks and secure all applications and cloud services.

(Left to right) Ram Venkatachalam, Head of Strategy and Business Development at Delinea; Dotan Bar Noy, CEO of Authomize.

Moro Hub to host SAS AI and analytics solutions for enterprises in Dubai

SAS signed a partnership with Moro Hub, a subsidiary of Digital DEWA, the digital arm of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority DEWA. SAS will adopt Moro Hub’s cutting-edge cloud services to fortify its AI based industry solutions to businesses in Dubai and accelerate their digital transformation journey.

The partnership was signed by Marwan Bin Haidar, Vice Chairman of Digital DEWA and Tayfun Topkoc, Tayfun Topkoc, General Manager for the Middle East, Africa, Turkey, and Central Asia at SAS on the side-lines of the Innovate on Tour Executive Experience 2022 by SAS.

As part of the new partnership, SAS will utilise Moro Hub’s multiple cloud services on a single platform to increase the agility, scalability and security of its data management solutions. Coupling the SAS’s AI based

industry solutions with Moro Hub’s multiple cloud services, will help customers easily provision their IT infrastructure for storage, and manage high volumes of data in a streamlined manner, while being cost efficient.

Cybersecurity vendor LinkShadow sets up 12,000 sqft office in Dubai for 100 employees

LinkShadow announced the launch of a massive set up in the UAE as part of its Middle East growth plans. With more locations to follow, this initiative is aimed at accelerating LinkShadow’s regional operations to meet with the growing cybersecurity needs of enterprises in the region.

This sprawling 12,000 sqft office located in Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai will accommodate up to 100 plus employees, making LinkShadow one of the largest cybersecurity vendors based out of the UAE - in terms of space and resources. These core teams would be integral to LinkShadow’s innovation and market growth as they focus on developing cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions through continuous R&D and support customers

and partners on-ground.

The company also plans to tap into the local talent and expand staffing with R&D expertise to accommodate the rising demand from enterprises to achieve cyber resiliency with an invincible cybersecurity infrastructure.

LinkShadow Cybersecurity Analytics Platform powered by Artificial Intelligence based Machine Learning is constantly evolving with new features and modules to provide customers with unparalled detection of the most sophisticated attacks. It integrates with SIEM Solutions and Cloud providers which makes it an easy choice for enterprises to adapt into their existing IT infrastructure.

(Left to right) Tayfun Topkoc, General Manager for the Middle East, Africa, Turkey, and Central Asia at SAS; Marwan Bin Haidar, Vice Chairman of Digital DEWA.`

Symphony SummitAI sets up Middle East office in UAE

Symphony SummitAI, announced that it has stepped up its Middle East presence and focus with a formal office in UAE, housed at Sharjah media city. The office since functional has sales and solutions staff in keeping with the objective of being closer to its clients here and engage, support them locally. Symphony SummitAI is also looking to further bolster its current partner network in the region, consisting of leading global, local system integrators, value-added resellers in line with its aggressive growth plans.

The company already has leading retail outlets to government, ministries, oil, construction, and IT consulting companies as customers in the region. Symphony SummitAI believes the region is ripe for industrywide AI adoption. The customers can benefit from AI applications that deliver rapid and tangible results to transform how the enterprises work.

Symphony SummitAI is an ITIL-verified service, asset, and operations management solution that leverages the latest advances in AI, machine reasoning, analytics, and automation. SummitAI helps enterprise IT leaders and service providers unleash greater productivity within their IT service operations.

Al-Futtaim Engineering and Technologies signs MoU with India’s Redinent to secure IP devices

Al-Futtaim Engineering and Technologies announced a Memorandum of Understanding with Redinent to support the UAE’s secure IoT ecosystem. The Memorandum of Understanding aims to facilitate future alliance for protecting the CCTV networks across the UAE. With the rapid deployments of CCTV cameras and IoT devices and increasing rate of cyberattacks, there was an urgent requirement for an automated Enterprise Grade CCTV camera threat scanning tool.

Redinent is one of the fastest emerging players in IoT Cybersecurity based out of Bangalore, India. Redinent provides specialised and advanced technology security solutions in embedded systems and IoT devices like CCTV IP cameras, NVRs, GNSS Receivers, Smart Energy Meters etc. Redinent’s automated threat assessment solution finds vulnerabilities and weaknesses in IoT devices.

Al-Futtaim Engineering and Technologies, one of the region’s leading system integrators, is part of the Al-Futtaim Group. Al-Futtaim

Engineering and Technologies does more than simply invest in tomorrow’s business solutions. It helps them grow, perform, and succeed by

bringing together the right experience, the right infrastructure, and the right opportunities to turn great ideas into business value.

SATYEN VYAS CEO of Symphony SummitAI.

(Left to right) Rasi Hamada, General Manager, Digital Transformation, Al-Futtaim Engineering and Technologies and Divyanshu, the Managing Director of Redinent.

Help AG launches new edition of its cloud-delivered Digital Risk Protection service

Help AG, launched a new edition of its fully clouddelivered Digital Risk Protection service. The new service comes with best-in-class benefits such as comprehensive risk detection, which incorporates deep and dark web modality, as well as marketleading remediation that lowers digital risk for organisations by identifying unwanted exposure and protecting against external threats.

Focused on six critical capabilities across three distinct categories as per the digital risk categorisation, Help AG’s newest service reflects its commitment to helping customers reduce the risks that emerge from digital transformation, protect against the unwanted exposure of an organisation’s data, brand, and attack surface, as well as provide actionable insights on threats from the open, deep, and dark web.

The service uses cutting-edge technology like near real-time detection platform, and sophisticated threat contextualisation tools and techniques. This along with Help AG’s in-country cyber defence expertise will help identify the correlation of threats across diverse sources. As a robust remediation

mechanism, out of box integrations are supported through APIs, and playbooks are readily available to better support incident triage and response.

The range of services offered by Help AG’s Managed DRP service is based on six pillars:

• Data Leakage Detection covering marked documents, customer details and employee credentials.

• Brand Protection from impersonating domains, phishing sites, spoofed social media profiles and spoofed mobile apps.

• DevSecOps against exposed access keys and unauthorised code commits.

• Dark Web Monitoring to check accounts for sale, mentions by threat actors and phishing kits.

• Attack Surface Monitoring for exploitable vulnerabilities, certificate issues, open ports, and misconfigured devices.

• Threat Intelligence to monitor and track threat actor profiles, intelligence incidents, suppliers, and vendors, as well as vulnerabilities and exploits.

STEPHAN BERNER Chief Executive Officer of Help AG.

DigiGlass by Redington signs MSSP Partnership with SIEM vendor Securonix

DigiGlass by Redington, managed security services brand of Redington Value, has announced a strategic Managed Security Services Provider MSSP partnership with Securonix. As per the terms of the agreement, DigiGlass by Redington is now authorised to provide managed services for the Securonix Next-Gen SIEM platform for customers across the region.

The services include monitoring networks to help detect, identify, and respond to a multitude of known and unknown threats, enabling tech teams to prevent attacks from succeeding. Organisations can leverage a host of offerings from XDR-as-a-Service, Endpoint protection-as-a-Service, Identity-as-a-Service to Security Device Management, Managed Cloud Security, Managed SOC-On-Premises and Cloud, Vulnerability and Penetration Testing and so on.

The Securonix Next-Gen SIEM platform takes an analytics-driven approach to SIEM, helping organisations to automate security operations, collect data at scale and more effectively detect and respond to advanced threats with a cloud-native solution. As Securonix’ MSSP partner, companies can rely on DigiGlass by Redington’s expertise to manage their end-to-end cybersecurity environment, allowing them to prioritise their core business. They are also able to purchase the services as they need, on a subscription or consumptionbased model.

SAYANTAN DEV President, Redington Value.

BIOS ME, CloudHPT, DRaaS, IaaS provider achieves Cloud Security Alliance, Level 2 certification

BIOS Middle East, the GCC’s local cloud and managed services provider, has achieved the Cloud Security Alliance, Security Trust Assurance and Risk STAR Level 2 certification, a stringent third-party assessment of the security of a cloud service provider. BIOS owns, operates and manages its own cloud called CloudHPT, with datacentres in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Jeddah and Muscat. It offers fully managed IaaS and Gartnerrecognised DRaaS for over 500 customers in the GCC and beyond.

This certification demonstrates that a cloud service provider conforms to the applicable requirements of the ISO, IEC 27001:2013 management system standard and has addressed requirements critical to cloud security as outlined in the CSA Cloud Controls Matrix criteria. BIOS is also certified for ISO-IEC 27001 Information Security Management Systems, ISO-IEC 27017 Information Security Controls for Cloud Services, ISO-

IEC 27018 Protection of Personally Identifiable Information in Public Clouds and ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems. BIOS certification is available for download from the CSA STAR Registry. In addition, BIOS’s CSA STAR Level 1 Self-Assessment and the completed Consensus Assessments Initiative Questionnaire are also available on the registry.

Redington to distribute Microsoft’s mixed reality HoloLens 2 in UAE

Microsoft announced availability of industry leading HoloLens 2 mixed reality headset in the UAE. HoloLens 2 provides the most comfortable, intuitive, and immersive mixed reality experience available, delivering enterprise value across key sectors with Dynamics 365 business applications and industry ISV solutions, backed

by the reliability, security, and scalability of Microsoft Azure.

Redington has been appointed as the sole distributor for HoloLens 2 in the UAE and has been fully onboarded together with a number of partners.

Microsoft’s comprehensive mixed reality

platform blends the physical and digital worlds, across the spectrum from augmented reality to virtual reality, extending computing beyond two-dimensional screens to funda mentally transform productivity and optimise operations.

A Forrester Total Economic Impact Study commissioned by Microsoft showed that HoloLens 2 offers a 177% return on investment over three years, as well as improvements to employee health and safety, business continuity, customer experience, and customer outcomes.

(Left to right) Dominic Docherty, Managing Director, BIOS; Adam Wolf, Technical Director, BIOS.

Nutanix goes to market with VDI, DaaS solutions for Saudi educational institutions

Nutanix is focused on supporting educational institutions in Saudi Arabia, as they look to modernise their IT infrastructures and accelerate digital transformation initiatives.

Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform is the industry’s leading hyperconverged infrastructure solution that natively converges compute, virtualisation and storage into a resilient, software-defined solution with rich machine intelligence. Nutanix delivers cost savings and predictable scalability for even the most intensive workloads with a simple scaleout architecture that enables educational institutions to start with small deployments and grow incrementally into very large installations.

The advanced architecture of the Nutanix platform enables high availability across all system components to an unlimited number of simultaneous users. The platform’s ease of configuration lets institutions roll out as budgets permit—by campus, by department, or by grade.

From Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and Desktop-as-a-Service workloads to Exchange Mailboxes to administrative tools like Infinite Campus and Pearson Education products, Nutanix provides the flexibility to run multiple applications on a single infrastructure. This eliminates the need for expensive, dedicated resources per application, while satisfying electronic information protection regimes. Non-disruptive upgrades and allinclusive software remove numerous points of failure, reducing the need for maintenance and the likelihood of outages.

Nutanix Prism is the ideal end-to-end consumer-grade management

solution for the educational institutions bringing simplicity by combining various aspects of administration and reporting. Powered by advanced machine learning technology, Prism can mine large volumes of system data to automate common tasks and generate actionable insights for optimising virtualisation, infrastructure management and everyday operations. New resources to support research and curricula projects can be provisioned and deployed in minutes instead of weeks or months.

Nutanix supports all popular hypervisors, so that IT teams can manage the datacentre with the tools of their choice. All Nutanix solutions include AHV virtualisation— delivering a high-performance, license-free hypervisor with built-in management., providing the capabilities that educational institutions need.

Microsoft will participate in Majid Al Futtaim’s Launchpad Programme for start-ups

As part of its ongoing commitment to support entrepreneurs, Microsoft announced that it plans to join forces with Majid Al Futtaim to empower regional start-ups and SMEs through the Dubai-based retail giant’s Launchpad Programme. As a partner in the Majid Al Futtaim Launchpad accelerator initiative, Microsoft intends to commit resources and expertise to start-ups and SMEs across the Middle East and

Announced in June, the Majid Al Futtaim Launchpad initiative is aimed at assembling partners to support start-ups and SMEs in strategic sectors in their growth journeys,

thereby bolstering the innovation ecosystem and spurring economic development. As a strategic partner in the Launchpad scheme, Microsoft intends to provide a range of benefits for participants.

Through the Microsoft for Start-ups Founder’s Hub Programme, the company intends to provide technology resources that allow startups to build their products. This includes access to Azure and use of Visual Studio Enterprise and GitHub Enterprise. Other technologies planned to be provided by Microsoft for dayto-day business operations include Microsoft 365 and within this Teams, and Power Platform as well as Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service platforms.

Eligible Launchpad participants may also have an opportunity to get go-to-market support from Microsoft through the company’s CoSell Programme, as well as benefit from Azure Marketplace. Furthermore, Microsoft plans to offer industry mentorship and one-to-one technical consultancy sessions for B2B start-ups.

NAIM YASBECK General Manager, Microsoft UAE.

TAREQ HASSAN Senior Enterprise Sales Manager, Saudi Arabia, Nutanix.

Oracle to migrate European data into new Sovereign cloud regions for European Union

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure will launch a new sovereign cloud region for customers across the European Union. Cloud is not one size fits all. As companies and governments move more mission critical workloads to cloud, there is increasing demand for protection of sensitive data in public clouds that span national borders and jurisdictions. Countries and jurisdictions are placing more requirements on data within their borders, and organisations are asking their global cloud providers for more transparency and control over how and where their data is stored, handled, and secured.

