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AJAY SINGH CHAUHAN

CEO, COMGUARD

“BANKING UPON NON-TRADITIONAL DISTRIBUTION MODEL”

ComGuard started as a training company and then got into distribution business. Enabling its partners through education and training remains a crucial aspect for the company. /38

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Secure access to cloud, data and door

Go beyond simple passwords. Protect your organisation with cost-effective, risk appropriate Identity Assurance Solutions from HID Global.

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Experience authentication beyond passwords. hidglobal.com/identity-assurance © 2014 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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DE LL E NAB LE D ICBA I N TH E M E NA R EG ION

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PA G E S 5 2 VOLUME 01 | ISSUE 12 J U LY 2 0 1 4 WWW.ENTERPRISECHANNELSMEA.COM

Factors like, Big Data & Analytics, ByOD and cloud applications are gaining momentum, which is clearly triggering the need of storage solutions. /18

INDIAECM072014

TITANIC SHIFT FROM TRADITIONAL STORAGE

M CAFE E: “SECU R I NG CON N ECTE D DEVICES” /34

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PROVEN AND TRUSTED ENDPOINT SECURITY

BY THE WORLD'S No ESET holds the record in consecutive number of " " awards of all antivirus makers. Find out how our expertise helps secure your company – visit www.eset.com/me

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Virus Bulletin Awards Success ratio (%) Selected Antivirus Vendors (not a complete list) Source: www.virusbtn.com, May – December All trademarks and service marks that appear on this page are the property of their respective owners and are used solely to refer to those companies' goods and services.

www.eset.com/me Tel +971 43754052 / Fax +971 44290967 info@esetme.com Office 305, Building 2, Dubai Internet City

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EDITORIAL

MEA Storage Market Slow But Strong

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

The enterprise storage market is getting sluggish and showing a slow growth rate in the region. Even we have also witnessed slum in the market since the beginning of this year.

This is not coming as surprise since storage is a large spender for any IT environment and customers are looking at consolidation and cutting of costs associated with storage According to the report from IDC, The Middle East and Africa (MEA) external storage market may have suffered a marginal 2% year-on-year decline in revenue during the first quarter of 2014, but the downturn can be attributed to an annual quirk in the market according to International Data Corporation (IDC).

Referencing its ‘EMEA Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker’, the global research and advisory services firm today announced that external storage revenue in MEA contracted to $229 million in Q1 2014, but referred to the decline as a “typical slump before the surge.” Terabyte capacity, meanwhile, was up 38% over the same period.

In this issue, we have tried to bring out some facts about enterprise storage trends in the MEA market. In order to justify our argument we have incorporated the viewpoints of the vendors as well as the distributors. They are of opinion that enterprise storage will grow in the region but the form factor will be cloud or hosted one. And the market will be drive by Big Data & analytics.

It looks like yesterday that we started our operations in UAE but it has already been one year. We have achieved many mile stones in this year. We have brought out supplements addressing various technology evolution of the market including Big Data, Security, eGovernance, etc.

Now completing the year, in the month of August, we are bringing out our 1st anniversary issue, which will have description of our observation in the MEA market.

Plus, we would also like to bring out an analysis of the top performing companies in the region in various solutions category.

In all of our efforts the market has been quite supportive to us so far and I am expecting the same support for the months to come. ë

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CONTENTS VOLUME 01 ISSUE 12 J U LY 2 0 1 4 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

2014

COVER STORY

TITANIC SHIFT FROM TRADITIONAL STORAGE Factors like, Big Data & Analytics, ByOD and cloud applications are gaining momentum, which are clearly triggering the need of storage solutions. /18

MY VIEWS /24

“The Idea of Sustainable Growth”

SEBASTIEN PAVIE REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR, MEA, SAFENET

MY VIEWS /38

“Banking Upon Nontraditional Distribution Model” AJAY SINGH CHAUHAN CEO, COMGUARD

INNOVATIONS /48

RESOLUTION ONE PLATFORM FROM ACCESSDATA

GISEC ROUND-UP Kaspersky Named leader in the ByOD Security vendor category /26

There were more than 648 interviews on various points and we came out with a comprehensive result that security is an issue in the region.

The first Continuous Automated Incident Resolution (CAIR) Platform, delivering comprehensive, real-time insight, analysis, response and resolution of data incidents

MY VIEWS /46

“SDS is nothing Extraordinary, for us it is just an Evolution” SUREN VEDANTHAM GROUP MANAGING DIRECTOR, STORIT DISTRIBUTION FZCO

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EDITORIAL::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 05 CHANNEL STREET:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 08 SECURITY ::::::::::::::::::: 23, 32, 34, 40, 43, 44 PRINTING::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 33 SECURITY CORNER:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 36 CASE STUDY:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 42 GUEST TALK : ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 50

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CHANNEL

STREET ENHANCES PROGRAM FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS

CommVault unveiled a series of new enhancements to the CommVault PartnerAdvantage partner program Service Provider (SP) Edition, designed to help service provider partners maximize revenue, profitability and growth opportunities through new leading edge tools, resources and solutions that support their specialized requirements.

CommVault’s ongoing cloud strategy builds on its leadership in software innovation and, through strategic relationships with service provider partners, delivers solutions to simplify and secure the transition of these services providers and their customers to cloud computing. To achieve this, CommVault utilizes its single software platform to power highly efficient cloud infrastructures.

LEXMARK NAMED LEADER IN MPS LANDSCAPE Lexmark International has been positioned as a leader in managed print services (MPS) by leading European-based industry analyst firm Quocirca.

“Lexmark continues to strengthen its position as a leader in Quocirca’s evaluation of the MPS market. Since its $280 million acquisition of Perceptive Software in 2010, it has transformed its overall business, deepening its business process expertise,” Quocirca reports. “Its strong position in the market is boosted by a mature service portfolio and its industry leading business process expertise, which is becoming a key differentiator in the market1.”

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DAVE BROOKE, GENERAL MANAGER, DELL MIDDLE EAST

Dell Enabled ICBA in the MENA region The International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) in Dubai has deployed Dell High Performance Computing (HPC), Dell Services and Dell SonicWALL security solutions as part of its mission to build a computing system that will support analyses of the impact of climate variability and change on water and agriculture in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region.

As part of ICBA’s MAWRED project (Modeling and Monitoring Agriculture and Water Resources Development), funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), ICBA is collaborating with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre (NASA GSFC) and selected U.S. university experts to use the Weather Research and Forecasting system (WRF) to downscale climate data at regional and local scale.

These climate data are then used as input for NASA GSFC furnished Land Information System models, operating at ICBA, to understand the likely impacts on water and agriculture in the MENA

region.

ICBA is a world-class research facility with a team of international scientists conducting applied research to address the water related issues.

CBA has also engaged Dell Services for full ongoing support, as well a security plan to address the organisation’s specific security requirements. As part of this, ICBA has deployed SonicWALL Next Generation Firewall NSA 3500, which integrates intrusion prevention, malware protection, and application intelligence and control with real-time visualization, as well as Dell SonicWALL Email Security ES3300.

Dave Brooke, General Manager, Dell Middle East, said, “The International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture undertakes incredibly important work to improve water management in the MENA region and help the most vulnerable in society. We are delighted to have been selected to implement an HPC solution as well as support their in-house team with security solutions andservices.”

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Teradata Opens Office in Saudi Arabia Teradata has established Teradata Saudi Arabia LLC to strengthen its commitment to current and prospective customers and channel partners in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The announcement was made at a half-day opening celebration that brought leading business and technical professionals together with senior representatives from Teradata to learn about the latest innovations from Teradata as well as the company’s strategic direction and plans for operations in the Kingdom.

From its new base in Saudi Arabia, Teradata will extend its industry-leading portfolio of analytics, data warehousing and marketing applications solutions to help enterprises across the Kingdom.

“Driven by ambitious government plans to boost economic diversity and social development across the nation, as well as exciting transformation in the business environment,

Saudi Arabia represents a market of huge opportunities. By establishing Teradata Saudi Arabia LLC, Teradata aims to help public and private-sector enterprises better manage and analyze these vast amounts of data derived from the internet, social networks and mobile devices to create efficient data-driven businesses that power performance, efficiency and customer retention strategies,” said Eric Joulié, vice president, South Europe and Middle East and Africa, Teradata Corporation.

Jamil Jeitani, Managing Director, Teradata Saudi Arabia Llc., said, “We are immensely happy to establish operations in Saudi Arabia, as this brings us closer to our customers and partners and gives us the opportunity to contribute to one of the most rapidly developing economies in the world. We look forward to deeper engagement with customers from both the public and private sectors, and across multiple industries.”

ESET APPOINTS GATEWORX AS DISTIE FOR EGYPT ESET appoints Gateworx to distribute its entire range of security solutions in the Egyptian IT market. This includes ESET’s endpoint, mobile, authentication, file system and gateway security products for businesses and its mobile and computer antivirus products for home users.

In recent years, Egypt has begun taking steps towards establishing legislation for ICT intellectual property rights as well as cybersecurity and e-terrorism laws. “Egypt is key to the expansion of our footprint in North Africa. With malicious cyber activity rising in the country, organizations and users are understanding the need to protect their IT systems. We have the solutions to meet these challenges and demands but in order to make a strong impact on the market, we also felt the need for a partner with technical expertise and a well-established and enabled distribution network,” said Pradeesh VS, General Manager at ESET Middle East.

As per the terms of the agreement, Gateworx will sell and promote ESET’s entire range of security solution in the Egyptian market. The distributor will recruit, train and support new qualified resellers and systems integrators and will extend the support of its qualified sales and technical personnel to managing and enabling these partners.

SOPHOS SIGNS COMGUARD AS VAD FOR ME Sophos has appointed ComGuard as its new Value Added Distributor for the Middle East. According to the terms of the agreement, ComGuard will promote and distribute Sophos’ complete range of security solutions including its network, endpoint and server security solutions through its strong reseller network across the region.

Speaking on the partnership, Thomas Thoelke, Sales Director Sophos NEEMEA said, “Over the last few years, Sophos has established itself as a vendor of choice for endpoint security solutions in the Middle East. In order to strengthen our position, we were looking for a distribution partner with strong market knowledge, resources and expertise to grow our business and market share further. ComGuard, being a reputed and trusted security specialist Value Added Distributor in the Middle East, was the perfect partner for Sophos.

Their in-depth understanding of the market dynamics, skilled technical team and timely channel enablement programs will play a big role in our success in the Middle East.”

With its sign-up with Sophos, ComGuard will be able to offer its customers a wider range of products and tailored solutions in line with its suite of complementary offerings. In addition, Sophos will benefit from ComGuard’s local presence and market expertise, allowing the security vendor to increase its market reach and growth opportunities in the region.

A10 FIREWALL ACHIEVES ICSA LABS CERTIFICATION A10 Thunder and AX Series application delivery controller (ADC) product lines have received web application firewall (WAF) version 2.1 certification from ICSA Labs, an independent division of Verizon which offers vendor-neutral testing and certification.

A10 Thunder ADC advanced security features include WAF,

DNS Application Firewall (DAF), Application Access Management (AAM) for authentication, SSL Intercept (SI), and more. The product line is built on A10’s Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS) platform, with the Symmetric Scalable Multi-Core Processing (SSMP) software architecture— delivering high performance and a

JASON MATLOF, VICE PRESIDENT OF WORLDWIDE MARKETING, A10 NETWORKING

variety of deployment options for dedicated, hosted, or cloud data centers.

“Network security risks are constantly changing, and it’s crucial that vendors constantly keep up with that fast rate of change,” said Jason Matlof, vice president of worldwide marketing at A10 Networks.

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IN PUBLIC

“2015 through 2018 will see a return to ‘normal’ spending growth levels as pricing and purchasing styles reach a new equilibrium.”

RICHARD GORDON, MANAGING VICE PRESIDENT, GARTNER

NetIQ PlateSpin Empowered Databarracks Customers Databarracks has drastically reduced the recovery time for its customers by switching to the NetIQ PlateSpin workload management and disaster recovery suite of products. By using PlateSpin Protect, Migrate and Recon, Databarracks has lowered recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO) for its customers to under an hour and reduced compute costs.

As more organisations rely heavily on access to data, there is a high cost associated with downtime. Customers rely on Databarracks to

assure their mission critical systems experience little to no downtime. As a result, Databarracks recognised the need for a disaster recovery-asa-service (DRaaS) solution to help them meet these expectations by minimizing downtime and managing constantly changing customer expectations in a much faster timeframe.

“Operationally, we need to minimize the manual technical effort around recovery to keep our costs down and reduce complexity,” said Oliver Mather, technical director at Databarracks.

WEB CLIPS WD LAUNCHED MY BOOK DUO WD introduced My Book Duo in the Middle East, the newest member of its award-winning line of desktop storage solutions for home and office. Utilizing two drives, hardware-level RAID and USB 3.0, My Book Duo delivers massive capacity and file transfer speeds not available on single-drive solutions. Available in 4 TB , 6 TB and 8 TB capacities, My Book Duo also comes with free software that creates secure local, cloud and system-level backups for complete data protection.

“From creative pros and expert consumers to everyday content creators – people with large amounts of data will find My Book Duo thefastand reliable way to offload content from their computers, organize it in a single location and protect it with backups, passwords and encryption,” said Jim Welsh, executive vice president of content solutions and worldwide sales at WD. BLACKBERRY WINS THREE PRESTI-

GARTNER POSITIONS ACCESSDATA IN THE “LEADERS” QUADRANT

GIOUS RED DOT AWARDS

This is the third consecutive year that AccessData has appeared in the Leaders quadrant of the “Magic Quadrant for E-Discovery Software”. The report evaluates vendors based on completeness of vision and ability to execute against key e-discovery industry criteria.

Leaders in the Magic Quadrant for E-Discovery software possess four characteristics, including: functionality that meets one or more requirements of the left-hand side of the EDRM — identification, preservation or litigation hold, collection and processing, plus ECA — and one or more aspects of the right-hand side — processing, review, analysis and production; clearly demonstrates that their focus is software development and sales, as opposed to the provision of services; and shows a good mix of corporate and law firm buying centers among their clients.

“We view our positioning in the ‘Leaders’ quadrant by Gartner as confirmation of our leading e-discovery solutions, support and services to address our customers investigative, regulatory and litigation challenges and improve their business processes,” said Tim Leehealey, AccessData CEO. “Our ongoing commitment to technology development and investments in customer service and support will continue to drive advancements in this important e-discovery market.”

BlackBerry Q10, BlackBerry Q5 and BlackBerry

BlackBerry earned three acclaimed Red Dot Awards for the high design quality of its Z30 smartphones. This year, the Red Dot Award’s international, 40-member expert panel evaluated 4,815 entries from 53 countries. Winners were selected based on the quality and innovative strength of each product.

“We pride ourselves on industrial design that is simple and intuitive in functionality, while maintaining iconic and familiar elements such as our keyboard and productivity-based user experience,” said Brian Paschke, Senior Industrial Designer, Portfolio Direction at BlackBerry.

