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PA G E S 5 2 VOLUME O4 | MARCH 2017

ISSUE 08

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RULING THE GAME WITH A

VETERAN’S TOUCH It takes a ‘Master’ to own the game, but it takes a ‘Leader’ to lead it to success. /38

INDIAECM012017

HAIDI NOSSAIR, MARKETING DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST, TURKEY AND AFRICA AT DELL EMC

FUTURE IT

SUMMIT 2017 CATCH THE TREND

14 MARCH, 2017 THE BURJ AL ARAB HOTEL, DUBAI, UAE

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EDITORIAL

Put on your ‘end-to-end’ spectacles!

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

Bespoke interactions, high-end network and operational visibility, uncompromised agility— if your organization does not fare well on this barometer then it would not be long before the digital transformation wave will usurp you. Indeed, this is a very clichéd statement but still stands true. 2017—though just 3 months old— has already been witness to a lot of dynamism. We are seeing a huge impact on business based on what the CIO sees as an ultimate resource and how far the CFOs are fulfilling it.

An interesting study by Gartner states that, within the next five years, “the prevalence of equity analysts valuing organizations’ information portfolios in valuing businesses themselves will spark formal internal information valuation and auditing practices.” This trend is being preceded by the appointments of Chief Data Officers, advent of data scientists and other regulations in information governance. The ecosystem is no more the same.

‘Information’ is the new business now. And it is all about having that complete visibility of your business model. Cloud solution providers in the region are gearing up for the game by introducing and enhancing their packaged solutions portfolio. Channel partners are becoming increasingly solutions and vendor agnostic. Customers are no longer brand-hungry and the emergence of numerous start-ups in the region is a striking testimony to that.

Through our vertical, technology and country-specific stories we have tried to portray a silhouette of the present digital curve and support the vendors, channel partners and customers have a deeper understanding of the needs of the digital appetite.

We would also take this opportunity to invite you to the ‘Future IT Summit 2017’ to be held on the 14th March, where we are putting the present and future of the ‘Cloud’ on a regional platform and gauging its offerings so far for the digital transformation.

Wishing all a great Q2! . ë

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VOLUME 04 ISSUE 08 MARCH 2017 W W W. E N T E R P R I S E C H A N N E L S M E A . C O M

2017

CONTENTS

COVER STORY

THE DIGITAL ‘PRESCRIPTION’ Digital healthcare innovations are reinventing the wheel. The emerging realities are neither a song nor a fiction. /24

MY VIEW /22

CHANGING MARKET ‘DYNAMICS’ KARIM TALHOUK, MICROSOFT BUSINESS SOLUTION DIRECTOR FOR THE GULF REGION

INNOVATIONS /49

STEELHEAD SD

SPECIAL STORY GOING BEYOND THE NORMAL ‘SCALES’ s! /46

Riverbed Technology has done major updates to its SD-WAN offering Riverbed SteelConnect.

MY VIEW /28

SIMPLIFYING THE CLOUD JOURNEY MOHAMED KHAN, CHANNEL HEAD – SAP GLOBAL PARTNER ORGANIZATION IN MENA

GUEST ARTICLE /48

5 EMOTIONAL STAGES OF PREPARING FOR GDPR GREG DAY, VP AND CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER, EMEA, PALO ALTO NETWORKS

EDITORIAL ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 04 CHANNEL STREET :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 06 CORPORATE STORY “DELL EMC”:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 38 INNOVATIONS ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 49

ADVERTISER INDEX: VEEAM 02, FITS 2017 03, SOPHOS 07, STORIT 09, OMA 11, CATALYST 13, FINESSE 15, ISYX 17, GENOME 19, RITTAL 21, MINDWARE DELL 23, HID 29, TOP 10 COMPANIES 41, GBM 51, DELL 52

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MARCH 2017

MEA

CHANNEL

STREET MINDWARE EXPANDS SECURITY CAPABILITIES WITH BARRACUDA NETWORKS

Mindware expanded its vendor portfolio with the addition of Barracuda Networks security and data protection products in the META region – including the Gulf, Levant, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

Nicholas Argyrides, Chief of Sales & Deputy General Manager, at Mindware said, “Barracuda Networks seamlessly fits in with the rest of our product offerings range .The combination of Mindware’s focus on the security vertical across our regional distribution network’s along with Barracuda Networks’ top-class solutions will enable our channel partner community to expand their reach into more projects and into more end-clients, Cloud security, especially in the SME and SMB space. Presently, our collective priority is to work hand-in-hand to train, qualify, and eventually develop our partners’ security capabilities,”

DELL EMC LAUNCHES NEW INTEGRATED PARTNER PROGRAM The new program tiers are developed to elevate Dell EMC Partners over competitors and establish a clear path to level-up include Titanium, Platinum and Gold as well as a new status level within the Titanium Tier, Titanium Black. It embraces the entire Dell EMC partner ecosystem, inclusive of solution providers, cloud service providers, strategic outsourcers, OEM partners, systems integrators and distribution partners.

The program includes unique tracks with specific advantages and incentives that align to a particular partner type and attained tier designation. Partners can resell Dell EMC Services to earn lucrative rebates and contributions to tier level requirements or those who obtain Service.

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DR. YOUSIF JANAHI, DIRECTOR IT AND ADMIN, IBDAR BANK,

Ibdar Bank Boosts Productivity with Avaya Ibdar Bank has transformed its ICT infrastructure with Avaya, giving its workforce the capability to work from anywhere without compromising security. By replacing existing ICT solutions with Avaya’s networking and communications solutions, Ibdar Bank has substantially boosted productivity whilst significantly simplifying systems management.

In collaboration with Fakhro Electronics, Ibdar Bank has deployed Avaya networking, wireless and team engagement solutions. The mobility capabilities within the Avaya solutions allow employees to securely work from anywhere, and make and receive business calls regardless of their location.

Dr. Yousif Janahi, Director IT and Admin, Ibdar Bank, said, “As an investment bank we can’t afford to compromise on security, so we needed a solution

that could enable us to safely achieve our goals.

Thanks to Avaya, our workforce is now free to be more productive, helping us to deliver superior customer experience and bringing us closer to our vision of delivering innovation in Islamic financial services.”

Mohammed Areff, Vice President, Middle East, Africa and Turkey, Avaya, said, “We share Ibdar Bank’s vision of driving excellence in the Islamic financial services industry and are focused on helping our customers with innovative solutions. In partnership with Fakhro Electronics, we are proud to have been able to help Ibdar Bank achieve its objectives, and the speed of the implementation demonstrates the simplicity and effectiveness of our solutions.”

INTERCEPT A completely new approach to endpoint security.

Sophos Intercept X is a next-generation endpoint detection and response

Sophos Intercept X is a next-generation endpoint detectionand platform designed to stop ransomware, zero-day exploits, provide detailed intelligence. response platformand designed to stopthreat ransomware, zero-day exploits,

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05.10.2016 18:54:21

CHANNEL STREET

‘IoT Heading for Mass Adoption by 2019’ says Aruba A new global study ‘The Internet of Things: Today and Tomorrow’ published by Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, reveals that IoT will soon be widespread as 85% of businesses plan to implement IoT by 2019, driven by a need for innovation and business efficiency. While the analysis confirms the clear business benefits from investments in IoT, Aruba’s report cautions that connecting thousands of things to existing business networks has already resulted in security breaches for the majority of organizations.

MR. AMMAR ENAYA, REGIONAL DIRECTOR – MIDDLE EAST AND TURKEY, ARUBA, A HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE

SAGE PARTNERS WITH DYNAMIC CLOUD IN SAUDI ARABIA Sage has appointed Dynamic Cloud as an authorized partner for Sage X3, Sage X3 People, Sage 300 and Sage CRM business management solutions in Saudi Arabia.

Dynamic Cloud provides cloud-based business management software including ERP solutions in the Al Khobar IT sector. The company is engaged in the research and development of new technologies and innovative products around areas such big data analytics and IoT. It also constantly seeks partnerships with globally recognized brands to maximize market share and profitability.

INFINET WIRELESS UNVEILS POINT-TOPOINT WIRELESS SOLUTION InfiNet Wireless unveiled its brand new InfiLINK XG 1000 to the global market at Mobile World Congress 2017.

The InfiLINK XG 1000 is designed specifically to meet the backhauling needs of service providers of all types, as well enterprises from all industry sectors, whether deployed for applications such as 4G/LTE backhauls, digital oilfields connectivity or homeland security. It can provide throughputs of up to 1 Gigabit per second over the air in 5 GHz license-free frequency bands, effectively doubling the capacity of InfiNet’s current high performance product, the InfiLINK XG. “Last year during MWC 2016, Infinet Wireless showcased its InfiLINK XG family of products, one of the most advanced solutions for building wireless transmission networks. This family fits perfectly into a large array of applications such as cell backhaul, LAN-toLAN connectivity, WAN extensions, etc,” said Kamal Mokrani, Global Vice President of InfiNet Wireless.

In addition to the InfiLINK XG 1000, InfiNet also showcased its latest wireless solutions. These include the significantly revamped InfiMAN 2×2 product family, which is complemented by a brand-new base station unit equipped with smart beam antenna technology and a new range of high-performance subscriber terminals fitted with 300 mW radio transmit modules.

GEMALTO AND MICROSOFT PARTNER TO PROVIDE SEAMLESS CONNECTIVITY Gemalto is releasing its newest On Demand Connectivity and eSIM technology for Windows 10 devices, in association with Microsoft. Gemalto’s release is compliant with the latest specifications and guidelines for remote SIM provisioning as laid

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out by the GSM Association (GSMA), “Gemalto has created a complete range of subscription management software and services to manage the eSIM life cycle in mobile devices,” said Rodrigo Serna, Senior Vice President of Mobile

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MEA

Services and IoT Americas at Gemalto. “We will continue to work closely with Microsoft and the GSMA to further these advancements while protecting the security of end users, who rely on their mobile devices to make everyday life easier.”

RODRIGO SERNA, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF MOBILE SERVICES AND IOT AMERICAS AT GEMALTO

15 YEARS OF

EXC

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Thank you for being part of our journey!

AUTHORIZED VALUE ADDED DISTRIBUTOR

StorIT Distribution fzco P.O.Box 17417 Dubai, United Arab Emirates Tel: +971 4 881 9690 | Fax: +971 4 887 1637 Email: info@storit.ae

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Tel: +966.1.276.8014 | Email: ksa@storit.ae www.storit.ae

CHANNEL STREET IN PUBLIC

“The smart centre represents a strong push towards achieving the goals of the Smart Dubai initiative”.

HE SAEED MOHAMMED AL TAYER, MD & CEO OF DEWA.

6

SECONDS

D-LINK SCREENS NEW CONNECTED SOLUTIONS AT MWC 2017 D-Link exhibited its latest range of Smart

Intel Security Highlights ‘Smart Future’ Vulnerabilities

Home and Smart City products at Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona. Sakkeer Hussain, Sales & Marketing Director of D-Link MEA. said, “D-Link strives to take a leading role in shaping digital transformation by integrating smart digital technologies into everyday life and connecting businesses, cities, and people.”