Both private companies and public sector organisations across the EU will be able to use these new OCI sovereign cloud regions to host data and applications that are sensitive, regulated, or of strategic regional importance. As a general policy, OCI already does not move customer content from the regions customers select for their workloads. OCI’s sovereign cloud extends this practice by restricting operations and customer support responsibilities to EU residents. These sovereign cloud regions are also designed to further enable customers

to demonstrate alignment with relevant EU regulations and guidance.

Oracle plans to migrate customers using Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications within the existing EU Restricted Access cloud service to the new OCI sovereign cloud regions. These customers will gain the additional operational enhancements of the new sovereign cloud regions and will have full native access to OCI cloud services.

These new sovereign cloud regions will operate under a comprehensive set of policies and governance that further enhance OCI’s existing capabilities for data residency, security, privacy, and compliance. These additional policies will establish a framework for data and operational sovereignty, including how customer data is stored and accessed, and how government requests for data are handled.

The first two sovereign cloud regions for the EU will be located in Germany and Spain, with operations and support restricted to EU residents and specific EU legal entities. The sovereign cloud regions will be logically and physically separate from the existing public

OCI Regions in the EU. Currently OCI operates six public OCI Regions located in the EU: Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Marseille, Milan, and Stockholm.

The new sovereign cloud regions for the EU plan to offer all the 100+ OCI services available in Oracle’s existing public cloud regions, as well as the European Union Restricted Access application services. Pricing for OCI services will be the same as in existing OCI Regions, and EURA pricing will remain unchanged, with the same levels of support and financially backed SLAs. Customers will be able to use Oracle Universal Credits to purchase service and participate in OCI programs such as Support Rewards.

The new sovereign cloud regions will become part of OCI’s distributed cloud. OCI can address customer requirements by delivering required cloud services to needed locations with flexible performance, security, compliance, and operational models. OCI currently operates 39 OCI Regions for commercial and government customers, plus multiple dedicated regions and national security regions.

Bespin opens training academy and cloud operations centre in Abu Dhabi

Cloud consultancy and management firm Bespin Global announced opening of its new Middle East and Africa headquarters in Abu Dhabi. Featuring a Cloud Operations Centre, the first of its kind in the region, and the all-new Bespin Global Training Academy, the move

highlights the company’s expertise in providing industry-leading solutions to customers, while solidifying its position at the forefront of the Middle East market.

HE Rashed Abdulkarim Al Blooshi, Undersecretary of Abu Dhabi Department of Eco-

Vectra recognised as AWS Security Competency Partner with hybrid cloud security expertise

nomic Development ADDED, H.E Sameh Al Qubaisi, Director General of Economic Affairs at ADDED, and Eng. Abdulla Abdul Asis Al Shamsi, Acting Director General of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office ADIO, attended the launch of Bespin Global’s new headquarters. The ceremony was also attended by Hoon Park, Co-founder and Global Expansion Team Leader, Bespin Global, Mouteih Chaghlil, CEO of Middle East and Africa, Bespin Global, and Basel El Sharif, Vice President of Commercial, Bespin Global.

The new Bespin Global headquarters, located at Al Wafra Square on Al Reem Island, have been established with support from ADIO’s Innovation Programme, to accelerate digital transformation in the region. The programme reaffirms Abu Dhabi’s commitment to fostering innovative ideas and solutions that are regionally relevant and globally exportable.

The first-of-its-kind Cloud Operations Centre includes a Security Operations Centre that monitors threats to infrastructure and helps mitigate the likelihood of attacks. The Network Operations Centre is also located at the facility, continuously monitoring the health of servers and applications to ensure they run 100% efficiently.

Vectra has demonstrated deep cloud security expertise and has proven technology that helps customers further enhance their security measures across hybrid architectures and cloud environments.

An AWS Security Competency differentiates Vectra as an AWS Partner Network APN member that provides specialised threat detection technology designed to help enterprises adopt, develop, and deploy complex security projects on AWS. To receive this designation, APN members must possess deep AWS expertise and deliver solutions seamlessly on AWS. Vectra achieved its AWS Security Competency status through a rigorous qualification process based on references and feedback from its customers.

Vectra AI, announced it has become an Amazon Web Services Security Competency Partner—further confirming its technical expertise and proven customer success when further safeguarding AWS environments. The competency designation recognises that

The Vectra platform integrates with AWS Virtual Private Cloud VPC traffic mirroring to monitor all infrastructure-as-a-service traffic. It also works with AWS Security Hub to publish Vectra detections as findings in the hub, allowing security teams to correlate Vectra attacker detections with other data sources for faster threat hunting and incident investigations.

MICHAEL PORAT

Vectra SVP, Corporate and Business Development.

Liferay partners with Mannai InfoTech to provide digital customer experiences in Qatar

Liferay, provider of digital platforms inked a partnership with Mannai InfoTech, a division under Mannai Trading Company, the country’s largest systems integrator, to provide accelerated innovation and deliver enhanced customer-centred digital experience capabilities to customers nationwide.

The agreement was signed by Moussalam Dalati, General Manager, Middle East and Africa, Liferay and Binu MR, Senior Vice President, Mannai InfoTech. Under this partnership, Liferay will power local entities with advanced IT solutions to deliver optimised digital experiences through Mannai’s deep rooted local expertise to customers in Qatar. This will revolutionise digital journeys and offer increased agility, scalability, speed and reliability in experiences that are fully integrated on the cloud.

The move comes as both entities champion the implementation of innovative technologies to enhance Qatar’s digital economy as the country continues to focus on nurturing an innovationbased ecosystem in line with its National Vision 2030.

Liferay’s Experience Cloud will be leveraged via this association to boost digital hyper-personalised experiences across Qatar in line with Qatar’s Vision 2030.

IBM and King Saud University announce collaboration to advance AI skills development

King Saud University, the first public university in the Kingdom announced its collaboration with IBM aimed at advancing skills development through AI across the Kingdom. Senior leaders from both organisations signed a Memorandum of Understanding aimed at advancing fundamental AI research and working with KSU to launch upskilling initiatives to promote AI education and awareness and leverage collaborations with academia, public, and private sectors.

The signing ceremony was attended by Prof. Badran bin Abdulrahman Al-Omar, President, KSU and Prof. Khaled Alhumaisi, Vice-Rector for Graduate Studies and Scientific Research, KSU and Dr.Hebah ElGibreen, Director of AI Centre of Advanced Studies. From IBM, Jonathan Adashek, Chief Communications Officer and Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, and Saad Toma, General Manager, IBM Middle East and Africa were also in attendance. The Memorandum was then signed by Prof. Khaled Alhumaisi and Fahad Alanasi, General Manager, IBM Saudi Arabia.

In line with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, IBM will work closely with KSU to leverage AI-driven technologies in the areas of skills, curriculum development and research to provide the Kingdom’s youth with the necessary skills needed to succeed in the jobs of tomorrow.

PwC Middle East invests in Zero&One, MENA’s first homegrown AWS Premier Consulting Partner

PwC Middle East has made a substantial strategic investment in Zero&One with the aim to support their clients’ digital transformation with an underlying commitment to growth and investment in the region. As the first homegrown AWS Premier Consulting Partner in the MENA region, Zero&One will help PwC boost its technology offering and digital capabilities. This will surely be a step in the right direction during this era of Digital Transformation.

Cloud migration and transformation are of importance to large, medium, small businesses. Along with the launch of the second AWS Region in the Middle East – the first in the UAE – Zero&One is ready to support and enhance the cloud journey for all customers and partners.

Zero&One works towards innovating to simplify complexity,

leveraging the advanced capabilities of the cloud to help customers build new revenue streams, increase efficiency, and deliver incredible experiences. With the people-driven mindset behind both PwC and Zero&One, we are confident that this investment will open new horizons in the region and help continue our support of the everexpanding digital adoption in the area.

Western Digital partners with Sony Interactive to release PlayStation licensed SSD for gamers

Western Digital and Sony Interactive teamed up to deliver the industry’s first official PlayStationlicensed M2 SSD for PlayStation5 to gamers across the globe. The WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD for PS5 Consoles enables players

to expand the high-speed storage capacity of their PS5 console and gives them peace of mind knowing that their new and favourite titles are stored on a drive that’s been battletested to take on the most intensive PS5 gameplay.

Optimised for the newest-generation console, Western Digital validated drive performance through multiple scenarios to ensure the drive has been fully tested for the PS5. This process included hundreds of hours spent rigorously testing some of the most graphic-rich titles across various genres to ensure that with games stored on the drive, gameplay is fast, smooth and visually immersive.

With the WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD for PS5, gamers can store and play both PS5 games and PS4™ games directly from the drive. The drive’s attached heatsink also makes installation quicker with its all-in-one design. Gamers can cut down on long load times with PCIe Gen4 technology, reaching up to 7000MBs2 read speed to get them in the game fast so they can focus more on gaming.

The WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD for PS5 1TB3 and 2TB3 is now available for purchase exclusively at Best Buy in stores and online and on the Western Digital online store. It will be available for purchase from other select retailers, e-tailers and resellers starting mid-August 2022.

(Left to right) Ali Hosseini, Chief Digital Officer of PwC Middle East; Ali El Kontar, Founder and CEO, Zero&One.

59% of UAE organisations surveyed were hit with ransomware in 2021

HARISH CHIB, Vice President, Middle East and Africa, Sophos.

CYBERSECURITY, CYBER INSURANCE, COMPLEMENTING EACH OTHER

Organisations must not fall into the trap of prioritising cyber insurance ahead of security since insurers may not provide insurance if the organisation does not have adequate measures in place.

Cyberattacks have increased exponentially in the last couple of years in the UAE. According to the Sophos State of Ransomware Report 2022, 59% of UAE organisations surveyed were hit with ransomware in 2021, up from 38% in 2020. The average cost to recover from the most recent ransomware attack in 2021 was $1.26 million.

It took on average one month to recover from the damage and disruption. 88% of organisations said the attack had impacted their ability to operate, and 83% of the victims said they had lost business and, or revenue because of the attack

The challenge of sophisticated cyberattacks like ransomware faced by UAE organisations continues to grow. Optimising cybersecurity has become imperative for all organisations. It is important that investments are made as part of a wider dynamic security strategy that is regularly reviewed and updated. A part of this strategy should also include cyber insurance.

Cyber insurance conditions are getting harder

Cyber insurance has, until now, been a soft market, characterised by high capacity and low premiums. However, the market is starting to harden, as insurers see their payouts rising faster than the income from premiums: the industry’s loss ratio has risen.

Several factors are driving this hardening of the market:

l Cyberattacks are constantly evolving, making it hard for insurers to assess the true risk of a client being attacked

l The costs to recover from a cyberattack are increasing

l The pandemic and growing use of the cloud have accelerated the interconnectedness of the business environment, increasing exposure

While most organisations already have some cyber insurance coverage, many are finding the bar for renewal is getting higher as capacity shrinks – and premiums are going up. It is also getting harder for many organisations to get insurance in the first place as the underwriting process grows more and more rigorous and overall capacity drops.

Good cybersecurity helps with cyber insurance

There is a direct relationship between cybersecurity and cyber insurance and having strong cyber defences in place can help in a number of ways:

#1 Good cybersecurity makes it easier to get cyber insurance

In light of the challenges facing the cyber insurance market, providers are

focusing increasingly on managing – and reducing – risk. Good cybersecurity can help organisations reduce cyber risk which, in turn, makes a more attractive prospect for cyber insurance coverage.

#2 Good cybersecurity helps reduce premiums

Just as being a non-alcoholic, non-smoker and having good medical reports reduce your health insurance premiums, having advanced IT defences helps reduce cyber insurance costs. While the insurers’ exact premium calculation algorithms are a closely guarded secret, customers consistently say that the quality of their protection impacts their premiums.

#3 Good cybersecurity reduces likelihood of claim, higher premiums in future

As with other forms of insurance, if you make a claim, you can expect a significant increase in your premiums in subsequent years. By minimising risk of being impacted by a cyberattack, organisations reduce the likelihood of calling on their policy – and help keep your premiums down.

#4 Good cybersecurity reduces the risks of non-payment

Poor IT security hygiene can prevent organisations from receiving financial support in the event of an incident. If the insurer believes that the organisation left the door open through weak practices, they may have grounds to not pay out.

#5 Good cybersecurity can minimise the impact and cost if an incident occurs

Responding quickly and appropriately to a cyberattack can significantly reduce the impact and cost of the incident. Having a malware incident response plan in place and being able to call on experienced incident responders will help to minimise the fall-out from the attack.

Cybersecurity and cyber insurance both are necessary, and they complement each other. Just like a health insurance protects from the financial impact of a disease but not from the disease itself, cyber insurance protects from the impact of cybercrime though not from the crime itself.

Lastly, organisations must not fall into the trap of prioritising cyber insurance ahead of all security measures; in fact, insurers may not provide insurance if an organisation does not have adequate security measures in place. In addition, by investing and prioritising security, it can become easier to get coverage, lower premiums, and remove barriers to pay outs if you need to make a claim. ë

Channel

PREPARING FOR THE METAVERSE

While the real Metaverse is years way, big players will jump into the fray before 2025, leaving partners little time to prepare, test, and build.

It has taken 30 years since the term was coined in 1992, but big money has now moved into the Metaverse—accompanied by big hype. To understand the pull of the Metaverse, it helps to think in terms of the distinct trends that are converging to create it.

Recall the release in 2007 of the original iPhone—a single device that brought together a camera, computer, mobile phone, and operating system. The technologies involved were not new; the revolution lay in their convergence and the resulting entrepreneurial stimulation.