84% OF ICT SERVICE INCIDENTS FALL OUTSIDE SUPPORT CONTRACTS 16% of 91,000 IT service incidents logged with

OOREDOO COMPANIES WIN STRING OF AWARDS Ooredoo’s focus on customer experience has enjoyed strong industry recognition this year, winning a string of awards for its operations in the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia.

With the global launch of the Ooredoo brand in February 2013, Ooredoo made differentiation through the customer experience a central pillar of its strategy – to ensure that each of its operating companies was the leader in delivering best in class experience across all customer touch-points.

Since then, Ooredoo companies have worked hard to enhance the ways they communicate with and support customers – an effort that has resulted in positive feedback and awards from a host of major industry bodies. Dr. Nasser Marafih, Group CEO, Ooredoo, said: “When we launched Ooredoo, we made a promise to our customers that we would strive to enrich their lives as a global communications company. I am very pleased to see the strong market response this step-change in our approach has delivered, with awards across our major markets.”

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Dimension Data service centres* in 2013 were related to the device itself while the other84% of incidents were related to non-device issues such as human error, telecom failures or environmental issues. The largestcategory of ITincidents are due to human error, with nearly one-third of all incidents – 6% configuration errors plus 26% other human errors – are potentially avoidable.

According to Dimension Data’s annualNetwork Barometer Report, these statistics are worrying because a large proportion of incidents fall outside of a support provider’s traditional remit, and must be resolved by organisations themselves.

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GEC OPEN GLOBAL ENTERPRISE CONNECT

2014

COME! BE A PART OF IT VENUE: THE TRACK MEYDAN DATE: SATURDAY,11 OCTOBER 2014 OPENING TEE-OFF: NOON TOURNAMENT FORMAT: TEXAS SCRAMBLE

ORGANISER

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CHANNEL STREET

Alkhalij Enterprises Selects Epicor ERP Alkhalij Enterprises to implement the Epicor enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. The company chose the award winning Epicor ERP because of its next generation technology, low total cost of ownership (TCO) and several local customer references from similar industry in the UAE. Alkhalij Enterprises selected the Epicor finance and supply chain management solution, which will be deployed throughout all the operating offices of Alkhalij Enterprises in UAE, Oman, Qatar and Azerbaijan. Implementing Epicor will enable Alkhalij Enterprises to improve its operational efficiency with quick access to information as well as enhance its decision making capabilities with reporting, thereby reducing costs.

“We have been on the lookout for a complete ERP solution, which is user-friendly, easy to implement, and cost effective,” said Kapil Bhatia,

director for Alkhalij Enterprises. “We selected Epicor because of the superior functionality of the software, promising high returns on investment. Besides, they have a strong presence in the Middle East with a portfolio of elite clients.

We are upbeat that Epicor ERP will enable us to achieve greater operational efficiency at a much lower cost.”

“Alkhalij Enterprises caters to a wide network of companies across a vast range of industries,” said Jawad Squalli, regional vice president for Epicor in the Middle East, Africa and India. “Our solution will enable them to streamline their systems in finance and supply chain management, and maintain their leadership in the market. As part of the deployment process we will install, configure and train employees to use the ERP system.”

CLOUD MANAGEMENT CERTIFICATION FOR RED HAT ENTERPRISE LINUX OPENSTACK PLATFORM Red Hat has announced a new cloud management certification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform as part of the Red Hat OpenStack Cloud Infrastructure Partner Network, the world’s largest commercial ecosystem for OpenStack. Red Hat will enable RADHESH BALAKRISHNAN cloud management solutions from partners to interoperate with and manage Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform. The certification offers customers confidence that their OpenStack-based clouds and management solutions have been fully tested together and are supported jointly by Red Hat and the participating companies.

Radhesh Balakrishnan, general manager, virtualization and OpenStack, Red Hat, said, “As OpenStack is becoming a core element of the enterprise cloud strategy for many customers, Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform is architected and backed by the broadest partner ecosystem to be the preferred platform. The growth and maturity of the ecosystem reflects the evolution of the product moving from addressing infrastructure-centric alignment to help with early deployments to now be well-managed, to be part of enterprise hybrid cloud implementations.”

MIDDLE EAST CHANNEL SURVEY: CLASSICAL ETHERNET IS DEAD Current networking technologies are being pushed to their performance boundaries reveals a survey conducted by the Weston Group in association with Brocade. Members of the Middle East IT channel who responded to the survey were split, almost evenly, between Ethernet Fabrics and Clustering Network solutions as the way forward for data centers while only a fraction (2.13%) believe classical Ethernet is still up to the task.

When questioned about the factors driving the complexity of data centres and the need for better networking technologies, respondents listed server virtualization, consolidation and the cloud as top three reasons in that order.

“We believe the IT channel, which is uniquely positioned, between the vendors supplying cutting-edge technologies and regional customers deploying them, is the best judge of the trends shaping the industry. We were surprised to find that most of these players still find technology roll-outs and updates to be slow despite the obvious need for network advancement,” said Prashant Naik, Divisional Manager, Unified Communications and Collaboration at Westcon Middle East.

While rapid technology advancements are being made in the data centre domain, the research found that only a quarter (25.53%) of end-users served by the channel organizations surveyed refresh their data centre networking infrastructures every 1 to 2 years, while the majority (48.94%) do so only once in 5 to 6 years.

DWTC USES FLUKE NETWORKS WI-FI TESTER Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) the region’s leading destination for exhibitions, conferences and events, through Oxygen have used Fluke Network’s AirCheck Wi-Fi Tester to locate rouge access points.

Rouge AP’s cause a drop in performance and it is technically challenging to isolate it. Even

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though, DWTC has a wireless sensor system in place, due to the high ceilings, sensors are inaccurate in pinpointing rogue devices. Fluke Networks AirCheck Wi-Fi Tester allowed DWTC to quickly locate and identify rogue AP’s within 5-15 minutes, thus ensuring quality performance and service.

Farid Farouq, VP - IT at the

Dubai World Trade Centre, “Delivering a wireless network that meets all expectations of our users is a challenge from an IT perspective.

At the Dubai World Trade Centre we have leading companies from more than 160 countries attending high profile events at our venue and we need our network to perform at a consistently high level. We

could see a drop in performance; it was technically challenging to isolate it. We had a wireless sensor system in place, but due to the high ceilings, the sensors were inaccurate in pinpointing rogue devices and engineers were sent out onto the floor to search for the APs by looking through the show floor, which was incredibly time consuming.

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GEC AWARD W AT C H T H E T I TA N S

2014

COME! BE A PART OF IT VENUE : MEYDAN HOTEL DATE: SATURDAY,11 OCTOBER 2014 TIME : 7.00 PM EVENT: GALA DINNER & NETWORKING

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CHANNEL STREET

Fluke Appointed Prologix as its Distie Prologix Distribution has been chosen as a Distributor by Fluke Networks. The partnership enables Prologix Distribution to distribute the entire product portfolio offered by Fluke Networks to the former’s extensive channel of resellers. The highly sought-after products like DSX-5000 and DTX-1800 will be able to reach to a wider audience of system integrators and resellers through Prologix Distribution’s strong local presence and experience in the region.

“This partnership enhances our product portfolio and increases the scope of opportunities immensely”, said Aditya Sahaya, Director – Business Development at Prologix Distribution.

“Fluke Networks’ products are known worldwide

for the unparalleled ability during installation, certification, testing, monitoring and analysis of copper, fiber and wireless networks. We are confident of making tremendous justice to this partnership through our strong local base and extended channel networks in the region”.

Ziad Sawtari, Territory Sales Manager at Fluke Networks’ said, “Since we partnered with Prologix Distribution earlier last year on Fluke Networks systems portfolio, they have significantly contributed to Fluke Networks’ revenue growth in the Middle East region, hence it was a no brainer to include the rest of Fluke Networks product set, in order to replicate the same success.”

COMPETITION FOR STARTUPS TO GIVE IDEAS TO MAKE DUBAI SMARTER CITY Smart Living City Dubai, a biannual event highlighting Smart City concepts in Dubai, has revealed that it will be organizing a major competition for the startups running up to the event. The competition invites startups to come up with the most innovative and creative ideas based on any one of the eight Smarter City topics – education, healthcare, environment, energy and water, public safety, government, building, and transportation – to help Dubai achieve the status of a smarter city.

The Smart Living City competition will be looking out for the startups, including thinkers, problem solvers and creators, with the cutting edge idea for Smart Cities.

FROST & SULLIVAN HONORS ALCATEL-LUCENT ENTERPRISE OPENTOUCH PLATFORM Technical complexity and high-cost business models have discouraged widespread deployment and adoption of Unified Communications (UC). In contrast, according to Frost & Sullivan, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise has made great strides to deliver a UC platform that is “efficiently right-sized for businesses of all sizes without compromise.” With a set of user applications bundles, OpenTouch provides a variety of call control, UC, mobility, messaging, conferencing, and other functionality focused on personalizing the user experience and meets the requirements of any work-style. As a result, Frost & Sullivan awarded Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise the 2014 Global Product Differentiation Excellence in Unified Communications based on the findings of its Best Practice research.

BT UPGRADES ITS ASSURE THREAT MONITORING SERVICE BT has announced a major upgrade to its BT Assure Threat Monitoring service, making it simpler for organisations and security analysts to identify and protect against security threats.

BT Assure Threat Monitoring collects and analyses huge amounts of data and its newest upgrade will now display it for users on a customisable screen. By immediately seeing potential issues, security professionals can better identify, react and respond to security risks.

The upgrade will be available to existing BT Assure Threat Monitoring customers at no additional cost and is standard for new BT Assure Threat Monitoring customers.

Mark Hughes, President, BT Security, said, “Helping our customers to improve their security plans by giving them access to real-time threat information is critical. Organisations are facing a growing number of live, complex and diverse security issues.”

“These new enhancements greatly improve both customer and security analyst control and monitoring capabilities by bringing together critical information in one place. This will allow them to focus more of their efforts and creativity on delivering better business outcomes throughout the organisation.”

The service’s redesigned interface helps users to more accurately assess security concerns that have often prevented organisations from adopting evolving technologies, such as cloud computing and BYOD solutions.

SECURITY AND AVAILABILITY : TOP REQUIREMENTS OF IT DEPARTMENTS The size, frequency and complexity of DDoS attacks are increasing.

According to figures from Arbor’s ATLAS network, in the Middle East, by the end of 2013, the average attack size was 2.8 Gbps, higher than the global average of 2.3 Gbps. Because of this, security and availability are now among the top requirements of IT departments

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MAHMOUD SAMY, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST, RUSSIA, CIS AT ARBOR NETWORKS

in businesses across the region.

Unfortunately, when it comes to today’s range of sophisticated DDoS attacks, traditional security products, such as firewalls or intrusion prevention systems, are proving to be inadequate.

Mahmoud Samy, Regional Director, Middle East, Russia, CIS at Arbor Networks, says that

enterprises in the Middle East are now more concerned about this than ever before and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can help them combat these threats, while simultaneously creating lucrative new revenue streams. DDoS attacks that impact the availability of services represent a significant opportunity for ISP’s.

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EMC Explores Consumer Paradox for Internet Privacy EMC Corporation has released the findings of the EMC Privacy Index, a study assessing consumer attitudes of online privacy. The study is based on responses from 1000 consumers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and aimed at adding insightful context to the subject of privacy in the region in an era of heavy digitization.

The long-standing debate over how much visibility

governments and businesses should have regarding people’s private activities, communications and behaviors has continued into the online world. The EMC Privacy Index explores how consumers in the region view their online privacy rights and measures willingness to forfeit the benefits and conveniences of the connected world for the assurances of privacy.

Michael Kaiser, ED, National Cyber Security Alliance, said, “The data captured in the EMC Privacy Index gives a fascinating view into the attitudes of global consumers and validates a fundamental point – respecting privacy and safeguarding data is a core value that should be shared by businesses, governments and individuals to enable a more trusted ecosystem.”

3

SECONDS

AOC LAUNCHES NEW PREMIUM GAMING MONITOR With the g2460Pg, display specialist AOC introduces a new premium gaming monitor with an impressive array of high-end technological features for a true state-of-the-art gaming experience. Thanks to the integrated NVIDIA G-SYNC technology, the AOC g2460Pg immerses the player into intense gaming action without lag, as control inputs are reflected on-screen instantly. An ultra-smooth refresh rate of 144 Hz, an outstanding response time of only 1 ms and super-fast DisplayPort input enhance the experience even further, effectively eliminating motion blur and screen tearing.

LENOVO LAUNCHES NEW YOGA TABLET

ORACLE ACQUIRES MICROS

10 HD PLUS

Oracle is all set to acquire MICROS Systems, a provider of integrated software and hardware solutions to the Hospitality and Retail industries, for $68.00 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $5.3 billion, or $4.6 billion net of MICROS’ cash.

“We are committed to protecting and enhancing customer investments in MICROS solutions. MICROS’ management and employees will form a dedicated business within Oracle to maintain their focus BOB WEILER, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, ORACLE on serving customers,” said Executive Vice President for Oracle GLOBAL BUSINESS UNITS Global Business Units Bob Weiler. “Our industry organizations maintain deep domain expertise and focused investment, which includes more than 18,000 Oracle employees and over $500 million in annual R&D spend.”

Tablet 10 HD+ in the United Arab Emirates. The

Lenovo has announced the launch of YOGA multimode Android YOGA Tablet 10 HD+ refines the tablet’s unique design with Hold, Tilt and Stand Modes by infusing it with the latest technologies including a Full HD screen, Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and sharp high resolution camera while maintaining its incredible up to 18 hours of battery life.

DIGITAL WORKPLACE BREAKING TRADITIONAL SECURITY MODELS: GARTNER Increasing adoption of a more mobile, social, data-driven and consumer-like workplace is

MOVEMENTS GEOFF THOMAS has joined Polycom as its President Asia Pacific. In this role, Thomas is responsible for leading the company’s regional sales strategy and execution to drive customer success, brand affinity and profitable growth.

Sophos has promoted THOMAS THOELKE to the new Territory Manager for Northern and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (NEEMEA). Prior to this, he was Sales Director for Eastern Europe and Nordics.

Brocade has promoted CURT BECKMANN to the role of CTO for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

2.1 NUMBER GAME

%

increase

from last year’s Worldwide IT, the market to total $3.7 trillion in 2014

causing the breakdown of traditional security models and strategies, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner predicts that by 2018, 25 percent of large organizations will have an explicit strategy to make their corporate computing environments similar to a consumer computing experience.

FOCUS CRM IS AVAILABLE ON CLOUD Focus Softnet CRM solution, named as Focus CRM, is now available on cloud. This model will offer customers ease-of-use, 24x7 availability, better customer experience and huge cost-savings.

The application is available in three versions: basic, professional and enterprise. Customers can evaluate the application on a trial period for 30 days by creating accounts for upto three users by using their email ids. The license is based on named users i.e. the customer will be charged per active user per month or per user per hour. Focus CRM on cloud is deployed on multiple instances and is scalable further.