“Our recent research showed that more than three quarters of parents (80%) are concerned about their children interacting with a social predator or cybercriminal online,” comments Raj Samani, EMEA CTO of Intel Security. “Yet 34% of parents do not keep track of their children’s internet usage, and 35% say that they would monitor their children’s online activity if there was an easier way of doing it.”“Partnering with Humax will further help us to empower parents to actively manage how their families interact with connected devices in the home and protect them from potential risks,” said Raj Samani. Intel Security’s latest findings show consumers are being tempted by the efficiency and entertainment of such connected devices, revealing the average person now spends 38% of their time at home online. As more connected devices are brought into the home, a new partnership between Humax, Intel and Intel Security will ensure robust connectivity and security is embedded into Humax’s Quantum T9 router.

CISCO INTRODUCES NEW VIRTUALIZATION AND SECURITY TECHNOLOGIES Cisco is introducing new technologies that allow customers to virtualize and secure their networks. With its Digital Network Architecture (DNA), Cisco is ushering in a new era of networking that rips up the playbook for how companies build and manage network infrastructure. Cisco is also introducing new DNA Advisory Services that will offer in-depth consulting to help enterprises formulate a unique strategy that maps directly to their digital aspirations.

SIEMON PUBLISHES GUIDE FOR POWER OVER ETHERNET LIGHTING APPS Siemon has published a new paper entitled ‘Zone Cabling and Coverage Area Planning Guide: 60W PoE Lighting Applications’ to provide guidance to infrastructure designers on the selection, design, and deployment of a structured cabling system optimised to support a wide range of Power over Ethernet lighting applications. The new guide highlights installation recommendations, integration with IoT applications, zone cabling for PoE lighting RAJ SAMANI, EMEA CTO OF INTEL SECURITY.

including coverage areas and location of zone enclosures, and more.

TEJAR DUBAI WORKSHOP REVIEWS

NETAPP SOLIDFIRE ACCELERATE NEXT-GEN DATA CENTER NetApp SolidFire is celebrating a year of fueling the advance of the next-generation data center that is transforming IT for enterprises and services providers.

Customers also benefit from NetApp SolidFire innovation in licensing models. The FlashForward Capacity Licensing model is flexible, perpetual and predictable. Customers can buy hardware and software separately so they get what they need, when they need it. Perpetual and transferable licenses decouple software from hardware upgrades, repurposing or consolidation. Licenses are transferrable and not locked to particular hardware, enabling users to upgrade or replace hardware at any time. Builtin, usage-based discounts ensure software and support costs decline as provisioned capacity increases.

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INNOVATION IN THE RETAIL SECTOR The workshop familiarised young Emirati entrepreneurs with the concept, application and culture of innovation in the retail sector, highlighted best practices in the global retail sector, and showcased success stories.

The workshop was conducted by Khalid Al Janahi, Assistant Manager – Retail Leasing, Meraas Holding, who spoke about some of the innovative projects of Meraas and offered tips on creating an inspiring destination for customers

CHANNEL STREET

Centrify to release Analytics Service to Stop Breaches

BILL MANN, CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER AT CENTRIFY

Centrify is set to release its new Analytics Service which uses machine learning to assess risk based on constantly-evolving user behavior patterns. It then assigns a risk score and enforces an appropriate decision, determining whether the user’s access is granted, requires step-up authentication or is blocked entirely.

Centrify gives IT the power to break the cycle of account exploitation and impersonation, to stop attacks that lead to data breaches. Not only are anomalous access requests stopped in real time but potentially compromised accounts are flagged and elevated to IT’s attention, speeding analysis and greatly minimizing the effort required to assess risk across hybrid IT

environment. “By tailoring security policy to each individual’s behavior and automatically flagging risky behavior, we’re helping IT professionals minimize the risk of being breached — with immediate visibility into account risk, without poring over millions of log files and massive amounts of historical data,” said Bill Mann, chief product officer at Centrify.Available as an add-on to Centrify Identity Service and Centrify Privilege Service, the service is a natural extension of Centrify’s adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication, adding machine learning that both eases configuration for IT and eliminates constant MFA challenges to simplify end user access.

TREND MICRO NETWORK DEFENSE BRINGS NEW LEVEL OF SMART DETECTION Trend Micro has made enhancements to its network defense solutions, leveraging the company’s powerful XGen security. Continuing its smart, optimized and connected security strategy, Trend Micro has infused patent-pending machine learning capabilities into its Trend Micro TippingPoint next-generation intrusion prevention system (NGIPS) solutions.

“Protecting an enterprise network is a vital part of a connected threat defense that should also include servers and endpoints,” said Steve Quane, executive vice president and chief product officer for Trend Micro TippingPoint. “As businesses grow, the need is greater to have a solution that can provide visibility and control within any customer environment while sharing threat intelligence across security layers.”

TippingPoint NGIPS also applies machine learning techniques to detect and block known and unknown malware families that use domain generation algorithms (DGAs) to generate domain names for infected hosts attempting to contact their command and control servers. “Our enterprise clients inquire regularly about the need to protect their networks from existing and emerging threats,” said Andrew Braunberg, managing director of research for NSS Labs. “Enterprises are continuing to deploy NGIPS devices, particularly to protect high value assets, such as data centers. Advanced analytics, such as machine learning, and fully integrated global threat intelligence feeds are particularly important features for today’s leading NGIPS products.”

GENESYS ACQUIRES SILVER LINING SOLUTIONS Genesys has completed the acquisition of privately held Silver Lining Solutions who develops employee performance optimisation software that helps improve employee engagement and performance, enabling organisations to serve customers better, increase sales and operational effectiveness, and

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reduce costs. The acquisition of Silver Lining Solutions further expands Genesys’ capabilities to help organisations elevate employee engagement and improve business results related to sales, collections, workforce productivity, and customer satisfaction. “Silver Lining Solutions has been a valued Genesys OEM

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MEA

partner since 2009,” said Paul Segre, chief executive officer of Genesys. “Employee engagement is key to customer experience.

This acquisition demonstrates our commitment to innovation and leadership in this rapidly evolving market. Assessing and evaluating employee behaviors, skills, and capabilities is critical

for managing and understanding overall workforce performance and customer satisfaction and ultimately, in improving a company’s bottom line. “This strategy not only gives our customers a competitive advantage, but is integral to our mission of powering the best customer experiences.”

CATALYSTS

AWARDS 2017

RECOGNIZING EXCELLENCE

14 MARCH, 2017 THE BURJ AL ARAB HOTEL, DUBAI, UAE

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Mimecast Combats Rise of Internal Email Threats

WEB CLIPS QUALCOMM’S NEXT-GEN WI-FI STANDARD PORTFOLIO Qualcomm Technologies is launching an

Mimecast introduced the latest capability of its Targeted Threat Protection service, Internal Email Protect, the first-to-market cloud-based security service providing threat capabilities for internally generated email.

Internal Email Protect allows customers to detect and remediate security threats that originate from their users’ email accounts.

This capability includes the scanning of attachments and URLs, as well as content inspections via DLP services.

end-to-end 802.11ax portfolio, which includes the IPQ8074 system-on-chip for network infrastructure and QCA6290 solution for client devices. 802.11ax, the next-generation Wi-Fi standard, focuses primarily on expanding network capacity and making better use of Wi-Fi spectrum to maintain excellent connectivity in more complex environments.

UNIFY APPOINTS BRIGHTSTAR COMNEIL MURRAY, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER AT MIMECAST

MUNICATIONS AS DISTRIBUTOR Brightstar Communications is the authorised distributor in Saudi Arabia and will supply the channel with Unify’s entire UC and col-

GULF AIR PARTNERS WITH SABRE TO ENHANCE PASSENGER EXPERIENCE

laboration solutions and help the vendor to recruit new solutions providers and systems integrators (SIs) in the Kingdom.

Feras Zeidan, Vice President, Middle East

Sabre Corporation has signed an agreement with the Kingdom of Bahrain’s national carrier, Gulf Air, to deliver an expanded portfolio of core passenger services technology covering reservations, departure controls and all other aspect that impact passengers directly.

“Gulf Air is enjoying great success and has a clear path for continued growth over the coming years,” said Dino Gelmetti, vice president Airline Solutions EMEA, at Sabre. “Sabre is proud to have played an integral role in its turn-around strategy by providing robust, reliable and flexible technology that forms an essential foundation for streamlining its operations, reducing costs and increasing revenue.”

and Africa (MEA) at Unify, said the company is delighted to have signed Brightstar Communications as its distribution partner in Saudi Arabia.

NEXT GENERATION OF INFOR CLOUDSUITE BUSINESS AVAILABLE The next generation of Infor CloudSuite Business, version 9.01, delivers access to new capabilities such as enhanced features to support finance, multiple currencies for

MOVEMENTS Riverbed technology promoted ELIE DIB as Senior Regional Director for METNA

F5 Networks has appointed TAJ EL KHAYAT as its new director for the Gulf, Levant & North Africa region.

Microsoft has appointed SAMER ABU LTAIF as the president of its MEA region.

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NUMBER GAME

12.4

$

IT spending by banking and securities in MENA to grow to $12.4 billion in 2017 acc to GARTNER

customers and vendors, and an improved user experience, including new forms, reporting, and extensibility.

SAP UNVEILS THE NEXT-GEN INTELLIGENT ERP SAP has introduced latest advances to SAP S/4HANA Cloud and shared its innovation road map for the industry’s next-generation, leading-edge cloud enterprise resource planning suite. The ERP offering from SAP provides enterprise-ready functionality for digital business in industry and line-ofbusiness functions, with faster deployment, time to value and lower entry costs of cloud delivery. The latest release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud enables customers to carry out their digital transformation faster and to make business processes more efficient through increased transparency, automation and quality.

CHANNEL STREET

Emitac Launches its New Website

TONY ALAM, CEO, EMITAC ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS.

Emitac Enterprise Solutions has launched its new website. The entire website has undergone a visual design and contents revamp with a focus on Emitac prominent Infrastructure and software services. The new website has a responsive design, optimized for viewing on any device to suit the growing mobile audience while enhancing user experience. It is developed on the latest version of WordPress, the most preferred platform for websites. “Our website is a platform where we connect digitally with our clients and therefore

we keep it dynamic and a work-in-progress as we continue to add services and expand our offerings based on our clients’ growth and evolution,” says Tony Alam, CEO, Emitac Enterprise Solutions.

The new website provides quick and relevant access to all Emitac services. Security plugins have been updated, navigation is made easier, sleek typography, streamlined back end, and full width and flat design makes the website a whole new experience.

OMNIX INTERNATIONAL RELEASES FIRST DDWS PROGRAM IN ME Omnix International launches first Digital Distribution Web Services (DDWS) program in the Middle East. The program offers Autodesk products online across the Middle East region.

Dr Jayant Deshpande, General Manager – Omnix International CAE Division commented, “Digital Delivery Web Services (DDWS) is a program that enables our partners and users to embrace the transition from perpetual physical licenses to online term-based offerings, which results in increased license duration flexibility, instant access and more value to end-users.”