In similar fashion, the Metaverse is about the convergence of several developments, all of which involve step changes in technological capability:

l #1 Metaverse worlds or m-worlds are gathering hundreds of millions of active users thanks to computing capacity and mass-market availability of mobile phones, tablets, and PCs, as well as improvements in cloud services and connectivity such as fibre and 5G.

l #2 A mass market for augmented, virtual, and mixed-reality headsets is growing fast, with devices.

l #3 Virtual assets powered by an innovative Web3 technology stack are rising in popularity as objects to acquire and exchange.

Remember out of the ashes of the dot com meltdown rose a global e-commerce market worth almost $5 trillion in 2021. While any predictions of what the future holds will almost certainly be off-base, forward-

looking companies may want to experiment with the new technologies and possibly invest in young Metaverse players or emerging technologies in order to assess the potential of extended reality for their products, services, and operations.

If you replace Metaverse with cyberspace, the meaning of the sentence will not change in 90% of cases. Enthusiasts see the Metaverse as the next generation of the Internet, a virtual, interconnected reality seamlessly woven into our physical world. Gamers are already familiar with this notion—albeit usually in two dimensions—but games are only the beginning.

In 2021, more than $40 billion was spent on nonfungible tokens NFTs—certificates of ownership of digital assets. Goldman Sachs predicts as much as an $8 trillion opportunity on the revenue and monetisation side of the Metaverse. Morgan Stanley likewise sees an $8 trillion Metaverse market—in China alone.

Much of the value of the Metaverse may ultimately lie not in consumer but in business applications, such as virtual meetings and training sessions, new-product design capabilities, or the ability to give customers the experience of a virtual home or vehicle before buying a real one.

Divergent views are hardly unusual when new technologies and models of business, finance, and commerce are rapidly taking shape and pushing against existing paradigms.

Building M-worlds

M-worlds are immersive applications that offer brands the possibility of reaching new audiences notably, Gen Z users in different ways. Able to run on mobile phones, tablets, PC browsers, and AR or VR headsets, they have multiple distinctive attributes. Each m-world is built to host its own virtual communities and content, and each has its own business model, rules, and user accounts.

Many m-worlds began as gaming applications, but they have since added features and attractions. M-worlds pursue multiple monetisation models as they seek to build their virtual-asset economies. These include both traditional approaches, such as subscription, advertising, and in-app purchase models, and newer, Metaverse-specific methodologies, including initial asset offerings, Metaverse agencies, and advertising using Metaverse-generated data.

The m-world landscape is evolving quickly with the arrival of major new platforms that will offer a better hybrid, two dimensional plus AR VR, experience.

Extended reality

Technological advances in AR, VR, and MR often referred to collectively as extended reality, or XR are facilitating the shift from 2D to 3D by providing more realistic experiences and digital displays that are better

synchronised with head movements. Indeed, surveys have found that the two biggest barriers to wider adoption of XR are the user experience and limited content, both of which are improving fast. Equipment costs also have fallen, and sales are projected to increase quickly.

When you get to 10 million units active, that is kind of a magic number. At that point, you have a self-sustaining ecosystem. At its current pace, Meta could reach this critical mass by mid-2022. And Apple’s expected entry in early 2023 could turn out to be the iPhone moment for AR and VR.

While the number of AR and VR users climbs, mobile AR, which leverages smartphone cameras and processing power to superimpose information on what the phone is seeing, helps bridge the transition. More than half of the 6 billion smartphones in use today are sufficiently powerful to enable mobile AR.

In addition, the software development kits from Apple for iOS, and from Google for Android, can be extended to AR and VR development. According to research from ARtillery Intelligence, 800 million users actively use mobile AR, a number that it projects will grow to 1.7 billion in 2025.

The use cases for AR, VR, and MR span consumer and business applications. The top five sectors for immersive environments are health care, education, workforce development, manufacturing, and automotive.

TIPS FOR CHANNEL PARTNERS TO GET STARTED

l The Metaverse market that is taking shape offers commercial opportunities for partners wishing to innovate early.

l Partners may want to experiment with new technologies and invest in young Metaverse players or emerging technologies.

l Partners should assess potential of extended reality for products, services, operations that they are already familiar with.

l Software development kits from Apple for iOS, and from Google for Android, can be extended to AR and VR development.

l Top five sectors for immersive environments are health care, education, workforce development, manufacturing, automotive.

l The most likely areas for business applications are employee training and workflow management.

l Channel partners of technology, media, telecom will benefit by providing technological enablers, such as 5G, next gen Wi-Fi, broadband networks, new OS, app stores, platforms for content creation.

l AR and VR tools are being actively explored and used in health care, education, workforce development, manufacturing, automotive.

Channel partners supporting B2C models can look at:

l New ways to shop, such as virtual storefronts, virtual try-ons for virtual and physical products.

l Physical-virtual experiences for a brand’s events or concerts.

l Co-creating assets and experiences, exchanging goods, earning money.

l Innovative ways to grow a community around interests or exclusivity.

The most likely areas for business applications were employee training and workflow management.

Disrupting the automobile industry

In the automotive industry, AR and VR are being used across the value chain from product and process engineering to sales and after-sales support and service. OEMs and their major suppliers are adopting the technology in engineering and operator training to create virtual showrooms and test drive experiences, and to provide virtual repair guides and simulations of upgrades.

OEMs, especially in the luxury vehicle segment, are using m-worlds and Web3 technology to build immersive brand experiences and virtual assets tied to their real-world products. Alpine, the race car subsidiary of Renault, is releasing a virtual hypercar in five exclusive liveries using NFTs for proof of ownership. Boeing has announced that it will use VR at scale to engineer its next aircraft, powering an immersive digital twin of the product.

Internet 3.0 or Web 3.0

In the initial iteration of the Internet Web 1.0, users read or otherwise consumed digital content that publishers or others created. Web 2.0 allowed users to both create and consume content, but centralised networks continued to control and make money from its distribution.

In the emerging Web3 iteration, users consume, create, and own content; the networks and the money exchanged are decentralised, with blockchain technology replacing centralised intermediaries and providing the trust that enables both consumption and exchange.

Web3 is still at an early stage but is already powering a vibrant virtual-asset economy that includes cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and smart contracts.

More than $50 billion in virtual goods were purchased in 2021 using traditional mobile or credit card processing on web-based applications or on app platforms. There are some 30 million NFT wallets, including 1 million active wallets, which spent some $40 billion on NFT purchases in 2021.

Go to market for channel partners

Channel partners can start by familiarising their organisations with the potential impact of the Metaverse. A useful vehicle is an assessment of how the business may be positively or negatively affected by the convergence of the three trends:

l Rise of m-worlds

l Improvements in AR, VR, MR

l Expanding use of Web3 assets enabled by blockchain

Channel partners can choose areas of focus on the Metaverse flywheel and potential use cases for their efforts. They can decide to participate in the following:

TECH MAHINDRA ACCELERATES METAVERSE OFFERINGS THROUGH TECHMVERSE

While the real Metaverse is years way, big players will jump into the fray before 2025, leaving partners little time to prepare, test, and build.

Tech Mahindra announced launch of Metaverse related business to offer customers immersive experiences. The company will begin with four main centres in Dallas, London, Pune and Hyderabad. It is offering virtual car dealership, using Meta Bank - the virtual Bank, Middlemist - an NFT marketplace.

“Tech Mahindra has created a comprehensive service suite of Metaverse offerings that it plans to take to its customers across industries, achieved through a mix of in-house and partner capabilities. The objective is to deliver on advanced use cases such as Gene sequencing, Factories-of-the-Future, Drug Discovery among others that truly showcase the innovation and potential of metaverse in complex industrial use cases,” says Kunal Purohit, Chief Digital Services Officer, Tech Mahindra.

TechMVerse, is aimed at transforming customer experience and delivering interactive and immersive experiences for customers. A combination of software and hardware capabilities, TechMVerse delivers business outcomes with three-dimensional visual experiences in order to solve complex business problems and drive monetization across business verticals.

It has been launched to become the industry’s de-facto answer to conceptualize and implement next-generation use cases that focus on the convergence of physical and digital worlds by breaking down boundaries and democratizing access to key goods, services, and experiences. This will involve collaboration with industry partners and hyper-scalers in specific areas to maximize the value delivered to end customers.

Tech Mahindra has adopted a mobile and web-first approach based on augmented and mixed reality that is backed by robust infrastructure

l Part of building new infrastructure

l Monetise content and virtual assets

l Create B2B or B2C content

l Create inward-facing experiences such as customer showrooms, virtual conferences, remote collaboration solutions

l Build relevant audiences, both from existing and prospective areas of interest.

As they move into the Metaverse world, channel partners should also attempt to experience it.

Here are some recommendations:

l Buy headsets and organise demo sessions to gain internal traction.

l Bring together experienced and passionate people in teams that meet regularly.

l Collect use cases and create formats for brainstorming and capturing potential sources of value.

l Invest in prototypes.

KUNAL PUROHIT, Chief Digital Services Officer, Tech Mahindra.

with components such as 5G, WiFi, Edge and Hardware combined with Software components like Edge Compute, IoT devices, AI agents and Blockchain to drive the creator economy.

Metaverse is one of Tech Mahindra’s fastest growing vertical. The company is gaining different kinds of customers coming from edtech, retail, automotive deal management, repair and maintenance of cars.

There are several factors contributing to the growth of the Metaverse in India which includes the technology ecosystem, growing entrepreneurship, smartphone adoption, affordable mobile data and the large millennial population.

Tech Mahindra is creating industry and use-case specific Metaverse environments including factories-of-the-future, drug discovery among other things. Company already has a team of 100 people for Metaverse projects which will expand to 1,000 within a year. Tech Mahindra is seeing demand for Metaverse solutions from global customers in banking, retail and training space

l Hire talent, including those with XR interest and experience in relevant Metaverse fields.

l Make your interest public. Communicate externally that the Metaverse is on your radar and share what you are doing.

l Build partnerships. The Metaverse will be an ecosystem, and there is longer-term value in starting to build connections now.

At the end of 2021, approximately $90 billion in virtual and physical money was circulating on m-worlds, and this number is growing steadily, indicating the rising economic popularity of the Metaverse. ë

Excerpted and adapted from: The Corporate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Metaverse, published in April 2022 by JeanFrançois Bobier, Tibor Merey, Stephen Robnett, Michael Grebe, Jimmy Feng, Benjamin Rehberg, Kristi Woolsey, Joel Hazan, all from by Boston Consulting Group.

In similar fashion, the Metaverse is about the convergence of several developments, all of which involve step changes in technological capability.

Each m-world is built to host its own virtual communities and content, and each has its own business model, rules, and user accounts.

The extent of convergence among the three Metaverse technologies remains to be seen. Once the user base reaches critical mass, its scale will attract content creators, including both companies such as gaming studios and media and consumer goods firms and users themselves. More and better content, software, and assets will make the virtual worlds of the Metaverse more attractive and will incentivise users to create and trade assets and cultivate relationships. The technology will improve with innovation and growing scale in the user base, attracting more users.

The two biggest barriers to wider adoption of XR are the user experience and limited content, both of which are improving fast. When you get to 10 million units active, that is kind of a magic number. At its current pace, Meta could reach this critical mass by mid-2022.

The top five sectors for immersive environments are health care, education, workforce development, manufacturing, and automotive. The most likely areas for business applications were employee training and workflow management.

In the emerging Web3 iteration, users consume, create, and own content. Networks and money exchanged are decentralised, with blockchain technology replacing centralised intermediaries.

PREPARING CHANNEL PARTNERS FOR THE

METAVERSE

What is the impact of convergence from m-worlds, mixed reality, Web3 assets on your business?

Where do you participate, in new infrastructure, monetise virtual assets, content, audiences?

Create inward-facing experiences such as customer showrooms, virtual conferences, remote collaboration solutions

As you move into the Metaverse world, channel partners should also attempt to experience it.

Buy headsets and organise demo sessions to gain internal traction.

Collect use cases and create formats for brainstorming and capturing potential sources of value.

Hire talent, including those with XR interest and experience in relevant Metaverse fields.

Build partnerships since the Metaverse is an ecosystem, and there is longer-term value in connections.

OMNIX INTERNATIONAL

LEVERAGING DIGITAL TWINS TO ENTER METAVERSE

Omnix is preparing to enter the Metaverse solution space by leveraging vendor partner relationships in mixed reality and its digital twin building skills.

BHASKAR RAMAN

Regional Business Unit Head, Omnix International.

Snapshot

l Digital twins can be considered one of the building blocks of the metaverse.

l Digital twins augments the physical world, making it accessible from the digital realm.

l Each of the broad lifecycle areas have specialised talent requirements.

l There is a need for technologists with a variety of skills.

l Channel partners in architecture and engineering, construction, oil and gas, manufacturing, understand advantages of 3D BIM data over 2D drawings.

l Digital twins as an extension of BIM is raising the bar for channel partners.

The Metaverse technology is rapidly expanding, with companies across several industries preparing for the virtual world. While Metaverse technology represents a comprehensive virtual world, digital twin is an exact replica of a physical asset, a machine, a vehicle, or a device and can be created through BIM or Lidar Scanning. Digital twins can be considered one of the building blocks of the metaverse, augmenting the physical world and making it accessible from the digital realm.

Omnix sees commercial opportunities across industries such as Manufacturing, Automotive, Retail and Ecommerce, Smart Architecture and Industrial IoT. In the manufacturing industry, for example, Digital Twin solutions can be used to create virtual copies of entire workshops and plants to easily identify flaws and visualise the production process. With this capability, manufacturing industries can design, manufacture, process, and maintain the production processes more efficiently.