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Canon Diversifies Business offering in East Africa Canon Middle East has expanded its partnership with MFI International Group for the distribution of Canon products, after sales services and MPS solutions in East Africa.

The collaboration will help meet consumer demands in the region while diversifying Canon’s business offering. To further strengthen Canon’s coverage and to get closer to customers, the agreement will span the countries of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. With the increased demand for imaging innovation and connectivity, MFI International Group will focus on the distribution of Canon’s Office BW/ Colour – Advanced Office Range, Professional Print, Professional Scanners & Large Format Printers products while providing after sales services and Managed Print Services & solutions to increase productivity.

Anurag Agrawal, Canon Middle East Managing Director, said, “Canon has previously worked

CANON MIDDLE EAST EXPANDS PARTNERSHIP WITH MFI GROUP INTERNATIONAL

with MFI in Kenya and Tanzania to distribute Professional Print solutions. Their consultative approach and ability to provide excellent services to ensure customer satisfaction was a great incentive to expand our partnership with them and become closer to our customers. This growth enables us to better support existing and new clients from across all industries with technologically advanced products and integrated solutions.”

TRUSTED MOBILE APPS EXPLOITED FOR CRIMINAL GAIN: MCAFEE REPORT The McAfee Labs Threats Report, June 2014, reveals that mobile malware tactics abuse the popularity, features, and vulnerabilities of legitimate apps and services, including malwareinfested clones masquerading as the popular mobile game Flappy Birds. The report highlights the need for mobile app developers to be more vigilant about the security of their apps, and encourages users to be mindful when granting permission requests that criminals could exploit for profit.

“We tend to trust the names we know on the internet and risk compromising our safety if it means gaining what we most desire,” said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president for McAfee Labs. “The year 2014 has already given us ample evidence that mobile malware developers are playing on these inclinations, to manipulate the familiar, legitimate features in the mobile apps and services we recognize and trust. “

DATA LOSS CONSIDERED TO BE BIGGEST RISK OF IOT: FORTINET SURVEY Fortinet has released the results of a global survey that probes home owners about key issues pertaining to the Internet of Things (IoT). Independently administered throughout 11 countries, the survey titled, “Internet of Things: Connected Home,” gives a global perspective about the Internet of Things, what security and privacy issues are in play, and what home owners are willing to do to enable it.

“The battle for the Internet of Things has just begun. According to industry research firm IDC, the IoT market is expected to hit $7.1 trillion by 2020,” said John Maddison, vice president of marketing at Fortinet.

“The ultimate winners of the IoT connected home will come down to those vendors who can provide a balance of security and privacy vis-à-vis price and functionality.”

Completed in June 2014, the survey asked 1,801 tech-savvy homeowners questions relating to the Internet of Things as it pertains to the connected home. These were the top findings: The Connected Home is a reality – A majority (61 percent) of all respondents believe that the connected home (a home in which household appliances and home electronics are seamlessly connected to the Internet) is “extremely likely” to become a reality in the next five years. China led the world in this category with more than 84 percent affirming support.

CYBEROAM SIGNS DISTRIBUTION PARTNERSHIP WITH SNB Cyberoam has appointed SNB Middle East FZC as its Distribution Partner for Middle East. This appointment is aimed at making deeper inroads for Cyberoam into the region.

SNB will be Cyberoam’s authorized distributor for UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.

As a value-added distributor SNB

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CYBEROAM HAS APPOINTED SNB MIDDLE EAST FZC

will provide sales support, market intelligence, pre-sales support and

commercial skills services for the entire Cyberoam Stack to its valueadded reseller partners.

SNB will focus on the development of the new Cyberoam channel, driving deeper adoption of Cyberoam’s technology and products within the Middle East IT channel.

“We see this collaboration as

mutually beneficial,” commented Sanjay Raina-Director-Networking & IT Security, from SNB Middle East FZC., “as Cyberoam is one of the leading names in network security and teaming up with them will help us offer impressive network security to our customers, especially when it comes to virtual security.”

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Spectrami Forays into South African Market our vendors to get into the market.

Spectrami is entering into the All of this leads us into making an South African market by opening informed decision to get into the up a new office. The company South African market.” plans to start with the South The new South Africa office will African market and then get be headed by Hugh Donald Ross into East and Southern Africa Wason, in the capacity of Country along with Indian Ocean Islands.

Business Representative – South Furthermore, the company has ANAND CHOUDHA, MD, Africa for Spectrami. Wason is an long term plans for the entire SPECTRAMI IT industry veteran, having worked sub-Saharan Africa to be served with many well-known brands such as Actifio, from the South Africa office.

IBM, Stortech, I-Fusion, and EMC, to name Speaking about the expansion, Anand a few. “South Africa has undergone economic Choudha, MD, Spectrami, said, “South Africa and industrial development in recent years, and is among the top four markets in the Middle these steps have contributed to an increased East and Africa region. Thus, it makes sense for uptake of the latest IT solutions and services us logically to enter into the market as a part of on the regional market,” explained Choudha. plans to increase our foot print in the region. We “The opening of an office in South Africa also see the right indicators in terms of market reflects Spectrami’s commitment to the African conditions, customer requirements for the market.” technologies we represent, and willingness from

HP TO ENHANCE IT INFRASTRUCTURE OF GULF AIR HP is working with Gulf Air, Bahrain’s national carrier, for the supply and support of their innovative enterprise IT infrastructure, with a special focus on security and performance.

HP AND GULF AIR Gulf Air has introduced several improvements in its IT operations, including the recent introduction of private cloud computing for quicker and more efficient business operations, resulting in enhanced customer service. They have also adopted several ‘green IT’ solutions, including a state-of-the-art, energy-efficient data center that is recognized as one of the most environment-friendly in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

DSG ANNOUNCES ITS STRATEGY Dubai Smart Government (DSG) Department announced its strategic plans at the 4th Dubai Smart Government Forum at the Intercontinental Festival City, in the presence of 120 senior government people including director generals, CEOs, IT directors and departmental directors.

The Forum was organized as part of DSG’s ongoing bid for implementing the initiative of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, for shifting to the smart government stage and expediting the efforts for Dubai to become the smartest city in the world.

DSG’s strategy consists of 4 major themes and 21 strategic objectives aimed at making customers happy and enhancing their confidence in the adoption of smart services. DSG’s strategic plan calls for an increase in the uptake of services via smart devices (mAdoption) to 25% in 2017 and 60% by 2021, with eServices (eAdoption) to 60% in 2017 and 80% by 2021. The DSG Consultative Council also created 7 smart and distinctive strategic initiatives that should be implemented within three years; these being: smart systems, smart participation, smart adoption, empowerment of smart employees, smart reliable information, smart data, smart administration and smart services for the happiness of customers.

According to the strategy, DSG will work with government entities to formulate a methodology for the open data and will work with the HR departments.

F5 RECOGNIZES EXCLUSIVE NETWORKS AS EMEA DISTRIBUTION PARTNER OF THE YEAR F5 Networks announced its 2014 Agility Partner Awards for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. Presented at F5’s Agility customer and partner conference in Copenhagen, the awards recognise F5 partners from across the EMEA region that have excelled in delivering the benefits of F5’s Synthesis architectural framework

to customers as they seek to redefine application delivery in the face of challenges around mobility, security, cloud and SDN. Commenting on the news Fariborz Boustantchi, CEO of Exclusive Networks Middle East said, “It’s a fantastic achievement to have won recognition from one of our strategic vendor partners

and we’re delighted to receive this award. This award testament to our continued investment and development along with F5 Networks in the high potential Middle East market.

“We have been on a tremendous journey together since we became F5 Networks’ first Middle East distribution partner back in 2005

and it’s extremely gratifying and rewarding to know that we remain as important to their business today as we were back then.

From our disruptive Secureway start-up through to acquisition by Exclusive Networks we continue to add value and investment in growing F5 Networks business across Middle East.

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ANTI-VIRUS

Titanic Shift from Traditional Storage Factors like, Big Data & Analytics, ByOD and cloud applications are gaining momentum, which are clearly triggering the need of storage solutions. n W O R D S : S A N J AY M O H A PAT R A < S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M > n P H O T O : S H U T T E R S T O C K

U

nlike good old days storage requirement of the enterprises has become very specific. It has been more application driven than the storage for the sake of storage. For example in the healthcare industry machine generated data is maximum therefore, the storage need of this industry is different than that of the hospitality industry where more data is generated manually. Looking at the multiple storage needs, the preference of the customers is also varying in terms of whether going for cloud storage, hybrid storage or on premise storage.

The enterprises are clearly looking at business benefits of Big Data & Analytics, which is clearly accentuating the need of storage solutions.

While shared-IT enterprise storage requires data management, virtualisation and cloud integration

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capabilities, Big Data requires high-performance, dedicated storage with data management being performed at the application layer. Therefore the traditional storage is gradually giving way to the flash /SSD storage technologies in order to drive better performance; greater consolidation of projects and the adoption of cloud strategies. However as far as Middle East market is concerned hybrid storage looks to be more viable than all cloud storage.

Konstantin Ebert, Director Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa, NetApp, said, “As Big Data creates an ever-growing need for storage, efficient storage solutions are required to cater to the exponential market demand. For CIOs looking to upgrade their current storage infrastructure, an efficient and proven storage solution allows them time to market faster and therefore builds the base

for business success.”

“One of the biggest trends we are seeing in the region is that a ‘one-size-fits-all approach’ does not work. Although enterprise storage is a key conversation in most businesses regionally, strategies differ based on the kind of storage requirements individual companies are looking for,” he added.

Aaron White, General Manager, HDS Middle East, Africa and Turkey, said, “We are seeing a lot of interest in moving away from traditional storage, thanks to the advances being made in cloud storage and the requirements being placed on the industry by big data. The priority today seems to be on storing everything, and as a result today’s challenge is in accessing, classifying, and activating business data. For businesses, that has meant a move away from siloed storage solutions, and a focus on the challenges of ease-of-access,

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KONSTANTIN EBERT, DIRECTOR MIDDLE EAST, EASTERN EUROPE AND AFRICA, NETAPP

AARON WHITE, GENERAL MANAGER, HDS MIDDLE EAST, AFRICA AND TURKEY

CHRISTIAN ASSAF, SENIOR SALES MANAGER, MEA, TURKEY AND GREECE AT SEAGATE

“As Big Data creates an ever-growing need for storage, efficient storage solutions are required to cater to the exponential market demand.”

“The priority today seems to be on storing everything, and as a result today’s challenge is in accessing, classifying, and activating business data.”

“We have found that the surveillance business has been one of the key growth drivers for the Middle East storage market over the past year.”

scalability, and speed.”

Christian Assaf, Senior Sales Manager, MEA, Turkey and Greece at Seagate, says, “We have found that the surveillance business has been one of the key growth drivers for the Middle East storage market over the past year. This segment in particular has encouraged a tremendous growth in disk capacity, including a wider adoption of 1048GB/disk technology in the Middle East over the past year.”

There is a huge interest today in active-active clustering, where businesses can easily move their data between sites without interruption. HDS has introduced a Storage Solution in April called the VSP G1000, a virtual storage operating system that comes with active-active clusters, and allows customers the opportunity to move their data without the need for extra appliances.

However, cloud and flash storage solutions are leading the way in terms of developments and ease of deployment. Organizations in the region are migrating to cloud solutions and services at an unprecedented rate, while flash technologies are gaining popularity in order to drive better performance and greater consolidation of proj-

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“THE 2ND HALF OF THE CALENDAR YEAR ACCOUNTS FOR THE HIGHER SHARE OF YEARLY ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS INVESTMENTS, WITH THE FINAL QUARTER BEING THE STRONGEST,” IDC

ects. NetApp is uniquely positioned to provide solutions for both through our varied portfolio, including our clustered Data ONTAP universal data management platform and flash-accelerated FAS8000 series, and wide channel network in the region.

Cloud and flash technologies also have a variety of benefits for enterprises. The advantages of flash include the ability to handle higher workloads, reduction in latency and increasing I/O throughput while eliminating bottlenecks. Flash also enables a more tailored experience for CIOs, through solid state hybrid drives (SSHDs) that are a combination of Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) and State Disks (SSDs) in a single unit.

The main benefits of cloud storage are durabil-

ity (the certainty that the data you deposit will not be lost), availability (the ability to access data at any time), performance (the latency and throughput at which data can be stored or retrieved) and security (data cannot easily be accessed by others and is far less vulnerable to loss, damage or theft).

Cloud storage can also grow spontaneously to meet increased demand and thus is a scalable and efficient way to store data.

With many businesses in the region transitioning to cloud-based storage platforms, Seagate believes there’s a great amount of value to be had in creating new device-based platforms and API developer tools for today’s enterprises. Its latest Seagate Kinetic open storage platform, for example, enables companies to achieve a

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RANJITH KAIPPADA, EMC SALES MANAGER, STORIT DISTRIBUTION

“The enterprise storage market in the Middle East is growing. Big Data, Digital media & content, and archiving are some of the major drivers behind the increasing demand for storage solutions.” software-defined, scale-out approach to data center architecture that promises to simplify data management and lower total cost of ownership of the average cloud infrastructure by up to 50%.

Earlier this spring Seagate also announced that it is now shipping the world’s fastest 6TB hard disk drive (HDD) delivering supersize storage and enterprise reliability to meet the explosive growth of corporate and cloud-based data centers in the region. The Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD version four boasts industry-leading performance and is an important step forward in scale-out data infrastructure.

As the amount of data produced increases exponentially every day, it is imperative for CIOs to incorporate storage as a key element of their IT strategy, and organizations in the Middle East are realizing this over time.

Ebert of NetApp, added, “Cloud computing is getting increasingly popular in the Middle East, with organizations able to choose between three forms: private, public, or hybrid clouds.”

Some applications or workloads have so far proven more suitable to be taken as a cloud service by both service providers and within

ANAND CHOUDHA, MD, SPECTRAMI

SALIL DIGHE, CEO AT META BYTE TECHNOLOGIES

“We are seeing two major shifts, one is customer are looking at faster response from Storage and second is predictable SLA around data recovery.”

“The Virtulisation drive and mixed application requirements is driving the IT Managers to look for more performance, scalability and cost effectiveness.”

enterprises, including virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), in-memory data analytics, SaaS environments and core file services. Moreover, continued developments in and adoption of cloud storage make it an essential component of any company’s storage solution.

Although the way storage is consumed has changed over the years, it continues to host the data that is the lifeblood of enterprises, making it the foundation of any company’s success.

To address the complexity of the storage needs of the enterprises, leading vendors are bringing out newer product lines to make the work simpler. For example, HDS has just launched a new set of technologies in the Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) portfolio that are designed to address the top demands businesses are placing on their IT organizations: a need for extended workforce mobility, and increased productivity from anywhere, anytime and from any device. As large enterprises transition from traditional IT to private clouds, and from pure on-premises IT to a hybrid cloud – the HCP portfolio also offers the ability to tier data to a public cloud without sacrificing visibility or control of data. This new

portfolio consists of HCP, Hitachi Content Platform Anywhere (HCP Anywhere), and Hitachi Data Ingestor (HDI).