8.4 BILLION CONNECTED “THINGS” IN 2017, SAYS GARTNER Gartner forecasts that 8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2017, up 31 percent from 2016 and will reach 20.4 billion by 2020. Total spending on endpoints and services will reach almost $2 trillion in 2017.

Regionally, Greater China, North America and Western Europe are driving the use of connected things and the three regions together will represent 67 percent of the overall Internet of Things installed base in 2017.

The consumer segment is the largest user of connected things with 5.2 billion units in 2017, which represents 63 percent of the overall number of applications in use. Businesses are on pace to employ 3.1 billion connected things in 2017. “Aside from automotive systems, the applications that will be most in use by consumers will be smart TVs and digital set-top boxes, while smart electric meters and commercial security cameras will be most in use by businesses,” said Peter Middleton, research director at Gartner.

In addition to smart meters, applications tailored to specific industry verticals will drive the use of connected things among businesses through 2017, with 1.6 billion units deployed. However, from 2018 onwards, cross-industry devices, such as those targeted at smart buildings will take the lead as connectivity is driven into higher-volume, lower cost devices.

In 2020, cross-industry devices will reach 4.4 billion units, while vertical-specific devices will amount to 3.2 billion units.

SVETLANA SOROKINA RECEIVES THE MARTHA INGRAM LEADERSHIP AWARD Svetlana Sorokina, Marketing Director of Ingram Micro META region, has received the company’s most prestigious individual honor for outstanding leadership and dedication to philanthropic service. The award ceremony took place at Ingram Micro headquarters in Irvine, California, on 25th

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January 2017.

The Martha Ingram Leadership Award is an annual award which recognizes outstanding performance of individuals who demonstrate leadership, commitment, integrity and trust at work, and who also support the company’s philanthropic activities

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and contribute to local communities outside the company. Svetlana Sorokina is the first individual from Ingram Micro META region to receive this prestigious award.

Svetlana Sorokina commented: “It is a big honor for me to receive this award. Even though it’s an individual recognition, I take it

as our team award for the whole META region. I would like to thank my family members and my colleagues in different countries of the region who participate with me in charitable activities. Thank you to the leadership team in Ingram Micro META who is always there to support such initiatives.”

ORMATIO INF URIT N Y SEC

IN F R

TIONS ICA PL AP

AGED N MA RVICES SE

ASTRUCT U RE

ISYX Technologies, 18th Floor, Marina Plaza, Dubai Marina, Dubai, UAE T +971 4 452 8885 F +971 4 452 8886 E info@isyxtech.com W www.isyxtech.com MIDDLE EAST | AFRICA | UK | INDIA

CHANNEL STREET

Gartner positions Microsoft as BI Leader Gartner has identified Microsoft as a market leader in its Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics platforms “We are pleased to receive this recognition for our Power BI Analytics, and are determined to deliver solutions that cater to all types of users; enabling digital transformation through systems of intelligence that allow organizations to empower employees, engage customers, optimize operations and reinvent their products in order to achieve more” said Necip Ozyucel, Cloud and Enterprise Business Solutions

Lead, Microsoft Gulf.Power BI has an active community of over 200,000 users who have submitted more than 6,000 ideas since July 2015 as part of the community feedback. It is a suite of business analytics tools used to analyze data and share insights, with dashboards that provide a 360° degree view for business users. It allows professionals to have all their metrics in one place, updated in real time and available on all of their devices. With one click, users can explore the data behind their dashboard using intuitive tools that make finding answers easy.

FIREEYE RE-APPROACHES ENDPOINT SECURITY FireEye is making several enhancements to its endpoint security solution designed to offer unparalleled protection from threats missed by legacy and next-generation endpoint solutions. Utilizing the behavioral analysis capabilities of Exploit Guard, Endpoint Security now adds the prevention capabilities needed to quickly detect and respond to threats against Microsoft Windows. With this latest release, FireEye Endpoint Security also adds support for Mac OS endpoints. “The endpoint has always been the most reliable source of truth for us and our customers” said Kevin Mandia, CEO, FireEye. “FireEye is focused on developing a complete solution for our customers that reduces the multitude of agents running on their endpoints” said Grady Summers, CTO, FireEye. Endpoint Security incorporates the intelligence-led detection and prevention capabilities that FireEye is well-known for in Network Security and applies these capabilities to the exploit prevention functionality in Endpoint Security.

This approach complements FireEye’s leading EDR capabilities and enables faster incident response for our customers.

FINANCE SECTOR DRIVES THE NEED FOR TECHNOLOGY The latest research on digital use and e-commerce in the Middle East demonstrates that investment in technology and innovation in the financial services sector is now essential, according to the organizers of the largest financial technology event in the region. Chris Fountain, Managing Director of Turret Media noted that the research released by Hootsuite and We Are Social confirmed that consumers in the region now demand online solutions they can access through their mobile phones on social media platforms – and the financial sector in particular needs to invest in the appropriate technology or risk being left behind.

The research released by the two social media giants revealed that of the 246 million people living in the Middle East, 60% now use the internet – up 15% from 2016 – 34% Globally the amount of web traffic on mobile devices has soared in recent years, with just over half now being accessed this way, a significant rise from 2013 and from the first figure recorded in 2009 of 0.7%.

The research also revealed some startling findings on E-commerce, with 1.61bn people buying online in 2016. This equated to a total business to consumer market of USD1.915trillion last year.

Chris said “The rise in digital use in the Middle East shouldn’t surprise anyone, but I think most people would be surprised at just how sharply it’s rising and the figures on mobile use in the GCC are quite incredible.

“What will be of particular interest to the financial sector and more specifically to those involved in financial technology is the huge rise in e-commerce.”

ISOLATED TECHNOLOGIES TO COHESIVE SECURITY Intel Security has outlined a new, unifying approach for the cybersecurity industry that eliminates fragmentation through updated integrated solutions, new cross-industry partnerships and product integrations within the Intel Security Innovation Alliance and Cyber Threat

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Alliance.

“Transforming isolated technologies into a cohesive security system is without a doubt the most daunting challenge facing practitioners today,” said Chris Young, senior vice president and general manager of Intel Security Group.

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The workforce shortage facing the cybersecurity industry makes it increasingly difficult to hire and retain employees.

These scarce resources make it harder to maintain a coherent security architecture to prevent damage from and minimize the cost of emerging threats while

embracing the potential of new open source, digital, cloud and security technologies. At the heart of a unified strategy for cybersecurity is the need for integrated solutions that tie into the enterprise’s framework to address top-of-mind challenges.

A Miller Heiman Group Distribution Partner

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CHANNEL STREET

SDO Puts Spotlight on Dubai Smart City Capabilities at MWC Her Excellency Dr. Aisha Bin Bishr, Director General, Smart Dubai Office delivered a keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. In her talk, Dr. Bishr spoke about the basic techniques and innovations that can be utilized in the future of smart cities. Speaking at the Ministerial program held on the sidelines of the congress, she urged that no time should be wasted in the use of modern technology, especially for efforts directed towards the transformation process of becoming a smart city. Dr. Bishr said, “We are now utilizing many forms of technology and innovation in the efforts to transform Dubai into a smart city. These include the Internet of Things, blockchain and cognitive computing systems.”

HER EXCELLENCY DR. AISHA BIN BISHR, DIRECTOR GENERAL, SMART DUBAI OFFICE

BT LINKS UP FIVE BIGGEST EXCHANGE MARKETS GLOBALLY BT is set to link up with the world’s five main foreign exchange locations to help boost the competitiveness of financial industry customers globally. The company is offering BT Radianz FX express, dedicated high-speed links between financial hubs in the UK, US, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong involved in almost 77% of the world’s FX trading. Hubertus von Roenne, VP, global industry practices, BT, said, “We’ve created managed BT Radianz FX express routes to boost the competitiveness of our financial services customers. With dedicated links within and between the world’s five biggest FX trading locations, BT can help FX firm’s lower costs while creating opportunities for international growth.”

CISCO AND ADSIC CONDUCT SECURITY TRENDS AND STRATEGY WORKSHOP Cisco together with Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Centre (ADSIC) held a security workshop at the Ritz Carlton in Abu Dhabi to showcase the latest security innovations, global smart deployments and use cases to Abu Dhabi’s government departments and entities. The high-level workshop brought together information security and technology leaders from the government and public sector who shared their experiences and discussed the latest developments in the field of cybersecurity.

H.E. Rashed Lahej Al Mansoori, Director General of Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Centre (ADSIC) said, “With fast-paced changes impacting how government organizations engage with citizens, businesses, and each other, public-private partnerships are able to advance the cybersecurity agenda by facilitating information sharing and elevating security operations, standards and processes.”

“We are extremely proud of our association with ADSIC and support their efforts to highlight the importance of security, and the most effective strategies to prevent, detect, and mitigate threats,” said Shukri Eid, Managing Director – East Region, Cisco Middle East. “As ICT systems are extended and merged, there is growing fear that sensitive data that is collected and held by public entities will be vulnerable to criminal hackers or other types of unauthorized disclosure.”

NETAPP EMPHASIZES ON DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AT GARTNER SYMPOSIUM 2017 With millions of endpoints and devices, constantly generating information, it is more important than ever to build a unified layer to store, analyze, and protect enterprise data. Hence, regional organizations are increasingly looking to build a deeper understanding of data in order to accelerate

20

decision-making processes and manage workloads effectively.

“NetApp’s Data Fabric solutions are designed to enable clients to manage data across on-premises and public cloud resources to architect the IT environment that best meets their needs,” said Fadi Kanafani, Regional Director for

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Middle East and Africa at NetApp. Successful IT transformations integrate data siloes, automate processes to speed results and remove barriers to scale that limit growth.

It also enables simplification and automation of processes, which in turns frees up time spent on data management.

MY OPINION

platform. From the moment you interact with the customer and all the way till you fulfill that requirement or even start providing service to that customer in one platform. We are going beyond the business application what is called ERP & CRM and leveraging it with business intelligence and artificial intelligence capabilities with the integration with IoT and the integration with Office 365 which really makes the power of using solution like Dynamics365 unique with zero integration. So, you cannot find any simple offering today in the market compared to what Microsoft is offering.

KARIM TALHOUK,

MICROSOFT BUSINESS SOLUTIONS DIRECTOR FOR THE GULF REGION

Changing Market ‘Dynamics’ ACCORDING TO CIO TESTIMONIES, MICROSOFT HAS BUILT A LIVING, BREATHING INFORMATION-ECOSYSTEM, WITH THE DYNAMIC 360, THAT ALLOWS A 360 VIEW OF THE CUSTOMER, WHILE ENABLING EACH BUSINESS UNIT TO ENGAGE WITH THEIR OWN CUSTOMERS, IN THEIR OWN VERTICAL.

How is Microsoft Dynamics a game changer for the modern enterprises?

In Dynamic 365, we have combined the ERP and CRM into one single application. So, today when we talk to customers, they have no clue where the customer data needs to be, is it in the ERP or CRM . The cost of integration and maintainence is high. Dynamic 365 is re-invented to be on the cloud on or premise and leverage the power of cloud with zero cost of integration which will give them more agility and more vision about what is happening with the customer and their

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operation. A customer can not only have the pay as you go option, but also have the ability to choose which modules you want to implement inside the system.