In the Retail and eCommerce sector, digital twins in the metaverse allows people to shop in the virtual space where data is updated in real time via the Digital Twin technology. Smart Architecture also utilises the technology to manage resources and map out a city’s area, including predicting and managing carbon footprints and coming up with innovative ways to improve the quality of life of a city’s residents.

The technology is becoming embedded in building and manufacturing processes and is seeing significant value in the operations and maintenance phase of systems and products. Omnix sees an increasing demand for skills in this domain. Each of these broad lifecycle areas have specialised talent requirements, thus there is a need for technologists with a variety of skills is clear.

The channel partner community in the AEC, Oil and Gas and manufacturing space understand the advantages of 3D BIM data over 2D drawings. Hence digital twins as an extension of BIM is raising the bar for channel partners and will enable them to explore the vast opportunities it offers.

Solutions for digital twins

Omnix offers Unity Reflect for Autodesk Revit which is a design review and coordination solution that connects all project members and allows them to collaborate in real-time irrespective of location, device or model size. This enables faster decision making with effective results throughout the building lifecycle.

Unity Reflect for Autodesk Revit is a Business Information Management software. With BIM being made mandatory across some countries and cities, it helps designers and engineers to transfer Revit models in real-time 3D experiences. These can be viewed in AR and VR and helps transfer BIM metadata to real-time 3D.

The software is also capable of improving design reviews and coordination while allowing scalability to an unlimited number of projects, clients, and collaborators in real-time simultaneously.

Omnix also offers VisualLive apps and integrated plugins, which allow users to take their large BIM models to HoloLens and mobile devices within a few minutes of the process with just a few clicks.

Unity Digital Twin solution allows users to be prepared and equipped to make data-informed decisions, and monitor and manage operations of an existing facility, site, or system. Users can identify potential issues,

make improvements, and anticipate future operations based on visualised designs, simulations, real-time data collection, and IoT predictive maintenance. The solution also enables upskilling of the workforce to improve information retention with hands-on immersive training, onsite or remote.

Data about an object is required by a Digital Twin to represent a virtual model that mimics behaviours or states of real-world events and hardware, and software components form an essential component of building an end-to-end digital twin solution.

Industrial use cases

Omnix believes digital twins is not limited to a particular industry and has uses across many industries. Other than its uses in industrial plants, Digital Twin is important in Geographical Information System as it interconnects information, systems, models, and behaviours with spatial context, creating holistic digital representations of environments, assets, networks, and cities.

More importantly, Digital Twin has become popular in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry which includes building and infrastructure projects. It integrates real-time data from a built asset with its digital representation to create insights across the project lifecycle. Omnix is focused on this technology because Digital Twin is not just a hype. It solves major challenges in both design and operations for our clients.

The technology has saved end-users and project teams countless hours updating models in the construction industry. Analog, unclassified, and disconnected data is often an insoluble challenge for owners and operators to monitor, manage, and fine-tune their asset. The end user community is keen on implementing this technology, and government bodies and municipalities are headed towards its adoption which will create a positive impact across all sectors.

Omnix’s digital transformation services range from simple 2D, 3D, BIM and capturing of physical assets in Construction and Oil and Gas projects, to projects in facility management. Solution offerings include Autodesk, TeamViewer, Vuzix, Faro, Unity, Chaos, Lumion, Adobe, Oracle, Bluebeam and GTX. ë

CLOUD BASED BOARD OFFERS UNCAPPED DATA STORAGE

The Board toolkit uses the latest technology to enable users to pull in data from multiple sources and visualise it through an interactive dashboard.

With the evolution of the digital era, we are seeing more enterprises migrating to the Board cloud offering, largely because of uncapped data volumes. Uncapped data storage on the cloud facilitates efficient, effective decisionmaking and real-time analysis.

The Board toolkit is accessible either on premise or on the cloud.

The cloud solution is hosted on the Microsoft Azure cloud, providing robust enterprise-wide scalability.

Studies indicate that nine out of 10 spreadsheets have some degree of error in them. It is unavoidable owing to the manual data entry involved in the creation of those sheets. And once you have input that data, what do you do with it, how do you analyse properly?

The Board toolkit uses the latest technology to enable users to pull in data from multiple sources and visualise it through an interactive dashboard. The toolkit then allows the user to run that data through functions such as predictive analytics to produce a more accurate picture on key metrics such as budgeting and forecasting.

The Board Office Add-in offers the capability to go beyond the standard Excel reporting tools, supporting both online and offline data entry to synchronise data automatically when they reconnect, without affecting the integrity, consistency, traceability of data and, perhaps most importantly for the user, maintaining that familiar Excel environment they are used to.

Board Enterprise Analytics Modelling, integrates advanced and predictive analytics with business intelligence and performance management

The option to include charts, data views, cockpits, bubble charts, and maps, which can be automatically updated on a live link with the underlying data, helps elevate the presentation of data.

Board has its own predictive and machine learning engine, empowering business users to make better informed decisions on their own data, without the need to rely on any IT function. The interactive dashboard consistently updates its algorithm while providing a user-friendly front end.

Middle East Regional Director, Board International.

Board Enterprise Analytics Modelling, BEAM seamlessly integrates advanced and predictive analytics with business intelligence and performance management, making it easier for anyone to quickly gain powerful business insights and act.

BEAM combines:

l Predictive Analytics

Produce extremely accurate forecasts using automated predictive modelling capabilities at a fraction of the time taken by traditional analytics solutions

l Clustering

Automatically group customers, products, or other entities into clusters for use within analysis and reporting

BEAM uses advanced technology to deliver an efficient, scalable, flexible approach to advanced analytics, giving all users the ability to gather the forward-looking insights needed to inform business decision-making. Thus, allowing the software and interface to keep up to date with competitors in the market.

The platform allows users to take data from any and multiple sources, providing agility in operating seamlessly with other cloud stacks. This creates even greater visibility on the data at hand through interactive dashboards complete with machine learning and predictive. Overall, it allows for budgeting and forecasting in a single application, which ultimately reduces inefficiencies and boosting productivity.

Board collaborates with numerous partners in the region, including the Big 4: KPMG, PWC, Deloitte, and EY, as well as other smaller partners and resellers ë

SANFORD BURLEY

Cupola Teleservices releases AI-Enterprise Learning Platform built on Avaya

Cupola Teleservices, rolled out the first AI-powered enterprise learning platform in the region, using technology from Avaya. The platform delivers advanced enterprise learning and training capabilities customised and personalised to the needs of Cupola’s growing pool of customer service agents, enabling it to build a strong talent pipeline and keep pace with its customers’ ever-evolving demands.

With the platform, Cupola is able to quickly onboard customer service agents and empower them with the knowledge they need to deliver

outstanding customer experiences. It also enables agents to continuously upskill themselves, on their own time, enhancing job satisfaction and career progression.

Cupola’s agents now have access to offline and online courses through a single dashboard, eliminating the need to schedule appointments or align with a timeline for learning and training. And new joiners use the platform to onboard and acquaint themselves with the core policies and values of the company’s they’re serving.

NETSCOUT announces AI-based solution to automatically block DDoS attacks

NETSCOUT, announced that it has launched a new, innovative AI-based solution enabling its customers to automatically and instantaneously block a large proportion of DDoS attacks thus simplifying operations and minimising risk to their businesses.

The solution leverages NETSCOUT’s ATLAS network, source of visibility into DDoS attack activity on the Internet. Multiple ATLAS datasets are analysed, curated, and correlated using artificial intelligence. This automated intelligent pipeline is developed using NETSCOUT’s ATLAS Security Engineering and Response Team ASERT expertise to identify botnet members and other network infrastructure that is actively participating in DDoS attacks.

This intelligence is continuously updated and shared in real-time with NETSCOUT’s industry leading Arbor Threat Mitigation System

TMS and Omnis AED Smart DDoS attack protection solutions via the Omnis ATLAS Intelligence Feed AIF. This new Omnis AIF content enables TMS and AED to know, in advance, the IP addresses of devices across the Internet that are being used to launch DDoS attacks, resulting in the ability to instantly block up to 90% of attack traffic, without further analysis, during an attack.

This data provides TMS and AED with the intelligence needed to automatically stop botnet-generated DDoS attacks, including reflection, amplification, direct-path TCP state exhaustion, application-layer, and encrypted attacks. The analysis behind Omnis AIF is based on NETSCOUT’s unique, global DDoS attack visibility extending to more than onethird of all Internet traffic and millions of DDoS attacks. This global intelligence can then be applied automatically for local protection.

With this intelligence-based approach, customers will experience less business impact from legitimate blocked traffic and spend less time analysing DDoS attacks.

DARREN ANSTEE Chief Technology Officer Security at NETSCOUT.

Allurion adds to its suite

with Iris Artificial Intelligence Platform and Success Predictor

ZorroSign, announced progressive plans to launch its next-generation platform for its UAE and global subscribers. The plans include upgrades to user experience and interface, features, security, compliance, and system updates, starting 15 August 2022. The company has been primarily working to update the ZorroSign application’s look and feel, with a goal of being the most intuitive and user-friendly digital signature experience available.

The company’s emphasis on privacy, security, and compliance for digital transactions gives ZorroSign a strong foothold across government, financial services, IT, legal services, and real estate. By providing a mobile solution for digital signatures, ZorroSign facilitates digital transactions around the world and provides an opportunity for organisations, companies, and individuals to go green with paperless operations.

ZorroSign’s ‘Save a Tree, Plant a Tree’ programme has the company planting a tree on behalf of its customers every time a customer saves 8,000 pages of copy paper by using ZorroSign for digital operations. One tree produces roughly 8,000 pages of copy paper, so the programme both saves trees and adds trees—doubling the positive impact.

Studies show that by just eliminating or reducing the use of paper, governments and businesses can realise significant environmental benefits like conserving water, reducing carbon emissions, improving air quality, and decreasing deforestation.

Allurion adds to its suite with Iris Artificial Intelligence Platform and Success Predictor

Allurion, the world’s first and only weight loss device that requires no surgery, endoscopy, or anaesthesia, announced a major update to the Allurion Virtual Care Suite. These two featuresthe Allurion Iris Artificial Intelligence Platform and Success Predictor, are the first in a pipeline of machine-learning algorithms designed to improve patient outcomes. Starting today, the Success Predictor is available to all Allurion partner clinics across the UAE.

The Success Predictor is a proprietary machine-learning algorithm trained on millions of data points from more than 20,000 Allurion Balloon Programme patients in over 50 different countries, to ensure a high degree of useful data generated. This feature can inform the clinic if the patient is on track or not to reach their minimum expected weight loss, as early as 20 days into the programme. Through early identification of patients needing additional support, clinicians can intervene sooner, enabling them to course correct the patient’s care, quickly getting them back on track.

The Success Predictor is just one of several new features that are announced as part of a major update to the VCS. In addition, through the introduction of Treatment Tracking and Clinic-Led Onboarding, the VCS now enables seamless management of patients undergoing one or multiple weight-loss treatments including gastric balloons, surgery, or medications.

SHANTANU GAUR

MD, Allurion Co-founder and CEO.

Cohesity announces availability of Cohesity FortKnox, SaaS solution for data isolation and recovery

Cohesity, announced general availability of Cohesity FortKnox - a software as a service data isolation and recovery solution, adding to the company’s Data Management as a Service portfolio of offerings that run on Amazon Web Services. FortKnox is a modern data isolation solution that can play a critical role in helping organisations minimise the impact of cyberattacks such as ransomware.

It is designed to provide an additional layer of off-site protection while dramatically simplifying operations and lowering costs compared to magnetic-tape and self-managed data vaults. The SaaS offering also helps enterprises

meet recovery service level agreement requirements and regulatory requirements.

FortKnox powers a modern 3-2-1 option fit for the cloud era that effectively balances organisations’ security and agility priorities. It’s a cloud solution that allows customers to simply connect, vault, and recover. Vaulted data is kept secure and out of the hands of bad actors via a virtual air gap that is achieved through physical separation, and network and management isolation. This clean data can be recovered from the Cohesity-managed cloud vault back to the original source location - or alternate targets, including the public cloud - in

support of business continuity objectives.

Cohesity FortKnox complements Cohesity’s Threat Defence data security architecture. This multi-layered architecture is continually enhanced to help customers stay a step ahead of cyber criminals. It brings together a range of products, services, and capabilities from Cohesity and ecosystem partners to help customers identify threats via AI and ML, protect their data, and rapidly recover in the event of a cyberattack.

Cohesity FortKnox is available globally from Cohesity and its partner ecosystem as a subscription-based SaaS offering.

Emerson, Nozomi Networks combine distributed control system with OT, IoT security

Global software and technology leader Emerson and Nozomi Networks, the leader in OT and IoT security, announced they have established an agreement to meet growing demand for OT cybersecurity services and solutions in the specific industries both companies serve. Emerson will offer Nozomi Networks’ advanced solutions for industrial control system cyber resiliency and real-time operational visibility to customers worldwide.

The agreement combines Nozomi Networks’ industry-leading OT and IoT security and visibility capabilities with Emerson’s DeltaV distributed control system, consulting and professional services. The agreement delivers comprehensive solutions to strengthen cybersecurity and reduce the risk of downtime due to cyberattacks or process

anomalies.

The DeltaV suite of software and technologies increases plant performance with intelligent control that is easy to operate and maintain. The DeltaV DCS is adaptable to meet customer requirements and objectives, scaling easily without adding complexity.

Nozomi Networks’ OT and IoT threat and anomaly detection and actionable intelligence complement the DeltaV portfolio by helping customers quickly see and respond to cyber threats before they impact process controls. In addition, vulnerability assessment capabilities help customers identify OT devices that can be exploited in cyberattacks. Nozomi Networks’ asset discovery capabilities combine active and passive techniques to safely identify OT and IoT assets.