Similarly, NetApp’s latest offerings include two new storage system platforms – the extreme-performance FAS8080 EX and the entry value-priced FAS2500. With the FAS8080 EX growing organizations and service providers can confidently drive the performance-intensive SAN and NAS workloads at the largest scale. The new entry-level FAS2500 hybrid arrays can simplify operations, increase productivity through superior integration with ecosystem, extend system life and minimize future costs.

Along with the newer product launches, the vendors are also fine tuning their channel strategy so that the partners’ community can have right tools to sell and implement solutions. On the other hand channel partners, VADs and SIs are also putting in maximum efforts to update their skillsets and acquire right tools to address the market needs.

Salil Dighe, CEO at Meta Byte Technologies, said, “Enterprises are seeing an ever-growing demand and load on their backend storage

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and either many are looking for a performance upgrade or replacing existing storage with new generation SSD or flash based storage. There is a big uptake in these technologies. Although these technologies promise a lot of potential there is a high cost associated with it. Additionally traditional vendors have not fully utilised this technology in the way they should as a result you may get only 25-30% of the real capability of an SSD/Flash.”

He added, “The Virtulisation drive and mixed application requirements is driving the IT Managers to look for more performance, scalability and cost effectiveness and are slowly realizing the SSD revolution.”

However he raises a valid issue of ‘life expectancy of SSD’s’. Fusion-IO has developed a revolutionary technology which allows IO drive and IO Control to deliver the full capability of SSD’s for performance and longevity up to 12 years. In order to evaluate storage, IT managers should ask the right questions to vendors like: l What are the IOPS delivered? l When SSD’s are capable of delivering high IOPS than why the IOPS are restricted? l What is the Life of the SSD’s?

StorIT distribution which has already opened up a new arm for addressing Big Data market is quite ahead in the race.

Ranjith Kaippada, EMC Sales Manager, StorIT Distribution, said, “The enterprise storage market in the Middle East is growing. Big Data, Digital media and content, data protection, and archiving are some of the major drivers behind the increasing demand for storage solutions.”

“One of the latest trends in Enterprise storage solutions is hybrid data storage systems, which not only offer higher capacity but also greater performance. Enterprise storage systems are becoming more hybridized wherein the data is tiered in many places in a box and then finally sent to the cloud,” he added. “The emerging models for storage are solid states and hybrid systems wherein they will be gateways to clouds seamlessly. IP will play a big role in connecting these storage platforms.”

Anand Choudha, MD, Spectrami, said, “We are seeing two major shifts, one is customer are looking at faster response from Storage and second is predictable SLA around data recovery, so essentially customers are looking at consolidation around more nimble infrastructure and agile datacentre and are looking at more responsive storage infrastructure.”

Spectrami distributes Actifio which deals in copy data management and reducing the footprint of storage and Violin Memory which is ultra-fast storage which helps drive applications

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MARY MESAGLIO, RESEARCH VICE PRESIDENT AT GARTNER.

“CIOs in the Gulf are beginning to prepare their enterprises to stay relevant in the digital business era, and they will continue to invest in technologies such as mobility, cloud, social and analytics” “In 2014, we expect a lot of digital business and innovation to be driven by the convergence of these forces in the Gulf.”

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICAN IT INFRASTRUCTURE REVENUE BY TECHNOLOGY ( US$ MILLIONS) MARKET

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

STORAGE

526

543

562

585

609

SERVER

1371

1389

1445

1492

1542

ENTERPRISE LAN

828

893

929

950

968

ENTERPRISE WAN TOTAL

607

646

680

708

736

3332

3471

3617

3734

3856

SOURCE: GARTNER (FEBRUARY 2014)

in memory. As per the distributor Actifio solutions are much faster and pose great challenge for the traditional storage products.

Since the enterprises are becoming software driven, the future of the storage is software-led and that too open system based. Many existing vendors will build building blocks and frameworks around it thus exploiting the open source better than others by introducing feature rich options for their customers. Platforms will standardize over a software layer and all hardware should see a variant or two of the software communicating to each other. Therefore both the vendors and the partners are more concerned about applications than the products. A generic hardware can take the storage software and offer full functionality. Along with this the storage vendors and the partners are trying to innovate

and apprise their customers with the benefits.

FINALLY… Even though there storage market is bound to post good growth in the Middle East and Africa Market, but apparently for the Q1 2014, it has suffered marginal loss. “The shrinkage in the market can be attributed to the fact that most countries within the region have seasonal growth trends, with the first quarter being the slowest as budget allocations and investment plans have yet to be finalized in a number of key sectors,” says Adriana Rangel, research director for systems and infrastructure solutions at IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey. “The second half of the calendar year usually accounts for the higher share of yearly enterprise systems investments, with the final quarter being the strongest.” ë

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ENTERPRISE SECURITY

FIREEYE

Consolidating in the Region FireEye is expanding at all fronts bet it partners, products or territory. n B Y: M A N A L I M I S R A < M A N A L I @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

T

hree years ago, FireEye consisted of four people in the region.

Today, the number is close to 70 with offices in Dubai, Riyadh, Turkey and South Africa. FireEye has also expanded its portfolio with two recent acquisitions namely Mandiant and nPulse. The former is a leading provider of advanced endpoint security products and security incident response management solutions and the latter in network forensics. “Our focus is on building the integration between all the products that we have acquired with Mandiant and nPulse into FireEye. We achieved 100% growth last year and we are looking for more than that. We intend to double the revenue. We are hiring locally in Dubai. We have expanded by hiring Regional Managers for North Africa, Levant, Middle East & Africa, and Pakistan,” says Sherif El Nabawi, Director, FireEye Labs META (Mandiant).

Along with its expansion, FireEye is also continuing to be a differentiator in its offerings. El Nabawi comments, “We are a forensics company and all our products are related to forensically understanding the threat. We, unlike the other traditional vendors, use a proprietary analysis engine – Virtual Execution Engine – that runs and simulates the attacks before they enter the network. What we have done is and with the recent acquisition of Mandiant, we execute those malicious malwares, URLs in the virtual execution image before they go into the network.

He adds, “The differentiator between us and other vendors is that we have been doing this from last 10 years. Also, our proprietary engine is actually an engine not based on normal virtual execution like the VMware or Hypervisor, we

use our proprietary engine. The attacker cannot detect that they are running on a virtual environment, they can’t evade or sleep.”

FireEye intends to look at the complete picture.

Its vision is to surround the network, all entry points and all access points with this Virtual Execution Engine and to be able to analyse data coming out and going in through this engine.

“We don’t stop at the products. The services behind are crucial for the company and the need came from the customers,” adds El Nabawi.

FireEye has a complete section of Managed Security Services with different levels of Managed Security. El Nabawi adds, “We are offering managed security services to our customers but we don’t see a lot of partners doing that. Few MSSPs are keen to be able to provide products as services - FireEye-Mandiant to their clients.

As far as countering the reluctance of customers to use cloud services is concerned, FireEye has got a different value proposition. “We can do email analysis , mobile threat detection on the cloud, and we are moving in as the threat prevention system on the cloud. Normally we do the scanning by re-routing it to our cloud and making sure it is clean before it goes to the customer network. We have realised that a lot of customers have that need.

To handle the diverse needs of MEA region, FireEye has got four channel account managers who are responsible for different regions. “Our programmes are flexible and look into different markets and we have international level programmes and sub-programmes that focus on those markets as well,” heads.

FireEye is focused highly on the partner ecosystem here in the region and has got a

SHERIF EL NABAWI

DIRECTOR, FIREEYE LABS META (MANDIANT).

“We are a forensics company and all our products are related to forensically understanding the threat.” team for the channel partners specifically for supporting and enabling those partners. The FireEye Fuel Partner Program provides benefits to value-added resellers, solution providers and alliance partners focused on delivering nextgeneration threat protection. “We regularly hold trainings for the partners in different countries.

We are a channel driven company and we have to enable our partners to be able to expand in the way we are growing. We enable the partners not just on their product knowledge but also on their forensics knowledge as well. We are very selective on the partners we choose because we are very niche in what we do.” FireEye has 80+ partners in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa.

FINALLY...

“We keep acquiring new partners and enabling them on a daily basis. Our focus is especially on the GCC countries – Turkey, Africa, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan - and we are expanding into those,” concludes El Nawabi. ë

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MY VIEWS

SEBASTIEN PAVIE

REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR, MEA, SAFENET

“The Idea of Sustainable Growth” SECURITY HAS BECOME PARAMOUNT IN IT AND IT IS TAKING A BIGGER SHARE OF IT BUDGETS. SECURITY MARKET IN MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA ALSO IS GROWING AND IT HAS BECOME IMPERATIVE FOR THE SECURITY VENDORS TO ALIGN THEMSELVES TO THAT GROWTH. MANALI MISRA OF ENTERPRISE CHANNELS MEA SPOKE TO SEBASTIEN PAVIE, REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR, MEA, SAFENET. EXCERPTS.

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What is your strategy for Middle East & Africa market?

We opened our office 2009 in this region. We have been blessed to have consistent growth year after year. We have expanded the team in Dubai which is the regional office overseeing the MEA region. Two years back we opened an office in Saudi Arabia and a year back in South Africa.

We keep investing in sales, pre-sales engineers, and resources. The idea is to keep investing in the region and we have therefore divided this region into three sub-regions. We want to keep investing into each sub-region. The sooner we can go to other key markets like Nigeria, the better it is for us. It is the idea of keeping the consistent growth but making it sustainable through constant investments in terms of resources as close as to the key markets as possible.

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MY VIEWS

How is your channel geared-up for the growth?

We have a full-grown two-tier approach which includes distributors and resellers. There are System Integrators underneath those distributors. In such a fragmented market, we can’t possible have people in each country so we need to have reliable, trained, certified partners who can provide local support. It is more important because the solutions we provide are quite critical. We secure sensitive access of customers and therefore if something goes potentially wrong, customers want the support to be very close to them. We have today four distributors across MEA region. We don’t have a very high number of partners per country. The nature of what we do that doesn’t require that because we tend to focus on some highly esteemed value added partners.

On 1st June, we launched an enhanced global channel partner program, the SafeNet Cipher Partner program. We had tools earlier on online training, site training and so on. We have come a long way and we have worked out this new partner program with a new set of tools. There is a brand new partner portal with a lot more content and enable partners remotely online so they can attend training online, certify themselves online.

This is very useful to the region I look after as this is a very fragmented region. It is very difficult to have onsite resources at all time everywhere.

However, when it comes to technical handson training, we tend to deliver that in Dubai primarily but we also do that in Saudi Arabia, SA, Nigeria which we consider the four tier-I markets. We also offer technical training sessions on a regular basis.

We are very focused on partner driven marketing activities. We do a lot of partner events. We did last month in Middle East, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan and a number of GCC countries. SafeNet Exec Day events gives an opportunity to bring customers, partners and meet them under one roof and discuss our roadmap, and vision of moving forward. We are looking to expand this in other tier-1 countries namely the UAE and South Africa.

What makes SafeNet different from its competitors?

SafeNet is quite unique in the landscape. SafeNet is 31 years old and not too many vendors are that old. The portfolio we have is based on encryption technology but with encryption you actually need to be able to support any type of environment where you sensitive data might be. We are for the third year in row leading the Gartner report for User Authentication which is a very

competitive market. There are a wide range of applications which require user authentication.

We have a full breadth of solutions and interfaces for our encryption, key management or user authentication solutions – which are the three key areas where we play to support any type of environment, any type of data, any type of application or device you may need to access sensitive data and that is a pretty unique value proposition.

We have now a number of customers in the UAE, MEA and globally in the government and the private sector that have deployed not one or two but 80-90% of our portfolio.

Which verticals are you targeting?

We have a broad portfolio but it is very focused on securing sensitive data and the access to it.

Globally, over the years the two verticals that have seen demand are Government and finance. They generate a lot of sensitive data, they are securitysavvy and thorough to secure data and they need to comply with regulations. Thanks to the data breaches becoming more and more common, it is spread out to a number of other verticals. For example, Oil & Gas invest a lot more in security now to preserve their financial, research, and

authentication as a service space and acquired Cryptocard. We also expanded into security storage encryption space. We signed an alliance with NetApp. We also work with other storage vendors. We released the VmWare security and encryption solution. Two years ago a lot happened, this year, I can’t say that much would be happening as those products have to mature, we are still busy with that.

What is the response for security as a service?

The security services market is still in its early phases. However, there are some verticals now adopting it and taking it more seriously like retail, Oil& Gas. But for financial sector it is early days for them to build some confidence in these services. Also, they would want to see some localized offering with vendors like us through a local service provider who would have a good enough SLA to consider it. We are entering new partnerships with service providers.

What is your focus for this year?

We are focusing on authentication as a service.

According to Gartner, by the end of 2016, more than 30% of organizations using authentication

“IN SUCH A FRAGMENTED MARKET, WE CAN’T POSSIBLE HAVE PEOPLE IN EACH COUNTRY SO WE NEED TO HAVE RELIABLE, TRAINED, CERTIFIED PARTNERS WHO CAN PROVIDE LOCAL SUPPORT.”

strategic data. The same is for telecom service providers and retail. It’s great news for us that that market is adopting data-centric security.

How you keep up with new kind of threats?

We are in securing the breach space not the prevention space. We are the vendors who keep your sensitive data secure in case a breach happens. For us the challenge is to keep up with the IT environments, platforms where data might reside and to keep supporting diversity of users’ devices. We are embedding security with the data itself with the encryption, user authentication and transaction security. This is the other layer to security.

Our offering keeps evolving. Two years back we had a massive evolution of our portfolio. We released so many new technologies. We got into

will use it as a service. We are also on-boarding service providers in the region like UAE and Saudi where the service providers would become a local authentication as a service provider which is a better ice breaker for a number of organizations if its comes locally. We are also reviving focus on payments security. It’s an area of point to point encryption where we support all payment infrastructure. We have invested a lot in this area as well because we see payments industry growth accelerating. Africa is a great example, but Middle East is also active market. We are the market leaders in those payment security models so we have made a number of enhancements to that offering and moving forward there would be more spectacular enhancements in coming month. We are making investments in resources to sustain the growth. Last year we had a 34% YoY growth. ë

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GISEC ROUND-UP

FIREEYE

Kaspersky Named leader in the ByOD Security vendor category There were more than 648 interviews on various points and we came out with a comprehensive result that security is an issue in the region.

18%

45%

WOULD LIKE TO HAVE IT IN FUTURE

NOT

ADOPTED BYOD

ADOPTATION OF BYOD

46%

ALREADY ADOPTED BYOD

% 11

27% 28%

2%

Oth

ers

5%

Al

l

9%

19%

OPERATING SYSTEMS FOR BYOD 26

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25%

CONCERNSED DATA

GISEC ROUND-UP

BUSINESS INFORMATION

9%

MESSAGE

16%

CONTACTS

25% DATA

PURPOSE

25% E-MAIL

PURPOSE

BYOD CATEGORIZATION FOR WHOM?