The main priorities of CIOs is to satiate their business needs nd simplify the complexity of the technologies. The whole purpose of Digital trasnformation is to have a simplified offering on one platform where I can run my business from A to Z. Before customers did not have this choice. They had to buy multiple technologies and manage integration. With Dynamics 365, we are offering an end to end

What is the X-factor that makes Dynamics365 more secure?

From a security perspective, we have many data centers spread all around the world. Some customers do not want their data to be in a certain country. With our expert latency, we can make sure that the customer data is safe, regardless of its geographic positioning. When we sign SLA’s with customers, we ensure them a 100% secure environment and security. This is based on trust and this is what Microsoft makes sure to do with their customers. Customers, if they don’t trust you, they will not entrust their most valuable thing with you, which is their ‘DATA’.. So far we have had zero incidents or security turbulance in our data centers.

What additional enhancements can the enterprises can they find in Dynamics365?

I would say the enterprises have a golden opportunity today to leverage one single integrated solution that will cover all their digital needs, from customer experience, from optimizing their business processes, from empowering their employees to do better in their daily job and from transforming their products to be more relevant and competitive in the market. Dynamics365 is the enterprise product that leverages the power of the whole Microsoft cloud to achieve this.

How is Microsoft a CIO’s best friend?

Microsoft Dynamics is the Platform of the ‘Future’.

It is not just ‘us’ saying this, it’s the verdict of market analysts as well. It combines all different modules together to lower the cost of integration and optimize the running cost of your business.

And it leverages the whole power of Microsoft for different productivity, analytics and IoT, to help you achieve what you want to achieve with a lower cost.

So with Microsoft you have a hybrid model which is a key differentiator from other players. ë

COVER STORY

OPPORTUNITIES AND GROWTH IN HEALTHCARE

THE DIGITAL

‘PRESCRIPTION’ Digital healthcare innovations are reinventing the wheel.

The emerging realities are neither a song nor a fiction.

Artificial Intelligence and growing consumerization of wearable health monitoring tools are changing the course of a doc’s routine.

n B Y: A N U S H R E E D I X I T < A N U S H R E E @ G E C M E D I A G R O U P. C O M > n PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

G

one are the days when your health and healthcare was bound to the family doctor at the street corner and his stethoscope; today healthcare sector is considered to be one of the heaviest spenders when it comes to the adoption of latest technologies.

The GCC healthcare market is projected to grow at a 12.1 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from an estimated $40.3 billion in 2015 to $71.3 billion in 2020, according to Alpen Capital.

BEEPING THROUGH THE IT CURVE Going by a HIMSS analyses, “Software companies are expected to greatly benefit from the rapid expansion of the healthcare sector in the UAE. Based on HIMSS Analytics forecast, cardiology applications as well as applications such as case mix management and telemedicine show the greatest potential for growth within the Dubai and Abu Dhabi Emirates, with CAGR expected to exceed 10 percent between 2013 and 2017. In fact, our research also projects high potential for first-time installations across all software applications surveyed due to the growing state of the healthcare sector within the two largest Emirates.”

Mr. Ali Ghunaim, CIO of Canadian Specialist Hospital says that “The DHA evaluation of level of electronic documentation of medical records in hospitals was based on the internationally accepted EMRAM. the evaluation process also coincides with Dubai’s ‘Smart City ‘ initiative ,aimed to transform the City into one of the smartest in the world by providing seamless access various services and utilities across high speed wireless internet .”

Keeping that in mind, we can surely agree to Alfred Tharwat

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Head of Training & Data Centre consultancy, R&M Middle East, Turkey & Africa, when he says, “Downtime of the IT infrastructure can be very costly and may even endanger human lives. We therefore see a lot of investment being made around reliable data and communication networks which are absolutely vital for any institution in the healthcare sector.”

HEALTHCARE ‘CONNECTED’ SMART beds are one of the novel experiences of hospitals in some part of the world. The cardboard pad with a paper clipped to it and a

pencil on top lies silently in a corner as real time data analytics and new patient monitoring tools creeps into everyday healthcare. According to Hitachi Data Systems, the biggest issue facing Middle East healthcare providers is how to manage the millions of medical images per week across patient records, lab results, and doctor’s notes. “By 2020, we predict that the majority of Middle East healthcare providers will adopt an Internet of Things platform that will leverage data for organization-wide insights, cutting costs, and improving patient care,” says Nick Scholes, Data Analytics Consultant – Europe, Middle East, and Africa, Hitachi Data Systems. The whole

scenario of connected healthcare has made the platform vulnerable to cyber attacks in ways more than one. According to Nader Henein, Regional Director, Advanced Security Solutions – Advisory Division, BlackBerry, the standards for medical device security are in their infancy and the focus is still almost entirely on the function of the device rather than its capacity to be secured.

He also recounts an instance in 2015, when the FDA issued a medication infusion pump hacking alert – where hackers attempted to override control of patient medication delivery. Organizations are looking at faster and more comprehensive emergency and security response technologies

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COVER STORY

“Downtime of the IT infrastructure can be very costly and may even endanger human lives.”

-ALFRED THARWAT,

HEAD OF TRAINING & DATA CENTRE CONSULTANCY, R&M MIDDLE EAST, TURKEY & AFRICA

“as healthcare providers learn more about the benefits of IoT, they will also become more aware and ultimately prepared for the associated risks.”

-NADER HENEIN,

“Integrating data from mobile devices and wearable devices will not be niche for long.”

-NICK SCHOLES, DATA ANALYTICS CONSULTANT – EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST, AND AFRICA, HITACHI DATA SYSTEMS

REGIONAL DIRECTOR, ADVANCED SECURITY SOLUTIONS – ADVISORY DIVISION, BLACKBERRY

Shipments of healthcare wearables will grow from just 2.5 million units in 2017 to nearly 100 million by 2021

100mn

Healthcare economy in the GCC will reach $71 billion by 2020, up from $40.3 in 2015

$

$

50% of hospitals across Qatar, Saudi Arabia & UAE are currently using some type of IoT-based solutions

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50%

40.3

19.5bn

Healthcare market in the UAE is projected at $19.5 billion in 2020

70bn Alpen Capital estimates that the industry in the GCC is expected to grow to over 70 billion USD by 2020

COVER STORY

CIO SPEAK Regional inpatient market is anticipated to grow from $16.4 billion to $28.9

Though Healthcare information management systems Society (HIMSS) Analytics created the Electronic Medical records Adoption Model (EMRAM) to Provide a methodology for evaluation the progress and impact of the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system for acute care Delivery environments

-

ALI GHUNAIM, CIO, CANADIAN SPECIALIST HOSPITAL

New entrants are impacting the banking value chain and as we observe the patterns they can quintessentially be distinguished into three classifications; some are aggregators who are emerging with a layer of apps and; Some can be considered as innovators such as PayPal w banking to emerge as disruptors.

-

ASHITH PIRIYATTIATH, GROUP HEAD OF IT, AL MASAH CAPITAL GROUP

Regional outpatient market is forecast to reach $42.4 billion in 2020

$

11-13% $

16.4bn

42.4bn

that can overcome such hazardous situations and save lives, protect property and help organisations improve their bottom lines.

THE FUTURISTIC LANDSCAPE According to HDS,Data is essential for the healthcare ecosystem to gain real-time insights on patients. Patients can better treat themselves, clinicians can have verifiable insights on treatment plans, and insurance companies can gamify solutions to help patients follow healthy living tracks.

Nader says that, “In the UAE, the government is extensively expanding and upgrading its healthcare systems to match international standards by adopting innovative healthcare information technology such as eVisits, digitization of electronic medical records (EMR), data analytics, and mobile applications for patient engagement. The objective is to use such technology to improve the quality of care and reduce the cost for patients and healthcare providers.”

Meanwhile, R&M believes that a steady networking infrastructure would define the future of the sector. With regard to the physical network infrastructure in particular, reliability and highquality are the main factors. “This is why R&M has conducted extensive R&D to develop specific solutions help to prevent operating errors, reduce the risk of cross-contamination from one person to the next (in compliance with ISO 22196) and protect patients and equipment from overvoltage (in compliance with IEC 60601-1),” says Alfred.

The healthcare market in each GCC country is anticipated to expand by between 11-13 percent between 2015 and 2020

3bn

Region’s healthcare IT spend reached a record high of USD 3 billion in 2016,

CIO CORNER As we said earlier, technology in healthcare is no more limited to feeding or monitoring a patients’ health on a laptop or keeping track of the hospital information management systems….it has moved much beyond that. Right from the time you register yourself as a patient to the point you are discharged, the hospital ‘cloud’ finds itself running busy with new data entries at each point. Being a healthcare CIO has its own set of new dynamisms now. Below are some points that some of the key vendors want the CIOs to consider; n Healthcare CIOs need to have a seat at the boardroom, and drive home the point that connected healthcare is not merely technology for technology’s sake, rather it is cutting costs and improving patients’ lives. n Managing IT governance and regulatory compliance, meeting the growing expectations of IT users and patients, obtaining budgets for IT investments, and finding the workforce for emerging technologies will be the most pressing challenges for healthcare CIOs in the region. n Everyday developments in healthcare equipment, it becomes essential to deploy better cabling with greater bandwidth.

FINALLY The evolution of healthcare IoT, is not without its challenges. Could IoT data, thousands of devices for remote patient monitoring, changes in ways of working be too much for them to handle? As this deal with lives off human beings, there is always debate on liabilities for the risk technology brings. ë

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MY VIEWS

Simplifying the Cloud Journey With the advent of the cloud, SAP and its partners’ modus operandi has been to deliver packaged solutions to the customers. Reduced customization and simplified deployment leads the way for SAP. Mohamed Khan, Channel Head – SAP Global Partner Organization in MENA in conversation with EC MEA on the new channel dimensions and roadmap to win the game.

MOHAMED KHAN,

CHANNEL HEAD – SAP GLOBAL PARTNER ORGANIZATION IN MENA

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

A

ccording to Mohamed Khan, Channel Head – SAP Global Partner Organization in MENA technology nowadays is not about the big bang approach, but all about what is needed to run the business.

For SAP, it is all about simplifying the technology whilst giving the provision to add on as you go through the journey

ADAPTING TO THE MARKET DYNAMISM “Our conversation with the market definitely started with the ERP platform. Since then, SAP’s portfolio has grown and adapted to the changing demands of the region as it evolved to newer technologies. Mobility was prime and we rode that wave compared to the competition, followed by the cloud and as we can see, UAE has been leading at the forefront in shifting to this technologies. The new paradigm in the last 6 months is more about shifting to OPEX models and driving in the revenue streams. We, at SAP have built a platform to address this issue. The only thing that has dramatically changed in the last 10 years is the buying decision that has shifted away from the IT and is now going towards the business side, so, whether it is the office of the CFO, or it is procurement or even it is up at the CEO

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level, the decision is sitting on the places where the business is run. IT has become an enabler to the strategy that business needs to carve. But the decisions are now being procured by the actual business leaders.”