Tenable launches Nessus Expert with attack surface management, infrastructure as code

Tenable, announced the addition of Nessus Expert to its portfolio of trusted vulnerability assessment solutions, giving security consultants, pen testers and security practitioners extended external capabilities and expanded visibility into cloud native environments.

External assets and cloud configurations represent two of the biggest cyber risks facing organisations today. Most enterprises lack good accounting of their external footprint, which is easily exploitable by cybercriminals and other threat actors. External Attack Surface Management EASM removes such blind spots with capabilities such as discovery, attribution and change detection monitoring of all external assets across the enterprise.

At the same time, while organisations are leveraging public clouds, they are frequently deploying cloud security solutions too late in their development cycle. The best way to gain maximum advantage from the cloud is for organisations to begin with infrastructure as code IAC security, catching misconfigurations and software vulnerabilities before anything is ever deployed.

Building on the Nessus brand’s reputation as the industry’s most recognised and widely deployed vulnerability assessment solution, Nessus Expert is the first to address both of these pain points head on. Nessus Expert applies a smarter and simplified approach to DevSecOps, enabling users to gain an understanding of an organisation’s external attack surface that could be exposed to threat actors and to assess infrastructure as code IaC for vulnerabilities before runtime.

GLEN PENDLEY Chief Technology Officer, Tenable.

Following the integrations of both Bit Discovery and Terrascan technologies earlier this year, Nessus Expert is equipped with external attack surface discovery and IaC security analysis, providing pen testers, consultants, SMBs and developers with a unique competitive edge with their expanded risk assessment capabilities.

EDGARD CAPDEVIELLE CEO, Nozomi Networks.

Sitecore releases Experience Manager Cloud with modern architecture, personalisation, authoring

Sitecore, announced that it has become the first company to completely transition its core CMS solution including personalisation and the content authoring experience, to a modern cloud architecture with the release of Sitecore Experience Manager Cloud.

Sitecore XM Cloud helps solve the globally recognised problem of powering instantaneous, global digital experiences in the cloud without sacrificing the customer experience. This latest product release will provide brands with unrivalled speed to market in the implementation of customer experiences, simplifying design and deployment, and eliminating upgrades, which dramatically decreases the cost of ownership. With XM Cloud, marketers can instantly create, manage and deliver engaging omnichannel experiences with an industry-leading enterprise-ready CMS.

Sitecore XM Cloud provides a comprehensive SaaS CMS for the Enterprise solution for brands by overcoming global scaling problems including variable traffic, supporting multi-brand architectures, and site security.

For business users, XM Cloud offers the ability to build pixel-perfect digital experiences via a WYSIWIG authoring experience that can access content anywhere as well as embedded testing and personalisation, and integrated visitor analytics. For developers, XM Cloud can be used with headless development techniques and will work with modern frontend frameworks and support all deployment scenarios.

Through Sitecore XM Cloud, the company’s entire Digital Experience Platform can now be delivered through a modern cloud architecture, providing brands and marketers with:

BeyondTrust announces solution availability for customer purchase in AWS Marketplace

BeyondTrust, announced availability of all of BeyondTrust’s solutions for customer purchase in AWS Marketplace, a digital catalogue with thousands of software listings from independent software vendors that make it easy to find, test, buy, and deploy software that runs on Amazon Web Services. Joint customers can expect a simplified procurement process through AWS Marketplace with flexible payment terms, consolidated billing, committed cloud spend burn-down, and enterprise discounts.

For years, BeyondTrust has been leading

the industry with solutions that deliver the visibility organisations need to reduce cyber risk and have greater control over their infrastructure, while gaining operational efficiency. This announcement progresses the identity and access security market forward, as organisations seek consolidated procurement capabilities as they continue the rapid adoption of cloud initiatives. For customers with a cloud-first or hybrid architecture, AWS Marketplace’s flexibility provides a strategic option to optimise identity and access security procurement with BeyondTrust’s complete solutions.

DAVE O’FLANAGAN Chief Product Officer, Sitecore.

BRENT THURRELL Chief Revenue Officer at BeyondTrust.

Lenovo and e& partner to build 5G Edge-in-a-box solution for smart cities, manufacturing

Lenovo and Etisalat UAE announced a collaboration to build a new 5G Edge-in-a-box solution which will enable the rapid roll out of 5G connectivity for a wide range of edgeof-network deployment scenarios. The 5G Edge-in-a-box solution is expected to be a game-changing solution for telecoms companies, enabling them to quickly deploy 5G communications to support demand for new use cases such as Smart Cities, IoT and Industry 4.0, temporary events and outdoor locations, public and private safety networks and more.

The solution will mean that locations can be quickly connected to 5G, either on private networks or fully integrated with the Etisalat by e& packet core network, to provide fast, high bandwidth, low-latency connectivity required by the latest technology solutions and concepts.

The 5G Edge solution, which has been developed with Lenovo, Casa Systems, Nearby Com-

puting, and Red Hat, includes full capabilities for disaggregated, virtual radio access network and Multi-Access Edge Computing deployable in a variety of scenarios, from Non-Public Mobile Networks to the Etisalat by e& Edge and hybrid clouds.

The new solution is based on an open and modular design, aligned with Intel´s CERA specification, that aims to accommodate for different site sizing and use cases with a common framework to host edge applications MEC and non-MEC seamlessly.5G Edge-in-a box is compatible with best-practice VNF, CNF solutions to address the expected performance requirements of individual use cases and applications.

5G Edge-in-a-box includes hardware infrastructure and software components, as well as automated deployment and management, to cover all aspects of an advanced edge orchestration platform NFV, Applications, MEC, to meet

Palo Alto offering Out-of-Band WAAS to secure cloud applications, application development

Over the last two years, organisations have expanded their use of cloud environments by more than 25%. Many are now struggling to manage the technical complexity of cloud migration, including the ability to secure their applications across the entire application development lifecycle. Palo Alto Networks, announced the addition of Out-of-Band Web Application and API Security to Prisma Cloud to help organisations secure web applications with maximum flexibility.

Until now, a primary industry approach to securing web applications has been to deploy inline web application firewalls. Some organisations are reluctant to introduce WAFs or API security solutions inline, however, due to performance and scalability concerns. With today’s announcement, Prisma Cloud can provide organisations with deep web and API security both inline and out of band, allowing them to choose how to protect their applications in the cloud.

In addition to Out-of-Band WAAS, Prisma Cloud is getting new threat detection, alert

the day-to-day network operational requirements, and reduce the pain points of deploying and managing localised connectivity.

The 5G Edge-in-a-box solution is intended for smart cities, mobility, manufacturing, industry 4.0, short term events, exhibitions, private safety, public safety services, gaming, content delivery, augmented reality, outdoor locations, and other deployment scenarios.

prioritisation and permissions management capabilities to help provide organisations with deeper, unified visibility across their entire cloud application portfolio:

l Multicloud Graph View for Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management CIEM: Discover over-privileged accounts and understand access risk across multicloud environments. Prisma Cloud now provides a graph view of the net effective permissions across AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

l Multicloud Agentless Cloud Workload Protection: Extend visibility into cloud workloads and application risks across Azure and Google Cloud, in addition to AWS, to complement existing agentbased protection.

l DNS-Based Threat Detection: Surface malicious activity and anomalous behaviour in cloud environments. Prisma Cloud Threat Detection now leverages machine learning ML and advanced threat intelligence to identify bad actors hiding in DNS traffic.

l MITRE ATTandCK Alert Prioritisation: Enable security teams to prioritise risks and incidents based on the industry’s most widely adopted framework.

KHALED AL SUWAIDI

VP of Core Networks and Platforms, Etisalat UAE.

ANKUR SHAH

Senior Vice President, Prisma Cloud, Palo Alto Networks.

Alibaba Cloud launches Energy Expert to automate carbon accounting and for real-time statistics

Alibaba Cloud announced the global launch of Energy Expert, a sustainability platform to help customers worldwide measure, analyse and manage the carbon emissions of their business activities and products. The software-

as-a-service offerings also provides actionable insights and energy saving recommendations to help customers accelerate their sustainability journeys.

The initiative is aligned with Alibaba’s carbon

neutrality pledge, which was unveiled last year. The company pioneered the “Scope 3 +” concept and has pledged to share its energyefficient technologies with its customers and business partners, uniting them in their collective efforts to reduce carbon footprint.

Energy Expert helps customers automate the carbon accounting and reporting process at a corporate and product level and obtain realtime sustainability impact statistics for them to make informed decisions. It enables customers to identify the sources of the carbon emissions from their daily business activities as well as the full life cycle of their products, based on the PAS 2060 and ISO 14064 standards on carbon neutrality.

Customers can also quantify their carbon footprint through a prebuilt calculation model leveraging public emission factors datasets and Energy Expert’s proprietary datasets. Additionally, it provides visibility into their real-time carbon emission patterns and the progress of their sustainability performance through visualisations on dashboards and online reports.

PNY announces EliteX-PRO USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C Portable SSD in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB

PNY Technologies, announced availability of the PNY EliteX-PRO USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C Portable SSD to the company’s assortment of SSD solutions. Designed to be a mobile storage solution superior to previous generations of portable SSD’s as well as traditional USB 3.2 flash drives, with increased capacity and exceptional performance.

The PNY EliteX-PRO portable SSD offers blazing fast transfer speeds up to 12x faster than external HDDs. Experience exceptional performance of up to 1,600MB, s seq. read and 1,500MB, s seq. write respectively, allowing for even faster transfer and storage of files on the go. Available in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB capacities; PNY 2TB and 4TB portable SSD capacities have never been seen until now!

The PNY EliteX-PRO is ultra-portable for life-on-the go. Take your files with you wherever you go in the sleek designed durable aluminium housing that fits comfortably in the palm of your hand. Easily back up data with the included Acronis True Image Data Protection Software and experience expanded connectivity with the PNY EliteX-PRO portable SSD. Access your data anytime, anywhere, from a vast array of host devices with the included USB Type-C to C cable and a USB Type-C to A cable

HPE meeting commitment to deliver entire portfolio as service by 2022 says Antonio Neri CEO

Hewlett Packard Enterprise unveiled platform enhancements and new cloud services in the Middle East for HPE GreenLake, the company’s flagship offering that enables organisations to modernise all their applications and data. This includes a reimagined modern private cloud that provides a cloud-native experience to power an organisation’s hybrid strategy, regardless of location. In addition, HPE unveiled eight new HPE GreenLake cloud services, giving customers more choice, control, and predictability for their enterprise cloud delivery.

HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform provides customers and partners with a unified experience, control and visibility, and fast and easy access to over 70 cloud services. Today, HPE GreenLake has 65,000 customers and over one exabyte of data under management with customers worldwide. These organisations benefit from one control plane from which to automate, orchestrate, and run their hybrid cloud strategy.

HPE unveiled additional advancements to the HPE GreenLake platform, including enhanced security, a new developer portal and developer tools, and deeper capabilities to manage assets and workloads at scale. The HPE

GreenLake platform continues to drive strong customer demand. In Q2 2022, HPE reported Annualised Revenue Run-Rate ARR of $829 million and triple digit as-a-service orders growth for the third consecutive quarter.

The market for private cloud continues to grow, due to multiple concerns and priorities for customers, including application entanglement, control, cost, data gravity, data latency, and predictability.

HPE GreenLake builds on this momentum with HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Enter-

SolarWinds announces Next-Generation Build System as open-source countering SUNBURST attacks

SolarWinds unveils its new Next-Generation Build System, a transformational model for software development. The new software build process is a key component of the company’s Secure by Design initiative to make SolarWinds a model for enterprise software security.

The software development and build process improvements were made in an accelerated

prise, a new offering that reimagines the private cloud experience, by providing an automated, flexible, scalable, and enterprise-grade private cloud. Built for both cloud-native and traditional applications, HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Enterprise includes modular infrastructure and software and supports the deployment of bare metal, virtual machines, and container workloads.

The updated HPE GreenLake platform experience will be generally available in September 2022.

timeline over the past year in response to the highly sophisticated SUNBURST cyberattack, which targeted SolarWinds and other technology companies.

The Next-Generation Build System includes both new software development practices and technology to strengthen the integrity of the build environment. This consists of the firstof-its-kind “parallel build” process, where the development of SolarWinds software takes place through multiple highly secure duplicate paths to establish a basis for integrity checks.

Because the software build process at SolarWinds used at the time of the SUNBURST attack is common throughout the technology industry, SolarWinds is releasing components of the new build system as open-source software, enabling other organisations to benefit from the company’s learnings and help establish a new industry standard for secure software development.

SUDHAKAR RAMAKRISHNA President and CEO, SolarWinds.

Huawei launches enterprise Network-as-a-Service for Middle East using CloudCampus

Huawei announced its latest and innovative Network-as-a-Service offering for the Middle East region, powering enterprises across different industries to build a strong foundation for digital transformation.

These new-generation services will enable enterprise businesses from government, education, healthcare, retail, banking, manufacturing industries and other SMEs to keep pace with innovation, meet rapidly changing business needs and optimise network performance and user experiences through a cloud-like subscription model.

Enterprise NaaS models allow enterprises to outsource provisioning, deployment, ongoing management, and decommissioning and end of life for their enterprise networks. The advantages of enterprise NaaS models include faster access to new technology, simplification of network deployment and management, and improved refresh cycles for enterprises to dynamically scale network components as needed.

Using Huawei’s NaaS offering built on the CloudCampus MSP platform, carrier, MSP partners can provide a depth of services to enterprise customers. CloudCampus MSP

combines AIOps and a unified infrastructure for wired, wireless and SD-WAN management, providing MSPs a single platform to manage all customers in their environment.