44%

56%

ALL

TOP MANAGEMENT

35%

ENDPOINT SECURITY

TOOLS FOR MONITORING 3

% LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

22%

NAC

13%

MDM

14

% ENDPOINT MALWARE

12

% OTHERS

METHODOLOGY OF SURVEY:

The survey was conducted at GISEC 2014 at Dubai World Trade Centre from 9th June 2014 to 11th June 2014. Enterprise Channels had deployed five people to conduct the survey. These people were located all across the hall starting from the entrance to the conference hall. In order to attract more and more participation, Enterprise Channels MEA had organized lucky draw of iPad Mini, which were given away every day. These surveys were supported by Aruba Networks, McAfee-an Intel company and Mindware, the leading VAD in UAE. The survey was designed by the core editorial team of Enterprise Channels MEA with the feedback from security vendors including Aruba Networks, McAfee- an Intel Company and Mindware, the leading VAD in UAE.

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GISEC ROUND-UP

16 % ARUBA

18 % CITRIX

25%

KASPERSKY

5GOOD %

SECURITY VENDORS

14 % UNAWARNESS

25%

UNSKILLS

1A10 %

23 % SYMANTEC

8%

INVESTMENT

11 % F5

CHALLENGES FACED BY IT MANAGERS

13ROI%

6VENDOR %

SUPPORT

20 % INTERFACE

14%

BUDGET

THREAT TO BYOD POLICIES 9%

GUEST ACCESS

29%

ANDROID PLATEFORM

18%

UNRESTRICTED APPLICATION

23%

THEFT OR LOSS

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GISEC Round-up.indd 28

21%

EMPOLOYEE LEAVING

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GISEC ROUND-UP

ENTERPRISE CHANNELS MEA GAVE AWAY IPADS AT GISEC 2014 During GISEC 2014, Dubai, Enterprise Channels MEA organized a lot of activities including three security surveys. The lucky winners of participants were given away iPads each.

THE FIRST DAY LUCKY DRAW WAS DONE BY MOHAMMAD MOBASSERI, CEO OF EMT DISTRIBUTION. THE WINNER OF THE FIRST DAY WAS SAAD A QADER OF IPS, WHO WON THE AWARD IN THE PARTNER CATEGORY SUPPORTED BY MINDWARE. THE AWARD OF IPAD MINI WAS GIVEN AWAY BY ASHOK KUMAR V, CHIEF OF BUSINESSES DEVELOPMENT, EMEA & SAARC, TALARIAX PTE. LTD.

SIMILARLY, THE SECOND DAY LUCKY DRAW WAS DONE BY AJAY SINGH CHAUHAN, CEO COMGUARD NETWORKS AND THE WINNER WAS VINEY BHARDWAJ OF KALAM RESEARCH MEDIA, ABU DHABI. HE RECEIVED THE AWARD OF IPAD MINI IN THE CATEGORY OF INFORMATION SECURITY SUPPORTED BY MCAFEE AND SANJAY MOHAPATRA, EDITOR, ENTERPRISE CHANNELS MEA.

FINALLY, THE THIRD DAY’S LUCKY DRAW WAS MADE BY SHAHNAWAZ SHEIKH, REGIONAL DIRECTOR - MENA & TURKEY, DELLSONICWALL AND THE AWARD OF IPAD MINI WAS GIVEN AWAY BY JUDE PEREIRA, MANAGING DIRECTOR, NANJGEL SOLUTIONS TO ZUBAIR KHAN, SENIOR EXECUTIVE – BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, GREENTECH RECEIVED IPAD FROM JUDE PEREIRA, MD, NANJGEL SOLUTIONS. THIS AWARD WAS OWN IN THE ENTERPRISE MOBILITY AND BYOD SECURITY CATEGORY SUPPORTED BY ARUBA NETWORKS. GREENTECH IS A CONSULTING AND SOLUTIONS COMPANY HAVING PRESENCE IN UAE AND INDIA.

The survey was supported by Aruba Networks, McAfee and Mindware. There were more than 300 visitors who participated in the survey in the span of three days – from 9th to 11th of June and gave away their feedback in the form of selecting the appropriate fields in the survey forms.

“It was very encouraging to see the enthusiasm among the visitors at Gisec 2014, who participated in the security survey conducted for three days. The overwhelming response from the visitors to the content of the survey suggested that the users in the region are greedy in terms of evaluating new security solutions as they understand the importance of security,” said Editor of Enterprise Channels MEA, Sanjay Mohapatra.

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GISEC ROUND-UP

A VISITOR FILLING UP SURVEY FORM

THE VVIPS VISITING THE BOOTHS AT GISEC 2014

A VISITOR FILLING UP SURVEY FORM

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BOOTH OF EC MEA

LOGO OF THE SUPPORTING COMPANIES

TEAM ENTERPRISE CHANNELS MEA

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MEMBERS OF EC MEA MANNING THE BOOTH WITH VENDORS’ BRANDING T-SHIRT

EC MEA STANDEE CARRYING LOGOS OF THE SUPPORTING COMPANIES AT GISEC

VIDEO INTERVIEW IN PROGRESS AT GISEC

EC MEA BRANDED BAG & DROP BOX AT GISEC 2014

EC MEA IPAD DRAW COMMUNICATION DISPLAY AT THE BOOTH

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ENTERPRISE SECURITY

BLUECAT

Growing the Channel Base BlueCat Networks is a channel oriented company in Europe and in Middle East, the company is working to consolidate its channel. n B Y: M A N A L I M I S R A < M A N A L I @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

S

tarted in 2001, BlueCat Networks is headquartered in Canada with offices all over the world. The company is focused on address management solutions. “In 2005, we started the idea of IPAM. At that time very few IPAM solutions were available in the market. We provided first IPAM solution on physical appliance. We have developed our IPAM solutions which now I think are one of the best in the market,” comments Luca Maiocchi, Territory Manager, Southern Europe and Middle East, BlueCat Networks.

He informs that the idea is to provide a platform to customers which are mainly from large enterprises to connect everything they have on the network. Since everything is connected through IP today, Maiocchi feels one needs to check out and control all the IPs on the network.

“With our infrastructure and solutions, companies are able to expand their business. Having one single address management solution helps them.

We are trying to make customers understand that there exists a solution to better manage in a professional way all the things related to IPs,” he adds.

BlueCat also offers security for DNS and DHCP. “We are in a mid-position between networking and security. We provide security features on our products. We have 2200 customers around the world. We have large customers and for them, most important is to have a scalable solution which our solutions are,” he adds. The company was present at GISEC with its Valueadded distributor, ComGuard. At the event, BlueCat presented its new DNS threat protection

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LUCA MAIOCCHI

TERRITORY MANAGER, SOUTHERN EUROPE AND MIDDLE EAST, BLUECAT NETWORKS

“We don’t want to be oversold by too many partners. We want to have a happy channel collaborating with BlueCat and not overlapping on the same business.”

feature. It already had a feature related to security like DNSSEC. “We are constantly innovating.

The DNS threat protection feature for example is a new feature. The first line where you can block the attack is the DNS. We are feeding our DNS with a list of bad URLs. Our DNS is importing that list every five minutes. If any person tries to get to those one of bad websites, DNS blocks and redirects to another internal resource or web page,” explains Maiocchi.

In Middle East, Maiocchi started to develop the market a year ago. In Europe, BlueCat is a channel oriented company. The company has started to build its channel in the Middle East.

For Middle East, ComGuard is the company’s VAD. The company has two or three authorised BlueCat partners in the region. “Having an authorised BlueCat partner is not just signing the contract, I want them to be enabled on the technology. They need to know and they need to be skilled and be present on-site. We are also planning to hire local people. Here in Dubai, we are going to have first local Systems Engineer,” he comments.

Maiocchi feels that having two-three local people is not enough and the most important part is to have System Integrators under those people who are close to the customer. Maiocchi is working in this direction. “We have now 10 certified BlueCat companies and all of them are big System Integrators in Qatar, Saudi, Kuwait, UAE, and Abu Dhabi. We are closing one very soon in Dubai. I want to manage the channel in a very clean way and plan to have 2-4 partners in each country depending on the size. We don’t want too many partners and our products are very niche. They need to be known well to be sold to customer. So, the partners are to be technically enabled. Also, we don’t want to be oversold by too many partners. We want to have a happy channel collaborating with BlueCat and not overlapping on the same business,” he elaborates.

BlueCat and ComGuard have been working together from last four years and Maiocchi says that the partner is really important and provides technical resources. They have a team of people who are skilled on BlueCat.

FINALLY...

BlueCat is planning to have an office in Dubai this year. Before that, the company wants to hire local resources as for them it is imperative to have technical resources. “We spent the last year to build the channel and now we are growing that.

We have several important customers and we want to have much more. The focus is increasing and the channel is very important for us. We are working a lot on the channel,” he concludes. ë

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PRINTING

RICOH

Need More Loyal Channel Partners

Matching the portfolio of other leading printer vendors in the market, Ricoh IT Distribution Channel (ITDC) offers a healthy products range which can address the requirement of the consumers and small enterprises. But, only thing the company needs is the loyal partners in this region. n B Y: S A N J AY M O H A PAT R A < S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

B

y creating a new business arm a few years back and naming it as Ricoh IT Distribution Channel (ITDC), Ricoh started addressing the consumers’ and small medium enterprises’ printing needs.

The objective of Ricoh ITDC is to make A4 printers and A4 Printer-based MFPs, A3 printers and projectors availble to the consumer and small business market. Until this occurred Ricoh was only known for its enterprise-class printing solutions. But with the creation of ITDC, the company could gained the capability to address the entry-level market.

And, so far, the company has been pretty successful in its efforts globally. But as far as Middle East Market is concerned; Ricoh launched this business arm one year back, which was one year late.

Ahmed Kamal, Regional Sales Head - Middle East & Africa, ITDC, Ricoh International B.V., said, “The IT distribution business of Ricoh focuses on the consumers and the Small and Medium range businesses to some extent. This business started only two years back but we started it in Middle East and Africa during 2013 August. It is a newly born business unit for Ricoh in this region.” “We have a two tier business model as far as our go to market strategy is concerned. We focus on the power retailers, IT resellers and systems integrators.’ market”

Ricoh is famous for its A3 copier-based MFPs. But with ITDC the company has now A4 printer based MFPs. “We are capitalizing on the success of our other products – including A3 MFPs in this region.

These products used to be sold in large corporates but now we are building our channel business, to address the small and consumer market,” he added.

“Seven months back, we have appointed tier-1 channel partners. Now our objective is to create loyal channel partners and power retailers in the region.” he maintained.

The company is creating a compelling channel programme so that there can be more partners’ association with them. Apart from looking at the new partners, Ricoh ITDC is also looking at tapping competition partners so that it becomes easy for the company in the market place.

The new partner programme is created to offer more profit margin compared to selling competitors’ brands in the same category.

Ricoh ITDC offers two types of partner programmes – Silver and Gold. Under the Gold programme, the company offers its MDF to be used for lead generation and marketing activities by the partners.

In order to create the momentum in the market, recently Ricoh had organized a three city events. All these events were well attended by the partners. When Dubai partner event had attracted 70-80 partners, Doha and Kuwait

AHMED KAMAL

REGIONAL SALES HEAD - MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA, ITDC, RICOH INTERNATIONAL B.V.

“We have a two tier business model as far as our go to market strategy is concerned.

We focus on the power retailers, IT resellers and systems integrators.’ market” events had attracted 35-40 partners, which is good considering the potential of the cities. The feedback that the company received from the partners’ community is extremely satisfactory.

From the products perspective, Ricoh offers very high quality reliable laser technology. And the company has the complete portfolio as far as printers and MFPs are concerned matching the requirement of the customers. The products start from 16 ppm to 70 ppm addressing the entire spectrum of market starting from the consumers to the very high-end market.

Ricoh’s Gel Jet technology offers best cost advantage to the market alongwith being ecofriendly. This technology allows the users to make optimum use of the toners and cartridges.

Also, all the medium and high-end printers come with wireless printing capabilities. Plus, all the printers come with USB printing option.

It means the users can print from the USB drive stuck on the printer. ë

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ENTERPRISE SECURITY

MCAFEE

Securing Connected Devices

McAfee has outlined its strategy for IoT and together with Intel it is working to have the most complete connected security portfolio. n B Y: M A N A L I M I S R A < M A N A L I @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

I

enternet of Things (IoT) has opened up new opportunities but it has also raised plethora of security challenges as well.

According to reports by IDC, the installed base of the IoT will be approximately 212 billion “things” globally by the end of 2020. This creates a need to manage and secure the IoT environment. McAfee, part of Intel Security, is tapping the opportunity and has outlined its strategy for the same. “IoT is probably one of the biggest things that Intel wants to look through McAfee. Securing your network and infrastructure is one of the key factors but the biggest threat is how security is evolving in day to day life. Technology is moving ahead but it is also about how to do it securely. Intel and McAfee are very much interested into this and we are investing a lot of resources in this industry,” comments Vibin Shaju, Regional Manager, PreSales Middle East, McAfee, Part of Intel Security.

McAfee is entering into different OEM partnerships. When it comes to wearable technology, the company may tie up with different car manufacturers who are into IoT. “The best way is to understand their technologies and how we can map the security to those technologies without really impacting the feel of the product as such.

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It is still new but the investment is in progress. A lot of things will be coming with our technology embedded into them,” adds Shaju.

Stephan Neumeier, Channel Director, Emerging Markets, McAfee, Part of Intel Security says that the channel today is still focused on corporate and enterprise business. “However, I see the shift already in the consumer market. We work very closely with Intel which is reaching out to the right customers and the right partners are addressing the technologies for IoT. All the wearable devices are connected to your phone or connected to your internet directly. They can track your personal data and you really want to have those data secured. Going forward, this is what we are doing with Intel and working with OEMs to make sure that the devices which are going to connected are secured,” he adds.

Neumeier says that for IoT, he doesn’t see a huge move today in the enterprise business but eventually those devices will find their way into enterprise business as well.

With Intel, McAfee is creating a platform for security. So, it’s not about McAfee, it’s about other vendors who can come in and gain and share knowledge with each other. “This is where McAfee came with a technology called Data Exchange Layer. It is all about creating a protocol

out of security. We along with Intel are creating a standard for security so it’s not only about McAfee products, it’s about sharing this knowledge to outside vendors so that they can actually plug in to this platform and share information and make the world more secure,” says Shaju.

McAfee has R&D across the world. Soon after the McAfee integration into Intel, the company got additional resources in R&D which according to Neumeier McAfee as a company could not have afforded. “We are enjoying great support from Intel but the R&D team itself across the world,” he adds. In this region, McAfee has Cyber Defense Center to collect information locally.

After the recent incident in Saudi, the company has decided to have a local team here which is completely product independent, and is called the Foundstone team.