SAP SIMPLIFIED “I think it resonates very well with us because the internal view has been very much aligned to the context of simplifying our solutions.

The whole advent of S4 HANA in particular is probably the realization of that. As a result of that procurement cycle, we have to simplify what we deploy. So, S4 HANA in particular which is the latest iteration is built on our premise. So, we have simplified the functionality. We keep our best practices, for which we are popular, but we simplified those processes to be deployable on a much faster way. We have taken away some of the long tail functionality which typically customers were not deploying. There would may be a handful of customers that would expand their portfolio to cover the whole solution. And we have deployed the usual 80/20 rule. So, 20% of the solution is what is actually used 80% of the time. So, we made that the core and then the additional functionality can be added on as you go.

THE CHANNEL DIMENSIONS It is a matter of fact that SAP is primarily a channel driven organization and has a firm partner ecosystem in the region. Khan says that, SAP follows a 3 dimension rule while signing a partner on board. “When we recruit a partner, it is based on three aspects; The geography, the industry and the solutions. Geography primarily as we need to know where the partner focus is and what is his understanding of the region. Secondly, we lead with the industry. So, we recruit based on the domain knowledge that a partner will have in his specialized industry space. And finally, it is the solution. We feel it is easier to enable a partner on the solution side than to actually give the domain knowledge. That is something which they should know and have.

MARKET MATURITIES For SAP, UAE has been the highest yielding market. A market that adapts the fastest to any newer technology. “In 2016, once again we saw a shift towards cloud and more partners are adapting to that compared to the other territories. KSA also saw a shift towards more OPEX models, and though not necessarily our biggest cloud market, it is our biggest active market. We see Qatar picking up on the cloud front too.” ë

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or registered trademarks of HID Global or its licensor(s)/supplier(s) in the US and other countries and may not be used without permission. © 2016 HID Global Corporation/ASSA ABLOY AB. All rights reserved. HID, HID Global, the HID Blue Brick logo, and the Chain Design are trademarks

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© 2016 HID Global Corporation/ASSA ABLOY AB. All rights reserved. HID, HID Global, the HID Blue Brick logo, and the Chain Design are trademarks or registered trademarks of HID Global or its licensor(s)/supplier(s) in the US and other countries and may not be used without permission. © 2016 HID Global Corporation/ASSA ABLOY AB. All rights reserved. HID, HID Global, the HID Blue Brick logo, and the Chain Design are trademarks or registered trademarks of HID Global or its licensor(s)/supplier(s) in the US and other countries and may not be used without permission.

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MY OPINION

We have been in the Middle East for 2 years now.

What kind of demand do you see for your solutions in the region?

SMEs and Enterprises both can benefit from our solutions, anyone for whom the phone is a revenue channel will surely benefit. We find that they are typically: n Service companies n High margin products or services n Products or service where a consultative sale is required n Companies with a large distributed sales force n Companies with a large distributed customer community n Companies with CRM/Helpdesk n Companies that are advertising in newspapers or online

AMBARISH GUPTA,

FOUNDER & CEO, KNOWLARITY

‘Talking’ Cloud Solutions AS THE REGIONAL APPETITE FOR CLOUD BASED SOLUTIONS STANDS ON THE HIGH GROWTH CURVE, KNOWLARITY IS ALL SET TO ESTABLISH A FIRM FOOT IN THE REGION WITH ITS CLOUD COMMUNICATION SOLUTIONS AFTER MAKING ITS

According to you, how has the adoption of cloud-based solutions been in the region?

It’s been great! Increasingly, businesses are seeing the benefits of moving their entire customer to business and business to customer communications on the cloud. It offers them a much better economy of scale.

What are your key strengths in that area?

Our key strengths are our main drivers, which are pushing our services in the Middle East as opposed to other players in the market, which are 1) we are totally Plug N Play 2) we provide the most affordable technology 3) and we require Zero capex investment from the clients.

MARK IN THE ASIAN CONTINENT. IN CONVERSATION WITH AMBARISH GUPTA,

What is your go-to market strategy in the Middle East and who are the partners that you work with?

Knowlarity operates through both online and offline channels. Our strong digital presence allows prospects to learn about the product and engage in product demos before purchasing.

FOUNDER & CEO, KNOWLARITY

Tell us about Knowlarity in brief?

How long have you been operating in the Middle East?

Knowlarity is the largest provider of cloud based communications solutions to businesses in Southeast Asia and Middle Eastern markets.

Knowlarity is headquartered in Singapore and was founded in 2009. Knowlarity pioneered a unique cloud communication technology for Asian and Middle Eastern markets and today has more than 15,000 paying businesses customers in these markets. It helps the business

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grow their revenue faster with its proprietary customer communication technology platform SuperReceptionist.

By pioneering cloud communication over both PSTN and VOIP, Knowlarity managed to bring advantages of cloud communication to tens of millions of SMEs and their customers in emerging markets. Using the Knowlarity API, Knowlarity built a variety of potent voice solutions offering a number of deep features needed to run their day-to-day business, while staying resilient against operator downtimes

Our offline Channel Sales Partners are located in all our global locations, and get access to Knowlarity’s world class product portfolio and customer support which helps them to grow their business manifold. These partnerships help both companies to address the growing demand for SaaS communications services globally and enable Knowlarity to continue to expand its foothold and deepen market penetration in the SME/SMB landscape through leveraging the partners’ strong networks. ë

GUEST ARTICLE

Tackling the Challenges of Cloud Data Protection Enterprise reports that 59% of customers who pulled data and workloads out of the cloud did so because of their concerns about security. There are increasingly stringent compliance and regulatory requirements and as such security has become a top priority for any new deployment, both private and public.

Cloud computing has completely transformed business. IT organisations have more agility and efficiency than ever before which has enabled them to identify new IT service delivery models.

Businesses are seeing value in using public clouds for test applications and archiving and are also witnessing the advantages of using the cloud for backup and recovery.

These developments bring new challenges and tests, one of which is security..The solution to this is looking holistically at cloud data management strategies.

Businesses can reduce the risk of privacy breaches by using solutions that support encryption for data across any storage media, including the cloud. We would advise selecting solutions that will encrypt data without slowing backups with options that will embed encryption capabilities so that they can be applied selectively based on policies. It is also recommended that when selecting a cloud-enabled solution for your workloads you should ensure that granular policy control is comprehensively offered in addition to encryption.

According to an IDG Enterprise Cloud Computing Research, 39% of applications will run on cloud infrastructure by 2017. For this to become a reality, applications need to be ready for the cloud.They need to be designed to optimise bandwidth so that workloads can be efficiently offloaded to the cloud when needed. One of the fastest ways to take advantage of the cloud’s efficiency is to leverage it for data protection and disaster recovery. By selecting a data protection solution that offers application-aware backup, recovery and archive that’s optimised to manage on premise, private, public and hybrid cloud, businesses can quickly realise operational efficiency and greater recovery readiness.

Cost is another major challenge. According to IDG Enterprise only 23% of customers claim that cost reduction is a benefit of using the cloud.

The secret is in how to transform new expenses to cost savings quickly while preventing costly misuse of cloud utility resources. Using new cloud provisioning tools and cloud-enabled applications for processes such as disaster recovery and data protection, IT organisations

n BASSAM HEMDAN, AREA VICE PRESIDENT OF C O M M VA U LT, M I D D L E E A S T A N D A F R I C A

can more quickly gain control of their cloud infrastructure. Streamlined solutions (e.g. products that offer a single, web-based console) can provision large numbers of cloud instances and give enterprises the ability to manage a complete range of processes for rapid resource optimisation. Delivering that self-service approach across multiple cloud platforms will help enhance productivity and reduce the risk of cloud “lock-in”. This ensures that not only is the cloud’s infrastructure optimised to deliver the greatest cost efficiency, it also prevents unexpected costs on public cloud, saving thousands of dollars on monthly bills based on cloud usage.

As with any new infrastructure, the cloud isn’t simplifying IT, it’s making it more complex. It is adding new layers of infrastructure to the enterprise that must be managed and optimised. You can overcome the complexity challenge by taking a unified approach to data management in the cloud. A single, platform-agnostic solution can streamline the move to the cloud and simplify processes once workloads have been deployed in the cloud. ë

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FEATURE STORY

All Roads Lead to

Cloud

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FEATURE STORY

According to MarketsandMarkets, the cloud computing technology in the Middle East is expected to grow to $2404.5 million by 2020. It is also predicted to be the highest growth areas within the IT segment. Today, enterprises are aware of the advantages of utilizing IaaS, PaaS, SaaS in a hybrid IT strategy as opposed to building their own on premise solutions Organizations are keen to shed off the CAPEX models and shift to OPEX. n W O R D S : D I V S H A B H AT < D I V S H A @ G E C M E D I A G R O U P. C O M >

W

hen we sit down to write an article on the Cloud market and trends in the Middle East region, it is quite apprehensive a fact that BYOD, emails, cloud hosting etc have been present for more than a decade or two now, what changes the course of cloud solutions is the complexity of the networks that pushes the cloud service providers to do more with less and provide more for less.

While analysts have been predicting a cloud roar in the Middle East, the region has only recently shown signs that it is really ready to embrace the technology. According to reports, by 2019, Middle East and Africa will have the world’s highest cloud traffic growth rate at 41%.

SERVICE ALL THE WAY While the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is poised to be the biggest investor in the cloud infrastructure in terms of regional standings, the BFSI sector is all set for a big leap in this domain when it comes to sector breakdown. Hybrid cloud infrastructure is already a common pattern at several large enterprises and IDC predicts that 80% of IT organizations will be committed to hybrid architectures by 2018. Clearly, a significant part of this growth is being spurred by the rising number of data centers being built locally. “Infrastructureas-a-Service helps organizations re-allocate their time and resources, by making their IT infrastructure smarter and more flexible. Cloud adoption in the Middle East is growing significantly as enterprises are seeing tremendous value in having a scalable and flexible pool of resources at their fingertips” said Yasser Zeineldin, CEO, eHosting DataFort.

WALKING ON THIRD PLATFORM Cloud services are at the heart of the third

“eHosting DataFort is the first company in the Middle East to achieve the CSA STAR Certification and we were awarded the Gold rating” -YASSER ZEINELDIN,

“Cloud service providers should ensure proper data isolation and logical storage segregation to mitigate risks” -AYMAN ALBAYAA

platform. IDC believes that by 2020, 40 % of the $5 trillion IT spending will be driven by third-platform technologies.“Leveraging dense ecosystems of network, cloud and IT service providers can help with cloud integration by enabling more direct interconnection to a rich choice of cloud migration services and providers” said Jeroen Schlosser, managing director, Equinix MENA.

and a clearer procurement guideline are the demands from government agencies for cloud adoption.” said Arun Sridhar, Regional Service Delivery Manager, Emitac.IaaS has given government agencies access to network, hardware, data center resources and operating systems which is helping them to build their own web platform, manage it, and run it.

CEO, STME

CEO, EHOSTING DATAFORT

PRIVATE IT IS!