With best-of-breed network hardware, a comprehensive set of APIs, and integration

with hundreds of smart solutions offered by Huawei’s technology partners, the CloudCampus MSP platform enables partners to quickly build and deliver a wide variety of managed service offerings that meet their customers’ specific needs.

Ooredoo Business and Huawei sign MoU to launch a Cloud Connect in Kuwait

Ooredoo Business and Huawei signed an MoU to launch a new generation of cloud-optimised managed network services in Kuwait called “Cloud Connect” to improve business performance and enable them to establish secured high-speed connections.

Through this partnership, Ooredoo Business will be able to deliver SD-LAN and SD-WAN managed services to their customers by leverag-

ing leading technologies such as 5G, Wi-Fi 6, AI, SD-WAN, Passive Optical LAN POL from Huawei. These services deliver a variety of benefits, including a single management platform, technical consulting resources and advanced service delivery. Through this offering, customers would be able to focus on their core business without worrying about network complexity.

Red Hat launches Enterprise Linux 9 supporting open hybrid cloud on bare metal servers, CSP, edge

Red Hat introduces Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, the Linux operating system designed to drive more consistent innovation across the open hybrid cloud, from bare metal servers to cloud providers and the farthest edge of enterprise networks. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 is designed to drive enterprise transformation in parallel with evolving market forces and customer demands in an automated and distributed IT world. The platform will be generally available in the coming weeks.

For two decades, Red Hat Enterprise Linux has served as the backbone of enterprise IT, both in the datacentre and in the cloud, emphasising customer choice and flexibility. With this platform for innovation, Red Hat customers can choose their underlying architecture, application vendor or cloud provider with the consistency necessary for modern IT.

Combined, this has resulted in Red Hat Enterprise Linux becoming an epicentre for innovation. According to a Red Hat-sponsored IDC study, the global Red Hat Enterprise Linux economy is forecast to exceed $13 trillion in 2022. This includes supporting the business activities of Red Hat customers, which is estimated to provide financial benefits totalling $1.7 trillion in 2022.

Building on decades of relentless innovation, the latest version of the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform is the first production release built from CentOS Stream, the continuously delivered Linux distribution that tracks just ahead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This approach helps the broader Red Hat Enterprise Linux ecosystem, from partners to customers to independent users, provide feedback, code and feature updates to the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform.

SolarWinds announces Next-Generation Build System as open-source countering SUNBURST attacks

price-performance, built-in enhanced security, and simplified recovery and management for enterprise customers looking to accelerate their OCI transition. Leveraging OCI Storage for advanced air-gapped ransomware protection, Oracle customers can now protect critical data assets in the cloud or on-premises by maintaining flexibility across customer-managed storage or a SaaS-delivered data protection service, inclusive of managed cloud storage.

Commvault, expanded its strategic partnership with Oracle to include Metallic DMaaS on Oracle Cloud. As part of Commvault’s multicloud strategy, Metallic’s industry-leading

services will be offered on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and available in all commercial OCI regions globally.

Metallic and OCI will deliver superior

In the fight against ransomware and cyberattacks, Metallic DMaaS helps protect data from corruption, unauthorised access, and other threats across vital sectors of business, including insurance, financial services, manufacturing, and defence. With Metallic DMaaS, customers can easily back up their digital footprint in any consumption model, from cloudnative to on-premises workloads, including databases, virtual machines, Kubernetes, and file and object storage.

ASHESH BADANI

Senior Vice President, Products, Red Hat.

SANJAY MIRCHANDANI President and Chief Executive Officer, Commvault.

Inflation, delivery bottlenecks driving enterprise spending into cloud and datacentres finds Gartner

Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $4.5 trillion in 2022, an increase of 3% from 2021, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. While IT spending is expected to grow in 2022, it will be at a much slower pace than 2021 due to spending cutbacks on PCs, tablets and printers by consumers, causing spending on devices to shrink 5%. IT spend in the MENA Middle East and North Africa region is forecast to total $173 billion in 2022, growing 1.2% from 2021.

In MENA, software will emerge as the highest growth segment in 2022, recording a 12.3% increase in spending from 2021. This will be followed by spending on IT services and datacentres. Weak consumer outlook and supply shortages will restrict the spending on devices as it is forecast to decline 5.4% in 2022, in the region.

Price increases and delivery uncertainty, exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have accelerated the transition in purchasing preference among CIOs, and enterprises in

general, from ownership to service — pushing cloud spending to 18.4% growth in 2021 and expected growth of 22.1% in 2022. Not only is cloud service demand reshaping the IT services industry, but it is also driving spending on servers to 16.6% growth in 2022, as hyper scalers build out their datacentres.

Spending on datacentre systems is forecast to experience the strongest growth of all segments in 2022 at 11.1%. Cloud consulting and implementation and cloud managed services are expected to grow 17.2% in 2022, from $217 billion in 2021 to $255 billion in 2022, helping to drive the overall IT services segment to 6.2% growth in 2022.

Cloud service demand is also driving spending on servers to 16.6% growth in 2022, as hyper scalers build out their datacentres

Price increases and delivery uncertainty, exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have accelerated cloud spending to 18.4% growth in 2021 and expected growth of 22.1% in 2022

JOHN-DAVID LOVELOCK Distinguished Research Vice President at Gartner.

By 2025, CEOs will mandate resilience culture to survive cybercrime, weather, unrest predicts Gartner

Executive performance evaluations will be increasingly linked to ability to manage cyber risk; almost one-third of nations will regulate ransomware response within the next three years; and security platform consolidation will help organisations thrive in hostile environments, according to the top cybersecurity predictions revealed by Gartner, Inc. today.

In the opening keynote at the Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit in Sydney, Richard Addiscott, Senior Director Analyst and Rob McMillan, Managing Vice President at Gartner discussed the top predictions prepared by Gartner cybersecurity experts to help security and risk management leaders be successful in the digital era.

Gartner recommends that cybersecurity leaders build the following strategic planning assumptions into their security strategies for the next two years.

Through 2023, government regulations requiring organisations to provide consumer privacy rights will cover 5 billion citizens and more than 70% of global GDP.

As of 2021, almost 3 billion individuals had access to consumer privacy rights across 50 countries, and privacy regulation continues to expand. Gartner recommends that organisations track subject rights request metrics, including cost per request and time to fulfil, to identify inefficiencies and justify accelerated automation.

By 2025, 80% of enterprises will adopt a strategy to unify web, cloud services and private application access from a single vendor’s SSE platform.

RICHARD ADDISCOTT Senior Director Analyst at Gartner.

66% technology experts struggling to be Agents of Transformation finds Cisco AppDynamics report

Cisco AppDynamics published findings from Agents of Transformation 2022, the fourth annual report that analyses the skills and attributes of elite global technologists. In the wake of the pandemic, it reveals the emergence of a new class of technology experts stepping up to meet critical challenges that are blurring the lines between business strategy and IT operations. The report also cites the demand to make all products and services digitally available in the Experience Economy amid heightened security threats, increasing complexity, and the accelerated shift to hybrid work and the cloud.

According to the Cisco AppDynamics report, 74% believe that their experiences in recent years—particularly during the pandemic—have accelerated their careers, and 88% now consider themselves to be business leaders. However, just 10% of technology experts have reached the elite status of ‘Agents of Transformation’. These individuals represent top-flight leaders who are reimagining and delivering high-value applications and services that create the always-on, secure, and exceptional user experiences now

demanded by end users and customers.

Respondents cite a fundamental change in the role of technologists, including the skills and resources required to operate effectively and proficiently. At the same time, they say they now contend with soaring complexity and volumes of data from across the technology stack and must integrate a massively expanding set of cloud-native services with existing on-premises systems and tools.

• 88% believe that what it means to be a technologist has changed

• 84% say the skills and qualities that define an Agent of Transformation have evolved

• 66% indicate that it is now more difficult to be an Agent of Transformation

• One in four say their organisation remains stuck in reactive, fire-fighting mode

Digital transformation means almost every company and organisation interacts with consumers via web and mobile applications, and the transition to hybrid work means more interaction with SaaS tools and web interfaces. While consumers can pivot fast to another

72% UAE IT decision makers admit losing control of print fleet due to hybrid work finds Epson survey

A new global business survey commissioned by Epson shows that more than 90% of IT decision makers in the United Arab Emirates have seen an increase in print costs during the past 12-18 months during the hybrid working environment, with more than half of all UAEbased respondents 57% reporting an increase in print volumes. During this same period, 61% of respondents were challenged by balancing business continuity with sustainability goals.

The Epson State of the Market Survey was conducted by independent research firm Coleman Parkes and the UAE results are part of a wider survey of 3,000 IT decision makers from across 30 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Among other things, the survey explored the significant challenges companies

brand’s app or service, companies that cannot instantly improve digital experiences risk having loyal customers walk away.

The new Agents of Transformation recognise a need to reimagine applications not just in response to post-pandemic challenges, but also, to create flawless, reliable digital experiences that address some of the world’s greatest problems—from meeting critical human needs to giving people the skills and resources to succeed in the digital economy, Centoni said.

encounter in moving between onsite, remote and hybrid working systems as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The results from the UAE highlight the complexities companies face in aiming to meet sustainability goals, contain rising costs and control printer servicing and use by employees, and indicate a widespread lack of awareness of the ecological and financial implications of the different printing systems available.

Keeping control of printer hardware during remote working was cited as a key pressure by 66% of respondents, with almost three quarters 72% admitting that IT is losing control of the print fleet.

Almost half of respondents 48% found it challenging to focus on sustainable printing policies in the last 12-18 months due to hybrid working environments. The hybrid working experience has led to a majority 61% now claiming they will make significant changes to how print should be managed in the future, and 59% highlighting the need to focus on more sustainable printing solutions going forward.

LIZ CENTONI

EVP, Chief Strategy Officer, GM of Applications, Cisco AppDynamics.

HUSSAM ALZUGHAYYAR Sales Manager Epson Middle East.

A seamless and integrated digital experience is essential for consumers to maximise the potential of smart wearable health and wellbeing devices, according to new research conducted by Cisco across the EMEA region. The research was carried out by Cisco AppDynamics and questioned 4,000 people across in the UAE, UK, France and Germany. It discovered that 83% of

those polled believe smart wearable technology has the potential to positively transform the health of individuals and improve public health services in general.

Wearables are increasingly popular: 38% of people currently use at least one wearable technology device, while 71% plan to increase their use of such products and related applications

over the next 12 months. Thus, wearable technology has reached a defining moment in its evolution, moving from the early adopter stage through to mass adoption.

The pace of innovation in wearable healthcare products is high, and users have clear preferences for what they want their devices to do. 84% expect their devices to indicate early warning signs of illness and the same percentage want to improve fitness goals. In addition, 78% look to wearables to help manage chronic health conditions; 79% to identify the spread of infectious diseases; and 77% to support healthy eating.

83% of consumers believe that having reliable, real-time access to health data and accuracy of this data is critical to a good user experience.

In fact, the quality of the experience is so important that 76% of those questioned said they would stop using a specific wearable device or application if they had a bad digital experience. Perhaps more worryingly for smart wearable manufacturers and app developers is that 59% of respondents said a bad digital experience with one wearable device or application would put them off trying other health or wellbeing wearable technology.

Effective collaboration between IT and security teams is frequently not happening finds Cohesity

New research commissioned by Cohesity, reveals that while most IT and security operations decision-makers believe they should jointly share the responsibility for their organisation’s data security strategy, many of these teams are not collaborating as effectively as possible to address growing cyber threats. The survey also shows that of those respondents who believe collaboration is weak between IT and security, nearly half of respondents believe their organisation is more exposed to cyber threats as a result — and the implications of that could have significant consequences for businesses.

The research is based on an April 2022 survey conducted by Censuswide, of more than 2,000 IT decision-makers and SecOps professionals split nearly 50-50 between the two groups from businesses in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia — all of whom have a role in the decision-making process for IT or security.

The survey was conducted as nearly three-quarters 74% of respondents believe the threat of ransomware in their industry has increased over the last year, with nearly half of respondents 47% saying their organisation has been the victim of a ransomware attack in the last six months.

83% respondents believe smart wearables have potential to transform health finds Cisco EMEA research

Growth of EMEA PC market expected to plunge -14% in 2022 forecasts Gartner

Worldwide PC shipments are on pace to decline 9.5% in 2022, according to the latest forecast from Gartner. The PC market is expected to experience the steepest decline of all devices segments this year.

A perfect storm of geopolitics upheaval, high inflation, currency fluctuations and supply chain disruptions have lowered business and consumer demand for devices across the world and is set to impact the PC market the hardest in 2022.

Consumer PC demand is on pace to decline 13.1% in 2022 and will plummet much faster than business PC demand, which is expected to decline 7.2% year over year.

From a regional perspective, the EMEA PC market is forecast to record a 14% decline in 2022, driven by lack of consumer PC demand. The Russian Invasion of Ukraine, price increases and unavailability of products due to of lockdowns in China are significantly impacting consumer demand in the region.

Overall, global shipments of total devices

PCs, tablets and mobile phones are on pace to decline 7.6% in 2022, with Greater China and Eastern Europe including Eurasia recording double-digit declines.

While global mobile phone shipments are expected to decline 7.1% in 2022, smartphone shipments are estimated to decrease 5.8% year over year. Regionally, Greater China will be hit the hardest with smartphone shipments on pace to decline 18.3% in 2022.

Regionally, Greater China has been leading the adoption of 5G phones over the last two years. However, the collapse of the smartphone market in the region will mean a 2% decline in 5G phone shipments in 2022, after growing 65% in 2021.