McAfee takes pride in the breadth of security it has. “McAfee is the biggest security vendor in the world. The breadth of solutions we have and the amount of information we gather is much more than any other vendor in the market. We see traffic from network, content, and end point.

There is a huge amount of information, which we get from different portion of the network which makes the intelligence we have much stronger.

When we have much stronger intelligence,

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ENTERPRISE SECURITY

STEPHAN NEUMEIER

CHANNEL DIRECTOR, EMERGING MARKETS, MCAFEE, PART OF INTEL SECURITY

VIBIN SHAJU

REGIONAL MANAGER, PRESALES MIDDLE EAST, MCAFEE, PART OF INTEL SECURITY

the way we can pass on the information to our solutions, third parties and to take action against latest threat in a zero day is much more efficient than having an organization which is dealing with very few security solutions,” says Shaju.

As far as services market is concerned, McAfee sees a huge demand in the market. More and more partners are building their own SOC. Specifically, larger partners managing large accounts want to offer product as a service but traction is also seen in the SMB and commercial market. “Today, most of our products are ready to sell as a service because it is more convenient for the customers and the partners as well. It is one of the fastest growing businesses we have in our portfolio. We are signing up more and more partners we call it MSP and more distributors as well because we believe this is going to be the future and huge demand in the market. Most of the mature countries are moving heavily into the MSP business today. We are signing a wellknown distributor in Middle East. Local partners are very important because the regularities we see are becoming stricter and stricter from area to area,” says Neumeier.

Shuja feels that it is very important to bring service providing that McAfee has on the cloud close to the region because there is a lot of

““The breadth of solutions we have and the amount of information we gather is much more than any other vendor in the market.” compliance regulation here and people don’t want the data to go outside the region. “We need to bring all of it close to the users and we need to have good partnerships which can be based on telecos, local partners or other partners who are offering other kind of services. It’s all about getting a right channel to drive it and to make sure we are aligned with the data compliance and regulations of the country,” he adds..

FINALLY… A lot of change is happening in security these days. Five years before, it wasn’t the priority of CIOs, but now the management has understood how important security is and how much investment they have to do because the amount of threat which is seen across the region recently is a lot. “It’s good to see that there is awareness now that people are coming to us and asking for our suggestions. We are seeing huge amount of change in the market,” adds Shaju.

“With Intel and McAfee, we have the most connected portfolio in the market and we are at least 4-5 years ahead of our competition today and we are driving this even further.”

McAfee has two office locations in Dubai and Saudi Arabia and remote people working from different countries. The company has expanded from 10 people when it was started seven years back in the region to more than 50 people today.

“The amount of investment which is coming to the region is huge. There is a lot of interesting technology coming up with the partnership of Intel, lot of products coming up in Data Exchange Layer. We have very strong potential in the region,” comments Shaju.

Neumeier concludes, “Together with Intel, we have invested. In order to grow our portfolio we will be investing even further in order to provide the most complete connected portfolio. More and more IT blue chip companies are investing heavily into security, it’s going to be a big business in the future. With Intel and McAfee, we have the most connected portfolio in the market and we are at least 4-5 years ahead of our competition today and we are driving this even further.” ë

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SECURITY CORNER

ARBOR NETOWKS

Combating the Threats Together

Arbor Netowks and Ooredoo have been in a successful partnership and are innovating to counter the security threats

A

sEveryone is talking about security. From business side and marketing side, it’s growing market big time. Every aspect of security is gaining traction globally. However, Mahmoud Samy, Regional Director, Middle East, Russia, CIS at Arbor Networks says that DDoS was a known topic everywhere but Middle East was a bit lagging behind. “From last few years, the attackers are paying attention to this market here for many reasons. This actually is creating the demand for security threats especially on DDoS. It is creating demand for solution providers to come with innovative services. It’s a drive for companies like Arbor and service providers like Ooredoo to provide the services to protect customers. If you look at security market last year and you look today, it may be double or triple.”

Arbor is focusing on a very specific area of protection against cyber attacks which is DDoS and the advanced threats. “Arbor used to be the defacto DDoS leader worldwide, we still are, however, we are leveraging into protecting our

customers into the advanced threats. This is the domain where we play whether it is Middle East, Africa or other areas worldwide. We are penetrating the market very well in this regard. We are the leader for DDoS protection worldwide. We are in the vast majority in tier-1 and tier-2 worldwide.

Here, in the Middle East we are mapping our

success that we have everywhere. Roughly, most of the big telecos and enterprises have Arbor solutions. Our footprint in the region is very strong which is driven by strong technology partnerships,” comments Samy.

Ooreddo and Arbor partnered two years ago.

Commenting on the partnership, Muhammad Mudassar, Asst. Director ICT Presales & Solutions Architecture, Ooredoo, says, “The whole GCC is overwhelmed with cyber attacks and it is one of the fastest growing region in the whole world. Cyber security comes as the first-line of defense and service providers feel the heat and need to protect national critical infrastructure.

To do this, we selected Arbor as the No. 1 DDoS provider globally and we have invested with it for two years now. Arbor offers state-of-the-art Clean Pipes DDoS Protection Suites to our large verticals like transportation, Oil & Gas, energy, finance, healthcare, education. This is a group of critical national infrastructure that we are protecting.”

Partnership of Ooredoo and Arbor has been a successful joint collaboration. He tells that in partnership with Arbor, Ooredoo has been successful in combating some of the major attacks and is going further up the value chain,

MAHMOUD SAMY

REGIONAL DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST, RUSSIA, CIS AT ARBOR NETWORKS

“It’s a drive for companies like Arbor and service providers like Ooredoo to provide the services to protect customers.”

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SECURITY CORNER

MUHAMMAD MUDASSAR

ASST. DIRECTOR ICT PRESALES & SOLUTIONS ARCHITECTURE, OOREDOO

“Our experience with Arbor has been so great and we are considering expanding it across the market and across different regions.”

(LEFT TO RIGHT) MAHMOUD SAMY, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST, RUSSIA, CIS AT ARBOR NETWORKS AND MUHAMMAD MUDASSAR, ASST. DIRECTOR ICT PRESALES & SOLUTIONS ARCHITECTURE, OOREDOO

intelligence and cloud based platform so that whatever happens anywhere in the world it becomes a part of it and can protect its customers before the event can happen.

“There are not quite a few strong DDoS players, there are quite a few providers who

CHANNEL STRATEGY “Arbor has a full-commitment to its channel. We don’t do the business transaction directly. However, we invest in partners. We like to have partners in the region to be able to take the technology, presence and benefit to the end-user. We look at it at the distribution layer and in-country partners. They go to the customers carrying our technology, service from leading service providers and telecos like Ooredoo. This is our approach. However, to make it effective, we need to look at it at multiple levels.

One of them is the investment in the technical part of it which is the training.

We invest in the GTM together. We go hand-in-hand with the partner to the customer and talk about the technology.

We invest in in-field services and activities. We don’t believe in transferring the technology to the partner, we encourage the partner to be able to get the maximum return on the technology.

That’s why we push and encourage the managed services. From one side, it’s the protection for the end-user and from the other side it could be a source of revenue,” says Samy.

provide DDoS protection on the cloud. What we look for is something that knows my network infrastructure that can fit and integrate my OSS, BSS system and gives me confidence that all my services offering as secured locally. It fits to the local regulation, customers and my business needs. Apart from this, Arbor has very good local footprint which is very essential when it comes to protecting e-commerce website especially. We are the sole ISP in Qatar, we feel that it is utmost critical that we give them 100% availability. There are many solutions but for in-country DDoS protection, we believe Arbor is the best,” he elaborates, Mudassar feels that managed security services market is growing. A lot of enterprises want to have in-house deployment of IT security teams.

The concept is still in-house v/s outsource. There is a big share of Managed Security Services towards System Integrators and telecos. “We are managing the internet back-haul for the customers. So, we can offer a lot of application monitoring, email and cloud security, DDoS protection. The trend is picking up but the adoption is the key. Many government organizations and banks have their own regulation. They keep some critical services with them but I think with them it will open up. Nobody can do it alone by themselves efficiently or cost-effectively. They need service providers and big ecosystem of partners, SIs will play a role,” he adds.

Samy says that enterprises do what it takes to protect their network but they need the service provider to help them with that. “The alignment of Arbor technologies in that fits 100%. Ooredoo is giving protection on the cloud from their side, they stop the attacks at their layer and we give the managed services to customer so they can be protected as well,” he adds.

Samy and Mudassar feel that events like GISEC play a role in spreading awareness about security. Arbor Networks demonstrated its traffic-centric approach to network security at GISEC 2014. Arbor was present with Ooredoo.

Samy says, “This is really important for us. This is a very concentrated and focused event and this is where we play. At other events you might not get the right audience you want to meet with. It’s a chance for us to meet with partners both global and regional and talk to the customers who are really interested in security because we may be coming with solutions that they are looking for.

We will continue to be here as long as GISEC continues.”

Concurring with Samy, Mudassar comments, “It is really important from Ooredoo’s point of view as well to join with the support of our partners to learn what governments are doing, what challenges are being faced all across the Gulf.

There are people from all around the Middle East and we can learn what challenges, impact, local and global trends exist and prepare ourselves to embrace the challenges. I agree with Mahmoud that this is a much focused event. I think it is a wake-up call for most of us that whatever we are doing is not enough and we have to do more and service providers have a major role because we are connecting the world.”

FINALLY...

Mudassar concludes, “We exist globally as an international provider. Our experience with Arbor has been so great and we are considering expanding it across the market and across different regions. This has been a successful journey and I would look forward to their commitment to support us on future endeavours.” ë

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MY VIEWS

AJAY SINGH CHAUHAN

CEO, COMGUARD

“Banking Upon Non-traditional Distribution Model” COMGUARD STARTED AS A TRAINING COMPANY AND THEN GOT INTO THE DISTRIBUTION BUSINESS. ENABLING ITS PARTNERS THROUGH EDUCATION AND TRAINING REMAINS A CRUCIAL ASPECT FOR THE COMPANY. MANALI MISRA OF ENTERPRISE CHANNELS SPOKE TO AJAY SINGH CHAUHAN, CEO,

How is ComGuard braced up in terms of technology for the changing security landscape?

We basically are a technology company with big emphasis on the engineering side. We are probably one of the few value-added distributors who have 50% of the resources as engineers which is very non-traditional distribution kind. Their job is to keep up-to-date on the technology and trends and what should we be investing in. Their job is to internally empower our sales people and partners. This is a continuous process. Since, we started our business on education-side first, we are a little bit different than others because our emphasis is on education which was there since the beginning.

COMGUARD.

Why should a partner and a

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they are able to see the difference. When they visit us and see our customer base, most likely they will go ahead with us rather than go with someone else.

What unique solutions you are bringing to the market?

If we look at Identity and Access solutions, then Ping Identity is a very fast growing company worldwide and it is unique in its approach and the way they design the solutions. This is one example of being a leading company as well as being a unique company. Similarly, we have tied up with a company called Nexthink. It is also very unique in its approach of solving certain issues.

These are some of the examples. These are not the well-known names but they are addressing a unique problem and they are trying to provide solutions on that. We offer an end-to-end solution in security in such a way that it is a unique offering from the partner and from us and it distinguishes from the market.

How do you enable your partners?

Training is an on-going process. We do it weekly but sometimes it could be multiple times in a week. We do hold sessions through Web Ex or go to the partner. We started as a training company and not as a distributor. Training is a very important component for us.

“WE ARE PROBABLY ONE OF THE FEW VALUEADDED DISTRIBUTORS WHO HAVE 50% OF THE RESOURCES AS ENGINEERS WHICH IS VERY NON-TRADITIONAL DISTRIBUTION KIND.”

customer choose ComGuard?

The technology we bring to the table, we try to get the best in class solution providers when we are implementing different areas of functionality.

That’s from the customers’ side. We are trying to get best-in breed solutions first to the market.

That allows the partner to position very effectively in the deals in such a way that not many

people will compete on those areas.

How do you choose the vendors?

We look at things like Gartner Magic Quadrant and areas which are upcoming. We try to spot them very early on the game. I am sure our competitors must be doing the same but I feel when we are positioning and representing them,

What kind of growth are you expecting from this region?

We are expecting a high double digit growth.

Any new partnerships coming up?

We have signed Nexthink and Niksun in recent past and we are always looking at new partnerships .

What are your expectations from GISEC? We have invested close 100,000 dollars and what we hope to achieve is more and more crowd which is security-focused. We have been very happy that the Dubai Government and DWTC decided to focus on security which is a big challenge in the region. We really support the initiative. ë

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ENTERPRISE SECURITY

WATCHGUARD

Enhancing Control on Threats

WatchGuard is continuously innovating to match its pace with the new technology and trends in IT

(LEFT TO RIGHT) SOHAIL AKRAM, REGIONAL ACCOUNT MANAGER, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA, WATCHGUARD, FABRIZIO CROCE, AREA DIRECTOR SEMEA, WATCHGUARD AND EMILIO TONELLI, SENIOR SALES ENGINEER, WATCHGUARD

B

YOD is a great opportunity in terms of economic and technical perspective because it is easy to be used by the user as they do not want to change appliances every time but on the other hand it is huge potential threat for the corporate and for their data because you can bring our own danger just not our device but to the company as well. Thus, the new technologies and trends like Cloud and BYOD offer opportunities but these come attached with different kinds of security threats. Emilio Tonelli, Senior Sales Engineer, WatchGuard says, “From a technical perspective the world of security is

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definitely moving to data security. Cloud is a bigger opportunity because it is a strong market enabler but it is potentially moving data outside your organization. The technical challenge of the player in the market is to try to combine both benefits of having the data wherever you want and whenever you need but not losing it or giving it outside without any challenge.”

In line with the demand and need, WatchGuard has released two new security services.

One is the APT Blocker, a new specific engine provided by Lastline. APT Blocker focuses on Advanced Persistent Threats that are one of the biggest challenges in a BYOD device. The other

one is the DLP engine which is integrated into the XTMs now. It is provided by Sophos.

Sohail Akram, Regional Account Manager, Middle East & Africa, WatchGuard comments, “As far is BYOD is concerned, we are focusing on the market segments where the awareness is low on the perimeter side not exactly on the end point side. The new features like APT, DLP and proxy mechanism are available from our side are giving us the enhanced control from these kinds of threats. Especially in ME, the awareness is coming more and more to the corporate and the enterprise side. So, we are focusing more on BYOD kind of protection and features which will be available in next few quarters.”

WatchGuard’s strategy in terms of security engine is based on best of breed. The strategy is to have alliances with Lastline, Sophos, Trend Micro, Websense etc. to integrate all the best engines in each specific field in a single optimizer box. “We feel that you can’t be better than the sum of the best. That’s the reason why we prefer to do this,” says Tonelli.