ALL BOILS DOWN TO SECURITY

Comparatively, the growing software, systems and processes, narrow budgets and a cultural resistance to change have set the government sector years behind its private sector counterparts in cloud adoption.“Slowly, but surely, a technology revolution is taking place within the government sector. Greater standardization, improved SLAs,

Experts believe that as the cloud manifestation and the services at disposal reaches new heights in the region, the consistency of security policies and data security capability will be more critical for cloud operators and cloud users alike. The concern around security still exists persistently in the Government, Banking and Hospital

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FEATURE STORY

“We have developed our offering around speed, simplicity, reliability, and customization and have three cloud contact center solutions” -MOHAMED AFIFI,

“Focus’ suite of solutions is cloud enabled and mobility compliant” -SUNIL MATHEW, COO, FOCUS SOFTNET

MANAGING DIRECTOR, GENESYS MIDDLE EAST

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, TRANSYS SOLUTIONS

ADVICE CIO’s

n

Convert CAPEX to OPEX; reduce

costs n

of traditional IT software to the ‘Cloud’ n

Train resources for digital transforma-

tion and cloud migration n

PARTNERS

n

Must look to position themselves

as ‘enablers’ to cloud migration

Migrate from licensing & maintenance

Move from a private cloud deployment

to a hybrid cloud deployment

n

Partners & vendors must also look

to establish the right mix of strategic relationships n

Need to position themselves as

trusted advisors n

Cloud offerings are all about part-

nership between multiple channels and service providers

sectors which stores high personal information.

Cloud providers are now running weekly or monthly vulnerability scans for their government customers that show any attacks or indicators of potential attacks against information systems,

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“Organizations need to understand the challenges and the solution offered before migrating to the cloud” -STEPHEN FERNANDES,

plus other key metrics. “Cloud service providers should ensure proper data isolation and logical storage segregation to mitigate risks” said Ayman Albayaa, CEO, STME. “Organizations need to understand the challenges

and the solution offered before migrating to the cloud.” said Stephen Fernandes, Executive Vice President, Transys Solutions. “We have a team of Security Analysts who monitor the environment on a 24/7 basis for log collection, real-time threat monitoring & management, vulnerability and device management” said Yasser Zeineldin.

LET THERE BE NO BORDERS Through the adoption of cloud technology, organizations have become virtual and less reliant on asset ownership in order to focus on their key strengths. “With cloud adoption, the usage of applications across borders and getting services from far remote place has become a reality. This ensures more robust integrated systems and faster service response than ever” said Sunil Mathew,COO, Focus Softnet.Enterprises of all sizes are seizing opportunities to reduce supply costs, invest into new resource pools and access new markets internationally. “As we move forward and evolve, we see many more technologies becoming cloud based, IoT is a prime example of this” said Fahad Al Hajeri, CEO, Yvolv.

While earlier they needed to have a physical data centre presence, today, they can leverage the cloud in new markets, deploy applications and workloads and deliver or consume services without being physically present. This enables

FEATURE STORY

“Greater standardization, improved SLAs, and a clearer procurement guideline are the demands from government agencies for cloud adoption.”

-ARUN SRIDHAR, REGIONAL SERVICE DELIVERY MANAGER, EMITAC.

“Hybrid and multi-cloud integration and management are often considered hurdles in initial cloud deployment” -JEROEN SCHLOSSER,

MANAGING DIRECTOR, EQUINIX MENA

COMPANY

SOLUTIONS

EHDF

Hosted private cloud - Flexibility to choose between Managed and Unmanaged Private Cloud Hosting Services Public cloud - Online store allows users to customize and purchase Public Cloud servers in less than 15 minutes

EMITAC

Offers IaaS, Paas and SaaS at the base level. Also offers IoT, Analytics, cloud consulting, cloud migration services.

EQUINIX

Performance Hub - ensures network optimization besides cloud connectivity and security – all in a single rack Data Hub - large storage repository to enable secure storage of content in adherence to compliance & regulatory requirements Cloud Exchange - virtual port that enables you to realize hybrid / multi cloud architectures and connect to multiple cloud provides at the click of a button.

TRANSYS

Is an Oracle Platinum Cloud Select Partner. Offers SaaS, PaaS and IaaS across ERP, HCM, CxM, SCM, EPM and BI by leveraging best of breed solutions from Oracle Cloud.

GENESYS

PureCloud: features include Omni-channel routing, speechenabled interactive voice response, recording and quality management, outbound campaigns, CRM integrations, graphical scripting, and unified communications and collaboration capabilities.

PureConnect: enables monitoring and end-to-end reporting to ensure quality across all channels PureEngage: - provides real-time contextual journeys, world-class intelligent routing, and digital transformation at any scale.

FOCUSSOFTNET

Offers our customers enterprise applications such as our ERP, healthcare applications. ERP has 2 main features covered; Accessibility on Android/Blackberry/IPhone interface and cloud based subscription model.

YVOLV

Cloud, Managed Services, Digital transformation, System Integration and Consultancy.

“As we move forward and evolve, we see many more technologies becoming cloud based, IoT is a prime example of this” -FAHAD AL HAJERI, CEO, YVOLV.

them to sell or consume more across boundaries without dependencies ensuring the realization of a borderless enterprise.

SHAKING HAND WITH THE RIGHT PARTNERS Cloud partners have concerns around account management, marketing support and cloud performance when working with cloud vendors.

As channel partners transition to offering cloud services, many discover that this shift comes with a set of uniquely different vendor-partner dynamics. These dynamics change the way partners manage business relationships with their vendors, as well as with their customers. “Cloud offerings are all about partnership between multiple channels and service providers to ensure that the best options are offered to the end-user.

The cloud business would grow and enhance channel business” said Sunil Mathew.

FINALLY Many organizations have not only availed expected benefits from the adoption of cloud but have had those expectations exceeded which shows how valuable a proposition cloud computing is to enterprises. As a result of successful cloud adoption so far, many respondents say that their organization is looking to implement cloud computing more extensively over the next few years. ë

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GUEST ARTICLE

A Sound Cloud Strategy Can Help Enterprises Transform Their Business Although cloud is widely recognized as a radical technology changer, its potential for driving business innovation remains virtually untapped. Cloud has the power to fundamentally shift competitive landscapes by providing a new platform for creating and delivering business value.

In today’s rapidly changing business dynamics, ‘technology’ is being considered as a game changer which impacts the success of a business.

CEOs now look at technology as not just a part of infrastructure needed to implement a business strategy but as a spark for continuous innovation. This has resulted in a major shift in the role of chief information officers (CIOs) with their priorities changing from merely service providers to strategic enablers. With these considerations, we see in the very near future a large number of businesses and technology executives including cloud computing in their current and immediate future plans for continual innovation.

There are enterprises that utilize cloud to gain competitive advantage. These organizations use cloud to re-imagine business models, make better decisions based on analytic insights, and serve customers in new ways to create winning business outcomes. Research has shown that such organizations experience a huge revenue growth and higher gross profit than their peers who are more cautious about cloud or are in early stages of adoption. They are more likely than others to use cloud to reinvent customer relationships and

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to use analytics extensively via cloud to derive insights. They also rely on cloud to locate and utilize expertise anywhere in the ecosystem.

These organizations understand thatwith cloud technology maturing where both business and IT interests converge, organizations are presented with a fresh opportunity to re-evaluatewhat cloud can mean for the organization.

Attaining this level of performance means that cloud is more than just a service delivery platform—it’s an entirely new business model.

An effective cloud strategy can provide strategic advantage for your organization by enabling new business models and client relationships,improving the agility and dexterity of business, delivering security-rich IT and enabling more rapid delivery of product and service innovation. Based on these broad parameters, an organization must determine how cloud’s flexibility can serve their business and strategic objectives and how cloud can even redefine those objectives. Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks,

n S U N I L PA U L , C O O A N D C O - F O U N D E R O F FINESSE

servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. (This definition is from the latest draft of the NIST Working Definition of Cloud Computing published by the U.S. Government’s National Institute of Standards and Technology).

The challenge is to uncover the definition of cloud that is relevant to them. Once there is clarity on that perspective and definition, the next logical step is to examine how opportunities “in the cloud” can increase concrete business value.

Discovering those opportunities is like clearing up the road ahead and determining how to best align cloud capabilities with the organization’s desired business outcomes.

Cloud computing should be viewed as an expansion of more structured, traditional IT delivery alternatives rather than a replacement for them.In this context,Finesse offers cloud infrastructure solutions and move legacy applications to cloud. We also have applications on cloud such as Salesforce, Qlik, Spoors among others.

The bottom line is not just about technology but about transformation. ë

MY VIEWS

Riding the Bandwagon of Digital Transformation Veni, vidi, vici (He came, he saw, he conquered) – this latin phrase has a striking resemblance to Isyx’s entry and establishment in the region. What followed for Isyx was an interesting conversation with the market that had a huge appetite for customized solutions and how the organization, within 4 years of its establishment, caught the right nerve and struck the right chord with the customers. In conversation with the CEO and CTO of Isyx technologies.

SHAROON SHAMSUDDIN,

CEO OF ISYX TECHNOLOGIES

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

W

hen Isyx came into the market, the market was polarized— according to Sharoon Shamsuddin, CEO of Isyx Technologies. On one hand it had big players like Wipro, Infosys and others and on the other hand there were boutique solution providers that offered unique solutions but on a very small scale. “Our aspiration was to fill this gap in the region. We wanted to offer the same quality of services that a boutique company would offer but with a scale that only a large service provider could give. We established this company 4 years ago, headquartered in Dubai. Today, we have spread across the GCC and east Africa with operations in India as well,” says Sharoon.

GAINING THE CUSTOMER CONFIDENCE Sharoon says that, when they entered the market in mid 2012,it hadalready gone through a tremendous turmoil and this had dictated the technology requirements of the customers as well. “It was a time when technology was seen as a secondary tool in doing business, whereas today, it has become very critical from multiple points, from efficiency to cost saving, and this is the trend that is reflecting when we see what the requirements are coming from our customers.

HariKesavan, CTO of Isyx joins the conversation here and according to him, the technology calendar has been divided into AG and BG, ie After Google and Before Google. “After Google, technology has accelerated exponentially. Earlier, if some technology was launched in the west, it took 3-5 months to catch fire. Today the lifecycle is 3-5 months. In the past it was all a large CAPEX decision. Now it is becoming a OPEX decision.

In the past technology as Sharoon mentioned, was a secondary tool, today it’s a necessary tool.

In order to sustain, every business has to adapt to the digital models. We have been riding that bandwagon in adapting cloud and digital transformational strategies and that is currently how we go the market. We work with the customers and understand what their requirement and strategy is and how we can implement solutions that will best fit them.”

“We try to be as product agnostic as possible.

We understand the pain points of the customers and try to address them by giving them a solution that rightly fits their business rather than pushing any product blindly. We have been evolving under this philosophy and this has been a major touchstone of our success in the region.” says Sharoon.