At the beginning of the year, the Greater China 5G phone market was expected to show double-digit growth. The impact of China’s zero tolerance COVID-19 policy and resulting lockdowns have dramatically reversed this trend. Large numbers of consumers stopped buying non-essential items including 5G smartphones.

UAE CISOs consider human error biggest cyber vulnerability, Proofpoint 2022 Report

Cybersecurity researchers at Proofpoint, have released The 2022 Social Engineering Report, which analyses key trends and techniques of socially engineered cyber threats observed over the past year. Social engineering is a component of nearly every threat actor’s toolbox who uses email as an initial access vector. From financially motivated cybercrime to business email compromise fraud, to advanced persistent threat actors, Proofpoint has observed countless tactics, techniques, and procedures relying on humans’ fundamental propensity to open and respond to emails.

As people get better at identifying potential threats in their inbox, threat actors must evolve their methods. And that means leveraging behaviours that may be antithetical to how people expect threat actors to behave. With half of UAE CISOs considering human error to be

In 2022, Gartner expects worldwide 5G phone shipments will total 710 million units. While this is an increase of 29% from 2021, it is down from previous expectations. The growth rate is significantly down from an expected increase of 47% at the start of the year, with a resulting loss of 95 million 5G phone shipments.

their organisation’s biggest cyber vulnerability, security awareness education across the organisation should be a priority.

The latest social engineering report highlights some common misconceptions people may have about how criminal or state actors engage with them, including: threat actors may build trust with intended victims by holding extended conversations; they expand abuse of effective tactics such as using trusted companies’ services; leverage orthogonal technologies, such as the telephone, in their attack chain; know of and make use of existing conversation threads between colleagues; and regularly leverage topical, timely, and socially relevant themes.

The 2022 Social Engineering report looks at what services are frequently abused, such as Google Drive or Discord; how Proofpoint sees millions of messages directing people to make phone calls as part of the attack chain; and why techniques like thread hijacking can be so effective.

RANJIT ATWAL Senior Director Analyst at Gartner.

SHERROD DEGRIPPO Vice President, Threat Research and Detection, Proofpoint.

Ministry of Health transforming healthcare in Saudi with VMware and multi-cloud services

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health has deployed multi-cloud solutions from VMware to digitally transform the country’s public healthcare sector. The MoH can now offer secure, cloudbased services to public healthcare providers including hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies, significantly boosting their efficiency and enabling them to grow and innovate.

MoH is responsible for the country’s public healthcare service which caters for a growing population of more than 35 million people. MoH accelerated the transformation of its IT systems with the onset of COVID-19 which had put added strain on healthcare systems and increased the need for robust applications, such as booking platforms for vaccinations and

remote access to patient records.

MoH simplified its IT infrastructure by deploying VMware Cloud Foundation as the unifying platform for its cloud environment, spreading workloads across the clouds of service providers including STC and Mobily.

With VMware Cloud Foundation, MoH benefits from a complete set of highly secure software-defined services for compute, storage, network, security, Kubernetes and cloud management. When the solution is fully deployed, Saudi Arabia’s public healthcare system will benefit from the resiliency, agility and efficiency afforded by the shared cloud platform.

Each healthcare facility will have access to virtual infrastructure and ‘as-a-service’ applications and will also be able to design and deploy applications from the cloud, giving them the freedom to innovate and provide world-class services to patients.

In the coming months, the MoH is planning to deploy more VMware solutions including VMware Carbon Black for additional cybersecurity, VMware Workspace One for secure distributed working, and Tanzu to enable Kubernetes in vSphere, which will bring additional application development capabilities to the Saudi Arabia’s public healthcare providers.

HITEK to support Sudanese FM company TAD for two years with automated, intelligent solutions

portal and automated email reports. HITEK’s WhatsApp AI Chatbot provides connectivity to onsite project teams wherever they are, through an integrated mobile CAFM, streamlining service requests and once complete an automated closure notification.

UAE-based IT smart Facilities Management solutions company HITEK Services, which is part of the Farnek group of companies, has signed a two-year contract with major, tier one Sudanese total FM company, TAD. Under the terms of the agreement, which is HITEK’s first overseas venture, the company will provide TAD with state-of-the-art connected, automated and intelligent FM solutions which complement a leaner and more sustainable operational process, improving productivity

while reducing energy consumption for building owners and managers.

HITEK’s solutions architecture and design, as well as its technical sales support, will transform TAD’s FM service offering into a fully digital and sustainable proposition by utilising HITEK’s CAFM suite, which includes a stateof-the-art WhatsApp AI Chatbot.

This provides real-time visibility across various services and can also monitor, escalate and report dynamically through mobility, web

Headquartered in Khartoum, Sudan, awardwinning TAD, which focuses on delivering a complete suite of both hard and soft FM offerings to companies across North and East Africa, has grown five-fold over the last five years to become one of the most distinguished facilities management companies across the entire region. The firm has worked alongside some of the biggest national and international companies that operate in the region, including Ericsson, Zain, UN, Huawei, NGO’s and national embassies. Using HITEK’s CADFM software, TAD can now develop and deliver customised service level agreements for both hard and soft services, across its entire client portfolio, as well as attracting new prospective customers.

(Left to right) Mohamed Abdelhamied CEO TAD and Javeria Aijaz, MD HITEK Services.

MANAGING A SUPPLY CHAIN FOR RESILIENCE, RESPONSIVENESS, COST

assess the balance of priorities?

For decades, companies in the Middle East have embraced globalisation and lean supply chain operations to meet more demanding customer expectations while bringing down costs and reducing inventory. But the inherent weakness and vulnerability of this model has been exposed by a decade of supply chain disruptions that grew in frequency and magnitude.

Natural disasters, weather events, labour shortages, trade disputes, and other geopolitical issues showed the cracks in global supply chains. Then, over the past two years, several aspects such as the devastating Covid-19 pandemic and the global semiconductor shortage, made this vulnerability obvious to every business leader—and moved supply chain resilience to the top of the C-level agenda.

The worst of these supply disruptions have taken significant bites out of regional companies’ output, sales, profitability, and share prices, with recovery sometimes taking months or even years. The chip shortage, for example, is estimated to have curbed global automotive production by more than 7 million vehicles in 2021, and the industry, similar to others, has yet to fully recover.

Most of these disruptions understandably caught leadership teams by surprise. But the result is that they’re now constantly on edge, awaiting the next unforeseen disruption lurking around the corner.

A growing number of executives have decided they can no longer afford to get

caught flat-footed. They recognise that while it is important to respond effectively to shortterm supply chain shocks, they also have to reposition their supply chain for the long haul because disruption is the new global reality. Companies that manage these disruptions best will have a distinct competitive edge over the next decade.

At the same time, pressure from consumers, regulators, and shareholders to increase sustainability is making supply chain repositioning an even more urgent priority—and creating another potential source of competitive advantage.

What it takes

The challenge is finding the appropriate balance among resilience, sustainability, responsiveness, and cost. These goals often run counter to one another. For example, a supply chain that is 100% resilient will also likely be too costly. There will always be trade-offs, and the balance will look different for every company, depending on various factors such as their industry, geographic footprint, and size.

A few questions can help jump-start the process of striking the balance that’s right for your company:

• In order to win in the marketplace, what does the business need from our supply chain in terms of resilience, sustainability, responsiveness, and cost?

• Where do our existing supply chain capabilities fall short?

• How often does the balance between these dimensions need to be refreshed in order to remain competitive?

• What capabilities and processes will be required to continually monitor and

These considerations make it clear that incremental changes will not meet the challenge. Succeeding will require a bold strategy and fearless execution. What does this look like on the ground?

At many companies, there can be limited communication between supply chain leaders and the sales team, business unit heads, or C-suite about strategy or investment priorities. Often this is because the organisation is siloed, or the supply chain department historically has not had a seat at the leadership table. But the result is a lack of direction that can paralyse the supply chain team.

Leading companies look for ways to improve communications among the supply chain, C-suite, sales, and other commercial teams so that supply chain leaders clearly understand the trade-offs required to win in the market.

Succeeding will require a bold strategy and fearless execution

A supply chain that is 100% resilient will also be too costly, there will always be trade-offs, and the balance will look different for every company.

The most successful companies are also involving other key stakeholders in the supply chain balance equation discussion, including finance, R&D, regulatory, sustainability, and procurement. This ensures everyone understands all the implications of the proposed overhaul—and what’s feasible.

Tapping into the power of unconstrained thinking to set a bold vision. Only transformational thinking can solve the problems that supply chains now face. Leading companies start with a blank sheet of paper, set aside all constraints, and draw up the end-to-end supply chain they expect they’ll need in order to win in their industry 5 to 10 years from now. Then, they chart a pragmatic, detailed roadmap to the target.

The perfect supply chain is likely unattainable. Some limitations across operations, capital, commercial capabilities, suppliers, and

regulations must be factored into the real-world scenario. But based on our experience working with companies around the globe, when business leaders give themselves the space to think boldly and they work backward from the end goal, it usually allows the company to get a lot closer to perfect.

Investing in digital capabilities that help connect the supply chain and change the economics in ways that weren’t previously possible. As they transition to Industry 4.0, companies’ investments in technology transformation and digitalising their operations also play an essential role in supporting supply chain redesign initiatives. Digital capabilities are enabling companies to rebalance their supply chains toward resilience, sustainability, and responsiveness without taking an untenable hit on cost or efficiency.

Leading companies are applying machine

learning and other digital tools to improve demand forecasting, inventory management, production scheduling, early detection of supply chain disruptions, and a host of other critical elements. They are also using factory automation to bend the cost curve and increase resilience.

Over the past several years, effective deployment of these technologies—in combination with rising geopolitical uncertainty and the rising costs of shipping and overseas labour— has completely restructured the calculus for many companies’ global manufacturing and supply chain footprints.

The bottom line is this is not just an overhaul of the supply chain; it is a companywide transformation and a multiyear journey. The emerging leaders are acting as quickly as they can to remake their supply chain’s vulnerabilities into virtues so that they not only get ahead of the next global supply chain crisis but also accelerate past their competitors. ë

BY Joe Terino, Global Head of Bain & Company’s Supply Chain Practice and Karim Shariff, Partner, Bain & Company Middle East.

These considerations make it clear that incremental changes will not meet the challenge

KARIM SHARIFF Partner, Bain & Company Middle East.

BEST PRACTICES AROUND CLOUD ACCESS SECURITY BROKER

CASBs should integrate with security logs from network devices, firewalls, proxy services, uploads, downloads, to give picture of how data is being used.

Whe cloud has come a long way, from an architectural gimmick in the early years of this century to an indispensable element of enterprise. If you are to compete in the emerging digital economy, you are enmeshed in the cloud. Likewise, cybersecurity has evolved from its 80s origins.

Back then, attacks were no more than irksome digital horseplay, and corporate backroom uber-techies were more likely to be the instigators of incidents than to be their investigators. Today, of course, we live in the era of the CISO, and threat actors are an industry.

Regionally, as globally, the pandemic forced businesses into the cloud in staggering numbers, amid a growing forest of government regulations on data safety and privacy. The complexity of the new IT stack, multi-cloud environments, increased remote access, and the resurgence of shadow IT, has put a strain on security teams, which in turn has threatened attrition rates that organisations can ill afford, given the regional skills gaps in cybersecurity.

The best answer to these issues is the cloud access security broker CASB, a cloud-native or on-premises solution that sits between users and cloud services, providing a range of protection measures. We have seen CASBs used in the delivery of cloud governance and risk assessment. We have seen the technology leveraged in data loss prevention, and to control collaboration and sharing in cloud environments.

It can also be part of user and entity behav-

iour analytics UEBA, malware detection, data encryption and a slew of other use cases, including Secure Access Service Edge, SASE. SASE is an increasingly popular protection framework that unites technologies such as Secure Web Gateway SWG, Zero Trust Network Access ZTNA, and Firewall-as-a-Service FWaaS with CASB and wide-area-network WAN architecture to provide a safer digital estate.

Since CASB provides the best future for security teams that find current complexities unsustainable, it is only prudent that we establish best-practice pillars that guide us during procurement.

Here are four such pillars.

#1 Visibility

Many cybersecurity solutions offer visibility as standard, and all CASBs will too. However, it is in the breadth and depth of visibility that decision makers will find differentiation. Comprehensive CASBs should integrate with security logs from network devices, firewalls, proxy services, logins, uploads, downloads, file sharing, and more, to give the fullest possible picture of how sensitive data is being used.

Unsanctioned shadow IT should have no place to hide and the CASB should be able to manage or block it automatically through either predefined policy or ML-powered detection and analysis. Cloud Security Posture Management CSPM should ideally be present to allow the automation of policies across multiple SaaS and IaaS clouds, thereby eliminating the need to manually police configuration.

#2 Data security

Data must be protected wherever it resides,

across SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS solutions, but also when in transit. Today, across the region, sensitive data is commonly stored in public clouds, and first-generation CASB solutions often only encrypt at-rest data, which leaves in-transit data vulnerable to attackers. Robust CASBs should ideally have a natively integrated advanced data loss prevention solution built into the platform that consistently manages data across multiple SaaS applications, emails, and custom cloud deployments, with protection options that go beyond allow, deny.

Additionally, a CASB must integrate with third-party data loss prevention solutions so that organisations can extend legacy DLP policies to protect their cloud apps. The CASB should also have multimode data-inspection capabilities for securing historical data and real-time cloud collaboration; and policy enforcement should cover upload, download,

Unsanctioned shadow IT should have no place to hide and the CASB should be able to manage or block it automatically

share, and collaborate functions. And of course, in a region where regulatory compliance is front of mind, the solution should provide predefined and customised policy templates for PCI, HIPAA, GDPR and others.