Akram says that what makes WatchGuard different is the best of breed technology in its appliances. He says that the other vendors are building their own databases, engines and even making their own IPS signature, anti-virus signature but they cannot compare with the renowned AV engine and IPS vendors because they are some dedicated suppliers and vendors who are doing day and night this work like Kaspersky, McAfee, AVG. “They are way mature in this segment. The vendors who are creating their own signatures for all the security layers cannot compete with a vendor who is having a dedicated resource for a specific security threat. We have agreements with

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ENTERPRISE SECURITY

SOHAIL AKRAM

EMILIO TONELLI

REGIONAL ACCOUNT MANAGER, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA, WATCHGUARD

SENIOR SALES ENGINEER, WATCHGUARD

“We have agreements with the best of breed vendors like AVG, Kaspersky, Lastline, Sophos etc. This helps us to have more enhanced control on our appliances than the others on theirs.”

“The technical challenge of the player in the market is to try to combine both benefits of having the data wherever you want and whenever you need but not losing it or giving it outside without any challenge.”

the best of breed vendors like AVG, Kaspersky, Lastline, Sophos etc. This helps us to have more enhanced control on our appliances than the others on theirs,” says Akram.

WatchGuard has many enterprise and government customers in the UAE who are aware and want to adopt all the new secure ways to protect their data, not only for inbound but for outbound. “That’s why we have introduced new features. From the government segment, a lot of new requests are coming because they are facing new threats on a daily basis. Some hackers are targeting specific verticals like last December we had threats targeted only for petroleum companies and our device was ready to protect all our petroleum customers. We also have ZeroDayy protection that is how our customers are protected,” says Akram.

Tonilli informs that WatchGuard is paying a lot of attention to hactivism. Some of the hackers groups fight against specific geographic mind-set or opinions so there is a mix between technology and bad use of this technology for wrong reasons in making the war with bits. “In this field the security is becoming very complex. There are events now comprising the data within the com-

pany. That’s why we have tools like WatchGuard Dimension. It’s a free tool because it is included in every kind of purchase from WatchGuard from small box to bigger box. The tool is completely focused on the visibility of the event,” elaborates Tonilli.

WatchGuard has a strong channel in MEA and Tonilli says that the company is 100% channel-based. WatchGuard Secured Partner Program is a layered partner program distributed in three different layers. It is a stronger affiliation between the partner and WatchGuard.

The three levels are associate, professional and expert. “This is free of charge but there is a commitment towards the revenue numbers. We provide marketing and channel support during the deals,” he says.

In the last quarter, WatchGuard recruited many partners in Saudi Arabia, Africa, Algeria, and other parts of MEA. Last month, 22-23 partners were recruited in only Middle East. “We have a very good channel in Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. We are growing our channel in Africa. We have dedicated programs for our new and existing partners. Our training programs are running successfully. We

offer hands-on training and sales training. We are very aggressive about channel management and to grow our channel,” comments Akram.

WatchGuard offers two different levels of training –basic and advanced. The basic one is a single exam on how to approach the customer and gives the partner a possibility to understand the company’s offering and be ready to install it.

The other one is of four different specializations and. “All of this is free for the partners. We want to have them lot of knowledge on our product to understand the technology and our strategy in the Gulf,” says Tonilli.

FINALLY...

Akram informs that WatchGuard may be introducing a new program which will be more skill-driven rather revenue-driven. “The awareness is more and more about security with the partners. If you compare with other vendors’ channel, they are trained only on their appliances.

But we are giving them awareness about security.

That’s the main difference,” he adds.

Akram concludes saying that sales-wise, till 2017, the growth will be double than what WatchGuard has at this moment. ë

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CASE STUDY / SONICWALL

LEVANT Enhanced Operational Efficiency with SonicWall Solutions With a centrally monitored and seamless security system, Levant saved overheads of hiring additional manpower and CAPEX in IT Infrastructure.

BUSINESS NEED LEVANT symbolizes the masterworks of the world’s famous makers of modern, classic and quality jewelry.

Based in Dubai, the company has emerged as a high quality jewelry retailer and fashion boutique with over 14 branches in the UAE. Despite being the fastest growing jewelry chain in the UAE, the company was looking for improved connectivity between their branches and head-office. The existing infrastructure was based on open VPN (Virtual Private Network) to send and receive data across shared or public networks. The model was quite unstable and insecure with no control over the internet bandwidth and connectivity with the head office. Levant IT Team was looking for a solution that would provide them robust security features along with centralized management and real-time reporting.

SOLUTIONS OFFERED Prologix accurately identified the gaps in critical security faced by the client and offered connectivity along with robust security from SonicWALL. NSA 250M, the high performance and modular Next-Generation Firewall offered the Head Office in-depth security, application control and visualization, VPN, Distributed network security, Gateway Anti-Malware and Intrusion Prevention. The enhanced features include SSL VPN remote access, powerful reporting through Dell SonicWALL Analyzer software, Secure Network Optimization and Business continuity for protection against hardware or software failover.

TZ 105, the most secure Unified Threat Management (UTM) firewall for retail deployments was installed at 14 various showrooms of Levant across UAE. This deployment

PROLOGIX ACCURATELY IDENTIFIED THE GAPS IN CRITICAL SECURITY FACED BY THE CLIENT AND OFFERED CONNECTIVITY ALONG WITH ROBUST SECURITY FROM SONICWALL.

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provided intelligent protection from threats, business-class performance to users, advanced networking features along with configuration flexibility in an affordable desktop appliance that’s easy to set up, operate and manage by the clients’ IT team. The installation also delivered the proven, most effective intrusion prevention, anti-malware and content/URL filtering, along with the broad mobile platform support for various devices used by the staff and visitors over the network.

CONTACT FOR MORE INFORMATION ON WHAT SONICWALL SOLUTIONS CAN DO FOR YOUR BUSINESS, CALL US AT +971 4 3626218 LIVE@ PROLOGIXDISTRIBUTION.COM PROLOGIX DISTRIBUTION OFFICE# 1602 Y CLUSTER SWISS TOWER JUMEIRAH LAKE TOWERS (JLT) - P.O.BOX 71790 - DUBAI - UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

BENEFITS This deployment made it easy for the head-office to monitor all the branch networks and the security system. With a centrally monitored and seamless security system, Levant saved overheads of hiring additional manpower and CAPEX in IT Infrastructure. The Sonicwall solution has created greater administrative and operational efficiency in the company.

Levant is delighted with the service and the solution Prologix provided.

As the chain grows, we will be providing security solutions for all the newly opened branches across the Middle East. ë

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ENTERPRISE SECURITY

PING IDENTITY

Replicating its Success in MEA Ping Identity is investing in Middle East & Africa and is endeavouring to be as successful as it is in North America and Europe. n B Y: M A N A L I M I S R A < M A N A L I @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

P

ing Identity is a US based software company. It is in the business of securing identities and giving users seamless access to applications in a secure manner. A 12-year old company, Ping Identity has invested a fair amount in North America, and Europe.

“One of the key things that we do is we secure user identities. We provide means by which users can securely get access to their applications, on premise or on the cloud,” says George Biry, Director of Business Development EMEA, Ping Identity.

One of the capabilities, Ping Identity has is Single Sign-On. This means that users can come into work and log into their desktop computer by keying in their user name and credentials.

When this is done, the use can be able to access to a complete menu of cloud based applications.

“We support 4,000 web applications. You can get access to these without having to put your user credentials again,” he elaborates.

In addition, the company has federated identity solutions and takes data stores within a company like Active Directory where user data or identity data is maintained. “We have a solution that will interact with those data stores and is called Federation. What happens there is we pull out the key identity attributes of individuals and create a token that allows them to get access of different applications,” informs Biry.

“We are identifying now Middle East in particular as a growth market for us. Our strategy is to work with our partner like ComGuard to access Middle East market. We will train Com-

GEORGE BIRY

DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT EMEA, PING IDENTITY

“We have been in upper right of IDC, Gartner and Forrester Group for many years. We have been identified as a visionary and completeness of our solutions as well.”

Guard’s technical and sales team to be successful with Ping Solutions,” Biry adds.

The strategy in Middle East is to provide identity access solutions into different verticals like banking, government and others.

“We are looking at the countries like UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia as major growth driver for us. ComGuard has reach in all these markets. We are investing heavily in these countries too. We have this relationship with them for last 18 months though but it is since last six months we have been engaging them strategically,” he says.

When asked what differentiates Ping Identity, Biry says that its solutions follow industry standards. “We have been in business for 12 years, we were at the beginning of the evolution of identity access solutions, we have played a leadership role and we came up with the standards that were around identity access solutions. As a result, we can work with interoperable solutions with other vendors,” he adds. Another factor is the breadth of solutions. Ping doesn’t specialize in one particular area as it is not only cloud based and or on premise based. It also has a hybrid solution that addresses both spaces. Its approach to solutions is that it covers different use cases. “We have been in upper right of IDC, Gartner and Forrester Group for many years. We have been identified as a visionary and completeness of our solutions as well,” he adds.

In this rapidly changing security landscape, Biry says that Ping keep up with the trends by continuing to invest. One of the key things about the company is that it has strong engineering tradition. “Half of our staff of employees is engineers and technologists. We are constantly in tune with the industry. We know what their requirements are, what their requirements will be. We are investing with a vision for the future. Businesses are evolving with a better rated identity business.

Before identities were kept in firewall, now what we are seeing is that identity itself is the new firewall. We make sure that no matter where the employees are or what device they are using they can get access to their applications in a secure way,” he comments.

FINALLY...

Ping Identity is looking at a terrific growth in this market. “We are seeing the adoption of enterprise-based and cloud-based identity solutions in Middle East and also in Africa. We are seeing that as a kind of early adoption phase. We are expecting similar kind of growth in these markets as we are currently seeing in the other markets. So, we are investing in this region, we see that as the next growth area for us,” Biry concludes. ë

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ENTERPRISE SECURITY

SECUNIA

Keeping Vulnerability at Bay Suggesting critical solutions for the vulnerability, Secunia acts as a savior of the enterprises from data loss. But what the company needs the most is to be vocal about its offering to the industry aggressively. n B Y: S A N J AY M O H A PAT R A < S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

T

he global market for vulnerability management is expected to reach USD 1,322.6 million by 2014, growing at a CAGR of 14.2%, driven by growing number of cyber threats and emergence of new form of threats.

Organizations are looking for advanced ways to secure their data and manage complex data center infrastructures.

Known for its Vulnerability Management and Patch Management solutions, Secunia is a global company with presence in all geographies – including Europe, US, APAC, Middle East and Africa.

Secunia’s vulnerability database covers all software vulnerabilities discovered and reported globally, and is updated with daily advisories

by Secunia’s renowned Research Team. Secunia also conducts its own vulnerability research. The vulnerability intelligence is available through the Secunia VIM. For remediation of vulnerabilities, it offers a patch management solution, the Secunia CSI, and free consumer offerings – the PSI for PCs and the PSI for Android.

Kai Muller, Director Global VIM Business, Secunia, says, “Secunia advisories cover vulnerabilities announced for all types of programs and operating systems. We continuously update advisories to reflect new data whenever it becomes available.”

On average, Secunia releases between 20 and 25 new advisories and updates more than 20 Secunia advisories on a daily basis, and the

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JOHN SPOOR

REGIONAL DIRECTOR EMERGING MARKETS & APAC AT SECUNIA

“If you go to the largest organizations - be it a bank or a petroleum company, the CISO who’s only specialized in security, there is a 99.9% chance that he has heard of Secunia.”

company claims to have the largest database of assessed vulnerabilities available. Secunia’s in-house Research Team tests, verify and validate vulnerabilities reported globally, and publish advisories for companies on how to deal with the reported vulnerabilities.

He added, “Once we have analyzed and verified a vulnerability, we add it to our Vulnerability Database and publish a Secunia Advisory. The Advisory includes a criticality rating, an attack vector and a solution, enabling our customers and community to assess the impact of the vulnerability and determine how best to protect their infrastructure from the threat the vulnerability poses.”

As part of its vulnerability Intelligence Manager (VIM) offering, Security guarantees customers that we can cover 100% of valid software. Muller maintains, “The way it works is that if they have a program they wish us to cover in our Advisories, we will add it to our database within 72 hours. Today, our vulnerability database covers more than 50,000 systems and applications.”

John Spoor, Regional Director Emerging Markets & APAC at Secunia, said, “We are a very responsible and ethical company. This is because when we discover a vulnerability, the first people we tell is the vendors so they can create a patch and release it to the market. At the beginning of each year, we release a big report called the Secunia Vulnerability Review. People who are serious about security, they want a copy of this

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ENTERPRISE SECURITY

KAI MULLER

DIRECTOR GLOBAL VIM BUSINESS AT SECUNIA

“Secunia advisories cover vulnerabilities announced for all types of programs and operating systems.” report as it gives them a global overview of the vulnerable software affecting people’s computers, how many vulnerabilities are discovered and how quickly do vendors release patches . It’s a great source of information for customers, and it is a key in building our credibility name within this small ecosystem.”

He added: “If you go to the largest organizations - be it a bank or a petroleum company, the CISO who’s only specialized in security, there is a 99.9% chance that he has heard of Secunia.

We are one of the foremost authorities in vulnerabilities.”

Even though Secunia is a highly respected company in the vulnerability intelligence community and renowned for its accuracy, in some regions including Middle East, Africa and India, the company needs to create more awareness as these are high-growth geos.

However, in recent years the awareness in the Middle East has improved and the appointment

of John Spoor has accentuated the purpose.

Apart from UAE, Secunia has partners in most of the counties in the region including KSA, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and Lebanon.

Spoor added, “We have not only been reactive in our approach to this market but also to a number of the emerging countries such as Eastern Europe and Asia Pacific markets as we did not have local presence in these markets. In order to scale the business, we have to extend the reach to the channel, therefore we have entered into relation with EMT.” In the first six months of this partnership, the company has already signed up over 25 partners for the Middle East including some of the small markets. However, some of the key markets Secunia have hardly touched on so far such as Saudi Arabia where John will be spending a lot more time in Q3 and Q4.

Secunia is not looking for a critical mass of partners but for those who understand our value

proposition and are specialized in security.

Spoor adds, “There are a lot of companies, which compete with only a part of what we do.

However, none can offer the full scale of complete patch management vulnerability life cycle solution. We take everything from our in-house research and provide the ability to scan your network, create the patches and deploy them.”

Secunia has a strong relationship with Microsoft through MTCs under a global alliance and Secunia was the first Vulnerability Security Alliance Partner to join. The company works hand-in-hand with Microsoft for one of their products.

FINALLY… With the growth opportunity in the region, Secunia is expecting a triple digit growth. In order to support the expectation, the company will embark upon very selective marketing activities as well. ë

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SUREN VEDANTHAM

GROUP MANAGING DIRECTOR, STORIT DISTRIBUTION FZCO

“SDS is nothing Extraordinary, for us it is just an Evolution” AS THE STORAGE INDUSTRY IS ADAPTING TO THE TREND OF SOFTWARE DEFINED STORAGE (SDS), THE ONUS LIES ON THE STORAGE DISTRIBUTORS AND VENDORS HOW TO PROMOTE IT AND ALSO TO BE PREPARED FOR THE EVOLUTION. MANALI MISRA OF ENTERPRISE CHANNELS MEA SPOKE TO SUREN VEDANTHAM, GROUP MANAGING DIRECTOR, STORIT DISTRIBUTION FZCO. EXCERPTS:

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How is StorIT adapting to the change in storage industry?