CARVING THE PERFECT FIT PORTFOLIO

Talking about adapting to the market demands with the organization’s portfolio, Sharoon says, “We have been quiet consistent with the products and services we offer. We are not trying to expand too much because the key thing with a growing company is to have focus. We have stuck to 3 key portfolios; Applications, IT Security and Infrastructure. We do a lot of custom development. An example of that would be a unique project that we are working on in the US where we are doing a custom software development for a healthcare product, for which we are building custom software. So we engage in these kind of niche products, at the same time we have got a lot of BFSI customers in the region who are in the lookout for security solutions. Security is the buzzword now. but we havw been pioneering secure solutions for over 4 years now. In fact. 75% of the banks in Saudi are our customers and we work on various aspects of custom applications, security consulting, security deliveries and other core infrastructure solutions. That is our portfolio positinong.

Hari adds, “We believe in re-inventing the wheel and that is where we are differentTransforming ourselves. We have moved from traditional security to automated security and artificial intelligence that comprise modern security, We source solutions that are relevant to the market, today. ë

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COVER FEATURE

HAIDI NOSSAIR

MARKETING DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST, TURKEY AND AFRICA AT DELL EMC

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COVER FEATURE

DELL EMC

Ruling the Game with a Veteran’s Touch It takes a ‘Master’ to own the game, but it takes a ‘Leader’ to lead it to success. As the dust finally settles on the Dell EMC merger, Haidi Nossair, Marketing Director, Middle East, Turkey and Africa at Dell EMC talks at length about how the dream team is all set to live the ‘game changing’ reality in making Dell EMC the most ‘customer centric’ salesforce ever. n B Y: A N U S H R E E D I X I T < A N U S H R E E @ G E C M E D I A G R O U P. C O M >

D

igital transformation is the new mandate for the modern enterprises.

Bringing in the synergies of both the world, Dell EMC is all set to empower the customers and partners in seamlessly embarking on this journey.

Amidst all the clamor, Haidi Nossair, Marketing Director, Middle East, Turkey and Africa at Dell EMC cuts a calm posture as she carves out her master plans to rule the channel and win the customers’ heart with the offerings of the newly formed largest privately controlled tech company—Dell EMC. “The journey, from EMC to Dell EMC has definitely been a roller coaster ride, but an exciting one,” says Haidi. “From the day when the integration began to this day, everything and every process has been seamless and smooth and that is the beauty of it. The integration has been driven and done keeping the customer at the heart of our vision”.

TO THE SOUL OF THE ENTERPRISES AND HEART OF THE CUSTOMERS This is the era of digital transformation.

Technology has changed the way we live, we work and we behave. For the modern enterprises, there is no looking back.

Haidi says that, for the enterprises that do not compromise their information and who believe in the word ‘NOW’, Dell EMC has crafted the perfect transformational roadmap. “Today, every business has to enable and empower its digital transformation journey. This is where Dell EMC comes in. We empower the business to embark on their transformational journey by enabling them in 3 key areas— IT Transformation, Workforce Transformation and Security Transformation.”

“Customer has always been our priority and we set sail ahead with this same fundamental belief. We at Dell EMC are making sure that the message we take to the customer is unified and relevant. We

have a massive partner network that is eager to carry our value proposition to the customers.”

Dell EMC provides the foundation to enable enterprise customers’ digital transformation through their trusted hybrid cloud and big-data solutions, built upon a modern data center infrastructure that incorporates industry-leading converged infrastructure, servers, storage, and cybersecurity technologies. Dell EMC has longstanding customer and channel partner relationships across the region, having enabled companies to become more customer-centric, efficient and secure; leveraging their most critical information-based assets; and reduce operational costs through technology innovation.

THE TRANSFORMATION TRINITY Haidi says that the word ‘Transformation’ is here to stay and it defines the region’s innovative approaches to technology and

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COVER FEATURE

IT TRANSFORMATION

WORKFORCE TRANSFORMATION

SECURITY TRANSFORMATION

The CIOs need to invest for the ‘future’ modern data centers and move away from traditional applications. Dell EMC empowers the CIOs in moving to more Cloud native applications

Dell EMC’s initiative MARC (Men Advocating Real Change) empowers more women to take up leadership positions in the organizations. Under this we encourage the male members to refer a female friend and thereby lead the change.

Business that gives more accessibility to employees has a more productive workforce.

‘Connectivity’ comes with the risk of security.

Dell EMC is helping the organizations rethink security with intelligence based security that empowers the transformation

sustainable development. “The region is going through massive transformation and it all boils down to building the infrastructure for app enabled businesses.

THE TO DO LIST 1. The first thing on the agenda is to bring that value proposition.

We aspire to take out this message to the market, how we can enable our customers to thrive, grow and sustain their most valuable asset- Information.

2. The second thing on the agenda is to provide simplified technology.

Regardless of how great the technology is, it is of no use to the organization if the messaging does not strike a chord on meeting their objectives.

3. Carving a relevant marketing plan and enabling Dell EMC employees to articulate a unified story to the customer. Every single employee of Dell EMC represents the brand.

A TEAM THAT THINKS TOGETHER,

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WINS TOGETHER It is quite natural to have this apprehension when 2 biggest tech companies work together— how will the team strike a chord of harmony?

Haidi smiles as she says, “We started with 2 sets of systems who thought that they are different, but when we started working together, we found that there is already a lot of harmony.

The integration was simple because some systems were already in sync.

My main objective is to make sure that the knowledge is transferred between the team very fast and we have a common objective. It is only possible if we have collaboration; at the end we will have a team that will focus on one thing, that is the ‘Customer’. Our partners are also very excited about the newly launched Dell EMC partner program which combines the best of both heritage programs.

Before closing, Haidi makes a sharp statement; “ It is that time when there is no time to stop and reflect. You just have one chance to do it right. “ ë

Some wait for Thursday to end!

Some wait for Sunday to Begin!

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FEATURE

FOCUS QATAR

Qatar Stands on a

High Growth Curve Qatar has made a solid mark on the world stage by winning the rights to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Qatar is classified by the UN as a country of very high human development and is the most advanced Arab state holding significant power in the Arab world. With increasing development in IT and infrastructure due to this success have boosted the economy to generate jobs in the medium term

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FEATURE

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

O

ccupying the world’s third largest natural gas and oil reserves is not the only thing in its portfolio to say the least, The small nation, with a population of 1.9 million has a vision to accomplish big dreams.IDC predicts that the total ICT spending in Qatar will increase at a rate of 7.4% a year to QAR 17.1 billion by 2018. This is due to the country’s National Vision 2030 which requires development of smart city projects, large scale infrastructure projects for the lead up to the 2022 FIFA World cup. The Qatar National Vision 2030 and the FIFA World Cup 2022 are significant factors which make Qatar a state with a strong vision for expansion and growth.

QATAR NATIONAL

VISION 2030: A MAJOR MILESTONE The Qatar National Vision 2030 aims to drive Qatar forward by balancing the accomplishments that achieve economic growth with the human and natural resources. This vision establishes an inspiration that guides economic, social, human and environmental development of the country in the coming decades, so that it is inclusive and helpful for the citizens and residents of Qatar. ICT contribution to these sectors will improve population access to healthcare services, help Qataris participate in and contribute to a knowledge based society, stimulate innovation, entrepreneurship and create new business models for sustainable development, and encourage use of environmentally sound technologies to raise public awareness. This makes Qatar a state with a

solid vision for expansion and growth.

THE GRASS IS GREEN FOR THE FIFA2022 There is little doubt that the biggest success to date came on December 2, 2010, when Qatar won the right to hostthe 2022 FIFA World Cup. The world’s most popular sporting event, the World Cup attracts a sizeable television audience, and 400,000 fans from around the world are expected to travel to Qatar for the event. The country’s achievement is not only significant for the state, but for the entire MENA region. The international football tournament has never been held in the Middle East. “The World Cup would be a great way to build a bridge of understanding between the Middle East and the rest of the world” said Hassan al-Thawadi, the secretary-

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FEATURE

“Since the country is growing at such a fast pace, the biggest challenge we see is sustaining the development pace and the level of growth.”

-ALI HYDER,

“Adaption of Hybrid Infrastructure will become standard norm with higher percentage of Infrastructure and Utilisation on Public cloud.”

-SAMEER MAKHIJA,

GROUP CEO OF FOCUS SOFTNET

DIRECTOR – BUSINESS APPLICATIONS, INTERTEC SYSTEMS

“With development of our new and innovative products we have added market opportunities to work with other sectors including retail, public sector transportation, self-service business such as kiosks and vending machines, and parking solutions.”

-NIRANJ SANGAL, GROUP CEO, OMA EMIRATES GROUP

Public participation and citizenengagement to shape public policies and determine public service delivery

Shared services and applications built to increase efficiency, reduce effort, standardize procedures, and make the best use of ICT resources

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E-PARTICIPATION

HUKOOMI SHARED SERVICES & APPLICATIONS

F E B R U A R Y 2017

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QATAR DIGITAL GOVERNEMNT

l Qatar’s official online information and e-services government portal launched for use by citizens, residents, and businesses. l Offers 400 services which companies, citizens, residents, and visitors can complete more than 150 electronically l Services: paying traffic violations, paying utility bills, and renewing health cards

FEATURE

$

107bn

$107billion would be spent on stadiums and facilities

31

$ bn a further £31billion on transport infrastructure

30

$ bn £30billion would be spent on build air-conditioned stadia - at least 12 will be needed

general of the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee.

INVESTMENT: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES Deloitte estimates that Qatar will invest around $200bn on the World Cup and associated projects. The money is being invested on infrastructure and service development that is expected to put the state in good place for decades to come, supporting long-term economic diversification and development, and ensuring Qatar maintains one of the world’s highest standards of living. Of the $200bn, $140bn is expected to go towards transport infrastructure, including a new airport, roads and the Doha Metro, and $20bn on tourism infrastructure: hotels and leisure facilities.

“Since the country is growing at such a fast pace, the biggest challenge we see is sustaining the development pace and the level of growth” Says Ali Hyder, Group CEO of Focus Softnet

ITS ALL ABOUT BEING ‘SMART’ The smart city concept employs latest ICT trends and tools to support people’s lifestyles and the

country’s economic prosperity. Having the Smart City service at Lusail city makes it one of Qatar’s most advanced cities. The World Cup final will be held at the city of Lusail — anenormous planned community set to be finalized by 2020 at a cost of $45 billion.Lusail will provide a switched on, high-technology environment including both wired and wireless communication networks to offer advanced services. Lusail City’s residents, business community and visitors will have a variety of communication facilities which will allow them to access any network from any place and at any time.

$

28

bn £28billion will be spent on creating a new city: Lusail which will surround the stadium

$

48bn

£48billion spent on training facilities and accommodation for players and fans.

SMART TECHNOLOGY Real Estate, Facilities and Transit segments have tremendous potential in adoption of “Smart Technologies.” Smart technologies implementation using Internet of Things (IOT), Integrated Energy Management and Sustainability approach, Enterprise Asset Management and purposeful Analytics ensures better living experience for community resident. According to NiranjSangal, Group CEO, OMA Emirates Group, the three primary categories adopting ‘smart’ technologies are airport, ports, and transportation.