#3 Threat protection

Both signature-based protection which consults catalogues of malware signatures to identify and block incursions and behaviour-based protection continuous monitoring of activities by users, devices, and applications to detect anomalous activity have a place in the modern security posture. For the latter, CASBs should offer integrated User and Entity Behaviour Analytics UEBA, which uses machine-learning algorithms to model behaviours and detect deviations from norms.

Click-incident analysis and information on

geo-logins, source IP addresses, and devices should all be standard, as should specifics on uploads, downloads, edits, deletions, logins, and logouts. Meanwhile, the CASB should be able to handle any flagged anomaly, offering zero-day threat protection and sandboxing to address infected content in real time with optimal latency.

#4 Compliance

The need to meet regulatory obligations is no longer unique to healthcare and finance organisations. Standards such as the UAE’s Personal Data Protection Law do not distinguish by industry, instead placing the responsibility for maintenance of confidentiality and privacy on any companies that have personal data. Good CASBs take the sting out of compliance by providing predefined templates for cloud migra-

tion that align with government and industry standards.

They also offer encryption and key management that can be tailored to the rules of a specific legal jurisdiction and that ensures keys are exclusively retained by the organisation and not shared with cloud service providers. Also critical is the CASB’s ability to perform historical scanning across multiple SaaS clouds for the purposes of audits and to offer DLP templates for the identification of security blind spots and open shares.

CASBs bring a range of benefits to the digital business. When security teams can see all cloud use and data at a glance, they have true control over the estate. CSPM protects against cloud threats and misconfiguration. DLP secures and controls data shared externally with encryption and rights management. And UEBA covers insider threats. All that is left is the vigilant eyes of a knowledgeable team. The cloud will then become what it was meant to be, a place for invention and operational efficiency. ë

BAHAA HUDAIRI Regional Sales Director META, Lookout.

Data must be protected wherever it resides, across SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS solutions, but also when in transit

OPTICAL FIBRE IS INCREASINGLY PENETRATING OFFICE LANS

Fibre offers scalable bandwidth, low latency, flexibility needed to meet the demands of applications such as next-generation Wi-Fi, highavailability AV, and 5G within a single building.

Digitisation and the trend towards an ever more deeply networked world has been unbroken for more than 20 years—and is still in its early stages. Organisations that do not invest in the short term will likely fall behind in the medium term and risk not being around in the long term.

According to a Cisco VNI Report, the latest forecasts assume that the number of IP-capable end devices will double globally by 2030. One of the reasons for this is that a not inconsiderable proportion of these end devices will be integrated into the infrastructure via radio protocols such as Wi-Fi. Likewise, Wi-Fi is used to a considerable extent for data offloading from mobile data networks such as 3G, 4G and 5G, thus helping to optimise the load distribution of mobile networks in the area and in buildings. As a result, fibre has increasingly found its way into the horizontal LAN.

It is no secret that copper cables are reaching their limits when it comes to high-speed transmissions and capacities as well as lengths. Traditional structured cabling also requires many cables in the horizontal path, leading to increased complexity. We must further consider the convergence of networks and integration of building services, which is difficult to manage over time.

Necessary network expansions and upgrades are a challenge for any operator due to ageing installations and overcrowded distribution rooms. It is therefore all the more important

to design and implement a LAN concept that meets current and future requirements with minimal impact on the buildings and the daily work of the companies located there.

Optical fibre is the obvious solution for connecting end devices in the LAN. This can be done directly or via converters such as media converters, classic area switches, or optical network terminals in passive optical pointto-point or point-to-multipoint networks. As such, Fibre to the Edge FttE is ideal for businesses that require high capacity and flexibility in their network.

Fibre offers scalable bandwidth, low latency, and the reach and flexibility needed to meet the demands of applications such as nextgeneration Wi-Fi, high-availability AV, and 5G within a single building or on a large campus. The reach of fibre enables multiple devices to be connected via a single cable that extends to a common central collection point from which individual areas up to multiple floors can be served.

Like any corporate IT network, an FttEbased LAN consists of active routers, switches, etc. and passive cables, connectors, etc. components. Important requirements include long-reach, flexible power, and data. This must be coupled with intelligent remote-power solutions and ending rip-and-replace network planning. Let us look at these priorities in a bit more detail.

In the LAN IT architecture of a conventional company, data is transmitted either entirely via copper cable or via a combination of fibre optic backbone and copper cable up to the end device connection, which requires distribution cabinets throughout the network.

An FttE architecture is all-optical, so all data transmission is via fibre. This means that the network can be operated from a central equipment room. The main distribution frame MDF, in a form of collapsed backbone, makes intermediate distributors area distributors, floor distributors superfluous and allows the space to be used as floor space.

Centralisation and remote power supply can also have a direct positive influence on the costs for power and cooling. The extremely high bandwidth and scalability that an FttE architecture enables, in combination with Wi-Fi technologies, meet the need for modern wireless working in a flexible office environment. This also reduces the need for individual cabling and porting.

As fibre itself is unsuitable to carry the power supply of end devices, it is recommended to use composite cabling in FttE networks that con-

It is no secret that copper cables are reaching their limits when it comes to high-speed transmissions and capacities as well as lengths

tains both fibre and copper. This combines the scalability and bandwidth capacity of singlemode fibre with the power-conducting properties of copper to deliver both data and power to devices at the edge of the network.

Composite cables take up much less space than comparable copper data cables and are much better prepared than them in terms of current density, voltage drop and transmittable power, and the maximum cable length they can achieve. This simplifies future upgrades, too.

Let US take a closer look at Wi-Fi design and the requirements of enterprise customers. Currently well-established is the sixth generation of Wi-Fi. The next generation, Wi-Fi 6E, is starting to become more widely adopted and offers an extension of this standard to the 6 GHz band, significantly reducing network congestion. Wi-Fi 7 should be on the market in the next 1-2 years.

What does this mean for building owners and operators? In order to support the maximum possible data throughput of Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7, additional cables would have to be installed. Wi-Fi 6E requires up to 10G bandwidth and Wi-Fi 7 up to 40G. The latter can be achieved with four class EA channels based on KAT6A cables with a distance limit of 90 m, or with a fibre-optic composite cable that also offers longer distances for power and data.

Another integral part of a fibre-based design, especially with composite cables, is the possibility of remote power supply. A central DC power supply offers a simple solution that can be scaled up depending on the number of devices required. The central units can also be split according to PoE requirements, overall budget and distance to the endpoint. There are many long-range solutions that can support devices at the edge of the network - in some cases even

PIERS BENJAMIN EMEA In Building Networks, Marketing Manager, Corning Optical Communications.

over distances of more than 600 meters.

If a device doesn’t feature a fibre input output, conversion equipment such as a media converter can change the signal from optical to electrical and connect to the device with a short copper patch cord. This is another integral part of a FttE network design, and there’s a number of cost-effective options here that can support 10G speeds and offer backward compatibility to support 1G or 2.5G speeds.

While there is still a place for copper in the networked building infrastructure, its limitations in terms of bandwidth, power density, and distance mean that networks should be designed to move the aggregation of data. Hence, the transition point from fibre to copper, and closer to the edge of the network.

By reducing the space needed for network equipment and converging multiple networks into a single, streamlined one, the impact on resources is also reduced. ë

Fibre enables multiple devices to be connected via a single cable that extends to a common central collection point

BENCHMARKING SECURITY GAPS AND PRIVILEGED ACCESS

Incremental security changes can only move the needle so much to reduce cyber risk. Privileged identity and access security must be a company-wide endeavour. To secure resources and drive adoption, it’s essential to get executive buy-in. Survey of what 2,000+ security leaders around the world had to say about privileged identity and access security.

Source: Delinea

Source: Delinea

What’s trending

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Vectra AI, announced appointment of Tommy Jenkins as Chief Marketing Officer. With more than 20 years’ experience in technology, Jenkins has a proven track record of developing successful go-to-market strategies and scaling global demand generation engines. Jenkins joins Vectra following a period of exceptional growth and will play a pivotal role in continuing to increase the company’s global footprint.

As CMO, Jenkins will oversee all of Vectra’s strategic marketing initiatives: increasing company growth, driving global brand recognition through creative storytelling, and serving as an innovation catalyst, implementing robust marketing technology capabilities.

Jenkins most recently served as Acting CMO at Veeam, a leading provider of backup, recovery, and data management solutions, where he devised innovative marketing strategies to drive revenue and pipeline growth as well as strong global brand recognition. He has also held executive leadership positions at Red Hat, AvidXchange and SevOne, where he led the companies to sustained growth.

Red Hat announced that it has named Matt Hicks as its President and Chief Executive Officer. Hicks, who previously served as Red Hat’s executive vice president of Products and Technologies, succeeds Paul Cormier, who will serve as chairman of Red Hat.

Known as a hands-on leader within Red Hat, Hicks joined the company in 2006 as a developer on the IT team. He quickly rose via leadership positions across the organization, helping Red Hat solidify itself as the open hybrid cloud technology leader. Most notably, Hicks was a foundational member of the engineering team that developed Red Hat OpenShift which has grown into the backbone for hybrid cloud deployments across industries, now serving as the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform. He has remained at the vanguard of hybrid cloud computing and Red Hat’s product strategy since then.

Cormier, who was named president and CEO in 2020, has a 21-year tenure at Red Hat and during that time he has driven much of the company’s open hybrid cloud strategy, playing an instrumental role in the expansion of Red Hat’s portfolio to a full, modern IT stack based on open-source innovation. His efforts to transform Red Hat Linux from a freely downloadable operating system to a subscription model with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, was a pivotal moment.

Dataiku, announced the appointment of Bridget Shea as its new Chief Customer Officer. Shea, who has worked closely with the Dataiku leadership team for several years in an advisory role, brings deep data science and analytics expertise and a proven track record of managing large global customer success and sales teams within rapidly scaling software companies.

Prior to joining Dataiku, Shea served as the CCO of collaborative intelligence company Mural. She has led global GTM teams with a focus on sales and customer success at Datorama, TellApart, and Yext. In addition to acting as a customer success advisor to Dataiku, she has also advised at dbt Labs, Hex, Heap, and is currently a board member at Xeneta. Shea will be based in the company’s headquarters in New York City, where she’s a long-time fixture of the city’s tech scene.

Former CCO, Kurt Muehmel, remains at Dataiku and will be transitioning into a new leadership role within the organization later in the year.

Tommy Jenkins moves from Veeam, joins Vectra AI as Chief Marketing Officer

Bridget

Shea moves from Mural, joins Dataiku as Chief Customer Officer

Matt Hicks elevated to President and CEO, Paul Cormier moves to Chairman Red Hat

Omnix International announced that Simran Bagga has been promoted to Vice President of Omnix Engineering and Foundation Technologies. In her new role, Simran will be responsible for accelerating the company’s growth and leading its innovative solutions ecosystem. According to her, Omnix International is doubling down on its growth strategies, regional investments and driving closer partner and customer engagements.

As a highly reputed and well-known regional business leader, Simran Bagga is responsible for strengthening relationships with technology partners and customers, building Omnix International’s solutions and services portfolio across multiple markets in the region. She also oversees the launch of new products and services through a streamlined process designed to help regional partners and customers thrive in today’s dynamic digital landscape.

A seasoned IT industry professional, with over 27 years of work experience in leading global technology companies such as HP, Compaq, IBM, Cambium Networks and Microsoft, Simran brings a wealth of channel business acumen and expertise to her role. Simran is enthusiastic about pushing boundaries and embracing change to challenge the status quo and bring in innovation.

Gulf Business Machines announced the appointment of Mahmoud El Kordy as General Manager succeeding Eddy Abboud. In his new role, El Kordy will continue leading GBM Oman’s efforts in support of the Sultanate’s Digital Strategy, which strives to transform Oman into a modern digital society.

El Kordy brings over 30 years of experience in the IT industry across multiple geographies and joins GBM from IBM Middle East and Africa where he held several sales and leadership positions across Systems and Big Data & Analytics. Prior to that, El Kordy was in IBM Europe for several years leading Services Sales. As GBM’s General Manager, he will work hand-in-hand with GBM’s clients in the Sultanate, as they embark on their digital transformation journeys.

Mahmoud holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering and a master’s degree from Maastricht School of Management in the Netherlands.

Injazat, announced appointment of Martin Yates as Chief Technology Officer. In his role, Martin will be responsible for enhancing Injazat’s overarching technology strategy and promoting innovation and industry-leading solutions to support the company’s ongoing growth plans. Martin brings over three decades of experience from government, defence and enterprise delivering digital transformation outcomes, and now lays out Injazat’s future strategic roadmap to growth.

Martin will spearhead new sustainable digitalisation offerings, and lead Injazat’s transformation in support of its customer’s current and future needs. Martin has been a critical part of Singapore’s smart nation technology planning, standards, policy, and development having worked eighteen years on government and industry boards. Martin was the founder and chairman of Singapore Computers Society cloud centre of excellence and was awarded fellowship of the society for service to the nation.

Before joining Injazat, Martin was the Global Chief Technology Officer for smart cities, sustainable and resilient nations at Dell Technologies, where he accelerated Dell’s global business technology market share. Previously to Dell he also served in financial services, oil and gas industry, manufacturing, and national defence sectors.

Simran Bagga elevated to Vice President of Omnix Engineering and Foundation Technologies

Mahmoud El Kordy moves from IBM to lead Gulf Business Machines Oman as General Manager

Martin Yates moves from Dell Technologies Singapore, joins Injazat as CTO

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