We have been here from last 13 years and have been very focused on data storage, data protection, data management. Since the advent of internet, storage industry has been very dynamic.

Our focus is our biggest asset. That’s what we do and we need to keep up with the changing trend all the time and be at the competitive edge otherwise we would be out of business. The focus, the involvement, the changing dynamics as far as the technology, market needs and demands are concerned is one of the key areas we focus and we continue to be ahead with the changing trend. Ours has been a very consultancy based, value-added distribution, not just now but from a decade or more. We have the right kind of skills and expertise. We are more or less a system

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integrator solution provider at a distribution level. That gives a huge advantage actually to adapt to the change.

The kind of skill set we have and the kind of investment we put in developing knowledge, the kind of partnerships and the fact that we continue to add to our portfolio helps us to be ahead of the curve.

the ones of having the vision of keeping up with the change in the technology which gives them an advantage over their competitors. It’s a change which happens all along the chain.

As a VAD, right from our skills, the change in the way we think, the understanding of the change, the preparedness, developing on the relationships – everything counts.

What are the growth drivers for the change especially SDS and SDDC? There is a huge opportunity with disruptive technologies like cloud or the change towards SDS than the very hardware, infrastructure-based kind of storage. The storage business for us has always been consultancy driven, in the sense we have never been very dependent on box-moving.

That’s where it sets us apart. Our reseller base is mostly solution providers or System integrators who look upon as their consultants more than box-providers. There is a huge demand towards adapting to the change at the end-user level.

That’s where it comes back to us and wherein we come as advisors.

Tell us about your channel ecosystem.

Across the MEA, we have got wide network of VARs, System Integrators, solution providers especially in the mid-market segment and SME area. The kind of skills we get is the void that they have or they want to invest into or justify their return on investment, that’s where we work with them as partners. The idea is that we get into the relationship with any of our partners with the kind of knowledge, experience and the ability to get the best of technology in the world together and provide a complete solution end to end which is hard to get. That’s the difference between any other volume distributor or any solution provider in data storage and data management. That’s the kind of expertise we get to the table. It’s not rocket science that nobody

How are your vendors geared-up?

Each one of them has got its own path. If you look at our product portfolio, it helps us put together a complete solution from SME/SMB to a very high-class enterprise kind of disaster recovery solution, data management or data analytics. Each one of the vendors within its portfolio has its own strategy chalked out. Of course whoever is faster, whoever invests would be more successful but most of them are getting it right.

Is it small storage vendors are moving faster towards SDS than the large ones?

It is hard to say. Each one of them has its own advantage. We are in a transition. It is too early to predict someone’s downfall or someone turning out to be extra-ordinary. We are still in a nascent stage. There is a lot of talk than reality. Technology always catches up faster than you anticipate.

We need to watch rather than speculate at this stage.

What are the challenges?

It is very business-centric and each partner has to be ready for the change. Without investing in the area which is going to create new opportunities, you are doing the wrong thing and it applies to everybody in the chain right from the vendors, distributors and resellers and to the end-users as well. Technology drives the change and the way we want to do business. So, the end-users are also

. Why should a partner choose StorIT? It is because of our focus. There is no other partner out there as a value added distributor focused on data protection, storage or management who has got the kind of comprehensive skills and product profile which is the best of breed. There is no other company in the world which can have a better product portfolio when it comes to our domain. That gives us an ability to put an end to end solution that’s where we score. The kind of focus we have, the kind of implementations that we have done on behalf of our partners, and our professional services, I don’t think anyone at the distribution level across APAC or Middle East has. We are no less than anybody.

We go right from pre-sales consultancy, acting as consultants on behalf of the resellers to selling to putting together the architecture and selling it, implementing it, supporting it – that’s huge.

This hardly anybody could do at the distribution level. Undoubtedly, this is the biggest reason why they should partner with us. The number of installations we have spread across a dozen of countries. We have experience in integrating different kind of systems right from legacy to the latest and across different segments and different

“THERE IS NO OTHER COMPANY IN THE WORLD WHICH CAN HAVE A BETTER PRODUCT PORTFOLIO WHEN IT COMES TO OUR DOMAIN. ”

can emulate but we have been at the right time.

We carry that advantage with us, the challenge is to keep it up.

Our training programs are almost on a weekly basis. That’s one of the key components of our channel development area wherein we continuously keep up the levels of knowledge of our partners. They are like an extended arm for us. We ensure that they are at par all the time with the change. That’s very essential for us. It’s a key part of our success actually. We go out and do business in areas where we have enough knowledge. That’s our bottom-line.

We have program called Taalim which has been extremely successful where we even encourage resellers and partners to really request customised training sessions also because each partner has got his strength and they are at different levels at the same time.

technologies along with our recent introduction which is on data analytics. That takes us into a different realm.

Any plans of geographic expansion?

In MEA, we are predominantly present in the GCC region and in Levant including Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and N. Africa. We have our hands full. There is a lot going on and we are fortunate to be in the region which is so dynamic and constant growth is throwing up so many opportunities which keeps us grounded for a double digit kind of growth slated for the next five years. But when we find any opportunity, we don’t limit ourselves, be it in terms of product or territory expansion, it’s all the part of the growth.

We don’t want to jump the gun; we want to do it at the right time. ë

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INNOVATIONS

ResolutionOne Platform from AccessData

ResolutionOne Platform from AccessData - The first Continuous Automated Incident Resolution (CAIR) Platform, delivering comprehensive, real-time insight, analysis, response and resolution of data incidents The ResolutionOne Platform is a Continuous, Automated Incident Resolution (CAIR) platform, delivering the workflows and capabilities necessary to detect, analyze, and resolve any data event—from security breaches to e-discovery and other

Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) issues. It is the industry’s only combined platform and works seamlessly across business units. ResolutionOne Platform integrates network, endpoint and malware analysis, end-to-end e-discovery and remediation technologies into a single, scalable solution. This makes it possible for all security, legal and compliance teams to do their jobs using one platform, automating tasks and collaborating in real time to address virtually any

security incident or legal matter.

All Digital Investigations are the Same —So Organizations Shouldn’t Pay for Multiple Solutions - with the ResolutionOne Platform, there is no reason to use multiple point products.

With a common platform and unified central database, the ResolutionOne Platform helps reduce the inherent barriers that separate the Legal, Security and Internal Investigation teams of today.

KEY CAPABILITIES n Full Coverage of iOS and Android Devices First technology to provide deep visibility through activity recording and data collection on both iOS and Android devices. n Threat Intelligence First to auto-correlate mobile data against ResolutionOne’s ThreatBridge™ threat intelligence engine to detect known threats. n Analytics Identify unusual behaviors and anomalies that stand out when looking at aggregated mobile device data across the enterprise. nIncident Replay Allows users to see what happened at any point in time in detail, formulating a timeline of events and the ability to reconstruct an incident. nGeolocation Visualization Provides geolocation information so investigators can track devices accurately on a graphical map.

PLEASE SEND YOUR FEEDBACK AT EDITOR@ ENTERPRICECHANNELS.COM

ESCAN ADVANCED ENTERPRISE SECURITY EeScan’ three new lines of corporate products, all of which have cloud integration and support for hybrid networks include eScan Corporate 360, New eScan Corporate Edition (with Hybrid Network Support) and eScan Endpoint Security (with Hybrid Network Support).

The launch of this new range of advanced products is a significant milestone of the brand’s on-going growth in the enterprise security market.

With information technology being the backbone of any business, IT security is considered today as a key part of business strategy by organizations. With the increasing threats in the cyber security landscape, protection of valuable intellectual property and business data against theft/misuse, without interrupting business continuity, is a critical issue. Moreover, eliminating these threats is a challenge.

The newly launched eScan range of security solutions for businesses strengthens the cyber security capabilities of the large networks by providing them multi-layered protection against complex threats and helps secure critical business information effectively, without constraining business growth. They are an excellent combination of advanced and futuristic technologies that provides protection to Windows as well as Macintosh, Linux and Smartphone end-points in the network.

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KEY CAPABILITIES n Comes with Mobile Device Management (MDM) module n Role based Administration through eScan Management Console, enables the administrator to share the configuration and monitoring responsibilities of the organization among several administrators n Protects Windows as well as Macintosh, Linux and Smartphone end-points in the network.

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INNOVATIONS

NEC PA Series 4K LCD projectors NEC’s new LCD projectors, part of its PA Series professional range, bring an ultra-high-definition 4K interface, the ability to daisy-chain projectors via HDMI, as well as a multiscreen mode with built-in tiling function and edge blending. This makes it easy to combine information on one picture without compromising on quality.

The new PA Series models are ideal for customers looking for larger bright pictures in fantastic quality. They incorporate NEC’s unique NV1301 Scaler Chip, capable of managing 4K input and sharing the signal with connected projectors. Extended geometric control, a selection of lens options and portrait mode support, make installation as easy as ever. In addition one-projector 3D presentation is supported.

The combination of many unique technological features brings a union of Cinema Quality Picture, high performance and advanced installation, to meet professional projection demands in the corporate, higher education and museums sectors.

KEY CAPABILITIES n A range of features, including portrait picture mode support, which is ideal for digital signage applications. n A wide 2x zoom, and vertical and horizontal lens shift enable easy and professional installation. n Rich connectivity and multimedia features including DisplayPort, HDMI In – and HDBaseT on select models – provide easy connection. n In line with NEC’s Green Vision, the projectors offer advanced green ECO features including low-energy consumption settings. n The new models use only 0.16W of power in Stand-By mode – resulting in clear environmental benefits. n With up to 4,000 hours lamp life and inorganic panels designed for longer usage and lower service cost, total cost of ownership (TCO) of the new PA Series projectors is low. n Offers a targeted brightness of up to 12,000 lumen and as much as 20,000 hours of maintenance free operation.

New Sony 4K Projector

Sony’s newest professional 4K SXRD projector delivers the highest brightness of any Sony projector – 23,000 center lumens, and up to 30,000 in high brightness mode.

The new SRX-T423 3D dual projection system is designed for installation flexibility in large-venue commercial applications such as entertainment, auditorium/lecture hall presentations, simulation, theme parks, museums and planetariums.

The 4K resolution (4096 x 2160) projector more than doubles the light efficiency of competitive 3D systems, with 40,000 lumens of 3D brightness in dual projection mode. In addition to its high brightness, it delivers a contrast ratio of 3,000:1.

The new projector was built to offer system integrators and A/V professionals ease of use, while reducing maintenance issues. For example, the T423 can be fitted with lenses from other models in the SRX series line, and the unit also offers a vertical tilt angle of +/- 30 degrees, ideal for dome configurations.

The SXRD projector’s 4K resolution is derived from its 4096 by 2160 pixel matrix, providing more than 8.8 million pixels, and allowing it to deliver more than four times the resolution of today’s consumer high-definition televisions. Sony’s 4K technology is used worldwide for a range of commercial applications such as computer visualization, planetarium and museum exhibition, command and control, simulation, scientific research, education, and defence. The SRX-T423 projector is scheduled for availability in September.

KEY CAPABILITIES n Derives from its 4096 by 2160 pixel matrix, providing more than 8.8 million pixels n Deliver more than four times the resolution of today’s consumer high-definition televisions. n Used for commercial applications such as computer visualization, planetarium and museum exhibition, command and control, simulation, scientific research, education, and defence.

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GUEST TALK

MOBILE DEVICES

Can Be a Security Tool, Rather than a Threat Smartphones carrying secure tokens provide a highly trusted alternative that can simply be tapped to a personal tablet or laptop for authenticating to a network or application. In addition to OTPs for authenticating ID, phones can also carry credentials for physical access control.

n W O R D S : N AT P I S U P AT I , R E G I O N A L S A L E S D I R E C T O R I D E N T I T Y & A C C E S S M A N A G E M E N T, M I D D L E E A S T & A F R I C A , H I D G L O B A L n PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

Much has been written about the security threats inherent with smartphones, tablets and the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) model in the mobile enterprise. But as access control technology moves to a new type of more secure and extensible architecture, mobile devices will actually play a pivotal role in helping to improve how organizations protect access to both physical and IT resources.

Far from a security liability in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new access control paradigm, smartphones instead offer an ideal vehicle for carrying portable, secure credentials that are difficult to copy or steal.

The devices also make it significantly easier to implement strong authentication throughout the infrastructure as part of a converged solution that protects access to all key physical and IT resources. With secure credentials carried on smartphones, organizations can now create a single solution for protecting access to everything from doors, to data, to the cloud.

This model is extremely attractive to users.

Previous hardware One Time Passwords (OTPs) have been inconvenient, while more recent software OTPs have been easier to use but vulnerable to security threats. Smartphones carrying secure tokens provide a highly trusted alternative that can simply be tapped to a personal tablet or

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laptop for authenticating to a network or application. In addition to OTPs for authenticating ID, phones can also carry credentials for physical access control. The result is an easy-to-use strong authentication model that allows users to tap in to facilities, VPNs, wireless networks, corporate Intranets and cloud- and web-based applications, as well as SSO clients. There is no need for a separate card reader, or for the user to carry any additional tokens or devices, and organizations can achieve true strong authentication convergence spanning many different physical and logical access control applications.

Mobile access control has required rethinking how to manage physical and logical access credentials, and to make them portable to smartphones. The mobile access control platform must use a new data model that can represent many forms of identity information on any device that has been enabled to work within a secure boundary and central identitymanagement ecosystem. This new infrastructure also uses a secure communications channel for transferring identity information between validated phones, their secure elements (SEs) or equivalent protected containers, and other secure media and devices. The final piece is a cloud-based, secure identity provisioning model

that eliminates the risk of credential copying while making it easier to issue temporary credentials, revoke lost or stolen credentials, monitor and modify security parameters when required, and provide real-time security reports for compliance purposes.

Being able to store and use access control credentials on mobile phones will offer the opportunity for powerful new authentication models in the mobile enterprise. It will be possible to blend classic two-factor authentication with streamlined access to multiple cloud apps, on a single device that users rarely lose or forget.

User convenience will be improved because the same phone used for logical access control will also be used to open doors, and for many other physical access control applications. With proper planning, organizations can leverage their existing physical access control credential investment to realize these benefits, seamlessly adding logical access control for network log-on. This will enable them to solve the strong authentication challenge while reducing deployment and operational costs by extending their solutions to protect everything from the cloud and desktop to the door. The result is a fully interoperable, multi-layered security solution across company networks, systems and facilities.â&#x20AC;&#x201A; ĂŤ

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We unify.

You thrive.

In this hyper-connected, always-on world, todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s anywhere workers are demanding more from the devices and enterprise apps they use to connect and collaborate.

We say, give in to their demands.

unify.com/thrive

Formerly Siemens Enterprise Communications

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Copyright Š Unify GmbH & Co. KG, 2014

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