PENETRATION OF IT

FINALLY

NiranjSangal, Group CEO, OMA Emirates Group said, “One of the key sectors that is making strong progress is from the telecom market and it has positive repercussions on the customer benefits. As one of the leaders in the Middle Eastern telecom market, 2016 saw an array of networks and services including 4G and 4G and fibre-based technologies while working towards 5G. Broadband penetration is among the highest in the region, with services available via ADSL, Fibre-to-the-Home (FttH), wireless and mobile.”

Rapid urbanization, greenfield projects, national ambition and a desire for building things smart makes Qatar a booming economy now.The country is experiencing a growth phase as it moves towards 2022 and the hosting of the FIFA World Cup finals.This highlights the The Heir Apparent Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani’s visionary leadership which emphasizes the advancement of the ICT sector in order to have an innovative, diversified economy with a high standard of living for people of Qatar. ë

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SPECIAL STORY

GOING BEYOND THE NORMAL

‘SCALES’ 46

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SPECIAL STORY

Presentation Tier, Logic tier, Data tier— the companies that chose to move beyond the walls of this three-tier architecture found themselves walking towards a new business model that will go beyond conventions. And thus Webscale IT found itself walking with Cloud and IoT.

n B Y: A N U S H R E E D I X I T < A N U S H R E E @ G E C M E D I A G R O U P. C O M > n PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

P THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A HYPER-CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE AND A WEB-SCALE ARCHITECTURE CAN BE FOUND ALMOST EVERYWHERE. THIS IS JUST THE CRUX IN A NUTSHELL. HYPERCONVERGED ARCHITECTURE

WEB-SCALE ARCHITECTURE

USES REPLICATION TOOLS TO PROVIDE HARDWARE ABSTRACTIONS

BUILDS RELIABILITY INTO CUSTOM SOFTWARE BY BUILDING APPLICATIONS

CO-LOCATE STORAGE AND COMPUTE

USE TECHNIQUE TO COMBINE STORAGE AND COMPUTE AS NECESSARY

BUILT AROUND COMMODITY HARDWARE

BUILT AROUND CUSTOMIZED HARDWARE

SEPARATES BETWEEN SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE

FITS SOFTWARE TO SPECIFIC DATA CENTER DESIGN

eople of words and wisdom have bifurcated the world economy of 2016 with some amusing phrases; from ‘Brexit blues’ to ‘Trump bump’, from ‘Patchy recovery’ to ‘Oil slump’.

It is very interesting to see how a technology that had an operational figure of just 10% among the mainstream enterprises in 2013 went on to become 50% in 2017 (As per Gartner’s research).

The increased adoption of cloud services like Iaas, PaaS, Saas, XaaS have driven the need for a scalable and flexible platform that can maintain, manage and account for the shortcomings that the complex networks have brought in.

As humungous infrastructure becomes the identity and face of large enterprises, webscale IT breathes the needed freedom of choice to enable the network services. Open platforms agnostic to hardware and non-conventional software architectures are the key attractions of webscale IT. As per studies, These solutions can also enable enterprises to benefit from self-integrating, open-source technologies that deliver enviable levels of flexibility, automation and agility, as well as freedom from “vendor lock-in.” The open approach of web-scale IT frees enterprises to choose the technologies that best suit their unique requirements, regardless of vendor or hardware.

According to Persistence Market Research, “Increased agility and scalability of stored data over servers, lesser hardware investments, worldwide accessibility of enterprise data, and continuous technical support are some of the key factors driving the web scale IT market. Further, the provision of modifications in web scale IT with respect to data collected and method of collection is aiding the growth of this market. Web scale IT permits an enterprise to customize architecture and process according to its need.

What the CIOs need to understand is that, like any other new technology that comes to the surface, Web-scale IT too comes with its own Pros and Cons and it is definitely not a one-size-fits-all platform. At the end of the day, it is all about making the right engineering choice. ë

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GUEST ARTICLE

5 Emotional Stages of Preparing for GDPR As you map your business strategy to adhering to the new GDPR legislative requirements, you need to build in time for your own emotional journey, as well as realize that others in the business also need to go on their own emotional journey.

n G R E G D AY, V P A N D C H I E F S E C U R I T Y O F F I C E R , E M E A , PA L O A LT O N E T W O R K S

Having been a strong advocate of the opportunities GDPR provides for the last couple of years, I’m still struck by the variety of emotional responses I get from security leaders when discussing the legislation. I draw the parallel to the five stages of bereavement.

For many the first response is denial. I’m struck by how many still either don’t believe it will impact them, or don’t believe penalties will be applied;therefore, they don’t need to take it seriously (at which I’m struck by why they don’t

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see the societal value).The reality is that, no matter how much we chose to ignore GDPR, it is happening; and we must make the positive decision on whether we choose to embrace it or not.

Typically getting through this emotional state is a challenge of education.

This leads into the next stage of anger, which I would exemplify through the statement of “Just tell me what I need to do!”. Unlike standards like PCI, which is an industry-lead requirement that is very prescriptive (you must have X & Y), GDPR

contains very few clear technical definitions. For example, what is “state of the art” or “security by designand default,” and when does a breach really start? Security practitioners like things black and white; the regulation is shades of grey. It requires each of us to work across our business teams to interpret and define exactly what it does mean to our business, and how we quantify and qualify this both to our business and third parties.

All too often I’m seeing this lead to bargaining.

To quote one instance, “We have been working with our legal team and will argue the definition of a breach does not apply effectively”. I can only expect definitions to be tightened where needed, but the underlying intent of the regulation is clear: protect citizens’ personal information and drive confidence in the use of technology in today’s society.

Essentially, at some stage, most go through depression.This leads to the reality that we need to understand just what the gap is between where we are and where we need to be, gathering the budget and support to achieve this within the business. This is the point to switch to the halffull cup, if you haven’t already. How often do you get the opportunity to step back from the daily cyber grind and review and re-architect with an eye to the future? Most of us are stuck with a lot of legacy that this is a perfect opportunity to phase out.

The reality is that, whether we like it or not, we end up at acceptance: It is happening; GDP goes live in 2018, and any one of our businesses could be held to account either as a result of an incident or, I suspect for many the most likely cause will be, a third party in your supply chain requesting evidence of your compliance as they look to achieve their own. ë

INNOVATIONS

STEELHEAD SD Riverbed Technology has done major updates to its SD-WAN offering Riverbed SteelConnect. SteelConnect now supports complex enterprise environments and dramatically simplifies the implementation of large-scale SD-WAN deployments in the data center with nondisruptive network integration. Riverbed also announced availability of a new line of SteelHead SD models which

KEY CAPABILITIES n Simplifies the deployment of SD-WAN for large-scale global networks n Benefits from integration with the battle-tested Riverbed Interceptor n Elastic scale and highavailability to support application delivery n Ensure an end-to-end application-centric solution across the network and into the cloud. n Integrates SD-WAN and WAN optimization services into a streamlined singledevice offering n Enables zero-touch provisioning, allowing an enterprise to set-up a global network and connect to the cloud in minutes n Provides the ability to make network or business/application policy changes with a few clicks of a mouse.

combines SteelConnect and industry-leading WAN optimization into a streamlined single-device solutionprovidingnetwork-agility and one-click connectivity into Microsoft Azure and AWS for superior app and cloud performance. The new SteelConnect SDI-5030 Data Center Gateway Appliances simplify the deployment of SD-WAN for large-scale global networks.

PLEASE SEND YOUR FEEDBACK AT INFO@ GECMEDIAGROUP.COM

AXILSPOT IN-WALL ACCESS POINTS AXILSPOT unveiled its latest Dorado In-wall access points in the Middle East and Africa to help businesses streamline their operational processes and enjoy consistent and uninterrupted high speed internet connectivity. The new 5-in-1 ASW3 300M Multi-Service In-wall Access Point offers multi-interfaces support cable access, PoE output, VoIP, telephone and USB charge and is primarily designed for the hospitality sector in the MEA region.

KEY CAPABILITIES n Integrated chip, 2*2 MIMO chip supports high data throughput and robust load capacity n Smart RF, network optimization, auto channel and power adjustment as well as wireless QoS n Centralized management, unified management podium manages in-wall access points n Wireless data rate 300Mbps n RJ11 interface n RJ45 interface n VoIP phone Interface n USB power charging port n PoE switch power supply n Software, hardware, application controller supported

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INNOVATIONS

Cisco Firepower 2100 Series Cisco takes on security bottlenecks, with the introduction of the Cisco Firepower 2100 Series Next-Generation Firewall. The 2100 series is designed for businesses that perform high volumes of sensitive transactions, such as banking and retail and supports their need to maintain uptime and protect critical business functions and data. The series aims to end the industry tug of war between performance and protection with incorporation of a new scalable architecture and improvements of up to 200 percent greater throughput to eliminate bottlenecks from the Internet edge to the data center.

KEY CAPABILITIES n Protects against the greatest threats without affecting the performance of critical business functions. n Features an on-box web-based interface to deploy Cisco Firepower NGFW devices in minutes, with the use of a guided set-up wizard. n Delivers up to 200 percent greater throughput than similarly priced offerings, even when threat inspection is turned on. n Enables simple and comprehensive security administration of multiple appliances. n Delivers simple, cloud-based policy management. n Allows teams to streamline and scale security policy management, designing and deploying policy uniformly across an organization. n Offers support for Web Security Appliance v.11 and is now available via a European cloud.

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DELL EDGE GATEWAY 3000 SERIES Dell Technologies announced the new Dell Edge Gateway 3000 Series, offering customers flexibility, connectivity and real-time intelligence from harsh environments and small spaces. The 3000 Series includes three unique models targeted specifically for use cases and embedded solutions in the industrial automation, energy, transportation, and digital signage. With the 3000 Series Gateway, customers will be able to securely transfer and analyses important data at the edge of the network to glean real-time intelligence from the physical world. Ideal deployments include locations such as a vehicle, a refrigerated trailer, a remote oil pump in the desert, digital signs in an elevator or inside of the HVAC units on a roof-top of a casino.

KEY CAPABILITIES n An Intel Atom processor; 2 GB RAM &8 GB eMMC storage n Ethernet, USB, certified for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE, Integrated 3G or 4G LTE cellular options for select countries; Support for hot or cold operating temperature extremes from -30°C to 70°C n Integrated digital GPS, accelerometers, and atmospheric pressure sensors n Supports a wide input power range from 12-57 VDC; Ability to be powered via Power-over-Ethernet; Ignition pin for easy operation while connected to a battery powered device n Industrial Automation and Energy Management, Model 3001; Multifunction I/O port and programmable serial ports. n Transportation and Logistics, Model 3002; GPS tracking, support for accelerometers and other MEMS devices, CAN bus for land/marine protocols, integrated ZigBee for mesh sensor networks. n Digital Signage and Retail, Model 3003; Display Port output for video displays and 3.5mm line in/line out for quality audio streaming.

Unless you know your risks, you can’t mitigate them

GBM continues to innovative and provide next-generation cybersecurity services

Know your risks and mitigate them today!

• Cyber Security Assurance • Information Security Strategy and Roadmap • Integrated Compliance (ISO, NESA, BCP) • SCADA/IOT Risk Assessments • SOC Consulting

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